The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Some Random Thoughts on Syria

    By A Guy Called LULU on Tue, 04/30/2013 - 4:51pm |

    I assume that Assad has constructed a golden parachute. He could bail out and land in a well feathered nest in any one of several countries. But, if he did so, his minority tribe would almost certainly lose and suffer terrible retribution. So far Assad is hanging tough and so are his followers. We often bandy the term, "existential threat" lightly, but there are many people fighting for the very life of their families, themselves, and their country as they know it.

    Every bad thing we have been told about Assad may well be true but it seems apparent that he has a measure of loyalty to those who are depending on him and the personal courage to risk his own skin in the game he has both been a part of creating but also one that he has been forced upon him largely by outsiders who can and do change the rules, move the goal posts, give and then retract support with the shifting winds, propagandize against him as well as blatantly lie, and are at least as willing as him to cheat, torture, and kill. It is far past any time when he could be called the most brutal leader. Or the most callous. Or the most devious. Or, the biggest liar.  At  the worst he is an also-ran contender for any spot high in the hierarchy of evil. It is not a defense of brutality, or of Assad as a individual, to say that from his perspective he is dealing with "others" and that like most everyone everywhere he seems willing when able to rain hell or his tribe's enemies who are the "other" to them.

    The Great Game is an ironically appropriate name given to the whole damned mess by those who play from a safe distance with the internal psychic comfort of knowing that they have nothing to lose. Not even their jobs, much less than their health or their life. Not even if what they propose is completely unjustified based on the evidence, is completely wrong, even if not in principle but in execution when judged based on ethical and moral values,  and is completely stupid if judged as a pragmatic solution to sreal problems. Not even if the direct results of what they preach is massive death and destruction.

    It is very likely that serin gas has been used in Syria. Virtually all the news is reported and analyzed as if it was a known fact that The Syrian government made a choice to do this and is the party responsible. I have been seeing and hearing this asserted for a while now along with slight equivocations by a few that it is not known with any certainty WHO used the serin, they don't offer in the same breath any alternative to Assad that I have heard other than possibly rogue elements of Assad's forces. From there, the discussion immediately goes to whether and how the U.S. should react. Not much about whether we should get further involved, just whether we should supply more weapons or inflict a no-fly zone. The only thing ruled  out so far , all options being on the table, is American boots on the  ground. Very few of the mongers, regardless their motives, give a flying fuck about the soldiers who would be in those boots, they just realize that it is now a political  liability to propose such a thing even as they push actions which will increase the chance of that very outcome.  Real men, as the twits see themselves, are not quite ready to openly advocate sending troops to Syria even if that was once their openly espoused idea to be implemented as soon as the pawn units were freed up to leave Tehran.

    Going about my day I hear snippets of news, mostly on NPR, about this crisis. I have heard almost nothing to suggest that the use of serin even might have been a false-flag operation. This in a war which has seen the areas of control by the various groups, way more than two, move forward and back over much of their geography and therefore back and forth over many military installations. Weapons of all sorts may nave been captured.  Weapons are also being supplied by outside interests to the anti-Assad forces.

    Maybe you, the reader, are biased in the direction of believing that false flag operations are rare and not a likely answer as to who popped the serin in Syria. I certainly haven't heard that possibility voiced by any U.S. spokesman or mainstream pundit, whether a war monger or not, as even a possibility much less a more likely plausibility. So, it is not even a part of the speculation to even be considered as a possibility obscured by the fog of war which over and over retroactively immunizes so many mongers from responsibility for their wrong conclusions.

    Of course, the mongers would not want a false-flag event to be considered because it plays to their hand and pundits of most any stripe would not want to possibly implicate any side which they might support, and if it was a false-flag incident then there is an abundance of usual suspects, all of which could be blamed with "credible plausibility". Everyone who has a dog in this fight knows of an entity on that same dogs side that would be willing and able to carry out or arrange such a incident if it served their purposes. Why would they suggest that even their good guys might have done this bad thing. Lets just keep it simple.  One enemy, Assad, and one way of dealing with him, military defeat at the hands of short term proxies if at all possible.

    If Assad chooses to use a tiny amount of the weapon in an insignificant battle, then knowledge of that choice will bring him great harm. If a unit of Assad's opposition chooses to use the weapon against their own members or, more likely, against other opposition groups whom they oppose or even hate and will be fighting against for control if Assad is finally defeated, then the chance of increased military aid in their fight is greatly increased as long as Assad is believed to be the culprit.   

    It seems to me that Assad and his power group have everything to lose and nothing to gain at this point by using a deadly weapon which would unite most of the world in opposition to them.

    Syria has an airforce which can rain plenty of hell, even much more than it already has, within its own borders and an air defense system which can make it extremely costly for the U.S. to attempt to impose a no-fly zone in an attempt to pick a winner in Syria's civil war.                                                                                               

    Comments

    The only thing ruled  out so far , all options being on the table, is American boots on the  ground...

    Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is proposing 'boots on the ground':

    Graham calls for boots on the ground in Syria

    Obama is wisely doing nothing but humanitarian aid. Meanwhile Qatar and Saudi Arabia are sending money and weapons to the Jihadists in Syria, while executing them at home.

    The say that Syria is more ethnically complex than Iraq.  We have seen what $2 trillion, 10 years of war/occupation/elections and a million casualties has accomplished in Iraq.

    Or how billions in arms aid has made Pakistan a 'trusted friend' and 'democracy', only slightly less corrupt than the most corrupt 'democracy' in the world, Afghanistan, where we have been for 12 years.

    Let the Syrians themselves, or the nations in the region and Persian Gulf work it out. Or Europe. We had our try at remaking the Middle East and it was a total fiasco.


    by NCD on Tue, 04/30/2013 - 7:59pm

    Your point about the rush to judgment is well-taken, but your assessment of Assad borders on apologia. An "also-ran contender in the hierarchy of evil?" What is this an NBA tourney? And what does his relative degree of evilness have to with our obligation to intervene? People are dying by the tens of thousands in Syria. If there is reason get involved--and I do not say that there is--that is the reason. Not Assad's culpability.

    As for courage (assuming the regime would even let him leave), Assad's "courage" has damned his tribe a cataclysm. If the rebels win and exact retribution on the Alawites--killing and oppressing them the way they have killed and oppressed their countrymen--then it will because Assad and his regime ignored every opportunity for a peaceful settlement since the dawn of the Arab Spring. They will suffer because they refused to relinquish their corrupt and despotic power, and they went to war on their own people to keep it. Yeah sure, courage.


    by Michael Wolraich on Tue, 04/30/2013 - 10:37pm

    I intended no apology for, or defense of, Assad when stating that he did not stand out among evil dictators. Saying that is hardly calling him a good guy.  I was mostly commenting on the nature of the news we hear about that conflict and suggesting it be taken with some healthy grains of salt.

    And what does his relative degree of evilness have to with our obligation to intervene?

    That sentence is a bit ambiguous and could be read several ways. It could be seen as assuming the premise that we are, in fact, obligated to intervene or conversely that it is still an open question but whether Assad is a little evil or a lot doesn’t enter into it. Only the fact that thousands are dying is relevant to our obligation to intervene, you say, but you also quickly say that you are not suggesting we should intervene. Kinda confusing.

    People are dying by the tens of thousands in Syria. If there is reason get involved--and I do not say that there is--that is the reason. Not Assad's culpability.

    We are heavily involved already. Assad’s alleged culpability in using WMD to do some of his killing is certainly being bandied about as a reason to openly and directly intervene. If that action actually should be and is a red line with war as a consequence of crossing then don’t you agree that it is important to look critically at the evidence that it actually happened as we are being told? Hasn’t recent history given us plenty of reasons to be sceptical?

     I was not using courage as a quality which can only be demonstrated while doing good deeds.
    My suggestion that Assad was showing some courage was using the word as the opposite of cowardice.

     If the rebels win and exact retribution on the Alawites--killing and oppressing them the way they have killed and oppressed their countrymen--then it will because Assad and his regime ignored every opportunity for a peaceful settlement since the dawn of the Arab Spring.
     
    That doesn’t sound borderline apologizing, it looks like clear unambiguous pre-apologia for the rebels vengeance [killing or worse] because when they begin their slaughter it will be a case of the losers having had it coming? They did it first. Turn turn turn.

    They will suffer because they refused to relinquish their corrupt and despotic power, and they went to war on their own people to keep it.

    And, as I said in several ways above, the rebels do not consider themselves to be “His [Assad’s] own people and Assad does not either any more than Saddam considered the Kurds to be his own people when  he waged war against them.  And do you predict that if the rebels win they will form a non-corrupt, non-despotic government? One that respects human rights?  
     


    by LULU (not verified) on Wed, 05/01/2013 - 2:24am

    I do not say that we should get involved--as in arming and bombing--because I suspect that it will do more harm than good. If I believed that U.S. bombing could bring peace and a viable Syrian state, then I would support it.

