{"id":61115,"date":"2021-03-03T02:23:26","date_gmt":"2021-03-03T02:23:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dissidentvoice.org\/?p=114070"},"modified":"2021-03-03T02:23:26","modified_gmt":"2021-03-03T02:23:26","slug":"delusions-of-self-defense-biden-bombs-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/03\/03\/delusions-of-self-defense-biden-bombs-syria\/","title":{"rendered":"Delusions of Self-Defense: Biden Bombs Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every power worth its portion of salt in the Levant these days seems to be doing it.\u00a0 On February 25, President Joe Biden ordered airstrikes against Syria.\u00a0 The premise for the attacks was implausible.\u00a0 \u201cThese strikes were authorized in response to recent attacks against American and Coalition personnel in Iraq,\u201d claimed<\/a> Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, \u201cand to ongoing threats to those personnel.\u201d<\/p>\n

More specifically, the strikes were in retaliation for rocket attacks in northern Iraq on the airport of Erbil that left a Filipino contractor working for the US military dead and six others injured, including a Louisiana National Guard soldier.\u00a0 The targets in Syria were facilities used by Iranian-backed militia groups, including Kataib Hezbollah and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada.\u00a0 According to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the attack left up to 22 people dead.<\/p>\n

The Biden administration has resorted to tactics long embraced by US presidents.\u00a0 To be noticed, you need to bomb a country.\u00a0 The measure, more a sign of raging impotence than stark virility, is always larded with jargon and bureaucratic platitudes.\u00a0 \u201cWe said a number of times that we will respond on our timeline,\u201d explained<\/a> Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to reporters keeping him company on a flight from California to Washington.\u00a0 \u201cWe wanted to be sure of the connectivity and we wanted to be sure about the right targets.\u201d\u00a0 He was convinced \u201cthat the target was being used by the same Shia militants that conducted the [February 15] strikes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seven 500-pound bombs were used in the operation, though Stars and Stripes<\/em> initially reported<\/a> that \u201cthe type of weaponry used\u201d was not disclosed.\u00a0 The Pentagon had been keen to push a larger range of targets, but Biden was being presidential in restraint, approving, as the New York Times<\/em> puts it<\/a>, \u201ca less aggressive option\u201d.<\/p>\n

Kirby insisted the operation had been the sensible outcome of discussions with coalition partners.\u00a0 \u201cThe operation sends an unambiguous message: President Biden will act to protect American and Coalition personnel.\u201d\u00a0 Defying credulity, the spokesman suggested<\/a> that the US had \u201cacted in a deliberate manner that aims to de-escalate the overall situation in both eastern Syria and Iraq.\u201d<\/p>\n

Congress, the people\u2019s chamber, was left out in the cold, though not for the first time by this administration.\u00a0 Press outlets such as the Associated Press had ingested the fable<\/a> that this was \u201cthe first military action undertaken by the Biden administration\u201d.\u00a0 But on January 27, the New York Times<\/em> reported<\/a> that the US Air Force had killed 10 ISIS members near Kirkuk in Iraq, including Abu Yasser al-Issawi.\u00a0 A spokesman for the US-led coalition against Islamic State, Colonel Wayne Marotto, was satisfied<\/a> with the bloody result.\u00a0 \u201cYasser\u2019s death is another significant blow to Daesh resurgence efforts in Iraq.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such casual non-reporting, even during the incipient stages of a presidential administration, should have received a tongue-lashing.\u00a0 Instead, there were a good number in the press stable who could only see the figure of the previous White House occupant, and feel relief that Biden was being so sensible.<\/p>\n

The Daily Beast<\/em> suggested<\/a>, with little substance, that the airstrike lacked the recklessness of the Trump administration.\u00a0 Bobby Ghosh for Bloomberg, also falling into error in claiming this as Biden\u2019s \u201cfirst military attack\u201d, was convinced<\/a> that the actions were sound in letting those naughty Iranians \u201cknow\u201d that the president \u201cwasn\u2019t bluffing.\u201d\u00a0 Iran and its \u201cproxies were caught completely off guard.\u00a0 They had been lulled into a sense of impunity by the administration\u2019s early reticence in attributing blame for the attacks in Iraq and the White House\u2019s determination not to \u2018lash out and risk and escalation\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ghosh even goes so far as to laud the February 25 military strike as a necessary antidote against paralysing and unproductive diplomacy, ignoring accounts<\/a> suggesting that Iran has encouraged Shiite militias in Iraq to refrain from excessive violence.\u00a0 The US, including its allies, Britain, France, and Germany, had initially embraced a posture of \u201cstudied calm\u201d<\/a>.\u00a0 Thankfully, that period of studiousness was over: \u201cBiden has now demonstrated that he can walk and chew gum at the same time.\u201d\u00a0 And so, a vigilante act in violation of a State\u2019s sovereignty comes to be praised.<\/p>\n

