Paul Craig Roberts

Update 8:52 PM August 30: Is the White House idiot going to be a victim of his own careless presidential appointments? Does he have no one to tell him how to escape the dilemma his moronic Secretary of State and National Security Advisor have put him in? Someone needs to tell the WH Fool that he must say that he accepts the conclusion of the world community that there is not sufficient evidence for launching a military attack on Syria and killing even more people than were killed in the alleged, but unproven, chemical attack, and that he awaits further and better evidence. — God help the moron and the unfortunate country that the fool represents!

Update: I have heard from educated and aware friends that the presstitute media on the evening news are beating the drums for war. This shows what paid whores the US media is and their total disconnect from reality. Anyone who wastes their time on the US media is a brainwashed idiot, a danger to humanity.

A foolish President Obama and moronic Secretary of State Kerry have handed the United States government its worst diplomatic defeat in history and destroyed the credibility of the Office of the President, the Department of State, and the entire executive branch. All are exposed as a collection of third-rate liars.

Intoxicated with hubris from past successful lies and deceptions used to destroy Iraq and Libya, Obama thought the US “superpower,” the “exceptional” and “indispensable” country, could pull it off again, this time in Syria.

More »

Paul Craig Roberts

Obama, pushed by his Israeli and neocon masters, especially his National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, who, in effect, functions as an Israeli agent, crawled far out on the limb, only to have it sawed off by the British Parliament.

In response, the “socialist” president of France, Hollande, who lacks French support for France’s participation in a US/Israeli orchestrated military attack on Syria, has crawled back off the limb, saying that, while everything is still on the table, he has to see some evidence first.

As Cameron and Obama have made clear, there is no evidence. Even US intelligence has declared that there is no conclusive evidence that Assad used chemical weapons or even has control over the weapons. — Even the US puppet government in Canada has disavowed participating in the Obama/Israeli war crime. This leaves Obama with support only from Turkey and Israel.

More »

Pepe Escobar

The ''responsibility to protect'' (R2P) doctrine invoked to legitimize the 2011 war on Libya has just transmogrified into ''responsibility to attack'' (R2A) Syria. Just because the Obama administration says so.

On Sunday, the White House said it had ''very little doubt'' that the Bashar al-Assad government used chemical weapons against its own citizens. On Monday, Secretary of State John Kerry ramped it up to ''undeniable'' - and accused Assad of ''moral obscenity''.

So when the US bombed Fallujah with white phosphorus in late 2004 it was just taking the moral high ground. And when the US helped Saddam Hussein to gas Iranians in 1988 it was also taking the moral high ground.

The Obama administration has ruled that Assad allowed UN chemical weapons inspectors into Syria, and to celebrate their arrival unleashed a chemical weapons attack mostly against women and children only 15 kilometers away from the inspectors' hotel. If you don't believe it, you subscribe to a conspiracy theory.

Evidence? Who cares about evidence? Assad's offer of access for the inspectors came ''too late''. Anyway, the UN team is only mandated to determine whether chemical weapons were deployed - but not by who, according to UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon's spokesman.

As far as the Obama administration and UK Prime Minister David ''of Arabia'' Cameron are concerned - supported by a barrage of corporate media missiles - that's irrelevant; Obama's ''red line'' has been crossed by Assad, period. Washington and London are in no-holds-barred mode to dismiss any facts contradicting the decision. Newspeak - of the R2A kind - rules. If this all looks like Iraq 2.0 that's because it is. Time to fix the facts around the policy - all over again. Time for weapons of mass deception - all over again.

More »

Stephen Lendman

In awarding its 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, Committee members turned truth on its head, saying:

Obama made extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. He created a new climate in international politics. Multinational diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions play. He envisions "a world without nuclear weapons. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened. Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely the international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading spokesman.

Fact check: Throughout his tenure, Obama supported multiple direct and proxy wars. He backs perpetual wars. He spurns peace. He deplores it. He pursues confrontational policies. He chooses them over diplomatic conflict resolution. He does it every time. He supports some the world's most ruthless despots. They get White House photo-op invitations. He reinvented a new Cold War with Russia. His Asia pivot targets China and North Korea. He supports Honduran coup d'état rule. He conspired with fascist plotters to oust democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya. After its disastrous January 2010 earthquake, he militarized Haiti. He plundered it freely. He opposed Jean-Bertrand Aristide's return. He orchestrated rigged elections. He prohibited democratic rule.

