Obama’s outrageous snub to the Russian people

BRYAN MacDONALD

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]arack Obama’s decision to play political games with the 70th anniversary of Victory Day was probably intended as a snub to Vladimir Putin. However, it’s actually an outrageous insult to the Russian people.

I remember my first Russian May 9th very well. For the simple reason that following a rather raucous Saturday night, I plain forgot about it. Waking up slightly the worst for wear, I took Kris Kristofferson’s advice and flung on my “cleanest, dirty shirt” before heading to downtown Khabarovsk on that Sunday morning sidewalk. The problem was that the otherwise innocent garment was something I’d picked up at World Cup 2006 in Berlin. Emblazoned across the front were the words, “Deutschland” and on the rear “Germany” for those who had initially missed the point.

Dozily trotting down the Far Eastern capital’s wide central thoroughfare, Karl Marx Street, I noticed a few strange looks alright. By the time I passed the viewing platform at Lenin Square, my paranoia levels had peaked as people kept smiling at me, a very un-Russian trait. Eventually, I reached the Steakhouse where I’d arranged to meet my friend Vova and his buddy Max. Seeing my attire, they both laughed so hard that they doubled over.

“Oh my god! Is there a shop open, I need to buy a new T-Shirt,” I nervously said.

“No, you don’t. It’s just funny. You are not doing anything wrong,” Vova replied.

“Are you sure? I won’t get attacked by Russian nationalists or anything?”

“Not unless you put über alles after the Deutschland!”

In my homeland, St Patrick’s Day is a very big deal. The Irish have a love/hate attitude to it and many resent its association with heavy drinking. However, it remains our national holiday and despite the odd cringe, we are proud of its global appeal. To be honest, I’m not sure how safe it would be to wear an England soccer shirt in Dublin or a provincial Irish city on March 17. For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t personally be inclined to volunteer as a guinea pig either.

Russians respect Germany

The point here is that Russians, despite the horrors of the “Great Patriotic War,” as its known there, don’t hate Germans. In actual fact, they quite like them. I can only give my personal experience, but I find that when you ask Russians which foreign country they most admire, a few will plump for the USA, a couple more for Japan or France but the majority will say Germany. Back home, I’d have to travel a long way before I’d find an Irishman who would admit to reverence for England.

Angela Merkel knows this too. She also understands how much “Victory Day” means to Russians. For that reason, despite humungous pressure from the US, which effectively colonizes her nation militarily, she will visit Moscow this weekend to commemorate the dead. The Chancellor is skipping the army parade on the 9th and instead will lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with President Putin the following day. Of course, a lot of Russians feel she should appear at both events. Indeed, one Vadim Raskin, a doctor from Novokuznetsk, organized a campaign which saw thousands write to her Berlin address expressing dismay.

While Merkel feels that the blowback from the Ukraine crisis means she can’t attend the military display, she’s at least acknowledging Russia’s gigantic war sacrifice. Smaller NATO members, Greece and the Czech Republic, are sending their heads of state and Slovakia will be represented by its Prime Minister, Robert Fico. Many in Moscow, including President Putin, accuse the US of coercing other European states not to send delegations. (And they are right.—Eds)

However, while Europe cowers under American duress, the leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa will be present in Moscow. What should have been a day for solemn commemoration of humanity’s most tragic waste of life, has been turned into an interstate ‘brannigan’, worthy of a putative new Cold War. The man responsible for this is Barack Obama. It’s less the “audacity of hope” and more the timidity of doltishness.

Obama’s own goal

Like an Englishman taking a penalty at a World Cup, Obama has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and handed his great rival, Vladimir Putin, the moral high ground. Let me explain why the White House’s petty snub is a major strategic blunder and also an error of principle.

