For the last several years, the Left in the West has been rent asunder by a debate over what to do in regards to the war in Syria. On the one hand, it would be problematic to acclaim Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as a freedom fighter, particularly in considering his punitive policies. On the other hand, the events in Iraq and Libya after America ousted their governments is the augury of a disturbing trend in Western regime change policies that would have dire consequences for the entire region.
Here again to help us hash through these issues and develop a principled vision of solidarity with the people now under siege by empire is Eric Draitser. He is a policy analyst and author whose work can be found on RT and CounterPunch.
It is worth noting here that these geo-political concerns are not perfect but they do stand as tenable strategies. There are essentially two choices in this case. Either one accedes to the destructive imperial behavior of the American-led NATO bloc, which has produced nothing but war since the end of the Cold War that every America supports daily with their taxes, or one shows solidarity with the geopolitical effort working to counter this. Is it perfect? Of course not. But the history of solidarity movements which have been successful always included an alternative and viable power structure, be it supporting the North Vietnamese or the Sandinistas or the Second Spanish Republic. And the instance in recent memory where a power vacuum did in fact exist, as was the case in Cambodia, terrible things can and do happen. Geopolitics is not morality, it is power relationships and being forced to choose between the least awful of choices. And in understanding the way that the Western imperial project and its weaponized debt programs under the auspices of foreign aide have pillaged country after country, one quickly grasps the dynamics of this question.
GAZIANTEP, TURKEY – For the past three years I have been working with a Syrian NGO whose aim is to build democracy and a stronger civil society in Syria. Until recently I worked from home in Rhode Island, but now I am based in our main office in southeastern Turkey.
Along with dozens of Syrian colleagues, I am immersed in the ongoing tragedies that take place every moment and in every part of Syria, our minds still reel from the tragedies that occurred recently in Beirut, Iraq, Ankara, Egypt, Mali and Paris. Just like people who care about justice and peace throughout the world, we are asking “Why?” and “How?” with renewed urgency.
Why has this violence taken place? How can we stop it from continuing?
We don’t have all the answers, but we believe that it is more important than ever to raise the voices of the peace builders and democratic change seekers – the ordinary people who are on the ground counteracting extremism and authoritarianism by healing their communities and finding nonviolent solutions. And those brave souls are always there, even when a situation may seem impenetrably dark from the outside.
- More from/about Josie Shagwert in Gaziantep, Turkey:
- We Need Freedom … We Must Pay With Our Lives’
- Supporting The Peaceful Syrian Revolution
- RI Activist Helps Syrians Transition To Democracy
Through our Women for the Future of Syria program we have helped nearly 500 women found peace circles in their communities, which are located throughout Syria as well as in some refugee areas. The peace circles are linked together in the I Am She network for women’s leadership. With our support, the peace circles organize for peace and justice locally. Peace circle members are negotiating ceasefires, opening schools in besieged areas, advocating for political prisoners, bringing together ethnic and religious communities to reduce tension, and so much more.
These Syrian women community leaders are risking their lives every day to non-violently push for peace and justice – in the heart of some of the places where extremism has taken root. We think their stories are powerful and can change things at an international level. Their stories need to be told to the whole world.
While we mourn for the victims of terror attacks, in Syria and throughout the world, and try to follow the high level discussions that world policy-makers are having about ISIS, I urge you to support one of the solutions that has been proven to work time and time again in the history of social change; solidarity with the community leaders on the ground who are implementing solutions that work.
If you’d like to donate to our work, click here.
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Congressman David Cicilline told President Barack Obama to increase tenfold the number of Syrian refugees the United States accepts – from 10,000 to 100,000.
“We’ve always been a beacon to the rest of the world,” Cicilline told RI Future, in explaining why he implored the president to do more. “It speaks to our character as a nation. We need to regain that moral high ground.”
Earlier this month the Obama Administration announced it would increase the number of Syrian refugees the US takes in this from about 1,500 to 10,000. Subsequently, Cicilline wrote a letter to the president saying the US should take in 100,000 Syrian refugees.
