Phyllis Bennis | The Nation

A man inspects a site hit by what activists said were missiles fired by Syrian Air Force fighter jets loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, in Raqqa province, eastern Syria August 21, 2013. (Reuters/Nour Fourat)

The threat of a reckless, dangerous, and illegal US or US-led assault on Syria is looking closer than ever.

The US government has been divided over the Syria crisis since it began. Some, especially in the Pentagon and some of the intelligence agencies, said direct military intervention would be dangerous and would accomplish nothing. Others, especially in Congress and some in the State Department, have demanded military attacks, even regime change, against the Syrian leadership, even before anyone made allegations of chemical weapons. The Obama administration has been divided too, with President Obama seemingly opposed to any US escalation. The American people are not divided—60 percent are against intervening in Syria’s civil war even if chemical weapons were involved.

But the situation is changing rapidly, and the Obama administration appears to be moving closer to direct military intervention. That would make the dire situation in Syria inestimably worse.

The attack that killed so many civilians, including many children, last Wednesday may well have been from a chemical weapon. Doctors Without Borders, in touch with local hospitals they support, said that while the symptoms “strongly indicate” that thousands of patients were exposed to a neurotoxic agent, they “can neither scientifically confirm the cause of these symptoms nor establish who is responsible for the attack.” The United Nations chemical weapons inspection team already in Syria to investigate earlier claims was granted permission by the government to visit the new site today; they have not yet reported any findings.

No one knows yet what actually happened, other than a horrific attack on civilians, many of whom died. No one has yet made public any evidence of what killed them, or who may be responsible. All attacks on civilians are war crimes—regardless of whether they are carried out by the Syrian army, rebel militias or US cruise missiles.

And yet the calls, the demands, the assumptions of a looming US attack on Syria are rising. NBC News reported that the US had “very little doubt” that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons. The Wall Street Journal quoted an anonymous “senior defense official” who said the military strikes being considered “would be conducted from ships in the Eastern Mediterranean using long-range missiles, without using manned aircraft. ‘You do not need basing. You do not need over-flight. You don’t need to worry about defenses.’ ”

Despite Secretary of State John Kerry’s claim that a chemical attack was “undeniable,” we still don’t know for sure that it was a chemical weapon, and we certainly don’t know who did it. Kerry spoke this afternoon, calling the attack a “moral obscenity.” If it was a chemical attack, as appears likely, it certainly is just that. So far in this war, over 100,000 people have been killed and millions forced from their homes—aren’t all of those moral obscenities?

Even If

Kerry seems to believe that this moral obscenity requires military action in response. Graham and McCain said so earlier. But he’s wrong. It’s likely that it was a chemical agent of some sort that led to mass sickness and many deaths in the Damascus suburb. And maybe it was the Syrian regime that was responsible for it. The questions that would then need to be asked, the questions “even if,” have to start with “So what should we do?”

Does anyone really believe that a military strike on an alleged chemical weapons factory would help the Syrian people, would save any lives, would help bring an end to this horrific civil war? What’s the best we could hope for, that a cruise missile strike would actually succeed, would accurately find its target and explode a warehouse full of chemical agents into airborne clouds of death?

Illegal Even If

The US government is creating a false dichotomy—it’s either a military strike, or we let them get away with it. No one is talking about any other kind of international accountability, nothing like the International Criminal Court. Last month, the White House “law group” noted that arming the rebels might violate international law. Do they think a cruise missile strike is okay? We heard President Obama a couple of days ago refer to international law. He said “if the US goes in and attacks another country without a UN mandate and without clear evidence that can be presented, then there are questions in terms of whether international law supports it … and those are considerations that we have to take into account.”

