Sunday, September 1, 2013

Assad's Useful Idiots

It's getting tiresome that every time it looks like we're going to be treated to a rare use of U.S. power to do good, the usual suspects pop up to screech in opposition. We saw it in the Balkans, during the Serbian depredations there. We saw it in Libya, when the Libyan people, inspired by the Tunisians, became part of the Arab Spring and rose up against their pathological dictator Qaddafi, and the U.S. and some European powers provided critical air support to the rebellion. (This is called “bombing Libya” and “the war in Libya” by the knee-jerk anti-American crowd.) Now they're at it again, rushing to protect the loathsome Assad tyranny in Syria.

There are now 1,429 people, including 426 children, counted as the dead from the latest Assad poison gas attack on August 21st. Another approximately 1,500 are suffering the aftereffects of whatever poison Assad unleashed on them. Presented in this light, the victims are just numbers. Unless you have an imagination. But you don't even need an imagination. You can view some of the numerous videos of the victims. You can listen to the anguished and outraged voices of the survivors (on BBC anyway; I haven't heard the voices on U.S. media, including the “alternative” media, which confines itself to people demanding that the U.S. not “invade” Syria. Apparently firing cruise missiles constitutes “invasion”).

Lost in the struggle over a response to this atrocity is yet a newer atrocity, reported by BBC Panorama on BBC World Service radio, which had a team on the scene in Aleppo when an Assad jet dropped a firebomb on a school playground, instantly killing ten children and horribly burning scores of others, most of whom will probably die without the advanced medical treatment they require. (The survivors will be left gruesomely scarred.) This has gone virtually unreported by the U.S. media. If the U.S. had taken out the six remaining Assad airbases already, as it should have long ago done, this latest atrocity would have been prevented. (Assad's other air bases have been captured, at great cost, by the rebels, sloughing it out on the ground against enormous odds.) But there are hopeful signs that Obama's dithering is nearing its end: a sixth U.S. destroyer packing cruise missiles has been dispatched to the eastern Mediterranean sea, within striking distance of Assad's assets. (Assad is already placing human shields in and around possible targets, as I anticipated he'd do, so the regime can scream about civilian casualties if the U.S. attacks. That'll be rich. And privileged elites in Syria are scurrying for shelter.)

But don't think Americans are callous. The story of a subway line being shut down in New York City while a couple of kittens were rescued from the tracks not only made it onto radio stations, but rated an article in the Newspaper of Record, the New York Times. [August 30th.] Awww, that's so heartwarming! (Hey, don't get me wrong. I think kittens are cute too. But how about caring about human beings under brutal, unrelenting assault? Or is there only enough available compassion to care either about kittens or humans?)

But about those useful idiots. In both the U.S. and UK, they roll out common tropes to oppose U.S. military action. Here is a good example that encapsulates the themes of this “anti-war” campaign,
from a presumably intelligent fellow, given charge over an academic center by an American University,* who conflates missiles fired from offshore with an “invasion,” a guy by the name of Bassam Haddad, who first presents Assad regime atrocities as hypotheticals, and additionally equates them with rebel atrocities in sooo even-handed fashion (hey, during World War Two there were Jews who killed Nazis, so I guess that gets the Nazis off the hook for the Holocaust) with emphases added by me:

“What I think we should do first, before we actually begin to talk about any of this, is to recognize that this is not—no longer about the Syrian regime and whatever atrocities it may have committed and whatever atrocities the rebels may have committed. This is about invading a sovereign country before even the evidence is out, before even the U.N. inspectors are out. There are decisions to already invade, to attack, to launch a strike on Syria, by a country that we should actually check the record of. The United States is not qualified to do what it claims it wants to do, as a result of its own record in violating international law for a very long time and supporting dictators and rogue regimes and the apartheid state of Israel in opposition to all manners of international law. The United States violated international law by attacking and invading a country on false premise, which is Iraq in 2003. And most importantly, the United States, in Iraq, has actually used nerve agent, mustard gas and/or white phosphorus in Fallujah and beyond, left depleted uranium all over the country in Iraq, ruined and destroyed the lives of generations as a result, and now claims that it needs to do this to protect Syrian civilians, which is exactly the opposite of what will happen in any invasion or any strike on Syria, which is not possible to happen in the surgical manner that is being discussed right now.” [Democracy Now, August 30, 2013.]

