The Canada Files is publishing a modified version of two articles published on Mideast Discourse (#1, #2).

Written by: Steven Sahiounie

Canada has blood on its hands in Syria. Canadian intelligence would have provided its government with the facts concerning the Syrian uprising in Deraa in March 2011. That information would have allowed the Canadian government to determine whether to support the US-NATO attack on Syria for regime change or to stand on its own two feet and stay out of nation-building in the Middle East. Instead, the Canadian government knowingly hung on to the apron strings of their southern neighbor and followed the leader into destroying a nation, and deliberately preventing its recovery when the conflict was over.

The conflict in Syria has been described as a popular uprising that was crushed, or as a civil war. The Syrian conflict is neither. It was a CIA-engineered plan for regime change directed by US President Obama. Later, the EU and Canada supported the US-NATO attack on Syria because the EU and Canada usually follow the lead of the US unquestioningly.

The US plan failed because of overestimating the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood's support in Syria. The majority of the Syrian population are Sunni Muslims, but they are overwhelmingly secular in terms of governance. Had the population supported the Free Syrian Army, which was the foot soldiers of Obama, the regime change might have been successful. But, most Syrians rejected the notion of chopping off the heads of their neighbors to effect a change in government. The majority of Syrians reject Radical Islam, which is a political ideology hiding behind a religion. They prefer a secular government that protects religious rights for all, given the fact, there are 18 different sects in Syria.

The conflict in Syria has ended with the country having been split into 3 sections. The main section covers 75 per cent of the territory in the hands of the central government in Damascus, while the northeast corner is under the occupation of the US military partnership with the Kurds, and the last remaining terrorist-controlled area is in the tiny enclave of Idlib.

The Kurdish section was not involved in the recent earthquake, and they support themselves by selling stolen oil from the oil wells guarded by the US military which President Trump ordered, and President Biden has ordered to remain occupied. When the US troops leave Syria, the Kurds will reunite with the central government. The US occupation is the only thing keeping them separate.

The country has been prevented from recovery due to the US-EU sanctions which prevent any materials from being shipped to Syria. Canadian companies, and individuals, have not sent machines, materials, or other recovery supplies for fear of being penalized by the US Treasury Department. Humanitarian supplies are supposed to be exempt, except there is a time-consuming and costly procedure to get an exemption approved, and most firms and individuals are not willing to seek approval.

On February 9, 2023, the US Treasury Department issued General License 23 which waives the sanctions for humanitarian supplies only for 180 days in the wake of the 7.8 earthquake. Canadian companies and individuals could send supplies to Damascus, but they must be sent through an NGO and not the Syrian government.

Humanitarian aid was sent to Idlib from the UN, crossing the Turkish border at Bab al Hawa. International aid agencies and charities have arrived in Idlib from Turkey. When the Canadian government states they are supporting humanitarian efforts inside Syria, they are referring strictly to the one small province of Idlib, under the command of Al Qaeda terrorists who call themselves Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

Canada, the Muslim Brotherhood and support for terrorists against Syria

Canada has taken in over 25,000 Syrian refugees. While this has been seen as a humanitarian act, it is also a political tool. From the outset of the conflict in 2011, refugee camps were established on the border of Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon. Refugees sleeping in tents in bad weather demonstrate on western media that Syria was not safe to live in, and not politically correct. Some of the refugees left Syria because they were politically opposed to the government in Damascus. Those refugees mainly numbered among the followers of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is a global terrorist organization, whose goal is to establish an Islamic government everywhere. However, most of the refugees were escaping violence caused by the conflict. Houses were destroyed by both the terrorists and the Syrian Arab Army (SAA). In many cases, it was the terrorists who attacked homes and civilians. In response to the terrorists’ attacks, the SAA responded likewise attacking terrorist positions which were located in civilian homes.

Both Turkey and Jordan were allied with the US foreign policy under Obama and were playing supporting roles to the CIA program Timber Sycamore which supported Radical Islamic terrorists fighting the government in Damascus. Both Turkey and Jordan had offices that supplied weapons, cash, and training to the terrorists fighting in Syria. The refugee camps in both countries served as a haven for the families of the terrorists fighting in Syria, in which the UN and other international aid agencies would be feeding and caring for the basic needs of the refugees in the camps.

The Syria Support Movement noted that:

“In December 2011, Canada’s ambassador to Tunisia, Glenn Davidson, was tasked with organizing the pre-conference to launch the Friends of Syria Group of Countries (FSG) in Tunis in February 2012. The FSG was the coalition of countries the USA used to coordinate, fund, and supply terrorist mercenary forces in Syria in obvious violation of international law and the UN Charter.

Canada’s Foreign Minister, John Baird, invited members of the Syrian National Council to Ottawa in December 2011 and later travelled to Turkey to attend international conferences in support of the proxy warriors. In addition, Defence Minister Peter MacKay invited key figures of the Syrian armed opposition to the Halifax International Security Forum, a major Department of Defence and NATO gathering;

The Harper government unilaterally broke off diplomatic relations with Syria in May, 2012, and delegated an ambassador to the Syrian National Council, the pretender government created by the USA;

In June 2013, the Harper government hosted a meeting of the Sanctions Sub-Committee of the FSG which drew up the harsh regime of unilateral economic sanctions which has impoverished 80 per cent of the Syrian people. These sanctions are illegal because they lack the approval of the UN Security Council. But the effect of those coercive economic measures, which persist until today, was to turn millions of Syrian people into refugees, some of whom, such as Alan Kurdi, died in Turkish waters. About 30,000 of which ended up in Canada.”

Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood is very well established in Canada and had connections at the highest levels in the Canadian government. In February 2015, the standing senate committee on national security and defense met in Ottawa to study and report on security threats facing Canada.

In the meeting of senators, an excerpt from the memorandum of the Muslim Brotherhood was shown as evidence.

“The Ikhwan (Muslim Brotherhood) must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers.”

The Muslim Brotherhood had successfully entered into the Obama administration and key US official positions. The group had done the same in Canada.

In the Ottawa meeting, it was stated that in June 2012, a delegation of Islamist leaders linked to the Muslim Brotherhood operating in Canada had met with Minister of Public Safety, Vic Toews. The delegation was led by Hussein Hamdani, an adviser to the Department of Public Safety, as a member of the Cross-Cultural Roundtable on Security.

Hamdani was in a conflict-of-interest position in his role as an adviser on national security matters since he has been associated with organizations whose charitable status has been revoked by the Canada Revenue Agency due to their involvement in the financing of international terrorism.

Senator Beyak spoke at the meeting and said, “They declare themselves the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and the Muslim Brotherhood, and as Senator Lang pointed out, their plans are very clear.”

This demonstrates the deep understanding of the Canadian government of the deadly nature of the Muslim Brotherhood, its involvement in Canada, its government, and its link to the conflict in Syria, which was part of the Obama plan.

The SSM notes that:

“In accordance with his 2015 campaign promise to ‘end the combat mission in Iraq’, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did remove Canadian fighter jets from the Global Coalition Against Daesh. Trudeau replaced them with reconnaissance and refueling aircraft at the service of the US coalition (which continued to operate illegally over Syria) and sent military “trainers” to fight alongside the Kurdish-separatist entity in Northern Iraq;

The Trudeau government supported the Syrian White Helmets with at least 7.5 million dollars in funding and toured the group’s spokespersons in Canada. The White Helmets, a propaganda tool of the West against Syria, was a creation of British intelligence through John LeMesurier, who later died under mysterious circumstances in Turkey, after allegations of financial corruption.”

By 2016, Canada had spent over $1 billion in humanitarian, development, and security assistance in the Syria crisis. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced 2016 Canada's new strategy for the Syrian crisis. His new strategy was to keep following the Americans, and he tried to reframe his government’s involvement as humanitarian.

However, a Canadian spy, Mohammed Al Rasheed had been trafficking individuals such as Hamilton native Kimberly Polman to Islamic State forces in Syria. Polman faced a trial in Canada, during November 2022.

Over the years, Canada has been accused of being a lap dog for the US. While most Canadians would prefer to think of themselves as free of constraint from US foreign policy, still history will show that most often Canada’s foreign policy is a mirror image of the US. Many would say that is because the US policy is in the best interest of Canada, and not a dictated position. US President Obama used the Israeli paper “A Clean Break” as the road map for regime change in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, and Syria. He was trying to create a 'New Middle East'. His plan failed in each country, but succeeded in destroying much of each country, and killing thousands. Obama used the Muslim Brotherhood as his partner on the ground in each of the countries. Egypt, Tunisia, and Syria resisted the Muslim Brotherhood and fought back to remain secular governments even though the full weight of US-EU-NATO resources was thrown at the project.

By April 2017, Trudeau was still hanging on to the Obama regime change project in Syria. However, by then President Trump had been elected to office, and he shut the CIA operation in Syria down. Trudeau attended a G7 meeting and was talking up Syria with UK Prime Minister May and French President Hollande. They were anticipating directions from US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson concerning the future of the US regime change program in Syria.

From 2017 on, Canada would support the OPCW’s claims of the Syrian government supposedly gassing their own people, claims which were debunked by Grayzone reporter Aaron Maté, who noted that investigators initially rejected opposition driven allegations, but had superiors censor them and modify their reports to serve Western imperial aims.

The SSM states that:

“The most notorious fraud committed by the White Helmets was to stage a fake chemical attack in Douma, Syria, in April 2018 and blame the Syrian government. This led to USA, UK, and France launching a missile attack on Syria, an act of undeclared war. Later, inspectors of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) submitted detailed reports. Due to political and economic pressure from the US and NATO allies, including Canada, the OPCW suppressed the inspectors’ reports. This scandal threatens to destroy the organization’s reputation.

Later, when the Syrian Arab Army liberated Daraa, hundreds of White Helmets and their Al Nusra / Al Qaeda terrorist allies fled into Israeli occupied Golan. Trudeau’s then-Global Affairs Minister, Chrystia Freeland, took credit for their “rescue”. Several hundred of the fugitives disappeared; many of the rest were given refugee status in Canada.”

