Obama Threatens US Invasion of Syria

US and NATO are huddling to discuss an “official” US military invasion of Syria to bring down Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.

Obama announced the possibility of a direct attack on Syria at Monday night's press conference.

Johannes Stern of wsws writes:

Senior US officials said that contingency plans for US intervention in Syria include scenarios requiring tens of thousands of American troops.

NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!

Obama’s words at the WH press conference:

“I have indicated repeatedly that President al-Assad has lost legitimacy, that he needs to step down. So far, he hasn’t gotten the message, and instead has double downed in violence on his own people. The international community has sent a clear message that rather than drag his country into civil war he should move in the direction of a political transition. But at this point, the likelihood of a soft landing seems pretty distant.”

Obama speaking on behalf of the INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY. That's rich. I wonder if the REAL INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY really wants the US to send troops and escalate the bloodbath already happening in Syria thanks to US/NATO/Israel enabling no longer freedom fighters but terrorists struggling now to bring down the Assad regime.

The US, NATO, Israel, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, etc. are not acting out of humanitarian concern (since they don't have substantial respect for their own citizens, and tragically that includes the US at this point) about the Syrians' legitimate hunger for a more benign and responsive government, but instead are acting out of the self-interests of the corporate profiteers and military war addicts.

What is so incredible, so cynical, is that our CIA has been enabling terrorists like Al Qaeda in Syria to weaken the Assad regime. And during Obama’s press conference he asserts that alleged Syrian stockpiles of chemical weapons (think Iraq and WMDs playbook and watch how NYT's David Sanger is helping the fear-mongering justification for invasion just as the NYT did to help launch the Iraq War) may fall into the “wrong hands” like Al Qaeda’s. Like the Al Qaeda whom we have been enabling with weaponry and intelligence to get the upper hand against the Assad regime on behalf of the anti-Iran group of nations? The supposed "western good guys" faux-spreaders of democracy and faux-supporters of the Arab Spring have been promoting in cynical but realpolitik terms "DEATH SQUAD DIPLOMACY" -- terrorism for imperialism. Now the rationalization to enter the scene because of the terrorism we catalyzed is so shameless and hypocritical it is hard to wrap one's mind around it all.

This is how Johannes Stern presents it:

A US war against Syria would be the next step in an ongoing campaign by US imperialism to deepen its hegemony over the energy-rich and geo-strategically vital regions of the Persian Gulf and Central Asia.

snip

The cynicism with which Obama is seeking to justify the next US imperialist aggression in the Middle East is staggering. The main groups in Syria who could seize chemical weapons from Syrian government stockpiles are Al Qaeda forces promoted by the US and its allies as shock troops against Assad. (See also: “

Having armed Al Qaeda-linked groups and sent them into Syria to carry out bombings and assassinations, the US and its allies now plan to justify their invasion of Syria by citing the need to protect the world’s population from Al Qaeda’s terrorist atrocities!

The Obama administration advances its arguments today with total disregard for the fact that they clash with the lies used until now to justify its support for Sunni anti-Assad “rebels.”

For months it maintained the pretense that it would not directly attack Syria, and that the Syrian regime’s statements that it was fighting US-backed terrorists were “propaganda.” Now, the White House is admitting that terrorist groups play a major role in the anti-Assad forces, and citing this as a pretext for war.

By proceeding in this fashion, the Obama administration demonstrates its complete contempt for the American electorate, which voted him into office in 2008 in large part based on hopes he would stop the US military aggressions against countries in the Middle East. Today, as during the 2003 invasion of Syria’s neighbor, Iraq, Washington is preparing to invade a country based on cynical lies about weapons of mass destruction.

A US invasion of Syria would be a crime of historic proportions, like the war in Iraq—a country whose population is only slightly larger than Syria’s. This war led to the deaths of over a million Iraqis and thousands of US and allied soldiers. Iraq became a battleground for US occupation forces, as well as Sunni and Shiite death squads that carried out sectarian bombings and massacres.

