Perennial US Rush to War: Syrian Chem issue was too Foggy to Justify Bombing

[unhappycamper]

http://www.juancole.com/2014/01/rushing-syrian-issue.html

Perennial US Rush to War: Syrian Chem issue was too Foggy to Justify Bombing
By Juan Cole | Jan. 23, 2014
(By William R. Polk)

~snip~

People all over the world were shocked: President Hollande was humiliated; the people of Damascus were profoundly relieved; the English public appeared delighted; the Saudi Arabians and the Israelis were furious; and the American public was incredulous. After all, President Obama had implemented almost the same tactic in his attack on the government and armed forces of the Libyan government and in various ways the US had been trying to “regime change” Syria for years. Why the change?

Again, we simply do not know. But one new fact has come to light as a result of investigations by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the World Health Organization and by an independent study made by the MIT Global Security Group. The UN organizations produced the weapons and the MIT group analyzed them. The conclusion is that the rockets that carried the poison gas could not have been fired from where the US government claimed they had been fired. They simply did not have the range. Secretary of State Kerry was simply wrong when he said that “Our intelligence community has carefully reviewed and re-reviewed information regarding this attack, and…We know rockets came only from regime-controlled areas…”

Separately, Seymour Hersh and I have been raising doubts about the US government charge for months. The facts simply did not add up. The identified motivations are inconsistent. But more important, it was imperative that two things were done before any action was taken. The first was for the government to take a careful look at what could be known. We have a long-proven mechanism for doing this: the CIA’s National Intelligence Council usually produces on demand a National Intelligence Estimate based on everything the 16 American intelligence agencies have found out. That was not done. The second was to share with Congress, the media and the American people this considered view. What we got were opinions from political advisers and public relations officials.

The lesson in all this is that an emotional reaction is a very poor way to go to war. As we now are seeing in other crises, we need and deserve intelligence not shooting from the hip. The crisis in Syria is still a long way from being over and new crises beckon. We need to understand this crisis so we can avoid repeating it elsewhere.

[jakeXT]

1. At least he used his own brain

(Reuters) - At the end of the day on Friday, after laying out a strong public case for U.S. military action in Syria, President Barack Obama took a 45-minute walk around the South Lawn of the White House with his chief of staff, Denis McDonough.

..

After his walk with McDonough, the president called National Security Adviser Susan Rice, her deputy Tony Blinken, senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer, and others into the Oval Office to announce his approach.

...

The decision surprised his own advisers, who had not proposed voluntarily seeking lawmaker approval and had concluded Obama had the legal authority to take action on his own. But Obama felt it would be more consistent with his desire, stated earlier this year, to take America off of a "perpetual wartime footing" by getting the backing of Congress and the citizens it represents.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/01/us-syria-crisis-obama-decision-idUSBRE98001520130901