This is my second post this week on Syria. There are two problems with me doing that. (1) It’s not Pacific Northwest related, so outside of the scope of what I generally try to write on this blog. (2) It’s not something I have any particular knowledge of. Still, here I am writing it and here you are reading it. I guess the fact that we may momentarily commit ourselves to another Middle East war deserves two posts, even if they’re outside my wheelhouse.
If the case that Syria used Chemical weapons is as strong as Secretary Kerry claims it is, it seems to me there ought to be a diplomatic case or a legal one against the members of the regime that ordered it, not missiles fired from ships. Syria is not a party to the International Criminal Court (and neither is the US), so the best way to punish the regime seems off the table. But I wonder if there might be a way to bring Assad and the generals who carried it out to justice in a country with universal jurisdiction.
It seems to me that something like a case in Canada or Belgium for war crimes could act as a real punishment for the regime without the cost, collateral damage, and blow back that you get from actual acts of war. It would be tricky for the US to do legally, outside of US courts, of course. But so is getting ourselves involved in a war, or at least it ought to be tough to do also.
As I said the other day, I agree with the administration that the use of chemical weapons needs a response. I’m just not sure it needs a military response.
Long sentence incoming!
How would you get Assad, who has now killed 100,000 of his own people, out of Syria, where he is at this very moment engaged in a raging civil war/brutal campaign of repression, often against similarly monstrous opponents, without military action?
Hallelujah! I’m unblocked! And don’t have to use HideMyAss.org anymore to access HA. Don’t ask me what I did. I didn’t do anything, it just started working again. I wonder if the NSA or DHS had their fingers in this.
duplicate comment deleted by poster
Syria is simply an iteration of the age-old problem of a violent minority elite trying to impose their will on the majority through foul means.
Why is it so damned difficult to get anyone to do anything about monsters who inflict mayhem and murder on innocent human beings? Why do we keep giving thugs like Assad a free pass? This inhuman bastard gassed children. No one is arguing for American boots on the ground. We have the technology to fly a cruise missile through a bathroom window. So let’s blow up this motherfucker’s palace loo when he’s sitting on it. It only takes one missile to terminate his command with extreme prejudice. Are you gonna tell me the CIA doesn’t know when and where this guy takes a shit? Of course they do. The rest is just programming and joystick management.
1) Assad had nothing tactical or strategic to gain by using chemical weapons on that village. My belief is that his intention is to draw the US into the conflict as a way of splintering his opposition as some of them are virulently anti-American.
2) WIthout all of the intel, it is hard to tell what can be done to change resolve the situation.
3) President Obama is better suited to making this decision than Bush was. He has shown a cool temperament and steady hand. I think he will make the best decision available.
@5. Rabbit, By that logic, it would have been acceptable for another nation to unilaterally kill our President Truman because he ordered the nuking of two cities.
A large segment of the people justifiably gun shy about entering another conflict. It’s also compassion fatigue but it’s not happening to them, so they just don’t care. We have huge problems in America that are crowding out the will to commit to a potentially escalating conflict in the middle east, especially after we are not fully out of our last two invasions.
@6 @(1) Sure he did. He’s sending a message to the rebels: Throw down your weapons or I’ll gas your wives and kids. That’s a pretty consistent behavior pattern among the world’s rogue bullies, and most of the time, the rest of the world stands idly by and does nothing to stop it. We’re too civilized to reply in kind, so let’s just kill HIM, and let his family go.
@8 No, sorry, it’s not comparable. Truman’s decision to use the A-bomb to force Japan’s surrender is debatable (and is still debated), but Truman’s use of the bomb at least arguably is defensible on the grounds his intention was to bring a speedy end to a war that killed 50 million people and it did have that result. (This doesn’t mean I’m endorsing the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings; I’m merely saying there was a rationale for it, in the context of a world war of unimaginable brutality.) Assad is no Truman, and there is no such justification here. To the contrary, what is at stake here is whether we are going to enforce a 100-year-old defacto ban on chemical weapons, or signal to every thug dictator in the world that we will give them a free pass for anything they do.