‘All for one and one for all’ should be the battle cry if the West goes to war against Assad’s Syrian regime
If Barack Obama decides to attack the Syrian regime, he has ensured –
for the very first time in history – that the United States will be on the same
side as al-Qa’ida.
Quite an alliance! Was it not the Three Musketeers who shouted “All for
one and one for all” each time they sought combat? This really should be the
new battle cry if – or when – the statesmen of the Western world go to war
against Bashar al-Assad.
The men who destroyed so many thousands on 9/11 will then be fighting
alongside the very nation whose innocents they so cruelly murdered almost
exactly 12 years ago. Quite an achievement for Obama, Cameron, Hollande and the
rest of the miniature warlords.
This, of course, will not be trumpeted by the Pentagon or the White
House – nor, I suppose, by al-Qa’ida –
though they are both trying to destroy Bashar. So are the Nusra front, one of
al-Qa’ida’s affiliates. But it does raise some interesting possibilities.
Maybe the Americans should ask al-Qa’ida for intelligence help – after
all, this is the group with “boots on the ground”, something the Americans have
no interest in doing. And maybe al-Qa’ida could offer some target information
facilities to the country which usually claims that the supporters of
al-Qa’ida, rather than the Syrians, are the most wanted men in the world.
There will be some ironies, of course. While the Americans drone
al-Qa’ida to death in Yemen and Pakistan – along, of course, with the usual
flock of civilians – they will be giving them, with the help of Messrs Cameron,
Hollande and the other Little General-politicians, material assistance in Syria
by hitting al-Qa’ida’s enemies. Indeed, you can bet your bottom dollar that the
one target the Americans will not strike in Syria will be al-Qa’ida or the
Nusra front.
And our own Prime Minister will applaud whatever the Americans do, thus
allying himself with al-Qa’ida, whose London bombings may have slipped his
mind. Perhaps – since there is no institutional memory left among modern
governments – Cameron has forgotten how similar are the sentiments being uttered
by Obama and himself to those uttered by Bush and Blair a decade ago, the
same bland assurances, uttered with such self-confidence but without
quite enough evidence to make it stick.
In Iraq, we went to war on the basis of lies originally uttered by
fakers and conmen. Now it’s war by YouTube. This doesn’t mean that the terrible
images of the gassed and dying Syrian civilians are
false. It does mean that any evidence to the contrary is going to have to be
suppressed. For example, no-one is going to be interested in persistent reports
in Beirut that three Hezbollah members – fighting alongside government troops in
Damascus – were apparently struck down by the same gas on the same day,
supposedly in tunnels. They are now said to be undergoing treatment in a Beirut
hospital. So if Syrian government forces used gas, how come Hezbollah men might
have been stricken too? Blowback?
And while we’re talking about institutional memory, hands up which of
our jolly statesmen know what happened last time the Americans took on the
Syrian government army? I bet they can’t remember. Well it happened in Lebanon
when the US Air Force decided to bomb Syrian missiles in the Bekaa Valley on 4
December 1983. I recall this very well because I was here in Lebanon. An
American A-6 fighter bomber was hit by a Syrian Strela missile – Russian made,
naturally – and crash-landed in the Bekaa; its pilot, Mark Lange, was killed,
its co-pilot, Robert Goodman, taken prisoner and freighted off to jail in
Damascus. Jesse Jackson had to travel to Syria to get him back after almost a
month amid many clichés about “ending the cycle of violence”. Another American
plane – this time an A-7 – was also hit by Syrian fire but the pilot managed to
eject over the Mediterranean where he was plucked from the water by a Lebanese
fishing boat. His plane was also destroyed.
Sure, we are told that it will be a short strike on Syria, in and out,
a couple of days. That’s what Obama likes to think. But think Iran. Think
Hezbollah. I rather suspect – if Obama does go ahead – that this one will run
and run.
Tidak ada komentar :
Posting Komentar