Washington Post admits defeat on Syria

"As we have written previously, the only hope for an acceptable political settlement in Syria lies in an intervention that would decisively shift the balance of Syria’s war — through arms supplies to the rebels and airstrikes to eliminate the regime’s air power. If Mr. Obama is unwilling to take such steps, he ought also to eschew diplomacy that makes his administration appear foolish as well as weak."  Washington Post Editorial Board

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Well there you have it.  "... and airstrikes to eliminate the regime’s air power." So, after all the baloney about "no boots on the ground," "no direct US intervention," we have an honest admission by the neocons and Wilsonians at the Post that what they want is for Obama to order the air forces of the United States into action to destroy the present Syrian government.

They now recognize that he is not going to do that, and so they also acknowledge that diplomacy that consists of unlimited travel by the vain is pointless and humiliating.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/syrian-president-al-assad-shows-no-sign-of-backing-down/2013/05/30/673b91a2-c949-11e2-8da7-d274bc611a47_story.html

Comments

[Alba Etie]

The WaPo 's climbed down from the advocacy of the no fly zone is just one more piece of evidence -IMO - that we are not going to Syria.

[linda]

it's remarkable how quickly syria disappeared from the cable coverage... not one mention of it on msnbc so far this a.m., when it's been an hourly feature for the past several weeks -- esp with st johnnie's surprise travel there and photo op with some curious 'allies'. it will be interesting to see if andrea greenspan's daily propagandizing for intervention continues today.

[r whitman]

It would be wonderful if the Russians inherited the Middle East from us. Let them screw with it.

[Will Reks]

I think I could probably live with Kerry making a fool of himself in these pointless reconciliation efforts if it means we stay out out of Syria.

[eakens]

Proof once again that Iranians are not Arabs.

[Alba Etie]

Mrs Greenspan had one of the "usual suspects "neoliberal Wilsonian Interventionist , Dennis Ros today . Mr Ross was muted in his views - there are no good options etc - 'leaning toward no fly zone, but gee I do not know " about interjecting ourselves into the Syrian Civil War Cauldron . Yes this ain't at all like Richard Perle et al pimping for the Illegal Irak Occupation .

[marcus]

What is the basis for your continued "illegal" Irak war claim? Is this a postmortem assessment or a claim of obvious illegality from inception?

[turcopolier]

marcus

As for me, I don't claim that the Iraq War was illegal. I claim that it was legally instigated by an administration that successfully propagandized the American public on the basis pf false, fabricated and exaggerated claims about Iraq. pl

[confusedponderer]

The differentiation I would make is that it was probably legal under US domestic law.

IMO it was not legal under international law, and here's why: The US did not secure a UN mandate.

Think for a second about why the UN had to retroactively acknowledge the fact that the US was the occupier of Iraq in resolution 1546, giving (finally) a mandate to the multinational forces in Iraq (i.e. before, they didn't have one)

What happened is that the US weaselled their mandate out of ambiguous wording in resolution 1441, using the phrase "serious consequences"). The Wiki article is illustrative:

"The resolution text was drafted jointly by the United States and the United Kingdom, the result of eight weeks of tumultuous negotiations, particularly with Russia and France. France questioned the phrase "serious consequences" and stated repeatedly that any "material breach" found by the inspectors should not automatically lead to war; instead the UN should pass another resolution deciding on the course of action. In favour of this view is the fact that previous resolutions legitimizing war under Chapter VII used much stronger terms, like "...all necessary means…" in Resolution 678 in 1990 and that Resolution 1441 stated that the Security Council shall "remain seized of the matter."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resolution_1441

The US ignored that, in essence claiming that their attack was the serious consequence announced.

As a member of the UNSC the US practically cannot be and will not be held accountable for what is arguably a war of aggression against Iraq.

That may come across as a stark statement, but wars that are not fought in self-defence and are not conducted under a UN Mandate are just that, wars of aggression.

In Nuremberg they hung folks for that, and rightly so IMO. I am all for that what's good for the goose is good for the gander, but alas ... Keitel and his goons clearly weren't just as exceptional as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Yoo and Gomzales, to name just a few.

Now, we have come a long way since Nuremberg, and from the vision of the prohibition of war we are back again where the likes of Yoo consider the use of armed force a normal expression of national will. Welcome to the revival of the little cabinet wars of old.

[Alba Etie]

War of aggressions are illegal . UN did not sanction the invasion and takeover of Iraq.Saddam Hussein did not attack us - So yes from the inception the Iraq occupation was illegal . You may recall President Bush forced the UN weapons inspectors out of Iraq before they had completed there tasking looking for the WMD that many of us said did not exist . I also believe it is illegal to subject We the People to the Propaganda Campaign that the neocons subjected us to - to justify at Iraq occupation .
Marcus do you favor some type of US military involvement in Syria ?

