On March 19th, it will be a year, day for day, since squadrons of French planes, later followed by British, American and Arab aircraft, saved Benghazi from what would have been its inevitable destruction.
Well, things being what they are and if the international community does not pull itself together, this anniversary may have the bitter taste of ashes and failure.
For today, there is a new Benghazi.
There is a city in the region that is in precisely the same situation as was Benghazi.
To be exact, there is a city that finds itself in even more dire straits than Benghazi was, since the same type of tanks, stationed in the same manner, at the same distance from unarmed civilian populations have, this time, already gone into action, and this for the past several months.
This city is Homs.
This is the Syrian capital of pain, where they target journalists and massacre civilians indiscriminately.
And the fact is: what we did there, we are not doing here; the same tanks our aviators nailed to the ground in Libya, just hours before they let loose their fire, are operating in Syrian with complete impunity.
Of course, I am aware that the two situations are not identical.
And no one can ignore that the geography of the country, the lack of an equivalent of this vast back-up zone of liberated Cyrenaica or, moreover, the fact that it enjoys the support of two influential allies Kadhafi did not have -- Iran and Russia -- complicate intervention.
Nonetheless.
There comes a moment when enough is enough.
There is a moment when, confronted with the carnage, the trifle of 8000 dead, victims of Bashar al-Assad's tanks, the dismal sideshow of this referendum supposedly organized, what's more, under the hail of shells and sniper fire, one must have the elementary dignity to say, "Stop!"
Yes, there is a moment when an international community that has voted by overwhelming majority (137 votes at the United Nations General Assembly on February 16th) to condemn the assassin can no longer allow itself to remain the paralyzed hostage of these two hoodlum States, in this instance, China and Russia. (On March 10th, 2011, facing a threat that, I repeat, was in the earliest stages of execution, didn't French President Sarkozy tell the representatives of the National Transitional Council of Libya who had come to the Elysée to request intervention that, naturally, he would do all he could to obtain United Nations backing, but that if by chance he could not, given the urgency of the situation, he would be satisfied with the reduced legitimate authority of the endorsement of the European Union, NATO, and the Arab League?)
And as for the argument of geography, the idea according to which an intervention in an urban area would be more problematic than a strike in the desert is an equally unconvincing excuse. This is, first of all, because at Homs, as at Idlib or Banias, there are also a few tanks posted a few kilometers outside the city and consequently capable of being neutralized; but it is especially because the friends of Syria have a whole range of means of intervention that would not be a simple replica of what worked in Libya but would, forcibly, be adapted to the terrain at hand.
They can, for example, establish perimeters of security, maintained by an Arab peace-keeping force, at the borders with Jordan, Turkey, and, perhaps, Lebanon, in the spirit of the Qatari foreign minister's suggestion in Washington last week,
In the spirit of the suggestion offered simultaneously by the Turkish foreign minister, they can impose "no kill" zones, sanctuary areas in the heart of the country, maintained by elements of the Free Syrian Army equipped with defensive weapons.
Outside these zones, they can hand the Free Syrians the necessary weapons so that they, themselves, can destroy the artillery pieces Hamas has installed near schools and hospitals. .
They can declare certain areas off limits -- in the sky, to helicopters and deadly airplanes and, on the ground, to armored convoys transporting troops and matériel.
With the support of the Turkish army which, confronted with the Iranian threat, has long since chosen its camp and has the two NATO bases of Izmir and Incirlik, they can survey these zones and, if necessary, make sure they are respected.
And it might be useful for the same friends of Syria to suggest that their Egyptian "brothers" close the Suez Canal to all Iranian ships like those that, last week once again, unloaded weapons and instructors at the Russian base of Tartus.
Is all this risky?
Of course.
But it is less so than the civil war Assad is working up to, one that would transform Syria into a new Iraq.
Less so than the reinforcement, if Assad wins the day, of this Shi'ite axis they're dreaming of in Tehran, one that threatens world peace.
And less so than the moral disaster we shall be compelled to face if the "responsibility to protect," superbly undertaken in Libya, should return to the hell of betrayed ideals in Syria.
Dr. Josef Olmert: Saudi Arabia and Syria -- Iran Is in the Background
it's work, spend our money, get our kids killed or losing
arms or legs.
We should use all kinds of measures to carefully help the
rebels, but not invade in any sense at all. We can not
be the world policeman. We are already broke from
doing that twice in a very big way.
No phony war with Iran or any other Mid East country.
