One real reason for postponement of U.S. attack on Syria: Movements count.

[JackRiddler]

Last edited Mon Sep 16, 2013, 03:47 PM - Edit history (1)

There's a new line of bullshit now about how Obama should get the special credit for not bombing Syria, like he said he would the other week.

This is a denial of what really happened in front of us all, and how WE, millions of us, also played a role in it as antiwar movement-makers. If you called Congress, if you took part in a march, if you tried what you could to counter the automatic pro-war narrative in the U.S. corporate media, you deserve your tiny piece of credit. Good work so far! We the people, as individuals taking small actions, are quantities that seem infinitessimal. But infinitessimals can add up to multitudes.

To give credit to some Kissinger-kissing politicians for going back (for now) on what they themselves threatened is a rhetoric that puts all power in the hands of our betters and disempowers the peoples of this earth.

Millions of people said no to a new U.S. war in Syria, and we count.

U.S. public opinion turned against the intervention plan, in line with world public opinion.

The UK parliament voted it down. This was enormous history, though already forgotten two weeks later. A sitting prime minister of the earth's possibly most assiduous warrior nation proposed a new "white man's burden" for the empire to take up, with arms. And the parliament, for the first time ever, said NO.

The international community protested. The vast majority of nations made plain their rejection. The UN did not become available as a cover for humanitarian imperialism.

The U.S. government was unable to put together even a fake "coalition." The only support, all of it low-key, came from the obvious would-be beneficiaries in Saudi Arabia (a worse regime than Syria, of course, but: an "ally"!), Israel and Turkey, and from France, Syria's former colonial overlord, which should instead be paying reparations for the next century.

Even the House was going to vote it down!

And finally the Russians stood up to it.

Now, thankfully, the administration has backed down from the war plan. For now - maybe McCain would not have, so we'll give that to Obama.

It's hardly over, of course, so maybe next week will require a different and entirely contradictory line of bullshit, about how it was always important and unavoidable that our courageous leaders stand resolute against the latest third-world Hitler and send a message to the world that America remains credible in its willingness to vaporize people on the other side of the planet for causes not remotely related to the self-defense of anyone in the U.S., for ludicrous announced reasons (we're helping people! we're always helping people!) and on behalf of hidden interests.

Let's be ready to fight for peace. No more U.S. wars! Done, basta!

[gopiscrap]

1. Absolutely!

[leveymg]

2. Credit goes to Obama for not pulling the trigger, but getting us to the brink is very much his doing

along with that of his former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and former CIA Director David Petraeus, for cooking up the disastrous serial regime change operation in the Mideast. In the case of Syria, given its ethnic divisions and particular history of extremely violent power struggles between the Sunni majority and the ruling Alawites, genocidal outcomes of a full-scale civil war and the eventual use of chemical weapons were entirely foreseeable and preventable.

The U.S. should never have encouraged armed insurrection, which broke out simultaneously and in the same ways within hours of each other in Benghazi, Libya and Dara'a Syria after calls for Days of Rage were broadcast by exile groups from Paris, London and Washington. Those calls for violent resistance came before there were street clashes in early April in both countries involving snipers and a significant number of casualties on both sides. We had another chance to reduce the escalation of violence, but allowed it to happen when the Administration failed to put pressure on our regional "allies" to curb the inflow of foreign weapons and Jihadi fighters into the conflict.

The Obama Administration, along with the other outside powers which have been arming and organizing factions, bears responsibility for creating the situation that led to the brink of direct U.S. military involvement and the flash ignition of a much wider, bloodier regional war. While it is fortunate that the President did not launch missile strikes, he also shares responsibility for escalation of regime change into an entirely foreseeable and preventable civil war.

[JackRiddler]

3. Bravo & exact!

Thanks.

[JackRiddler]

4. bump

[KG]

5. c'mon. you're just poutraged coz you didn't get what you didn't want in the first place

or something.

[JackRiddler]

6. Because Obama.

Isn't that always the answer, whether for or against?

[JDPriestly]

7. The administration is just going to go back and do some patchwork on its propaganda effort.

We'll be seeing horrifying pictures soon. Count on it. That's the way propaganda works.

I'm in a particularly cynical mood this morning.

[JackRiddler]

8. I genuinely wonder.

And usually I agree with you that once they decide there's going to be a new high-profile bombing of Somewhere, it always ends up happening.

[JackRiddler]

9. bump

[sabrina 1]

10. The people DO have the power to change things. And the public is far more awake and informed

all over the world now than they were ten years ago. And you are correct, the people played a huge roll in stopping this latest, disastrous foreign adventure.