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  1. #1
    Senior Member AirborneSapper7's Avatar
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    End of U.S. Imperium—Finally!? Obama About to Suffer Glorious Defeat in Congress?

    Saturday, September 07, 2013 3:12 PM

    End of U.S. Imperium—Finally!? Obama About to Suffer Glorious Defeat in Congress?

    The coalition of the willing is now down to the US alone as France now wants to wait for more data on alleged gas usage. Yet, President Obama rejects G20 pressure to abandon Syria air strike plan.

    Obama Plans Full Court Press

    Inquiring minds note that Obama plans a 'full-court press' to sway Congress and a speech to US citizens on September 10.
    Obama's address to the nation from the White House on Tuesday will be part of a rejuvenated lobbying effort on Syria as Congress returns to Washington next week. A Democratic congressional aide said the administration is planning "a full-court press" aimed at undecided lawmakers.

    According to a Washington Post count, only 23 senators have been willing to go on record in favor of military force, while 17 are against. It will likely take 60 of the Senate's 100 members to advance the measure to the House of Representatives.

    In the House, where 218 votes will be required to pass the resolution, only 25 members are on record in support of military action so far, according to the Post, with 106 opposed.
    Polls Show Citizens Solidly Against War

    John Nichols writing for The Nation accurately sums up the situation in 'Nobody Wants This Except the Military-Industrial Complex'

    House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, backs President Obama’s request for authorization to intervene militarily in Syria, as does House Democratic Minority Nancy Pelosi, D-California.

    Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, is similarly “in,” while Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, in mum.

    The president has done a pretty good job of selling his plan to congressional leaders.

    He has not, however, sold it to the American people.

    Thus, when members of Congress decide which side they’re on in the Syrian intervention votes that are expected to take place next week, they will have to consider whether they want to respond to pro-war pressure from inside-the-Beltway—as so many did when they authorized action against Iraq—or to the anti-war sentiments of their constituents.

    The United States says it has determined that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons in the civil war there,” the Post/ABC poll asked. “Given this, do you support or oppose the United States launching missile strikes against the Syrian government?”


    • Sixty percent of registered voters (59 percent of all respondents) express opposition. Just 36 percent support intervention.
    • Self-identified Democrats are opposed 54-42—a 12 point gap.
    • Republicans are opposed 55-43—a similar 12 point gap.
    • Independents disapprove of intervention by a 66-30 margin. That figure suggests that members of Congress who represent swing districts might actually be more vulnerable if they vote to authorize the attack.


    'Nobody Wants This Except the Military-Industrial Complex'


    Nichols referred to a Huffington Post article quoting Congressman Alan Grayson, D-Florida, "nobody wants this except the military-industrial complex".
    "One thing that is perfectly clear to me in my district, and I think is true in many other districts from speaking to other members, is that there is no desire, no desire on the part of people to be the world's policeman," Grayson said on SiriusXM's "The Agenda with Ari Rabin-Havt," which aired Thursday morning.

    "For us to pick up this gauntlet even on the basis of unequivocal evidence of chemical warfare by the Syrian army, deliberately against its own people -- even if there were unequivocal evidence of that -- that's just not what people in my district want."

    That doesn't mean that opposition is universal, Grayson allowed.

    "I did notice, for what it's worth, that the manufacturer of the missiles that would be used has had an incredible run in their stock value in the last 60 days. Raytheon stock is up 20 percent in the past 60 days as the likelihood of the use of their missiles against Syria becomes more likely. So I understand that there is a certain element of our society that does benefit from this, but they're not the people who vote for me, or by the way the people who contribute to my campaign," he said. "Nobody wants this except the military-industrial complex."
    Expected Votes on Authorizing Military Strike



    The End of U.S. Imperium—Finally!

    An article on The Daily Beast by David Stockman contains so much uncommon sense that it makes me want to stand up and salute!

