What To Do About Syria

[Ben]

Killing Civilians to Protect Civilians in Syria:

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/18...lians-in-syria

[Ben]

Does Obama Know He’s Fighting on al-Qa’ida’s Side?

‘All for one and one for all’ should be the battle cry if the West goes to war against Assad’s Syrian regime

by Robert Fisk

If Barack Obama decides to attack the Syrian regime, he has ensured – for the very first time in history – that the United States will be on the same side as al-Qa’ida.
Quite an alliance! Was it not the Three Musketeers who shouted “All for one and one for all” each time they sought combat? This really should be the new battle cry if – or when – the statesmen of the Western world go to war against Bashar al-Assad.
The men who destroyed so many thousands on 9/11 will then be fighting alongside the very nation whose innocents they so cruelly murdered almost exactly 12 years ago. Quite an achievement for Obama, Cameron, Hollande and the rest of the miniature warlords.
The men who destroyed so many thousands on 9/11 will then be fighting alongside the very nation whose innocents they so cruelly murdered almost exactly 12 years ago.
This, of course, will not be trumpeted by the Pentagon or the White House – nor, I suppose, by al-Qa’ida – though they are both trying to destroy Bashar. So are the Nusra front, one of al-Qa’ida’s affiliates. But it does raise some interesting possibilities.
Maybe the Americans should ask al-Qa’ida for intelligence help – after all, this is the group with “boots on the ground”, something the Americans have no interest in doing. And maybe al-Qa’ida could offer some target information facilities to the country which usually claims that the supporters of al-Qa’ida, rather than the Syrians, are the most wanted men in the world.
There will be some ironies, of course. While the Americans drone al-Qa’ida to death in Yemen and Pakistan – along, of course, with the usual flock of civilians – they will be giving them, with the help of Messrs Cameron, Hollande and the other Little General-politicians, material assistance in Syria by hitting al-Qa’ida’s enemies. Indeed, you can bet your bottom dollar that the one target the Americans will not strike in Syria will be al-Qa’ida or the Nusra front.
And our own Prime Minister will applaud whatever the Americans do, thus allying himself with al-Qa’ida, whose London bombings may have slipped his mind. Perhaps – since there is no institutional memory left among modern governments – Cameron has forgotten how similar are the sentiments being uttered by Obama and himself to those uttered by Bush and Blair a decade ago, the same bland assurances, uttered with such self-confidence but without quite enough evidence to make it stick.
In Iraq, we went to war on the basis of lies originally uttered by fakers and conmen. Now it’s war by YouTube. This doesn’t mean that the terrible images of the gassed and dying Syrian civilians are false. It does mean that any evidence to the contrary is going to have to be suppressed. For example, no-one is going to be interested in persistent reports in Beirut that three Hezbollah members – fighting alongside government troops in Damascus – were apparently struck down by the same gas on the same day, supposedly in tunnels. They are now said to be undergoing treatment in a Beirut hospital. So if Syrian government forces used gas, how come Hezbollah men might have been stricken too? Blowback?
In Iraq, we went to war on the basis of lies originally uttered by fakers and conmen. Now it’s war by YouTube.
And while we’re talking about institutional memory, hands up which of our jolly statesmen know what happened last time the Americans took on the Syrian government army? I bet they can’t remember. Well it happened in Lebanon when the US Air Force decided to bomb Syrian missiles in the Bekaa Valley on 4 December 1983. I recall this very well because I was here in Lebanon. An American A-6 fighter bomber was hit by a Syrian Strela missile – Russian made, naturally – and crash-landed in the Bekaa; its pilot, Mark Lange, was killed, its co-pilot, Robert Goodman, taken prisoner and freighted off to jail in Damascus. Jesse Jackson had to travel to Syria to get him back after almost a month amid many clichés about “ending the cycle of violence”. Another American plane – this time an A-7 – was also hit by Syrian fire but the pilot managed to eject over the Mediterranean where he was plucked from the water by a Lebanese fishing boat. His plane was also destroyed.
Sure, we are told that it will be a short strike on Syria, in and out, a couple of days. That’s what Obama likes to think. But think Iran. Think Hezbollah. I rather suspect – if Obama does go ahead – that this one will run and run.

© 2013 The Independent

[Ben]

Questions for President Obama — Before He Pulls the Trigger on Syria:

http://billmoyers.com/2013/08/26/que...gger-on-syria/

[Stavros]

Broncofan: "If you'll indulge one more question (sorry). This is the last question. What is the place of an outside nation to help in this struggle? Is it their place to help tip the balance to those seeking greater freedoms? If a democratic government is being overthrown by reactionary forces, is it advisable to support the currently elected government against this coup? Or to do nothing because an externally applied force disrupts the internal forces that are in some way a greater reflection of the will of the people?"

The simple answer to your question is a corpus of law on humanitarian intervention, codified since the first Geneva Convention of 1864. The not so simple answer is in the competing claims of when how and why such laws apply, in specific cases. I fear the true answer may be that humanitarian intervention is shaped by politically expedient conditions.

As for examples, take your pick from history.

