Obama at the UN
By Mazin Qumsiyeh | Popular Resistance | September 25, 2013
President Barak Obama said in the middle of his 40 minutes of lies and hypocrisy at the UNGA as world leaders looked on in dismay: “With respect to Syria, we believe that as a starting point, the international community must enforce the ban on chemical weapons.” (The US and Israel both possess and have used chemical weapons, see below) and added “Although we will at times be accused of hypocrisy and inconsistency [!], we will be engaged in the region for the long haul” [to serve Israel].
Incredibly he also said he believed in American “exceptionalism” [white man’s burden]. Hypocritically he also mentioned Martin Luther King Jr. But MLK opposed American imperialism and exceptionalism and who said in a speech in 1968: “God didn’t call America to do what she’s doing in the world now. God didn’t call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war ….. We have committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world.” [we still do]
Related
“Independent Experts” Reviewing NSA Spying Have Ties to Intelligence Community
By Noel Brinkerhoff and Danny Biederman | AllGov | September 25, 2013
President Barack Obama’s special panel of “independent” experts charged with reviewing the National Security Agency’s (NSA) domestic spying programs is actually lacking in independence.
For starters, the panel assembled to determine if the NSA has violated Americans’ civil liberties consists of five members—four of whom have previously worked for Democratic administrations.
One member is Michael Morell, who served in the Central Intelligence Agency under Obama as deputy director, and twice served as acting director.
The other three with Democratic ties are Peter Swire, former Office of Management and Budget privacy director under President Bill Clinton; Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism coordinator under Clinton and later for President George W. Bush; and Cass Sunstein, Obama’s former regulatory czar.
The fifth panel member is Geoffrey Stone of the University of Chicago, who was an informal adviser to Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign and is now helping develop Obama’s presidential library. Stone previously went on record as saying that the NSA’s collection of Americans’ phone records is constitutional.
“No one can look at this group and say it’s completely independent,” Sascha Meinrath, director of the Open Technology Institute and vice president at the New America Foundation, told the Associated Press after attending one of the panel’s meetings.
Michelle Richardson, an ACLU legislative counsel who attended one meeting for civil liberties groups, said her organization “would have liked a more diverse group” for the panel.
Another sign that the group lacks independence is in its name—“Director of National Intelligence Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies.”
The AP’s Stephen Braun noted that “the panel’s official name suggests it’s run by” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI).
In fact, Obama’s announcement in August that the review group would be established by DNI James Clapper triggered a wave of criticism. Obama tried to quell the outcry by assuring the country that Clapper would neither run the panel nor select its members.
But there is more than the panel’s name that suggests DNI oversight. The panel’s so-called outside experts work inside offices provided by the DNI. And it is the DNI’s press office that coordinates all press statements and interview requests.
Another point of criticism stems from Clapper’s decision to exempt the panel from the U.S. Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires such committees to conduct open meetings and notify the public about their activities. Indeed, it has been reported that during recent weeks the panel’s meetings have been closed to the public even when no classified material was discussed.
There appears to be no formal directive stating that the panel should operate independently of the Obama administration. In fact, the situation is quite the opposite. An official White House memorandum actually provides the panel with instructions for areas to emphasize in its review: whether U.S. spying programs advance foreign policy, protect national security, and are safe from leaks.
In his August 9th press conference regarding the establishment of this panel, Obama promised that the “outside experts” will “consider how we can…make sure that there absolutely is no abuse in terms of how these surveillance technologies are used.” But nowhere in the White House memo is the panel instructed to investigate surveillance abuses.
The panel’s report is due by December 15. On that date it is not to be made public, nor is it to be delivered to the press. Rather, it will be submitted to the White House for review.
