This week’s Sunday Panel on RadioLive features Wallace Chapman, Selwyn Manning and Rodney Hide discussing who should be Labour’s leader; the GCSB legislation – where to from here; snapper; and Meridian share sales – who would buy them?!
The Sunday Panel was Recorded live on 25/08/13.
Surprised both Rodney and Selwyn were certain that the Assad regime was responsible for the chemical attacks in Syria. There is actually ZERO evidence of this. Remember these rebels we are supposed to be supporting comprise mostly of the same group The West is FIGHTING in Iraq and Afghanistan – you know, the ones that blow up their OWN PEOPLE daily. Yet somehow, these same fighters wouldn’t do that in Syria, and it must be the military?
A number of reasons stick out for me that Assad is probably not behind these attacks:
1. Chemical attacks are far more effective when launched from the air. These attacks came from ground based rockets (and from rebel controlled areas).
2. If Assad wanted to seriously use chemical attacks to win, why not do it properly – i.e. why do it in such a limited fashion?
3. It makes no strategic sense whatsoever. Assad knows it’s a line that he can’t cross, as Obama has made abundantly clear. If he did it, he has instantly lost the war, because he knows he can’t defeat the US. Conversely, it makes perfect sense for the rebels for exactly this reason – assuming they can successfully pin it on Assad.
Regarding who is responsible for the gassing of civilians. You are quite right, the facts have yet to be established. The United Nations inspectors have this morning been given authorisation by the Assad regime to travel to the attack site and investigate.
My intention on radio was to convey not support for a US-led response, nor buy in to one side or the other, but rather that civilians were gassed in their sleep, many of them children, hundreds are dead, and if we consider the global village then a multilateral UN-led response is required.
My comments were founded on a belief that the totalitarian Assad regime is responsible, either in part of totally, due to years of crushing its peoples under the weight of its own injustice. Any state that does that in this day and age will only create a new frontier for those with sinister motives to join an uprising.
If it was not the Assad regime that committed the crime, and yes it quite possibly could have been committed by sinister elements within the opposing cluster, then the regime is no longer able to protect civilians nor itself.
So, what should be done? Should a UN-led peacekeeping or peace-making force be deployed? Has a line been crossed now where we all realise the diplomatic solution has failed?
You are right, the evidence is not yet at hand. An investigation is needed to secure up an understanding of who is responsible. That is underway.
Irrespective of the outcome, a UN-led force that is mandated to protect victims from whoever the aggressor is, is, in my thinking, the best way forward.
But a US-led coalition-of-the-willing styled invasion or bombardment would not only be wrong but permit the US and its regional allies to destroy Syria so as to meet a geopolitical goal to weaken Iran – ie; by taking out Iran’s closest ally. That would cause Syria to become a new front where a regional (rather than domestic) war would rage for years.
But from a humanitarian point of view, let’s remember Rwanda, Timor Leste and a host of other conflicts. Let’s learn from those mistakes and focus on the morality of protecting people.
Phew. For a minute there I thought you’d been drinking too much MSM Koolaid ;-). Like Afghanistan, I doubt there is a military solution in Syria. Western intervention will almost certainly lead to more, not fewer, civilian deaths – bombs have a nasty habit of not discriminating guilty from innocent. Unless there is evidence of genocide (i.e. a program of systematic killing of civilians) I can’t support any intervention from the West whatsoever, including “arming the opposition”.
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