Where are we going?

++A follow-up note, the new album by Ian McColm and David Shapiro is "Nagual", its production was funded by Kickstarter and for trivia buffs it was recorded using Sly Stone's former sound board. Ian McColm's previous album is "Virgin Skins",a solo album of experimental percussion composed by him. Nagual made its debut in Chicago yesterday. 

++The Syria issue continued throughout the day with more killing outside of Damascus by Assad's forces. The EU issued a statement that blamed Assad for the use of chemical weapons but asked that a serious strike be reserved until the conclusions of the UN inspectors. President Obama will appear on all major networks on Monday to press his case for a military strike. He will address the nation on Tuesday.

++The White House is in flood the field mode for their efforts to persuade a reluctant Congress to approve military activity. AIPAC is swarming the hill with 250 lobbyists,something that is unusual for the pro-Israeli lobby.

++Right now the numbers of House members tilting to a no vote is approaching a majority. However, Democratic supporters of the White House spin this more positively that those "leaning no" have not yet read the classified papers. This sounds like whistling in the wind. 

++For those who are arguing against intervention,is it to absolve oneself of guilt,a true belief in non-violence, a fatigue of America at war. Not intervening will not stop the carnage in Syria or end the war. The United States,Jordan and Israel already have special forces in that country who are operating clandestinely. Is it just better for our conscience that we don't know about this? The Left is sounding triumphalist with the impending "no" vote. The anti-war movement, which failed abysmally during the Iraq War, now gets its revenge on the President who ended the Iraq War and is close to ending the Afghanistan War.  But there is an unquiet lurking in the most frank and objective anti-war opinions. There is an agreement that something truly awful is happening in Syria and something should be done. On the Right,one wag said that Obama has achieved the impossible--making Republicans hate Golf and War. The non-interventionist Right are lurching to Rand Paul isolationism and claim America can not really affect what happens in Syria.

++I think there are several problems at work in all this. First,America can not escape its gigantism. Even with calls for surgical strikes,we ask for solutions and actions beyond the scale of imagination. Our concept of War is still too laden with equipment and manpower. These elements of our war-making establishment mitigate against success. But it is the way our military-intelligence-terrorist complex is made to work. 

++What if we looked at this situation a different way. It is supposed to be a "humanitarian intervention" aimed at the proliferation of chemical weapons. I listened  to John Kerry's interview with Chris Hayes and combined by lengthy statements from Samantha Powers and President Obama,I've concluded their strategy might, indeed, work, bringing the parties to Geneva talks eventually. But the problem,I felt, was that there were too many moving parts to the policy and ,as such, would not be understood either by the American people or the Congress. And, there would not be the stick-to-itness you need to fulfill the strategy.

++Yes,short military strikes will significantly degrade Assad's war-making powers. Somehow people on both the Right and Left believe these strikes would be pinpricks when in fact they would take out whole chunks of the governing infrastructure. And it really doesn't matter too much that Assad is busy moving things around to avoid attack. The plan was to seek out the delivery systems for the chemical weapons and destroy those with the troops that handle them. The cost of the whole affair will be above the estimates of Chuck Hagel and President Obama, between $600 million to $1 billion. This operation will cost less than Libya and will be supported by funds from Saudi Arabia and military power from France, Turkey and Israel but the estimates are still too low.

++But "humanitarian intervention", which I have been known to support, has to emphasize the humanitarian nature of the crisis. Whatever we do the fighting will continue. We now have a massive humanitarian crisis of nearly 5 million displaced Syrians,about 2 million as refugees. The world community has made a commitment of about 1.5 billion for the refugee problem, only about $175 million has been paid by donor states. It seems to me the United States and its foreign allies, which still exist, should immediately pony up the money to the organizations tasked with dealing with the refugee crisis. Money also needs to go to host communities in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan to alleviate the stress on their meager resources. 

++The refugee crisis is swamping the surrounding countries and fueling the seeds for destabilizing Lebanon and Jordan. Nearly 25% of the population in Lebanon are Syrians. The Obama Administration has done no one any favors by focusing on the chemical attacks without painting the broader canvas of the humanitarian crisis. 

++There are scores of NGOs trying to deal with this problem. The International Rescue Committee is one, the UNHCR is another. They are desperate for funds and supplies. The problem will only get worse, not better. The international community needs to step up to the plate and the United States must lead this effort. 

++Believe it or not, there are non-violent Syrians, who still are around advocating non-violent change. Their impact is basically felt on social media. They need to be strengthened by outside NGOs and others committed to non-violent change.

++While this may be controversial for the United States, I would advocate an airlift of supplies ,food and medicine to the internally displaced. This would have to be conducted by "neutral" third parties. But this is a hidden crisis that will leech out into the media sooner, rather than later. It should be noted that Russia and China are not providing any humanitarian assistance. Perhaps, they should be pressured to do so.

++Arms are, unfortunately, the coin of the realm. Non-interventionists argue that the armed opposition is dominated by jihadists. About 15-20% of them are.Like the Libyan Revolution,the opposition is a many splintered thing. Whoever gets the arms,gets the allegiance and wins the fight over morale. The United States is already committed to arming the opposition groups, who already receive arms and funs from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The real question is whether such armed assistance can change the balance of forces.

++Personally,I would flood the zone on humanitarian assistance and make it a priority for the United Nations and other countries who are antagonistic to Assad. With this type of assistance comes the media coverage that would isolate the regime and undermine its legitimacy. 

++If the Congress turns down the request for military strikes,there is nothing holding the Administration  back from conducting cyberwar against Syria. As the NSA revelations indicated, we already are engaged in these wars with other countries as they are with us. I can well imagine that a sophisticated cyberwar strategy could cripple the Assad regime's military infrastructure. 

++One added note about the much-mentioned Rwanda failure. The Clinton Administration failed to stop the massacres in Rwanda because they refused to cut off the telecommunications within the country, which would have slowed and maybe stopped the worse of the killings. 

++Critics of the administration say that the United States should use the Security Council. Samantha Powers' presentation at the Center for America's Future gave an excellent account of how many times the United States has gone to the Security Council on Syria and been blocked by Russia. But that doesn't mean the United States and its allies can not use other parts of the United Nations. 

++Those who want Assad brought to the ICC should remember the terrible episode of why the Bush Administration refused to become a member, even with guarantees our military would not be prosecuted. We are witnessing today how our neglect of institutions we often helped create are putting us in danger. President Obama repeatedly emphasized the Convention against Chemical Weapons that almost all nations have ratified as part of his argument. But we never ratified that Convention. It is true as critics maintain that part of the whole Syrian exercise is aimed at Iran and the possibility it will violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Pact by making nuclear weapons. But there again we allow India to break it. 

++Secretary of State John Kerry and the President have convinced the international community of the seriousness of the Syria crisis. The entire EU has weighed in on this as well as the Arab League. It is a matter of persuading nations to engage in all the other efforts to mitigate the humanitarian crisis. I am convinced that can be done even if countries are reluctant to support American military action. If the Congress disapproves of military strikes,there are clearly different ways to skin a cat, if the administration doesn't mope after losing a vote.

++Non-interventionists may will Syria away but it will not disappear as a concern for the United States and the rest of the world. Nor will President Obama just shrug his shoulders and let the matter drop. If activists don't watch out, things will deteriorate in Syria more rapidly then now and the President will have a second bite at the apple. 

++It seems to me that what is missing is a robust counter policy that directly addresses the humanitarian crisis and the Assad regime's intransigence to change.