Transcript of the video:

Helena Cobban (00:00:08):

Hi, everybody. My name's Helena Cobban. I'm the President of Just World Educational, and I'd like to welcome you to this second session of our 10-part webinar series, Commonsense on Syria, which will feature Professor Richard Falk speech speaking with us from his summer home in Turkey. And the British journalist Vanessa Beeley, speaking with us from her current base of work in Damascus. So welcome to both of you.

Vanessa Beeley (00:00:36):

Hi, thanks for having us on.

Richard Falk (00:00:38):

Glad to be here.

Helena Cobban (00:00:41):

I am so glad that so many people have joined us on the call already. I'm planning to give latecomers just a couple of minutes to settle in, and while I do, so, I'll give you this visual. Oh, now I, I'm learning how to share visuals. Bear with me.

Helena Cobban (00:01:09):

Okay, here's the visual that I want to share. Last time I did that, it completely crashed the whole thing for me. So this visual shows you the whole schedule of topics that we're planning to cover over there on the right. It also gives you in the middle a handy link to the page on our website where you can find all the latest details of the upcoming speakers and sessions, and a second handy link that takes you to the video of session one, which I know a lot of people have been asking about. So you might want to quickly jot those links down.

Helena Cobban (00:01:48):

Right now that more people are here, I want to note a couple of points about this Zoom webinar platform we're using, which is a little different than the Zoom meetings platform you may already be used to. With this one, we're able to make a distinction between panelists and attendees. Most of you watching this are attendees. This means you can't activate your own mic or camera during the session as the panelists can, but you can participate in the session in a couple of different ways. Please note, we are not using the q and a function that may be at the bottom of your screen. Instead, during the q and a session that follows the main conversation, we ask you to submit any questions you have via the chat function, which you can access if you take your cursor down near the bottom of the window in which you are viewing this.

Helena Cobban (00:02:46):

And then a chat screen should open up. We also ask you to keep your questions to the topic of this session, which is the Syrian uprising in the context of the Arab Spring. As you should know, we have eight more sessions coming each on a different aspect of the topic. So please keep your questions to today's topic and keep them brief. If you want our question Wranglers to even look at them, keep them brief, your questions will be wrangled here by the great team of elfs that we have working behind the scenes. The chief elf, our board member, Dr. Alice Rothchild, will then ask the questions that she and the elf team consider most germane and informative for the discussion. Another way you can participate in the webinar is by answering the little spot polls that I will deploy from time to time. Here is one now.

Helena Cobban (00:03:45):

Hmm. Okay, polling. Here we go. Polling, right. Okay. Here's poll number one. All our polls today are anonymous. You have a couple of minutes to answer that one. I have a couple of other polls that I might want to deploy at various times throughout the webinar. It's a way for us all to stay engaged. Today's discussion, which is really a review and evaluation of the anti-government opposition movement that arose in Syria in 2011 and morphed into an armed insurgency, is an important one for us to have. One of the key hopes I have for our whole common sense on Syria project is that it will help us all find a way to air, discuss and examine the differences that many of us have over the Syria question, and to do so in a respectful way that can enrich everyone's understanding and help to bridge the deep chasms.

Helena Cobban (00:04:50):

The issue has opened up in the heart of many valuable social justice movements here in the West, including the Palestinian rights movement and the anti-war movement itself. Okay, I'm closing the poll. Thank you for participating. So many of you, sometimes later, I will give you the results, which are just aggregates, but I have to figure out how to do that. Sometimes the differences over Syria within these movements have descended into extremely vitriolic name-calling forms. This morning, one person called me a fascist scumbag for even trying to hold today's discussion, but it is an important discussion to have, and I'm extremely glad that we have two excellent people to have it, people who are both thoughtful and well-informed. I therefore want to give Richard Falk and Vanessa Beeley the maximum time possible to conduct their conversation, which may run as long as 45 minutes total. There will be time for a few questions from the audience afterwards. I know some of you may need to leave at the 60 minute mark, but if you can stay on, we could possibly extend our time together to allow for more of the q and a. Anyway, to save time here, I shall not read the long descriptions of the records and achievements of our panelists, which I'm sure you should all be fairly familiar with by now. So now, let me welcome Richard Falk, who is with us from Turkey. Hi, Richard. Glad,

Richard Falk (00:06:31):

Glad to be here. Look forward to our conversation.

Helena Cobban (00:06:37):

Good. And also Vanessa Beeley, who is with us from Damascus, Syria, where she's currently on work assignment. Hi, good to be on. Okay, so actually just before I start, why don't I try and share that poll result, if that works, because it's kind of interesting. I just wanted to find out the degree of of okay, share results, the degree of knowledge that people felt that they had with the Syrian opposition movement. So here we have 51%. I'm not familiar enough with the situation to name any opposition movements or leaders. 32%. I know the names of some, but don't admire any. And then 12% each for I admire the YPG, SDF and I admire other movements or leaders, so thank you everybody who participated in that. It does sort of validate my intuition, which is that people don't know that much about the Syrian opposition and don't find much to admire in it.

