“It’s Working”: The Ultimate Reason To Support Resolution Authorizing Use of Military Force To Stop Chemical Weapons In Syria
The ultimate reason to support the Congressional resolution to authorize the use of military force to stop chemical weapons use in Syria is clear: it’s working.
Over a year ago, the U.S. proposed that Syria turn over its chemical weapons for destruction by the international community and join the chemical weapons treaty that bans their possession or use. Syria refused, and Russia refused to demand that it do so.
Today they have both said yes. There is only one reason. They hope to stop the use of military force that President Obama has proposed to degrade their ability to deliver these weapons — and make the regime pay a price for the indiscriminate slaughter of 1,400 adults and children using chemical weapons containing poison sarin gas.
Many of my fellow Progressives — who like me were strong opponents of the Iraq War — support President Obama’s request for Congressional authorization to use force to sanction chemical weapons use in Syria and deter its future use. They include Congressman Keith Ellison, the Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus; former anti-war presidential candidate Howard Dean, progressive columnists E.J. Dionne and Gene Robinson; and of course former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
But for those who do not want to see the use of military force in Syria, the best thing they can do to assure that the military action is not needed is to support the Congressional resolution authorizing the president to use military force if necessary. That is the absolute best way to make certain the Syrian regime actually gives up its chemical weapons once and for all — and that there is no need for the U.S. to take military action to force Assad to comply.
As the President argued last night, we need to make certain that the Russians and Syrians are absolutely convinced that if they do not make good on their new promise to turn over Syrian chemical weapons, military action will ensue — it’s that simple.
Three additional arguments have been used over the last few days that need to be addressed:
1). Some have argued that it is never justified to use force to counter malicious use of violence.
There are some Progressives who are truly pacifists — who feel that the use of force and violence is never justified.
I respect the convictions of those who hold pacifist views, but I do not agree with them.
When Governor Orville Faubus of Arkansas refused to allow the integration of the schools in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1954, it would have been easier for the rest of America to simply shake our collective fingers and decry racism. It would have also been more popular. Instead the federal government sent troops from the National Guard to enforce the desegregation order with the threat of force.
Sometimes the threat — or actual use — of force is necessary — especially to prevent violence.
That’s why we empower police departments with the ability to use the force of arms when necessary to prevent violent acts.
2). Some politicians worry that supporting the President’s proposal is simply too unpopular. They should remember that polls showed the public opposed the possible bombing campaign in 1999 that was aimed at protecting Kosovars from ethnic cleansing as well. A Gallup poll in February 1999 showed that 45 percent of the public opposed the proposed bombing compared with only 43 percent who supported it.
After the campaign was successful at achieving its goals, that opposition turned into public support, and the issue played very little role in the November 2000 Congressional elections.
3). Some opponents say simply, the use of poison gas in Syria is just not our problem. Let someone else worry about it, they say.
In fact, of course, nothing could be further from the truth. If the use of chemical weapons and other weapons of mass destruction can occur with impunity any where on our small planet, they will be used more and more frequently in military conflicts. And if they are, they pose a massive danger for human beings everywhere.
If Assad can get away with using these weapons with impunity, that will ultimately endanger us all.
But assume for a moment it were possible to isolate their use, so that it would never impact those of us thousands of miles away from the streets of suburban Damascus. Can we just ignore the suffering of those who are its victims?
There was another story about another middle eastern road – the road to Jericho – where the hero of the tale did not ignore an injured foreigner who lay suffering by the roadside. That of course was the story of the Good Samaritan – the quintessential story that is at the center of the Christian New Testament. It was the story Jesus used to explain what it meant to “love your neighbor as yourself.”
Can we sit by and ignore the cries of people in foreign lands who are slaughtered in Rwanda, or ethnically cleansed in Kosovo, or gassed by the Nazis? I don’t think so. And sometimes getting involved is not always clean and sterile. Sometimes it is messy and inconvenient and difficult.
