dagblog - Comments for "The West persuades itself: "We have to bomb Syria to save Syria""

This doesn't sound to me like

artappraiser — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 23:04:45 +0000

This doesn't sound to me like Bush and Blair on Iraq allover again at all:

U.S. poised to recognize Syria opposition council, as it blacklists powerful rebel group
CBS News, Dec 11, 2012

[....] Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Tuesday that intelligence suggesting the Syrian government was preparing for the possible use of chemical weapons against rebel forces had "leveled off."

Last week, U.S. officials said there was evidence that Syrian forces had begun preparing sarin, a nerve agent, for possible use in bombs.

Panetta: No new signs Syria prepping WMD

Jihadis make certain messy endgame in Syria

Syria rebels target Damascus amid fresh diplomatic push

"We haven't seen anything new indicating any aggressive steps to move forward in that way," Panetta told reporters traveling with him to Kuwait, where he will visit U.S. troops at the start of a four-day trip. [....]

Bush and Blair made sure Saddam sounded more dangerous every day. No backtracking, as the evil villain narrative was followed with discipline.

Seems more like they have just been presenting the reality of the intel they can get on what is going on, not trying to sell anything, though granted it might not always have been accurate. Not to mention it seems to me like the Obama administration has not wanted to do much of anything at all until they had a better idea of who they were dealing with in Syria, and that what was done was by the CIA pretending they were helping. And figuring that out took a very long time, while lots of people died and a massive refugee crisis. No urgency was communicated until now, for a very long time.

We may even be seeing some evidence of "lessons learned from Libya" on what not to do.

Oh, and also missing in action from the Obama administration: emotional human-interest stories about the suffering of Syrians.

With this going on Over

artappraiser — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 20:05:38 +0000

In reply to The West persuades itself: "We have to bomb Syria to save Syria"

With this going on

Over Half A Million People Flee Syria Conflict
Sky News, 11 December 2012

The number of Syrian refugees registered by the United Nations in the Middle East and North Africa has passed half a million, the UN refugee body has said.

But many more have not come forward to seek help, making the number of people fleeing the 20-month-old Syrian conflict even higher, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

"According to UNHCR's latest figures for Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey and North Africa, 509,559 Syrians are either already registered or in the process of being registered," the agency said in a statement issued in Geneva [....]

I find it hard to believe that any assistance being sought in intervention measures is being forced on Turkey rather than the other way around. That's not to argue that it should be done, rather, I'm just saying I don't see the usual western imperialism story here. If that were the case, involvement would have been much more and much earlier. The Syria story to me has so far been more like the Western powers saying "don't want to get so involved, please regional actors, we'd rather not." That if Turkey wasn't asking for involvement, they wouldn't chose to do so. (And if it were only Jordan asking for involvement/assistance from western powers, from what I understand of that relationship with the west, my guess would be that they'd probably only get the least possible to keep them from whining and withholding intel and cooperation on terrorist threats.)

Meanwhile, elsewhere on this site, some are unhappy with Susan Rice not wanting to get more involved with challenging African bad guys in the past, possibly even supporting their continued power rather than, say, sending CIA to help locals overthrow them. Which is it, laissez-faire when large numbers are being killed and larger numbers are fleeing to other countries, or get involved? How about when one of the neighbors experiencing the repercussions is a NATO member, and another neighbor is a traditional tinderbox of trouble (Lebanon), and another neighbor still is basically a tinderbox (Iraq)? Just let it continue to happen, because the dictator is a sure bet on stability once all the challengers are killed and run out of the country? (Reminds me that there are interesting equivalencies with the Kosovo intervention story applicable here, too.)

My guess at what seems to be happening now is that the West is trying hard to clean up the nastiest rebels now because they don't want to have to intervene further after Assad is gone. I may be wrong but I have see a pattern where they seem to have withheld help to rebels until the more moderate ones showed signs of being able to coalesce and force the more radical to stand down or to marginalize the same. This has just been followed up with the terrorist classification for Jabhat al-Nusra, done quickly, as if to seal a deal or at someone's specific request

And this narrative I have seen is confirmed in another Christian Science Monitor report published today: US draws line in Syria: aligns with moderate rebels, labels others terrorist.. Once again, my main point: seemed to me it took an awful long time and a lot of deaths and refugees to get to this drawing of "a line.." Previously, seemed to me to have been much more of a problem in having no one in Syria that "the West" cared a whit about.

Just say quietly "we're

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 18:11:26 +0000

In reply to The last two paragraphs I

Just say quietly "we're really just defending ourselves" and it all feels better.

Of course who knows how much we instigated the initial protests. Pretty easy to set up a few provocateurs in any crowd.

Pax Americana, coming to a military base near you.

The last two paragraphs I

acanuck — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 22:45:49 +0000

In reply to The West persuades itself: "We have to bomb Syria to save Syria"

The last two paragraphs I quote are important ones. Several months back, when the West first raised the issue of Syrian chemical weapons, the supposed concern was that Assad, like Saddam Hussein, would use them on his own people. The Syrian reply was to pledge never to do so -- that chemical weapons would only be used to repel "external attacks." The controversy eased, because everyone agreed that any country has a right to repel external attacks. That's why Western countries have such stockpiles.

Now, however, a coalition led by the U.S. and Britain (sound familiar?) is openly planning not only to train and arm Syrian rebels, but "support" them by sea and air. In other words, mounting precisely such an external attack. This time without any UN authorization, making it an act of war that is illegal under international law. I've even seen military pundits speculate on TV about the feasability of bombing Assad's chemical stockpiles, weighing the pros and cons of collateral damage, i.e. of killing thousands of the people we're purportedly trying to save. And Obama has the balls to tell the Syrians what he is willing to tolerate.

So far, Canada hasn't been mentioned as a participant in these secret talks. I have no illusions, however, that the Harper government will not jump in with both feet once the U.S. gives the green light.