Glenn Beck, darling of the right, today panned republicans in congress for supporting murderous war criminals, and dragging the United States into another Middle East war.
In the video, made by Syrian rebels, a rebel commander, who has probably already received support from the U.S. kills a Syrian soldier, then cuts him open with a knife, removing his liver and heart.
Then the commander eats the soldier’s heart. – the video is at the end of this page.
These are the people that some Republicans, including John McCain, Speaker Boehner and others want to support.
These are the same people president Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry want to support.
US Representative To UN – One Sided Plea
Samantha Power, the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, spoke at the Center for American Progress, in Washington D.C.
Some have asked, given our collective war-weariness, why we cannot use non-military tools to achieve the same end. My answer to this question is: we have exhausted the alternatives. For more than a year, we have pursued countless policy tools short of military force to try to dissuade Assad from using chemical weapons. We have engaged the Syrians directly and, at our request, the Russians, the UN, and the Iranians sent similar messages.
Does this mean the US spent a whole year asking Assad not to use chemical weapons? That seems like a very strange way to negotiate to stop a war. Except we suspect the administration only had one option for the Assad regime, to capitulate to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Finally, Ms. Power said
If we cannot summon the courage to act when the evidence is clear, and when the action being contemplated is limited, then our ability to lead in the world is compromised. The alternative is to give a green light to outrages that will threaten our security and haunt our conscience, outrages that will eventually compel us to use force anyway down the line, at far greater risk and cost to our own citizens. If the last century teaches us anything, it is this. Thank you so much.
What Ms. Powell failed to say is that the U.S. already fueled and encouraged the fighting by providing weapons and moral support to one side in this conflict since – and possibly before the Benghazi debacle. She didn’t mention that once, making it appear that only diplomatic means have been employed – and rebuffed by the recalcitrant Syrian government.
She also failed to address who actually used the chemical weapons. The U.N. weapons inspectors have not completed their work, have not provided a report, and so far, nobody really knows what happened. If it was clear, the evidence would be in front of us now, and I wouldn’t be writing this.
Having failed to have any meaningful discussions and negotiations, and having failed to force Assad to capitulate, the administration has made a decision, and failure to go along with that is now the fault of anyone who opposes their decision.
World Can’t Wait Rally In San Francisco
In San Francisco, the national World Can’t Wait organization plans to rally on Friday at 4:30 pm, in Market Street, denouncing the proposed U.S. military attack against Syria. Other protest marches are being planned across the nation this weekend.
The “World Can’t Wait” group also says Obama administration claims of use of nerve gas by the Assad regime are unverified. Spokesman Dennis Loo said “Any U.S. military attack upon Syria would be the supreme international war crime of a war of aggression upon a country that has not attacked and does not threaten us. Any attacks would greatly increase the killing and destruction and likely provoke a wider regional conflict.”
The anti-war left seems to have been relatively quiet, even though Obama has stepped up violence around the world since 2009, but they now appear to be gaining traction.
Whose Side Are We On And Why?
Congress isn’t asking the right questions, Colonel Ken Allard (Retd.) says, at the Family Security Matters blog.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/syria-and-other-unlearned-lessons?f=must_reads
Col. Allard says, “If Congress is really serious about living up to its Constitutional role before the first shots against Syria are fired, then there are a host of tough questions to be asked. Like, whose side are we on and why? Answer that one and you’re ready for Round Two: By what means and to what ends? Are there any essential American interests at stake here – any reasonable strategy to achieve them actually worthy of the name? The strategist’s worst nightmare is that we will once again be reduced to ‘leading from behind’ or left clinging to weak reeds like ‘responsibility to protect.’ Even worse: ‘red lines.’ Red-lines inevitably seem clearer on Power-point briefing charts or large-scale maps than they ever do in desert conflict zones. Yet all three conceptual fallacies contributed directly to our present debacle in Syria where the options are equally unpalatable.”
As is often the case, the political viewpoints don’t make much sense, especially the one that “we must act.”
Obama Administration Backing The Wrong Fighters (Again)
Jim Kouri, the Law Enforcement Examiner published reports from former U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely and Nagi N. Najjar, Vallely’s personal Middle East advisor, who met with the Commander-in Chief of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), Colonel Riad El Asaad. Vallely was in Turkey and inside the Syrian war zone. On Friday, Gen Vallely sent a number of photographs of his trip and meetings.
Kouri’s story said, “According to the 32-year Army veteran, [Vallely] and Najjar sadly discovered the Obama administration is once again backing the wrong fighters in this extremely violent rebellion against an extremely violent Syrian president.”
This War Crime video is graphic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiMGoPRuzRc
