Attack Syria Resolution Approved By Senate Foreign Relations Committee

With John Boner, (yes, I intended to misspell it,) coming out strongly in public to back the resolution within the last 48 hrs, the only opposition to it throughout congress that I expect will come from The Rand Paul libertarian faction on the right and the true progressives on the left like Bernie Sanders.

Anyone disagree?

edit to add:
just found this particularly disturbing bit of news -

and:

 

How come Obama called for a congressional vote, only to say he's going to attack Syria with or without their consent?

Has there EVER been an occasion in which a president called for a vote, only to say that their vote is moot and won't change anything, and yet still take the time to convince them?

This really makes no sense.

 

Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) (by proxy — was absent due to the Jewish holiday), Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Christopher Coons (D-Del.), Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.). Ranking member Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Sens. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.).
Confirmed war crazies

 

It doesn't unless you look at it from a perspective that expects the accepted resolution to allow for a broader execution of military action world-wide like the Authorization for the Use of Military Force for the invasion of Afghanistan which is still allowing us to actively engage in Africa, Yemen, and Pakistan to this day.

If, for some reason they didn't want to pass an authorization, Obama was expressing his belief in a legal right to just go after Assad w/o congressional approval. Since he was going to do it no matter what, he wanted to make it more palatable by giving them an opportunity to tack on whatever other strategic objectives congress wished to have attached to the authorization rather than going through the process all over again should countries like Russia or Iran actively engage as a response.

I'd be amazed if the final draft of the declaration was somehow limited to Syria alone.

 

A little coincidence story that also applies to Congress:

Definition of the word "coincidence".

A chicken farmer went to the local bar, sat down next to a woman and ordered a glass of champagne.

The woman said, "How strange, I also just ordered a glass of champagne".

"What a coincidence" said the farmer, who added. "It is a special day for me...I'm celebrating".

"It is a special day for me too. I am also celebrating" said the woman.

"What a coincidence" said the farmer.

While they toasted, the man asked. "What are you celebrating"?

"My husband and I have been trying to have a child for years, and today my gynecologist told me that I was pregnant".

"What a coincidence" said the man. "I'm a chicken farmer and for years all my hens were infertile, but now they are all set to lay fertilized eggs."

"This is awesome" said the woman. "What did you do for your chickens to become fertile?"



"I used a different rooster" the farmer said.

The woman smiled and said. "What a coincidence."

 

Simplification, HFD! Your post only needed four words!

 

Perhaps the move is truly not of aggression as what other's imply,
but an act to maintain credibility of humanitarian laws.

 

Perhaps, but Obama and co. don't really seem to care about certain humanitarian laws in place within the US, and is currently violating several tenets of the Geneva Conventions as we write. It's also utter hypocrisy to say that he intends to enforce international humanitarian law banning the use of chemical weapons by taking action outside of the accepted institution for deciding how actions should be taken to enforce international law - the UN. I personally wouldn't like the UN to come out with a decision to take military action on Syria, but I'd accept it.

I can't accept the US claiming moral superiority (If, for the sake of argument, I'd agree that what concerned the administration was in fact humanitarian law,) not only because it's in violation of some itself and has been on an ongoing basis, but because I actually live here and see the people this nation is comprised of.

This nation has serious anger, entitlement, and self-righteousness issues (to name a few,) and although most don't have all of these issues, many have some combination of them. We're a self-involved, apathetic, and myopic culture for the most part, and combining those traits with the pervasive inbred self-delusion of American Exceptionalism built by political propaganda around election cycles leads to dangerous assumptions on how we should comport ourselves on the world stage.

We are not apt arbiters of morality. We just assume we are and can act since we've got the military to back up what ever blunders we make in our efforts of global behavior modification.

 

No because you cannot enforce a law without proving the culprit. It maintains credibility of a law just as much as if I murder the old lady who lives next door over it. It does nothing. You have to PROVE Assad is guilty of violating it (Obama claims to have conclusive proof but won't share it, not even with the UNSC, the very people he needs to convince) therefore a strike would merely make a mockery of the law.

Plus, you would have to enforce it consistently. Instead, the USA use chemical weapons themselves and provides Israel diplomatic protection by "paralyzing" the UNSC (the US own word) by abusing the veto power, so they may also use chem weapons.

Furthermore, a unilateral attack would violate the UN Charter, and even the Chemical Weapons Convention, which calls for a meeting and negotiation among signatories to determine the course to take in the event of a breach.

Syria are not a party to the CW Convention, so they wouldn't be violating it, if they even were behind the attack, whereas the USA will be violating that law and others.

