Americans—and others—are in heated discussion these days over whether an attack on Syria might be justified by alleged use of chemical weapons. But no such discussion is complete without consideration of a long history of disinformation disseminated in order to drum up support for overseas wars.
To be sure, with the UN resolution giving Syria eight months to dump its chemical weapons, the calls in Washington for a military attack on Assad’s forces have been muted. But the Obama administration has reserved the right to attack if Syria misses that deadline—which, as we’ve reported, is absurdly short by standards with which the US itself says it could reasonably comply in eliminating its own chemical stocks.
The core point, however, is the rationale advanced for such an attack. It rests on the assumption that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ordered the sarin gas bombardment of a Damascus suburb on August 21. But while there is no disagreement that chemical weapons were used that day, exactly who launched the attack is still very much an open question. For Washington to rush to judgment – and an act of war — on such an unsubstantiated charge suggests that more than righteous anger is at work here.
To understand what that might be, it pays to look deeper – both at the “evidence” linking Assad to the gassing and at the sobering history of America’s all-too-itchy trigger finger when it comes to justifying military strikes at perceived enemies, or when unstated geopolitical agendas and business interests may well be in play.
Whodunit?
The latest UN report on the August 21 bombing is widely cited by American officials as “proof” the Assad regime used chemical weapons. But the authors of that report deny that they proved anything about who is guilty of the atrocity. As they themselves state on the UN’s website:
“Responding to questions, the Secretary-General [of the UN] said Dr. Sellström’s team had been able to determine objectively that Sarin was used on a relatively large scale. It was the team’s job to determine whether and to what extent chemical weapons were used, not who used them.
“It is for others to decide whether to pursue this matter further to determine responsibility. We may all have our own thoughts on this, but I would simply say that this was a grave crime and those responsible must be brought to justice as soon as possible,” he said.
The Associated Press, the world’s largest news-gathering organization, finds no clear support for the administration’s claims about the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons:
“What’s missing from the public record is direct proof, rather than circumstantial evidence, tying this to the regime.”
And in direct contradiction to the claims being made by American officials, German intelligence maintains the attacks were not ordered by President Assad. This conclusion was based on intercepts of the regime’s communications (Germany is a NATO member and a staunch US ally).
Alarmed by what they view as the dusting off of old methods they’ve seen time and again, , a group of dissident American ex-intelligence professionals wrote an open letter to President Obama expressing serious doubts as to whether the Assad regime was responsible for the recent chemical weapon attacks. They write:
“There is a growing body of evidence from numerous sources in the Middle East — mostly affiliated with the Syrian opposition and its supporters — providing a strong circumstantial case that the August 21 chemical incident was a pre-planned provocation by the Syrian opposition and its Saudi and Turkish supporters. The aim is reported to have been to create the kind of incident that would bring the United States into the war.”
Later in the article, this group, known as “Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity” (VIPS), pose the obvious question: cui bono? (Latin for: who benefits?). They point out that the Assad regime had nothing to gain by using chemical weapons in a war they were already winning.
As importantly, Assad knew that launching a chemical attack was tantamount to suicide—he knows, as does everyone paying any attention at all, of the United States warning that a chemical weapons attack would be met with military action against the regime. He knows only too well that to launch a chemical weapons attack would hand the United States an excuse for openly joining the war on the side of the rebels seeking to oust him.
And if Assad Dunit?
The “whodunit” element is not the only one worth considering. Even if it were proven that Assad did use chemical weapons, the basis for “punishing” Assad—morally, and as a matter of coherent policy—is far from evident.
Consider the United States’ own abysmal track record on chemical weapons: the US used them in Vietnam; it maintains one of the world’s largest stockpiles of chemical weapons; and, as recently declassified CIA documents prove, it helped Iraq target Iranian forces with poison gas during the Iran-Iraq war in 1988.
Furthermore, invading, without UN sanction, a country that poses no imminent threat is defined by the UN as the ultimate war crime: a Crime Against Peace.
Déjà Vu All Over Again
Another reason for caution is the American government’s history of fabricating justifications for going to war. Dozens of examples come to mind, and, in the interests of relevance and timeliness, here are a few:
The Gulf of Tonkin Incident is widely regarded as the event that launched America into a full-scale war in Indochina. On the night of August 4, 1964, the destroyer USS Maddox radioed that it was under attack from North Vietnamese torpedo boats. Under dark of night, and in heavy seas, the Maddox fired wildly at suspected targets identified only by radar and sonar contacts without any visual sightings.
