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What Obama Should Have Told Bibi

And also the World Jewish Congress

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • November 10, 2015

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is currently making one of his periodic devastating plundering raids on Washington and New York. During his visit he discreetly picked up a bunch of large checks from the Wall Street crowd, benefited from the plaudits dutifully delivered by the media and chattering class and has even met with President Barack Obama, whom he quite openly despises. Netanyahu and Obama carefully concealed their mutual dislike when in front of the cameras but the president also made all the right noises about Israel’s security “needs.” Apparently all the violence occurring in Israel-Palestine is the fault of the Palestinians and Israel always has the right to do whatever it wants to defend itself. Obama will follow up on the meeting by throwing billions of dollars of additional Danegeld at Netanyahu as a token of America’s undying love and fealty to Israel’s interests.

One wonders if Obama had his fingers crossed behind his back to indicate that he was lying to Bibi except for the intention to come up with more money, which is always an easy way out for America’s ruling class. It is generally convenient to pay off blackmailers like Netanyahu in hopes that they will stop whining. The president will in any event have to prepare himself to endure the usual firestorm coming from GOP presidential candidates later this week over his less than enthusiastic support for America’s greatest ally and best friend, which would have been a consequence of the visit no matter how it had turned out.

Last Thursday a full page ad placed by the World Jewish Congress appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. The group’s president Ronald Lauder, the cosmetics company heir, provided the White House with suggestions for how to deal with the visiting Israeli leader. Predictably, he delivered some debatable assertions in constructing his argument as to why the president and prime minister should kiss and make up.

Lauder wants to “reinvigorate” the relationship with Israel because “never has this relationship been more important.” Wrong Ron, the Israeli connection is an enormous liability for the United States strategically speaking that has cost well in excess of $100 billion to the American taxpayer and has done untold political damage. Compared to other strategic partners in the region including Turkey and Egypt Israel is of little or no importance but for the fact that it has an enthusiastic, politically powerful and extremely wealthy domestic lobby conniving on its behalf. Which includes you, Ron.

Lauder goes on to cite “human disaster in Syria, ISIS moving on Iraq, [and] Iran’s bid to destabilize the region.” Well Ron, the human disaster in Syria and ISIS in Iraq have been caused by policies pushed by Israel and carried out by the United States, all starting with the Iraq war which was initiated at least in part for Israel by a cadre of neocons in the Bush Administration. Iran may not be a friend of the United States, but its support is desperately needed to eliminate ISIS and help stabilize Iraq. As always, Israel sees a U.S. led military solution to each and every problem dealing with Muslims. That might provide a comfort zone for Israeli politicians but it is bad for the United States and to be completely honest it is not even good for the Israeli people.

The ad also cites “the ongoing violent attacks against Jews in Israel” and that Israel is the “only democracy” in the Middle East. Ron, more than seven Palestinians have been killed for each dead Israeli, many of them shot execution style, but you seem to have forgotten that. The simple solution to the attacks would be for Israel to give up its endless and endlessly brutal occupation of the West Bank as well as its siege of Gaza. The knifings would end.

And what about democracy when it only applies to Jews? Netanyahu has proposed expelling thousands of Palestinians from East Jerusalem, where they and their ancestors have lived for centuries. And the continuous theft of Arab land and destruction of their livelihoods proceeds at an accelerated pace. If Ron Lauder and his friends really cared about suffering humanity instead of only the Jewish subset he would be using his considerable leverage to complain directly to Netanyahu and ask him to reverse his policies.

And how to fix things? Lauder claims that Netanyahu has “the greatness, the vision and the courage to move this relationship forward on a positive path.” Sure. And pigs have wings. Let’s face it Ron, Bibi is quite likely clinically insane. Even many Israelis are saying so, though they still vote for him based on his government’s relentlessly implemented and self-fulfilling program of inciting fear of Arabs.

For what it’s worth, this is what I propose Obama should have said to Bibi but didn’t, with a transcript of the conversation also faxed over to Ron Lauder at the World Jewish Congress:

  • “Nice to have you back Prime Minister, but not really as it’s close to lunchtime, to which, incidentally, you are not invited. Why don’t you stay home? You have been interfering in our politics and denigrating both me personally and my office for far too long. How would you like it if I were to go to Israel and endorse one of your opponents? If you keep up this crap I will revoke your visa and you’ll never visit here again.”
  • “And by the way, your plan to expel thousands of Arabs from East Jerusalem and to shoot kids throwing stones at your occupying army is not acceptable to us. And then there are new reports of your harvesting organs and other medical transplant material from the bodies of Palestinians that you have killed. There’s a long history of that in your country, but it’s a bit much even by your standards, isn’t it, and it begs the question whether there is anything that you won’t do. Next time a motion comes up in the United Nations condemning your brutality we will support it. Maybe we’ll co-sponsor or even propose it to show that we’re serious.”
  • “We are running out of money here in Washington and are thinking of cutting benefits to our own people. I note that Israelis have free medical care and university education, which means that we are subsidizing things that we Americans do not have so it hardly seems fair. We have been giving you more than $3 billion in aid every year and also looking the other way when you benefit from tax free charitable contributions that actually are illegal under American law. By executive order, I am stopping the cash flow and asking the IRS to look at your friends over here.”
  • “And speaking of Israel’s many friends, your good buddy at the State Department Victoria Nuland is now working down in the mail room. And I am asking the Justice Department to register the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as a foreign agent, subject to having its finances and operations monitored by U.S. authorities. Oh, and your spy Jonathan Pollard will be denied parole later this month and will be the guest of a federal prison for the next twenty years.”
  • “I cannot see where you have done anything for us except complain. As you are now pledging Israel to continue its occupation of Palestinian land and ‘live by the sword’, meaning the killing of Arabs will accelerate, I am suspending all military cooperation with you until you come up with a plan to remove most of your settlers from the West Bank. Come back when you have something to show me. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”