    I would support it not because we must bring Assad to justice. Punishing bad guys is a moronic reason to engage in war--one that that plays too large a role in simple-minded excuses (read Saddam Hussein). When we engage in war, we should do it only when it is certain avert a greater tragedy.

    For that reason, Syria's use of chemical weapons is relevant not because any use of chemical weapons is a crime but because of the danger that the regime will engage in widespread chemical attacks. That would be a tragedy too terrible to stand by and watch. If we become certain that such attacks are happening on a wide-scale--and I agree with you that we are not at all certain of that at this point--then I would support U.S. involvement.

    As for Syria's prospects of a better state, they are poor and getting poorer everyday, and I am terribly afraid for the fate the of the Alawite civilians if the rebels win. I will certainly denounce the rebels if they exact retribution, just as I now denounce the regime, but that does not absolve the regime of its responsibility for creating this mess. Had Assad stepped down at the beginning, Syria would have been much more likely to achieve stability and democracy. But Assad (or his regime) chose not to do that. They have spent the last fifty years clinging to power by any means necessary. To suggest that in the last two years, they have changed to a "courageous" stance of protecting their people is load of crap.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 05/01/2013 - 10:48am

      You obviously did not accept my short, simple explanation as to my usage of the word 'courage'. I used it as a synonym for bravery. It seems to offend you that a person could be said to be acting bravely if the act in question is done for the side of the conflict you are currently against.  
    Here is a load of crap from Wikipedia:
    "Courage is the ability to confront fear, pain, danger, uncertainty, or intimidation. Physical courage is courage in the face of physical pain, hardship, death, or threat of death, while moral courage is the ability to act rightly in the face of popular opposition, shame, scandal, or discouragement."    

    I suggested that Assad is demonstrating the first kind of courage and thought my short explanation would make that, and  the fact that I was not proclaiming him any kind of hero, clear. You seem to reject that that kind of courage is possible unless the second kind, 'moral courage' is also a part of whatever act is being judged. By that standard we would need to wait a long time to decide if any of the rebels are acting bravely when they risk their life fighting against Assad's forces. Or maybe we can call the rebel fighters 'brave' now or courageous, but if they win and do not go on to meet our standards as stewards of the resulting government can we, should we, then retroactively determine that they were acting cowardly when they fought. I have seen people in combat do things which I call brave. I say it requires courage to act bravely. It also happens that I believe they were on the wrong side in the war they were fighting. I do not accept that it is a load of crap to believe that what I witnessed was courageous.  I have not, will not, change my mind since learning that we were in the wrong to be where we were, doing what we were doing, that those actions I witnessed should now be considered cowardly. Misguided yes, misguided by leaders putting out a load of crap, but not cowardly.                              
      I do believe that moral courage is often harder to live up to than physical courage but that is beside the point.
     That is all the bickering I expect do on that particular subject, keep to your exclusive definition if you want.

    As to things I suggested that you ignored, no one is arguing that the use of chemical weapons is not significant. Do you reject the idea that rebels most likely have captured some of those weapons?  Do you find it easy to believe that Assad would use serin stupidly but that it is beyond the pale to suspect that the rebels would use serin in an obviously affective attempt to further their goals. Is there any country which is involved in any way for which you absolutely reject the  idea that regardless which side used the chemical weapon they would attempt to blame  the  side which they opposed.
     If, stress on the word 'if', Obama suspected or even knew that rebel forces had used the serin would you expect him to come out and say that our guys, the side we are supporting and may be willing to go to war with, had [even possibly] used the serin to game us like idiots so that we would actively join in and begin killing their enemies for them?  Some reports suggest that Assad's forces are winning without the use of serin or other WMD. If so, which side would be more desperate? To the same extent that the administration feels the need to justify supporting Assad's enemies they would not want to advertise any horrible crimes committed by his enemies. Maybe that explains three or four caveats in every sentence uttered by Obama on this subject. Also, should Obama himself be cautious about the intelligence he receives and how he acts on it?  I do not trust that all of his advisors up and down the line are even intellectually honest and I bet he doesn't either.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            


    by A Guy Called LULU on Wed, 05/01/2013 - 1:36pm

    And furthermore ...smiley

    If I believed that U.S. bombing could bring peace and a viable Syrian state, then I would support it.


    And I believe that if the death penalty worked and could be employed fairly against the right people I would support it. The right people to make the death penalty work so as to be justifiable though are not the ones constantly yammering to use it.  But, I take your point and as I understand it I agree with it.  

          I would support it not because we must bring Assad to justice. Punishing bad guys is a moronic reason to engage in war--one that that plays too large a role in simple-minded excuses (read Saddam Hussein). When we engage in war, we should do it only when it is certain avert a greater tragedy.     

     To point out the obvious, punishing Saddam  for wrongdoing was just the lie we were told to justify a war fought for other motives. Far too many of us  believed it. We did go to war. We were burned then and its getting pretty warm now. And good luck on ever having certainty about expected results.    

         Had Assad stepped down at the beginning, Syria would have been much more likely to achieve stability and democracy. But Assad (or his regime) chose not to do that. They have spent the last fifty years clinging to power by any means necessary. To suggest that in the last two years, they have changed to a "courageous" stance of protecting their people is load of crap.    

     Syria had relative stability for a long time. Just like Egypt did, but Egypt's leader lost the support of 'his own  people' and so lost his leadership. Those that are now fighting on Assad's side are the ones that can be accurately called, 'his people'.  They still support him.  His people are fighting for what they see as an existential threat. Of course they are fighting to protect themselves and their families. I do not think that Assad's 'regime' could have held his forces together in a unified resistance to the insurgency even in the beginning if they had wanted to take a different route. Now there is not an easy out for anyone.  It is reported that the Christians caught up in that mess have thrown their lot in with Assad too.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               


    by A Guy Called LULU on Wed, 05/01/2013 - 2:20pm

    Syria was no more likely to evolve peaceably then as it is now - the same radical elements would have popped out of the woodwork quickly, even if we didn't take notice, or were over-optimistic for an easier Libyan-style overthrow.


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 05/01/2013 - 3:36pm

    Nasrallah just added fuel to the Shia vs. Sunni angle. I wonder how a whole lot of people outside Syria and Lebanon are taking what he said. Like Iraqis in their current situation. Or Putin. I especially wonder what American Neo-Con plotters of the Bush era think about the Great Satan coalition now including not just America and Israel but Takfiri groups, didn't exactly expect that, I suspect, to say the least.


    by artappraiser on Wed, 05/01/2013 - 12:35am

    IRNA's website has Nasrallah's speech as its headline story right now, with the new Great Satan trinity in the headline:

    Nasrallah: Syria won’t fall in US, Israel, Takfiri hands

    Beirut, May 1, IRNA -- Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah delivered a televised speech on Tuesday in which he tackled topics related to the Israeli enemy, the Syrian crisis, and Hezbollahˈs fighters as well as martyrs.

    Yes you can kill Takfiris with drones allover the place, and lock others of them up in Caribbean shitholes or maximum security prisons, and still be considered their allies by some people....

    Here's Al Jazeera's take on it, which some do consider the voice of the Qatari powers-that-be.


    by artappraiser on Wed, 05/01/2013 - 12:56am

     Thanks for the links.

    Yes you can kill Takfiris with drones allover the place, and lock others of them up in Caribbean shitholes or maximum security prisons, and still be considered their allies by some people....

    Would you expand or otherwise clarify that statement a bit for me,please?


    by LULU (not verified) on Wed, 05/01/2013 - 2:30am

      I hope we stay out of it, although I'm afraid the chemical weapons--the president's "red line"-- may lead Obama to send in the bombers to save face.


    by Aaron Carine on Wed, 05/01/2013 - 6:55am

    Everyone who has a dog in this fight knows of an entity on that same dogs side that would be willing and able to carry out or arrange such a incident if it served their purposes. Why would they suggest that even their good guys might have done this bad thing. Lets just keep it simple.

    One random thought is that for many in the pundit media world, and in society at-large, there is a kind of WWII Axis Syndrome.  Even in the messy world of the Middle East, we still want to believe that there are essentially two sides to the issue, which then allows for one to be labeled the "good" and the other "bad."  We just don't deal well with shades of gray. 


    by Elusive Trope on Wed, 05/01/2013 - 12:43pm

    Interesting post Lulu.  

    Here's what I think.  The international community, if it were ready and prepared, would be more than justified in intervening to stop the back and forth genocide going on in Syria and under our noses.  I don't like the thought of the U.S. acting alone, but I also think President Obama screwed up by announcing a red line he now appears to be backing off from.  That's not good policy-making.

    As to Assad, he is not courageous and he is not brave, and that is not just because of what is going on in Aleppo and all around the country.  Assad inherited his title and now runs a dictatorship led by he and his fellow Alawites who as you suggest, would face hardship or more were they to lose the iron grip control of the government.  But Assad is nothing more than the kid who took over when Daddy died and he's just doing what he understands he must do to avoid losing the allegiance of those, particularly those leaders in the Alawite community, that depend on a status quo.  That ain't brave or courageous in my book.