What most European and North American commentators don’t fully understand is just how all-consuming memories of the “Great Patriotic War” are for Russians. Defeating German fascism and repelling the Nazi invasion is regarded as their finest hour as a people. Some in the West may perceive Yuri Gagarin’s first space flight as the crowning glory, but the natives don’t. There’s a simple reason for this, almost every Russian either has a living or dead relative who fought in the conflict. On the other hand, not many Russians can boast of a family member who has been to outer space.

1941-1945; wartime photo; World War two; seizure of Berlin. (RIA Novosti)

The UK and the USA also lean heavily on the memory of World War Two, the latter aided by Hollywood which often re-writes the accepted history. While both made huge contributions to the war effort, even the most myopic would not dare suggest that either’s suffering was comparable to what the USSR endured. Total Soviet deaths numbered around 27 million.

By comparison, Britain lost 450,000 and the USA 420,000. The main aggressor, Germany, counted around six million casualties. In 2004, Russian historian Vadim Erlikhman estimated that around 14 million of the Soviet fallen were from Russia with other massive losses sustained by Ukraine (6.8 million) and Belarus (2.3 million). The central Asian countries, former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan suffered greater loss of life than the UK or USA. Poland was also a victim of the war. In 1987, Dachau survivor Franciszek Proch concluded that 3.3 million ethnic Polish and 2.5 million Polish Jews died.

Obama – hope we can’t believe in

For Barack Obama to use the specter of a civil war in a failed, corrupt state on the edge of Europe as an excuse to water the graves of Russia’s war dead is an absurdity. Especially after his own representatives promoted the violent coup – against a freely elected government – which created the conditions for the conflict.

“A man who likes to preach about democracy and freedom should surely realize that those values he, outwardly, holds dear survive in part because of the Russian and Soviet sacrifice 70 years ago…”

A man who likes to preach about democracy and freedom should surely realize that those values he, outwardly, holds dear survive in part because of the Russian and Soviet sacrifice 70 years ago. I actually suspect he doesn’t acknowledge this. US policy towards Moscow is so harebrained that one would venture that a team of monkeys, armed with ‘ogham’ stones, would do a better job than the State Department’s current Russia team.

A country that celebrates its own national holidays with such fervor as the Americans exhibit on Thanksgiving and the 4th of July should be aware of how other nations feel about theirs. That said, Victory Day is more than a regular national holiday. It’s living, breathing history.

This 70th anniversary is probably the last major milestone that a significant number of veterans will be able to attend. The fact that Barack Obama was unable to find it in his heart to come to Moscow and doff his cap to men and women who did more for the values he purports to hold dear than he ever will, speaks volumes about his character. The worst American President since Jimmy Carter has not only destroyed relations between the White House and the Kremlin, he may also have obliterated any residual goodwill that still existed from the ordinary Russian people towards America. That’s a poisonous legacy.

Bryan MacDonald is an Irish writer and commentator focusing on Russia and its hinterlands and international geo-politics. Follow him on Facebook

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

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‘We’re not interested in a fair fight’ – US army commander urges NATO to confront Russia

A DISPATCH FROM RT.COM

US forces in southern Afghanistan Operations Director General Frederick ‘Ben’ Hodges.(AFP Photo / Ed Jones)

[dropcap]U[/dropcap]S army commander in Europe says Russia is a “real threat” urging NATO to stay united. The alliance is not interested in a “fair fight with anyone” and wants to have “overmatch in all systems,” Lieutenant-General Frederick “Ben” Hodges believes.

“There is a Russian threat,” Hodges told the Telegraph, maintaining that Russia is involved in ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine. A key objective for NATO is not to let Russia outreach it in terms of capabilities, the general said.

“We’re not interested in a fair fight with anyone,” General Hodges stated. “We want to have overmatch in all systems. I don’t think that we’ve fallen behind but Russia has closed the gap in certain capabilities. We don’t want them to close that gap,” he revealed.

“The best insurance we have against a showdown is that NATO stands together,” he said, pointing to recent moves by traditionally neutral Sweden and Finland to cooperate more closely on defense with NATO.

