The gassing, the UN, and Kerry’s game
By STEPHEN J. SNIEGOSKI
| If you find this article of value, please send a donation of at least $3 to TLD. More information appears below. |
Those of a skeptical mind who want evidence for the culpability of Syria's President
Bashar al-Assad in the
Evidence that can be tested is supposed to be the basis for modern science. As philosopher Karl Popper maintains, scientific theories must be falsifiable. (The 19th-century American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce, who is often considered the father of the philosophical school of Pragmatism, referred to that approach, which was central to his philosophy, as fallibilism.)
However, Secretary of State John Kerry wants to prevent the UN from making any move toward a scientific approach. So far, while claiming that there is "no doubt" that Assad was to blame, Kerry has yet to provide any actual evidence that could be tested.
As Taylor and Sen write in the Washington Times:
Mr. Kerry called on the international body to avoid getting bogged down next week in a debate questioning American evidence about the regime's role in last month's chemical attack on a Damascus suburb.Taylor and Sen do not deal with the significance of Kerry's position and move on to other issues involving Syria."We really don't have time today to pretend that anyone can have their own set of facts," the secretary of state said in a shot at Russia, which, while working with the U.S. on the deal to secure Syria's weapons, has continued to claim that it was Syrian rebels — not forces aligned with Mr. Assad — who carried out the chemical attack.
However, a story appearing in The Times of Israel on
Now, since the Israeli government has sought a U.S. attack on Syria, and intelligence indicating Assad's use of chemical weapons would obviously facilitate such a military endeavor, there is no reason to give any credence to the Israeli information. After all, Israel provided bogus intelligence on Saddam's alleged WMDs.
In contrast to the American faith-based arguments that assume Assad's guilt, Russia brought the UN a 100-page report in July blaming Syrian rebels for an earlier sarin attack in Aleppo. It included a detailed scientific analysis of samples that Russian technicians are purported to have collected at the site of the attack.
Kerry is essentially trying to put Assad's culpability for the gassing in the category of those assertions the truth of which one is not allowed to question and that to do so would constitute "hate" (in this case, alleged support for all Assad's brutal actions), thus barring one from mainstream venues. While that does not mean the American version is necessarily wrong, it certainly leads one with a skeptical mind, but little ambition to be successful in the American mainstream, to wonder.
If Assad is not flailing wildly about and gassing masses of people, and only possesses
stockpiles of chemical weapons, there is no more reason that he must give them up than
there is for Israel, which also is said to possesses chemical weapons along with its nuclear
arsenal. (Israel does not publicly acknowledge its possession of either chemical or nuclear
weaponry, and the U.S. government does not publicly acknowledge Israel's possession of
those weapons, either.)
If the goal really were to make the Middle East free of horrific weapons, as America now pontificates, then an effort would be made to have all the countries in the region give up such weapons and undergo inspections. As it is, with the demand that the weapons be eliminated solely from Israel's enemies, the purpose appears to be simply to solidify Israeli military dominance in the region. Hitler, too, wanted to disarm his enemies. Ω
September 21, 2013
© 2013 by Stephen J. Sniegoski. All rights reserved by author.
This version was posted in 2013 by WTM Enterprises.
If you found this article to be interesting, please donate at least $3 to our cause. If you'd like to donate electronically, here's some information on how to do that. Otherwise, you should make your check or money order payable in U.S. dollars to WTM Enterprises and send it to:
WTM Enterprises
P.O. Box 224
Roanoke, IN 46783
Thanks for helping to assure a future for TLD!
Notice to visitors who came straight to this document from off site: You are deep in The Last Ditch. Please check out our home page and table of contents.