Green Party urges no U.S. interference in Syria

WASHINGTON, DC (ST)- Green Party leaders called on President Obama and Congress to cancel proposed military aid to Syrian “rebels” and press Israel to cease its attacks on Syria immediately, or risk an escalated conflict in the Middle East.

Greens urged the Obama Administration to pursue diplomacy and promote a political settlement instead of a deepening and bloody civil and proxy war. Hopefully, the US Administration would heed the logic of its own citizens as to evade the more of deterioration and bloodshed.

On May 5, Leah Bolger, Secretary of Defense, and David Swanson, Secretary of Peace, of the Foreign Affairs Branch of the Green Shadow Cabinet published a statement opposing U.S. involvement in Syria and a condemnation of Israel’s air strikes:

U.S. military involvement in Syria could only make things worse. Syria does not need a “no fly” zone. It needs a “no weaponizing” zone….  The Netanyahu government in Israel has just raised the ante in this precarious situation by conducting air-to-ground missile attacks against Syria, undoubtedly with the tacit approval of the United States. Allowing Israel to attack Syria without consequences is not only the sanctioning of a crime; it also allows momentum to develop for greater violence and pushes peaceful resolution further out of reach. Diplomacy must be actively pursued before it is too late.

Further military interference in Syria would be a disastrous decision in important ways. For one thing, it is not at all clear if chemical weapons have been used, and if so, by which side. U.S. media has a tendency to turn conjecture into accepted fact merely by repeating it. Furthermore, the U.S. military has itself used  and continues to use chemical and nuclear weapons — Agent Orange and napalm in Vietnam and white phosphorus and depleted uranium weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan. The ongoing hypocrisy of U.S. policy and practice in this regard undermines our nation’s international moral and legal position.

But the most basic reason that the U.S. should not interfere militarily in Syria is because we should support self-determination. It should be left to the Syrian people to decide who will run their government. Overthrowing foreign governments is not legal, moral, or practical.  It is not a safe practice to encourage. In fact, in nearly a century of warmaking, there is still no example of the United States or NATO having “liberated” a country to beneficial effect. Libya’s violence is spilling into neighboring nations. Iraq is arguably in worse shape post-intervention than Syria is pre-intervention.

“Cheerleaders for U.S. military involvement and a U.S. enforced no-fly zone in Syria, including Secretary of State John Kerry and Sen. John McCain, show that they learned nothing from the 2003 Iraq invasion about the danger of decisions based on flimsy and fabricated evidence,” said Darryl! LC Moch, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States.

“Unless we see a reversal of policy, it’s clear that President Obama has adopted the aggressive doctrine and illegal agenda of the Bush Administration’s neocon ideologues, as well as carte-blanche approval for every criminal action by Israel regardless of consequences, under the influence of AIPAC,” said Ms. Farheen Hakeem, co-chair of the Green Party’s International Committee.

To  what extent such a ”reversal of policy” will take place in the interest of All remains so far uncertain, given, unfortunately,  the uncalculated and reckless anti-Syria practices and measures on the ground by terrorism backers, particularly the ewes and Turkey.

M.A.