Obama Can't Win

By Rosa Brooks, Foreign Policy, September 4, 2013

My late grandfather, a dedicated communist until Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest in 1956, was fond of quoting Marxist aphorisms (an enthusiasm that long outlasted his admiration for the Communist Party). Among his favorites was the much-cited opening passage of Marx’s The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, published in 1852:

Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

It’s a great line, with the double virtue of being eminently quotable and giving Hegel—that’s Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, not to be confused with Chuck—a nice little backhand smack on the nose. But it’s also much too pat. Sure, history repeats itself, and sure, sometimes things get farcical. Mostly, though, the second go-round brings only more tragedy.

So it is with President Barack Obama and Syria.

Because you’ve heard this one before, right? An American president tells the world that brief, decisive military action is necessary to keep a murderous Middle Eastern despot from using weapons of mass destruction. The world is skeptical (as is the U.S. public). Declassified U.S. intelligence reports are bandied about. Foreign leaders remain unconvinced, urging patience and diplomacy as U.N. inspectors prepare a report of their own. The American president insists he’ll use force unilaterally if necessary, and dares Congress to disagree. Congress caves.

The first time—that would be Iraq, for those of you who are new around here—things ended badly. You’ll recall that the intelligence turned out to have been cooked (if not cooked through, it was at least half-baked). The U.N. secretary-general declared the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq illegal. And despite early Bush administration promises that the use of U.S. military force would be limited in scope and duration, the United States soon found itself embroiled in a multi-sided conflict that lasted eight years, cost more than a trillion dollars and killed nearly 4,500 American service members (not to mention untold thousands of Iraqis).

You may also recall a young senator named Barack Obama, whose principled opposition to the Iraq War brought him national fame. In October 2002, Obama had this to say about the Bush administration’s case for war in Iraq:

I don’t oppose all wars … What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war … I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied U.N. resolutions, thwarted U.N. inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity … But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States or to his neighbors … I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al Qaeda.

It was a good speech. The kind of speech—full of passion and honesty and good sense—that eventually propelled Obama into the White House.

Ten years later, of course, it’s President Obama who finds himself trying to sell a U.S. military intervention to a reluctant world. The ironies are staggering, and sad.

It’s painful to see this president—the man who once spoke so eloquently against “rash wars” driven by “cynicism” and “politics”—going to war to solely because he’s boxed himself into a rhetorical corner.

Oddly, many in the media seem convinced that Obama’s pledge to seek congressional authorization for a Syria intervention was a clever gamble. It wasn’t. It was, to paraphrase Obama, a dumb gamble. That’s because there is now no good outcome for Obama, only a range of painfully ironic outcomes. Consider the possibilities:

One: Congress votes against authorizing military action in Syria, so Obama decides not to move ahead with military action. But wait: Obama already informed the nation that as commander-in-chief, he has “decided that the United States should take military action against Syrian regime targets … based on what I am convinced is our national security interests.” If that’s true—and if Obama also believes he has the authority to act without congressional authorization—how can he possibly refrain from military action merely because he can’t get enough votes in a famously dysfunctional, do-nothing Congress?

Two: Congress votes against authorizing military action in Syria, and Obama—the one-time constitutional law professor—goes ahead with airstrikes anyway, ignoring the clearly expressed will of Congress.

Three: Congress votes in favor of authorizing military action in Syria, leaving Obama permanently beholden to congressional Republicans. This means the White House can kiss its domestic legislative agenda goodbye.

These are all rotten outcomes for Obama. And, lest I forget, U.S. military action in Syria is also a tragic outcome. The president proposed limited “punitive” air strikes aimed merely at destroying the Assad regime’s chemical weapons capabilities, but these are probably pointless: They won’t change the balance of power in Syria. If we want to change the balance of power—which Obama says doesn’t interest him—we’ll need more extensive strikes aimed at degrading the Assad regime’s military capabilities more broadly. But this, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey warned last week, could easily “escalate and … commit us decisively to the conflict.” (See: Iraq, 2003.)

Humanitarian intervention can have as many unintended and terrible consequences as any other kind of military intervention.

