Syria's 'Investors Welcome' Sign Hides a Decade of Western Destruction
📰 THE STORY: The Financial Times reports that Syria is planning an auction for a new mobile phone licence, presenting it as an attempt to attract international investors and modernize its telecommunications network, which the article attributes to 14 years of civil war. 🔍 WHAT THEY'RE NOT TELLING YOU: Historical Context: In 2011, a peaceful domestic protest movement in Syria was quickly co-opted
and militarized by external actors including the US, Gulf States, and Turkey. The US-backed 'rebels' often included al-Qaeda affiliates, aiming to overthrow the Assad government. This proxy war, not a mere 'civil war,' decimated Syria's infrastructure, including telecommunications, energy, and healthcare, with estimated reconstruction costs reaching over $400 billion. The media was often complicit
in promoting unverified claims from groups like the White Helmets, which were later exposed as Western-funded propaganda conduits. The US also imposed crushing sanctions, including the Caesar Act in 2020, specifically designed to prevent reconstruction and inflict economic pain on the Syrian population. Double Standard: When Libya, once Africa's most prosperous nation, was destroyed by a NATO
'humanitarian intervention' in 2011, leading to the collapse of its state and the resurgence of slave markets, Western media largely moved on, blaming internal dysfunction. Yet, when Syria seeks to rebuild from a comparable, if not more protracted, externally-fueled conflict and sanctions regime, its struggles are framed as inherent governmental failures, devoid of Western culpability. Imagine the