US-Syria drums of war — a familiar beat

The only solution for the Syrian issue is a political one and a peace conference of all actors may stop further bloodshed.

A HORRENDOUS attack with chemical weapons is alleged to have killed 1,429 people in a Damascus suburb on Aug 21.

Use of such chemical weapons is a flagrant violation of international law and the culprits must be hounded and herded to the International Criminal Court.

However, it is not clear who the real perpetrators are.

The Syrian government alleges that US-supported rebels carried out the attack to turn global sentiment against Syria. Obama pins the blame on Assad and is using this as a justification for a threatened war that circumvents the UN, like Bush before him.

The claims of both sides must be investigated impartially by the UN and there should be no resort to unilateral punishment before all facts are established. It is not in accordance with due process for the accusers to arrogate to themselves the role of adjudicators.

In the meantime, one must note that in March, an Independent Commission of Inquiry of the UN headed by Carla del Ponte had concluded that the nerve agent sarin was used by US-supported rebels and not the Syrian government.

It is also noteworthy that the weapons inspection team of the UN was in Syria at the invitation of Assad who is unlikely to have resorted to such an abomination with the UN watching over his shoulders.

The US and UK have a long, catalogued history of murderous lies to construct the pretext for war.

In August 1945, the US concealed the fact that Japan was actively negotiating surrender and went ahead to incinerate hundreds of thousands of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in a brutal atomic attack.

The US invasion of Vietnam in August 1964 was founded on the deceitful lie that Vietnamese torpedo boats had attacked US ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. The war took the lives of millions of innocent Asians and 50,000 American combatants.

In 2003, lies and skewed facts about Saddam’s alleged weapons of mass destruction led to the pulverisation and conquest of Iraq. 

Similar deceitful warmongering led to the attacks and subjugation of Afghanistan and Libya. The Third World is now quite mindful of Western spin masters and their weapons of mass deception. 

Assad is on a winning wicket and Western allies are understandably eager to find any pretext to kill him like the way they did Saddam of Iraq and Gaddafi of Libya.

The US, EU and Israel are fomenting civil war in Syria that has so far killed 100,000 for various geopolitical reasons: to weaken Iran and Hezbollah who are the only remaining regional rivals of Israel; to thwart the proposed Iran-Syria oil pipeline; and to kill the plan to sell Iranian oil in currencies other than the almighty US dollar. The Syrian conflict is a proxy war by the US against Iran.

There is also the desire to consolidate an uncompromising version of corporatism that seeks total economic hegemony over the region. Observers have noted that “defence manufacturer” Lockheed Martin’s stock prices rose sharply since news proliferated of the chemical weapons attack!

Any attack on Syria by a “coalition of the willing” on so-called humanitarian grounds will be a gross violation of the UN Charter.

Except for the narrow exception of unilateral self-defence under Article 51, the Security Council of the UN is the only authority empowered by chapter VII, Articles 39-42 to use force against a nation that is guilty of a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression.

American-style unilateralism and exceptionalism pose significant potential for abuse. This is evidenced by Nato’s destruction of Gaddafi’s regime in 2011 under the guise of a limited humanitarian operation. One must also note that the terror of war necessarily results in thousands of civilian casualties.

Secretary of State John Kerry’s description of the Damascus chemical attack as a “moral obscenity” is very touching but reeks of hypocrisy. It is well known that the US used napalm and agent orange in Vietnam; depleted uranium in Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Bosnia; and white phosphorus bombs in Fallujah in 2004.

Saddam Hussein’s chemical attacks against Iran were with Washington’s full knowledge and support. In fact the chemical weapons, the feeder stock and equipment were supplied by the US, UK, Germany and Italy.

While the world has been focused on the horror in Damascus, US supported rebels have carried out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against 40,000 Syrian Kurds to force them to flee across the Tigris into Iraq.

There is not a word of Western condemnation of this atrocity.

The threatened missile attacks against Syria would cost thousands of innocent lives. In typical American style of justice, people will be butchered in order to save them from a dictator!

