After the US use of Agent Orange in Viet Nam, the providing of nerve gas to Saddam to use against the Kurds, the use of depleted uranium, etc., Obama's high dudgeon over the use of chemical weapons in Syria is as cynically laughable as it is duplicitous.
Equally as politically powerful in the US is AIPAC, the Israeli lobbying group. Israel needs Syria to fall as their stepping stone to Iran. They own just about all of the US Congress, and heaven help any politician who fails to vote for more funding for Israel. What they want, they get. They are chomping at the bit to completely Balkanize the Arab states into small feuding theocratic fiefdoms. The US has been tasked with carrying this out.
Victor Ostrovsky, former Mossad katsa, wrote a very telling exposé about the middle east, By Way of Deception. Anyone wishing a fuller understanding of how things became the way they are there would do well to give this book a read. Its a look at the inside of Israeli policy that Israel did not want seen. Ostrovsky will spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder.
113,000+ now! They are looking for 1,000,000 - so, if you haven't already, PLEASE SIGN!!!
http://www.avaaz.org/en/solution_for_syria_loc/?bCJAAeb&v=28842
Bugger what America thinks! Who gave them the right to clump their oversized boots anywhere they fee
l like?
Done, but yes everybody, PLEASE!
Over a thousand people signed in the space of time it took me to post the link on SFN so people power has got to be the way forward. We hope.
If you haven't already done so, please sign this Avaaz petition.
I took contracts to work in Lebanon with the displaced children (we had R'n'R in Damascus, ironically) and have had one in Kurdistan. There have also been several countries just after it was over. It is always heartbreaking and not just for or because of the children.
All very depressing!!! Hope you sleep well.......
Exactly! I remember shedding tears over Kosovo, seeing the stupidity of the destruction and the killing!
Thank you for that, Gordon.... what a rotten world!!
People of my age frequently congratulate ourselves on NOT having had to live through a war (well, for me, just for a few months, and I don't remember) - but boy, have we helped the rest of the world become a cesspit!!
Before I turn to my pillow, yes some of that is true. Actually Miliband is gaining in polls whereas the Tories have had to pull back on a couple of things like the legal aid plan, education and health are in the greatest mess since the early 1930s. I do not like the man, do not see him with PM leadership qualities but Cameron has blown it. The BIG loser is Clegg who has turned coat so often that he has all but killed English liberalism which I find a terrible pity. With public opinion as it is, a war would have done for UK politics. Then alone, against the odds, I might have given my countrymen's referendum a winning chance. That would have been the price of going in and I suspect Cameron knows that too.
As you say, what a mire! As a French pal who was once close to the powers that be in Paris, if Hollande 'won' this war, he would be voted back in. If he does nothing he might as well. If he goes in and makes a terrible mess, next election will say goodbye to PS toute suite.
But yes, the killing goes on. The entire MIddle East is a smoking gun right now. If only they would turn on the real catalysts in the Gulf and put them in their place eating humble pie.
Different conflict....same result....people suffer!
If one takes a couple of paces back --- I am sure that Brian is right in that there is a much bigger - and deeper - play going on here. The cacophony is masking some different motivation where Syria (and maybe the whole Middle East) is concerned. There is no chain of logic to connect years of abuse in Syria - and not infrequent use of chemical weapons in the region - with the sudden outcry. The rush to bomb does not smack of any form of statesmanship or even deeply thought out policy. Brian is right - there is a much deeper plot going on - the problem is "What"???
So far as the overall political scene is concerned - as I said before, I am sure that neither Obama or Cameron *want* to go into another war; neither country is in a position to afford a fresh conflict. I am sure that they both felt that the use of WMD opens up another can of worms. Is it possible that it is all a fix? Outrage has been expressed - but, in the UK, Cameron conceded defeat very rapidly and with some grace - and may well have pulled the rug completely from under the feet of Mr Milliband, who is now almost depicted as a traitor, a waverer..... Cameron has come out with relatively clean hands - he expressed outrage, passionately demanded an armed response, suffered the "ignominy" of defeat and graciously conceded that, as a democrat, he would, of course, accede to the will of parliament. Democracy rules...... Plus, he does not have to find several billion quid to fund a little military expedition.
What a mire it all is!!!
And, although America's "oldest ally" (in the shape of M. Hollande who always wears a totally bemused expression) is on side, possibly as a snap reaction from someone who pays little or no attention to his voters. I think he will end up with more than egg on his face!! Can the French economy really afford even a limited intervention on the scale now being proposed? Will the electorate be prepared to stump up even more in the way of taxes to allow M Hollande a brief moment of glory?
We will see.
Meantime, of course, the killing goes on......
Could he be worse than Cameron? He takes some beating and as for the belligerent way he went about all war talk, the ranting in the Commons and the unapologised for 'f**king c**t and copper-bottomed sh*t' about Miliband before the vote!
Syria is a dreadful situation, but I think we are pretty much stuck until such time as there is a UN resolution. As I understand it that would be the only legal way for anyone outside Syria to intervene directly so long as Syria doesn't actually attack anyone else.
The US would like to think of itself as a global policeman, but there are now huge problems with that approach, not the least of which is their ongoing illegal use of drones in Pakistan and Yemen, and their open disregard for the law. Do as we say, not as we do. The US is pro democracy as long as it's democracy that is willing to do what they want. Otherwise they are in favour of whomever is willing to do their bidding - even to the point of removing democratically elected people and replacing them with their choice of dictator. Unfortunate, but if you look at recent history that's been the common thread all the way along.
I'm not sure either that taking some form of military action against Syria is going to have anything other than unfortunate consequences, and I don't know exactly who it will "punish". Almost certainly not those who decided to use the weapons.
A supplementary question is why exactly killing a lot of people with chemical weapons is so much worse than killing them with other types? Why is there a red line for the US, for example, when killing innocent civillians with each drone strike is OK? One last thing before I shut up about the drones, there is a technique that they fire a missile, then once people arrive to help they fire another. The effect is that people no longer go to the assistance of those who are injured, and indeed killing first responders like this with no possibility to clearly identify whether they are combatants is itself a war crime.
I wish I didn't come across as so anti-American, but the problem is the way the country is controlled by a small body of people who have no connection with nor interest in the people.
Back to Syria.
Yes excellent post .. thanks for the contribution!
That is brilliant, John! Not sure how Obama would react --- but I get a very strong feeling that he does *not* really want yet another war - any more than Cameron does.
An excellent post Annette.