[pullquote]The US military doesn’t like an even playing field. They prefer overwhelming power or nothing. Sometimes they are irritated that the enemy should even have the audacity to shoot back. This attitude was seen frequently among pilots flying over Vietnam. Gen. Hodges is at least honest about it. [/pullquote]

Moscow has expressed “special concern” over Finnish and Swedish moves towards the alliance viewing it as a threat aimed against Russia.

“Contrary to past years, Northern European military cooperation is now positioning itself against Russia. This can undermine positive constructive cooperation,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Laugh if you like, but Gen Hodges‘ beliefs mirror perfectly the utmost untruths peddled by the official US propaganda playbook, including the idea that it is the Russians, and not the Americans, who specialize in the Big Lie.

Hodges also said US expects its allies to contribute financially to the security umbrella provided by the NATO alliance, as its member states have been failing to allocate 2 percent of every member nation’s GDP to NATO budget.

“I think the question for each country to ask is: are they security consumers or security providers?” the general demanded. “Do they bring capabilities the alliance needs?”

However, the general does not believe that the world is on the brink of another Cold War, saying that “the only thing that is similar now is that Russia and NATO have different views about what the security environment in Europe should be.”

“I don’t think it’s the same as the Cold War,” he said, recalling “gigantic forces” and “large numbers of nuclear weapons” implemented in Europe a quarter of a century ago. “That [Cold War] was a different situation.”

“We did very specific things then that are no longer relevant. We don’t need 300,000 soldiers in Europe. Nobody can afford that anymore,” General Hodges acknowledged.

However, there was a sharp increase in the intensity of the training of NATO troops near the borders of Russia last year, Russian General Staff reported.

“In 2014, the intensity of NATO’s operational and combat training activities has grown by 80 percent,”said Lieutenant General Andrey Kartapolov, head of the Main Operation Directorate of General Staff.

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Is Kshama Sawant Really Caving in to the Democrats?

What’s Going on in Seattle?

Larry Gossett (second from right).

.
DAVID McDONALD

[dropcap]A[/dropcap] good fighter, a friend and a longtime activist, MB re-posted an article on FaceBook that attacks Kshama Sawant, Seattle’s socialist City Councilmember,for attending a fund-raiser for Larry Gossett, a member of the King County Council and a Democrat. The underlying issues are serious enough to deserve a thorough response.

Larry Gossett has a more interesting history than many might know. He was a leader of the Black Panther Party in Seattle in the 60’s, eventually settling in as Director of the Central Area Motivation Project until his election, as part of the Rainbow Coalition, to the King County Council. Until this year, he was the Chairperson of the Martin Luther King Celebration Committee, a group that has organized, in a very non-sectarian fashion, a march on MLK Day for the last 33 years. I know, having worked on this committee for about 9 of these years. This committee is responsible, among other things, for the re-naming of King County in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Gossett was one of the few Black people with any power in Seattle who treated the Socialist Workers Party decently back in the day, renting his facility to us and signing on for reasonable things we brought to him from time to time.

I think it is fair to say that Gossett is a non-sectarian Democrat. One of few. And he is the best known and most widely respected Black political activist and civil rights leader in Seattle.

What is vital to this discussion, and what is not mentioned by any of those whining about Kshama’s attending his fundraiser, is that Gossett has endorsed her re-election campaign. That’s right, you read it correctly: Larry Gossett has endorsed Kshama Sawant’s candidacy for City Council Position #3.

This comes at a time when the Democrats have fielded not one, not two, but THREE candidates against Sawant: Rod Hearne, Morgan Beach, and Pamela Banks. These are all well-known Democratic Party types who have had important and notable jobs in Seattle. None of them is a vanity candidate. Rod Hearne is a prominent Gay Rights Activist, Morgan Beach is a well-known bourgeois feminist and Pamela Banks in the current President of the Urban League.

