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US and France press on with Syria strike plans as Britain, Germany opt out

Al-Akhbar | August 30, 2013

British lawmakers have rejected their government’s call for military strikes against the Syrian government, leaving the US to look elsewhere for international partners while reserving the right to act alone against Damascus.

The British House of Commons voted Thursday to defy Prime Minister David Cameron’s bid to win support for military intervention over Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons.

The Syrian government has firmly denied responsibility for the attacks.

Speaking in Manila Friday, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel insisted Washington is still seeking an “international coalition” to take action against Assad.

“Our approach is to continue to find an international coalition that will act together,” Hagel told a news conference.

But he did not say which countries might be part of an international coalition, and his comments appeared to strike a different tone from earlier statements by White House officials suggesting the US is prepared to act alone.

Hagel said Washington respected the British parliament’s stance rejecting participation in any strikes in Syria.

“We are continuing to consult with the British as with all of our allies. That consultation includes ways forward together on a response to this chemical weapons attack in Syria,” he added.

French President Francois Hollande said the British vote against taking military action in Syria would not affect France’s will to act to against Assad.

Hollande told the daily Le Monde in an interview that he still supported taking “firm” punitive action over an attack he said had caused “irreparable” harm to the Syrian people and said he would work closely with France’s allies.

Asked if France could take action without Britain, Hollande replied: “Yes. Each country is sovereign to participate or not in an operation. That is valid for Britain as it is for France.”

Hollande said a military strike on Syria could come by Wednesday, when the French parliament is due to meet for an emergency session on Syria.

The French leader said that he would not take any decision to act unless the conditions were there to justify that.

“All the options are on the table. France wants action that is in proportion and firm against the Damascus regime,” he said.

“There are few countries that have the capacity to inflict a sanction by the appropriate means. France is one of them. We are ready. We will decide our position in close liaison with our allies.”

The British parliament’s decision also came after the failure of an improbable eleventh-hour effort by British diplomats to win UN backing for action against Bashar al-Assad at a meeting of the permanent members of the Security Council.

“It is clear to me that the British parliament, reflecting the views of the British people, does not want to see British military action. I get that and the government will act accordingly,” Cameron said.

His government was defeated by 13 votes in the House of Commons in its bid for a “strong humanitarian response” to the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria.

Germany’s Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle ruled out his country’s participation in the military strike.

Westerwelle told Saturday’s Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung that such a move had “neither been asked nor is it being considered by us”, according to pre-released comments by the paper.

“We are pushing for the United Nations Security Council to find a common position and for the work of UN inspectors to be finished as quickly as possible,” he added.

That, combined with deadlock at the United Nations, appeared to effectively sound the death knell for the idea of a broad-based Western military coalition, although other American allies might still participate.

Caitlin Hayden, a National Security Council spokeswoman said that President Barack Obama’s decision-making “will be guided by what is in the best interests of the United States.”

“He believes that there are core interests at stake for the United States and that countries who violate international norms regarding chemical weapons need to be held accountable.”

Earlier, envoys from the permanent five members of the UN Security Council – Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States – had met at UN headquarters in New York.

The 45-minute meeting was the second since Britain proposed a draft resolution to permit “all necessary measures” to protect Syrian civilians after a suspected chemical weapons attack last week.

But none of the envoys commented as they left.

Earlier in the week reports had suggested that a Western strike was imminent, but questions have been raised about the quality of the intelligence linking Assad to the attack.

The White House reached out to US lawmakers, with the president’s top aides briefing congressional leaders in a 90 minute conference call.

Some members of Congress voiced support for limited, surgical strikes, while urging the administration to continue consulting closely with the Congress.

Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader in the House, said she agreed with House Speaker John Boehner that “there needs to be more consultation with all members of Congress and additional transparency into the decision making process and timing, and that the case needs to be made to the American people.

US warships armed with scores of cruise missiles are converging on the eastern Mediterranean, and US military officials have said they are ready to launch a powerful barrage against government targets in Syria.

Assad ally Russia has blocked all attempts to toughen international sanctions against Damascus or authorize outside force to punish or unseat Assad.

As the stand-off continues, a team of UN inspectors are investigating reports that last week’s gas attack outside Damascus killed more than 350 people, including women and children.

A UN spokesman said Thursday that the team had collected “considerable” evidence and will brief UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon soon after they leave Syria on Saturday.

“Starting tomorrow he will try to reach out to member states and take discussions forward on the question of what is happening in Syria,” the spokesman said.

Ban has appealed for the inspectors to be allowed to complete their work before the major powers decide any follow-up action.

Assad remained defiant in the face of the Western threats.

“Syria will defend itself in the face of any aggression,” state television cited him as telling a visiting delegation of Yemeni politicians.

He vowed that any attack would result in “victory” for the Syrian people.

His government has denied using chemical weapons and blamed “terrorist” rebels.

The mood among Damascus residents was fearful, while security forces prepared for possible air attacks by pulling back soldiers from potential targets and introducing tougher controls at roadblocks and hospitals.

(AFP, Reuters, Al-Akhbar)

August 30, 2013 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

Moscow: No Strike Against Syria This Week

By Jean Aziz | Al-Akhbar | August 29, 2013

Diplomatic sources in Russia say that those who are expecting a military strike against Syria will have to wait a little longer, predicting a fight at the UN Security Council before Washington sends its Tomahawks over Damascus.

There are those in the Syrian capital who were convinced that media reports of an imminent strike – with many reporting that Thursday, August 29 was the zero hour – were largely accurate, expecting US missiles to rain down on Damascus in the coming hours.

The media had declared that four US naval vessels were already in place near the Syrian coast, ready to unleash 90 Tomahawk missiles each on a variety of military targets throughout the country. Western officials and analysts, however, all talked of a limited attack that was not intended to topple the regime.

A Russian diplomatic source seemed quite confident that Washington is not quite ready to carry out the attack, at least not this week, and all the bluster that we heard from Western capitals is beginning to temper, particularly after considering the repercussions of military action on the region as a whole.

The diplomat explained that the Obama administration has now decided to expend all means to get “international legitimacy” for the strike by resorting to the UN Security Council, where they will once again hit a wall of opposition from China and Russia. This, the source added, will take them at least a few days to reach a dead end.

There is also the question of obtaining Congress’ approval, which Obama has decided to seek, perhaps for internal political calculations, according to the Russian diplomat, adding that they do not plan to meet to discuss the issue before the beginning of next week.

He noted that Moscow has opened all its lines of communication with Washington, and that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is in constant contact with his US counterpart John Kerry to keep up with all the developments and prevent any misunderstandings or miscommunication.

