Beiruit bombing ignored while Paris receives sympathy

The following is an excerpt from a NY Times article, also carried in the Seattle Times. My comments follow--Randy

Beirut, Also the Site of Deadly Attacks, Feels Forgotten
NY Times
By ANNE BARNARD
NOVEMBER 15, 2015

"Around the crime scenes in south Beirut and central Paris alike, a sense of shock and sadness lingered into the weekend, with cafes and markets quieter than usual. The consecutive rampages, both claimed by the Islamic State, inspired feelings of shared, even global vulnerability — especially in Lebanon, where many expressed shock that such chaos had reached France, a country they regarded as far safer than their own.

"But for some in Beirut, that solidarity was mixed with anguish over the fact that just one of the stricken cities — Paris — received a global outpouring of sympathy akin to the one lavished on the United States after the 9/11 attacks.

“When my people died, no country bothered to light up its landmarks in the colors of their flag,” Elie Fares, a Lebanese doctor, wrote on his blog. “When my people died, they did not send the world into mourning. Their death was but an irrelevant fleck along the international news cycle, something that happens in those parts of the world.”

"The implication, numerous Lebanese commentators complained, was that Arab lives mattered less."

my comments: 

Nobody would think that an attack on a soccer game or heavy metal concert would count as a military victory, but as Clausewitz said so long ago, war is politics by other means. While the West licks their wounds, a very heavy fact is not lost on people from the Middle East: they don't really count. If ISIS wanted to drive a wedge between the Arab street and the West, what better way than the tactic they used. 

Look at the latest terror attack through the lens of "Black Lives Matter." If we can understand the pain that comes from African American disenfranchisement, it isn't hard to understand the pain in the Middle East that flows from yet another example of how little their lives matter. If war is "politics by other means" then terror is too. I have no way of knowing whether ISIS strategists anticipated the difference in world reaction and set this up as a trap for suckers, or whether it just worked out that way, but the propaganda value seems clear.

The Collapse of US Policy on Syria

I want to comment on a related matter: in my view, we are witnessing the collapse and failure of US policy with regard to Syria. For some time now, I've viewed the anti-Syrian efforts of the US with alarm. The US, in my view, has been working consistently for several years to ease Russia out of its only toehold in the Middle East by overthrowing the Assad government. 

Remember when the US created Bin Laden to overthrow the Soviet-backed government of Afghanistan? That came back to bite us in the butt, and I've seen the recklessness of meddling in Syria in the same light. For a few years the US was giving various support to "Syrian rebels" in the name of supporting a democracy movement. That was destabilizing to what had been not a great government, no doubt, but one that was at least secular and relatively stable.

And then the US almost had the war they seemed to be yearning for when the issue of chemical weapons came up. If you remember, somebody used chemical weapons against some civilians and the US insisted it was Assad. (In retrospect, I wonder if it was ISIS or somebody just like them.) After some tense US brinksmanship, Russia convinced Assad to surrender his stocks of chemical weapons and the US military attack against Syria was averted at the last minute. The US press and government almost seemed bummed that things didn't work out. 

Not long after that, there was the ISIS beheading of an American in the desert. Next thing you know, the US further ramped up its support for what were now termed "anti-ISIS/anti-Assad forces." I  saw this as a thinly veiled attack on the Syrian government, under the auspices of stopping ISIS. We were going to train rebels who could be used against Assad. Not surprisingly, that training and weaponry ended up helping ISIS. Meanwhile the US bombed oil refineries in Syria that if they weren't held by ISIS would have reverted to Assad, but didn't bomb ISIS-held refineries in Iraq, which would revert to the US sphere, which made it pretty clear to me that Assad, not ISIS was the real target.

Then, not long ago, Russia moved into Syria with force, backing the Assad government, sending both troops and aircraft, saying it was better to stop terrorism in Syria than having to fight it at home. Suddenly the dynamic changed. 

Now, after this attack in Paris, the American government, which was using "Syrian rebels" (ie ISIS) to undercut Assad is admitting they might have to use Assad to stop ISIS. This amounts to a policy rout. ISIS is the new Bin Ladin, Russia is in Syria to stay, and Syria keeps its current secular government, rather than the right-wing religious government desired by the US. 

Great power politics are again making a mess of a region, with dire consequences for all involved. We can hardly support the right-wing, throat-slashing religious fundamentalism of ISIS or its ilk, but we, the people, can not stand silent about the "super-power contention," as we used to call it, going on in the region, with its blatant disregard for the lives of the people there. And while it isn't good to undercut the "Black Lives Matter" movement with flippant declarations that "all lives matter," it is helpful to use the understanding gained through the "Black Lives" movement to give clarity to the righteous perspective of the Arab street, and keep the focus of our anger on our internationalist duty to first stop our own ruling class.

Randy Rowland