America’s responsibility toward Syrian refugees
▻https://electronicintifada.net/content/americas-responsibility-toward-syrian-refugees/19886
Yet neither newspaper mentions the role that the US has played in creating these refugee flows.
The Syrian case is particularly notable, both because it is the world’s single largest refugee crisis and because of the key role the US, along with allies such as Israel, has played in the disaster there, which has long been suppressed in the American consciousness.
Indeed, the lie that the US failed to “Do Something” in Syria is remarkably widespread. This approach perpetuates the myth that Americans are innocent in the Syrian catastrophe. This could scarcely be less true: the US, Israel and other regional components in the US empire have fueled the conflict by derailing negotiations, levying sanctions, bombing the country and arming, funding and training fighters including murderous sectarians.
As scholar Bassam Haddad writes: “The [Syrian] government – with much help from its regional and international allies – has brutalized the Syrian population since 2011. This fact, however, does not absolve its regional and international opponents from responsibility for significantly contributing to the mayhem.”
He describes a consensus among Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and the United States “centered around the notion that Syria and its allies needed to be cut down to size because they impede domination of the region by those players along with their allies, notably Israel.”
“These very powers almost tripped over themselves as they rushed to fuel and hijack the Syrian uprising for their own purposes.”