General Wesley Clark on the Ed Show on MSNBC yesterday made the incredible statement that our attack on Syria is not an act of war. Aside from making me wonder how such a man could rise to the level he did in the military, it shows how the government is pulling out every trick in its book to go after Syria.
Secretary of War Kerry says this act of war is an unbelievable small strike. It is now being supported by Hillary Clinton. and all the leaders of Congress such as Pelosi and Speaker Boehner. How is it that all the leaders are so anxious to take this unprecedented act of war which runs contrary to the view of the majority of the American people?
In attempting to hide the United States’ anxiousness to go to war and minimize what is occurring by describing this action as he did, Secretary of War Kerry said if Syria gave up their chemical weapons in a week it could avoid an attack. My first reaction was why a week? A couple of days ago we were being told by President Obama there was not need for a rush. He said that “an attack would be “effective tomorrow, or next week, or one month from now.” If we want to avoid a war, give them a month to give up their weapons and say any use in the interim would void all deals.
It is confusing to try to figure out what is at play here. It sure reminds me of the Iraq War with the different reasons for the attack. What do we really want out of this? Yesterday I thought the attack was to punish Syria for having used chemical weapons, not for intending to use them in the future. We were predicating our attack on the heinous murder of the 400 plus children.
Now it seems different. We say give up the chemical weapons and we won’t attack. This seems a more sensible reaction to their use but I have a suspicion that we’ll be hearing some other reason for carrying out the attack.
After Kerry made his offer, immediately Russia seized the opening. It said it is asking Syria to place its chemical weapons under international control. Syria initially said it will consider Russia’s offer. It now has said it accepts the Russian plan.
Now I would think we could breathe easier, take our time, and see what happens?
Apparently not. Secretary of War Kerry appears to have again wandered off the ranch. He is taking back his offer. It appears he caught everyone off guard. What happens now?
Everyone scrambles. The president wants to emphasize that had he not threatened the attack this Syrian deal never would have happened. That’s true, we can give him credit for this even though it seems he never thought of making this demand himself.
The president plans to talk to the nation tonight at 9:00 pm. His speech writers are busy trying to explain why we still need to get Congressional approval for attacking Syria even though it appears the reason for doing so no longer attains. The Israeli lobby group is descending on Capitol Hill to demand that we attack.
Interesting the NY Times referred to AIPAC as the 800 pound gorilla in the room. Some suggested AIPAC complained and the story was changed. That’s power folk when you can get the NY Times to alter a story even though the Times said that was not the case.
It is reported that Obama called Netanyahu asking for Israel’s help in getting the vote through Congress. Obama is not turning to the American people. He’d rather get aid from the Israeli government to get his vote passed? This gets stranger and stranger.
The question now is, what did Israel get in exchange for agreeing to back Obama as he fights to maintain the credibility of his presidency. I explained this before. But it is not just Israel that is pressing for an American attack, Saudi Arabia is also pushing hard for it. Yet neither of these countries fear Syria.
Both of these countries see Syria as an intermediate step on the attack on Iran. How wonderfully our president and secretary of war have walked us back into this trap which first got us involved in the war in Iraq.
Remember that Itamar Rabinovich, Israel’s ambassador to the United States from 1993 to 1996 said: “It’s bad for Israel that the average American gets it into his or her mind that boys are again sent to war for Israel. They have to be sent to war for America.”
It was in the fake Iraq war when they were first sent for Israel. Are they again going to be sent again?
Here’s what the president should say tonight: “I will ask Congress to hold off on any authorization for an attack on Syria for one month. That will allow the United Nations, Russia, and Syria sufficient opportunity to take the necessary steps to put all chemical weapons under the control of the United Nations. If that is done and there are no further uses of chemical weapons by the Syrian government I will withdraw my request.”
President Obama has the opportunity to seize the high ground. He can put American foreign policy back into American hands where it belongs. It is time we stop using Americans to fight the wars of others.