“Other countries look to the United States to lead when it comes to refugee resettlement, and so it is absolutely critical that the U.S. lead by example,” reads the letter. “The U.S. should use its considerable global influence to encourage other nations, including within the European Union, to accept additional refugees and increase the resources available to support them.”
- Cicilline letter to Obama on accepting 100,000 Syrian refugees
- More news: Diossa to Obama: Central Falls will take in Syrian refugees
More than 70 members of Congress co-signed the letter to Obama, including Joe Kennedy, of Massachusetts. Congressman Jim Langevin did not sign the letter. Langevin spokeswoman Meg Geoghegan said, “While he shares Congressman Cicilline’s belief that the U.S. should do far more for these refugees, he does not feel comfortable prescribing that specific number until we have assurances that the resources exist to actually process that many people in a timely way without risking any potential impact to American security.”
Langevin told RI Future in a prepared statement: “We are facing one of the worst humanitarian crises in history, and our country and others around the world must do more for those who have faced unimaginable suffering, leaving their homes behind in fear for their families. The United States must significantly increase the number of refugees we take, while ensuring adequate resources to protect the security of our citizens.”
Cicilline said his request to accept 100,000 Syrian refugees is based on the recommendation of the Refugee Council USA, a coalition of 20 of the leading refugee aid organizations in this country. Refugee Council USA also recommends the United States increase the overall number of refugees it takes in this year from 100,000 to 200,000. Last year, the US accepted about 70,000 refugees but only 1,500 from Syria, which has seen an exodus of more than 4 million citizens since the start of a bloody civil war four years ago.
Cicilline’s letter points out that accepting 100,000 Syrian refugees would only increase the US population by “less than a quarter of one percent” while “Lebanon’s population by contrast has grown 25% with the influx of refugees at its borders.” In a reference to the viral video of a Syrian boy who died while fleeing his country, the letter continues, “How can we tell little Aylan’s family that we simply can’t manage to welcome them, that it would be too dangerous or take jobs away. Surely we can do better.”
Cicilline visited Syrian refugee camps on a recent trip to Jordan, which helped cement in his mind the need for the United States to be a leader in responding to the crisis. In a conversation with a Jordanian man, he explained that there is some political resistance to accepting Syrian refugees in the United States. The Jordanian man told him, “This wasn’t a debate. These are our brothers and sisters fleeing war and we welcomed them,” according to the congressman.
Cicilline also said taking in refugees is a “sensible economic decision,” saying “in 2013 69 percent of all refugees were self-sufficient after 180 days. By comparison, refugees living in camps around the world are often relying on international assistance for a very long time – 10, 15, 20 years – and in most cases the United States is paying for most of that.”
Cicilline spoke earlier this week in Washington at a press conference about the Syrian refugee crisis.
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Over 50 Rhode Island Kurds rallied outside the State House Wednesday to draw attention to the terrible situation in the Kurdish city of Kobani, in Northern Syria. Kobani has been under siege from ISIS forces since September 15th, and could fall at any time. If the city defenses fall, rape, torture, slavery and death await the men, women and children at the hands of ISIS forces.
The rally was organized by the New England Kurdish Association (NEKA) and featured members of Amnesty International, Group 49, Providence. According to the organizers, the People’s Protection Force (YPG for its Kurdish acronym) are “outgunned and outnumbered.” There are reports of Kurds running out of ammunition and saving the last bullet for themselves to avoid capture by ISIS.
NEKA is calling on the Obama administration to bomb ISIS positions around Kobani and to supply Kurdish fighters facing ISIS with better weaponry.
The ProJo decided to make up for its lack of antiwar coverage yesterday by reporting on the local MoveOn.org group’s Monday night vigil. It’s a testimony to MoveOn leader Chris Curry’s organizational skills and the extreme unpopularity of more Middle East military intervention on the part of the American citizenry that over 80 people showed up to protest President Obama’s plans to bomb Syria.