But what we’re hearing now is that the model under consideration for a US military strike on Syria would be that of Kosovo. Remember that one, back in 1999, at the end of the Bosnia war? That time, knowing it was impossible to get Security Council agreement for an air war against Serbia over the disputed enclave of Kosovo, the US and its allies simply announced that they would get their international permission slip somewhere else. That would be the NATO high command. What a surprise, the NATO generals agreed with their respective presidents and prime ministers, and said, sure, we think it’s a great idea. The problem is, the UN Charter is very clear on what constitutes a legal use of military force—and permission from NATO isn’t on that very short list. If the Security Council does not say yes, and there is no legal claim of immediate self-defense (which even the US isn’t claiming regarding Syria), any use or threat of use of military force is illegal. Period. Full stop. Claiming that NATO or someone else said it was okay isn’t part of international law—the air war was illegal in Kosovo, and it would be illegal in Syria.

Cui Bono?

But let’s go back a minute. Let’s remember that we don’t know for sure that it was a chemical weapon. We don’t know for sure that it was a weapon at all. Crucially, let’s remember we don’t have any evidence of who might have used such a weapon. So then what do we ask? Maybe we start with the age-old question, Cui bono? Who benefits?

It’s easier to say who loses—the Syrian people, most importantly the victims and their families. Whole communities are being decimated. (We shouldn’t forget that Americans will pay a price too—a new war will result in more military spending. That will create pressure on Congress to cut domestic spending even further, cutting vital social programs even more.)

But who benefits is a little more complicated.

It’s certainly not impossible that the Syrian regime, known to have had a chemical weapons arsenal, used such a weapon. If so, why? Despite remaining under pressure from sanctions and facing increasing international isolation, Damascus has been seeing some success on the battlefield. It’s certainly possible a mid-level Syrian officer, worried about some past defeat and desperately afraid of being held accountable for it, might have chosen to use such a weapon to gain a gruesome battlefield victory despite the increase in the threat of direct military intervention. But it is very unlikely the regime’s leadership would have made such a choice. Not because they “wouldn’t kill their own people,” they’ve been doing just that. But because they stood to lose far more than any potential gain. It’s not impossible. But as brutal as this regime is, it isn’t crazy. It’s unlikely.

Then there’s the other side, the diverse opposition whose strongest fighters are those claiming allegiance to Al Qaeda and similar extremist organizations. Those who benefit from this attack, are those eager for greater US and Western military intervention against the Assad regime in Damascus. Further, Al Qaeda and its offshoots have always been eager to get the US military—troops, warplanes, ships, bases, whatever—into their territory. It makes it so much easier to attack them there. Politically it remains what US counterintelligence agents long ago called a “recruitment tool” for Al Qaeda. They loved the Iraq war for that reason. They would love the Syrian war all the more if US targets were brought in. All the debate about “red lines,” the domestic and international political pressure to “do something,” the threats to the UN inspectors on the ground—who inside Syria do we think is cheering that on?

(And as for the opposition’s capacity and/or willingness to use such weapons… we should also remember that the opposition includes some defectors. Who knows what skills and weapons access they brought with them? And do we really doubt that Al Qaeda wannabe extremists, many of them not even Syrians, would hesitate to kill civilians in a suburb of Damascus?)

UN Inspectors Pulled Out?

The most dangerous signal of US intentions may be the call for the United Nations weapons inspectors to withdraw. To his credit, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon rejected the Obama administration’s call, and kept the inspection team in place, to do its work. On the eve of the war in Iraq, forty-eight hours before US warplanes began their assault on Baghdad, George W. Bush issued an even more direct demand for UN weapons inspectors and humanitarian workers to be withdrawn. Then Secretary-General Kofi Annan pulled his team out, understandably afraid for their lives. But what if those scores of UN staffers had been given the choice to stay? Might the risk of killing dozens, scores of UN international staff, have made the United States pause for just a moment before beginning its assault? Maybe those staffers would have changed history. This time around, like before, diplomacy rather than military action is the only way to enable the UN inspectors to continue their work to find the truth.

Let’s be clear. Any US military attack, cruise missiles or anything else, will not be to protect civilians—it will mean taking sides once again in a bloody, complicated civil war. And Al Qaeda would be very pleased.

