A FRENCH NEWS CAMERAMAN burst into the bar of Beirut’s Commodore Hotel, where his colleagues gathered most evenings, on November 17, 1983. “At last,” he shouted, cupping both hands upward, “someone with balls!” French warplanes had just bombed the town of Baalbek, site of magnificent Roman ruins but also of a Shiite Muslim militant barracks. This was France’s revenge for the killing of 58 French troops by a suicide bomber four weeks earlier. On the same morning the French died, the United States had lost 241 American service personnel, most of them U.S. Marines, to another suicide bomber. So far, Washington had not responded. We learned later that Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, who was against sending Marines to Lebanon in the first place, had dissuaded President Ronald Reagan from bombing Lebanon until there was evidence to prove who had done it.
France’s bombardment satisfied one French cameraman. It changed nothing, except for the civilians and militants who died in Baalbek. When the U.S. finally bombed eastern Lebanon in December, Syrian air defenses downed a Navy A-6 Intruder. The pilot, Lt. Mark Lange, died when his parachute malfunctioned. The navigator-bombardier, Lt. Robert O. Goodman, became a prisoner for 31 days until the Syrians released him to Reverend Jesse Jackson. And that was that.
By April 1984, the French and American forces of the ill-advised Multinational Force had left Lebanon. French President Francois Mitterrand’s promise to remain in defiance of those who had murdered his soldiers was forgotten, as was President Reagan’s commitment to peace in Lebanon. The civil war, already in its eighth year, did not end until 1990. The parties behind the bombing of the French and American troops, the Hezbollah militia and its backers, Iran and Syria, emerged more or less victorious. In fact, Syria had proven itself so powerful in Lebanon that the U.S. approved its military occupation to keep order. Syria went too far by assassinating former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri in February 2005, and its troops were forced to evacuate the country two months later.
Supporters of American, French, and British bombing in Syria at this time may exult that these Western powers are displaying their “balls,” but there is every probability that they will balls it up. They have made a mess of Syria since they involved themselves there in the vain attempt to bring down President Bashar al-Assad in 2011. Islamic State fanatics emerged as the dominant power within the anti-Assad forces. They are not anti-dictatorship so much as anti-minority, particularly the ruling quasi-Shiite Alawite minority. The Western powers tolerated ISIS’ crimes, until ISIS turned from its bases in Syria and seized about a third of the American protectorate of Iraq. It was then that the U.S., to save the Kurdish capital at Erbil and the national capital of Baghdad, first bombed ISIS positions. Since then, other countries, including the Russians who sought to save their Syrian protectorate, have joined the crusade against the Islamic State.
ISIS has turned around and murdered people from most of the countries that have challenged it: Shiite civilians in Iraq and Syria; Kurdish and left-wing Turkish peace demonstrators in Ankara; passengers on a Russian airliner over Egypt; Shiites, because of Hezbollah’s involvement, in Beirut; and more than 120 innocents in Paris.
These international attacks, as well as the oppression and terror that ISIS has inflicted on large parts of Syria and Iraq, do not call for a response.
The Islamic State’s international attacks call for a strategy. If the goal is to eliminate ISIS from territory it rules in Iraq and Syria, and from which it plots murder elsewhere, the forces opposed to it must come together. It took more than 100 dead in Paris and 224 passengers on a Russian airliner for France and Russia to coordinate their airstrikes in Syria. What will it take for the U.S. to do the same?
Airstrikes, however, do not win wars. Warplanes drop bombs, meaning they function as airborne artillery. No military doctrine holds that artillery alone can conquer territory. That takes forces on the ground. The ground forces exist in both Syria and Iraq, and they are not from the Western world. The Syrian Army, though odious to many Syrians and to the Western powers, is the strongest of these and has weathered four-and-a-half years of war without breaking up. It lost territory to ISIS in northeast Syria and at Palmyra, and it has reclaimed some of it with Russian air support. The Kurds of Iraq, supported by Kurds from Turkey and Syria and by U.S. airstrikes, have clawed back most of the territory that ISIS seized from them last year. The Shiite militias in southern Iraq, which filled the vacuum left by mass desertions from the U.S.-created Iraqi Army, with Iranian support and American air cover saved Baghdad from ISIS conquest and regained lost ground. The war requires infantry, but not American, British, and French troops. Nothing would turn Iraqis and Syrians to the jihadis more quickly than a Western invasion.
Those of us who witnessed the Iraqi uprising of 1991, when Kurds and Shiites used the demoralization of Saddam Hussein’s army in Kuwait to liberate 14 of Iraq’s 18 provinces, know that it had more potential to save the country than the American-led invasion of 2003 did. The U.S. pulled the plug on that rebellion in March 1991, and launched its own bid to control Iraq in 2003 that it is still paying for.
One step would not involve any combat at all: Close the open supply line between ISIS and the outside world through Turkey. Turkey is an ally, but no friend. Its open border with Syria is the jihadis’ lifeline. Without it, the weapons and ammunition the jihadis seized from the Iraqi Army last year would not be enough for them to defend all their territory. Without it, jihadis trained in Syria would not pass easily into Europe to murder civilians. Without the Turkish supply line, the local forces whose shared hatred of the jihadis — who include the Syrian Army, the Kurds and all of Syria’s and Iraq’s other minorities, Iraq’s majority Shiite population, secular Sunnis in Syria and Iraq, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah — would stand a better chance of defeating them.
View of Damascus and Ummayad Mosque from old Damascus house, Syria.
Photo: ArabianEye/Getty Images
Diplomacy is better than war, and the outside powers who have been using Syria to fight their proxy wars must agree in Geneva or Vienna that enough is enough. The U.S., Russia, Iran, Turkey, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar have all played their parts in destroying Syria. It is up to them to end this war that has cost as many as 310,000 lives. No one is winning. No one can win. They provide their clients with the means to fight the war. And they can cut them off.
