By Paul Craig Roberts
Take 2—
» The High Cost Of Saving Face For Obama —
As I observed in previous columns, obama was pushed out onto the end of the limb by Israel and the neoconservatives. The UN, NATO, the British Parliament, and the rest of the world left the White House Fool there, out on the limb where Israel put him, to make war on Syria all alone.
This proved to be beyond the Fool’s ability, but instead of crawling back off the limb and finding an excuse to get down, obama decided to buy the Congress and to tell more lies.
The White House and its presstitute media are telling Congress that it is too humiliating for the President of “the world’s only superpower” to have to crawl back along the limb and get down just because he told a lie. Congress must ”save face” for the liar who is “America’s first black president,” or the prestige and credibility of the US will be lost.
What this really means, of course, is that the credibility of the Israel Lobby and the neoconservatives will be lost unless America again commits a war crime and destroys the life and prospects of many more people in the Middle East.
Heaven forbid that Washington lose prestige! So money, lots of it, is speaking in Washington and in European capitals. We know that the despicable Cameron will do all in his power to prostitute the British government for Washington.
What has the “socialist” Hollande been promised that makes him so willing to demonstrate that France is obama’s whore?
What larger share of NATO’s military budget is Washington promising to underwrite in exchange for NATO’s support for another American war crime?
Will bags of money enable Washington to gather support for its latest crime against humanity?
But first Congress has to be brought around.
Congress will be pressured “to show a common front” with the White House in order to maintain America’s credibility. Members of the House and Senate will be told that now that America has been abandoned by its allies, Congress cannot leave the President of the United States hanging out to dry. Congress must rush to the rescue of America’s prestige or Washington will lose its clout and Congress will lose its campaign contributions from the Israel Lobby and the military/security complex.
This argument can even be effective with the strongest opponents to the attack on Syria. Americans have a long tradition of jingoism, and the prospect of lost prestige rankles. But before Congress is pushed into wrapping itself in the flag and giving its OK to another war crime, Congress needs to consider whether endorsing obama’s attack on Syria helps US prestige or hurts it.
It is clear that the American people overwhelming oppose an attack on Syria. Whether Americans have caught on over the years to Washington’s endless war lies or whether they simply see no point to the wars and no gain to America from 12 years of costly war, I cannot say. At a time when a large percentage of Americans are having difficulty paying their mortgages, car payments, and putting food on the table, Washington’s wars seem an expensive luxury.
It is not only the civilian populations of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Syria who have suffered. Tens of thousands of America’s young have either been killed, maimed for life, or are suffering permanent post-traumatic stress. Washington’s wars have caused thousands of divorces, alcoholism, drug addiction, and homelessness for veterans who were deceived and had their humanity abused by the criminals that rule in Washington.
For Congress, allegedly the representatives of the American people, not the backstop for the executive branch’s undeclared agenda, to ignore the people’s will and to endorse a war that the American people do not support would be another decisive blow against democracy. If Congress endorses obama’s war, it will prove that American democracy is a hoax.
If the White House were to succeed in using Congress’ OK to a military attack on Syria to convince the British Parliament and NATO to go along, despite the strong opposition of the British and European peoples, Western Democracy would everywhere be discredited. Where is the democracy when a few elites at the top can do whatever they want, commit any crime, despite the majority opposition of citizens?
If Congress endorses obama’s transparent lies, American democracy will never recover. If Congress makes itself the handmaiden of the executive branch, Congress will never again have an independent voice. Congress might as well close down. It will have rendered itself superfluous and powerless.
If European governments endorse obama’s lies, it means the end of the West’s democratic prestige and will strip away the cloak behind which the West has hidden its crimes against humanity. The voice of the West will never again carry any moral authority.
The loss of Western credibility is a huge price to pay in order to rescue a discredited president whom no one believes, not even his supporters. Essentially obama is a cipher whose term of office is complete. The obama regime epitomizes the degeneration of the American state.
Instead of voting on whether to allow obama to attack Syria, Congress should be voting to impeach obama and kerry. Their blatant lies, dictatorial claims, and arrogant inhumanity are powerful arguments for removing them from office.
The lies told by the obama regime are so transparent that it makes one wonder just how stupid the regime thinks the American people are. Little doubt the white house is relying on its Ministry of Propaganda, a.k.a., the presstitute media, to undermine Americans’ confidence in their common sense and to make them accept the latest fiction. The tactic is to use the peer pressure of the prostitute media to silence Americans’ conscience.
Media insouciance is everywhere. Yesterday NPR calmly reported the lies about Assad that the obama regime has concocted to cover another act of naked aggression. In the same breath, NPR voiced “the world’s outrage” over the rape and murder of one woman in India.
I, of course, do not agree with the raping and killing of anyone, but just imagine the raping and killing that will occur when obama unleashes the dogs of war on Syria.
NPR is no longer an alternative voice. Yesterday NPR was beating the drums for war. NPR provided a forum for the head of one of the main neoconservative lobbies for war, and in the next hour had Democratic and Republican House and Senate leaders repeating all of obama and kerry’s lies about how America’s prestige cannot tolerate allowing Assad to use “chemical weapons against his own people.” No one listening to NPR heard the voice of those demanding peace and truth. NPR was too busy lying for Obama to care about truth and certainly gave truth no voice on the program.
