I wanted to retract a comment I left on one of your earlier posts, concerning the Red Crescent and them denying an attack. It seems this was a false narrative, with the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent’s Lebanon branch say they are unaware of any statement, and that the Red Crescent was not operational in Douma as of the date of the attack. It was not my intention to spread a false story. So I apologize, though I still contend that the media reporting of the story is being done with a certitude that should not be, and that the media seems all to happy to promote an escalation of war.
The US never effectively halted military aid to Egypt. That aid is sent in early summer.
After Sisi's June 2013 coup, US law required a cut-off of aid to any military dictatorship. Sisi took off his uniform, staged a phony election in spring 2014, and was a civilian president in time to receive the annual aid in summer 2014. It was all smoke and mirrors.
I can't comprehend much of the above discussion on past, present and future wars - mazes for the insane with many dead ends.
And when I read “--but with missiles that are hypersonic. The US has zero defense for this. Zero.--", I get concerned. Is WWW III just around the corner? Is Trump's finger closer to the nuclear button this week? Who knows what Trump will do, is a common comment by many journalist, new reporters, etc.
Trump appears to have a bipolar disorder, manic depression. Or is he acting??
Look at the video with Trump hugging himself. It doesn't take a psychiatrist to see that he has lost it, that he is not capable of intelligent and wise handling of presidential duties and pressures. Any individual in a board meeting displaying such action would be relieved of his duties and/or sent on a vacation, including most people working.
What the hell are his governmental psychiatrists and psychologists waiting for? WWIII? Too scared of losing their jobs? No excuses, period. Action, please…
Trump must be legally declared mentally incapable of performing the duties of the US President. But would the Vice President or any in the succession line have the real heart, intelligence, wisdom and integrity to heal America?
The revolutions I was referencing were revolutions against oppressive regimes, revolutions by the people, like the Arab Spring in so many other places which were all against the existing systems. Left to itself it would hardly have got to this mess. Revolutionary movements rarely succeed first time but they come back again until they do, meanwhile they are always bloody.
This is an incoherent rant rather than a thoughtful analysis of how governments approach the many conflicts in the Near East. It's not unlike the sort of nonsense on the subject spewed out by right-wing sites.
Example: You said the UK blocked efforts for a UN inquiry on civilian death in Yemen. Yes, that is true. But you omit the fact that the UN HRC unanimously adopted a resolution in September of last year to fund and support an international team of investigators to go to Yemen to investigate violations in the conflict by both sides. The resolution was a compromise but it was the only resolution that all parties in the conflict agreed to.
I see this tactic used on Fox News all the time. It's a misleading half-truth which, when juxtaposed with other relevant facts, looks a lot like a lie. This column is full of them.
The UK ranks 6th not 2nd in international arms sales for the period from 2012-2016 (SIPRI.org). The ranking doesn't really change in 2017. The widely circulated DTI report you cite (which was basically a sales pitch for a UK arms fair) is a rough estimate that doesn't account for other countries dramatically increasing their exports.
The fact is that I am generally sympathetic to your frustrations. I have lived and worked in the Middle East and have lost friends in two of the conflicts you mentioned (one was an aid worker and another a film maker). You quite rightly cite arms sales to the region as a factor in exacerbating the probability an severity of conflict in the region. So what happens when a country's main purveyor of arms ceases sales for humanitarian reasons? The US halted support for Egyptian arms during the Arab Spring revolt. Since then, Egypt has aggressively diversified its source of arms and security support and dramatically reduced its dependence on the US to reduce their vulnerability to political pressure. Russia,, China, and France are much less likely to get in a twist over human rights abuses and war crimes perpetrated by their customers than the US or UK.
There is enough one-eyed and blurred analysis out there already. Putting out more doesn't help anyone.
A worthy comment, Irwin and as you say, why is Bush walking the streets and being feted by Obama. Over here in the UK we have a similar situation with Bush's great friend and fellow war criminal, Tony Blair now strutting the streets of London saying we should go to war in Syria at once.
It's a fair guess that the Donald's priorities are
1. Avoid impeachment at least until mid-term elections
2. Win mid-term election (however you define that)
3. Set sights on 2020 and a second term.
Whatever he does, however crazy, unexpected or whatever, will fit with these personal priorities.
If the left thinks Trump will care if they protest, they need to get a grip. Trump doesn't care about anything except himself and how to stay where he is. Protestors are of no consequence to him. He believes he knows better and with Fox egging him on, there will be no change.
Even if there were tens of millions in every major city in the U.S.A. protesting Trump still would stick to his "agenda". people who protest can't do anything to him. Now he might send the military to deal with them, taking the position they are revolting against the government but that is about it. Then expect to see a repeat of Kent State, except on a much bigger scale.
Trump and his billionaire supporters are only interested in money and remaining on the top of the heap.
In answer to the question, no he won't bomb Syria as a distraction. He sent the tweet, advising the was going to bomb Syria to give Russia a heads up and set up a situation which will cause the Americans to not bomb Syria. The Brits and France won't move on it on their own. They may contract out the work to Israel but that would be about it.
The first bombing of Syria after the first chemical attack, didn't do much damage but to do it a second time may piss of Putin. Trump really doesn't care about the people of Syria. He had a momentary lapse, and got over it. Chemicals on children, he doesn't care. Trump, in my opinion, only cares about himself and how well he does and how he can entertain himself.
Seriously? Its absolutely amazing that people actually want TRUMP (F'ING TRUMP) to confront a nuclear armed power by firing missiles at them. A nuclear armed power that now claims to not only have missiles with nuclear powered engines (!), but with missiles that are hypersonic. The US has zero defense for this. Zero. People have absolutely lost ALL sense because of this president and soley BECAUSE its this president.
And the sheep still bleet "collusion" and "hacking" with ZERO evidence to back up their claims. But of course REAL election fraud (Tim Canova in Florida, California, New York) doesnt even register. F'ing amazing. No wonder we are in this situation.
Some perceive the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) - which controls Rojava, is Kurdish-dominated and helped eradicate ISIS in that region, but has adopted a direct democratic and federal form of government stressing equality of the sexes and of ethnic groups - as a model of governance that the Syrian people should aspire to:
Most Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters have opposed the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) - the military wing of the SDC - however some FSA brigades have allied themselves with the largely Kurdish units that comprise the SDF.
You're kidding, right? The Ba'athist regime - aka the Assad family business - is no "revolutionary regime." And as Juan's post correctly notes, the regime has exacted a terrible price in destruction and death. The only "unremitting pity" is that the people of Syria will continue to be ruled by war criminals.
So, Juan, what would the new, smart missiles accomplish? More pain to the Syrian people - and possibly WW3. I don’t like Assad, but there’s nothing but terrible actors on this war. IF Assad he needs to be hunted and prosecuted as a war criminal, but I’m not convinced yet. Meanwhile why is GWB still walking the streets!? And the Obamas both make nice to him! This country has no right to lecture to the world!’
It is my impression that the empires of history were gained through scheming, trickery, manipulation and not so much through military force. By manipulating numerous but weak vassals, by turning them against each other the empire's masters can control them all. This can work for a long time. Empires can last centuries.
However, in time, the subjugated learn the trick. They resist, the old manipulations no longer work. A man in a loin cloth, Gandhi, defeated the British Empire.
Using military force is expensive. It is especially expensive when it does not work. It is very expensive because it becomes never ending. That is where we find ourselves today. There is no winning strategy, the smart thing is to get out.
Fatigue on outrage maybe for something that's ongoing in the news for over 70 years, though I wouldn't necessarily say it's an over-exposure.
Self-censorship is also a big issue. Not genuinely caring for Palestinians is true, besides being either pro-Israel or anti-Palestinian, in which case you end up justifying the brutality. It's also possible some people who know this is wrong, and aren't particularly pro-Israel (and may indeed be pro-Palestinian), still don't care, probably thinking of the victims as a nuisance instead due to other long-term prejudice (refugees, needy, etc). Tuning out negative news, that you don't want to admit being culpable for, or being in your own news bubble maybe other reasons.
Guessing al-Sadr is one of those 'Shia friends' Bin Salman probably likes to tout...I guess a guy trying to reason or plead with you on not escalating regional sectarian and extremist violence based on your inherited religious prejudices and power trip could be considered a good friend.
Beat back against those Takfiri (i.e. Sunni Islamist extremists) and their evil regional and imperial conspiracy sponsors in Saudi Arabia, Israel and the US (is Turkey and Qatar off the list now?), by siding with a so benevolent friendly Syrian dictator, with no blood of his nation's people on his hands, and the totally just Russians. All they wanted was one corrupt guy or family gone...but no...the regime was as precious as the local holy shrines, of course!
The Prophet and the Imams will be so proud...all it cost were just possibly thousands of poor ungrateful Syrian souls and scarring millions more, none of whom you could possibly have reached out to and work with for some transitioning government to safeguard the land-bridge to Lebanon. No, no. Looking forward to hearing sermons on how noble the Prophet's family were in the face of adversity against a tyrant in Yazid while watching your supposedly rightly guided Islamic state do the opposite. How sorry I am to ever have expected better...
The oligarchy always cycles through ever-worse new ideologues to carry out ever more barbaric agendas. That's how we got from Newt Gingrich to Donald Trump, from Rush Limbaugh to Alex Jones, from the militia psychos being on the fringes of society to being White House strategists.
Muller could just share all of his files with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. Almost every indictable offense Trump and his croney's have committed was committed in New York State and so is under Schneiderman's jurisdiction.
All of the money laundering with Trump condo's, Taxi services, Russian mobsters in Brooklyn and Russian Oligarch's buying condo's. All of their crimes happened in New York.
Is Trump's tweet a warning to his mates in Russia? As in.. We've had some military meetings and decided to bomb Syria. I'm letting you know ahead of time because you got me elected?
Always great to get some clarification of this very confused area from Prof Cole. Very hard to figure out if there are any good buys in this picture as the Syrian people suffer at the hands of all sides.
All revolutionary movements are bloody. Look at Europe through the 19th and early 20th centuries:
1830 France
1848 Spain
Germany
France
Hungary
1861 Italy
1871 France
1917 Russia
1936 Spain
1956 Hungary
1968 France
Czechoslovakia
They were and are all part of the socio-political evolution of human national order. They move nations forward. Sure, they are bloody but so is nature. They are like a sequence of difficult births. They are not assisted by external meddling. In fact external meddling crushes the line along which they struggle, albeit often blindly. They do not always 'succeed', whatever that may be, but they come back again until some modus vivendi is reached and peace prevails for a period. The Arab spring was a series of such revolutions but the US and its allies meddled and turned them into directionless chaos. If Assad does manage to put Syria together again the political evolution of the Syrian people may be able to get back on the rails. I imagine that is what most of them would like. It's an unremitting pity they are not allowed to be masters of their own fate.