This time, maybe the Obama administration isn’t about to launch cruise missiles against Syria. Maybe there’s still time to prevent it. Right now, those risking their lives on the ground to help the Syrian people are the UN inspectors. If the United States is really concerned about their safety, and recognizes the legitimacy of UN inspectors, the Obama administration should immediately engage with the UN leadership and with the Syrian, Russian and other relevant governments to insure their safety while they continue their crucial efforts. Cruise missiles will make that work impossible. What’s needed now is tough diplomacy, not politically motivated military strikes that will make a horrific war even worse.

SIGN THE PETITION TO PREVENT GREATER US INTERVENTION IN SYRIA

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President Barack Obama shakes hands with his choice for Defense Secretary, former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, center, after announcing Hagel’s nomination, Monday, January 7, 2013. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
 
Chuck Hagel isn’t anyone I’d pick to be in a position of power. He’s a conservative Republican, a military guy who volunteered to fight in Vietnam. According to Forbes magazine, during Hagel’s tenure in the Senate, “he favored school prayer, missile defense and drilling in Alaska, while opposing abortion, same-sex marriage and limits on assault guns. He voted in favor of every defense authorization bill that came up during the dozen years he served, while opposing extension of Medicare benefits to prescription drugs. Such stances earned him a lifetime rating of 84 percent from the American Conservative Union.” Forbes, of course, thinks this is all great.

Me, not so much. But okay, we’re talking about Secretary of Defense, not someone responsible for domestic and social policy. Well, first of all, if I had to choose a secretary of defense, I’d start with someone who recognized that their first requirement would be to transform the US war machine from an aggressive into a defensive institution… something it’s never been before. If we assume it had to be a member of Congress, I’d start with Barbara Lee or Dennis Kucinich, not Chuck Hagel.

But that isn’t the choice we face. The alternatives to Hagel won’t be the heroic Oakland congresswoman or the committed defender of the Department of Peace, they’ll be military bureaucrats who have never said a word outside their respective boss’s talking point boxes.

At the end of the day, this isn’t about Hagel versus anybody. This is about what President Obama is signaling by his nomination of Hagel as Secretary of Defense—and about the political forces arrayed against him.

Hagel’s nomination engendered bitter, angry opposition from the moment it was floated as a trial balloon two weeks ago. And the fact that Obama went ahead with the nomination, despite the opposition and the threats that the Senate would never confirm Hagel, is a good indication that on at least some critical foreign policy issues, Obama is not prepared to allow either the pro-Israeli lobbies or the hard-core neoconservatives, in and outside of Washington, to determine whom he could and could not choose as Secretary of Defense.

The opposition was from both of those separate, though overlapping, Washington cohorts. Pro-Israel forces are outraged that President Obama might appoint someone who once had the temerity to warn that the lobby “intimidates a lot of people” in Washington. Of course, it would have been better if Hagel had properly identified the “pro-Israel lobby” rather than the sloppy “Jewish lobby” description, which ignores the huge influence of right-wing Christian Zionism; Hagel himself apologized for the careless language. (If Israel didn’t identify itself as a “Jewish state,” with all the resulting apartheid policies that go along with it, it might be easier to distinguish.) But whatever the language, it’s a significant exposé of the perceived power of the lobby, enough that AIPAC, the lobby’s most authoritative component, pulled back from criticizing Hagel as soon as the nomination was final, leaving the most extremist components, such as the Emergency Committee for Israel, to continue the attacks.

We should be clear, of course—Hagel is no supporter of a just solution to the Palestine-Israel conflict based on human rights, international law and equality for all. He told Ha’aretz that any solution “should not include any compromise regarding Israel’s Jewish identity.” That’s code for accepting Israel’s two-tiered legal system, which privileges Jewish over non-Jewish citizens and denies Palestinian citizens crucial rights available only to Jews. Again, we aren’t looking at a choice between supporters of international law and an uncritical supporter of Israel—but having a Secretary of Defense who acknowledges the danger of putting Israeli interests above those of the United States and willing to challenge the pro-Israel lobbies is a pretty interesting development. (And if Obama saw the nomination also as an opportunity to pay back Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu for his all-but-official endorsement of Mitt Romney during last year’s election, that’s likely just a bonus.)