He really touches all the bases there, eh? (Actually he forgot to mention slavery, and the near-extermination of the American Indians.) To his implied assertion that the U.S. has no right to act militarily because it has unclean hands, I would say this; standing idly by while a slaughter is occurring, when you have the power to stop it or at least impede it, is at least a moral crime. And the U.S. cannot atone for its past sins by refusing to use its power for good. To the contrary. And what other nation has the means- that isn't allied with Assad- to intervene? And to that dishonest bit about “invading a sovereign country before even the evidence is out, before even the U.N. inspectors are out,” I don't think more “evidence” would change Haddad's thinking one iota either. There is already no doubt that chemical weapons were used. And the UN team is explicitly NOT going to weigh on on who fired them.

And by the way, Bassam, what alternative universe are you living in that you think the U.S. is about to invade Syria? Obama MIGHT order some cruise missile strikes from the Mediterranean. He's made it abundantly clear that NO WAY WILL HE EVER INVADE. And there is no reason to doubt it.

But Bassam is not totally insensitive to the Syrians suffering, he's just “sensible.” Read on:

“What is happening in Syria is horrific, not just what just happened in the past week. The death of more than 100,000 people, the existence of more than two million refugees—many of them, if not half, are children—is, as we have heard in the earlier report, is just horrendous. This is actually all the more reason not to take such actions, because any strike will actually end up escalating the situation beyond any control.” (All emphases added.)

Will it? And what does doing nothing do? Solve the problem? Cause Assad to stop his war? At least other nations should degrade the regime's military assets, and try and deter it from using poison gas again. The regime already tested that “red line” Obama verbally drew earlier this year, and nothing happened. The pattern is clear: escalating use of nerve toxins, testing whether the U.S. will actually back up its words with deeds. Doing nothing will make things worse, guaranteed. And as others in the Hands Off Assad chorus do, Haddad uses a number of somewhat contradictory arguments to try and talk the U.S. out of striking- that it'll be ineffective; that it'll make things worse for the Syrians; that it'll unleash a regional catastrophe and a massive war that the U.S. will be embroiled in. Well, is it just a symbolic pinprick or Vietnam War redux? It can't be both.

I love his boldness is citing the mass death and suffering as “all the more reason not to take” military action. The worse things get, the more reason not to intervene. So counterintuitive, which no doubt is part of its attraction to an academic mind such as his. Academics HATE HATE HATE the obvious. It's so unsubtle. And it doesn't take a smart person to figure out. (Rendering academics superfluous.) Unfortunately for their preferences, the obvious is usually true. That's why it's obvious.

But you can't win with these people. The U.S. is blamed, rightly, for allowing the mass slaughter in Rwanda to occur, by blocking UN intervention there. But these jokers always oppose any use of military force by Western powers, based on the premise that any such use is ipso facto imperialist. (Although even if we were to concede the point, I'll bet that the people butchered in places like Rwanda would much prefer to be living “victims” of “Western imperialism” than dead victims of their own countrymen.) They wring their hands and condemn the West for not stopping every bad thing, but object to military action. They think the West is omnipotent, but rule out use of Western military power.

They have this airy notion that “negotiations” are the solution to all problems. So if someone had just “negotiated” with the machete-wielding maniacs in Rwanda, for example, they would have “Okay, we won't kill all the Tutsis.” Or Assad would say “Okay I'll allow free and fair elections and give up power peacefully.”

Like I said, useful idiots.

Stunning naivete even made it into the U.S. corporate media, in the person of Tavis Smiley, a radio host, who appeared on one of the Sunday morning Washington elite gab shows (This Week with George Stephanopoulos, on ABC, Sept. 1st.) Smiley invoked Martin Luther King, Jr, whose whose 1963 “I Have A Dream” speech at the large rally in D.C. that year has just been memorialized on its 50th anniversary by the establishment AND “alternate” media. He said King would oppose military action. (So what? So would Gandhi, and Howard Zinn, and all committed pacifists. Zinn came to believe that it was unnecessary to fight fascism in World War II.) Smiley repeatedly said this would lead to mutual annihilation. His “solution”? Some vague peaceful resolution, with no actual plan to bringing such an unrealistic thing about.

