President Obama cannot escape blame for the killing by pro-Assad
militias of 340 Syrians in the Damascene Suburb of Daraya. After all, this mass
murder is Assad’s way of saying “thanks for the green light… sorry, I meant the
redline.”
On Saturday, August 25, pro-Assad militias stormed the
Damascene Suburb of Daraya and perpetrated a horrendous massacre, the worst so
far, that claimed the Lives of over 340 locals by current count, though the
number is expected to grow. Pro-regime channels covered the aftermath in
gruesome details blaming it on the rebels, a claim that is by now as laughable
as Assad’s reformist credentials. But Assad’s point was to show Syrians that he
can now kill openly and with impunity and that no one can stop him, thanks to
the cowardice of the international community.
Personally, and though this may burn my last political
bridges with the Administration, I cannot but hold President Obama morally
responsible for the Massacre in Daraya. His recently stated redline on the
potential use of WMDs, his cold calculations and his cynical about-face
regarding the Responsibility to Protect have combined to pave the way to this
moment, acting as a green light for perpetrating such massacres.
The Administration's "we're not touching this"
policy regarding the situation in Syria, a policy that got stated and restated
one way or another by American officials after every escalation on part of the
Assad regime, has gradually facilitated the use of heavy artillery, tanks,
helicopter gunships, fighter jets and now systematic massacres against a mostly
defenseless civilian population and have allowed for the transformation of the
Syrian Revolution from a nonviolent protest movement calling for democratic
change, into an asymmetrical sectarian conflict, in which targeting children
and summary executions, carried out mostly by pro-Assad militias, are now
commonplace.
To claim that this was a surprising development is
disingenuous at best, as this was predicted by a number of activists,
dissidents and analysts from day one of the revolution, and was at the heart of
most arguments calling for early intervention. And the message was conveyed to
Administration officials of all ranks at different junctures throughout the
last few months.
To use the current mayhem as retroactive justification for
nonintervention is to dismiss in an ad hoc and callous manner the strong potential
for preemption that was involved. In other words, this situation was not
inevitable, but was made inevitable by the lack of strong response by the
international community, especially the United States.
Even now the dissolution of Syria and its failure as a state
is not inevitable, but a stronger interventionist policy than would have been
necessary in the beginning is now required. But those who dithered then are
more than likely to dither now...
Except of course for that nagging possibility of having WMDs
fall into the "wrong" hands, because Assad's blood-soaked hands seem
somehow "right" to American (and Israeli) officials. So long as Assad
is able to show that his grip over the WMDs’ stockpiles is as strong as ever,
the world wouldn't give two bits for the thousands of lives he is taking and
destroying, all pretenses to the contrary notwithstanding.
"Lucky" for us, and in a typical manner for Assad
who continues to be prone to overplaying his hand, reports that he might have
already relinquished control of some of his WMDs’ supplies to Hezbollah are
proliferating. While few are in a position at this stage to ascertain whether
these reports are true, the mere possibility might prove too worrisome for some
in the U.S. and Israel to eventually warrant an intervention. The problem is
that this intervention might prove to be exactly of the kind that no one
wanted: an intervention involving many boots on the ground followed by a long
period of micromanaging hostile sectarian and ethnic enclaves.
Some people, it seems, cannot help but make their worst
nightmares come true.
Istanbul, Turkey
A Scene from Daraya
its very sad to see all this happening around us...ppi claim liverpool
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