Thank you very much for another clear and illuminating account about the complex situation in Syria. Although as you say, this time too the attack on Syria may be limited, there are some indications that it will be more substantial, especially given the people who are now advising the president. In view of Russian threats to retaliate, the whole conflict can get out of hand and can lead to a major international confrontation. This is why I believe that we should take the threat of a much wider war or at least greater and prolonged chaos in Syria more seriously.
Rightly or wrongly, President Putin believes that with the expansion of NATO to Russia’s neighborhood, NATO exercises in the Baltic countries, Western sanctions, etc. he is under attack from the West, and the West does not wish to give up its unipolar view of the world. Therefore, he might over-react. Diplomacy by tweets, promising nice, new, smart missiles being on the way, is not very reassuring.
The main question to ask is what is this military attack going to achieve. If it is to express revulsion against the use of chemical weapons, the West was eerily silent when much greater use of chemical weapons was made against Iran and the Kurds during the Iran-Iraq war. Even the Security Council did not condemn their use till it issued Resolution 582 on 24 February 1986, towards the end of the war, even then in general terms and without condemning Iraq.
In 2013 when President Obama threatened to use massive force against Syria, the British Parliament opposed British involvement in it, and the United States also refrained from military action, especially as Congress also seemed to be opposed to it. I believe that the outcome was much better than a symbolic attack, because Syria agreed to get rid of her chemical weapons (at least most of them).
I believe that Prime Minister May should be persuaded to consult the parliament again on any British involvement in the war, especially as she leads a minority government and does not have a mandate for war. In fact, according to a report in today’s edition of the Times, only 20% of the British public support the move. By doing so, she may avert another illegal war and provide time for a more lasting peaceful alternative.
The problem is that the West lacks any strategy for Syria or the Middle East as a whole. A solution to the Syrian tragedy requires cooperation between the West and Russia with the involvement of all the regional countries that are active in Syria, including Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Let’s push for a coherent strategy regarding Syria, rather than rush to war.
I admit to being a whacko who voted for a 3rd Party candidate.
But there is another type of voter who voted 3rd Party: the ones who assessed the character and promise of each candidate, and then voted for the best one.
If you vote for the lesser of 2 evils, you are still voting for evil.
And hand the country over to the likes of Jaish al-Islam and the former Jabhat al-Nusra?
Is NATO supposed to send in ground troops as well, in order to prevent those bloodthirsty militants from slaughtering and exiling `Alawis, Christians, etc.?
Whatever happened to the requirement for a declaration of war by the U.S. Congress in the face of a threat to or attack on the homeland?
Whatever became of that 'war on terrorism' against the ilk of Osama bin Laden, running amok in Syria since 2011/2012?
Hi
I've seen this awful story a few places now .....what surprises me in each case is the lack of response from readers - wheres the outrage? Is it because people dont really care what happens to Palestinians or that they 'get what they deserve' , or is it a kind of self censorship - a fear that any comment will be seen as being anti Semitic?
since before i could vote, folks have counseled reliance on the moderate wing of the slave-owners party. the few gains the left has made since the end of the 19th century, have been the result of movements in the street. the right to vote for women and African Americans? by definition could not be won by voting. industrial unions? if anything, reliance on the "friends/backstabbers of labor" has deep sixed that movement. the end of the war in Vietnam...credit goes to the sacrifice the Vietnamese were willing to make with a supporting credit to the world wide anti-war movement .
as Malcolm X told us: It is the system itself that, that is incapable of producing freedom for the twenty-two million Afro-Americans. Just like a chicken can't lay a duck egg...a chicken can't lay a duck egg, because the system of the chicken isn't constructed in the way to produce a duck egg. And just as that chicken system can't produce, is not capable to, of producing a duck egg, the political and economic system of this country is absolutely incapable of producing freedom and justice and equality and human dignity for the twenty-two million Afro-Americans
we, the wage slaves cannot put our eggs in the care of the slave master's party.
Not against protests. Been to a few myself. But Parkland students have not changed one national law, and unless we have a whole different Congress, there is no prospect of them doing so.
People need to get off their duffs and head to the polls come Election Day. The rightwing won this last election because too many people who ought to have known better decided to forego the vote - they couldn't be bothered or were steamed that Bernie lost and were just too "pure" to vote for Hillary. Or they were sucked by Russian bots and reactionary strategists to waste their votes on the wacko 3rd party candidates.
This time let's get smart about this. If the Democratic candidate fails to live up to your dreams of perfection, vote for them anyway - and then hold their feet to the fire to get them to improve. But for Pete's sake, let's not imagine we'll get out of our current mess without changing the current composition of Congress.
I am a reader and a regular re-poster of the pieces on your blog, yours and others. I am mostly with you in the intent of this piece, but not completely. Your prescription of "cleaning out the deadwood," is rather general. I have in my politics, studies and talks become more precise. I'll give an example. In Michigan, for governor, there is a moderate Dem, perhaps in your mind, "deadwood," certainly to some DSA folks that I know, and there is the DSA candidate. SHE is a Dem from a predominantly white, suburban district who has been elected many times and now in her late 40's, an attorney, has risen in the state legislature to become the Senate Minority Leader. She is liberal, not DSA. Her DSA endorsed opponent is a first time doctor, a young man who has headed the Detroit city Health Department for a few years. That's it. Nice guy. Endorses Medicare for All. Not ever run or elected to anything. We have a hated Republican governor who might be succeeded by another hated Republican Teaparty guy. Yet the DSA folks are attacking the woman as too moderate, not in with Bernie, etc. We have a real opportunity to win. It takes a powerful mix of folks, a large coalition to win state offices. She is gaining those elements, step by step. He still has his small crowd. "Cleaning out the deadwood," is a good idea. It's like "draining the swamp," on the left. If 2016 taught us anything, it suggests that we need to be careful about what we say and much more precise about who we target. "Cleaning out the deadwood" strikes me as launching a drone strike and not really caring about who is in the house. I enjoy your blog and your other contributors and look forward to doing so in the future.
I think that unless there are severe, choking, sanctions that "we" can implement against Assad and Putin, that it is time to destroy the Syrian Air Force and impose a no fly zone over all of Syria. This should be/could be done by NATO, including Turkey, plus Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and other middle eastern allies.
I agree with you Juan that we need to vote, but I think public protests and response can have a powerful effect - just look at those great students from Parkland.
There is a movement (trumpisnotabovethelaw.org) to take to the streets within 24 hours of any mischief with Mueller or DOJ by Trump - you can cut and paste the following link to sign up, which I did this morning, and you can send the link to friends.
If possible, it would be great to have a movement, state by state, to occupy the home offices of every GOP member of the House - and not leave until they fulfill their constitutional obligation as a check on a lawless president.
And another huge Thank You Juan, for this contribution.
I stood on street corners for at least a dozen campaigns and candidates, from the '60's to the '00's. Over 50% will never talk to you whatsoever. Of those who will, everybody has a favorite celebrity they'd like to see as President -- but if it's a problem that needs the attention of a city councilor or a state legislator, hardly anyone can care. No one who's even 5 feet outside a city or state office-boundary can care about that district, and even in the district there's only 30% or so who can care about local races.
The answer is to organize, organize and organize some more. In my writings elsewhere I've argued for a strategy of organizing both within and outside of the Democratic Party.
It comes as no surprise to me that there is a common theme of tolerance running through the teachings of great Messengers of the same God, such as Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. The problem lies with the followers who do not heed these noble teachings.
I think the dread of chemical weapons came from World War 1 and the years afterward. They were seen as too destabilizing to the normal business of Great Powers pushing around lesser powers while not annihilating each other. Watch the movie "The Shape of Things To Come" to see an example of what 1930s Britons feared for the next war - which did not happen. When Germans began conventionally bombing London, the British were stuck with plans based on the assumption of massive civilian casualties from chemical weapons, not fires all over the place. Of course, Hitler himself was deathly afraid of chemical weapons due to his own experience. And yes, the Allies had plans to use those on Germany if the war went one more year.
In other words, chemical weapons represent a threshold that it's too easy to cross, thus raising the spectre of eternal escalation. Nuclear weapons create the same dread, but form a very high threshold that has somehow held up for 73 years.
They want their wars nice and middle-sized and unending. Biochemical weapons throw that out the window.
Yup. Syria is an easy target. Putin and Trump will come up with a list of soft targets to attack. Trump will launch an attack that will last 2-3 days, just enough to take away some of the attention from the raid. Trump will claim that we are there to protect the kids. Meanwhile we can't protect the kids here in America from domestic terrorism and crappy water lines.
It would be helpful if the author provided something other than just moral indignation.
What should the world do about Syria? Intervene militarily to remove Bashar al-Assad outright, with no thought to the consequences? Pave the way for his replacement by the likes of Douma's Jaish al-Islam?
And does the writer think the world should have sent forces into Baghdad to dispose of Saddam Hussein after his military began deploying chemical weapons in the war with Iran? Surely far, far more people were killed or injured by nonconventional arms in that conflict of the 1980s than since 2011 during the civil war in Syria.
Instead of bombing the Ba`thists, there ought to be an impartial investigation of what happened. Alas, such does not seem very feasible. One can imagine with little difficulty that, for their own reasons, the U.S. and its allies would work to have the brutal regime found culpable while Russia and its allies would seek to have the devious rebels declared responsible.
The main stream media has begun the process of softening up the public for both a Syria “intervention” and a Meuller firing by running multiple stories and talking head discussions, ad nauseum, about both. When/if either or both eventuate, the public is already immunized against outrage. Ho hum.
There is a direct line from the failure to prosecute the US ( and other complicit countries) for their war crimes and where we are today - with the militarization of police who act with impunity against an unarmed and vulnerable population exactly as their brothers in arms do on battlefields across the world, ready to violently suppress dissent at home as their leaders ( your leaders USA - the ones you elected) charge toward global war with $ signs in their eyes.