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Pentagon Is Ordered to Expand Potential Targets in Syria With a Focus on Forces

By David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt, NY Times, September 5, 2013

WASHINGTON—President Obama has directed the Pentagon to develop an expanded list of potential targets in Syria in response to intelligence suggesting that the government of President Bashar al-Assad has been moving troops and equipment used to employ chemical weapons while Congress debates whether to authorize military action.

Mr. Obama, officials said, is now determined to put more emphasis on the “degrade” part of what the administration has said is the goal of a military strike against Syria—to “deter and degrade” Mr. Assad’s ability to use chemical weapons. That means expanding beyond the 50 or so major sites that were part of the original target list developed with French forces before Mr. Obama delayed action on Saturday to seek Congressional approval of his plan.

For the first time, the administration is talking about using American and French aircraft to conduct strikes on specific targets, in addition to ship-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles. There is a renewed push to get other NATO forces involved.

The strikes would be aimed not at the chemical stockpiles themselves—risking a potential catastrophe—but rather the military units that have stored and prepared the chemical weapons and carried the attacks against Syrian rebels, as well as the headquarters overseeing the effort, and the rockets and artillery that have launched the attacks, military officials said Thursday.

Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said that other targets would include equipment that Syria uses to protect the chemicals—air defenses, long-range missiles and rockets, which can also deliver the weapons.

Mr. Obama’s instructions come as most members of Congress who are even willing to consider voting in favor of a military response to a chemical attack are insisting on strict limits on the duration and type of the strikes carried out by the United States, while a small number of Republicans are telling the White House that the current plans are not muscular enough to destabilize the Assad government.

Senior officials are aware of the competing imperatives they now confront—that to win even the fight on Capitol Hill, they will have to accept restrictions on the military response, and in order to make the strike meaningful they must expand its scope.

"They are being pulled in two different directions," a senior foreign official involved in the discussions said Thursday.

For now, White House officials insist that they are slowly gaining ground in lining up support, though the evidence is slim.

As the target list expands, the administration is creeping closer to carrying out military action that also could help tip the balance on the ground, even as the administration argues that that is not the primary intent.

The bulk of the American attack is still expected to be carried out by cruise missiles from some or all of the four Arleigh Burke-class destroyers within striking range of Syria in the eastern Mediterranean. Each ship carries about three dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles, a low-flying, highly accurate weapon that can be launched from safe distances of up to about 1,000 miles.

But military planners are now preparing options to include attacks from Air Force bombers, a development reported Thursday by The Wall Street Journal. The Pentagon was initially planning to rely solely on cruise missiles.

Bombers could carry scores more munitions, potentially permitting the United States to carry out more strikes if the first wave does not destroy the targets.

Among the options available are B-52 bombers, which can carry air-launched cruise missiles; B-1s that are based in Qatar and carry long-range, air-to-surface missiles; and B-2 stealth bombers, which are based in Missouri and carry satellite-guided bombs.

The Navy in recent days has moved the aircraft carrier Nimitz into the Red Sea, within striking distance of Syria.

But Defense Department officials said Thursday that the Nimitz, and its squadrons of F-18 Super Hornet attack planes, as well as three missile-toting destroyers in its battle group, are not likely to join any attack unless Syria launches major retaliatory strikes.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told lawmakers on Wednesday that an American operation would cost “in the tens of millions of dollars,” the first time any administration official has put even a rough price tag on the possible strike.

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The Lies Behind This War

By Justin Raimondo, Antiwar.com, September 5, 2013

The American people are “war-weary,” we are told, and that’s the only reason they’re overwhelmingly opposed to bombing Syria: this bit of conventional wisdom is invoked by warmongers and peaceniks alike, but is it true? Well, to some degree, no doubt, but not in any tangible sense: after all, there is no conscription, we have a professional army, and most people are not aware of how war impacts their lives. So if they’re “war weary” it must mean they’re tired of hearing about these faraway conflicts in places they probably can’t find on a map. So yes, the public is indeed weary, but not in the sense the pundits mean. What they are weary of are the lies.

The US government lied us into war in Iraq with some of the most egregious fables this side of the Brothers Grimm. There was the Niger “yellowcake” fabrication—an outright forgery cited in the State of the Union address by George W. Bush. This crude concatenation of documents which took a team of UN specialists less than an hour to debunk was supposed to “prove” the existence of Iraq’s ongoing (and fast-developing) nuclear weapons program. Oh well, back to the drawing board!