Apparently the “any conflict can be solved by negotiations” crowd didn't notice that several UN special envoys tried futilely to engage Assad, and that the U.S. and others have been dickering with the Russians and Chinese for two years in the Security Council. (Some joker on the BBC just called for “talks with all parties,” including the Russians. As if multiple efforts to “talk” haven't occurred already.)

Never thought I'd ever agree with Peggy Noonan about anything, who was on the same show with Smiley, but she nailed it exactly right. It would be awful for the world to stand by and just watch while a dictator gassed his own people, she said. (Unfortunately that has happened before, indeed worse. During the Iraq war of aggression against Iran in the 1980s, Saddam Hussein gassed Kurdish villages in his own country, thanks to chemicals sold to him by the U.S. and Europe. Oh, and the Pentagon's “Defense Intelligence Agency” put out a bogus report blaming Iran for the gassing! In other words, covering for Hussein. Going back farther, the first use of poison gas against civilians was by Winston Churchill in the 1920s against uppity Kurdish tribes in then-British-ruled Iraq who were being ornery about submitting to their English masters. One more point about Noonan: too bad she didn't have the same moral clarity when she worked as a propagandist for Ronald Reagan, the butcher of Central America and southern Africa, during the 1980s)

Now it's true that the U.S. is imperialist, and commits many crimes. That doesn't make everything it does criminal. Nor does it mean that anyone or nation it attacks is an innocent victim of U.S. aggression. And I'm certainly not so naïve as to think that moral or humanitarian concerns motivate U.S. behavior, the fine words of its officials and propagandists notwithstanding. As I have said before, a good act is still good even if the motives are selfish, calculated, political. It is unrealistic to demand purity of motive. Doing the right thing is good enough, and certainly better than not doing it. It ill behooves people who present themselves as progressive, humanitarian, and peace-loving to block action that could save victims of vicious tyrannies. But increasingly that's what many leftists are doing. In this they are the mirror-image of the right. The right defends U.S.-allied dictators and attacks ones the U.S. opposes. With the left, it's exactly the opposite. In both cases, intellectual and moral dishonesty is required for the exercise. Both cloak their ideologically-driven positions in moral terms. That is a sham, as their inconsistencies prove.

From the first word of the latest nerve agent attack, voices in the Western media have cast doubt on the regime's guilt by claiming it would be irrational for then to do it (as if the regime is rational!). After all, it makes the regime look bad, they reasoned. And there was already a UN inspection team in country to investigate previous chemical attacks. And cui bono, who benefits? Why, the rebels do! (As if the rebels could count on Western intervention. They've given up on that, through two years of bitter disappointment and empty promises. There has been plenty of examples of them voicing their disillusionment and sense of betrayed in the western media. I doubt if they'd calculate “Aha! Let's gas ourselves! Then the U.S. will intervene!” Obama had just broken yet another promise- to send arms. Apparently the skeptics have a lot more faith in the eagerness of the West to get involved than the rebels do.)

The truth is, the regime benefits plenty. They already knew they'd just lie. And they calculated that once again, the U.S. would do nothing. And they would just claim the rebels gassed themselves, just as they'd previously pinned their own atrocities on rebel forces. And they could count on useful western idiots speculating that indeed the rebels did it to their own people, to provoke a Western military response. (Assad's backer, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, is helping out by asserting that the rebels gassed their own turf to provoke the U.S. into riding to their rescue. Only problems with that little theory: 1) the rebels don't have the extensive poisons used in the attack, not to mention all the evidence proving the regime did it, and 2) the rebels have given up on the U.S. helping them.) [1]

The Assad regime is utterly ruthless. Apparently the skeptics are blithely unaware of how savage and extreme their violence has been. And the area attacked was a Damascus suburb, dangerously close to the center of the regime's power, Damascus itself, a launching pad for rebel attacks on the preeminent stronghold of the Assad regime. If Assad lose Damascus, Syria would fracture into pieces. The rebels needed to be stopped there decisively. There was no reason NOT to use gas, to inflict mass casualties on the “terrorists” (anyone in rebel-held areas).