More »

Pepe Escobar

A picture downloaded from the US air force website
shows F-16 Fighting Falcons from the 35th and 80th
Fighter Squadrons (AFP Photo/US Air Force)

Only a few days before the 12th anniversary of 9/11, Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama might be fighting side by side with… al-Qaeda, as he was foolish enough to be trapped by his own rhetoric on Syria.

The dogs of war bark and the caravan… is Tomahawked. Amid out-of-control hysteria, the proverbial “unnamed US officials” spin like demented centrifuges.

Obama’s “kinetic operation” on Syria will fall out of the sky “in the next few days.” It will be “limited,” lasting only “three days,” or “no more than two days.” It will “send a message,” a “short, sharp attack” against less than 50 sites on a list of targets.

But then long-range bombers may “possibly” join the Tomahawk barrage, and all bets are off.

A proverbial, anonymous “senior administration official” even stressed the “desire to get it done before the president leaves for Russia next week.”

That’s it; we bomb a country like dialing a pizza delivery, and then we go to a G20 summit with the world’s emerging powers hosted by no less than Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. Just because we need to prove that the president of the United States meant what he said: chemical weapons are a red line. And to hell who’s responsible for deploying them.

I’m not making this up. This is the core of White House spokesman Jay Carney’s message, when he said, in faultless Newspeak: “The options that are being considered do not contain within them a regime change focus.”

So the administration of “constitutional lawyer” Barack Obama is mulling how to attack Syria, bypassing the UN Security Council – which will veto, via Russia and China, the new resolution proposed by the UK; bypassing always-docile NATO; and with 91 percent of Americans against it, just to send an (explosive) political message. And all because a US president was foolish enough to get trapped in his own rhetoric.

More »

Chris Floyd

They are insane. They are stupid. They are enslaved to murderous power — so they will kill.

At some point in the next few hours or days, it is likely that deeply damaged collection of moral cretins known as "Western leaders" will sit down behind the gargantuan phalanxes of heavily armed security that keeps their well-wadded rumps safe and cozy and give the nod to some close-cropped flunky laden with medals for mendacious time-serving and relentless butt-covering to launch the airstrikes that will kill a large number of human beings who had absolutely nothing to do with the alleged chemical weapon attacks allegedly carried out by Syrian government forces.

That is to say, the leaders of the West, particularly the notoriously bloodthirsty nations of the United States and Great Britain, will murder a number of their fellow human beings for no reason whatsoever. What's more, they know this and admit it beforehand, speaking under oath, as the U.S. military chief did this week, of the inevitable "collateral damage" the coming attacks will cause. These Western leaders, primarily Barack Obama and the pathetic, feckless ex-PR shill David Cameron, will knowingly murder an unknown number of people while braying all the while of their own righteousness and the strict "legality" of their acts of mass murder.

More »

Thomas Gaist and Alex Lantier

Washington’s campaign to justify war against Syria is disintegrating, as it becomes ever clearer that the war is illegal, and that Washington has no evidence to back up charges that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime used chemical weapons in Ghouta. Despite press reports of an imminent US-NATO attack, US and British officials suggested yesterday that they might delay launching the war.

There is rising concern inside the political establishment about how to package a war in Syria modeled on the hated 2003 invasion of Iraq. Again, Washington and London are moving to launch a war based on lies about weapons of mass destruction and without legal sanction from the UN Security Council—that is, in violation of international law.

Even before war has begun, Obama administration officials are in disarray. In a PBS television interview last night, Obama attempted to back away from threats of an imminent attack: “We have not yet made a decision, but the international norm against the use of chemical weapons needs to be kept in place. If we are saying this in a clear and decisive but very limited way, we send a shot across the bow saying, stop doing this; that can have a positive impact on our national security over the long term.”

Obama’s claim that his administration has not decided to move against Assad is an absurd lie. Washington has called for Assad’s overthrow for over a year, while the CIA massively armed Al Qaeda-linked Islamist opposition militias against his regime.

A senior US official contradicted Obama yesterday, telling NBC that US moves toward intervention in Syria are “past the point of no return,” and that strikes will be launched in days.

More »

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

The Middle East and North Africa have been turned into an arc of instability all the way from Iraq and the Persian Gulf to Libya and Tunisia. Chaos and violence seem to be in almost every corner of the Arab World and the Middle East. The bloodletting does not seem to stop.

One country in the region, however, is gleaming with satisfaction. Tel Aviv has been given a free hand by the instability that it has helped author with Washington in the region. The chaos around it has allowed Israel to move ahead with its annexation of more and more Palestinian land in the West Bank while it pretends to be talking peace with the Palestinian Authority of the irrelevant Mahmoud Abbas. All it needs now is for the US to lead a war against Iran and its allies.