To Learn More:
Close Ties Between White House, NSA Spying Review (by Stephen Braun, Associated Press)
NSA Spying Review Panel Appointed by Obama Set to Whitewash Surveillance Abuses (by Kevin Gosztola, Dissenter)
Surveillance Privacy: Obama Orders Fox to Guard Chicken Coop (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
Related articles
- Obama’s NSA ‘Independent’ Review Clearly a Public Relations Move (reason.com)
- NSA Spying Review Panel Appointed by Obama Set to Whitewash Surveillance Abuses (dissenter.firedoglake.com)
Egyptian minister praises Obama’s remarks on Egypt, Hamas slams Egypt’s FM for threatening to attack Gaza
Egyptian minister praises Obama’s remarks on Egypt in the UNGA
MEMO – September 25, 2013
Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy has described US President Barack Obama’s remarks to the UN General Assembly about Egypt as “positive” and reflective of “an objective treatment of the situation in Egypt.”
Fahmy was responding to Obama’s speech on Tuesday that was critical of both ousted President Morsi’s government for being non-inclusive, and the interim government established by the coup for violating the Egyptian people’s rights, including policies such as the curfew, the state of emergency and the restrictions on press freedoms.
About how the latter issues would be resolved, the minister said: “They will be overcome through the context of the implementation of the roadmap and efforts to build a modern and democratic state in Egypt.”
In his speech to the UN General Assembly, Obama repeatedly asserted his country’s respect for the will and choices of the people in the Middle East. However he also warned that the “United States will at times work with governments that do not meet, at least in our view, the highest international expectations, but who work with us on our core interests.”
Obama affirmed that the US is going to preserve good relations with Egypt, saying the US “will maintain a constructive relationship with the interim government that promotes core interests like the Camp David Accords,” as well as counterterrorism efforts.
But he added that US support will also “depend upon Egypt’s progress in pursuing a more democratic path.”
Hamas slams Egypt’s foreign minister for threatening to attack Gaza
Palestine Information Center – 25/09/2013
GAZA — The Hamas Movement strongly denounced Nabil Fahmi, the Egyptian minister of foreign affairs, for threatening to take military and security action against the Palestinian resistance in Gaza.
Its spokesman Fawzi Barhoum stated on Tuesday that Fahmi’s threats were reprehensible and very dangerous and would do a great disservice to Egypt’s reputation and historical stature.
Barhoum added that Fahmi’s remarks in this regard unveiled bad intents and hostile tendencies against the Palestinians in general and Gaza in particular.
He stressed that such position would remove Egypt from its national, Arab and Islamic role in supporting the Palestinian people and their cause.
The spokesman affirmed that Hamas and its people in Gaza have no intention or agenda to engage in any kind of conflict with Egypt.
“We will remain defenders of the Arab and Muslim nations’ pride and dignity, and our main struggle is only against the Israeli occupation, the greatest threat to Egypt and Palestine,” he underscored.
For its part, Al-Ahrar Movement in Gaza also deplored the Egyptian minister’s threat to use military and security options against Gaza.
“We were expecting an Egyptian position supporting the Aqsa Mosque and preventing its division, and not a threat by the foreign minister of Egypt to attack Gaza. We affirm that such remarks undermine Egypt’s ethics and role in protecting our people,” Al-Ahrar Movement stated on Tuesday.
It also said that this new Egyptian position only serves the Israeli occupation regime which has taken advantage of the military coupe and are trying to drive a wedge between Gaza and Egypt.
Bolivia plans legal action against Obama over ‘crimes against humanity’
Press TV – September 20, 2013
Bolivia’s President Evo Morales plans to file legal action against the US president for crimes against humanity, condemning Washington’s intimidation tactics after it denied Venezuelan presidential jet entry into US airspace.
“I would like to announce that we are preparing a lawsuit against [US President] Barack Obama to condemn him for crimes against humanity,” President Morales announced at a Thursday press conference in the Bolivian city of Santa Cruz, RT reports.
He further described the American president as a “criminal” who willingly violates international law.
“The US cannot be allowed to continue with its policy of intimidation and blockading presidential flights,” Morales stated.
He added that Bolivia intends to prepare legal action against the US president and file the lawsuit at the International Court.
President Morales has called for an emergency meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to confer about the US action, which has been slammed by Venezuela as “an act of intimidation by North American imperialism.”