Helena Cobban (00:07:48):

So okay. I'm gonna ask the questions to Vanessa and Richard in three clusters, and really I'm gonna sort of launch the questions and then let them have the conversation. And then at the end of each cluster come onto the next one. So, the first one deals with the original nature of the opposition movement as it arose in Syria in 2011, and what became of it over the years since then. And I'm looking, I know there are disagreements, and I'm also looking at areas of agreement. So here's a couple of questions that I put out there. Can we agree that the initial opposition movement did include people and some leaders who were patriotic Syrians, genuinely interested in reform, but that the weight inside the, but that their weight inside the movement became eclipsed by the large influx of foreign money and arms sent in primarily by wahhabist affiliated forces in the Gulf, but with much help from Turkey, the US and other NATO governments. So, I'll leave the two of you to look at that question and then maybe we can tease out at what point these key changes took place. So either of you, both of you, <laugh>

Vanessa Beeley (00:09:15):

Richard,

Richard Falk (00:09:16):

I can say a few words just to get us started. It seems to me that the original uprising in Daraa was an authentic expression of opposition to the established order in Syria, and that it was a spillover from the Arab Spring that had started in Tunisia and Egypt earlier. What happened as you describe it, Helena, I think you have to include the reaction by the Damascus government, which seemed to be an overreaction to this initial expression of opposition. And so that overreaction was part of what I think spread the movement beyond its original scope, and then engendered a variety of interventions and spontaneous or semi-spontaneous uprisings in various parts of the country that reflected lots of local and regional disagreements with the Assad regime. Let me turn this over to Vanessa.

Vanessa Beeley (00:10:51):

Thank you so much. And I have to say it's an honor to be on with you, Richard, having followed your work for so many years. I think what I would really like to do is to put the so-called uprising because I don't agree that it was an organic uprising. I believe, of course, as in any country, there is legitimate opposition to the Syrian government and to the Syrian state and as it exists. But I think if we look at the context, it becomes very clear that this was an orchestrating, orchestrated uprising. If we go back to even 1957, the, the CIA and intelligence agencies of various NATO member states began their projects with intervention in Syria. To destabilize, criminalize, and to effectively in 1957, assassinate army generals and leaders within the existing government. If we move forward to the Hama crisis in the 1980s when this was a Muslim Brotherhood uprising that was effectively manufactured and engineered and sponsored by the CIA or various agencies connected to the CIA which led to the, the putting down of that uprising.

Vanessa Beeley (00:12:12):

And of course, we never, we never talked to about what went on before Hama in 1982 when it was claimed that large numbers of Muslim Brotherhood extremists were, were killed in the putting down of their uprising, during which they carried out a series of suicide bombings attacks on civilians, massacres of civilians, particularly in Damascus. None of this is ever talked about. But then if we move forward to 1996, and we have the Israeli "Clean Break Doctrine" which was talking basically about enabling proxies to destabilize Syria based in Lebanon, moving the influence away from Arafat to for example Hamas and Fatah, if we then move forward again.

Helena Cobban (00:13:04):

But Vanessa, could I just say we, we went through a lot of this last week in the session that looked at Syrian history until 2011. So your points are well taken.

Vanessa Beeley (00:13:15):

Okay, fine, then I'll move it, I'll move it forward very quickly. But what I'm saying is that you have to look at the context of this uprising then if we move forward, if you like, from the new Middle East in 2006 to 2011, the Arab Spring, I would recommend everybody to watch a journeyman documentary called the Revolution Business. But if we look at Roland Dumas, the former French foreign Minister who stated that in 2009 Britain was funding or going to be funding the insurgents in Syria, when we look at what Wesley Clark said, when we look at Timber Sycamore, the CIA train and equip programs, et cetera, it's very clear that this insurgence, if you like, was orchestrated and manufactured well in advance of 2011. And in fact, if we look at where the protests started, they started on Fridays after prayer across all centers in Syria. So clearly this was not a universal uprising. This was an extremist Muslim brotherhood, sectarian uprising that started in radicalized centers in Syria, fermented, armed and enabled by external powers, who even very early on and even prior to 2011, were smuggling weapons and equipment into Syria. This is all documented.

Helena Cobban (00:14:47):

Okay, so

Richard Falk (00:14:48):

Let me respond briefly to that interesting interpretation of the context, which I agree is very important. And I share the view that outside forces, especially Israel and the United States have long wanted to destabilize the Syrian government and to engage in some form of regime change within the country. There's no doubt about that. But I think where I depart somewhat from what Vanessa said is that I feel the situation is so complex and so confusing that it is misleading to be as clear as she was about the sequence of events that led to the uprisings associated with the Arab Spring. My impression is that the initial events in Daraa were essentially spontaneous and were influenced by what was happening elsewhere in the region. There may have been other forces that tried to take advantage of those events, and there was apparently a dispute among the Assad leadership as to how to respond.

Richard Falk (00:16:29):

And apparently the over response was not something that Bashar himself was responsible for. But I do believe that the initial over response is very much connected with the ways in which Turkey got involved in the conflict to begin with and had to do with breaking what had been previously a very positive relationship between Syria and Turkey. Syria was the poster country of the Erdogan foreign policy based on no enemies among neighbors or peace among neighbors. And I think, as I say, I think the context is so complex and obscure that the one thing we should do is to avoid any kind of claims of clarity.