The strategy of all three candidates is an identity politics – based approach to carve off a portion of Sawant’s supporters: gays, women, and Black people. So far, fortunately, none of these candidacies have taken off. Pamela Banks, the most recent to declare candidacy, is unable to distinguish herself from Sawant on any substantive political issue — because Sawant has been out in front of all the most fundamental issues of livability in Seattle: minimum wage, affordable housing, gay bashing, and more. Banks defended her candidacy by saying she is more about the telephone than the microphone, and that is likely true enough. Banks intends to roam the corridors of power while Sawant intends to stay in the streets, employing a movement-building strategy as she has done every day of her tenure on the Seattle City Council.

This is one of the reasons she is the best known of all the candidates for City Council — her readiness to get in the face of power, even as she combines that with her own power on the Council. This is totally unnerving to the ruling class in Seattle and no doubt a factor in the large number of retiring City Council members this year. It’s just no fun anymore now that Kshama is there to call them out and do what’s right, like when she refused to attend (and denounced as a waste of money) a weekend getaway lovefest at a nearby resort with the local bourgeois, and instead stayed in Seattle to get community input on improving the upcoming city budget.

Or when she roused fellow City Councilmember and octogenarian Jean Godden from her slumbers and got her to sign onto an amendment to the City Council’s budget to immediately give all Seattle City Employees a minimum wage of $15/hr. This meant that since Sawant’s amendment had three Council members co-signing, it could only be removed from the budget by a majority vote of the whole council and they lacked the stomach to go on record opposing a measly $15/hr for city gardeners and so forth. That was a cool $1million plus for the workers of Seattle and a great example of how to actually stalk the corridors of power.

So, Larry Gossett, a sitting King County Councilmember has broken ranks with the party hierarchy and endorsed Sawant. Not only is this treason, it gives all sorts of other Democrats license to do the same

Pramila Jayapal, a newly-elected Washington State Senator from Seattle, has also endorsed Sawant. While Gossett is near the end of his career, Jayapal won election just last November as a Democrat and will probably be there for a while.

Jayapal is also a progressive with a non-sectarian history. She was probably more responsible than anyone for the huge size of the February 2003 antiwar march of 70,000 people, the largest non-sports gathering in the history of Seattle. How did that happen? When the usual suspects, the liberal Democrats, the closeted CPers, the liberal types from the Church Council of Greater Seattle got together with Hate Free Zone, led by Pramila, to respond to the threat of war with Iraq, she insisted that the Not in Our Name people be included in the initial core organizers of the march. That opened the door for the inclusion of ANSWER a little later.

This was due to the fact that Not in Our Name had been very active in the at-the-time very hot issue of immigrant rights and had done some good mobilizing work, despite it being a front for the despised Revolutionary Communist Party. Not wishing to offend or maybe lose Hate Free Zone, the rest of them gritted their teeth and allowed NION into the coalition, which meant that all the fundamental peace forces in the city were in the same coalition for once. As head of fundraising for that event, I got a seat at the table so I am relating this from personal experience. Pramila’s non-sectarian approach surfaced again this year when she endorsed Sawant – she bucked the Democratic Party’s strategy, and supported what was good for the community, which is Sawant’s re-election.

So, my dear friend M, this is why you are so dead wrong on this. Kshama is in the fight of her life, and it is a fight that everyone in America, especially those of YOUR and MY stripe ought to support, with time, with effort and with money. Kshama went to Larry Gossett’s campaign kickoff rally. Big deal. It was AT MOST a minor courtesy to a person who defied his party’s general wisdom and endorsed her. Now, true enough, Larry Gossett is not about to be defeated because of this endorsement. But it counts. Objectively, Gossett’s and Jayapal’s endorsement of Kshama Sawant is a split in the Democratic Party’s campaign to bury Sawant. So far from denouncing her, we should congratulate Kshama for her good sense in reaching out to Democrats who can be carved away from the Die Trotskyite Bitch campaign of the Democratic Party, whose admitted spiritual leader Seattle Mayor Ed Murray has let it be known that Sawant’s defeat is his No 1 priority in the City Council elections.

