LIBERATION CONTRACT

In light of SOME Syrian protesters holding signs saying “HELP” and “SOS” and “NO FLY ZONE”, while other Syrians reject foreign intervention, it seems it is necessary to formalize wars of liberation so that both sides know what they are getting themselves into.

This is an attempt to provide that structure.

WE THE PEOPLE REQUESTING LIBERATION hereby agree to the following.

We realise we do not represent the entire country, but we cannot tell what percentage of the country we do represent, as the dictator doesn't allow a secret ballot or an environment where statistically valid opinion polls can be taken. However, we recognize that minorities (and we believe we are the majority) have rights too, and we can see that our rights are being violated with no obvious end in sight, which is why we are requesting foreign intervention (basically as a last resort).

We are brave people, willing to put our lives on the line for our freedom, but we recognize the futility of throwing our lives away against the regime's automatic weapons. When the appropriate circumstances exist, we will sign up to new security forces to gain and/or protect our freedom. But we recognize that we need external help before we can begin that process.

We have seen what happened in Libya - they are like us - no one believed that they could do it, but they did it with international support - so why can't we?

We currently have a dictatorship due to historical reasons, and it is not a fault of our culture or because of anything we may have done wrong. It is most definitely not our culture to want to be tortured by the regime just because we exercised our inherent human right of freedom of speech. Our imprisonment has more to do with the inherent unfairness of automatic weapons. It is technically impossible to overcome an automatic weapon with bravery alone, and we shouldn't be punished for eternity just because we were born into this unjust arrangement.

We recognize that there may be sectarian divisions within our country that may be unleashed, and we will not hold the foreign liberators responsible for any ensuing clashes. If we need help dealing with sectarian clashes, the only form of aid we will expect is air support. We will provide the ground forces ourselves.

We recognize that not everyone in the existing military force is bad, and we will allow the old police force to be reused under new management, to prevent a security vacuum.

We recognize that foreign forces are not perfect, and war is an inherently dangerous business, so will not blame the foreign forces for any accidental deaths. In fact we blame our dictator for all deaths during the entire war, since he made war necessary by insisting on fighting it out instead of handing power over to a democracy. We also recognize that the foreign forces have some bad people in them as well, and if they commit any war crimes, they will be punished according to their own legal processes, and we will not judge the entire foreign force by some bad apples.

We have a strong sense of freedom and realize that freedom requires a blood price to be paid. While some of us are willing to pay any price (e.g. 90% of our population) to end state-slavery, we are expecting that there will be a huge military imbalance between the liberators and our dictatorship which would allow our blood price to be kept to an absolute minimum. However we realise there may be terrorist attacks from insurgents post-liberation where the military imbalance doesn't help. We fundamentally refuse to give in to terrorist demands and will pay whatever blood price is due.

We recognize that the foreign governments need to take into account public opinion, which generally baulks at talk of war. As such, we have no particular expectations of what aid will be forthcoming, nor when. We will not complain about there being too little too late, we'll take whatever the foreign governments can manage. It does not mean that people do not care, it just means that it is very difficult to get people to agree to war as a solution to problems. We realise that the war of liberation may actually come years after the protests have petered out.

We consider liberation to be a charitable act, and will not denigrate the foreign assistance as “purely in the national interest of the foreign country, they don't really care about us”. If we never allow the West (or whoever turns up) to ever be "nice people" then we should not be surprised if they choose not to help us.

We recognize that only democracy is on offer, not liberal democracy (which may require occupation troops). It is possible that the government that emerges from a secret ballot is worse than what we already have – we are willing to take that risk, and it will be our responsibility to try to change the culture of our country so that we get the sort of government we really want.

If the UN fails to authorize a liberation force, we will consider the UN to be an immoral actor that doesn't care about us. But since YOU genuinely care about us, we expect you to act unilaterally. If anyone complains about your actions, please send them to us and we'll give them a piece of our mind.

Without making any specific promises at this early stage, once we have our freedom we will do our best to help liberate other people around the world (not just our own race/religion).

WE THE PEOPLE DOING THE LIBERATION hereby agree to the following.

It is an accident of history that we are lucky enough to be already liberated. If Hitler had played his cards a little differently, we may have been the ones living under dictatorship and needing someone to liberate us. It has more to do with luck, and less to do with culture, that we are free. Everyone in the world has the same rights to freedom as we do. It is a scar on our own humanity that others should have to live in state-slavery while we have the luxury of being able to quibble over the finer definitions of freedom (e.g. whether marijuana is legal).

The cost of liberation will be born totally by us, as part of both foreign aid and national security. It is in our national interests that other countries also be democracies, thus usually providing lasting peace. Although even if there wasn't that gain to be had, we still have a moral responsibility to spread freedom if we are able to. We will not ask for the cost of liberation to be paid by the country being liberated, as we should always maintain an emergency fund for liberations, which is the most effective foreign aid possible. Nor will there be any other implied obligation on the country being liberated - morally or politically or anything else. That is part of true freedom.

Our militaries are expected to take care when selecting targets – the civilians below should be treated as if they were our own citizens. And the urgency of liberation should also be as if they were our own citizens. If our militaries are negligent or commit war crimes, they will be tried as if the victims had been our own citizens. If an attack kills a large number of civilias, there should be an investigation to ensure that the military was not negligent, to provide some closure to the victims.

We will not occupy the country in question any longer than it takes to ensure victory for the pro-democracy forces. The emphasis should be on doing as much as possible from the air, with the smallest possible footprint on the ground. We recognize that people are instinctively distrustful of foreign forces, as we would be ourselves, and will not hold people responsible if they are not overwhelmingly thankful. Also we understand that not everyone in the country being liberated even wishes the liberation, so we will simply be grateful for whatever thanks is received. We also acknowledge that our own media likes to air controversial topics (for ratings), so the picture we get on our TV will generally not show all the genuinely thankful people, and this is a failure of our own system, not the country being liberated. If the media comes to see what is in the country being liberated, every one will get the real picture.

Nothing at all will be forced on the country being liberated - not even a bus timetable. It is their country, and their freedom to do what they want with it, including voting in ways we don't approve of. Post-liberation we will be free to give our opinion on what we think works well, and they will be free to ignore our opinion and even suggest an alternative for us to follow.

If you have never lived in freedom for a single day, you will never understand the feeling - but once you have it you will never want to lose it - it's really precious.

This contract was signed on 2011-11-26 by "Kurdo" from Syria and "kerravon" from Australia (who met in irc.telecomix.org room #opsyria) and is now binding. From Kurdo's perspective, after signing this contract he is in a civil war with Assad, and calling for kerravon's assistance. The contract remains valid even if he is killed or detained by Assad, so that he can look forward to belated justice. From kerravon's perspective, he is also engaged in a civil war to try to gain control of Australia's armed forces, but it is a cold war - trying to win the hearts and minds of the Australian people and politicians.

Note that to date evidence suggests that most Syrians are unwilling to sign a contract such as this, which helps explain why the world is watching without taking any action. Thus the bottleneck for freedom is predominantly mentality changes within Syria rather than heartlessness in the West. Rather than having all Syrians queuing up to try to escape to the West it is suggested that the Syrian people work on mentality changes within Syria that would allow them to have the attraction of the West inside their own country instead of leaving a permanent cesspit behind. Another factor is that the Russians oppose such an action, and geostrategically their assistance is needed elsewhere (e.g. in Afghanistan). The real world unfortunately has real constraints. No magic wands are available to fix all problems instantly. However, there is no doubt that ideological allies within Syria exist, and they are willing to shoulder their share of the responsibility for initiating a war.