Neocon anger at Chuck Hagel isn’t new. Some of it parallels the frustration of the Israel lobbies—Hagel’s refusal to tow the AIPAC line, particularly refusing to call for war with Iran. He warned that “military strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities would signal a severe diplomatic failure and would have their own serious negative consequences for the United States and for our allies.” Hagel has instead called for direct, bilateral negotiations with Iran, and in 2010 he warned of the consequences of attacking Iran, saying “Once you start you’d better be prepared to find 100,000 troops because it may take that.” Notorious Israel occupation-backer and Harvard law school professor Alan Dershowitz announced he would testify against Hagel on Iran, calling his nomination “a bad choice for the country.”

Hagel as Secretary of Defense doesn’t guarantee there will be no war with Iran—but Obama’s nomination of him, and willingness to defend him against the soft-on-Iran accusations, signals that the White House isn’t looking to move towards a military attack any time soon.

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The neocons also have it in for Hagel because he was one of the first Republicans to criticize their favorite project, the war in Iraq. Of course he voted to fund it every chance he got—he’s no peace activist. But Hagel broke politically with George W. Bush and his own party, calling Bush’s foreign policy “reckless,” and called Bush’s 2007 “surge in Iraq “a ping-pong game with American lives.” He didn’t, however, express any concern for Iraqi lives, nor did he ultimately vote against the war—either in 2002 at the moment of the crucial authorize-the-war vote, or later when funding bills came before him. As David Corn wrote in 2002, Hagel “cautioned humility: ‘I share the hope of a better world without Saddam Hussein, but we do not really know if our intervention in Iraq will lead to democracy in either Iraq or elsewhere in the Arab world.’ Bottom line: Hagel feared the resolution would lead to a war that would go badly but didn’t have the guts to say no to the leader of his party.”

Would he challenge Obama—who’s not from his party—if faced with a potentially disastrous new war—in Syria, say—or escalation of the drone war in Yemen, or something else? Probably not—but there’s that slight bit of hope that it could be somehow different from appointing a Pentagon insider bureaucrat.

And then there’s the Pentagon budget. Hagel has called it “bloated,” pretty amazing for a future Secretary of Defense. Obama may have felt that a decorated Republican military veteran would be the best choice to convince a Republican-controlled Congress that some cuts will have to be made. There’s no way Hagel will argue with the realities and consequences of the whole military budget—the impact on jobs and healthcare of the $111 billion we spent this year on a failed war in Afghanistan, the million dollars per year it costs to keep just one young soldier in Afghanistan and the fact that we could bring home that one soldier and have enough money to hire her and 19 more young former soldiers at good $50,000/year middle-class union jobs. He won’t argue that.

But still—a Pentagon chief who actually believes his agency’s budget should be cut—that’s new. And ultimately, that’s probably the most important reason for the attack dogs' slavering for Hagel’s skin. The Washington Post editorialized that Hagel’s willingness to cut military spending was one of the key reasons to oppose his nomination. Behind the Post, of course, are the military producers and contractors whose CEOs fortunes stand (and rarely fall) on the Pentagon’s budget.

Unfortunately, military cuts of the size we really need to rebuild the economy and make our country and the world truly safer—ending the Afghanistan war quickly and entirely, stopping the drone wars, moving towards complete nuclear disarmament, closing the 1,000 or so overseas military bases—will not be on the agenda of Chuck Hagel or anyone else at the Pentagon. But still, better someone in charge who agrees that Pentagon spending is not sacrosanct than someone who views their role to keep every last billion dollars in military hands.

