Syrian attitudes toward Jews and Israel, also “the west” — all that hateful politics — may temper or discipline outsider reception, but that does not keep the spectacle of the aftermath — or in the second video around Jobar, the recording of combat footage — from being unutterably sad.
One may put a price on reconstruction — demolition, recovery of materials, regrading, pouring new platforms, setting in new infrastructure and roads, the redevelopment of some kind of society, and God please make it a better, more human, more modern one, even Jew-friendly — but one cannot account the lives that once animated every inch of space apparent in the above recordings.
Israel wishes noncombatants no harm. As Hezbollah has used the same to shield weapons and war materiel, the provocation for preemptive action would have to be imminent.
Note: we may be also in a new age of warfare, one in which the tonnage of weapons owned may be modified by a host of systems, arrangements of humans and machines, in the path of their deployment. As we may no longer live in a world in which we may wait on open hostilities, we are a world constantly at war and engaged with one another in contests off the surface record.
The inspiration had to do with an IDF depiction of threat posed by Hezbollah. The correspondent on the thread had suggested a preemptive strike, but, as noted above, not so fast: fighting on the surface may be inappropriate when many other methods, tactics, and strategies have developed — or have been invited to develop — by way of the changing character of conflicted societies as well as changes in war fighting made possible by changes brought to the character of the content of armories.
Burma is fascist more than Buddhist — it’s an odd twist but due in light of the crushing of the “Orange Revolution” led by Buddhist monks — and as such remains, despite dog-and-pony-show elections, an unconscionable dictatorship. The persecution of minority Muslims than fits the familiar pattern of nationalism in poor states: minorities are on the outs, no less than Roma or Jews in eastern Europe, and only the expression and scale of the hate differ.
The Rohingya have been left to fight or flee.
“Dark Space” would be sweeter in science fiction, but around the world it refers to informationally secluded areas — could be a mafia back room or a valley remote from a capital and difficult to police — and they are in all effects wild and ruled largely by fear in the face of ruthless force.
As regards political rhetoric, it hasn’t helped Islam to have credit for the destruction of Buddhas of Bamiyan. That criminal act may be ascribed to the Taliban, of course, but it reflects on Muslims in general where the discourse is pursued on general terms. To get anywhere with any of this, we have to dive beneath whatever impressions have been made by our separable ethnic, national, and religious labels and then approach each troubled region x area x population x political themes as an interesting challenge. While the UN may provide a platform for as much, it / we have no common experience, much less way, of coordinating force beyond “peace keepers” that would seem to work only in well organized situations, e.g., the defense of the airport at Mogadishu, the watch for border activity in southern Lebanon. The world has no police and Uncle Sam, who has done his share, wants to work of some war-related debt (and get back to watching television, I suppose).
Peeve of the moment: how come Buddhists are committing genocide against Muslims in Burma and no one says a thing?
However, as suggested, the UN plus China, Russia, and the United States, plus the Ummah in its largest aspect, and whoever’s left share no common conscience and few common humanitarian interests to the extent than any may care to band to depose the junta and impose contemporary open democratic civilization and harmonious relations or any vertical of power in Burma.
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The situation is little different within Syria where the caring outside world has proven itself at providing food and tents and assorted other humanitarian aid outside the combat arena.
Within: you’re on your own!
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It’s odds-even as to whether Iraqis will wake up this week and back the government regardless of clan, family, or sectarian allegiances to ensure the ejection of ISIS from Fallujah. There it’s open war. State forces have ringed the city. Supplies have been moved in. But Kerry says its not America’s fight — it’s Iraq’s.
Islamabad’s share of Washington’s anti-al-Qaeda-type-organization drone program seems to have been premised on the idea that it was the least the west could do in its efforts to diminish the plans of its deeply anti-western and devolutional old enemy.
While drone strikes would take innocents along with targets, they impact would be much, much less than that of any other war fighting method beyond the unfeasible one of sending out a Frontier Corps posse to collect a villain.