Vanessa Beeley (00:17:42):

Well, I think with huge respect, the claims of clarity come from months and years of speaking to people on the ground inside Syria. And the overreaction that you're talking about, the overreaction, if you speak to people here in Syria, came not from the security forces, but from the violent protestors themselves. The actual security forces did not carry weapons for six months. They actually only carried batons and plastic shields. That is well, well documented. In Latakia, for example, in some of the early protests in March, 2011, a young security officer was attacked. His body was cut up into pieces, and his body was returned to his family in a plastic bag. This is the, there is reams of documentation, of testimony of civilians, of civil defense forces, fire brigades who attended these protests and who themselves were set upon by the violent protestors, who even in the early stages were armed.

Vanessa Beeley (00:18:51):

To give you one example, Jisr ash-Shughur, one of the first massacre of this so-called uprising and that's in Idlib, in 2011, June security forces or rather army went to the rescue of police who were under siege by armed Islamist factions. Those soldiers, every single one of them, I can't remember the exact number, but it was around a hundred were shot. They were assassinated from two to 300 meters with high velocity sniper rifles. This is not something that, that grassroot protestors would have available to them. And I know that because I spoke to the forensics director, who told me that every single soldier was shot through his helmet with one bullet in the head from two to 300 meters. Please don't tell me that grassroot protestors or liberal opposition would have available to them weaponry of this kind. The violence came from the protestors very early on, and there is film footage of that. I made a film called The Veto, which was documented those early protests and the money that was paid also to civilians to go out onto the streets and protest.

Richard Falk (00:20:13):

Let me, well just make a, a brief response. I mean, I respect greatly the depth of your knowledge and your grassroots intimacy with these disturbing developments over the last decade. But there's counter document, the problem for an outsider like myself is that there's counter documentation and people of good faith, in my view come to opposite conclusions. So that.

Vanessa Beeley (00:20:47):

Absolutely,

Richard Falk (00:20:49):

From my perception, from my own effort to understand what's going on in Syria, I con continuously confronted contradictory interpretations of the critical facts. And therefore, the only clarity I could achieve was that it would be a disastrous mistake to foster military intervention and, and especially with a regime changing scenario. And I think that that bit of clarity is as far as the situation permits. And beyond that, I think we have to be humble in our assessment of what is the real situation and how do we distribute responsibility between the Damascus regime and its various opponents and the degree to which intervention and counter intervention really removed the conflict from the control of Syrian of Syrian forces, both pro and contra the regime.

Vanessa Beeley (00:22:15):

No, I totally agree, and I agree on the humility front, but I think the problem that we have is that those of us who have actually come to Syria are getting a very, very different narrative to what is being presented, as you said. And what is very confusing because a very strong narrative, a dominant narrative is being presented to people who don't have the opportunity as I do, I'm blessed to be able to come to this country and actually speak to the people here. But I think what is really important, I've spoken to many people who oppose, for example, the government both inside and outside Syria, but all of them say to me very categorically, they would not take up arms to, to achieve the reforms that they are looking for. They would not kill their country to achieve these reforms. And I think you are right.

Vanessa Beeley (00:23:05):

I think a focus on international law is of huge importance here, because if we actually focus on international law, it takes us away from, as you say if you like the, the more personal aspects of this conflict into the bigger picture. And that is what the media has failed, failed dismally yet again to focus upon. At the same time, we have a history in I, Iraq and Libya of media misrepresentation and downright lying that took us to war in both cases, we know that, I mean, we have the, we have the incubator baby story, we have Benghazi, we have the weapons of mass destruction. So I think we should certainly have a degree of suspension of belief in the media narratives that are dominating the Syrian conflict. And I think humbly, again, all I am doing are transmitting the voices of faith leaders here priests minority groups, including Christians, including Isma'ili, including Druzi, including Alawite, including Shi'a who are giving a very different version of events inside Syria.

Vanessa Beeley (00:24:21):

And I think the importance is, while you described this as confusion, what I'm saying is there are diverging views available, and I think people should be looking for them. I don't think people should be kind of veering away from them out of fear of all being too confusing. I think it's very important for people to make a rational conclusion or come to any kind of rational conclusion about what's happening in Syria. They should be reading both sides. And of course, that's why our voices have been largely censored and de-platformed, because the media doesn't want what we are saying to be aired. It doesn't want it to be heard.

