Freedom Rider: American Hell for Syria

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

With the imminent attack on Syria, Barack Obama prepares to add to his personal legacy of illegal wars based entirely on lies. The corporate media will eagerly sell the newest U.S. aggression, starting with the absurd premise that Syria would launch a chemical attack “when it is winning the war fomented by the United States, NATO, Israel, Saudi Arabia and other gulf monarchies.”

“The White House says that United Nations inspectors in Syria are too late to investigate the chemical weapons claims and must be ignored.”

William Kristol called Barack Obama a “born again neo-con” after the president sought his advice when making the case for the over throw of the Libyan government in 2011. Kristol certainly ought to know who his compatriots are but the statement isn’t quite true.

No one becomes president who isn’t a true believer in the American empire of money and murder. They are all neo-cons, despite what they may say about immigration or gay marriage or health care. The differences at the top are small. The pinnacle of power is reserved for people who are aligned with the ruling 1% and who will use American power to dominate the world economically and militarily.

America has brought destruction on a mass scale to many parts of the world. In the past two decades that hell has been almost constant. Bush the elder and Bush the younger are both responsible for at least 1 million deaths in Iraq alone. When not sending United States troops to fight on the ground they instigated proxy wars such as between Somalia and Ethiopia. Bill Clinton bombed the former Yugoslavia, enacted deadly sanctions against the Iraqi people and backed the killers in Africa who have brought so much death to the Congo.

Barack Obama is smarter than them all and that means the world is in very grave danger from the United States. He knows that domestic opposition to aggression is lessened if there are no American soldiers in danger. In the age of drone warfare and so-called surgical strikes, he can quiet all but those absolutely committed to peace and non-intervention. The recent claim that the Syrian government used chemical weapons [7] against civilians is just the latest in a long line of lies used as pretexts for war by American presidents. The Gulf of Tonkin, WMD, and incubator babies stories all played pivotal roles in getting an uninformed populace to say yes to wholesale slaughter.

It is very hard to believe that the Bashar al-Assad government in Syria would commit a chemical weapons attack when it is winning the war fomented by the United States, NATO, Israel, Saudi Arabia and other gulf monarchies. President Obama went on record to say that the use of chemical weapons would draw a “red line” and trigger military action. Assad has hung on in the face of terrible odds and would be a fool to risk war when he has the advantage before peace talks are held. The talks have been delayed [8] for months by the United States in an effort to buy time for their “rebel” allies. Assad wanted and needed these meetings to take place and wouldn’t have done anything that would give his enemies an excuse to walk away from the table. It would also be very bad timing on the eve of the next G20 summit which will be hosted by Russia, Syria’s strongest ally.

So once again we have the United States doing its usual dirty work with the help of their hand maidens in the corporate media. Just as they did in 2002 and 2003 the television networks and major newspapers repeat as gospel truth every assertion coming out of the White House. The Obama administration is taking its cues from the bad old days of George W. Bush. The White House says that United Nations inspectors in Syria are too late to investigate the chemical weapons claims and must be ignored. Without a hint of irony or mention of its previous shameful behavior the New York Times tells its readers why this must be so.

“Images of Iraqi babies with two heads or no heads are also gut wrenching and Kerry is one of the people responsible for making that moral obscenity take place.”

Also without shame or irony, Secretary of State John Kerry, made a statement [9] which made words like propaganda seem quaint. “Let me be clear. The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons is a moral obscenity.” Kerry was among the senators who voted to approve the invasion of Iraq. That invasion included the use of depleted uranium and white phosphorus against civilian populations. These weapons are still causing horrific birth defects [10] in Iraqi children years after they were used. Kerry said that images of victims were “gut wrenching” and that he couldn’t forget seeing a father holding his dead child. Images of Iraqi babies with two heads or no heads are also gut wrenching and Kerry is one of the people responsible for making that moral obscenity take place.

The United States supported Saddam Hussein when he used chemical weapons to attack Iran in 1988. Apparently Kerry doesn’t find the recent government created carnage in Egypt very gut wrenching, nor the continued American created chaos in Somalia which has killed many babies and grieving parents. Our president brags about his personal role in determining who will be on the assassination kill list. This country is in no position to take the moral high ground about Syria or any other country.

Every claim for humanitarian intervention and responsibility to protect are based on lies meant to obscure America’s true and very base motivations. The world can only hope that Syria’s allies are able to make Obama and his friends think twice. There is no deterrent for a war mongering nation except the fear of defeat.

Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com. [11] Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.

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