A US invasion would threaten similar carnage inside Syria, which is already being torn apart by sectarian fighting in which Washington is working with right-wing regimes in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to back Sunni Islamist forces against Syria’s Alawite regime. However, the far greater tensions in a region already destabilized by a decade of US and Israeli wars in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, and Libya now threaten to spread the violence over the entire Middle East.

Sectarian bloodshed is happening not just in poor Syria of course. Stern reports that on Tuesday four people were killed and 60 wounded in “fire fights” between Sunni Muslims and Shiite Alawites in Tripoli, a northern city in Lebanon. The Lebanese government is led by the Shiite organization Hizbollah, a close ally of Syria and Iran. That bloodshed to escalate exponentially assumedly brings craven satisfaction to the imperialist pirates as well.

What is Syria’s reaction to the threat of US intervention and does it matter at all to a cabal of imperialist nations who want non-negotiable REGIME CHANGE to put in their own anti-Iranian puppet leader? "Regime change!" That is the US media war-drumming mantra. Puts the war hawk Liebermans, McCains, Grahams AND Obamas on the same craven imperialist-pirate side in fact!

Stern writes:

The Syrian regime responded to US threats with warnings and proposals for negotiations....

PROPOSALS FOR NEGOTIATIONS???? GOOD!!! But not to be respected sadly in present Obama foreign policy. Diplomacy? What is that?

Stern goes on:

Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil described Obama’s statements about chemical weapons as a pretext for Western intervention in Syria. “The West is looking for an excuse for direct intervention. If this excuse does not work, it will look for another excuse.” He warned that an attack on Syria would turn the conflict into a regional war, saying: “Those who are contemplating this evidently want to see the crisis expand beyond Syria’s borders.”

Jamil announced that the Syrian regime is willing to talk with the opposition to work out a transition, however. He even declared that Assad’s presidency is negotiable, stating: “We are ready to discuss Assad’s resignation—but not as precondition.”

SO THE PRIME MINISTER ACTUALLY SAID THAT ASSAD’S PRESIDENCY IS NEGOTIABLE! “NOT AS PRECONDITION” WHATEVER THAT MEANS BUT, DAMN IT, SIT DOWN AND SINCERELY TALK ABOUT IT. THAT IS CALLED DIPLOMACY!!!! Why doesn't Sanger at the NYT talk about any of this?

Stern speculates on our growing tensions with China and Russia over this. China and Russia who have three times already refused to grant what Stern calls a “psuedo-legal fig leaf” in the UN Security Council against US, Western and Arab allies to gain UN endorsement for US military aggression against Syria.

Stern reveals:

Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov spoke at a meeting in Moscow with China’s State Councilor Dai Bingguo, who also met Russian President Vladimir Putin and his top security adviser, Nikolai Patrushev, on Monday. Lavrov said that both Russia and China base their diplomatic cooperation on “the need to strictly adhere to the norms of international law and the principles contained in the U.N. Charter, and not to allow their violation.”

Lavrov said that only the Security Council has the authority to approve the use of external force against Syria, warning against imposing “democracy by bombs.” Russian officials have reportedly stated that they hope to avoid a repetition of the attack on Libya last year. Moscow abstained from the Security Council vote on Libya, and a resolution was passed which was subsequently used by NATO to justify its bombing of the country.

The US stopped adhering to what Russia’s Lavrov calls the “norms of international law and the principles contained in the U.N. Charter” a long time ago. We jumped the shark on abiding by international law in Iraq in 2003, in Libya last year and with Syria now.

I guess if Obama can't get UN permission to invade Syria, he is willing to do it anyway. Law and morality and .... SANITY? Not a priority.

Anybody want to try to stop this? Anybody in America? Russia and China the only ones defending international law?

Our corporate media not inclined to even explore it very much. Invasion of Syria? yadda yadda yadda ...

WTF?

[cross-posted on correntewire and open salon]