In other words, USA are the only ones right now seeking to trample the international law in this regard. If you want to maintain credibility of these laws, then honor them! That's the best way to do it!

The fact is, the USA want to attack even though they truly know in their hearts that there is no proof Assad was behind the attack. They want him scapegoated, because "Assad must go" (their own words). THAT is what makes a mockery of these laws. By exploiting them for their own ends, but only when it suits their purposes, and otherwise ignoring them or even breaking them at other times. Obama, and many other US leaders past and present, make a mockery of these laws and humiliate their own country insodoing.

 

Do you know what the worst part about this is? The fact that our existing, congressionally approved wars are not being fought in Syria, and that this additional authorization would be treason, because it would actually be supporting the previously declared enemies!

We are at war with AQ and associated forces! That's what the congress decided. Who is Assad at war against in Syria? Who will we be helping by attacking Syria? AQ and associated forces! That's who!

Why won't Obama attack AQ in Syria? He demolishes thousands of innocent women and children, in multiple non-belligerent countries, claiming (without proof) the aleged targets are AQ! And yet, we KNOW of AQ targets in Syria, and not a single drone-strike. NOBODY on this forum has yet been able to answer this despite me asking in like every thread.

The closest I receive to an answer is that not all opposition are AQ. But the fact remains AQ are there, we know they are there, but why won't we attack them?

(It's actually worse, we actually support them with weapons, cash and training. Also known as treason, thanks to our Traitor-in-Chief).

 

Video of US backed terrorists killing Syrians captured. This is the sort of moral purpose that America is now in love with.
http://www.syrianews.cc/photo-prevent-attack-syria/ near bottom of page.

And, just think, our Glorious Peoples' Leaders are planning to have them come to America for "training".

 

I guess the investigation was way complete,
what benefits does the strike would give to the US, I think none, it will even entail a sum of taxpayers money,
but the humanitarian call is so urgent and quite strong.

 

It's as strong as my yawn. Until and IF Obama manages to prove Chemical Weapons were used by the Assad regime, it's nothing more than his propaganda piece.

Wanna know what got us into Vietnam? The Gulf of Tonkin "Incident".

Guess what?

It. Never. Happened.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AaGVAipGp0

 

I think they do, acting upon civilians and children being summarily annihilated just because to survive political will,
I think the very foundation of our very existence is at stake here and Assad violated that, do we have to go through legal proceedings and lengthy deliberations,
when our actions are needed for innocent people out there who badly needs help for they are being liquidated for doing nothing.
An act is urgently needed.

 

But sadly,
gassing really did happen.
and France I think was convinced.

 

I've actually gone into my thinking on the rationale(s) behind this in quite a few threads. I guess we never got to the same thread at the same time until now.

Fair warning - you asked a complicated question, so be prepared for a complex answer. The most basic nuts-and-bolts answer to the question quoted above is "because the US needs them to create havoc as a reason to stay in the mid-east," but the explanation I've been able to compose for why that is comes with a lot of details to support my reasoning.

In the specific case of Syria, arming, funding and training compartmentalized, cell-oriented organizations proficient in asymmetric warfare and tactics as a proxy to destabilize well-entrenched and well-armed governments that hold anti-western sentiments and are allied with larger threats to America's global dominance allows the proxy force to do the heavy lifting and expend their blood and treasure instead of US/NATO's. After the take down of the well-established power structure (the Assad regime, allied with Russia,) the proxy forces, also with anti-western sentiments but embedded with assets cultivated western intelligence agencies, will continue to act on their ideologies. This assures continued chaos in the region, but the west will have foreknowledge of many actions that they'll be able to stop, and the ones that "get away" will serve the purpose of necessitating an ongoing presence in the region.

This ongoing presence really is the ultimate goal of the entire post 9/11 US foreign policy. The response to 9/11 was never intended to be temporary. The US knew it wouldn't be since they had seen a similar scenario in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan...

...bear with me here, I'm going to go back in history a bit in order to clarify our actions now.

(the following quote is pulled from another post of mine that was focused on the Snowden leak of the US intelligence black budget. I have tried my best to both contract and expand it in applicable areas so that it better fits the topic at hand.)

I hope this has helped rather than confused.

