Friday, September 13, 2013

US government still lusting for war on Syria

 Martin Michaels (Mint Press News) reports, "About half of all Americans oppose military intervention in Syria, but opposition to attacks is much higher among current service members, according to recent opinion polling by the Military Times -- which found that 75 percent of the military now oppose a U.S. military strike in Syria."  Aaron David Miller (CNN) explains:

The American people are their own experts this time around on what constitutes a vital national interest for the United States and what they want done about it.
After two of the longest and most profitless wars in American history, the public has a more discriminating assessment of what's worth fighting for and what's not. And, deeply dismayed by the standard for victory -- when can we leave, not how do we win -- most Americans rightly see a U.S. military strike on Syria as an imperfect option that is likely either to be ineffective or to draw the U.S. into another country's civil war.

And yet Barack, even now, can't stop trying to push for war.  Jason Hirthler (CounterPunch) points out, "With almost pathological haste, Western governments have moved to undermine Russia's sensible proposal for Syria to hand over its chemical stores, thus avoiding the needless carnage being proposed by the United States. In an interview with CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley not hours after the proposal gained the tentative acceptance of the Syrians, Obama grudgingly conceded it was a positive development, but quickly added that it would never have been possible without 'a credible military threat,' and sounded all the appropriate reservations."  Hirthler observes:

In his national address Tuesday night, Obama rather cynically attempted this when he insinuated that the diplomatic solve had emerged from his talks with Vladimir Putin. However, the solution was evidently stimulated by John Kerry’s moment of thoughtless candor, in which he did what no warmongering deputy should ever do—offer the villain an escape route. Kerry said in London on Monday that, sure, if Syria gives up its chemicals, we won’t attack it. The Russian Foreign Minister smartly seized on the admission, quickly secured Syrian acquiescence, and announced a diplomatic breakthrough. Kerry was left dumbfounded, slumping back to Washington with a laurel leaf in hand, instead of the uranium-tipped arrows the White House was so poised to launch “across the bow” of international law.



International law isn't the only thing Barack's disrespecting.  John Glaser (Antiwar.com) notes US House Rep Justin Amash's Tweet:

  2. 18h
    Under , you'd be indefinitely detained w/o charge or trial if you sent weapons to opposition forces in . Gov't is breaking law.
    Expand


Glaser writes:

 I take it Amash is referring to the clause of the USA PATRIOT Act which prohibits giving material support to groups designated by the United States as terrorists. In Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, the court found that “training,” “expert advice or assistance,” “service,” and “personnel,” all qualified as material assistance.
Last year, the U.S. State Department officially designated the Syrian rebels’ foremost fighting group, Jabhat al-Nusra, a terrorist organization. The U.S. has maintained all along that they are employing a “vetting process” to make sure all the material support they send to Syria’s rebels doesn’t go to the bad guys. But U.S. officials told the Washington Post last year that the CIA knew very little about who was receiving U.S. support, nor could they control exactly where it ended up. The New York Times also reported that the Obama administration has been “increasing aid to the rebels” even though “we don’t really know” who is receiving it.

It's amazing that sad fools like Nancy Pelosi would rather get offended by Russian President Vladimir Putin's column yesterday than by the fact that the White House is in bed with al Qaeda and any military action the US takes in Syria would assist and enable al Qaeda.  What a way to 'honor' the victims of 9-11.

And don't kid that Nancy Pelosi is attacking Putin out of patriotism.  She was more than happy to rise to her feet, in 2010, and give the then-President of Mexico Felipe Calderon a standing ovation for insulting the United States not all that long ago.  Justin Raimondo (Antiwar.com) notes some of the whining over Putin's column:
The liberal moaners, led by Samantha Power, and the outright Russia-haters left over from the cold war, such as Bill Kristol and his neocon cabal, joined hands and jabbered in unison that the US has a "responsibility to protect" (as Power has phrased it). For well over a year, the chorus of Washington-centered voices had been caterwauling for some "action," and with Ghouta the shrieking reached a crescendo: War! War! War!
A visibly reluctant President Obama finally caved, and the news media drooled at the prospect of more Shock-&-Awe: any day now, they averred, and the bombs would be flying. Oh goodie! Except they forgot about one important factor in the equation: the American people.
That figures, now doesn’t it? These Wise Men (and Wise Women) live in the Beltway Bubble, where paeans to the glory and divine sanction of American military power are an obligatory rite of entry into the exclusive club of foreign policy "experts." It’s a place where a 26-year-old with a fake "doctorate" can be cited by the War Party as an Authority on the vaunted "moderation" of the jihadist "opposition" while working for the pro-rebel Syrian Emergency Task Force and living high off the hog on government contracts. It’s a place where the neoconservatives, who brought us into what the late Lt. Gen. William Odom called "greatest strategic disaster in United States history," are still respectfully listened to.
The American people, in the view of this self-anointed priesthood of Ares, are to be steadfastly ignored when it comes to foreign policy: their ill-informed opinions only matter around election time, and then only marginally – since both candidates usually reflect the foreign policy priesthood’s own interventionist bias. This time, however, Americans didn’t politely defer to their betters: against the tide of "expert" opinion, and all the moralistic jeremiads of paid shills and other exemplars of internationalist virtue, they rose up and delivered a resounding "No!"
And Vladimir Putin heard their cry, which he echoed and amplified in his Times piece. Touching on all the arguments critics of US intervention gave voice to – in Congress and on congressional phone lines – even Max Fisher in the rabidly interventionist Washington Post had to admit he had a point, even a fair number of points. Yes, he’s right about the illegality of the aborted-for-now military strike, yes he is correct when he talks about the jihadist element so prominent in the "opposition," and yes US intervention would risk rapid escalation and a regional conflagration, but Fisher balked when it came to the two key points that most rankle Washington. Putin wrote:
"No one doubts that poison gas was used in Syria. But there is every reason to believe it was used not by the Syrian Army, but by opposition forces, to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons, who would be siding with the fundamentalists. Reports that militants are preparing another attack – this time against Israel – cannot be ignored."



Cedric and Wally posted this morning:


But no one else in the community?  That's how it looks on the permalinks.  For whatever reason, last night's posts aren't showing up on the permalinks.  However, those who usually post on Thursday nights did so last night:

 "Voyager"
"Barack's disaster economy"
"Barack gets called out"
"more spin from matt lauer"
"A year later, no arrests"
"Putin and Barack"
"The trashy White House"
"The Courtship of Eddie's Father"
"To Clarify Any Confusion"
"The Drone War"



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