SARC is a ‘Legitimate Target’? For ‘Assadists’ — yes, it is.
You’re raising some excellent questions here, and I find these deserve being addressed.
SARC is a ‘Legitimate Target’? For ‘Assadists’ — yes, it is.
You’re raising some excellent questions here, and I find these deserve being addressed.
For the start, let us agree about few definitions, then you’re variously citing ‘(Syrian) government’, ‘Syria government forces’ and ‘Syrians’.
Based on multiple visits of the country, 30+ years of research about its military forces, dozens of contacts within these military forces and security apparatus, and monitoring of this conflict since its Day 1, I cannnot but observe that are ‘Syrians’ (people of Syria, who are very diverse); then there is the regime of President Bashar al-Assad (as ‘official government of Syria’, or at least its ‘official representative abroad’, actually, this is little else but a puppet of the IRGC meanwhile); and then there are ‘loyalists’ to that regime (widely known as ‘Assadists’ in Syria).
Just like the terminus ‘Syrians’, so also ‘loyalists’ and/or ‘Assadists’ are ‘very broad’ descriptions. For some (and not few) of people in question, Assad and his rule is a sort of religion (I saw with my own eyes not only one falling in dellirium while dancing and singing ‘oh Assad’ and similar stuff). Here I would say that ‘Assadists’ fit at best.
Then there are plenty of other ‘loyalists’ (even a few ‘Assadists’) who sided with the regime for entirely different reasons, primarily related to ‘opportunities’ (for business, for smuggling, for war-profiterring, for cashing bribes, merely surviving from a regular source of income or whatever else of that sort), but also with other reasons (ranging from clear threats for their and safety of their families to struggle for naked survival).
No doubt, there are plenty of people who have sided just because they don’t know better, or are afraid of what might happen if there is no regime any more. However, there are also plenty of characters that cannot be described as anything else but ‘criminals’, ‘murderers’, ‘thugs’ and such.
The next question is: which of these ‘groups’ is considering the SARC (or any other, similar organizations) for a ‘legitimate target’, and which not?
Gauging the POV of ‘Syrians’ (as ‘citizens of the Syrian Arab Republic’) is impossible. I do not know what’s the POV of the ‘Assad regime’ (whether official or not), because I’ve got no sources within its circles. I also can’t say what’s the position of the ‘loyalists/Assadists’ in general: there are many of them, and they have different POVs.
What I can do is to describe the situation within the SyAAF.
In this regards (SyAAF) I’ve got dozens of sources, all of which (and no matter whether they are ‘pro-’ or ‘contra-’ regime) say the same (this is a topic already discussed in the article The Hind Gunship Is One of Syria’s Worst Terror Weapons):
Explicite orders for attacks on civilian population are issued by the Ba’ath Party HQ in Damascus;
Such orders are no ‘exception’, but a norm ever since mid-2012;
All officers had to and still regularly have to sign a confirmation they have received these orders;
Any officer refusing to confirm his readiness to follow such orders is instantly taken away by the Air Force Intelligence; a few (I know about a handful) have re-appeared after a period of detention (and — always — torture too), dozens were executed (some together with their families), while hundreds of others have defected instead (and many of these had their families hijacked, tortured and/or murdered too).
Which means: by now only ‘proven Assadists’ are still serving with the SyAAF.
Under all these circumstances, it does not matter the least whether the UN-convoy (this convoy was actually run by the UN, WFP, and similar organization; it’s the SARC that owns/operates the warehouse that was its destination) was well-known, inspected, granted permission to pass, and monitored by Russians. At the first opportunity, HQ Ba’ath Party issued the order for attack, and (at least) four Su-24-crews from №819 Squadron have flown that attack. The same four crews are now priding themselves with ‘burning a Nusra convoy’.
These are facts as presented to my by sources within the SyAAF, nothing else.
Is this ‘irrational’ (as you say)?
From ‘Assadist’ standpoint: not the least. Most of them I happen to know are fanatics, convinced they are fighting against a US-Zionist-Saudi-al-Qaida conspiracy (some might omit Zionists or Saudis, but that’s the ‘general arrangement’ of how they think); all their enemies are ‘Jihadists’, and those living in the areas controlled by ‘Jihadists’ are therefore either ‘Jihadists supporters’ or ‘Sunni scum’. For them, there is nothing to discuss in this regards: ‘Burn Sunnis’ or ‘Burn Jihadists’ is all that matters. They are literaly proud and boasting about doing exactly that.
You further argument in the way, ‘If the Syrian government didn’t want the aid going to…’
Who said the ‘Syrian government’ has anything to say there any more?
Firstly: ‘Assad regime’ has no control even over large parts of Damascus, not to talk about 90% of Syria or whatever is left of the Syrian military (which is not much, as discussed already, too). It’s either the IRGC or one of its surrogates that’s in control there. And secondly: another UN convoy managed to reach Madayya — besieged y Hezbollah and the PLA — in southern Damascus, early this week, and had all of its food ruined by their ‘inspectors’.
Even most of ‘Assadists’ I happen to know couldn’t agree over this issue, then while most of them are loyal to Assad, many others are actually not: they are loyal to themselves or their local warlord. Please, read the article linked here: while barelly scratching the surface it’s barelly touching the surface, actually, but a very good introduction, nevertheless.
You also say, ‘SARC is not a ‘legitimate target’ to the Syrians or government forces — they depend on SARC for aid, too.’
Actually it’s so that certain people from within the regime are cooperating with the UN — and cashing heftily for this. They cash again when they’re re-selling the aid provided by the UN, SARC etc. And the Syrian military… nah, sorry: IRGC, Hezbollah and even units of the Russian Army — are sleeping in white tents with big UNHCR titles on them.
So no: the regime does not depend on the SARC (or the UN) for survival: it depends on them as an additional source of income.
And ‘Syrians’: since when does the regime, since when do Assadists care about ‘Syrians’? Nobody there is responsible for anybody (except Assad to Khamenei and his IRGC cliques).
Finally, you say, ‘If the Syrian government decided that SARC was a legitimate target, then all they would have to do is drive down the street to their neighborhood facility and start tossing grenades in the windows’.
No, that would be ‘too obvious’: it couldn’t be denied. They never act that way. Right now, Assadists are perfectly happy — indeed: laughing — about the mess they caused, because the mainstream-media has no clue who did it and can’t agree with itself, at least a third of the social-media is cheering this attack anyway, while another third is babbling about some ‘new video evidence’, and ‘Hellfire missile’, and US UAV, and whatever else.
That aside, at least on the example of the SyAAF one can follow a clear track of ‘precedents’ in this war. Early on, while the regime was explaining about ‘police action’ against ‘few gangs of foreign-supported armed terrorists’, the SyAAF was barely flying. Once the regime was sure the West would not react, they escalated: when the obvious (namely an uprising against the regime) became too obvious, the SyAAF went into action, but deployed only helicopters and L-39s. When there was no reaction from the West, the regime escalated again: MiG-21s, MiG-23s, Su-22s, and Su-24s went into action. When there was no reaction from the West, they began deploying chemical weapons etc. Since some 5–6 months, the SyAAF is not only bombing bakeries, food storage warehouses and similar objects, but is running a campaign against every single ‘militant hospital’ it can find in Aleppo and Idlib. And the West is not reacting… So where’s then a problem with bombing a UN-convoy…?
The only thing important is: ‘Jihadist supporters’ were ‘burned’, and those still alive haven’t got any food.