The Real Reason Behind the Attack on Syria
To be sure, we don't really know all the reasons why the US military spent over $150 million to damage three buildings in Syria. What we are learning is some of the latest phony justifications and the evolving story-line behind the continuing US presence in Syria.
The US will not pull its troops out of Syria until Washington's goals are accomplished, Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, said.
According to Haley, the three aims for the US are ensuring chemical weapons are not used in any way that poses a risk to US interests; Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) is defeated; and there is a good vantage point to watch what Iran is doing.
Source: Haley: US troops to stay in Syria until goals achieved
Watching the reasons for US involvement shift faster than desert sands in a stiff breeze is sickeningly fascinating. Let's sanity check those claimed reasons:
- If Assad is indeed using chemical weapons against civilians (odd that no rebels were harmed in the latest alleged devastating chemical weapons attack), why are dead Syrian children suddenly a vital US interest? What about the dead children in Iraq, Yemen, Libya, etc?
- IS wasn't defeated because we don't want to defeat them. We gave them safe passage to northern Syria so we could keep the head-choppers on our payroll for further use as needed.
- Syria isn't the best place to watch Iran from -- Iraq and Afghanistan are. But we're on the path to losing our foothold in both of those countries
There's also a fourth reason we're staying in Syria: The French made us do it.
Also on Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron said he had convinced Trump to maintain troops in Syria.
"We convinced him it was necessary to remain there. We have complete international legitimacy to act in this framework," Macron said in an interview broadcast by BFM TV, RMC radio and Mediapart online news.
(ibid)
What a crazy world we live in.
Comments
going to war with no evidence is our MO
It's deja vu all over again.
My question now is it a one off bombing like last year when T-rump's beautiful bombs finally made him presidential...or a move toward WWIII...or both?
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Syria was controlled by France
from 1919 until April 17, 1946 when it finally got its independence. France was too poor and could no longer support it's occupying forces there.
At this time, the US began coveting the country as a route for it's burgeoning oil industry in the ME. When the democratically elected government refused to play by American rules, the newly formed CIA overthrew the government and installed a puppet (who was quickly tossed out). Ever since, the US has been trying to destroy the country's independence by all means - mostly illegal and covert.
The resonance of recent history
Although the average 'Murican has the attention span of a goldfish (3 seconds), some really important regime changes have occurred, oddly enough for the same reason: O-I-L. First Mossadegh given his farewell by arms in '53 by the CIA. More recently, Ghadafi given his coup de grace per rectum, for O-I-L. Gadafi was not going to go along with the petrodollar either, nor was Saddam. Yo ho you gotta go!
Go they did. What did we get in return?
A peaceful, prosperous secular Iran?.......NO
A stable north Africa ruled by a despot--but a secular one......NO
A stable Iraq ruled by a despot--but a secular one......NO
If the government were run a legitimate business, these moves would never have been made because the consequences, if adequately imagined, were too malign. But neoliberalism is not an ordinary business.
Trump Conveniently leaves some chemical weapons buildings
standing. He said that he destroyed 3, but left some and if Assad uses them again he will attack again. He knows that all of them were destroyed by us in 2014, but he has to keep his options open just in case things in Syria get too peaceful.
After the Iraq WMDs scam, no person in America should believe anything the government says again. But they are. SMDH
To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.
- Kevin Alfred Strom
$150 million
Just like that. overnight, $150 million spent on bombing a sovereign nation upon which we have not formally declared war. The United States is an obscene war mongering nation. I wonder just how much good we could be doing with all the money we have spent over the last decade on bombing people.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
And, keep in mind too that money spent on peace...
is likely to zoom around the economy (i.e. be spent and respent at a much greater rate). This is as opposed to dollars spent on the MIC that probably go into offshore accounts pretty quickly.
I think there is a very positive ‘fiscal multiplier’ in some peace and social justice programs, as well as many others. I haven't seen any numbers on that specifically, but I'd like to. Our 'foreign policy' spending for the corporations is probably much more expensive than we think. How much more?
Crickets ... again
We'll never even know how much more. Those numbers are hidden ... by design.
