Still 0n Syria:
Why is everyone so bent out of shape over what, to a normal person, looks like a possible solution to the problem of chemical weapons use in Syria? Could it be because Obama, no matter how bumbling he appeared, seems to have stumbled into something that will end up with just what we want? Even Iran, now, looks like it wants to make a deal. The chemical weapons will be destroyed, the war will go on without us and maybe, just maybe, Iran will seal the deal on nuclear weapons at the same time. Is this a bad thing?
Watching the corporate media was pretty embarrassing the last couple of weeks. Jumping on the obvious solution, much as they did before we attacked Iraq on the basis of the government selling us on yellowcake being acquired by that dictatorship, the media is now all in on the fact that Assad is the one responsible for the gas attacks. No one has been able to prove that Assad did this, but why worry about a trivial detail like proof. Understanding the kind of people who are fighting Assad, is it so hard to believe that one of them was the one that used the gas, knowing what our hawkish reaction would be. The only one who seems to have even considered this point of view was Peggy Noonan, normally a hawk, herself.
Of course no one has asked the question, why did Assad do this? He was gaining ground in the fight; outside forces, that’s us, the Brits and France, seemed to have decided not to get any more involved. All this was to his advantage. Why would he shake the hornet’s nest? It doesn’t make sense. All he had to do was keep punching with his legitimate forces and it looked very much like he would have won.
Does anyone think that the powers in Iran wouldn’t find it advantageous to have created this attack themselves just to get a read on how America might react to them, in the future? If they did, they got a really hot read and maybe that’s why they are suddenly so interested in giving up on a nuclear bomb. Or maybe they, long ago, gave up on a bomb but just don’t want it to seem like they backed down to American hegemony.
The President, before the whole Putin thing came up, was indicating some kind of symbolic attack that would not change the balance of power. These people are killing each other with impunity. Does anyone think a symbolic attack on them, is going to make any difference at all?
The deep sigh from the White House, on learning of Putin’s offer, could be heard all the way to Hawaii. No one in the administration was looking for this thing to come to a vote in congress. The problem was, that Obama wanted to lose that vote so that he didn’t have to invade, but he needed to win it for political prestige purposes. His speech, trying to avoid mentioning these two points while also trying give a clear explanation of what he would like to accomplish and why, is one of the most cynical pieces of presidential oration on record. And what the hell is a limited attack? Were we going to drop bombs, leaflets or ice cream cones?
Speaking of cynical, how about Kerry’s mention of Geneva convention rules in his speech about why we should bomb the hell out of Assad. If there is any country in the world that shouldn’t be bringing up Geneva, at his point in history, we are that country. We have violated so many of the Geneva Accords that we have practically written the book on ignoring them. Torture, rendition, Guantanamo, the pursuit of whistleblowers, the NDAA, NSA’s invasion of privacy, Agent Orange in Vietnam, depleted uranium in Kuwait, the Balkans and Yugoslavia; is that enough or should I go on? The thing is, if we want to pretend to be the good guys we had better start acting like the good guys, even when it doesn’t suit the purposes of the military/industrial complex.
On Face the Nation, Carl Levin and his Republican counterpart were whining about us not supporting Assad’s opposition. Why the hell should we be doing that? We know that al-Qaeda is part of the opposition in large numbers. Sure Assad is a butcher but so are they. Why are we supporting anyone? It’s their country. Let them sort it out. If anyone would suit our purposes it would be Assad. Not, however, a great PR choice. He does have a history of helping and cooperating with us, which is more than any of the opposition do.
For those of you who think that those of us who are against getting involved in Syria are isolationist please get over it. Just because there are those of us who don’t want to get in a new war every five minutes doesn’t make us isolationists. For those of you who think that Putin helping us out in this one instance is going to make Russia a world power again, I have one statistic for you. Russia has 11 military bases on foreign soil. The United States has 700. Enough said.
For those who don’t read history, isolationism in the Americas grew out of a desire by colonials not to ever again have to fight the battles of European powers, as they had when they were subjects of the English King. That stance was maintained for quite a long time, but eventually the results of scientific discovery shrunk the planet to a point where isolationism was no longer possible. We are past that point now. It is no longer possible to ignore what is happening in the various countries of the world. Still, despite the commercial ties we have in every corner of the planet, there are many of us that would like to keep the USA separate from the geo-political mess that is most of the modern world. Despite this desire not to get involved in foreign politics, our commercial relations often make this all but impossible.
We were fortunate, in that we were protected on the east and west coasts by great oceans, that for the first two centuries of our existence, kept us free of interference from foreign invaders. Now, our massive military power does pretty much the same thing. There is no nation on earth that would attack the United States and if one had the temerity to do so it would soon be crushed.
We have, since the institution of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, thought of the continents of North and South America as our own rather large sandbox. It was about the same time that isolationism took a back seat to expansionism as we fought and won wars with Mexico 1846 and Spain 1898 and acquired what is now California, Cuba, Guam, Hawaii, and the Philippines. A couple of them we have since let go.
Contrary to what happened to European powers, that possibly, because of their small borders, needed to acquire territory all over the world, in order to maintain suppliers and buyers for their needs and products, we became content with what we had, and henceforth restricted our expansionism to the religious or corporate kinds. This has never stopped, much to the regret of many lands, all over the world.
I find it fascinating that many on the right are being very hesitant about welcoming the help that Putin has offered toward a solution to the problems in Syria. He has an ulterior motive, they shout. Of course he has an ulterior motive, it would only be suspicious if he didn’t. The last thing Putin wants is to have the opposition in Syria win and institute an Islamic government there. Does the name Chechnya mean anything to the naysayers? Russia has its own Islamic problem. Syria going Muslim would only add to it. In this particular case, Putin wants almost exactly what we want; a peaceful solution to the chemical weapon problem and for Assad to crush the Islamic led rebels as humanely as possible.
We should only be so lucky to have Putin help us here, because none of our allies nor any of our so called loyal opposition here in the states are able to do anything but sit on the sidelines and yammer idiotically.