Did the US, the UK and France actually fire 100 missiles at three chemical weapons sites in Syria on Friday night? They say they did. Russia says they did, and angrily denounced the strikes. Other countries say they did. Like Australia — both Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten supported the attacks.
Or were they just fake news? Like tweets circulated by people purporting to show pictures of them that are in fact from other Middle Eastern countries decades ago, thus conveying (who knows? maybe deliberately?) the irony of the perpetual present of Western bombardment of the Middle East? Like Wag The Dog, in which an administration fakes an entire war to distract from a president’s sex scandals (made during the Clinton years, back when a president actually having even one sex scandal was considered grounds for impeachment — the past is another country, yada yada). Like those disgusting pro-Assad lefties on social media, who dismiss any accusation of war crimes by the butcher Assad as elaborately staged conspiracies by the US Deep State. Like Jean Baudrillard arguing that the Gulf War (#1, but he was writing before we had to number them) Did Not Take Place, that it existed for the West purely as propagandistic spectacle.
Would the same effect have been created if the whole thing had been faked up between the principals — some footage of missile strikes created, each side would have worked out in advance what they would say about the attacks; the Russians, ever more committed to the role of global troll, would have devised some eccentric word to use — in this case “hooliganism”. Trump could have had his distraction from the ever-tightening legal noose around him; May could have bolstered her fragile and bungle-prone government, Macron could have once again signalled France’s importance on the global stage, like Justin Trudeau but with a bigger country, and hey, have you seen the great weapons we manufacture in France? The critics clamouring for action against Assad would have been placated; what passes for concern about the welfare of Syrian people in the West assuaged; the Greens could have reflexively denounced the attacks and called for an end to the US alliance.
Honour satisfied all round, and for a far lower price than actually firing missiles.
What won’t happen of course is the end to genocidal slaughter of Syrians by the Assad regime and its Russian and Iranian helpers. For the West, however, the slaughter isn’t the important thing. It’s how you get slaughtered. Dying from a chemical attack is apparently morally worse than dying from a barrel bomb dropped on a marketplace, or being tortured to death inside one of Assad’s dungeons. That is what draws Western intervention. Why? Well, chemical weapons are illegal under international law. “The use of chemical weapons by anyone, anywhere, under any circumstances is illegal,” said Malcolm Turnbull when lauding the strikes. Problematically, however, the missile strikes were themselves illegal under international law. But it’s OK when we violate international law. Anyway, international law is a misnomer. There is no international law because there’s no way to enforce it consistently. It’s like when refugee advocates complain that Australia is breaking international law. It’s an entirely fatuous argument. So what?
Inconsistency isn’t merely an annoying flaw in the Western interventionist impulse. It’s a core feature. China makes the Assad regime look like amateurs when it comes to systemic human rights violations. No one speaks of bombing them. Saudi Arabia is engaged in industrial-scale murder and war crimes in Yemen, and helped fund Islamic fundamentalist monsters in Syria, but no one speaks of bombing them. Israel persistently violates international law in expanding its illegal settlements in Palestine and murdering Palestinians, but the only people who talk about bombing them are fundamentalist lunatics in Tehran. Arab countries — as long as they’re not our oil-producing mates, in which their atrocities and human rights violations attract no interest — well, we’re always happy to bomb them. For years and decades.
As for ordinary people in the West, do they really care? They might have their consciences pricked by a child’s corpse floating on a beach but by and large they’d prefer the whole mess to go away and are correctly sceptical of their leaders’ claims that yet another intervention will do any good, or even reduce harm. Far better for everyone if it really was all just fake news.
This is a great write-up!
I don’t really have a position either way on those air strikes, except of course that being outraged at the killing of innocents taking place and responding by killing different innocents seems an odd action to take.
But what baffles me the most about the whole Syria conflict is how everyone here seems to have super-strong opinions on it, but basically no one really has much of an idea what is going on there. We’re all really just doing the same as NATO/Russia, we’re just using Syria as a proxy conflict for our deeply held beliefs. We ignore whatever information conflicts with what we want to see, but remove all doubt from anything that confirms our world view.
Why? What is going on??
Brooking Institute “Which Path To Persia?”
Bernard I’ve been a subscriber since Day 1. This is the biggest rubbish I’ve read ever. What’s next? The landing on the moon was faked? The earth is flat?
Not wanting to be rude or anything, but I think you missed the point of this article. He’s not suggesting that it didn’t happen, just that for all it achieved, it may as well not have.
“Capricorn One“, starring the one and only (hopefully), OJ Simpson?
