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US bombing of Syria did not begin today, it began in September 2014, 2.5 years ago. Some 8000 air strikes. Thousands of civilians have been killed, including hundreds just in recent weeks in some horrific strikes, like the Idlib mosque and the Raqqa school. No-one has ever protested. No "anti"-war movement protested. No "anti"-imperialists protested. Just this week three prominent US leaders made the policy clear that Assad should stay (already unofficial policy for years). Then Assad goes and blows it by throwing sarin in their faces! What an idiot. I guess he was testing the waters. The US had no choice but to respond in some way for the sake of its alleged ... "credibility."
But can I ask, from our point of view, what is the big deal? Why are 8000 strikes on opponents of Assad (and not only ISIS), killing thousands of civilians, not "intervention," yet just when you get one strike against the biggest terrorist in Syria, after it slaughters 100 children with chemical weapons, only that is intervention, that is supposedly something more significant, that is something we should protest. Can I ask in all honesty what is the difference? Frankly, whoever has not been protesting the US bombing of Syria all along the last two and a half years, and who now suddenly protests this US "intervention" today, cannot in any sense be considered anti-war, or anti-imperialist, but simply an apologist for the Assad genocide-regime (and that's before even getting to the more fundamental fact that we are here talking about people that also never protested the most horrific bombing of Syria to pieces for 6 years by the regime and Russian imperialism). If that is not logical, then I’d like to have it explained to me why.
The interesting issue is why Assad was stupid enough to do this, just a few days after Nikki Haley, Sec of State Tillerson, and White House spokesman Sean Spicer, all said we're good with Assad staying, and after weeks of fairly open US collaboration with Russia and Assad in the bombing of Idlib and Deir Ezzor, the reconquest of Palmyra, and even the defence of Manbij. I assume Assad was testing the waters, but that just shows the arrogance of power. The US was giving him everything; the withdrawal of the red line in 2013 was supposed to mean you can do everything else except chemical weapons (and thus Assad used everything else in the four years since, in unbelievable quantities, with complete US indifference, if not support), as part of the US-Russia-Israel deal that saw Assad's chemical weapons removed. To then go and use these weapons and show off that he still has them was simply impossible for the US to ignore in terms of its "credibility." Assad was reading the messages correctly from this last week, that US leaders were encouraging him; he just read it wrong that this could include sarin. Look at Nikki Haley, fuming in the UN; she had to fume, because three days earlier the same Nikki Haley made the official announcement (along with Tillerson and the White House) that removing Assad was "no longer" (sic) the US aim. Assad should have been more gracious about being kissed like that.
Meanwhile, State Dept Tillerson explains this punishment strike should not be confused with a US change of line on Syria: "US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the attack showed the President "is willing to take decisive action when called for. I would not in any way attempt to extrapolate that to a change in our policy or posture relative to our military activities in Syria today," he said. "There has been no change in that status. "I think it does demonstrate that President Trump is willing to act when governments and actors cross the line and cross the line on violating commitments they've made and cross the line in the most heinous of ways."
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