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At 09:01 06/05/2013 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote: >> >> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22424188 > >I find it so amusing how apologists for Bashar al-Assad like Ron quote >exactly the same sources to indict the Syrian rebels that they attacked >in the past Yes, but this is hardly unusual: those trying to reach a particular conclusion (for whichever side) will cherry-pick the media source (or in this case, politician) which reports what they want to hear. The most extreme case in the case of the Syrian revolution was after the Houla massacre when these same pro-Assad forces fixated on a SINGLE reporter's story published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung claiming, contrary to all other indications (and unsupported within the article itself, if read carefully), that the massacre was committed by the rebels. More immediately, from the attention over the question of chemical weapons use over the last couple of weeks, one can draw a few conclusions REGARDLESS of who did or didn't do what when. Namely, it had been widely conjectured that Obama's announced "red line" about chemical weapons was a repeat of the Iraq war WMD claims (and that anyone doubting that was "naive"), just setting the stage for a Western military intervention following a claim (real or bogus) that chemical weapons had been used by the regime. But what transpired was the exact opposite! The US tried to ignore evidence (whether true or false) presented of that happening until they had to say something, and then when they had to concede that there was rather compelling evidence (whether true or false in actuality) Obama backtracked to say that it needed to be researched much more completely so that wasn't any danger of attacking the Syrian regime without sufficient justification. Obviously, if the Iraq analogy had been true, then Obama would have accepted the reports at face value (or simply have faked the "intelligence" as Bush did) and gone ahead with his plans long before these latest suspicions had been raised. All I can imagine is that Obama expected that by laying down his "red line," al-Assad would have been crazy to use chemical weapons (they have enough other weapons!) so that he would never have to again address the "ultimatum" he had just laid down. And as an aside, I still do think the US/West will likely take military action, and probably in relation to chemical weapons (or missiles being supplied to Hezbollah). But this will be to "secure" them, not because of them being used by one party or the other. - Jeff when they were slandering Milosevic. The article above >relies totally on the judgment of Carla Del Ponte, a top prosecutor in >the International Criminal Tribunal on Former Yugoslavia who alleged >that Milosevic did not die of a heart attack because of a lack of >adequate medical care but because of suicide in order to "evade justice". > > > > > >________________________________________________ >Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu >Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/meisner%40xs4al l.nl > ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