    Please consider The End of U.S. Imperium—Finally! by David Stockman.
    Next week Congress can do far more than stop a feckless Tomahawk barrage on a small country that is already a graveyard of civil war and sectarian slaughter. By voting “no,” it can trigger the end of the American Imperium—five decades of incessant meddling, bullying, and subversion around the globe that has added precious little to national security but left America fiscally exhausted and morally diminished.

    Indeed, the tragedy of this vast string of misbegotten interventions—from the 1953 coup against Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran through the recent bombing campaign in Libya—is that virtually none of them involved defending the homeland or any tangible, steely-eyed linkages to national security. They were all rooted in ideology—that is, anti-communism, anti-terrorism, humanitarianism, R2P-ism, nation building, American exceptionalism. These were the historic building blocks of a failed Pax Americana. Now the White House wants authorization for the last straw: namely, to deliver from the firing tubes of U.S. naval destroyers a dose of righteous “punishment” that has no plausible military or strategic purpose.

    By the president’s own statements, the proposed attack is merely designed to censure the Syrian regime for allegedly visiting one particularly horrific form of violence on its own citizens.

    Well, really? After having rained napalm, white phosphorous, bunker busters, drone missiles, and the most violent machinery of conventional warfare ever assembled upon millions of innocent Vietnamese, Cambodians, Serbs, Somalis, Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis, Yemeni, Libyans, and countless more, Washington now presupposes to be in the moral-sanctions business? That’s downright farcical. Nevertheless, by declaring himself the world’s spanker in chief, President Obama has unwittingly precipitated the mother of all clarifying moments.

    The recurrent phony narratives that generate these war-drum campaigns and then rationalize their disastrous aftermaths are rooted in a common structural cause: a vastly bloated war machine and national spying apparatus, the Imperial Presidency, and the house-trained lap-dogs that occupy the congressional intelligence, foreign affairs, and defense committees. This triangle of deception keeps the American public bamboozled with superficial propaganda and the media supplied with short bursts of reality TV when the Tomahawks are periodically let fly.

    But it is the backbone of the permanent warfare-state bureaucracy that keeps the gambit going. Presidents come and go, but it is now obvious that virtually any ideological script—left or right—can be co-opted into service of the Imperium. The Obama White House’s preposterous drive to intervene in the Syrian tinderbox with its inherent potential for fractures and blowback across the entire Middle East is being ramrodded by the dogma of “responsibility to protect.” In that context, its chief protagonists—Susan Rice and Samantha Power—are the moral equivalent of Bush’s neocon hit men, Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz. In both cases, ideological agendas that have absolutely nothing to do with the safety of the American people were enabled to activate the awful violence of the American war machine mainly because it was there, marching in place waiting for an assignment.


    Heart of the Hypocrisy


    In case you missed it, Stockman nails the heart of US war-mongering hypocrisy with this question:

    "After having rained napalm, white phosphorous, bunker busters, drone missiles, and the most violent machinery of conventional warfare ever assembled upon millions of innocent Vietnamese, Cambodians, Serbs, Somalis, Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis, Yemeni, Libyans, and countless more, Washington now presupposes to be in the moral-sanctions business?"

    There is much more in the article. Please take a look.

    David Stockman is also the author of The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America and the #1 New York Times bestseller The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed.

    Is this the "End of U.S. Imperium"? Finally?
    We should all hope so.

    Mike "Mish" Shedlock
    http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com


    http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogsp...ama-about.html
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  2. #2
    Senior Member AirborneSapper7's Avatar
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    Goof Ball's Speech is scheduled for September 10; the Elite like significant days, and use numerology to do, push, off the wall shit to happen; the following day is of course September 11th

    coinkindink; I think not

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    Senior Member AirborneSapper7's Avatar
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    Friday, September 06, 2013 1:49 PM

    Change of Heart: The Case for Sending Personnel to Syria; Totally-Go-It-Alone Ironies

    I have had a change of heart. The US should send personnel to Syria. Notice I said "personnel", not combat troops or military equipment.