And let it also be said that Sawant has not backed off to the slightest degree in her opposition to Gossett’s main political focus of late, to wit, his sponsoring of a new Juvenile Detention Center (read: jail) for Seattle. So far from adapting to Larry Gossett, Sawant went to the MLK Celebration Committee IN PERSON (she was the only elected politician to do so) and asked to speak at the MLK rally, at which she delivered a spirited and wonderful speech denouncing the idea of a new jail, and counterpoised instead spending the vast funds about to be squandered on concrete for actual programs within the jail to help incarcerated youth. So much for bending to the politics of the Democratic Party.

[box] David McDonald is a bus driver, political activist and photographer in Seattle. He blogs at davidbyrnemcdonaldiii.com and can be reached at davidbyrnemcdonaldiii@gmail.com. [/box]

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Pro-Kremlin Activists Claim Boris Nemtsov Killed by ‘American Curators’

By Alec Luhn | VICE News

[dropcap]US[/dropcap] intelligence agencies killed opposition leader Boris Nemtsov to orchestrate a regime change in Russia, pro-Kremlin activists that include a senator and the leader of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s favorite biker gang said at a press conference in Moscow.

Referring to the pro-Western Euromaidan protests in Kiev that ousted President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014, the leaders of Russia’s “Anti-Maidan” movement said Nemtsov had become the “first victim of Maidan in Russia” when he was killed by four bullets to the back in view of the Kremlin on Friday night. Pundits in state media have often argued the Kiev protests were a US-organized “coup” that brought a “fascist junta” to power.

A former prime minister, Nemtsov had written several reports on state corruption and was reportedly working on one about Russian military support for rebels in eastern Ukraine. But nationalist author Nikolai Starikov argued at the press conference that the opposition leader had actually been an asset of US intelligence who had worked against Russia’s interests throughout his career.

“To me it’s obvious that the instigators of Nemtsov’s murder were his American curators, who always use the same methods. As soon as a revolutionary becomes ineffective, as soon as his death will bring more use than his activities, they kill him, then create a big furor around it to give his death more significance,” he said.

Starikov has long been a voice of warning against “Anglo-Saxon” conspiracies and has written such books as “1917: Not a Revolution, But an Intelligence Operation” and “Russia’s Main Enemy: All Evil Comes from the West.” He was joined by Senator Dmitry Sablin, a former deputy of the ruling United Russia party in the lower house of parliament, and Alexander “Surgeon” Zaldostanov, the head of the Night Wolves biker gang who has often been photographed with the Russian president. Putin once even rode a three-wheel Harley alongside Zaldostanov during a visit to Novorossiysk in 2011.

Sablin, Starikov and Zaldostanov had announced in January that they were creating an “Anti-Maidan” movement to fight pro-democracy protests against Putin’s government. Anti-Maidan members later shouted down peace activists at a protest against the conflict between the government and Russia-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine.

In February, Zaldostanov and thousands others came out for an Anti-Maidan march in downtown Moscow to mark the anniversary of the “coup” against Yanukovych, carrying signs such as “We Don’t Need American Democracy,” “Putin Is Our President” and “We Don’t Need Your Western Ideology!”

Opposition leaders and political analysts have said Nemtsov’s killing was far more likely linked to an “atmosphere of hatred” toward Kremlin critics than foreign intelligence services. Patriotic paranoia had been spread by state-controlled television coverage during the Ukraine crisis and was given expression by Putin, who warned of a “fifth column” of “national traitors” during a broadcast in December. Several analysts have argued that the most likely culprit is an ultranationalist or Kremlin-linked group seeking to push Putin to continue military support for rebels in eastern Ukraine rather than work toward a peace plan agreed in Minsk, Belarus, in February.