The current upheavals actually have a resounding resemblance to the objectives of the Yinon Plan of 1982, named after its author Oded Yinon from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which calls for the fracturing of North Africa and the Middle East. The Israeli document may have been written in 1982, but it represents the strategic goals and ideas of Israel. «Breaking Egypt down territorially into distinct geographical regions is the political aim of Israel», according to it. It is a continuation of the colonial project of the British in the region and has been transmitted to American foreign policy, which explains the views of the neocons and Ralph Peters about the «New Middle East» that they seek. The «Clean Break» documented authored by Richard Perle for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also based on the Yinon Plan and informs the current position of the Obama Administration and Netanyahu’s government on Syria.

More »

Thomas Gaist

The Obama administration is in the final stages of its longstanding preparations for a massive military onslaught against Syria. President Obama is signing off on one of the various scenarios that have been developed over the past two years by the Pentagon. In all likelihood, the initial stages of the attack will involve the use of cruise missiles fired from US navy vessels and “standoff” attacks launched by US war planes from beyond Syria’s borders.

According to an NBC News report Tuesday evening, the US could hit Syria with an initial three days of missile strikes, beginning as early as Thursday. Subsequent waves of strikes could then be launched, unnamed senior officials told NBC, “to target what was missed in further rounds.”

“We are ready to go,” Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel told the BBC on Tuesday.

“This is as much a warning to Iran, as I see it, as it is action against Syria,” Representative Peter King of New York told CNN.

In order to provide political camouflage for the military operations and deceive the public, the administration and the media are claiming that the attack will be of a limited nature. This is a lie. Aside from the fact that the use of bombs and missiles against a heavily populated capital must lead to massive casualties, the political and military aims of the undeclared war are far-reaching.

The US and its imperialist co-conspirators in Britain, France and Germany intend to destroy the Assad regime’s military capabilities, eliminate its ability to resist the proxy “rebel” forces that are serving US interests, and bring about regime-change.

This outcome will set the stage for a war against Iran within the next year or two, if not earlier.

More »

Stephen Lendman

CIA's & Mossad's ragtag army. It's well established by now
that they've been using chemical weapons. Would the Syrian
government have been using that filthy stuff now that it was
winning the war and right before the UN was going to Syria?

When America goes to war or plans one, media scoundrels march in lockstep. Might justifies right. Imperial priorities are suppressed. Wars of aggression are called liberating ones. Bombs away is called humanitarian intervention. Nations are destroyed to free them. Plunder is called economic development. So is exploitation. Unchallenged imperial control is called democracy. Code language conceals real motives. Monied interests alone benefit. They choose US leaders. They decide policy. They have final say. When they want war they get it. Media scoundrels support what demands condemnation. It happens every time.

On August 27, the Wall Street Journal headlined " 'Little Doubt' Syria Gassed Opposition," saying: John Kerry "mad(e) (the) case for US action."

He cited "undeniable evidence."He failed to produce it. None exists. The Journal didn't explain. Inflammatory headlines substitute. It's standard scoundrel media practice. They regurgitate Big Lies. They do so unconscionably. They do it unapologetically. They bear direct responsibility for lawless aggression that follows.

More »

Paul Craig Roberts

A dead dog is seen at a site near to where the U.S. and Israel
unleashed their chemical weapons on civilians as they slept
in their beds. - What is the West’s real agenda? (Reuters)

UPDATE AUGUST 29: The British Parliament has rejected British military intervention in Syria. The US puppet, Cameron, who serves as Prime Minister was forced to admit that he had no evidence that Assad had used chemical weapons, and Parliament said, no evidence, no war. It is unlikely the French will go along without the British, so this leaves Obama all alone with Israel. If Washington goes ahead with the strike, Obama will be branded with the War Criminal moniker. The decisive action by Parliament shames the cowardly US Congress.

Update: The war criminals in Washington and other Western capitals are determined to maintain their lie that the Syrian government used chemical weapons. Having failed in efforts to intimidate the UN chemical inspectors in Syria, Washington has demanded that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon withdraw the chemical weapons inspectors before they can assess the evidence and make their report. The UN Secretary General stood up to the Washington war criminals and rejected their demand. However, as with Iraq, Washington’s decision to commit aggression against Syria is not based on any facts.

The US and UK governments have revealed none of the “conclusive evidence” they claim to have that the Syrian government used chemical weapons. Listening to their voices, observing their body language, and looking into their eyes, it is completely obvious that John Kerry and his British and German puppets are lying through their teeth. This is a far more shameful situation than the massive lies that former Secretary of State Colin Powell told the UN about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Colin Powell claims that he was deceived by the White House and did not know that he was lying. Kerry and the British, French, and German puppets know full well that they are lying. The face that the West presents to the world is the brazen face of a liar.

