Anrika
The Nation, USA:s äldsta politiska tidskrift, skriver om det amerikanska fiaskot i Syrien:
The State Department’s Wrongheaded Push for War With Syria
http://www.thenation.com/article/the-state-departments-wrong-headed-push-for-war-with-syria/
Iraq War veteran Representative Tulsi Gabbard tells The Nation why US intervention will only worsen Syria’s humanitarian crisis.
By James Carden
Artikeln börjar med att bemöta den absurda nykonservativa myten att USA inte "gjort något" i Syrien:
Of all the myths that pass for conventional wisdom in Washington in the late Obama years, perhaps one of the most intractable is the idea that the president has “done nothing” concerning Syria.
Tvärtom så har ju USA varit mycket aktiva i Syrien och kan ta åt sig mycket av "äran" för det resulterande kaoset, framhåller Carden:
Yet far from “refusing to be drawn into the conflict in Syria,” the Obama administration has actively financed and trained so-called “moderate” Syrian rebels (who are in fact Salafist extremists in league with Al Qaeda) since 2013. The administration’s parallel efforts—one by the CIA, followed by another run out of the Pentagon—has helped to destabilize the region, contribute to the refugee crisis, and, in targeting the sovereign government of Bashar al-Assad, helped strengthen the geostrategic position of ISIS.
In i det längsta försökte USA upprätthålla myten att det var en "moderat" opposition man stödde, och inte terroristerna i al-Nusra:
Indeed, by 2015 the fiction of a “moderate” opposition had become increasingly difficult to maintain. According to the journalist Gareth Porter, “the idea that an independent ‘moderate’ armed opposition still existed” was “necessary to provide a political fig leaf for the covert and indirect U.S. reliance on Al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise’s military success.”
Nu har dock vissa kongressledamöter fått nog av vansinnet:
Efforts to halt the administration’s illegal and counterproductive war for regime change in Syria have been lead by Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii. Last year, Gabbard, a two-tour Iraq war veteran, sponsored a bill that would cut off funding for what Gabbard calls the administration’s “regime-change war in Syria.”
Motståndet mot USA:s hybridkrig i Syrien växer, och 135 kongressledamöter röstade förra veckan för att stoppa fortsatt finansiering av hybridkriget, det så kallade
Syrian Train and Equip Program.
Gabbard kritiserar också de "experter" som tidigare kritiserat Trump, och säger att de inte lärt något av fiaskona i Irak och Libyen:
According to Gabbard, “too many people have not learned from the past—they’ve learned nothing from Iraq and that overthrow of Saddam Hussein, they’ve learned nothing from overthrowing Gaddafi in Libya the chaos that ensued as a result.”
Det bör påpekas att Gabbard som major i militärpolisen och krigsveteran med erfarenhet från Irak vet vad hon talar om.
Om USA faktiskt lyckades med att störta Assad så skulle konsekvenserna bli katastrofala enligt Gabbard:
Gabbard said to The Nation on Monday, “Escalating the war to overthrow Assad will make things even worse. It will cause more suffering and chaos and strengthen ISIS and Al Qaeda to the point where they may be able to take over all of Syria.” That result would, according to Gabbard, mean disaster, “including a genocide against religious minorities, secularists, atheists, and anyone who refuses to accept the extremist Wahhabi theology. The refugee crisis will increase exponentially, and it could lead to a direct confrontation with Russia.”
Carden håller med:
In the final analysis, the policy the dissent cable argues for would launch the United States on the path to a war with Syria and almost certainly a wider war with Russia. Meanwhile, serious-minded attempts to get the administration to focus on efforts to combat ISIS and end the Syrian civil war, like those of Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard’s, are needed more than ever.
