McCarthy's Weekly - Pax Vobiscum: MAKING SENSE OF SYRIA

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Syrian rebel battles with Syrian government forces--Rastan in Homs province--Jan 31, 2012 AP photo

Syrian army tanks T-72 are seen in the al-Midan area in Damascus on July 20, 2012

The nonviolence of Arab Spring is confronted by its addicted older brother in the cold hard weapons market of death that is Syria. Whether it was elements within the demonstrators, or President Assad’s troops firing first, {and how many have been massacred by armed insurrectionists, vs. government reactionary forces, since} the only clear message is that violence has staged a coup. The outside nations of interest have another proxy battleground on which to exert their influence, and sell their weaponry. Arab Spring is nipped in the bud, demonstrations and dialogue shrink back as impracticalities, and the reality of cold & hot wars is re-established.

So the U.S. repeats it’s Mideast mistakes. We would topple Assad because he is axis-of-evil friend of Iran, and/or is a dictator {as in Qadaffi, & Saddam}. The Syrian rebels open a lobbying office in Washington D.C., the CIA helps funnel arms to the rebels. The rebels themselves are 80% Sunni {—and Syria accepted more refugees from our war in Iraq than any other country}. Many Syrian Sunni rebels are partial to Al Qaeda [as they were in Iraq]. We now back these rebels because our current #1 enemy of the day is President Bashar al-Assad, who is allied with the Shiites of Iran [himself a member of a similar religious group, the Alawites]. Our Syrian freedom fighter rebels are almost certain to turn firepower against us whenever opportune.

"Syria was a major staging area for Sunni jihadis (attacking U.S. forces) in Iraq," he said. "Many of these networks are still in place in Syria. These are elements that view Shi'ites as heretics and Alawites as even more heretical." Reporting by TomHeneghan--Reuters, 12-23-11 These are the guys we are helping arm against Assad.

aradoxically the Iraqi government [a Shiite majority] which we recently went to great trouble to help install, supports President Assad’s effort to stay in power, and is quite sympathetic to Iran. “… Iraq who has long-cautioned for neutrality and a centrist position on Syria, rejected the Arab League’s call for Assad to step down, and said others should ‘not interfere’ in Syria’s affairs.” From Al Arabiya News Chanel-- July 25, 2012.

A recent NYT oped, Syria is Iraq, points to the big problem with our recent actions in Iraq. Because of both U.S. incompetence and the nature of Iraq, this U.S. intervention triggered a civil war in which all the parties in Iraq — Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds — tested the new balance of power, inflicting enormous casualties on each other and leading, tragically, to ethnic cleansing… The author, though promoting our eventual role there as a “well-armed midwife” managing Iraq’s transition, has admitted that this birth canal of war was a terrible graveyard. Iraq does not see the U.S. “midwife” as pro-life.

2006 estimate of "probable excess mortality"of Iraqis since our 2003 invasion--only study done by professional epidemiologists--Johns Hopkins' University Bloomberg School of Public Health--Please read overview article.

f course Shiite and many other Iraqis were glad to see the Sunni, Saddam Hussein, go. He’d persecuted them and fought eight years of bloody war against Iran {with some help from the U.S.} in the 1980’s. Strange bedfellows--a game of musical beds. The leadership of Iran is fundamentally Shiite for many decades [after deposing our secular friend the Shah], and certainly supports the new Shiite authorities of Iraq. To make things more complicated, both Syria & Iran back the Hezbollah group in Lebanon against Israel.

'ARMS FLOW TO SYRIA’ [International Herald Tribune, France]

We will never buy real respect and influence or security with our weaponry. Not in Syria, not in Iraq, not in homeland USA. Whack-a-mole politics with bombs & guns never wins.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. indicates the one Good News hope that leads out of this hole, "I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.”