Weapon depots will explode, resulting in horrendous collateral damage. There is no certainty that Bashar Al-Assad will be toppled.

A broader conflict may result if Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran react against Israel and America’s bases in the Middle East.

US military intervention in Syria’s civil war will, therefore, be an enormous mistake. It will not promote US interests. The use of missiles can change the military balance but it cannot resolve the underlying historic, ethnic, religious and tribal issues that are fuelling this conflict.

The only solution for the Syrian issue is a political one. A peace conference of all actors may stop further bloodshed.

President Obama must remember that you can start a war when you will; you can’t end it when you please!

Reflecting On The Law - contributed by Shad Saleem Faruqi
Shad Saleem Faruqi is Professor of Law at UiTM. The views expressed here are entirely his own.  

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The sheriff threatens to strike Syria

The sheriff threatens to strike Syria

 

People against war: Supporters of the anti-war group Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) Coalition participate in a rally in Washington DC, in opposition to a possible US military strike in Syria. – EPA

For nearly all countries including the US, a military attack on Syria will only make things worse.

TEN years after US President George W. Bush attacked Iraq, his successor Barack Obama is set to do it with Syria.

A secular Muslim autocrat in West Asia, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, was accused of possessing weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) so he “had” to be removed. Back then, Senator Obama had accused Bush of an unjustifiable and unnecessary war based on a flimsy pretext.

Now a secular Muslim autocrat in West Asia, Syrian President Bashar Assad, stands accused of using chemical WMDs. No evidence against Bashar had been presented before Washington’s decision to punish Syria.

Obama’s supporters may say it is a little different this time – just a little, though not much. Saddam’s case involved accusations of WMD possession, while Bashar’s involves accusations of actual use.

But what real difference is there once the bombs begin to drop? The arguments and circumstantial “evidence” so far are insufficient to support even a misdemeanour in a civil court, let alone a serious action such as war.

Just as the so-called evidence against Saddam’s Iraq was false, the same may be said of the case against Syria so far.

At a time when the US needed to convince the international community to support action against Syria, no evidence against Bashar had been offered. It nonetheless seemed sufficient to get Washington on the warpath again.

The White House says there is no doubt that Syria had used chemical weapons, but doubts persist. The Syrian government insists it did no such thing.

The issue concerns allegations of chemical weapons use in an area controlled by rebel forces just outside Damascus on August 21. The result – about 1400 civilian deaths.

Critics of military action ask why Syria had agreed to a UN arms inspection if it had just used banned chemical weapons, why it should target civilians including children who were not against it, and why it should do so knowing the likely international consequences. They also question the reliability of the evidence linking the incidents to the Syrian government, and the credibility of the source of the alleged evidence itself.

At the same time, motives also exist for falsifying evidence to blame Syria, so that US military action would weaken or dislodge Bashar. The beneficiaries are within and outside Syria.

The strongest “evidence” against Damascus comes from Israel, specifically Unit 8200 of the Israeli Defense Forces that supposedly intercepted the Syrian military’s electronic communications. According to Prof. John Schindler at the US Naval War College, Israel then fed this information to Washington and London for follow-up action against Syria.

Bashar’s Syria is the latest Muslim country in West Asia to be undermined by Israel, following Iraq, Libya and Egypt. In quietly promoting Western military action against these countries, Israel need not spend a single dollar or risk a single soldier’s life.

Western countries inclined to military action often find they have to depend on Israel. They lack the kind of intelligence information on the ground that Israel has, regardless of whether that information is trustworthy.

This also happens to benefit various militant groups hoping to seize power after Bashar – up to a point. Israel expects them to disagree among themselves and neutralise one another as Syria disintegrates, leaving the door open to Israeli interests.

In a US poll on Friday, 52% of respondents believe that once Bashar falls, Syria would be split. Over the medium and long terms, Israel would be the only beneficiary of another dismembered Muslim nation.

