11. On Syria, and “What Should Be Done”

Recently, I posted a video and commentary about the current situation in Syria, and the impending U.S military involvement. Of course, I am absolutely opposed to U.S military involvement for a number of reasons (which I will get to in a second). But a friend of mine commented on the post. He generally agreed with my criticisms, but he also believes that some sort of action needs to be taken. “What should be done?” he asked. And I’ve been seeing this argument pop up a lot over the internet lately. A lot of people are outraged by the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime, and seem to believe that the Western countries have a responsibility to involve themselves in order to “stop the atrocities.”

This is a very powerful argument, because it draws on something deep and powerful within us as human beings. It tugs at the part of us that is noble, that wants to stand up for justice. It’s a very real thing, and a fundamental part of what makes us human. I have no doubt that most of those who believe that the West needs to get involved militarily are sincere in their desire to help. But they are also wrong.

I’ll assume that if you’re reading this, you’re familiar with the Arab Spring uprisings. One thing to note, however, is that it would be foolish to lump all of these uprisings together as one monolithic event. Each resistance movement had its own set of grievances, and each government had its own way of redressing them (some were overthrown, some, such as “Business Friendly” Bahrain brutally suppressed all dissent). One truly tragic outcome was the situation in Libya. Most Westerners are woefully ignorant of the truth of what actually happened in Libya (but I will write more about this in a later post).

And of course, in Syria, the attempt to overthrow the Assad regime was met with fierce government resistance, and the result was a brutal civil war that has been ongoing for over a year. The Western governments have been trying to get involved since the beginning of the war (for reasons which I will explain in minute), and the Russians and Chinese have been opposed to outside involvement. Most in the West view the situation as relatively simple, with the noble freedom fighters battling the oppressive regime. Of course, the situation is infinitely more complicated than that, and it’s always wise to question the corporate media’s framing of situations. In fact, our general ignorance of the situation is one of the main reasons we should refrain from involvement. The truth is, most Americans (including myself) don’t have a very clear idea of what’s going on, and they are doing humanity a disservice to lend support to a potentially catastrophic military operation with very little grasp of the context of the situation. And if experience is any indicator, it’s almost certain that the situation is infinitely more complex than the corporate media would have us believe, if not radically different altogether.

And it would seem that most of the American public was wary to get involved in another conflict, that is until last week when it was claimed that the Assad regime used chemical weapons against the rebels, killing a lot of civilians. And now the West (led, of course, by the United States) has found the perfect excuse for getting involved, and is busying itself manufacturing the consent of the American public for another round of imperial adventurism (folly).

Does any of this sound familiar?

In case you’ve forgotten, let’s go through a quick list of previous situations in which the United States has acted militarily on false pretenses, ultimately to further its own imperialist agenda:

-There is a lot of evidence to suggest that high level government officials knew that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was imminent, but that they let it happen anyway because they needed public support to enter World War II. Obviously the attack actually happened, but the level of much of a “surprise” attack it was is up for debate.

http://www.policymic.com/articles/14023/documents-reveal-that-fdr-may-have-known-about-pearl-harbor-attack-beforehand

-The U.S became involved in Vietnam because of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, where it was claimed that the North Vietnamese attacked a U.S Naval vessel. This was later revealed to be false. On a personal note, one of my former colleagues is a Vietnam veteran who joined the military after a missionary group at his high school did a presentation on the persecution of Christians by the North Vietnamese. He tells me that he joined because he believed he would be able to help suffering people. We now know that the Diem, the dictator of the South Vietnamese (who was also a staunch Catholic) was so corrupt and brutally oppressive that Buddhist monks set themselves on fire in protest of his regime. As for my colleague, he later came to realize that the conflict in Vietnam was nowhere close to being “humanitarian”, and this is just another example in which the public’s heartstrings are tugged only to support what was ultimately a prolonged war crime (this was most recently detailed in Nick Turse’s “Kill Anything that Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam”).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident

-Prior to the first Gulf War, a heartwrenching speech was given to the U.S congress by a young Kuwaiti girl, who claimed to have witnessed terrible war crimes at the hands of Saddam Hussein’s soldiers. She (in)famously claimed that babies were taken from incubators and thrown to the ground. It was later revealed that the girl was the daughter of Kuwaiti diplomat who was stationed in the U.S, that the whole story had been fabricated, and that she was coached by a P.R firm whom the pentagon hired to garner support for the war.

http://www.prwatch.org/books/tsigfy10.html

-And of course, who can forget the non-existent Weapons of Mass destruction that were the justification for America’s invasion of Iraq.