Obama, and, the folks at Foggy Bottom are doing a better job than you think. The President has not committed any regular forces to the Syrian conflict. That is good, because, the Pentagon plan to prop up an insurgent army friendly to the West, has failed, miserably. The mujahideen are ascendant in Syria’s rebel movement. That being the case, Obama’s best hope is that both sides in the conflict will burn each other out. If the Iranians are forced to commit regular troops in order to save Assad, that’s all to the good. The Iranian government fears having to mobilize their restive domestic population. That is why Hezbollah is such an important piece on the chess-board. Without support from their crack infantry, Assad would fall. US policy should concentrate on furnishing support to the anti-Hezbollah forces in Lebanon. Give Samir Geagea LF the necessary means to stick Hezbollah in place. Pressure on the road linking Baalbak to Hermel would greatly effect Hezbollah’s ability to support Assad. That would mean another bloody civil war in Lebanon, but, at this point, further bloodletting seems inevitable. Let’s fight this war by proxy. US allies in Lebanon know what to do. Give them the means to serve both their own agendas, and,US policy interests.
Khalid:
I don’t suggest Obama’s all bad. I think his dealings with Iran and Syria to date have been very wise. I like his idea of trying to settle things by diplomacy which is often the hard way. He would have made a huge mistake to get us involved with Syria; also, the idea of murdering thousands of Iranians with our bombs does not appeal to him despite getting himself in trouble with our Congressional war mongers and Israel. Some things he does I don’t like but others I do.
I think your analysis of the Lebanon situation is excellent. Iran won’t commit itself to defending Syria; and we should do what we can to empower Hezbollah’s enemies. I hope Foggy Bottom has some people who think like you do.
Matt, I want to kill those who are presently planning, plotting or attempting to kill us. It’s the Augustinian principles of self-defense and just war. “To everything there is a season . . . ”
Matt, here’s my swan song:
The CIA-Mossad-British-French-Connection to Syrian Gas Attack:
1. Who’s been mucking around in the Middle East since 1956 when Ike ordered the immediate cessation of a joint invasion of Egypt by British-French-Israeli Armies? Answer: CIA-types.
2. For how many years have John McCain, the neocons and the CIA types been calling for the US to invade Syria?
3. For how long has the press-CIA been demonizing Assad, Putin, Milosevic, Morsi, Mubarek?
4. How many assassinations/regime changes has the CIA been involved in since WWII?
5. For how many years has the US-CIA been supporting The Rebels in Syria?
6. Who is losing in Syria?
7. Which side is the greater threat to Christians and Americans?
8. How desperate are the Rebels to get US fully involved? How desperate is McCain, CIA, Neo-cons?
9. Do the rebels have Toxic Gases? They say they do.
10. Would the rebels and their affiliated Al Queda types use Toxic Gases on Civilians? Come on!
11. Is it possible that the CIA-types joined with the CIA-sponsored Rebels to either fire Toxic Gas Shells on civilians or get a Quizzling Syrian General to load some Toxic Gas Shells in Syrian Army artillery to fire on civilians?
12. WHO BENEFITS FROM FIRING TOXIC GAS ON CIVILIANS IN SYRIA? ANSWER: THE CIA-SPONSORED, AND US-SUPPORTED REBELS COMPRISED OF NOT A SMALL PERCENTAGE OF TERRORISTIC MUSLIM JIHADISTS WHO WANT TO KILL AMERICANS, BRITS AND ISRAELIS.
13. IS SUPPORTING THE JIHADIST-LADENED REBELS (JIHADIST-TYPES ARE OUR ENEMIES IN A TIME OF WAR) AN ACT OF TREASON BY MCCAIN, KERRY AND THE US GOVERNMENT?
14. ARE the INTERVENTIONISTIC LIBS, the OLD-WORLD REA-POLITICOS, the BACKWARD THINKING NAPOLEONIC-NATO-TYPES, the NEOCONS, the MCCAIN AND KERRY BIG GOV IMPERIALISTIC-TYPES, et al, ALL GIVING AID AND COMFORT TO AMERICA’S ENEMY JIHADISTS IN A TIME OF WAR.
15. Is our government in a state of treason against We the American people?
16. Remember 9-11-01, 9-11-12, and 4-15-13!
17. How many more persons from Massachusetts must die at home and abroad due to the FEDs’ indifference, negligence, incompetence or malfeasance both on the home-front and overseas due to its persistent officious imperialistic intermeddling?
18. Let’s not mention (a) Big Money (Wall Street and its demi-god Profit and Money); (b)Big Oil; (c) Treasonous Transnational Greedy Corporations and their Black-Ops hired guns and their hired gun lobbyists with their covert Un-American operations, corrupting Congress and other governments’ legislative and executive offices at home and abroad; (c) Narco-Terrorists and the thousands of narcotic-related deaths annually in Massachusetts. Let’s not mention these excess deaths and excessive intermeddling because too much of it is attributable to the FEDs’ sins of omission and commission. REMEMBER: Lincoln, Reagan and others predicted it: America, the Constitutional Republic of We the People, may perish from self-inflicted wounds. Orwell and Kafka predicted it, too.