Helena Cobban (00:25:03):

It does remind me to a great degree of the way to which, for so many decades in this country, the Zionists were very successful at suppressing any, anything that challenged their narrative. And I feel very proud that I've been able to help boost some voices of Jewish anti-Zionist and Palestinian anti-Zionist, and have been part of a movement to kind of crack that, that monopoly on narrative that the Zionists seem to enjoy for so long. And one of the things they did say, Richard, as I'm sure you are aware, is, you know, well, what's happening in the occupied territories may be troubling, but it's all so complicated, you know, so we can't talk about it, you know, or, and I think in the, in the case of Syria, a lot of people tend to say, oh, it's very troubling, but well, poor Syria, you know, poor Syria is kind of like the liberals way of saying, I, I really don't know enough about this. I don't, I don't wanna deal with it, but I feel bad about it, without directly questioning and interrogating the dominant narrative. So I am really happy that we are having this conversation. I don't think either of you is going to persuade the other, but I think we've all sowed seeds of, you know, continued thinking about this issue. So

Richard Falk (00:26:34):

Can I say just one thing about the, the analogy to Palestine and the occupied territory? See, to me, that's kindergarten as compared to Syria, which is advanced PhD analysis and research in terms of the relative complexity I, I really don't think it takes rocket science to deconstruct the so-called dominant narrative on Israel-Palestine. But I do feel that there is genuine diversity of documentation of narration. And it's not just the dominant narrative versus the the type of dissent that Vanessa is articulating very clearly, but it's not the only form of alternative interpretation of what's happening in Syria. So that, it's in my view, the most complicated conflict of modern times. And to say that you can pierce that complexity and come to clear conclusions, seems to me to be a sophisticated form of naïveté.

Helena Cobban (00:28:03):

I think we should move on now. I appreciate what you are saying, Richard. I've studied Syria for many, many years, and, and I, I agree it's hard and, you know, it's heart-wrenching in many senses. And I do have you know, friends who were associated with the original Syrian opposition, the liberal democratic wing of it, and their, their hearts are broken right now because they don't see, the ones that I know, any way for their movement to have to have input. But let's move on to the question of outside actors. I mean, we are really honored to have Richard from Turkey and Vanessa from Syria <laugh> with us talking to so many people here in the, the West. Something that doesn't often happen. So everybody knows that there's a lot of outside intervention, and oh, wow. Here's where I can share another screen if I can just get myself organized to do so.

Helena Cobban (00:29:05):

Okay, people, just be patient for a moment, and Okay. I have, I found two screens two maps that I think are helpful for people to understand the current and recent nature of what's happening on the ground in Syria. Neither of these maps is perfect and I grab them from different places, but the first one on the left is the situation in May, 2017 when the black is ISIS. And the red is the government. The green is the what's called rebel forces, which by and large are sort of, I would say a mixture of rebel forces, but fairly heavily Islamist rebel forces. And the yellow is the Kurdish SDFYPG. And this map, which comes from Al Jazeera, does show the occupied Golan down there, bottom right, bottom left in blue. And then over here, another map that I found that shows the situation more or less today, where ISIS is just reduced to a few little blobs, and there's a lot more going on with Turkey.

Helena Cobban (00:30:28):

It's very complicated with Turkey. And then you have the gray area around Idlib is for the HTS Hayat Tahrir al-Cham and the Syrian National Army. It's mind-boggling to try to understand who all these forces are, but clearly there's a lot of foreign intervention, and that's kind of the point I was trying to make with that map. So, can we agree, can you agree that there's a distinction to be made between foreign forces and other forms of intervention like money or armed supplies that are invited to Syria by the country's legitimate government? And those that are sent in with the goal of toppling the legitimate government? A lot, of course, hangs on the question of who determines legitimacy. So Vanessa, would you like to take that first and then maybe the two of you discuss that?

Vanessa Beeley (00:31:27):

Sorry, I didn't, the, the first bit of the question <laugh> that was a bit confusing. Is there a, a difference between those supplying arms to the extremist armed groups, or

Helena Cobban (00:31:39):

No, those who are present in the country at the invitation of the, of the government and those that are in the country without the invitation and often with the goal of toppling the government?

Vanessa Beeley (00:31:54):

Well, yeah. I mean, I think, again, if we are going to look at this from an international law perspective then Syria has the right to choose its allies. And of course, it has historical alliances with Iran with Hezbollah, it's alliance with Hezbollah and, and its protection of Palestine, of course, was one of the reasons that the West fundamentally turned against President Assad in the first place. And when we look at so we have Iran, Russia intervened in September, 2015 which is relatively late at a time when Syria was struggling on a number of fronts, a lot of fronts, against what by then were heavily armed extremist sectarian groups dominated, of course, by Nusra front, Al-Qaeda, or as you said, Hayat Tahrir al-Cham, as they've now been rebranded. And of course ISIS, Islamic State, which morphed out of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Vanessa Beeley (00:32:59):

And so those countries who are, as you rightly say, assisting, intervening on behalf of Syria at the behest of the legitimate Syrian government compared to the US Coalition, which includes Turkey, Israel, NATO member states, so EU, UK et cetera, et cetera, huge number of states pouring equipment, money sponsorship media promotion for the armed groups, euphemistically labeled rebels. Turkey, of course, invaded via proxy. The al-Tawhid brigade in 2012 invaded East Aleppo promptly carried out industrial theft of entire factory establishments and re-established them inside Turkey, a very little known fact. But so fundamentally, the majority of those who are in Syria who are opposing the government are not legally there.

