The US' warped logic

‘America’s interests’, the term that Obama refers to, do not necessarily coincide with the interests of the ‘American people’.

While attending the G20 meeting in St Petersburg last week, Barack Obama told the world how the US should stand up and attack Assad for (allegedly) having used chemical weapons (CWs) and killing 1,400 people.

Referring to paralysis over Syria in the UN Security Council, Obama went on to say that the US is a big country and people expect it to act, so a limited strike should be the responsibility of the US.

Based on this logic, the US government has the right to bypass the UN as and when it deems necessary.

Obama said that his job is to convince the ‘American people’ that attacking Syria is the right thing to do. According to Obama, the ‘American people’ do not properly understand that hitting Assad would keep them safe. He said that ultimately ‘America’s interests’ will determine his decision, despite the vast majority of US citizens being against military intervention.

Based on this logic, the US government has the right to ignore public opinion as and when it deems necessary.

‘America’s interests’ (aka the corporate-financial elite), the term that Obama refers to, do not necessarily coincide with the interests of the vast bulk of the ‘American people’. But wrap things up in patriotism, use some bogus notion of ‘America’, nationhood and the ‘national interest’ and, as any adperson worth their salt may tell you, you can get the public to rally around and buy into almost anything.

In another desperate attempt to justify attacking Syria, ignoring public opinion and bypassing the UN, Obama stated that ‘the world’ is always telling the US to act against wrong doers. Therefore, it is time to act in Syria. Apart from imploring the US to hold Israel’s crimes to account, is this really true?

Are China, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, Russia and India always asking the US to take action against the US’s concocted, delusional ever-changing list of ‘wrong doers’? Factor in many other countries and the numbers (and thus the logic) begin to look pretty shaky for Obama.

But who needs numbers, the UN or global opinion on your side when simple fear mongering will do? Obama was trying every trick in the book in St Petersburg to convince us all that yet another bout of US militarism is necessary. He said that not to act would lead the ‘international community’ towards a slippery slope of mayhem to be inflicted by will on us by rogue regimes. Therefore, a military response should take place, which would serve as a message for the Assads of the world never to carry out atrocities again.

Illegal invasions

Few if any in the corporate media are willing to seriously challenge the US’s logic for intervening in Syria and the inane bleatings about morality that Obama uses in an attempt to justify it. What gives the US the right to be the world's moral policeman? Few in the mainstream media question the US’s use of depleted uranium or napalm or phosphorus in Iraq, its sales of CWs to foreign governments, its illegal invasions and occupations and its drone murders throughout the world.

Too few also question the role of the US and its allies in funding and arming its proxy terror armies in Syria and thus creating a bloodbath, a refugee crisis and destabilising the entire region. No, that is not up for debate. Obama and Kerry are instead left to preach about their warped visions and versions of right and wrong, good and evil.

This is all part of the stage managed debate that will be ignored anyhow in the final instance, on the basis of ‘American interests’ - interests that fuel and benefit from war, interests that hijacked the US decades back and whose current policies were devised years ago behind closed doors in the corporate-financier funded/led think tanks, board rooms, secretive meetings and committees, from which the public is strictly barred. That’s the true nature of democracy that Obama fronts.    

Obama said challenging Assad was ‘the right thing to do’. In the land of the brave and the free, it’s all about doing ‘the right thing’. Try tell that to the ten million or so who have perished at the hands of Uncle Sam since 1945, as the US subverted democratically elected governments, dropped bombs on countries, let loose its death squads, destabilised countries or assassinated leaders. Historian William Blum has catalogued these atrocities at length.

Obama referred to Assad using CWs and killing children. He then stated that the US certainly doesn’t do that. Recall Madelaine Albright saying that the deaths of 5,00,000 children in Iraq as a result of US sanctions were a price worth paying to further US interests. Recall that babies and children are paying the price for the US’s use of depleted uranium in Iraq. Recall too that kids in Vietnam are still paying the price for Agent Orange.
Assad is winning in Syria and the US is desperate to tip the balance. Pointing the finger at Assad over CWs came at a very convenient moment. An atrocity (whoever did it) that, in the grand scheme of US-backed atrocities, ranks pretty low, but over which the US is staging a grand performance of foaming at the mouth with indignation.  

Interests in the US, their Zionist allies in Israel and other regional players, such as the Saudi elite, are likely to gain from the destruction of Syria. It certainly won’t be the ‘American people’. And, despite the talk of ‘humanitarianism’, it definitely won’t be the Syrian people, who have already suffered enough.