John Pilger

A stirring has begun, though people of conscience should hurry.

Russia's peace deal over chemical weapons will, in time, be treated with the contempt that all militarists reserve for diplomacy. With Al-Qaida now among its allies, and US-armed coupmasters secure in Cairo, the US intends to crush the last independent states in the Middle East: Syria first, then Iran.

On my wall is the front page of Daily Express of September 5, 1945 and the words: "I write this as a warning to the world." So began Wilfred Burchett's report from Hiroshima. It was the scoop of the century. For his lone, perilous journey that defied the US occupation authorities, Burchett was pilloried, not least by his embedded colleagues. He warned that an act of premeditated mass murder on an epic scale had launched a new era of terror.

Almost every day now, he is vindicated. The intrinsic criminality of the atomic bombing is borne out in the US National Archives and by the subsequent decades of militarism camouflaged as democracy. The Syria psychodrama exemplifies this. Yet again, we are held hostage to the prospect of a terrorism whose nature and history even the most liberal critics still deny. The great unmentionable is that humanity's most dangerous enemy resides across the Atlantic.

John Kerry's farce and Barack Obama's pirouettes are temporary. Russia's peace deal over chemical weapons will, in time, be treated with the contempt that all militarists reserve for diplomacy. With Al-Qaida now among its allies, and US-armed coupmasters secure in Cairo, the US intends to crush the last independent states in the Middle East: Syria first, then Iran. "This operation [in Syria]," said the former French foreign minister Roland Dumas in June, "goes way back. It was prepared, pre-conceived and planned."

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Paul Craig Roberts

Washington has been at war for 12 years. According to experts such as Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, these wars have cost Americans approximately $6 trillion, enough to keep Social Security and Medicare sound for years. All there is to show for 12 years of war is fat bank balances for the armament industries and a list of destroyed countries with millions of dead and dislocated people who never lifted a hand against the United States.

The cost paid by American troops and taxpayers is extreme. Secretary of Veteran Affairs Erik Shinseki reported in November 2009 that “more veterans have committed suicide since 2001 than we have lost on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.” Many thousands of our troops have suffered amputations and traumatic brain injuries. At the Marine Corps War College Jim Lacey calculated that the annual cost of the Afghan war was $1.5 billion for each al-Qaeda member in Afghanistan. Many US and coalition troops paid with their lives for every one al-Qaeda member killed. On no basis has the war ever made sense.

Washington’s wars have destroyed the favorable image of the United States created over the decades of the cold war. No longer the hope of mankind, the US today is viewed as a threat whose government cannot be trusted.

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Alex Lantier and Joseph Kishore

Behind the panoply of lies, the Obama administration, abetted by the entire political establishment and the media, wants a military solution. The discussion now about a UN resolution has perhaps temporarily delayed, but has in no way ended the threat of war.

President Barack Obama spoke on national television last night, presenting to the American people the latest diplomatic tack in his administration’s drive for war with Syria. His rambling 15-minute address notably did not ask Congress to authorize war. Rather, it sought to develop UN negotiations emerging from a Russian-Syrian offer to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons as a political framework for launching a war, in defiance of international law and mass popular opposition in the United States.

Without providing a scintilla of probative evidence, Obama repeated claims that the Syrian government of Bashar Al-Assad was responsible for a chemical weapons attack on August 21. Obama tried to bolster this assertion with various unsubstantiated assertions, combined with lurid images of the victims of the attack.

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Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA)

President Bashar al-Assad gave an interview to American CBS news. Following is the full text of the interview:

Charlie Rose: Mr. President thank you very much for this opportunity to talk to you at a very important moment because the President of the United States will address the nation this week and, as you know an important conversation is taking place in Washington and important things are happening here in your country. Do you expect an airstrike?

President al-Assad: As long as the United States doesn’t obey the international law and trample over the Charter of the United Nations we have to worry that any administration – not only this one – would do anything. According to the lies that we’ve been hearing for the last two weeks from high-ranking officials in the US administration we have to expect the worst.

Charlie Rose: Are you prepared?

President al-Assad: We’ve been living in difficult circumstances for the last two years and a half, and we prepare ourselves for every possibility. But that doesn’t mean if you’re prepared things will be better; it’s going to get worse with any foolish strike or stupid war.

Charlie Rose: What do you mean worse?

President al-Assad: Worse because of the repercussions because nobody can tell you the repercussions of the first strike. We’re talking about one region, bigger regions, not only about Syria. This interlinked region, this intermingled, interlocked, whatever you want to call it; if you strike somewhere, you have to expect the repercussions somewhere else in different forms in ways you don’t expect.

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Bill Van Auken

This screenshot shows "Free Syrian Army", or FSA, "rebel" forces
launching a Sarin gas attack on a Syrian village. (World Net Daily)

Another and even more catastrophic Middle East war can be stopped only through the revival of a genuine antiwar movement.

