When a country plans to go to war, the rhetoric leaders use to demonize the enemy and rouse the faithful are instructive. George H.W. Bush called Saddam “a new Hitler.” Saddam called the Iraq war the “mother of all battles.” George W. Bush had his embarrassing “mission accomplished” moment on board the U.S.S. Lincoln. Bibi Netanyahu regularly compares Israel’s battle with Iran to the Holocaust. One of his most memorable (and toxic) historical analogies is: it’s Munich, and the year is 1938.
Now John Kerry has taken a page from Bibi’s book and called the Obama plan to attack Syria Congress’ “Munich moment.” This is a ludicrous and false historical analogy that places the looming U.S. assault on Syria in precisely the wrong context. It may go down in history as one of those dumb overstatements to which U.S. leaders are prone.
First, with all his warts, Assad is no Hitler. The options in the current conflict are not black and white, not good vs. evil as they were during World War II. Munich was seen as a decisive turning point, when Britain’s appeasement allowed Hitler to prepare for the all-out war he’d planned. This is no Munich moment. If the U.S. bombs Syria it will not stop Assad. It will at most wound him. And a wounded dictator can be more dangerous than one who is intact.
Finally, if this is a Munich moment it means that Kerry is not contemplating giving Assad a bloody nose, but rather a battle to the death to topple his regime. After all, what followed Munich was not a bloody nose, but all-out war. That’s why Kerry’s historical analogy is grossly inapt, unless of course Obama intends regime change.
Leaders always get tripped up in demonizing the enemy, in overstating the righteousness of their cause. The result is that when the battle turns ugly and your side falls short, that your original words come back to haunt. That’s the sort of statement John Kerry has made today.
One of the Democrats on the conference call during which Kerry made this comment retorted quite aptly that the administration had “historical amnesia.” I’d say they have a case that’s far worse than amnesia. They’re mangling history rather than just forgetting it.
In Syria, we face a moral quandary: a dictator willing to use chemical weapons on his own people. Do we attack? If we do, we assuage our conscience. But will attacking help the situation? If not Assad, then who? The rebels? Who are they? What guarantees do we have they will govern any better than Assad? In such a predicament I turn to the doctor’s motto: do no harm. Attacking Syria will do some small amount of good, perhaps. But it threatens to do far more harm than good. Until we have a viable alternative to Assad, I don’t think we can take him on. If we do, and it turns out badly, we have only ourselves to blame.
Yesterday, Jodi Rudoren wrote that the Israel lobby was expected to stay out of the debate about attacking Syria. I doubt this can be true. Aipac is dying to topple Assad. After all, how often do you get a chance to overthrow an enemy of Israel? The only thing stopping it may be an explicit directive from Netanyahu to keep its powder dry. An interesting bellweather will be how J Street responds. It is what I call “Jews for Obama.” Thus far, J Street has denounced the Syrian chemical weapons attack. But it has not advocated military intervention. Frankly, I’m shocked, as there is almost never any daylight between Jeremy Ben-Ami and Obama administration positions.
Israeli analysts and journalists are almost universally derisive of Obama’s “waffling” on Syria. There is no understanding within Israel of America’s democratic process nor of the push and pull between the president and Congress. This is because Israel is not a true democracy. Nor is there a separation of powers or checks and balances between branches of government as here.
Israelis also have a peculiar view that when they face a challenge or threat the only option is to smash it with all their might. Talk, to the average Israeli, is sissy stuff. The only thing that matters is who has the biggest gun. That’s why Israel is in the mess it is. It’s why Israel has so few policy options available to resolve the issues it faces. It’s why Israel is a questionable ally and loose cannon.
Dear Richard,
Wait a minute. Think about this.
Are you ABSOLUTELY certain that Assad gassed his people? Does anybody have IRREFUTABLE proof that it was he who gassed his own folks? He claims, “not.” And if you look at the logic of the situation, What would Assad have to gain from gassing a non-combatant civilian population? This action would have no strategic value. It certainly would not endear him to the uncommitted peoples of Syria, and it would bring on condemnation from the rest of the world, with possible intervention by the United States. For Assad to gas his own people defies rational thinking on his part and despite his warts he is not an irrational person, maybe delusional, but not irrational.
In reflecting upon the consequences of gassing children and creating a furor against Assad’s administration, who would have the most to gain from such an action? And one might then ask, who in the neighborhood has the mentality that it is morally acceptable to cluster bomb Lebanese children and phosphorize Gaza children?
So I think evaluating the appropriateness of the term a “Munich Moment” is a diversion from pursuing who might the real culprit be in this tragic episode.
