Syria

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

I fully expect Obama to sit in front of a T.V camera and address the world with one hand under his chin and the words "Society, man, so-ci-e-ty", followed by a deep sigh and a forlorn look down the camera.

 

Bloody 'world done it'. Gutless.

Edited September 4, 2013 by CarewsEyebrowDesigner

[peterms]

Senate committee votes in favour of "changing momentum on the battlefield".  A long waty away from what was first proposed.  Surprise, surprise.  And clearly illegal under international law, not that this will detain them for an instant, as they are beyond the law.

 

 

Randy Weber, Republican of Texas, asks Hagel if he can guarantee that after all this is done there will be a stable Syria friendly to the United States.

Hagel pauses.

"I wouldn't guarantee anything," he says. "This is unpredictable, it's complicated, it's dangerous." He says the last three hours if anything else have demonstrated that there are no sure bets on Syria.

 

The imbecile is childlike in his question.  If we do what you say, daddy, will it all be ok?

 

The answer is more honest.  No, son, you're f*ck*d.

[Awol]

Senate committee votes in favour of "changing momentum on the battlefield".  A long waty away from what was first proposed.  Surprise, surprise.  And clearly illegal under international law, not that this will detain them for an instant, as they are beyond the law.

There is at least logic to that position though. Pick a side and do something. A punitive strike will achieve nothing so if there is to be a response to the CW attacks then it has to be decisive or it is pointless.

 

Just on the point you and others have raised about involving the Iranians in peace negotiations, how can they be more legitimate peace makers than for example the US, when they actually have IRGC fighters on the ground fighting for Assad and officers leading Syrian regular units- leaving aside that their proxies HZ are up to their necks in the fighting and are credited with actually turning the tide against the rebel forces? The Iranians haven't tried to hide the IRGC involvement and have held public funerals for their "martyrs" back home.

 

It does somewhat nullify the logic that that this is all stirred up by the west and if "we" stay out of it at least the Syrians are being left alone to sort out their own problems.

[chrisp65]

I haven't seen anyone that thinks it's just Syrians fighting.

 

In fact, use of terms like Syria and Iran probably indicate why many in the West clearly still don't understand what the hell is going on. Many years ago a bunch of europeans divvied up a chunk of the world into nation states without really understanding how it all worked out there. Now, a hundred years or so later, the descendants of those europeans are watching a hell of a bitch fight, haven't got a clue who started or what it's about and certainly don't know for sure which spectators will get involved if we try and step in and sort it out 'again'.

 

Yet feel strangely compelled to get stuck into the middle of it anyway to make sure everybody knows they are still in charge.

 

Let's use the money we'd spend on bombing and policing for 10 years on jobs in alternative fuels research.

[Awol]

Obviously don't disagree with you about the carve up of post Ottoman Arabia into artificial states, but Iran (Persia) doesn't fall into that bracket.

That doesn't alter the fact that Iran is being proposed in some quarters as a credible partner for peace negotiations, despite the fact they are a boots on the ground combatant in the war!

[tonyh29]

chrisp65, on 05 Sept 2013 - 06:45 AM, said:

 

Let's use the money we'd spend on bombing and policing for 10 years on jobs in alternative fuels research.

 

but we get the money back on the contracts we secure from the new regime to rebuild the country and the cheaper oil

 

fair better to stop spending dead money on unemployment benefit and the NHS which offer zero returns

[peterms]

Just on the point you and others have raised about involving the Iranians in peace negotiations, how can they be more legitimate peace makers than for example the US, when they actually have IRGC fighters on the ground fighting for Assad and officers leading Syrian regular units- leaving aside that their proxies HZ are up to their necks in the fighting and are credited with actually turning the tide against the rebel forces? The Iranians haven't tried to hide the IRGC involvement and have held public funerals for their "martyrs" back home.

 

It does somewhat nullify the logic that that this is all stirred up by the west and if "we" stay out of it at least the Syrians are being left alone to sort out their own problems.

 

I don't think the Iranians are more legitimate peacemakers than the US or any other country, but I do think they are as legitimate with regard to a peacekeeping role.  They are certainly more legitimate in terms of intervening in the conflict, since they plausibly see this as being about their own survival, where the US see it as expanding their global reach.

 

What kind of international intervention to reduce conflict would fail to recognise that Iran fears for its own future and therefore has interests which must be taken into account?

 

Simply, this intervention is not about reducing conflict and saving lives, it's about escalating conflict for regional and economic gain.

