Ten Ways to Respond to Syrian Use of Poison Gas, Other than Bombing

After the American Century

This column was written before the possibility of removing the poison gas emerged, with the subsequent negotiations between Russia and the United States. Much happened in just a week.

The use of poison gas is completely unacceptable and risks transforming warfare into indiscriminate mass-extermination. Some people therefore think that President Obama is showing weakness because he is not just bombing Syria without consulting Congress first. They would like to see more cowboy diplomacy of the sort practiced by Ronald Reagan in Libya and by George Bush I in Somalia. By some strange logic, many of the Republicans who cheered on George Bush II in attacking Afghanistan and Iraq now want restraint in Syria. But war should be declared and funded by Congress.

The more serious problem is that officials inside the Beltway, both Republican and Democratic, have reduced the available options to (1) launch missiles or (2) do nothing. There is serious mental poverty in Washington when people cannot think of more options than that.

Here are ten other ideas about what might be done. No doubt some of these ideas are better than others, but none of them involves bombing a foreign government or killing people.

(1) Punish economically the states that supply the Assad regime with arms and military supplies. It should cost something to support gas warfare. American tourists might also be advised to avoid travel to such countries.

(2) Press the World Court in The Hague to investigate and charge Syrian scientists and government officials with crimes against humanity.

(3) Launch a global public relations campaign against Russia and China for supporting Syrian atrocities at the UN and thereby paralyzing any world response.

(4) Seize Syrian government assets, if any remain in the United States, and use them to feed the enormous number of refugees fleeing the civil war.

(5) Create a no-fly zone over Syria, so its air force cannot bomb the Syrian people.

(6) Work insistently with the Arab League to develop a coherent regional response to the crisis.

(7) Break all diplomatic relations with the Syrian government. Expel their ambassador and staff.

(8) Press the rebel groups to find common ground to create a political alternative. Otherwise, their victory over the current government would likely only lead to more civil war.

(9) Press NATO (i.e. the European so-called allies) to take a role in the crisis. Europeans seem to have forgotten that it was in their own World War I that poison gas was used indiscriminately.

(10) Hold ceremonies at the graves of soldiers who perished due to gas warfare in every European country that refuses to hold Syria accountable.

One could also drop vast quantities of laughing gas on Syria, and see if that changes the mood. (OK, that is not a serious proposal, but it shows the ability to bomb, while not doing it.)

These are some of the many things the United States might do in this crisis and that President Obama could do (in most cases, including the laughing gas) without consulting Congress. It is time to use more imagination and less force in meeting international crises. The military approach has not been so wonderfully successful that all other alternatives can be ignored.

Where did Syria get its poison gas?

After the American Century                                                                                                                                                        

I have read the headline stories in the newspapers of three nations, and fail to find much discussion of a vital question: Who supplied the poison gas to Syria? Such weapons are outlawed by an international treaty that has been widely respected since the 1920s. Such gas is not made in a basement by a self-taught chemist, and the delivery systems are also complex and demand sophisticated manufacturing. 

Scientific American has posted an article about this issue, detailing the difficulties of determining who made the sarin gas. It points out that fragments of the bombs that contained the poison gas can offer some useful clues. "The materials composing the rockets could differ depending on who made them, thereby pointing a finger at who deployed them." This is no doubt true, but apparently no such analysis has yet been completed.

Meanwhile, Der Speigel reports that German Intelligence has concluded that the gas used was almost certainly sarin, and that it believes the Syrian government (and not the opposition) has the expertise to manufacture both the gas and the small missiles used to deliver it. The  delivery system itself requires considerable expertise. It sprays out the gas as a fine, deadly mist that lingers longer in the air during the early morning hours, when the missiles hit, than it does during the heat of the day.  In short, the gas, the missiles, and the sophisticated delivery system all point to the government. The same story reports that German Intelligence intercepted a phone call that also seemed to confirm Assad's direct involvement with the attack.