All this explanation focuses on the military and intelligence activities that the west has taken to accomplish its goal, and I haven't even really scratched the surface of the economic, propaganda and cyberwarfare techniques involved. I figured, for this post, this was enough info to run with. Going into the depths of those tactics would basically prove to necessitate starting an entire blog revolving around this topic, since the man-hours would stack up. I will, however, give you a primer for the tie-ins between intelligence and economic warfare. It's a documentary entitled "Apologies of an Economic Hitman" based on the works of John Perkins who was one:

[video=youtube;fSBMXsx1O6I]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSBMXsx1O6I[/video]

 

The USA are run by corporate crooks, who don't give two (*)(*)(*)(*)s about how much treasury money gets wasted. They waste taxpayer money every day in order to help their corporate friends. Example. Halliburton getting no-bid contracts at rip-off rates for work they wouldn't even complete in Iraq. A rip-off to the taxpayers, but the politicians don't care, because a corporation they are in bed with get paid. And they get their bribe money. Everybody wins. Except the taxpayers. They would waste a trillion taxpayer dollars to make a thousand for their off-shore bank account.

Yes it would be a waste of treasury money to attack Syria. Like all the wars. But the offense contractors, those who sell those million-dollar cruise missiles, will get paid.

War is big business and that is why we are always at war. It is one of many ways to pass taxpayer money to corporations, same as the corporate prisons, the medical insurance middlemen jacking up the cost of health-care and now statutorily enshrined into law thanks to Obamacare, you name it. And these privatizations INCREASE the cost to taxapayers (they have to make a profit) and then they pay the campaign contributions in order to use the politicians as puppets and keep the circle of bribery and theft going.

Don't ever expect these crooks to do what is right by the treasury, or by the law, or even by human rights. These crooks didn't even wag a finger when Saddam gassed all those Kurds. The USA conducted the grandest chemical weapons attack in the history of warfare, in Vietnam.

As for the humanitarian call, you don't answer it by FURTHER KILLING.

No doubt we need to do something, but these propaganda artists try to convince us that the only way to do that is by further violence.

Plus, there's no proof it was Assad! Why attack Assad if he's not necessarily the one behind the attack? What if it was the rebels. Then you are doing the OPPOSITTE. You are ENCOURAGING future chemical attacks. Look what you get! You get international help towards your violent cause from the strongest military the world has ever seen! Chem attacks pay off! THAT is the message we send when we attack the WRONG party, the one that is not the culprit. It would be downright RETARDED to respond to a crime without proving the criminal guilty. Do you strap someoene into the electric chair before you prove it in court? Of course not!

Furthermore, Obama claimed he has convincing and conclusive proof of Assad's guilt, but won't say what it is. Not even to the UNSC! He claims Russia are roadblocking, but really Russia only say that they want to see that proof first. USA won't show the proof (they obviously don't have it) so if they did have it, then they are roadblocking themselves! It's either one. USA prevent their own UNSC approval, or they are lying about having proof. I think it's the latter.

We can't bring back the tragic victims of that viscous chemical weapons attack. But we can hopefully convince Obama to not kill many more.

 

I read all this but I can't watch the video on my internet connection.

But I understand you would need another article even longer to describe the economic-domination aspect to this imperialism. One aspect of this would be the USD dominance as a reserve currency, being used to amass, steal and hoard the real wealth of the world (gold, land and guns) while exploiting productivity in a way that nowadays is getting close to what many would define as slave labor (how much more can a currency be devalued intentionally causing inflation rises beyond wage rises, therefore reducing the buying/living power of a day's work, before you could call it slavery? Even Southern plantation slaves of the 19th century got room, board and food, and much of today's population are essentially in the bread-line (food-stamps)).

This will come to a pass when the world loses confidence in the USD, which is already starting (China for example are hedging their foreign reserves with more and more gold, while the Federal Reserve keeps trying to downplay the value of gold).

I have read the "Rebuilding America's Defenses" document some time ago, and it is largely coming to pass, with some variations and adaptations. But, there is one monkey-wrench that has been thrown into the works, which should illustrate the backwards and nefarious nature of this agenda to the citizens at large to the point they might not stand for it. And that is the 2001 congressional declaration of war. Something which is cited by those who want to bombard this country or that country, but otherwise forgotten when it comes to pursuing the agenda that contradicts it when it suits the purposes of those effecting that agenda.

We actually declared war against our own proxy forces. Thanks to the value of propaganda and brainwashing however, the people right now seem to be complacent enough to allow what otherwise amounts to blatant treason. Because who are we now supporting for our agenda in Syria? None other than AQ and associated forces.

Of course, thanks to the social control mechanisms in play, including a corporate distraction media, this is kept in check to the point that only a small portion of the population are wondering why their country is following a treasonous agenda right now. Nobody questions why we demolish women and children in Yemen (claiming without proof) that the targets are AQ, meanwhile AQ are not attacked, and in fact are supported, in Syria.

