Wednesday, August 28, 2013
As we head toward disaster...
I'm a third string blogger, if that. Most of the time, this position suits me fine.
A better-known writer usually censors himself. When you become well-known, you invite endless attacks. (Look at what has happened to Greenwald.)
But a writer with a small-but-steady audience can "fly under the radar" while slipping the occasional new idea into the larger discussion -- and that's a terrific situation to be in. Even when this blog does no more than to help publicize someone else's writing or research, I feel that this site has served a purpose. Every voice counts in choral singing, even if the individual singers remain indistinct.
But now I want more than that.
My country is on the verge of making what may turn out to be a disastrous mistake. And now -- just this once -- I wish that my voice carried.
Your voices can carry -- if you shout in unison. All of you. I beg you to speak to our leaders, to anyone who will listen.
We should not make war against the governments of Syria or Iran.
If history has taught us one thing, it has taught us that we can rarely do good in that part of the world. Kucinich is right: Air strikes against Syria would transform the United States into Al Qaeda's air force.
Only a small group of people want the war that now seems inevitable. Although I remain angry at Barack Obama, I do not think that he is a member of the war group. His faults are many, but he is not a neocon empire-builder.
Alas, this president is not independent or courageous enough to resist the party of war.
What's coming has been in the works for a long time. The video, embedded above, explains. (Thanks to lambert at Corrente.)
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7 comments:
"Kucinich is right: Air strikes against Syria would transform the United States into Al Qaeda's air force."
Amen Brother.
We are already their supply chain.
We should back off that, not raise the ante.
Some of your readers may not recall the blueprints for where we are today.
[1] Seymour Hersh in his 2007 New Yorker article "The Redirection: Is the Administration's new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?" revealed that the US was planning on arming and funding terrorists to overthrow the government of Syria.
[2] The "freedom fighters" in Syria are in fact terrorists drawn directly from the ranks of Al Qaeda, armed, funded, and otherwise supported by NATO just exactly as was described in Hersh's 2007 report. They are also described in detail in a study prepared by students at West Point in 2008-9
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/nato-using-al-qaeda-rat-lines-to-flood.html
http://www.scribd.com/doc/111001074/West-Point-CTC-s-Al-Qa-ida-s-Foreign-Fighters-in-Iraq
[3] Much of the West's proxy war against Syria has been drawn from plans laid out by the conservative US think tank, the Brookings Institute, in a 2009 document titled, "Which Path to Persia?", whose signatories include political heavyweights Kenneth Pollack, Daniel Byman, Martin Indyk, Suzanne Maloney, Michael O'Hanlon, and Bruce Riedel. Indyk, a former US ambassador to Israel, is currently heading up US sponsored peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. The Brookings Institute is reflective of US foreign policy goals and the signatories are prominent US foreign policy figures.
"Which Path to Persia?" is a virtual blueprint for the conduct of US attacks upon Syria and Iran. This astonishing document lists methods of provoking Iran, including conspiring to fund opposition groups to overthrow the Iranian government, crippling Iran's economy, and funding US State Department-listed terrorist organizations to carry out deadly attacks within Iran itself. The same methods have been employed by the West in Syria.
The US is seeking a Kosovo-style "humanitarian" intervention is Syria. Any such unilateral action is, of course, entirely illegal and a war crime.
Respected Middle East commentator Pepe Escobar has just posted on Facebook:
"Khalil Harb, of Lebanese paper As-Safir, confirmed a few minutes ago to my great friend Claudio Gallo an article published in Arabic two days ago, quoting a Russian source.
According to the source, Russia's ambassador in the UN Security Council, Vitaly Churkin, presented conclusive evidence - based on documents and Russian satellite images - of two rockets carrying toxic chemicals, fired from Douma, controlled by the Syrian "rebels", and landing on East Ghouta. Hundreds of "rebels", as well as civilians - including those children on the cover of Western corporate media papers - were killed. The evidence, says the Russian source, is conclusive. This is what Lavrov himself was hinting at yesterday. And that's the reason there's no UN Security Council resolution against Syria, and why Washington does not want the inspectors to find anything."
Russia told the UN back in July that its scientific teams on the ground had evidence that a chemical weapons attack on Allepo in March resulting in dozens dead and 70 injured was due to the rebels. They noted then that it was not a military-standard chemical weapon, but one that was being produced by a brigade affiliated with the opposition Free Syrian Army.
We are seeing a repeat of that exercise in this recent incident. The US and UK are trying to organize an attack on Syria before any UN investigation can be completed because they have a good understanding of the damning outcome the UN will likely find.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36000.htm
The video is horrifying but not terribly surprising. I think many Americans believed, particularly in the aftermath, that the war in Iraq was all about oil. I looked for polling on American sentiment regarding involvement in Syria. The last was conducted in June with a firm majority [60%] against US/Syrian involvement. But interestingly enough, a poll conducted in December of last year changed the parameters a bit:
". . . a Washington Post/ABC News poll in December suggested that the government's use of chemical weapons against its own people could change public opinion. In that poll, just 17 percent thought the U.S. military should get involved in the conflict as it was at the time, but 63 percent said they would support military intervention if the Syrian government used chemical weapons against its people."
Hummm. A coincidence? I strongly doubt it. The first run through on reports of chemical use were dismissed by the public. This time around the powers that be are presumably getting the reaction they hoped for,
Sorry, Joe but POTUS does not get a pass on this decision. Barack Obama may not be your typical war monger or neocon wannabe, but he lacks the intestinal fortitude to push back against the shadowy elements beating the war drums. I agree with you that the unintentional consequences of a strike in the region far outweigh any good we might do [if any]. I see no rationale for a strike beyond a pissing contest, a despicable way of making a profit off the rising price of oil and a crazed need to be King of the Mountain without any regard to human welfare, here and abroad.
This all could go sideways so quickly, so catastrophically. The American Empire is drawing its last breaths and the people behind this misadventure are willing to take the whole world down.
Peggysue
um, does this mean we can link this to Facebook?
I remember a woman in Boston's Code Pink throwing a fit because a sign I made read "When will you take a stand?" then had some of these countries, including Syria, listed and some of them crossed off.
The main core of Code Pink is dedicated, tho, and WILL be protesting in DC today, right now, as Obama hacks the MLK celebration. I only wonder if they will get any air time on the corporate media channels. No question mark needed.
Kosovo cited as precedent for limited cruise-missile strikes. How did that work out?
"In 1999, U.S. military planners and the Clinton Administration predicted that a “precision” bombing campaign would coerce Slobodan Milošević into resolving the Kosovo Crisis by complying with NATO demands after only two to three days of precision bombardment. But the air campaign ground on for seventy-eight grueling days.
That Kosovo miscalculation was based on what the Clinton Administration saw as the Bosnia precedent of 1995 — i.e., Operation Deliberate Force in Bosnia in September 1995. William Perry, President Clinton’s Secretary of Defense, claimed the damage done in 11 days by the 708 guided weapons striking 48 target complexes coerced Milošević to come to the bargaining table at Dayton. That performance, Dayton negotiator Richard Holbrooke told the annual convention of the Air Force Association in 1996, proved that more bombing leads to better diplomacy."
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/08/27/syria-in-the-crosshair/
Well, I posted this video independent of your blog, Joseph.
I'm wondering your take on the "Syrian Electronic Army" that hacked the NYTimes website...or need I ask!
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