Well, okay, it was never bloody likely to happen that way, but I can dream, can’t I? If you think Obama is spineless when confronted by Ron Lauder and the usual suspects, just think of how bad it will be when we have President Clinton or President Rubio, proxies for their Israel firster donors Haim Saban and Paul Singer respectively. The new president and his or her staff will have to learn how to perform proskynesis whenever Netanyahu enters the oval office.

November 10, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | 2 Comments

CEO Richard Master Masterminds Full Medicare for All

By Ralph Nader | The Nader Page | November 6, 2015

Just when the prospects for single-payer or full Medicare for everyone, with free choice of doctors and hospitals, appear to be going nowhere, from Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley comes a stirring that could go national and make single-payer a reality.

Throwing down the gauntlet on the grounds of efficiency and humanness, businessman Richard Master, CEO of MCS Industries Inc., the nation’s leading supplier of wall and poster frames, is bent on arousing the nation’s business leaders to back single-payer – the efficient full Medicare for all – solution.

The woefully wasteful and profiteering health care industries have blocked majority opinion, and a majority of physicians and nurses, to keep the present sky-high costly system in place, that receives huge taxpayer subsidies without any reasonable, and meaningful, price restraints. Health care companies exploit the complexities of Obamacare, which is powerless to restrain price spirals (note the staggering rise in recent prices of certain drugs). But the health care industry cannot defeat an organized business community fed up with uncontrollable cost burdens and the further competitive disadvantages they experience with western European countries, Japan or Canada – countries that have single-payer systems at half the per capita costs or less.

Mr. Master’s first step is now complete. He has produced a short movie called “Fix It: Healthcare at the Tipping Point” which makes a powerful business case for replacing the current wasteful multi-payer system with a single payer one. He traveled with his award-winning filmmakers to Canada, where he interviewed doctors, nurses and conservative business people. The latter were aghast over why their fellow conservatives in the U.S. are not seeing the light.

One industrialist, Dann Konkin, told the filmmakers that he embraces the Canadian healthcare system because it reduces his company’s costs. The film quotes Michael Grimaldi, former president of General Motors of Canada, as declaring that the Canadian healthcare system “significantly reduces total labor costs for automobile manufacturing firms.” His predecessor, Jack Smith, who went on to head the entire General Motors, said much the same.

Master and his crew then traveled to Taiwan, which has free choice of physician and hospital, and spends just 1.6 percent of its total operating health care budget on administration. Compare that figure with what Master estimates to be over 30 percent in the United States, with every doctor on average paying $80,000 a year on such administration costs.

It is always fascinating to learn what the “aha” moment is for leaders of reform movements. With Master it was a trip to Santiago, Chile to meet the family of his son’s fiancé. They went to a pharmacy to buy their usual brand of inhaler, which they purchased for $15. Back home in Easton, PA, the same brand cost between $120 and $140. Then Master had to buy his blood pressure medicine which he did for $4. Back in the U.S. it was $40. That’s when Master turned to his family and said, “we have to do something about this.”

Master has his numbers down. This year, health care will exceed the $3 trillion level in the U.S. People are anxious and worried about whether they are covered, what their co-pays, deductibles and exclusions will be or what they qualify for under the health industry fine-print contract, or the Obamacare criteria. Master believes that lifting the burgeoning burden and paperwork by enacting a system with public insurance and private delivery of health care will make our economy more efficient and our business more expansive.

His own company just got a 35 percent initial premium increase this year. That amounts, he says, to be $1.50 to $2.00 an hour for a production or warehouse worker in his firm.

The fifty members of the House of Representatives who have signed on to H.R. 676 legislation for single-payer, full Medicare for all will probably be delighted hear about Richard Master’s film and his plans to spark a movement through our nation’s small and big businesses. He is coming to Capitol Hill soon, and he will be on the mass media– starting with the business cable news that is always looking for new energy from the private sector won’t be able to resist his compelling arguments.

It is interesting to see how Master meticulously argues his case. Spending on health care is at 18 percent of GDP, he says, while the average in other industrialized countries is below ten percent. “We can’t compete,” he adds, “and if we go to 20 percent or 25 percent, we are going to have to give up on education and on any work we are doing on our infrastructure.” He thinks “of this painting by Goya – Saturn Devouring His Son. The healthcare system is essentially devouring the rest of the economy whole.”

I asked Master why the business community, surely knowing what he knows about the costs, did not unfurl the single-payer flag long ago. He replied that they are misinformed by legions of insurance agents and others in the industry who populate chambers of commerce everywhere. He knows that single-payer actually strengthens the free, competitive market of delivering health care, far more than the insurance companies and restrictive networks do (Listen to my interview with Mr. Master at http://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com).

There is another reason businesses haven’t championed this issue. Businesses do not like to take on other sectors of business or changes that present an existential peril to the latter. Single-payer, as Medicare for the elderly did in the mid-Sixties, replaces the health insurance companies. That is too much conflict for corporations.