Not all have sanitised the act as a necessitous one.\u00a0 Mary Ellen O\u2019Connell of Notre Dame Law School thought<\/a> that the strike failed to meet the necessary \u201celements\u201d of a necessary use of force.\u00a0 \u201cThe United Nations Charter makes absolutely clear that the use of military force on the territory of a foreign sovereign state is lawful only in response to an armed attack on the defending state for which the target is responsible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders was also troubled by the strike, worried<\/a> that it put \u201cour country on the path of continuing the Forever War instead of ending it.\u00a0 This is the same path we\u2019ve been on for almost two decades.\u201d\u00a0 Maine Democrat Senator Tim Kaine turned to the role<\/a> of Congressional power. \u201cOffensive military action without congressional approval is not constitutional absent extraordinary military circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n

Minnesota Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar also pointed out<\/a> that the current White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki had herself criticised President Donald Trump in 2017 for authorising a strike in retaliation of a chemical weapons attack.\u00a0 \u201cAssad is a brutal dictator,\u201d tweeted<\/a> Psaki at the time.\u00a0 \u201cBut Syria is a sovereign country.\u201d\u00a0 Another sentiment forgotten in an increasingly amnesiac administration.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, war apologists tend to find ongoing justifications in the elastic imperial provisions found in the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF).\u00a0 The 2001 AUMF was focused on perpetrators of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.\u00a0 The 2002 AUMF was directed to Iraq.<\/p>\n

Their sheer broadness has irked the sole person to vote against them.\u00a0 \u201cNearly 20 years after I cast the sole \u2018no\u2019 vote on the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF),\u201d stated<\/a> Californian House Representative Barbara Lee, \u201cboth the 2002 and 2002 AUMFs have been employed by three successive Presidents to wage war in ways well beyond the scope that Congress initially intended.\u201d<\/p>\n

Biden does not even go so far as to cite such authorities, instead stating<\/a> that the strikes were \u201cconsistent with my responsibility to protect United States citizens both home and abroad and in furtherance of United States national security and foreign policy interests, pursuant to my constitutional authority to conduct United States foreign relations and as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overly stretching his argument, Biden opined that his action was also consistent with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, acknowledging a state\u2019s right to self-defense.\u00a0 Not even Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama or Trump had bothered to push the international law line for such thuggish intervention, confining themselves to domestic sources of power.\u00a0 But such virtue signalling did evoke some praise, notably from<\/a> former legal adviser to the State Department, John B. Bellinger III.\u00a0 The President\u2019s inaugural war powers report was \u201ca model of war powers practice and transparency.\u201d<\/p>\n

Congress has made a few efforts in recent years to restrain the Commander-in-Chief for overzealous commitments.\u00a0 The War Powers Resolution sought to end US participation in the Yemen conflict.\u00a0 In 2020, members of Congress resolved to modestly shackle Trump from commencing a full blown war with Iran.\u00a0 But the February 25 attacks show that the misuse and abuse of US military might by the imperial executive remains a dangerous orthodoxy, and one that continues to have its defenders.<\/p>The post Delusions of Self-Defense: Biden Bombs Syria<\/a> first appeared on Dissident Voice<\/a>.\n

This post was originally published on Dissident Voice<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every power worth its portion of salt in the Levant these days seems to be doing it.\u00a0 On February 25, President Joe Biden ordered airstrikes against Syria.\u00a0 The premise for the attacks was implausible.\u00a0 \u201cThese strikes were authorized in response to recent attacks against American and Coalition personnel in Iraq,\u201d claimed Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, [\u2026]<\/p>\n

The post Delusions of Self-Defense: Biden Bombs Syria<\/a> first appeared on Dissident Voice<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2021,600,48,25,192,51,53,196,56,1233,202,714],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61115"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61115"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61116,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61115\/revisions\/61116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}