12. A Clarification of My Argument Against U.S Involvement in the Syrian Crisis

Apologies for my dry title.

There have been a few comments about my previous post on the Syria crisis. I am going to do a direct rebuttal in the comments section of the previous post, but I would like to clarify and (hopefully) strengthen my argument again.

That being said, there are a few main points I want to reiterate from my previous post.

The first is that I am opposed to U.S military intervention in the Syrian civil war. This is based on various anarchist principles (the most obvious one being an opposition to the existence of militaries and State intervention in general). What I focus on in the previous post, however, is the cowardice of people who call for military action when they have no intention of taking part in the action themselves. One of the primary problems with capitalism, the state, and hierarchical systems in general is the way in which those who make decisions never deal directly with the consequences of those decisions. It’s easy for George W. Bush to advocate for war because he is able to sit comfortably in the Oval office, eating gourmet meals and never experiencing the violence and brutality he advocates. The same thing happens when wealthy politicians advocate for austerity measures, or bosses lay-off employees, or parents force their children into classes and activities the children don’t want to do. It’s easy to eat meat because we are able to delegate the brutality of slaughtering the animals and carving up their flesh to another person, and we don’t have to see it ourselves. The alienation of the powerful from the effects of their decisions is one of the main reasons injustice, violence, and brutality are perpetuated.

That being said, I’m not advocating for non-intervention on the part of individuals who want to join the fight. If you feel passionately about fighting the atrocities of the Assad regime (which are unquestionably brutal), then go fight yourself. But don’t delegate the experience of warfare to others, and then claim you’ve “done something.”

And a few more important points.

The second thing is that it’s still not clear whether or not the Assad regime is actually responsible for the use of chemical weapons, or whether or not chemical weapons were used at all. The U.N inspectors have yet to complete their investigation, so guilt has not yet been confirmed. Of course, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for Assad to use chemical weapons in a war he is already winning, especially when he knows that the U.S would likely become involved. So why would he use chemical weapons? Of course, it does make a lot of sense for the rebels to use chemical weapons, and then blame it on the regime in order to draw in the U.S. There’s also evidence that the rebels have used chemical weapons in the conflict. And again, there is a lot of historical evidence to support that the U.S is willing to use false flag attacks to justify military action (which is hardly “irrelevant” to the issue at hand).

Secondly, even if Assad has used chemical weapons, this still doesn’t warrant a U.S intervention. Most of those calling for intervention are stating that something must be done in order to end the war, but the U.S itself has claimed that regime change is not the goal of intervention, and that U.S missile strikes would be strictly punitive (meaning, they would simply further the violence by ending more lives). Besides being incredibly naïve and paternalistic, the notion that missile strikes will “punish” Assad is absurd because missile strikes are unlikely to affect Assad who, like Obama, sits comfortably in plush surroundings, far removed from the violence of the war he perpetrates. I highly doubt that Assad has made his headquarters in or around the chemical weapons depot that is the supposed target of American cruise missiles. And of course, if he is psychopathic enough to use chemical weapons on his own people, it’s highly unlikely that killing more of his people will elicit some sort of sympathy or have a deterrent effect.

Clearly, the U.S must strike in order to maintain its “credibility.” Meaning, if the president doesn’t follow through with his threats to murder people, in the future he won’t be able to threaten people with murder anymore. And never mind the fact that Obama has broken all of his other promises (closing Guantanamo, being the “transparency administration”, etc.) Apparently credibility is only important when it comes to the use of violence and the ability to threaten and bully others.

And all of these calls for U.S intervention are begging the question. Why should the U.S be the world’s policeman? Who decided that it’s our job to take on that role? In its role as the world policeman, the U.S has acted very much like a real-life policeman, abusing its power and using it to support capital at the expense of working people all around the world (again, the use of military power to support U.S economic interests is well documented, and is not simply a “platitude” or a “slogan” on my part, and because of the internet, it is very easy to prove or disprove this claim, please look for yourself).

And lastly, there are a lot of possible ulterior motives for U.S intervention that are certainly far from “humanitarian.” The petro-dollar argument is simply one of many (and interestingly, dismissing it as a “conspiracy theory” doesn’t address whether or not it’s true) I should point out here that I made a very serious error in not clarifying that all of “rogue nations” don’t have private central banks. They do have central banks, but they are controlled by the State, not private interests (though, importantly, I still haven’t been able to ascertain whether or not they issue currency debt free). I apologize for this oversight. But my point still stands that each of the “rogue nations” have seriously threatened U.S economic hegemony, and that is likely the reason for being targeted for military violence (again, it is easy enough to research the ways in which they resisted, so I needn’t go into it here). There is also the general military-industrial argument (the idea that war is profitable, so there are a number of corporations and interests pressing for war at any given time, no matter the scenario). There’s also the fact that aggression in Syria draws media and public attention away from the surveillance state scandal and growing dissatisfaction with the U.S government (which is especially pervasive amongst America’s youth, who were once Obama’s most ardent supporters…myself included). And of course, to reiterate again, the U.S government has a long history of using “humanitarian intervention” as a cover to engage in unpopular wars of choice that wreak havoc and destruction on the indigenous populations. Certainly none of these serve as definitive “proof”. But as a lowly elementary school teacher, I am unlikely to come across any top-secret documents that reveal the true motivations of the ruling class (although, undoubtedly, some will appear at some point in the future). Instead, I have to rely on the evidence. And, as you can see, the evidence clearly points to “missile strikes will do nothing to stop the violence, they will perpetrate further violence and further perpetrate U.S imperial adventurism in the region, which will perpetrate further violence in the future.”

And one more, time, just to be clear, I am not advocating for complete non-intervention. For those who want to fight Assad, please, go. I am not being facetious. I am an advocate of direct action, and this is clearly a case where it is warranted. So for those who are keen to stop the violence, they should make every direct effort to help (even if they can’t fight, there are other ways). However, calling on a military power with a long history of brutal, imperialistic intervention, and calling for others to fight in your stead, is foolish and cowardly.

I will deal directly with the arguments in the comments section of my previous post.