The Post editorial board went on to condemn Hagel’s politics overall. Most cross-party appointments, they said, “offer a veneer of bipartisanship to the national security team.” But Hagel would be different—he would not “move it toward the center, which is the usual role of such opposite-party nominees. On the contrary: Mr. Hagel’s stated positions on critical issues, ranging from defense spending to Iran, fall well to the left of those pursued by Mr. Obama during his first term—and place him near the fringe of the Senate.”

Whatever else he is, Chuck Hagel is no leftist. Standing to the left of President Obama’s center-right military policy is not a very high bar. But again—standing up to AIPAC, the defense industry (and members of Congress accountable to them) and the still-powerful neocons makes the Hagel appointment a good move for Obama. And it gives the rest of us a basis to push much farther to end the wars, to close the bases, to cut the Pentagon funding, to tax the military profiteers.

Barack Obama’s nomination of John Kerry for Secretary of State gives the Senate a critical opportunity to probe the administration’s foreign policy priorities.

Yellow caution tape tells people not to enter Public School 15 in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. (AP Photo/Beth Harpaz)
 
The superstorm that ravaged Haiti, Cuba and much of the East Coast of the United States last week, just ahead of the elections, may finally turn out to be recognized as the “shock and awe” of climate change’s permanent war against the United States.

Certainly the effects of climate change have been visible elsewhere in the world much earlier. Hurricane Sandy may change that, as the reality of climate chaos becomes irrefutable. Some argued that the storm’s ferocity was the great equalizer, that rich as well as poor were left without power, that luxury townhouses were swept aside along with seaside shacks. But that ignores the stark reality of the wealth-poverty divide in this country—laid newly bare by the storm.

In New York, probably the most unequal city in this country, the collapse of infrastructure under the relentless pounding of hurricane-force wind and rain was not an equal opportunity catastrophe. Who will be able to rebuild—and who will not? Whose lives will be permanently destroyed—and who will ultimately walk away with some frightening memories? Without the subways, people of means could join the endless lines for crowded taxis—poor people walked. When banks and finance companies and the stock market closed, their salaried employees continued to collect their paychecks—poor people, who couldn’t get to their low-wage hourly-paid jobs, didn’t get paid at all. Do we really think that the rebuilding of the opulent high-rises of Manhattan’s Battery Park City will take as long, and leave their residents as desperate, as the reconstruction—or even repair—of the huge public housing projects in Red Hook, Brooklyn, demolished by the raging floods?

Its proximity to the elections means this storm provides a broad test for the capacity and the legitimacy of government: will its response provide for people’s most basic needs, or will it lay bare, as did Katrina, the racism, poverty and disempowerment that still shape so many lives in this country? Sandy posed an immediate choice in the presidential election as well, with voters choosing between campaigns claiming the moment calls for mobilization of every facet of public and government capability, and those insisting FEMA should be defunded and victims of the storm should rely on the largesse of the private sector and church-based charity.

In the longer term, of course, the superstorm’s challenge goes way beyond the election to the far more important question facing our movements: how to fight with renewed urgency to realize Rachel Carson’s vision of the human right to a safe environment for the entire planet.

In the meantime, for those of us in this country unaccustomed to the immediacy and implacability of war, the destruction in much of New Jersey and lower Manhattan, gives us a hint of what it must have been like in Iraq, almost ten years ago, when George W. Bush’s “shock and awe” destroyed power generators, electrical plants, water treatment facilities and more—suddenly rendering the once-modern city of Baghdad, with its skyscrapers and highways, silent and dark. For those on the twentieth floor of urban apartment buildings, the struggle to find clean water and a way to lug it upstairs without elevators could not have been so different than that faced by Iraq’s high-rise dwellers.

Understanding this storm’s impact in the context of our ongoing struggles against inequality and war may turn out to be one of the most important outcomes of this already toxic election season.

Naomi Klein asks whether the storm will serve as a climate change wake-up call.