The question since March 2011, when the first protests began in Syria, is what to do with President Bashar al-Assad. The reason the West, Saudi Arabia, and Israel wanted to dispose of him had nothing to do with dictatorship or repression. Nearly all Arab governments are repressive dictatorships, but only Syria was not a U.S. satellite. Only Syria had a strategic alliance with Iran, dating to Hafez al-Assad’s decision to support Iran against Saddam Hussein in 1980, long before the West declared him a pariah. Syria supported Hezbollah in Lebanon, where it repelled Israel’s invasion in 2006. And the U.S. still had a score to settle with Hezbollah, which turned out to have staged the bombing of the Marines in 1983 and to have kidnapped American citizens like myself in the years that followed.
Last July, on this site, I wrote:
A friend of mine in Aleppo, who refuses to leave despite the battles in his once beautiful city, told me over the telephone, “You have sent hell to us.” That is, he blames me as a Westerner for putting the jihadis in his midst. The day cannot be far off when the jihadi militants, like the poor refugees whom they and the regime have displaced, will bring that hell back to us.
And so the jihadis did. Among the targets ISIS has hit since July have been Beirut and Paris, two cities where I lived for years and where I still have friends and family. It is only chance that spared those relatives and friends from the ISIS suicide bombings. No one can guarantee there will not be more.
And so the jihadis will again, until peace is restored to Iraq and Syria. Peace, not war, will be the downfall of the Islamic State.
Charles Glass, former ABC News chief Middle East correspondent, recently published Syria Burning: ISIS and the Death of the Arab Spring (OR Books).
Top photo: This photo released on Monday, Nov. 9, 2015 by the French Army Communications Audiovisual office (ECPAD) shows a French Mirage 2000 jet on the tarmac of an undisclosed air base.
Just when things were starting to look dark for ISIS … in comes Turkey to the rescue:
http://www.dailysabah.com/nation/2015/11/24/turkey-downs-russian-fighter-jet-near-syrian-border-after-violation-of-airspace
That ought to help tone down the whole international cooperation shtick for a bit…
And … it’s worse than I thought. I don’t know anything about this but what they say in Wikipedia (see “2015 Russian Sukhoi Su-24 shootdown” and “Syrian Turkmen Brigades”) – but that includes a link to this story ( http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/11/25/uk-mideast-crisis-syria-turkey-idUKKBN0TD0IS20151125 ) that cites some idiot deputy commander outright admitting that his men shot at the pilots after they ejected, then on the ground.
We see, at last, what those mythical non-ISIS, non-Al Qaida, non-Assad Syrian rebels look like, and it’s a pretty ugly picture. They’re people who violate the Geneva Convention by shooting ejected pilots, and are dumb enough to brag about it. When they parade around making videos of themselves yelling Allahu Akbar and saying they should have burned the pilots, they sure as fuck look like terrorists. After this, who is possibly going to be able to argue that Russia doesn’t have a right to attack these rebels? Whoever that is, he must be making hundreds of thousands a year as one of America’s more respected talking heads, because no one else could keep a straight face while lying that hard.
And the other problem is, these Turkmen rebels are being backed by Turkey very directly. And of course, Turkey shot down the plane before these morons got hold of the pilots. So this is a proxy war – a proxy war in close coordination with an honest to God direct war between NATO and Russia, at least where one plane is concerned. Even if we just blindly assume that cooler heads will keep the latter from escalating, it’s hard for me to picture not having a very serious proxy conflict at this point.
Peace has never been part of the end game and blowback is what they covet most. They want guaranteed, violent retaliation to kill people who live across town. That is the end game — a bottomless feeding trough for these “strategists” at the expense of their lunatic electoral base.
They think and claim they’re competent… attacking Iraq after being attacked by Saudis and Pakistanis… then declaring mission accomplished prior to bribng both Shia and Sunni to not attack surrounded, dumb-fuck US generals’ fodder. They’re still siding with Shia, and still calling them terrorists at the same time they arm up IS proxies through bidness deals with Saudi and other proxies. While Russia occaisionally complicates the rankings, Iran and IS are in a tight race in the standings as #1 and #2 in the infantile stenographers’ “Who’s the worstest evilest in the world this week, General Expert?” It’s Fantasy Slaughter League and there is never an off-season. Americans’ cynicism, malice, and stupidity are limitless. Tilt, tilt, tilt, like the Iraq Iran War on stronger, ever more lucrative steroids.
So goddamned mutherfucking brilliant. Old habits will not die and idiot, bloodthirsty Americans will never quench their thirst. They always lose but they’ll never think or STFU as they go on about on their exceptional ability to butcher and torture and make wholesome Hollywood entertainment out of it. And those orgasmic displays of martial goodness in NFL stadiums can’t be beat.
Attempting to describe this state of affairs in words is risky because whatever comes out has to look almost as crazy as what a writer is trying to describe. The only upside is nobody gets killed. (Erhmmm… I should know better. Americans do enjoy torturing people who have their own opinions on such matters — even to death.)
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/nov/22/sharri-markson-journalist-at-the-australian-in-run-in-with-israeli-security
a must-read article by James Petras on US foreign policy for the past 15 years
Please read and share.
http://petras.lahaine.org/?p=2062
Looks like the dynamics have become simple. The US along with the Saudis have ignited a religious war between Shia and Sunni. Syria is the center, but all through the Middle East it is Sunni against Shia. Patrick Cockburn is reporting as much. Shia Syria, Hezbollah, and Iran against Sunni ISIL, Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. Every conflict in the Middle East is essentially Sunni vs Shia. The US has essentially jumped on the side of the Sunni, and the Russians on the side of the Shia. Problem is ISIL has left the ranch in a rather horrendous way. ISIL needs to be put back into its place and then back to normal shit, which was directly stated in the article: Syria is not another Western vassal. And a religious war is the instrument against the Assad/Shia regime. Up to the point of the Paris killings, among all gop and Dem candidates you would have thought that Russia/Putin/Assad was thee biggest and evil enemy. Paris changed that at least in terms of public perception. All the suggestions are great, but peace and order is not part of the end game.
War in Syria will end when Assad is brought to justice for his war crimes and use of chemical weapons. War will end when the freedom and equality the syrian people stood up for is given to them. War will end in the middle east when the 3 tribes stop killing each other.