In a suggestion that it may also secretly suspect the far right, Russia’s investigative committee appointed Igor Krasnov, a detective known for successful investigations of nationalists accused of political murders, to head the Nemtsov case.

But Starikov argued that Nemtsov’s killing was a “classic example” of the “Maidan technologies” used by US intelligence to orchestrate coups in Ukraine and other countries. He added that it was actually the “democratic opposition” (i.e., “western-style government supporter} that was promoting intolerance and unrest, reading out quotes by anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny and other prominent activists and journalists criticizing Russia and its population. [Navalny is notorious for his close ties with the CIA and State Department destabilization tools like the NED, etc.—Eds] “Who is really creating this atmosphere of hate? We need to pay attention to these people, they are indirectly responsible for the murder of Boris Nemtsov,” he said.

Zaldostanov complained that Anti-Maidan activists wearing the St. George’s ribbon, a Russian symbol for military victories widely worn by Putin supporters, had been prevented from joining Sunday’s 50,000-strong memorial march for Nemtsov. The ribbon has become an unofficial symbol of the Russia-backed rebellion in eastern Ukraine, of which Nemtsov was an outspoken opponent. [Nemtsov openly supported the Kiev regime and accused the Russian government of “aggression,” a shopworn propaganda meme disseminated by Western politicians and media.—Eds]

“When they don’t let some guys with St. George’s ribbon join the column, when some faggot in a homosexual voice says that that the ribbon is a symbol of bloodshed, I can’t understand that,” Zaldostanov said.

The Anti-Maidan leaders said that they considered themselves part of Russia’s political opposition, but the press conference took place in the headquarters of Rossiya Segodnya (“Russia Today”), the Kremlin’s media arm. Their statements also echoed official rhetoric: Both Putin’s spokesman and the investigative committee have suggested Nemtsov’s murder is a “provocation” against Russia.

Following Nemtsov’s killing, Russia will face protests and further “provocations,” including more killings, according to Starikov, as the US agents attempt to destabilize the situation in the country and overthrow the government.

“To say there is no danger and we’re fighting with phantoms is to deny reality,” he said. “The attempt to shake up the situation in Russia has started with Nemtsov’s murder…. We have seen so many successful and unsuccessful coups according to the Maidan scenario. This destabilization happens in any country where the United States is trying to achieve regime change.”

Follow Alec Luhn on Twitter: @ASLuhn

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Did Obama just declare war on Syria?

Eric Draitser

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he news that President Obama has formally asked US Congress to authorize military force against ISIS is not surprising. What may come as a shock to Americans oblivious to these developments is that the administration has de facto declared war on Syria.

On Wednesday, President Barack Obama presented the US Congress with a draft resolution authorizing the use of military force.Liberal pundits have lauded the Obama administration for observing the Constitutional requirement for congressional approval of military action, while many conservatives have predictably pilloried the administration for presenting a “weak” and “flawed” strategy that will be doomed to failure. However both these lines of argument are, in fact, distractions from the far bigger, far more dangerous, and far more criminal action being taken by the White House: an aggressive war against Syria, a sovereign nation.

Distorting the reality of US aggression

While the corporate media is framing the request for authorization as being limited in scope, there are key clauses that should worry anyone interested in peace and stability in Syria, and the Middle East generally.Naturally, after a series of aggressive wars waged by the US (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, etc.), many Americans are understandably skeptical of yet another open-ended conflict that will cost American lives, not to mention billions of dollars (note that the countless innocent civilians who will be killed as a result of US operations are almost never mentioned as they are not deemed noteworthy by policymakers or the media).

A careful examination of some key provisions of the president’s proposal reveals that, contrary to the rhetoric, this is in fact a declaration of war on Syria. The internationally, and legally, recognized government of Syria, led by Bashar al-Assad, has provided no such authorization, nor have they been consulted, let alone asked for consent, in the US decision. Therefore, any US military action occurring within Syria’s borders would unquestionably be a violation of international law.

