Syria’s Weapons of Mass Deterrence?

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Aleppo, America, armed terrorist thugs, armed thugs, assad, bashar al assad, Damascus, Free Syrian Army, freedom, homs, humanitarian intervention, idlib, international, international community, international relations, intervention, iran, iraq, justice, Libya, media, NNPT, NPT, nuclear, nuclear weapons, politics, Qaddafi, security, State Department, Syria, terror, terrorist, terrorists, threats, UN, united states, United States of America, US State Department, war, weapons of mass destruction, WMD, world

Here’s a worrying admission: Syrian officials have admitted to possessing “weapons of mass destruction”, though they claim they would “never use them on civilians…no matter how the crisis evolves”.  The weapons are reserved for “foreign” invaders.  Comforting? Not really.

“Weapons of mass destruction” is a loaded term to begin with.  While there are standard definitions for such weapons, has the Syrian government not already sanctioned the killing of its people on a “mass” scale?  Maybe nearly 20,000 lives violently extinguished over a 16 and a half month period is not massive enough.  I guess it all depends on how one defines the word “mass”, but semantics aside, it’s evident that tens of thousands of Syrians have died and many more have been injured by weapons, causing gut-wrenching destruction.

“WMD” or not, how is anyone–Syrian citizen or otherwise–supposed to trust Syrian authorities?  Enough have proven themselves untrustworthy and unreliable at best and extraordinarily cruel and willing to do anything to hold onto power at worst.  “Don’t worry.  We would never release this Ricin or drop these Anthrax-tipped bombs.  Your children will be safe.”  Tell that to the people of Homs, whose city has been shelled relentlessly since the beginning of the “crisis”.  Or tell that to the millions of residents of other areas of the country whose names appear in international news stories daily because of the constantly rising death toll.

The message is, then: We draw the line at using WMD on our citizens–or so we say–but conventional weapons are fine.  Of course, this scene-stealing story might very well be a strategic attempt to ward off would-be interventionist nations.  I’m not quite sure how that would work in the U.S. case since we all know the United States predicated its invasion of Iraq mainly on the premise of the existence of WMD there.  However nuanced the international relations considerations were in this decision (which I’d say were not very nuanced at all), the fact remains: The United States invaded Iraq, a country believed to have WMD, that ended up not even having WMD.  I think if anything seriously deters America from intervening in a humanitarian fashion in Syria, it won’t be the Syrian government’s claims of WMD.  These claims might even serve as a motivator.

The Syrian government can’t be trusted.  The world is supposed to take officials at their word when they claim they wouldn’t use weapons of mass destruction on their own people?  I don’t buy it, and I don’t think informed Syrians do, either.  Bashar al-Assad and members of his regime have continued to assert that Syria is under attack by “armed terrorist thugs”.  They have claimed foreign influence against the country before.  Why wouldn’t they attack these so-called enemies of the state?  Even if they don’t really believe what they’re saying, the government’s rhetoric underscores the very reasoning for why it could seek to justify future WMD attacks on its own civilians.

The calculation that strong enough weapons can insulate a country from a kind of breeching its borders foreign intervention is an understandable one since the United States has limited its actions in certain countries with known nuclear weapons, although even this assertion is not always true.  Drones in Pakistan, anyone?  Obviously, China and North Korea have much larger militaries and there are regional considerations, etc.  There are many variables.  Iran is an interesting case.  Regardless, when fewer than ten countries in the world have nuclear weapons, it is too small a sample to study in the case of the effect of interventionist policies on members of this exclusive club.  And even then…Syria does not have nuclear weapons, the crown jewel of fear-inducing weapons caches.

All in all, the existence of WMD in Syria is worrying.  The brazenness with which this information was announced is probably both a symbol of desperation and an attempt at showing strength, a last ditch defense mechanism.  The danger of such weapons is very real and duly frightening, but it shouldn’t deter the international community (whose “wait and see” ethic hasn’t worked very well) from doing more.  Far fewer people died in Libya than have already died in Syria.  In a strange moment of outreach to the “West”, Qaddafi relinquished his country’s nuclear weapons program in 2005, but WMD were still found in 2011, when he was overthrown and the humanitarian intervention was undertaken.  Again, comparing Syria to Libya brings up a host of other variables.  My point is that WMD need not be a disqualifier from further international action in Syria.

