A View From The Left-NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong-Hands Off Syria!

NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong

Is Trump Going to Commit the Next American Catastrophe in Syria?

At the United Nations Security Council on April 5, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley held up pictures of children killed by a gas attack in Khan Shaykhun, south of the Syrian city of Idlib. Estimates suggest that about 50 to 60 people died in this attack. The United States, the United Kingdom and France placed a resolution before the Security Council condemning the attack and asking for an investigation of it. There is no call for armed action against anyone because the Council is divided on who perpetuated the act.  Strikingly, Ambassador Haley then said, "We don’t yet know about yesterday’s attack," meaning that nobody had definitive intelligence about the attack. Yet, there was a hasty dash to judgment in the West that the perpetuators were the government of Bashar al-Assad—perhaps with Russian assistance.  How do we know what happened in Khan Shaykhun? The sources for the Western media outlets are mainly "opposition activists," as BBC put it in one of its early reports.   More

“Dilbert” Remains Unconvinced. . .

THE SYRIAN GAS ATTACK PERSUASION

According to the mainstream media – that has been wrong about almost everything for a solid 18 months in a row – the Syrian governmentallegedly bombed its own people with a nerve agent.  The reason the Assad government would bomb its own people with a nerve agent right now is obvious. Syrian President Assad – who has been fighting for his life for several years, and is only lately feeling safer – suddenly decided to commit suicide-by-Trump. Because the best way to make that happen is to commit a war crime against your own people in exactly the way that would force President Trump to respond or else suffer humiliation at the hands of the mainstream media…  It is almost as if someone designed this “tragedy” to be camera-ready for President Trump’s consumption. It pushed every one of his buttons. Hard. And right when things in Syria were heading in a positive direction.   More

Observers Warn That Syria Attack is Trump's "Wag the Dog" Moment

With tanking approval ratings, a failed attempt at producing healthcare legislation, and a swirling investigation into possible collusion with Russia, President Donald Trump's first hundred days were looking pretty bleak.  It was against this backdrop that the president late Thursday took unilateral and illegal military action against the Syrian government in alleged retaliation for Tuesday's chemical weapons attack against Syrian civilians, though no proof was presented to confirm reports that President Bashar al-Assad had ordered the deadly strike. Now, as many foreign governments,U.S. lawmakers, and the corporate media are lining up in support of the bombing campaign, observers say it appears like a 'Wag the Dog' moment for Trump, distracting the opposition while conveniently flipping the script about Russia.  In a column on Friday, The Nation's Greg Grandin pointed out that with the one assault, the president successfully splintered the Democratic resistance, won the praise of the media, and changed the story of his friendly relations with the Kremlin.  More

In case you missed it. . .

US MILITARY SHOULD GET OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST

It’s time to end US military engagements in the Middle East. Drones, special operations, CIA arms supplies, military advisers, aerial bombings — the whole nine yards. Over and done with. That might seem impossible in the face of ISIS, terrorism, Iranian ballistic missiles, and other US security interests, but a military withdrawal from the Middle East is by far the safest path for the United States and the region. That approach has instructive historical precedents.  America has been no different from other imperial powers in finding itself ensnared repeatedly in costly, bloody, and eventually futile overseas wars. From the Roman empire till today, the issue is not whether an imperial army can defeat a local one. It usually can, just as the United States did quickly in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. The issue is whether it gains anything by doing so. Following such a “victory,” the imperial power faces unending heavy costs in terms of policing, political instability, guerilla war, and terrorist blowback.    More

America’s Support For Saudi Arabia’s War On Yemen Must End

According to a report issued by the United Nations on March 27, Saudi Arabia’s war on Yemen has resulted in what is quickly becoming a humanitarian catastrophe with nearly 7 million people at risk of famine and more than 14 million people without access to medical care. According to the World Health Organization, 7,719 people have been killed and 42,922 have been injured since the start of the conflict in March 2015.  And yet the savage war against Yemen’s Houthi rebels, led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and aided to a significant degree by American weapons and intelligence, shows no sign of letting up.  Disturbingly, the US has been acting as a de facto co-belligerent since at least October 2015 when President Obama gave the green light to Lockheed Martin to sell the Saudis four “multi-mission” warships totaling about $11.25 billion…  But in siding with the Saudis and the Emirates against the Shia Houthis we are now lending aid and support to the ideological heirs of those who attacked us on September 11.  The driver of this myopic and sinister policy is widely believed to be Defense Secretary James Mattis.   More