Additionally, the Bolivian president has implied that the CELAC members should recall their ambassadors from Washington in an effort to convey a strong message to the Obama Administration.
According to the report, Morales further wants to urge member nations of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas to boycott the next meeting of the United Nations in New York.
Members of the Alliance include Antigua and Barbuda, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Saint Lucia.
The anti-US measures called by the Bolivian president comes just months after Morales’s presidential aircraft was denied entry into several Western European countries, forcing it to land in Austria.
The May 2013 incident was widely described as a US-led effort out of a false suspicion that American spy agency whistleblower Edward Snowden may be onboard the aircraft.
At the time Bolivia was among a few countries that offered political asylum to Snowden, a US fugitive and former contract employee of American spy agencies, CIA and NSA, who leaked documents showing massive US electronic spying operations around the globe, including its European and Latin American allies.
Several Latin American heads of state joined Bolivia to censure the illegal move by the European countries, including Italy, France and Spain, which led to their official apologies.
Related article
Obama: US will continue threatening Syria
Press TV – September 14, 2013
US President Barack Obama has said the US will continue to threaten Syria with the use of force as the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has agreed to put its chemical weapons under the control of the United Nations.
“We need to see concrete actions to demonstrate that Assad is serious about giving up his chemical weapons … And since this plan emerged only with a credible threat of US military action, we will maintain our military posture in the region,” Obama said in his weekly address to Americans on Saturday.
The threat came after the Syrian ambassador to the UN said on Thursday that his country became a full member of the international treaty prohibiting chemical weapons.
After Russia offered a diplomatic proposal for putting Syria’s chemical weapons under international control on Monday, Obama called on Congress to delay a vote on his call for a military action against Syria.
Nevertheless, in his weekly address to Americans, Obama said, “If diplomacy fails, the United States and the international community must remain prepared to act.”
Obama’s talk of “the international community” comes as senior officials within his administration have said he would not push for a United Nations Security Council resolution threatening Syria with the use of force.
This comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an op-ed published by The New York Times on Wednesday that a possible US attack on Syria “is unacceptable under the United Nations Charter and would constitute an act of aggression.”
Meanwhile, recent polls have revealed a growing opposition to military action against Syria both within the US military and America’s war-weary public.
Related article
Obama’s foreign policy just as bad or worse than Bush’s – poll
RT | September 12, 2013
Nearly two-thirds of Americans say President Barack Obama’s handling of foreign policy is either equal to or worse than that of predecessor George W. Bush, a new poll reveals.
The results of a recent Reason-Rupe poll published on Tuesday this week suggest that a majority of Americans — 64 percent — consider the current commander-in-chief’s job performance with regards to international affairs to be no better than Pres. Bush, who kick-started wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq during his eight years in the White House.
According to the results of the poll, 32 percent of Americans polled said Obama’s handling of foreign policy is worse than that of his predecessor, with 32 percent also saying it was “about the same.”
Thirty-two percent of the 1,013 adults polled said they consider Obama’s handling of foreign policy better than that of Pres. Bush.
And as a potential United States-led military strike against Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s regime remains a very real possibility in the days to come, Reason’s Emily Ekins wrote that Obama — who famously said he opposes “dumb wars” — could launch the US into a situation that wouldn’t be supported by a majority of Americans.
“Nearly three-quarters of Americans, 74 percent, say it would be ‘unwise’ for the United States to launch airstrikes on Syria without the support of the United Nations or Great Britain,” Ekins wrote of the results.
Additionally, only 17 percent of those polled said it would be a wise move to attack Assad’s regime to reprimand the Syrian leader for the alleged use of chemical weapons last month outside of Damascus. The White House said previously that Assad’s army deployed chemical warheads on August 21 and in turn eradicated more than 1,400 people.
The same proportion of Americans who put Bush’s foreign policy record at-or-above that of Pres. Obama — 64 percent — told pollsters that US airstrikes against Syria are not necessary to protect America’s credibility and national security, despite the administration arguing otherwise.
