CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—The US is an invading, occupying force that is in Syria without the permission of its government, yet it is claiming that the air strike was an act of “self-defense” against an “unprovoked attack” upon the US-backed SDF, a mostly Kurdish militia which had occupied an area of Syrian land. No Americans suffered any injuries or deaths in the attack. The SDF suffered a single reported injury. It’s a bit like saying you broke into someone’s house and strangled them from behind with a garrote in self-defense.
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BIL VAN AUKEN—Some media reports have attributed Trump’s demand to his envy of a military parade he attended in France with French President Emmanuel Macron, watching French troops march down the Avenue des Champs-Ḗlysées along with tanks and other military vehicles on Bastille Day last July. While there have been critical and ironic pieces published in the corporate media about the planned parade, one can count on all of the major newspapers and broadcast networks to become willing cheerleaders once the troops and tanks are parading down Pennsylvania Avenue.
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ERIC ZUESSE—In other words: the NPR (meaning Nuclear Posture Review, not National Public Radio) is based upon using nuclear weapons in order to win a nuclear war. That has actually been America’s real nuclear strategy ever since at least 2006. ‘Small’ nukes will now be used instead of conventional weapons, to “warn” “the enemy” against using “small nukes.” The problem with this line of thinking is that it ignores that, regardless of whether the conflict starts with regular weapons or with “small nukes,” the response to it will necessarily be a total blitz release of the other side’s entire strategic nuclear stockpile, because the first side to release its entire nuclear stockpile against the other will be the one that suffers the less harm.
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PETER KOENIG—It is our obligation towards humanity to stop this onslaught of genocides around the globe, always by the same perpetrator and his puppets and mercenaries – The United States, her vassals, Europe and NATO. Be sure of one thing, the US will never let go. They have a target and they pursue it to the end – and the end can only be Full Spectrum Dominance, or, else, the end of empire. The dark commandeering forces behind the US and allied military have no scruples whatsoever to commit gigantic genocide in order to reach their objective.
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WILLIAM J PASTORE—With the very word “peace” rarely in Washington’s political vocabulary, America’s never-ending version of war seems as inevitable as anything is likely to be in history. Significant contingents of U.S. troops and contractors remain an enduring presence in Iraq and there are now 2,000 U.S. Special Operations forces and other personnel in Syria for the long haul. They are ostensibly engaged in training and stability operations. In Washington, however, the urge for regime change in both Syria and Iran remains strong — in the case of Iran implacably so.