Of course, none of this proves that the United States government is lying about the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons. But it wouldn’t be surprising.

And the point is, the U.S relies on the naivety and ignorance of the U.S public, who always believe they are going into conflict for the most noble and “humanitarian” of causes, to further its imperialist agenda. And war can never be “humanitarian”. There are a precious few situations in which military involvement doesn’t simply escalate the level of violence, chaos, and bloodshed. As far as this situation goes, the only thing that I would consider possibly acceptable would be if all of the chemical weapons were stored in a depot out in the desert away from most living things, and a simple precision missile strike could destroy the totality of the chemical weapons, assuring that they couldn’t be used. But of course, a situation like that would only exist hypothetically. And of course, despite what the public wants to believe, the U.S has never acted out of any purely humanitarian cause (in fact, I doubt that humanitarian concerns ever actually factor into any of the high level decision making), and so we must consider the imperial ambitions of the world’s foremost terrorist state.

What, exactly does the U.S stand to gain from invading Syria? I will repost the same video that I posted on my Facebook page, and which spawned this whole discussion. Please watch it, as it’s very, very enlightening.

So in a nutshell, the U.S uses its military might to force nations to buy and sell oil in U.S dollars, because these “PetroDollars” are the only thing propping up the valueless U.S dollar (which, because it is Fiat currency, and is printed at will by the Federal Reserve, is essentially funny money). So the U.S is using its military might to bully other nations into accepting its worthless currency (so it can maintain its unwarranted and unearned hegemony). As sidenote, it’s worth noting that all of the “rogue states” who are the sworn enemies of the United States have a few things in common. The first, is that they don’t have Central banks. The second is that they are generally oil-rich states that offer legitimate resistance to U.S economic hegemony (in the case of Cuba, they aren’t oil rich, but they offered legitimate resistance). So go ahead and google “countries that don’t have a central bank”

Personally, I believe that the real target here is Iran, and the U.S is hoping to use its actions against Syria to lure Iran into conflict, so that the U.S can wage war directly against Iran. This is, of course, very dangerous as it obviously threatens the lives of all those who live in Iran, but it also (as the video suggests) brings about the very real possibility of a full-scale conventional war with China and Russia (and the use of nuclear weapons).

One thing I’d like to point out here is this pattern that we see all throughout the whole history of Western imperialism (which is, essentially, the history of capitalism stretching back over the last 500 years or so). What we generally see is an elite, capitalist class who understands the true reasons for the various imperialist actions (the colonizing of poorer countries, the subjugation of indigenous peoples, the theft of their land and resources, etc.). The ruling classes understand that these actions are largely about maintaining wealth and power. But in order to maintain that power, they had to have the consent of the public (i.e the people lived within the borders of the actual nation states, and did not see themselves as subjugated). This public largely saw the imperial ambitions of their countries as a civilizing force, and as benevolent. During the British empire, the term “white man’s burden” was coined. So the citizens outside of the ruling classes, who did not really benefit from the colonization and subjugation of others, commonly saw imperialism as a noble burden. They believed they were doing the “lesser brown” peoples of the world a favor by forcing them to conform to their “superior” culture.

These patterns of continue today, where imperialism is an economic gain for the elite (and an impoverishment for the public, who must pay the costs of imperialism), but is still justified by the public as a “noble burden.”

But I still haven’t addressed the question of “What should be done?” Hopefully I’ve demonstrated why the U.S shouldn’t be trusted and how, exactly, aggression against Syria serves to further U.S interests.

But still, we need to do something, don’t we?

Interestingly, amongst the throng of eager, young internet-tough guys who are calling for action against the Syrian regime in the name of truth and justice, historical arguments are made. The common refrain is that there were times in the past when the U.S acted against injustice, or examples of times when tragedies occurred because we did not.

The most common example used is World War II, in which American intervention supposedly ended the atrocities of the holocaust (the other common argument is that if we had acted earlier, we might have prevented the holocaust). The other example used by my friend specifically was the Spanish Civil War, which I will get to shortly.

The first thing to remember, is that this is not World War II. The situations are very different.