    I had this change of heart after reading The Onion article Poll: Majority Of Americans Approve Of Sending Congress To Syria.

    As President Obama continues to push for a plan of limited military intervention in Syria, a new poll of Americans has found that though the nation remains wary over the prospect of becoming involved in another Middle Eastern war, the vast majority of U.S. citizens strongly approve of sending Congress to Syria.

    The New York Times/CBS News poll showed that though just 1 in 4 Americans believe that the United States has a responsibility to intervene in the Syrian conflict, more than 90 percent of the public is convinced that putting all 535 representatives of the United States Congress on the ground in Syria—including Senate pro tempore Patrick Leahy, House Speaker John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and, in fact, all current members of the House and Senate—is the best course of action at this time.

    “I believe it is in the best interest of the United States, and the global community as a whole, to move forward with the deployment of all U.S. congressional leaders to Syria immediately,” respondent Carol Abare, 50, said in the nationwide telephone survey, echoing the thoughts of an estimated 9 in 10 Americans who said they “strongly support” any plan of action that involves putting the U.S. House and Senate on the ground in the war-torn Middle Eastern state. “With violence intensifying every day, now is absolutely the right moment—the perfect moment, really—for the United States to send our legislators to the region.”

    “In fact, my preference would have been for Congress to be deployed months ago,” she added.
    France Drops Out of the Coalition of the Willing

    The coalition of the willing is now down to one. French President Francois Hollande said after a G-20 meeting France to wait for U.N. inspectors' report on Syria.

    Obama can stick with his "world must act" message, but the world is increasingly fed up with Obama's rush to war message.

    Totally-Go-It-Alone Ironies

    ABC’s Rick Klein noted historical ironies in Obama Faces Go-It (Almost)-Alone Decision On Syria.
    President Obama will be alone should he choose to act militarily against Syria, for nearly all intents and purposes. He won’t have the public behind him; nearly 8 in 10 Americans say they won’t support military action without congressional approval. The vote in Parliament yesterday means he won’t even have Great Britain. The historical ironies run deep. “Just words,” it turns out, matter. And a man who would not be president except for his harsh critique of “dumb wars” and go-it-alone foreign policies is poised to engage in new military action virtually alone.
    Note: The above was written on August 30, before France dropped out. Almost-Go-It-Alone has become Totally-Go-It-Alone.

    Is Obama's Peace Prize Losing Its Luster?
    ABC's Abby Phillip notes: "Perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the commander-in-chief of the military of a nation in the midst of two wars,” Obama said in his acceptance speech. On the bring [brink] of a military strike on Syria, Obama is also dogged by the irony that his allure to liberals in the Democratic primary when he ran for president in 2008 stemmed largely from his opposition to the Iraq war. Obama never gave his peace prize back but some of his critics say Obama probably should. “There’s a growing sense that the Nobel Peace Prize has been tarnished by the award to Obama,” said Norman Solomon, whose website RootAction.org launched a petition earlier this year for Obama to give back the award.
    Syrian Woman Rips Into McCain At Town Hall For His Support For Bombing Syria



    Link if video does not play: Syrian Woman Rips Into McCain

    The case regarding so-called "collateral damage" is extremely pertinent. Neither McCain nor Obama cares how many lives they destroy to get the regime change they want (then when they get the regime change they will not be happy with the result).

    Let Obama Make the Case (To the Syrian People, Not US Congress)

    In addition to Congress, I propose we send Nobel Peace Prize winner President Obama to Syria to plead his case for war to the Syrian people.

    President Obama and Senator McCain should go first.

