Jacobin Magazine: The Chemical Attack at Khan Sheikhoun

In late June, Seymour Hersh published an article in Die Welt claiming that the Assad government did not attack the town of Khan Sheikhoun with sarin on April 4. His argument aligns with a popular left narrative about American imperialism falsifying or exaggerating events in Syria to justify intervention and regime change.

For example, many commentators — Jonathan Cook, Uri Avnery, among others — have wondered why Bashar al-Assad would use chemical weapons when he was already winning the war. The attack seemed not only unnecessary but also likely to spark a harsh international response. [...]

Indeed, as Anne Barnard reported, the sarin attack fits into Assad’s broader strategy. She writes that, since at least 2012, the Syrian government “has adopted a policy of seeking total victory by making life as miserable as possible for anyone living in areas outside its control.” These attacks are designed to let the opposition know that it remains at the regime’s mercy, that neither international law nor the international community cannot protect it, and that surrender is the only option. [...]

A further problem with the “there was no reason for Assad to do this” argument is that the same argument could be advanced to explain why Assad would not have done many of the things that he undoubtedly did do. Why did he need to use barrel bombs, which so enflamed world opinion? Why did he use chlorine gas after he committed to a chemical weapons treaty that prohibits it? Why did his forces return to bomb Khan Sheikhoun just days after the American missile strike? Why did his forces and allies advance on an area protected by the United States? Why did a Syrian warplane drop bombs near American-backed forces and their advisers? [...]

For example, they continually bomb hospitals in Syria. The unanimous reports from international human rights groups about Russian and Syrian attacks on medical facilities have certainly turned world opinion against them, but Putin presumably calculated that he would face minimal consequences for them. He was right, and much of the global antiwar movement remained silent. [...]

Second, no evidence suggests that any jihadist groups possess sarin. (Chlorine or mustard gas, which are not nerve agents, do not become sarin when bombed.) The UN and the Red Cross have documented ISIS’s use of mustard gas, but never nerve gas. Even if ISIS had gotten its hands on sarin, they are not present in Khan Sheikhoun. [...]

If we accept the Russian and Syrian claims that jihadists have used sarin — claims that neutral observers have rejected — then we end up with another incredible result: rebel sarin never harms Assad forces, only rebel civilians.

Political Critique: Emmanuel Macron, the golden child?

Yet one would be mistaken in thinking that Macron is politically inexperienced, or that he is the product of anything other than an elite French political establishment. A four year membership of the Socialist Party and equal time spent as Inspector of Finances in the French Ministry of Economy, accompanies job titles that include private banker for Rothschild & Cie, deputy secretary-general of the Élysée and Minister of Economy and Finance. His party may be a newcomer on the French political scene but Macron, clearly, is not. Add to this an Ivy League-equivalent education, with graduate degrees from the two most prestigious academic institutions in France, and you have a candidate that is plainly the product of an elite political class that his party claims to eschew. [...]

Yet scratch a little deeper and there is cause for concern. Macron’s career has been mired by close and problematic links to big business, links that show no signs of dissolving. While he talks humanism, his decision to integrate many of the State of Emergency measures into common law has alarmed civil rights groups. Under such laws, the state would have the ability to conduct warrant-less property searches and house arrests, as well as banning protest marches, shutting down places of worship suspected of extremist teaching, and increased electronic surveillance.

Similarly, the seemingly liberal stance of the new administration towards immigration masks a paradoxical dichotomy between what appears to be a desire for a more open, welcoming EU, yet with stricter border control, particularly in France. While Macron spoke of the need for France to accept its just part in the welcoming of refugees to Europe throughout his election campaign, conversely, he has taken a tough stance on irregular immigration. While it remains to be seen how such distinctions will play out, the mass expulsion of approximately 2,700 people from a migrant camp in La Chapelle, Paris on 7 July does not seem like a particularly auspicious start.

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Al Jazeera: Macron's Francafrique

President Macron, born long after French colonies became independent, displays an ostensible modernism, and - at least on the surface - attacks the obsolete political apparatuses, which, according to him, harm the vitality of the French society. As a result, perhaps too naively, many Africans expected him to change the old "Francafrique" - France's relations with its former colonies in Africa - for the better. [...]

After independence, several countries did choose to leave the franc zone: Tunisia in 1958, Morocco in 1960, Guinea in 1959, Algeria in 1964, Madagascar and Mauritania in 1973. But a total of 14 countries, 12 of which are former French colonies, decided to continue using CFA franc as their official currency. [...]

