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Category: Darren Weeks
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Published on Friday, 14 June 2013 02:41
Darren Weeks
Coalition to Govern America
June 13, 2013
As if the American people needed an example as to the complete sham of the alleged "War On Terror", Barack Obama has just delivered up another one. The administration has announced that it will supply military weaponry and equipment to the Syrian rebels who have pledged their allegiance to terrorist groups.
"The Obama administration has concluded that Syrian President Bashar Assad's government used chemical weapons against the rebels seeking to overthrow him and, in a major policy shift, President Obama has decided to supply military support to the rebels, the White House announced Thursday,"
CBS News said in a June 13th report. They quote Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communication Ben Rhodes, who stated that Assad crossed a "red line" for the United States in his "use of chemical weapons" against rebels who were attempting to overthrow the Syrian regime.
A "No-Fly" zone is planned for an area that would stretch 25 miles from Jordan into Syria that would facilitate the training and equipment of rebel forces and keep the Syrian rebels away from Jordan's border,
according to the
Wall Street Journal.
Contrary to what the CBS report says, the revelation that Obama has decided to provide military support for the Syrian rebels is certainly not a "major policy shift". Despite his public rhetoric, it appears that the administration has been attempting to covertly
smuggle weapons into the hands of the Syrian rebels for some time. It is also likely that this
covert operation could well have been the cause of Ambassador Chris Stevens and others being murdered in a retaliatory attack on a "diplomatic facility" in Benghazi, Libya.
The "red line" argument about chemical weapons use that Obama is using to make the case for a war with Syria is very similar to that which was used by the administration of President George W. Bush to take the United States to war with Iraq. Bush had repeatedly stated that Saddam Hussein had possessed weapons of mass destruction -- a claim that was later proven to be false. Furthermore, Bush had said that Hussein had used chemical weapons to deliberately gas the Iraqi Kurds, another dubious claim which was disputed by experts who say it lacks ample evidence. For example, Stephen C. Pelletiere was a CIA senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. He was privy to much of the classified material that flowed through Washington having to do with the Persian Gulf, and headed an Army investigation that dealt heavily with the Halabja incident that was repeatedly used by George W. Bush to demonize Saddam Hussein and justify military action against his regime. Writing in a 2003
New York Times Op-Ed piece, Pelletiere stated,
"...the truth is, all we know for certain is that Kurds were bombarded with poison gas that day at Halabja. We cannot say with any certainty that Iraqi chemical weapons killed the Kurds... This much about the gassing at Halabja we undoubtedly know: it came about in the course of a battle between Iraqis and Iranians. Iraq used chemical weapons to try to kill Iranians who had seized the town, which is in northern Iraq not far from the Iranian border. The Kurdish civilians who died had the misfortune to be caught up in that exchange. But they were not Iraq's main target.
"And the story gets murkier: immediately after the battle the United States Defense Intelligence Agency investigated and produced a classified report, which it circulated within the intelligence community on a need-to-know basis. That study asserted that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas.
"The agency did find that each side used gas against the other in the battle around Halabja. The condition of the dead Kurds' bodies, however, indicated they had been killed with a blood agent -- that is, a cyanide-based gas -- which Iran was known to use. The Iraqis, who are thought to have used mustard gas in the battle, are not known to have possessed blood agents at the time."
Now the Obama administration is using the same "red line" chemical weapons argument to support deepening U.S. involvement in the Syrian civil war, despite the fact that the rebel groups have openly stated their
allegiance and loyalty to Al-Qaeda -- the "terrorist network" which was the given reason for which American and allied soldiers had to be dispatched to foreign soil.
In the dystopian novel 1984 by George Orwell, a perpetual war was waged between three world superstate regions -- Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. It was in this war that the clearly-defined "enemy" was constantly being shifted back and forth. Oceania would be allied with Eastasia until it was strategically beneficial to switch sides and ally with Eurasia, at which point the easily-deceived masses were told "We've always been at war with Eastasia".
In very much the same manner, the perpetual "War On Terror" is being fought. In Afghanistan, the Taliban was our enemy, yet
we continued to fund and support them, as our soldiers fought them. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood was bad, until the Establishment wanted Hosni Mubarak out of power, then they were
consulted,
supported,
congratulated and
hosted at the White House.
Bush spoke of Al-Qaeda that we need to "fight them abroad so we don't have to face them at home." Thousands of American and allied soldiers fought, bled, and died believing that statement. Veterans who lived through the war will never be the same, forever bearing the physical and mental scars of combat. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent, fighting a phantom "enemy" in the name of freedom, while Americans are increasingly targeted by their own government as potential enemies and domestic terrorists.
Untold thousands of lives have been lost on both sides of the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere on the notion of ridding America and the world from the scourge of Al-Qaeda terrorists. These are the same people who
shot a 14-year-old boy in the head because he made an off-handed comment about Mohammed. Now, in true Orwellian fashion, these same groups are being referred to as the
key to victory in the war on terror.
As it is today, so it has been throughout history. In 2007, I
wrote about Bush's visit to Vietnam. The architect of the War OF Terror stood on the land where over 58,000 American soldiers were killed, and praised the communist government whose soldiers killed them. He then welcomed their "rise" as a world economic power. My brother-in-law fought in Vietnam. His wife says that to this day, he still wakes up screaming and crying at night, forever doomed to relive the tortures that he suffered while in "enemy" captivity.
Officially, that war is over. But for those that fight them -- which are never the ones who start them -- all wars are perpetual. Which is why we should think long and hard about allowing Obama to involve us further into another quagmire in Syria.
