Last night, September 10th 2013, I suffered six minutes of the US President, Barack Obama, attempting to make his case for waging war on Syria.
After six minutes had passed I could stand to watch and listen no more. What he said in the remainder of his fifteen minute speech became irrelevant. The phrase “supercilious claptrap” was invading my brain. To suggest that by using chemical weapons the Syrian regime was somehow putting the world at risk, that “terrorists” might get hold and make use of them is so absurd as to be laughable, were the situation not so serious.
Syria has had huge stockpiles of chemical weapons for years. The West has never considered them such a threat before. Anyway, any Middle East terrorist worth his salt could lay hands on such weapons easily, without going near Syria. There is already some evidence the sarin gas used in Syria of late was supplied to Jihadist rebels by Saudi Arabia.[1]
Prior to President Obama’s TV appearance I had just watched an interview with Andrew Bacevich, on the Syrian situation. Bacevich was a long time soldier and is now Professor of History at Boston University. Frankly, listening to President Obama after hearing the wisdom of Bacevich, was akin to switching channels from a top quality documentary to a third-rate reality show.
I don’t often submit long videos for Sparrow Chat readers, but I promise you thirty minutes spent listening to Phil Donahue and Andrew Bacevich will not be a waste of your time. I would like to thank my old blogging pal, Al DeVito, at “Vineyard Views” for bringing it to my attention.
At a time when top US politicians, including the President, are yet again engaged in warmongering, it may pay American citizens to once more heed the story of James Blount.
The story’s not new. The BBC report quoted below is from 2010, but it is, perhaps, worth repeating. Blount is better known today as the singer and musician, James Blunt, but in 1999 he was a cavalry officer with the British army in Kosovo.
The Supreme Commander of NATO in the Balkans at that time was US General Wesley Clark. Clark ordered Blount and his unit to take the airfield at Pristina, which had been occupied by Russian troops.
The Russians were on the same side as the NATO forces, but wished to operate independently. NATO refused.
According to the BBC:
The confusion surrounding the taking of Pristina airfield in 1999 has been written about in political memoirs, and was widely reported at the time.
But this is the first time Blunt has given an account of his role in the incident.
Blunt, who was at the head of a column of 30,000 Nato troops with his unit, told Pienaar’s Politics it was a “mad situation”.
He said he had been “party to the conversation” between senior officers in which Gen Clark had ordered the attack.
“We had 200 Russians lined up pointing their weapons at us aggressively, which was… and you know we’d been told to reach the airfield and take a hold of it.
“And if we had a foothold there then it would make life much easier for the Nato forces in Pristina. So there was a political reason to take hold of this.
“And the practical consequences of that political reason would be then aggression against the Russians.”
Asked if following the order would have risked starting World War III, Blunt, who was a 25-year-old cavalry officer at the time, replied: “Absolutely. And that’s why we were querying our instruction from an American general.
“Fortunately, up on the radio came Gen Mike Jackson, whose exact words at the time were, ‘I’m not going to have my soldiers be responsible for starting World War III’, and told us why don’t we sugar off down the road, you know, encircle the airfield instead.
If Gen Jackson had not blocked the order from Gen Clark, who as Nato Supreme Commander Europe was his superior officer, Blunt said he would still have declined to follow it, even at the risk of a court martial.
He said: “There are things that you do along the way that you know are right, and those that you absolutely feel are wrong, that I think it’s morally important to stand up against, and that sense of moral judgement is drilled into us as soldiers in the British army.”[1]
Obviously it’s not drilled into high-ranking US Generals.
It really is time Americans realized that the arrogance of their leaders not only puts the lives of American citizens at risk, but is sufficiently foolhardy to trigger conflagrations vastly greater than anything originally intended.
Who can know where US military action in Syria would end? Certainly not President Obama, John Kerry, or the generals charged with commanding any military intervention.
In 1999, Wesley Clark could easily have plunged the world into a nuclear conflict by acting out of arrogance and a total lack of mature leadership. He was fortunate that others subordinate to him were prepared to disobey his orders, which could have resulted in court martial proceedings for both Blount and Jackson.[2]
Russia and America are again at loggerheads. The Russians demand time to assess whether Assad’s regime was indeed guilty of the illegal use of chemical weapons. The American have already made up their minds and, once again, are prepared to go off ‘half-cock’ with no concrete evidence of Assad’s involvement.
The world is right to be wary. US warmongers are convinced they’d win any nuclear world war. They may be right.
The so-called ‘case’ for the US attacking Syria has been so miserably and off-handedly put forward by our latest apology for a secretary of state, that my original intention was to confine this article to the fairly simple task of negating his most nebulous ‘evidence’ that the regime of Bashar al-Assad was culpable in the use of the sarin gas that poisoned so many in Ghouta on August 21st.
Just prior to beginning this article I received an email from FAIR that included a piece by Jim Naureckas entitled, “Which Syrian Chemical Attack Account Is More Credible?”[1] Reading through, I realized it contained almost the exact same arguments I was about to use, so rather than duplicate Jim’s article I’ll simply supply a link to it at the bottom of this post, and turn my attentions to a more frivolous though, in my opinion, equally perturbing subject – Jon Stewart and the Daily Show’s obvious fixation with that male appendage known, at least in medical circles, as the penis.
Now, immediately I realize I’ve made a mistake. I stated it was a ‘Daily Show’ fixation. The evidence indicates the contrary. Jon Stewart, long-term host of the Daily Show, has been away from his post for twelve weeks. During that time, his seat has been occupied by the English comedian, John Oliver.
It rapidly became clear that the ratio of penis jokes per Daily Show segment was dropping off considerably. Whole shows went by without the word, “penis”, ever being mentioned. Okay, there was the odd occasion, but they only served to remind us just how frequently this member was referenced when Jon Stewart was in control. One got the distinct impression Oliver was only throwing in the odd mention out of misplaced respect for Stewart.
Even the surfacing of Anthony Weiner as candidate mayor of New York, a circumstance Stewart would have milked of dubious penis humor for all it was worth, only received a muted ‘member’ response from Oliver.
Obviously, the Daily Show writers were just as keen to escape from such puerile nonsense as was the temporary host. Sadly, on Stewart’s return yesterday, the penis comments and double entendres were once again rife.
It would seem from the evidence (possibly more substantial then John Kerry’s) that Jon Stewart is the immature and puerile one dictating the sniggering schoolboy humor that abounds on his show. Perhaps it’s time the show matured? Perhaps it’s time for a change at the top?
Perhaps it’s time the “Daily Show with John Oliver” became a permanent fixture?