There was the Iraqi-intelligence-agent-meets-Mohammed-Atta-in-Prague narrative, a tall tale from beginning to end, which was “leaked” to the neoconservative media and trumpeted as proof positive that Saddam and Al Qaeda were in on the 9/11 attacks together. That turned out to be a hoax. Oh, and don’t forget the Al Qaeda “training camp” that was supposed to have been sheltered and succored by Saddam Hussein—which, along with those famous “weapons of mass destruction,” turned out to be nonexistent. I could go on—but I’m not in the mood to catalogue and describe the complete works of Laurie Mylroie. If you are, please be my guest….

In short, we were lied into war once before with slapped-together bogus “intelligence,” and so the public is wary—and so is Congress, and much of the media, albeit not for the same reasons.

Congress is wary because of the polls—no one wants to own this one. As for the media: they, too, are taking it slow, writing articles about how everyone has “learned the lesson of Iraq.” But their version of that “lesson” has little to do with the “intelligence” we’re being given that’s supposed to justify this latest Crusade for Truth, Justice, and the American Way. For the most part, they’ve swallowed the administration’s account of what supposedly happened at Ghouta, and in earlier incidents of alleged poison gas attacks, which is that Assad “is gassing his own people.”

The blind acceptance of this “fact” is one of the stranger elements of the current war hysteria—because if we truly have learned “the lesson of Iraq” then why is everyone repeating the US government’s war propaganda as if it’s beyond dispute?

One fact is indeed beyond dispute—someone used some kind of chemical warfare agent in the village of Ghouta on Aug. 31. The question is: who did it? John Kerry keeps telling us the rebels couldn’t possibly be responsible because they don’t have that “capability.” But a new report issued by the Russian government claims the sarin gas mixture deployed at a previous and very similar incident in the town of Khan al Assal—the incident the UN team was in Syria to investigate when the Ghouta atrocity occurred—was not military grade. It also purports to show that the rocket delivering the substance was makeshift, not at all like those regularly utilized by the Syrian military.

We’re also being told by the Obama administration the rebels have no access to sarin or other chemical weapons, but you don’t need access to classified information to know this isn’t necessarily true: since various rebel factions now control big swathes of Syrian territory, it’s quite possible they’ve “liberated” chemical weapons caches once controlled by the Syrian government. As the Washington Post reported back in December:

"U.S. officials are increasingly worried that Syria’s weapons of mass destruction could fall into the hands of Islamist extremists, rogue generals or other uncontrollable factions.

"Last week, fighters from a group that the Obama administration has branded a terrorist organization were among rebels who seized the Sheik Suleiman military base near Aleppo, where research on chemical weapons had been conducted. Rebels are also closing in on another base near Aleppo, known as Safirah, which has served as a major production center for such munitions, according to US officials and analysts."

According to a Syrian general who defected this summer, Assad’s chemical weapons sites “are not secure. Probably anyone from the Free Syrian Army or any Islamic extremist group could take them over.”

No chemical warfare capability? Not so fast: the Libyan jihadists who overthrew Qaddafi were among the first foreign fighters to land in Syria, and they certainly had access to the former Libyan dictator’s chemical arsenal. In 2011, the Wall Street Journal reported on “a massive, unguarded weapons depot that is being pillaged daily by anti-Gadhafi military units, hired work crews and any enterprising individual who has the right vehicle and chooses to make the trip.” Included among the goodies: “Artillery rounds designed to carry chemical weapons” which that reporter saw “stashed in the back of” a warehouse.”

During Hillary Clinton’s confirmation hearings, Senator Rand Paul asked her about “rumors” that the Benghazi attack on our embassy was somehow involved with an attempt by the Libyan rebels to ship arms looted from Qaddafi’s arsenal to the Syrian jihadists. Hillary tut-tutted that she’d “never heard” any such thing. Really? Given what’s happening in Syria today, the question arises: were chemical weapons transported from Libya to Syria?

Ha’aretz reported in March that the rebels were definitely behind a chemical weapons attack outside Aleppo, with the chemical of choice apparently chlorine:

"The explosion claimed the lives of Syrian Armed Forces soldiers who are apparently loyal to Assad, and the Syrian government was quick to demand an international investigation of the incident. These two facts would indicate that Assad’s forces were not behind the attack….