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The purpose of this database is to provide as much information as possible about the covert U.S. drone program in Pakistan in the absence of any such transparency on the part of the American government. This data was collected from credible news reports and is presented here with the relevant sources. It was updated with information from the latest Pakistan strike, which occurred on December 25, 2013.
The above cited New America Foundation report notes a steep decline in drone strikes in Pakistan over the past four years, with about 125 operations launched in 2010 and fewer than about 30 in 2013.
The Top Story piece, with which this blog post has started, notes a part of the run-up to Pakistan’s deployment of air power in North Waziristan: “Pakistani officials say that some of those killed were involved in a January 19 attack on the country’s paramilitary troops in the northwestern city of Bannu, and a double suicide bombing on a Peshawar church in September last year, which killed more than 80 people.”
As such, the emerging war would seem to contain two dimensions of interest to most Pakistanis: reprisal for the deaths of innocents; defense and suppression of a force that would commit similar crimes repeatedly until it exclusively held the nation in subjugation.
Compared to this week’s developments, Washington’s drone war — a war vociferously criticized from the Far Left, and claimed it contribute to the growth in ranks of terrorists — starts to look in conflict terms like “lowest intensity conflict” (probably, mafia activity goes lower, but, bear with me, here are some headers from this week’s war in Pakistan):
Since May, F-16 multirole fighter jets have flown more than 300 combat missions against militants in the Swat Valley and more than 100 missions in South Waziristan, attacking mountain hide-outs, training centers and ammunition depots, Pakistani military officials said.
Pakistan has a problem even as its military prowess improves: it may dampen the brush fires set by the Taliban, but it would seem constitutionally incapable of removing either the motivating variables, however we may parse them, or the intellectual component and cover from which the Taliban design their strategy and tactics.
Instead of solving a security problem, flying jets against caves merely cycles it down to where it may simmer, bubble, and boil over again. Mix metaphors and call that a Sysiphean Hell. The Taliban roll out their program; the state rolls it back; the Taliban regroup, revive, and the state has to fuel its jets again for strikes within its own writ.
Top Taliban leader Asmatullah Shaheen Bhittani, who briefly headed the Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan after the death of Hakimullah Mehsud last November, 33 Uzbek nationals and three Germans, were among those killed in the night- long air strikes in North Waziristan Agency since Monday.
Islamabad will have to do more than remove immediate radical targets from the field as it seeks to secure the safety of the state’s woefully victimized and terrorized constituents.
In sum, Syria embodies multi-layered “spider web-like “ networks of Sunni and Shia militias and paramilitary forces, and this can only continue to plunge Syria into violence and chaos not unlike the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), although Syria’s war is at least 100 times worse and intense and potentially will last a lot longer.
The supporters of these proxy rebel groups, like Saudi Arabia, the UAE , and other GCC states on the Sunni jihadists’ side, and Iran on the Shia side, have no regard for the innocent civilians suffering horrifically in Syria and also as refugees in neighboring countries. These proxy supporters are as guilty of atrocities as Bashar al-Assad. All sides are guilty of war crimes
In the order encountered in the above article: The Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS); Free Syrian Army; Ahrar al-Sham; Jaysh al-Islam; Suqour al-Sham; Liwa al-Tawhid; Liwa al-Haqq; Ansar al-Sham; Kurdish Islamic Front; Hezbollah; Revolutionary Guard Corps.
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“I want to say to the clerics to fear Allah. They have destroyed people. They have destroyed families. They have destroyed all people. They have destroyed young people. They lie to them and lure them. For what? For Jihad for the sake of Allah. All this is nothing but slander and brainwashing.”
We can thus say with high confidence that at least 1,200 European Muslims have gone to Syria since the start of the war. This is a remarkable figure; we are talking about the largest European Muslim foreign fighter contingent to any conflict in modern history.
Hey, guys, let’s put on a war and see who shows up!