Got it in one Bernard, thanks. Killing with chemicals nasty. However, bombing human lives and habitation to shells of their former selves (just look at non-fake pics of east Ghouta, Mosul in Iraq), seems to be business-as-usual. AND there will be NO Marshall Plan to revive Iraq. Iraqis will just have to struggle to their knees and get on with life. As in Yemen where the Saudis are following suit. What a benighted worldview our politicians, many politicians take of this part of the world. Assad will resume the political life his father (and political great-grandfather) have played in Syrian history, ie, not for the benefit of those who wanted just a shred of democracy in their country.
Of course we care Bernard, some more than others, but what can you do. We aren’t being offered alternatives or agency in any form. The only agency we seem to have is in taking in some refugees, but I’d much rather there weren’t wars and atrocities occurring to create the conditions for refugees.
We care, we’re just disenfranchised and impotent.
The author is obviously spreading his talents too widely. Whenever he try to write about foreign affairs we get served up the same old stale cliches about Iran and Russia helping Assad’s “genocidal slaughter” of his own people. Paul Guy has it absolutely right. This is a load of old garbage. Given that the same garbage is spouted by persons who ought to know better, such as the ANU “analyst” on ABC Radio this morning, one might be tempted to cut BK a bit of slack, except that better information is available if only Crikey’s commentators could emerge from their bunker long enough to actually do some serious research.
And yes there is such a thing as international law, and just because Turnbull and Bishop pay lip service to it and then ignore it, does not mean that we should do the same. If we are to prevent a slide to nuclear annihilation, then actually upholding the law, and holding accountable those who break it, should be an essential first step.
James, which “law”? Less than two years ago Australian jets bombed a Syrian ‘target’ and mistakenly killed about 100 Syrian government soldiers. Prime Minister Turnbull “apologised” (to someone) for the error. That’s our elected prime minister. He apparently upholds some international ‘law’ which apparently allows Australia to enter whatever conflict we like, choose whatever targets we like and come home proclaiming to have done good work. Where does international law come into Australia’s involvement?
By the way, the Russians claim that some missiles were shot down. Who would know if this was true?
Charlie, your first question requires an answer longer than Crikey would permit, but the short answer is that Australia does subscribe to basic concepts of international law, as Turnbull and Bishop of fond of repeating (“the rules based international order “) being a particular favourite. In the present case we signed up to the UN Charter. Article 2(4) prohibits tthe he use of force in settling international disputes. Article 51 is also relevant as it provides exceptions, neither of which are applicable here. Therefore the bombing of Syria by the US et al is contrary to international law.
As to the second point, looking at the respective track records of Russia and the US since, say, the collapse of the Soviet Union, which one has the better record for truth telling? A no-brainer really.
You’re working well, James, so why don’t I help you along, with a few facts.
https://www.opcw.org/fileadmin/OPCW/EC/85/en/ec85dg16_e_.pdf
Yes, that’s an OPCW report. It was issued in March – a month ago.
And, it’s a report on an OPCW inspection done on the Syrian ‘CW’s ‘research centre’ that was bombed a couple of days ago.
The inspection, and follow up, were done last year.
To quote a summary from a very notorious media outlet:
“The report on the first inspection that was conducted between 26 February and 5 March 2017 says that “the inspection team did not observe any activities inconsistent with obligations under the Convention,” noting that Damascus had provided unimpeded access to the inspectors “to all selected areas.”
The follow-up inspection, carried out in November, did not find any incriminating evidence either.
The March 2018 report reiterates: “As stated in previous reports, all of the chemicals declared by the Syrian Arab Republic that were removed from its territory in 2014 have now been destroyed.”
A fella who worked at that facility for decades conducted a tour of the bombed facility for 3 international outlets, just yesterday: the notorious media outlet, AFP (French), and CBS (and, no there’s not more than 1 CBS).
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/syria-airstrikes-brazeh-complex-damascus-2018-04-14/
Why would 3 journalists, 2 of them from countries who bombed the CW facility, decide to take a tour of a bombed out CW facility, a day after the bombing?
Are they mad?
Or, did they believe the OPCW report from March, and/or their tour guide who told them that the facility, among other things, researched and produced, wait for it…?
“Medicine”.
Bernie needs to stop hyperventilating, and do some homework.
Charlie. The U.N. charter only applies to nation states. The terrorist “organisations” are covered by the terror charters of the UN (1997 convention for the suppression of terrorist bombngs http://www.un.org/en/counterterrorism/legal-instruments.shtml). The reason given for Austral’s involvement in Iraq & Syria are Daesh forces have had a direct impact on Australia’s security which has been reinforced by court cases on terror related offences. https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BriefingBook45p/IraqAndSyria
On Truth, Russia sells anti missilery systems so will say they shot down lots, USA sells missilery so will say none shot down. Reality is antimissile system is only as good as the operators & suspect Syrian operators are incompetent at best.