[Alba Etie]

Col Lang
I am certainly not an expert on international war , nor on international law - but my understanding is that since there was no direct threat to our national security , and we elected to invade Iraq by choice - without UN sanction this was an illegal .

[marcus]

Assuming "pf" is short for prima facie. Do you think there was illegality involved in these falsehoods? If an individual through simple analysis is convinced of these falsehoods is he bound by his belief in this illegality?

[Alba Etie]

Col Lang
I thought it was illegal to have our government knowingly feed us falsehoods so that the USA would invade another country under false premises. And if this is not illegal , why not ? It seems repulsively Orwellian that the Bush Administration scared us into war -by manipulating us with lies .

[Amir]

You might want to check Justice Jackson's argument in Nurenberg Trial regarding the ultimate crime against humanity (not being running death camps but rather INITIATING aggression)

[walrus]

Marcus, we are splitting hairs here. The Iraq War was fraudulently concieved since its raison d'etre was a series of deliberate lies by the Bush Administration regarding Iraq's posession of weapons of mass destruction. These lies are documented. This does not mean that the servicemen and women acted illegally.

I'm sure that there is a Latin maxim that sums it up.

[FB Ali]

The Post (and others) who have advocated a no-fly zone in Syria obviously hope to repeat the Libyan outcome of removal of the regime. Since there is absolutely no reason why the aftermath in Syria will not also be a repeat of the Libyan one, one can only assume that their underlying aim is to push Obama into another, and much more consequential, fiasco. That such an outcome would also cause serious damage to the security and interests of the US does not seem to bother them overly.

One can only marvel at the level of patriotism existing within these circles.

[turcopolier]

FB Ali

Over and above all that, Libya was easy compared to what Syria would be like. pl

[turcopolier]

All

I don't think it is illegal for the US Government to lie. I don't believe that any government should be made to create a law that would mandate truth. Think about the consequences. I say this in spite of the fact that I have always tried hard to tell truth. It's part of the ethos I was taught early in life.

As you all should know from my article "Drinking the Koolaid" I was opposed to the invasion and occupation of Iraq but I do not recall that the UN opposed our doing so. pl

[Alba Etie]

Marcus
Respectfully - there is plenty of prima facie evidence that Dick Cheney & Company made the decision to lie their collective asses off to the Citizens of these United States.Do you not remember the Iraq Study Group?Vice President Cheney going to the CIA and telling their analysis what he wanted the Iraqi intelligence to say to justify invading that country . You sound like a lawyer Marcus - and as such perhaps I will try to clarify how I view the US National Leadership during the run up to IMO the illegal war in Iraq. They - Cheney et al fabricated the reasons to go to Iraq - that they maintained that al Qaida & Saddam were operationally allied and carried out the 911 attacks together - that was the biggest prevarication . Now I am not a lawyer Marcus - nor am I in charge of anything - but there is plenty of 'pf " on the record IMO to try the National Leadership as war criminals I agree completely with confusedponderer on this - Cheney , Addington , Rumsfeld et al knowingly lied to the American people about the threat Saddam poised to our national security . And I the same time we tried the National leadership - if I was in charge of anything - we would actively acknowledge that the Service Members we sent in harms way to Iraq were not and are not culpable in anyway for what Cheney et al did in taking us to Iraq illegally - The Service Members were full filling the obligations that our National Leadership had them undertake.

[Alba Etie]

Col Lang
Its is an interesting questions though - if its not illegal for a small cohort of our national government to willfully manipulate us into a War - then what should our response be as citizens when this propaganda campaign is revealed ?

[Babak Makkinejad]

UN wanted its own cut, that is all.

[Babak Makkinejad]

You are right; there is no basis for that assertion - never was.

You could argue that there was legal basis for calling the war of North against South illegal within US Constitutional Framework.

Clearly there is no legal basis for calling the US War against Iraq illegal under international law - since no such thing exists.

[fanto]

All, this morning on CNN Fareed Zakaria had a panel including the re-emerging from long silence, Danielle Pletka (AEI). She pushed US intervention in Syria with no fly zone etc.

[William R. Cumming]

Agree with PL! Perhaps the Heisenberg Principle in physics applied to FP!

[PeterHug]

It is not (and IMO should not be) illegal for the US Government to lie in order to achieve policy goals. However, it may be illegal (and I'm not a lawyer so I really don't know for sure) for an Administration to lie to Congress - and I'm quite sure they did that as well.