(Photo: Thomas Altfather Good / NLN)
NEW YORK — September 9, 2013. Saturday’s “Hands off Syria” protest in NYC featured signs calling for respect of international law — and opposing yet another unilateral U.S. military intervention in the Middle East.
A protester at Saturday’s “Hands Off Syria” rally marches down Broadway
(Photo: Thomas Altfather Good / NLN)
Recently, President Barack Obama has been working the Hill and lobbying world leaders, looking to garner support for a U.S. military intervention in war torn Syria — in response to Syrian President Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons. But the response to Obama’s intense lobbying efforts has been overwhelmingly negative. Whatever rationale the President has offered has been met with opposition from the majority of the war weary American people who regard Syria’s troubles as “not our business” — and a fair amount of overt cynicism as well: apparently a ruse by any other name has an all too familiar odor. A “limited strike” has the potential for blossoming into a full blown conflict. And then there is the irony of a Nobel Prize winner — who just last week honored Martin Luther King, Jr. — stumping for a new war. Obama’s rhetoric hasn’t sold well and on Saturday several hundred New Yorkers took to the streets to demand that the United States maintain a “Hands Off Syria” policy.
Saying no to war in Syria in Arabic, Czech, Danish,
Dutch, French, German, Polish, Russian, Spanish, and Ukrainian.
(Graphic: © Thomas Altfather Good / NLN)
A number of protesters at Saturday’s event compared Obama to George W. Bush. It wasn’t intended as flattery.
The push for punitive military intervention has a familiar ring for some
(Photo: Thomas Altfather Good / NLN)
Obama’s history of “bipartisan” outreach to militarists in the Congress and his current lobbying for a new war have historical precedents. As far back as 1955 observers were commenting on the two party system’s willingness to overlook ostensible differences when it came to pursuing a hawkish foreign policy.
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Bipartisanship in foreign policy overrides competitive group interests under the threat of international communism, and spreads to domestic policy, where the programs of the big parties become ever more undistinguishable, even in the degree of hypocrisy and in the odor of the cliches. - Herbert Marcuse, Eros And Civilization (1955) |
And yet Obama appears to have less support for his Syrian intervention than students of history might expect. Republicans, like Tea Party Congressman Michael Grimm — who initially supported the intervention and abruptly withdrew support — appear to place a higher value on opposing any Obama policy than on promoting an aggressive foreign policy (and channeling increased profits to powerful arms vendors). The far Right’s animosity towards Obama may ultimately aid the antiwar protesters’ cause.
Obama: praising Martin Luther King one week, lobbying for war the next?
(Photo: Thomas Altfather Good / NLN)
Protesters marching down NYC’s Broadway - from Times Square to Union Square
(Photo: Thomas Altfather Good / NLN)
A protester’s sign lists the use of chemical weapons — by the U.S.
(Photo: Thomas Altfather Good / NLN)
View Photos/Video Footage From The Protest
