While
Americans are justly concerned about the ongoing humanitarian disaster in
Syria, they must be careful whose narrative they accept before deciding what we
should do about it. Both sides have been responsible for civilian deaths and
torture, but we are only being told one side of the story, and a distorted one at
that. Though readily apparent to anyone who wants to look at the facts, the
American role in the violence is never clearly spelled out. For instance, famous "humanitarian" Nicholas Kristof has been on the bandwagon arguing for US military
intervention. It’s only right that the plight of Syrians he is highlighting
should be put in proper perspective.
In his
latest article, Kristof makes an emotionally powerful appeal for Obama to take in Syrian refugees. However,
in doing so he compares the violence in Syria with the Nazi attempt to conquer the Western
world. The truth is that the Syrian conflict, though often called a “civil war,” is actually a
case of a sovereign nation defending itself against an invasion of foreign
terrorists sponsored by the US, Saudi Arabia and their allies.
The US government claims the right to topple the government of Syria for its
own purposes, regardless of the effect on the civilian population. The claim of
“humanitarian intervention” is unjustified either by the facts or international
law. The effort is being led by a known al Qaeda affiliate, a fact not well concealed
by claims about a mythical “moderate rebel” faction. It makes no sense to blame
the resulting carnage on a government that is defending its sovereignty against
a ruthless and brutal enemy.
Kristof’s implied comparison of Assad to Hitler might be written off as a bad
analogy, except that, almost as an afterthought, he chides Obama for not doing “more
to end the slaughter.” Since taking in more refugees would do nothing to ease
the conflict, he must be referring to his previous arguments for a no-fly zone (
here and
here).
“Establishing a no-fly zone” means attacking the Syrian military. That’s an act
of war. Since neither we nor any NATO ally has been attacked by Syria, it would
constitute another illegal war of aggression, much like Iraq. Vietnam might be
a better comparison, since both involve baiting the targeted country, as the US
did in the Gulf of Tonkin. There, as in Iraq, we went to war based on lies. Or
perhaps Libya is the closest comparison, since the NATO attack on the Libyan
people and government forces started with a no-fly zone. Although that war used
the legal fig leaf of a UN resolution, a Syrian no-fly zone would not. Having
been fooled into supporting one illegal NATO war, Russia and China will not
support such a resolution again. If NATO
acts unilaterally, it will be even more blatantly illegal than the attack on
Libya. The results would be at least as disastrous.
A major difference between Vietnam and Syria is that Russia has combat troops
in Syria. An attack could be construed as an attack against Russia, which is
legally in the country at the request of the Syrian government. The US recently
threatened to do just that when the Syrian Army bombed separatist Kurdish
forces, with which US Special Forces were illegally embedded.
Clinton and other neocons seem unconcerned with the possibility of sparking a
war with a nuclear-armed power. They are calling for a no-fly zone or even more
aggressive actions. Trump would be under intense pressure to abandon his
no-regime-change position and do the same. No one in the foreign policy
establishment appears willing or able to question the groupthink under which it
is operating.
Few in Congress seem to understand that most of the official statements coming
from the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department and the intelligence
community reflect a distorted, one-sided view of the conflict that ignores the
facts, international law and common sense. It’s our job to educate them and
demand that the government attack the real roots of the terror in Saudi Arabia,
Turkey, Israel and Washington itself.