Our next stupid war - Syria?

Well the drums of war a beating again. The US president is banging on about the UN not being gun ho enough and the US going it alone outside the UN. Australia, the US lap dog, has our PM Kevin Rudd making the same noises as Obama. And for what reason? They claim the Syrian gov is responsible for using chemical weapons against it's own people. It's all sounding very familiar isn't it......

For a start, did the Syrian gov actually do this? Or was it the enemy blaming the gov, so as to get the west involved in toppling it? The whole reason the UN isn't diving in with all guns a blazing is that there's sufficient doubt about this not to warrant attacking a foreign gov.

Despite U.S. claims of “little doubt that Assad used these weapons,” there is significant doubt among the international community about which side employed chemical weapons. Many view the so-called rebels as trying to create a situation to provoke U.S. intervention against Assad. Indeed, in May, Carla del Ponte, former international prosecutor and current UN commissioner on Syria, concluded that opposition forces used sarin gas against civilians. more

How about the idea that we should go in there (the middle of a complicated and bloody civil war) and blow the place up, intervening for humanitarian purposes to stop this evil (allegedly) gov? Surely the UN charter would agree with that? Think again.... 

President Barack Obama admitted, “If the U.S. goes in and attacks another country without a UN mandate and without clear evidence that can be presented, then there are questions in terms of whether international law supports it . . .” The Obama administration is studying the 1999 “NATO air war in Kosovo as a possible blueprint for acting without a mandate from the United Nations,” the New York Times reported. But NATO’s Kosovo bombing also violated the UN Charter as the Security Council never approved it, and it was not carried out in self-defense. The UN Charter does not permit the use of military force for “humanitarian interventions.” Humanitarian concerns do not constitute self-defense. In fact, humanitarian concerns should spur the international community to seek peace and end the suffering, not increase military attacks, which could endanger peace in the entire region. more

Typical if the US isn't it. First reaction is reach for the gun and shoot, and fuck the consequences. Fuck everyone who doesn't agree. Judge, jury, executioner.

How about the moral position itself (Australia is particularly self-righteous about this) that chemical weapons are evil, and even more so if used by a gov on it's own people. There are a number of hypocritical facts involved with this as far as the US, England, Canada, and Australia go. Australia in particular. It's not widely known, but in north Queensland they used chemical weapons against Australian troops, to experiment as to how effective they'd be in tropical heat. The troops were "volunteered" with little or no knowledge of what was involved. Anyone who doubts this I'd direct to this book. It has pictures too, this was the after effects of mustard gas exposure:

There were also British and American overseers of the experiments. The reason for these experiments was because the allies feared the Japanese were going to use chemical weapons against them. Many of these people got sick and died of cancer and the like years later, but because the Australian gov saw the experiments as top secret then there was little or no money that came their way in compensation. Try telling Centrelink that you were involved in chemical weapons experiments in QLD in WW2.

The US also has an even worse history of chemical weapons use, and much more recent. The smell of Napalm in the morning anyone?

The self-righteousness of the United States about the alleged use of chemical weapons by Assad is hypocritical. The United States used napalm and employed massive amounts of chemical weapons in the form of Agent Orange in Vietnam, which continues to affect countless people over many generations. 

Recently declassified CIA documents reveal U.S. complicity in Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq war, according to Foreign Policy: “In contrast to today’s wrenching debate over whether the United States should intervene to stop alleged chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian government, the United States applied a cold calculus three decades ago to Hussein’s widespread use of chemical weapons against his enemies and his own people. The Reagan administration decided that it was better to let the attacks continue if they might turn the tide of the war. And even if they were discovered, the CIA wagered that international outrage and condemnation would be muted.” 

In Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States used cluster bombs, depleted uranium, and white phosphorous gas. Cluster bomb cannisters contain tiny bomblets, which can spread over a vast area. Unexploded cluster bombs are frequently picked up by children and explode, resulting in serious injury or death. Depleted uranium (DU) weapons spread high levels of radiation over vast areas of land. In Iraq, there has been a sharp increase in Leukemia and birth defects, probably due to DU. White phosphorous gas melts the skin and burns to the bone. 

The Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in time of War (Geneva IV) classifies “willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health” as a grave breach, which constitutes a war crime. more

But the US has taken it even further lately. They're not even bothering anymore with chemicals, they're just dropping drones wherever the fuck they feel like it. 

The arrogance, the self-righteousness, the delusion that bombing the fuck out of somewhere will majically solve a bitter and drawn out civil war. The complete stupidity.