Finian Cunningham

US President Barack Obama’s renewed warning against Syria this week, that any use of chemical weapons by Syrian government forces is a red line triggering direct military assault on the country, can be seen as the Western powers moving towards their endgame of “regime change.”

Washington first raised the specter of Syrian chemical weapons several months ago and warned then that it would be forced to act militarily in order to “secure” such alleged stockpiles.

Now the American president and his officials are rekindling fears of this contingency, with the added alleged development that the Syrian government of President Bashar Al Assad has become so desperate to survive that it is preparing to mobilize chemical warheads.

Speaking in Washington, Obama upbraided the Syria government that “the world is watching” and that there would be “consequences” for any such deployment.

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton echoed the warning and described the use of these weapons as “a red line.” Tellingly, she added that if there is “any evidence” that the Syrian military had begun to use chemical warheads then “we are certainly planning to take action.”

Various Western media reported that American officials have over the past week stepped up contact with counterparts in other Western states to formulate a military response. This is said to include limited air strikes and the dispatch of thousands of ground forces.

Previously, the US and other Western governments had declined to commit military forces to Syria, as they had done in Libya last year, preferring the covert option of proxy forces, including Persian Gulf Arab weapon suppliers and mercenary fighters. That calculus seems to be now changing.

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

Propaganda image taken from The Times of Israel. The image
may just as well be from their own arsenal.

Syria will not use any chemical or biological weapons against its own people. The Obama Administration and company are just recycling the same lines that were used months earlier against Damascus.

These statements are disingenuous and hollow. They can easily be deconstructed as rhetoric. All we need to do it look at recent history.

In 2011, were not similar charges put forward against another Arab country? Were they not claiming that the late Muammar Qaddafi would use chemical weapons against his own population? Was it not claimed even earlier that Qaddafi and the Libyan military had brought in black-skinned African mercenaries to kill Libyan citizens? Or that Libyan jets were killing Libyan protesters? What happened to the genocide in Benghazi? Now there is nothing but silence and lost memories. Claims were made, morality and responsibility were invoked, and then a rising Arab country was bombarded. An engine of economic progress in Africa was halted in its tracks overnight and an entire society robbed.

There was also the textbook case of Iraq even before the lies about the Libyan Jamahiriya. Did not the Bush Jr. Administration, Tony Blair, and their circle of war criminals-in-office not lie to the entire international community and say that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program and weapons of mass destruction in 2003? What happened to those WMDs? This is not something that can easily be scoffed at. More than one million Iraqis died over the lies conjured by the Anglo-American duo. Not to mention the ecological damage and the intellectual genocide perpetrated against Iraq’s intelligentsia and professional class.

Let us be clear, Syria threatened to use chemical weapons against any invading force on July 23, 2012. Firstly, the statement was made in a defensive context. Secondly, it was directed against military threats. This is very different from planning on using chemical weapons against your own citizens, specifically civilians.

Eric Peters

We have every right to insist we be left in peace, free to go about our business, exercising our own judgment, to reap the benefits and accept the consequences. – And to resist when this freedom is denied us.

“Rights” – like “freedom” – is one of those terms that means different things to different people. Often, mutually contradictory things. Perhaps the simplest way to identify a right is to ask whether its exercise causes a provable harm to another. Not “might” harm a theoretical “someone.” (Or – much worse – “I don’t like that” … and therefore you shouldn’t be allowed to do that). A demonstrable harm – to an actual person.

If such exists as a result of your actions, then your actions were wrong – because you violated someone’s rights. Otherwise – if your actions have caused no harm – you have every right to expect to be left free to proceed. And to be left in peace.

Immediately, the objection pops up: Won’t problems arise if people are left free to act as they please? Won’t people abuse the freedom to act – or act stupidly? - Yes, certainly. Some people will. But that should not become the pretext for abusing the rights of others who have caused no harm. Group-guilt is bad. Pre-guilt even worse.

Consider this: Has taking away everyone’s rights ever prevented those inevitable “some people” from behaving irresponsibly or stupidly? At any time – in any place? This is the question. And the answer – obviously – is: No. Because there will always be irresponsible, stupid – even evil – people … in any society, under any form of government. A moment’s reflection will confirm the truth of this. Irresponsibility, stupidity – evil, even – cannot be “lawed” out of existence. But rights can be and all-too-often, they are. Not on the basis of actual harm done, either. But on the basis of what if? … and might.