Syria and the Sham of “Humanitarian Intervention”

[xchrom]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/06/04


Member of the Free Syria Army with a captured tank. (Photo: FreedomHouse/cc/Flickr)

I continue to be amazed with the ease with which the dividing line is blurred between what is real and what is fiction in the reporting on Syria by the Western media. The press in the U.S. continues to dutifully report on the “objective diplomacy” by the Obama administration to broker a “peaceful” resolution to the conflict in Syria. However, those stories of noble and innocent efforts to avert the catastrophic human suffering that has eventually engulfed Syria has sanitized the bloody complicity of U.S. policy. Diplomacy, for the U.S., has meant calling for regime change from the outset and then encouraging Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Israel, their client states in the region, to arm, train and provide political support for a military campaign with the objective of effectively dismembering the Syria State.

Two years later, with tens of thousands killed, millions uprooted and the delicate social fabric of the country shredded by sectarian brutality, the next phase in the propaganda war leading to more direct intervention by the West to finish off the regime is being organized in the form of a peace conference scheduled to take place in June.

Co-sponsored by Russia with a stake in maintaining the integrity of the Syria State, the U.S. approach to the conference, however, gives the impression that the gathering is a charade meant to mollify those elements in the U.S. Congress and public still hesitant to support another expensive military adventure. The U.S. demand that a peaceful solution to the conflict is predicated on a “transitional government” being established in which Assad should play no role, means effectively that there will be no serious attempt to resolve the conflict short of regime change and the surrendering of Syrian sovereignty. The U.S. position also confirms the real objective of the conference which is to justify more direct military intervention by the U.S. once the conference “fails” to bring peace.

While this is absolutely clear for many people around the world, the U.S. public, along with much of what used to be called the progressive and/or radical sectors, continue to be hoodwinked by some of the most crude and obvious manipulation I have ever witnessed. It was precisely the smooth efficiency with which the public was being manipulated that motivated me to write an earlier article on Syria that attempted to offer an explanation for the reasons why U.S. State propagandists, and I include the mainstream media in this category, have been so successful in confusing the general public and dividing the anti-war, anti-imperialist movement.

[redgreenandblue]

1. I am convinced that a diplomatic solution to this mess was impossible...

...ever since the intervention in Libya happened. When it became clear that the model was "regime change or nothing", we lost Russia and China.

[David__77]

2. The changes in eastern Europe would never have happened if the US had that doctrine then.

...

[DetlefK]

3. What an equally vicious, arrogant, dishonest and naive article.

So, if a "peaceful" solution where Syria gets a fresh start with a transition-government is bad, what other peaceful solutions are there?
Hoping that the rebels will accept Assad staying in power or hoping that Assad won't just outright kill any dissenters once the civil-war is officially over?
Hoping that the next national elections in Syria, a few years from now, will be free and fair and every faction in Syria will accept the outcome as legitimate? And in the mean-time the fighting goes on?

What is more important: syrian lives or the sovereignty of the syrian state?



Quote: "The NATO intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo (...) have solidified the idea among many in the U.S. that humanitarian intervention to protect human rights through aggressive war is justifiable."

My, my. I wonder why the author conveniently forgot to mention the genocide-part of the yugoslavian civil-war.