While its tempting to put all the blame on Bush, Blair and now Trump we should remember those who had the opportunity and the moral obligation ( if not legal) to call those criminals publicly to account - to cleanse that rot and ensure that it was clear to all - for all time- that what happened was not acceptable EVER - criminal acts for which they would be held to account. But that never happened , Obama was given a Peace prize for NOT being Bush and the US ' looked forward , not back' , not learning from its mistakes ....in fact not being forced to confront them at all.
I fear for the future , for my children and grandchildren . I still remember the promise of a better , more peaceful world - when the cold war ended and there were no more enemies - ok,fewer...it wasn't utopia but there was a promise.....
Note Chump fired Preet to preclude such a radical act, but the new USAt apparently wasn't sufficiently vetted for blind loyalty. Seems like a win-win, if Trump goes overboard in attacking Syria.. what could be too much with the murderous snake Assad?? The last time, Russia/Syria sent planes to the same gassed village the next 3 days and wiped it off the map while Americans were celebrating Chump's toughness. I hope Trump goes after the Syrian pilots (Russians too are eminently deserving after their depredations and mass attack on Americans), but a cruise missile into a lower floor or Assad's Palace would have 1000x the effect of anything else. With the Bannon/Trump NSC hacks being replaced by the Bolton NSC hacks, I wonder if the whole focus of the "reprisal" will be switched to Iran. To really distract from Mueller firing or Indictments, Trump needs a real War and Iran fits his pinhead misconceptions.
Add this to the very cynical way that Turkey barged into Syrian Kurdistan knowing that the US and Russia and Iran and even Syria would not interfere, and you wonder if these days all of these atrocities are secretly bargained out in advance between the global players, including the pro forma retaliation. Which puts Saudi Arabia's crime spree in a new light. Do these countries trade atrocities for business deals? Are they not all close to being state-capitalist regimes where the rulers are as intertwined with the owners as their countries are with each other?
What an argument against running a country like a business.
One of the other reasons obama didn’t bomb in 2013 is as he said himself in a 2016 interview in The Atlantic, that his intelligence chief came to him and said they weren’t sure Assad was responsible.
There is no way Sessions, who fired McCabe, was unaware this was coming.
Ostensibly, this move was not connected with Russiagate.
Did Sessions sign off? ,,, or maybe just wink & nod while passing the buck?
Speaking of diversions. Border-assigned National Guard troops can easily be redeployed to quell any peaceful protests should FAUXNews find them annoying or 'An attack on Our Country'.
It was just a year ago when the Trump maladministration attacked Assad's tiny inactive airfield as a warning for using chemical weapons on his own people.
Apparently, President Assad did not take the warning very seriously. Now, our compromised toy soldier President is forced to act, AGAIN.
Terming the FBI search warrant raid on the offices and premises of President Trump's PERSONAL attorney an 'Attack on our country' invokes visions of MILITARY INTERVENTION at the DOJ, not Syria.
Describing the Keystone Pipeline as an "OIL" pipeline is a misnomer tantamount to a LIE!
The product being delivered from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf Coast in Texas is diluted bitumen or "dilbit" which contains so little crude oil (<20%) the Texas Railroad Commission (TRC) does not consider dilbit to be taxable as a petroleum product. As dilbit contains hydrocarbons at extreme ends of the viscosity range, the material can be more difficult to process than typical crude oil and leaves behind megatons of refinery waste called “petcoke” which is sold to poorer countries as the dirtiest fuel source known to man. Petcoke is atmospheric poison in it’s purest form. The EPA has banned it’s use within the U.S. except as raw material to process for use in the manufacture of high explosives.
Dilbit must be diluted with toxic solvents (naptha) and heated to transport, the highest pipe temperature is expected to remain below 120°F for dilbit to flow through a pipeline which makes operation of the heated pipeline very ENERGY INTENSIVE (who pays for that?). The tar sands bitumen is basically gritty asphalt in consistency unless heated and diluted. And far MORE poisonous than crude oil if leaked into our environment.
The founder and Chief Executive Officer of Oxbow Carbon LLC, William (Bill) Koch has built one of the largest marketing companies of fuel-grade and calcined petroleum coke in the world. The administration push for the Keystone XL pipeline is the blatantly OBVIOUS pay back for the MiLLIONS in dark money given to elect Trump as President.
Being not from the US myself but currently living here, I find people educating me about the "third world" and how the evil West is to blame for everything. It's ironic, because I'm from what you would call a developing nation that was colonized by Germany and then Britain. The West has a lot to answer for no doubt, but this idea that the world is black and white and that other leaders are innocent and just victims of imperialist aggression is just factually incorrect. I have met Iraqis who themselves told me that the phase from 1979-2003 was a nightmare for them, and that even though the country is going through a difficult period, the situation will eventually stabilize but Saddam was never the answer to the problems Iraq is facing, he was in fact one of the biggest causes of those problems. I do not believe the West went into Iraq to "liberate Iraqis", they obviously had their own agendas, whether it was oil or US/Israeli geostrategic gains, and let's not forget the US propped up Saddam for 8 years in the war against Iran, but that doesn't mean Saddam wasn't an absolute genocidal maniac. Iraqis themselves will tell you this, but the left in the West is too fixated with the idea that anyone the West is against is automatically good and a champion of resistance, etc. If only the world were so easy.
Its hard for me to see the context of the "line in the sand" outrage at the at the use of chemical weapons. The estimated deaths in the Syrian war are about 400,000, well over 99% of which were caused by "conventional" weapons.
The establishment message seems to be "we feel your pain if caused by chemical weapons". If not, "war is hell".
Trump, and most of us, had no attacks of conscience when we dropped the 21,000 pound MOAB bomb on the Taliban last April. The militarily and Trump were proud of the operation. I suppose the common understanding is that incineration by MOAB is more humane than strangling from a gas attack.
Good point on body language. Eyes darting may indicate he is simply thinking and 'searching' for words. However, note the way he protectively clasps his arms around himself, and which issues seem to provoke it. It could be the room is cold, but neither Bolton or Pence is so uncomfortable.
This is why we have international law: to try world leaders under a universal framework for crimes against humanity. A lot of international law was established and codified after atrocities during World War II. If the lessons of World War II mean anything to us at all, we need to strengthen and not abrogate international and human rights laws.
Unilateral strikes against other countries that are not sanctioned by the UN Security Council are against international law.
It is a tried and tested method used by many governments facing a crisis, when in trouble divert attention to a foreign adventure which normally rallies the crowds. It will also help the British prime minister in the aftermath of the Brexit and the Skripal affair, and the French president whose country is practically paralyzed with strikes, and French pilots are also going to join the railway strikers and other labor unions. The French and the British governments have expressed their support for a military action against Syria.
The problem that the British government faces is that last time when Prime Minister David Cameron asked the Parliament to approve military action in Syria, the motion was defeated, and there is no guarantee that a majority in the parliament would support it this time. It would be interesting to see if Mrs. May agrees to join a military attack without a vote in the parliament. It was clearly stated on the British media this morning that if America alone launches a strike it would be “unilateral”, but if Britain and France join in too it would mean that President Trump has the support of the “international community”. Now we know what international community means.
I agree very highly with a post at Daily Kos -- look at the video with the sound off. Trumpie is not happy or projecting, as he was in his campaign rallies. Look at his body language, especially his eyes which can't look anyone else in the eye. He's terrified, indulging in his favorite fantasies in a desperate attempt to scrub this reality.
Do fasten your seatbelts and update/upgrade your emergency supplies, this obsessive narcissist con-man looks ready to explode.
Here we have an example of 'Crazy Freedom' (America) vs 'Wise Dictatorship'. One is going to destroy the world (for freedom's sake) and the other to save it (for wisdom way).
Its elementary dear Farhang, Trump wants to milk the Saudis for billions and leave Syria, Evil Assad wants him to stick around and rebuild Syria don’t you see.
Latest reports from a Syrian doctor's association that 150 are confirmed dead in Douma from poison gas.
It is suspected a "cocktail" of chlorine and sarin was used.
The poison gas was delivered by helicopter via "barrel bombs" and one was dropped on the roof of Douma's hospital, killing six, and another was dropped on an apartment building, killing a number of women and children.
The use of helicopters would clearly implicate the Assad regime in the poison gas use.
I must confess to being of two minds. I detest Assad and his band of Ba'athists thugs. Then again, I detest our fake President and everything he stands for. At this point, Trump's done a wonderful job alienating allies to such an extent that I can't imagine how he'd be able to mobilize a coalition of the willing to take serious action against Damascus. Even then, what's the end game? After Iraq, we ought to take a deep breath and ask ourselves what we want to accomplish. Lots of bad options on the table. It's a mess.
Only safe prediction: More Syrian civilians are going to get butchered in the worst way while Assad, Lavrov and assorted Iranian hacks will swear that everything's just hunky-dory
"......[o]nly yesterday, the former British ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford in an interview........warned against jumping to a conclusion before all the facts are known, and he pointed the finger at the Army of Islam for the atrocity.............."
Peter Ford is affiliated with a pro-Assad lobby group in the U.K., so his credibility is questionable:
I have seen in the past, not just with Syria, where some leftists are so against US policy, especially interventions, that they end up defending ruthless dictators. Many ideologues want to see the world in only black and white and end up with what seems to me to be curious and dubious positions. Unfortunately the world is a messy place and right and wrong are rarely clearly delineated.. I always am reminded of what the journalist/author Robert Fisk once wrote about the Middle East: there is no right and wrong, only different degrees of wrong (I may have the quote a little off, but you get the idea). Or, to put it another way, there are no clean hands in the region. Assad has shown clearly in the past that he will stoop to any depths to hold on to power. At the very beginning he may have been able to work out a peaceful solution that left him in in charge but sharing power, but he chose to meet peaceful demonstrations with gunfire and bloodshed and things have degenerated from there.
Yugoslavia was an artificial country held together by Tito. Once he died, the country's instability was pretty much assured. Syria is less riven by factions/ethnicities than Yugoslavia was, but under the Asads it has been run by the Alawites who are a minority in the country. The mismanagement by the Assads, especially during the Arab Spring, is responsible for their troubles, not "outside agitators."
As I trust Professor Cole’s expertise in Middle Eastern affairs and his fairness, I do not wish to contradict his assessment that it was definitely the Syrian regime that used chemical weapons in Douma. The reasons that he provides are certainly plausible. However, as the latest use of chemical weapons has provided another excuse for the hawks to encourage President Trump to again carry out a military attack against Syria, and as Russia has warned against it, this latest episode may lead to a bigger confrontation. Israel has already used the opportunity to launch an attack on Syria as she had repeatedly done in the past, usually following the defeat of the terrorists.
