An attack on Syria will only spread the war and killing

[rug]

Instead of removing the chemical weapon threat, another western assault on the Arab world risks escalation and backlash



A victim of an air strike by regime forces on Aleppo is carried away, on August 26 2013. 'Chemical weapons are far from being the greatest threat to Syria’s people. That is the war itself and the death and destruction that has engulfed the country.' Photograph: Abo Al-Nur Sadk/AFP/Getty Images

Seumas Milne
The Guardian, Tuesday 27 August 2013 17.00 EDT

All the signs are they're going to do it again. The attack on Syria now being planned by the US and its allies will be the ninth direct western military intervention in an Arab or Muslim country in 15 years. Depending how you cut the cake, the looming bombardment follows onslaughts on Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Mali, as well as a string of murderous drone assaults on Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan.

The two former colonial powers that carved up the Middle East between them, Britain and France, are as ever chafing for a slice of the action as the US assembles yet another "coalition of the willing". And as in Iraq and Sudan (where President Clinton ordered an attack on a pharmaceuticals factory in retaliation for an al-Qaida bombing), intelligence about weapons of mass destruction is once again at the centre of the case being made for a western missile strike.

In both Iraq and Sudan, the intelligence was of course wrong. But once again, UN weapons inspectors are struggling to investigate WMD claims while the US and its friends have already declared them "undeniable". Once again they are planning to bypass the UN security council. Once again, they are dressing up military action as humanitarian, while failing to win the support of their own people.

The trigger for the buildup to a new intervention – what appears to have been a chemical weapons attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta – certainly has the hallmarks of a horrific atrocity. Hundreds, mostly civilians, are reported killed and many more wounded, their suffering caught on stomach-churning videos.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/27/attack-syria-chemical-weapon-escalate-backlash

[Civilization2]

1. war begets war,. peace begets peace. Really is that simple.

When we just stop selling arms, and invading foreign lands, we will see less strife.

Focus instead, on providing programs of social uplift and the world will be uplifted!