The people didn’t see Syria as perfect before the civil war, but it was a secular, tolerant state, which will be lost if Islamist rebels prevail, European MP Nick Griffin, who in Damascus with a fact-finding delegation, told RT.
Two suicide blasts rocked the Syrian capital Damascus this
Tuesday, killing at least 14 people and wounding 31 more. The
attacks come after the Syrian army retook the strategic town of
Qusair from the rebels last week in what some see as a turning
point in the war.
There are now jitters in Washington over the recent gains by
Assad troops, which, according to AP, could approve sending
weapons to the rebels as early as this week, with a no-fly zone
also among the options.
British National Party leader and European MP Nick Griffin has
called the involvement in Syria “a criminal action” on the part
of the US.
He also warned that by arming the Islamists, the Obama
administration will provide arms to the same people, who launched
the 9/11 attack on America.
RT: Damascus has been rocked by blasts today, but you've
been describing life there 'normal'. Why is that?
Nick Griffin: Well, ‘normal’ in terms of when you walk
around the streets there’s ordinary people, there’s families,
there’s people, who are strict Muslims and others, who are
secular. Getting on with their lives and trying to ignore the
bomb blasts, which go off occasionally. I’ve seen the same thing
in Northern Ireland. People get used to this. Life continues.
Certainly, in Damascus this is a state under attack, it’s not a
state in crisis.
RT: You say you want to highlight the risk of the
British government supporting the Syrian opposition. What are
those risks, as you see it?
NG: Fundamentally, it’s a question of blowback. You
remember what happened in Afghanistan when the West, the CIA, the
British state armed AL-Qaeda to fight the Soviet Union. And then
of course, once the Soviet Union was finished the jihadis didn’t
go away, they turned their attention elsewhere. And what we’ve
got now, they’re managing to turn huge parts – fortunately
shrinking parts of presence in Syria – into a giant terrorist
training camp. The majority of people fighting in Syria against
the Syrian government are foreign terrorists, tens of thousands
of them, including hundreds from the EU, some of them even in
Britain. When the war is over here they’re going to come back to
Britain, come back to Western Europe and continue their jihad,
but this time we’ll be the targets.
RT: Do you expect the US to go ahead with weapons
supplies to the opposition, given the army gains we've seen?
NG: I fear that the US will go ahead with weapon supplies.
There are a number of people a number of organizations and
countries involved in this criminal drive to destroy secular
Syria. One of them is the US government, not ordinary American
people. They’re working out a plan which was produced at the
start of the century by a group calling itself the Project for
New American Century and they wanted to secure energy supplies
for the US and also to contain Russia. That’s what this attack on
Syria is the latest of this criminal action by the US. They’re
not the only ones to blame, but they’re a significant part of it.
So I fear they’ll probably want to go ahead and arm these rebels,
even though in doing so they’re arming the same people as
attacked the US on 9/11.
RT: You're there with other pan-European politicians.
What's their assessment of Syria right now? Are they hopeful
diplomacy can succeed at this stage?
NG: In particular, the most important others are members
of the Flemish Belgian parliament. I think we’re all pretty much
in agreement, with what we’ve seen. We’ve also been able to talk
with ordinary Syrians at all sorts of different levels. Something
that comes out from all those people who we speak to is that
Syria wasn’t perfect, but it was a secular and tolerant state
where no one even cared if someone was Sunni or Shia or Christian
or Jewish. They go on with it and that’s the thing, which is
going to be destroyed if this carries on. And everyone I was
there with, I think, gets this point and agrees with me and the
vast majority of people in Britain, that we shouldn’t be involved
in other peoples’ quarrels.
The Syrians have problems to sort out. Those are problems of a
question for Syria to sort out through ballot box, not through
foreign terrorists and foreign military intervention.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.