In addittion there is such madness going on in the conversation that the U.S. is engendering among our “allies” and the world community. We have killed over 100,000 civilians in our misguided war into Iraq, and now we are going to punish a country for killing 1400 of its own citizens without real proof that it is of their own doing. How can Americans accept such stupidity and insanity from our “leaders”?
That’s right Bryan; Assad did not do it. This is an obvious and crude false flag operation. Besides, the US itself used CW in Iraq, not to mention all the deaths caused by depleted uranium. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/us-forces-used-chemical-weapons-during-assault-on-city-of-fallujah-514433.html
The zionists used CW against the densely populated and defenseless Gaza strip in 08/09. Real heroes! Where are the ‘NO FLY ZONES’? The cruise missiles??
Your rationale re all the deaths in Iraq caused by the US illegal invasion of that country and the same US now in need to ‘punish’ Syria for a few hundred deaths – that were caused by Obamas terrorist heroes and he knows it – in Syria is perfect. Only thing is the body count you offered seems much to low. According to Justforeignpolicy it’s more like 1.4 million and the figure is based on a scientific study by the highly regarded medical Journal ‘The Lancet’. See http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq
Also, Obomber keeps bombing and killing children in Af/Pak and Yemen, he bombs the hell out of soccer games, funerals, wedding parties, u name it! Obomber should face trial, evidence against him is massive, he’d hang for sure!
Regards,
Luca
I would not be so confident about the false flag, although one does have to consider the possibility.
It could have been:
– A deliberate false flag gassing by the rebels or some other third party
– A deliberate gassing by Assad’s forces as reported
– Incidental rupture of a storehouse of gas held by the rebels.
There is no way to be sure what happened but I lean toward the third option. In the second case, Assad lacks a clear motive. The gassing gained him nothing militarily, and may bring the United States in against him.
A false flag is a huge risk to whomever does it, and it does not appear that either the US or Israel were dead set on going in, although that has changed.
Sarin Gas: Israel Has Not Ratified CWC
Stock of CW and BW was seen as a poor man’s option for a nuclear deterrent in the Middle East.
Countries in the Middle East that are not parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)
(ACA) – Egypt and Syria have said they will not join the CWC unless Israel becomes a party to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Egypt and Syria are parties to the NPT; Israel has signed the CWC, but not ratified it. They represent three out of the seven countries that have not joined the CWC; the others are Angola, Myanmar (Burma), North Korea, and Somalia.
At the 2010 NPT Review Conference in May, the parties agreed to a final document that includes a commitment to steps toward establishing a zone free of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the Middle East. (See ACT June 2010.)
Chemical and Biological Weapons Status at a Glance
State declarations on Israel: Has revealed little in terms of capabilities or programs. Israel has not given a reason for not signing the BWC and has revealed nothing about its CW capabilities. Israel’s reason for not ratifying the CWC is that other states in the region have not done so.
Chemical Weapons
○ UK ‘approved nerve gas chemical exports to Syria’ in 2012
○ Amsterdam Crash: History of EL AL Flight LY1862 with Illegal Chemicals and Plutonium
Munich moment indeed. Historical dementia perhaps..or just plain historical illiteracy.
If it is a Munich moment for Congress it is time for it to end its appeasment of the Halliburton/military/industrial/oil/finace coalition of the will-to-power-mongering axis of self-anointed virtue; equivalent if anything ever was to the IGFarben/Krupps/Siemens/Thyssen/Messerschmitt/Schacht gallop towards its thousand year reich(PNAC?), totalitarian(full spectrum?)militarised resumption of the Great Game for imperial hegemony sans sunset on the WASP race to end all races in return to the radioactive primordial mushroom soup.
The flags and anthems may have changed..the resource/lebensraum rationalisations still trump humanised rationality. The noxious toxins of uber-nationalist exclusive tribalism still sits at the core. But this time the bunkered pistol is fitted with a nuclear hair-trigger.
Just as the highly cultured and civilised German people fell for the hubristic barbarity of Hitler and his thugs, the whole western world is blinding itself to the post Cold War savagery that brought us the Somme and Hiroshima.
I would be only too pleased to have it explained to me where exactly I misread the historical portents. In 1938/9(today is the anniversary of kick-off) ‘it couldn’t happen’…and in 1914 ‘it would all be over by Christmas’. The latter may be true this time.
‘Fasism is not in itself a new order of society. It is the future refusing to be born.’ Aneurin Bevan, 1897-1960.
Have to agree with Bryan. You’re asserting without a doubt that Assad is responsible, when just yesterday the best the French could come up with was a 9-page intelligence assessment. Not to compare apples to oranges, but my dishwasher comes with a 60-page manual, which was deemed necessary to cover all the intricacies of…. washing dishes.
