Military Intervention in Syria Would Be a Mistake (Part 1)

On May 25th, Syrian forces reportedly attacked a large number of civilians in the town of Houla. According to eye-witness claims, after heavy shelling the region was attacked by the military (some in plain clothes), who systematically moved through buildings, rounding up families and slaughtering them in their homes. UN observers the next day counted 108 bodies, including 49 children.

 

Since then, the media has begun to stringently back a plan of military intervention in Syria by western countries. As in Libya last year, the plan would likely include the posting of forces from NATO member states to the Mediterranean Sea in an effort to establish a no-fly zone, a military presence, and a platform for bombardment.
 

Fortunately, after disastrous campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, public opinion would not favour the government who decides to wage further war come election time; unfortunately, that public opinion seems to be changing.

 

In an interview with InternationalNotes, former Syrian political prisoner, Haytham Alhamwi, said that oppressed civilians in Syria plead for military help from foreign countries, though he points out that the cure could be as bad as the illness. 

 

"If we do not have military intervention in Syria, we will likely have civil war," said Mr Alhamwi. "I think it will be miserable if we were to have intervention and civil war."


What tends to be called a power vacuum could lead to further conflicts as opportunist groups and militias all grasp at the non-incumbent reins of the nation- an easy high-jacking of power and prestige.

Pictures from Houla

Lessons of Libya

Since the death of Muammar Qaddafi, Libya has been troubled by the same strife. Local militias have formed to run individual towns, leading to conflict and killings between rival factions.

Until April, the powerful Zintan militia ran the international airport in the capital of Tripoli. A handover in April placed the facility back into the hands of the National Transitional Council. However, a violent raid by the Tarhuna militia, responding to a suspected kidnapping of their leader, led to further conflict that placed question-marks over the government's ability to form a safe democracy over the next few years.

"This is how revolutions happen," Zintan leader Mokhtar al Akhtar told the BBC's Peter Oborne, "they are made by heroes, and seized and controlled by others."

The massacre at Houla- the murdering of innocent civilian women and children, if true in all its aspects- is an atrocious act by Bashar al-Assad's government. But in the same week that the US increase the amount of strikes from unmanned drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan territory, the potency of the condemnation smacks a little of hubris.


Peace envoy Kofi Annan speaks with President Bashar al-Assad

The flaws to this method of assassination make for worrying reading. Collateral damage is rife and unapologetic. Though the figures of identified civilian casualties are reportedly in the "low tens", the criteria for an identified terrorist is simply if the person is in the immediate area of a known terrorist. Furthermore, Al-Qaeda are known to purposely mix with civilians in an attempt to deter these attacks, to supposedly little effect.

2500 people are thought to have died from around 280 drone attacks in Pakistan- including at least 800 civilians. This week President Barack Obama has ordered an increase in drone strikes.

The same dangers would be there if NATO was to intervene in Syria. Bombardments from sea carry the same risks to innocent lives- Libya taught us that.


The ruins left by a drone strike in Pakistan this week

One country is killing its own people; another country (including its international cronies) are killing the population of a "friendly" nation.

Who is the latter to judge the former?

Read Part 2 of this article next week- on InternationalNotes