It is through these channels, which the source says Moscow opened with the Europeans too, that they have sensed a de-escalation on the part of the West, moderating their tone. This may not mean that they no longer intend to wage an attack and are just buying time to prepare the necessary forces, he added, but it does offer an opportunity to try to diffuse the situation.

The diplomat was not overly concerned about the fact that Washington canceled the August 28 meeting in The Hague to discuss plans for the Geneva II conference, maintaining that the American side remains keen on a political solution to the Syrian crisis and will agree with Russia on a new date this Fall.

He went on to reveal that there are approximately 17,000 Russian citizens that remain in Syria today, who work as “experts” in various state institutions, and it is the duty of Moscow to protect them from any bodily harm. He explained that there are no plans to evacuate them for the time being, confirming that a few hundred families have departed by way of Beirut in the last few days.

What will happen then? All possibilities are still open – it is like the Cuban missile crisis but on a smaller scale, he replied, so anything is possible. What is important is that we don’t think anything will happen this week, so sleep easy and we will wake you when the hour of reckoning approaches.

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August 29, 2013 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Misunderstanding, militarized

By Matt Erickson | LJWorld | August 21, 2013

[Jerry] Dobson, a professor of geography at Kansas University [KU], is the lead researcher on one of 14 projects to win grants this year from the Minerva Research Initiative, a U.S. Department of Defense effort to learn more about other parts of the world through social-science research.  He and other researchers will receive about $1.8 million over three years to study indigenous communities throughout Central America, with a possibility to apply for renewal and receive a total of $3 million over five years. […] “There are too many instances where misunderstanding of other areas has cost us,” Dobson said. From Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan, he says, the United States may have fared better in many of its conflicts over the past half-century with more knowledge about the culture and politics of other parts of the world.

Yes, the Bowman expeditions are back, rebooted by a Department of Defense Minerva grant, and soon to arrive in all seven Central American countries.  To study which indigenous peoples, exactly?  Usually in academia such things are not secret, but this project involves the US military.  After reading Erickson’s story I wrote Professor Dobson to ask for a copy of his research proposal.  In reply to my request, he sent me a link to one of his peevish essays.  I thanked him for the piece and asked for the proposal again; he replied by asking if I had read his essay—which, I gather, he sees as a scathing rebuke of critical scholars like me, hence an answer in itself.  That’s the thing about collaborating with the military: it makes you more cloistered and secretive.  The fraternal romance of power creeps in.  Pretty soon you don’t share basic information about your research with other scholars, even when the work is funded from the public and motivated, ostensibly, by a need to create an “informed public.”

In fairness to Professor Dobson, he has reason to be defensive.  His work has come under sharp criticism (see Joe Bryan’s essay, e.g., and its links).  I recently published a book, Geopiracy: Oaxaca, militant empiricism, and geographic thought, that examines how Dr. Dobson and other geographers from the University of Kansas went to Mexico to map indigenous lands with funds from the US military and, according to the communities they studied, failed to mention the source of their funds and their ties to the US military.  I won’t recapitulate the whole story (you can read Jeremy Crampton’s review here), but it’s worth remembering that the controversy started when indigenous communities in Oaxaca discovered the ties between the Bowman expeditions and the US military.  They rebelled, publishing a trio of public denunciations of the project, such as this 2009 letter from the community of San Miguel Tiltepec, Oaxaca:

[The geographers] never informed us that the data they collected in our community would be given to the Foreign Military Study Office (FMSO) of the Army of the United States, nor did they inform us that this institution was one of the sources of financing for the project.  Because of this, we consider that our General Assembly was tricked by the researchers, in order to draw out the information the[y] wanted.  The community did not request the research[;] it was the researchers who convinced the community to carry it out.  Thus, the research was not carried out due to the community’s need, it was the researchers […] who designed the research method in order to collect the type of information that truly interested them. […] [W]e wish to express to the public […] our complete disagreement with the research carried out in our community, since we were not properly informed of the true goals of the research, the use of the information obtained, and the sources of financing [for the entire statement, see Zoltan Grossman’s website].

The ‘Oaxaca controversy’ shocked many by revealing US military collaboration with academic geographers.  With his NSF/Minerva grant, Professor Dobson is again spearheading the military front within the discipline.  Although to read the coverage of his work in LJWorld, it seems the sole motivation is cultural understanding.

Thanks to the Public Records Office at the University of Kansas, I was able to obtain a copy of the proposal that won Dr. Dobson the $3 million.  As a scholarly proposal it is not worth serious discussion.  The text is comprised mainly of recycled bits of Bowman Expedition doggerel; superficially it resembles an NSF proposal, but the analytical architecture is just shoddy.  For instance, their research hypothesis is: “certain land tenure and land use practices will mean significant level of cultural resilience, with associated benefits, such as environmental conservation and tourism development…” (p 4).  Yet these “certain” practices are never defined and the brief theoretical discussion on land tenure relies mainly on a handful of US military sources.  Their methodology is to vacuum up as much material about indigenous communities as they can obtain and repackage everything into one giant “ArcGIS database of digital maps, data, and statistics” (p 5).

Nevertheless, the proposal contains these useful hints about the project.  Their fieldwork is based out of the Department of Anthropology at the National Autonomous University of Honduras (or UNAH) where they are collaborating with anthropologist Dr. Silva Gonzalez (p 5).  They aim to study all the municipalities in Central America where at least 30% of the population is indigenous as classified by language (p 7).  Presumably this means that they will conduct considerable fieldwork in Guatemala – home to the largest percentage of indigenous people in Central American – although, curiously, Honduras is the only country singled out for fieldwork in the proposal.

Less ambiguous are their promises about the project’s usefulness to the US military.  The proposal’s one-page ‘abstract’ includes this statement:

Impact on DoD Capabilities and Broader Implications for National Defense: The proposed research addresses recognized deficiencies in U. S. foreign policy, military strategy, and foreign intelligence.  DoD will gain new capabilities to conduct human geographic research, similar to but more advanced than those employed extensively in World Wars I and II.  DoD will benefit directly and abundantly from the openly-reported research and the geographic information disseminated and from a greatly improved pool of regional experts, an improved labor pool, and a better informed public in times of future political debates and conflict [my italics].

Never mind a weak analytical argument; this is the stuff that wins Minerva grants.

