We have been following the abandonment of virtually core liberal values by Rep. Nancy Pelosi in her adherence to the cult of personality surrounding Barack Obama. From her attack on privacy to her new enthusiasm for war, Pelosi is the truest believer of the true believers surrounding Obama in the Democratic Party. Now she has been sharing a charming little story of how “Mimi” explained to their grandson how we are now at war. It turns out it is all about the children . . . not about the chemical weapons or reports that Obama is playing to turn the tide of the losing war for the rebels. Sort of like Save The Children . . . but with cruise missiles.
Here is Pelosi’s story on how you convince a five year old that war is a good thing:
REP. NANCY PELOSI: I’ll tell you this story and then I really do have to go. My five-year-old grandson, as I was leaving San Francisco yesterday, he said to me, Mimi, my name, Mimi, war with Syria, are you yes war with Syria, no, war with Syria. And he’s five years old. We’re not talking about war; we’re talking about action. Yes war with Syria, no with war in Syria. I said, ‘Well, what do you think?’ He said, ‘I think no war.’ I said, ‘Well, I generally agree with that but you know, they have killed hundreds of children, they’ve killed hundreds of children there. ‘ And he said, five years old, ‘Were these children in the United States?’ And I said, ‘No, but they’re children wherever they are.’
So I don’t know what news he’s listening to or — but even a five year old child has to — you know, with the wisdom of our interest has affected our interests or it affects our interests because, again, it was outside of the circle of civilized behavior. It was humanity drew a line decades ago that i think if we ignore, we do so to the peril of many other people who can suffer.
I love how she qualifies her remarks to the five year old that “we’re talking about action.” It is a point that would only be recognized by constitutional experts — and Pelosi grandchildren — as an excuse to relieve the President of securing an actual declaration from Congress. Pelosi wants to preserve the Imperial Presidency around Obama (and future presidents) by reminding her grandson that attacking another sovereign nation is no longer viewed as an act of war but just something relabeled as an “action” to maximize the unilateral authority of the President.
Of course, in her wartime story for toddlers, Pelosi does not mention the recent disclosure that it was the United States that gave Saddam Hussein intelligence used his widespread chemical attacks and then lied about knowledge and evidence of the attacks. She does not mention how the Syrian rebels include Al Qaeda allies and extremists who do such things as eat the hearts of the fallen and abuse their corpses in violation of international law. She does not mention how she has supported the continuation of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan where hundreds of thousands, including thousands of children, have died. She does not mention the thousands of children who have lost their mothers or fathers in the service in Iraq where we started a war based on a false allegation of WMDs and then continued to wage the war even after acknowledging that our original claims were false.
Yet, the most interesting aspect of Pelosi’s story is that this is precisely the level of discussion seen on Capitol Hill — just slightly above that of a five year old children . . . except of course that five year olds do not play poker during the briefings.
Nevertheless, I still prefer bedtime stories like “Princess Bride” but in Pelosi’s version President Humperdinck gets his war with Guilder, which is then obliterated in a rain of tomahawk missiles.
Source: RCP
A Russian report today indicates that the anti-Assad rebels did the March 21 chemical weapons attack (RT).
BFM, Here is some info on the intelligence. What do you make of this?
Secretary of State John Kerry assured the public that the Obama administration’s summary of the intelligence on which it is basing the case for military action to punish the Assad regime for an alleged use of chemical weapons was put together with an acute awareness of the fiasco of the 2002 Iraq WMD intelligence estimate.
Nevertheless, the unclassified summary of the intelligence assessment made public August 30, 2013, utilizes misleading language evocative of the infamous Iraq estimate’s deceptive phrasing. The summary cites signals, geospatial and human source intelligence that purportedly show that the Syrian government prepared, carried out and “confirmed” a chemical weapons attack on August 21. And it claims visual evidence “consistent with” a nerve gas attack.
But a careful examination of those claims reveals a series of convolutedly worded characterizations of the intelligence that don’t really mean what they appear to say at first glance.
The document displays multiple indications that the integrity of the assessment process was seriously compromised by using language that distorted the intelligence in ways that would justify an attack on Syria.
http://truth-out.org/news/item/18559-how-intelligence-was-twisted-to-support-an-attack-on-syria
I think I hear the stirring refrains of that old Neocon mantra beginning to swell in the hearts of American chicken-hawk generals like our friend randy-rooster:
“Anyone can go to Damascus — I mean, Baghdad — but real men go to Tehran.”
Just as in fighting the Soviet and Chinese communists in Vietnam — by killing and maiming millions of Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians — the American way of war requires fighting smaller proxies instead of the “real” target whose size and ability to fight back make fighting them more than a little bit problematical.