Richard Falk (00:34:07):

Let me agree and disagree. My agreement is that there is no question that the legitimate government can receive military assistance from its allies or from any external source, and that that's part of the sovereign right. At the same time in this situation, there were accusations that seemed to be reasonably documented that the Syrian government engaged in large-scale crimes against humanity, and were responsible for killing civilians in large numbers. And that complicates the legal situation because where there's grounds for entering in opposition to a government that undermines its own legitimacy by committing crimes against its own people then the situation becomes much more one of conflicting facts and conflicting appeals to legal principles and rules. And I'm, I fear that Syria after the very early stage, entered into that situation where intervention and counter-intervention were very difficult to disentangle from competing legal interpretations.

Richard Falk (00:36:01):

And one has to feel that there has been ample grounds for suggesting that the early attempts to arbitrate the conflict, including by the Turkish leadership and by Kofi Annan and others, were very disenchanted by the apparent agreements that were reached in Damascus with Bashar, and the failure to uphold those agreements. I know from my own connection with the Turkish side of this debate that they really wanted to have a in the early stages, they wanted to ha they went to Damascus, Erdogan and Davutoglu, the president and foreign minister went to Damascus and received what they felt at the time to be assurances of reform. And then they found and, and were not only disappointed, but then their alignments with the Muslim Brotherhood and other factors came into play. And they entered in an inter way alongside the US, but it was only after that disillusionment with the capacity or the will of Bashar to fulfill what he promised to do. And Kofi Annan, I gather, had the same experience.

Helena Cobban (00:37:54):

Okay. I have actually been running a poll, but I want to just come in and get back to Richard. Our elf, Chuck Scurich. Could you actually Chuck turn off your camera? Oh, I guess not <laugh>. So it's just, I'm, I'm seeing it, but I guess I'm not seeing the right thing. So, yeah, Richard, you were raising some very important and interesting points. If a country thinks that another country is treating its people badly does that give it a right to go in and, you know, seek the overthrow of the government? I mean, that strikes me as, as leading to international chaos.

Richard Falk (00:38:45):

Well, there, there are contradictory norms at play, and they're at play, especially since the end of World War II, where the Germans were prosecuted for crimes against humanity. And, and that later was understood as crimes committed against your own people. And that is the whole tradition of so-called humanitarian intervention comes out of the notion that governments don't have an unconditional right to abuse their own populations. Now, of course, what it, what constitutes crossing that line of severe abuse is what gives rise to these divergent interpretations and contradictory interpretations. But it it is, it has been the case that from an international law point of view, you have not one tradition, not one line of legal interpretation, which favors the constituted government that is recognized by the United Nations, but you have two.

Richard Falk (00:40:09):

And the second one is the loss of legitimacy or of sole legitimacy by the constituted government if it engages in severe, what are perceived to be severe crimes against humanity or genocide being the most extreme. But ethnic cleansing, after all, there were in the course of this conflict, according to documentation that I accept is provisionally reliable, barrel bombs were used deliberately against the hospitals of Syria by the government. And that creates such a moral case for doing something about it. As I've said at the outset, I oppose regime-changing intervention at the same time I oppose unconditional deference to a government that is engaged in this kind of criminal effort to suppress its own opposition.

Helena Cobban (00:41:34):

So Richard and everybody else, I'm afraid we lost Vanessa. I guess her connection went, went away. Oh, and so now we have enabled Peter Ford, who was our panelist last week, and Peter was the US, sorry, UK ambassador to Damascus in the early aughts. So we had a sort of backup plan that if Vanessa should lose her connection, that we would invite Peter to come on. So thank you, Peter, for coming in at short notice. Did you follow the earlier part of our conversation?

Peter Ford (00:42:17):

Yes. And, and I I'm surprised.

Helena Cobban (00:42:20):

Could you speak up?

Peter Ford (00:42:21):

Yes. And I'm surprised that this doctrine humanitarian intervention that Professor Falk is advocating logically if we follow this, this doctrine, it means that Britain would've had a right to re-invade the United States when it was apparent that the United States was carrying out genocide against what were then called the Indians. And one can think of various US coups around the world, for example, to change the government with Panama. So the resulting governments were not legitimate. Did this also give a right to foreign intervention? It, it seems to be a doctrine that would be extremely, extremely dangerous.

Richard Falk (00:43:23):

No, it, it, it is dangerous. And I would grant that absolutely. But it's also dangerous to give unconditional deference to a government that is engaged in this kind of predatory behavior. And unfortunately, there's no satisfactory way of adjudicating when one danger is greater than the other. We live in a, a world without authoritative mechanisms for identifying what is appropriate action. And so it's, it, it would, there's no way of really resolving this tension between deference to the sovereign and deference to the wellbeing of the people who are being abused by the sovereign. Welcome, Vanessa.

Vanessa Beeley (00:44:23):

I'm sorry about this. It's the joys of being in Damascus, <laugh>. My computer battery is also running low. I'm sorry. This is the, the reality of sanctions <laugh>.

Helena Cobban (00:44:36):

So this has been the germ of an amazingly rich conversation about foreign interventions, and there's obviously a lot more to say, and I'm hoping that sometime later in this Commonsense on Syria project, we can come back to a lot of these issues or maybe do something in a different context, because I really value the engagement that Peter Ford and Richard Falk. And now you coming back, Vanessa, it must be hard to focus. I think I wanna move on to the last cluster of questions that I have here.