By: Robert Creamer, The Huffington Post Blog, September 11, 2013
“Genuine Democracy, What A Concept”: President Obama Gives Democracy A Chance In Syrian Crisis
Regarding the Obama administration and Syria, preliminary thoughts about a rapidly evolving situation:
It’s not necessary to think that President Obama has performed brilliantly throughout this debacle to suspect that next time around it’s going to be much harder for an action-hero president to stampede the country into war. As a corollary, hawkish politicians will find it more difficult to intimidate skeptics by questioning their patriotism.
On the eve of George W. Bush’s catastrophic invasion of Iraq 10 years ago, this column observed that “regime change” wasn’t a conservative policy, but “utopian folly and a prescription for endless war.” It suggested that over the longer term, Bush’s neoconservative advisors “may have misjudged the American people as well. Mostly, Americans wish to be left alone; they have no heart for endless wars of empire.”
Maybe I was right about that.
Ten years ago, fools were pouring Bordeaux wine into gutters and ordering “freedom fries” because the French urged the Bush administration to let U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq do their work. Ten years ago, American agents were kidnapping suspected terrorists and delivering them into Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s dungeons to be tortured. Ten years ago, “diplomacy” was a dirty word, a synonym for cowardice.
Ten years ago, President Bush, having promised to put his case against Saddam Hussein to a vote in the UN Security Council, reneged on that vow, ordered weapons inspectors busily finding no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to clear out, and commenced his “shock and awe” bombing campaign. The “embedded” American news media treated the subsequent invasion like the world’s largest Boy Scout Jamboree.
These days, diplomacy gets more respect. Most Americans hope for the success of a French-sponsored Security Council resolution transferring custody of Syria’s arsenal of chemical weapons to international monitors. The numbers in a recent New York Times poll reflect a massive change in public opinion. Six out of ten Americans oppose bombing Syria. Sixty-two percent say the United States should avoid taking the lead role in solving foreign conflicts.
Ten years ago, a strong plurality favored U.S. activism. Asked last week if America should use force to turn dictatorships into democracies, people said no by a remarkable 72 to 15 percent. “A war-weary public that can turn an eye from children being gassed—or express doubt that it happened—is another poisoned fruit of the Bush years,” comments New York Times columnist Tim Egan.
Actually, the great majority, 82 percent in a recent CNN poll, believe that the Assad regime launched nerve gas weapons against its own people. But they’ve also witnessed reports of stupefying barbarities by his enemies, and bitter experience has left people wary of believing that American bombs can make things better. They fear that cruise missiles would only be the catalyst for an interminable, slow-motion grind like the Afghan war, which nearly everybody supported at the start.
This reluctance is also why—assuming the Russian, French, and Syrian agreement holds up—that political damage to President Obama for his hesitant, crawfishing approach to the Syrian crisis is apt to prove more limited than Beltway drama critics think. Obama’s ambivalence is widely shared.
As Michael Tomasky points out, Republican hypocrisy has been shocking even by GOP standards. During the 2012 campaign, Mitt Romney took a hawkish line, proposing to arm Syrian rebels and to conduct covert operations against the Assad regime. As recently as April, putative 2016 GOP presidential hopeful Marco Rubio chided Obama’s passivity.
“It is in the vital national security interest of our nation to see Assad’s removal,” he insisted. Regime change!
Last week Rubio voted no in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
If President Obama’s for it, GOP opportunists are against it. The end.
That said, the irony of Russian president Vladimir Putin appearing to rescue Obama from a political trap built by George W. Bush and baited by his own bluffing rhetoric about “red lines” would be almost disabling but for the horrors of nerve gas.
A deadly anachronism, gas weapons don’t work when it rains or the wind blows. They’re essentially useless in modern combat. Their appeal to a tyrant like Bashar al Assad is as an indiscriminate means of genocide, exterminating defenseless civilians like insects. Not to mention farm animals, pets, birds—basically anything with a nervous system.