"It appears that the target of the attack was a checkpoint manned by Syrian Armed Forces, which reinforces the theory that rebel forces, probably jihadists known to be operating around Aleppo, were behind it. A report by Britain’s Channel Four, based on Syrian military sources, claims that the weapon used in the attack may have been a missile carrying a warhead filled with chlorine mixed into a saline solution. The Syrian source also said that a factory that manufactures chlorine is located nearby."

The last time the Syrian “opposition” raised a hue and cry over alleged chemical attacks by the Assad regime, Carla del Ponte said she had evidence from UN inspectors that the real culprits were … the rebels. She wasn’t listened to. Why is that?

Oh, those cuddly “rebels” would never do anything like use chemical weapons banned internationally: why they’re mostly “moderates,” according to Kerry. Only “fifteen to twenty percent” are Al Qaeda type radicals, he avers. As Vladimir Putin put it the other day, “he is lying and he knows that he is lying.” Jihadists are pouring in from all over the world—including from places like New Zealand, and even the US—to take part in the battle to create an Islamic state in Syria. The armed wing of the “opposition,” as Kerry dubs them, is dominated by radical Islamists formally affiliated with Al Qaeda.

Reuters cites a European expert on terrorism in the region as saying:

"Extremist rebel factions were so strong and well-organized in the north and west of Syria that they were setting up their own public services and trying to create an Islamic ministate along the Iraqi border.

"By contrast, the official said, more moderate rebel factions predominate in the east of Syria and along its southern border with Jordan but have largely devolved into ‘gangs’ whose leaders are more interested in operating local rackets and enriching themselves than in forming a larger alliance that could more effectively oppose Assad’s government."

It makes sense the Obama administration would latch on to “moderates” with a modus operandi similar to their own, but it looks like Syria’s Mod Squad is on the way out as al Nusra and other jihadist groups take the lead.

The lies proliferate like flies on a corpse: Kerry has spent the last week or so telling members of Congress and the American people “no boots on the ground,” and yet it turns out this really means “no combat boots on the ground.” “Noncombat” troops (like the thousands we still have in Iraq) are just fine.

"This isn’t Iraq"—we keep hearing it from the President and his underlings, but that’s a barefaced lie, too. The original authorization for the use of military force proffered by Kerry was so blatantly broad that you could drive a whole regime change operation through it. The only difference in the revised "watered-down" version is that the loopholes aren’t quite so obvious to the untrained un-lawyerly eye. You’ll recall that, up until this point, all aid to the rebels was supposed to have been "non-lethal." John McCain succeeded in slipping in a clause that allows Washington to "upgrade" our "lethal and nonlethal" aid to the rebels in order to "change the momentum" on the battlefield.

Another lie in the form of a half-truth: the often stated factoid that “over 100,000 people have been killed in the Syrian civil war.” This is true as far as it goes, but it raises the question: who is being killed and who are the killers? If you listen to the war-screamers, you get the definite impression that the Assad regime killed them all. The reality is that around 45,000 of the fallen were Syrian army and police: anywhere from 25,000 to 45,000 were jihadists and their “moderate” front men, including foreign fighters. The rest were civilians caught in the crossfire, including a Catholic priest beheaded by the rebels. (Gee, I hope they weren’t from the “moderate” faction!)

Yes, the American people are weary all right—we’re damned comatose with the effects of war propaganda coming at us from all directions, 24/7. We’re sick unto death of being lied to—and wondering why our “free” media feels obliged to regurgitate government press releases as if they were the gospel truth.

This government lies about everything—James “least untruthful” Clapper is the poster boy for the distinct style this gang has brought to the White House. Kerry is fast catching up to him, however, as the whoppers come thick and fast.

These folks are no different from their neocon predecessors—except that the neocons were better liars. The lies they told were bigger, more imaginative, and far more elaborate, although the Obamaites are doing some pretty quick catching up. Perhaps the administration ought to call in veterans of the Bush regime’s old Office of Special Plans for some pointers.

