The Syrian Crisis

NO WAR ON SYRIA!!!  

 

RALLY AT PACK SQUARE IN ASHEVILLE AT NOON ON SATURDAY!!!

See you there.

On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 2:05 PM, David McReynolds wrote:

> A few of you may get this twice - I'm going to send it also to my Edgeleftlist.
>
> These are brief comments, since not much analysis is needed.
>
> First, "we" - the broad radical democratic left and the forces of the
> nonviolent movement - must not become apologists for any regime, in this
> case neither the Assad regime nor that of the disorganized Islamist
> opposition.
>
> If we are honest (and if we don't make that effort, we are of little
> value) we know that there are conflicts where, while pacifists would not
> take up arms, we can't pretend there are no moral differences. In World War
> I there were none of importance - it was a mad, indefensible war.
>
> In World War II, while, by the end, with the massive Allied bombing of
> German and Japanese civilians, and the use of nuclear weapons in Japan, the
> moral differences had been largely erased, one cannot equate the
> systematic, industrialized murder of Jews, Roma, Slavs, and others by the
> Nazis with the Allied side.
>
> In the Spanish Civil War, while there were atrocities on both sides, only
> the blind would have equated Franco's side with that of the Republic.
>
> In Vietnam it was obvious from very early in the  tragedy that if there
> was a "good war" it was that of the Vietnamese Communists against the US.
> That was then, and remains, hard for many of us to concede, since the
> nature of Stalinism had erased what might have been the "moral edge" of
> the international Communist movement.
>
> Those of us who are pacifists - and I am firmly in that camp - look for
> alternatives, refuse take up arms, and pledge, with Camus, "to be neither
> victims nor executioners".
>
> In Syria I can find no significant difference between the sides. (Nor
> could I find such a difference in the case of Libya where I felt the
> Western actions were indefensible).
>
> Now there is a sudden rush to some military strike on Syria. I am truly
> appalled at the duplicity of the British, French, and US forces pressing
> for an attack. I am particularly struck by the casual dishonesty of Hague
> of the British government.
>
> Let us leave aside the fact we simply do not know whether poison gas was
> used. The Syrian government has opened the way for inspectors, but the
> Western governments have already determined it is too late to be sure of
> the facts. Too late to be sure - but nonetheless there is pressure for
> military action?
>
> To what end? Any compassionate person is horrified by the shambles of what
> is left of Syria, by the estimated hundred thousand dead, by the hundreds
> of thousands fleeing Syria for their lives.
> And what will a military strike achieve?
>
> But what primarily drives me nuts, and leaves me in almost incoherent rage
> at the Western states, is the fact that the military dictatorship in Egypt
> has murdered at least a thousand civilians, almost all of them unarmed, but
> the US still cannot bring itself to utter the word "coup" in reference to
> the military takeover - and, more criminal, cannot end US military aid to
> the regime there.
>
> Rarely have we have so clear a chance to see the duplicity of those states
> which claim to hold the high moral ground. Rarely have we been so painfully
> reminded that nation states seek, first of all, to defend their own
> interests, and that those interests are largely indifferent to great moral
> issues to which they would lay claim.
>
> The last time this was laid so painfully bare was more than fifty years
> ago when, as the workers and peasants of Hungary sought to establish a
> democratic government, replacing the Stalinist dictatorship that had been
> imposed by the Soviet Union, Israel, France, and Britain jointly launched
> an invasion of Egypt to try to stop Nasser from taking control of the Suez
> Canal. If ever there had been a moment when world attention should have
> been focused on a single event, it was that October Revolution in Hungary,
> which had suddenly opened the door to the possible dissolution of the
> Warsaw/NATO military alliances (the Warsaw Pact clearly was useless if the
> troops were going to be used to suppress people within the Warsaw Pact, and
> NATO clearly wasn't need to protect the West from a military threat from
> the East, if the East was unable to maintain iron control over its own
> territory).
>
> That is now long in the past, but the lesson remains - there are no calls
> from the British Tories or the French Socialists for military intervention
> in Egypt, and no move by the US to at least cut its military aid.
>
> Instead, even without waiting for solid proof, the old amalgam of imperial
> forces seek to punish the Syrian government - with or without any solid
> proof.
>
> These governments do not speak for us. Nor do they speak for the human
> interests of either side in Syria, where what is most urgently needed is
> humanitarian aid  in terms of food, medicine, shelter.
>
> David McReynolds