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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 8/19/12

A Law Enforcement Alternative to War in Syria

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Once again the United States is engaging in a war it is destined to lose.   Add Syria to the long list of nations where the United States has unnecessarily used military force to its disadvantage since the end of World War II.

There is an alternative to waging war against other nations and their people, and the United States will continue losing such wars until it adopts a better strategy.

The United States has not "declared war" against another country since Pearl Harbor; however, it has engaged in a series of losing wars ever since.   Unlike World War II, which resulted in the complete defeat and unconditional surrender of enemy forces, these wars were not fought to defend the United States against military attack.   To the contrary, they were wars of convenience fought to advance the economic and political agenda of the United States government.

In the absence of clear-cut victories, the passage of time has demonstrated, repeatedly, that these wars have wasted trillions of dollars and millions of lives.   In every case, the war resulted in a loss of prestige and advantage for the U.S.   In other words, the United States lost these wars.

The only beneficiary of these wars has been the military industrial complex and those who profit from the excesses and violence of war.   Unfortunately, "they" have come to control the U.S. government and the means of communication.   Thus, they can easily start wars for profit and successfully peddle the wars to those who pay the price, in the lives of their children and their hard-earned taxes.

In every one of these wars, it is possible to identify an individual or small group of individuals who were engaging in conduct that may or may not have been dangerous to the safety and security of the United States, but which was always contrary to the best interests of their own people.

Here, precisely, is where the United States should focus its attention and target the projection of its power.   In Syria, the individual is named Bashar Assad.   He is the military dictator of Syria and he inherited the job from his father. 

If the Syrian people hate Assad, why is it necessary to destroy the nation of Syria and kill its people in order to remove Assad?

President Obama has signed an intelligence "finding" that authorizes U.S. intelligence agencies to secretly support the Syrian opposition.   The CIA is now providing money and funneling weapons from adjacent countries to the Free Syrian Army.

Ultimately, Assad will be killed or will leave the country, but in the meantime, thousands of lives will be lost, billions of dollars will be wasted and the Syrian people will transfer their hatred from Assad to the United States.

A Law Enforcement Model

Why not adopt a national policy of avoiding war against other nations and their innocent people as a matter of principle?   Instead, to confront the danger posed by foreign dictators, such as Assad, who threaten its national interests, the United States should adopt an alternative policy based upon a law enforcement model.

What if, instead of pouring gasoline on the flames of the Syrian civil war, President Obama were to make his case to Congress, using the truth as best known to the administration, and was able to prove that Assad, himself, represented a serious threat to our national interests.

If convinced by the evidence, Congress could pass a simple resolution ordering the president to, first, file a lawsuit against the "government" of Syria in the World Court of Justice in The Hague.

Next, Congress could authorize the use of reasonable force and other legitimate tactics to secure the appearance of Assad, personally, at the World Court to defend his "government" against the charges.

What then?   One of the things professional police officers have learned the hard way is that it is bad tactics to immediately rush an armed and barricaded suspect.

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William John Cox authored the Policy Manual of the Los Angeles Police Department and the Role of the Police in America for a National Advisory Commission during the Nixon administration. As a public interest, pro bono, attorney, he filed a class action lawsuit in 1979 petitioning the Supreme Court to order a National Policy Referendum; he investigated and successfully sued a group of radical (more...)
 
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