[credit: Christopher Weyant, The Hill]
This story via Infowars.com is a bombshell in itself: a credible professional journalist, Dale Gavlak who is a correspondent for Associated Press, writes that the alleged chemical weapons attack which killed hundreds was an accident! Her report is based on interviews conducted by Yahya Ababneh in Ghouta. Rebels received chemical weapons via Saudi Arabia, the arch-enemy of Assad, and were not trained in their use. Allegedly the weapons were intended for Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda aligned jihadist movement. The weapons were detonated by accident in a tunnel and killed 12 rebel soldiers. An accidental release of a nerve agent would fit with signals intelligence that show regime officers reacting with surprise to chemical weapons being unleashed. Whether this story is factual or regime propaganda remains to be seen, but in a situation were US intelligence is blaming Assad for mass casualties and their case is not "a slam dunk", the mere existence of such a report deserves further verification. However, according to Secretary of State John Kerry, the US administration is not interested in further evidence since it believes Assad's guilt is already clear to the world.
What deliberately dumbed-down Americans do not understand is that the American military-industrial-security establishment is big business and their business is war. To keep the money rolling in those employed by it need to justify the use of force on every possible occasion, and if a war can be justified under humanitarian cover, that is just fine with the warmongers. US Person has not loss his moral indignation over the apparent illegal use of chemical weapons*, but as the Vatican pointed out, more killing by the United States is not going to end a conflict which has already killed 100,000 Syrians and created 2 million refugees. There is little international material support besides France for military action against Syria as the G-20 summit just concluded demonstrates. Talk of degrading and deterring Bashir al-Assad's regime by destroying most of his air force, as suggested by some pundits, is wishful thinking on the part of the Current Imperial Occupant. Obviously he is thrilled after six years in office by the deluding power of the Oval Office, and he has painted himself into a rhetorical corner over Syria. Such empty rhetoric completely ignores the fact that Syria has powerful and influential allies, unlike Qaddafi's Libya, who themselves could inflict great damage on American interests in the region. If Israel were attacked, would America go to war on the ground against Iran or Hezbollah in Lebanon? If a Russian commander fires upon an American ship in the Mediterranean or an advanced Russian air defense missile takes out a B-2 and its entire crew on an intercontinental bomb run over Syria, would the United States engage in nuclear retaliation? The disaster scenarios are endless. US Person thinks Americans, after forty years of costly and failed expeditions of imperial overreach, are tired of war and especially of war begun under false pretenses. Their consciences would rest easy if Assad were removed from power at a peace conference with no collateral damage. That would be "smart diplomacy", not so-called smart bombs, in action.
[credit: Bob Englehart, Hartford Courant]
Wackydoodle sez: I got'ch an eraser y'all can use!
*The United States has little credibility when it comes to the international ban against chemical weapons. It used toxic herbicides, white phosphorous, and napalm in Vietnam; while not specifically banned, their use can hardly be considered humane. US intelligence informed Saddam Hussein of Iranian troop concentrations knowing full well he was using chemical weapons against them. The US continued to send military aid, including thiodiglycol a key ingredient of mustard gas, to Hussein even after the infamous gas attack at Halabja in 1988 that resulted in the deaths of 5,000 Kurdish civilians. Iraqi is littered with toxic depleted uranium from US munitions. Half the babies born in Fallujah 2007-2010 have birth defects not seen since islanders exposed to the nuclear tests in the Pacific.