Britain declared war on Germany in 1939 because Germany invaded Poland; domestic policy in Germany which had already seen discrimination and widespread violence against Jews, other 'non-Aryans' and minorities, was not a casus belli.
Vietnam invaded Cambodia/Kampuchea in 1979 and put an end to the murderous Khmer Rouge regime, but did so in retaliation for Kampuchea's (alleged) violation of Vietnamese sovereignty not because the Khmer Rouge had slaughtered half its population -and the Conservative govt of Margaret Thatcher continued to recognise the Khmer Rouge as the legitimate govt of Kampuchea so as not to endorse Vietnam's invasion and the installation of a 'puppet government'; what the Cambodian people thought about it was not important.
An earlier British government had condemned Turkey's invasion of Cyprus in 1974 but in practical terms, other than refusing to recognise the so-called government of 'Northern Cyprus', nothing was done then or since even though Turkey is a fellow member of NATO and British troops are based in Cyprus -or maybe because of those factors, even though the invasion was and remains a violation of international law. When Saddam Hussein ordered his armed forces to invade and occupy -or 're-claim'- Kuwait in 1990, the international response was the co-ordination of a 'Coalition of the Willing' which used military force to evict Iraq from Kuwait, something that had never been done to evict Turkey from Cyprus, or Israel from the Occupied Territories -when asked why, the Foreign Secretary at the time, Douglas Hurd replied, 'Because we don't have a security council resolution to authorise it'. Any attempt to use force to evict Israel from Occupied Palestine would not get the approval of the USA, ditto Turkey in Cyprus; hence Russia as an obstacle on Syria, China on North Korea, and so on.

None of which undermines the moral cases in Israel, Cyprus, Syria or North Korea, but as I say, there are examples that show both the limits of international humanitarian law and the way in which it can be manipulated.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has a useful section on humanitarian law, otherwise there is a vast literature on it, though Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars, and the work of Charles Beitz and Henry Shue might interest you.

http://www.icrc.org/eng/war-and-law/...ar-and-law.htm

[Ben]

Obama strike plans in disarray after Britain rejects use of force in Syria:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...a-britain-vote

[Stavros]

But there has been no coherence from the beginning on this issue; Obama's caution has been sunk by bad advice, he will have to carry the responsibility on this with France. Cameron re-called Parliament to get an endorsement for military intervention in Syria; then Ed Miliband, who had initially registered support for the motion, insisted there could not be such a vote until the UN Weapons Inspection team report, so Cameron had to modify the original proposal -slagging off Milliband as 'fucking cunt, and a copper-bottomed shit' -in private of course; and then publicly present 'intelligence' in Parliament in which it is stated that the British government isn't 100% sure that the Syrian government was responsible for the chemical attack; and all this with no real knowledge of how effective any military action will be, or what the consequences might be -yet Cameron wanted a vote on it. This was a colossal mis-judgement on his part, as he is one part of a Coalition whose own party doesn't trust him on Europe and immigration. They stiffed him.
And really, does the USA depend on the UK when making plans to attack another country? The 'Special Relationship' - nice to have, but no need to have.

[Ben]

[Ben]

Al-Qaeda Links Cloud Syria as U.S. Seeks Clarity on Rebels:

http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...rity-on-rebels

[up_for_it]

This is a tricky situation- the use of chemical weapons is unconscionable, but a few cruise missile strikes are the equivalent of the West patting themselves on the back. They won't destroy stockpiles without running the risk of contamination or surviving ordinance falling into the hands of a number of different groups. The strikes could also force the Syrian military to decentralize their remaining munitions, making them even more difficult to control or keep tabs on.

If a U.S. led coalition does attack, it also runs the risk of encouraging militants from both Sunni and Shia enclaves in Lebanon and Iraq becoming even more deeply involved, raising the possibility of a regional sectarian conflict. Iraq itself has seen the bloodiest summer since the surge in 2006. Then there is always the threat of a retaliatory strike on Israel, which Assad has mentioned several times over the past few months as a possible doomsday scenario is his regime is removed from power by western forces.

So, its a very difficult situation and the only way to prevent the use of chemical weapons would be to insert some sort of larger presence in Syria or wage a protracted air campaign. Then again, there is always the chance of mission creep and putting troops on the ground, something Obama is highly allergic to after over a decade of war, which has helped tank the US economy. No one, not even the hawks, want another counter insurgency operation. Finding some way to bring both sides to the peace table seems the best option, although Assad has clearly become even more of a hardliner, especially after the victories around Homs- he thinks hes winning. For their part, the rebels are still too fragmented. So, the real question seems to be: how much influence can the US and Europe exert and if so, will it run the risk of starting a regional conflict which will be even more tragic than the current plight of Syrians? Some people are already comparing the conflict to the situation in the Balkans prior to World War I, when a variety of super powers were involved in that region.- Russia, Iran vs. the US and UK. Things could escalate and go a number of directions very quickly.

[Prospero]

Arab papers here report that Syria has moved political prisoners into main army bases in Damascus in expectation of US strikes. That was a tactic that Saddam adopted during bombing strikes on Baghdad.

Incoherence all the way down the ine as i see Stavros pointed out.

But one is forced to ask - without seeming callous - what form of regime in Syria is a greater threat to global order. The vile Assad government or aJihadist dominated regime with a deep seated and violent animus towards the West?