The presstitute media and the House and Senate “leaders” who report to the military/security complex and to the Israel Lobby keep talking about Assad’s “own people,” but Assad’s own people support him. Polls of Syrians show that Assad has more support from the Syrian people than every head of every Western country has from their citizens. Cameron’s, Hollande’s, Merkel’s and obama’s poll numbers are dismal compared to the Syrian peoples’ support for Assad. http://www.worldtribune.com/2013/05/31/nato-data-assad-winning-the-war-for-syrians-hearts-and-minds/
Just as there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein had “weapons of mass destruction,” but the facts did not stop the Bush regime from telling its lies that resulted in massive deaths and destruction of Iraqis, deaths and destruction that continue as I write, Assad has not used chemical weapons “against his own people.” All of the evidence points to a false flag event that obama could seize upon to launch America’s 7th war in 12 years.
Moreover, al-Nusra fighters are not Assad’s “own people.” The al-Nusra front are Islamist extremists recruited from outside Syria and sent in by Washington and Saudi Arabia to overthrow an elected Syrian government, just as Washington used the Egyptian military to overthrow the first elected Egyptian government in history and to shoot down in the streets hundreds of Egyptians who were protesting the military’s overthrow of the government that they had elected.
Whether or not Assad used chemical weapons against Washington-supported al-Nusra jihadists, and US Intelligence says that there is “no conclusive evidence,” it is nevertheless a war crime for Washington to attack a country that has not attacked, or threatened to attack, the US. Under the Nuremberg standard established by the United States, naked aggression is a war crime regardless of the character of the country attacked or the weapons it uses against forces that attack it.
If Washington succeeds in enabling the al-Nusra terrorists to overthrow the secular Syrian government, how will Washington get Syria away from al-Nusra? In Iraq the death and destruction continues today at the same pace as under the attempted US military occupation. The criminal Bush regime did not bring “freedom and democracy” to Iraq. The Bush regime brought death and destruction that continues long after Washington’s exit. In Iraq today, as many people are blown apart and murdered as during the height of Bush’s war of aggression.
The chaos in which Washington left Iraq is a far cry from “freedom and democracy.” The obama war criminal did the same to Libya. In Afghanistan Washington added 12 years of war on top of the 10 years of war that Afghans fought with the Red Army. The purpose of Washington’s war in Afghanistan has never been stated. No one knows what the war is about or why it continues.
According to the Bush regime, Afghanistan was attacked because the Taliban would not hand over Osama bin Laden without proof that he was responsible for 911. So why does the war continue 12 years after bin Laden died of renal failure and other diseases in December 2001 and then died again in May, 2011, two years and four months ago when obama claims to have had him killed by Navy SEALs, whose unit was mysteriously wiped out shortly thereafter in Afghanistan. If the purpose of the Afghan war was to get bin Laden, why does the war continue when the man has twice died?
The lies being told by obama and kerry are so transparent that it makes one wonder if their strategy is to make such a poor case for war that the control Israel and the neocons have over US foreign policy will be broken. What else is one to make of such absurd statements as john kerry’s claim that “this is our Munich moment!” There is no comparison between Assad’s defensive effort to prevent the overthrow of the Syrian government by foreign jihadists supported by Washington and Hitler’s aggressive stance toward Czechoslovakia.
The Syrian government has initiated no war and has threatened no one.
America as my generation knew it no longer exists. Criminals have taken over and now rule. Financial policy is in the hands of a small handful of banksters who control the US Treasury, the Federal Reserve, the financial regulatory agencies and who run the world for their own greed and profit. Foreign policy is the preserve of the Israel Lobby and the neoconservatives, every one of which is tightly tied to Israel. Americans have no voice, and no representation. Whatever America is, the government is not influenced by the voices of the American people.
Whatever America is, it most certainly is not a democracy in which government is accountable to the people.
America is a country where a tiny elite has all power and does as it wishes.
If Congress rallies to obama’s war, Congress will have pushed the world closer to nuclear war. Russia and China see that the UN is powerless to prevent aggression and that Washington’s aggression is aimed at them. As Russia and China build their nuclear forces, they will draw a starker line at Iran. Iran is Russia’s underbelly, and Iran is 20 percent of China’s oil supply.
From what I have been able to discern, both the Russian and Chinese governments have lost all confidence in Washington. Neither government believes any of Washington’s lies and both countries are aware of Washington’s attempt to isolate them diplomatically and to surround them with military bases. Both countries know that they can expect the same demonization from the presstitute western media as Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, and Assad have received. They understand that western demonization is the prelude to destabilization and to military attack.
With the hubris, arrogance, and insanity of Washington an established fact, Russia and China perceive an enemy that intends their destruction. As neither country is going to accept their demise, Congress’ acquiescence to obama’s lies in order to save “america’s prestige” sets the stage for nuclear war.
However, if Congress refuses to be committed to a war crime based on a lie, rejects obama’s bribes and intimidation, and vetoes the war criminal’s attack on Syria, it means, the end of the influence of the Israeli Lobby, the bloodthirsty neoconservatives, and war mongers John McCain and Lindsay Graham.
Without Washington’s neoconservative belligerence, the governments of the world might, despite powerful and selfish private interests, be able to come together to sustain life on earth by protecting an increasingly vulnerable ecology from the predations of private capitalism.
If Congress fails to restrain the war that obama seeks, the world doesn’t have long to exist before the life-destroying bombs drop.
