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What to do
Excerpting, editing, two comments by Carolyn Bennett
Writers chime in on mendacity, belligerence, wrongheadedness
Bill Van Auken writes: “Kerry’s ‘blunder’ delays, but does
not end, Obama’s drive to war”
The Obama administration has presented nothing but
assertions and accusations about the August 21 attack to link it to the Syrian
government, he says.
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President Barack Obama was elected “thanks in large measure
to the immense hostility of the American people to war based on lies [yet his government]
is already far down the same road. Like his predecessor, he is determined to provoke
a war on false pretenses to pursue U.S. imperialism’s strategic aim of hegemony
over the oil-rich and strategically vital regions of the Persian Gulf and
Central Asia.
“Even more than Iraq,” Van Auken writes, “the war against
Syria, which is aimed as well against its [Syria’s] allies, Iran and Russia,
poses the threat of a regional and even global military conflict.”
Intelligence veteran Ray McGovern spoke to the same war-on-lies
motif in his RT interview: ‘CIA fabricated
evidence to lure U.S. into War with Syria’: Ray McGovern”
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| UN Security Council 15 5 permanent members 10 non-permanent members |
McGovern was among veteran intelligence professionals who
signed a letter to President Obama warning that President Bashar Assad was not
responsible for the chemical attack and that “CIA Director John Brennan was
perpetrating a pre-Iraq-War-type fraud on members of the U.S. Congress, the
media, [and] the public.”
In his interview responses McGovern said the reason the Obama
government does not offer proof of its claims against Assad is because their “evidence”
would not stand up, not only in a court of law but “it also would not bear close
scrutiny.”
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In his article today “‘Funny things’ keep happening on the
way to the war on Syria: the whole world is on a dangerously slippery slope,” Montreal-based
journalist Jooneed Khan reproduces the government’s own words: “Evidence ‘not
irrefutable,’ says White House.”
White House Chief of staff Denis McDonough said on Sunday, “The
administration does not have ‘irrefutable, beyond-a-reasonable-doubt evidence’
that the Syrian régime used poison gas on its people. ‘This is not a court of
law, he said. Intelligence does not work that way.’”
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McDonough added that “the proof the U.S. has ‘stands the
common-sense test’” – meaning, Kahn comments, “sufficient to pass and execute
the death and destruction sentences on countless Syrian civilians!”
And as millions of people pour out of Syria and the region, adding to already stressed countries struggling to handle refugees from Libya
and Gaza and Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan, Kenya, Somalia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Pakistan, and other countries, even
threatening Cyprus ─ even as Western countries complain violently about and
persecute immigrants from everywhere, and fail miserably to take proper care of their basic domestic needs ─ the Obama government repeats the ridiculously mendacious
statement that strikes on Syria “will be electronic and remote-controlled,
targeted, limited, with no boots on the ground in Syria.” However, Kahn correctly
judges that “any strike will precipitate the whole world on a dangerously
slippery slope – and no one knows where that will lead.”
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The ultimate “‘Funny Thing’ … on the Way to the War on Syria,”
he says, in light of all the setbacks and inconsistencies and vacillations in
the warmonger’s camp, some idiots are spinning the idea “that Obama’s strategy
from the beginning may have been not to attack Syria at all …, the ‘proof’
being that he is doing everything to undermine support for his War on Syria
policy!”
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The Secretary of State then throws out what he says he does
not expect (was it a foreign policy joke?) that “Syria can avoid being attacked
by turning over its chemical weapons to ‘the international community’!” Kahn
notes appropriately that this pompously dangerously hypocritical representative
of the Obama government does not, however, suggest that “Israel hand over its
WMDs [weapons of mass destruction] including its nuclear arsenal to open the
way for a peaceful Middle East!”
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nd no matter what anyone says or does in the United Nations, the UK or the United States, France is still pushing for war.
“France,” Jooneed Khan recalls, “is the former colonial
master of Syria; and (socialist) President François Hollande does not plan to
ask the National Assembly for a vote. He is ready to attack…”
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Without evidence and without the cooperation of two of the
five permanent members of the UN Security Council, France is reportedly invoking
Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations to push another war on Syria
as they did most recently on Libya.
