Saturday, April 14, 2018

Paul Craig Roberts — Are We Over the US/UK Fomented Crisis In Syria?

Syria is not about dictatorship or building democracy. It is not about the alleged 70 victims of chemical weapons. It would take a complete idiot to believe that Washington and its European vassals, who have killed, maimed, orphaned, and displaced millions of Muslims in seven countries over the last 17 years to be so upset over the deaths of 70 Muslims that they are willing to risk war with Russia.
Syria and Iran are an issue, because Syria and Iran supply the Lebanese millita, Hezbollah, with money and weapons. This support from Syria and Iran gives Hezbollah the capability of preventing Israel’s occupation and annexation of southern Lebanon, whose water resources Israel covets....
Additionally, there is the crazed neoconservative ideology of US world hegemony. The interests of Russia and China are in the way of US hegemony. Therefore, these two countries are defined as “threats.” Russia and China are not threats because they intend to attack the US, which neither has shown any indication of doing. They are threats because they are in opposition to US unilateralism which overrides their sovereignty. In other words, to be clear, the US cannot tolerate any country that has an independent foreign or economic policy.
That Russia and China have independent policies is the reason that they are “threats.”
It would be a mistake to conclude that diplomay has prevailed and common sense has returned to Washington. Nothing could be further from the truth. The issue is not resolved. War remains on the horizon.
The Unz Review
Are We Over the US/UK Fomented Crisis In Syria?
Paul Craig Roberts

10 comments:

Matt Franko said...

“Syria and Iran are an issue, because Syria and Iran supply the Lebanese millita, Hezbollah, with money and weapons”

Bingo...

Jeff65 said...

The US supplies weapons to ISIS. So what, Matt?

Matt Franko said...

Arming 'rebels' is an old Obama admin policy Jeff...

See the video out of MSNBC of Jeffrey Sachs explaining this... it goes back 7 years...

This type of SpecWar approach (there are only 2,000 US in Syria using locals ('rebels') as a force multiplier and 'nation building' ie SpecWar 101..) is now in decline after a 20 year popularity in DoD... in favor of a return to strategic systems.. so you see Tomahawks, etc raining down again..

We're going back to more strategic bombing and power projection vs. 'nation building' and Special Operations it didnt work... it has a place (maybe coming up in something smaller like Venezuela...) but it cant do a strategic job...

imo Hezbollah is on some sort of classified enemy/target list (see Tom's reference to classified Congressional documents) developed post 9/11 and the Executive branch has to prosecute those Congressional directives... it just doesnt say HOW to do it so you will see perhaps a different approach from Obama vs. Trump...

Iran is probably on that list too... it all goes back to Iran we should just get it over with... maybe Trump wants more modernization and build up in the strategic systems before doing Iran...

Matt Franko said...

the other thing Jeff is this poison gas thing is going over into the WMD realm so it is pretty serious....

We probably have to respond with tactical nukes if WMD is ever used on our troops... so this poison gas inclination on the part of the enemy has to be nipped in the bud pronto ...

Tom Hickey said...

The problem with Hezbollah is that it is a political party in democratic Lebanon in addition to having a paramilitary wing that unofficially complements the Lebanese Armed Forces in defending Lebanon from "neighbors."

So this is an issue with a "terrorist group" rather than a state.

The list is Iraq, Libya, Syria and Iran doesn't contain Lebanon but rather Hezbollah.

You can't tell the players without a score card.

Tom Hickey said...

he other thing Jeff is this poison gas thing is going over into the WMD realm so it is pretty serious....

We probably have to respond with tactical nukes if WMD is ever used on our troops... so this poison gas inclination on the part of the enemy has to be nipped in the bud pronto ...


That's the Western narrative.

Message: non-white people are animals.

Notice how WMD are rolled out in the service of fear-mongering in propaganda? It's very effective.

I have served in the military and know that the level of racial prejudice was off the charts as evidenced by the names the enemy was called. Think "gooks." The Brits called the Islamic peoples "wogs."

Matt Franko said...

"Hezbollah is that it is a political party in democratic Lebanon"

Well I dont think it was on Sept 12th, 2001 Tom so this has taken way too long...

so you can see the impatience with Assad there... he couldnt do what he was tasked to do and now the political situation has morphed and become even more complicated...

this is why you should always have a hard schedule (time domain) in mind with decision milestones... Bush2 was a baseball guy (ie no clock, play till its over...) he should have wrapped up the GWOT in a few years max...

Noah Way said...

Arming 'rebels' is an old Obama admin policy

It's a policy that predates Reagan. Get with it, Franko. You are not materially competent in history.

Tom Hickey said...

Based on Carter policy recommended by Bzrezenski,

Tom Hickey said...

Good short backgrounder on the history of Hezbollah and Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah.

NPR transcript, Who Is Hezbollah?
July 19, 2006

Neal Conan interviews Augustus Richard Norton, professor of international relations at Boston University; Nasrallah is As'ad Abukhalil, professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus, and Dan Schueftan, deputy director of the National Security Studies Center at the University of Haifa in Israel.

Norton and Abukhalil present neutral views, while Schueftan present the Israeli view.