 

Any sensible intervention aimed at stopping the use of CWs would get Russia and Iran onside behind that aim (an aim which they share).  But this can't happen because the real aim of the US is removing the Syrian government in order to replace it with something which is amenable to US influence.   This is why I see the entire charade being played out in the US as an act of bad faith, pretending to be some sort of humanitarian concern when it is anything but.

[Awol]

Hang on, Iran is fighting inside Syria with its Al Quds forces on the side of those who (are most likely to) have used CW's!  How can a direct protagonist in a conflict take up a peacekeeping role and have even the remotest degree of credibility with the other side?

 

EDIT:  That's like saying Soviet Russia had a legitimate reason to get involved in the Hungarian uprising because it was defending a political ally - and therefore protecting its own interests.  

Edited September 5, 2013 by Awol

[bickster]

There is also a difference between putting something on the table in terms of brokering peace and a peacekeeping role. I fully understand that Iran can't be considered for a peacekeeping role but neither can the US for the exact same reasons

Also are we really thinking that the US doesn't already have personnel covertly on the ground already advising the "rebels".

What is the difference?

[tonyh29]

bickster, on 05 Sept 2013 - 11:28 AM, said:Also are we really thinking that the US doesn't already have personnel covertly on the ground already advising the "rebels".

 

 

not heard any reports of deaths by friendly fire so I'm not so sure about that ....

Edited September 5, 2013 by tonyh29

[peterms]

Hang on, Iran is fighting inside Syria with its Al Quds forces on the side of those who (are most likely to) have used CW's!  How can a direct protagonist in a conflict take up a peacekeeping role and have even the remotest degree of credibility with the other side?

 

EDIT:  That's like saying Soviet Russia had a legitimate reason to get involved in the Hungarian uprising because it was defending a political ally - and therefore protecting its own interests.  

 

A great many of the people fighting in Syria appear to be foreigners.  I expect the US has people in there as well as training the rebel groups.

 

Let's get away from this idea that the conflict is a civil war between Syrians loyal to Assad and Syrians who oppose him.  The opposition in particular is a collection of a very large number of groups and many nationalities (hence the line "How could they have used CWs against their own people" doesn't wash, but that's by the by).

 

The conflict is about the region, not about Syria only.  So yes, several of the countries which would need to be involved in any attempt at a political solution are protagonists. 

 

The issue is whether the aims of the parties are completely irreconcilable.  I'm not sure that al-Qaeda would be amenable to a political solution, for example.  And if the aim of US involvement is to move towards a position where it can more easily overthrow Iran as well, and get back to having a pliant dictator acting in western interests as it did before 1979, then again that may be something which cannot be agreeable to Iran and Russia.

 

Of course if the aim were to prevent the use of CWs, reduce the level of conflict and stem the flood of refugees as a starting point towards looking for a diplomatic solution about Syria which respects the rights of Syrians rather than the interests of other countries and corporations, then that's another matter.  That would be easier.  I don't think that's what the US is looking for.

[peterms]

Monsieur Hollande applies his searching, critical mind to his friend Barack's plans, and finds them agreeable.

 

[maqroll]

Great Article from The Daily Beast

 

 

Next week Congress can do far more than stop a feckless Tomahawk barrage on a small country that is already a graveyard of civil war and sectarian slaughter. By voting “no,” it can trigger the end of the American Imperium—five decades of incessant meddling, bullying, and subversion around the globe that has added precious little to national security but left America fiscally exhausted and morally diminished.

President Barack Obama meets with members of Congress in the cabinet room of the White House on September 3, 2013. (Pool photo by Dennis Brack)

Indeed, the tragedy of this vast string of misbegotten interventions—from the 1953 coup against Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran through the recent bombing campaign in Libya—is that virtually none of them involved defending the homeland or any tangible, steely-eyed linkages to national security. They were all rooted in ideology—that is, anti-communism, anti-terrorism, humanitarianism, R2P-ism, nation building, American exceptionalism. These were the historic building blocks of a failed Pax Americana. Now the White House wants authorization for the last straw: namely, to deliver from the firing tubes of U.S. naval destroyers a dose of righteous “punishment” that has no plausible military or strategic purpose. By the president’s own statements, the proposed attack is merely designed to censure the Syrian regime for allegedly visiting one particularly horrific form of violence on its own citizens.

