Well, here we are. It’s 2017, yet we’re clearly heading “back to
the future.”
I began political writing in the early days of the Iraq War. I
felt it was my duty, especially as a veteran, to stand up and make my voice
heard, to try and stop the unfolding disaster. I retired my pen years later,
when it appeared that it was finally over.
Clearly, that optimism was unjustified. In the wake of this week’s attack on Syria, we’ve been
forced to endure the same old neocons spouting the same lies on the same news
outlets. This is, of course, yet more evidence that in contemporary America,
the ruling class is never held accountable for anything. In 2008, the banking
elite looted the financial system and nearly collapsed the world economy, and
no one of any prominence was punished in any significant way. In 2003, our
political leaders spewed waves of deliberately falsified propaganda in the
run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Thousands of our soldiers died, a million
Iraqis perished, and trillions of dollars were wasted. Yet no one was ever held
liable for what they had done.
So here we are. Our leaders have learned nothing and forgotten
nothing. We stand at the brink of a conflict with nuclear-armed Russia for…what?
It’s hard to say, since our leaders have given up even bothering to concoct
reasons why their policies should be in any way relevant to the well-being of
the American people. They regard the notion as almost an insult.
As for the alleged chemical weapons attack in Idlib, I see only
three possibilities:
1. The Syrian
Air Force dropped bombs on a rebel weapons depot that was being used to store
chemical munitions. Some of the gas was released in the explosions, killing
civilians in the area. This is the Russian explanation, and it is a sound one.
2. The attack
was a false flag, either faked entirely or the result of a deliberate release
of the gas by the rebels to elicit sympathy for their cause. The rebels have
staged false flag operations before, so we cannot discount this explanation
entirely.
3. Assad
decided to use chemical weapons on the rebels in a militarily insignificant
operation, even though he is winning the war and the only real difference such
an attack could make would be to bring American intervention against him (which
is what happened). Some are claiming that he may have had arcane motives
related to the upcoming peace conference (to prevent a Russian-American deal to
divide Syria), but this is sketchy. He would be risking Russian wrath and an
American attack. Such a maneuver might literally snatch defeat from the jaws of
victory.
I give these scenarios a
90%, 9% and 1% probability, respectively.
But it is worthwhile noting
that the American establishment has been itching to intervene in the Syrian war
for years, even without such “justifications.” Putting too much weight on these
alternatives is probably a mistake. They don’t really care very much about the
actual deaths in that chemical incident. It was never more than a pretext to do
what they wanted to do anyway.
As we sift through the evidence and try to make sense of this
all, it’s important to keep a few more ideas in mind.
First, Assad and his people will never give up. He is an Alawite.
His coalition includes Christians, Druze, Kurds, and people from other
minorities (along with more than a few secular Sunnis). These people know what
will happen if the fanatics of ISIS and al Qaeda win. They will get the same
treatment that the Yazidi people received in Iraq when ISIS overran their
villages. The men were killed, and the women were turned into sex slaves.
How do you make peace with such people?
And the idea that America’s
preferred rebel groups are “moderate” and can be trusted to run a civilized
Syria after Assad’s defeat is purely delusional – a gamble that Assad is
unwilling to try (would you?).
The rebels have a slogan: Christians to Lebanon and Alawites to
the ovens. That is not a positive indicator that post-war Syria will be
comparable to Vermont.
We might also ask ourselves what our own government would do in
circumstances similar to Assad’s. What if an army of ISIS fanatics was fighting
its way through Virginia and threatening to overthrow the government in
Washington DC? What if the only way the government could stop them was to use
chemical weapons?
Would they do it?
Of course they would. The US government would gas them like bugs
(remember, our government has used WMDs before. Nagasaki? Hiroshima?).
So who are we to judge Assad?
It may be a quaint idea, but
there are also legal issues. Syria did not attack us, and was not threatening
to do so (a far better case could be made that the rebels – al Qaeda and ISIS –
are the real threats). Furthermore, we attacked Syria without a UN resolution,
making the whole affair a violation of international law. And don’t bother
mentioning American law. None of the legal and constitutional requirements were
followed in this matter (the Constitution is effectively dead, killed,
ironically, by those who insisted it was a “living document”).
The entire affair was lawless,
essentially a rogue operation.
So whose side should America be
on? What can we really hope to accomplish?
In my opinion, we should stay
out of the conflict entirely. In nearly every way, Syria has the potential to
become another Iraq, with the added peril of nuclear exchange added to the mix.
We are in dangerous territory,
and we can only organize, speak out, and hope that cooler heads somehow
prevail.
Steve
LaTulippe [send
him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an
officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.
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