The second thing to remember, is that it’s important to consider context. Many Americans hold a mistaken view of World War II as a “just war”. I’m not going to make a claim as to whether or not it was (or whether than can ever be a “good” or “just” war). But again, it’s important to remember context. The first thing is that the ideology of Nazi Germany was not some demonic aberration that suddenly appeared out of nowhere. A belief in the supposed racial and cultural superiority of the White Race was common amongst all of the Western colonial powers. While today it is easy to demonize the Third Reich and to see the British as the “good guys”, we would do well to keep in mind that both societies believed that they were part of an inherently superior race, and that they had not only the right, but the duty to violently force their culture on the “lesser” peoples of the world. Additionally, all of the Western powers acted similarly to the Nazis, using their military might to conquer lands and subjugate the indigenous people. It was only when the Germans had the audacity to act in such a way towards other white people (say, by invading France or Poland instead of India or the Congo) did everyone cry foul. It’s my personal belief that the suffering and sorrow visited upon Europe was the Karmic fall-out of centuries of oppression visited upon others (and also, please not that I am NOT saying the holocaust was justified).

But still, what should we have done? I believe that it’s not so important as to what we should have done (the answer is a vague and obvious “resist injustice”). What’s more important to ask is “Who should do it?” Or put another way, who is responsible (and best suited) for resisting injustice?

I believe that ultimately, those who are oppressed are responsible for standing up to their oppressors. The lesson to learn from World War II is that the injustices and atrocities perpetrated by the Third Reich would have best been avoided if the German people had resisted injustice when they had the chance. I can’t say whether or not I “blame” the German people for not resisting, and it’s not really that relevant. What IS relevant however, is that we carefully study what happened, and we use the tragedies of the past to help recognize growing injustice in the present. Sadly, it would seem that many Americans haven’t learned this lesson and are unable to recognize the growing totalitarian state growing underneath their feet.

Which brings me to one last point, and that is the fact that, like the many “good Germans” who were complicit in allowing the atrocities of World War II to happen simply because they were ignorant of the realities, there are many “good Americans” who simply support the government by default, unaware that they are support unspeakable injustice. What’s worse, is that many Americans support American imperialism both because they are unaware of what exactly it is that they are supporting (drone strikes are one thing to talk about and watch from the comfort of your suburban living room, and quite another thing to actually live through), and because they erroneously believe that the interests of the American Empire (that is, the interest of the ruling classes) are the same as their own. It disturbs me to consider how utterly morally bankrupt this position is. Many Americans are quietly complicit and supportive of violence and injustice perpetrated in their name, so long as gas prices remain reasonable and consumer goods are cheap and plentiful. No wonder depression and malaise runs rampant and a large percentage of the population suffers from mental illness.

So the first that should be done, is that people should recognize that the U.S government serves the interests of the ruling class (themselves) and they should recognize that the ruling classes’ interests are in direct opposition to their own (and also in direct opposition to the future survival of humanity and well-being of the earth, I might add).

And actually, this brings me to another point, that of the Spanish Civil War serving as a historical precedent. The irony is that it was actually foreign intervention that allowed Fascist Franco’s forces to defeat the Leftist coalition, ushering in 40 years of a brutal dictatorship. Firstly, the Spanish Civil war serves as one of the few precious examples of a large-scale anarchist society surviving and flourishing in Anarchist Catalonia. The anarchists were one of the most successful and powerful factions in the leftist coalition, but because they were anti-authoritarian, they provoked the ire of the totalitarian communists. Ultimately, the anarchists found enemies in both the fascists and the communists. The soviets wanted an authoritarian communist state, so they resolved to wipe out the anarchists. This infighting (along with the general incompetence of the authoritarian communists) is ultimately what allowed Fascist Franco to prevail. I should also point out that Western intervention in the Spanish Civil War was muted because the capitalist class preferred to support Franco (Fascism being the logical extension of their ideal capitalism), and certainly did not want to support anarchists or communists. For more on this, check out Antony Beevor’s “The Battle for Spain”, which is an exhaustive and insightful account of the events.

So what should we do? In terms of military involvement with Syria, perhaps all of those noble souls calling for intervention should board a plane to Syria and go try to join the rebellion themselves. It’s one thing to call for a military intervention when you don’t have to do the fighting or experience any of the brutal violence that ensues, but doing the fighting yourself is quite another. If they are so concerned, perhaps those in the West should stop their armchair posturing and actually go.

Or perhaps we should let the Syrian people themselves fight for their right to self-determination. It’s not our place or our right to act. Our urge to “do something” is a bigoted holdover from our more overt colonial days and part of our arrogant, paternalistic, latent tendency to try and fix everything for everyone else. Furthermore, our attempt to remedy an injustice abroad only serves to allow injustice to grow at home, which means that more of these kinds of situations are destined to continue in the future (only closer to home).

What the people of the West need to do is recognize the injustices within their own societies and work to remedy those. This involves dismantling and resisting central banking, capitalism, and imperialism (among other things). The peoples of the West have a duty to resist and fight back against the injustices of imperialism perpetuated by their own governments, with their own consent.