Although, on second thought, maybe the administration is indeed already taking lessons in Advanced Deception from the pros. The alleged “smoking gun” in the US government’s classified account of what happened at Ghouta is an intercepted communication between Unit 8200 of the Syrian army and the Syrian high command, which—we’re told—definitively proved the Syrians’ guilt. The Daily Caller, however, has unearthed the truth: the Obama administration’s report on the interceptions was “doctored,” writes Kenneth Timmerman, according to “former military officers with access to the original intelligence reports.” Timmerman writes:

"The original communication intercepted by Unit 8200 between a major in command of the rocket troops assigned to the 155th Brigade of the 4th Armored Division, and the general staff, shows just the opposite.

"The general staff officer asked the major if he was responsible for the chemical weapons attack. From the tone of the conversation, it was clear that ‘the Syrian general staff were out of their minds with panic that an unauthorized strike had been launched by the 155th Brigade in express defiance of their instructions,’ the former officers say.

"According to the transcript of the original Unit 8200 report, the major ‘hotly denied firing any of his missiles" and invited the general staff to come and verify that all his weapons were present.’"

There’s a note at the end of the report saying the Syrian officer was recalled to headquarters, interrogated for three days, and returned to his unit. “All of his weapons were accounted for,” the report stated.

We’re being lied into war once again—with the complicity of the “mainstream” media, which is ignoring any and all evidence that contradicts the Obama party line.

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Mark Twain's War Prayer

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Bob Dylan- With God on Our Side!

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Interesting things Russia's Putin told the AP

AP, Sept 4, 2013

NOVO-OGARYOVO, Russia (AP)—In an interview with The Associated Press and Russia’s state Channel 1 television, President Vladimir Putin discussed a wide range of issues, including disputes over the Syrian civil war, his relations with President Barack Obama, National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden and the rights of gays in Russia. Here are some interesting things he said in the interview late Tuesday.

1. CHEMICAL WEAPONS VIDEOS DON’T PROVE SYRIA’S GOVERNMENT IS GUILTY. “These are horrible pictures. The question is only who did it and what they did, and who is responsible for this. These pictures do not answer the questions I have just posed. There is an opinion that it’s a compilation by these very rebels, who are connected with al-Qaida and who were always distinguished by exceptional brutality.”

2. RUSSIA WON’T RULE OUT MILITARY ACTION AGAINST SYRIA—IF U.N. SECURITY COUNCIL APPROVES. “I do not exclude this, but I would like to draw your attention to one absolutely key aspect: In line with international law, only the U.N. Security Council can sanction the use of force against a sovereign state. Any other pretext or method which might be used to justify the use of force against an independent sovereign state is inadmissible and can only be interpreted as an aggression.”

3. RUSSIAN SHIPMENTS OF AIR DEFENSE MISSILE SYSTEM TO SYRIA ON HOLD—FOR NOW. “We have a contract for the delivery of the S-300s. We have supplied some of the components, but the delivery hasn’t been completed. We have suspended it for now. But if we see that steps are taken that violate the existing international norms, we shall think how we should act in the future, in particular regarding supplies of such sensitive weapons to certain regions of the world.”

4. RELATIONS WITH OBAMA CAN BE TESTY—BUT THAT’S NORMAL. “President Obama hasn’t been elected by the American people in order to be pleasant to Russia. And your humble servant hasn’t been elected by the people of Russia to be pleasant to someone either. We work, we argue about some issues. We are human. Sometimes one of us gets vexed. But I would like to repeat once again that global mutual interests form a good basis for finding a joint solution to our problems.”

5. … AND DON’T READ TOO MUCH INTO BODY LANGUAGE. “There are some gestures, of course, that you can only interpret one way. But no one has ever seen those kinds of gestures directed by Obama at me or by me at Obama, and I hope that never happens. Everything else is fantasy.”

6. NO OFFENSE, BUT U.S. SPIES LOST THE PLOT ON NSA LEAKER EDWARD SNOWDEN. “Representatives of the American special services—and I hope they won’t be angry—but they could have been more professional, and the diplomats as well. After they found out that he was flying to us, and that he was flying as a transit passenger, there was pressure from all sides—from the Americans, from the Europeans—instead of just letting him go to a country where they could operate easily.”