Within Syria, the considerable but still limited military strength of the various opposition groups has meant an armed stalemate while Bashar remains in office. The only factor likely to make a difference is Western military intervention, if that could be “arranged”.

On Thursday, an Associated Press news report said Washington remained uncertain where Syria stored its chemical weapons. US intelligence officials acknowledged that proof of Syria’s use of these weapons was still unclear, and that they were even less certain of Bashar’s guilt than they were of Saddam’s.

On the same day, a report released by the British government revealed that London did not understand why the Syrian government would want to use chemical weapons as alleged. Yet Britain was prepared to support the US position that Syria was guilty, nonetheless.

Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of international opinion is set against military action. This includes the general populations in Britain and the US.

The US Congress is divided on the issue and insists that its prior approval is needed, while the British Parliament on Thursday voted to oppose military action. But US officials have said none of this would change their plans.

Russia says no evidence exists of chemical weapons use, much less to link the Syrian government to such use. China says the UN Security Council should not be pressured on deadlines to approve any action before UN inspections are complete.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appealed for calm and for enough time for UN weapons inspectors in Syria to complete their job. Their mission ends this weekend.

Former chief UN arms inspector Hans Blix, in a similar situation a decade ago when the US had already decided to attack Iraq, now questions the right of any country to attack Syria even if it had actually used chemical weapons.

Despite the international ban on chemical weapons, no international law obligates any power to attack a country for the use of WMDs. The US itself is not restrained against its first use of nuclear WMDs.

The official US line is that “punishing” Syria is not intended to topple Bashar. In the heat of hostilities, however, nobody can guarantee there would be no regime change, especially when US forces meet with resistance and risk international embarrassment for not achieving anything substantial.

The US case for an attack also claims the “immorality” of Syria’s alleged chemical weapons use. But the moral argument is defeated when an attack could result in more civilian deaths and suffering than the supposed use of chemical weapons.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has warned that any action that escalates the Syrian conflict would only result in more civilian suffering. Unesco said the looting of Syria’s rich cultural heritage had already begun.

White House spokesman Jay Carney insisted that logically, there was no doubt about the Syrian government’s guilt. But logic remains the biggest impediment to the US argument.

Attacking another country can be legitimate only in a case of self-defence or when approved by the UN Security Council. The latter requires endorsement by all the UNSC’s Permanent Five members.

A US attack cannot cite self-defence because Syria did not attack the US. Neither will there be UNSC approval, since Russia and China are likely to vote against.

Nonetheless, the US proceeded to attack Iraq in 2003 even after China abstained. Obama may now outdo Bush by attacking Syria when both Russia and China object.

US bombs may also hit chemical weapons stockpiles, releasing poison gas and killing many more people. But then only Syrians would be affected.

Obama’s standing in the Muslim world has declined considerably since its height with his 2009 Cairo speech. Where actions speak louder than words, that decline is also happening in the developing world in general.

BUNN NAGARA is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia

Facing still more of the same - 10 years after 9/11

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Facing still more of the same

Behind The Headlines By Bunn Nagara

Ten years after 9/11, little has actually changed, least of all political attitudes.

UNTIL Sept 10, 2001, the world seemed a simpler place.
Image by Walt Jabsco via Flickr
Terrorism was a scourge that needed to be kept in check, if not eliminated while Afghanistan was a tribal wasteland in the boondocks and the legendary graveyard of foreign empires.

Iraq was an oil-rich autocracy and established US ally against Iran but with a tendency to slip into unilateral nationalist fervour, and the United States was a neo-conservative right-wing Republican bastion huffing and puffing for something to blow at.

The next day, two planes slammed into the two towers of New York’s World Trade Center. Neither bad coincidence nor pilot error was ever an issue.

Other aircraft had been hijacked the same day, but the twin crashes at the twin towers were more dramatic and dominated headlines, sound bites, political posturing and public imagination.

As the heart of lower Manhattan seemed to dissolve in a rising mound of smoke and dust, more than just debris was in the air. It was a time of change for the US and certain parts of the world.