Obama administration officials scrambled Monday to preserve Washington’s pretext for war on Syria, after both Moscow and Damascus welcomed an apparently off-hand remark by US Secretary of State John Kerry that US aggression could be avoided if the regime of President Bashar al-Assad surrendered its chemical weapons.

Asked by a CBS reporter at a joint press conference Monday with British Foreign Secretary William Hague in London if there was anything that could forestall the planned US war on Syria, Kerry responded:

“Sure. He could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week. Turn it over, all of it, without delay, and allow a full and total accounting for that. But he isn’t about to do it, and it can’t be done, obviously.”

Kerry’s summary dismissal of this proposal notwithstanding, it was swiftly taken up by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who declared following a meeting with his Syrian counterpart, Walid al-Moallem,

“If the establishment of international control over chemical weapons in that country would allow avoiding strikes, we will immediately start working with Damascus.”

He said that Moscow would call upon its Syrian ally to place all chemical weapons under international control, agree to their destruction and sign the international treaty banning the weapons.

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Stephen Lendman

Russian Foreign Sergei Lavrov wants peace. He's going all out against war on Syria. He's doing it responsibly. Important world leaders back him. So does overwhelming global anti-war sentiment.

On Monday, Lavrov met with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem. He did so in Moscow. Hes aid:

"We are calling on the Syrian authorities not only agree on putting chemical weapons storages under international control, but also for its further destruction and then joining the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. We have passed our offer to Muallem and hope to receive a fast and positive answer."

Al-Moallem pledged "full cooperation with Russia to remove any pretext for aggression." Lavrov promised Moscow's support. He's trying to broker a diplomatic solution. In return, he wants Obama to cancel attack plans. He cited John Kerry saying Assad

"could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week." "Turn it over, all of it without delay and allow (a) full and total accounting, but he isn't about to do it and it can't be done."

Doing it would avoid military intervention, Kerry said. Damage control followed his statement. State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki reinterpreted his comments.

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Stephen Lendman

Obama continues what Bush began. He wants another US colony. He wants an Israeli rival removed.

Previous articles discussed the Israeli Lobby's rage for war on Syria. AIPAC and 50 other Zionist organizations endorse it. They threaten world peace. They want Israeli interests served. Ravaging and destroying Syria does so. Much greater stakes are involved.

Syria is prelude to attacking Iran. It's Israel's prime target. Washington wants subservient pro-Western governance replacing its sovereign independence.

On September 3, AIPAC headlined "Press Statement on Syrian Resolution," saying:

"AIPAC urges Congress to grant the President the authority he has requested to protect America’s national security interests and dissuade the Syrian regime's further use of unconventional weapons."

"The civilized world cannot tolerate the use of these barbaric weapons, particularly against an innocent civilian population including hundreds of children."

"Simply put, barbarism on a mass scale must not be given a free pass."

"This is a critical moment when America must also send a forceful message of resolve to Iran and Hezbollah - both of whom have provided direct and extensive military support to Assad."

"The Syrian regime and its Iranian ally have repeatedly demonstrated that they will not respect civilized norms."

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John Robles

An Interview With Edward Herman. PART II here

The United States has no legal or moral authority to bomb or attack Syria and they are chemical war criminals themselves, on a much grander scale than an other country in history. The US media has no problem with the fact that their leaders obtained positions of power by guaranteeing they would follow the rule of law but have become worse war criminals than their predecessors. In an interview with the Voice of Russia renown author Dr. Edward Herman discussed these matters and more.

Hello! This is John Robles, I’m speaking with Dr. Edward Herman. He is Professor Emeritus at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the author of several books, namely “Manufacturing Consent”, which he wrote with Noam Chomsky, and the “Srebrenica Massacre: Evidence, Context, Politics”.

Robles: Hello Sir! It is a pleasure to be speaking with you again.

Herman: Good to be with you, John.

Robles: Regarding this situation in Syria, does the US in your opinion have the legal authority to launch military action or bomb Syria?

Herman: That’s one of the clearest things we can say “no” to. They certainly do not. The UN was organized to prevent war, aggression, cross-border attacks by individuals – it is very clear. And in fact, the Nuremberg Tribunal, should you actually read this: “war is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression therefore is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole”. That’s from the Nuremberg Tribunal.

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Paul Craig Roberts

What is the real agenda? Why is the obama Regime so desperate to commit a war crime despite the warnings delivered to the White House Fool two days ago by the most important countries in the world at the G20 Summit? What powerful interest is pushing the White House Fool to act outside of law, outside the will of the American people, outside the warnings of the world community?

The obama Regime has admitted, as UK prime minister david cameron had to admit, that no one has any conclusive evidence that the Assad government in Syria used chemical weapons. Nevertheless, obama has sent the despicable john kerry out to convince the public and Congress on the basis of videos that Assad used chemical weapons “against his own people.”