The problem is that the anti Assad opposition which is conducted in numerous different groups, insisting to get Assad out of picture first, can’t even come up with a concrete suggestion about who or what they want instead. The war in Syria is more of an anarchistic nature than a pro-democratic liberation.
In order to achieve peace in the Middle East, America must stop supporting Saudi Arabia and Wahhabism – oh and also stop financing the Israeli war machine.
I’m going to play devils-advocate for a moment.
Dead-head military kunt; “We need at least 60% of national funds going into war machinary & weapons to kill the enemy. Anyone that doesn’t agree is anti-american & a consirpacy nut-bag. And probably a tree-hugging pansy who we keep safe from rebels/terrorists & genuine alien invaders from the moon!”
>> *exhales*
Right as rain. The issue, though, is that the author aspires to an end to carnage and a return to some form of reasoned humanity, whereas the powers-that-be are acting on very different priorities, chiefly the need to be perceived by domestic constituencies as tough and decisive. And if we know nothing else, it’s that those constituencies like war, especially the far-away kind.
So, the intercept is infiltrated by pro colonial writers. it is not the same intercept from before, neutral and giving information about dirty wars and war crimes. Include more contributors and the Intercept will become part of CNN. I am not Muslim, but I support anti colonial resistance. CNN/ABC doesn’t control my way of thinking.
I agree on nearly everything but iwish to remind you that the Russians are there at the request of Assad. Therefore you can’t put them in the same cauldron as the US, France, Uk etc
https://www.rt.com/usa/322956-russia-isis-coalition-washington/
in the meantime the whole world knows how things really are, you cant fool nobody anymore.
forget it, nice try that ain’t gonna fly
Correction: “Israel will ever again…” should read: “Israel will never again…”
Right that is it
CG makes a point that has serious implications: that Syria was/is the only Arab state that is not a US satellite.
If the regime change effort succeeds – a thinly veiled operation- a puppet regime will be installed. Israel will ever again have to worry about giving up the Heights since the puppet would be under instructions not to ever dare make demands for the return of the territory.
Nothing is what it seems to be…
Point well taken. But what other reasons does the US have to want to install a puppet in Syria? How about this analysis?:
http://www.mintpressnews.com/migrant-crisis-syria-war-fueled-by-competing-gas-pipelines/209294/ .
And just in case anyone thinks this guy is some far-left nut bag, here is supporting analysis from an unlikely source: http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/pipeline-politics-in-syria/
Note also that the French government, arms industry and energy concerns are hip-deep in the whole mess as well: http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/11/19/if-i-prayforparis-who-will-pray-for-the-victims-of-french-colonial-aggression/
Blowback from all this crap is inevitable. Unfortunately, it is the innocent and unaware on all sides that inevitably pay the price.
I have to wonder about the editing at TI given that the “official” story about blaming Assad for Hariri was changed to advance a new agenda once the “getting Syria out of Lebanon” agenda had been achieved… but, thankfully, as per usual, the good people here beat me to it.
That doesn’t excuse posting fiction, but at least it isn’t going unchallenged.
I have to laugh about poor Craig still chewing his cud about Assad, when the evidence of the US backed regime change effort is even being admitted by the former head of the DIA on al Jazeera no less.
Maybe they lost his email, and he isn’t getting updated talking points or something?
I was reminded of poor Craig by an article by a reporter (not a blog opinion post) on Syria over at HP a few days ago insisting that Assad wanted part of his country taken over by ISIS… I can’t repeat the “reasoning” because it wasn’t reasoning or believable, and those things don’t stick in my memory… but it was very… I guess “soaked in imperial assumptions” is how a better writer put it below.
It was good to see GG on DemocracyNow pointing out how our weapons deliveries and “allies” bear responsibility for starting the war in Syria… I worry that too many are too lazy to read these days.
I keep waiting for a reporter to interview the survivors or families of victim of 9/11/01 on how they feel about US support for al Qaida in Syria only 14 years after the attack… seems like it would make for some good reading or viewing, but it seems nobody can be bothered.
A
“Syria went too far by assassinating former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri in February 2005, and its troops were forced to evacuate the country two months later.”
Did Syria really assassinate the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri? The assignation was deemed to be so advanced it was said it could only be carried out by a sophisticated state actor. Immediately the media placed blamed on Bashar Al-Assad even before an investigation was performed, thus heavily influencing the events that unfolded. These media accusations lead to an angry reaction calling on Syria to remove its troops from Lebanon. Bashar Al-Assad maintained that Syria did not assassinate the former Prime Minister, stated he would withdraw his troops from Lebanon if it was what the country wanted, and indicated that his troops were still in Lebanon to protect the country from Israel. A year later, in 2006, Syrian troops were out and Israeli was at war with Lebanon, bombing civilian infrastructure like airports, fuel tank, poultry farms, ect. Now I could write a long article detailing the events that have been unfolding in the Middle East, yet I would rather pause to think for a second. Why would Syria assassinate the former prime minister and not have a plan to deal with the potential consequences? It appears that Syria was caught completely off guard and reacted in a way that was not in its interest, not consistent with carrying out the assassination. Who benefited from the assignation of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri? Unfortunately this pattern has been repeating itself around the world and now after tragedy in Paris there is a renewed frenzy for more war and taking away the rights of the French and even Americans.
Media mogul billionaire, Haim Saban, who raised $34 billion for the Israeli defense forces in 2014, stated in a recent interview with “The Wrap” that ‘You want to be free and dead? I’d rather be free and alive’ and ‘I’m not suggesting we torture Muslims, but they should be scrutinized’ in his campaign while riding a wave of fear to undermine the constitution of the United States under the guise of protecting us in this time of war. The GOP is calling for the abolishment of secure consumer encryption and the reinstatement of mass surveillance of all Americans, before there is any proof that consumer encryption contributed to the Paris tragedy. Let us think and conduct investigations into these tragedies before rushing to subject ourselves to draconian legislation at home and more wars in the Middle East.