According to the NY Times, Obama’s proposal “would prohibit the use of ‘enduring offensive ground forces’ and limit engagement to three years.” The understandable reaction from a casual reader would be that Obama is trying to avoid any kind of real war, and is instead just looking to engage in limited combat operations against a specific threat. However, that is simply not true for, were one to continue reading the NY Times article, one would find the following:

The resolution also requests authority to wage battle beyond the fight against the Islamic State to include “associated forces.” It would contain no geographic limitations… The omission of any language setting geographic boundaries appeared to anticipate the possibility of attacking the group should it gain a foothold in Lebanon or Jordan, which has fought off sporadic attacks from Islamic State fighters. It could also be used to address future threats from small bands of violent Islamist militants in Libya, Yemen and other Middle Eastern and North African countries that have “rebranded” their identities to take the Islamic State name, and benefit from its notoriety, American officials said.

So this resolution being touted as “limited” and “short-term” is anything but. Rather than cautiously authorizing very specific action, it instead provides Washington carte blanche to engage in a full-scale regional war that could include a number of countries in the region. The transnational character of the Islamic State virtually guarantees such an outcome. However, while Lebanon, Jordan, Libya, and Yemen are explicitly named in the Times article, the real target here is Syria – the only country that has actually been fighting (and winning) a war against IS.

In a recent interview with the BBC, Syrian President Assad responded to a question as to the possibility of his country cooperating with the United States by stating, “No, definitely we cannot and we don’t have the will and we don’t want, for one simple reason — because we cannot be in an alliance with countries which support terrorism.” A more clear rejection of US military action in Syria could not possibly be given.

And so, international observers are left with a central question: when the US inevitably violates Syrian sovereignty in this new phase of the war (they’ve been doing this for months already), will there be an outcry from those who still cling to the seemingly outdated notion of international law? Will there be any leaders who remind Washington and the world that there are clear and unmistakable precedents in international law which define this move as “aggressive”?

Who will stand up and defend the decision of the International Law Commission in 1951 which, after being tasked by the UN to develop a definition of aggression, ultimately decided that: “Aggression is the use of force by a State or Government against another State or Government, in any manner, whatever the weapons used and whether openly or otherwise, for any reason or for any purpose other than individual or collective self-defense or in pursuance of a decision or recommendation by a competent organ of the United Nations”?

Syria, a sovereign state currently at war against multiple external enemies that have infiltrated the country with the covert support of international actors, is now subject to invasion, bombardment, and other forms of aggression by the United States without ever having even threatened to attack the US, its allies, or its interests.

Naturally, the Obama administration would claim that IS beheadings and killings are ample justification for launching an aggressive war. However, no ethical observer or legal scholar would argue that these incidents, which pale in comparison to many other horrific crimes all over the world that the US has conveniently ignored, justify a war of aggression. For, as the International Military Tribunal at Nuremburg unequivocally stated in 1946, “To initiate a war of aggression is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

Taking this as the precedent, is there any doubt as to the illegality of what President Obama is proposing?

Questions for President Obama

Yet again the drumbeat of war becomes audible. Yet again Americans can rest assured that their elected officials and corporate media mouthpieces will do everything but ask incisive questions that challenge the militarist consensus that exists in Washington. And so, it falls upon those outside of the corporate mainstream to ask such questions, to challenge the false narrative, and to cut through the rhetoric and obfuscation of the bipartisan warmongers. And it is in this spirit of truth-telling, to say nothing of morality and justice, that I submit the following questions to President Obama:

1. Your proposed resolution explicitly prohibits “enduring offensive ground forces” being utilized in this so-called war against IS. Can you clearly and specifically explain what the word “enduring” actually means, and more to the point, how offensive ground forces differ from other ground forces? Put another way, what will stop you or your successor from simply waging offensive campaigns under the moniker of “defensive” campaigns? We’ve seen countless times before, both with President Bush and your administration, the shift in terminology that is in fact no change in actual tactics or policy. So, with that in mind, will you or your successor be guilty of violating this authorization by engaging in such deliberately misleading policies?