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Ten Reasons Why America Does Not Need to Go to War Over Syria

By John W. Whitehead, The Rutherford Institute, September 4, 2013

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, from those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.—Dwight D. Eisenhower

For once, I would love to hear a government official reject a call to war because it is immoral; because we have greater needs here at home that require our attention and our funds; because we’re already $1 trillion poorer due to these endless, mindless wars; because America should not be policing the world; because we refuse to enrich the military industrial complex while impoverishing our nation; because endless wars will never result in peace; because we have meddled enough in foreign policy in the Middle East and cannot risk any further blowback; because we’re sick and tired of fomenting civil wars in far-flung places; because we’re not going to assist rebel fighters in overthrowing a foreign government, only to later unseat those same forces when they can’t be controlled; because using the overused fear tactic about “weapons of mass destruction” doesn’t carry much weight anymore; because the only “compelling national security interest” right now is taking back control of our run-away government; because in the words of Jean-Paul Sartre, “When the rich wage war, it’s the poor who die”; because while there may be causes worth dying for, there are none worth killing for; because Gandhi was right when he asked “What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?”; because all war is a crime; and because there are never any winners in war, only losers.

Instead, we hear the same sorry lines about “national security interests,” “the costs of doing nothing” and “show[ing] the world that America keeps our commitments” trotted out by those who have either been bought out by the defense industry or are so far removed from war’s terrible consequences—the deaths of innocent civilians, the orphans who must struggle to survive, the soldiers who return home crippled and broken, bearing the physical and mental scars of the battle zone—that the decision to go to war is reduced to little more than policy debates and those directly impacted are little more than pawns on a chess board.

It’s particularly telling that Sen. John McCain, whose meeting with President Obama allegedly persuaded him that blocking the Syria strike would be catastrophic, was caught on camera playing poker on his iPhone during a U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearing concerning the use of force in Syria and then laughed it off as an understandable reaction to a three-hour hearing. Or that President Obama, despite the urgency of the Syria “crisis,” departed for the golf course with Vice President Biden 30 minutes after delivering his Syria speech. In other words, it’s business as usual in the Beltway, with all the perks that go along with being part of the political elite that gets to declare war and then sit back and watch while others pay the price.

So, now that we’re fully distracted and have forgotten about Edward Snowden’s damning revelations about the NSA and the fact that the government has been paying AT&T to have its employees monitor Americans’ phone calls as part of a DEA drug monitoring program, not to mention the fact that the IRS has been secretly using the DEA surveillance and then instructing its agents to cover their tracks, what about Syria?

First, make no mistake, whether you’re talking about limited military strikes with no “boots on the ground” as President Obama and Congress are suggesting, or a full-on tactical invasion and occupation, it still constitutes an act of war. For my part, the debate is not over whether President Obama can unilaterally declare war under the Constitution (he can’t), or whether it is Congress’ place to do so, but whether this should be our priority at all.

Second, just as it seemed as if we might be able to bring our troops home and put an end to the $1 trillion hemorrhaging caused by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Obama starts banging the war drums against Syria. No matter what the politicians say about the need for military action to set an example, send a message to terrorists, and show support for our “friends” in Israel and elsewhere, Americans are tired of these endless wars.

Third, we need to get out of the toppling dictators and empowering rebels game. Either we’re not very good at it, or we’re attempting to ensure that there’s always a demand for the weapons we’re so eager to produce and supply to the rest of the world. For example, consider that 40 years ago, we were arming some of the very Afghan rebel troops we’ve been fighting for the past decade with sophisticated weapons. These religious rebels constituted a convenient and useful part of our Cold War strategy against the Soviet Union. In fact, in 1979 Osama bin Laden, a guerrilla warrior for the mujahedeen, fought alongside the CIA to defend Afghanistan against the invading Soviets. Then he moved to the top of our enemies list. Same with Saddam Hussein. Doubtless it will be the same in Syria, where we would be acting in support of al Qaeda-affiliated rebels. Mother Jones magazine reported in a 1999 article that the U.S.—an equal opportunity agent—“has a nasty habit of arming both sides in a conflict, as well as countries with blighted democracy or human rights-records.”

