That headline appeared in my inbox earlier and I have been dreading it. The Syrian civil war has spilled over into Lebanon, it’s encroaching on Turkey’s territory, and it’s set off troubles in neighboring Iraq, which are now merging into an end to end regional threat.
Let’s take a look at how things got this way. The Ottoman empire laid claim to Syria and Iraq between 1512 and 1566.
Phi Beta Iota: A well illustrated historical overview with an itemization of current country by country one liners.
This is the new warfare. It is the obvious next step in asymmetrical conflict. Lower risk for Americans, and probably cheaper. But, I wonder, is it making more enemies than it is eliminating? If I lived in a little village in the Afghan mountains and, in the middle of night, a drone strike blew up one of the houses, killing a neighbor family, I might have some serous attitude about it.
There is a growing anti-American attitude taking root in Europe, one already well-established in the Islamic world, and parts of Asia. The long term consequences of this are not going to be happy. But our foreign policy barely deals with it.
More and more judicial decisions, particularly those of Republican appointed judges, overwhelmingly favor corporations over people. These decisions get almost no coverage in the media, but they have real and far-reaching consequences. Here's an example of what I mean.
Transparency lost? Or an admission that SEALS were theater for a CIA theatrical production?
The nation's top special operations commander ordered military files about the Navy SEAL raid on Osama bin Laden's hideout to be purged from Defense Department computers and sent to the CIA, where they could be more easily shielded from ever being made public.
From early in one’s life, an American is taught the law and American institutions of justice are great equalizers within our society, ensuring that everyone is treated the same, no matter one’s class, race, or ethnicity. Yet, what has been happening quite recently, especially within the past decade or so, is that we have been seeing an increasing breakdown in the rule of law and the use of the justice system to enforce injustices.
President Obama rode in on a high horse in the 2008 presidential elections, specifically on his slogan of hope and change. He rightly criticized the Bush administration on a number of issues, from the economy to the wars abroad, as well as the use of drones.[1]
Yet, Obama subsequently went and not only increased the use of drones, but used them to kill Anwar Al-Awlaki, a member of Al Qaeda who was still legally an American citizen at the time of his death.[2]
However, the story gets even more shocking as not only does such as act create a legal precedent where the President can kill any US citizen that he deems a terrorist[3], but the Obama administration’s attorney general argued that such assassinations of American citizens on US soil “would be legal and justified in an extraordinary circumstance.’”[4]
Full article and all notes with links below the line.
(Beirut) – The short answer is Iran and Hezbollah according to Congressional sources. “The Syrian army’s victory at al-Qusayr was more than the administration could accept given that town’s strategic position in the region. Its capture by the Assad forces has essentially added Syria to Iran’s list of victories starting with Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq, as well as its growing influence in the Gulf.”
Other sources are asserting that Obama actually did not want to invoke direct military aid the rebels fighting to topple the Assad government or even to make use of American military power in Syria for several reasons. Among these are the lack of American public support for yet another American war in the Middle East, the fact that there appears to be no acceptable alternative to the Assad government on the horizon, the position of the US intelligence community and the State Department and Pentagon that intervention in Syria would potentially turn out very badly for the US and gut what’s left of its influence in the region. It short, that the US getting involved in Syria could turn out even worse than Iraq, by intensifying a regional sectarian war without any positive outcome in sight.
The latest drone strike to hit Pakistan's tribal region came days after the country's new Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif demanded an end to such attacks. Academic Akbar Ahmed has authored The Thistle and the Drone on the dynamics of drone strikes. Speaking with Sameer Arshad, Ahmed discussed why drones are ineffective, the fall-out of using these, the US-Pakistan relationship — and how the Taliban has grown in power but could also face resistance:
What do drone strikes just before and after Nawaz Sharif's inauguration reflect about US policies towards his government?
These reflect a certain contradiction in American policy — these almost suggest a confrontation with the new PM which the US does not want.
However, Sharif is a seasoned politician. He will find a way out to maintain Pakistan's integrity while America pursues its aims. The relationship is mutually beneficial and important to both.
Are drone strikes making the world safer?
I can categorically answer that in the negative. Apart from the dubious arguments justifying drones, this is a highly ineffective method of checking violence. With every three bad guys killed, there are some 30 innocent women and children who die. And every strike feeds into anti-Americanism — after over a decade of using drones, neither have suicide bombers stopped, nor have those following them dwindled.
We need other methods of checking violence effectively.
Phi Beta Iota: A well illustrated historical overview with an itemization of current country by country one liners.
[ Sameer Arshad ]