The social control mechanisms at play would require yet another long article. People should question why journalists who aren't corporate controlled, activists, peaceful protestors, survivalists, environmentalists, whistle-blowers etc. are being labelled and punished as "terrorists" (the UK just used anti-terror laws to clamp down on the free press, like for the destruction of data belonging to the Guardian paper) while actual terrorists are being embraced as allies.

This works well enough to keep the population docile while we give weapons and cash, and fight alongside our own DECLARED enemies!

TBH I think a lot more people are aware of this reality than those who voice their outrage. Some of these might be afraid to speak out, due to the spying on everybody to punish those who go against the grain (fear tactics used by the US federal government) and others may actually be okay with it, feeling that they want to be part of a dominant empire, as their lives can be nice like that. Just like I imagine a lot of people of the ancient Roman empire probably cheered when they conquered another territory, feeling privileged and secure as part of such a dominant society. You can see this in several "might is right" type arguments made in this forum. Or just the feeling that someone is going to be the top dog, why not us instead of China?

Good writing by the way!

 

Voting "present" should cost you your salary.

 

at the very least it should put a ban on their ability to participate in insider trading.

 

Here's some more direct implications for Russia that I previously hadn't realized:

Really good article from RT with a table at the bottom that compares g20 populations and their government's stance on military action in Syria:
G20 Syria divide: World’s largest nations speak out against US-led strike

 

Our national attitude and behavior is like these pictures and the words below:

A system of plunder found a perfect embodiment in Abe Lincoln, in what he did in the greatest country in the world. Lincoln has been emulated through out the world wherever communism became entrenched. This system is described by the Prophet Daniel as:

“And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand. (Daniel 8:25)

"The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism." Karl Marx

Let's hear from a few of Lincoln and Marx's communist revolutionaries:

Republican Senator John Sherman, brother of General T. Sherman who Marched to the Sea, advised his fellow senators to "nationalize as much as possible [making] men love their country before their states. All private interests, all local interests, all banking interests, the interests of individuals, everything, should be subordinate now to the interests of the Government."

"We believe in a war of extermination," said Union Brigadier General Lane.

Communist journalist Karl Heinzen writing about Lincolns war on the South: "If you have to blow up half a continent and cause a bloodbath to destroy the party of barbarism, you should have no scruples of conscience. Anyone who would not joyously sacrifice his life for the satisfaction of exterminating a million barbarians is not a true republican."

Union General T. Sherman “I am satisfied we have no other remedy for this ambush firing than to hold the neighborhood fully responsible, though the punishment may fall on the wrong parties,”

“ have given public notice that a repetition will justify any measures of retaliation, such as loading the boats with guerrilla prisoners where they would receive fire, and expelling families from the comforts of Memphis, whose husbands and brothers go to make up those guerrillas.”

In 1862 Sherman wrote his wife that his purpose in the war would be "extermination, not of soldiers alone, that is the least of the trouble, but the people" of the South.

His wife wrote back that her wish was for "a war of extermination and that all [Southerners] would be driven like swine into the sea. May we carry fire and sword into their states till not one habitation is left standing."

Sherman elsewhere declared "We are not fighting against enemy armies, but against an enemy people, both young and old, rich and poor, and they must feel the iron hand of war in the same way as organized armies."

And later around 1902 in another attempt to "clean" for "world order"

US General Jacob H. Smith tells the commanding officer of the Marines assigned to clean up the island of Samar, Philippines:

"I want no prisoners.

I wish you to kill and burn;

the more you kill and burn the better it will please me."

He orders that the entire island of Samar be converted into a "howling wilderness." He specifically orders that all males over the age of ten are to be shot. Step one is to burn the town of Balangiga to the ground.

Is this what the US has done to the Indians, Germany, Japan, Viet Nam, Fallujah, Libya, Syria and many other places?

Thus the terrible, vicious, bloody, unjust example of the world's greatest nation made the nations drunk with the wine of her rebellion against nature's God.

And, the drunken frenzies of World War 1 and 2 are direct products of Lincoln's communist revolution of 1861 and heinous acts of total war on humanity reinforced by apostate Christians.

For example, Rev. Billy Graham told the first President George Bush to make Iraq un-inhabitable and to turn it into a waste land.

 

I guess I must be a psychic?

there's more outraged reaction in the article, which can be found here.

 

Really. Link, please.

 

Here's some news that shows the economic and resource ties that bind Russia and China together, how they support each other, as well as how they're picking up the pace on further developing a strategic partnership.

Gazprom, CNPC agree terms of big gas deal, except price