The Minerva program emerged out of the DoD circa 2007, i.e. the same era as the Bowman expeditions.  Through Minerva the DoD seeks to derive ideas and data about potential targets from US-based social scientists.  To do so, the Pentagon has teamed up with NSF (which engages the scholars and handles the money).  The funding isn’t enormous – a few million dollars per grant – but these are times when money is scarce and even research proposals rated as ‘excellent’ are not necessarily funded by NSF.  Ironically, the competitiveness of normal NSF (scientific) funding increases the prestige value of the Minerva (military) grants.  And the NSF helps some Minerva applicants assuage their fears that they are not actually conducting military research.  But make no mistake; it is the DoD’s money and they shape the agenda.  They will also certainly get the ArcGIS database being built by the Kansas geographers.

Geographers have not been at the forefront of the Minerva program; Dr. Dobson’s was, I believe, the only geography proposal funded in this year’s batch.  Among geographers there is practically nothing written on Minerva, but perhaps Dobson’s grant will change that (the Social Science Research Council has posted a useful overview on Minerva with some good essays, such as this one by Priya Satia at Stanford).  To grasp something of the psychology of those geographers working with the US military today, we are best served by studying the recent pair of extraordinary papers published by Trevor Barnes on Walter Christaller’s work for the Nazi regime (including this one, coauthored with Claudio Minca, in Annals of the AAG 103(3)).  And in times of Bowman redux, we should reread the late Neil Smith’s outstanding biography of Isaiah Bowman, American Empire:

[C]iting the ‘growing influence of geography among military men,’ [Bowman] even urged the War Department [today’s Department of Defense] to send some officers to the AGS [sponsor of today’s Bowman expeditions] to advance their studies in ‘the field of geography as applied to military operations’.  He hedged about whether Latin American governments should be informed.  What became of these plans tendering geography for the purpose of government spying is not clear.  There have always been social scientists who have collaborated with government intelligence organizations, and from the time of the Roman geographer Strabo to the current CIA [headed by Petraeus], geography as a scholarly pursuit has traditionally operated as a handmaiden to the state.  But the great majority of scholars have traditionally frowned on collusion with military intelligence operations, and scholarly associations often carry explicit prohibitions against spying. […] What is remarkable about Bowman’s injudicious peddling of geography and the services of the AGS is the lack of any sense that his eager cooperation with Military Intelligence, the government’s premier spy agency of this period, in any way compromises his scientific integrity or endangers scientists (pp. 89-90).

The Bowman Expeditions represent only one side-project for the US state/military and a small one at that.  Thanks to Edward Snowden, the NSA’s spying has been exposed and we’ve learned how hundreds of thousands of people in the US have been subject to government surveillance.  The situation is much worse when we consider US state surveillance of the rest of the world.  The task of systematically collecting geospatial data and conducting routine surveillance around the world for the US state/military falls to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), an organization that has not received the scrutiny given to the NSA.  (On the NSA revelations and the NGA, see Jeremy Crampton’s excellent essay at the Society and Space website.)  No less worrying are the myriad military programs to improve how the US armed forces – particularly the Army – ‘uses’ human geography as a weapon.  As I have discussed elsewhere, these are geographical projects of much greater significance than the Bowman expeditions and led by people who are more dangerous than Professor Dobson.

We are witnessing an unprecedented attempt by one state to collect data – much of it geocoded – from multiple sources (data mining, satellites, outright spying, and much more), reaching into the most intimate spaces of our lives and saturating our very means of communication.  The US government has constructed an unparalleled platform for geospatial data collection and analyses, capable of mapping people’s movements and communications across the entire planet.  All of this has potential military ‘applications’, meaning the potential to harm people, including US citizens (since we can have little faith that these tools cannot be used on civilians through police, FBI, or other agencies).  The capacity of the US state/military to locate, follow, track, and kill people is without precedent and without equal, and that is the point.  Given the extraordinary record of violence carried out by the US government over the past century – from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan – one would have to have an almost religious faith in the infallibility of US leadership and the rightness of their ideology not to look at the government’s military/intelligence capacities and feel enraged at the injustices already committed—and the many more to come.

What are we to do?  One way to answer this question, as Professor Dobson reminds us, is to ask how we can “reduce international misunderstandings.”  His approach is to militarize those misunderstandings by providing maps and data to the Pentagon.  There is another way, one elaborated beautifully by Edward Said in a 1991 interview.  Allow me to quote at length:

There’s only one way to anchor oneself [as an intellectual], and that is by affiliation with a cause, a political movement.  There has to be identification not with the secretary of state or the leading philosopher of the time but with matters involving justice, principle, truth, conviction.  Those don’t occur in a laboratory or a library.  For the American intellectual, that means, at bottom, that the relationship between the United States and the rest of the world, now based upon profit and power, has to be altered to one of coexistence among human communities that can make and remake their own histories and environments together. … [Unfortunately, even] inside the university, the prevalence of norms based upon domination and coercion is so strong because the idea of authority is so strong, whether it’s derived from the nation-state, from religion, from the ethnos, from tradition. … Part of intellectual work is understanding how authority is formed.  Authority is not God-given.  It’s secular.  And if you can understand that, then your work is conducted in such a way as to be able to provide alternatives to the authoritative and coercive norms that dominate so much of our intellectual life, our national and political life, and our international life above all.

If we are going to criticize the formation of authority and provide alternatives to the norms that dominate intellectual life, we have no choice: we must confront the US military.

~

Joel Wainwright is an Associate Professor in Geography at The Ohio State University. His most recent book Geopiracy: Oaxaca, Militant Empiricism, and Geographical Thought delivers an expanded critique of the first round of Bowman expeditions.

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August 29, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

‘No War With Syria’ rallies happening this Saturday August 31, worldwide

The following notice has been posted all over the internet, please help to pass the word along.

Here’s the plan of action to oppose the illegal and unconstitutional war with Syria:

We are launching a global rally on Saturday August 31st in every city and town in the world.

Here’s how you get involved

siria-guerraGo to the FB search bar and search for ‘No War With Syria Rally (your city)’.

Join the event, invite ALL of your friends to join it as well, then get involved with the locals that are already in the event page to help them any way you can.

If there is no event page made for your location yet, please make one. Here’s how:

-Simply click on your event tab from your FB homepage.

-Click create an event.

-Name the event ‘No War With Syria Rally (your city)’.

-make sure you set the privacy to public so other people can find it when they search for it.

-Pick a central and relevant location and start time for your area (please make it on Saturday August 31st).

-Invite ALL of your friends and encourage everyone else to invite their friends as well and do whatever else you can to let people know about the rally.

-Try to get some volunteers together to make banners to do some canvassing on Friday the night before your rally. Make signs.

-Pass out flyers in the days leading up to your rally.

-Contact other activist groups in your area for help.

-contact local media and let them know about your rally. Focus on independent journalists in your area.

-Set up a hashtag for your march and use it on FB, Twitter, and Instagram.