After posting here yesterday about recent comments made by former Iraqi PM, al Maliki, and by Putin – no connection to each other – my smart phone was immediately remotely locked by those who obviously felt uneasy about the content of my post.
This is the sixth smartphone that the terrorists have tried to destroy.
All of which makes me really wonder: just who made ISIS?
Sane people never prevail in this world; the lunatics are always in charge.
“Everything is upside down in this world.
He who should be hanged in the public square is crowned emperor instead.
People stand and applaud.”
Jelaluddin Rumi, 13th century
If it’s up to the US, Russia, Britain, France, and Saudi Arabia to end this war don’t hold your breath.
I’m sickened by these bilderberg european scumbags (in cahoots with their americunt pay masters) trying to again force illegal international acts of war upon its citizens. I hold no responsibility for britcunts actions inside a sovereign nation who’s not requested assistance. It’s a giant cluster-fuck and exactly what the secret-services were hoping for! More money pushed into the dark corners of there disgusting trade & more oversight into peoples lives in the belief we’ll be all safer. Once usa_naziland & uk_naziland stop meddling in foreign affairs the world will be more honest & quieter. As usual the U.N. is deafeningly quiet & doesn’t declare ‘a concern’ with any amount of western centric acts of off-shore barbarism.
I have nothing but utter contempt for these spy agencies & military actions because its all about making greed not structuring a valid fight of good policies against chaos at all. We live inside the truth-bubble of dual realities that common folk cannot fathom.
These proxy wars are not going to stop any time soon I expect this low lever warfare to go for many years to come. Obama has positioned the US to use its proxies in Asia to start the same kind of low level warfare around China (South China Sea) and thus contain the growth of China’s peaceful attempts at broader trade and infrastructure upgrading around Asia and the world.
I think it is quite clear that the US Empire of the Exceptionals sees the present time as the best opportunity they will have to “take over” those parts of the planet they don’t already have hegemonic domination.
As in Africa where the Empire has bases and facilities so as to rapidly put down any opposition on that continent, they seek the same domination in Asia, especially China and Russia.
The 60 million displaced people on earth almost entirely due to US violence is only going to grow – remember what is left of national governments no longer see any obligation to the security or economic well being of their citizens.
Sovereignty as nothing more than a quaint notion from a bygone century.
One small problem to your idea – China doesn’t really have anyone around it to start a proxy war in. The strategy in Asia is occupying countries and screwing them over with the TPP.
Malaysia is like England with palm trees, so they will be happy little Thankie Yankie Spankie Spaniels, even their flag looks like the Star-Spangled Banana. Same goes for The Philippines, and most of their young people are overseas anyway, so it will just be grannies fighting toddlers and the disabled in a viscious war over diapers.
Singapore doesn’t really have any space to have a bun fight let alone a proxy war. Vietnam have been there, done that, and won. Thais are too lazy to bother with a war; there’d be a week or two of the women shooting their husband’s second wives, men pretending to “go off to war” but instead go off to show each others’ real and metaphorical guns, a lot of ladyboy hair pulling over all the smart soldier boys, lots of screaming and dramatic stares like on TV, then everyone will go for dinner and totally forget what all the fuss was about a moment later.
South Korea is the 52nd State after England, and are pretty much in a constant state of fractious war with their government despite telling everyone in the world how united they are and how Korea is the greatest place on Earth. The food is ok. The rest. Meh.
As for the nutty northern cousins you just need to look at the army generals in their oversized peaked caps to know that North Korea would weeze to a cancer-ridden standstill in about 3 hours, then wait for American army dentists to come fix their dentures.
America could try to get involved in Burma, but anyone who’s ever seen Burmese TV will know that a) they haven’t got a clue about anything even from the C20th yet, let alone C21st – yes they have computers and stuff, but they’re still staring at the screen saver in amazement; b) that any negotiations undertaken will mean sitting with an old guy in tradional silks and flipflops talking a load of vowels like “ayee-ah-i-a-yeeyay-aoh-ooo-aeei-Yay!” for about 3 hours non-stop before anyone else can get a word in. They are still genuinely surprised and pleased people want to talk to them, it’s kinda cute. And despite being the Axis of Evil for a decade or so, they are very cute. And shorter than Hobbits on the whole. It will be like the Stormtroopers verses the Ewoks. Or more like Aaye-yah-eeeee-yay-ahhhh-yeeeeeeeeeeeewoks.
Japan is hardly going to fight itself and all its tanks and helicopters are decorated with Pokemon stuff still.
So that leaves potentially the longest border in the world on which to wage a proxy war – Russia. And war with Russia is by its very definition NOT proxy any more.
The reason no one like Alexander the Great, or Genghis Khan, or Britain and France, or Communist China, or Fascist America has ever managed to dominate, fully colonise and boss over eastern Asia is because it is frustrating, hot, mountainous, swampy, hot again, full of mosquitos, hot again, wet, full of sexy little women that are even hotter and wetter than the weather, as are some of the men, slow, lazy, sleepy, hot and on the whole in the long run just not worth it.
It is much nicer just to come on holiday and know there will be forever a cheap and plentiful supply of happily willing factory works FOREVER. In fact, whereas many of the possible and actual proxy wars are not so much in the American publics interest, sending their military arseholes out of the country to fight with Asians might be beneficial to them to get some jobs back.
But as we all know, big bad Americans are always embarrassed about getting their collective arses slapped by little Asian guys in the steamy jungle.
It’s Charlie’s Point. Always has been, always will be.
Too funny.
I guess the stereotyping isn’t exactly PC, but as an equal opportunity offender, and with the non-interventionist verdict, I think thanking you for the laughs is acceptable… I think.
A
I am a child of the Cold War and 30 years ago there would be NO MORE TERRIFYING A THOUGHT than America and Russia live-firing aggressively and with malice aforethought IN THE SAME SMALL SPACE ON THIS PUNY-ARSED PLANET.