I read every day of new atrocities occurring in Baghdad, a former functioning country which has now — thanks to the U.S. military — become not just ungovernable, but practically uninhabitable. As Naom Chomsky has written, with understated truthfulness:
“The catastrophe in Iraq is so extreme it can barely be reported.”
So the randy roosters now want to see the U.S. military lay (even more) waste to Syria, creating an international catastrophe on top of a purely domestic one — only this time from a safe distance. You see, to the randy roosters, war doesn’t mean “war” when only Americans get to kill without taking casualties. But “casualties” come in many forms, and the clever inventors of the cheap little I.E.D. have a great deal to say about the mighty U.S. juggernaut now limping home from Iraq and Afghanistan to lick its wounds.
And by the way: rhetorical metaphors like “boots on the ground” mean nothing to U..S. sailors who don’t wish to find themselves lying dead at the bottom of the sea. As well, i wouldn’t want to find myself at that behemoth U.S. “embassy” in Baghdad when the U.S. cruise missiles begin to fly at Iraq’s friend Syria. The possibility of another “Benghazi” multiplied a hundred times over comes to mind. Then, too, I sure hope those 9,000 Saudi princes have their flight suits ready when the incoming missiles start lighting their palaces and oil fields on fire. That ought to do wonders for the price of gas at the pump — all over the world. Yes, casualties and hostages come in many kinds, just not the ones contemplated by the randy roosters who think war sounds like great fun for those like themselves who don’t have to put their own asses on the line.
McCain and Obama have changed course. We now are definitely doing regime change. That’s a war crime.
“And he said, five years old, ‘Were these children in the United States?’”
No, they weren’t, wise little boy, who is smarter than his Mimi.
I think I am reasonably convinced that Assad used CW against his population – though this is not, to me, a slam dunk.
I would argue that reasonable belief of use of CW by Assad is a necessary but not a sufficient condition to justify an attack.
There are still some important questions.
Can a limited strike make the situation in Syria better or is there substantial risk that limited bombing will likely make the situation more dangerous. Is it possible that Assad would be weakened to the point that radial militias would gain the upper hand or gain control of the CW munitions that concern us?
Does international law require that the US obtain authorization from the UN before any strike takes place? Or does violation by one party allow any other party to attack? Does approval by the US congress have any bearing at all on the international question?
Will anyone outside the US and its allies buy into the idea that the strike is a principled stand against CW and not just an Imperial power using the pretext of CW to settle accounts with a regional rival? After all, the US has a history of casting a blind eye toward the use of CW and providing material support in the form of intelligence information to its proxy, Iraq, against it’s rival and adversary, Iran. Does an attack by the US really support the norm of no CW if everyone perceives that the US picks and chooses according to its national interest?
Does anyone believe that bombing will really inhibit Assad’s use of CW. Sure, we can increase the cost of using the weapons. The claim is that increasing the cost of using CW will inhibit Assad’s use of them, where cost includes not just money but material and intangibles such as international standing. But the idea that cost will influence behavior is based on models of incremental or graduated response and a rational adversary.
There are two kinds of problems with models based on graduated response.
There first has to do with the rational mind of the adversary. There seem to be some real differences between the west and the middle east regarding what constitutes reasonable or rational behavior. Examples of those differences include the military use of suicide and the social value of revenge. Even the west has examples where socially approved behavior does not necessarily correspond with a model of rational behavior. An example of that is suggested by the aphorism ‘better to die on ones feet than to live on ones knees’. There is at least the possibility that attacks on Syria will make Assad even more determined to control his population and refuse to adhere to demands by the US.
The second type of problem with graduated response model is that the models do not always work well when the choices are existential. Viet Nam, I would argue, is an example in which the US was able to greatly increase the cost to the north with little or no change in overall behavior regarding intervention in the south. Does anyone believe that if Assad is facing the existential threat of being overrun now that he will decline to us CW because he fears a strike that will cost him half his air force later?
Intervention by the US might have positive effects for international standards and for US interests. But, to me, at least, that is not clear. There are serous questions that must be answered prior to any attack by the US.
We’re not talking about war; we’re talking about action.
Perhaps the good folks residing in California’s 12th congressional district can start talking about action that will prevent Nancy Pelosi, war mongering fraction of a human bring, from running for re-election.
rafflaw 1,
**
That being said, who takes over for Assad when and if he is overthrown?? **
Why Rafflaw it will be Obama’s/Saudis Al Qaeda/Al CIAduh.
