Now, twelve years later, a new President is calling to bomb another long-time partner, the Assad regime. The US had been willing to overlook Assad's brutal suppression of his opponents as long as his rule was beneficial to us. The details of who used the chemical weapons that are at issue now remain unclear. There are indications that forces on various sides of the war possess such weapons, and Syria itself has never signed the treaty that bans their use. Still, even if proven, the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government does not provide legal justification for the US bombing of Syria, especially without UN approval. Moreover, such an attack would pose grave threats to both Americans and the well-being of the residents of Syria and neighboring countries. It is the wrong approach legally, morally, and practically.
There are some legitimate democratic opposition forces in Syria. But as is often the case, they are increasingly overshadowed by military, criminal, and fundamentalist religious forces that thrive under the fog and violence of war.
We know that the forces opposing Assad include a host of militias that are brutal, including al Qaeda. Syria is being used by various foreign governments as yet another battlefield for proxy war. Any military intervention is likely to make the situation worse, and can easily spin out of control into a much broader and more dangerous conflict.
Russia is clearly motivated by its economic and military ties to Assad (e.g., weapons sales and access to a naval base). Yet, they and other countries have legitimate concerns that military intervention could easily make the situation even worse for both the Syrian people and the region.
Our recent military efforts to promote regime change in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan should remove any hope that we know how to help build democratic, inclusive civil societies in such countries. (A project we haven't carried out very well at home, either.)
The Saudis, whom the 9/11 Commission said financed al Qaeda, are now also financing many of the most oppressive elements of the opposition in Syria. The Saudis continue to oppress women, workers, civil rights, and democracy - in their own country and in many neighboring countries, as well. They have intervened in Bahrain, Egypt, and Yemen to suppress the so-called Arab Spring, fearing that, by allowing democracy in one country, they might find it at their own doorstep one day. It should also be noted that Bahrain hosts the US 5th Fleet.
Is there any reason why the American people should continue to support the ruling family in Saudi Arabia? The Saudis stand against many of the principles that our politicians love to proclaim are our core values. Yet, from the era of FDR onward, there has been a bipartisan agreement for the US to protect the Saudi family, despite its anti-democratic actions, in exchange for keeping their oil spigots open to the US. This blank check will continue as long as the US is dependent on Persian Gulf petroleum.
The 9/11 Commission Co-Chairs wrote a book in which they confessed to hiding critical findings of the investigation from the American public. For instance, they had wanted Pentagon generals to stand trial for lying to them about the details of a war game that NORAD was playing the morning of 9/11, which involved fake hijackings of airplanes. Vanity Fair won a lawsuit forcing the government to release a transcript detailing the confusion of the air controllers trying to figure out which of the hijacked airplanes on their radar were real, and which were fake.
The Commission chairs said they couldn't understand why the Pentagon had repeatedly lied about this. Why, indeed? Obviously the confusion gave the hijackers more time to fly their planes into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon. Did someone--a foreign government, perhaps the Saudis, provide this information to the hijackers? What other information was leaked to the hijackers (in the context, for instance, of the weakness of security at the Boston airport), and by whom?
The Commission largely dismissed the incompetence of the American intelligence forces in responding to the various warnings about the pending 9/11 attacks as due to bureaucratic infighting and turf building. Other than creating another huge new bureaucracy, Homeland Security, with some cosmetic changes at the top, there is little evidence that much has improved in the effectiveness of American intelligence gathering. No one was held accountable for the failures of the intelligence community with respect to 9/11.
The Commission did little to investigate the US role in pushing Afghanistan into the chaos that enabled the so-called terrorist training camps to freely operate there. What role, for instance, did the American government and the CIA play in building the career of Osama bin Laden, who had gone to Afghanistan to support Islamic fighters seeking to expel the "infidel" Soviets? The US allegedly found bin Laden (whose father was a major contractor close to the Saudi ruling family) a lot easier to use as a go-between than the Mujahedeen freedom fighters, who were often focused on their own tribal conflicts.
And what role did the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) play, and continue to play, in the rise to power and influence of the Taliban and al Qaeda? Bin Laden was hiding out in what logically was at least an ISI-sanctioned safe house. Unfortunately, any answers he might have provided were lost when Obama dumped him into the sea.
Instead of explaining such developments to the public, the federal government--whether under Democratic or Republican leadership--continues to just barrel around in the Middle East, stumbling from crisis to crisis and wasting an enormous number of lives and tax dollars to pursue vague policy objectives. Except for trying to control the oil of the region, its activities there amount essentially to fighting a constantly shuffling set of unsavory dictators who have become our enemies after serving first as allies.
The American government's unwillingness to seek answers to basic questions about 9/11 ensures that our overall foreign policy and intelligence services will remain a mess, while our country continues to be bled dry by the waste of enormous resources. We are being victimized by the very military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us would subvert our democracy if we weren't vigilant.
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