Pres. Obama had been considering a unilateral military strike against Assad without approaching Congress for authorization, but has in recent days formalized his request with the House and Senate and has since postponed voting while diplomatic options are considered by the UN and international community.
Foreign policy aside, however, the Obama administration isn’t winning much support among the Americans polled by Reason and Rupe. According to their questioning, 61 percent said they believe the US is heading in the “wrong direction,” compared to 28 percent who say America is, “generally speaking,” on the right path.
Forty-three percent of those surveyed said they disapprove of Obama’s overall job performance. Before the US ramped-up its interest in the Syrian civil war, a similar poll conducted in May found that exactly half of Americans polled approved of the president’s job, signaling a 7 percentage point drop in a matter of months.
At a press briefing on Wednesday, White House press secretary Jay Carney acknowledge the president’s reluctance to use military force in Syria after more than a decade of wars started under the Bush administration.
“He knew and knows and understands that the American people are extremely reluctant to get the United States involved again militarily in the Middle East — not just in the Middle East, but anywhere,” Carney told reporters. “But as someone who deeply understands that, and who has spent four and a half years as president getting us out of wars, he believes in the case that he made last night, and I think he understands why there’s reluctance and why there’s anxiety about potentially striking Syria in response to the use of chemical weapons.”
Related article
What Convinced Obama to Reverse His Position on NSA Surveillance?
By Jennifer Hoelzer | September 11, 2013
Since details of the NSA’s surveillance programs started coming to light in early June – and President Obama’s been forced to publicly answer for its activities – the president has repeatedly reminded us that he came into office with a “healthy skepticism about these programs.” But, after careful evaluation, he determined “that on, you know, net, it was worth doing.”
Some of these programs I had been critical of when I was in the Senate. When I looked through specifically what was being done, my determination was that the two programs in particular that had been at issue, 215 and 702, offered valuable intelligence that helps us protect the American people and they’re worth preserving. (From his August 9th Press Conference.)
It’s a rhetorical strategy intended to win his critics’ trust by demonstrating that he understands our concerns because he used to share them. The message he wants us to take away is: if we had been in his shoes and saw the evidence he saw when he got into office, we would have signed off on these programs too.
Well, yesterday we got a glimpse of some of the evidence he saw when he assumed office – at least in connection to the NSA’s collection of U.S. phone call records — and, it begs the question, what exactly changed his mind about the NSA’s domestic surveillance programs? What did the President see that led him to the conclusion that everything he had previously said on the topic was wrong because allowing the NSA to collect everyone’s phone call records really is a constitutionally-supported, great idea?
Because, according to the documents the ODNI released yesterday, when President Obama took office, the NSA’s “telephony metadata” program wasn’t getting stellar reviews. In fact, we now know that days prior to Obama’s inauguration, the NSA reported that it had repeatedly violated the court-ordered rules limiting its use of the data it was collecting. A little over a month later, a judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court found that, “Since January 15 [five days before Obama’s inauguration] it has finally come to light that the FISC’s authorizations of this vast collection program have been premised on a flawed depiction of how the NSA uses” the phone call data.
Not only had the Intelligence Community been misrepresenting its program to the court, the judge, Reggie B. Walton, went on to write:
The minimization procedures proposed by the government in each successive application and approved and adopted as binding by the orders of the FISC have been so frequently and systemically violated that it can fairly be said that this critical element of the overall BR regime has never functioned effectively.
And,
To approve such a program, the Court must have every confidence that the government is doing its utmost to ensure that those responsible for implementation fully comply with the Court’s orders. The Court no longer has such confidence.
The judge also implied that – other than hypothetical examples of how this data might provide intelligence of “immense value to the government” – the government had yet to provide the court with concrete evidence that the program was actually providing that value.
This program has been ongoing for nearly three years. The time has come for the government to describe to the Court how, based on the information collected and analyzed during that time, the value of the program to the nation’s security justifies the continued collection and retention of massive quantities of U.S. person information.