Who is the real armed terrorist thug, Assad?  If we are true to our ideals of defeating terrorism around the world–and this is not only state-sponsored terrorism, it is state-practiced terrorism—American government representatives would not turn the other way, issuing empty statements on how “Assad’s days are numbered”.  This is the official U.S. State Department line, by the way.  If we are committed to the rights of freedom and security for our fellow human beings, then Syria’s WMD tease should serve as a wake up call.

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Invisible Intervention

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#stopkony, 2012, africa, anderson cooper, arab spring, awareness, bosnia, campaign, cnn, cyber, daraa, egypt, facebook, genocide, global, hama, homs, humanitarian intervention, idlib, international, international affairs, international relations, internet, intervention, invisible children, iran, israel, john mccain, joseph kony, joseph kony 2012, kony, kosovo, Libya, massacre, mccain, middle east, military, military intervention, murder, NATO, news, politics, rwanda, senator john mccain, social media, Syria, tunisia, turkey, twitter, U.N., uganda, UN, united nations, uprising, violence, war, war zone, warfare, world

This post is going to be controversial. I give anyone who is reading this fair warning now.

I’d like to discuss the concept of humanitarian intervention in war zones around the world. I’ve mentioned my feelings on the genocide in Syria in a previous post. (Yes, I think the situation can adequately be described as genocide.) I believe humanitarian intervention in Syria in the form of military intervention is crucial at this point since the cruelty and murder of the Assad regime seems nowhere near abating. My thoughts on the Syrian situation are clear. I will elaborate further on those soon. While few people are actively speaking out on the genocide in Syria, a firestorm has erupted in the cyber world in relation to another issue: millions of people have been alerted to the cruelties visited upon Africans by the tyrant Joseph Kony, notorious for his horrific manipulation of children used in his child army. Joseph Kony is a killer and a despot, but I’m shocked that there is so much outrage about him in relation to Bashar al Assad. To be fair, these are two different scenarios. I’m seeking to illuminate the idea that people can get fired up about something via social media, and while this concept is amazing in theory (as with the dissemination of information in the Arab Spring), it also leads to the dissemination of disinformation and an inaccurate, superficial view of foreign conflict.

To begin with, let’s examine the situation in Syria. As I’ve said, I’ve described the situation before in a previous post, and if anyone is interested, he or she can look at my post “A Screaming Syria”. Senator John McCain does a very good job of describing the current state of affairs in Syria in remarks he gave to the Senate floor a few days ago, calling for multilateral military intervention with the U.S. leading. He is one of the few to do so, and in an unequivocal way, making the rounds on television news stations and publicizing his views on Twitter. His speech, which I think should be required reading for everyone can be viewed here: http://mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressOffice.FloorStatements&ContentRecord_id=e460be36-c488-e7de-8c38-64c3751adfce

As Senator McCain mentions in his Senate speech, the United States and NATO intervened militarily in Bosnia and Kosovo when similar situations were occurring. As he mentioned to Anderson Cooper on AC:360 (also one of the only shows to shed a consistent light on Syria), the lack of intervention in Rwanda now stands as a shameful moment in our history. It is a moment when genocide was allowed to occur. I will not get into the politics of that particular event, but even the uninitiated know it was horrific. Surprisingly, the Senator claimed that “nothing in this world is predetermined” in reference to the Obama Administration’s repeated declarations that al Assad’s demise is “inevitable”. Essentially, morality dictates that we do not sit idly by while we cross our fingers and hope that the regime falls, and like he says, even if it does, it make take “a really long time”, causing the casualty count to climb in the process.

An additional consideration that I’m surprised has not surfaced among more politicians (in particular, among Republicans) is that of long term strategic advantage for the United States after the dust settles and the power shifts in Syria. Of course, there is the very real possibility that the ideal will not come to fruition, at least not as seamlessly as we can hope, but as Senator McCain said, we don’t even have a chance if we don’t intervene—and we really can’t afford not to. Put simply, Syria has oil. If we are friendly with the new regime, and the people see us as allies, this will be an important resource for the United States. In addition, Syria and Israel are not exactly friends. This assertion may seem overly optimistic, but if the United States has greater influence in a new Syria, perhaps our country can exercise diplomatic influence in the Middle East, especially between Syria and Israel, which might have an impact on such nations as Egypt to change their attitudes toward Israel. Of course, there is the obvious benefit of challenging Iranian influence in the region. Republicans seem to hate Iran—a hatred befitting the regime, perhaps, but too often directed in a misguided way toward the Iranian people. Perhaps the American relationship with Iran could also become a more positive one as the key Iranian ally of Syria becomes an American ally. NATO would be strengthened, and the role of Turkey would be a robust one. This is also in the interest of the United States. Finally, a multilateral military intervention in Syria would aid in ushering in the new era of 21^st century international cooperation. It would prove that the intervention in Libya wasn’t just a fluke, that even if the countries of the United Nations cannot agree to act in favor the moral high ground, other institutions exist that will promote the ideals of security, stability, democracy, and human rights—that international law is not dead, and that bloodthirsty leaders desperate to cling to power cannot act with impunity.