Held in Burnside Park (renamed the People’s Park by Occupy Providence during their historic protest) the event was attended by pacifists representing faith and no faith traditions.
Though the situation around Syria seems to have taken an interesting turn for the better since there seems at least a tentative agreement to explore the idea of Assad giving up all his chemical weapons, things are extremely fluid, and it would be a mistake for Pacifists let up on the pressure. It should be pointed out, loudly and without apology that recent developments represent a peaceful diplomatic solution, not a unilateral and violent response on behalf of the United States. The ball is in the United Nation’s court, where it belongs.
Therefore, another antiwar vigil in Burnside Park this weekend is mandatory. Running Saturday, September 14th from 1-3pm, “NO WAR ON SYRIA” is being planned by local activists Lindsay Goss and Ian Georgianna. Responding to a call from the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC), local activists can let our government know that use of military force is a relic of humanity’s archaic and a practice best retired permanently.
Call your representative and let them know that you stand for peace.
RI SENATOR JACK REED 401-943-3100
RI SENATOR SHELDON WHITEHOUSE 401-453-5294
RI CONGRESSMAN DAVID CICILLINE 401-729-5600
RI CONGRESSMAN JIM LANGEVIN (202) 225-2735
MA SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN 617-565-3170
MA SENATOR EDWARD MARKEY 617-565-8519
Below find pictures from last Saturday’s antiwar protest that took place on the East Side of Providence.
Rhode Islanders are mobilizing against a military intervention in Syria. Many will meet on Thayer Street Saturday for a rally at 1:00 p.m. Others have been contacting our congressional delegation to convince them to vote down the matter. WPRI reports today that Congressman Jim Langevin is still on the fence while Congressman David Cicilline is leaning against it.
Meanwhile, the Rhode Island Progressive Democrats sent this letter to the delegation:
The Rhode Island Chapter of PDA is as horrified as the rest of the world by the recent gas attack in Syria against citizens whose only crime was living in a district associated with opposition to the government.
We also deeply regret President Obama’s issuing a ‘red line’ declaration over President Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons. President Obama now appears trapped by his own rhetoric.
We reject the prospect of a unilateral attack by the armed forces of the United States. Adding to the violence in Syria will not resolve the conflict there.
The only way to resolve the conflict by force is by invoking chapter VII of the United Nations Charter. If agreement cannot be secured for a massive intervention on the part of the entire international community, the intervention would not be effective in any case. Therefore we strongly urge you to vote NO on a unilateral intervention.
Thank you for your time and attention,
Ed Benson
On behalf the Executive committee of RIPDA
In the state, legislature so far only Rep Ray Hull has formally opposed military action, though worth noting I think that House GOP Leader Brian Newberry wrote on Facebook that he is opposed to striking Syria.
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Please call the members of the RI Congressional delegation and tell them to vote against authorizing military action against Syria, and also ask them to increase humanitarian aid. Heck, if you want, tell them you won’t vote for them if they authorize the use of force in Syria.
Senator Jack Reed: 401-943-3100, http://www.reed.senate.gov
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse: 401-453-5294, http://www.whitehouse.senate.gov
Representative James Langevin: 401-732-9400, http://www.house.gov/langevin
Representative David Cicilline: 401-729-5600, http://www.cicilline.house.gov
Others have written on this blog about why attacking Syria is a bad idea. Please read the posts by Tom Sgouros, Bob Plain and others.
Nothing good will come of the US attacking Syria. Telling Syria the use of horrific weapons of war is wrong by flouting international law and illegally bombing them is not going to stop Assad and other evil doers from doing their evil; it will only make us look hypocritical and more like them.
It is quite likely that instead the situation will be made much worse. Iran could retaliate, perhaps against Israel. The Shiite-Sunni sectarian divide could grow worse with increased violence in Iraq and other countries. Russia and China may be provoked into openly supporting Assad’s regime. And the US would further enflame anger at our violence and unilateral military operations. As Bob Plain asks in his post, why is it ok for the USA to take military action without UN approval, and to bomb countries when we don’t like what they do? Imagine if, in response to our illegal bombing of Syria, some other nation bombed us in order to teach us a lesson?