19. End American Imperialism, the Warfare State, the Welfare State and the Spy State. Vote for free-thinking, freedom-loving people like Rand Paul! As one famous blogger recently diagnosed it: It’s the Libertarians against the Authoritarians. I hope and pray We the People beat Big Government. God bless America!
William:
When you put your hand in a jar full of pennies and grab too many of them you’ll find you have a hard time getting your hand out.
JIm and Matt: Something is drastically wrong and we should not turn a blind eye to it. Our Spy-State, Warfare State, lying-Fed-government state, has lost the trust of the majority of the American People. In dealing with Putin: Trust but Verify; We’ve dealt with Dictators and Brutal leaders before; deal with those who don’t want to kill Americans; arrest or kill the enemy who have present plans to kill Americans.
William:
You suggest you are for peace yet it seem to want us to do a lot of kiling.
MATT, ONE COULDN’T MAKE UP OR EVEN IMAGINE THE SITUATION THAT OBAMA HAS GOT HIMSELF AND THE USA INTO UP TO THIS POINT. HANNITY STATED THAT HE TRUSTED PUTIN MORE THAN HE DOES KERRY. WHEN POSSIBLY HAS ANY AMERICAN,WHETHER A POLILITICIAN OR POPULAR BROADCASTER MADE SUCH AN ABSURD STATEMENT. WHAT, TRUST A RUSSIAN ESPECIALLY ONE WHO THINKS STALIN WAS PRETTY SHARP, UNBELIEVABLE AT BEST. THIS HOWEVER IS THE RESULT OF OBVIOUS LIES OVER SUCH ITEMS AS BENGHAZI, THE IRS SCANDAL, THE FBI KILLING IN FLA, ETC.I HOPE OBAMA, BIDEN, RICE,AND THE REST OF WASHINGTON’S CRONIES LISTEN INTENTLY TO THE “BIG POP” WHEN THEY PULL THEIR HEADS OUT OF THEIR BUTTS.
SEMPER FI
Jim:
1. I could not agree more that Obama has gotten us in a mess. I do think he did the right thing by pulling back on the attack he planned since I’m convinced he never thought through to the day after the attack or its purpose. From Kerry’s statement that it would be “incredibly small” and to Obama’s latest statement that the American military doesn’t do pinprick operations, you see a presidency in total disarray.
2. I agree that having someone say they would trust Putin makes me sick to my stomach. Putin is highly evil and as much as I question Kerry’s judgment I would not put him in the same class as Putin for untrustworthiness. Kerry may go around stabbing people in the back; Putin doesn’t bother with that he just stabs them right in the chest if they stand in the way.
3. Kerry is meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov tomorrow. Kerry’s one goal in life is to bring about a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians. To do this he has to weaken Assad; on the other hand Russia wants to strengthen Assad since he is there ally. Look for Russian to give him a run around when they meet.
4. The real problem we see is that our country has just been lurching from one crisis to the next with no real goal or plan. After WWII the State Department came up with a plan for our foreign policy which made as its lodestone opposition to any future Soviet expansion. It had its stops and starts but for the most part it was followed and guided our country and our presidents.
In 1989 when the Soviets fell, we sat back and did nothing to plan for the future after that. Four presidents. Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, have failed to come up with a Master Plan which all Americans of good faith from all sides of the political spectrum can buy into. We have highly skilled diplomats in our State Department who should be ordered to work on that along with people with skills who could formulate such a policy. I don’t know why this is not done.
Lacking it, brings us to the present stage. Our country is lost. We have no long term plans for what is best for America. This shown by the Syrian debacle. You mentioned the FBI killing the man in Florida which we still have no idea what happened. You mentioned trusting a Russia. Keep in mind the absurdity of having five US Congressmen going to Russian to find out what it was they told the American FBI about Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Our own FBI wouldn’t tell them. It still won’t.
All of this shows there is something drastically wrong.