At the moment there is a tentative whiff of shared agendas, but already America have changed that’s name to Daesh. It seems a heady perfume to the morons of the world too young or too partisan or too plain stupid to realise that having AMERICA and RUSSIA doing what they are doing – I call it The Dance of death – EQUALS WORLD WAR FUCKING THREE.
I am using TI as sort of Primal Scream therapy – it is new, it is called WRITING IN CAPITALS therapy. It is like screaming, but easier on my wife’s ears. Plus I can listen to CJ & Co.
Fee-fi-fo-fum, looking down the barrel of the Devil’s gun…
Rafik Hariri was not assassinated by Syria, but by the order of US Ambassador Jeffrey Feltmann. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafic_Hariri
Only the US and Israel have benefited from the assassination of Rafik Hariri and the UN investigator Detlef Mehlis falsified everything. , A second report, submitted on December 10, 2005, upholds the conclusions of the first report. On 11 January 2006 Mehlis, upon his own suggestion, which Replaced by Serge Brammertz, who upheld UNIIIC’s conclusions under Mehlis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detlev_Mehlis: Rafik Hariri was not assassinated by Syria, but by the order of US Ambassador Jeffrey Feltmann. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafic_Hariri
Only the US and Israel have benefited from the assassination of Rafik Hariri and the UN investigator Detlef Mehlis falsified everything. , A second report, submitted on December 10, 2005, upholds the conclusions of the first report. On 11 January 2006 Mehlis, upon his own suggestion, which Replaced by Serge Brammertz, who upheld UNIIIC’s conclusions under Mehlis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detlev_Mehlis
In a parallel, sane, kind universe title would read “Must End War….” or better yet,
All war ended today” or “All war ends right now” or “All war ended eons ago”… ‘
or “Child ended suffering for all beings at 09:36 am GMT – with a mere thought!”…
but, hey! How ’bout those Kardashians – and my arms stocks!?!
Modern day sniper…
They knew what they were doing..
Mr. Glass
This is a remarkably bad article. This article might even make state subsidized RT gush with excitement. The most glaring omission from the article is any criticism of Bashar al-Assad who is solely responsible for the initiation of hostilities in Syria. You wrote a book on the death of the Arab Spring, but you could not even bring yourself to mention in this article how Syrian demonstrators protesting for political rights were brutally crushed by the regime? I can only imagine who you blame in your book. Assad used the same strategy as his father when he brutally crushed revolting people in Hama (Hama Massacre, 1982). Bashar al-Assad miscalculated badly initiating a war responsible for the death of 310,000 people. How could you leave this out?
“…….Supporters of American, French, and British bombing in Syria at this time may exult that these Western powers are displaying their “balls,” but there is every probability that they will balls it up. They have made a mess of Syria since they involved themselves there in the vain attempt to bring down President Bashar al-Assad in 2011…..”
Can you link to any US bombing in 2011 in Syria by the US? The US was nearly absent from the war in Syria for the first 2-3 years training a few rebels in Jordan. We couldn’t even vet the rebels to supply weapons. However, a joint effort by Hezbollah, Russia and Iran has continued to prop up the Assad regime with weapons, funding and manpower. It wasn’t a US General killed in Syria by an Israeli airstrike (along with some Hezbollah operatives).
You make it sound like the Assad regime is good while pointing out the evil of ISIS. Assad has been accused by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the UN of numerous war crimes including torture, executions, the use of barrel bombs, chlorine gas, chemical weapons against civilians and the use of numerous conventional weapons like heavy artillery, tanks, war planes and helicopter gun ships also directed at civilian neighborhoods. There is no doubt that ISIS and Assad are equally evil. Both are anti-democratic to the core – and willing to murder innocents for power. They have both proven that beyond any doubt. Assad is a reckless, power hungry brutal dictator. He doesn’t need any support from western propagandists.
“…….It took more than 100 dead in Paris and 224 passengers on a Russian airliner for France and Russia to coordinate their airstrikes in Syria. What will it take for the U.S. to do the same?…..”
Are you joking? Oh I don’t know. Maybe if Russia had not illegally annexed a part of a sovereign nation and had troops on the ground in eastern Ukraine supporting an ongoing civil war for geopolitical gain, they might might be a really good Allie. After all, 8000 people in eastern Ukraine have died including 300 from a civilian airliner shot down with a Russian made missile. Why should the US work with Russia? Russia is helping to sustain the Assad dictatorship. Assad is allied with Russia , Iran and Lebanon (Hezbollah) – and that’s who is propping up the dictator (and it has nothing to do with “dictatorship or repression”, right?). Russia has a base in Syria and has been supplying weapons to the illegitimate Assad regime. Clearly, the US is not interested in allowing Assad to stay in power while Russia has troops on the ground to keep Assad in power. They are at geopolitical odds. Comprende?
“……The question since March 2011, when the first protests began in Syria, is what to do with President Bashar al-Assad. The reason the West, Saudi Arabia, and Israel wanted to dispose of him had nothing to do with dictatorship or repression…..”
Could you spare us your secondary school assessments, please?
Craig you’re so weird. I think you need to take Captain Picard to Warp Speed a bit more often, you know, get some of that Space Glue out into the Big Wide Yonder.
Space. The Final Frontier. These are the continuing voyages of the Starship Summers, its mission – to fap himself stupid in the name of stopping his defending of the indefensible. To seek out new worlds and strange experiences, like having a heart and not being a moron.
Make it so!
As I’m sure you realize, even if we accept the premise that Assad is solely responsible for the initiation of hostilities in Syria, that doesn’t absolve everyone else of responsibility for the entire aftermath.
I do take note of the fact that you’re more interested in Assad’s overthrow than anything having to do with ISIS, just like any imperialist should. It’s the reason Hillary Clinton wants a no-fly zone. It’s not like a no-fly zone will undermine ISIS’s ability to deploy its air force. In short, imperialists/neocons are attempting to exploit post-Paris emotions in order to capture Syria’s government.
Jose
“…….As I’m sure you realize, even if we accept the premise that Assad is solely responsible for the initiation of hostilities in Syria, that doesn’t absolve everyone else of responsibility for the entire aftermath……”
On the other side, anti-westernism (anti-western imperialism) does not give the author a license to white wash history because he has a political agenda (on quite a few different levels as I pointed out in my first post). That is exactly why he is publishing in the Intercept. This could be Greenwald writing except there is too much geopolitics in the article.