    In the meantime, please Sign the Petition to Revoke Obama's Nobel Peace Prize

    Mike "Mish" Shedlock
    http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

    http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogsp...r-sending.html
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  4. #4
    Senior Member AirborneSapper7's Avatar
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    Obama's Missing Link: No Direct Connection Between Assad And Gas Attack


    Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/07/2013 12:43 -0400

    While one can speculate if the sarin gas attack on August 22 was ordered and orchestrated by Saudi/Qatari petrodollar interests, with the assistance of the CIA and the funding of al Qaeda, and executed by the Syrian "rebels" (there is much circumstantial evidence pointing in the false flag direction: here, here, here and here), the reality is that since the narrative behind Obama's offensive Syrian air strikes has been staged as punishment for Assad, the onus is on the affirmative proof, namely clear and unequivocal evidence that it was Assad who ordered the attack. So far, despite repeated vows and promises that such proof exists, none has been presented, aside from numerous YouTube clips which show an attack did take place (and even that is in question). When it comes to the actual perpetrator, John Kerry and company are reduced to emotional pleadings to the audience to look at pictures of dead children redirecting from the most important question of all: did Assad actually do it. The reason for such Copperfieldian tactics is that there simply is no link - Reuters reports that "No direct link to President Bashar al-Assad or his inner circle has been publicly demonstrated, and some U.S. sources say intelligence experts are not sure whether the Syrian leader knew of the attack before it was launched or was only informed about it afterward." And yet Obama's entire publicly stated motive is to punish Assad... for something there is zero evidence he did.

    The excerpt below from Reuters is how far the mainstream media will go of accusing Obama of conducting a false flag without actually "accusing" him.

    While U.S. officials say Assad is responsible for the chemical weapons strike even if he did not directly order it, they have not been able to fully describe a chain of command for the August 21 attack in the Ghouta area east of the Syrian capital.

    It is one of the biggest gaps in U.S. understanding of the incident, even as Congress debates whether to launch limited strikes on Assad's forces in retaliation.

    After wrongly claiming that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction before the 2003 U.S. invasion, the U.S. intelligence community, along with the Obama administration, are trying to build as solid a case as they can about what it says was a sarin nerve gas attack that killed over 1,400 people.

    The Syrian government, backed by Russia, blames Sunni rebels for the gas attack. Russia says Washington has not provided convincing proof that Assad's troops carried out the attack and called it a "provocation" by rebel forces hoping to encourage a military response by the United States.

    Identifying Syrian commanders or leaders as those who gave an order to fire rockets into the Sunni Muslim areas could help Obama convince a war-weary American public and skeptical members of Congress to back limited strikes against Assad.

    But penetrating the secretive Syrian government is tough, especially as it fights a chaotic civil war for its survival.

    But isn't that what the NSA is for: after all Obama had an extended tangent during his G-20 press conference explaining precisely that the role of the NSA is to keep America breast on non-public developments. And the whole "access to everything" should mean not a single Syrian communication was left unintercepted. Or maybe, just maybe, the NSA was meant solely to spy on America's citizens, while ignoring what happens in Damascus, instead forcing the administration to come up with made up stories?


    One possible link between the gas attack and Assad's inner circle is the Syrian government body that is responsible for producing chemical weapons, U.S. and allied security sources say.

    Personnel associated with the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Council (SSRC), which has direct ties to Assad's entourage, were likely involved in preparing munitions in the days before the attack, they say.

    A declassified French intelligence report describes a unit of the SSRC, known by the code name "Branch 450", which it says is in charge of filling rockets or shells with chemical munitions in general.

    U.S. and European security sources say this unit was likely involved in mixing chemicals for the August 21 attack and also may have played a more extensive role in preparing for it and carrying it out.

    Bruce Riedel, a former senior U.S. intelligence expert on the region and sometime advisor to the Obama White House, said that intelligence about the SSRC's alleged role is the most telling proof the United States has at hand.

    "The best evidence linking the regime to the attack at a high level is the involvement of SSRC, the science center that created the (chemical weapons) program and manages it. SSRC works for the President's office and reports to him," Riedel said.

    U.S. officials say Amr Armanazi, a Syrian official identified as SSRC director in a State Department sanctions order a year ago, was not directly involved.
    Ironically, the early definitive proof that was going to be the nail in Assad's coffin so to speak, has all been rejected now:

    As more information has been collected and analyzed, early theories about the attack have largely been dismissed, U.S. and allied security sources said.