Semper Fi
Matt: the President did as you advised. Good prognostication. Henry Barth, excellent post. Apparently Imams don’t criticize Muslims. Rarely, anyway. Remember, this is 9-11-01. “Our fist duty is to remember.” Remember also that when the FBI first posted pictures of the Boston Terrorist Bombers after 4-15-2013, no one from the Muslim community called in to identify them. We have a huge national and international problem with stealth jihadists lurking amongst us; we have a huge problem with “merchants of hate” among the Imams.
2. I liked the President’s speech, although I don’t agree we ever need a military strike. Restraint and diplomacy, not war, should prevail. I don’t trust Kerry. Too bad it’s he who’ll deal with Putin. I think we should negotiate with Putin and the Russians and make them allies. Reject Nato’s Napoleonic Thinking. I liked Rand Paul’s response to the President, too. My thinking is more aligned with Rand Paul’s.
3. Here are some examples of regrettable jingoistic American war rhetoric: I.”Remember the Maine”, II. “Over There”, III. Gulf of Tonkin, IV. “Unarmed (no bullets)Marines needed in Beirut”, V. “Mass graves in Kosovo–a lie” (the only mass graves were of KLA fighters–there were a score or so of civilian dead, likely “collateral” deaths; so on slim reeds and dubious evidence, we bomb the Serbs to hell to help the outlawed terroristic-drug-running KLA; VI. WMD in Iraq – a lie; VII: A Gas Attack in Syria—(not US’s WAR and just as likely caused by rogue Syrian General/Colonel acting at the behest of the Rebels-CIA-types. In Medicine, you make your diagnosis after you’ve RULED OUT other possible etiologies: We haven’t ruled out the REBEL-CIA-Mossad-British-French Connection in all of this. We know War Monger McCain and others have been calling for a War on Syria for years. Don’t put anything past our out-of-control CIA: that spy agency also has to be reined in and restrained and double checked. Consider the assassination of Vietnam President Diem, consider the CIA’s recent bungling of International Vaccine Programs.
William:
1. Enough of the rogue general, Assad has all but admitted he fired off the chemical weapons and there is no evidence of a rogue general.
2. America is full of people who are Muslims. Almost all are good patriotic Americans. Let’s not go backward like we did in WWII with the Japanese. If there are sleeper cells they have gone into eternal hibernation.
3. Imams are like other religious leaders, some good, some all right, and a handful off on schemes of their own.
4. Trusting Putin is like putting your trust in a mad dog. As Jim Ambrose noted he is an open admirer of Stalin. Expect Kerry and Lavrov to meet on Thursday and accomplish nothing. Kerry wants to diminish Assad while Lavrov wants to build him up. Expecting to find peace dealing with the Russians is folly.
5. Obama as expected followed my advice. This is the second time he clearly had read my blog and listened to me. I told him not to call me in the future because I’m quite busy but if he keeps up with the blog he won’t go wrong.
!. Assad as soon as he found out chem weapons had been fired, ordered a cessation then allowed in UN Observers. Very Strong Evidence, he was not behind the use of chem weapons. I stick by a CIA-Rebel type firing to gin up world hatred against Assad. Remember, the book Asylums: In order to kill or brutalize people, we first make them “different”. Assad is portrayed as a mass butcher as Milosevic was falsely portrayed. Assad, a minority Alewite and friend of Christians, is fighting a brutal war against brutal ruthless terrorists.
2. Not all Muslims are terrorists, but virtually all the terrorist, beheaders and savages in the Middle East have been Muslim Terrorists. Pakistan President estimated one percent of Muslims were Jihadists: one percent of one billion is a million jihadists worldwide.
3. Not all Muslim Imams are merchants of hate; a sizeable percentage are.
Don’t be naïve!! We have an enemy: Muslim Jihadists who want to kill our children.
4. We can and have worked with Putin. A former KGB director, of course he’d portray Stalin in a more favorable light than we would. As evil as Stalin was, he was “Uncle Joe” to FDR and he did help defeat the NAZIs. A common tact of the left is to single out one false statement someone made in the 1960s and impute that to his current thinking. Jacoby recently quoted a 1974 statement of a Palestinian Leader, Arafat, to argue the Israelis should never give up any land.
5. We need to see the world in a new light, not from an American propagandist, militaristic, McCain-ist, Kerry-ish myopia. We can deal with bad guys; we can’t deal with radical Muslim Jihadists: Wanted Dead or Alive!!! We must eradicate the Merchants of Hate in the Muslim Community who think it’s o.k. to kill American, British and Israeli children.
