Behead the beast of perpetual war

by Diane V. McLoughlin - September 24, 2014

Two essentials necessary, for both armies and uprisings, to advance, are arms and cash.  The U.S. has just authorized 500 milion dollars-worth of training and weapons for Syrian rebels and the wisdom of doing so must be questioned.

Certainly American 'PNAC' neocons want to keep arming so-called 'good' rebels to help them overthrow Syria's government. The U.S. should not be involved with the attempt at overthrowing Syria's secular regime, and the reasons for wanting to do so must be questioned, as well.  Why would U.S. interests be keen?  Who profits?

Israel continues to illegally occupy Syrian territory, and has recently put out tenders for oil exploration contracts on the occupied Golan Heights.   (How about Gaza? Does Gaza have natural resources, too?  Check - Gaza has a territorial stake in the vast wealth of off-shore natural gas.) 

What seems a fairly predictable eventuality may have come to pass:  The Syrian rebels reportedly have agreed to a ceasefire with ISIS (also known, variously, as Isil; Is, or Islamic State) circumstances in which you cannot expect arms provided to one will be used to degrade the military capabilities of the other.  

Nevertheless, U.S. pro-war cheerleaders such as U.S. Senator John McCain, assert that they can tell the 'good' guys from the bad in the quest to pump  more U.S.-manufactured arms in.  Profitable, yes.  Potential pots of gold at the ends of various political rainbows, no doubt. 

There are pictures purportedly showing McCain hobnobing with ISIS rebels. Some pundits are rubbing their hands with glee at the karma, that McCain may ultimately find himself charged with the crime of aiding terrorists.

Iraq and Syrian oil that ISIS is reportedly selling on the global black market also keeps ISIS in arms and other necessary supplies, in addition to Syrian rebel-held American weaponry somehow being added to their arsenals. Looting, including banks, keeps their conquest going, too. 

Bombing campaigns are destructive, rather indiscriminate, and they make more enemies. This is not the answer to ISIS so far as western strategic interests are concerned, if we actually are concerned with not stirring a terrorism hornet's nest any further than we have already. Cut off the flow of arms and cash and frustrate supply lines, instead.  

As for beheadings, Saudi Arabia, treated as one of the good guys and part of the ad hoc coalition fighting ISIS, has had something like 41 beheadings as judicial punishments this year alone - the country where the 9/11 terrorists came from. 
So ISIS utilizing the violent propaganda tool of beheading innocent people might be viewed in a wider context.  Our own political leaders garner political traction with the ISIS beheadings, as well.

Bombing ISIS targets legitimates their propaganda that 'the west' is the enemy.  

$5.00 USD - monthly $10.00 USD - monthly $25.00 USD - monthly

     

Ron Paul to John McCain: Syria is none of our business

Link - The problem with Republican support for waterboarding - The Washington Post

Washington Post editorial:  'Is Mr. Cain not aware that military leaders have emphatically rejected waterboarding and other forms of torture? Did he not know that active and retired military leaders have said that the use of such abhorrent techniques makes it much more likely that U.S. service members would be subjected to such brutality?'

The problem with Republican support for waterboarding - The Washington Post

A Dire Warning Regarding Protecting American Civil Liberties and McCain-Lieberman bill S.3081

Former Presidential candidate and Senator, John McCain, and Senator Joseph Lieberman et al., have a proposed set of laws in Senate bill, S.3081. This bill  would give the government the power to lock up anyone, even Americans, at home or abroad, without charge or trial, indefinitely. To me this is ominous. ( See: Sec. 5: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:S.3081: )

The reason why tyrants, dictators and fascists manage to take power, is in part because they ensure that laws they need to get away with what they want to do are put in place first. 

And good people will insist on believing that no one will abuse bad laws against good people. They are wrong. 

The trick is to protect the country diligently against bad law so that bad law will not in turn be used by bad people. S.3081 is bad law. Is the McCain, Lieberman cabal using America's distraction with the health care debate to try to ram S.3081 through? I don't know.

But I think it is a damn good question.