Let there be no doubt that American action against Assad in Syria has nothing to do with either humanitarian aid or a moral response to the accused chemical attack.
President Obama and Secretary of State, Kerry continue to make statements about American and International credibility- what ever the hell that means. They call it a a heinous attack though as yet unproven as to who did it? Can we believe that Assad’s regime, fully aware that the US would unleash its dogs if the so called line in the sand of chemical weapons were used, would be stupid enough to tug on Superman’s cape?
Though it is unlikely we will ever know for sure who committed the attack, I do know that the US and its “friends” will stop at nothing to justify their actions.
At its root, American intervention in in Syria is part of a broader and well worked out strategic plan for the Middle East. By the end of next week the machine of war will have made its obligatory stop in the American Congress and Senate, and soon thereafter the bombs will fly in what the administration calls a “limited and narrowly focused response.”
That is a certifiable load of crap!
That narrow response will be bombing as much of Assad’s infrastructure without killing too many innocents. The ultimate goal being is to depose Assad and install someone less threatening to the “interests” of the United States, France, Israel and the United Kingdom.
In October of 2002 I was driving to Canada from Vermont and listening to the Senate debate the resolution allowing George W. Bush to go to war in Iraq. It was a long drive, and a longer debate, including a prolonged speech by then senator, Hillary Clinton which detailed all the reaspon s why it was wrong to do so. But, in the end, Hillary Clinton, as did Seventy-seven other senators and 297 members of congress rolled over to the misguided whims of a President who lied to the American people and took us into a disastrous intervention that has cost thousands of lives and billions (Really) trillions of dollars. Whle our country wallows in debt unable to advance, maintain, or simply provide for the needs of its citizens, we are finally exiting from Iraq and Afghanistan only to have President Obama despite protesting of the opposite intentions, take us into another war.
Just as in Iraq, no doubt we will soon here the justifying cries for more involvement. “We can’t just stop now that we’ve gone this far.”
I recall president Bush, when confronted with the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, defending his actions by saying, Saddam Hussein is a bad man.”
(One small consolation is that Hillary and her successor John Kerry later lamented their support for the war saying they were mislead. At least they have their speeches ready for when they back track on Syria)
Kerry, on behalf of his boss, will likely persuade his former colleagues that we need to kill in the name of peace. When the roll is called I expect the lemmings in Congress to ratify war because this is what they seem to do best.
Enough of my ramblings. A friend of mine sent me a piece addressing Syria. Here are two paragraphs from it.
Welcoming the Vote of the British Parliament while Supporting the Syrian Uprising
Despite the obvious limitations of the UN and of existing international law, it is better that international relations be institutionalized under some form of the rule of law, however deficient that law is, than be dominated by the “law of the jungle” whereby powerful states, the US above all, feel free to decide unilaterally against whom and when to use force. The idea that the rule of law is a straightjacket by which Russia and China can prevent truly humanitarian actions from taking place is predicated on the view that Western military interventions are generally motivated by noble intentions. They are definitely not. Suffice it to note that the two Western military interventions since the end of the Cold War that most blatantly violated international law – Kosovo 1999 and Iraq 2003 – both used humanitarian pretexts as covers for imperial designs and led to catastrophic humanitarian results.
The truth is that the forthcoming strikes are only intended as a means to restore the “credibility” of the US and its allies in the face of an alliance of the Syrian, Iranian, and Russian governments that has taken full liberty in escalating the war on the Syrian people despite all US calls for compromise. The strikes are necessary in order to reinstate a US imperial standing that has been much humiliated over the last few years in Iraq, in Afghanistan, by Iran, and even by Israel’s Netanyahu. These strikes will not help the Syrian people: they will increase the destruction and death toll without enabling the Syrians to get rid of their tyrant. They are not intended for this latter goal. In fact, Washington does not want the Syrian people to topple the dictatorship: it wants to force on the Syrian opposition a deal with the bulk of the regime, minus Assad. This is the so-called Yemen solution that President Barack Obama has been actively pursuing since last year, and that Secretary of State John Kerry has been trying to promote by cozying up to his Russian counterpart.
The sheer artistic magnificence of the structures, the museum and setting are inspiring…until you read the history of the Popes or confront the contradiction of opulence with the reality of the lives of impoverished Catholics all around the world.
Though there is much more to come, when I read Pope Francis’ words this morning about avoiding dogma over moral issues and remembering that the fundamental role of Christianity is love. Stunning! Make no mistake Pope Francis with those words opened a tectonic shift in the tone of the Catholic Church. He has directly addressed issues of abortion and homosexuality by saying that focusing on those issues to the negation of the greater one of love is a mistake. Those words are simple, revolutionary and courageous.
