Death is Death...
On April 22, 1915,
Captain Fritz Haber, a German chemist and future Nobel prize winner,
was on the front lines in Ypres, Belgium. A pioneer in the
development of chlorine gas and other chemical weapons, such as nerve
and tear gas, the scientist, a friend of Albert Einstein's and Max
Planck's, was present to supervise the first poison gas attack in
military history.
On that day, the Germans launched 167 tons of chlorine against Canadian, British and French
troops.
Some 1,000 were killed.
Two days later, on a windy day, another attack killed 4,000 more...
For Haber, who believed that during peace time a scientist belongs to the world but
during war time he belongs to his country, death by poison
gas was just one more method to kill the enemy, no better or worse
than any other. After all, he said, death is death...
The Geneva Protocol of
1925 however, banned the use of chemical weapons. The Chemical
Weapons Convention of 1997 prohibited the production of poison gases.
Last week, the Assad
government, according to Western intelligence services, launched a
chemical attack on a Damascus suburb held by rebels forces
seeking to overthrow the regime.
According to figures
contained in an intelligence summary released by the US government on
Friday, 1,429 Syrians died in the attack, including 426 children.
Many in the West and
elsewhere, particularly after having seen the horrific You Tube videos
of the victims, were appalled and demanded action.
Last August, President
Obama indicated that the use of such weapons by Assad constituted
crossing a red line that would lead the US to
reconsider its policy of non-intervention in Syria.
We have been very
clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground,
that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical
weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my
calculus. That would change my equation, he declared on
August 20, 2012.
Yesterday, Secretary of
state John Kerry forcefully claimed that that red line had been
crossed, and that action was now necessary.
History will judge
us all extraordinarily harshly if we turn a blind eye to a dictator's
wanton use of weapons of mass destruction, he said during a
press briefing. We cannot accept a world where women and
children and innocent civilians are gassed on a terrible scale,
he added.
Action was required if
only to preserve US credibility.
They (other
nations) want to see whether the United States and our friends
mean what we say. It matters deeply to the credibility and the future
of the United States of America and our allies, he said.
The French president,
François Hollande concurred. It is important to punish
Syria, precisely because it had crossed what he also referred to as a
red line, he told Le Monde.
The British were
conspicuously absent from these proceedings, Prime minister Cameron
having lost an important vote in Westminster Thursday that would have
paved the way (after a follow-up vote next week) for British participation in any attack against the
Syrian regime.
Ironically, if
historically correct, Kerry referred to France as America's oldest
ally, during the press briefing, much to to the chagrin of
many in Britain...
So, a red line has been
crossed.
Yet, has it?
During the 1970s and
1980s, the Soviet Union resorted to chemical weapons numerous times,
particularly against resistance forces in Laos, Cambodia and
Afghanistan.
What did the international
community, the UN, do about this gross violation of international
law?
Nothing.
In the early 1980s, during
the endless Iraq-Iran war, Hussein regularly used chemical weapons in
order to counter Iranian ground offensives, with US help.
According to the magazine
Foreign Policy, but a generation ago, America's military and
intelligence communities knew and did nothing to stop a series of
nerve gas attacks far more devastating than anything Syria has seen.
As retired Air Force Col.
Rick Francona told Foreign Policy, the Iraqis never told us
that they intended to use nerve gas. They didn't have to. We already
knew.
Francona was a military
attaché in Baghdad at the time. Recently declassified CIA documents
reveal that the Reagan administration actively aided Saddam Hussein,
providing him with intelligence on Iranian troop movements. The
Reagan administration decided that it was better to let the attacks
continue if they might turn the tide of the war. And even if they
were discovered, the CIA wagered that international outrage and
condemnation would be muted, Foreign Policy writes.
The documents show
that senior U.S. Officials were being regularly informed about the
scale of the nerve gas attacks. They are tantamount to an official
American admission of complicity in some of the most gruesome
chemical weapon attacks ever launched, the magazine added.
In 1988, Hussein launched
a nerve gas attack on his own citizens, in Halabja, a Kurdish
village.
Between 3,000 and 5,000
Kurds were killed....
What were the
consequences? There were not any at all.
For the West, defeating
Khomeini's Iran was of paramount importance, whatever the means
employed...
As such, there are red
lines but some are redder than others...
Yet, the US and France
assure us, if a military intervention is necessary in order to
dissuade others from resorting to chemical weapons, it will be a
limited one.
On Thursday, the White
House insisted that the attack would be discrete and limited.
Yesterday, President Obama
described the upcoming operation as a limited and narrow act.