6. I beg to differ; I strongly disagree and I stand by my prior comments.
William:
1, Assad is portrayed as an evil man and the portrayal is more correct than otherwise. He is a dictator. No one elected him. The demonstrations against him initially were peaceful. He reseponded violently. There is a brutal civil war occurring in Syria. Over 100.000 have died. If a condition to securing a peace is the removal of Assad we should be happy to assist with that. It seems to me we must make a much greater effor to stop the war. Assad today all but admitted he was behind the chemical attack.
2. I would expect the savages and terrorists in Muslim countries to come from the people in those countries. Did it ever occur to you that the people in those countries have lived under dictators for decades most supported by Western countries. If there were anything like 10 million jihadists world wide then we’d be seeing a lot more terrorist activity.
3. I doubt your percentage. I would like to see a backup for the idea a “sizeable percentage” of imams are jihdists. It’s like saying a sizable percentage of Catholic priests are pedophiles.
4. Stalin murdered 10 million people. Even more than Whitey Bulger. I have no idea what false statement made in the 1960s you are talking about.
5. We need a grand strategy not a pogrom.
6. That’s one of the rights you have.
Matt- Did you get to watch Charlie Rose interview ASSAD? It was fascinating.
Doubting:
I watched parts of it – the man is insane.
The silence of the imams
“Students of contemporary barbarism should take note of what happened to customers at the Village restaurant in Mogadishu on Saturday. Here’s the BBC report: “The Somali Islamist militant group al-Shabab has said it bombed a popular restaurant in the capital Mogadishu, killing 15 people… Run by Somali businessman Ahmed Jama, who returned to the country from the UK in 2008, it was targeted by two suicide bombers last September in attacks that killed 14 people.”
As word of this appalling crime seeped out, Pope Francis was holding a “Syria peace vigil” in Rome attended by 100,000 people. “May the noise of weapons cease!” he said. “War always marks the failure of peace — it is always a defeat for humanity.” He didn’t mention the murdered Mogadishu diners directly, but he cannot be faulted for this because no imam did, either. These authority figures in the Islamic world are usually vociferous when it comes to condemning the decadence and crimes of the “West”, but they tend to be very shy about the horrific crimes being committed in the name of their own faith. And the body count from those faith killings is shocking.
In Iraq, some 4,000 people have been killed by rival Sunni and Shi’a gangs so far this year. The pot of sectarian hatred is being stirred by the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is also heavily involved in the savage Syrian civil war. It has invested heavily in the notion of an embattled Alawite regime led by Assad battling a radicalized Sunni opposition of al-Qaida terrorists because this legitimizes Teheran’s interference. Meanwhile, Turkey’s government is adding fuel to the sectarian fire, as rumors circulate that Ankara is pressing for a Sunni majority Syrian government if Assad falls. One does not need a vivid imagination to picture the butchery that would follow, should this ever be the case.
Forgotten in this gruesomeness is that fact that the Taliban have killed more than 1,300 men, women and children so far this year with car bombs, improvised explosive devices and suicide bombers in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. As if that wasn’t enough, Muslims are also murdering Muslims in Pakistan, Libya, Tunisia and Egypt and the silence of the imams and mullahs regarding this carnage is deafening. Finally, there’s Yemen: “Kuwaitis have called for stringent action against a family in Yemen after their eight-year-old daughter died of internal injuries on the first night of her arranged marriage to a man more than five times her age.”
Eamon Fitzgerald
Henry:
Yes, there are many Muslims murdering Muslims. I’ve never figured out what it takes to become an Imam – is there some type of training one goes through or can one just decide to become one. I know this woman in New York City who became a minister by buying a certificate stating she was a minister. She then went to the City Hall in New York City and registered to do marriages which she does in her own little church in her kitchen which she calls the Church of the Cold Beer.
The Pope is the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, I know of no leader of the Muslims either Sunni or Shiite, although Ayatollah Khomeini seemed a big deal at one time or another and Mohammed Omar ran Afghanistan for a while, but the latter was rather blood thirsty.
On the other hand there are millions of Muslims living in peace in Western nations going about their business peacefully raising families while following their religion mandates none of whom seem to be particularly violent. I suppose it all boils down to our inability to control what happens in Muslim run countries.
Another way to look at it is to think that if those Muslims who like to war among themselves are kept busy doing that then they’ll not be bothering the rest of us.