The next step for this historic advance is for Mr. Master to take his film to business audiences around the nation. I suggested that Mr. Master also organize a major conference of representatives of all business sectors in Washington, D.C. to make the definitive statement that rational health care by full Medicare for all is about to be put on the national policy agenda. What issue could more enliven more a presidential election year?

Master’s film can be found at http://www.fixithealthcare.com.

November 8, 2015 Posted by | Economics, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , | 2 Comments

US built ‘equivalent of 10 Keystones’ since 2010 – report

RT | November 7, 2015

Critical reaction to President Barack Obama’s blocking of the Keystone XL pipeline from the oil industry amounted to a shrug, perhaps because the US has constructed enough pipeline in the last five years to equal 10 Keystone projects, a new report stated.

Keystone XL’s “deliberation process has gone on so long that the market has evolved and adapted in the meantime,” Mark Smith, director of commodity research at ClipperData, told Market Watch. “The need for it is less urgent now than when it was originally first commissioned.”

During the seven years TransCanada was applying to the US State Department to extend its Keystone pipeline across the US border, other pipelines expanded rapidly within the US, according to a report by the Financial Post. From 2009 to 2013, more than 8,000 miles of piping was built. In 2014, mileage increased over 9 percent to reach 66,649 miles, Association of Oil Pipe Lines (AOPL) data shows.

“While people have been debating Keystone in the US we have actually built the equivalent of 10 Keystones. And no one’s complained or said anything,” AOPL spokesman John Stoody told the Post.

TransCanada had sought to build 875 miles for its Keystone XL. On Monday, it asked the State Department to discontinue its application review process, but that didn’t happen. Secretary of State John Kerry and Vice President Joe Biden stood alongside the president on Friday for his eight-minute prepared remarks agreeing with State Department’s rejection of the application.

“Shipping dirtier crude oil into our country would not increase America’s energy security,” Obama said.

In Canada, the decision was seen as political. Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall viewed this as the Obama administration putting politics “ahead of its relationship with its most important trading partner, Canada.”

President and chief executive of the American Petroleum Institute, Jack Gerard, said, “It’s ironic that the administration would strike a deal to allow Iranian crude onto the global market while refusing to give our closest ally, Canada, access to US refineries” in a media conference call.

The number one source of crude oil for the US is Canada. In August, the amount of Canadian crude oil shipped to the US rose to a record 3.4 million barrels a day. Since 2010, crude oil imports from Canada have risen by a million barrels per day.

The US-based oil industry is growing too. A Houston-based pipeline company, Enterprise Product Partners, projected last week that by 2018 it will have spent a total of $7.8 billion on such projects. Shipping company Magellan Midstream Partners, based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, announced this week that it had increased its budget to purchase capital and equipment to move oil from $200 million to $1.6 billion.

Meanwhile, Enbridge, another Canadian energy transportation corporation, has already doubled the quantity of oil it delivers to the US without an application process, as its routes don’t cross a national border.

November 7, 2015 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology | , , , | Leave a comment

Failed Syrian rebel training program cost US taxpayers $2 million per fighter – report

RT | November 6, 2015

Newly acquired documents show the Pentagon spent nearly $400 million, or $2 million per fighter, on its failed train-and-equip program, according to USA Today. The Pentagon claims the actual cost was $30,000 per trainee.

USA Today reported the train-and-equip program was abandoned after the department had already spent $384 million on it. “Of the 180 Syrians vetted, trained and equipped, 145 fighters [remained] in the program,” the report stated. Of those 145 fighters, 95 were in Syria.

When asked to comment on the findings, the Pentagon disputed that it had spent $2 million per fighter, saying the actual cost was far lower – $30,000 per trainee. They added that the “vast majority” of the funds had gone to buying weapons, equipment, and ammunition, of which some is still in storage.

“Our investment in the Syria train and equip program should not be viewed purely in fiscal terms,” Navy Commander Elissa Smith told the news outlet in an email. Smith said some of those trained fighters had been calling in air strikes, and that ammunition designated for trainees had been given to other forces fighting the Islamic State instead.

According to the documents outlining the program’s $501 billion budget, $204 million was supposed to be spent on ammunition, $77 million on weapons, $62 million on mobility, $47 million on services, $46 million on construction, $40 million on strategic lift/shipping, $13 million on equipment, $6 million on communications, and $6 million on facilities and maintenance.

The program was intended to graduate 3,000 trained and equipped New Syrian Forces fighters in 2015, and 5,000 annually afterwards, to combat Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL). However, President Barack Obama abandoned the program earlier this fall.

In documents and interviews, USA Today was able to confirm that two of the four training camps designed for the program never hosted even a single recruit.

In September, it was revealed that one group of trainees had surrendered one quarter of their US-supplied weapons, ammunition, and vehicles in exchange for safe passage through territory held by another rebel group, considered to be extremist.

While the training has stopped, the US will continue to give equipment and weapons to the leaders of ‘vetted’ groups of rebels who are already fighting IS “so that over time they continue to re-claim territory,” Smith told USA Today.

The rebel training program’s $500 million budget was in addition to the $42 million the Pentagon had already spent in 2014 to set it up.

The findings come as the Obama administration announced it was set to deploy up to 50 US special operations troops in northern Syria to assist in the fight against IS. It marked the first time the administration openly said it would send ground forces into Syria.

The Associated Press reported the White House has put no timetable on how long the American forces will stay in Syria, although Obama has previously said he expects the campaign against IS to last beyond his presidency.