Vanessa Beeley (00:45:19):

Can I just, sorry. I just really feel quite strongly, I just want to respond to what Richard was saying about the civilian, Peter, I'm sorry if I'm repeating what you said in my absence. But the large number of deaths in Syria are actually from among the Syrian Arab Army that has effectively been fighting international terrorism for 10 years. Of course, there is civilian loss of life, but to, to even suppose that the Syrian Arab Army that is battling international terrorism is going to be deliberately targeting its own civilians when those civilians are the family of the Syrian Arab Army. I mean, this is, this is, I'm sorry, but this is one of the most obscene misinformations of this war, and one of the most depressing when you are here in Syria, and you are speaking to the families of martyrs, the Syrian Arab Army is not in any way, shape or form deliberately targeting civilians. But what is happening, it's having to fight an urban warfare. Why? Because those internationally sponsored extremist sectarian groups are embedding themselves in city suburbs, in areas where there are civilians that they can then use as human shields. So, you know, these human rights abuses supposedly always determined to be by President Assad personally are effectively also being levied at the Syrian Arab Army. But the Syrian Arab Army is the Syrian people. It's a conscript army. Thank you.

Helena Cobban (00:46:54):

Thank you. So let's move on. And we'll just look at the kind of campaigns that we all might agree on the citizens of Western nations might undertake that could actually help the situation of Syria, heavily war damaged people. As I mentioned earlier, I, I actually lived and worked during this Civil War in Lebanon for six years until I had to leave with my very young children. And I saw a lot of international intervention there. I mean, you know, Iraqis were fighting against Syrians, were fighting against Palestinians, were fighting against Egyptians, and there was, it was, it was really terrible. But this situation in Syria is more global than regional in scope, although there's a heavy regional component. And at the end of of the day in Lebanon, it was war weariness that just caused everybody in 1993 to kind of lay down their arms.

Helena Cobban (00:48:02):

And maybe it will be war weariness in Syria to some extent. Although there's always gonna be the, the problem of the international jihadi fighters who have c flocked to the country for so long and who are now concentrated in Idlib. So I have three questions about the kind of campaigns that we in the West might agree on. Can we agree that ending the armed conflicts has to be given a high priority, and what would it take to do this? So Richard, what do you think about the priority that we should give to ending the ending the fighting?

Richard Falk (00:48:45):

I think we should give that a highest possible priority. And I think that does suggest at this stage, it seems to me trying to stabilize Damascus's control over the country and accepting that as the outcome of this long, bloody struggle.

Helena Cobban (00:49:12):

Vanessa?

Vanessa Beeley (00:49:15):

I think to suggest that there can be a peaceful resolution without the cleansing of what is now accepted to be the largest Al-Qaeda haven since 9/11, according to Brett McGurk in Idlib without the cleansing of Syria, all of, as you rightly say, these international terrorist groups or radicalized armed extremist groups from within Syria, and they exist. But for example, in Idlib, there's a huge percentage of Uyghurs, Chinese extremists, Chechens, Afghanis, there's all number of foreign, interventionists and international terrorists group members in Idlib. And I think to expect there to be any kind of peaceful resolution without a final military victory by the defensive forces of the Syrian Arab Army and their allies against what are effectively internationally sponsored al-Qaeda dominated groups is unrealistic. And I think we should be standing behind the Syrian Arab Army in its battle against these terrorist groups, because if they don't defeat them, where do they go? They go to Turkey and then, then they go to Europe. As we've already seen, and this is a well-known fallout from particularly British and European interventionist projects, of course, is that we receive the extremist factions back in our country to then carry out what then become terrorist attacks, then they're no longer rebel attacks, then they become terrorists attacked when they're committed on European or British soil, of course

Helena Cobban (00:50:50):

But Vanessa, are you saying that there, there can be no hope of a negotiated piece such as the Russians, like the Sochi process or the Astana, but

Vanessa Beeley (00:50:59):

That is where that, that's what would

Helena Cobban (00:51:01):

It would involve Turkey and the government of Syria and the government and the Russian government. Primarily those would be the three.

Vanessa Beeley (00:51:11):

We, we had a Sochi agreement, which, which Turkey reneged on famously, which then led us to the unlawful invasion of Syria by Turkish forces, having already, of course, power multiplied and armed and reequipped their terrorist proxies inside Idlib that are controlled by Turkey. Now we have another agreement, which as you said, was brokered between Russia and Turkey, which effectively has enabled the Syrian Arab Army to maintain the victories they had achieved before that agreement. But effectively, if any of those armed groups, as they are continuously doing even now, continue to break the ceasefire, of course, there has to be a military response. They can't allow the continued mortar fire against civilian settlements and towns and villages under protection of the Syrian Arab Army. And that is ongoing. So therefore, it'll be a defensive campaign to prevent the, the massacre of civilians by those terrorist groups. And that has been the pattern of events inside Syria.

