The Mehlis Report De-Normalizes Terror for All Arab Tyrannies
Harold's List
by: Oubai Shahbandar
www.syriacommentplus.com
One, two, three…many more Mehlis reports
The Syrian Ba'ath assassinated Rafiq Harriri because to them that type of extraordinary action was normal, the consequences were never fully absorbed because to them, it was normal to murder a democratic head of state as long as a thin veneer of plausible deniability was maintained. In a similar vain, terror attacks against U.S soldiers are being carried out on the Syrian border because to the Ba'ath, serving as a logistical and operational base of support to terrorists in Iraq is what you do if you are to bring major Western powers like the United Sates to the negotiating table-- it is normal.
When terror is institutionalized by regimes like Bashar Assad's, people die-- civilians are maimed, democratic leaders assassinated, and U.S personnel blown up. Prime Minister Harriri was merely another victim amongst the scores killed in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq at the behest of a Ba'athist regime still operating under the precepts of terror normalization.
Without total regime change in Syria, can we hope for a new packaging of the same old Ba'athist stale belief that terror is a legitimate mean to achieve their political objective-- which, needless to say has primarily become the active rollback of the current trend of democratization in the middle east.
Terrorism has become the Ba'athist regime's main line of life insurance; take it away and you take away the driving impetus behind the Assad regime.
In this light, the Mehlis report then does not only implicate mere members of the regime for their direct involvement in Rafiq Harriri's assassination, but in essence the very regime itself.
An amoral regime like the Ba'ath in Syria that finds little qualm with ending the lives of its own citizenry is incapable of empathizing with the demands of Western powers that hold human life at a higher premium.
The Ba'ath will never be capable of moving past a foreign policy predicated on murder. Terror as a tool of foreign policy became normal to them; the shock of the radical departure from past Western appeasement of state sponsors of terror that this Bush administration ushered in has yet to set in--and likely never will.
The actions demanded today of the Syrian Ba'ath by the U.S and U.N effectively undercut the measures of normalization which Assad II has imparted upon acts of terror.
To embark on a less confrontational path would allow Assad II and his Ba'athist functionaries a relative free hand in deciding when and if terror attacks were to be ebbed only to be allowed to flow again at a propitious time—i.e a de facto acquiescence to the normalization of such acts of terror. And when terror is the norm, it can never be eradicated.
To back off from full implementation of active engagement in the wake of the Mehlis report, as ostensible Syrian experts Flynt Levert and Joshua Landis believe the U.S and U.N ought to do, would relieve pressure upon the Ba'athists to recognize the abnormality and unacceptability of sponsoring terror attacks against democracies. Such a course of action can only come to haunt us just as previous U.S reluctance to aggressively pursue terror attacks and their sponsors culminated in the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.
If anything, every past passive Western measure taken towards adversarial third world terror regimes has come to exasperate exponentially the problem of terror in modern times. The short term gains proved superfluous; the terror regimes of the middle east today find it difficult (even with U.S and Coalition troops stationed at the heart of Mesopotamia) to operate according to a different paradigm than the one in which a pre- 9/11 West had done so much to bolster for the past fifty years.
The Mehlis report is a very close shot across the bow for the Ba'athist regime in Syria, a signal for the end. Hopefully it is a shot that will land in other terror normalizing regimes in the region as well. To close this chapter of misery that terror has become to humanity, we must first impart a fitting denouement to the Ba'athist tragedy in the Arab world. Give us one, two, three, many Mehlis Reports and let us get on to the work that needs to be done, the justice that so disparately needs to be enacted, so that we many ensure that many more Harriri Assasinations, 9-11's, suicide bombs, roadside bombs never become the norm.
by: Oubai Shahbandar
www.syriacommentplus.com
One, two, three…many more Mehlis reports
The Syrian Ba'ath assassinated Rafiq Harriri because to them that type of extraordinary action was normal, the consequences were never fully absorbed because to them, it was normal to murder a democratic head of state as long as a thin veneer of plausible deniability was maintained. In a similar vain, terror attacks against U.S soldiers are being carried out on the Syrian border because to the Ba'ath, serving as a logistical and operational base of support to terrorists in Iraq is what you do if you are to bring major Western powers like the United Sates to the negotiating table-- it is normal.
When terror is institutionalized by regimes like Bashar Assad's, people die-- civilians are maimed, democratic leaders assassinated, and U.S personnel blown up. Prime Minister Harriri was merely another victim amongst the scores killed in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq at the behest of a Ba'athist regime still operating under the precepts of terror normalization.
Without total regime change in Syria, can we hope for a new packaging of the same old Ba'athist stale belief that terror is a legitimate mean to achieve their political objective-- which, needless to say has primarily become the active rollback of the current trend of democratization in the middle east.
Terrorism has become the Ba'athist regime's main line of life insurance; take it away and you take away the driving impetus behind the Assad regime.
In this light, the Mehlis report then does not only implicate mere members of the regime for their direct involvement in Rafiq Harriri's assassination, but in essence the very regime itself.
An amoral regime like the Ba'ath in Syria that finds little qualm with ending the lives of its own citizenry is incapable of empathizing with the demands of Western powers that hold human life at a higher premium.
The Ba'ath will never be capable of moving past a foreign policy predicated on murder. Terror as a tool of foreign policy became normal to them; the shock of the radical departure from past Western appeasement of state sponsors of terror that this Bush administration ushered in has yet to set in--and likely never will.
The actions demanded today of the Syrian Ba'ath by the U.S and U.N effectively undercut the measures of normalization which Assad II has imparted upon acts of terror.
To embark on a less confrontational path would allow Assad II and his Ba'athist functionaries a relative free hand in deciding when and if terror attacks were to be ebbed only to be allowed to flow again at a propitious time—i.e a de facto acquiescence to the normalization of such acts of terror. And when terror is the norm, it can never be eradicated.
To back off from full implementation of active engagement in the wake of the Mehlis report, as ostensible Syrian experts Flynt Levert and Joshua Landis believe the U.S and U.N ought to do, would relieve pressure upon the Ba'athists to recognize the abnormality and unacceptability of sponsoring terror attacks against democracies. Such a course of action can only come to haunt us just as previous U.S reluctance to aggressively pursue terror attacks and their sponsors culminated in the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.
If anything, every past passive Western measure taken towards adversarial third world terror regimes has come to exasperate exponentially the problem of terror in modern times. The short term gains proved superfluous; the terror regimes of the middle east today find it difficult (even with U.S and Coalition troops stationed at the heart of Mesopotamia) to operate according to a different paradigm than the one in which a pre- 9/11 West had done so much to bolster for the past fifty years.
The Mehlis report is a very close shot across the bow for the Ba'athist regime in Syria, a signal for the end. Hopefully it is a shot that will land in other terror normalizing regimes in the region as well. To close this chapter of misery that terror has become to humanity, we must first impart a fitting denouement to the Ba'athist tragedy in the Arab world. Give us one, two, three, many Mehlis Reports and let us get on to the work that needs to be done, the justice that so disparately needs to be enacted, so that we many ensure that many more Harriri Assasinations, 9-11's, suicide bombs, roadside bombs never become the norm.
posted by Marko at 10/24/2005 04:44:00 PM
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