That aside, the number they came up with was 200 to 300 deaths due to gas which points to a huge discrepancy between theirs and the US assessment of 1’400 attributable deaths.
To add to the confusion, there’s also this piece by AP’s Gavlak that points to a wholly different, but equally plausible responsibility:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/jabhat-al-nusra-rebels-admit-responsibility-for-chemical-weapons-attack/5347485
Some sort of provocation?
○ Russia’s early radars detect launch of two ballistic rockets in Mediterranean – Defense Ministry
○ Israel announces successful joint missile test with US in Med
The inappropriate statement of a ‘Munich moment’ by John Kerry is indeed as misplaced for Netanyahu invoking the ‘holocaust’ memory trying to sell his agressive foreign policy on its neighbors and Iran. I do think an punitive attack by the US and its allies can be compared to the Sarajevo assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 and the “shot heard ’round the world.” Steps 2 and 3 after an attack can not be foreseen.
Why do you think Israel is a questionable ally? If you look at its history eventually Israel always does what the US real (but real) wants. From withdrawing from Sinai in 56 to canceling weapons deal in 2000 with China.
@ Lior K.: You’ve mentioned perhaps the only 2 times Israel has acceded to U.S. demands (there was also George Bush’s cancellation of U.S. aid to punish Shamir), while conveniently omitting the scores of times Israel has rejected U.S. requests or damaged U.S. intelligence interests. Have you forgotten the scores of U.S. citizens who’ve been arrested & imprisoned for compromising U.S. security on Israel’s behalf? Or the enormous counter-intelligence resources the U.S. dedicates to protecting itself from Israeli intelligence?
Being an ally does not mean you always do what the other wants.
I recently read a very good article on why Israel should stop getting military aid from the US and there were many other instances that Israel did what the US asked/demanded (e.g. boycott the 1980 Olympics, which the UK didn’t).
The article – http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4375305,00.html
You also wrote about “scores of U.S. citizens who’ve been arrested & imprisoned for compromising U.S. security on Israel’s behalf?”, beside Jonathan Polard, can you name a few?
@ Lior K:
It’s easy to do a simply Google search to answer your question. I don’t see it as my job to do such research for you.
http://www.examiner.com/article/breaking-news-rebels-admit-gas-attack-result-of-mishandling-chemical-weapons
Bring tthe usual granule of NaCl.
@ Bryan @ Lifelong
It’ seems that you have forgotten that as part of the US assets in the region they have numerous AEGIS destroyer’s, at least 2 X-band radar systems (one stationed in Israel & one in Turkey) number of satellites with different spectral image analysis capabilities and many other SIGNET collecting arrays. Not to mention the Israeli systems in the region.
When Kerry claims the US knows exactly what happened, he’s not lying. A missile / rocket was detected the moment it was launched and it’s impact time and place was documented.
@ Richard first time I agree with you, Kerry’s statement was baseless & irrelevant. If Assad is 1938 Hitler, where that puts Iran in Kerry’s opinion ?
as Churchill once stated “When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber”
“It’ seems that you have forgotten that as part of the US assets in the region they have numerous AEGIS destroyer’s, at least 2 X-band radar systems (one stationed in Israel & one in Turkey) number of satellites with different spectral image analysis capabilities and many other SIGNET collecting arrays.”
That doesn’t mean they aren’t lying.
“When Kerry claims the US knows exactly what happened, he’s not lying.”
Don’t bet on it. He may not be George Bush, but he sounds more like him every day.
‘Churchill once stated “When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber”’
He should know. He was one of the parrots.
@H Mor
‘A missile/rocket was detected the moment it was launched and its impact time and place was documented.’
Circumstantial evidence.
Aside from the source of the report, the chemicals may have been at the site of impact already.
Churchhill had his own history of using air-delivered chemical weapons in the region.
And his own record of parroting when it suited.
For ‘eagles’ some might substsitute ‘vultures’.
@ Damien
“Circumstantial evidence, Aside from the source of the report, the chemicals may have been at the site of impact already”
So we have a missile that was launched from an Assad army base, exploded on a civil neighborhood, just after the explosion it’s obvious that people were effected from the existence of nerve gas and you call it circumstantial ?
With respect to the the possibility that the chemicals have been on the site, though it’s possible( any speculation is possible and this specific one isn’t any different) it is extremely unlikely as Sarin is highly corrosive and needs to be stored in specially designed containers that resist breakdown, i doubt anyone will store such substance amid a heavily populate civil area.