For the morons who just won't accept facts (including not just “alternative” media but even U.S. establishment media, including the government's National Public Radio system, who keep calling the gas attack “alleged,” not who did it being alleged, but the fact of the gassing itself even occurring), here's some of the evidence:

96 videos documenting the victims suffering and deaths.

Numerous reports from Syrians trapped in the area.

Doctors Without Borders, which sponsors the medical facilities in the areas, reporting on what happened, and their rushing more atropine, the antidote to nerve agents, to the area.

Satellites tracked he launching of rockets from Assad areas into the victims' location.

Assad regime forces donned gas masks.

Assad regime officials and officers overheard discussing the attack, before and after. One heard worrying about the UN inspectors finding evidence. (What a “wimp,” by Assad regime standards!)
The regime bombarding the area after the attack to destroy evidence.

Stalling the UN inspectors from going to the area for five days, and then shooting at their vehicles, forcing them to turn back.

Of course, the Assad-Alawite regime says it's all “fabricated.”

As we have seen, one line that various “anti-war activists” (a disingenuous and deceptive designation for a motley crew of sectarian leftists and people with an extreme allergy to American power, and ONLY to American power) are pushing is that the U.S. used chemical weapons (white phosphorous, and depleted uranium, which they misrepresent as a chemical weapon, used in tank shells) in Iraq, (some also toss in the fact that Israel used white phosphorous, which indeed is nasty, and in the case of using it on Gaza hospitals during their last full-fledged invasion there, a crime) with the implication (I presume, since they don't spell out any of the following) that therefore the U.S. has no right to retaliate against Assad for doing the same (or maybe it's okay if Assad uses sarin on the people he insists on either ruling or killing since the U.S. did such and such) and is hypocritical. (I can think of worse sins than hypocrisy. Standing idly by while a depraved dictator commits atrocities and doing nothing, for example. And besides, Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue, so it isn't always so bad.)

By that logic, the U.S. shouldn't have fought on the same side as the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany because the Soviet Union did bad things too. Power is not pure.

Oh, and don't forget, the rebels have done some nasty things too. (Surprise! When people are subjected to atrocities, they sometimes take revenge, and not always justly.)

In their alternative universe, the “anti-war” leftists seem to be under the delusion that the U.S. is going to invade Syria. (Some perhaps know better and are simply being cynical.) They keep talking about a U.S. “invasion” and “troops going into Syria.” No such option is under consideration, which is obvious. It's simply irrational to present the issue in these terms.

“Hey hey, ho ho, war in Syria has got to go!” So went a chant by several hundred sectarians and professional anti-Americans (who claim to be “anti-war,” but they seem to be real selective about which “wars” they oppose) and pro-Assad Syrians at an “anti-war” rally in Times Square, in New York City. Another catchy slogan they bellowed went “We Don't Want No World War Three!” Right. According to this ilk, any proposed U.S. military action automatically starts World War III. Opinions of participants at the rally: “We are tired of U.S. aggression around the world...the U.S. doesn't have the moral authority” to intervene, and U.S. wars such as in Iraq and Afghanistan “end badly;” “We here don't want another war...wars don't bring peace.” (Actually they do, once they end, although “bring” is the wrong word. Of course wars aren't supposed to bring peace, they occur in order to resolve conflicts by force in favor of one side. Sometimes they do this, sometimes they partially do this, sometimes they fail utterly to resolve underlying conflicts.) The rally was mostly Syrian supporters of Assad, and a gang called “The International Action Center.” Their “action” consists of rushing to denounce and trying to block any action against dictators on the outs with the U.S., such as Slobodan Milosevic, the Serb who wrecked Yugoslavia. A former “Communist” political hack, he decided the best way for him to grab power post-Tito was by stoking murderous Serbian chauvinism- aka “nationalism.” When, finally, after years of atrocities like the massacre of 8,000 defenseless Muslim men and boys, the years-long siege of Sarajevo, rape camps, and much else, the West was finally forced to do something, the IAC saw it as U.S. “aggression” designed to steal “Yugoslavia's” oil. (Huh? Yeah, that was actually their line. I know, they're nuts. Their current line on Syria parrots exactly the Assad regime's line, namely the whole thing is a case of U.S.-sponsored terrorism and war against Syria. And Turkey's an aggressor too. You remember Turkey. That's the country whose citizens Assad has shelled and murdered, and a couple of whose jets the Assad regime shot down over the Mediterranean. That aggressor.)