    Syria, of course, is the product of the post-WWI kabookey treaties establishing arbitrary nation-states based principally on the interests of the British, the French, perhaps the Russians to some extent, and the locals in the various "nation-states" who had the ear of the victors in the war to end all wars.  Syria is a hodgepodge, a mishmash of what France resigned itself to, as it had its eyes on more territory in the Levant.  It has been kept together by one dictatorship after another since that time.

    Put all this together, and ultimately there are no sound solutions.  Whoever takes over from Assad is not rekindling what was to be an Arab spring.  So then we face an international situation in the year 2013, where people are dying from poison gas--boys and girls.  If not now, when?  I don't know how to answer that question without acknowledging the shortcoming of any solutions involving intervention from abroad.

    But on the other hand, and on a practical note, I disagree with you about the strength of Syria's air defense capability.  I believe that the United States and its allies would take about 24 hours or less to eliminate any threats to its aircraft from Syria, on the ground or in the air.  I'm not sure why you would think that is not the case, but Syria has never, ever shown any ability to halt strikes from Israel, for example, and now has a far less reliable friend in Russia in terms of arms shipments in Russia (as compared to Syria and the USSR during the Cold War).

    So, I guess, why not a no-fly zone if it saves babies?  

     


    by Bruce Levine on Thu, 05/02/2013 - 3:05pm

    Thanks for the thoughtful response. I thought I was through with explaining anything more about my use of the word, "courage", but it seems to continue to dominate the reaction to what I wrote. Sorry to quote myself and repeat so much of what I have already said, but here goes.

    My first two Sentences:
                    I assume that Assad has constructed a golden parachute. He could bail out and land in a well feathered nest in any one of several countries.
    This has been a common occurrence in the past when a dictator had run out his string. Even if,  my assumption was wrong, it seemed to me to clearly establish a context where the premise ratifies my soon to follow statement:
    Every bad thing we have been told about Assad may well be true but it seems apparent that he has a measure of loyalty to those who are depending on him and the personal courage to risk his own skin in the game he has both been a part of creating but also ....
    Then:
    At  the worst he is an also-ran contender for any spot high in the hierarchy of evil. It is not a defense of brutality, or of Assad as a individual, to say that from his perspective he is dealing with "'others" and that like most everyone everywhere he seems willing when able to rain hell on his tribe's enemies who are the "'other" to him.

    OK, either he is the very worst, most evil dictator ever, or he isn't. I'm betting that if you were put on the spot you could come up with one that you considered to be worse in about a half a second. So, I figure putting him as an also ran high among the ranks of evil leaders is far from a compliment.
    You said:
    As to Assad, he is not courageous and he is not brave, and that is not just because of what is going on in Aleppo and all around the country.

    I understand the courage is a word almost always applied to someone that is admired and/or did something that is admired. The word "courageous", your word but one which I did not use, actually is  loaded much more heavily with collateral complimentary intent. The thing is though, if a person risks life and limb when they could avoid it, if they do it out of loyalty to their tribe, they have by definition done something brave. A synonym for brave is courage. If the words "brave" and "courage" are wrong to use even when the caveats which erase the usual connotation are expressed in several ways, I hope that you, or anyone else reading this, will offer  suggestions or examples of how I could have otherwise better expressed that thought. Seriously, that is not just intended just as a rebuttal, I'd like to know and it could be an interesting diversion. 
    You said:
                 Put all this together, and ultimately there are no sound solutions.  Whoever takes over from Assad is not rekindling what was to be an Arab spring.  So then we face an international situation in the year 2013, where people are dying from poison gas--boys and girls.  If not now, when? [presumably you mean if not now intervention, the leftist Orwellian word for war] I don't know how to answer that question without acknowledging the shortcoming of any solutions involving intervention from abroad.

    Syria is a lot different going way back than Egypt for instance and even there, where the Arab Spring looked so much more hopeful, it now is beginning to look like their Spring has sprung. Syria seems to never have been likely to be part of what "The Arab Spring" early on encouraged us to hope for.
     The Syrian rebels have no doubt been given reason to revolt, they can be considered justified I guess. Maybe there is justification for the many foreign fighters who have gone there to help overthrow Assad. And OK, Assad is evil, I know, I hear it everywhere, and he has got no complaint coming if he loses his ass and all its fixtures, but I have no reason to put the rebels on any higher plain just because they have been stomped on in the past and I very much doubt they will create anything less overloaded with the same evils as those of Assad if they win.  Has our experience in Iraq and Afghanistan taught us how to successfully nation-build?  Could we influence Syria enough in a way to make anything significantly better? Is it reasonable to start such an effort with bombs? Can bombing and then flying away possibly be a smart thing to do?

    http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8900491/a-corrupted-revolution/

     

    So, I guess, why not a no-fly zone if it saves babies?

    Yeah, if.
    I skimmed a few google entries and there is a lot of agreement, though certainly not universal, that Syria air defenses would be defeated, but none so optimistic as your 24 hour bet and none suggesting it could be accomplished without a very large commitment. One thing noted was the concentration around cities and other strategic positions which left significant gaps through the country and which at least partly explained the success of low level incursions directed at isolated individual targets in the past. It will be a completely different tactical situation if we attempt creating a no-fly-zone, which in Libya included not just aircraft and anti-aircraft defenses, but most any military target that they saw. It would be ghoulish to actually bet on expected U.S. aircraft losses should we decide to rule from above, unless maybe you were a pentagon war-game analyst, but what the hell, in case it happens I'll take the overs and set the line of lost aircraft at six and the time until friendly skies at 12 days. I don't want to guess at how many babies we will kill in the process.

     I agree, there aint no easy way out.
     


    by A Guy Called LULU on Thu, 05/02/2013 - 8:41pm

    Juan Cole, I guess considered the liberal middle east expert, claims the large number of anti aircraft batteries are located in populated areas. To create a no fly zone we'd have to take them out and there would be large numbers of civilians killed.

    http://www.juancole.com/2013/05/doesnt-intervene-syria.html

    Sen. John McCain argues for an aerial intervention, which more or less worked in Libya. But Syria is not like Libya in any way.

    Syria’s weapons depots, tanks and artillery are not out in some desert where they can be bombed with few casualties. They are in the cities. Bombing them would kill a lot of innocent civilians. Even just trying to take out the large number of anti-aircraft batteries (the essential first step of any aerial intervention) would be very costly in lives.

     


    by ocean-kat on Fri, 05/03/2013 - 5:23am

    Cole says on the Obama administration's approach that Olivier Knox gets this story right, in part because he asked experienced Washington, D.C. insiders.

    Another "experienced D.C. insider," David Ignatius, elaborated on May 1:

    Obama bets big on Syrian rebel leader; excerpt:

    This willingness to work with Russia and “reconcilable” Syrian generals is one reason the administration likes Idriss. President Obama continues to believe that a political settlement, brokered with Moscow’s help, is preferable to a rebel military victory, and he discussed Syria on Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    Idriss is emphatic about his break from the al-Nusra Front, which is an offshoot of al-Qaeda in Iraq. “We don’t work with al-Nusra. We don’t share anything with them.” He said fighters from the extremist group had fought alongside some of his battalions, “but they were not invited.”

    A U.S. official agreed Tuesday that there was “a growing reluctance” among Idriss’s mainstream umbrella group to work with al-Nusra, especially after the jihadist front formally pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda in Iraq a few weeks ago. “Al-Nusra’s gains haven’t been arrested, but their progress has been decelerated,” said the U.S. official.

    Goes into some detail about what the administration is willing to supply and do and what they aren't. The overarching message from Ignatius, though, is that they consider doing even these things to be risky.


    by artappraiser on Fri, 05/03/2013 - 1:10pm

    For over 30 years I've been asking the same question about these conflicts. If we kick out or  help to kick out the government that's there who will take their place and will they be better or worse? Back when our guy on the ground, a nonentity named Osama Bin Laden, was trying to kick the Russians out of Afghanistan and most Americans were excited that "we" were beating the Russians I asked that question. I asked it about Iraq and Egypt, now in Syria, and numerous conflicts in between. Honestly, bad as Hussein was I wonder if things are better or worse in Iraq now that he's gone. I wonder the same about Egypt and Mubarak.

    At least, finally, in considering Syria some people in our government are asking that question too and being a little careful about what type of weapons we dump into a country and who we give them to..


    by ocean-kat on Fri, 05/03/2013 - 3:14pm

       In hindsight, helping the Afghans fight off the Soviets doesn't seem as good as it did at the time, but letting the Soviets have Afghanistan was also a pretty crumby option.

     

      I've heard that there is dispute over whether Bin Laden and other foreign fighters in Afghanistan were getting aid from the CIA, or if the aid was going to Afghans only.


    by Aaron Carine (not verified) on Fri, 05/03/2013 - 9:09pm

    Yes, the problem with so many of these conflicts is there's nothing but pretty crumby options.


    by ocean-kat on Sat, 05/04/2013 - 12:39am

    Huh? Getting the Russians bogged down in Afghanistan wasn't a good thing, greater than anything we could have hoped for, or worth a pesky fly like Osama bin Laden run around?

