Crippling New Sanctions Punish Syrian Civilians for US Defeat in Proxy War

As Syria tries to recover from a nearly decade-long war, the US has imposed crippling new sanctions under the Caesar Act that target reconstruction.

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From The Grayzone:

“For Syrians, sanctions on reconstruction and on oil and gas are likely to be felt most acutely,” the Washington Post reports. “The Caesar Act will probably limit the government’s ability to procure oil, further hurting the already low quality of life.” The new sanctions follow earlier coercive measures that had already hurt Syrian civilians, compounding the destruction of a lengthy proxy war fueled and funded by the US and its allies.

Guest: Elijah Magnier, veteran war correspondent who has covered the Middle East for more than three decades.

Aaron Maté is a journalist and producer. He hosts Pushback with Aaron Maté on The Grayzone. He is also is contributor to The Nation magazine and former host/producer for The Real News and Democracy Now!. Aaron has also presented and produced for Vice, AJ+, and Al Jazeera.

8 thoughts on “Crippling New Sanctions Punish Syrian Civilians for US Defeat in Proxy War”

  1. Someday it will be America’s turn to experience the suffering’s of the people in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Iran etc. Civil war looms.

    1. I don’t wish it on Americans, but lately I’ve been thinking the same thing.

    2. “Someday”

      Someday is already here. The economy, already weak from decades of bloated military and war budgets, paid for by debt and inflation, is imploding right before our eyes from the effects of Corona-fascism. Recovery, if it ever comes, will be very slow. I lost my job recently, along with many others, and many more will lose theirs.

      Civil war may result from the economic collapse, and this will only make things more miserable.

        1. Just curious, Mary, but what was shown on TV tonight? I rarely watch network news broadcasts, and am often late to see important events transpire. Was there talk of unrest, war, poverty, famine, or all of it? Was there a particular event which you were referring to as eliciting despair?

          Ronald Reagan, whom I was not much a fan of, did, occasionally, come up with some pretty good lines, such as this one: “Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours.” I guess that means for me it is now officially a depression.

          I wish you the best. I have gotten great enjoyment from interacting with my antiwar.com “family,” and do not enjoy the thought of even one of them suffering.

          1. Last night on FOX the cameras were showing the rioters trying to tear down the statue of President Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House. The rioters are also trying to establish a BHAZ, Black House Autonomous Zone, like CHAZ or CHOP in Seattle. Their ugly graffiti was everywhere. One person, I saw interviewed, said their goal was to drive Trump out of the White House before the election.

            Did you lose your job as a result of Covid-19? What is your line of expertise? Have you gotten any stimulus checks from the government? I am one of those people who is always on the paying end of the equation. No government checks for me. Prior to Covid-19, unemployment was the lowest in fifty or more years. Were you employed before Covid-19?

            I wish you the best also.

          2. Sorry for not responding for a couple of days. For some reason I am not getting some of the disqus email notifications that someone has responded to my comment.

            Although I am partially disabled (mental health issues), I have been employed full-time for most of the last 25 years. I am a computer programmer by trade. Prior to 2011, I was never out of work for more than a week or two, it seemed pretty easy to find a new job. I was temporarily homeless in 2011, when I was out of work for about 6 months, living in my car in a Safeway parking lot. I fled California, where I had lived my entire life, to find work in Montana, working remotely for a former coworker. I kept that job until about a month ago, and the work has dried up, and it doesn’t look to be getting any better for a long time.

            I would call myself marginally employable, as the severity of my clinical depression reduces my emotional energy and affect levels, such that, not only am I functioning at very low capacity, but I do not do well in job interviews. In good economic times, that is not much of a problem, as the demand for workers is great enough to allow employers to look past my lack of social intelligence and focus on what I actually have to offer. But when jobless numbers explode to where they are now, it becomes a nightmare looking for new work for anyone who has even one or two skill set deficiencies.

            The recent virtual economic boom was not real, founded on inflationary monetary policy, and it was bound to break sooner or later. The lock down simply triggered the bust a year or two early. In any event I am going to have to work like a dog at doing something I loathe, and that is looking for work.

            The stimulus checks are a stopgap measure, and will harm the poor in the long run due to the way they are financed (via debt monetization, resulting in trillions of dollars being transferred from the poor and middle classes to the big banks). I am not against using government programs, as we are all both taxpayers and tax consumers. I am, however, against voting for them. What the president and both houses of Congress have given their overwhelming blessing to, has put the final nail in the economy’s coffin. I am not young, and it seems increasingly unlikely it will turn around in my lifetime.

            I understand the anger at people like Andrew Jackson, who murdered untold numbers of Native Americans, I just don’t think that vandalism is the answer. There are peaceful methods of getting the local governments to remove offensive symbolism.

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