The rich man’s power lies in his secure, vaulted places. The poor man’s power is the street
Before delving into the meat of this article, the Syrian tragedy demands attention. The United States recently joined Europe in publicly stating it would funnel weapons and other war materiel to the fractious rebel coalition. The move was taken because Assad’s forces allegedly had used chemical weapons. This was pretext. In reality, the initiative came because Assad had gained a significant battlefield advantage. Obviously the Syrian rebels could not halt Assad’s ascendance themselves. For the past year, Western nations have secretly aided and equipped the rebels. This level of lethal clandestine help from America and others has become insufficient due to the enhanced Iranian, Iraqi and Hezbollah martial subvention given Assad’s government.
In a sense, President Obama deserves pity. Publicly, he confidently enounced the geo-political sagacity and moral rectitude of the new policy. Outside the public’s gaze, he must have been hauled toward this decision kicking and screaming.
The US government ‘finding” of Syrian government use of chemical weapons is suspect. In early May, the UN’s lead investigator in Syria concluded the rebels had deployed the lethal chemical weapon, sarin. She found no evidence of regime use. The US quickly repudiated the report. We now know why.
The facts uncovered by the UN inquiry do not fit the tale America wants to construct. For America, Assad must be seen as incarnadine evil and the rebels as freedom fighters of the noblest order. Facts contrasting this depiction are tossed aside. Again, American policy is based on a simplistic caricature of a complex, nuanced reality. Again, American arrogance has decided on a course of action before assessing if the facts warrant that action. Once the decision is had, facts become secondary. They are manipulated to support a conclusion that has been reached without their assistance.
That Assad would order the small-scale deployment of chemical weapons is the masthead of illogic. With the battlefield tilting in his favor, the man had nothing to gain from a tactical deployment of chemical weapons. A cunning survivalist like Assad would not risk such a strategic blunder to gain ephemeral advantage in a relatively minor skirmish. He would not take the gamble providing Western detractors a pretext to escalate their support for the flagging rebel groups. Assad had little to gain from such a noxious display yet much to lose.
The rebels had much to gain and little to forfeit by spraying chemical weapons then planting the delinquency on Assad’s porch. Pinning the blame on Assad suited rebel interests because it would prompt American action. This may have been the rebel’s most effective military maneuver since gaining the upper hand in the battle of Homs several months ago. It appears that all remains fair in war – even the treachery of gassing one’s own supporters — in order to gain an advantage.
After President Obama’s prior statement that the regime’s chemical weapons use would materially change American policy, that the regime would be found to have abused the dreadful instruments become inexorable.
After the world discovered the Iraqi war was based on a falsehood, the American government pledged it would not repeat the mistake. Seems an arrogance of power makes for a porous memory. The same type of dubious intelligence has been contrived to support a foregone conclusion in Syria. After all, it seems odd the UN and US can have basically the same information yet reach opposite conclusions regarding chemical weapons usage.
Powerful interests embedded in the American political and military establishment seek Assad’s ouster. If this means war or near-war, let the slings and arrows fly. He is marked for ouster and these powerful interests are accustomed to hitting their mark.
Thus, American involvement in Syria will escalate. This means the war shall enter a more violent yet still inconclusive phase. Increased American aid will prevent the rebel’s possible collapse. However, additional weaponry will not decisively change the equation. It shall make for a more lethal stalemate since Assad’s sponsors will respond in kind. The military battle cannot be won until the sponsors of one side cave or, conversely, give such massive, unmatched assistance that the other side’s sponsors find it too costly to compete further. America is the only military capable of lending such unparalleled support.
President Obama’s announcement is a mistake albeit not of the magnitude of his predecessor’s fabrication of an entire war. America did not author the Syrian civil war. Assad penned this war with his unique script of injustice and suppression. However, America now may stoke the conflict beyond present dimensions. War hawks in America will become frustrated that increased weapons assistance has done little except birth a more violent standoff. They will pressure the President to escalate American involvement.
Talk of no-fly zones, bombing and aerial support will dominate the policy discourse. In fact, there will be no genuine policy debate. The policy has already been determined by vested interests more permanently ensconced and influential in how the machinery of government grinds than is the current occupant of the White House. The American war factory will increase its assistance to the rebels because that is the nature of war machines. This tragedy will occur without an objective assay of America’s strategic interests or of the risks in catapulting Syria into a bleak unknown. It seems war, too, has reasons that reason shall never know.
This escalation shall sadly bear President Obama’s name although he reluctantly heads the procession towards war. He may be the head but he is not the lead. Time and time again, to prove he is not effete, he has given the war hawks too much leeway. They have repaid him by cajoling him toward imprudent action. This time, his unwillingness to hold the war factory in check may well cost him and his nation a price heavier than he is wont to pay.
Today, he gives increased aid to an unruly unreliable agglomeration in an obvious swamp of a martial emprise. Tomorrow, he will be pressured to send American planes into the Syrian airspace to make the battlefield safe for the rebels and rescue American prestige from stagnant misadventure. By his decision, the world moves one fateful step closer to heavy war in a strategic nation where both contestants enjoy support from rival great powers. This may be a short walk to disaster. The recent G-8 meeting concluded these great powers shall work to resolve the crisis. However, the internal politics of these nations augur against such cooperation. The cloud of war stands over Syria. Mars, the god of battle and prince of bloodlust, smiles as he polishes the instruments of war, hoping they shall soon be used in a massive eruption of destruction and death.
While governments make fools of themselves in Syria, populations across the world are tiring of being fooled by their governments.
Protests abound in many nations. People take to the streets demanding redress from insensitive governments. Too many people suffer the weight and woe of economic inequality. Social services have been abolished so conservative governments may shift their fiscal deficits to deficits in the life the humble shall live. Wages are cut so the profiteer can achieve his thumping desire of seizing the fat and meat of the land. Jobs that should be had are now lost. Homes that should be places of light and the laughter of happy children and glad parents, are dark and vacant.