While different sorts of evidence seem to point to the same conclusion as to who used the gas, however, we still do not know who made it. A third party might have been involved. For example, Iran has the ability to make it, and it supports Assad. Russia has long been an ally, and of course they too could produce it. Whoever these persons are, they should be the focus of an international manhunt. The only use for sarin nerve gas is slaughtering indiscriminately all the people who happen to be nearby when it is released. Those who manufactured it and the military people who used it should be named, shamed, caught, tried, and punished. Their assets should be seized and used to help surviving victims. They must become infamous.

The Jewish Press says that the central figure in Syrian gas production is Dr. Amr Najib Armanazi. He is head of Syria's Scientific Studies Research Center. The United States Treasury reached the same conclusion, and as early as 2005 it imposed sanctions on him and his enterprise. Should there not be a warrant for  Dr. Amr Najib Armanazi's arrest and trial in The Hague?

Dr. Amr Najib Armanazi

Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/news/meet-the-monster-behind-syrias-chemical-weapons/2013/08/29/

Dr. Amr Najib Armanazi

Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/news/meet-the-monster-behind-syrias-chemical-weapons/2013/08/29/

What can be done about Syrian Atrocities?

After the American Century

Paul Conroy, a British photographer covered recent events in Syria. He says, "I'm an ex-artillery gunner so I can kind of follow the patterns - they are systematically moving through neighborhoods with munitions that are used for battlefields. It's not a war, it's a massacre, an indiscriminate massacre of men, woman and children."

For weeks the Syrian government has been slaughtering, imprisoning, and torturing its own citizens. At least 5000 people have been killed. For weeks China and Russia have blocked the UN from taking any action. For weeks we have seen the Syrian people suffer, as their dictatorship refuses to allow the Red Cross to evacuate women, children, the aged and the wounded. This is one of the most scandalous abuses of state power in recent memory.

In today's paper (Politiken, Denmark) I see that people are going to raise money for the victims. This is close to being pathetic nonsense. We watch while the Syrian government slaughters its own citizens. It has used artillery and it has posted snipers on rooftops to kill anyone moving around in Homs and some of its other cities. We watch their barbaric acts on YouTube, and hear the voices of the victims calling for help. And now we are asked to give money, to help people whose government for weeks would not allow the Red Cross access to them. 

The fund-raisers are well intentioned, but they are confused. They have made a category mistake. This is not a natural disaster, like the earthquake in Haiti. It is not like a drought in Africa. The catastrophe is the Syrian dictatorship itself. There is no point in raising and sending money when the government blocks the aid. Sending aid presupposes a government that is glad to get it and cooperative in getting the air distributed.

Instead, all efforts should be focused on removing the Syrian Asad government, and on pressuring the Chinese and the Russians to stop supporting that government. Raising aid money for victims in this situation is not going to help. Why send money to a place where the government will try to steal it, subvert its use, or prevent the aid from reaching those who need it? No fund raising is gong to help in this situation, unless it is for refugees from Syrian who have fled to other nations.

What would help? 

(1) Petitions to the Russian and Chinese governments would help. 

(2) Boycotts of Chinese and Russian goods would help. 

(3) Refusals to take vacations or attend conferences in China and Russia would help. So long as these two members of the UN Security Council keep supporting the ruthless Syrian regime, no amount of aid is going to make any difference.

(4) Taking the Syrian government's leaders and its generals to court for crimes against humanity will help. These shameless leaders must be held accountable, and the case against them must be prepared in detail.

(5) Protests outside Syrian embassies would help.

(6) Freezing of all Syrian assets in European and American banks, pending resolution of the crisis, would help.

This is not a complete list, but it suggests the kinds of actions that need to be taken. Raising money for the victims is not going to help very much, because there will continue to be more victims as long as the Syrians are ruled by a vicious regime.

Politiken is right about one thing. We are not helpless. But it is wrong to tell people that giving money to the victims is the solution, As if we had any access to the victims. The considerable danger is that the Syrian state itself will get that aid or prevent it from ever reaching those who need it.