Too bad the “anti-war” crowd doesn't seem to oppose the civil war Assad is waging against 80% of the Syrians. Or the war the Serbs waged against the Croats and Muslims. Or the war Saddam Hussein waged against Kuwait- that was also an occupation and annexation. And why oppose just the Israeli occupation of Lebanon and not the Syrian one? Speaking of hypocrisy and double-standards, it's not just the U.S. that is guilty of them.

Of course they have a boilerplate “solution,” always the same one. “Dialogue.” Fine. As if no one has tried to talk to Assad for two years. As if several high-level UN envoys weren't dispatched to try and reason with him. As if there hasn't been two years of futile palaver in the UN Security Council. Or to take Afghanistan, the U.S. has been desperate to engage the Taliban in peace talks. So far all that has happened is the payment of millions of dollars in bribes to con men, and the sequential murder of the top Afghan peace negotiator, appointed by Karzai, twice, by Taliban assassins. You know, sometimes you can't talk your way out of a problem. (These clowns might learn something if they look up the record of a fellow named Hitler, Adolf, and the various negotiations and deals that were cut with him and how those ended up.)

But the “average” American apparently agrees that the U.S. should do nothing about Syria. A Zogby poll finds only 7% support U.S. military intervention. Similarly the British public is opposed to involvement. The indifference of Western populations contrasts in a way unflattering to them with the heroic fortitude of the 80% of the Syrian populace under unrelenting, savage assault from the sociopathic Assad regime.“We can't be the world's policeman” is a sentiment now voiced by “average” Americans. Thus the objection to the U.S. being the “world's policeman” has migrated from the political margins to the mainstream. (The idea that U.S. aggression and imperialism to impose desired regimes on other countries constituted a form of law enforcement actually originated in U.S. Imperialist jargon, to distort and cover the illegitimacy of coups, invasions, and impositions of U.S. client dictators on victim peoples. So now the very idea of a global cop is discredited, even though there is a need for enforcement of international law, including humanitarian law, and laws of war, such as prohibition on use of chemical weapons. Unfortunately the U.S. does commit crimes too, and refuses to submit to international law, as when it blew off the World Court verdict against it for crimes against Nicaragua in the 1980s.)

But a few cruise missiles blowing up some buildings doesn't amount to a war. The actual war in Syria is the savage civil war started by the Assad regime gunning down protesters for democracy in the streets of Syrian two years ago. Limited U.S. strikes wouldn't be a war, although they would be acts of war if the Assad regime chose to so construe them. (Those experts on international law, the Russians, have weighed in with the assertion that a U.S. attack would be illegal. Thanks for the free legal consultation, comrades. Much obliged. Oh, almost forgot to mention- the Russian are continually resupplying the Assad regime with the weapons to keep slaughtering Syrians. By the way, the Russians are “experts” in crushing insurrections. Take a look at the photos of what they did to Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, Looks like Berlin, 1945.)

Turkey's Prime Minister Erdogan has just called for Assad's ouster. Good idea. But that won't be easy, since Assad has powerful allies in Russia and Iran, plus Hezbollah, which is firmly embedded in Lebanon. And there is reasonable trepidation about unpredictable consequences, such as region-wide sectarian violence, terrorist attacks, and Assad playing the Israel card by attacking Israel. And the always feckless and morally disgusting “Arab League,” a club of dictators and oligarchies, declines to call for a U.S. response to the gassing. (Human rights? What are those?)

But is doing nothing really preferable? What a pathetic cop-out that would be. (And morally craven to boot.) But it seems Obama maybe realizes now that he has no choice, having painted himself into a corner with his “red line” bluff. Now U.S. credibility is on the line, a precious commodity that other U.S. politicians insist must be defended. So as usual, if the morally justified (indeed morally imperative) is to occur (in this case attacks to degrade Assad's ability to slaughter), it is only because coldly calculated political pragmatism forces it.