Hollande emphasized the
fact that he had no intention of launching an attack to overthrow
Assad, but rather parry the latter's military
offensive.
Discrete and limited?
What possible strategic
value can such a strike have?
What possible effect can a
flurry of Tomahawk missiles have on the military situation on the
ground?
No matter, MM. Holland and
Obama have but one strategy, apparently: punish Assad
and move on...
Both gentlemen are likely
to be disappointed by the results.
There's a broad
naiveté in the political class about America's obligations in
foreign policy issues, and scary simplicity about the effects that
employing American military power can achieve, retired Lt.
Gen. Gregory S. Newbold told the WP.
Perhaps limited military
action can be useful as part of a broader coherent strategy to manage
and contain the Syrian crisis.
In an ABC News interview
earlier this month, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff said it (the war in Iraq) has branded in
me the idea that the use of military power must be part of an overall
strategic solution that includes international partners and a whole
government. Simply the application of force rarely produces and, in
fact, maybe never produces the outcome we seek...
A retired senior officer
involved in operational planning in the Middle East said this to the
WP: what is the political end state we're to achieve? I don't
know what it is. We say it's not regime change . If it's punishment,
there are other ways to punish.
For his part, Jim Inhofe, Senator from Oklahoma, the highest ranking Republican on the Senate armed services committee, told The Guardian, it is vital we avoid shortsighted military action that would have little impact on the long-term trajectory of the conflict. We can't simply launch a few missiles and hope for the best.
In addition, has anyone
envisioned the consequences of a discrete and limited attack on
Damascus?
How many hapless civilians
will we inadvertently kill; how much more hatred of the West will we
sow in the region, as yet another Muslim country is attacked by a
US-led coalition; what will that do to advance the fortunes of
Islamic extremists across the region; how about for Mr. Assad
himself, when he triumphantly emerges from his bunker to declare
victory against the imperialist and colonial aggressors?
Do we really believe that
he will feel chastened, humbled and intimidated by our discrete
strikes?
Death is death, Haber
observed.
It is difficult to quibble
with that point.
The ghastly and vicious
attack on civilians in a Damascus suburb is indeed a disgrace.
No one, not even in Moscow
or Beijing can deny this fact.
The indignation sweeping
the West and the world is natural as are calls to act in order to
prevent Assad from slaughtering his own people.
Yet, why does the death of
1,500, tragic as that is, engender a wave of indignation that the the
murder of 100,000 could not?
More than 100,000 had
already been killed before the August 21 attack, much to our own
chagrin, perhaps, but without any of our leaders actively planning to
stop the bloodshed...
One gas attack, and MM.
Hollande and Obama want to launch another war in the Middle East(for
even discrete strikes constitute an act of war), even though they
solemnly promise it is not a war but a penalty, to
quote M. Hollande?
What message, furthermore
are they sending to Assad and all the other thugs across the planet?
Butchering your own
civilian population with conventional means is acceptable, morally
acceptable to the international community. It must be, since there
has been no talk of intervention, however discrete, until now.
As long as Assad keeps
resorting to fighter jets, gunship helicopters, missiles, bombs,
shells, tanks, artillery, then he may proceed as he pleases. MM.
Hollande and Obama will do nothing to stop his vile and dastardly
assaults on civilians.
100,000 have already been
killed that way.
What moral threshold has
been crossed by the poison gas attack?
MM.Holland and Obama could
live with the fact that so many had been killed these last thirty
months...
One poison gas attack, and
they are now seething with indignation?
How authentic is this
sudden pang of conscience?
Death is death...
If you've seen any
of the pictures, it's definitely heart wrenching. You know, death by
sarin is, I'm sure, horrific. But death by shrapnel is not a good
thing, either, Matthew Baum, an international affairs expert
at Harvard University, told McClatchy.
In essence, is the
forthcoming attack really about Assad or is it instead about MM.
Hollande and Obama?
Embarrassed by their
callous inaction up to now, by those casualties mounting
by the day, they are convinced that their resolve will be made
manifest, and their credibility restored by a limited strike on
Damascus.
If their true objective is
to protect the Syrian people, they should develop a strategy to
achieve just that, which entails an invasion of Syria, and the
overthrow of Assad.
If it is not, if they are
not ready and willing to pay that price (and who would be after
Iraq), then they should leave well enough alone, and spare the
Syrians further suffering. Surely, they do not need to be plummeted
with Tomahawks fired from ships which will have already left the
region tow days after the beginning of the strikes, so that MM.
Hollande and Obama can assuage their conscience, while playing the
role of global avengers...
(the photograph above of victims of the posion gas attack in a Damascus suburb last week is by Bassam Kabieh/Reuters)