Historical memories of the horrors of gas barrages during WWI are particularly strong among the Russians and French. On this subject, there really is an international community.
This too: however indecisive President Obama appeared to Beltway cognoscenti, he treated the American people like adults and honored the Constitution.
“I put [the question] before Congress,” Obama explained “because I could not honestly claim that the threat posed by Assad’s use of chemical weapons on innocent civilians and women and children posed an imminent, direct threat to the United States.”
Genuine democracy—what a concept.
By: Gene Lyons, the National Memo, September 11, 2013
“Never Go With Carrots Only”: In Syria, President Obama’s Tough Line Paid Off
When the ancient Greek or Roman playwrights had painted themselves into a corner, plot-wise, they sometimes resorted to the dramatic device known as the deus ex machina, in which one of the gods was hoisted over the stage and dropped in to resolve the otherwise inchoate drama.
Something similar happened this week with Syria. The drama had progressed into a mix of international tragedy and domestic political bathos. President Obama’s threat of military action against Syria was right in principle but garnered no real political support — not least because Obama and his generals agree there is no military solution in Syria.
Cue the gods (in Moscow!): The stage directions may have been confusing, starting with a throwaway line from Secretary of State John Kerry, followed up quickly by his Russian counterpart. Then suddenly the stage was crowded with a cheering chorus that included U.S., French and Russian presidents, the U.N. secretary general, the Chinese and even Iranians.
Anyone who thinks this was simply a theatrical accident should go back to drama school. Obama, Kerry and the Russians have been talking about control of Syrian chemical weapons for many months, most recently a week ago at the G-20 meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia. Let it be said that the mercurial Vladimir Putin (whom Obama regards as the most transactional leader in the world) knows how to propose an 11th-hour deal.
The deus ex machina has been cranked into place, but that doesn’t mean the Syria play is over. The complicated diplomatic part is just beginning. I hope Obama and his allies will keep in mind some basic principles, so that we don’t quickly return to another Syria breakdown:
● Obama’s tough line paid off. The Russians endorsed international control of Syria’s chemical weapons only after Obama threatened to attack and didn’t flinch in St. Petersburg or on Capitol Hill. He may be a weakened president in foreign affairs, but this show of strength regained him some precious credibility. As a Syrian rebel leader told me by phone Monday night, “Never go with carrots only.”
● The U.N. Security Council now moves to center stage. The right framework is the resolution France was drafting Tuesday, with U.S. help. It would require Syria to place its chemical weapons under international control for supervised demolition. Syria could face military reprisals if it violates this resolution, which the French are proposing under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which authorizes force. Finally, the resolution would call for punishment of those responsible for the Aug. 21 chemical attack. The Russians want to soften this language.
● The next step is revival of peace talks in Geneva, where elements of the regime and the opposition can negotiate a cease-fire and transition plan. The United States and Russia, as co-sponsors of these talks, should begin thinking now about how to prevent a chaotic vacuum and sectarian revenge-killing when a political transition begins. The lessons of Iraq and Libya are clear: Reconcilable elements of the Syrian army and state institutions must remain intact so they help the rebuilding.
● President Bashar al-Assad must go. The Russians know this; they’ve repeatedly said so privately to U.S. officials. Now they need to make it happen. U.N. inspectors have gathered evidence that Syrian civilians were killed by sarin nerve gas on Aug. 21; this action could have been done only by the regime. It would be politically dangerous, as well as immoral, to allow Assad to remain in power once these findings are disclosed.
● The United States should step up its training and supply of moderate Syrian rebels — less to topple Assad than to provide a counterweight to jihadists in the opposition and help stabilize a future Syria. The first CIA-trained commandos are now heading into the field, in units of 30 or 40. Step up that flow!
