Letter: British governments present and recent helped create Syrian death squads

Now that there are death squads loose in Syria, we're still being told that at least Assad has been overthrown.

That must feel reassuring to those Syrians still in Syria who await the attention of these death squads.

We must thank British governments present and recent past for helping to create these death squads with funding from the British Treasury no less (£4.3 billion since 2011 according to House of Commons Library, December 19 2024) and military training in Turkey and Jordan mostly from members of Britain's SAS (West training Syrian rebels in Jordan, Guardian, March 8 2013). Syrian investigative journalist, Kevork Almassian, estimates 450 murders per day by these death squads, currently (interviewed by Neil Oliver). Gaza, of course, is in similar dire straits. The recent breakdown of the ceasefire in Gaza has Israel killing up to 970 Palestinians in 48 hours (Gaza Health Ministry figures, reported in Le Monde, March 19 2015).

The British government in response has Keir Starmer (during the latest Prime Minister's Questions/Evasions) promising that the government "will do all that [it] can to ensure the resumption of the ceasefire". But there's no urgency – no need to worry – and there's a distinct lack of the same shock value as would have occurred if Hamas et al had resumed its killing of Israelis. There’s no mention of Britain continuously arming Israel during each genocide or sending spy planes from airstrips in Cyprus to monitor Gaza on Israel's behalf, all while maintaining the illusion that it's about locating hostages instead of identifying targets for future Israeli bombings. Given that the hostages are underground, it’s hard even by British government standards to expect the public to believe the spy planes are only being used to find hostages.

It's our Al Qaeda now rampant in Syria. They're our terrorists, or ‘rebels’ as the Guardian terms them, who differ from the terrorists we used to be so forthright in trying to stop, in that they ask permission presumably before they rape, murder, and pillage. Bad terrorists, you see, rape, murder, and pillage in quite a different way from our terrorists, if you please.

Louis Shawcross, Co Down