    First, Soviet Union - huge, powerful, recently increased to 4000 nuke warheads, biochemical weapons, from what I recall still controlled East Europe & Central Asia at the time we were donating a few weapons to ObL, in fact Helsinki Agreement had codified the Soviet's sphere of control.

    The Brezhnev Doctrine was reversed following the invasion of Afghanistan, resulting in non-intervention of troops in Poland, a more limited foreign policy than the one that had pushed a coup in Yemen and helped the Cubans wage war in Angola.

    If 9/11 hadn't have happened (i.e. if Bush hadn't won/stolen 2000), we wouldn't even be having this discussion, and the main reason 9/11 was so bad was the stupid overreactions in Iraq, horrid excesses in the Mideast and in our depriving ourselves of rights.

    If we have approached it as a more rallying call for rapprochement in the Mideast, pitted the old holdouts against the new vanguard, and dealt with the situation as much through police actions & foreign aid, we would have had considerable less annoyance & more success. (Even ETA, IRA, Qaddafi all changed their story quickly post-9/11 - how we threw that success away)

    But any of this annoyance pales compared to what even a minor war against Brezhnev's army.  And extremely strange, the main reason of that annoyance is that we didn't learn the lesson for ourselves that we helped teach Brezhnev.

    The invasion of Afghanistan could have lasted 6 months-1 year and been done - set up a new puppet government, give them proper warnings to behave within certain limits, including keep out Al Qaeda, and left. IEDs aren't the same as intercontinental ballistic missiles, and if we weren't in Afghanistan or Iraq, they wouldn't have affected us at all. We punked ourselves. But arming ObL in Afghanistan remains one of our most clever military moves ever.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 05/04/2013 - 8:36am

      Would 9/11 and the other attacks have happened if Al Qaeda hadn't acquired a base in Afghanistan? I'd bet they wouldn't. Also, things were just as bad for the Afghans after the Soviets left--continual war and massacre from 1989-1996, then the dreadful era of the Taliban.

      I doubt if Afghanistan was the reason the Soviets didn't intervene directly in Poland. Their client regime in Poland was already doing as good a job of repression as the Soviets could have done.

      As for the question of what should have been done after 9/11, I supported the Afghan war at first, but I have a lot more doubts now. But the overthrow of the Taliban did save hundreds of thousands of children, by reducing the mortality rate.


    by Aaron Carine (not verified) on Sat, 05/04/2013 - 11:09am

    Al Qaeda got a base in Afghanistan after ObL was pushed out of Sudan, in the late 90's. This is pretty irrelevant to discussions of Russian invasian of Afghanistan.

    Re: the lack of Russian invasion of Poland, yes, historical records note Russian leadership reluctance to go in based on being bogged down in Afghanistan. Jaruzelski's claims of having to impose martial law to keep out the Russians has taken a hit with further review of documents. In short, the Russians lost their appetite for direct military action after Afghanistan turned out a crapper rather than an easy win.

    Since Andropov was the one who pushed the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and as Brezhnev's replacement saw it as a mistake and wished to reverse it, this isn't even that controversial.

    As for our invasion of Afghanistan, I supported it and still do, not that there weren't possibly other ways of dealing with it. But never supported staying - get in, get out, quit fucking about as they say. But I'm not going to buy into this thing about Taliban & mortality rate. By that standard, we should be overthrowing Eritrea and Somalia and North Korea et al. Meanwhile, our 50+ useless embargo of Cuba goes on, with how many child casualties, not even getting into Iraq & others?


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 05/05/2013 - 11:55am

       Bin Laden wouldn't have gotten a base in Afghanistan if the Soviets hadn't been driven out of the country. That makes driving them out less pleasing.

      Iraq and Cuba are irrelevant to what's been done or not done in Afghanistan. We weren't attacked by Eritrea, Somalia, or North Korea, and anyway, I doubt if invading those countries would save more lives than it took.(and another invasion of North Korea would mean another war with China, perhaps a nuclear one)


    by Aaron Carine on Sun, 05/05/2013 - 3:50pm

    1) Too much "what if" - ObL wouldn't have fled to Afghanistan if we hadn't driven him out of Sudan - maybe we shouldn't have? ObL's training camps had little to do with 9/11 - all that was about getting funding to a handful of guys in the US. He could have done it from Belgium or Spain or Cyprus if discrete enough - I've never seen anything that showed a whole lot of centralized control was required. Meanwhile, if we hadn't bogged the Russians down in Afghanistan, they might have eventually found their warm water port via Pakistan, or  simply had more energy to put troops in Nicaragua or Yemen or worse, enter the Iraq-Iran war as a military partner, or strengthened their presence in East Europe to avoid the fall of the Wall. As it was, we got a terrorist group that's never controlled a country known for killing maybe 10,000 overall, vs. a communist system known for killing perhaps 20 to 50 million and occupying say 1/4 of the world at one point. 

    2) you brought up the malnutrition bit as a justification. We've seen Laura Bush suddenly figure out the plight of women when it came to the Taliban's burqas, as an excuse for invasion, but didn't seem to notice women getting raped en masse by the Congo's notorious militias during the war that killed up to 5 million under her husband's watch, nor the 2nd class position of women under the government of "Bandar Bush". These positions on rescue and human rights are notoriously fungible under the real politik bunch - always an excuse why X matters here but not there.

     


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 05/06/2013 - 2:13am

    Real News has a video interview worth watching. The theory it lays out has been around a while but lately seems to be gaining a lot of credence. 1st three minutes makes the claim but the rest is worth watching for those interested.

    http://warincontext.org/2013/05/03/video-u-s-syria-policy-promotes-endle...


    by A Guy Called LULU on Fri, 05/03/2013 - 4:05pm

    There is this one too. Three perspectives well represented. The hippy wins again.

    http://warincontext.org/2013/05/03/hezbollahs-role-in-syria/


    by A Guy Called LULU on Fri, 05/03/2013 - 6:28pm

    Bush Official: Syria Chemical Weapons Attack Could Be “Israeli False Flag Operation”

    http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/05/bush-official-syria-chemical-weap...


    by A Guy Called LULU on Sat, 05/04/2013 - 1:06pm

    This is the kind of stuff that makes me cringe, and I don't mean to direct this at you, but rather at Wilkerson's speculation without context.  He also suggests it could be the rebels by the way.  But the point is that the context is that Israel has absolutely no reason whatsoever to favor the rebels in Syria--any rebel group--over the almost uninterrupted stability it has had on its Syrian border since 1973.  The notion that Israel for some reason wants to get rid of Assad in exchange for an unknown is preposterous on its face.  What Israel is concerned about is the transfer of Syrian munitions to Hezbollah in Lebanon, but that is a far cry from Israel ignoring its own fundamental security because Assad, a paper tiger at most, says bad things about zionism now and then.  Wilkerson's dog just doesn't hunt, as a matter of reality, stark reality.

    So then the question becomes in my mind anyway is whether Wilkerson's speculation takes hold and then by whom.  I've seen this movie before. . .when in doubt, "suggest" the Hebes.


    by Bruce Levine on Sat, 05/04/2013 - 2:41pm

    I must admit I am puzzled by the whole reason for any Americans to worry passionately about this. We've got a president still strongly expressing doubt about it, without making the boner that Wilkerson did of suggesting possible perps and agendas, including "the hebes" one.

    Not to mention a president that still says he doesn't foresee boots on the ground in Syria.

    So it's a false flag in order to inspire what? If it was a false flag to inspire the U.S. to go to war, it clearly isn't working so far.

    To obsess about it if you're an American, unless the story changes, seems to be a sort of Bush Derangement syndrome still having it's effects. I.E., all the people who spent time seeking "proof" Bush was going to go to war with Iran because they figured the Iraq thing would be repeated. Looking for patterns where there are none. Now looking for Bush/Cheney patterns when Bush is no longer even president.

    And note that even Israel isn't harping on the chemical weapons story. They are more worried about conventional weapons getting into the hands of Hezbollah.

    Nobody seems to be fearmongering about the chemical weapons story except pundits and bloggers and some cable TV news people pandering to the same.

    Looks to me like the Charlie Wilson/Afghanistan comparison is a far more fruitful comparison to worry about. Americans should be worrying about who gets what weapons as the Syrian conflict continues. And whether Obama and Congress are making the right decisions about that. Not the least of which because many leaders in the area seem intent on fueling the Sunni v. Shia divide, blood feud stuff that doesn't heal easily and affects the whole world.


    by artappraiser on Sat, 05/04/2013 - 4:51pm

       I think that Obama doesn't want to go to war in Syria, but he may end up doing it anyway to save face.  He said there would be a response if Syria used chemical weapons, so if it is confirmed that they are being used, he may feel obliged to drop some bombs rather than look like a wimp.


    by Aaron Carine on Sat, 05/04/2013 - 5:20pm

    So it's a false flag in order to inspire what?

    Is the  "... to inspire what?"  part of that question serious? If the rebels did it it would be to inspire additional aid from and possibly direct intervention by the U.S.