Given the precedents of babies dragged from Kuwaiti incubators, H, Saddam’s WMD manufactured mirage, and selective moral concerns of the depleted uranium delivery boys…I’m actually less concerned about Assad’s thuggery than our own sanctimonious paragons…the wolf-crying rings hollow..even if there is a granule of truth this time. Just as Israel’s and the US/Britain’s moralising over Iran’s nuclear program engenders no credence.
The pre-emptive judge/jury/executionary stance also belies any commitment to law or anything other than a dictatorial order.
This is the warm-up to the Tehran tango…and the burial of the UN; just as the League of nations was buried in its expedient turn.
If the object is the provocation of the Bear and Panda into the same ballet..I think someone should be careful what they are wishing for.
I smell false-flag rats-nests. I won’t entertain you with my colourful suspicions. There have been a few special forces dirty-tricks afficionados on the ground since before day 1.
I’m sure you are at least as well aware of the background jugglers as I am. There is a bit more than a whiff of Sarin in the noxious air.
“When Kerry claims the US knows exactly what happened, he’s not lying. A missile / rocket was detected the moment it was launched and it’s impact time and place was documented.”
Neither Kerry nor the US provide enough credibility for statements like those to be taken at face value. And I really don’t think that needs any elaboration either…
All the abasement which Neville Chamberlain accepted at Munich, bought another year to prepare the free world’s defences.
Guy Gibson VC wrote, in his account of Bomber Command in WW2 “Enemy Coast Ahead” “Thank God we didn’t go to war in 1938!” At the time, his squadron was still equipped with Hawker Hind biplanes. There’s one in working order at Shuttleworth, if anyone’s curious. Probably the most agile biplane bomber ever made, but it wouldn’t have been good enough.
And the USA’s armed forces, in 1938, could not have fought a war with anyone.
There was no opportunity for anyone to defeat Nazi Germany in 1938, only a opportunity to make a futile gesture, which Chamberlain was wise enough to reject, His reputation has been trashed ever since, though the real culprit was his predecessor, Baldwin, he was the one who dithered over the re-armament plans which Chamberlain, as Chancellor, was willing to fund.
But for Munich, we wouldn’t be here.
Nope, Fred, the real culprit was French intransigence over Versaille vengeance reparations, which crippled Weimar recovery and opened the door for the Hitlerite gangsters to lever their way into reactivating the German military/industrial complex for another round of fratricidal vengeance.
And at the back of that we have an economic system posited on centuries(indeed millennia)of imperial predation..but thats slightly extraneous to the current crisis.
Britannia was doing fascism before Benito coined the term and won the admiration of Adolf. The Roman eagle has since landed…in Washington.
I am pro-Israel commenters to stay on-topic & I must do the same with all, regardless of their political ideology. Please try to confine your discussion as closely as possible to the post topic.
The startling thing is how many of them see history through Himmler’s spectacles.
AIPAC Strongly Urges Congress To Back Syria Strike
WASHINGTON – After weeks of quietly working behind the scenes to build support for U.S. military intervention in Syria, the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) formally called on Congress Tuesday to authorize airstrikes aimed at degrading the Syrian military’s ability to use chemical weapons.
“It is imperative to adopt the resolution to authorize the use of force,” the powerful Israel lobby said in a statement. It urged members of Congress to “take a firm stand that the world’s most dangerous regimes cannot obtain and use the most dangerous weapons.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/03/aipac-syria-_n_3862369.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
You called it.
@Bob Mann: Thanks. I knew Rudoren had to be wrong. It was just a matter of time before Aipac took sides.
http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/the-iraq-war/the-first-gulf-war-was-based-on-a-lie-too.html
How they conned us 23 years ago…
The FIRST Gulf War was based on a lie too
Orchestrated by US PR firm
Like father like son like Obama
The history of the First Gulf War
1. Reagan and Bush sent Saddam Hussein billions of dollars and literally tons of chemical and biological weapons to kill Iranians. (They did a good job. Iran lost over one million people in the Iran-Iraq War.)
2. Kuwait was stealing oil from Iraq using slant drilling rigs they got from their friends in Texas.
3. Iraq told them to cut it out. Kuwait continued. Iraq told the US they planned to invade. US Ambassador told Hussein: “It’s none of our business how you resolve this.”
4. Iraq invades Kuwait.
5. Bush whips Americans into a frenzy with the lies above.
6. US attacks Iraqi forces, drives them from Kuwait, kills 135,000 of them including thousands as they were in retreat on their own territory – and establishes bases and supply depots all over the region
7. Mass murdering psychopath Bill Clinton spends eight years destroying basic infrastructure in Iraq leading to the death of at least 500,000 children
8. Son of Bush and his cabinet of lying criminals makes the case to invade Iraq.
9. They do so and deliberately botch the post-invasion occupation to degrade the country even further killing many hundreds of thousands more.