For instance, my employer does some "work" for the US government ... "spook stuff" we call it. I dare not say much more that that. I have poured over the Securities and Exchange Commission reports that are mandatory for American corporations looking for the numbers on our governmental "work." It's not there. We have subsidiaries performing this work. Other subsidiaries are noted, but not the ones involved with the "spook stuff." You can't find out what's being done, who pays who, how much ... or even whether taxes were paid on the profits.
The only thing you can count on is that a lot of money is moving ... taxpayer money - unaccountable taxpayer money. Oh, there is one other thing you can count on: that money is being used to harm humans who made the mistake of being born with brown skin.
Yes, thanks for that and...
I realized seconds after hitting "save" that my comment might feel like it is only the dollars and cents that matter. What I, and I'm sure gg, think of first and foremost is justice and what is morally the right thing to do.
Dollars don't really matter, but when they are spent on evil and then hoarded? No. Nope. Not here.
Missing?
Taxation Without Representation, Extreme Edition.
In what stretch of the imagination
could our taxable income and how it is spent become a national security issue? Sorry chumps, it's classified. More like calcified lies. Take the country back from the aliens!
Zionism is a social disease
What is this distraction intended to divert attention from?
So far I have come up with:
1. The ongoing violent repression in Gaza. (Is genocide too strong a word here?)
2. The increasing if still inchoate anti-war sentiment among the American public. I think we are supposed to not vote for challengers to candidates anointed by the DCCC. Rally around Our President and vote for war mongers, a large number of whom seem to be offering their services to the Democratic Party this year. Vote in the ex-CIA guys and gals and they can be finalizing their war plans while we are still celebrating the victory over the hated Republicans.
Mary Bennett
Lots of reasons to distract
1) The Russian collusion investigation. Nothing has been turned up about Russian collusion, but Trump and his pals are crooks and probably broke lots of non-Russia related laws.
2) As QMS says below, hundreds of thousands are protesting against Macron (who I pointed out was a neoliberal f*ckhead during the election). There are labor protests and environmental protests
3) Things aren't going so well for Theresa May either. Brexit is a bit of a mess and the tories were behind labour. She is using the Skripal poisoning and Syria "poison gas attack" to boost her government's ratings.
Mighty Whitey
Dropping Democracy bombs to save the benighted wogs
They say that there's a broken light for every heart on Broadway
They say that life's a game and then they take the board away
They give you masks and costumes and an outline of the story
And leave you all to improvise their vicious cabaret-- A. Moore
doing the French Mistake
And so, just like in Vietnam, we're doing the French Mistake.......
[video:https://youtu.be/JMK6lzmSk2o]
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Yeah, I was going to mention that
The war in Vietnam was originally a French mess and they passed it to us. After 2 million dead Vietnamese and no victory we gave up. Now it appears that France was key in convincing Trump to go ahead and bomb Syria. It is no coincidence that the biggest Western imperialists, France, UK and US -- FUKUS, were involved. It really seems like a Western Imperialism reunion. Certainly UK and France were slipping into an old but familiar role. Its telling that the attack occurred just before the weapons inspectors arrival. That avoids the inconvenient problem of finding no trace of chemical weapons and them bombing Iraq, or is it Syria. The one thread that I can see here is that US is always looking for an excuse for violence. The horrific nuclear bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki are probably the most extreme example. The bomb was designed and ready to go and we were still at war with Japan. Well, have at it, and we did. All this violence backfires though. The world is pissed. Even Germany and Italy are really uncomfortable with this. UK polls are showing only about a 30% support. The rest of the world is really angry.The US now earned the total anger of the Russian people. This morning there are zero Russians supportive of good relations with America. China is fully supportive of Russia, congratulations on that, Trump. It may be good publicity for the US to claim support from nations representing 10% of the population of the world, but the rest are pissed and very capable and very dangerous. You can't rule the world through Tomahawk missile intimidation.
Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.
Good look on the french empty empire giving US
(an eager destroyer) the mantle of yet another quagmire. Funny how the PEOPLE of France are striking against govt. austerity, the PEOPLE of UK voted for leaving EU and the US teachers are putting down the gauntlet. The 3 headed hydra has a few problems in the belly.
Zionism is a social disease