Obama inherited two military conflicts and will hand off a third to his successor. He recently announced plans to maintain a troop presence in Afghanistan beyond 2015.

In July, the National Priorities Project, a non-profit, non-partisan federal budget research group, reported that America’s war in Afghanistan has cost taxpayers roughly $4 million an hour. Their research found more than $700 billion has been spent on the war since the George W. Bush administration authorized the invasion in 2001, including more than $35 billion in fiscal year 2015.

The initial budget for the Afghan war was over $20 billion for 2001/02. The budget dropped to $14 billion over the next two years as spending shifted to the war in Iraq. Expenditures on the Afghan war took a back seat to Iraq war spending before ballooning to more than $100 billion in 2010, when the cost of the Iraq war began to decline. Spending in Afghanistan continued to top $100 billion annually until 2013, when it began falling by increments of $10 billion, finally reaching its current budget of $35 billion.

November 6, 2015 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

Americans oppose Obama’s plans for fighting ISIL: Poll

Press TV – November 5, 2015

Most Americans disapprove of US President Barack Obama’s approach in fighting the Daesh (ISIL) terrorist group, a new poll has found.

More than 6 in 10 people in the US reject Obama’s handling of the threat posed by the ISIL in Syria and Iraq, an Associated Press-GfK poll released on Thursday finds.

Support for his approach has dropped since Washington formed a military coalition against ISIL in late 2014. Last year, Americans were approximately even, but disapproval has risen 8 percent since January.

This is while two-thirds of the people surveyed in the poll described the threat posed by Daesh as a “very or extremely important issue.”

The poll also found that only 40 percent of Americans still approve of the president’s management of foreign policy.

Obama announced last week that 50 US special operations troops will head to northern Syria, marking the first time the US is openly sending forces into that war-torn country.

‘Afghanistan, a historic failure’

Concerns about Obama’s strategy overseas become more apparent when it comes to Afghanistan, where he has dropped his plan to pull US forces by the end of 2016. The new plan means that when he leaves office, the US will have at least 5,500 troops in Afghanistan.

The poll found that 71 percent of Americans believe history will judge the Afghanistan war as more of a failure than a success.

Roughly a third of Americans said they approve of Obama’s revamped plan in the country, while one-third opposed it.

November 5, 2015 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

MSF Slams Obama’s Silence on Kunduz Hospital Bombing

Sputnik – 05.11.2015

Last month, US airstrikes bombarded a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. In one of the deadliest civilian casualty incidents in the history of the Afghan conflict. Thirty were killed, all being medical staff and patients, and another 37 were wounded.

The tragedy elicited an international outcry. But despite almost universal condemnation, no Western nations have stepped forward to hold the United States accountable for its actions.

obama-jail_240x172“The silence is embarrassing,” MSF executive director Joanne Liu told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “We have seen an erosion over the years of international humanitarian law. Enough is enough. We cannot keep going like this.”

In the days after the bombing, Doctors Without Borders appealed to 76 nations, requesting support for an impartial international investigation into the circumstances surrounding the incident.

“Yet today, as we mourn the killing of our staff and patients, none of the 76 countries have stepped forward to show their support for an independent investigation by the Humanitarian Commission,” MSF-USA executive director Jason Cone said during a commemoration event on Tuesday.

“No state has been willing to stand up for the Geneva Conventions and the laws of war.”

While President Obama has publicly apologized to Liu, the United States is still refusing to give consent to an independent investigation.

“That is why we again call on President Barack Obama to give his consent for the United States to participate in an independent investigation by the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission,” Cone said on Tuesday.

“Consenting to such an investigation would send a powerful signal of the US government’s commitment to and respect for international humanitarian law and the rules of war.”

MSF has also started an online petition requesting White House consent. It has so far garnered over 430,000 signatures.

“For me the key message is about the safeguarding of the humanitarian medical space in war zones,” Liu said. “No one expects to be bombed when they are in a hospital. Every human being can understand that.”

November 5, 2015 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , | 1 Comment

America’s Non-representative War Government

By Sheldon Richman | Free Association | November 3, 2015

“The success of government…,” the late historian Edmund Morgan wrote, “requires the acceptance of fictions, requires the willing suspension of disbelief, requires us to believe that the emperor is clothed even though we can see that he is not.”

Representation is chief among those fictions.

“Just as the exaltation of the king could be a means of controlling him,” Morgan continued, “so the exaltation of the people can be a means of controlling them…. If the representative consented, his constituents had to make believe that they had done so.”

Questioning the authenticity of representative government may seem beyond the pale in America. But occasionally the veil slips, and we glimpse reality. If we really live under a representative government, how can a president take the country to war without even a show vote in Congress, much less a referendum? (The proposed Ludlow Amendment to the Constitution would have required a referendum on war.)

Barack Obama has announced he is sending special operations forces into Syria to help those fighting both the government of Bashar al-Assad and the Islamic State, just as last year he ordered airstrikes in Syria. He previously said he would not send ground forces, but you can forget about that now. After a Delta Force soldier was killed there while on a raid last month, Secretary of War Ash Carter acknowledged that Americans will be at risk. Deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said, “The norm is not going out in raids. I’m obviously not going to rule anything out.”