-The rest is up to your discretion to handle locally.

The time to change the world and stop the war is now. Share this information with anyone and everyone you know, thousands of innocent lives depend on it.

August 28, 2013 Posted by | Militarism, Solidarity and Activism | , | Leave a comment

UN calls for Security Council approval before any military strike in Syria

Al-Akhbar | August 28, 2013

Any US military action taken in response to suspected chemical weapons attacks in Syria would need to be approved by the UN Security Council, international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said on Wednesday.

“I think international law is clear on this. International law says that military action must be taken after a decision by the Security Council. That is what international law says,” he told a press conference in Geneva.

“I must say that I do know that President Obama and the American administration are not known to be trigger-happy. What they will decide I don’t know. But certainly international law is very clear.”

The United States and its allies built their case Wednesday for likely military action against the Syrian government in the war-torn country over an alleged chemical attack on August 21, despite stern warnings from Russia.

The ramp-up of military language came as UN inspectors began a second day of investigating the sites of the alleged chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds of people.

The ground for a Western military intervention in Syria was being set out by US Vice President Joe Biden, who for the first time said last week’s attack, thought to have killed hundreds, could only have been perpetrated by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.

“[US President Barack Obama] believes and I believe that those who use chemical weapons against defenseless men, women and children should and must be held accountable,” he said.

US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the American military was already prepared to act if Obama gave the order –though White House aides said no final decision had been taken.

“We have moved assets in place to be able to fulfill and comply with whatever option the president wishes to take,” Hagel told the BBC. “We are ready to go, like that.”

The Syrian government strongly denies the claims leveled against it.

“Many facts tend to prove the innocence of the Syrian government, which has been subject to false accusations,” Syrian ambassador to the UN Bashar al-Jaafari told state media.

Jaafari said such facts also showed that “armed groups have used chemical weapons in order to bring about military intervention and aggression against Syria.”

Jaafari said such facts also showed that “armed groups have used chemical weapons in order to bring about military intervention and aggression against Syria.”

The West and Turkey “have enabled terrorist groups to create a laboratory for chemical weapons on Turkish territory with materials provided by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar… and to bring these chemical weapons to Syria for use,” he alleged.

A team of United Nations inspectors reached rebel-held territory outside Damascus on Wednesday, opposition activists said.

“They have reached the town of Maleiha and are now with the rebel escorts, soon they will head to towns where the strikes happened and begin their inspections,” activist Salam Mohammed said, speaking to Reuters via Skype.

The team of arms experts boarded a convoy of six vehicles in Damascus, the photographer said. It was unclear which site they were intending to visit.

This came a day after the experts suspended their mission for one day over safety concerns.

The inspectors braved sniper fire when they began their mission on Monday but still managed to visit two field hospitals in Moadamiyet al-Sham, southwest of Damascus, and collect evidence of last week’s suspected chemical attacks.

But they were unable carry out a planned visit to a second site in Eastern Ghouta, on the Syrian capital’s northeastern outskirts, on Tuesday because their safety could not be guaranteed.

Britain joined the US in saying government forces were behind the strikes, and Prime Minister David Cameron said London and its allies had to consider whether targeted military action was required to “deter and degrade the future use of chemical weapons.”

French President Francois Hollande said his country was “ready to punish” those behind the chemical attacks and that he would meet the Syrian opposition’s leader on Thursday.

Moscow, Assad’s most powerful ally, again warned a military solution would destabilize the Middle East, and Syria’s envoy to the UN blamed rebels in the country for launching the attack to provoke international intervention.

Speaking to UN-Arab League envoy for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said “a military solution will lead only to a further destabilization of the situation in the country and the region,” his ministry said.

Senior officials in Washington told NBC news that possible strikes against targets in Syria could take place as early as Thursday.

Analysts expect to see cruise missiles launched from US and allied submarines, ships and possibly planes, firing into Syria from outside its waters and airspace.

A military campaign in Syria is expected to be limited in scope, likely to last only several days and to target military sites but not the chemical weapons stocks themselves, sources in Washington said.

An official in Syria’s main opposition National Coalition said the group expects a Western military intervention and it has been consulted over targets, which included airports, military bases and arms depots.

“It’s a question of days and not weeks,” said Ahmad Ramadan, adding that “there have been meetings between the Coalition, the (rebel) Free Syrian Army and allied countries.”

During a news conference on Tuesday, Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said Damascus would defend itself.

“We have two options: either to surrender, or to defend ourselves with the means at our disposal,” he said. “The second choice is the best. We will defend ourselves.”

(AFP, Reuters, Al-Akhbar)

August 28, 2013 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Obama’s Looming War of Aggression in Syria and the Pathologies of America’s Iran Debate

By Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett | Going to Tehran | August 27th, 2013

As the Obama administration manufactures its “case” for military aggression against Syria in the coming days or weeks, we want to highlight an interview that Hillary did with Zeinab al-Saffar when we were in Beirut earlier this summer; the interview is now available on Al Mayadeen’s Web site, see here.  Hillary’s account of how the United States self-servingly demonizes non-Western countries that get in its way seems highly applicable to the current discussion—it hardly merits the label “debate”—about attacking something in Syria, ostensibly because of claims that the Syrian government used chemical weapons against civilians last week in Ghouta, an eastern suburb of Damascus.  The frame for such demonization, Hillary notes, is inevitably driven by and bound up with

“the United States’ way of going to war.  The United States doesn’t go to war, it says, to protect its interests.  The United States says it’s going to war to ‘liberate’ peoples—whether they’re liberating people in Cuba, Vietnam, Iraq, and prospectively Iran.  And the way the American people is conditioned to accept it (and, essentially, world opinion as well) is that American experts put out a narrative about these various countries—whether it’s Cuba, Vietnam, Iraq, or now Iran—they put out a narrative about how repressive that society is, how illegitimate its government is in terms of its domestic politics, and how irrational it is in its foreign policy.  We’ve seen this in country after country that the United States has invaded or tried to invade to overthrow its government.”

Of course, no one anticipates that President Obama is about to order a U.S.-led invasion of Syria.  But, since Obama’s foolish declaration in August 2011 that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “must go,” the United States has been committed to the Syrian government’s overthrow.  And the demonization of Syria’s government as repressive, illegitimate, and irrational has proceeded apace, exactly along the lines described by Hillary.  Now the demonization focuses on unsubstantiated allegations of the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons as a justification for the United States to use military force against it—just as concocted claims about Saddam Husayn’s weapons of mass destruction were central to building the case for invading Iraq in 2003.