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HAPTER VII: ACTION WITH RESPECT TO THREATS TO THE PEACE,
BREACHES OF THE PEACE, AND ACTS OF AGGRESSION
Article 39: The Security Council shall determine the
existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression
and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in
accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace
and security.
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Article 41: The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed
force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may
call upon the Members of the United Nations to apply such measures. These may
include complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail,
sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the
severance of diplomatic relations. [SANCTIONS warfare]
Article 42: Should the Security Council consider that
measures provided for in Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved to be
inadequate, it may take such action by air, sea, or land
forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international
peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and other
operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations.
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Article 46: Plans for the application of armed force shall
be made by the Security Council with the assistance of the Military Staff
Committee.
Is the United States of America not subject to Chapter VII for its actions across the Middle East, Africa and South Central Asia? It's a fair question that the "international community" ought to be asking and answering. [My comment]
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UN Security Council: Inordinate power, undemocratic process
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N SECURITY COUNCIL MEMBERS as of September 10, 2013
The UN Security Council is composed of 15 Members:
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| First UN Security Council Five permanent members |
Five permanent members:
China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States
Ten non-permanent members elected
for two-year terms by the General Assembly (with end of term date): current
non-permanent ten:
- Argentina (2014)
Refugees - Australia (2014)
- Azerbaijan (2013)
- Guatemala (2013)
- Luxembourg (2014)
- Morocco (2013)
- Pakistan (2013)
- Republic of Korea (2014)
- Rwanda (2014)
- Togo (2013)
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Non-Council Member States (undemocratic practice)
More than 70 United Nations Member States have never been Members of the Security
Council.
A State which is a Member of the United Nations but not of
the Security Council may participate, without a vote, in its discussions when
the Council considers that that country’s interests are affected.
Both Members and non-members of the United Nations, if they are parties to a dispute being considered by the Council, may be invited to take part, without a vote, in the Council’s discussions; the Council sets the conditions for participation by a non-member State. http://www.un.org/en/sc/members/
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ntil the China-Russia veto on invasion of Syria, Jooneed
Khan wrote, “The [France-UK-U.S.] Triad had maneuvered for 22 years within the
UN, and often around it, to push its one-sided global military agenda –
expansion of NATO, even into Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia after 9/11,
two Iraq Wars, the “Silent Genocide” in the killing fields of the African Great
Lakes region (Burundi-Rwanda-Congo), the dismemberment of Yugoslavia…”
What to do?
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| UN General Assembly 192 Member countries |
Time for real change, activist Michael Payne charges: “U.S.
Foreign (War) Policy Outdated, Misguided, Self-Defeating”
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n U.S. foreign policy, Michael Payne writes, “the art of diplomacy
and negotiation has been replaced by the doctrine of ‘You're either for us or
against us’ with no room for gray. The focus seems to be,” he 
“…It is high time American foreign policy undergo a
significant transformation.” Leaders must “think deeply about what [they] are contemplating
doing. Consider the pros and cons, the repercussions and end results. Do away with the mindset of the bloodthirsty
Washington War Hawks who are addicted to and obsessed with war and military interventions.”|
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oncluding his article Bill Van Auken called for genuine,
nonpartisan antiwar movement.
“Another and even more catastrophic Middle East war can be
stopped only through the revival of a genuine antiwar movement,” he says, one “based
upon the mobilization of working people, students and youth” ─ operating “independently”
of both major political parties and Capitol Hill ─ “in a struggle against the
Obama administration and the capitalist system ─ the source of militarism,
social inequality, and the relentless assault on democratic rights.”