Note well: the U.S. Congress has not declared war on Syria (nor should it), so Obama’s moves are unconstitutional and illegal. Last year Obama asked Congress for an “authorization for the use of military force” (AUMF) — it went nowhere and is going nowhere — while insisting he did not need it. The administration (echoing George W. Bush) says any president has the inherent power under the Constitution to do what he’s doing in Syria. The administration first suggested the AUMFs of 2001 and 2002 were sufficient, but that claim was demolished. The 2001 AUMF said Bush could attack al-Qaeda and its associates. Neither Assad nor the Islamic State qualifies: al-Qaeda’s Syrian franchise, al-Nusra Front, is also trying to overthrow Assad, and the Islamic State emerged from a split in al-Qaeda. The 2002 AUMF was aimed at Iraqi president Saddam Hussein — it could hardly apply to Syria.

More fundamentally, an AUMF is not a declaration of war; it’s a blank-check, unconstitutional delegation of power from Congress to a president. Consider the 2002 AUMF. As I wrote back then:

The resolution would authorize Mr. Bush to “use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to 1) defend the national security interests of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq and 2) to enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.” The key phrase is “as he determines to be necessary and appropriate.” It would be consistent with the resolution for Mr. Bush to decide that it was neither necessary nor appropriate to use force against Iraq at all.

In other words, the Congress is not declaring that a state of war exists between Iraq and the United States. On the contrary, the President will decide when and if a state of war exists. The resolution requires only that he “certify” that diplomatic efforts have failed before he uses force. Indeed, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt confirmed that Congress will not be declaring war when he said, “we should deal with it [the Iraqi problem] diplomatically if we can, militarily if we must. And I think this resolution does that.”

Orwellian war-denial is nothing new for the Obama administration. Obama refused to call the 2011 regime-changing air campaign in Libya a war; thus he dismissed the War Powers Resolution as irrelevant. (That 1973 measure was Congress’s feeble attempt to rein in de facto presidential power to make war and rectify the constitutional usurpation that began with Harry Truman’s “police action” in Korea in 1950.)

Going to war is the most consequential step a government can take. If the people have nothing to say about war ex ante, the government can hardly be described as representative.

November 4, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

War in Syria? Where Is Speaker Ryan?

By Pat Buchanan • Unz Review • November 3, 2015

“The United States is being sucked into a new Middle East war,” says The New York Times. And the Times has it exactly right.

Despite repeated pledges not to put “boots on the ground” in Syria, President Obama is inserting 50 U.S. special ops troops into that country, with more to follow.

U.S. A-10 “warthog” attack planes have been moved into Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, close to Syria.

Hillary Clinton, who has called for arming Syrian rebels to bring down Bashar Assad, is urging Obama to establish a no-fly zone inside Syria.

Citing Clinton and Gen. David Petraeus, John McCain is calling for a no-fly zone and a safe zone in Syria, to be policed by U.S. air power.

“How many men, women and children,” McCain asks, “are we willing to watch being slaughtered by the Russians and Bashar al-Assad?”

Yet, if we put U.S. forces onto sovereign Syrian territory, against the will and resistance of that government, that is an act of war.

Would we tolerate Mexican troops in Texas to protect their citizens inside our country? Would we, in the Cold War, have tolerated Russians in Cuba telling us they were establishing a no-fly zone for all U.S. warplanes over the Florida Strait and Florida Keys?

Obama has begun an escalation into Syria’s civil war, and not only against ISIS and the al-Nusra Front, but against Syria’s armed forces.

Mission creep has begun. The tripwire is being put down. Yet, who authorized Obama to take us into this war? The Russians and Iranians are in Syria at the invitation of the government. But Obama has no authorization from Congress to put combat troops into Syria.

Neither the al-Nusra Front nor ISIS has an air force. Against whom, then, is this Clinton-McCain no fly-zone directed, if not Syrian and Russian warplanes and helicopters?

Is America really prepared to order the shooting down of Russian warplanes and the killing of Russian pilots operating inside Syria with the approval of the Syrian government?

In deepening America’s involvement and risking a clash with Syrian, Russian and Iranian forces, Obama is contemptuously ignoring a Congress that has never authorized the use of military force against the Damascus regime.

Congress’ meek acquiescence in being stripped of its war powers is astonishing. Weren’t these the Republicans who were going to Washington to “stand up to Obama”?

Coming after Congress voted for “fast track,” i.e., to surrender its constitutional right to amend trade treaties, the capitulations of 2015 rank as milestones in the long decline into irrelevance of the U.S. Congress. Yet in the Constitution, Congress is still the first branch of the U.S. government.

Has anyone thought through to where this U.S. intervention can lead?

This weekend, the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan regained full control of the parliament in a “khaki election” it called after renewing its war on the Kurdish PKK in southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq.

Erdogan regards the PKK as a terror group. As do we. But Erdogan also considers Syria’s Kurdish fighters, the YPG, to be terrorists. And Ankara has warned that if the YPG occupies more territory along the Syrian-Turkish border, west of the Euphrates, Turkey will attack.

Why should this concern us?

Not only do we not regard the YPG as terrorists, they are the fighting allies we assisted in the recapture of Kobani. And the U.S. hopes Syria’s Kurds will serve as the spear point of the campaign to retake Raqqa, the ISIS capital in Syria, which is only a few dozen miles south of YPG lines.

Should the YPG help to defeat ISIS and become the dominant power in northern Syria, the more dangerous they will appear to Erdogan, and the more problems that will create between the Turkish president and his NATO ally, the United States.