Although the USS Maddox suffered no damage, President Johnson urgently took to the air to “inform” the public of the “unprovoked attack” by North Vietnamese on a US vessel in allegedly international waters.
To be sure, with the UN resolution giving Syria eight months to dump its chemical weapons, the calls in Washington for a military attack on Assad’s forces have been muted. But the Obama administration has reserved the right to attack if Syria misses that deadline—which, as we’ve reported, is absurdly short by standards with which the US itself says it could reasonably comply in eliminating its own chemical stocks.
The core point, however, is the rationale advanced for such an attack. It rests on the assumption that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ordered the sarin gas bombardment of a Damascus suburb on August 21. But while there is no disagreement that chemical weapons were used that day, exactly who launched the attack is still very much an open question. For Washington to rush to judgment – and an act of war — on such an unsubstantiated charge suggests that more than righteous anger is at work here.
To understand what that might be, it pays to look deeper – both at the “evidence” linking Assad to the gassing and at the sobering history of America’s all-too-itchy trigger finger when it comes to justifying military strikes at perceived enemies, or when unstated geopolitical agendas and business interests may well be in play.
Whodunit?
The latest UN report on the August 21 bombing is widely cited by American officials as “proof” the Assad regime used chemical weapons. But the authors of that report deny that they proved anything about who is guilty of the atrocity. As they themselves state on the UN’s website:
“Responding to questions, the Secretary-General [of the UN] said Dr. Sellström’s team had been able to determine objectively that Sarin was used on a relatively large scale. It was the team’s job to determine whether and to what extent chemical weapons were used, not who used them.
“It is for others to decide whether to pursue this matter further to determine responsibility. We may all have our own thoughts on this, but I would simply say that this was a grave crime and those responsible must be brought to justice as soon as possible,” he said.
The Associated Press, the world’s largest news-gathering organization, finds no clear support for the administration’s claims about the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons:
“What’s missing from the public record is direct proof, rather than circumstantial evidence, tying this to the regime.”
And in direct contradiction to the claims being made by American officials, German intelligence maintains the attacks were not ordered by President Assad. This conclusion was based on intercepts of the regime’s communications (Germany is a NATO member and a staunch US ally).
Alarmed by what they view as the dusting off of old methods they’ve seen time and again, , a group of dissident American ex-intelligence professionals wrote an open letter to President Obama expressing serious doubts as to whether the Assad regime was responsible for the recent chemical weapon attacks. They write:
“There is a growing body of evidence from numerous sources in the Middle East — mostly affiliated with the Syrian opposition and its supporters — providing a strong circumstantial case that the August 21 chemical incident was a pre-planned provocation by the Syrian opposition and its Saudi and Turkish supporters. The aim is reported to have been to create the kind of incident that would bring the United States into the war.”
Later in the article, this group, known as “Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity” (VIPS), pose the obvious question: cui bono? (Latin for: who benefits?). They point out that the Assad regime had nothing to gain by using chemical weapons in a war they were already winning.
As importantly, Assad knew that launching a chemical attack was tantamount to suicide—he knows, as does everyone paying any attention at all, of the United States warning that a chemical weapons attack would be met with military action against the regime. He knows only too well that to launch a chemical weapons attack would hand the United States an excuse for openly joining the war on the side of the rebels seeking to oust him.
And if Assad Dunit?
The “whodunit” element is not the only one worth considering. Even if it were proven that Assad did use chemical weapons, the basis for “punishing” Assad—morally, and as a matter of coherent policy—is far from evident.
Consider the United States’ own abysmal track record on chemical weapons: the US used them in Vietnam; it maintains one of the world’s largest stockpiles of chemical weapons; and, as recently declassified CIA documents prove, it helped Iraq target Iranian forces with poison gas during the Iran-Iraq war in 1988.
Furthermore, invading, without UN sanction, a country that poses no imminent threat is defined by the UN as the ultimate war crime: a Crime Against Peace.
Déjà Vu All Over Again
Another reason for caution is the American government’s history of fabricating justifications for going to war. Dozens of examples come to mind, and, in the interests of relevance and timeliness, here are a few:
The Gulf of Tonkin Incident is widely regarded as the event that launched America into a full-scale war in Indochina. On the night of August 4, 1964, the destroyer USS Maddox radioed that it was under attack from North Vietnamese torpedo boats. Under dark of night, and in heavy seas, the Maddox fired wildly at suspected targets identified only by radar and sonar contacts without any visual sightings.
Although the USS Maddox suffered no damage, President Johnson urgently took to the air to “inform” the public of the “unprovoked attack” by North Vietnamese on a US vessel in allegedly international waters.
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