The administration's response to the conjunction of this weekend's People's Climate March and the International Day of Peace?
1)
Bomb Syria the following day, to wrest control of the oil from ISIS
which gained its foothold directly in the region through the U.S., Saudi
Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Jordan funding and arming ISIS' predecessors
in Syria.
2) Send the president to UN General Assembly, where he
will inevitably give a rousing speech about climate and peace, while the
destruction of the environment and the shattering of world peace is on
full display 5,000 miles away.
Nothing better illustrates the
bankruptcy of the Obama administration's foreign policy than funding
groups that turn on the U.S. again and again, a neo-con fueled cycle of
profits for war makers and destruction of ever-shifting "enemies."
The fact can't be refuted: ISIS was born of Western intervention in Iraq and covert action in Syria.
This
Frankenstein-like experiment of arming the alleged freedom-seeking
Syrian opposition created the monster that roams the region. ISIS and
the U.S. have a curious relationship -- mortal enemies that, at the same
time, benefit from some of the same events:
a) Ousting former
Iraqi President Nouri al Maliki for his refusal to consent to the
continued presence of U.S. troops in his country.
b) Regime change in Syria.
c) Arming the Kurds so they can separate from Iraq, a preliminary move to partitioning Iraq.
What
a coincidence for war-profiteering neo-cons and the war industry, which
has seen its stock rise since last week's congressional vote to fund
the rapid expansion of war. We have met the enemy and he isn't only
ISIS, he
is us.
Phase two of the war against Syria is the
introduction of 5,000 "moderate" mercenaries (as opposed to immoderate
ones), who were trained in Saudi Arabia, the hotbed of Wahhabism, at an
initial installment cost of $15 billion. These new "moderates" will
replace the old "moderates," who became ISIS, just in time for
Halloween.
The administration, in the belief that you can buy,
rent, or lease friends where they otherwise do not exist, labor under
the vain assumption that our newfound comrades-in-arms will remain in
place during their three-year employment period, ignoring the
inevitability that those "friends" you hire today could be firing at you
tomorrow.
One wonders if Saudi training of these moderate
mercenaries will include methods of beheading which were popularized by
the Saudi government long before their ISIS progeny took up the grisly
practice.
The U.S. is being played.
Qatar and Saudi Arabia
can now overtly join with the U.S. in striking Syria, after they have
been covertly attempting for years to take down the last secular state
in the region. We are now advancing the agenda of the actual Islamic
States -- Saudi Arabia and Qatar -- to fight the ersatz Islamic State of
ISIS.
Now U.S. bombs and missiles might inadvertently "make the
world safe" for theocracy rather than democracy. Today we read reports
that Israel has shot down a Syrian warplane, indicating the terrible
possibility of a wider regional conflict.
What does this have to do with the security of the 50 States United? Nothing!
Last
week Congress acted prematurely in funding a war without following the
proscriptions of Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. (The day
of the vote,
I urged Congress
to resist this dangerous and misguided legislation.) But even while the
funding was given, the explicit authorization to go to war was not. To
authorize a war, Congress must vote for war. It has not done that yet.
To
sell its case, the administration is borrowing from the fear mongering
tactics of the Bush administration. ISIS poses no direct, immediate
threat to the United States --
The White House even said so yesterday, just hours before bombing commenced - yet we are being sold make-believe about ISIS sleeper cells.
This
attack on Syria, under the guise of striking ISIS, is by definition, a
war of aggression. It is a violation of international law. It could lead
to crimes against humanity and the deaths of untold numbers of innocent
civilians. No amount of public relations or smooth talking can change
that.
And yes, members of this Democratic administration,
including the president who executed this policy, must be held
accountable by the International Criminal Court and by the American
people, who he serves.
But as we know, war is a powerful and
cynical PR tactic. I expect the bombing of Syria will momentarily boost
the White House's popularity with self-serving heroic accounts of damage
inflicted upon ISIS (and the U.S. equipment they use). Stuffing the
November ballot box with bombs and missiles may even help the Democratic
Party retain the Senate.
But after the election the voters will
discover that the president played into the hands of extremists, hurt
civilians, and embroiled our country deep into another conflict in the
Middle East.
There were alternatives. The U.S. and the
international community could have contained and shrunk ISIS by cutting
off its funds and its revenue from sale of oil on the black market. We
could have looked to strike a deal with Syria and Iran.
In foreign
policy, the administration has failed. Congress has failed. Both the
Democratic and Republican Parties have passed the national checkbook to
their patrons in the war contracting business. And passed the bill to
future generations.
The American people, who in 2008 searched for
something redemptive after years of George W. Bush's war, realize in
2014 that hope and change was but a clever slogan. It was used to gain
power and to keep it through promoting fear, war, the growth of the
National Security state, and an autumnal bonfire of countless billions
of tax dollars which fall like leaves from money trees on the banks of
the Potomac.
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