WMD, Assad, and Arab Spring

View 787 Sunday, August 25, 2013

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barrack Obama, January 31, 2009

Thinking about Syria.

The Wall Street Journal recently featured twin pieces by John Bolton and Elliot Abrams indicating a split in the neo-conservative enthusiasm for involving American troops in Middle East combat actions. Abrams wanted us to snub the Egyptian Mamelukes; Bolton thinks we should support the Egyptian Army.

This may indicate a weakening of the neocon control over the Republican party http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/08/frank-rich-even-neocons-disagree-on-mideast.html It may not. It is certainly worth noting.

The neocon division over Syria is even more dramatic. Some Republicans in Congress appear to be calling for a Congressional resolution authorizing the President to use the American military to intervene in the Syrian civil war. The NYMAG article linked above has this to say: “(It was particularly galling to hear John McCain say this week that such an intervention would come at “very little cost” — essentially the same prediction he made about the war in Iraq.)” It was said of the Bourbons when they returned to power in France after the Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars that they had learned nothing and had forgotten nothing. One may say the same of Senator McCain.

We have mail on the subject:

Syrian gas attack

Dear Dr. Pournelle:

You wrote: "There are more stories of chemical weapons used in Syria. I find them utterly unconvincing. The evidence for actual use of chemical weapons is not clear, and even if it were incontrovertible I would be more inclined to suspect false flag operations than sudden senility in Bashar Al-Assad."

The basis for the allegation is reported in a story ("Syria: Cameron and Obama move west closer to intervention <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/24/syria-cameron-obama-intervention/print> ") in the British newspaper The Observer, which provides some details of the evidence. I quote the relevant section of the article for your convenience:

"The dramatic upping of the stakes came after the international medical charity Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) reported that three hospitals in Damascus had received approximately 3,600 patients displaying neurotoxic symptoms <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/24/syrian-chemical-weapons-rebel> in less than three hours on the morning of Wednesday, 21 August. Of those patients, 355 are reported to have died.

"Dr. Bart Janssens, MSF’s director of operations, said: "Medical staff working in these facilities provided detailed information to MSF doctors regarding large numbers of patients arriving with symptoms including convulsions, excess saliva, pinpoint pupils, blurred vision and respiratory distress."

"He said the reported symptoms strongly indicated "mass exposure to a neurotoxic agent. This would constitute a violation of international humanitarian law, which absolutely prohibits the use of chemical and biological weapons."

"France’s foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, said on Saturday that "all the information at our disposal converges to indicate that there was a chemical massacre near Damascus and that the [regime of Bashar al-Assad] is responsible".

"The foreign secretary, William Hague, said last week <http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2013/aug/21/william-hague-syria-chemical-weapons-video> that "this is a chemical attack by the Assad regime" and "not something that a humane or civilised world can ignore"."

Now, it is certainly possible that the medical professionals involved are mistaken, or that they have been suborned into making fictitious accusations. To borrow your own reasoning, I find it much easier to believe that an increasingly-desperate Assad was willing to risk Western (meaning US, really) intervention by using gas on his own people, than that MSF would simply make something like that up. Assad, at least, has clear motivation: he doesn’t want to wind up hanging upside down from a meathook. What possible motivations MSF would have, by contrast, are somewhat unclear.

As lagniappe, you will note that the article quotes the French (socialist) foreign minister as strongly supporting the gas story: again, given France’s somewhat unhelpful attitudes toward US interventions in the past, this seems essentially like an admission against interest.

This certainly seems–if not conclusive–certainly strongly validating of the gas attack allegations.

I believe it is perhaps overly conclusory to suggest ("They [the gas stockpiles] turned out to be non-existent…") that we didn’t find anything in Iraq. There was plenty there, including dual-use chemicals usable as precursor agents, and dual-use equipment which could have been diverted to manufacture war gasses: what there wasn’t, was a large stockpile of assembled and ready-to-use bombs and shells. The CIA’s report on the subject <https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/iraq_wmd_2004/chap5.html> is readily available on the web.