10. Hand picked animatron Bushbama continues the occupation, foments violence through out the region, and now threatens to attack Syria.
Deja Vu all over again.
RE: Israelis also have a peculiar view that when they face a challenge or threat the only option is to smash it with all their might. Talk, to the average Israeli, is sissy stuff. ~ R.S.
FROM TED RALL, 07/22/10:
SOURCE – http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/22-1
ALSO SEE: “Israel’s Defense Chief OK’s Hundreds of Israeli Deaths”, By Ira Chernus, CommonDreams.org, 11/11/11
ENTIRE COMMENTARY – http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/11-2
Munich moment or WMD moment? Tonkin Gulf moment? Thinking back over my life, I’m impressed (unfavorably) how the US government attacks some other country every year or two. There’s always some pious excuse. The war is always with some brown people’s country. It’s always conducted with massacres and torture and rape. In the end, we leave things worse than before, but (like Little Jack Horner) we always proclaim “What a good boy am I!”
Mr.Silverstein, if you really believe president Assad ordered a CW attack right after UN CW inspectors had just arrived in Damascus(in a deal with the Syrian Government no less to investigate previous allegations!!), let me know cause I gotta a bridge I can sell you.
When Mr.Silverstein says the syrian government used CW, he’s simply making it up, his sources ridiculous israeli propaganda.
This war in the making, if it happens, will be just another war for Israel. Just like Iraq was. It all goes back to Yinon’s plan. Silverstein knows it too. In re to Syria the plan states “The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unqiue areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target. Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shiite Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbor, and the Druzes who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan, and certainly in the Hauran and in northern Jordan”.
If the zionists manage to destroy Syria, next target will be an isolated Hezb, which will have lost strategic depth and will have weapon supply routes restricted. I read in the Israeli media a general state that as soon as the syrian government was collapsed, Israel would hit Lebanon again. Final target: Iran.
The zionists, the saudis and ZUSA have been working on this thing since at least 2007, as investigative journo Seymour Hersh revealed in the article ‘The Redirection’. He revealed how they were working to create a Sunni extremist front to use against Iran and its allies.
There are of course, other players and other reasons for the imposed war on the syrian nation; particularly, energy geopolitics. Iran has concluded a deal for a gas pipeline with Iraq and Syria to deliver gas to European markets. This is why Qatar and Turkey went crazy, because the competing quatari gas pipeline which would use Turquey as the hub into European markets is inferior a project, logistically-wise. But then it all comes back to Israel and its 5th column in Amerika. Because they do not want the Iranian project to succeed either, no sir!
Let me also add that this talk about ‘a Munich moment’ is pure poppycock. In more ways than people think. For one, WWII was NOT a ‘good war’, a war of ‘good’ vs ‘evil’. Most wwII ‘history’ is bunk, nothing but Allied propaganda. Germany, or for that matter, the Axis, were not the only parties responsible for the war. The Allies shoulder much of the responsability for it, I’d say most of it. Hitler and the NS leadership NEVER PLANNED for ‘all-out war’. The very beginning of the war, defined as the German invasion of Poland, is largely misrepresented. It could have been avoided and it was largely the fault of the UK, France and Poland. But even without going into the many details of the case, the hypocrisy and cinicysm can be easily identified. One small example, when the leaders of Britain and France declared war against Germany on September 3, 1939, they announced that they were doing so because German military forces had attacked Poland, thereby threatening Polish independence. In going to war against Germany, the British and French leaders transformed what was then a geographically limited, two-day-old clash between Germany and Poland into a continental, European-wide conflict. It soon became obvious that the British-French justification for going to war was NOT sincere. When Soviet forces invaded Poland from the East two weeks later, ultimately taking even more Polish territory than did Germany(I think some 60% of the country), the leaders of Britain and France did not declare war against the Soviet Union. And although Britain and France went to war supposedly to protect Polish independence, at the end of the fighting in 1945 – after five and a half years of horrific struggle, death and suffering – Poland was still not free, but instead was entirely under the brutal rule of the Soviet Union at its worst(under Stalin).
A final thought: Churchill, FDR, Truman and Stalin were ALL resonsible for MASSIVE war crimes. Good vs Evil? Rubish.
@ Luca K.: I have an important comment rule requiring that they are on-topic, relating directly to the post. Yours is off-topic. Please confine your comments to ones that directly relate to the subject of the post.