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by Richard John Stapleton - Open-Publishing - Wednesday 26 June 2013
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IS SYRIA THE LAST STRAW?

Why can’t we keep our noses out of other countries’ business? We could be headed to hell in a handbasket in Syria. How much would this Don Quixote military misadventure cost? The US does not have an inexhaustible supply of money; it has a huge federal debt and budget problem already, and millions of suffering, frustrated, needy citizens within its own borders.

First it was Kuwait. Then Afghanistan. Then Iraq. Now Syria? Come on. Even dreaming about another war in the Middle East is insane.

President Obama was seriously opposed he said to the invasion of Iraq, yet since becoming president, despite getting us out of Iraq and winding down the Afghanistan war, he has supported Bush II’s use of torture and drone aircraft, using them to invade the air space of sovereign countries to kill people defined as US enemies, spying even on his own people, us, US citizens. To his credit, his administration has not seriously enmeshed the US in the Egyptian, Tunisian and Libyan revolutions, leaving citizens of those countries to stew in their own soup, allowing Muslim fundamentalists to acquire more power relative to secularists in all these countries.

But now this. Syria. Which is different.

I voted for Obama twice for president, thinking he is a good and intelligent person, determined to do the right thing for Americans and all Earthians. I would give him about a C or B for his handling of the US economic and banking collapse and military misadventures in the Middle East caused by Bush II. But if he gets us in another war in Syria all bets are off, about his intelligence, intentions and character.

The Syrian conflict is similar to the above conflicts but different in degree. The Syrian rebels are mainly Muslim fundamentalists and the Assad government is clearly secularist, as were all the above deposed dictatorships, but here there is a larger percentage of subjects in favor of the Assad dictatorship than was the case in the above conflicts, probably a majority. And, to top it all off, the Syrian rebels clearly include some of the same terrorist groups Bush II and Obama defined as enemies of the US and went after with the full might of the US military.

Who and what is the US really for or after in the Middle East? Is the US government actually in favor of Middle Eastern countries being run by totalitarian religious theocracies, like Iran, instead of secular dictatorships, however inept and/or corrupt they might be, who never intended to do us harm? Is the US strategy to get rid of secular dictators so local populations can fight among themselves in sectarian bands determined by their religious beliefs, thereby dividing and enervating such countries? So far things have not worked out well for the new citizens of Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, thanks to sectarian hatred and religious leaders taking power. One can build the case most of these countries are now worse off economically and politically than they were before their revolutions, or liberations by the US.

It appears Iran and Syria are now allies, determined by their majority Shite populations, with Islamist Iran having promised to furnish 4,000 of their best troops to assist the Assad secular regime. Russia and China support the Assad regime.

One theory is that Obama is now agreeing with Republican lunatic John McCain who apparently had a dream in which Iran will take over the US if the US does not get rid of the Assad regime.

Politics makes for strange bedfellows indeed and the plot thickens for a wider war.

Paul Craig Roberts posted this chilling assessment in his Intrepid article “Washington is Insane” June 19: “Polls demonstrate that 65% of the US population opposes US intervention in Syria. Despite this clear indication of the people’s will, the Obama regime is ramping up a propaganda case for more arming of Washington’s mercenaries sent to overthrow the secular Syrian government and for a “no-fly zone” over Syria, which, if Libya is the example, means US or NATO aircraft attacking the Syrian army on the ground, thus serving as the air force of Washington’s imported mercenaries, euphemistically called “the Syrian rebels.” - See more at: http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/9953#sthash.vpIBKm34.dpuf.”

Roberts suggests the ambitions of the Bush II/Obama military regime have almost no limit. After knocking out Syria, Iran will be knocked out, then they will take on Russia and China, which will bring on World War III, which will end our worries about conserving Social Security and Medicare or surviving global warming and climate change, since we will all be dead, thanks to hydrogen bombs.

Roberts says Washington is no longer controlled by the people and could care less what the American people think.

Richard John Stapleton is an emeritus professor of business policy, ethics and entrepreneurship, the author of Business Voyages, who writes on business and politics at http://www.effectivelearning.net/ and at https://www.facebook.com/richard.stapleton.397.

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