Finally, I do not understand your arguments based on the rationality of an adversary. While both Saddam and Assad are, I am confident, rational actors, I think it is perhaps overly optimistic to suppose that they will weigh all risks and benefits in the same manner that you or I might. Hence your suggestion that (in effect) it would be (or, in Saddam’s case, would have been) irrational to conceal or indeed use chemical weapons ("…I would be more inclined to suspect false flag operations than sudden senility in Bashar Al-Assad…He has many good reasons to convince the world he does not have any WMD’s, and no real incentive to have or use them.") seems a bit of a stretch.

Very respectfully,

David G.D. Hecht

Mr. Hecht may be correct. Everyone assumes that Assad or – more likely one of his generals – has used war gasses in the civil war and killed from one to several hundred civilians. Since the President has drawn a Red Line requiring some dramatic US intervention of Assad uses “weapons od mass destruction” I am perfectly willing to be persuaded that there were no WMD’s employed by Assad: I prefer that the US not be marked as a paper tiger for failing to react after the President’s line in the sand to our active involvement in yet another Middle Eastern war where nothing will go well, and we will replace a strong man who longs for some kind of stability with a chiliastic regime driven by an ideology hostile to Americans – the probable result of US intervention.

The Assads have held together a coalition of minorities, and in doing that have had to be tolerant of Christians, Druze, Kurd, and other minorities in Syria. The cost of the Assad regimes has been high: thousands dead. Over decades, tens of thousands.

Of course the cost of Saddam Hussein was very high, too. Tens of thousands. Hundred of women ravished by his barbarian sons. Of course the cost of liberation from Saddam has been over 100,000 Iraqis killed as well as 3600 Americans killed among 36000 casualties. Going into Iraq was going to cost $300 billion. I recall at the time saying that for $300 billion investment we could make the US nearly independent of Middle Eastern oil, and it wouldn’t cost more than a few hundred killed in oil fields and on oil platforms. And of course as we all knew, the real cost was a lot more than $300 billion we couldn’t afford, and the result hasn’t been anything like as favorable as it was hoped it would be.

So yes: I am willing to believe that Assad is smart enough to avoid using war gas. I’d rather believe that and be wrong than prove him wrong and send an expeditionary force to empower al Qaeda in Syria. Colin Powell says that Assad is a liar, which is true enough: but then it’s the Middle East.

As to what we found in Iraq, it was palaces, not VX.

WMDs in Syria

Okay, I’ll bite. You said(View 786 Tuesday, August 13, 2013):

""…They turned out to be non-existent…""

in reference to the WMDs that Hussein may have had. I think there is a case to be made for their transference to Syria from Iraq, prior to our second invasion. I know the conspirasphere is rife with examples (both supporting the theory and debunking it). I am not sure that the fact that they have never, up to now, been located is evidence of their non-existence.

Here’s an article from a year or so ago ‘demolishing’ the WMD in Iraq theory:

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/syria-iraq-wmd-meme/

a quote from the article:

""Fourth, from a U.S. military perspective, the transfer would have been impossible to hide. I worked at U.S. Central Command’s Mideast headquarters before, during, and after the invasion, which gave me a good understanding of what was going on at the time. The region was blanketed by U.S. military assets. Operation Enduring Freedom was in full swing in Afghanistan, and Operations Northern and Southern Watch <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_no-fly_zones> were still in place over Iraq. If something moved — like, say a convoy of Winnebagos of Death <http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=79784&page=1> heading for Syria — it could be detected and killed.""

The last sentence is what caught my eye. The author seems to think our intel before the second Iraq invasion was 100% accurate. We saw everything, knew where everything was etc. Well, if that is the case, why did intel indicate the existence of WMDs? I’ll give you that and say that knocks pre-invasion intel down at least .01%; pre-invasion intel is now 99.99% accurate. Which calls into question the ability to see something move and subsequently knock it out. Suppose among the .01% of things missed/incorrect was a convoy (unlikely to use a convoy if you are sneaking things around, I believe) or multiple vehicles to move things out country…

And I suppose the first sentence is eye catching as well. Simply impossible to hide? From a military perspective? Then why does military intel indicate non-existant WMDs? Did military intel also find unicorns that we aren’t hearing about? Which is it? Military intel is 100% reliable or it is not? WMDs were there or not? I don’t know the term in logic, but it seems that someone is trying to use two conflicting statements to support his theory. And BAM, case closed, nothing more to see here, Bush lied, people died, etc.