Again, Judge Walton reached these conclusions based on evidence that was available to him at the very same time that I imagine President Obama and his team were evaluating these programs. Plus, I’m assuming the president considered Judge Walton’s opinion in his evaluation, right?
So, what exactly convinced President Obama that this was “worth doing?” Because as the president explained last month, the prospect that something could happen isn’t the same as actual evidence that it has or ever will.
Obama’s Humiliating Defeat
By Glen Ford | Black Agenda Report | September 11, 2013
It was a strange speech, in which the real news was left for last, popping out like a Jack-in-the-Box after 11 minutes of growls and snarls and Obama’s bizarre whining about how unfair it is to be restrained from making war on people who have done you no harm. The president abruptly switched from absurd, lie-based justifications for war to his surprise announcement that, no, Syria’s turn to endure Shock and Awe had been postponed. The reader suddenly realizes that the diplomatic developments had been hastily cut and pasted into the speech, probably only hours before. Obama had intended to build the case for smashing Assad to an imperial peroration – a laying down of the law from on high. But his handlers threw in the towel, for reasons both foreign and domestic. Temporarily defeated, Obama will be back on the Syria warpath as soon as the proper false flag operations can be arranged.
The president’s roiling emotions, visible through his eyes, got in the way of his oratorical skills. But then, he didn’t have much material to work with, just an endless string of prevarications and half-truths strung almost randomly together. Obama, who was reluctantly asking permission from Congress to violate the most fundamental tenets of international law – permission that Congress is not empowered to give – framed Syria as a rogue nation because it has not signed a treaty on chemical weapons like “98 percent of humanity.” This makes Syria ripe for bombing. The president does not explain that Syria’s neighbors, Israel and Egypt – both U.S. allies – have also not signed the treaty. He does not suggest bombing Tel Aviv or Cairo.
Obama claims that the U.S. has proof that “Assad’s chemical weapons personnel prepared for an attack near an area where they mix sarin gas. They distributed gas masks to their troops. Then they fired rockets from a regime-controlled area into 11 neighborhoods that the regime has been trying to wipe clear of opposition forces.” Not a shred of evidence has been presented to back up this narrative – which, under the circumstances, tends to prove it is fiction. On the other hand, there are credible reports (everybody’s reports are more credible than the Americans), that rebels under U.S. allied control were told to prepare to go on the offensive following an American retaliation to a chemical attack that would be blamed on Assad’s forces – a story whose logic conforms to what actually occurred and answers the common sense question, Who profits?
Obama will not for long accept diplomatic delays in his war schedule. On Tuesday night, he was already priming the public to accept Assad’s guilt the next time chemical weapons explode in Syria. “If we fail to act,” said the president, “the Assad regime will see no reason to stop using chemical weapons.” American and allied secret services will gladly arrange a replay.
Early in the speech, Obama raised the specter that, because of Assad’s mad chemical predilections, “our troops would again face the prospect of chemical warfare on the battlefield.” Moreover, “If fighting spills beyond Syria’s borders, these weapons could threaten allies like Turkey, Jordan and Israel.” At this point, the president was arguing for a punitive strike, and had taken on the persona of warlike Obama.
Near the end of the speech, Obama responds to those who want Assad “taken out” right away and permanently, rather than merely “degrading” his forces with calibrated strikes. Now speaking as the “moderate” Obama, the president makes the case that Assad has no “interest in escalation that would lead to his demise, and our ally, Israel, can defend itself with overwhelming force.”
The two Obamas are matched with two corresponding Assads. One Assad is a menace to the whole neighborhood and to himself, while the other Assad knows who to mess with and takes no risks with his own survival.
It would seem logical that the latter Assad, who is not prone to suicidal actions, would not launch a chemical attack just a few miles away from United Nations inspectors that had just arrived in the country at his government’s request.
The point here is not to argue with Obama’s logic, but to show how inconsistent, opportunistic and, at times, incoherent his reasoning is. He has not the slightest interest in truth or simple logic, only in what sounds right in the immediate context. Obama mixes his personas, and those of his nemesis, at the drop of a hat, because he is shameless and absolutely cynical – as befits a mass murderer.