Hope may not be scattered to the four winds but it has been evicted from its dwelling place. When a man and his dreams have been rendered homeless, he has little alternative but to take to the streets. As people realise, when their government professes “to serve” them, that the government actually uses the term in the same manner one does to say the chef has served the roasted lamb. The people are not the ones government calls to dine; they are the dish government gives the privileged to dine upon. The poor and weak are not the guests; they are the meal. Upon realising government has travestied democracy and betrayed their sacred trust, people have a choice. Most accept the sorted deal the strong arm of government thrusts at them. A growing minority has found that their feet may be their most effective voice. They have taken to the streets, marching in protest against arrogant, indifferent government. The people seek to turn the table by giving back to government much of the discomfort government has given them.
Brazil has been wracked by an entire week of protests. Over one million people have participated. The protests were sparked when an insensitive government increased bus fares by nine percent, in part to fund World Cup construction overruns. Although government rescinded the fare increase, people remain in the streets. They like the taste of protest because they distaste the trajectory of their lives. The fare increase was but a fuse, not the incendiary. The real incendiary was the life struggle too many Brazilians face.
Corporate media paints an impressive tableau of the Brazilian economic miracle. Denizens of the favelas say they have yet to see, much less experience, such a thing. Thus, they have taken to the streets in search of it. The protests’ intensity belies the myth of a carefree, happy folk. Yes, Brazilians love samba music; their festivities are second to none. But they are people still. It is a rare thing to secure happiness on an empty stomach. Such a thing may be paradise for an ascetic but is hellish for the rest of humankind. Brazilians still need to eat, send their children to school and buy grandma’s medicines so that she may survive, at least, one more day.
The protesters now assail the decision to host the World Cup. For a nation with a large segment of its population gripped by poverty, hosting such a thing is a false monument of national progress that says “tudo bem” (everything is well) when everything is far from well. Hosting the World Cup amidst biting penury is a costly lark by a political elite too confident in its own power and riches. Estranged from the suffering of the many, this elite has become careless in its treatment of the working class backbone and the lumpen periphery that are the genuine Brazil.
As much as the common people love football, they would rather the funds be spent on more milk, food, medicine, housing and education, not on stadia and venues only the moneyed can enjoy. The Brazilians have seen what the World Cup did for poor South Africans; Nothing. It lifted their hopes only to crash them in burnt disappointment. For the common South African, the games were an expensive narcotic. The high was costly but transient. The hangover was more permanent. When they awoke from the high, the people discovered they were no better situated than before. The poor can’t afford to pay such a stiff price for a momentary flutter of pride. Average Brazilians know this and many want no part of the foul procession. While the World Cup will hold, it will not do so as an unfettered party. By embarking on this immense frivolity, the Brazilian government inadvertently placed itself on trial. May the protests continue until government acquits itself by returning to working for the people instead of for itself.
In Ethiopia, thousands recently protested political oppression and the massive displacement of farmers and whole populations by government allied with global agro-business. This took courage. Government in Addis Ababa traditionally has little patience with dissent. It usually descends on protests will the subtlety of a boulder. Perhaps the demise of brilliant but megalomaniacal late president Meles has allowed a crack of freedom in an otherwise stifled political space. Hopefully, the people will have the courage to continue protesting so that they may stake claim to a new democracy in this ancient land. If not, the ancient land will return to something resembling a more medieval structure of society and the repression inherent in such an old political edifice.
In America, hundreds of Blacks protested before the White House. Slowly, Blacks are recognising they have given the tenant in that House their all while he has given them the shaft. Most observers have concluded President Obama’s Africa policy is weaker than his predecessors. To a large degree, his domestic policy suffers like affliction. Black America is in a worsened state than when the President took office. He has not lifted a finger to stem the hemorrhaging. His special gift to the Black community has been a series of public speeches haranguing them to depart from their stereotypic lethargy and expostulating that they should not expect any special help even if the economic ground is being swept from under them.
Although it embraced him with a love transcending into adoration, he has turned a cold shoulder to the Black community. The forces of poverty and racism converge on that community to buffet it in manifest ways. Unless something is done, the Black community will plummet into a condition not experienced since the advent of the Civil Rights Movement in the late 1950s. That this decline accelerates under the watch of the first Black president seems an irony of history. The more the policies and psychology of this administration are weighed, however, the more it seems that things have taken this malign shape by sinister design. As with the military on the war front, the President appears to be enthralled to indifferent, if not regressive, forces regarding domestic policy and its relationship to the Black community. Thus, may the protest grow larger and more potent.
In conclusion, almost imperceptibly people around the world are realising their governments have strayed too far from their stated purpose. Perhaps the most important protest was the Iranian presidential election. This time, authorities respected the ballot. If they manipulated the result, the authorities knew they could face with a massive protest crippling the regime. They did not want the Arab Spring to migrate into a Persian Summer. Faced with the reality of people power, those in formal authority bowed to the potential of the street and the common person. The West will view this as a sign that Iranians seek general rapprochement and a specific deal on the nuclear faceoff. The West reads too much of its interests into this essentially internal affair. The people voted in this manner because they want a government more responsive to their daily needs.
The forces of arrogant, mindless conservatism hold sway over too many capitals and nations. This has caused us to live in a world of weakening democracy and growing inequality. These and other protests show people see the challenge and threat before them. Some know action must be taken lest the world fall into an era of where plutocracy, war and inequality rule and the common person becomes uncommonly destitute and bedraggled. Human progress has been won at too high a price for the world to slip back into the bog. May the protests continue.
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