I would like to post the following link just to provide an alternative version. Only yesterday, the former British Ambassador to Syria Peter Ford in an interview with Sky News warned against jumping to a conclusion before all the facts are known, and he pointed the finger at the Army of Islam for the atrocity. The report is published by the RT, which may be as reliable or unreliable as the VOA, but the points that the author makes are worthy of consideration: link to rt.com
Thank you so very much for your cogent presentation of the situation.
You write, "Since Trump’s own strike on the Shuayrat base last year did not forestall the Douma gassing, it is difficult to understand why Trump thinks a strike in 2013 by Mr. Obama would have done so."
It is very difficult to understand anything our President Donald J. Trump thinks, isn't it ?
I am tired of my banging my head against the wall try to show evidence of Assad's warcrimes to people, they will never believe anything, they will use the logic argument to say Assad didn't do xyz, but when you show them the logical basis for him using such tactics, they will ignore it and conveniently assert their own claim over anyone else's. Ironically, these people are fervently anti-Zionist in many cases, yet the arguments they make are so similar. Despite what countless human rights groups, the UN and the OPCW have reported, they will choose not to believe anything. I am against US military intervention because I think personally, the US does not care about civilians, the carnage in Yemen and the warcrimes committed by Israel which it fully supports does not bother the ruling class one bit, barring maybe a few, but in the case of Israel, practically no one. I do think any attempt to find a sense of justice needs to involve a reformation of the institutions we have, whether it is the ICC and the UNSC, so that they are not politicized and able to act in situations like these, where the aim is solely to protect civilians, not other agendas. These organisations need to be able to act regardless of who the perpetrators are. The ICC needs to be able to punish all leaders who commit warcrimes, be they Syrian, Russian, American, Iranian, Israeli, Saudi, Turkish, etc.
So is Trump going to now tweet, Build That Canal! ? I pray these times don't deteriorate further into a time of endless wars, sieges, famines, plagues, and bloodthirsty greedy oligarch warlords. Speaking of...Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Blair, and Netanyahu too, wanted the Middle East splintered and set back 50 to 100 years, and that mission was certainly accomplished. I think that was their ultimate goal, however badly they screwed the occupation. Same result, or worse! Fascist American warmongers finally had their domino theory validated. Naturally, as in all right-wing attacks, that theory was merely a projection of their worst and most treasured instincts.
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even more desperate than the Syrian forces,
decimated by sniper fire,
are the beltway bandits who fear the war might end.
They are trying to resurrect ISIS, without much luck.
How lucky that, against his best interests,
al-Assad is using chem weapons,
the one thing most likely to get Trump back on board.
.
.
with so little context,
is it fair to guess that Syrian government forces are blocking ethnic Kurds from entering Aleppo, Nubl and Zahra,
which are under their control,
to force Kurdish people to flee further Eastward toward Manbij and eventually across the Euphrates into Rojava ?
while that still seems to be a war crime,
at least that might make some strategic sense from al-Assad's point of view.
.
posted by a pretzel-twisted troll who isn't pro-Assad, but is skeptical of what appear to be black flag operations.
Good to see you asking, "Why ?"
May I suggest you next explore, "Cui bono ?"
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Unless the principle here is that maritime traffic that once stopped at Qatar's ports will now use the canal, this move makes no empirical sense. MbS is getting into Caligula country already.
The Saudis want to monopolize Wahhabism and are saying that the Qataris don't deserve to claim Abd al-Wahhab's legacy inasmuch as they have fallen into the Muslim Brotherhood heresy.
I do not understand why the Saudis have a problem with a Mosque named after a Wahabbi sect. I thought that Saudis were essentially Wahabbis. What am I missing here?
At least Trump spoke up about the recent gas attack in Syria. However, he, like most other people truthfully, probably takes issue with the actual fatal gas used by the regime, rather than the deaths of civilians.
Trump having no issue to kill off alleged terrorists' children won't be seen as anything immoral, and instead a virtue, in the eyes of the twisted far right-wing Republican God-fearing Christian fundamentalists who love Trump's psychopathocracy and don't seem to mind even the 'stormy' issues that come with it. Most probably secretly wish they were him.
I'm no fan of Geraldo and he cut a mighty pathetic figure in the interview I thought. Personally I watch Bill Maher for some of his guests, but not Maher himself. He is a misogynist and a notorious hater of Islam, as well as being generally deeply ignorant of religion and himself morally challenged.
I took deep offense this week at his pushback against David Hogg's take-down of Laura Ingrahm: here is a young person, the whole of 17 years old, who has just gone through a recent and horrific trauma, had the courage to speak out about it, and his biggest take away is that Hogg is illiberal because he advocates a boycott of Ingrahm's advertisers? And this is horrible because left-wing students are so illiberal? Maher completely erased the emotional and political context (and moment) in which Hogg's criticism and call to boycott took place.
Bill Maher is not smart, getting less and less funny by the day, and provides background noise for some ugly behavior in this country. He gives bigots a platform (and that is where I draw the line at watching him - if he has, say, Milo Y. or Ann Coulter as a guest I keep the tv off), and I doubt he understands that he himself is as big an offender as they are.
Smacking down a traumatized 17 year old in favor of a mercenary Fox News pundit. Good grief. It's not just Trump and the right that can be mean-spirited.
Most individuals' spheres of involvement, interest even, are fairly confined, like a beam of light with an area in full focus and everything else dimly outside it. Broad interest in a comment like that, and much else Trump says, is minimal. One thing US and Israeli leaders are forever rabbiting on about is their shared values and in this case a bit of your psychopathocracy would seem to be one.
With Trump leading the U.S.A. its well on its way to becoming a nation which doesn't really count on the world stage. OMG, what will Trump think when no one throws him a big parade when he arrives in their country.
the U.S.A. will eventually become what it was prior to WW II/ the average person not very well off. workers maringalized, etc.
If this continues the day may come the U.N. moves out of N.Y. We do have a great place in Canada, Churchill, Manitoba. Cold, lots of polar bears, no nightclubs, galleries, operas, etc. All there is to do is work. If they don't like that, perhaps Greenland
Macron can not be counted on to help the Kurds. He is only interested in getting himself re elected and his country's own problems, i.e. making France safe for big business.
If S.A. is expected to "pick up the slack" if the U.S.A. leaves it won't. It will take over the areas it wants and extend their own influence. Now what could go wrong with that? S. A. won't be interested in paying for anything. they expect the U.S.A. and other countries to do that. the heir apparent has done his road show to demonstrate what a nice progressive guy he is and now its back to the same old routine we have always had with S. A. S. A. is like the story about the snake, it does it because that is its nature.
Trump perhaps wants the American troops back to please his pal Putin and/or to place those troops on the U.S.A./Mexican border. who knows he may even want to place them at the Canadian border if he doesn't get what he wants from a NAFTA deal.
The American electorate elected him to office. However, he inflicts his craziness on the whole world.
Trump is all about himself and that is it. He is as good as the last person who complimented him. The American public voted him into office. Now they can live with it and the rest may die because of it. the man clearly needs to go.
The insiders will tell you that the Syrian civil war is a Saudi project - so how will appealing to them for help make anything better?
Answer - It will not.
He did say during the campaign that "you have to go after the families of the terrorists." And he clearly sees no value in the lives of Middle Eastern people. And, as you point out, not much in the lives of Americans who don't spend their lives in air-conditioned buildings.
"Psychopathocracy" is a good term. I just go with "kakistocracy."
==Saved Jews 3X== And, while anti-Iran ideologues maintain that modern-day Iran is following its ancestors in seeking to destroy Israel, Iran has in fact come to the rescue of Jews three times in history. (1) Cyrus the Great, the King of Persia during the 6th century BCE, is praised in the Hebrew Bible for saving the Jews from captivity in Babylon and allowing their return to the Holy Land (where he even helped them rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem). (2) When Xerxus I, the King of Persia during the 5th century BCE, was informed by his Jewish Queen Esther that viceroy Haman—who was an Agagite, not a Persian—wanted to destroy Persia’s Jewish community he saved the Jews, had Haman killed, and permitted the Jews to take revenge on those who sought their destruction. (3) Iranian diplomats saved Jews during the Holocaust. Iranian television ran a widely watched serial on the Holocaust, Zero Degree Turn, based on true accounts of the role Iranian diplomats in Europe played in rescuing thousands of Jews during WWII. link to detailedpoliticalquizzes.wordpress.com
Watching Bill Maher last night, he had on Geraldo Rivera. Rivera, while he opposes most Trump policies, was defending Trump, basically because Trump was nice to Rivera over the years. Maher was trying to get Rivera to see that how Trump charms you as an individual should be divorced from his policies and actions as President, a point Rivera wasn't able to accept. I am astounded at this type of moral blindness. Trump shows once again how he is a psychopath and should be condemned by anyone with an ounce of moral fiber. Hurry up Robert Mueller.
Also the US bombing of Korea back to the stone age, reducing the country to ruins and the population by 1/3. Callous disregard for the lives of other for many, many years.
Good Morning Professor,
I wanted to retract a comment I left on one of your earlier posts, concerning the Red Crescent and them denying an attack. It seems this was a false narrative, with the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent’s Lebanon branch say they are unaware of any statement, and that the Red Crescent was not operational in Douma as of the date of the attack. It was not my intention to spread a false story. So I apologize, though I still contend that the media reporting of the story is being done with a certitude that should not be, and that the media seems all to happy to promote an escalation of war.
The US never effectively halted military aid to Egypt. That aid is sent in early summer.
After Sisi's June 2013 coup, US law required a cut-off of aid to any military dictatorship. Sisi took off his uniform, staged a phony election in spring 2014, and was a civilian president in time to receive the annual aid in summer 2014. It was all smoke and mirrors.
I can't comprehend much of the above discussion on past, present and future wars - mazes for the insane with many dead ends.
And when I read “--but with missiles that are hypersonic. The US has zero defense for this. Zero.--", I get concerned. Is WWW III just around the corner? Is Trump's finger closer to the nuclear button this week? Who knows what Trump will do, is a common comment by many journalist, new reporters, etc.
Trump appears to have a bipolar disorder, manic depression. Or is he acting??
Look at the video with Trump hugging himself. It doesn't take a psychiatrist to see that he has lost it, that he is not capable of intelligent and wise handling of presidential duties and pressures. Any individual in a board meeting displaying such action would be relieved of his duties and/or sent on a vacation, including most people working.