And here’s an article from a year or so ago ‘supporting’ the WMD in Iraq theory:

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/07/14/And-where-did-syrias-chemical-weapons

a quote from the article:

""In 2006, former Iraqi general, Georges Sada, who served under Saddam Hussein before he defected, wrote a comprehensive book detailing how the Iraqi Revolutionary Guard moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria, before the US-led action to eliminate Saddam Hussein’s WMD threat, by loading the weapons into civilian aircraft in which the passenger seats were removed.""

and a quote of a quote from the article:

""…“Mr. Sada’s comments come just more than a month after Israel’s top general during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Moshe Yaalon, told the Sun that Saddam ‘transferred the chemical agents from Iraq to Syria.’…"

So there’s at least testimony from someone who may have known of what happened to Iraq’s WMDs. I give you, not gold standard proof. At best it is just personal testimony, and thus we cannot convict on it… It does raise a shadow of a doubt about the non-existence of WMDs though. Enough that I don’t feel at all sure of myself to say that they never existed.

Now, that all being said, it is not in (what’s-his-name ?Asshad Bashir?) the leader of Syria’s interest to use WMDs on his people (as you noted). I believe the President said about a year ago that WMDs being used on people would be a ‘red line’ that once crossed would result in the US getting involved in the ground game in Syria. So now we have ‘evidence’ that the leader of Syria used WMDs on his people, a thing that I don’t think is in the President’s (Obama) best interest; we don’t want to get involved in Syria, he may have wanted to a year ago when he said what he said, but now I think perhaps he wishes he didn’t say what he said… Plus it would look silly to go invading a country over WMDs when it is found out that the rebels used the WMDs in a false flag attack to draw US forces into the conflict. An act that would be in the interest of the rebels in Syria.

Now it can be said that Syria was no friend of Iraq in the Hussein days, and who better to send WMDs to in Syria than rebellion minded people? We know Saddam sent jet fighters to Iran, another non-friend of Iraq… the second article touches on that.

I don’t know if I can come up with a catchphrase as awesome as ‘Bush lied and people died’ to say ‘Obama is an idiot and now we are in a conflict not of our own where neither side is on our side at the end of the day’ but I am sure someone could shorten and sweeten that one up, should the need arise…

All that being said, it is just as likely that Syria could have made some chemical weapons of their own which have fallen into rebel hands in one way or another. As much as I’d love for some physical evidence of Iraqi WMDs to be found, I don’t think we need to get involved in Syria to find it, and I have a feeling that could be yet another reason to for the current administration to stay out of it.

I agree that we never found any WMDs in Iraq, I do not agree that the fact of not finding the things is proof of their non-existence. But then I believe in God too, so perhaps my belief in proof of existence of things is suspect…

That’s my two cents anyhow, I hope wired and breitbart aren’t considered conspirasphere sites. The theories in the conpirasphere are MOST entertaining, Zionist Illuminati CIA shills are behind it, AGAIN! Somebody should do something about those guys…

-pate

I don’t know who used what on whom in this latest brushup. I do know that the number of casualties resulting from American intervention in the Syrian civil war will dwarf the number of dead from whatever war gasses may have been employed. War gas can be an effective method of civilian control if you control the territory” : Saddam and his general Chemical Ali made that clear enough if we hadn’t learned it from Yellow Rain earlier. And of course the USSR had the worst weaponized anthrax incident in history, making it clear that they were developing chemical/biological weapons (which they probably still have).

War gas is not a particularly effective weapon in the present situation. What Assad wants is stability: ne needs people to believe that if he wins they will at least be safe from this violence. We have seen what happens in Libya and Egypt when the Arab Spring ripens.

It’s not that hard to make serious war gasses. Any rebel group determined to do it would be able to come up with some. And Iraq certainly had a lot of them at one time: they aren’t that easy to dispose of and who knows where they went. All that is subject matter for a serious novel. It is not a matter for US military intervention.

George Washington warned us not to be involved in the territorial disputes of Europe. He could have added “and the Middle East” easily enough. We rejected his advice during the Balkan mess in the 1990’s with the result of permanent damage to the region’s economy and convincing the Russians that America is anti-Slavic. That latter has colored US Russian relations ever since, and was a major cost of our ham handed intervention in the territorial disputes of Europe.

Our perpetual war for perpetual peace hasn’t worked out so very well.