The Mohammad Must Off Ya Club, partially invited by the Old Soviet Boys Network and the Shiite Propeller Beanies — everyone’s making money but the fighters, and some of those are making money too — have found their calling in Syria:
Explosive weapons, including bombs, killed seven in 10 of the more than 11,000 Syrian children under the age of 17 who have died in Syria’s brutal civil war, according to a report released on Sunday . . . Most often, they were killed by explosives, but also from executions and torture. Since March 2011, 113,735 civilians and combatants have been killed in the Syrian conflict.
Exercise your imagination with this factoid from the above cited Al Jazeera piece:
Small arms fire from guns and rifles accounted for 2,806, or 26.5 percent, of the children killed, with 764 children who were executed and 398 killed by fire from a sniper. And among those children who were executed, 112 were tortured, including some infants.
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Upon arrival in Syria, the mercenaries were told that their employers were private individuals, not the Syrian government, and the weapons they were told they’d be given, including T-72 tanks, were replaced by antiquated tanks that didn’t run, and by makeshift armored vehicles with machine guns. Also, they soon learned that instead of guarding oil fields, they were supposed to be recapturing them from jihadists.
Oh what a tangled web we weave when what we do best is set out to murder and deceive.
For money.
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St Petersburg newspaper Fontanka interviewed some mercenaries who said that they were lured by a promise to get $4,000 per month and a solemn oath that the first salary would be transferred within days.
They were taken on a flight to Beirut, Lebanon and from there they were transferred by cars to Damascus. When they reached the Syrian border they traveled with a convoy of local guardsmen. In Damascus they were taken to a local hotel. The following day they were transferred by a plane to Latakia, and from there to a Syrian military base.
The Islamic Small Wars are no longer about infidels, Islam, or states: they’are about kinds of persons, sometimes the absolute autocrats one feels comfortable referring to as “malignant narcissists”; sometimes common bandits, murderers, psychos, and thieves taking the opportunity to cloak themselves in patriotism or religion; sometimes nothing more than young men in the hormonal sway of grandiose messianic delusions.
Perhaps it will turn out a good thing to have had them gathered so in one bloody place.
They’re all easier to see that way — and what a spectacle they make of themselves.
While the malignancies do the chop-chop and Kalashnikov war dances, Oxfam on Syria notes the following:
The UN estimates that almost 7 million Syrians inside of Syria are in need of assistance, including 4.25 million internally displaced.
Thousands continue to flee Syria daily.
The total number of refugees in neighboring countries is now more than 2.2 million.
It is estimated that the population of Lebanon has increased by more than 25% and the population of Jordan by 6%. This is putting extreme pressure on local infrastructure.
“One 24-year-old man, suspected of organising journeys to Syria, was in touch with several “fixers” who facilitated travel between Turkey and Syria, while another previously fought with an Islamist group in Syria, the sources said.”
In casual and often jocular language typical of messages on social media, the authors paint a rosy picture of life on the front, stressing the pious atmosphere and the sense of brotherhood-in-arms shared by the fighters. They note that recruits may come with their wives and children, and stress the practical advantages of joining the jihad community in Syria, such as the prospect of finding a bride and the low cost of living.
Kerry also said he had no doubt that Assad was responsible for the chemical weapons attack in east Damascus on 21 August, saying that only three people are responsible for the chemical weapons inside Syria – Assad, one of his brothers and a senior general. He said the entire US intelligence community was united in believing Assad was responsible.
In state-level affairs, the sovereign or government-in-power may be held accountable for what takes place within its purview. So right off the bat this week, the nit of The Guardian headline, “Assad did not order Syria chemical weapons attack, says German press” has a disingenuous cant to it.
If not Bashar, what about Maher?
If not Maher, what about an officer in charge under his command?
The German intelligence findings concerning Assad’s personal role may complicate US-led efforts to persuade the international community that punitive military action is justified. They could also strengthen suspicions that Assad no longer fully controls the country’s security apparatus.
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I’m not making the call, but the single case for pointing to a rebel false flags seems to stand on an accident involving the mishandling of chemical weapons stocks.