What the hell are his governmental psychiatrists and psychologists waiting for? WWIII? Too scared of losing their jobs? No excuses, period. Action, please…
Trump must be legally declared mentally incapable of performing the duties of the US President. But would the Vice President or any in the succession line have the real heart, intelligence, wisdom and integrity to heal America?
The revolutions I was referencing were revolutions against oppressive regimes, revolutions by the people, like the Arab Spring in so many other places which were all against the existing systems. Left to itself it would hardly have got to this mess. Revolutionary movements rarely succeed first time but they come back again until they do, meanwhile they are always bloody.
This is an incoherent rant rather than a thoughtful analysis of how governments approach the many conflicts in the Near East. It's not unlike the sort of nonsense on the subject spewed out by right-wing sites.
Example: You said the UK blocked efforts for a UN inquiry on civilian death in Yemen. Yes, that is true. But you omit the fact that the UN HRC unanimously adopted a resolution in September of last year to fund and support an international team of investigators to go to Yemen to investigate violations in the conflict by both sides. The resolution was a compromise but it was the only resolution that all parties in the conflict agreed to.
I see this tactic used on Fox News all the time. It's a misleading half-truth which, when juxtaposed with other relevant facts, looks a lot like a lie. This column is full of them.
The UK ranks 6th not 2nd in international arms sales for the period from 2012-2016 (SIPRI.org). The ranking doesn't really change in 2017. The widely circulated DTI report you cite (which was basically a sales pitch for a UK arms fair) is a rough estimate that doesn't account for other countries dramatically increasing their exports.
The fact is that I am generally sympathetic to your frustrations. I have lived and worked in the Middle East and have lost friends in two of the conflicts you mentioned (one was an aid worker and another a film maker). You quite rightly cite arms sales to the region as a factor in exacerbating the probability an severity of conflict in the region. So what happens when a country's main purveyor of arms ceases sales for humanitarian reasons? The US halted support for Egyptian arms during the Arab Spring revolt. Since then, Egypt has aggressively diversified its source of arms and security support and dramatically reduced its dependence on the US to reduce their vulnerability to political pressure. Russia,, China, and France are much less likely to get in a twist over human rights abuses and war crimes perpetrated by their customers than the US or UK.
There is enough one-eyed and blurred analysis out there already. Putting out more doesn't help anyone.
A worthy comment, Irwin and as you say, why is Bush walking the streets and being feted by Obama. Over here in the UK we have a similar situation with Bush's great friend and fellow war criminal, Tony Blair now strutting the streets of London saying we should go to war in Syria at once.
It's a fair guess that the Donald's priorities are
1. Avoid impeachment at least until mid-term elections
2. Win mid-term election (however you define that)
3. Set sights on 2020 and a second term.
Whatever he does, however crazy, unexpected or whatever, will fit with these personal priorities.
Does someone need a refresher course on Sun Tzu and Machiavelli? To the victors belongs ......
If the left thinks Trump will care if they protest, they need to get a grip. Trump doesn't care about anything except himself and how to stay where he is. Protestors are of no consequence to him. He believes he knows better and with Fox egging him on, there will be no change.
Even if there were tens of millions in every major city in the U.S.A. protesting Trump still would stick to his "agenda". people who protest can't do anything to him. Now he might send the military to deal with them, taking the position they are revolting against the government but that is about it. Then expect to see a repeat of Kent State, except on a much bigger scale.
Trump and his billionaire supporters are only interested in money and remaining on the top of the heap.
In answer to the question, no he won't bomb Syria as a distraction. He sent the tweet, advising the was going to bomb Syria to give Russia a heads up and set up a situation which will cause the Americans to not bomb Syria. The Brits and France won't move on it on their own. They may contract out the work to Israel but that would be about it.
The first bombing of Syria after the first chemical attack, didn't do much damage but to do it a second time may piss of Putin. Trump really doesn't care about the people of Syria. He had a momentary lapse, and got over it. Chemicals on children, he doesn't care. Trump, in my opinion, only cares about himself and how well he does and how he can entertain himself.
Seriously? Its absolutely amazing that people actually want TRUMP (F'ING TRUMP) to confront a nuclear armed power by firing missiles at them. A nuclear armed power that now claims to not only have missiles with nuclear powered engines (!), but with missiles that are hypersonic. The US has zero defense for this. Zero. People have absolutely lost ALL sense because of this president and soley BECAUSE its this president.
And the sheep still bleet "collusion" and "hacking" with ZERO evidence to back up their claims. But of course REAL election fraud (Tim Canova in Florida, California, New York) doesnt even register. F'ing amazing. No wonder we are in this situation.
Some perceive the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) - which controls Rojava, is Kurdish-dominated and helped eradicate ISIS in that region, but has adopted a direct democratic and federal form of government stressing equality of the sexes and of ethnic groups - as a model of governance that the Syrian people should aspire to:
link to nytimes.com
link to washingtoninstitute.org
Most Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters have opposed the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) - the military wing of the SDC - however some FSA brigades have allied themselves with the largely Kurdish units that comprise the SDF.
You're kidding, right? The Ba'athist regime - aka the Assad family business - is no "revolutionary regime." And as Juan's post correctly notes, the regime has exacted a terrible price in destruction and death. The only "unremitting pity" is that the people of Syria will continue to be ruled by war criminals.
So, Juan, what would the new, smart missiles accomplish? More pain to the Syrian people - and possibly WW3. I don’t like Assad, but there’s nothing but terrible actors on this war. IF Assad he needs to be hunted and prosecuted as a war criminal, but I’m not convinced yet. Meanwhile why is GWB still walking the streets!? And the Obamas both make nice to him! This country has no right to lecture to the world!’
It is my impression that the empires of history were gained through scheming, trickery, manipulation and not so much through military force. By manipulating numerous but weak vassals, by turning them against each other the empire's masters can control them all. This can work for a long time. Empires can last centuries.
However, in time, the subjugated learn the trick. They resist, the old manipulations no longer work. A man in a loin cloth, Gandhi, defeated the British Empire.
Using military force is expensive. It is especially expensive when it does not work. It is very expensive because it becomes never ending. That is where we find ourselves today. There is no winning strategy, the smart thing is to get out.
I think you nailed most of the points.
Fatigue on outrage maybe for something that's ongoing in the news for over 70 years, though I wouldn't necessarily say it's an over-exposure.
Self-censorship is also a big issue. Not genuinely caring for Palestinians is true, besides being either pro-Israel or anti-Palestinian, in which case you end up justifying the brutality. It's also possible some people who know this is wrong, and aren't particularly pro-Israel (and may indeed be pro-Palestinian), still don't care, probably thinking of the victims as a nuisance instead due to other long-term prejudice (refugees, needy, etc). Tuning out negative news, that you don't want to admit being culpable for, or being in your own news bubble maybe other reasons.
Guessing al-Sadr is one of those 'Shia friends' Bin Salman probably likes to tout...I guess a guy trying to reason or plead with you on not escalating regional sectarian and extremist violence based on your inherited religious prejudices and power trip could be considered a good friend.
Yay, Iran...you did it.
Beat back against those Takfiri (i.e. Sunni Islamist extremists) and their evil regional and imperial conspiracy sponsors in Saudi Arabia, Israel and the US (is Turkey and Qatar off the list now?), by siding with a so benevolent friendly Syrian dictator, with no blood of his nation's people on his hands, and the totally just Russians. All they wanted was one corrupt guy or family gone...but no...the regime was as precious as the local holy shrines, of course!
The Prophet and the Imams will be so proud...all it cost were just possibly thousands of poor ungrateful Syrian souls and scarring millions more, none of whom you could possibly have reached out to and work with for some transitioning government to safeguard the land-bridge to Lebanon. No, no. Looking forward to hearing sermons on how noble the Prophet's family were in the face of adversity against a tyrant in Yazid while watching your supposedly rightly guided Islamic state do the opposite. How sorry I am to ever have expected better...
Trump is threatening war on Syria, using the same demonization playbook.
The oligarchy always cycles through ever-worse new ideologues to carry out ever more barbaric agendas. That's how we got from Newt Gingrich to Donald Trump, from Rush Limbaugh to Alex Jones, from the militia psychos being on the fringes of society to being White House strategists.
Muller could just share all of his files with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. Almost every indictable offense Trump and his croney's have committed was committed in New York State and so is under Schneiderman's jurisdiction.
All of the money laundering with Trump condo's, Taxi services, Russian mobsters in Brooklyn and Russian Oligarch's buying condo's. All of their crimes happened in New York.
Is Trump's tweet a warning to his mates in Russia? As in.. We've had some military meetings and decided to bomb Syria. I'm letting you know ahead of time because you got me elected?
Yet another elder-hating psychopath allowed to skulk away, unscathed.
He did not kill Social Security and turn the funds over to the 1% - so, in that, Paul Ryan is a push-grannie-down-the-stairs FAILURE.
Always great to get some clarification of this very confused area from Prof Cole. Very hard to figure out if there are any good buys in this picture as the Syrian people suffer at the hands of all sides.
I am wondering if a regime dominated by Jaysh al Islam and other salifi rebels rebels allied with Saudi Arabia would be less brutal than Assad?
All revolutionary movements are bloody. Look at Europe through the 19th and early 20th centuries:
1830 France
1848 Spain
Germany
France
Hungary
1861 Italy
1871 France
1917 Russia
1936 Spain
1956 Hungary
1968 France
Czechoslovakia
They were and are all part of the socio-political evolution of human national order. They move nations forward. Sure, they are bloody but so is nature. They are like a sequence of difficult births. They are not assisted by external meddling. In fact external meddling crushes the line along which they struggle, albeit often blindly. They do not always 'succeed', whatever that may be, but they come back again until some modus vivendi is reached and peace prevails for a period. The Arab spring was a series of such revolutions but the US and its allies meddled and turned them into directionless chaos. If Assad does manage to put Syria together again the political evolution of the Syrian people may be able to get back on the rails. I imagine that is what most of them would like. It's an unremitting pity they are not allowed to be masters of their own fate.
Good morning Juan. Was this outcome always inevitable? Also how does the West deal with Assad now?
Thank you very much for another clear and illuminating account about the complex situation in Syria. Although as you say, this time too the attack on Syria may be limited, there are some indications that it will be more substantial, especially given the people who are now advising the president. In view of Russian threats to retaliate, the whole conflict can get out of hand and can lead to a major international confrontation. This is why I believe that we should take the threat of a much wider war or at least greater and prolonged chaos in Syria more seriously.