And finally, what if Assad uses chemical weapons again? After striking once, we’d almost have to attack again, and this would draw the US into a war.
A few good places to look for interesting information on the Syrian conflict:
The Nation Magazine has some good reporting on the isse.
Frontline, on PBS, has several powerful documentary reports worth viewing.
Senator Bernie Sanders has spoken passionately on this, as have others (both Republican and Democrat).
And the Green Party , led by its 2012 Presidential candidate Jill Stein, have spoken against bombing Syria.
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It’s nice that President Obama has asked for congressional approval to bomb Syria, but it’s at least worth noting that even with congressional approval a unilateral strike would still be considered a war crime by the United Nations.
“Aggression without UN authorization would be a war crime, a very serious one, is quite clear, despite tortured efforts to invoke other crimes as precedents,” Noam Chomsky told Ryan Grim of the Huffington Post.
Yale Law School professors Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro made the same point in a recent New York Times op/ed.
“If the United States begins an attack without Security Council authorization, it will flout the most fundamental international rule of all — the prohibition on the use of military force, for anything but self-defense, in the absence of Security Council approval,” they wrote. “This rule may be even more important to the world’s security — and America’s — than the ban on the use of chemical weapons.”
The United Nations is, in case you care, is opposed to military intervention in Syria. This story was buried on page A11 of Wednesday’s New York Times.
“Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, said Tuesday that he appreciated President Obama’s efforts to engage Congress and the American people before deciding on possible armed strikes against Syria over chemical weapons use, but reaffirmed his opposition to any further military action without Security Council approval.”
If you didn’t care that the United Nations opposes military intervention in Syria, then my guess is you really don’t care that the UN is focusing its efforts on working with the neighboring countries that are harboring the more than 2 million Syrian refugees. There are another 4.5 million Syrians displaced inside the country.
The USA Today has a really good article about what Syrian refugees and rebels think about an American show of force.
Here are three perspectives from that story:
- “A difficult question,” said Firas Al-Hussain, a Syrian ambulance driver for the hospital, when asked how he felt about a possible U.S. strike. “If they stop the killing,” he said, he would favor it.
- “With 100,000 dead, millions displaced, and the country destroyed, it’s over,” said Ahmad Kuliyeh, a 26-year-old rebel soldier from his hospital bed, where he lay with one leg blown off, the other injured, and his arm in a cast. He said it didn’t matter which nation intervened, only that something be done and that a few strikes at buildings would change nothing in Syria. “Support us with weapons,” said . “If you give us weapons,” particularly anti-aircraft weapons, “then we don’t want Obama.”
- “If they are such weak strikes, Assad will show up stronger (militarily) than before, and he will eventually do more massacres than before,” said pharmacist Mohammad Agol from Idlib. “If the strike is going to be so limited, we don’t want it to happen. Either it’s a knockout, or nothing. We’d rather stick to the daily massacres that we’re used to.”
Florida Congressman Alan Grayson has been an outspoken opponent of military intervention.
In a conference call on Syria with House members this past Monday Secretary of State John Kerry called this a “Munich moment.” My throat clenched up as I read yet one more in an endless series of references to Neville Chamberlain’s ill-advised attempt at peacemaking with Adolf Hitler in 1938.
Let’s start with a stipulation: The use of chemical weapons is barbaric and ought not to be tolerated. I believe this, and probably you do, too. No one is arguing about this.
However, I don’t know about you, but I have had it up to here with people trotting out the ghost of Neville Chamberlain whenever there is a war to be waged. It’s offensive and silly for two reasons. The first is that it implicitly compares every bad guy to Hitler. Bashar al Assad is certainly not my kind of guy, but he has not turned his nation into a war-making expansionist machine that threatens his neighbors with its designs on their territory. (Though of course he is no friend of Israel.) Assad is a dictator fighting a brutal civil war against mostly domestic opponents, many of whom are no friends of ours. He is also not a threat to the United States. Apart from the dictator bit, the comparison to Hitler fails on every count, from the war aims to the mustache.