Geopolitically, the US wants to remove Assad. No one can deny that, but this war in no way is the fault of US policies toward Syria. The US did not support the Jihadists after the civil war was initiated by Assad; the US did not bomb Syria until the past year or so; and the US still does not bomb the Syrian regime (only ISIS targets). The US is, in effect, helping Assad remain in power with their current policies in Syria. Of course, Russia, Lebanon and Iran are there for humanitarian concerns.
This was one of the worst articles I’ve read on the Syrian war – especially by someone who wrote a book about the death of the Arab Spring.
Thanks
Has it still not occured to you that Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch are corrupted US propaganda organisations, paid by American “democracy” funds?
Your idea has some humanitarian value, but what about business?
Most Americans just do not want to think about the Obama administrations “Assad must go, Assad must go” rant and unsuccessful strategy. The U.S. etc could have decided to talk about the power sharing deal Assad was offering 5 years ago. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians would be alive, millions would not be refugees.
What good would it have done?
It could have cut the civil war short and begun the transition of Syria to democracy without much of ensuing bloodshed. Remember back in 2012 the Russian ambassador to the UN offered to have Assad step aside as part of a power sharing deal. Washington and it’s allies rejected this, presumably believing that continued support to the rebels by them and the gulf states would cause Assad to quickly fall from power. We’re now seeing the results of that major miscalculation.
I meant – what good would it have done to us?
Surely, you don’t think we are some real charity?
I don’t think US imperialism and hegemonic ambitions are the source of all evil, but they’re clearly major contributors of nearly all geopolitical evil.
Well kathleen, you will have to post a link to where Assad was willing to share power. Assad is no more willing to share power than Saddam Hussein was. He wasn’t even willing to grant some basic political rights to protesters in 2011 choosing to massacre them instead. How long have you worked for Mr. Assad?
There will never be peace as long as there is someone left feeling they have been wronged. We have all been wronged. Many have been worse then others. No matter how you feel about it we are together and anything we do effects each other, somethings more then others. Man has been at war with each other for far too long. We can do better and we owe to ourselves to do just that. We were all born on this earth and we will most likely all die here.
We have far more in common then we admit. The many reasons given to fight others are too often given by the few and not the common person who lives their life to provide for their family. Of course when others invade your space you will feel you need to defend it. It is the few, that talk loud and pressure others to do what most us would never do to each other, the common people need to consider standing together as one with each other for each other.
War is an economic necessity. It can never be stopped altogether. By creating rules and adhering to them we can make it less painful for the vanquished.
War is a criminal racket, mostly imposed by a tyrant forces. Economy of destruction and death is hardly an economy at all.
To state what you just said is akin to saying: robbery is an economic necessity (it might be for some) only that we’d have to create some rules so the robbers could adhere to them and male it less painful for the robbed.
An utter nonsense.
Yeah coz the world has benefited so much from all the war since WW2. Europe warring, South America warring. Japan and China warring (and wokking and wolling!) India warring. Australia and New Zealand bombed each other flat. Not to mention those crazy Norwegians and Canadians and Swiss warmongering warmongers.
Look at Africa and the Middle East – peaceful and BROKE!
Peace, who needs it? It’s for like communists and hippies. And they smell funny.
General Knobcheez has spoken, all must listen.
“ISIS has turned around and murdered people from most of the countries that have challenged it” – really? Even in context, that sounds rather like excusing that murder as being mainly in response to an unprovoked attack. Not your intent, surely, to suggest ISIS didn’t initiate the violence!? Otherwise, great stuff, Mr Glass. Priorities should be the supply lines via Turkey and the financial support from other salafists – mostly from Saudi Arabia.
ISIS’ raison d’être is being a caliphate. Expansion via terror is what a caliphate is supposed to do – according to ISIS own self-descriptions, unless I’m misinformed.
Here’s a fun little factoid–any guess as to who provided the training to ISIS’s #1 military commander? Anyone? Buehler? Anyone?
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/middle-east/article35322882.html
Presumably nobody around here is shocked. It’s so predictable.
https://twitter.com/Whtapl/status/656509547780018176
The line, “They provide their clients with the means to fight the war. And they can cut them off.” says it all to me. This has been the case for awhile and yet the the Smedley Butler adage, “War is a Racket”, this seems to be mantra of Wall Street and the weapons manufacturers, their stocks are doing well. It is hard to optimistic with the powerful forces of the military industrial complex and human greed.
According to former Iraqi PM, al Maliki, everything is as it seems. Some in the coalition against Isis, he asserts, have ulterior motives and may have a vested interest in the survival of ISIS, in a sad paradox. Read for yourself: https://www.rt.com/news/321213-maliki-interview-iraq-isis/
In a separate event, Russia presented to members of the G20 summit in Turkey recently, results ofan indepth investigation by that country of financial support for ISIS . The findings, Russia asserts, indicate that some members of the G20 are among ISIS financiers.
Nothing is as it seems…And if you wondered why Russia did not mention ISIS when it announced that it will find the terrorists wherever they are, could it be because it counted the financiers in the G20 among the terrorists?
Correction. According to Maliki, NOTHING, not everything, is as it seems.
I’m troubled by the constant use of the word Jihadi within the context of violence committed by some so-called Muslims, without any explanation of how this term is viewed by traditional Muslims.
So, here’s a reproduction of my comments elsewhere:
As I’ve stated here frequently, the constant use of the word jihadi solely within the context of violence committed by some who claim to be Muslims takes away the spiritual significance of Jihad that has been given by traditional Islam over the years.
Here’s the link to an article by an eminent scholar, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, I’ve often posted:
http://www.al-islam.org/al-serat/vol-9-no-1/spiritual-significance-jihad-seyyed-hossein-nasr/spiritual-significance-jihad
To me, as a Sufi Muslim, a true jihadi is someone who is striving to control his or her lower self, which, by definition, reflects qualities, such as lack of peace, vengeance, arrogance, selfishness, self-pride, ignorance, hatred, seeing otherness, desire for power and control, etc.