Make no mistake, U.S. military action against Syria will be fragrantly illegal (not that President Obama’s senior advisors, most members of Congress, or much of the American public will care).  Nevertheless, the Obama administration is gearing up for precisely such action—and for entirely self-generated reasons.  It was Obama who declared that Assad “must go.”  It was Obama who declared that chemical weapons use was a “red line.”  It was Obama who put himself in a position where he can’t entertain the possibility that Syrian oppositionists used chemical weapons, because that would destroy his administration’s Syria policy.  And because Obama took these ill-considered and illegal positions, he must now use American military power to preserve his “credibility.”

Obama took these positions, the “credibility” of which he must now defend by engaging in overt aggression, in no small part because American foreign policy elites believe that bringing down the Assad government will undermine the Islamic Republic of Iran.  In her interview for Al Mayadeen, Hillary discusses the evolution of our own thinking about the Islamic Republic, how America should engage it, and what are the real obstacles to a more realistic and effective American posture toward Tehran.

In particular, she charts the progress from our earlier advocacy of a U.S.-Iranian “grand bargain” (whereby America would “talk Iran into agreeing with American positions on Hizballah, on the nuclear issue, on the Palestinian issue, on a range of things”) to our recognition that “something much more profound and deep” is required—that the United States needs “to come to terms with and accept” a fiercely independent Islamic Republic, in much the same way that President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger came to terms with and accepted the People’s Republic of China in the early 1970s.  She also recounts the attacks we have faced—first from the right, when we were criticizing President George W. Bush’s handling of Iran policy, followed by much of the left, when we began making the same criticisms of Obama’s posture toward Iran.  In this context, Hillary argues that our biggest offense has been to challenge the deeply held American myth “that Iranians were demanding to be liberated by the United States, but not liberated by an American tank, but by the great American ideas and great American values, that everyone wants, deep in their heart, to be secular liberals…if you questioned that in the United States, as we did, you really were vilified.”

Our experience strongly suggests that the biggest obstacles to genuine revision of U.S. policy toward the Islamic Republic are some fundamental aspects of American political culture.  As Hillary points out, “to accept an Islamist political order, [the United States] would have to give up the pursuit of hegemony, the pursuit of dominance.  This idea that we can use the excuse of what’s called American exceptionalism—that the United States is a unique force for good in the world—to invade other countries to ‘liberate’ them, we’d have to give that up, because we’d have to recognize that there is some legitimacy to other political orders, particularly ones that are Islamist.  And that’s especially relevant in the Middle East that is so important in geostrategic terms.”

The problem, though, is that “hegemony may be nice in theory—if you could get it, if you could rule the world, that might be a nice idea for some Americans in theory—but you cannot get it in the Middle East, because you are up against Islam.  You cannot do it; you cannot defeat that.  For the United States to have any strategic influence in this vital part of the world, we argue in our book, we have to come to terms with that—just as we could not defeat one billion people in China who wanted to have their independence.  It’s a very similar situation.”

But it seems that United States is not yet ready to come to terms with this reality.  And so, in another vain attempt to get at the Islamic Republic of Iran, America is about to engage in illegal aggression against one of the Middle East’s most avowedly secular governments—a government that, like the Islamic Republic, actually fights the kind of violent (and anti-American), al Qaida-affiliated extremism that some U.S. “allies” work so hard to promote.

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August 28, 2013 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Honduras: Congress Resurrects Military Police Force

Weekly News Update on the Americas | August 25, 2013

Honduras’ National Congress voted on Aug. 21 to approve a law creating the Military Police of Public Order (PMOP), a new 5,000-member police unit composed of army reservists under the control of the military. This will be in addition to a 4,500-member “community police” force that the government is forming, according to an Aug. 12 announcement by Security Minister Arturo Corrales. Although he called the move a “change of course,” Corrales failed to explain the difference between the community police, which is to be operative by September, and the existing national police force.

The government’s plan to raise the number of police agents by 9,500 is clearly meant to respond to the dramatic increase in crime in Honduras; according to the United Nations, the country now has an annual murder rate of 84 for every 100,000 people, the highest in the world. Police corruption is a major problem, and police agents have been convicted of high-profile crimes [see Update #1187]. The current police force had 14,472 agents on the payroll as of May, but in a new police scandal, only 9,350 agents could be found at work during July.

The police changes come as candidates prepare for Nov. 24 general elections, which will choose a new president, the 128 members of Congress, the 20 representatives to the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN), and local mayors [Update #1162]. The main force behind the new military police is Juan Orlando Hernández, who has resigned from his post as president of the National Congress to run as the presidential candidate of the center-right National Party (PN)—the party of current president Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa, who has governed Honduras since January 2010 without being able to contain the crime wave.

Human rights activists strongly oppose the proposed military police unit. “In no part of the world have the soldiers resolved security problems,” Omar Rivera, who directs the Alliance for Peace and Justice (APJ), a coalition of civil society, organizations, told the French wire service AFP. He added that a serious fight against crime would require a fight against impunity. Bertha Oliva, the coordinator of the Committee of Relatives of Disappeared Detainees in Honduras (COFADEH), called the creation of the new force “a step backwards in the demilitarization of society and the democratization of the country.” “The soldiers in the streets have only left more death and mourning, because they aren’t prepared for being guarantors of security,” she said. The national police were removed from the military and put under civilian control in 1997. Death squads operated by the military and the police were implicated in the killings of 184 government opponents in the 1980s.

Critics also asked how the government would be able to pay for two new police units that would double the current number of active agents. José Simón Azcona, a legislative deputy from the centrist Liberal Party (PL) who supported the measure, suggested that the US would pay. The US government “offered collaboration… under the previous administration” for the conversion of four military battalions into police units, he said. (It is unclear whether he was referring to a previous administration in Honduras or in the US.) (El Nuevo Diario (Nicaragua) 8/12/13 from ACAN-EFE; Honduras Culture and Politics 8/22/13; El Heraldo (Tegucigalpa) 8/22/13; La Nación (Costa Rica) 8/23/13 from AFP, EFE; Prensa Latina 8/24/13)

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August 27, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Western logic on Syria: ‘We need to bomb it to save it’

RT | August 27, 2013

The military buildup in the Mediterranean indicates that Assad’s opponents intend to militarily intervene in Syria under cover of ‘humanitarian intervention’, a disingenuous narrative that could not be further from the truth.

Pictures and videos that have surfaced following the alleged use of chemical agents in the eastern suburbs of Damascus are profoundly disturbing and a thorough and substantial investigation into what took place there is absolutely essential. However, it is conversely disturbing that those Western governments who have staunchly supported anti-government militants are using this opportunity to legitimize the use of force against the government in Damascus.