What the videos show are dead and suffering people. The videos do not show who did it. The obama Regime’s case is nonexistent. It rests on nothing that indicates responsibility. The obama Regime’s case is nothing but an unsubstantiated allegation.

What kind of depraved person would take the world to war based on nothing whatsoever but an unsubstantiated allegation?

The world’s two worse liars, obama and kerry, say Assad did it, but they admit that they cannot prove it. It is what they want to believe, because they want it to be true. The lie serves their undeclared agenda. If obama and kerry were to tell the public the real reasons they want to attack Syria, they would be removed from office.

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Pat Buchanan

Wednesday, John Kerry told the Senate not to worry about the cost of an American war on Syria. The Saudis and Gulf Arabs, cash-fat on the $110-a-barrel oil they sell U.S. consumers, will pick up the tab for the Tomahawk missiles.

Has it come to this – U.S. soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen as the mercenaries of sheikhs, sultans and emirs, Hessians of the New World Order, hired out to do the big-time killing for Saudi and Sunni royals?

Yesterday, too, came a stunning report in the Washington Post. The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations has joined the Israeli lobby AIPAC in an all-out public campaign for a U.S. war on Syria.

Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League have invoked the Holocaust, with Hier charging the U.S. and Britain failed to rescue the Jews in 1942. Yet, if memory serves, in ’42 the Brits were battling Rommel in the desert and the Americans were still collecting their dead at Pearl Harbor and dying on Bataan and Corregidor.

The Republican Jewish Coalition, too, bankrolled by Sheldon Adelson, the Macau casino mogul whose solicitude for the suffering children of Syria is the stuff of legend, is also backing Obama’s war. Adelson, who shelled out $70 million to bring down Barack, wants his pay-off – war on Syria.

And he is getting it. Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor have saluted and enlisted. Sheldon, fattest of all fat cats, is buying himself a war. Yet, is it really wise for Jewish organizations to put a Jewish stamp on a campaign to drag America into another war that a majority of their countrymen do not want to fight?

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Stephen Lendman

Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya...The dead bodies of two children lie
inside the morgue of Baqouba hospital, Iraq, Monday, Nov. 21,
2005. U.S. forces "mistakenly" fired on a civilian vehicle out-
side of an American military base north of Baghdad on Monday,
killing at least three people, including one child, a U.S. spokes-
man said. Five people returning from a relative's funeral, in-
cluding three children, were killed and two others wounded. All
in a day's work for the U.S. Army. Thousands have ben killed.

US history is ugly. It's disturbing. It's ruthless. It's deplorable. No nation ever matched it. None came close. Crimes of war, against humanity and genocide define it. Terror bombing is official US policy. Permanent wars cause mass killing and destruction. One nation after another is ravaged and destroyed.

The late Studs Terkel (1912 - 2008) once said America views things through the prism of war. "(T)wisted (logic) encourages (US officials) to be willing, almost eager, to use military force," he said. Wars aren't just, he stressed. They're "lunatic" acts. They reflect madness. They're horrific by any standard. They're unjustifiable.

Terror bombings are worst of all. During WW II, Dresden was mercilessly firebombed. It was defenseless. It was of no military importance. Hitler was defeated. War in Europe ended three months later. It didn't matter. Thousands of tons of incendiaries destroyed one of Europe's great cultural centers. Bodies of molten flesh explained what happened. Destroying Dresden was morally indefensible.

So was firebombing Tokyo. War neared ending. Roosevelt spurned Japanese overtures to do so. On February 24, 1945, one square mile of Tokyo was destroyed. On March 16, another 16 square miles were incinerated. Tens of thousands died. Many more were injured. Over a million were left homeless. Five dozen other Japanese cities were firebombed the same way. Truman atom-bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki gratuitously. Japan wanted peace. Unconditional surrender was agreed on. Japanese officiala only wanted their emperor retained. Roosevelt categorically refused. So did Truman. They wanted Soviet Russia sent a message. US generals wanted to experiment with their new toy. They wanted to do so in real time. Hundreds of thousands died needlessly. Lower numbers did initially. They rose in succeeding months and years. Radiation poisoning kills. It causes grievous illnesses, disfiguration, and birth defects.

They're felt today. Nuclear bombing Japan twice was gratuitous slaughter. It was one of history's great crimes. A prostrate nation deserved better. America wages wars without mercy. It's brutality is unmatched. Millions of corpses attest to its ruthlessness. Body counts mount daily.

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Paul Craig Roberts

Does the American public have the strength of character to face the fact that the US government stands before the entire world revealed as a collection of war criminals who lie every time that they open their mouth? Will Congress and the American public buy the White House lie that they must support war criminals and liars or “America will lose face”?