Barack Obama pretends to believe – at least I hope he’s only pretending – that it was his idea to wait for a congressional debate before blasting Syria to smithereens. “So even though I possess the authority to order military strikes, I believed it was right in the absence of a direct or imminent threat to our security to take this debate to Congress.” He didn’t take the debate to Congress; the congressional detour was forced on the White House on August 31 when it became clear that Obama lacked both domestic and foreign support for a speedy strike. That was Obama’s first big defeat. The second was a knockout, after Russia and Syria seized on Secretary of State John Kerry’s “joke” about Assad giving up his chemical weapons, at which point Obama’s handlers advised him that his political position was, for the time being, untenable. He arrived in front of the cameras shaken, angry, and humiliated – with a patched together script and a mouth full of crow.
The president who claimed that he could bomb the sovereign nation of Libya for seven months, overthrow its government and kill its president, without triggering the War Powers Act – and, further, that no state of war exists unless Americans are killed – told his Tuesday night audience that he opposes excessive presidential power. “This is especially true,” said Obama, with a straight face, “after a decade that put more and more war-making power in the hands of the president and more and more burdens on the shoulders of our troops, while sidelining the people’s representatives from the critical decisions about when we use force.”
In truth, it was the likelihood of rejection by American “people’s representatives” – just as British Prime Minister Cameron’s war plans were rejected by Parliament – that derailed Obama.
It took more than 1,500 words before Obama acknowledged the existence of the real world, in which he was compelled to “postpone” a congressional vote on the use of force while the U.S., Russia, China, France and Britain work on a UN resolution “requiring Assad to give up his chemical weapons and to ultimately destroy them under international control.” Syria has already agreed to the arrangement, in principle. Obama must bear, not only the bitter burden of defeat, but the humiliation of having to pretend that the UN route was his idea, all along.
Expect him back on the war track in no time flat. What else is an imperialist to do?
Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
Obama, the US Liar-in-Chief
By Finian Cunningham | Press TV | September 10, 2013
Forget diplomatic protocol: When a government is outrageously pushing the world into a criminal war based on a crock of lies, that government and its representatives forfeit the customary right to diplomatic niceties.
When truth is being twisted with rhetoric and bombast, then it is incumbent to untwist it with simple words.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is right. The American Secretary of State John Kerry is a barefaced liar. And it’s not just Kerry. President Barack Obama is an even bigger liar, and so is the entire White House administration, including Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff General Martin Dempsey.
All of them are lying through their teeth about the forthcoming American criminal war of aggression on Syria, claiming that it is “limited” and “punitive.” Not that such description would make a military assault on Syria any less criminal. But the fact is that the US is gearing up for an all-out war on the Arab country. That American leaders are trying to play down the onslaught they are intending to unleash on the people of Syria belies their depth of deception and their real criminal agenda.
If these leaders in Washington cannot even tell the American people about what the real military contingency plans are for Syria, why should we believe them on all their other claims about chemical weapons used in that country. It’s a con trick, and the American people know it. Moreover, Liar-in-Chief Barack Obama and his partners-in-crime know that the people know it.
That is why the White House is going on a “media blitz” this week, with Obama and his top aides saturating the television networks in a bid to convince the American public and Congress to back its plan to launch a military attack on Syria – a country of 22 million people, a third of whom are refugees, which does not pose any threat to the US.
This media bombardment of the American people ahead of the physical bombardment of the Syrian people speaks of a desperate move by the White House. Poll after poll shows that the US public does not believe what the politicians are telling them about the Syrian government’s alleged use chemical weapons.
It really is saying something of the collapsing legitimacy of the US presidency when foreign leaders such as Vladimir Putin or even Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad – the latter vilified as a despotic tyrant – project more moral authority and credibility to the American people than their own leaders do.