The United States, Britain, and France are unwavering in their assertions that the Assad government and the Syrian Arab army were the perpetrators of the chemical weapon attack, despite no evidence to substantiate these claims. These governments seem to be sure that Damascus is guilty on the basis of it preventing a UN investigation team from visiting the site, and when investigators eventually did reach the area, it didn’t matter to them because they argued that the Syrian government had destroyed all evidence of wrongdoing.

Assad’s opponents have constructed a deeply cynical and hysterical political narrative that Western leaders are now parroting in unison.

There are several reasons why Damascus showed hesitation in allowing UN inspectors to access the site, the most apparent being that this attack allegedly took place in rebel-held strongholds on the outskirts of the capital, and that the security of the UN team could not be guaranteed if rebels attacked them or launched more chemical weapons during their visit.

Syrian rebels have demonstrated their hostility to UN forces on previous occasions; anti-government groups kidnapped 21 UN peacekeepers in the Golan Heights in March, and another four peacekeepers later in May. That the UN convoy was fired upon by unidentified snipers is hardly surprising in that it is another stunt in a series of moves to escalate the situation to provoke an international response.

The UN team eventually made it to the site to collect evidence and, contrary to Western assertions, the UN claimed that it was still possible for the team of experts to gather necessary evidence despite the time elapsed since the alleged attack.

Who benefits from using chemical weapons?

The narrative that the Assad government used chemical weapons, specifically while a UN team was in Damascus to investigate previous uses of chemical weapons, is tactically and politically illogical and in no way serves the interests of the Syrian government.

These attacks transparently serve the interests of anti-government militias who have long called for NATO intervention, as well as the Syrian political opposition who are now refusing to take part in any planned Geneva negotiations. Furthermore, allegations that the regime used chemical weapons benefits the international opponents of Assad, who have materially and financially aided and armed non-state actors and foreign fighters on an unprecedented scale.

Above all, the use of chemical weapons benefits the arms industry, as four US warships with ballistic missiles are moving into position in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, ready to shower Damascus with Tomahawk cruise missiles – all under the auspices of protecting civilians. Lockheed Martin’s stock prices have dramatically shot up since news of the chemical weapons attack.

There are numerous revelations that would suggest that anti-government militias have access to these weapons and are in fact guilty of using them. Carla Del Ponte, head of a UN commission of inquiry that looked into the use of chemical weapons in northern Syria in late March suggested that the evidence was stronger to implicate anti-government militants in using chemical weapons, not the Syrian government.

A handout image released by the Syrian opposition’s Shaam News Network shows people inspecting bodies of children and adults laying on the ground as Syrian rebels claim they were killed in a toxic gas attack by pro-government forces in eastern Ghouta, on the outskirts of Damascus on August 21, 2013. (AFP Photo)

In May, Turkish police found cylinders of sarin nerve gas in the homes of Syrian militants from the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front who were detained in the south near Syria’s northern border. In July, Russian experts submitted reports to the UN detailing how the missiles used in previous chemical weapon attacks were crude and not factory made, and that the chemical components found were not consistent with what the Syrian military has.

The Syrian military has just recently discovered chemical weapons in a rebel tunnel in the Jobar suburb of Damascus, including shells, gasmasks manufactured in the United States, chemical substances of Saudi Arabian origin. Arabic language reports also indicate that a former high-ranking Saudi Arabian member of Al-Nusra Front claimed that the group possessed chemical weapons in a tweet.

NATO intervention replicating the Kosovo model?

The speeches and statements from John Kerry, Laurent Fabius, or William Hague all imply that military action will be taken against Damascus despite lacking a legal basis of action. If ‘humanitarian intervention’ were to be undertaken, it would need approval from the UNSC in the form of a resolution, but such a resolution would not be passed because countries such as Russia believe that this kind of intervention would be used as a pretext to remove the legal government of Syria, as it has been used in the recent past in the former Yugoslavia, Iraq and Libya – all with undeniable abuses of force that have resulted in substantial civilian casualties.

Reports indicate that Obama’s team is now studying the NATO mission in Kosovo as a “possible blueprint for acting without a mandate from the United Nations.” It is ominous, alarming and bizarre how NATO’s intervention in the former Yugoslavia could be used a positive reference point for anything. NATO rained down bombs for 78 straight days, effectively smashing civilian infrastructure in Serbia and Montenegro while hospitals, schools, and public utilities were damaged beyond repair, killing over 1,200 civilians and injuring 4,500 more.

Despite Obama’s cautious tone in recent interviews, all indications point to military intervention already being decided. Carla Del Ponte’s assessment was whitewashed, and any other evidence provided by the UN that does not fit conveniently into the Western narrative will be suppressed – the US position is that it is already “too late” for any evidence to be credible.

The huge military buildup of US and British ships and warplanes in the Mediterranean comes while the Pentagon is reportedly making the initial preparations for a cruise missile attack on Syrian government forces.

The intransigence and cynical duplicity of Assad’s opponents is unparalleled, and their media outlets are complicit in pulling the heart strings of their audiences while offering a totally one-sided perspective in support of R2P, the ‘right to protect.’

The US, Britain, and France see themselves as righteous protectors, and rationality and evidence will not be enough to break their dangerous and ridiculous delusions; these states are the vanguards of militant corporatism and have demonstrated that they seek only their private economic and geopolitical objectives in the region.

Those countries that represent a balanced approach to this crisis should not stand idly by while the West ‘comes to the aid’ of the Syrian people with cruise missiles and airstrikes – they should not allow intervention under ‘humanitarian’ auspices to harm civilians and topple the legal authorities in Damascus.

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August 27, 2013 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Tony Blair says UK and US should intervene in Syria

Press TV – August 27, 2013

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has called on London and Washington to go to war in Syria to end what he claimed to be attacks on civilians “not seen since the dark days of Saddam”.

“People wince at the thought of intervention. But contemplate the future consequence of inaction and shudder,” said Blair who took Britain to the war in Iraq based on fabricated claims that Saddam had ready-to-launch weapons of mass destruction.

“Western policy is at a crossroads: commentary or action …. After the long and painful campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, I understand every impulse to stay clear of the turmoil …. But we have collectively to understand the consequences of wringing our hands instead of putting them to work,” he wrote in an article for The Times on Tuesday.

Blair’s comments come as there are serious qualms that the claims, led by Britain, the US and France, of Syrian government having carried out the chemical attack that allegedly killed hundreds of people on Wednesday are nothing but another deception to justify war, as was the case in Iraq.

British Prime Minister David Cameron and US President Barack Obama have been rattling sabers since Wednesday, saying they should intervene to end what Washington described as a “moral obscenity”.