The 20^th century was the century of decolonization. It began with the fall of empires after World War I, and ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the final decade of the century. The 21^st century has dawned with the fight for human rights for the people in many of those countries in which such rights have not been granted. We should not let the legacy of the Arab Spring falter in Syria.

Now, after that inspiring rhetoric, I want to contrast this movement with that of the #stopkony and Joseph Kony 2012 movements. For the last two days, Twitter has been inundated with trending topics referencing the warlord Joseph Kony. This movement has spread to Facebook and other social media and aggregate sites. Many people have linked to a video about Joseph Kony on the YouTube page of Invisible Children, a nonprofit organization who launched the campaign against Kony. The stated aims are to find Joseph Kony somewhere in Uganda or central Africa—it’s not quite clear since no one knows where he is at the moment—and bring him to justice. This is a worthwhile aim, but the Invisible Children campaign is not necessarily the right tool to use to do so.

Invisible Children mainly raises awareness. This is fantastic, but does not solve the problem. Millions of young Americans can tweet all they want, but how many actually understand the complexities of child armies in Africa? How many have even heard of the L.R.A? And how many have done any research into Invisible Children, except to watch the half hour promotional video put out by the group? As the sites I will link to explain, Invisible Children supports another Ugandan group that also uses child soldiers, that rapes and loots, and engages in unspeakable horrors in much the same way that Kony’s groups have. Invisible Children feels that this group is the best tool to find Kony. What kind of message does this send? That evil can fight evil? An eye for an eye? This kind of military action is very dangerous, and as one of the sources explains, retaliatory action has been taken when American forces have intervened militarily, and anything involving child soldiers is “messy”. Another fear is the racial and cultural element in that many people don’t understand the plight of rural Africans. This is not to say intervention is never necessary or that Joseph Kony should not be made infamous. As I stated before, the Rwandan genocide is a classic case in which military intervention in Africa was necessary and should have been undertaken.

Sources Skeptical of Invisible Children:

http://visiblechildren.tumblr.com.nyud.net/

http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/conserving-freedom/2012/mar/7/kony-2012-bringing-joseph-kony-justice/

Invisible Children has many questionable practices, but has been made famous by bands such as Fall Out Boy in previous years and has now spread due to social media. I think that most people who spread the message are pure of heart and many want to be part of a larger movement to feel like they are making a difference in the world. This is commendable, though, Invisible Children and the entire Kony movement may not be the best way to go about solving the problem. The lesson that should be taken from this movement is that now that people are informed, brainstorming about a better way to end the kidnapping, rape, torture, and murder of children, as well as other members of African communities, can begin. Some people, it seems, just want to jump on the bandwagon and get involved in the latest trend. As one source said, sometimes doing nothing actually is better than doing something, if that something breeds more destruction.

Why is it that Syria has not garnered the same fevered attention as the Joseph Kony movement? There may be several reasons for this. There is a clear plan of action that can be taken in Syria, right now, with the aid of other countries within a reliable framework. The same cannot be said for the search for Kony in Africa. I urge humanitarian aid in Syria and a closer look at the Invisible Children-sponsored movement. Invisible Children has become very visible, while the idea of intervention in Syria has been nearly invisible.