     If it was a false flag to inspire the U.S. to go to war, it clearly isn't working so far.

    If there is a logical reason to suspect a false flag operation then the belief that it has not worked yet, or even if it never does work as hoped, is not a logical reason to reject the idea that it might have, in fact, been a false flag operation. Maybe it was and just didn't work. It could be that the rebels believed Obama when he said that using poison gas would be crossing a game changing line. And, if it justifies the U.S. getting more directly involved, even with only sending more and better weapons, then who would say it didn't work to the rebels benefit.

    To obsess about it if you're an American, unless the story changes, seems to be a sort of Bush Derangement syndrome still having it's effects.

     Who is obsessing?

    And note that even Israel isn't harping on the chemical weapons story

    But some in Israel are certainly talking about it and some of those suspect it was a false flag operation.


    by A Guy Called LULU on Sat, 05/04/2013 - 5:34pm

    "He also suggests it could be the rebels by the way."

    Which is an indication that he, Wilkerson, was not making any hard accusation of Israel but was thinking along the same lines as  me. He was suggesting alternative explanations and in doing so he was suggesting that we should not automatically and unquestionably accept reports that the use of sarin was a deliberate, calculated, attack authorized by the Syrian government. It seems to me that Assad has as much or more reason to not stupidly use sarin as does Israel. The rebels are the only ones I see with nothing to lose by using the it, so long as they don't get caught, and much to possibly gain.

    So then the question becomes in my mind anyway is whether Wilkerson's speculation takes hold and then by whom.
     
     You comment here is the first one to take any notice of my suggestion that the sarin use was a possible false-flag operation even though that was the main point of my blog which I tried to redirect the conversation to a couple of times.  He [Wilkerson] also suggests it could be the rebels by the way. So did other links in the same article, some from Israeli sources. Taken as a whole I do not see that it should be seen as a "suggest the Hebes" misdirection piece or that Wilkerson unfairly mentioned Israel as a possible culprit.              .
     As it happens, when I was thinking to myself that the use might have been a false flag operation I naturally considered who the other players are and which ones had something to gain and of course Israel had to be considered. After consideration my bet was that it was not them and so I did not mention them, I just said there were others who could and probably would do such a thing if they saw a benefit. You might not like the reason I decided Israel was an unlikely culprit, but at least part of my reasoning went much like yours.

                                           But the point is that the context is that Israel has absolutely no reason whatsoever to favor the rebels in Syria--any rebel group--over the almost uninterrupted stability it has had on its Syrian border since 1973.  

    I mentioned somewhere above the relatively safe, quiet, and stable border that has held for many years. I too felt that that was and continues to be something Israel would not want to see changed. The part of my thinking which you may object to is that in my normal cynical analysis of any of the possible actors who might have been involved I felt that Israel's preferred outcome would probably be for the fight to go on long enough to wreck Syria as an international or regional power but for Assad and the Alawite's to ultimately regain/maintain control and maintain Syria's longstanding relationship with Israel. I figured Israel probably does not want to encourage actions by the U.S, such as a no-fly zone, which would greatly increase the odds of hostilities ceasing sooner and the rebels actually winning. I would find it hard to believe that the U.S. actually wants the rebels to win either, at least now that it can be seen what the makeup of the rebel opposition has become.
     


    by A Guy Called LULU on Sat, 05/04/2013 - 5:01pm

    A short op-ed countering the "nothing could be done about it" theme:

    How to destabilize the Assad regime
    By Elisa Massimino, The Mideast Channel @ foreignpolicy.com,  May 3, 2013

    Elisa Massimino is the President and CEO of Human Rights First.

    [.....] A new Human Rights First report reveals that at least a dozen countries -- including Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Angola, Georgia, Lebanon, Cyprus, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates -- are continuing to provide the Assad regime with weapons, fuel, military technology, and access to financial markets. The paper provides both a unique overview of Assad's third-party supporters and a roadmap the U.S. government can follow to crack down on them. The U.S. government should use diplomacy to try to influence the countries providing these resources as well as the countries allowing these resources to pass through their jurisdiction. In addition, the U.S. Treasury should use existing authority under the Syria sanctions regime to designate those entities continuing to support the Assad regime and block them from the U.S. marketplace.

    While Assad's key allies -- Russia and Iran -- are unlikely to bend to the will of the United States, the networks, entities, and brokers that these countries rely on to deliver the goods to Syria might [.....]


    by artappraiser on Sat, 05/04/2013 - 4:13pm

    UN has testimony that Syrian rebels used sarin gas - investigator

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/05/syria-crisis-un-idUSL6N0DM0WI2...


    by A Guy Called LULU on Sun, 05/05/2013 - 9:06pm

    This certainly complicates the picture. It makes it less clear that increasing support to the rebels will be a better option for the citizens of Syria.If the report is true there is no good options. Israel's attempts to instigate a war should be met with more resistance.


    by rmrd0000 on Mon, 05/06/2013 - 12:38am

    Right. And that news helps Obama out of a corner he put himself in that he was trying to get out of:

    After a concerted effort to walk back -- or at least soften -- its "red line" on the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime, it looks as if the Obama administration may have just gotten off the hook. According to Reuters, U.N. human rights investigators now have evidence that rebel forces used sarin gas -- a revelation that, if confirmed, would vindicate the president's studied approach to the Syrian conflict and reduce the political pressure on him to act immediately......

    Continued @

    http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/05/05/would_the_us_still_arm_an...


    by artappraiser on Mon, 05/06/2013 - 4:39am

    Now the false flag accusations may probably start from the right wingers who  have very much noticed how the Obama administration wasn't that interested in getting involved.  I am guessing it will be something along the lines of Benghazi derangement syndrome, like Obama having the CIA covering up for his cowardice about using our great military in Syria by planting sarin gas in the hands of some rebels....or similar...like they got this UN guy to say that for them....


    by artappraiser on Mon, 05/06/2013 - 4:54am

    There's new in-depth reporting on this; I haven't read it yet, got the reference from Laura Rozen's Twitter feed:

    A Reporter at Large

    The Thin Red Line/ Inside the White House debate over Syria.

    by , The New Yorker, for May 13, 2013 issue

     


    by artappraiser on Mon, 05/06/2013 - 5:19am

    Read the whole Filkins piece now.  Filkins seems to have pretty much been convinced that Obama himself really really doesn't want the military to get  involved in Syria, nor does Obama want to supply weapons to the rebels, despite many of his advisors being for more action on that front. That Obama fears it will be another Iraq.  It also gets into the differing views on how successful a "no fly zone" or how successful disabling the chemical weapons could or couldn't be. And the composition of the rebels and al Nusra. And at the end, scenarios of the future, continued war and "Lebanon on steroids" without the U.S. involved.


    by artappraiser on Mon, 05/06/2013 - 2:41pm

    The UN's Syria investigators also appeared to row back on Del Ponte's remarks. They said there was thus far "no conclusive proof" that either side in the Syria conflict had used chemical weapons.

    "The independent international commission of inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic wishes to clarify that it has not reached conclusive findings as to the use of chemical weapons in Syria by any parties to the conflict," the commission said in a statement.

    from

    Syria: US says it has no evidence rebel forces used sarin gas
    State department casts doubt on UN investigator Carla del Ponte's claim that opposition may have deployed nerve agent
    By Luke Harding, guardian.co.uk, 6 May 2013

    Also @ VOA: UN Panel: No Proof of Syria Nerve Gas Claim, May 6


    by artappraiser on Mon, 05/06/2013 - 3:36pm

    This article has already been edited since you first linked to it. Messed up a couple of points I was going to quibble about. 

    It is now being said that there is no proof the rebels are the culprits. That has as much and as little definitive value as saying that there is no proof  that Assad did not personally pop some gas in an orphanage. The statement by the U.S. merely says there is no positive evidence one way or the other who used the gas or even if gas was used. So far we know of one apparently neutral party claiming some evidence. The authors of the article do give supporting evidence that even the rebels supporters recognize that the rebels had motive. 

                    Supporters of Syria's moderate opposition also dismissed del Ponte's remarks, pointing out that if the rebels had had access to chemical weapons they would have been tempted to use them much earlier against Assad's military bases.

    And it isn't a case of the U.S. statement ALSO dismissing del Ponte's remarks. The U.S. did not dismiss them. 


    by A Guy Called LULU on Mon, 05/06/2013 - 4:40pm

      Occupy Wall Street has a cartoon condemning Obama for giving nonlethal assistance to the Syrian opposition. They seem to belong to the "everything America does is evil and anyone who is against America is good" school of thought.


    by Aaron Carine on Sun, 05/05/2013 - 9:48pm

    Careful, is that "Occupy Wall Street" or an Occupy Wall Street activist who was hired by Syrian opposition to do lobbying & promotion?