Sources and notes
“Kerry’s ‘Blunder’ Delays, But Does Not End, Obama’s Drive
to War” by Bill Van Auken, Global Research, September 10, 2013, World Socialist
Web Site,
http://www.globalresearch.ca/kerrys-blunder-delays-but-does-not-end-obamas-drive-to-war/5349140
“‘CIA Fabricated Evidence to Lure US into War with Syria’:
Ray McGovern” by Ray McGovern
Global Research, September 10, 2013, RT Op-Edge, http://www.globalresearch.ca/cia-fabricated-evidence-to-lure-us-into-war-with-syria-ray-mcgovern/5349071
“‘Funny Things’ Keep Happening on the Way to the War On
Syria. The Whole World is on a Dangerously Slippery Slope” by Jooneed Khan, Global
Research, September 10, 2013
http://www.globalresearch.ca/funny-things-keep-happening-on-the-way-to-the-war-on-syria-the-whole-world-is-on-a-dangerously-slippery-slope/5349043
Jooneed Khan is a Montreal-based journalist, writer and
human rights activist. He wrote on international affairs for the
French-language daily La Presse for 35 years.
PREAMBLE to
CHAPTER VII: ACTION WITH RESPECT TO THREATS TO THE PEACE,
BREACHES OF THE PEACE, AND ACTS OF AGGRESSION
We the peoples of the United Nations determined to ─
Save succeeding generations from
the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to
mankind, and
Reaffirm faith in fundamental human
rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of
men and women and of nations large and small, and
Establish conditions under which
justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources
of international law can be maintained, and
Promote social progress and better
standards of life in larger freedom,
And for these ends to ─
Practice tolerance and live
together in peace with one another as good neighbors, and
Unite our strength to maintain
international peace and security, and
Ensure, by the acceptance of
principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used,
save in the common interest, and
Employ international machinery for
the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,
“U.S. Foreign (War) Policy: Outdated, Misguided,
Self-Defeating” by Michael Payne, OpEdNews Op Eds 5/30/2013 at 16:33:02
Michael Payne is an independent progressive activist. His
writings deal with social, economic, political and foreign policy issues. He is
a graduate of Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois and a U.S. Army
veteran.
“Damascus agrees to cede chemical weapons to international
control – Syria FM,” published September 10, 2013 11:09, RT edited September
10, 2013 14:13, http://rt.com/news/syria-un-us-aggression-plea-285/
U.S. President Barack Obama
proposed military intervention in Syria after an alleged chemical weapon attack
in a Damascus suburb on August 21. Several hundred people were reportedly
killed in the attack; U.S. officials claimed the death toll exceeded 1,400. Syria’s
government and foreign-backed rebels blamed each other for the attack. The U.S.
government said it had “high confidence” that President Bashar Assad’s
government was responsible for the attack. The U.S. said samples collected by first
responders after the attack tested positive for the nerve agent Sarin.
The government of Syria responded
that the evidence presented by the United States was without foundation and
based on ‘terrorist lies’ and ‘media exaggeration.’ In response to the U.S. “findings,”
President Barack Obama suggested a “limited” military strike against Assad to
demonstrate that the U.S. would not tolerate the use of chemical weapons
against civilians.
Russia accused Syrian rebels of being
behind the alleged use of chemical weapons as a provocation designed to
encourage a foreign-led strike against Assad’s government.
“U.S. policies in Middle East resulted in perpetual war,” September
9, 2013
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/09/09/322862/perpetual-war-result-of-us-policies-in-me/
In an interview with Press TV on
Sunday, political director of Libertarian Party Carla Howell said the U.S.
government’s policies during the past decades in the Middle East have resulted
in perpetual war.
She said there is no need for
Washington to attack Syria as the Middle Eastern country poses no threat to the
United States.
“Any U.S. attack on Syria ‘illegal’ September 8, 2013, American
anti-war activist and radio host Don DeBar says a possible U.S. attack on Syria
is illegal under both international and U.S. law.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/09/08/322812/any-us-attack-on-syria-illegal/
While the administration of
President Obama has admitted that it lacks “irrefutable,
beyond-a-reasonable-doubt evidence” for its claims that the Syrian government
used chemical weapons in an attack last month, key members of the Obama
administration continue their lobbying efforts to muster support for the White
House’s war plans.
_____________________________________Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy
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