Or a recording — edited, underscored, produced, disseminated — showing a successful launch of a “blue bonnet” style rocket (using what looks like a launch vehicle matched to the purpose).
One case: two stories . . . .
That leaves the public with a spy story in a world waiting for the journalists to get into what I’m going to call “Political Spychology” — the massive, multinational industry devoted to capturing, listening, sniffing, stealing, interpreting signal for military as well as industrial purposes.
I am of the mind that the Syrian Civil War has degraded the central power of the Assad regime but neither installed nor shifted the same toward any coherent and responsible party: instead, it has drawn the state toward gross political anarchy and with a look in many places not dissimilar to Mogadishu’s: hard destruction around and through which shifting tides of suffering humanity amid armed gangs, loosely aligned at best, state or rebel, make their way.
Their situation will worsen as the lack of honesty and integrity across the field and the presence of grandiose ambitions in some ensures greater anarchy, brutality, and political dissolution.
To get the chemical weapons off the field is not to solve the war: it’s to make it a little more discerning (at least between combatant and noncombatant targets), humane, and secure because while other weapons projectiles explode or hit something with finite effect, poisonous gasses drift and are indiscriminate even on the gentlest of their lethal breezes.
To solve the war is to address the poetry of the mind of the warrior romantics involved in imagining themselves “God’s darlings” — Haider Mobarak’s phrase related to the narcissism involved — and striving to prove as much so through the intimidation, murder, and subjugation of all presumably less admirable and beloved-by-God others.
Live today at 12:30 PM ET, White House National Security Adviser Susan E. Rice. Ambassador Rice will discuss the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons against Syrian civilians, the longstanding international norm against the use of chemical weapons, and the need for action to deter the Assad regime from future use of chemical weapons.
To this day, many Jews continue to decry an evident lack of interest in saving Jewish lives either at the start of Hitler’s genocidal campaign or toward the end when rail lines may have been bombed to slow the feed to the ovens.
Well, here we are again, but it’s not the Jews who are suffering.
In fact, many in the path of Assad’s brutality would seem to hate America and Jews and “the west” at the very least out of language habit, although with the large and loose assembly of Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda-type forces displaying their own brutality in the field, more than and other than talk must be shaping defense and political policy between the White House and the Pentagon.
This business of discerning who to save continues to have a “no good dog in the fight” feel to it, this despite assurances from Qatar and the rallying presence of General Salim Idris, who may be the commander in the western suit but not the supreme disciplining force across his own battle space.
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Syria may also remind how for all the philosophical and political talk, the business of war remains intensely geographical (spatial) and physical in nature.
For one thing, Syria has become the most isolated and transparent hot conflict and political laboratory on the planet. Not only do the primary antagonists rate among the least sympathetic of human figures — again: the forces of a brutal dictatorship would seem to share the field, in part, with those of the most absurd religious extremism — but they’re doing “their thang” across a landscape broad and remote enough (and, damaged and emptying enough) to afford, from the talk to the walk, their own display.
Approach it with a toolkit — a few ships, say — or roll it into the operatory known as the UN, but give it a good look because, at the moment, the Syrian Civil War is its own machine with the broken and working parts fairly well lit up for viewing.
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No one really wants to bring peace to that sandbox of a nation, no more than the local constabulary wants to knock on the door behind which a vicious domestic has broken out with flying furnishings, which one hears through the walls, and perhaps broken bottles, knives, and guns, which, alas, one must open the door to see.
At least on a “domestic” the scale is small and the police a force larger than it.
A civil war across a landscape awash in criminal and gambler’s money, arms, blood, death, and suffering and steeped in obsessive cruel and vengeful thinking — that’s a whole other threshold for crossing, one for which the confirmed use of chemical weapons takes the absurdity and inhumanity of it beyond the capacity of conscience for either bearing or controlling.