Not only does a Congressional debate on an authorization to use military force appear constitutionally mandated before we intervene in Syria, but the debate itself on an AUMF might induce a measure of caution before we plunge into yet another Middle East quagmire.

When Saddam fell, we got civil war, ISIS in Anbar, and a fractured and failed state with hundreds dying every week.

And, as of today, no one knows with certitude who rises if Assad falls.

The leading candidates are Jabhat al-Nusra, the front for an al-Qaida that brought down the twin towers[sic], and the butchers of ISIS, who captured another town on the Damascus road this weekend.

Monday, The Wall Street Journal wrote that Erdogan’s regrettable victory is “a reminder of what happens when America’s refusal to act to stop chaos in places like Syria frightens allies into making unpalatable choices.”

Now there’s an argument for America’s plunging into Syria: Send our troops to fight and die in multisided civil war that has cost 250,000 lives, so Turks will feel reassured enough they won’t vote for “strongmen” like Erdogan.

America needs an America First movement.

November 4, 2015 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | 1 Comment

The Syrian Democratic Forces: Just an Invention by Washington to Save Face?

Sputnik – 03.11.2015

As America’s previous strategies for dealing with the Syrian crisis fell into disarray, the Pentagon scrambled to gather a ragtag band of militia groups under the banner of the Syrian Democratic Forces. But the new alliance is barely holding together, and may in fact have been dreamed up as an excuse to continue pumping weapons into the region.

Mere days after the Obama administration announced it was ending its controversial plan to train and equip so-called “moderate” Syrian rebels, a new player arrived on the scene.

“The sensitive state our country Syria is going through and rapid developments on the military and political front… require that there be a united national military force for all Syrians, joining Kurds, Arabs, Syriacs and other groups,” read a statement released by the newly formed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) last month.

The alliance consists of the Kurdish YPG militia, an Assyrian Christian group, and a number of various Arab groups collectively known as the Syrian Arab Coalition.

And according to a senior US military official speaking to the New York Times, the Syrian Arab Coalition was “an American invention.”

Washington’s new Syria strategy involves supporting this nebulous ground alliance in a fight against the self-proclaimed Islamic State terrorist group – in addition to sending between 30 and 50 US Special Forces as “advisers.”

But according to the government officials, the Syrian Arab Coalition consists of only 5,000 fighters. These are spread across various groups without any real central leadership, and approximately 20% of those forces said they had no interest in staging an offensive against IS.

If the SDF is to display any effectiveness, it will be from the 40,000-strong Kurdish militia – a fact which doesn’t exactly sit well with America’s Turkish allies. But by creating the Syrian Arab Coalition, the United States can indirectly arm the Kurds while maintaining plausible deniability.

“The YPG is a very effective fighting force, and it can do a lot. But these Arab groups are weak and just a fig leaf for the YPG,” Barak Barfi, of the New America Foundation, told the Times.

“There is no deep-rooted alliance between these groups; this is a shifting tactical alliance.”

The Syrian Arab Coalition is all but nonexistent, but even the broader SDF is in tatters. Despite the Pentagon’s dumping of 50 tons of ammunition into Syria last month, the alliance is in desperate need of heavy weapons, radios, infrastructure, leadership, and, yes, ammunition.

Visiting the frontlines in Syria, Ben Hubbard of the New York Times reported on just how ill-equipped the alliance is. Fighters wear old, worn-out boots and ragged fatigues. Security checkpoints are manned by teenagers armed with aging rifles. The only unifying factor at this time appears to be a yellow flag meant to represent the SDF, though it has no command posts to fly over.

“This is the state of our fighters: trying to fight ISIS with simple means,” one commander said, using an alternative acronym for the Islamic State.

The SDF is also in dire need of leadership. While the group is meant to be led by a six-person military council, that council currently consists of a single individual, who largely serves as little more than a spokesman.

Creating an illusory group to justify military actions in Syria isn’t exactly a new strategy for the Obama administration. When the US-led coalition first began airstrikes in Syria, Pentagon officials said they were targeting an al-Qaeda affiliate known as Khorasan.

“There are serious questions about whether the Khorasan Group even exists in any meaningful way or identifiable manner,” Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain wrote for the Intercept.

“What happened here is all-too-familiar. The Obama administration needed propagandistic and legal rationale for bombing yet another predominantly Muslim country.”

With the SDF, the administration can similarly deny arming Kurdish militias, and pretend it has an actual strategy in the region.

November 3, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | 2 Comments

‘Calculated to put American troops in danger’: Why US wants escalation in Syria

RT | October 31, 2015

Sending some 50 US advisers to Syria illegally to train the so-called ‘moderate rebels’ looks like a calculated move. If, or when, someone gets hurt, the US will have a pretext for boots on the ground, believes retired US Air Force Lieutenant Col Karen Kwiatkowski.

RT:  Does this deployment mean Americans will be putting themselves in the direct line of fire in Syria?

Karen Kwiatkowski: I think there is a danger of that happening and I think that is part of why they are going there. I think they are looking for an excuse to up the ante, to send more troops and to have a crisis of some sort. Clearly the president has been lying, and so has Ash Carter, about what their real intentions are. So, in my opinion, I think this is provocative and I think it is calculated to put our troops in danger.

RT:  How is that not a combat operation?

KK: Well, special forces are combat. And what the president said [is] they are going to be opportunistic. When you are training and advising, you do not use the word opportunistic. Training and advising is a more steady state situation. So they are using the word opportunistic, they are expecting to get involved in combat operations, and they have sent combat troops to do that. I do not care how they have used the term for non-combat. This is combat.