A Screaming Syria

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2012, America, arab, arab spring, arabic, assad, bahrain, bashar al assad, china, democrats, egypt, Election, election 2012, fareed zakaria, gingrich, hama, homs, intervention, iran, Libya, money, obama, politics, president obama, republicans, resolution, rocky anderson, Ron Paul, Russia, social media, Syria, syrian protests, syrian revolution, syrian uprising, tunisia, twitter, UN, united nations, united states

A massacre of genocidal proportions is currently happening in Syria.  The number of people dying daily is equivalent to the average number of deaths due to the war in Afghanistan every month.  In the last few weeks, the number of people killed has surpassed 200 every day.  The death toll has spiked recently, but the number of Syrians who have died since last March (when uprisings began) is estimated at well over 7,000.  To put this in perspective, fewer than 5,000 members of the U.S. military died in Iraq during a nearly nine year war.  Tens of thousands of Syrian civilians have been imprisoned.  Torture is commonplace and countless videos of children being mutilated and murdered in the streets have appeared.  Those injured are avoiding hospitals for fear of being tortured or killed by the oppressive, bloodthirsty regime.  Doctors have suffered similar fates merely for treated the wounded.  Makeshift clinics have appeared where courageous Syrians just try to treat those who have been indiscriminately shot by merciless snipers or whose houses have been blown apart by mortar fire.

  A little background first: Syrian citizens began protesting peacefully for greater democratic rights and freedoms in January 2011 at the same time that protestors took to Tahrir Square in Egypt.  In fact, the first public protest was held on January 26, a day after the January 25^th protest movement began in Egypt.  The protests strengthened and became sustained in March 2011 after major protests occurred in the city of Daraa.  The protests quickly spread throughout the country.  As part of the Arab Spring, the large-scale regional protest movement occurring throughout the Middle East and North Africa, the Syrian movement grew.  While dictator Bashar al Assad’s Ba’athist government offered minor concessions to the protestors (such as lifting emergency rule which had been in place for 48 years), no real reform was offered.  (If the Ba’athist Party sounds familiar, it is because Saddam Hussein was a Ba’athist, albeit an Iraqi one.)  Assad’s troops began killing protestors, blaming the protests on “armed gangs”, calling his fellow citizens thugs and terrorists.  As the death toll mounted, international journalists were not allowed into Syria.  Members of the Syrian military who refused to fire on protestors were executed.  Still, some members defected, and the Free Syrian Army was formed to fight off the growing violence.  Like the rebels in Libya, the Free Syrian Army has claimed that it has control over several cities and is aiming to overtake Damascus, the capital.  As the country devolved into chaos, the military began to kill all manner of civilians, even those who weren’t even protesting. 

News reports have claimed that the country is on the precipice of civil war.  The city of Homs is a prime example of the sectarian violence that has erupted during this conflict.  Assad and his inner circle (i.e., those that have the power in Syria) are part of a Muslim sect called the Alawites.  The Alawites comprise a small minority (approximately 15%) of Syria’s entire population.  The city of Homs, where much of the violence and murder has been concentrated, has large populations of Sunni Muslims who have historically been oppressed by the Alawites in Syria.  The Sunni areas of the city have been decimated while other areas (predominantly Alawite Shiite populated areas) of the city have been left alone, presumably to curry favor with the non-Sunni population.

The previous paragraphs only begin to scratch the surface, and if you’re still with me, thank you.  What I’d really like to address is the question of what the world is doing in response to what is happening in Syria.  After the humanitarian intervention in Libya, and the West’s positive reaction to the Arab Spring, it is understandable that the people of Syria are hoping for help.  The United States and other countries, along with entities such as the European Union, have leveled sanctions against the Syrian government and Syrian oil companies.  The United States and several other countries have criticized the Syrian government’s response to the protests within its borders and President Obama eventually called for Bashar al Assad to step down as leader of Syria.  None of these actions made much of a difference, and the next step was an “observation mission” by members of the Arab League inside of Syria.  Despite overwhelming and incontrovertible evidence that civilians were, indeed, being killed, the Arab League mission has failed to say anything significant.  (It is important to note that this mission was compromised from the outset, however, as it was headed by one of the key people in power in Sudan during the Darfur genocide, who has been accused of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.)  The most recent major step was a vote on a binding resolution—a watered down resolution, but a resolution, nonetheless—denouncing the violence in Syria and calling for an immediate ceasefire.  With 15 states voting at the United Nations, China and Russia vetoed the resolution, to the horror and disappointment of desperate Syrians.