To a great extent, recent acts of imperialism are catching up with the U.S in the current crisis, namely the invasion of Iraq. (The long war in Afghanistan is also lumped in with that, although it is simplistic to see that as imperialism, or only imperialism.) And the cynical alibi and pretext the Bush-Cheney regime drummed up to invade Iraq, the fake “weapons of mass destruction” hoax, is coming back to bite the successor Obama regime on the butt. That obviously fraudulent “intel” is now being invoked to discredit or at least cast doubt on the overwhelming evidence that Assad is using lethal nerve agents to defeat the rebellion against his monstrous misrule. But this time it really is different.

First, there IS NO DOUBT that Assad HAS these weapons. It is no fabrication to say that. No one denies it, not even the Assad regime. (The situation was the opposite in the case of Iraq. The regime of Saddam Hussein denied having so-called weapons of mass destruction- and many Western experts agreed, including former disarmament inspector Scott Ritter- and in fact the regime didn't have them.) And the evidence in the Syrian case is solid. Even before Iraq was invaded, the “evidence” was discredited, although the U.S. media ignored that fact for the most part. [2]

It's unfortunate that Kerry's speech, the content of which was perfectly reasonable and true, unavoidably sounded like Colin Powell's fraudulent UN presentation when he pounded the table presenting the “case” that Iraq had WMD, including imaginary mobile chemical weapons labs. (Or were they bioweapons labs on wheels?) That's the trouble with lying; when you get caught, you lose credibility. (The other kind of credibility, that is, trustworthiness.) The speeches certainly sound the same, superficially: a tone of moral outrage, with claims of atrocious and unlawful behavior. So the opponents of doing anything, who range from the war weary masses (don't see why they should be war weary, it's not as if they've been under bombardment, or subject to rationing, or to onerous taxation, or have lost millions or hundreds of thousands or even tens of thousands of dead) to the professional anti-Westerners and various sectarian cultists, have an easy layup shot here, (dare I call it a “slam dunk”?), invoking the Iraq invasion with its attendant false claims to provide a pretext.

Another big difference between Iraq and Syria, besides the fact that this time the call to action is not based on lies, is that the U.S., or at least its President, DOESN'T want to get involved, and certainly doesn't want to invade and ISN'T GOING TO INVADE.

Finally, there was no concern at all for the welfare of the Iraqi people in the U.S. invasion of that country. Here concern for the Syrians provides pressure to act. (Of course the primary motives are restoring U.S. credibility, and responding to the possible threat of future use of chemical weapons against U.S. targets or its allies, by Syria, terrorists, or other states emboldened by U.S. fecklessness. Humanitarianism is NEVER sufficient motive to prompt U.S. military action, not in the Balkans, not in Haiti, not anywhere ever. That's a sad commentary on the backward state of our species' evolution. The entire world should always respond to stop atrocities. That would be what one would expect. The fact that it doesn't happen points to the dangerously undeveloped condition of homo sapiens.) [3]

The Assad regime's response is smarmy, disingenuous, insulting, and at least in large measure the opposite of truth, as always. They're '”waiting for normal nations, for civilized nations, to realize that we are fighting al-Qaeda here,” in the words of an Assad accomplice. And of course denying they used sarin, the rebels did it to themselves. [On Sunday Sept. 1st, John Kerry revealed on his TV talk rounds that chemical proof of sarin was found in hair and blood samples taken from victims.]

To take another case where “peaceniks” and “anti-(only U.S.)imperialists” see the U.S. and its allies as the culprits; who is bringing suffering to the Afghan people? They don't notice the Taliban terrorizing people, assassinating anyone with a job connected to the foreigners, murdering Afghan police, targeting women who refuse to be chattel, planting bombs that blow up busloads of Afghan civilians and more. (They just kidnapped a female legislator, by the way.) Here's another fact that eludes their notice: 80% of the civilian deaths in Afghanistan are caused by the Taliban. You'd think that would be germane to a discussion of what's going on there, and who really is the root of the problem.

Some people just have a problem with moral complexity, I guess.

*Haddad is Director of the Middle East Studies Program at George Mason University.