Suddenly, the United States had the national tendency to slip into unilateralist fervour, Afghanistan and Iraq became targets that needed to be kept in check if not eliminated, and terrorism, oil-rich autocracies and Muslim states came to be profiled as one from many a Washington desk.

The neo-conservative right-wing bastion in the White House had found a couple of things to huff and puff at. Such was its enthusiasm that it forgot how Afghanistan remained very much a graveyard of foreign empires.

The result now, a full decade later, is described in Washington circles and elsewhere as the worst US policy overreaction of the century.



Within weeks, the George W. Bush administration blamed the attacks on Osama bin Laden and his followers, collectively called “al-Qaeda” as the Arabic translation of “the base,” the name the CIA originally gave Osama’s group and training camp. Nobody had claimed responsibility for the New York attacks, and al-Qaeda soon after denied any involvement.

The Taliban government in Afghanistan was then accused of sheltering al-Qaeda, so that made it fair game for elimination. In late 2001, Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders were ousted and replaced by the Pashtun activist and CIA point man Hamid Karzai.

The Zionist neo-cons in Washington were on a roll, “regime change” was the name of the game, and they were about to aim that exuberance and momentum at another target. But for the purpose to hit home, some points still needed to be made at home.

So Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was to be the new Hitler, he trashed his country’s wealth on costly palaces, he killed many people (decades ago), and he endangered the world or at least Israel with many nasty ABC (atomic, biological, chemical) weapons.

The problem was getting enough voters in the US and the general public in ally countries to go along with the idea. Bush and his British counterpart Tony Blair then decided the latter reason was the most persuasive: that Saddam had dangerous “weapons of mass destruction” (WMDs).

This was despite UN weapons inspectors having found no Iraqi WMDs, a recent major feature in Newsweek magazine coming round to the same conclusion, and the story about secret sourcing of radioactive material for a bomb discovered as fake. What mattered more instrumentally, however, was whether the UN Security Council could be massaged into endorsing a US invasion of Iraq.

It could, China’s abstention notwithstanding. As plans for an invasion of Iraq were being drafted, the US public also needed convincing.

So there was the ruse that Saddam was linked to al-Qaeda, and al-Qaeda was responsible for all the nasty things. Meanwhile Osama, having found that such issues could really rile the world’s sole superpower, “admitted” that he was responsible for the policy panic in Washington.

Thus Saddam was eliminated and replaced by a US ally, although the vast quantities of high-grade Iraqi oil seemed more elusive. But the violence and instability in Iraq also meant China could not access the oil either.

Still, the casualty rates in terms of human lives, economic cost and national destruction and degradation continue to mount. Ten years on and with the follies rather more exposed, senior US and British officials have queued to disown any responsibility for the continuing debacle.

Errors of judgment

Early this month, former head of British intelligence service MI5, Lady Eliza Manningham-Buller, gave a BBC lecture to enumerate the multiple errors of judgment across the Atlantic at the time. Critics replied that she should have said so then, since it is now too late.

Former British foreign minister Jack Straw pleaded innocence through ignorance, saying that the Blair government at the time had been misinformed by allies, including the US. As justice minister later, Straw refused to apologise personally to an Algerian pilot whose career was ruined after Straw wrongly accused him of training a Sept 11 hijacker.

Former US vice-president Dick Cheney also released a biography focusing on that period, typically accusing others who disagreed with him at the time. Former US secretary of state and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Colin Powell swiftly blasted him for the effort.

Powell was followed by former US secretary of state and national security adviser Dr Condoleezza Rice, who also found Cheney small-minded and mistaken. Rice should be replying more fully in her own biography later this year, so her critics should in turn be prepared.

However, the whole point of being honest, truthful and accurate should be to acknowledge past mistakes and avoid new ones. With the military occupation of Afghanistan now set to extend beyond the promised deadline, and new occupations likely in Libya if not also Syria, avoiding mistakes is not going to be easy or even possible.