Helena Cobban (00:52:21):

I certainly know that the the presence of the many foreign fighters in Idlib is, is a huge complicating factor. Let's move on to talk quickly about sanctions is ending the suffocating sanctions that the US and some of its allies have placed on Syria. A goal that the three of us can agree on, Richard?

Richard Falk (00:52:43):

Yes, I, I oppose all of US sanctions being applied to a variety of countries at the present time, but I don't agree with Vanessa about the way she characterized the Idlib situation. I think it there are hundreds of thousands of civilians caught in that situation. It is not one where a military solution can be achieved except at great cost to the people of Syria. And so I think your idea of some kind of negotiated safe passage or whatever means are chosen, there are alternatives to a military solution. And so far the way in which the Damascus regime has used its military forces against Idlib gives one very little confidence that they take any care to limit civilian casualties.

Vanessa Beeley (00:53:58):

Can I just come in on, No, I, I would really like to strongly come in on that. The Syrian and Russian government established humanitarian corridors during every single liberation campaign. One thing that is not known is civilians in Idlib are working with the Syrian Arab Army to provide intelligence, to enable them to achieve the military victory, to liberate their towns and villages so that the refugees that fled when Al-Qaeda dominated groups took over can return to their homes. Those humanitarian corridors provided by Russia and Syria, and this is a pattern throughout Syria are liberally bombed and shelled and mined by the terrorist groups to prevent them leaving. Why? Because the civilians have greatest value to those terrorist groups, those armed groups as human shields, as you rightly say, to use them as a barrier against Syrian arabi advances. Hence, we have the production of chemical weapon attacks, et cetera, another use of civilians to provide propaganda to, to decrease the Syrian Arab Army advance. But to say that the Syrian Arab Army is in any way deliberately targeting civilians is absolutely misinformation. I'm sorry, I've just come back from Idlib. I've just come back from liberated areas where civilians are returning home after liberation by the Syrian Arab Army where civilians helped the Syrian Arab Army to advance, giving them intelligence, telling them where the armed groups were embedded so that they could target them in not civilian areas,

Richard Falk (00:55:29):

From my perspective,

Helena Cobban (00:55:30):

So anyway,

Richard Falk (00:55:31):

This is a much too one-sided interpretation of the reality. It is.

Vanessa Beeley (00:55:38):

But this is the reality on the ground.

Richard Falk (00:55:41):

Many, there are many journalists who've been there and are respected and independent that come to different conclusions. And certainly the weight of evidence is that the Syrian government and the armed forces have used indiscriminate tactics against their own people.

Helena Cobban (00:56:02):

So, Richard, Richard, I'm afraid we do

Vanessa Beeley (00:56:04):

Need to, Syrian civilians beg to differ.

Helena Cobban (00:56:07):

And, and, and Vanessa, actually in session four, we will be looking at the whole question of Western media and the production of Western corporate media narratives on Syria. So I want everybody to tune back in one week from today and when we'll have Max Blumenthal and possibly somebody else talking about Syrian media, Western media on Syria. So I, I take it, although I, that at least Richard and Vanessa can agree that sanctions need to be lifted. And I assume that both of you would also agree that we should work in the West to reverse President Trump's shameful decision to support the illegal annexation of the Golan. So there are some little points of agreement that we can have, and I think this conversation needs to continue. I want to thank both of you for taking part in it up till now. There's a few little housekeeping things before we get into the the q &a session.

Helena Cobban (00:57:13):

First, I'm gonna just share the results of the second poll we did about US military intervention. And this was fascinating. This was 81% of the respondent's opposed US military intervention in 2014. And 11% said it was necessary under the circumstances but regrettable, I I think these poll results are very important and interesting. And then we'll come on to the last one that we did, which was, do you think it's possible to ramp down or end the war in Syria while President Assad is still in power? And we had 86% said yes, which hang on there we are share results and stop sharing. So let us move to the q&a Alice Rothchild. Can you give us some qu's and hope for some a's,

Alice Rothchild (00:58:28):

So there obviously has been a huge conversation going on in the chat box. When I try to put together sort of an overwhelming overwhelming question I think a lot has to do with what are the facts? What is the documentation? How is Vanessa Beeley funded in terms of her work? How can we believe Richard's counter documentation, you know what, what's really happening? And it, it, it can be very, very confusing. And there was just a lot of churn on the, on the chat box about just the facts and how to interpret them.

Helena Cobban (00:59:06):

Is, was there one kind of a question that really you think gets to, to the heart of things?

Alice Rothchild (00:59:14):

Well, one about funding and one about what is the proof of documentation?

Helena Cobban (00:59:21):

Ah,

Alice Rothchild (00:59:22):

It's a big question, but that, you know, they would come every time there was a, a fact stated there would be a turn of, well, how, you know, this is a liar. How do we know it? Or it, it, it's just very confusing.

