31 Aug 2013
Our monthly protest against a drone command center in Horsham, PA also addressed the proposed bombing of Syria. Here's a 10 minute speech by President Obama where he sums up his case for bombing Syria in terms of international credibility when weapons like nerve gas are used.
What's the evidence that nerve gas was used by the regime of President Bashar Assad? RT interviews the investigative journalist Pepe Escobar, who says:
The evidence that they have was offered essentially by Benny Gantz – the chief of the Israeli Defense Force – directly to Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was intel, basically, by Mossad. It can be extremely compromised. On top of this, we have a triple agenda here: the Obama administration, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Bandar “Bush” [Bandar bin Sultan – RT] is in charge of the Syrian war since he became director of national intelligence in Saudi Arabia.
Does the Obama Administration have any credibility problems as regards Weapons of Mass Destruction? Actually, yes. The problem is that many other nations don't just use the US definition of WMD as including just nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, they include depleted uranium (Used in US tank shells during both the 1991 Gulf War and in the 2003 invasion of Iraq), white phosphorous (Allegedly used by Israel in the Gaza Strip in 2009), cluster bombs and anti-personnel mines.
Colonel (Retired) Ann Wright writes about the attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 that cost the US “220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers.” She cites an NSA-intercepted message to
[the Iranian] ambassador, Ali Akbar Mohtashemi, in Damascus. The message directed the ambassador to "take spectacular action against the American Marines.” The intercepted message, dated September 26, was not passed to the Marines until a month later on October 26: three days after the bombing.
Blowback? Probably. After all, the US had acted to support the Shah of Iran just four years earlier and Wright details tremendous firepower directed at a fellow Islamic nation.
Our singer, Tom Mullian. His song with a panning shot of the protest.
As a writer from Common Dreams comments on the whole concept of “credibility:”
Our missiles will unleash stupid violence. Unnecessary violence. Hypocritical violence.
Stupid violence because it extends yet further the hatred that so many in the Middle East must feel for our crudely righteous meddling.
And yes George W. Bush, when it comes to “crudely righteous meddling,” we're looking at you!
Video of Bob Smith of the Brandywine Peace Community as he speaks on drones.
A Syrian blogger, taking a view outside that of US leftists, states:
In addition to endangering my family's lives, the proposed "punitive strikes" that are all but inevitable probably won't make anything better on the ground, and may make things worse, which is why I'm against them. My opinion on American intervention in general and in this conflict in particular...is that the US is not to be trusted to act in anything but what it sees as its interests, and often a woefully short-sighted understanding of those interests to boot.
We Are Many (audio presentation) also questions whether there is or can ever be such a thing a humanitarian intervention or whether it's just always a mere pretext for imperialist war-mongering.
This was the protest in downtown Philadelphia called by Philly Against War.
Solutions? The Independent first points out that:
In one crucial respect Assad is in a stronger position than Slobodan Milosovic in Serbia, Saddam Hussein in Iraq or Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. These three leaders were internationally isolated, while Assad has powerful and committed foreign allies. Russia is standing firmly by Assad as it reasserts its status as a great power after 20 years of retreats and humiliations that culminated in the Libyan war of 2011. It feels it was double-crossed then into agreeing to humanitarian military intervention by Nato which swiftly became a campaign to overthrow Gaddafi.
And then offers a solution:
The best interim solution could be a UN-monitored ceasefire as briefly occurred under the Kofi Annan plan in 2012. All sides are dependent on outside backers, and even those who most want to fight need weapons, ammunition and money. Heavy pressure could be put on them to agree to a peace conference and a temporary ceasefire.
This would be a Lebanese-style truce – unsatisfactory but better than full-scale war. A peace conference on this basis could be the political and diplomatic counterpart to the limited US military strike President Obama is contemplating.
A speaker and David Gibson of the Peace Coalition, based in Princeton, NJ.
The President has said he will confer with Congress. The two Pennsylvania Senators can be reached here and here and you can look up your Representative here.