The American people are right. American governments, and the Obama administration in particular, are chronic liars. They have lied about every past and recent overseas military intervention, from Kosovo to Afghanistan, from Iraq to Libya, and the supposed humanitarian or security reasons that allegedly motivated these wars.
American wars have bankrupted the country’s economy, forcing millions of US citizens into poverty, and have greatly worsened the humanitarian suffering in the targeted countries. American wars have trashed international law and increased global insecurity. They have created the exact despicable opposite of what they claimed to seek.
The latest Big Lie is the White House telling the American people and the world that the US is “not going to war” in Syria.
President Obama says: “This would not be another Iraq or Afghanistan.
There would be no American boots on the ground. Any action we take would be limited, both in time and scope – designed to deter the Syrian government from gassing its own people again and degrade its ability to do so.”
US top diplomat John Kerry spun the lie to gossamer thinness while on a visit to London this week when he said: “We are not going to war. It is about holding [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad accountable in a very limited, very targeted, very short-term action… on an unbelievably small scale.”
Right there, that is the pathetic, contemptible voice of a chronic liar who has lost the cognitive ability to realize how ridiculous he sounds.
What the US Congress is voting on this week is a resolution that would give Washington a 90-day period to strike Syria at will. The resolution also contains provisions for indefinite prolongation of the military attacks and for sending in US troops under the guise of “search and rescue missions.”
While on the one hand the White House talks about “very limited, targeted punitive strikes to deter chemical weapons” in order to con Congress to vote Yes, on the other hand the evidence and the White House’s own words speak of an all-out war on Syria.
Four US Navy destroyers off the coast of Syria are equipped to launch 200 Tomahawk cruise missiles [each]. On its way to Syrian waters are the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and another battle group of three destroyers.
US officials have told The New York Times and others that the plan is to launch “the vast majority of those missiles.”
US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told Congress last week that the cost of the American military campaign would be “tens of millions of dollars.” Well, that’s another lie, aimed at playing down the crime. The above US navy launch of at least 400 cruise missiles at a cost of $1 million each puts the war bill at $400 million. And that’s not counting all the other costs to implement those strikes.
In addition, media reports say that the US is planning to deploy long-range B-52 and B-2 bombers from North America, as well as B-1s based in Qatar in the Persian Gulf. All of these aircraft are capable of launching cruise missiles from outside Syrian airspace to avoid Syria’s defense systems. At a conservative estimate that brings the cost of war up to near $1 billion – or a hundred-fold more than what Hagel claimed.
The point is that the White House and Pentagon are preparing for a full-scale war, not some kind of limited, punitive action.
The New York Times reports: “Mr Obama… is now determined to put more emphasis on the ‘degrade’ part of what the administration has said is the goal of a military strike against Syria – to ‘deter and degrade’ Mr Assad’s ability to use chemical weapons. That means expanding beyond the 50 or so major sites that were part of the original target list.”
Yet, incongruously, the American media quote Obama as saying elsewhere: “I’m not itching for a military action [in Syria].”
The ABC news channel reported more on the expanded list of targets in Syria that Obama is drawing up with his generals: “According to [General Martin] Dempsey military planners were focusing on targets directly linked to the control of chemical weapons but without exposing those chemical weapons to a loss of security. Secondly, the means of delivery and the third, those things that the regime uses – for example, air defense, long-range missiles and rockets – in order to protect those chemical weapons or in some cases deliver them.”
That open-ended list – wrapped up in false talk about chemical weapons – just about covers every military installation in Syria and much more, including obliteration of civilian infrastructure and mass murder. How many times have we heard this nonsensical cynical charade before?
Think about it. Even if American secret intelligence accusing the Assad government in Syria of using chemical weapons were true, which it is not according to independently verifiable Russian reports and many other international sources, the massive military American build-up is in no way plausibly “limited” or “punitive”?
It is absurd to claim otherwise. Yet, that is what Liar-in-Chief Barack Obama and his lieutenants are telling the American people and the world. They are telling barefaced lies about their criminal regime-change plan towards the sovereign government of Syria involving a full-scale war of aggression and possibly thousands of deaths due to “collateral damage.”