● Iran should prove that it deserves a seat at the Geneva table. It can’t be part of the Syria solution unless it changes its destabilizing policies — not just in backing Assad but also in its nuclear program, its support for Hezbollah and other actions. A new Iranian president and foreign minister will be in New York in two weeks. The Iranians and the Obama administration should think big about a new security framework for the region.
● Given the United States’ profound reluctance to fight another war in the Middle East, Israel knows it will have to take responsibility for its own security, including any military action against Iran. The good news is that Israeli power is robust and credible. Both Assad and the Iranians seem to be deterred from reckless action, and the Russians (in secret) are cooperative. Credible threats of force prevent wars.
By: David Ignatius, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, September 10, 2013
“The Putin Admiration Society”: The Object Of The Right’s “Creepy Crush” Affections
The more Russian President Vladimir Putin cracked down on gay rights, the more U.S. conservatives discovered a fondness for the Russian autocrat. Indeed, support for Putin among social conservatives and leaders of the religious right movement only seems to be growing.
But in recent weeks, the right’s embrace of Putin seems to have expanded well beyond social conservatives and anti-gay activists. Eric Boehlert reported on Friday on Republican media figures backing Putin with growing enthusiasm as U.S. tensions with Syria escalate.
Note that late last month, just hours before Obama addressed the nation regarding Syria, Matt Drudge bizarrely tweeted that “Putin is the leader of the free world.”
More recently, the Putin admiration society has been on full display all across the right-wing media landscape. On his radio show, Rush Limbaugh also seemed to side with Putin…. Limbaugh appeared to be impressed by the fact Russia had compiled a 100-page report blaming Syrian rebels for the chemical weapons attack, not Russia’s longtime ally, President Bashar al-Assad. Limbaugh told his listeners: “Now, I don’t know about you, but what does it feel like to have to agree with a former KGB agent?”
RedState published a piece late last week arguing, “We’ve reached a sad state of affairs when the Russian president has more credibility than [sic] the American president but that is where we are.” Pat Buchanan defended Putin after the Russian leader prosecuted a rock band that played songs Putin didn’t like.
The Washington Times‘ Ralph Peters told Fox viewers last week, “I don’t like Putin, but I respect that guy. He is tough. He delivers what he says he’ll deliver. He knows his people. He presents himself as a real He-Man.”
How far has the right’s wild-eyed contempt for President Obama gone? Far enough that conservatives can barely contain their increasingly creepy crush on the former KGB official with an authoritarian streak.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, September 9, 2013
“Contemptible Animals”: Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, And Their Craven And Brazen Hypocrisy On Syria
The Republican hypocrisy on Syria is just amazing. Imagine that Mitt Romney were president. Romney took a far more hawkish line than Barack Obama did on Syria during the campaign. He wanted to arm the rebels, supported in-country cover ops, and so on. So if Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons during President Romney’s tenure, there’s every reason to think he’d be pushing for action too. And what, in that case, would Republicans now temporizing or opposing Obama be doing in that case? They’d be breathing fire, of course. There’s a lot of chest thumping talk right now about how a failed vote will destroy Obama’s credibility. I guess that may be to some. But to anyone paying attention, the credibility of these Republicans is what will suffer, and the vote may well come back to haunt some of them in 2016.
Some Republicans are, to their credit, taking the position consistent with their records. John McCain stood up to those people who looked like they were about two feet away from his face at that town hall meeting last week. Lindsey Graham deserves more credit, since he’s facing reelection and is being called “a community organizer for the Muslim Brotherhood.” On the other side, Rand Paul and the neo-isolationists are probably taking the same position they’d take if Romney were president, although we can’t be completely sure. If Romney were in the White House, by 2016, “was so-and-so tough on Syria?” would probably be a top litmus test (unless, of course, things got really terrible over there). I could easily see Paul declaiming on the unique evil of chemical weapons that just this once required him to break from his noninterventionist views, but as things stand he at least is taking the position with which he is identified.