    Reports that Assad's brother, Maher, a general who commands an elite Republican Guard unit and a crack Syrian army armored division, gave the order to use chemicals have not been substantiated, U.S. sources said. Some U.S. sources now believe Maher Assad did not order the attack and was not directly involved.

    So what if any evidence is there, aside from YouTube clips of course?

    Much of the U.S. claim that Assad is responsible was initially based on reports from witnesses, non-governmental groups and hours of YouTube videos.

    U.S. officials have not presented any evidence to the public of scientific samples or intelligence information proving that sarin gas was used or that the Syrian government used it.

    The United States has also not named any Syrian commanders it thinks gave the green light to fire gas-laden rockets into Ghouta. But U.S. and allied security sources say they believe that Syrian military units responsible for the areas that were attacked were under heavy pressure from top commanders to wipe out a stubborn rebel presence there so government troops could redeploy to other trouble spots, including the city of Aleppo.

    An analysis by the Congressional Research Service, a branch of the Library of Congress, reported that a declassified U.S. government paper summarizing intelligence findings concludes that Syrian government officials were "witting and directed" the gas attack. But the evidence of who ordered it was not watertight, the analysis said.
    So, if one eliminates conflicted witness, one is left with ... pretty much that: YouTube clips. Like this one prepared by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, staged from beginning to end, and designed to generate a sense of sympathy toward its cause on false grounds:

    Video worth watching at the Page Link: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-0...and-gas-attack

    Perhaps this is why, with virtually every other avenue exhausted, Obama will be forced next week to do what he does best: speak in a charming, disarming way, and seek the teleprompter's help to sway the people to his side of the story, as unjustified as it may be:

    The United Nations won't help, good pal Britain is sitting this one out, so President Barack Obama will take his case for a military attack on Syria directly to the American people next week.

    Obama wrapped up his trip to the G20 summit in Russia by telling reporters he will address the nation on Tuesday as Congress prepares to vote on a resolution authorizing limited military strikes against Syria over its alleged use of chemical weapons.

    Facing public opposition reflected by legislators hesitant to support him, Obama said Friday that he understands the skepticism over his call for punishing the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for what U.S. officials call a sarin gas attack on August 21 that killed more than 1,400 people.

    "The American people have gone through a lot when it comes to the military over the last decade or so," Obama said.
    Indeed, and the bulk of it has been based on false flag pretenses, just like this one.

    Perhaps, for once, the American people will see right through Obama's shiny facade and pompous, if completely hollow rhetoric, and straight to the lies, and finally say no.

    Unfortunately, if past is prologue, a lot of innocent Syrian civilians are about to die one way or the other, in yet another unjust war serving higher interests, and even higher money, in which the common person is merely "collateral damage."

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-0...and-gas-attack
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  5. #5
    Senior Member ReformUSA2012's Avatar
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    I think the Obama admin has another plan in motion already IF they can get enough Senate votes. By the US Constitution Congress as a whole must declare war. But the Senate can set Foreign Policy. Now I'm thinking they are planning to call it Foreign Policy with Syria to stage attacks w/o calling it real "War". Stating that Syria in Obama's divine wisdom cannot be trusted with chemical weapons or other instruments of larger scale destruction to call on bombing of military installations in Syria along with stating they are protecting the Rebels as just being a shield w/o actually attacking the country as a whole.

    With that the ball gets moving and if Syria attacks back then Obama declares we are at a state of war because we now have been actively attacked by a foreign government.

    Lots of ways to twist it with bad logic that fits right down the path Obama and cronies tend to think. None of it would stand up vs The People but just as before The People are expected to just stfu as Obama knows best....

    After all its no skin off Obama's shoulders if the US starts and ends up in WW3. It just helps push his agenda even longer plus allows him to declare martial law and stay in office even longer.

  6. #6
    Senior Member AirborneSapper7's Avatar
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