They would later find that Trump was not in favor of the Obama plan, and it was his wish to leave Syria, but in 2019 he was prevented from a troop withdrawal from Syria by the US State Department headed by Mike Pompeo, who said the US troops needed to remain to prevent the Syrian government from access to their oil. This is why Syrian homes have 30 minutes of electricity 3 times per day now.

Ottawa Citizen reporter David Pugliese published an article detailing the Canadian special forces' participation in a controversial 20-member US military team dubbed Talon Anvil in 2015, which has been accused of killing scores of innocent people in Iraq and Syria:

“In December 2021 the New York Times revealed that Talon Anvil was responsible for launching tens of thousands of bombs and missiles against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq but in the process had killed hundreds of civilians. The reckless actions of the Talon Anvil team, which operated from 2014 to 2019, alarmed members in the US military and even the CIA, the newspaper reported.”

“Independent investigators and human rights groups have estimated that at least 7,000 civilians were killed by coalition airstrikes in Iraq and Syria.”

According to the US government, and their Canadian followers, if you keep the Syrian people without electricity, without gasoline, and without heating fuel in winter, they will rise up and complete the Obama regime change plan. That strategy is both immoral and unethical. It is also illegal under international law to steal a nation's resources.

Canada has supported humanitarian aid to Idlib, but not the rest of the country. Idlib is the last remaining terrorist-controlled province in Syria. It is an olive-growing region with no industry or resources outside of the production of olives. It was chosen as the headquarters of the Al Qaeda branch in Syria (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham) because it sits on the Turkish border. Turkey, following the US directives, supplied the terrorists with all resources needed including tanks and anti-tank missiles which have even been used to bring down a plane.

Canada does not supply any aid to Syria other than Idlib, which represents 2% of the total area of the country. Aleppo, Damascus, Latakia, Hama, Homs, and all other areas in Syria have never received even a loaf of bread from either the US or Canada. However, the UN does supply some food to certain areas outside of Idlib. Even now, since the 7.8 magnitude quake occurred on February 6, Canada continues to only recognize the 3 million persons in the so-called "The Islamic Republic of Idlib" as Syria. The other 20 million in Syria get nothing, even though Latakia alone has 800 dead, and thousands injured and homeless due to the quake.

From the US-Canada foreign policy on Syria point of view: Idlib must be maintained as a separate viable 'state', free of Damascus. The US-Canada policy is to ignore the government in Damascus and pretend that Idlib is Syria. The Al Qaeda terrorists are thus rewarded by the west for their participation in regime change, which was the Obama policy that Canada signed up to.

Last month, Canada announced it would take back 23 of its citizens who were held in Islamic State camps in northeast Syria, under the control of the Kurds who are partners of the US military there. The group includes six women, 13 infants, and four men.

This would be the largest repatriation for Canada after the Islamic State caliphate was destroyed in 2019.

More than 42,400 foreign citizens, most of them children, have been held in life-threatening conditions in IS prison camps across Syria, Human Rights Watch says.

Canadian intelligence was well aware of who in Canada was following Radical Islam, and who had left to fight in Syria before the founding of ISIS. They were also following events on the ground in Syria while Canadians and other foreigners were fighting the Syrian government, and who among them had made the transition to joining ISIS once the US-sponsored FSA had disbanded.

Sanctions don’t achieve regime change, but severely harm ordinary people

In 1998, Richard N. Haass wrote “Sanctions: too much of a bad thing.” In his expert analysis, it was proven that US sanctions do not work in big projects, such as regime change in Syria. He further proved that innocent people suffer under sanctions, and they were immoral and unethical. The sanctions against Syria must be lifted and allow citizens to rebuild their lives and allow foreign governments to donate and invest in the rebuilding of the country.

Aid should be allowed to enter Syria in all locations, from Idlib to Deraa, and all in between. All Syrian citizens should have the right to receive help. Planes with aid should be allowed to land in Damascus, Aleppo, Latakia, and shipping containers should arrive in the port of Latakia.

The international community should be putting pressure on the terrorists in Idlib to lay down their arms or arrange to leave the country. They are holding 3 million civilians as human shields. The freedom of those civilians should be a priority to western nations such as Canada.

The President of Turkey, Tayyip Recip Erdogan, has already voiced his wish to repair his relationship with Damascus. Canada and other peace-loving western nations should be supporting his negotiations with Damascus. Washington has told Erdogan not to talk with Assad, but Canada could show some backbone and defy Washington by showing support for Erdogan's peace initiative.

Canada should re-open their Embassy in Damascus, and allow Syrians in Canada to vote in Syrian elections. With diplomats and security experts available on the ground, this would be a positive and constructive action that would truly show the Syrian people that Canada cares.

Finally, Canada should identify the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. Care should be taken by all future Canadian governments to study plans in Washington that assume Canadian support. Taking the high road is sometimes a lonely road, but lives and nations might be saved.

Editor’s note: The Canada Files is the country's only news outlet focused on Canadian foreign policy. We've provided critical investigations & hard-hitting analysis on Canadian foreign policy since 2019, and need your support. The Canada Files has just begun a fundraising campaign!

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Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist.

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