Obama asks Congress for permission to strike ISIS anywhere in world (RT.com)

2. This resolution grants you the authority to fight not only IS, but also so called “associated forces.” What or who exactly are the associated forces? Does this include the al-Qaeda affiliated al Nusra Front which has been documented as collaborating with Israel? Does this make Israel an “associated force” considering that they are in league with a known al-Qaeda group?

What about the so called “moderate rebels” which your administration has so ardently supported? Thousands upon thousands of these fighters have defected to IS, bringing their US weapons and training with them. Are you now suggesting that US military will be fighting against the forces that our own government has armed? Will anyone in the CIA or any other agency be held accountable for having provided the weapons and training that are now being employed by “the enemy”?

3. You’ve declared that a time limit of three years must be placed on US military operations against IS. However there seems to be no clear objective other than the abstract and intangible goal of “defeating ISIS.” Considering that the Islamic State is a transnational fighting force with a vast network of resources, allied factions, and regions under its control, how is it possible to defeat such a force without a full scale regional war far larger than the criminal war against Iraq by your predecessor? Isn’t it true that you’re simply waging yet another unwinnable war, to say nothing of it being an overtly criminal war?

Are you prepared to be morally and legally responsible for the costs of this war, both in lives and resources? And what happens when the three year time limit has expired and IS still exists, as this is undeniably going to be the result? Will you be prepared to have your war and your policy deemed a failure, just as Bush’s have been?

4. Considering the fact that this resolution will grant you the authority to wage war inside Syria without the consent of the Syrian government, are you prepared to wage war against Damascus if it defends its people from your bombs? As a legal scholar who has focused on international law, you’re undoubtedly aware of the inviolable right of self-defense as enumerated in Chapter VII, Article 51 of the UN Charter which states that “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of collective or individual self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations.” And so, the Syrian government will be well within its legal rights to defend with military force against US aggression, be it from ground forces, aerial bombardment, etc. What will you do in the event that this happens?Will you compound your grave breach of international law with yet another “supreme crime”?

5. You claim to be conscientious when it comes to international law, and yet you have already violated it countless times, long before the words “Islamic State” were on your lips. You refused to get a UN Security Council resolution authorizing war in Libya, and instead distorted the meaning of Resolution 1973 which authorized a No-Fly Zone over Libya, transforming it into a de facto declaration of war.Similarly, you’ve waged secret wars in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and Mali and all over the world. Honestly, why should anyone trust you, or any of the “guarantees” and “limits” that will purportedly guide the military action?

Your administration has fomented the civil war in Ukraine, and its policies have brought the US and Russia into direct confrontation for the first time since the Cold War. Your war on Libya has created a failed state and hotbed for terrorism where there was none before.Your drone war in Pakistan has achieved nothing but needless civilian deaths and created endless fodder for new terrorist recruitment. Your secret drone war in Yemen has been a failure, and is one of the principal reasons for the fall of the puppet government that your administration put in place during your first term.Your policy in Somalia has achieved little more than more innocent Somalis being killed, to say nothing of the criminal policy that led directly to deaths of at least 250,000 Somalis from starvation.

Considering all of these wars that you are directly responsible for, how can the American people, let alone the people of Iraq, Syria, and the region broadly, trust anything you say? Considering all of the above wars, and the new regional war you have planned, how can you still claim to be a worthy recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize? Shouldn’t you consider returning it?

And finally, Mr. President…are you prepared to be remembered for having started yet another endless war? Are you prepared for the irreparable damage that this will cause to your own legacy? Are you prepared for the inevitable blowback of these policies? Moreover, will you take responsibility for it now, and in the future?

Mr. President, I await your response.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Eric Draitser is an independent geopolitical analyst based in New York City and the founder of StopImperialism.com.

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