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Dozens of U.S. diplomats have urged bombings of President Bashar Assad's forces in Syria in order to make him more likely to step down. The memo, sent to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, was not necessarily intended to be public, and was sent through a "dissent channel":
More than 50 U.S. State Department officials have signed an internal memo calling for a change in the way the United States approaches Syria — specifically, advocating military pressure on Bashar Assad's regime to push him toward the negotiating table.
The diplomats expressed their opposition to the current U.S. policy through a cable on the State Department's dissent channel — which exists for just that reason. But NPR's Michele Kelemen reports that it's unusual for so many officials to sign on to such a cable. "Secretary of State John Kerry says he respects the process and will study their views," Michele tells our Newscast unit.
"The cable reportedly calls for targeted military strikes against the Assad regime, something the Obama administration has been reluctant to do," she reports. "Such action would also put the U.S. on a collision course with Russia at a time that Moscow is backing the Assad regime — and working with Secretary Kerry on a cease-fire and a diplomatic path that has faltered."
The New York Times , which has seen a copy of the memo, reports that the diplomats say they aren't advocating a confrontation with Russia. But a credible military threat against Assad is necessary to pressure him to negotiate, the officials argue. "The moral rationale for taking steps to end the deaths and suffering in Syria, after five years of brutal war, is evident and unquestionable. ... The status quo in Syria will continue to present increasingly dire, if not disastrous, humanitarian, diplomatic and terrorism-related challenges," the cable says, according to the Times.
(Score: 2) by bziman on Saturday June 18 2016, @06:55PM
"Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity." - George Carlin
Truer words were never spoken. Want people to stop attacking us? Let's stop dropping bombs on them and killing their leaders!
Of course, we're not ACTUALLY fighting for peace or security or any nonsense like that... we're fighting because every gallon of gas we burn, every bullet we fire, and every bomb we drop is dollars taken from the public and placed into the pockets of the super rich.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Saturday June 18 2016, @10:15PM
Yeah, that's what I think too. Some people stand to get richer if particular courses of action are taken, and don't care what deaths and damage those actions cause, as long as they can evade responsibility. Some arms merchant and oil company villains get richer, the military boys get to play with deadly toys and maintain a grip on crucial energy supplies needed to run a mighty military, maybe get some promotions and pay grade increases, some politicians and diplomats get some kickbacks, the mainstream media gets more dramatic fodder to crank out "good" (as in, sells the news) copy, and the US takes the rap. The Military Industrial Complex is alive and growing.
I'd like to see plans for bringing peace to Syria and the whole Middle East, and credible reasons with analysis for why those plans will work. And it starts with understanding what went wrong in Syria. It's just amazing the complicated bull some of these biased analysts produce, when the problem is fairly simple: bad drought + population at the edge of sustainability = food shortages and the Arab Spring. The Arabs didn't suddenly decide they'd had enough of their stupid, crony governments out of some sudden political enlightenment and noble vision of a "more perfect union", no, they got hungry. The Assad government's response to their struggling farmers who asked for help was particularly stupid, declaring that the farmers were traitors for failing to grow food.
One footnote I found particularly striking from the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was how ignorant the Iraqi soldiers were. When they plundered a Kuwaiti grocery store, they found all kinds of things that were novelties to them. They didn't know what toothpaste was. They ate it. For centuries, the Middle East has been wobbling towards the collapse of civilization and sinking into a dark age. US military action serves mainly to strengthen that trend. Barbarism will not help prevent barbarism.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Saturday June 18 2016, @10:22PM
Good thing General Eisenhower never heard Carlin, otherwise we would be writing this all in German. Violence never solved anything is something dumb people say. Violence can solve problems.
Just don't see how it could help in Syria since there isn't really a good side to help. Kill em all would work though. We might not want to do that for a multitude of very sound reasons but it would solve the problem. So it is more accurate to say no application of violence that is politically viable is likely to improve the situation in Syria. The importance of the distinction is that there ARE plenty of situations, even in the Middle East, where violence or the threat of it can be useful.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bziman on Sunday June 19 2016, @03:36AM
Carlin was funny. Eisenhower was serious. You want to know what Eisenhower thinks? Check out his "Chance for Peace" speech where he said what is probably the truest thing ever said by a politician in all of history:
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
It was Eisenhower who warned us of the Military Industrial Complex.
I have no doubt about how he'd feel about all these meaningless conflicts - it's all about profiteering, and has nothing to do with peace, freedom, or security.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Sunday June 19 2016, @04:13AM
Or there's also the peacenik who wrote this:
Sounds like some sort of left-wing academic peacenik type, maybe coming out of the anti-Vietnam movement. Someone like Noam Chomsky or Howard Zinn.
If you think that, you'd be wrong, because it's actually written by one of the most celebrated soldiers in US history, General Smedley Butler of the US Marine Corps, one of 19 people to have received not one but two Medals of Honor. He goes on to explain exactly who profits, and why.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.