1] Putin confidently asserted the gassing was a rebel “provocation” to draw the U.S. in. He demanded the U.S. show evidence to the UN. Which the U.S. should, since it's already been reported that they have satellite data and electronic intercepts. They won't be revealing “sources and methods” or telling the Assad regime anything they don't now know. (Word to the wise: one of the NSA's specialties is code-breaking, which includes cracking encrypted messages, both voice and data.)

2] Recall that when Ambassador Joseph Wilson exposed the fact that there was no purchase or attempt to purchase uranium yellow cake from Niger by Iraq, the Bush-Cheney regime retaliated by exposing the identity of his undercover CIA officer wife, Valerie Plame, a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act for which Robert Novak, the reactionary “commentator” and Washington, D.C. fixture who was fed the information and made it public, was not prosecuted. In fact no one was, although Cheney's lieutenant, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, ended up convicted for lying to Federal agents and to a Grand Jury. Bush commuted his prison sentence so he did no time. But Cheney was bitter that Bush let the conviction stand. Cheney called it “leaving the wounded on the battlefield.” What a fanatic. The fact that Bush wouldn't wipe out the conviction leads me to suspect that he was kept in the dark about the conspiracy to out Valerie Plame. Blowing her cover infuriated the CIA, necessitating the subsequent investigation.

3] Another difference, which some might find ironic: in the Iraq invasion, the UK performed its usual role as the parrot on the U.S. pirate's shoulder, seconding everything the U.S. said and participating in the invasion and occupation. This time, the UK Parliament has effectively blocked Prime Minister David Cameron's attempt to participate with the U.S. in military action. France, which in the Iraq case was excoriated and reviled in the U.S. for refusing to fall into line (the American Congress renamed French fries and French toast on their food service menus “Freedom fries” and “Freedom toast,” an obnoxious, chauvinistic, juvenile move) this time backs the U.S. France was and is correct, in both cases. If the U.S. had announced that it was invading Iraq to free the Iraqi people, that would have been arguably justified morally, if not legally under international law. Of course it did nothing of the sort, contrary to the version presented by the rewriters of history.


BONUS ENDNOTE: Short roundup of other saps helping Assad, (unwittingly or not):

Phyllis Bennis, of the Institute of Policy Studies, who is a reliable ally of anyone under U.S. pressure, says “We may not be able to determine who is responsible” for the gas attacks. (Counterspin, August 30th, the radio program of FAIR, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, which generally does good work analyzing and exposing corporate media awfulness, but sometimes falls into the Anyone-America-doesn't-like-must-be-right attitude.)

Speak for yourself, Phyllis. Why did the regime stall the UN inspectors from entering the area for five days, and then have their goons shoot up their lead vehicle to force them to turn back? She doesn't have to answer that since she and her interlocutors simply ignored that fact, among many other damning facts against Assad, who they talk like they're defense lawyers for.

Republican Senator Rand Paul went on TV Sunday morning Sept 1st (Meet the Press, NBC) sounding like he was channeling leftie peaceniks and sectarians. No war, he says. He invoked Vietnam, quoting (more or less) Kerry about “how can you ask someone to be the last man to die in a mistake. well I would ask him how can you ask someone to be the first American to die in a mistake.” (No Americans military personnel are going to die firing cruise missiles from ships hundreds of miles from Syria, Rand.) Paul, like the lefties, asserts that taking military action will make things worse, will increase the chance of more chemical attacks, etc. (Funny how they figure that doing nothing lowers the chance of a repeat of sarin attacks, and exacting a price from Assad raises it.) Paul, like his father, is an “isolationist,” as we say, someone who wants the U.S. to be as uninvolved as possible in the world. He says “American interests” aren't “threatened” in this case.

Paul of course is the son of retiring Republican House member Ron Paul, a stubbornly persistent presidential candidate over the years. Father and son are both libertarians, meaning they think except for police and the military, government shouldn't exist. Why the media thinks first-termer Rand is worthy of coveted slots on TV over and over (he's one of 100 Senators) is something the corporate propaganda system should explain.

And finally, the West's top Holy Man, the Godfather of the Roman Catholic Church, the “Pope,” chimed in helpfully, calling use of chemical weapons a no-no and putting forth his divine solution: negotiations and prayer. He called for “world peace” for good measure. Hey, the guy's infallible, so it can't miss!



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