Sufi, thanks for your comment, I was reflecting on this very subject today, the use of the word jihad by western media and others. I am not a muslim but I think its important to learn the terms being used to describe the events for the last few decades. Cheers and peace brother.
. . . yes, all noble messengers have preached this Inner Jihad as being the the only way to real peace !
Consider also the “prophecy of strategy” as in the revealed scriptures :
The Zionist Fake Jihad of Syria
https://youtu.be/P2O6CV9aLHA
Islam, Russia :
https://youtu.be/qd3hPdhc7tc
And here , wishing you a happy lecture on true Christ-mass :
https://youtu.be/z-G1wUoV0VM
Mr Sufi, the problem is not with the upper or the lower self. The problem is with the middle self that goes totally out of control when Jihadists see Yazidi women and children.
Really? Because it says here, in the NYT, that the CIA had their base of operations in Southern Turkey since at least 2012, funneling weapons and logistics to “Syrian Rebels”.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/world/middleeast/cia-said-to-aid-in-steering-arms-to-syrian-rebels.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&
Granted, the next paragraph claims the CIA was vetting the opposition. Making sure their tools of destruction didn’t go to “bad guys”. Because the CIA only supports good guys, natch.
But as foreignpolicy.com reported not too long ago, I guess that changed?
Call me crazy, but that sounds pretty friendly to me. Of course, when you say “Turkey is an ally, but no friend”, it begs the question, ally of what, friend of what? You’re asking us to identify with a superstructure. In that case, are “we” the CIA? The US government? The Civilized World? Turkey is an ally, but not our friend. OK. But maybe you mean the CIA is not our friend as well? With friends like these, eh?
I thought that score was already settled. By Reagan’s own commission no less.
antiwar.com
Short memories I guess.
Except, the “hell” brought to Paris isn’t remotely proportional to the hell Iraq and Syria are in, have been in, will be in. It’s not even in the same universe. And it never will be. Averring this false affinity is troubling, because it predisposes “us” to a fictitious siege mentality, with all its attendant blowback. You’re reifying a war that doesn’t exist, and you should stop.
Not just chance. Incredibly good odds were and are in your friends and relatives favor. Because “here” isn’t “there”. And it’s actually unseemly, even reckless, to pretend otherwise.
Indeed. In fact, we can guarantee there will be more. Forever more. Because terror is a tactic, not a social construction. And after the fall of the Soviet Union, America needed something to fight, to keep the hamster wheel moving. Without an enemy, “we’re” existentially threatened. War is the force that gives “us” meaning.
And America, for that matter.
Just like the reporters who dutifully echoed the line placing the blame on Pakistan for ‘the open border that the Taliban needed’ while being just as dutifully uncurious about who pressured them into doing so, this reporter acts as if the (easily seen through) cutout between America and ISIS (when it was obeying America’s limits) is a brick wall.
As you said, the US was ‘screening’ who they were arming, and, obviously, someone who’d commanded their proxy fighters before, someone like Tarkhan Batirashvili, of the Georgian military, would clear any such screenings. After all, having lead those who fought aside American soldiers in Iraq, and being trained by American advisors, he would be trusted to only commit atrocities against the right people (Syrians who supported a popular, but not American aligned government) But just as the name change from Mujahideen to Taliban, with no other differences, got the notoriously independent, proudly dissident, free press to treat who they had been praising as someone completely different who was worthy only of condemnation, the name change from Tarkhan Batirashvili to Abu Omar al Shishani has transformed the ‘freedom fighter who heroically fought for freedom’ (taking over a Syrian air base) to ‘terrorist motivated by extremist religious beliefs’ (holding that base, and the surrounding territory, for ISIS)
Agreed Peace will destroy America. We have been at war 222 years of the 239 years we have been in existence!
Assad must stay he is even supported by the Syrian Christians.
Agreed. Peace will destroy America. We have been at war for 222 years of our 239 years of existence.
“Syria went too far by assassinating former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri in February 2005,…”
The evidence for this is very thin; this discredits the many other assertions that Glass makes, a pity because many of them are reasonable. Years in the region working for US TV gave Glass enormous and valuable experience, on the other hand he remains soaked in imperial assumptions.
Regarding Assad: if he is a criminal he is one of many heading governments everywhere. Whether or not he ‘steps down’ is a matter for Syrians to decide, not Americans.
Natural selection.
@ BenjaminAP & Bevin
Well stated. And this as well:
Agreed! In so saying, I commend this latest article by Robert Parry to your consideration.
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/11/19/tangled-threads-of-us-false-narratives/
“Work is love made visible.” KG
As Usual,
EA
Assad is a criminal just like ISIS and he must step down
Assad is no more a criminal than the leaders of governments like the U.S. So yes, he is a criminal (not like ISIS, though – let’s not get absurd here), but the West only wants him out because he wasn’t serving their economic interests. That is a fact. If the Syrian people want him out, they will vote him out. But THEY need to decide who their next leader will be. THEY need to decide what form their government will take. Not the U.S., not France, not Russia, not Saudi Arabia, not Iran, etc…
So until there is some concrete plan about/enough stability in which the Syrian people can control their future, non-Syrians need to shut the fuck up about the whole “Assad must go.” Because the fact is that as recently as the summer of 2014, polls showed that the vast majority of Syrians, including the majority of Sunnis, were supporting him.
And the Christians, Alewives, greek othrodox support Assad.
Do you honestly want him to go because he’s a “criminal” or because it’s an opportunity to capture an otherwise adversarial government?
McClatchy news has some interesting articles about how well the American military knew the individual responsible for some of the bloody terrorist acts that were the ‘protests against Assad’ the author so carefully toed the propaganda line on. Heard the basics about the American trained ‘soldier’ who no longer limits his victims to those on the US ‘enemies list’ on CBC’s ‘Ripple Effects’ segment of ‘The Current’.