However, Britain and its western allies have so far offered no evidence to support their claims against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Asad.

The Conservative British PM will also have a hard time to persuade MPs to start a war after he was forced to promise to put any military action in Syria to parliamentary vote earlier this year after 82 Conservatives MPs signed a letter to demand such a process.

The opposition Labour party has also demanded the coalition government to ask for MPs’ approval before taking any military action.

Cameron has indicated he will consult the parliament with his office saying he could recall the parliament from a summer recess before it ends on Monday to discuss the situation in Syria.

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August 27, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

London faces calls to make its case for a possible war before parliament

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Press TV – August 27, 2013

Opposition to a possible military intervention in Syria has intensified in Britain with the Labour party demanding that the government “make their case” before the parliament.

An alleged chemical attack hit parts of the Syrian capital Damascus on Wednesday killing hundreds of people.

Foreign-backed terrorists in the country claimed that the government forces were behind the assault in the Damascus suburbs of Ain Tarma, Zamalka and Jobar while medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, which treated those affected in the attack, said it cannot even “scientifically confirm” the use of chemical weapons.

Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander said on Monday that the cabinet has to “make their case” in the parliament before they can make a decision whether to go to a new war, if any such decision is to be made.

“Given both the seriousness of the reported chemical weapons strikes in Syria, and the enduring and complex nature of the conflict itself, ahead of any action being taken I would fully expect the Prime Minister to make his case to Parliament,” Alexander said.

“[The Prime Minister must be] open about the objectives, the legal basis, and the anticipated effect of any [British military action],” he added.

Meanwhile, British Conservative MP John Baron, who is leading MPs’ demands for a parliamentary session on the matter, expressed serious concerns about Britain going to war without the approval of the UN Security Council because of a Russian opposition to military intervention in Syria.

“Essentially, it is a civil war. If the West intervenes without a UN resolution … I think there is a more serious risk of this escalating beyond Syrian boundaries,” he said.

This comes as legal experts have seriously questioned the legality of a military move against Syria, saying it would create a “controversial situation”.

“The difficulty here is there’s no threat as I understand it to the security of this country or the United States and therefore on what basis can we intervene?” Michael Caplan, an international lawyer, asked during an interview on BBC Radio 4.

Following the alleged chemical attack in Syria, which government forces say was a false flag attack by foreign-backed militants, Britain, the US and France have been beating drums of war to punish what Washington described as a “moral obscenity” by Bashar al-Asad government in Syria.

Russia has demanded evidence from the three on their claims but no proof has yet been presented or even announced to exist.

The situation has sparked fears that Britain is assisting the US to justify another war based on totally unfounded claims after former British PM Tony Blair tampered with evidence related to Iraq weapons of mass destruction to facilitate the invasion of the country in 2003.

The fears are especially strong because the Syrian government cannot have sensibly carried out a large-scale attack when UN weapons inspectors were stationed almost 20 kilometers away from the site of the attack, waiting to probe earlier claims of poisonous gas strikes.

Qualms are also fueled by sporadic reporting of Syrian foreign-backed militants being in possession of chemical weapons, including a Twitter post by Abdola Al-Jaledi, a former high-ranking member of the Jabaht al-Nusra militant group, which said his colleagues were in possession of chemical weapons.

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August 27, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Russia ‘regrets’ US decision to shelve Syria talks

RT | August 27, 2013

Moscow has voiced “regret” over a US decision to put off bilateral talks over Syria. Russia has sought to placate calls for military action over the alleged use of chemical weapons, saying there is no evidence of the Assad regime’s complicity.

The US government announced it was postponing bilateral talks with Russia late Monday, citing “ongoing consultations” over the Syrian government’s alleged use of chemical weapons.

Russian and American officials had been scheduled to meet in The Hague on Wednesday for bilateral talks on the Syrian conflict.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov tweeted a response to the move Tuesday morning, expressing concern over Washington’s decision.

“It is a pity that our western partners have decided to cancel the bilateral US-Russian meeting to discuss calls for an international conference on Syria,” Gatilov wrote on Twitter. He added in a later post that discussing terms for a political solution were needed now more than ever in the face of possible military intervention in Syria.

Plenary session of Russian State DumaDeputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Gennady Gatilov (RIA Novosti / Vladimir Fedorenko)

Foreign Affairs Committee chairman of the Russian Duma, Aleksey Pushkov also posted on his Twitter, alleging the US had already made the decision to strike Syria and they had gone too far.

A number of western countries including France, the US and the UK have condemned President Bashar Assad’s government for last week’s alleged chemical weapons attack in a Damascus suburb and called for a response, hinting at possible military action. On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin told British Prime Minster David Cameron in a phone conversation that there was still no evidence the Assad government was behind the attack.

However, Cameron insisted that Assad’s forces were behind the “chemical weapons” attack, saying that the Syrian opposition did not have the facilities to orchestrate such an attack. Cameron also cited the Syrian government’s delay in allowing a team of UN experts to examine the site as an indication that it had something to hide.

Washington has also seen an increase in rhetoric, urging action against the Assad government. Samantha Power, the US Ambassador to the UN, decried the Assad government for the attack on her Twitter account, and demanded accountability:

“Haunting images of entire families dead in their beds. Verdict is clear: Assad has used CWs against civilians in violation of int’l norm.”

Meanwhile, the UN weapons inspectors are due to start their second day of investigations in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, where the toxic attack happened last Wednesday. The team’s convoy of vehicles came under fire from unknown assailants Monday as they visited the area.

In spite of the sniper attack, the team managed to collect samples for analysis and gather witness testimonies at a local hospital. Contradicting claims from the US and UK that the probe was too late to yield accurate results, the UN stressed the mission was still valid, although almost a week has passed since the supposed attack.

The alleged attack took place last Wednesday in an eastern suburb of Syria’s capital. Media published conflicting reports on the death toll, ranging from “dozens” to over 1,300 dead. French charity Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) put the death toll at about 355.

August 27, 2013 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

US cannot afford to wait for UN to attack Syria: Officials

Press TV – August 26, 2013

Rep. Eliot Engel (NY)*, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has said “this is time for us” to launch cruise missile strikes on Syria, and that the US government cannot afford to wait for the United Nations.

“The world is a better place when the United States takes leadership; this is time for us to do this. I hope we’ll do it soon,” the American lawmaker said on Fox News Sunday.

A growing number of Republicans and Democrats in Congress are urging the administration of President Barack Obama to approve military action against Syria after reports of a deadly chemical attack in the suburbs of Damascus emerged last week.

Engel said that the United States had to respond quickly and could not afford to wait for the United Nations.