Vanessa Beeley (00:59:36):

If I can jump in there, <laugh>, because the funding issue is an endless issue. I am 100% independent. I am not in any way funded either by the Kremlin or by President Assad. I'm funded by public donations to my website. I sold my house in 2016 to raise the money to continue doing what I do because I believe in it so wholeheartedly. And I believe in fighting injustice. And what is happening in Syria is one of the greatest injustices of our time. So that very simply answers the funding question on documentation. All of my work is recorded at Mint Press News and at various other websites and the document, all of my articles are heavily hyperlinked and documented. If anybody requires any of the documentation that I in particular talked about, I'm happy to send links through to Helena to be passed on. Quite happy to do that. But it's all documented, it's all evidence. Much of it, of course, by my own time on the ground here.

Helena Cobban (01:00:40):

Thank you, Vanessa. That's really helpful for us. I'm actually seeing Alice, a couple of questions here that I think would be good. Mainly for Richard. Judy Hilton is asking, I would be curious to know what Dr. Falk considers an actual military humanitarian intervention since under any, since many under that label have clearly been designed for the intervener's political priorities. So Richard, can you think of an, an actual military humanitarian intervention that has, maybe that has even worked?

Richard Falk (01:01:21):

Let me make a distinction between my attitude my political attitude toward the viability of humanitarian intervention and its status in international relations as a, an acceptable instrument of law enforcement to put it in one form to prevent the engagement of to prevent criminal conduct by a government. I think that the closest recent example is probably Kosovo in 1999, where after what happened in Srebrenica, there was a, a reasonable apprehension that Serbia was go about to do a major ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. And that there was a grounds, at least for supposing that the, that a protective intervention would be worthwhile. There's lots of problem. I was on the Independent International Commission on Kosovo, and I became very skeptical about the implementation of that initiative. And the, there were a lot of geopolitics and, and, and strategic self-interest, including keeping NATO viable after the Cold War that explains why that was authorized and carried out. But there are situations that pose real threats of, for instance, the Rwanda genocide of 1994, I believe there was a, a serious case, especially under UN, with UN authorization for doing something to prevent that from happening.

Helena Cobban (01:03:36):

Yeah, I think this this concept of doing something is something that a lot of people want to do and sometimes rush into before they have really thought through what the something might be or what it might lead to. In Libya, we had the first intervention under the so-called R2P doctrine, which is responsibility to protect, which was a, a doctrine that the UN had adopted a few years earlier in response in, largely in response to what happened in Rwanda

Richard Falk (01:04:11):

And, and Kosovo.

Helena Cobban (01:04:12):

And, and Kosovo. But it was, it was abused grossly by the Western and NATO and UAE powers who said that they were intervening in in Libya to, for humanitarian reasons to do with Benghazi in response to grossly inflated reports of the threat that the people in Benghazi were, were, were subject to. And they actually broke off the African Union negotiations then underway and led by the South Africans to try to resolve the immediate situation around Benghazi. And, and NATO's insistence on launching the bombing just ended the negotiations. And that was obviously, you know, a disaster for one and all. I mean, nobody would wish upon Syria, I think the fate that has befallen Libya.

Richard Falk (01:05:12):

But Helena, you have to understand that international law is subordinated to geopolitics. We're living in a world where the primacy of geopolitics is what shapes behavior, not international law in these situations. And it shouldn't surprise you that the normative argument is just a cover for a geopolitical maneuver. And the geopolitical maneuver may be more or less congruent with your moral expectations and your political hopes, but it isn't shaped by the primacy of law or morality. It's shaped by the primacy of strategic ambition.

Helena Cobban (01:06:02):

Richard, I'm not surprised. I'm just always appalled when I see it happening. So <laugh> I think we'd probably better wrap up there because we've gone over our, our one hour, and I just want to come back and once again, thank both Vanessa and Richard for taking part in a conversation that I think has really helped open up avenues of inquiry and further discussion. And, you know, hopefully led to a little bit of learning by all of us. I've just shared the results of the polls and, and we'll post them and the results of the polls on Wednesday's session onto our website in the in the coming days. This session will also, the video of it will be shared. I want to remind you that we're holding these webinars every Wednesday and Saturday at 1:00 PM Eastern Time from now through April 25th.

Helena Cobban (01:07:01):

At the end of today's session, when we close it, or you click on the leave webinar button, we or Zoom on our behalf, will be sending you a little questionnaire inviting your feedback and evaluation of this session. Please do fill it out and send those evaluations to us. And as I said, this will be, the video of this session will be made available as soon as we can. So just before I go into my final fundraising spiel here, I want to thank Vanessa Beeley speaking as to us from sanctions-bound Damascus and bringing her perspective. Thank you, Vanessa, and thank you. Stay safe there from all the ills and also Richard Falk speaking with us from Turkey bringing his background in international law and his wealth of experience. So thank you, Richard.

Richard Falk (01:08:03):

Thank you Helena.

Helena Cobban (01:08:06):

And finally, people may know what's coming. If you found this webinar experience valuable, please be sure to tell your friends, networks about it and have them come to our next sessions. And secondly, we are providing this whole webinar series at no cost to attendees. If you find the project worthwhile, please do send us as generous of a donation as you can. Big thanks to all everybody who's given to us already this year. Now, you can donate either online or via check by clicking the donate button on our website at www.justworldeducational.org. Thanks to everybody for being with us today here, and stay safe. Goodbye.