RT:  They are going there to support the so-called moderate rebels. We know it hasn’t been terribly successful. Why should this make a huge difference?

KK: In terms of helping the moderate rebels – if there are any that we can identify – it is not going to make any difference in that regard. This is about US exercising some power, some limited power that it has, to kind of assert its relevance, particularly in the face of our allies who are asking how we are helping or not helping them.

RT:  Sure, but do you think this is a game changer or, perhaps, this is a question of timing, because Russia has obviously taken on Islamic State?

KK: I don’t think it is a game changer in that regard. It is a gesture to kind of save face in some respects. But there is a real danger, that if our troops, even if it is a limited number, get killed, and if they get killed by, let’s say, Russian fire or something like that, than we have a big problem, that we are not able diplomatically or militarily able to deal with. So it is extremely foolhardy what they are doing. But yes, it is a gesture to show that the US is trying something. But it is a weak gesture and it is a dangerous gesture.

RT:  And you mentioned the Russian airstrikes there and, presumably, Americans are saying we do need to speak with the Russians now to say where we are located so we don’t get into an incident like that?

KK: You would think that. You would think so.

RT:  But you sound like that might not happen?

KK: If you believe what the president and Ash Carter say, they aren’t really seeking out any cooperation with the Russians. So perhaps behind the scenes they are. I would like to think that they care about the lives of our soldiers that they are sending over there and that they would coordinate, but their public rhetoric is that we will not coordinate. That is what I’ve heard unless something has changed. They are not really interested in coordinating with Russia, anything that Russia is doing in Syria. And by the way remember that it is an illegal act to send our troops into Syrian space, air space or ground space, without the permission of the government of Syria, which we do not have. So this is an act of war on top of everything else that makes this extremely stupid.

RT:  Americans clearly don’t see that as a big issue, I mean it has been conducting airstrikes, despite it being against international law. It does not seem to matter in this case, at this stage anyway.

KK: It has not mattered in our policy in the Middle East for a long time. But I have pointed out that if our people killed, if we decide to make some sort of case about that, we are in the wrong totally in this, because we don’t have permission of the Syrian government to put those troops there at all. They are there illegitimately. So when they get killed or injured or harmed we have a problem in a diplomatic sense.

RT:  A public opinion sense too, I mean what was the reaction when the US soldier did die on a special operations mission in Iraq. Was there a big public outcry in America?

KK: No. Two things that I have noticed about this: one is there is no public outcry, not a lot of concern. I haven’t seen a lot of attention given to this death. What surprised me was how much Ashton Carter and President Obama paid homage to this particular individual, called him a hero, and this is what we would like to see – some guy running into a fight and getting slaughtered in an illegitimate combat situation, because I think even in Iraq we still have some concerns there about what we are doing. They celebrated it. They tried to put a positive spin on it. American people aren’t listening. We have a lot of other different things on in general. The American people aren’t interested in what is going on in the Middle East. They don’t want to get involved in it. But they really tried to spin the death of this soldier in a very positive way. And, I’m sure, to see if it can be sold. And, as far as I can tell, it was sold. Americans aren’t interested, but they haven’t really pushed back at the death of this guy. I think we’ve become inert to it.

RT:  Just looking into the future, you foresee a similar thing?

KK: I do. I mean if you go in the middle of a fire storm in an ill-planned situation, then certainly, you can’t say that anything the Pentagon is doing in the Middle East is well planned. They themselves admit this. So, yes, it is going to lead to the death of Americans. And given how they spun the death that happened last week we’ll see more spinning and, you know, more of Russia as a ‘bad guy’ in this situation, as they try to salvage what is left of their Middle East policy in this final year of the Obama administration, in these final months of the Obama administration… I hate to be cynical about this, but it is such a game that they are playing – no good results for our people, no good results for the Syrian people. It is not going to help the exodus of refugees at all. In fact, it will probably make it worse.

READ MORE: US ground ops in Syria ‘illegal’, may lead to ‘unpredictable’ consequences 

November 1, 2015 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

We Must Oppose Obama’s Escalation in Syria and Iraq!

By Ron Paul | October 27, 2015

Today Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee to outline a new US military strategy for the Middle East. The Secretary admitted the failure of the US “train and equip” program for rebels in Syria, but instead of taking the appropriate lessons from that failure and get out of the “regime change” business, he announced the opposite. The US would not only escalate its “train and equip” program by removing the requirement that fighters be vetted for extremist ideology, but according to the Secretary the US military would for the first time become directly and overtly involved in combat in Syria and Iraq.

As Secretary Carter put it, the US would begin “supporting capable partners in opportunistic attacks against ISIL (ISIS), or conducting such missions directly, whether by strikes from the air or direct action on the ground.”

“Direct action on the ground” means US boots on the ground, even though President Obama supposedly ruled out that possibility when he launched air strikes against Iraq and Syria last year. Did anyone think he would keep his word?

President Obama claims his current authority to conduct war in Iraq and Syria comes from the 2001 authorization for the use of force against those who attacked the US on 9/11, or from the 2002 authorization for the use of force against Saddam Hussein. Neither of these claims makes any sense. The 2002 authorization said nothing about ISIS because at the time there was no ISIS, and likewise the 2001 authorization pertained to an al-Qaeda that did not exist in Iraq or Syria at the time.