Well, really? After having rained napalm, white phosphorous, bunker busters, drone missiles, and the most violent machinery of conventional warfare ever assembled upon millions of innocent Vietnamese, Cambodians, Serbs, Somalis, Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis, Yemeni, Libyans, and countless more, Washington now presupposes to be in the moral-sanctions business? That’s downright farcical. Nevertheless, by declaring himself the world’s spanker in chief, President Obama has unwittingly precipitated the mother of all clarifying moments.

The screaming strategic truth is that America no longer has any industrial state enemies capable of delivering military harm to its shores: Russia has become a feeble kleptocracy run by a loud-mouthed thief, and the Communist Party oligarchs in China would face a devastating economic collapse within months were they to attack their American markets for sneakers and Apples. So the real question now before Congress is, how is it possible that the peace-loving citizens of America, facing no industrial-scale military threat from anywhere on the planet, find themselves in a constant state of war? The answer is that they have been betrayed by the Beltway political class, which is in thrall to a vast warfare state apparatus that endlessly invents specious reasons for meddling, spying, intervention, and occupation.

There should be no $650 billion war machine with carrier battle groups and cruise missile batteries at the ready to tempt presidents to heed the advice of ideological fanatics like Power and Wolfowitz.

In pursuit of nothing more ennobling than raw self-perpetuation, the propaganda machinery of the warfare state—along with its media affiliates such as the War Channel (CNN) and the War Press (The Washington Post)—have over recent decades churned out a stream of vastly exaggerated “threats,” falsely transforming tin-pot dictators and tyrants like Ho Chi Minh, Daniel Ortega, Slobodan Milosevic, the Taliban, Ayatollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, and now Bashar al-Assad into dangerous enemies. At length, triggering incidents are concocted such as the phony Gulf of Tonkin episode, the Madison Avenue–based fabrications about Iraqi soldiers stealing babies from incubators in Kuwait, the vastly exaggerated claims of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, and Saddam’s reputed WMDs. Eventually, the drumbeat for military intervention is cranked to a fever pitch, and cable TV drives it home with nonstop telestrators and talking heads. Only after the fact, when billions in taxpayer resources have been squandered and thousands of American servicemen have been killed and maimed, do we learn that it was all a mistake, that the collateral destruction vastly exceeded the ostensible threat, and that there remains not a trace of long-term-security benefit to the American people.

Setting aside the self-evident catastrophes in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, even the alleged “good” interventions are simply not what they are cracked up to be by warfare state apologists. The 1991 Persian Gulf War, for instance, insured only that Saddam Hussein would not get the oil field revenues from what he claimed to be Iraq’s “19th province” so that he could fund projects to placate his 30 million deprived, abused, and restless citizens. Instead, the loot was retained for the benefit of the despicable Emir Al-Sabah IV and a few hundred gluttonous Kuwaiti princes.

Yet in the long run, “saving” the Kuwaiti regime and its unspeakably decadent opulence did not lower the world price of oil by a dime (Iraq would have produced every barrel it could). And it most surely subtracted from national security because it resulted in the permanent basing of 10,000 U.S. troops on Saudi soil. This utterly stupid and unnecessary provocation was the very proof that “infidels” were occupying Islamic holy lands—the principal leitmotif used by Osama bin Laden to recruit a few hundred fanatical jihadists and pull off the flukish scheme that became 9/11.

Likewise, the “triumph” of Kosovo is pure grist from the national security propaganda mill. The true essence of the episode was a mere swap-out among the ethnic cleansers: the brutal Serbian Army was expelled from Kosovo so that the Albanian thugs of the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army, which was on the terrorist list until it was mysteriously dropped in 1998) could liquidate minority Serbs and confiscate their property—a tragic routine that has been going on in the Balkans for centuries.

The recurrent phony narratives that generate these war-drum campaigns and then rationalize their disastrous aftermaths are rooted in a common structural cause: a vastly bloated war machine and national spying apparatus, the Imperial Presidency, and the house-trained lap-dogs that occupy the congressional intelligence, foreign affairs, and defense committees. This triangle of deception keeps the American public bamboozled with superficial propaganda and the media supplied with short bursts of reality TV when the Tomahawks are periodically let fly.

But it is the backbone of the permanent warfare-state bureaucracy that keeps the gambit going. Presidents come and go, but it is now obvious that virtually any ideological script—left or right—can be co-opted into service of the Imperium. The Obama White House’s preposterous drive to intervene in the Syrian tinderbox with its inherent potential for fractures and blowback across the entire Middle East is being ramrodded by the dogma of “responsibility to protect.” In that context, its chief protagonists—Susan Rice and Samantha Power—are the moral equivalent of Bush’s neocon hit men, Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz. In both cases, ideological agendas that have absolutely nothing to do with the safety of the American people were enabled to activate the awful violence of the American war machine mainly because it was there, marching in place waiting for an assignment.