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 05/06/2013 - 1:59am

       He/she certainly wasn't hired by the Syrian opposition, since the person condemns providing assistance to the Syrian opposition.  Maybe it was one lone activist, but the heading said it was from OWS.


    by Aaron Carine on Mon, 05/06/2013 - 5:09am

    Certainly enough OWS activists got off-message to rail on about genetic foods, intergalactic space travel & mushroom season in the Kavkaz. A shame - 1% vs. the 99% was a worthy meme contender for Maggie Thatcher's "I want my money".


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 05/06/2013 - 6:05am

    everything America does is evil and anyone who is against America is good" school of thought.

    I tend to see folks like that as a kind of warped version of imperialists. Where it's hard for them to believe we are not in control of everything that happens in the world, always thinking everything revolves around us or that we are in on everything that happens.They might consider it astoundingly rare, but, yes, believe it or not, sometimes stuff like war and warmongering does happen in the world without the U.S. (or Israel) being involved at all! cheeky


    by artappraiser on Mon, 05/06/2013 - 5:13am

    Aaron, Carrine, I seem to be missing something here. I don't see what an OWS cartoon condemning Obama giving non-lethal aid has to do with anything in this blog. Maybe a link to the cartoon would help. Or just a bit of an explanation. Thanks.


    by A Guy Called LULU on Mon, 05/06/2013 - 8:23am

       This thread is about Syria, isn't it? What people say about Syria is therefore relevant to this thread.


    by Aaron Carine on Mon, 05/06/2013 - 9:04am

    Your comment seems perfectly apt, and the only question is whether the individual you refer to reflects OWS or is acting independently. 


    by Bruce Levine on Mon, 05/06/2013 - 10:57am

    Isn't OWS leaderless?

     


    by rmrd0000 on Mon, 05/06/2013 - 11:53am

    Yes, so far as I know it is.  


    by Bruce Levine on Mon, 05/06/2013 - 9:30pm

    If no one is in charge of membership, anyone could claim to be a member in good standing.


    by rmrd0000 on Mon, 05/06/2013 - 10:54pm

    Yes, absolutely.  


    by Bruce Levine on Tue, 05/07/2013 - 5:48am

    You say that Occupy Wall Street, whoever that is, has an un-viewable cartoon, drawn by an unnamed person, which indicates to you that the entirety of OWS has bought into a ridiculous school of thought. As perfectly apt as that comment no doubt is, I did not get it. I did not get the connection to the topic and the following conversation beyond mentioning the same country. So I asked, and after your answer I still don't get it, but that's ok. 


    by A Guy Called LULU on Mon, 05/06/2013 - 1:45pm

    Lulu. Not sure why you're being so tough on Aaron when you're the one who used big letters above to highlight bizarre speculation about Israeli false flag stuff while thousands of Syrian civilians are being massacred--by Syrians.  

    I am not focused on OWS and in that sense you're right. But it is relevant that there are quite a few folks who seem to believe that the world should do nothing while we witness this slaughter.  Having followed this thread I am now more convinced that it is the least moral alternative.   I see Rwanda.  I see the year 2013 and shame on the international community. When we get to the point where we quibble and speculate about who did what to whom, I see us--the international community--fiddle while babies die. 

    That is uncivilized.  That is immoral.  Let's at least admit to that, i.e. that we are standing and watching while there is a wholesale slaughter going on.


    by Bruce Levine on Tue, 05/07/2013 - 10:25am

    I will try to answer your question. Doing so will require that I get into some of what I see as false assumptions leading to mis characterizations in your comment.
    First, the simplistic short answer is that I was not intentionally “hard” on Aaron C. I  first politely asked an honest question about his comment because I did not understand what he was intending to convey. I wondered, does he actually believe that the representative mind set of many thousands of Americans spread all over our country, people of all ages, denominations, and life experiences, people who self-identified as OWSers, a group who’s numbers were leveraged by so many more who did not directly participate but supported the groups actions, [at least most of them] did he actually wonder if that group  might believe that anything that Our country does is “evil” and anyone who is against our country is good?  That, I think if he was suggesting it might be the case, could be correctly labeled, “bizarre speculation”. And, the OWS movement seemed to have very little to do with foreign policy.
     Actually, I didn’t wonder that. I did not, do not, believe that is what his comment meant but I wondered what it actually did mean. So I asked. I asked him to explain what he meant and how it pertained to the subject if, indeed, it did. If it turned out that his thought was veering off on a tangent, that is fine with me, sometimes the branching conversations are the most interesting and thought provoking. Regardless, they happen.
     The reply I received added zero to my understanding of his point and so I said as much and then I said, “... but that’s ok”.


    Damn, I’m not even through with responding to your first three line statement/question.

    Not sure why you're being so tough on Aaron when you're the one who used big letters above to highlight bizarre speculation about Israeli false flag stuff while thousands of Syrian civilians are being massacred--by Syrians.  

    The big letters were just the way copy-and-paste transferred the sentence. The single sentence looked okay in the paste box but transferred in a larger than normal font. I try to be very careful any time Israel is included in something I say here. More careful than I actually feel obligated to be. If a person says something controversial they should get the chance to explain. My own comments never once mentioned Israel as a  likely perp in a false-flag operation. My only personal reference to Israel was to agree with you that they were the unlikely actor. The link I was introducing put the comment about Israel being a possible culprit into a fair context, IMHO.  Wilkerson also suggested that the rebels might be responsible. His point, as I see it, was not to aim at anyone with charges of guilt, but to say that concluding Assad was the guilty party based on our extremely limited information, passed on in every instance by people or groups with vested interests in who was demonized, would be a mistake which could lead to far more destructive mistakes.
     I absolutely disagree that it is bazarre to speculate that the sarin use might have been a false-flag operation. I would, though, call bizarre any idea that Israel is above playing dirty in their ongoing conflicts.
    On we go.

    But it is relevant that there are quite a few folks who seem to believe that the world should do nothing while we witness this slaughter.  Having followed this thread I am now more convinced that it is the least moral alternative.   I see Rwanda.  I see the year 2013 and shame on the international community. When we get to the point where we quibble and speculate about who did what to whom, I see us--the international community--fiddle while babies die.

    The morality of various military actions might be one of the oldest questions and might even have been particularly relevant among practitioners and patrons of the oldest profession. Lots of folks get all introspective during a restful smoke break. War, even if euphemized, even if euphonized, as a moral intervention, is ugly. It kills people in horrible ways. Some of them are babies. I would like to see someone here who has strong convictions about the morality we should follow as guidance to who we should kill and when we are obligated to do so, to explore that subject in greater depth. We might end up with a new and better treatise on Just War Theory. We might even come to a solid definitive answer to what Nero should have done if a building next to the orphanage was on fire but the fire hose at his disposal had about a ninety percent chance of containing gasoline. If he fiddled a happy tune it might speak volumes about his own nature, but we would still have our own tough questions to answer if he pointed at the hose and told us to do whatever we thought best.
     But seriously, it is a tragic situation in Syria. I am not hardened to ignore the suffering going on there but I really do not no what would be best to do and I certainly don't feel that I could make a decision about which side of an ongoing civil war thousands of miles away should die.

    Would you advocate Israel sending in ground troops if the winner could not be chosen by airstrikes, not because they were personally threatened but because  that was the way that the baby killing could  maybe be eventually be stopped? Maybe stopped after much more killing? When it might cause a great deal of blowback that resulted in much more killing? Maybe many Israeli babies dying in actions where their reaction would include killing many more babies in other places?





     


    by A Guy Called LULU on Tue, 05/07/2013 - 1:31pm

    I guess you're asking me to be Israel's American spokesperson at Dag.  Fair enough. 

    I think the answer is obvious that the world would never accept Israel's intervention on Arab soil as "peacemaker," and in any event I have no doubt that it is a role that Israel would never take on.  As I wrote above earlier, Israel, from a strategic perspective, has been perfectly comfortable with the Assads at the helm.  Israel's only issue with Syria is the extent to which it has been a conduit for Iranian arms flowing over to Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon. 

    I would favor an international peacekeeping force to separate the rebels from the Syrian government, and so now I'm moving beyond the no-fly zone tepid option only.   I'm coming out now and saying that and I think more people should do the same.  How can we live in a world where this kind of genocide is permitted to take place right in front of us?

     I have decided that I simply cannot handle the attempt at nuance here, because it just seems to be so foolish and wrong.  I don't understand the morality of looking away--once we get past the boneheaded and evil stuff that has been done in our own name by our own government.  Yes, we kill civilians and we need to be accountable and then some.  Yes, you Lulu and others have convinced me where I was not fully convinced in the past that our drone program has gotten out of control.  But the evil perpetuated by the U.S. and its allies does not and cannot require us and the rest of the international community to be "see no evil" showroom dummies and potted plants while babies die.

    What reason is there for us to be given the ability to think and feel if this is the way it's going to be.  I say that it is our duty to stop this kind of genocide.  It is not an American duty--it is a human one.

     


    by Bruce Levine on Tue, 05/07/2013 - 3:19pm

    Oh please, what "genocide"?

    133,000 children killed in Somalia - famine caused by fundamentalist religion & war - maybe that's worth intervention.