Truly, a whole world is watching Syria, and I should think that it must be thinking about what it is actually seeing and doing so in ways apart from immediate self-interest, for in the theater we may now call “Syria On Display” what would seem to be on display would seem to comprise also the worst of the worst behavior in humanity.
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Just a moment for fiction here:
“I kill you and cut out your heart and eat it!”
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“I make you and your people — infants, children, mothers, old men — die in agony without warning. And I do it with impunity!”
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Which world do you want to live in: the one that intervenes — or the one that let’s it go on?
Syria has serious problems, but it appears no one has yet figured out to whom those problems belong.
Then too while the world believes it watches such a spectacle from the outside, that would seem true only until it discovers itself inside of it after all.
Indeed, in the First Age of the Internet (or is it “Internet 2.0” or “3.0”) and an era filled with agressive Islamism and related violence, we all may have to ask whether state boundaries serve to isolate cultural and political systems in necessary ways while also guiding and defining a practical global politics in ways that may have been more helpful as little as 15 years ago.
The congressman, who opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the military surge in Afghanistan, strongly supports a “surgical strike” against Syria’s chemical weapons capabilities.
From the start of the Syrian conflict, President Obama has wanted to take two very different approaches to it. On the one hand, he has been disciplined about the definition of American interests and the use of force. On the other hand, he has sought a way to respond to Bashar Assad’s human-rights atrocities.
The United States must intervene in Syria for humanitarian reasons.In 1994, the world watched as Hutu soldiers, armed with machetes, hacked apart the Rwandan countryside. Despite clear evidence of genocide from the United Nations observers and human rights watch groups, the U.S. decided it had no permanent interests in the region and sending a small deployment of soldiers would have been too risky. By the time the civil war ended three months later, 900,000 Rwandans had been slaughtered.
They are embarrassed to be associated with the amateurism of the Obama administration’s attempts to craft a plan that makes strategic sense. None of the White House staff has any experience in war or understands it. So far, at least, this path to war violates every principle of war, including the element of surprise, achieving mass and having a clearly defined and obtainable objective.
Sing along: “Tyrants to the right of me — fanatics to the left: stuck in the middle with you!”
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Let’s compare notes.
Russia <–> Assad’s Baathist Syria <–> Ayatollah Khamenei’s Jew Hating and Genocidal Iran (officially; unofficially it may be better than the regime makes it look) : Qatar’s Sunni Islamic Ambitions <–> the Anglophile West (at least) <–> Syria’s Rebel Cause / (divided by) A Fanatic Islamist Complement.
For spice, add a dollop of chemical warfare.
And, remember, Putin, standing up for the power of money and secular Russian interests, even while fond of the Greek Orthodox Church (and I suspect of Israel too), seems to be saying, more or less, “let it burn”.
Considering who is fighting and what they are willing to do to one another . . . .
Obama, who probably by now hates this lurid spotlight, has to drag his heels a bit while mulling or preparing to block the further use of chemical weapons at the threshold and get Qatar (x Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) looking about right (no more wife beating — that has been announced) for a “greater virtue” argument and either bringing the AQ / MB adventurers into the Idris fold or getting them off the field to buttress that stance.
Good luck with that.
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It hasn’t been a “cakewalk”.
It won’t be unless, until, when the day comes that the Syrians today bereaved, displaced, and refugee and just plain in the middle of a theater of war understand that they, no one else, occupy the center and middle of Syrian culture and society.
What they are about, what they will be about, what kind of lives their children may have to look forward to, what attitudes, beliefs, ethics, and values they may wish to own and hold dear and which they may care to repudiate — start with anti-Semitism and the hatred of Israel, please — will be decided between the familiar in tyrants and extremists if they do not fill out with their own energies and prayers General Idris’s or some other moderate center middle compassionate humanizing decent stance.
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I know this blog has a small readership, if any, but wide distribution.
My advice if you’re “operational” or close enough for influence: get the savagery off the field, for demonstrations of greater cruelty and ever more breathtaking callousness and sadism do not become you.
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