Rightly or wrongly, President Putin believes that with the expansion of NATO to Russia’s neighborhood, NATO exercises in the Baltic countries, Western sanctions, etc. he is under attack from the West, and the West does not wish to give up its unipolar view of the world. Therefore, he might over-react. Diplomacy by tweets, promising nice, new, smart missiles being on the way, is not very reassuring.
The main question to ask is what is this military attack going to achieve. If it is to express revulsion against the use of chemical weapons, the West was eerily silent when much greater use of chemical weapons was made against Iran and the Kurds during the Iran-Iraq war. Even the Security Council did not condemn their use till it issued Resolution 582 on 24 February 1986, towards the end of the war, even then in general terms and without condemning Iraq.
In 2013 when President Obama threatened to use massive force against Syria, the British Parliament opposed British involvement in it, and the United States also refrained from military action, especially as Congress also seemed to be opposed to it. I believe that the outcome was much better than a symbolic attack, because Syria agreed to get rid of her chemical weapons (at least most of them).
I believe that Prime Minister May should be persuaded to consult the parliament again on any British involvement in the war, especially as she leads a minority government and does not have a mandate for war. In fact, according to a report in today’s edition of the Times, only 20% of the British public support the move. By doing so, she may avert another illegal war and provide time for a more lasting peaceful alternative.
The problem is that the West lacks any strategy for Syria or the Middle East as a whole. A solution to the Syrian tragedy requires cooperation between the West and Russia with the involvement of all the regional countries that are active in Syria, including Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Let’s push for a coherent strategy regarding Syria, rather than rush to war.
I admit to being a whacko who voted for a 3rd Party candidate.
But there is another type of voter who voted 3rd Party: the ones who assessed the character and promise of each candidate, and then voted for the best one.
If you vote for the lesser of 2 evils, you are still voting for evil.
And hand the country over to the likes of Jaish al-Islam and the former Jabhat al-Nusra?
Is NATO supposed to send in ground troops as well, in order to prevent those bloodthirsty militants from slaughtering and exiling `Alawis, Christians, etc.?
Whatever happened to the requirement for a declaration of war by the U.S. Congress in the face of a threat to or attack on the homeland?
Whatever became of that 'war on terrorism' against the ilk of Osama bin Laden, running amok in Syria since 2011/2012?
Hi
I've seen this awful story a few places now .....what surprises me in each case is the lack of response from readers - wheres the outrage? Is it because people dont really care what happens to Palestinians or that they 'get what they deserve' , or is it a kind of self censorship - a fear that any comment will be seen as being anti Semitic?
I don't have the slightest idea what this means but it certainly is entertaining.
brother Cole... please.
since before i could vote, folks have counseled reliance on the moderate wing of the slave-owners party. the few gains the left has made since the end of the 19th century, have been the result of movements in the street. the right to vote for women and African Americans? by definition could not be won by voting. industrial unions? if anything, reliance on the "friends/backstabbers of labor" has deep sixed that movement. the end of the war in Vietnam...credit goes to the sacrifice the Vietnamese were willing to make with a supporting credit to the world wide anti-war movement .
as Malcolm X told us: It is the system itself that, that is incapable of producing freedom for the twenty-two million Afro-Americans. Just like a chicken can't lay a duck egg...a chicken can't lay a duck egg, because the system of the chicken isn't constructed in the way to produce a duck egg. And just as that chicken system can't produce, is not capable to, of producing a duck egg, the political and economic system of this country is absolutely incapable of producing freedom and justice and equality and human dignity for the twenty-two million Afro-Americans
we, the wage slaves cannot put our eggs in the care of the slave master's party.
Not against protests. Been to a few myself. But Parkland students have not changed one national law, and unless we have a whole different Congress, there is no prospect of them doing so.
Yes, yes and yes.
People need to get off their duffs and head to the polls come Election Day. The rightwing won this last election because too many people who ought to have known better decided to forego the vote - they couldn't be bothered or were steamed that Bernie lost and were just too "pure" to vote for Hillary. Or they were sucked by Russian bots and reactionary strategists to waste their votes on the wacko 3rd party candidates.
This time let's get smart about this. If the Democratic candidate fails to live up to your dreams of perfection, vote for them anyway - and then hold their feet to the fire to get them to improve. But for Pete's sake, let's not imagine we'll get out of our current mess without changing the current composition of Congress.
Now, it's on us.
I am a reader and a regular re-poster of the pieces on your blog, yours and others. I am mostly with you in the intent of this piece, but not completely. Your prescription of "cleaning out the deadwood," is rather general. I have in my politics, studies and talks become more precise. I'll give an example. In Michigan, for governor, there is a moderate Dem, perhaps in your mind, "deadwood," certainly to some DSA folks that I know, and there is the DSA candidate. SHE is a Dem from a predominantly white, suburban district who has been elected many times and now in her late 40's, an attorney, has risen in the state legislature to become the Senate Minority Leader. She is liberal, not DSA. Her DSA endorsed opponent is a first time doctor, a young man who has headed the Detroit city Health Department for a few years. That's it. Nice guy. Endorses Medicare for All. Not ever run or elected to anything. We have a hated Republican governor who might be succeeded by another hated Republican Teaparty guy. Yet the DSA folks are attacking the woman as too moderate, not in with Bernie, etc. We have a real opportunity to win. It takes a powerful mix of folks, a large coalition to win state offices. She is gaining those elements, step by step. He still has his small crowd. "Cleaning out the deadwood," is a good idea. It's like "draining the swamp," on the left. If 2016 taught us anything, it suggests that we need to be careful about what we say and much more precise about who we target. "Cleaning out the deadwood" strikes me as launching a drone strike and not really caring about who is in the house. I enjoy your blog and your other contributors and look forward to doing so in the future.
I think that unless there are severe, choking, sanctions that "we" can implement against Assad and Putin, that it is time to destroy the Syrian Air Force and impose a no fly zone over all of Syria. This should be/could be done by NATO, including Turkey, plus Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and other middle eastern allies.
I agree with you Juan that we need to vote, but I think public protests and response can have a powerful effect - just look at those great students from Parkland.
There is a movement (trumpisnotabovethelaw.org) to take to the streets within 24 hours of any mischief with Mueller or DOJ by Trump - you can cut and paste the following link to sign up, which I did this morning, and you can send the link to friends.
Go to:
link to trumpisnotabovethelaw.org
If possible, it would be great to have a movement, state by state, to occupy the home offices of every GOP member of the House - and not leave until they fulfill their constitutional obligation as a check on a lawless president.
And another huge Thank You Juan, for this contribution.
I stood on street corners for at least a dozen campaigns and candidates, from the '60's to the '00's. Over 50% will never talk to you whatsoever. Of those who will, everybody has a favorite celebrity they'd like to see as President -- but if it's a problem that needs the attention of a city councilor or a state legislator, hardly anyone can care. No one who's even 5 feet outside a city or state office-boundary can care about that district, and even in the district there's only 30% or so who can care about local races.
The answer is to organize, organize and organize some more. In my writings elsewhere I've argued for a strategy of organizing both within and outside of the Democratic Party.
It comes as no surprise to me that there is a common theme of tolerance running through the teachings of great Messengers of the same God, such as Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. The problem lies with the followers who do not heed these noble teachings.
Wow, the donalds war crimes as well! He'll be in good company with cheyenne's little side kick, at The Hague!
Another war with out congress's ok!
I think the dread of chemical weapons came from World War 1 and the years afterward. They were seen as too destabilizing to the normal business of Great Powers pushing around lesser powers while not annihilating each other. Watch the movie "The Shape of Things To Come" to see an example of what 1930s Britons feared for the next war - which did not happen. When Germans began conventionally bombing London, the British were stuck with plans based on the assumption of massive civilian casualties from chemical weapons, not fires all over the place. Of course, Hitler himself was deathly afraid of chemical weapons due to his own experience. And yes, the Allies had plans to use those on Germany if the war went one more year.
In other words, chemical weapons represent a threshold that it's too easy to cross, thus raising the spectre of eternal escalation. Nuclear weapons create the same dread, but form a very high threshold that has somehow held up for 73 years.
They want their wars nice and middle-sized and unending. Biochemical weapons throw that out the window.
Yup. Syria is an easy target. Putin and Trump will come up with a list of soft targets to attack. Trump will launch an attack that will last 2-3 days, just enough to take away some of the attention from the raid. Trump will claim that we are there to protect the kids. Meanwhile we can't protect the kids here in America from domestic terrorism and crappy water lines.
It would be helpful if the author provided something other than just moral indignation.
What should the world do about Syria? Intervene militarily to remove Bashar al-Assad outright, with no thought to the consequences? Pave the way for his replacement by the likes of Douma's Jaish al-Islam?
And does the writer think the world should have sent forces into Baghdad to dispose of Saddam Hussein after his military began deploying chemical weapons in the war with Iran? Surely far, far more people were killed or injured by nonconventional arms in that conflict of the 1980s than since 2011 during the civil war in Syria.
Instead of bombing the Ba`thists, there ought to be an impartial investigation of what happened. Alas, such does not seem very feasible. One can imagine with little difficulty that, for their own reasons, the U.S. and its allies would work to have the brutal regime found culpable while Russia and its allies would seek to have the devious rebels declared responsible.
The main stream media has begun the process of softening up the public for both a Syria “intervention” and a Meuller firing by running multiple stories and talking head discussions, ad nauseum, about both. When/if either or both eventuate, the public is already immunized against outrage. Ho hum.
There is a direct line from the failure to prosecute the US ( and other complicit countries) for their war crimes and where we are today - with the militarization of police who act with impunity against an unarmed and vulnerable population exactly as their brothers in arms do on battlefields across the world, ready to violently suppress dissent at home as their leaders ( your leaders USA - the ones you elected) charge toward global war with $ signs in their eyes.
While its tempting to put all the blame on Bush, Blair and now Trump we should remember those who had the opportunity and the moral obligation ( if not legal) to call those criminals publicly to account - to cleanse that rot and ensure that it was clear to all - for all time- that what happened was not acceptable EVER - criminal acts for which they would be held to account. But that never happened , Obama was given a Peace prize for NOT being Bush and the US ' looked forward , not back' , not learning from its mistakes ....in fact not being forced to confront them at all.