If Liar-in-Chief Barack Obama can’t even come clean on a war build-up that is staring the whole world in the eyes, nothing, absolutely nothing, he and his White House says should be given the slightest respect. Far from it; Obama and his cabal in Washington should be hauled off to face a Nuremberg trial.
Obama ‘should be grateful’ for face-saving chance to backpedal on Syria
RT | September 10, 2013
President Obama should curb threats of a US military strike on Syria by joining Russia’s “face-saving” proposal for Damascus to give control of its chemical weapons to the international community, independent researcher Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich told RT.
Sepahpour-Ulrich said that Russia’s proposal allows Obama and America “to save face,” given the fact that a military strike on Syria would be “contrary to the people’s will” and receive little international support.
RT: Do you think this nascent solution is something that can actually lead to a workable compromise?
Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich: It could. It’s a face-saving out for Mr. Obama, really. Because he doesn’t have the support to go to war, and if he chooses to go over the people of the United States, the majority of whom disapprove of this war, and the strikes, then he’s turning his back on democracy, and they always say in America they want to export democracy to other countries. So this is a blatant violation and goes contrary to the people’s will. And I think the proposal is really being very kind to Mr. Obama, giving him a way out.
RT: Why do you think Russia’s proposal to put Syria’s chemical stockpiles under international control received a positive response so quickly?
SSU: I think it was very positive because, well, for one, Assad doesn’t want war, he doesn’t want his people to die because there are lobby groups in Washington pushing for war. So I think he was happy to accept that. And I think the other countries, although Kerry and Obama are skeptical, they do not want this war. They do not want to go to this war. They do not have the support they hoped to have and yet they have those red lines that they have drawn which in fact were violated back in May. That’s when the United Nations said they thought the rebels were responsible and they didn’t act on it. But then to have painted themselves in a corner and this gives them the way out. It helps America, of course, its allies are happy not to go to war. It might be a win-win situation for all.
RT: The president has recently come out in some interviews saying this could be a positive step in the right direction, but we haven’t heard any assertive decision on his part. How do you think his quick his repositioning on the subject can be explained?
SSU: I think when he saw there is absolutely no support at all whatsoever, I mean even if Congress did vote for him to carry out these strikes, again, Congress would’ve been acting against the will of the people. America’s really onstage right now for the whole world to see. Not from a degree of, perhaps, hypocrisy, but the fact that it’s not really a promoter of democracy anywhere. And I think that this is a face-saving way for Obama to back-pedal on his position, and he should be very grateful that this solution was offered.
RT: Many legislators we’ve heard from say they were relieved by this talk of a compromise. Do you think they were looking forward to a vote on this subject?
SSU: I think they were very apprehensive because on the other hand, any legislator that would not have acted out the people’s will and had voted for war to please the lobby groups – no matter how much money the lobby would have actually put into their re-election – they would still need the vote of the people. So they were in a dilemma as well. I think the whole country, the whole nation was in a dilemma. And this really was a very clever way of avoiding all sorts of conflicts and casualties and allowing America to save face.
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Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu: Leave No Palestinian or Arab Alive
By Jonas E. Alexis | Veterans Today | July 23, 2017
Israeli Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu seems to have picked up where the late Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef left off. The Israeli army, Eliyahu said, must slaughter the Palestinians “and leave no one alive.” The Palestinians, the good rabbi continued, must be “destroyed and crushed in order to end violence.” Here is Eliyahu’s algorithm:
“If they don’t stop after we kill 100, then we must kill 1,000. And if they do not stop after 1,000, then we must kill 10,000. If they still don’t stop we must kill 100,000, even a million.”
There is more to this “logic” than meets the eye and ear. Eliyahu even postulated that the Israeli army ought not to get involved in arresting Palestinians because “If you leave him alive, there is a fear that he will be released and kill other people. We must eradicate this evil from within our midst.”
You may say that this is just an isolated case. No Israeli official believes that, right? … continue
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