There hasn’t been much debate about the Syrian situation.  The world has largely turned a blind eye to Syria.  Susan Rice, the current United States ambassador to the U.N. (and negotiator on Syria), is the same person who notoriously worried about the political impact of calling the Rwandan genocide a “genocide” back in 1994 when Bill Clinton was president.  I don’t have particularly high hopes for American steadfastness on Syrian action with her at the helm.  There is very little political will to even discuss military action or even humanitarian intervention of any kind in Syria during an election year in the United States.  It is said that President Obama will play up his accomplishment of ending the official war in Iraq and of winding down the war in Afghanistan in hopes of being reelected in November.  Many Democrats are opposed to war on moral grounds and many Republicans have either taken up the Tea Party “too much spending!” mantle or the Ron Paul isolationist model.  Yet, the U.S. handling of humanitarian intervention in Libya is praised…

With no ground troops, an effective no fly zone put in place, a quick engagement aided by a multilateral force, and a positive result for about a billion dollars, which the United States expects to be paid back, most view the Libyan mission as a success.  There are, of course, those who opposed the Libyan intervention like Rocky Anderson (a politician I really want to like, save for his ideas that saving Libyans was the wrong thing to do) and, again, Ron Paul.  On a similar note, Fareed Zakaria (another person I like very much most of the time), lauded the credentials of the Arab League on its handling of Libya, yet said nothing about its failure and cowardice in its handling of the situation in Syria.  If so many people believed that intervening in Libya was the right thing to do, why not do it again in Syria?  I know.  I’ve heard the arguments.  Syria has a more powerful, more cohesive army.  We shouldn’t spend the money.  We’re not sure who to arm and how.  There is no significant base for the rebels like there was in Libya with Benghazi.  Yes, it is a different situation.  But the basic facts remain the same.  Civilians are being murdered in numbers that are too large to be ignored.  We have no excuse.  We can see and hear what’s going on.  Even if the media would rather cover the Republican primaries and caucuses at the expense of showing much other real news, the Syrian situation still exists.

One of the only prominent politicians to speak out on Syria is presidential candidate Newt Gingrich—and he is not talking about helping Syrians for the right reasons.  He has called for arming the civilians so that they will kill Assad, who is an ally of Iran, and of course, we (meaning the United States) aren’t very happy with Iran.  So, basically, in his roundabout, manipulative, narcissistic way, Gingrich has turned what should be the moral thing into a self-serving, American interests first, pandering ploy.  Nice one, Newt.  He proceeded to explain how “weapons aren’t hard to get in that part of the world” which strikes me as a pretty nasty, condescending thing to say.  Oh, Newt, ever the jingoist.  Ever the opportunist.  Still, he is one of the only ones to even suggest aid in any form to suffering Syrians.

I noticed something very interesting.  Twitter is almost silent on the subject of Syria.  There are no trending topics on Syria or the Syrian Revolution.  No #syrianuprising or catchy nicknames like “Jasmine Revolution” (which was the name given to the revolution in Tunisia which started in December 2010).  I first paid real attention to Twitter during the Green Revolution in Iran in the summer of 2009.  Twitter was abuzz with tweets about the Iranian protestors.  About a year and a half later, the Arab Spring erupted.  Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya dominated Twitter, and prominent bloggers and tweeters from the ground in these Arab countries reached a level of fame they never would have had it not been for the uprisings in their respective countries.  Even the protests in smaller countries such as Bahrain had their impact on the Twittersphere.  This is in direct contrast to the fact that more people have joined Twitter in the last year.  Why so little on Syria?  I searched, and found some tweets written in Arabic, but even these were not occurring in a constant stream.  I saw almost no trace of support from the outside world.  Even on the few English tweets out of Syria, very little support was offered back to these people.  I interacted with someone in Syria, in the midst of all of the destruction, someone who has had to bury a brother, an uncle, and a neighbor in the last few weeks, who is desperate just to be heard.  I told him that there are Americans that do care.  I asked what we, as Americans, or what I, as an individual, could do.  He said that I can raise awareness.  He asked me to contact my representatives in Congress and let them know what is happening.  He doesn’t want the Syrians to go unnoticed, to be ignored by the world.  They are screaming out, and everyone is covering their ears.

This is my attempt at raising awareness.  I will not stop with this single blog post, but it’s a small thing I can do.  Hopefully, the more people know, the more they will try to impact the Syrian situation and help the people there.  They are human beings just like us and deserve basic human rights.  Just as we do, they deserve safety and protection and a chance at the pursuit of happiness.  If you read this, please tell everyone you can what is going on.  Please say something.  Please try to prevent more people from dying.  Let us not let this continue as a genocide in which we look back and see how little the world really did while a corrupt government did all it could to hang onto power.  Bashar al Assad’s father killed 20,000 people in the city of Hama 30 years ago in a matter of days.  There is no reason this couldn’t happen again.  Don’t let it.