The obama regime’s lies are so transparent and blatant that the cautious, diplomatic President Putin of Russia lost his patience and stated the fact that we all already know: John Kerry is a liar. Putin said: “This was very unpleasant and surprising for me. We talk to them [the Americans], and we assume they are decent people, but he [Kerry] is lying and he knows that he is lying. This is sad.”

When Secretary of State Colin Powell was sent by the criminal bush regime to lie to the UN, Powell and his chief of staff claim that Powell did not know he was lying. It did not occur to the Secretary of State that the White House would send him to the UN to start a war that killed, maimed, and dispossessed millions of Iraqis on the basis of total lies.

The despicable John Kerry knows that he is lying. Here is the American Secretary of State, and obama, the puppet president, knowingly lying to the world. There is not a shred of integrity in the US government. No respect for truth, justice, morality or human life. Here are two people so evil that they want to repeat in Syria what the bush war criminals did in Iraq.

How can the American people and their representatives in Congress tolerate these extraordinary criminals? Why are not obama and John Kerry impeached? The obama regime has every quality of Nazi Germany and Stasi Communist Germany, only that the obama regime is worse. The obama regime spies on the entire world and lies about it. The obama regime is fully engaged in killing people in seven countries, a murderous rampage that not even Hitler attempted.

Whether the criminal obama regime can purchase the collaboration of Congress and the European puppet states in a transparent war crime will soon be decided. The decision will determine the fate of the world.

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William Blum

Many people seem to have really learned something from the Iraqi pile of lies and horror and from decades of other American interventions.

Secretary of State John Kerry: “There is no doubt that Saddam al-Assad has crossed the red line. … Sorry, did I just say ‘Saddam’?”

A US drone has just taken a photo of Mullah Omar riding on a motorcycle through the streets of Damascus. 1

So what do we have as the United States refuses to rule out an attack on Syria and keeps five
warships loaded with missiles in the eastern Mediterranean?

● Only 9 percent of Americans support a US military intervention in Syria. 2

● Only 11% of the British supported a UK military intervention; this increased to 25% after the announcement of the alleged chemical attack. 3

● British Prime Minister David Cameron lost a parliamentary vote August 29 endorsing military action against Syria 285-272

● 64% of the French people oppose an intervention by the French Army. 4 “Before acting we need proof,” said a French government spokesperson. 5

● Former and current high-ranking US military officers question the use of military force as a punitive measure and suggest that the White House lacks a coherent strategy. “If the administration is ambivalent about the wisdom of defeating or crippling the Syrian leader, possibly setting the stage for Damascus to fall to Islamic fundamentalist rebels, they say, the military objective of strikes on Assad’s military targets is at best ambiguous.”6

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Stephen Lendman

Candidate Obama pledged hope, peace and change.
President Obama delivered duplicity, war and betrayal.

It didn't surprise. His Senate voting record warned. It was way right-of-center. It showed where he stands. His tenure as president does writ large. He's no man of the people.

He's soulless, anti-progressive, anti-populist, anti-labor, anti-fairness, anti-dissent, anti-democratic, anti-freedom, anti-civil and human rights, anti-environmental sanity, and anti-government of, by and for everyone equitably.

His rap sheet exceeds the worst of his predecessors. He's hard-right, reactionary, belligerent, pro-business, and pro-war. He's waging it nonstop.

He's doing so on humanity. He's done it throughout his tenure. He assures lots more ahead. He prioritizes advancing America's imperium. He seeks unchallenged global dominance.

He's doing so through the barrel of the gun. He's pistol-whipping countries into submission. He's doing it by destroying one after another.

He's waging war on peace. He claims it's for peace. He lied saying so. He's a serial liar. He's a moral coward. He's a war criminal multiple times over. He heads a repressive homeland police state apparatus. He's done what his supporters thought impossible. He's done it at home and abroad. He exceeds the worst of George Bush.

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A Short Comment by Paul Craig Roberts

Many are asking what can be done to stop the pending US attack on Syria. Two things can be done.

One is for the US Congress to realize that it does not save America’s face for Congress to endorse a policy that has been rejected by the rest of the world, including Washington’s closest ally, Great Britain. For Congress to endorse what the UN Secretary General and the President of Russia have made unequivocally clear would be a war crime under international law harms, not rescues, America’s reputation. Doing the wrong thing to save face does not succeed.

In the event that Congress fails to understand the real stakes and votes to support a criminal action, the second thing that can be done to stop the attack is for most other countries in the world–China, India, Japan, Brazil, Australia, Canada, Iran, South Africa, the European and South American countries–to add their clear unequivocal statements to those of the UN General Secretary and President Putin that an American attack on Syria that is not authorized by the UN Security Council is a war crime. Expression by the governments of the world of this truthful statement would make it clear to Washington that it is isolated from the world community.

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