Lest anyone have the mistaken impression that American foreign policy changed when Bush retired to his ranch, the same neoconservative game plan for regime change throughout the Middle East continues today. Bush got his Saddam. Obama got his Ghadafy. And now Obama wants Assad and quite likely regime change in Iran as well.
According to an article in the New York Times by Mark Landler, Obama summoned his aides to the Oval Office last Friday to discuss his reasons for asking Congress for permission to wage war on Syria – not that American presidents usually feel obliged to follow the Constitutionally-mandated procedure. Landler: “He had several reasons, he told them, including a sense of isolation after the terrible setback in the British Parliament. But the most compelling one may have been that acting alone would undercut him if in the next three years he needed Congressional authority for his next military confrontation in the Middle East, perhaps with Iran.”
Not just the British Parliament but almost all our western allies have expressed reservations about yet more use of American military force. To be fair, the not-quite ex-colonialist nations France and England are in the process of trying to drum up renewed support for NATO “intervention” – an Orwellian term that really means “naked aggression” when you are on the ground watching bombs fall on you. The Arab League said no to an attack. Iraq – which Obama claims has reason to fear Syria – told the U.S. to butt out. And even Israel has preferred Assad to a failed state next door.
No one seriously believes that Syria is going to unleash sarin attacks in New York or Boston. Syria presents no risk for Americans. There really is no reason to attack. Not that many years ago, the U.S. was sending suspected terrorists, subjects of “extreme rendition,” to torture chambers in Syria. At least in terms of “fighting terror,” the two nations saw eye-to-eye.
Today the administration’s case for war has various, and shifting, explanations but it has primarily been sold to the public as a “humanitarian” mission. A few weeks ago we started hearing from editors simultaneously apologizing for, but insisting on, publishing the images of sarin victims. John Kerry told “Face the Nation” that only Saddam and Hitler have used sarin – not mentioning that the United States supplied Saddam with his.
An attentive reader might recall that the killing of civilians in Syria – by whatever means – is a direct result of U.S. support for Syrian rebels. Some of these rebels, like the cannibal commander Abu Sakkar, are affiliated with terrorist organizations who hate Assad because he’s an Alawite, not because he’s a despot. The Assad regime, with some justification, points out they are only fighting terror.
“Sometimes you hit innocent people, and I hate that, but we’re at war, and we’ve taken out some very senior members of al-Qaida.”
No, that was not Bashar al-Assad, but Lindsey Graham explaining that the United States has killed over 4,700 people in drone attacks. But only 10-15% of those 4,700 people were actually terrorist suspects. Which means that the United States slaughtered roughly 4,000 civilians.
So if we are shocked by the sight of gasping, contorted victims of Bashar al-Assad – assuming he actually did it and it wasn’t a “false flag” operation, as former chief of staff to Colin Powell, Lawrence Wilkerson, suggests – we should be equally shocked by our own regime’s carnage and terror. But the American press won’t show us images of the corpses of children killed by American drones and missiles.
As the French revolution demonstrated, nobody does terror quite as well as a nation-state. So when a government that itself uses terror starts talking about “red lines,” humanitarian concerns, and morality: beware. Consider our many recent wars and what they have given the world – only wrecked states, death, violence, and a police state here at home. And, of course, trillions of dollars for the American “defense” industry.
This was published in the Standard Times on September 18, 2013
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/article/20130918/opinion/309180310
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