Eyre Lines

In my last post, I advocated a nonviolent attitude to Syria. I have since received some feedback (typically in another place), which seems to take away some inaccurate perceptions from what I wrote.

The first is that I am, in essence, being a “good Christian” and advocating nonviolence in every situation. This is, I regret to say, not the case; I am not a good enough Christian for that. When formulating his ideas of nonviolent struggle, Gandhi was at pains to point out that unless you were prepared to use violence, non-violence as a route was not for you. First become ready to use violence to resolve the situation, and then become brave and wise enough to find a non-violent way to achieve the same ends. “Brave” entails that you be prepared to lose, possibly losing your life.

I certainly grew up prepared to use violence, and did so more often than I care to remember. Nature did not really equip me for successful violence, but on occasion I would fall into a berserk rage, which levelled the playing field a lot, and in time I became able to avoid going in that direction unless I wanted to, at least most of the time; it is useful being able to project a threat of berserk rage without actually having to step over into the inability to control what then happens or to predict the outcome. I haven’t been the target of actual violence for many years, and on several occasions that has been escaped only by getting to the edge of berserk. It seems that when I do that, people around me realise easily that I am quite prepared to follow up violently, and to date they have always backed off (at least, since I was 14).

My biggest trigger for this was always injustice; initially injustice towards me, but by adulthood usually injustice towards others.

So, I should point out that my blood boils on hearing of and seeing video of Assad’s treatment of his fellow countrymen.

In my teens and early 20’s I was an enthusiastic player of wargames; later in life I spent a while as a Civil Defence Scientific Advisor, which entailed among other things more realistic wargames in the company of serving military and the contemplation and detailled planning of extreme actions to match extreme possible situations. I am not tactically or strategically naive, therefore.

In this situation, my first impulse is to make use of the vast superiority in military resources of the West (OK, mostly of the USA) to correct the situation rapidly and efficiently. There is, however, a snag or ten associated with that. I perhaps skated through those a little rapidly in my previous post, and should therefore devote a little more time.

There is no clear “right” and “wrong” side here. Yes, Assad has very probably used Sarin, which is categorised as a Weapon of Mass Destruction these days. Assad is allied with Hezbollah and Iran, both of which are essentially enemies of the West. (Personally I fail to see a difference in kind between a gas attack which kills 1000 people and a conventional bombing attack or an attack of ground forces with shells and bullets which kills 1000 people, but there is seen to be a serious difference there). The evidence, however, seems to be that some, at least, of the rebels also have Sarin and have used it. Some rebel groups are also known to be allied with al Quaeda, or in other words they are part of the “enemy” in the “war on terror”. Some rebel groups have been systematically targeting religious minorities and killing or otherwise brutalising them en masse; in some cases the overt motive is to create a pure Sunni Muslim state via ethnic cleansing. These are not people who I think worthy of support, and an attack on Assad’s forces, if such an attack can actually be carried out sufficiently specifically to target just Assad’s forces, will have the effect of supporting these unsupportables.

It is against that background that I made the suggestion of threatening both sides equally and being willing to carry that threat out. If Assad’s forces can be surgically targeted, so can the al Quaeda forces, for instance. It is not actually quite so unthinkable a solution as may have appeared.

However, nothing I have seen in the last 20 years indicates to me that such surgical strikes are possible without serious collateral damage (i.e. civilians or allied forces), and the ill-will produced by mis-targeted strikes has contributed to a substantial upswelling in support for the likes of al Quaeda. The smart bombs and drones are just not smart enough, nor is the intelligence sufficiently accurate. I fail to see how a series of attacks which kills 1000 people in an attempt to prevent another gas attack killing 1000 people is justifiable, for instance, and it is worth considering that there is now known to be a serious risk that an attack will breach containment for further supplies of sarin, thus making collateral damage both assured and substantially greater.

It is possible that establishing a no-fly zone and crushing air superiority might lead to somewhat lesser risks (and it was moderately successful in Libya), but this would have a significant cost in casualties on our side, and I see little or no willingness for this, both in terms of casualties and in terms of cost.

I see even less willingness to put boots on the ground. Frankly, if boots are going to be on the ground, they may as well be a substantial UN peacekeeping force, with much the effect of the non-violent solution I proposed. This eventually worked in Bosnia. Of course, boots on the ground tends to fail on the basis that it is usually an open ended commitment, as seen in Iraq and Afghanistan (neither of which I regard as particularly successful, bearing in mind current instability and tendency to murder Westerners) and in those cases, also fails to meet my next criterion.

Finally, if the objective is to remove Assad (rather than prevent him using genocidal techniques against his countrymen), what is to be put in his place? Not, clearly, al Quaeda or other extreme religionists who would also use genocidal techniques. There is, therefore, no clear and achievable objective.

Anything done should, I propose, be a SMART task, i.e. specific, measurable, relevant, achievable and time-limited. Nothing currently proposed, to my mind, meets more than one or maybe two of those criteria. I suggest that four should be a minimum.

Finally, it would stick in my craw to allow this to go on and do nothing, but if there is nothing which can be done which clearly assists, it is not sensible to do something which makes the situation worse. That smacks more of assuaging our consciences than of taking positive steps to help. I therefore propose that the Christian, non-violent course of action is also the most prospectively productive and the SMARTest. I grant that it’s also costly; we would risk a lot of lives and spend a lot of money, and it is not time-limited. Perhaps, therefore, we are just unwilling to foot the bill? We wish to be seen to do something, and are not really too concerned whether it is sensible or productive, as long as it doesn’t cost us much?

I can understand that. But it would be better to swallow our outrage and do nothing.