Additionally, the president’s year-long bombing campaign against Syrian territory is a violation of that country’s sovereignty and is illegal according to international law.

Congress is not even consulted these days when the president decides to start another war or to send US ground troops into an air war that is not going as planned. There might be notice given after the fact, as in Secretary Carter’s testimony today, but the president has (correctly) concluded that Congress has allowed itself to become completely irrelevant when it comes to such grave matters as war and peace.

I cannot condemn in strong enough terms this ill-advised US military escalation in the Middle East. Whoever concluded that it is a good idea to send US troops into an area already being bombed by Russian military forces should really be relieved of duty.

The fact is, the neocons who run US foreign policy are so determined to pull off their regime change in Syria that they will risk the lives of untold US soldiers and even risk a major war in the region — or even beyond – to escalate a failed policy. Russian strikes against ISIS and al-Qaeda must be resisted, they claim, because they are seen as helping the Assad government remain in power, and the US administration is determined that “Assad must go.”

This is not our war. US interventionism has already done enough damage in Iraq and Syria, not to mention Libya. It is time to come home. It is time for the American people to rise up and demand that the Obama Administration bring our military home from this increasingly dangerous no-win confrontation. We must speak out now, before it is too late!

October 29, 2015 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | , , , , | 1 Comment

NYT Perpetuates the Myth about Obama Killing Osama

By Stephen Lendman | October 29, 2015

Its latest Big Lie headlined “How 4 Federal Lawyers Paved the Way to Kill Osama bin Laden” – failing to explain how killing a dead man is impossible. Resurrection wasn’t one of his skills, or anyone else’s.

The Times claimed “four administration lawyers developed rationales intend(ing) to overcome any legal obstacles” to killing, not capturing, him.

It ignored its own July 11, 2002 account, headlined “The Death of bin Ladenism,” saying:

“Osama bin Laden is dead. The news first came from sources in Afghanistan and Pakistan almost six months ago: the fugitive died in December (2001 of natural causes) and was buried in the mountains of southeast Afghanistan.”

“Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf, echoed the information. The remnants of Osama’s gang, however, have mostly stayed silent, either to keep Osama’s ghost alive or because they have no means of communication.”

Prophetically, The Times said “bin Laden’s ghost may linger on – perhaps because Washington and Islamabad will find it useful… But the truth is that Osama bin Laden is dead.”

Ignoring its own earlier reporting is longstanding Times practice. Serving imperial interests take precedence. Its May 1, 2011 report contradicted its July 2002 one, headlining “Bin Laden Is Dead, Obama Says.”

An accurate headline would have debunked his phony claim. No one dies twice. Dead men don’t return for a second time around.

Instead of truth and full disclosure, The Times reported the myth about bin Ladin “killed in a firefight with United States forces in Pakistan…”

Its source: Obama, a notorious serial liar, Times earlier reporting on bin Laden’s death proving his Big Lie.

Instead, it called bin Laden’s “demise…a defining moment in the American-led fight against terrorism, a symbolic stroke affirming the relentlessness of the pursuit of those who attacked New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001.”

It perpetuated a second myth: that ill and dying bin Laden from a cave in Afghanistan, or Pakistan hospital where he was being treated, somehow managed to outwit the entire US intelligence establishment on that fateful day – ignoring what really happened, history’s greatest ever false flag, the mother of all Big Lies concealing it.

David Ray Griffin’s book, titled “Osama Bin Laden: Dead or Alive” is the seminal work about him, presenting “objective evidence and testimonies.”

It explained CIA monitored messages between him and his associates abruptly ceased after December 13, 2001. On December 26, 2001, a leading Pakistani newspaper reported his death, citing a prominent Taliban official attending his funeral – witnessing his dead body before it was laid to rest.

He was terminally ill with kidney disease and other ailments. On September 10, 2001 (one day before 9/11), CBS News anchor Dan Rather reported his admittance to a Rawalpindi, Pakistan hospital. He had nothing to do with 9/11.

In a late September 2001 interview with Pakistan’s Ummat newspaper, he categorically denied involvement in what happened on that fateful day. Fabricated claims otherwise persist – Big Lies suppressing hard truths.

Evidence Griffin presented showed “people in a position to know” said bin Laden died in December 2001 of natural causes – including then Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, Pakistani ISI intelligence, then US-installed Afghan president Hamid Karzai, and former FBI assistant counterterrorism head Dale Watson.

Griffin explained claims about “bin Laden’s continued existence (weren’t) backed up by evidence.” Perpetuating the myth about him remaining alive until US special forces allegedly killed him in May 2011 remains one of the many Big Lies of our time – The Times featuring it in its October 28 article, ignoring its own earlier confirmed report about his death.

It repeated a story gotten from unnamed US sources, claiming administration lawyers “worked in intense secrecy,” even keeping then Attorney General Eric Holder out of the loop.

Saying “(t)hey did their own research, wrote memos on highly secure laptops and traded drafts hand-delivered by (so-called) trusted couriers.” An unnamed US officials claimed “clear and ample authority for the use of lethal force under US and international law.”

No such authority exists to assassinate anyone extrajudicially for any reason. Doing so is murder. Bin Laden’s ghost was kept alive to pursue America’s war on terror.

So-called Enemy Number One was used to stoke fear to justify the unjustifiable – naked aggression against one country after another, continuing today, nearly 14 years after bin Laden’s real death. Obama did not kill him!

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

October 29, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | 1 Comment

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