"We are providing humanitarian assistance to help Syrian earthquake victims. We are their leading humanitarian donor since the start of the war — the US has provided more than $15 billion to the Syrian people in Syria and the region. These funds go to the Syrian people, not the regime." This is what US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Twitter on Thursday. But he failed to say how the sanctions the US has imposed against Syria for decades have contributed to the misery of the nation.
It is the US sanctions that have made it extremely hard for Syrian people to conduct rescue work without the necessary tools after the earthquake.
It is the civil war, which Washington instigated and in which it has supported opposition forces in their attempt to overthrow the Syrian government, that has caused years of misery and suffering for the Syrian people. It is estimated that about half a million civilians have been killed since the war began in 2011.
It is under the pressure of the international community that Washington announced on Thursday a 180-day exemption to its sanctions against Syria. The exemption is said to be only related to sanctions concerning earthquake relief efforts.
What makes the rescue efforts extremely difficult is the fact that the war has already ravaged Syria's northwest region where the earthquake took place. The exemption will do nothing to change the increasingly worse situation there.
When US Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said: "I want to make very clear that US sanctions on Syria will not stand in the way of lifesaving efforts for the Syrian people," he was trying to whitewash the misery the US' sanctions have caused the Syrian people and the role the US has played in the war with the aim of overthrowing the regime of President Bashar Assad.
The US has imposed sanctions against the Middle East country for more than four decades since December 1979 after it designated the country a "State Sponsor of Terrorism". Since then it has repeatedly imposed additional measures. Politicians in Washington have turned a blind eye to what the sanctions have done to the life of Syrian people, and they have placed what Washington hopes to achieve in its geopolitical games before the well-being of local residents.
Human rights are constantly used by Washington as a pretext for whatever it does. But the irony is that consideration for human rights must be subject to Washington's geopolitical strategy. What is even more ridiculous is the fact that US military actions or its interference in other country's internal affairs including economic sanctions often lead to human rights disasters, as is the case in Syria.
It is typically hypocritical and shameful for Washington not to lift its sanctions on Syria while claiming that it is the major provider of humanitarian aid.