The other reason invoking Chamberlain’s ghost is offensive is this: Munich was in 1938. Was Neville Chamberlain the last guy to make a foreign policy mistake? Is Secretary Kerry telling us that no one since then has made enough of a mistake to learn lessons from? Does he have nothing to learn from, oh, I don’t know, Lyndon Johnson?
Johnson liked to refer to Munich, too, and in 1965 used the comparison to say that surrender in Vietnam would encourage the aggression of the North Vietnamese. This was the moment that Johnson essentially Americanized the Vietnam war. With 48 years to think about it, would Secretary Kerry agree with Johnson’s assessment now?
How about the Bush gang who brought us war in Iraq? They were all over the Chamberlain analogy. In 2002 Donald Rumsfeld said that looking for proof of Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs was “appeasement” akin to Munich. With 11 years to think about it, would Kerry agree with Rumsfeld’s assessment now?
Here’s some news: since Chamberlain’s dumb mistake in 1938, we fought WWII, but we also fought wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, the Balkans, Somalia, Afghanistan, Grenada, Panama, and probably others I’m forgetting. Do we have no lessons to learn from those adventures? How about all the proxy wars we had others fight for us in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Angola, Laos, Afghanistan and the rest? Is Neville Chamberlain more relevant to a decision about war today than all of that blood and treasure spilt?
And beyond all that, please Secretary Kerry, tell me again why I should believe the intelligence assessment that supposedly guarantees the chemical attacks really were the work of Assad’s army? On whose credibility would I rely should I believe those reports? Would those be the same agencies that told me so clearly false things about weapons in Iraq? So far as I can tell, the evidence in Syria remains quite cloudy. For example, the relevant UN agencies do not agree that the responsibility for the attack is clear. Claims of certainty are little more than the usual stance of the charlatan.
President Obama went even farther than Kerry. He said, about the use of chemical weapons: “The moral thing to do is not to stand by and do nothing.” He later added, “I do have to ask people if in fact you’re outraged by the slaughter of innocent people, what are you doing about it?”
This is a legitimate challenge, and the civilized world has struggled with it for decades. However, the struggle is not a struggle simply to find answers to the question. We do not lack for answers; we lack for good answers. We have plenty of experience with answers that are ineffectual, wasteful, and expensive. These are bad answers, and I’m tired of our nation’s routine answer that seems mostly to consist of blowing things up, shooting people, and getting our soldiers shot and blown up in turn.
To some, the President’s failure to muster international support for action against Syria means we must take up the task ourselves. To me, the failure means that the world isn’t ready or able to enforce a ban on chemical weapons. While I agree that this is tragic, I don’t agree that a solo strike against Syria will make it any better.
Sanctions, boycotts, frozen assets, arguments in the Hague — all these things are far less cathartic than the fantasy of justice delivered on the tip of a cruise missile. But when you consider the uncertainty of the intelligence and the muddle of the Syrian civil war, the likelihood of such a missile even being aimed at an appropriate target seem very small, let alone hitting it. I believe there are other solutions to find, and that we owe it to ourselves and to the rest of the world to seek them.
Please, for once, let’s consider the limits of power. Is it disloyal to point out that history teaches other lessons besides Neville Chamberlain’s? Is it unpatriotic to care about blood and treasure? Is it treasonous to suggest that the most powerful country on earth is not actually omnipotent?
It’s tempting to fantasize how easy solutions would be if we could just storm in and knock some heads. But Captain America is a comic-book figure, not a model after which to fashion our armed forces. Here in the real world, problems are difficult to solve because they are complicated. The easy answers are bad ones. Unleashing more violence on war-torn Syria is nothing more than a seemingly easy solution that will do more harm than good. I beg our congressional delegation not to go along with the easy march to regrettable violence. Some will moan about losing “credibility”, but that is not the only object of value to protect. In the end, our nation will be stronger tomorrow for restraint today.
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