More »

Alex Lantier

Yesterday US Secretary of State John Kerry appeared on national television to deliver a lying statement aimed at preparing public opinion for an impending US-NATO attack on Syria. It was his very own “Colin Powell moment.”

On February 5, 2003, Powell, then the Secretary of State in the Bush administration, made an infamous presentation before the United Nations. For two hours, armed with photos, graphs, and audio tapes, the chief diplomatic officer of the United States made the case for war against Iraq. He claimed that the evidence he presented showed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which it was about to unleash on the world.

The media and politicians of both parties hailed Powell’s performance, declaring that the former general had made an overwhelming case that Iraq had enormous WMD programs. Six weeks later, bombs fell on Iraq as the US invasion began.

Powell’s speech was a pack of lies. Not one of his claims about yellowcake uranium from Niger, aluminum tubes, or mobile weapons labs was true. At the time, the WSWS wrote that the brief for war was “a diplomatic charade laced with cynicism and deceit… predicated on a colossal lie: that the coming invasion is about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and Baghdad’s supposed threat to US security and world peace.” And so it proved to be.

More »

John McMurtry

The following essay was delivered at a forum entitled "The Assault on Iraq and the War Against Democracy: How Should Canadians Respond?" held on Sunday March 23, 2003 in Toronto, Ontario, under the auspices of Science for Peace.

"It is easy. All you have to do is tell the people they are being attacked, and denounce the the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger." ~ Hermann Göring

Genocide used to be a crime without a name. Although the most heinous of all crimes, the concept was not introduced into international language until after World War 2. Until then, military invasion and destruction of other peoples and cultures masqueraded under such slogans as progress and spreading civilisation.

I was shocked many years ago when I heard Noam Chomsky say that genocide was America's defining political tradition. Then I realised that the United States (like Canada to a much lesser extent) was based on destroying the lives and cultures of the 25 million or so first peoples who had lived in America for millennia. In the case of the U.S., the story continued with the forcible seizure of Texas in 1845 from Mexican farmers and indigenous peoples, and Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, California and other state territories shortly afterward in 1849. U.S. troops under the slave-owning General Zachary Taylor unilaterally invaded its southern neighbour under the false pretext of avenging American blood, and General Taylor soon vaulted into the White House as a presidential war hero. Even though a young Congressman, Abraham Lincoln, exposed the pretext, and connected it to a Anglo-British business strategy to impose free trade on the regions by financing the prior president, James Polk, into the White House as General Taylor's commander.

More »

Kenny's Sideshow

Something needs to be done. Is it too late?

The crisis in Syria could possibly become totally out of control if the US takes direct interventionist measures. We can only imagine the chaos that could arise. What will Russia do?

The Sunday talking head warmongers have been doing their best to please their masters by interviewing every crazed psychopath they can get to come on their lie machine. My own senator, the inhuman Bob Corker, is calling for action now.

Assad is allowing UN inspectors to go to the site of the false flag chemical attack but an unnamed US official says 'it's too late baby now it's too late,' Syria's credibility is shot and there was little doubt the government was to blame. Obama and Cameron have been plotting. They want Iran too and are a danger to the world.

So is there anything we the people can do? We have not stopped the push to war at all for the last hundred years. At the best it has only been slowed down a bit. The 'seven countries in five years,' the Oded Yinon plan and 'A Clean Break' are behind schedule. The PNAC manifesto is still a work in progress.

The anti-war left is dead. There will be little protesting in the streets but for what it may be worth there needs to be although a few 'domestic terrorist' events may be necessary to to put an end to any peacenik endeavors.

More »

Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA)

President al-Assad: Syria will never become a western puppet state, we will fight terrorism and freely build relationships that best serve the interests of the Syrians.

President Bashar al-Assad stressed that Syria is a sovereign country that will fight terrorism and will freely build relationships with countries in a way that best serves the interests of the Syrian people. In an interview with the Russian newspaper of Izvestia, President al-Assad stressed that "the majority of those we are fighting are Takfiris, who adopt the al-Qaeda doctrine, in addition to a small number of outlaws." On the alleged use of chemical weapons, President al-Assad said that the statements by the US administration, the West and other countries were made with disdain and blatant disrespect of their own public opinion, adding that "there isn’t a body in the world, let alone a superpower, that makes an accusation and then goes about collecting evidence to prove its point." His Excellency stressed that these accusations are completely politicised and come on the back of the advances made by the Syrian Army against the terrorists.

More »