I fear for the future , for my children and grandchildren . I still remember the promise of a better , more peaceful world - when the cold war ended and there were no more enemies - ok,fewer...it wasn't utopia but there was a promise.....
Note Chump fired Preet to preclude such a radical act, but the new USAt apparently wasn't sufficiently vetted for blind loyalty. Seems like a win-win, if Trump goes overboard in attacking Syria.. what could be too much with the murderous snake Assad?? The last time, Russia/Syria sent planes to the same gassed village the next 3 days and wiped it off the map while Americans were celebrating Chump's toughness. I hope Trump goes after the Syrian pilots (Russians too are eminently deserving after their depredations and mass attack on Americans), but a cruise missile into a lower floor or Assad's Palace would have 1000x the effect of anything else. With the Bannon/Trump NSC hacks being replaced by the Bolton NSC hacks, I wonder if the whole focus of the "reprisal" will be switched to Iran. To really distract from Mueller firing or Indictments, Trump needs a real War and Iran fits his pinhead misconceptions.
Add this to the very cynical way that Turkey barged into Syrian Kurdistan knowing that the US and Russia and Iran and even Syria would not interfere, and you wonder if these days all of these atrocities are secretly bargained out in advance between the global players, including the pro forma retaliation. Which puts Saudi Arabia's crime spree in a new light. Do these countries trade atrocities for business deals? Are they not all close to being state-capitalist regimes where the rulers are as intertwined with the owners as their countries are with each other?
What an argument against running a country like a business.
Actually, quite a lot of Brits- of whom I am one- regard Tony Blair as a war criminal.
One of the other reasons obama didn’t bomb in 2013 is as he said himself in a 2016 interview in The Atlantic, that his intelligence chief came to him and said they weren’t sure Assad was responsible.
There is no way Sessions, who fired McCabe, was unaware this was coming.
Ostensibly, this move was not connected with Russiagate.
Did Sessions sign off? ,,, or maybe just wink & nod while passing the buck?
Professor Cole,
Do you know of any Gaza-based news/media sites with models similar to Syria Direct?
Thank you.
Farhad Malekafzali
Speaking of diversions. Border-assigned National Guard troops can easily be redeployed to quell any peaceful protests should FAUXNews find them annoying or 'An attack on Our Country'.
It was just a year ago when the Trump maladministration attacked Assad's tiny inactive airfield as a warning for using chemical weapons on his own people.
Apparently, President Assad did not take the warning very seriously. Now, our compromised toy soldier President is forced to act, AGAIN.
Sad!
link to nymag.com
The odds are good that he will.
Terming the FBI search warrant raid on the offices and premises of President Trump's PERSONAL attorney an 'Attack on our country' invokes visions of MILITARY INTERVENTION at the DOJ, not Syria.
Describing the Keystone Pipeline as an "OIL" pipeline is a misnomer tantamount to a LIE!
The product being delivered from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf Coast in Texas is diluted bitumen or "dilbit" which contains so little crude oil (<20%) the Texas Railroad Commission (TRC) does not consider dilbit to be taxable as a petroleum product. As dilbit contains hydrocarbons at extreme ends of the viscosity range, the material can be more difficult to process than typical crude oil and leaves behind megatons of refinery waste called “petcoke” which is sold to poorer countries as the dirtiest fuel source known to man. Petcoke is atmospheric poison in it’s purest form. The EPA has banned it’s use within the U.S. except as raw material to process for use in the manufacture of high explosives.
Dilbit must be diluted with toxic solvents (naptha) and heated to transport, the highest pipe temperature is expected to remain below 120°F for dilbit to flow through a pipeline which makes operation of the heated pipeline very ENERGY INTENSIVE (who pays for that?). The tar sands bitumen is basically gritty asphalt in consistency unless heated and diluted. And far MORE poisonous than crude oil if leaked into our environment.
Look up Oxbow Carbon LLC and who owns it?
link to oxbow.com
The founder and Chief Executive Officer of Oxbow Carbon LLC, William (Bill) Koch has built one of the largest marketing companies of fuel-grade and calcined petroleum coke in the world. The administration push for the Keystone XL pipeline is the blatantly OBVIOUS pay back for the MiLLIONS in dark money given to elect Trump as President.
Being not from the US myself but currently living here, I find people educating me about the "third world" and how the evil West is to blame for everything. It's ironic, because I'm from what you would call a developing nation that was colonized by Germany and then Britain. The West has a lot to answer for no doubt, but this idea that the world is black and white and that other leaders are innocent and just victims of imperialist aggression is just factually incorrect. I have met Iraqis who themselves told me that the phase from 1979-2003 was a nightmare for them, and that even though the country is going through a difficult period, the situation will eventually stabilize but Saddam was never the answer to the problems Iraq is facing, he was in fact one of the biggest causes of those problems. I do not believe the West went into Iraq to "liberate Iraqis", they obviously had their own agendas, whether it was oil or US/Israeli geostrategic gains, and let's not forget the US propped up Saddam for 8 years in the war against Iran, but that doesn't mean Saddam wasn't an absolute genocidal maniac. Iraqis themselves will tell you this, but the left in the West is too fixated with the idea that anyone the West is against is automatically good and a champion of resistance, etc. If only the world were so easy.
Its hard for me to see the context of the "line in the sand" outrage at the at the use of chemical weapons. The estimated deaths in the Syrian war are about 400,000, well over 99% of which were caused by "conventional" weapons.
The establishment message seems to be "we feel your pain if caused by chemical weapons". If not, "war is hell".
Trump, and most of us, had no attacks of conscience when we dropped the 21,000 pound MOAB bomb on the Taliban last April. The militarily and Trump were proud of the operation. I suppose the common understanding is that incineration by MOAB is more humane than strangling from a gas attack.
Good point on body language. Eyes darting may indicate he is simply thinking and 'searching' for words. However, note the way he protectively clasps his arms around himself, and which issues seem to provoke it. It could be the room is cold, but neither Bolton or Pence is so uncomfortable.
Soldiers should search their soul before they execute the shoot order.
This is why we have international law: to try world leaders under a universal framework for crimes against humanity. A lot of international law was established and codified after atrocities during World War II. If the lessons of World War II mean anything to us at all, we need to strengthen and not abrogate international and human rights laws.
Unilateral strikes against other countries that are not sanctioned by the UN Security Council are against international law.
It is a tried and tested method used by many governments facing a crisis, when in trouble divert attention to a foreign adventure which normally rallies the crowds. It will also help the British prime minister in the aftermath of the Brexit and the Skripal affair, and the French president whose country is practically paralyzed with strikes, and French pilots are also going to join the railway strikers and other labor unions. The French and the British governments have expressed their support for a military action against Syria.
The problem that the British government faces is that last time when Prime Minister David Cameron asked the Parliament to approve military action in Syria, the motion was defeated, and there is no guarantee that a majority in the parliament would support it this time. It would be interesting to see if Mrs. May agrees to join a military attack without a vote in the parliament. It was clearly stated on the British media this morning that if America alone launches a strike it would be “unilateral”, but if Britain and France join in too it would mean that President Trump has the support of the “international community”. Now we know what international community means.
I agree very highly with a post at Daily Kos -- look at the video with the sound off. Trumpie is not happy or projecting, as he was in his campaign rallies. Look at his body language, especially his eyes which can't look anyone else in the eye. He's terrified, indulging in his favorite fantasies in a desperate attempt to scrub this reality.
Do fasten your seatbelts and update/upgrade your emergency supplies, this obsessive narcissist con-man looks ready to explode.
Here we have an example of 'Crazy Freedom' (America) vs 'Wise Dictatorship'. One is going to destroy the world (for freedom's sake) and the other to save it (for wisdom way).
Its elementary dear Farhang, Trump wants to milk the Saudis for billions and leave Syria, Evil Assad wants him to stick around and rebuild Syria don’t you see.
Latest reports from a Syrian doctor's association that 150 are confirmed dead in Douma from poison gas.
It is suspected a "cocktail" of chlorine and sarin was used.
The poison gas was delivered by helicopter via "barrel bombs" and one was dropped on the roof of Douma's hospital, killing six, and another was dropped on an apartment building, killing a number of women and children.
The use of helicopters would clearly implicate the Assad regime in the poison gas use.
I must confess to being of two minds. I detest Assad and his band of Ba'athists thugs. Then again, I detest our fake President and everything he stands for. At this point, Trump's done a wonderful job alienating allies to such an extent that I can't imagine how he'd be able to mobilize a coalition of the willing to take serious action against Damascus. Even then, what's the end game? After Iraq, we ought to take a deep breath and ask ourselves what we want to accomplish. Lots of bad options on the table. It's a mess.
Only safe prediction: More Syrian civilians are going to get butchered in the worst way while Assad, Lavrov and assorted Iranian hacks will swear that everything's just hunky-dory
"......[o]nly yesterday, the former British ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford in an interview........warned against jumping to a conclusion before all the facts are known, and he pointed the finger at the Army of Islam for the atrocity.............."
Peter Ford is affiliated with a pro-Assad lobby group in the U.K., so his credibility is questionable:
link to telegraph.co.uk
I have seen in the past, not just with Syria, where some leftists are so against US policy, especially interventions, that they end up defending ruthless dictators. Many ideologues want to see the world in only black and white and end up with what seems to me to be curious and dubious positions. Unfortunately the world is a messy place and right and wrong are rarely clearly delineated.. I always am reminded of what the journalist/author Robert Fisk once wrote about the Middle East: there is no right and wrong, only different degrees of wrong (I may have the quote a little off, but you get the idea). Or, to put it another way, there are no clean hands in the region. Assad has shown clearly in the past that he will stoop to any depths to hold on to power. At the very beginning he may have been able to work out a peaceful solution that left him in in charge but sharing power, but he chose to meet peaceful demonstrations with gunfire and bloodshed and things have degenerated from there.
Yugoslavia was an artificial country held together by Tito. Once he died, the country's instability was pretty much assured. Syria is less riven by factions/ethnicities than Yugoslavia was, but under the Asads it has been run by the Alawites who are a minority in the country. The mismanagement by the Assads, especially during the Arab Spring, is responsible for their troubles, not "outside agitators."
It is increasingly looking as though sarin was involved (chlorine would probably have dispersed before killing so many). Only the regime has sarin.
thanks! Yes, I know; ich lese Deutsch.
Dear Prof. Cole,
Maybe that is of interest for you.
link to corpuscoranicum.de
Unfortunately in German.