And that truth encapsulates the inflection point now upon us. There should be no $650 billion war machine with carrier battle groups and cruise missile batteries at the ready to tempt presidents to heed the advice of ideological fanatics like Power and Wolfowitz. The cold war ended 25 years back, and like in 1919 and 1946 the American war machine should have been drastically demobilized and dismantled long ago; it should be funded at under $300 billion, not over $600 billion. The five destroyers today menacing the coast of Syria should have been mothballed, if not consigned to the scrap yard. No president need have worried about choosing sides among ethnic cleansers in Kosovo or Islamic sectarians in Syria because his available tool kit would have been to call for a peace conference in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, not a Tomahawk strike from warships in the eastern Mediterranean.

In this context, Barack Obama may yet earn his Nobel Peace Prize, owing to the Syria debate he has now unleashed. It will finally show that there is no threat to America’s security lurking behind the curtain in the Middle East—only a cacophony of internal religious, ethnic, tribal, and nationalist conflicts that will eventually burn themselves out. Rather than the “new caliphate” of Fox News’s demented imagination, the truth on the ground is that the Islamic world is enmeshed in a vicious conflict pitting the Shia axis of Iran, Syria, southern Iraq, and the Hezbollah-Lebanon corridor against the surrounding Sunni circle, which is nominally aligned with the Syrian rebels. Yet even the Sunni world is noisily fracturing, with Turkey and Qatar lined up with the Muslim Brotherhood and Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states aligned with the Egyptian generals. Meanwhile, Jordan cowers in the shadows.

The cowardly hypocrisy of the Arab League should tell the congressional rank-and-file all they need to know about why we should stay out of Syria and shut down the CIA-sponsored rebel training camp in Jordan through which Saudi arms, including chemical weapons according to some reports, are being interjected into the slaughter in Syria. If the Assad regime is truly an existential threat to regional peace and stability, let Saudi Arabia and Turkey take it out. After all, during the last several decades they have received a combined $100 billion in advanced aircraft, missiles, electronic warfare gear, and other weaponry from American arms merchants financed by the U.S. government.

Needless to say, the spineless Arab League/Saudi potentates who are now demanding “deterrence” never intend to do the job themselves, preferring to stealthily hold the coats of American mercenary forces instead. The truth is that at the end of the day, they find the threat of Iranian retaliation far more compelling than ending Assad’s brutality or building a pipeline through a prospective Sunni-controlled Syria to supply Qatar’s natural gas to European markets.

That leaves the need to dispatch the final and most insidious myth of the warfare state: namely, the lie that Iran is hell-bent on obtaining and using nuclear weapons. Even the CIA’s own intelligence estimates refute that hoary canard. And whatever the proper share of blame ascribable to each side for failed nuclear negotiations in the past, the Iranian people have once again freely elected a president who wishes to normalize relationships with the U.S. and its allies—notwithstanding the cruel and mindless suffering visited upon them by the West’s misbegotten economic “sanctions.” Indeed, if Obama had the wisdom and astuteness President Eisenhower demonstrated in going to Korea, he would be now headed for a peace conference table in Tehran, not the war room in the White House.

So let the sunshine in. Perhaps the unruly backbenchers on Capitol Hill will now learn that they have been sold out by their betters on the jurisdictional committees, such as knee-jerk hawks like Senators Feinstein and Menendez, who chair the key Senate committees, and Mike Rogers who chairs the House (alleged) Intelligence Committee. If they do, they will understand that the U.S. has no dog in the Middle East hunt, and that the wise course of action would be a thorough-going retreat and disengagement from the internecine conflicts of the Levant, North Africa, and the Persian Gulf, just as Ronald Reagan discovered after his nose was bloodied in Lebanon. But however the current debate specifically unfolds, the good news is that the world’s greatest deliberative body is now back in charge of American foreign policy. By longstanding historical demonstration, the U.S. Congress specializes in paralysis, indecision, and dysfunction. In the end, that is how the American warfare state will be finally brought to heel and why the American Imperium will come to an end—at last.

Edited September 5, 2013 by maqroll

[bickster]

Glad there are Americans who can still write and think like that

[chrisp65]

slightly odd moment on Newsnight

 

The Russian spokesapologist asked Emily Maitliss why they kept mentioning the 3 'proof' documents that said Assad did it but wouldn't ever mention the 100 page document on the rebels use of CW in Alepo.