Fourth, we need to stop letting armament manufacturers dictate our foreign policy. It’s been going on too long, and all we have to show for it is war and more war. Recognizing this, President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s final advice to the incoming President in January 1961 was to beware of the military-industrial complex. The complex had, in effect, encouraged the Cold War arms race and reckless military adventures, which eventually led to the Vietnam debacle. It’s no coincidence that this call for military intervention in Syria, aimed at fattening the defense budget, comes in the midst of automatic spending cuts to the Pentagon—cuts opposed by Obama, the defense industry, and McCain, among others. As The Hill reports: “U.S. military action in Syria could give the White House an advantage in the looming fiscal showdown with congressional Republicans…if strikes against Syria are launched, it will be ‘very, very difficult to insist’ on the defense sequester.”

Fifth, enough with the outrage over the use of weapons of mass destruction, already. Remember, that was the Bush administration’s rationale for attacking Iraq, and it turned out there were no weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, as Foreign Policy reports, when Iraq and Iran were waging war against each other in the late 1980’s, “U.S. intelligence officials conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that Hussein’s military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal nerve agent.” Even if Syria does possess chemical weapons and used them against rebel fighters, the larger question is who or what supplied them? And why would we circumvent the United Nations in order to set ourselves up as judge, jury and jailer? As a Middle Eastern history professor rightly asked: “Can a government that supported the use of chemical weapons in one conflict claim any moral, political or legal authority militarily to attack another country for using the same weapons, particularly when the attack is not authorised by the UN Security Council?”

Sixth, banging the war drums and continuing to act the bully does little to advance peace or preserve national security. It will definitely result in blowback, however. As Tariq Ali noted in his excellent treatise on the Islamic mind, The Clash of Fundamentalism: Crusades, Jihad, and Modernity (Verso, 2002):

To fight tyranny and oppression by using tyrannical and oppressive means, to combat a single-minded and ruthless fanaticism by becoming equally fanatical and ruthless, will not further the cause of justice or bring about a meaningful democracy. It can only prolong the cycle of violence.

Seventh, we need to stop spending money we don’t have on wars we can’t win which leave us in hock to foreign debt-holders such as China. At roughly $729 billion this past year (which does not include an additional $100 billion in benefits for veterans), the U.S. military budget has skyrocketed out of all proportion. In fact, the U.S. spent more on its military in 2011 than the 13 highest-ranking nations with big defense budgets combined. The Pentagon, whose budget consumes 80% of individual tax revenue, spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety. Consider that the cost of stationing the U.S. military in Afghanistan for one day costs more than it did to build the entire Pentagon.

Eighth, Bob Dylan was right—we are masters of war. Fifty years after 21-year-old Bob Dylan penned his diatribe against war profiteering, “Masters of War,” it continues to ring true in a world armed to the teeth with U.S. government-financed weapons. The United States is the leading international supplier of armaments, some of which inevitably end up in our enemies’ hands, as well as those of terrorists. As William D. Hartung, director of the Arms Trade Resource Center, pointed out in his report, “Welfare for Weapons Dealers: The Hidden Costs of the Arms Trade,” “Domestic economic considerations have emerged as a predominant factor in arms transfer decision making.” In other words, how much money private U.S. companies can make is often the determination in deciding which international agents the U.S. government approves to buy our weapons.

Ninth, our claim to the moral high ground in this Syria discussion is nothing short of hypocritical given our historic use of weapons widely condemned by the global community. As journalist Andrea Germanos reports:

From cluster bombs to depleted uranium to napalm, recent history of U.S. warfare shows a trail of weapons leaving long-lasting civilian harm… According to the Cluster Munition Coalition, from the 1960s to 2006, the U.S. dropped cluster bombs on Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Albania, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Napalm was not only widely used by the U.S. during the years of the Vietnam War but also in 2003 during the invasion of Iraq, though it only admitted to having used it in Iraq after irrefutable evidence was out.

The U.S. also used white phosphorus on Iraq and Afghanistan. White phosphorus was used in 2004 during the assault on Fallujah, and the New York Times reported its use as recently as in 2011 in Afghanistan.

And finally, as Albert Einstein recognized, “Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.” This is not about what Obama wants, or what Congress agrees to—the decision to go to war ultimately rests with the American people. We need to say no to war.

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Jack Cuozzo

http://www.jackcuozzo.com/

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Jack Cuozzo- The Fraud of Link Modification

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