In Syria Strike Hard Or Don’t Strike At All

‘MEASURED RESPONSE’ WON’T TOPPLE REGIME, AID SYRIAN PEOPLE OR SERVE US INTERESTS

Wednesday will be the 12th anniversary of 9/11. The things we’ve learned since have an effect on the current debate on whether to strike in Syria. We don’t take our government’s word that chemical weapons were used, for instance. Open eyes are a good thing.

People with open eyes, though, tend to turn their heads away from ugliness and horror. That’s what’s happening now.

I’m about to take a profoundly unpopular stance on Syria. Before I do, I want to remind anyone reading this I was right when I bit the bullet and took my highly unpopular stance against invading Iraq before that war began in 2003. I argued against it on practical grounds, not moral ones, so I wasn’t even popular among the peace lovers.

I’m about to apply the same two-step rule on military action now I applied then: A war should have a simple, clear goal. You should stick to it.

I’m totally against a limited series of strikes to discourage the Assad regime from further use of chemical weapons. Limited strikes for that purpose would be pointless. Bashar al-Assad will do anything - anything - to keep a clutch on power.

The very survival of Assad and his cronies is at stake here. The only thing that would dissuade them from using chemical weapons - or anything else they can get their hands on - is the threat of retaliation eff ective enoughto topple the regime.

I’m in favor of eff ective strikes to topple the regime: air, naval and humanitarian support to the people on the ground who are doing what we begged the people in Iraq to do - twice. Syrians are trying to overthrow a dictator. We asked the Iraqis to do that; once was after the fi rst Gulf War, then before the second.

We started the second Iraq War. We shouldn’t have done that. The Syrians started this uprising as a peaceful protest more than two years ago.

Their dictator cracked down on it. We should help them fi nish it.

I don’t give a tinker’s damn about Assad using chemical weapons. Napalm and high explosives are chemicals, too. What I care about is this uprising and repression has killed 100,000 people, wounded more and turned a million children into refugees.

Assad’s use of chemical weapons is only important for two things it signifi es.

First, he’s losing and desperate. We should shorten the misery, not for him but for everybody else. Second, we’re finally, possibly, ready to act. I would have written this column two years ago if there had been a snowball’schance we’d do something.

Yes, many of the rebels are radicals. Wow. No kidding.

We’ve let this war drag on, and it has attracted some violent people. Imagine that.

Gosh, I wonder if it will get worse the longer this drags on.

That was sarcasm. War is brutal. The longer it goes on, the more brutal it makes the people who survive it.

No one should be surprised by this. I refuse to believe, however, there’s no longer any hope for the people in one of the most continuously settled, longest-civilized spots on planet Earth.

Russia and China willget mad. Of course they will. Russia and China are opposed in principle to any intervention against a domestic government that’s using whatever force is needed to subdue its own people. But they’d be fools to go to war to save Assad’s sorry hide.

No, the Arab Spring didn’t break our way. Our unreasonable expectations aren’t their fault. The American Revolution didn’t go exactly where the French wanted it to, either, if I remember my history correctly.

We either believe all people are “endowed bytheir Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed” and “whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government,” or we don’t.

Those looking for a more reasonable, better-informed opinion on what’s going on in Syria should read just about anything on the subject written by Mohja Kahf. She comes from Damascus, livesin Fayetteville and teaches at the university. I especially recommend two works, one long and one short. The short one is “The Roar of Pain from Syria” at forusa.

org/blogs/mohja-kahf/roarpain-my-syria/12373. The longer one, which should disabuse anyone who reads it of the notion this is only a war between a despot and terrorists, is “Syria: It’s Still a Revolution, My Friends” at forusa.org/blogs/ mohja-kahf/syria-its-stillrevolution-my-friends/12398. DOUG THOMPSON IS A POLITICAL REPORTER AND COLUMNIST FOR NWA MEDIA.

Opinion, Pages 14 on 09/08/2013

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