Good article good idea. We and other meddlers have a chance to set a lot of wrongs if not right at least save much suffering and damage.
Brilliant.
For over a century, the ‘West’ (lately pretty much a synonym for the US) has taken the position that it has the god given right to determine the legitimacy of the government of any state, the moral authority to declare acts of violence either justified or outrages based solely on who the perpetrators or victims political alignment, and who’s aspirations were godly or evil. But the Israeli regime, Saddam, Bin Laden, and now DAESH decided to cut out the middle man, and taken the notion that the god that whispers in their ears (the same false voice of their own hubris and unempathetic surety of their own angelic nature that whispers in the ears of the West) is at least as good as the one that the west hears. And another example of west doing cynical pivot from ‘this is justified’ to ‘this is evil’ when not only has the nature of ‘this’ remained steady, but the person at who’s orders ‘this’ was done also remained the same is NOT going to in any way solve the problem, it will actually make it worse, because it merely means the next ‘leader’ that the west bestows the mantle of legitimacy on in exchange for his willingness to commit the violence they approve of will have more young, globally connected and aware, disenchanted and disenfranchised people to draw on when he decides he doesn’t need the blessing of the Washington Lobbies to expand his writ to terrorize beyond the limits of the territory the West wants brought into alignment.
A lot of dis-information is being run on this site !!! Just check this one: “Syria went too far by assassinating former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri”.
Here the facts :
http://www.voltairenet.org/spip.php?page=recherche&recherche=hariri&lang=en
This is just one example of the Intercept feeding so much intox under the guise of “Freedom of Speech” . . . a clear Orange shading !
“This was France’s revenge for the killing of 58 French troops by a suicide bomber four weeks earlier.”
You forgot to mention why those individuals wanted to attack those french and american troops. You are implying that western military response is only a reaction to the violence committed by others. This is typical mainstream media propaganda. Short sighted view focused on playing the victim instead of taking responsibility for the imperialistic actions that the french and americans have taken in the first place.
Who the hell made america or france or any other western power the owners of the world that they can decide who should rule this or that country? Who are you to decide what is best for somebody else’s country? This whole article reeks of imperialistic ideology.
Agree!
Beautiful fighter at top! What is that? A Syrian roundel on the back?
On the outside a standard Hellfire missile, then some huge Thumper (1000lb?), and then something smaller but with serious nav on the front-end of it. What are those?
The 310,000 dead – and counting- were they killed by Mig airplanes flown by Isis pilots?? Assad’s regime didn’t kill any syrian civilians at all?? 12 million refugees are all fleeing from the war and distruction becus isis alone???
The US is actively enabling Saudi war crimes – bombing of civilians – in Yemen, and has embraced an Egyptian dictatorship that mass executes political dissidents. Spare me the appeals to decency with respect to Assad. The US opposes the Assad regime for the specific reasons that it is a Russian client state and an Iranian ally. Syria has been in the neo-conservative “regime change” gunsights for decades. The US was thrilled to let ISIS take on Assad, and as Mr. Glass points out, only took steps against ISIS when Iraq was threatened.
Spare me talk about ” deep state thugs in the US govt & its goons with drapes in arabian gulf ; and how they wanna see the whole area enslaved and burn – kind of talk- I got you there.
Although I’ve a Simple question:
The bodies of civilians that are pulled out from underthe rubbles? The pieces of children mixed with ashes and dirt ; ? We ve been seeing documented since 2011 (before the “air raids” on isis begin) , the videos of airplanes dropping something called barrel bombs? Who is bombing houses of civilians over their heads??? That the question.
I will not spare you ANY such talk – the US has engaged in violence and militance in the Middle East on a scale Bashar al-Assad could never hope to achieve – and all the demands that the Russian client step down from the American political class have absolutely nothing to do with human rights.
The US political class needs to accept that the neo-conservative agenda – which is the evil we have wrought in the Middle East for nearly 15 years now – has failed totally, causing regional strategic and humanitarian catastrophes on a historic scale. Bashar al-Assad is no different than any other murderous thug in the region, including the murderous thugs all around Syria that the US gleefully supports and provides weapons to.
It is time for the US to accept that we are no longer qualified – economically, strategically, or morally – to be the World Cop.
What’s next from you? The Iraq War was right and good and moral, because “he gassed his own people!”?
Are you also speaking about the bombs dropped on civilian houses in Gaza
” The pilot, Lt. Mark Lange, died when his parachute malfunctioned. The navigator-bombardier, Lt. Robert O. Goodman, became a prisoner for 31 days until the Syrians released him to Reverend Jesse Jackson. And that was that.”
Wow the world sure was different before the US claimed jurisdiction over the whole planet.
The idea of sovereign independant nations is slipping away.
Given that Hillary Clinton just told the Council on Foreign Relations that she wants military escalation in and around Syria, along with a no-fly zone in Syria, presumably she intends to risk World War III in Syria, rather than work to de-escalate and find a political solution.
Given that (sadly) she is the most likely next American president, and that she is entirely owned by neo-conservatives when it comes to foreign policy, and that her stated goals include risking a shooting war with Russia over foreign imperialist goals she apparently has, I think it likely that the author will not see the sensible outcome of “ending proxy wars in Syria”.
Meanwhile, Hillary channels her best Richard the Lionheart impression. Looks like the “balls” faction is way ahead on this debate, unfortunately.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/19/hillary-clinton-isis-strategy-ground-troops-airstrikes-no-fly-zone-syria
I see that you and I are part of the small minority of people in the US who recognize that Hillary Clinton is essentially running on George W. Bush’s platform. Her foreign and security policies are identical to Bush’s, or even worse – I don’t think Bush would have risked WWIII in Syria – and her gleeful devotion to the oligarchy and the financial sector really maker her indistinguishable from him economically,
Platform AIPAC.
Its amazing how few people can see that we will never begin to rebuild the middle class here at home, and shift the economy to a fairer track, or do much else, until we have a head of state articulating an entirely new vision for American foreign policy. The wars are wrecking our futures.
That figure is certainly not Hillary Clinton.