But most of them? Please. The Gold Weasel Medal goes to Marco Rubio, as others such as Tim Noah have noted. Back in April, Rubio thundered that “the time for passive engagement in this conflict must come to an end. It is in the vital national security interest of our nation to see Assad’s removal.” Removal! Obama’s not talking about anything close to removal. So that was Rubio’s hard line back when Obama was on the other side. And now that Obama wants action? Rubio voted against the military resolution in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week.
Ted Cruz? Just in June, Cruz wanted to go into Syria and rough ’em up. “We need to develop a clear, practical plan to go in, locate the weapons, secure or destroy them, and then get out.” Now? Syria is a distraction from, you guessed it, Benghazi. He said last week: “We certainly don’t have a dog in the fight. We should be focused on defending the United States of America. That’s why young men and women sign up to join the military, not to, as you know, serve as al Qaeda’s air force.”
There are many others. These two are worth singling out because they want to be president, and their craven and brazen flip-flopping on one of the most important issues to come before them in their Senate careers is more consequential than the flip-flopping of some time-serving senator no one’s ever heard of. But the whole picture is contemptible.
Can you imagine how these people would be wailing for Assad’s head on a pike if Romney were asking for this resolution? And the Republicans in the House? I suppose a small percentage of them may be opposed. But the radio blowhards, now inveighing against “Obama’s war,” would be whooping up war fever like Hearst, and most in the House would follow suit. And remember, this is the party that voted en masse for a massive Medicare expansion in 2003—that is, a vote that was against everything they stood for, but one they took in the name of party loyalty.
They are out to undermine Obama’s credibility. They don’t care a whit about Assad, Iran, Hezbollah; indeed, on that last point, if any of them knows anything about Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, they must admire him. Nasrallah accomplishes with impressive efficiency in Lebanon what they want to accomplish in America—preventing the government from being able to do anything good for the people. All they want to do is make Obama look bad.
In contrast, look at Obama’s explanation of why he went to Congress in the first place. He was asked this question last week while in Russia. What he said is worth reprinting at length, I think: “I did not put this before Congress, you know, just as a political ploy or as symbolism. I put it before Congress because I could not honestly claim that the threat posed by Assad’s use of chemical weapons on innocent civilians and women and children posed an imminent, direct threat to the United States. In that situation, obviously, I don’t worry about Congress; we do what we have to do to keep the American people safe.
“I could not say that it was immediately, directly going to have an impact on our allies. Again, in those situations, I would act right away. This wasn’t even a situation like Libya, where, you know, you’ve got troops rolling towards Benghazi and you have a concern about time, in terms of saving somebody right away. This was an event that happened. My military assured me that we could act today, tomorrow, a month from now, that we could do so proportionally, but meaningfully. And in that situation, I think it is important for us to have a serious debate in the United States about—about these issues, because these—these are going to be the kinds of national security threats that are most likely to recur over the next five, 10 years.”
That’s a candid and thoroughly decent (and by the way, thoroughly constitutional) thought process. Obama couldn’t honestly say to himself that what Assad did represented the kind of direct threat to the American people that would permit the sidestepping of Congress, so he decided to go through all this. Now, of course, one can more cynically say it was the polls, and surely they played a role. But the president’s statement is in line with what we know about virtually all his top aides telling him “Don’t go to Congress” and him resisting that advice.
Obama isn’t a stupid man. He knew a lot of these yahoos would vote no just because it’s him. But he surely hoped that a certain number of them just might cast a vote in line with their worldview, which would slide many of them into the yes column. I’m sure many of my liberal readers are just glad they’re voting no, however cynically they might be doing it. Fine. But you should also leave a little space in your brain for the contemplation of just what a bunch of relentless hypocrites they are, making a decision as weighty as this purely on the basis of their hatred of Obama. And this defeat, if defeat it is, is supposed to destroy his credibility? It would only destroy theirs—that is, if they had any.
By: Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast, September 9, 2013
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