    5 million were brutally killed in the civil war in the Congo.

    595 civilians killed in Iraq in April - oh wait, we already intervened there.

    1 million civilians were pushed out of their homes in Ivory Coast, many killed, while the losing president Gbagbo refused to give up, but it was more important to invade Libya.

    Of course no one stopped Russia from destroying Chechnya and putting in its puppet.

    But 12 civilians killed in Syria, and it's time to move in.

    This "think of the children, the poor women" bit is what we do with almost every conflict - rouse ourselves up with Libya, Kuwait, Albania, Afghanistan. Turn on the tears and turn them off again if the situation doesn't suit us.


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 05/07/2013 - 4:54pm

    Peracles,

    I wasn't thinking of 12 dead people.  I was thinking of 70,000, which is the number I've heard bandied about as the number of dead in Syria. 

    I have no doubt that my view is unpopular, and I respect my detractors that feel differently and I truly do (how could I not?).  Still, I honestly don't understand your certainty, your absolute comfort in pointing out inconsistency and the lack of uniformity, and yes, hypocrisy, and then just resting accordingly.  And I think that when you throw things like Iraq in my face, when I never supported that war, then you just turn me into part of a mush of America, and listen not to what I say here as a loud but lonely voice.  That propensity to make mush is something that I just don't respect at all.

    Face it, at least face it, and don't give me the c'mon bullshit, and don't just throw what we've done wrong or not done right in the past.  There is a slaughter going on in Syria right now Peracles, and I question how moral, how just it is to be oh so isolationist at times like this. 

    I wholeheartedly challenge the thesis that absolute isolationism is in any way more ethical or humane or moral or decent or just or progressive than selective bouts of inconsistent reactions to real genocide. 

    I know things would be so much easier were life as linear as a well-written legal brief.  But life doesn't work that way.  Right now, and forgive my lack of attention to the Congo, but right now the world is focused on Syria, and so am I.  Heaven help me for my inconsistency, but heaven help us to do what's just plain right--even if we don't do it all over the place. 

     


    by Bruce Levine on Tue, 05/07/2013 - 6:43pm

    I think the big problem is determining which side, if any, is the one to back in Syria. What is the desired outcome in Syria? What is the likelihood that a good outcome will be achieved.

    right now it seems that if the US doesn't intervene, the region could become inflamed. It is equally likely that if the US becomes involved, the region will become inflamed. If Syria calms down, we will just be eating for the next event where if some action the region will become inflamed.

    Welcome to the real-world Kobayashi Maru


    by rmrd0000 on Tue, 05/07/2013 - 7:17pm

    I always knew I should pay more attention to Star Trek.  Kobayash Maru is simply brilliant RM, truly so.


    by Bruce Levine on Tue, 05/07/2013 - 7:39pm

    How does 'the world' handle a nation where the inhabitants are intent on killing each other? Do we assign armed bodyguards for each and every family, clan, ethnic group, village and town? Occupy the nation with hundreds of thousands of armed troops? For how long?

    How do we create a government? Will what we create last?

    The Arab spring has not brought forth very good results anywhere, as far as democracy is concerned.

    Arab culture frankly has no history of democracy, secular law and human rights. Arab culture is based on submission, women to husbands in a male dominated society, submission to Mullahs, to clan/ethnic groups, to strongmen/dictators and to Allah.  All steeped with a tradition of official and private corruption. The secular democracy movement appears to be in a minority in the region.

    The killing in Syria will only stop when the various sects and groups there talk to each other instead of killing each other.


    by NCD on Tue, 05/07/2013 - 7:28pm

    I appreciate the argument and the sound basis upon which you make it NCD.  Thanks.   Remember how long it took the factions in Lebanon to talk?  I think the civil war went on there from like 1976 until 1995, and then in only stopped when Assad stepped in and put a stop to it.  

    I don't pretend we can form a government in Syria, and I don't pretend that we can effectively police (alone) each and every village there.  But I do think that the international community, working together, could intervene to separate the forces--and I am stuck and can't help thinking that that is the preferred outcome to letting the folks there just get tired.  

     


    by Bruce Levine on Tue, 05/07/2013 - 7:38pm

    I can't imagine what we would do now in Syria that would be of much help, and we obviously have a very biased view to go in & push our world agenda/Axis of Evil philosophy with.  (hey, I thought Syria had all Saddam's WMD's???)

    700 people died in Iraq last month, most of them civilians. I would imagine we could increase the death toll in Syria if we tried as well. In short, yes, it can get worse, with our help. With our continued (recent) lack of moral compass or any over-arching foreign policy other than our cynical "winning hearts & minds".

    Perhaps there could be a Jesse Jackson or Jimmy Carter who in some forgotten tradition of my youth, actually went into complex situations and brokered peace, rather than tried to instill democracy from the barrel of a gun or just had a real politik horse-brokering mentality for regional domination and regime change and remote watcher of the skies over brown-skinned countries.


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 05/08/2013 - 1:01pm

    No interest here in pushing anything on anyone except to exert pressure, where feasible, to stop the killing, period.


    by Bruce Levine on Wed, 05/08/2013 - 1:04pm

    Well, it's somewhat related, but doesn't really address what to do in Syria, seems to beg gettomg distracted with an OWS side-channel.


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 05/06/2013 - 1:47pm

    Really disappointing that the readers are biased in the direction of believing that false flag operations are rare and not a likely answer as to who popped the serin in Syria
    • Using this web-based internet gambling I have found that I can receive the many dark knight rises pokies chips and get more betting site money as compared to each and every wagering web site.

    by Tracy Rodriguez (not verified) on Mon, 05/06/2013 - 3:21am

    Russian Secret Service probably set off the Moscow apartment bombs to justify the 2nd Chechnya War. Yes, false flags happen all the time. Note that the FBI spends much of its time these days trying to find loser Muslims & fill their heads with hate and then plots to seek revenge, and then arrest them for supposedly trying to carry out unfeasible plots. Makes great print, especially since the media no longer looks critically at any government disinformation.


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 05/07/2013 - 4:58pm

    So, check this out.   I'm sure this is something all of us can agree on.  The U.S. and the Russians are meeting to see if they can convene an international peace conference by months end, which would include representatives of rebel factions and the Syrian government.  Secretary of State Kerry is in Moscow, and the Times reports:

    The announcement appeared to signal a strong desire by both countries to halt what has been a dangerous escalation in the conflict, with evidence of chemical weapons use, a surge in the number of civilians fleeing combat and a refugee crisis that is overwhelming Syria’s neighbors. Israeli aerial attacks this past weekend on suspected munitions sites in Syria heightened and further complicated the tensions in the region.

    Mr. Kerry’s visit also came as the Obama administration is facing increasing calls to intervene in the conflict with lethal military aid to the insurgency or perhaps stronger action such as enforcement of a no-fly zone over Syria to protect rebel-held areas. The effort to seek a negotiated solution with the Russians suggested the administration at least wanted to first make a public push in the diplomacy direction.

    President Obama reiterated his cautious approach earlier in the day in Washington, telling reporters he had a moral obligation and national security responsibility to stabilize Syria but that he was going to make decisions based on the facts and not “on a hope and a prayer.”

    Mr. Kerry said both Russia and the United States wanted to hold the peace conference “as soon as practical, possibly, hopefully as soon as the end of this month.”

    The United States supports the insurgency that has been seeking to depose Mr. Assad, while Russia has been his most important foreign patron. But as the two-year-old struggle in Syria has worsened, the Russian government has signaled that it is not necessarily bound to Mr. Assad’s political survival as part of a solution.

    “I would like to emphasize we do not, we are not interested in the fate of certain persons,” Mr. Lavrov told reporters on Tuesday. “We are interested in the fate of the total Syrian people.”

    It was unclear how Mr. Kerry and Mr. Lavrov would persuade the antagonists to put aside their hostilities for talks, and there was no word on where they would be held — or even any assurance that such talks would take place.

    But the diplomatic effort was unusual, given the sometimes rancorous relationship between the United States and Russia, and seemed to be the one optimistic spot on what was otherwise another bleak day in the Syria conflict.        


    by Bruce Levine on Tue, 05/07/2013 - 8:24pm

    Especially encouraging:

    ....as the two-year-old struggle in Syria has worsened, the Russian government has signaled that it is not necessarily bound to Mr. Assad’s political survival as part of a solution.

    “I would like to emphasize we do not, we are not interested in the fate of certain persons,” Mr. Lavrov told reporters on Tuesday. “We are interested in the fate of the total Syrian people.”

    though I find myself wishing they had come to this p.o.v. like a year earlier. Cause now there are ever so many more grudges-to-last-lifetimes, new tribal loyalties, and more people have learned to exhibit their unconscious hatreds that had been kept lidded (i.e., tolerance.)


    by artappraiser on Wed, 05/08/2013 - 2:36pm

    The U.N. is pleased to hear it:

    8 May 2013 – The Joint Special Representative of the United Nations and the Arab League for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, today welcomed the statements by Russia and the United States that they would work together to achieve a political solution to end a conflict that has claimed more than 70,000 lives over the past two years.

