Can someone help me please?
This is what I know about the situation in Syria at the present moment...and please correct me if I have any facts wrong here...
There is a struggle within the country between two opposing groups AND the United States wants to invade the country because president Obama believes that the Syrians having chemical weapons is a direct threat to American national security.
This whole situation has me asking a few questions:
1. Has the Syrian government ever verbally expressed that they want to chemically bomb the US?
2. Does the United States have any authority to invade another country (especially without provocation)?
3. What exactly is the function of the UN? Can they not prohibit the US from invading Syria or inflict some severe punishment on them if they do? They do it often enough to other countries...for perceived war crimes and if the US proceeds with their military invasion, that is indeed what they will be guilty of.
World politics is a crock of shit. What is good for the goose isn't good for the gander and what we see (all the time) is countries like America, Britain, France, Israel, etc. making a mockery of the laws which they themselves have come up with and enforce on others.
Well, let's first improve your understanding of the situation. Firstly, the struggle is between the government and many splintered factions of opposing groups. Some represent the people of Syria, and some represent Al Qaeda and various other militant groups. Secondly, the US has backed down from its plan to attack Syria due to the Syrian government agreeing to forfeit its chemical weapon stockpiles to the international community for dismantlement. This tends to make it seem as if the US and its allies were truly looking towards punishing the Syrian government for the use of chemical weapons.
ReplyDeleteTo answer your questions:
1. The Syrian government did not make any threats to the US before the US threat of the use of force. However, this argument is fallacious as the US belief of the threat of chemical weapons does not depend on whether countries declare their intentions to attack. The major problem that the US has with the use of chemical weapons is that if a country is willing to use it on its own people, one can be reasonably certain that they would use it against a foreign enemy. A major US ally, Israel, borders Syria. It is more likely that the US was responding to prevent the use of these weapons on the Israeli people.
2. No they do not. However, it was never the stated intention of the US to invade Syria. The plan was to attack multiple points of strategic importance using cruise missiles in order to provide a severe warning for the use of chemical weapons. Regardless, this attack would likely have been in contravention of international laws as it would not have been authorized by the UN security council. As we have seen in the past though (Iraq), this likely would not have stopped the US.
3. The UN has many functions, though the function that I assume you are alluding to is to maintain international peace and security. As per International Law, an unprovoked act of aggression can only be legally authorized by the UN security council. However, certain members of the council have the power to veto any decision. In the case of Syria, both Russia and China vetoed the decision to attack Syria.
The UN primarily voices its dissatisfaction with the actions of countries via strong condemnations and sanctions. None of the countries on the security council, and most countries in the world, for that matter, would be willing to place sanctions against the US. Unfortunately, most countries would have more to lose than the US by doing this.
To give you a bit of a background to the current Syrian conflict. The protests truly gained traction after over a dozen teenagers were arrested and tortured for vandalism and making statements against the government. The Syrian government is considered Shia Muslims (though actually of the Aliwates religion) while the majority of the population of Sunni Muslims.
While I agree with you that most western countries do follow a hypocritical approach to respecting international law, I feel that focusing on this aspect of the issue only diverts from the major one. At present, over one hundred thousand people have died in the Syrian conflict with no real end in sight. Most of these people were civilians. While the US may have been guilty of war crimes if it attacked, the Syrian government most certainly is. Yet Russia and China choose not to condemn Syria, and Assad, for their actions. Russia stated that there is no conclusive proof that the Syrian government are responsible for the attacks. Indeed, no concrete evidence for this has been provided to the international community.
The issue is far more complex than I have detailed above. I advise you to research the conflict to gain a much better understanding of it.
Thank you for your comment. While I am a lot more enlightened (thanks to you) I agree that the situation is a lot more complicated (unnecessarily so, I feel, but okay).
ReplyDeleteI do feel that calling the world 'super-powers' hypocritical is a gross understatement.
I pray for two things:
1. That the countries experiencing internal conflict find peaceful resolutions to their problems soon, so that the spilling of innocent blood may be stopped.
2. That the American government breaks its trigger finger: acting like a self-righteous 2 year old who wants to shoot at anything he has a problem with is not winning the US any friends.