The CFA franc is guaranteed by the French Treasury. It had a fixed exchange rate to French franc until 1999, and now - to the euro under agreements that force the countries of the franc zone to deposit 50 percent of their reserves in foreign currency to the French Treasury. [...]

From Serval to Barkhane, French military operations in Africa are allegedly aiming "to fight terrorism" and more specifically to "return to Mali its sovereignty over Timbuktu and Kidal". But, of course, another objective of these military operations - if not the primary one - is to protect French economic and geostrategic interests in the region, such as exploitation of Nigerien uranium and Malian gold. Also, it is well known that France is behind the creation of the G5 Sahel (an institutional framework for regional cooperation in development and security policies, incorporating Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad). The G5 helps France seal its military's influence in the region and President Macron seems to be committed to maintaining the current unfair status quo.

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Vox: When a police shooting victim is a white woman

There’s a typical story that plays out in the aftermath of police shootings. One side, critical of police, comes out pointing to the excesses of police brutality, particularly in cases in which officers killed black men and boys. The other side, supportive of police, comes out pointing to the nuances of the cases and perhaps the ways that the victims are to blame for their deaths — he had a criminal record, he didn’t listen to the police, and so on.

This didn’t really happen after Justine Damond, a white woman, was shot and killed by a black police officer, Mohamed Noor. While many people — including some Black Lives Matter activists — criticized the shooting, very few defended Noor in the same way they have stood up for police officers in previous incidents. Not many articles focused on nitpicking the lack of information we have to try to weaken the case against the police. There’s been little to no victim blaming. [...]

Ranking victims of police shootings is odd enough, but there are plenty of totally innocent victims of police killings besides Damond. Consider that, in Detroit, police in 2010 killed a sleeping 7-year-old when they stormed her home while looking for her uncle — though this girl, unlike Damond, was poor and black. [...]

The Katrina research is just one example. A 2009 study found that, when looking at images of others in pain, the parts of people’s brains that respond to pain tended to show more activity if the person in the image was of the same race as the participant. Those researchers concluded that their findings “support the view that shared common membership enhances a perceiver’s empathic concerns for others.” Other studies reached similar conclusions. [...]

One 2014 study, for example, found that people view black boys as older and less innocent starting at the age of 10. “Children in most societies are considered to be in a distinct group with characteristics such as innocence and the need for protection,” Phillip Goff, an author of the 2014 study, said in a statement. “Our research found that black boys can be seen as responsible for their actions at an age when white boys still benefit from the assumption that children are essentially innocent.”

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Slate: Shifting Current

There are now only 4,000 active fishermen in Scotland, down from 8,000 in 1970. Since 1996, the size of the Scottish fleet has been reduced by more than 219 boats, and where there were once 20 flourishing harbors scattered across its coast, there are now only three. The problem, fishermen say, is the European Union, which has thwarted the British fishing sector since the implementation of the Common Fisheries Policy, or CFP, in 1983. Indeed, what has been for years a divided industry, famous for its ruthless competition and infighting, has united behind Britain’s decision to leave the EU. While 60 percent of Scotland’s population voted “Remain” in last year’s Brexit referendum, more than 90 percent of its fishermen did the opposite. [...]

The Common Fisheries Policy was designed to manage all EU waters as a shared resource, giving member-state fleets equal access to fish everywhere; in other words, a French fleet has the same right to fish Scottish waters as a Scottish one. It also aimed to regulate Europe’s fishing activities so that fish stocks were conserved and that fishing, as a trade, was preserved. Its intentions may seem good, but according to most Scottish fishermen, the reality it has created is not. [...]

Despite the fact that the current British government has announced it will leave the London Convention and possibly the CFP, many EU advocates see the move as irrational. For them, the notion of national fish stocks is absurd. Baroness Kathryn Parminter, deputy leader of the Liberal Democrat party in the House of Lords, says, “The reality is that fish do not respect borders, so the only way to prevent overfishing is to work in close cooperation with our European neighbors.” [...]

Although the policy’s aim is to conserve fish stocks, most of the species thrown back into the sea are already dead—suffocated, or squashed by the nets. In answer to this, “Fishing for Leave,” Alan Hastings’ group, is arguing for a system in which fishermen would be restricted by time on the sea, not quotas. Within this framework, the skipper would be given a specific number of days in which to fish per month. “This would allow fishermen to keep everything they catch instead of steaming all over the sea catching and throwing away fish, dictated by their quotas,” says Hastings.

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