 

The question / statement just didn't get a response, she just turned to the other guest and asked the next question. I'm not suggesting EM is part of any conspiracy, she just clearly didn't have a response.

[maqroll]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GJP3tKgmbI

[Kwan]

Please don't do it, Congress

[Awol]

Against my better judgement I spent 20 minutes yesterday watching a selection of the lovely youtube videos posted by supporters of each side in Syria that highlight each others atrocities. Not the chemical stuff, but the up close and personal, methodical and brutal torture of helpless people. The SAA, FSA and Jihadis are animals all. "Disturbing" isn't an adjective that does the images justice and it's reminiscent of Bosnia, although admittedly what we saw on TV from there was usually the aftermath, rather than the events themselves recorded by laughing psychopaths on 8 megapixel smart phones.

 

The hatred is extraordinary and it feels like you're watching the death of a country, with every ounce of decency and humanity wrung from it by the hands of madmen. The idea of these factions being reconciled is too incredible to contemplate. It's no wonder the world is choosing to turn away and say 'let them get on with it', because to engage with the reality is emotionally overwhelming.

 

I don't blame religion, or the US, Russians or Iranians, no force beyond the will of the individual can compel man to do that to man, or all too frequently, woman and child.  All I know is that if evil currently has an address then it's Syria, and for those (myself included) who have suggested that doing nothing is an option, please, spend 20 minutes doing what I did last night. If your conscience still thinks that non-intervention is an option then you're a harder hearted man than I.

 

EDIT: The irony that this puts me in the same camp as St. Tony Blair has not been missed..

Edited September 6, 2013 by Awol

[Electric Avenue]

Slight aside but Emily Maitliss is well fit.

[peterms]

Against my better judgement I spent 20 minutes yesterday watching a selection of the lovely youtube videos posted by supporters of each side in Syria that highlight each others atrocities. Not the chemical stuff, but the up close and personal, methodical and brutal torture of helpless people. The SAA, FSA and Jihadis are animals all. "Disturbing" isn't an adjective that does the images justice and it's reminiscent of Bosnia, although admittedly what we saw on TV from there was usually the aftermath, rather than the events themselves recorded by laughing psychopaths on 8 megapixel smart phones.

 

The hatred is extraordinary and it feels like you're watching the death of a country, with every ounce of decency and humanity wrung from it by the hands of madmen. The idea of these factions being reconciled is too incredible to contemplate. It's no wonder the world is choosing to turn away and say 'let them get on with it', because to engage with the reality is emotionally overwhelming.

 

I don't blame religion, or the US, Russians or Iranians, no force beyond the will of the individual can compel man to do that to man, or all too frequently, woman and child.  All I know is that if evil currently has an address then it's Syria, and for those (myself included) who have suggested that doing nothing is an option, please, spend 20 minutes doing what I did last night. If your conscience still thinks that non-intervention is an option then you're a harder hearted man than I.

 

EDIT: The irony that this puts me in the same camp as St. Tony Blair has not been missed..

 

It's pretty vile stuff.  But what they're doing to people is no worse than what "we" have supported through the use of drones, through kidnapping people and having them tortured in secret facilities overseas, through looking the other way while Israel burns children with white phosphorous.  The glee of the perpetrators is no different to what we see in the "Collateral Murder" video and the photos from Abu Grayib.

 

We don't tend to hear enough about the impact on people of these things.  We see the immediate devastation, the bodies, the bloody injuries.  What is also concerning but less photogenic is the mental state of the survivors.  During the Troubles, some work was done on the impact on children of being brought up in an atmosphere of fear and tension.  We also know something about the effect of atrocities in desensitising people, or making them more accepting of further violence, or motivating some of them to do the same to others, in much the same way as many child abusers were themselves abused as children.

 

I was struck by a photo I saw of a boy whose mother had been killed, who drew a crude picture of her and lay down next to it to sleep.  What will he be like in a few years time?  A quiet depressive?  A bitter and cruel man?  A radicalised fighter?  Who knows.

 

Western intervention fuels this stuff, and we propose more of the same.  The only solution is political.  Yes, it's immensely hard to see the different factions living side by side (though removing the Saudi jihadists would be one small contribution).  It was likewise hard to imagine reconciliation on Ireland and South Africa, but it's been more successful than we might have feared.  The very first step is to reduce the level of conflict; our elected representatives are intent on ramping it up.