Syria is another Yugoslavia in waiting for the powers that be, they want to dismember and permanently reduce it as they did the latter.
As I trust Professor Cole’s expertise in Middle Eastern affairs and his fairness, I do not wish to contradict his assessment that it was definitely the Syrian regime that used chemical weapons in Douma. The reasons that he provides are certainly plausible. However, as the latest use of chemical weapons has provided another excuse for the hawks to encourage President Trump to again carry out a military attack against Syria, and as Russia has warned against it, this latest episode may lead to a bigger confrontation. Israel has already used the opportunity to launch an attack on Syria as she had repeatedly done in the past, usually following the defeat of the terrorists.
I would like to post the following link just to provide an alternative version. Only yesterday, the former British Ambassador to Syria Peter Ford in an interview with Sky News warned against jumping to a conclusion before all the facts are known, and he pointed the finger at the Army of Islam for the atrocity. The report is published by the RT, which may be as reliable or unreliable as the VOA, but the points that the author makes are worthy of consideration:
link to rt.com
Thank you so very much for your cogent presentation of the situation.
You write, "Since Trump’s own strike on the Shuayrat base last year did not forestall the Douma gassing, it is difficult to understand why Trump thinks a strike in 2013 by Mr. Obama would have done so."
It is very difficult to understand anything our President Donald J. Trump thinks, isn't it ?
I am tired of my banging my head against the wall try to show evidence of Assad's warcrimes to people, they will never believe anything, they will use the logic argument to say Assad didn't do xyz, but when you show them the logical basis for him using such tactics, they will ignore it and conveniently assert their own claim over anyone else's. Ironically, these people are fervently anti-Zionist in many cases, yet the arguments they make are so similar. Despite what countless human rights groups, the UN and the OPCW have reported, they will choose not to believe anything. I am against US military intervention because I think personally, the US does not care about civilians, the carnage in Yemen and the warcrimes committed by Israel which it fully supports does not bother the ruling class one bit, barring maybe a few, but in the case of Israel, practically no one. I do think any attempt to find a sense of justice needs to involve a reformation of the institutions we have, whether it is the ICC and the UNSC, so that they are not politicized and able to act in situations like these, where the aim is solely to protect civilians, not other agendas. These organisations need to be able to act regardless of who the perpetrators are. The ICC needs to be able to punish all leaders who commit warcrimes, be they Syrian, Russian, American, Iranian, Israeli, Saudi, Turkish, etc.
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Qatar is already an island, effectively, much like Bahrain.
Both are limited to one causeway to the mainland of KSA.
the only folks this canal will interdict are the pastoral Badw people.
Maybe they are the ones MBS fears ?
.
the lost opportunity costs of a 60-km canal with no economic benefit are staggering.
why not build a better port at al-Sila'a ?
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So is Trump going to now tweet, Build That Canal! ? I pray these times don't deteriorate further into a time of endless wars, sieges, famines, plagues, and bloodthirsty greedy oligarch warlords. Speaking of...Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Blair, and Netanyahu too, wanted the Middle East splintered and set back 50 to 100 years, and that mission was certainly accomplished. I think that was their ultimate goal, however badly they screwed the occupation. Same result, or worse! Fascist American warmongers finally had their domino theory validated. Naturally, as in all right-wing attacks, that theory was merely a projection of their worst and most treasured instincts.
.
even more desperate than the Syrian forces,
decimated by sniper fire,
are the beltway bandits who fear the war might end.
They are trying to resurrect ISIS, without much luck.
How lucky that, against his best interests,
al-Assad is using chem weapons,
the one thing most likely to get Trump back on board.
.
.
with so little context,
is it fair to guess that Syrian government forces are blocking ethnic Kurds from entering Aleppo, Nubl and Zahra,
which are under their control,
to force Kurdish people to flee further Eastward toward Manbij and eventually across the Euphrates into Rojava ?
while that still seems to be a war crime,
at least that might make some strategic sense from al-Assad's point of view.
.
posted by a pretzel-twisted troll who isn't pro-Assad, but is skeptical of what appear to be black flag operations.
Good to see you asking, "Why ?"
May I suggest you next explore, "Cui bono ?"
.
Unless the principle here is that maritime traffic that once stopped at Qatar's ports will now use the canal, this move makes no empirical sense. MbS is getting into Caligula country already.
If any other country were doing something comparable, we'd be bombing their aspirin factory.
The Saudis want to monopolize Wahhabism and are saying that the Qataris don't deserve to claim Abd al-Wahhab's legacy inasmuch as they have fallen into the Muslim Brotherhood heresy.
MBS is as dangerous as Saddam Hussein.
Good for Qatar. Oman too.
I do not understand why the Saudis have a problem with a Mosque named after a Wahabbi sect. I thought that Saudis were essentially Wahabbis. What am I missing here?
At least Trump spoke up about the recent gas attack in Syria. However, he, like most other people truthfully, probably takes issue with the actual fatal gas used by the regime, rather than the deaths of civilians.
Trump having no issue to kill off alleged terrorists' children won't be seen as anything immoral, and instead a virtue, in the eyes of the twisted far right-wing Republican God-fearing Christian fundamentalists who love Trump's psychopathocracy and don't seem to mind even the 'stormy' issues that come with it. Most probably secretly wish they were him.
link to bbc.com
"Inside the White House Bible Study group"
No surprise US secularism is also being casually undermined along with democracy, rule of law, human rights etc.
I'm no fan of Geraldo and he cut a mighty pathetic figure in the interview I thought. Personally I watch Bill Maher for some of his guests, but not Maher himself. He is a misogynist and a notorious hater of Islam, as well as being generally deeply ignorant of religion and himself morally challenged.
I took deep offense this week at his pushback against David Hogg's take-down of Laura Ingrahm: here is a young person, the whole of 17 years old, who has just gone through a recent and horrific trauma, had the courage to speak out about it, and his biggest take away is that Hogg is illiberal because he advocates a boycott of Ingrahm's advertisers? And this is horrible because left-wing students are so illiberal? Maher completely erased the emotional and political context (and moment) in which Hogg's criticism and call to boycott took place.
Bill Maher is not smart, getting less and less funny by the day, and provides background noise for some ugly behavior in this country. He gives bigots a platform (and that is where I draw the line at watching him - if he has, say, Milo Y. or Ann Coulter as a guest I keep the tv off), and I doubt he understands that he himself is as big an offender as they are.
Smacking down a traumatized 17 year old in favor of a mercenary Fox News pundit. Good grief. It's not just Trump and the right that can be mean-spirited.
where is the solar, high speed trains,wind, geothermal, etc. for we the people. oh. i forget. but one of the reasons, eh?
Most individuals' spheres of involvement, interest even, are fairly confined, like a beam of light with an area in full focus and everything else dimly outside it. Broad interest in a comment like that, and much else Trump says, is minimal. One thing US and Israeli leaders are forever rabbiting on about is their shared values and in this case a bit of your psychopathocracy would seem to be one.
With Trump leading the U.S.A. its well on its way to becoming a nation which doesn't really count on the world stage. OMG, what will Trump think when no one throws him a big parade when he arrives in their country.
the U.S.A. will eventually become what it was prior to WW II/ the average person not very well off. workers maringalized, etc.
If this continues the day may come the U.N. moves out of N.Y. We do have a great place in Canada, Churchill, Manitoba. Cold, lots of polar bears, no nightclubs, galleries, operas, etc. All there is to do is work. If they don't like that, perhaps Greenland
Macron can not be counted on to help the Kurds. He is only interested in getting himself re elected and his country's own problems, i.e. making France safe for big business.
If S.A. is expected to "pick up the slack" if the U.S.A. leaves it won't. It will take over the areas it wants and extend their own influence. Now what could go wrong with that? S. A. won't be interested in paying for anything. they expect the U.S.A. and other countries to do that. the heir apparent has done his road show to demonstrate what a nice progressive guy he is and now its back to the same old routine we have always had with S. A. S. A. is like the story about the snake, it does it because that is its nature.
Trump perhaps wants the American troops back to please his pal Putin and/or to place those troops on the U.S.A./Mexican border. who knows he may even want to place them at the Canadian border if he doesn't get what he wants from a NAFTA deal.
The American electorate elected him to office. However, he inflicts his craziness on the whole world.
Trump is all about himself and that is it. He is as good as the last person who complimented him. The American public voted him into office. Now they can live with it and the rest may die because of it. the man clearly needs to go.
The insiders will tell you that the Syrian civil war is a Saudi project - so how will appealing to them for help make anything better?
Answer - It will not.
He did say during the campaign that "you have to go after the families of the terrorists." And he clearly sees no value in the lives of Middle Eastern people. And, as you point out, not much in the lives of Americans who don't spend their lives in air-conditioned buildings.
"Psychopathocracy" is a good term. I just go with "kakistocracy."
==Saved Jews 3X== And, while anti-Iran ideologues maintain that modern-day Iran is following its ancestors in seeking to destroy Israel, Iran has in fact come to the rescue of Jews three times in history. (1) Cyrus the Great, the King of Persia during the 6th century BCE, is praised in the Hebrew Bible for saving the Jews from captivity in Babylon and allowing their return to the Holy Land (where he even helped them rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem). (2) When Xerxus I, the King of Persia during the 5th century BCE, was informed by his Jewish Queen Esther that viceroy Haman—who was an Agagite, not a Persian—wanted to destroy Persia’s Jewish community he saved the Jews, had Haman killed, and permitted the Jews to take revenge on those who sought their destruction. (3) Iranian diplomats saved Jews during the Holocaust. Iranian television ran a widely watched serial on the Holocaust, Zero Degree Turn, based on true accounts of the role Iranian diplomats in Europe played in rescuing thousands of Jews during WWII. link to detailedpoliticalquizzes.wordpress.com
Watching Bill Maher last night, he had on Geraldo Rivera. Rivera, while he opposes most Trump policies, was defending Trump, basically because Trump was nice to Rivera over the years. Maher was trying to get Rivera to see that how Trump charms you as an individual should be divorced from his policies and actions as President, a point Rivera wasn't able to accept. I am astounded at this type of moral blindness. Trump shows once again how he is a psychopath and should be condemned by anyone with an ounce of moral fiber. Hurry up Robert Mueller.
number murdered now up to 31
link to telegraph.co.uk
Also the US bombing of Korea back to the stone age, reducing the country to ruins and the population by 1/3. Callous disregard for the lives of other for many, many years.