We need to focus on fixing the US, our bridges, etc.
rather than for foreigner's. I'm very sympathetic,
but we have to stop this, we don't have the
money even if all other aspects looked good.
Consider this, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."
I have yet to see any plan that would justify military intervention. I am not say such a plan does not exist. I am saying all the plans (and I am being generous in calling them plans) that I have seen are vastly inadequate.
However:
1) As long as Russia disagrees, it is hard to intervene. Russia is afraid that NATO will intervene in the Caucasus.
2) It is important to not make the religious civil war situation in Syria worse.
Islam has known an internal religious war, ever since the Fourth Caliph, Uthman. Uthman decided what Muhammad said, and many in Muhammad's family objected, accusing Uthman of sexism, among other things. This is how the Shia appeared.
From the Western secular point of view, the dominant Sunni Islam has been the most regressive (Wahhabism was even unlawful in Egypt in 1300 for its extremism). Alawites view themselves as Shia. Yet, some Sunnis call them Pagan (a code for extermination).
The West ought never to support one side of religious war blindly, as it does in Afghanistan.
Plus: many Syrian Christians support Assad.
Libya's revolt was started as a fight by secularists against a dictator. So Syria is not Libya.
http://rt.com/news/libya-rebels-torture-africans-679/
A shocking video has appeared on the Internet showing Libyan rebels torturing a group of black Africans. People with their hands bound are shown being locked in a zoo-like cage and allegedly forced to eat the old Libyan flag.
This is a highly brainwashed doped-down blogger post which we would expect from the corporate-controlled media. No, Benghazi was not "liberated" by NATO war planes. The war planes flew in so the "rebels" could takeover the city. I don't know what it's going to take to wake people up. The younger generations will see it for what it is when their home nations are bankrupted later on due to this failed and completely flawed ideology.
a Neocon wet dream $$$$$
In fact Afgan does not make any sense....only controlling their drugs or
using it to threaten Iran makes any sense of it all....even that is a vast
waste of our money and people, but I respect our troops for generally
doing a difficult job...
Rarely do we ask why it is that Muslims so often need saving from their dictators. Or why a party that campaigned on improving America's reputation by promising not to bomb Muslims anymore, is now improving America's reputation by bombing so many Muslims and so often that it makes George W. Bush look like a tie dyed hippie.
The Obama Administration has had a role in regime change in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya all in one year. Along with the other "Friends of Syria" it would like to bomb its way to regime change in Syria. The point of all this regime change is to replace totalitarian Muslim regimes with democratically elected totalitarian Muslim regimes on the theory that will make everyone happier.
The stabilization of the United States is the only imperative, the power on earth that can save humanity. The US citizenry must terminate the usurious, bankrupt, Imperial, monetary financial system, then we can go on to create the higher order of existence humanity demands. Stop Perpetual War, stop the war upon the population.
IRAQ, done for the neocon's, will cost the average US family OVER
$ 40,000 by the time we finally pay it off $$$$$$$
Since you apparently don’t know anything about Africa and the Maghreb Region.
Libya was also the Driving force of 2 of the African great future Projects:
- African Monetary Fund, African Central Bank, African Investment Bank to challenge the dominance of the US dollar and Euro currencies
- Regional trade Blocs as a base to achieve the creation of the United States of Africa
Good gravy...France's worst philosopher!
Yes, it's the Shias and the Iranians ( who have not started a war since 1826 and an aggressive war since the mid 1600s) who threaten world peace, and not those who actually threaten war and cannot go more than a few years without one!
“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to
the sound of trumpets” Voltaire
For starters, the comparison with Libya doesn't hold water. Whereas we could have justified that intervention on the grounds that it was favored by Libyans, no such appetite exists in Syria where 55% want Assad to remain in power. And when a majority favor a gradual transition, the focus needs to turn to reforming the system, which is exactly what is being done with the drafting of a new constitution and upcoming multiparty parliamentary elections (for the first time)
So why Syria? Why not intervene in Bahrain, where protests have crossed sectarian lines, to force out the monarchy? Why was there no support for attempts to negotiate Saleh's resignation in Yemen, despite a lack of majority support?
Yemen and Bahrain are "local cops on the beat" to use Nixon's term. They prevent the rise of nationalist movements in the region and are supported for that exact reason. But since Syria is allied with Iran, the opportunists are more than willing to use this as a thin excuse for regime chance.
If the neocon's are for it, I'm probably going to be against it !