MASS MIGRATIONS INTO ANOTHER NATION IS WAR
President Obama from the mayors of 18 US cities explains how anxious these dutiful Cultural Marxists are to bring disrupters to their city, literally begging refugees be sent to their city because, after all, diversity makes us stronger:
We commend your decision to open America's doors to at least 10,000 Syrian refugees displaced by civil war, and applaud your commitment to increase the overall number of refugees the U.S. will resettle over the course of the next two years. This announcement is a vital initial step to honoring America s commitment to support those fleeing oppression. As the mayors of cities across the country, we see first-hand the myriad ways in which immigrants and refugees make our communities stronger economically, socially and culturally. We will welcome the Syrian families to make homes and new lives in our cities. Indeed, we are writing to say that we stand ready to work with your Administration to do much more and to urge you to increase still further the number of Syrian refugees the United States will accept for resettlement.
51 U.S. Diplomats Urge Strikes Against Assad in Syria
WASHINGTON
— More than 50 State Department diplomats have signed an internal memo
sharply critical of the Obama administration’s policy in Syria, urging the United States to carry out military strikes against the government of President Bashar al-Assad to stop its persistent violations of a cease-fire in the country’s five-year-old civil war.
The
memo, a draft of which was provided to The New York Times by a State
Department official, says American policy has been “overwhelmed” by the
unrelenting violence in Syria. It calls for “a judicious use of
stand-off and air weapons, which would undergird and drive a more
focused and hard-nosed U.S.-led diplomatic process.”
Such
a step would represent a radical shift in the administration’s approach
to the civil war in Syria, and there is little evidence that President Obama
has plans to change course. Mr. Obama has emphasized the military
campaign against the Islamic State over efforts to dislodge Mr. Assad.
Diplomatic efforts to end the conflict, led by Secretary of State John Kerry, have all but collapsed.
But
the memo, filed in the State Department’s “dissent channel,”
underscores the deep rifts and lingering frustration within the
administration over how to deal with a war that has killed more than
400,000 people.
The
State Department set up the channel during the Vietnam War as a way for
employees who had disagreements with policies to register their protest
with the secretary of state and other top officials, without fear of
reprisal. While dissent cables are not that unusual, the number of
signatures on this document, 51, is extremely large, if not
unprecedented.
The
names on the memo are almost all midlevel officials — many of them
career diplomats — who have been involved in the administration’s Syria
policy over the last five years, at home or abroad. They range from a
Syria desk officer in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs to a former
deputy to the American ambassador in Damascus.
While
there are no widely recognized names, higher-level State Department
officials are known to share their concerns. Mr. Kerry himself has
pushed for stronger American action against Syria, in part to force a
diplomatic solution on Mr. Assad. The president has resisted such
pressure, and has been backed up by his military commanders, who have
raised questions about what would happen in the event that Mr. Assad was
forced from power — a scenario that the draft memo does not address.
Document
State Department Draft Dissent Memo on Syria
In a draft version of a dissent memo filed with the
State Department's senior leadership, dozens of diplomats and other
mid-level officials called for military strikes against President Bashar
al-Assad of Syria.
The
State Department spokesman, John Kirby, declined to comment on the
memo, which top officials had just received. But he said Mr. Kerry
respected the process as a way for employees “to express policy views
candidly and privately to senior leadership.”
Continue reading the main story
Robert
S. Ford, a former ambassador to Syria, said, “Many people working on
Syria for the State Department have long urged a tougher policy with the
Assad government as a means of facilitating arrival at a negotiated
political deal to set up a new Syrian government.”
Mr.
Ford, who is now a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, resigned
from the Foreign Service in 2014 out of frustration with the
administration’s hands-off policy toward the conflict.
In
the memo, the State Department officials wrote that the Assad
government’s continuing violations of the partial cease-fire, known as a
cessation of hostilities, will doom efforts to broker a political
settlement because Mr. Assad will feel no pressure to negotiate with the
moderate opposition or other factions fighting him. The government’s
barrel bombing of civilians, it said, is the “root cause of the
instability that continues to grip Syria and the broader region.”
“The
moral rationale for taking steps to end the deaths and suffering in
Syria, after five years of brutal war, is evident and unquestionable,”
it said. “The status quo in Syria will continue to present increasingly
dire, if not disastrous, humanitarian, diplomatic and terrorism-related
challenges.”
The
memo acknowledged that military action would have risks, not the least
further tensions with Russia, which has intervened in the war on Mr.
Assad’s behalf and helped negotiate a cease-fire. Those tensions
increased on Thursday when, according to a senior Pentagon official,
Russia conducted airstrikes in southern Syria against American-backed
forces fighting the Islamic State.
The
State Department officials insisted in their memo that they were not
“advocating for a slippery slope that ends in a military confrontation
with Russia,” but rather a credible threat of military action to keep
Mr. Assad in line.
Once
that threat was in place, the memo said, Mr. Kerry could undertake a
diplomatic mission similar to the one he led with Iran on its nuclear program.
The expression of dissent came a week after Mr. Assad showed renewed defiance
of the United States and other countries, vowing to retake “every inch”
of his country from his enemies. The cease-fire, which Mr. Kerry helped
negotiate in Munich last winter, has never really taken hold. Mr. Assad
has continued to block humanitarian convoys, despite a warning that the
United Nations would begin airdrops of food to starving towns.
“There
is an enormous frustration in the bureaucracy about Syria policy,” said
Andrew J. Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near
Eastern Policy. “What’s brought this to a head now is the real downturn
in the negotiations, not just between the U.S. and Russia, but between
Assad and the opposition.”
Last
month, Mr. Kerry rejected the suggestion that the United States and its
allies would never use force to stop the bombings or enforce
humanitarian access. “If President Assad has come to a conclusion
there’s no Plan B,” he said, “then he’s come to a conclusion that is
totally without any foundation whatsoever and even dangerous.”
Still,
Mr. Obama has shown little sign of shifting his focus from the campaign
against the Islamic State — a strategy that probably acquired even more
urgency after the mass shooting Sunday in Orlando, Fla.
In
the memo, the State Department officials argued that military action
against Mr. Assad would help the fight against the Islamic State because
it would bolster moderate Sunnis, who are necessary allies against the
group, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
While
the State Department has a tradition of being open to dissent — in the
1990s, Secretary of State Warren Christopher met with Foreign Service
officers who had written a 30-page dissent on the Clinton
administration’s Balkans policy — Mr. Christopher and his successors
have been frustrated when these classified memos become public.
In
this case, the memo mainly confirms what has been clear for some time:
The State Department’s rank and file have chafed at the White House’s
refusal to be drawn into the conflict in Syria.
During a debate in June 2013, after the Assad government had used chemical weapons against its own people, Mr. Kerry brandished a State Department report
that argued that the United States needed to respond militarily or Mr.
Assad would view it as “green light for continued CW use.”
Three
years later, the sense of urgency at the State Department has not
diminished. The memo concludes, “It is time that the United States,
guided by our strategic interests and moral convictions, lead a global
effort to put an end to this conflict once and for all.”
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