This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media. Today's subject is the potential US military intervention in Syria. Sources are The Guardian, Oxfam America, and The Nation.
The Obama Administration is scrambling to define a position justifying a potential strike on Syria for the alleged use of chemical weapons by that country's security forces. There is no such justification for any unilateral, "a deux" or "coalition of the willing" military action. Two bodies are already established to try and punish perpetrators of international crimes - the International Court of Justice (United Nations) and the International Criminal Court established by the Rome Statute of 2002.
The Guardian reported on Thursday on the UK Parliament's vote against support for a United States airstrike on Syria. The vote was 285-272 with many of PM Cameron's coalition joining Labour in opposition. Asked by Labour leader Ed Miliband for an assurance that he would not use the royal prerogative to sanction British involvement in the military action, the prime minister told MPs: "I can give that assurance. ...it is clear to me that the British parliament, reflecting the views of the British people, does not want to see British military action. I get that and the government will act accordingly."
On Wednesday, prior to the vote, Guardian columnist Martin Kettle wrote: After two years in which, tragically, the world has been unable to prevent Syria's catastrophe deepening ever further, the Cameron government is suddenly in a hurry to act. Partly this is because of the outrageous use of chemical weapons in Syria. But it is also because the US administration, having boxed itself in about responding to such horrors, now summons Britain to give support. But would the Obama administration, elected to end the war in Iraq and anxious to end the one in Afghanistan, really want to engage in Syria, even to the extent of an arm's-length bombing campaign, without either UN support or major international allies? ...It is arguable that a vote in the UK parliament could stay Washington's hand from a politically controversial, premature strike that would raise massive issues of legitimacy.
On Friday, a Guardian editorial praised the action of the MP's, noting: There is no evidence that British public opinion has turned isolationist. There is plenty of evidence that it is fed up with the debilitating post 9/11 years of national sacrifice, with the humiliating excesses of US national security policy (not least its abuses of human rights and surveillance), with the unequal burden-sharing among allies and, above all, with the failures of policy. Iraq casts a very long, very dark shadow. As a result, right from the start of its spiralling civil war, Syria has felt like a sacrifice too far. When the latest call to arms came, though it came from a respected American president and was provoked by clearly intolerable war crimes, the answer was a clear one. Enough.
Addressing the plight of Syrians caught in middle of this civil war, Oxfam America condemns the attacks but makes a powerful case against military intervention: Over more than two years of fighting, more than 100,000 lives have been lost and millions of people are in need of immediate humanitarian aid. It has been especially devastating for children: just last week, the UN announced that one million Syrian children are now refugees. Many have seen their homes bombed, their schools reduced to rubble, their communities destroyed. The military intervention currently being debated will not – and is not aimed at – stopping the violence or helping these families start to rebuild. Instead of focusing on military options and arming the parties involved, President Obama, President Putin and other world leaders should intensify peaceful efforts to end the conflict, before Syria is destroyed and the region made even more unstable.
Finally, The Nation makes another powerful case against military intervention in an editorial. After pointing out the illegitimacy of a US military attack without UN Security Council approval and the Administration's obligation to seek congressional authorization for such action, the editorial lists practical and humanitarian reasons to be opposed to military action: On the practical level, there is little chance that limited airstrikes will have much deterrent effect on a ruthless regime that sees itself as engaged in an existential struggle for survival...It would make the United States a direct participant in what has become a regional sectarian conflict, further destabilizing Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey...On the humanitarian level, there is a strong chance that US airstrikes, no matter how “surgical,” will kill innocent civilians...[and] could worsen what is already a disastrous refugee crisis. Instead of military action, The Nation editorial calls for the United States to vastly increase aid to the 1.9 million refugees who have flooded across the country’s borders and join Russia in its effort to renew the Geneva negotiations. The editorial concludes that Moscow and Washington share an interest in not widening the war and strengthening jihadi extremists. It’s long past time for the two powers to concede that neither Assad nor the rebels are going to be defeated anytime soon....if the United States and Russia work together, they could use their combined influence to choke off the flow of arms from the outside and contain the conflict as they work toward a cease-fire. If they don’t, Syria’s disintegration will spread throughout the region.
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