The American war machine is our Frankenstein's monster. It has to kill.
Syria is next. Syria is no threat to the United States. The U.S. has no dog in the fight between Syrians. It defies morality, ethics, law and reason for us to kill Syrians on either side of the ugly civil war there. But kill we will for kill we must.
As the late George Carlin once remarked, it's what we're good at. Without wars to fight, or to plan to fight, our economy would collapse. Once, we couldn't go to war without a declaration by Congress. Silly detail, inasmuch as we've fought 70-some in our history.
For the sake of show, we invent reasons for our wars. Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Al Qaida was in Afghanistan. Osama Bin Ladin was in Pakistan. El Qaida was in Yemen. The Syrian government gassed its own citizens (so did Saddam, but that was with our blessing). The Devil Himself is in Iran.
The reason to attack Syria, if reason there be, is Iran. Ray McGovern, a very smart, very honest guy -- too honest, too smart for the CIA, where once he worked as a senior intelligence analyst -- writes:
Tehran is not likely to see the common interests of Israel and the U.S. as very complicated. Both appear determined to exploit the chaotic duel among the thugs in Syria as an opportunity to deal a blow to Hezbollah and Hamas in Israel’s near-frontier and to isolate Iran still further, and perhaps even advance Israel’s ultimate aim of “regime change” in Tehran.
In the nearer term, are the neocons in Washington revving up to nip in the bud any unwelcome olive branches from the Iran’s new leaders as new talks on nuclear matters loom on the horizon?
The lemmings of the mainstream U.S. media, long in thrall to the war machine and its government toadies, are Judith Millering the forthcoming attack on Syria as part and parcel of their long-term propaganda campaign against Iran. Without a scrap of actual evidence, they have for years been assuring us (with unattributed feeds from Israeli intelligence services) that Tehran is on the brink of developing atomic weaponry.
McGovern cites a policy document prepared in 1996 for Benjamin Netanyahu by a study group led by American neocons, including Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, who gave us the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan:
Among the plan’s features was “the containment of Syria by engaging in proxy warfare and highlighting their possession of ‘weapons of mass destruction.’” The following “Clean-Break” paragraph is, no doubt, part of the discussion in Iran’s leadership councils:
“Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq – an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions.”
Against this background, what is Iran likely to think of the two-year old mantra of Hillary Clinton, repeated by Obama that “Assad Must Go?” Or what to think of Obama’s gratuitous pledge a half year later, on Super Bowl Sunday 2012, that the U.S. will “work in lockstep” with Israel regarding Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Assuming they checked Webster’s, Iran’s leaders have taken note that one primary definition offered for “in lockstep” is: “in perfect, rigid, often mindless conformity or unison.”
In that pre-game interview, Obama also made the bizarre charge that the Iranians must declare, “We will pursue peaceful nuclear power; we will not pursue a nuclear weapon.” In actuality, Iran has been saying precisely that for years.
"Actuality" is just another word for truth, and truth means nothing to the great American war machine. It has to kill, and kill it will.