“We could even destroy the Syrian Air Force if we wanted to… We have to move and we have to move quickly.”

Other senior US officials have also indicated that instead of seeking a UN approval for military action, Washington could work with its partners such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) or the Arab League.

“We’ll consult with the UN. They’re an important avenue. But they’re not the only avenue,” a senior administration official said.

The Syrian government has allowed UN inspectors to visit a site that allegedly came under chemical attack on Wednesday. Obama administration officials, however, have dismissed as too late the Syrian offer.

Although there is still no evidence to blame the chemical attack on the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a senior administration official said there was “very little doubt” that Damascus was behind the attack.

“Based on the reported number of victims, reported symptoms of those who were killed or injured, witness accounts and other facts gathered by open sources, the US intelligence community, and international partners, there is very little doubt at this point that a chemical weapon was used by the Syrian regime against civilians in this incident,” the unnamed official said in a written statement on Sunday, as reported by the New York Times.

The Syrian government and the army categorically denied any role in Wednesday’s chemical attack which killed hundreds of people. Russia, a key ally of Syria, insists that the attack was “clearly provocative in nature,” and that it was staged by foreign-backed militant groups to incriminate the Assad government.

In recent days, the Pentagon has moved more warships into place in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and American war planners have updated strike targets that include government and military installations inside Syria, officials said.

President Obama met with his national security advisers at the White House over the weekend to discuss “a range of options” for Syria, but officials said late Sunday that the president had yet to decide how to proceed.

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel reiterated Sunday that the Pentagon had prepared “options for all contingencies” is ready to use force if the president gives the green-light.

Meanwhile, the US top military leader is in Jordan to discuss possible strikes on neighboring Syria.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey was set to meet with his Jordanian counterpart and other regional defense chiefs during his visit.

“The exchange is designed to increase the collective understanding of the impact of regional conflicts on nations, foster ongoing dialogue and improve security relationships,” Defense Department spokeswoman Lt. Col. Cathy Wilkinson said.

Obama said last year that the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government would “cross a red line,” provoking a military response.

~~~

* Eliot Engel:

During my time in Congress, I have traveled to Israel many times, including the recent trip with President Obama, and I remain committed to the unbreakable bond between the United States and Israel. Not only are the U.S. and Israel close strategic allies in the dangerous Middle East, but we have a great deal in common. We are democracies and nations of immigrants from all corners of the globe. We are proud to embrace the highest ideals in our laws and policies, while generating an extraordinary caliber of science and culture, benefiting not only our two countries, but the entire world.

I firmly believe that we must stand with our ally, Israel, as it faces a variety of threats and challenges. Today, the most serious danger Israel must confront emanates from Iran. It is simply unacceptable that a country with a history of supporting terrorism and calling for the destruction of Israel could have a nuclear weapon. The Obama Administration has led the international community in imposing crippling sanctions on Teheran, and this process must continue in Congress and around the world until the Iranian regime reverses its nuclear program. While we must not take any actions off the table when it comes to the Iranian nuclear program, we must continue to show the mullah-led regime that continuing its program to build nuclear weapons will only lead to greater isolation.

Further, I am deeply concerned by the dangers of terrorism from Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel should not have to live under the constant menace that thousands of unguided rockets could again rain down on the Jewish state. That is why I was the lead Democratic sponsor of a resolution condemning Hamas rocket attacks on Israel and why I have strongly supported American assistance to Israel to expand the effective Iron Dome and other missile defense systems.

Finally, I have long advocated a tougher policy toward Syria. As the author of the Syria Accountability Act, which imposed sanctions on Syria in 2003, I believe we must stand up against the Assad regime’s massacres of its own people. I believe that the time has come for the international community to impose serious sanctions on Syria and to begin supporting the opposition Free Syrian Army. I am aware that this strategy has risks and we must take concerns about widening the conflict seriously. But, today, the Iranians and Russians are openly supporting Assad’s massacre squads. The victims deserve a chance to fight back. Moreover, the collapse of Bashar’s government in Damascus would be a body blow to Iran and to Hezbollah, which gets its largess from Teheran through Syria. Syria has supported terror for too long. I think we need to stand against repression and support the rebels.

Israel Allies Foundation:

Congressman Eliot Engel serves as the Democratic co-chair for the Israel Allies Caucus.

Rep. Engel serves on numerous committees, notably the Foreign Affairs Committee and is the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, as well as serving on the Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia, and the Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and the Global Environment. In addition he serves as Vice Chair of the Democratic Task Force on Homeland Security.

Wikipedia:

Iraq War

In 2002, Engel joined the two Senators from New York, Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton, and almost 300 members of the United States House of Representatives in voting for the resolution granting President Bush the authority to use force in Iraq.[56]

International affairs

Engel is a supporter of recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Energy

In 2005, Engel introduced with Congressman Jack Kingston (R-GA) the Fuel Choices for American Security Act (H.R. 4409), later modified and reintroduced in 2007 as the DRIVE Act (H.R. 670) – the Dependence Reduction through Innovation in Vehicles and Energy Act – with more than 80 bi-partisan co-sponsors. It was designed to promote America’s national security and economic stability by reducing dependence on foreign oil through the use of clean alternative fuels and advanced vehicle technologies. It also called for increased tire efficiency – to increase a vehicle’s gas miles.[24]

Many provisions of the DRIVE Act were included in the Energy Independence and Security Act, which was signed into law on December 19, 2007, and became Public Law No. 110-140. This law mandates increased fuel efficiency standards from 25 miles per gallon to 35 miles per gallon by 2020. The law also requires improved energy efficiency standards for appliances, lighting and buildings, and the development of American-grown biofuels like cellulosic ethanol, biodiesel and biobutanol.

On July 22, 2008, Engel introduced with Congressmen Kingston, Steve Israel (D-NY) and Bob Inglis (R-SC) the Open Fuel Standards Act.[25] This bill requires 50 percent of new cars sold in the United States by 2012 (and 80 percent of new cars sold by 2015) to be flexible-fuel vehicles capable of running on any combination of ethanol, methanol or gasoline. Flex fuel vehicles cost about $100 more than the same vehicle in a gasoline-only version. This bill was resubmitted in the 111th United States Congress by Rep. Engel, Inglis, Israel and Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD). It was re-introduced in the 112th Congress with Rep. John Shimkus as the lead Republican. It will likely be re-introduced in the 113th Congress.

Controversies

Engel was criticized[67] for choosing to attend a July 2008 event hosted by the controversial pastor John Hagee, who has suggested that God sent Adolf Hitler to bring the Jews to Israel.[68]

August 26, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

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