    [....]

    “The statements made in Moscow constitute a very significant first step forward. It is nevertheless only a first step,” Mr. Brahimi said in a statement, adding that this is the first “hopeful news” concerning Syria in a very long time.

    Mr. Brahimi....has consistently called on the US and Russia to exercise leadership and work together to initiate a process to implement the Geneva Declaration of 30 June 2012.

    That document – issued after a meeting in the Swiss city of the Action Group for Syria – lays out key steps in a process to end the violence. Among other items, it calls for the establishment of a transitional governing body, with full executive powers and made up by members of the present Government and the opposition and other groups, as part of agreed principles and guidelines for a Syrian-led political transition.

    “There is every reason to expect the three other permanent members of the Security Council as a whole and indeed all the Security Council members to work together amongst themselves and with the Secretary-General to carry the process forward,” said Mr. Brahimi.....

    As they aren't just thinking 70,000 deaths or even getting into genocide issues, they have these other very real problems to deal with as pundits talk about various entities staying "hands off":

    In addition to the tens of thousands killed, some 4.25 million people have been displaced since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in March 2011, with more than 1.4 million of them taking refuge in neighbouring countries.

    The UN estimates that some 6.8 million people inside Syria are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance – nearly half of them children.


    by artappraiser on Wed, 05/08/2013 - 2:48pm

    Also interesting re: the three other permanent members of the Security Council,

    as China complained to Bibi about the Israel strikes being an invasion of sovereignty on Monday,

    this p.r. effort happened: Israel sought to avoid a direct confrontation with the Syrian regime on Monday by stressing that air strikes across its northern border at the weekend were intended to prevent weapons reaching Hezbollah in Lebanon rather than further destabilise the government of President Bashar al-Assad

    including this source: an Israeli politician close to the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, said the action was "against Hezbollah and not against the Syrian regime".


    by artappraiser on Wed, 05/08/2013 - 3:04pm

    This is good news and I hope it plays out to produce a cease fire. I have to say that my biggest reason to support Obama in 2008 was that I felt he would be much smarter about war. I have been very disappointed a number of times but He seems to be finessing this one about as well as possible. Or, as well as could be reasonably be expected. [I just caught an ironically funny typo. I hit both the 't' and the 'r' on  my keyboard and wrote " as well as could be treasonably expected. That will probably be the right-wing response to any effort towards peace]

     I don't have a link but Daniel Pipes, one of the usual suspects, reportedly said let both sides keep on killing each other. If the Assad regime pulls ahead, supply the rebels. If they pull ahead then pull back on that support and help keep the Assad regime viable militarily. Nice guy. If true, I wish he would eat shit and die.

     Whether any national power has been deliberately trying to affect such a stalemate of  ongoing destruction so as to destroy Syria as a regional power or not, that looks like what could happen if something isn't done on the diplomatic front. If Russia is smart enough to wish to avoid  wider war but still support the Syrian regime in power, their longtime ally, that might explain the timing of their involvement. Regardless the motives of the various parties, I agree, this is hopeful.

     About the refugee crisis, it must be double bad because Syria had accepted so many refugees from Iraq and other besieged countries.


    by A Guy Called LULU on Wed, 05/08/2013 - 3:33pm

    I just found a link and it turns out a comment on Pipe's websight expressed that idea of helping them kill each other, not Pipes himself as far as I know. My apologies to any and all who has them coming for my attributing a commentor's statement to a sight owner.

    But don't spit it out yet, Pipes, you have it featured on a page of its own. http://www.danielpipes.org/comments/198088

     


    by A Guy Called LULU on Wed, 05/08/2013 - 6:10pm

    I'm getting whiplash. Turns out Pipes is pushing the play-both sides idea hard.

    Now that it looks like humanitarian intervention might not work out, it turns out they have a Plan-B ready to go. How can a man dare to dream, even on a spring night, without a thousand points of light? Muzzle flashes will do just fine, thank you.


    I had never seen Real News before. As much as Pipes, notice the tone of the talking head. Notice the nature of the questions and the assumptions included. Find a good book on zombie defense. Find out where they are hiding their silver bullets.

    Short video.

    http://muslimmatters.org/2013/04/05/anti-muslim-bigot-daniel-pipes-says-...


    by A Guy Called LULU on Wed, 05/08/2013 - 11:23pm

    I just caught an ironically funny typo. I hit both the 't' and the 'r' on  my keyboard and wrote "as well as could be treasonably expected. That will probably be the right-wing response to any effort towards peace

    Hah, sounds about right, like we might be hearing that soon.  Right now they still seem quite busy trying to find treason in "Benghazi." I did notice McCain and Lindsey Graham trying to drag them over to the Syria thing. But then the real wingers, both pseudo-intellectual kind and the Tea Partiers, don't trust those two much more than they do Obama.


    by artappraiser on Wed, 05/08/2013 - 11:21pm

    I agree that the Russians' willingness to consider a future government led by someone other than Assad is really big news.  What we need to watch no, I suspect, is whether the rebels will agree by some kind of consensus to leave Assad and his family alone in exile or something.  That's going to be a tough one I think, no?


    by Bruce Levine on Wed, 05/08/2013 - 9:14pm

    Here is a Democracy Now interview with Robert Fisk on Syria’s Civil War, Chemical Weapons "Theater" & Obama’s Backing of Israeli Strikes. It is excellent war reporting. More here of value on the subject than in a month of cable news.  Almost every bad thing we might have concluded about Assad and his forces is verified by Fisk. But of course there is more to the story. Very highly recommended.

                                    http://www.democracynow.org/2013/5/7/robert_fisk_on_syrias_civil_war                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                


    by A Guy Called LULU on Tue, 05/07/2013 - 10:23pm

    Fisk and his nonsense non-sequiturs :

    ...I mean, if Syria decided to take out a couple of Israeli nuclear warheads in the Negev and said, well, it had the right to defend itself and it feared these missiles might be fired at Syria, Mr. Obama would be promising us that the red line had indeed been crossed, and it would be World War III. But when Israel bombs Syria—admittedly a horrible regime, but it did—that’s OK, it can defend itself, it’s a matter of self-defense. The real point, of course, is that we’ve been accusing the Iranians and the Hezbollah of being involved in this Syrian civil war, which they have been, but not as much as we claim (?..?.'being involved' is like being pregnant, you either are or you are not)....

    He equates the government of Syria with Israel? They both have equal standing as to how and when they use force? After he has seen the piles of dead bodies left by Assad forces, as he says? Give me a break, the guy is bonkers.

    Syria could 'take out' a target in the Negev? No...! Does Fisk seriously think Israel would nuke Damascus? Israel blew up a stash of bombs/missiles in Damascus, so much the less stuff to kill people with for Assad, be the targets Syrians or Israelis. Fisk is upset by this?

    He is good at reporting what he sees but spare me the opinionizing nonsense.

    Fisk concludes: "I don’t think there’s any happy solutions." Agree on that one.


    by NCD on Wed, 05/08/2013 - 12:39am

    Glad you watched and glad you responded with your evaluation. Sorry it aggravated you so much.Where I differ with you is regarding the opinion Fisk related as to different countries respecting international borders. I think he was just pointing out what he sees as the hypocracy of western countries or western oriented countries attacking other countries militarily and then justifying it in what would be completely unacceptable if the situation were to be reversed. Since I agree with calling that 'hypocrscy', I am not offended by his doing so. And no, I do not think Syria has the capability to successfully bomb Israel and neither does Fisk. That is why Syria doesn’t do it and conversely, that is why Israel does, they can get away with it, at least so far.
     I also suspect that Fisk thinks that the reason this hypocracy is worth making an issue of is that it is ultimately dangerously counter productive for all involved. Fisk quite obviously is not a fan of Assad or his regime.

     I appreciate journalists taking an attitude, even developing an agenda, when their reporting reveals a reason for one as long as the reporter is honest [as can be] in their reporting so as to fairly support that attitude.

    Rather than a refund I will just offer another interview as a replacement.


    by A Guy Called LULU on Wed, 05/08/2013 - 4:02pm

    Syria Rebels Threaten to Wipe Out Shiite, Alawite Towns

    From Bloomberg:

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-21/syria-rebels-threaten-to-wipe-o...

    Communities inhabited by Shiite Muslims and President Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite minority will be “wiped off the map” if the strategic city of Al-Qusair in central Syria falls to government troops, rebel forces said.

    “We don’t want this to happen, but it will be a reality imposed on everyone,” Colonel Abdel-Hamid Zakaria, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army in Turkey, told Al-Arabiya television yesterday. “It’s going to be an open, sectarian, bloody war to the end.”

     

     


    by A Guy Called LULU on Wed, 05/22/2013 - 9:35pm

    Russia: Syria agrees to take part in talks
    Foreign ministry says Assad government has agreed "in principle" to attend US-Russia brokered proposed peace conference.
    Al Jazeera, 24 May 2013


    by artappraiser on Fri, 05/24/2013 - 5:03pm