Wednesday, April 11, 2018

My tweets on Syria from yesterday

Arab journalists who work for Western or Gulf regime media are salivating at the prospect of another US war.
Zuckerberg falsely claimed today that Facebook bans all calls for violence. He meant to add: excluding calls for Western and Israeli wars.

American conservatives and liberals are converging on a foreign policy agenda hatched by the GCC- AIPAC alliance in DC-and all in the name of freedom and humanitarianism.
All-I mean all-advocates of US intervention are also supporters of various dictatorships and foreign occupation around the world, especially in the Middle East. Some opponents-but certainly NOT all-of US intervention also support the Syrian dictatorship. Let us not confuse.

The irony of all this, if you carefully read US newspapers, is that US military calculations aim at punishing the Syrian regime (and whoever else among the innocent who get killed) while strictly preserving the Syrian regime and preventing its collapse. Opponents haven’t noticed.
Key words: “suspected”, “apparently”, and “circumstantial” evidence. Case closed. Let the jet be launched. “Chemical weapons are again suspected to have been used in Syria, apparently by government forces, circumstantial evidence suggests.”(NYT)

I don’t trust US government intentions, or Russian government intentions for that matter, even if they throw flowers on a country.
Notice the crucial phrase “what appeared to be”: “On Sunday, groups in Douma, a town in eastern Ghouta, reported what appeared to be a chemical weapons attack”.(NYT)
So the US strike will either be big or small. Thanks for the brilliant insight. “Michèle A. Flournoy, an under secretary of defense under President Barack Obama. “Conceivably, they could design a larger one-off strike or a series of smaller strikes.” (NYT)

When th dust settles in Syria, we will know much more about the Syrian Observatory and its role in the conflict and the agendas it served. Notice that not one Western or Arab media source treats its reports with any skepticism at all, which makes it all the more fishy.
This line. Typical of this war-mongering paper. It makes the massive use of force a mere necessity for the protection of “civilians”. Remember how they agitated for war in ‘03 “deterrent against further use of chemical weapons on Syrian civilians.” (NYT)

All-I mean all-advocates of US intervention are also supporters of various dictatorships and foreign occupation around the world, especially in the Middle East. Some opponents-but certainly NOT all-of US intervention also support the Syrian dictatorship. Let us not confuse.

How war propaganda begins. What is wrong with this poll? 1)it makes it an established fact that chemical weapons were used and that the user is certainly known beyond the shadow of a doubt. 2)it makes it sound like US bombs and rockets only fall on a “regime“.See footage of Raqqa" (Spectator Index had a poll saying: "Do you support military action against the Assad regime over the use of chemical weapons?"

The same media and personalities who assured us back in 2003 that Saddam possessed MWDs are assuring us now that Syrian regime has just used chemical weapons in Syria. If true, show the world the evidence--and please don't insult our intelligence by citing "US intelligence".

Yet again, the Israeli lobby and the GCC's lobbying shops in DC are agitation for another war in the Middle East. This is not to absolve the administration of responsibility of course but is to indicate the source of loud noises of propaganda.

Those of use who are opposed to Western military intervention and war in the Middle East are not less opposed to the use of chemical weapons--whether by Syrian regime or by rebels. But the tendency to link skepticism with support for Syrian regime is like Zionist tactics.
Syrian regime and the rebels are capable of a variety of war crimes. That has been established in the course of the Syrian war. But to accept at face value claims by Western governments and their subservient media, or by media shops set up by Gulf regimes, is lend a hand to war.

To insist on clear and incontrovertible evidence of use of chemical weapons in Syria and identity of the user is not to absolve the Syrian regime or rebels of crimes. But it is to question the veracity of West governments and media with long track record of lying and fabrications.

If you said in 2003, I oppose war on Iraq but I accept Western "evidence" of Iraqi WMDs, you wittingly or unwittingly participated in the campaign for war back then. Same analogy applies now.

There is a new tactic to intimidate and kill dissent in preparation for this war:by insisting that you are a supporter of the Asad regime if you reject whatever evidence of chemical weapons presented by Western governments and journalists, or GCC funded shops, or by Israel lobby.

Are you kidding me? theIntercept citing ambassador Robert Ford as an expert on Syria? Why not throw in Thomas Friedman for extra effect? Robert Ford is John Bolton but without the mustache.

Make no mistake about it: Western human rights organizations (and some feminist groups in the case of the war on Afghanistan) played a big role in agitation and lobbying for Western wars in 1990-91, 2001, and 2003, and 2011. They are playing the same role now, especially HRW.