BTW, I believe it’s still illegal for Any American to support in any way Al Qaeda so that means Obama, Crazy Nancy, Maddog McCain, Sen Lunatic Graham are breaking US Law!
http://www.infowars.com/ted-cruz-u-s-not-al-qaedas-air-force/
Indigo Jones,
They are, flat out, Fascists.
Corporate cronies only concerned with power. Just look at accountability for the housing market crash that lead to the economic crumble which lead to increased unemployment and homelessness. Look at their portfolio and lobbyist connections. That revolving door they locked, they opened it back up. They agreed to punish one another if they dare cross THAT red line, until they did cross it, then it’s, “ok we’ll forget this rule.”
Max-1,
I think it goes beyond even “loyalists” when you are ready to have people killed so your leader saves face. I think this freaks me out more even than Pelosi. Pelosi is a long time advocate and protector of torture and war crimes. Holmes is saying she doesn’t see the need to go to war but would vote for killing others so Obama won’t look bad. That’s even more depraved than Nancy, to me.
Actually, I think when all of these people are speaking, people should be holding up a shoe.
I just cannot believe that a 5 year old would be asking Grandma if she is for or against striking Syria. I smell a rat.
If anyone strikes Assad, it should be an international force and it should be for the purpose of toppling his regime. That being said, who takes over for Assad when and if he is overthrown??
I was listening to a lot of Fox news when Pelosi took over the House in 2006 (I have a radio alarm and Fox news did a good job getting me out of bed).
Even though one of the first things Nancy Pelosi did was take impeaching Bush “off the table” Fox news kept prattling on about the “Ayatollah Pelosi” and all the other libruls hating on America.
Now the Democrats have been proven to be complicit in normalizing Bush-era abuses, and amending FISA to authorize the exact abuses that led to the original passage of FISA.
The Democrats are not an opposition party.
From surveillance, to war, to torture, to protecting bankers, both parties are moving further and further afield from what the population wants. They are not representatives, they are rulers.
Jill,
They are called “Loyalists”. Party above all principle.
Party “Loyalists” toe the party line, never to buck the system. For if they buck the system, they’re no longer considered worthy of toeing the line and are eventually run out of Office (see Russ Feingold or Dennis Kuchinich). Nancy never liked Dennis… He was her menace! So she took accountability off the table (toeing the line) because, after all, impeachment bucks the system of “Yes wo/men.
Sorry, the above was from Anonymously Posted’s link above.
from Jim White’s link above: “Okay, now this gets interesting. Obama claimed only the first group of 50 were entering, while Le Figaro claimed there were two groups, with the first one being 300 and the second one not specified by size. Further, note the dates and location: they entered on August 17 and 19 and they passed through Ghouta. The large number of deaths from a suspected chemical warfare agent occurred on August 21 in Ghouta. In fact, the second paragraph of the Jerusalem Post article notes:
Le Figaro reported that this is the reason behind the Assad regime’s alleged chemical weapons attack in Damascus on Wednesday morning, as UN inspectors were allowed into the country to investigate allegations of WMD use.
Were these first groups of CIA-trained death squad members the target of the attack? Or could it be even worse than that? Vladimir Putin had some very interesting things to say in a wide-ranging interview today, but this bit stands out in relation to the death squad story:
“If it is determined that these rebels used weapons of mass destruction, what will the United States do with the rebels?” Mr. Putin asked. “What will the sponsors of the rebels do? Stop the supply of arms? Will they start fighting against the rebels?”
Whether they were the targets of an attack by Assad’s forces or whether they were the agents carrying out a false flag attack, US-trained death squads could well be at the center of the disputed use of chemical weapons. That would seem to be both a strong incentive and a huge tell for Obama to change both the date and the size of the entry of the first of these agents trained by the US. After all, even while reporting Obama’s leak to McCain and Graham on Monday, the New York Times noted that the training program is covert.
Except that it’s not just the US training them. Going back to the Jerusalem Post article:
The rebels were trained for several months in a training camp on the Jordanian-Syrian border by CIA operatives, as well as Jordanian and Israeli commandos, the paper said.
Oh my. That’s quite the international faculty for this training program. What new wonders await us as more graduates of the program pour into Syria?”
– See more at: http://www.emptywheel.net/#sthash.YCkidqly.dpuf
Here’s where a cult brings you to. Other people have to die for the sake of the leader’s need to save face: “The District of Columbia’s non-voting delegate to Congress says that because of her uncertainty about striking Syria, the only reason she would see herself voting to authorize military action would be out of “loyalty” to a fellow Democrat in President Obama.
Speaking with Bill Press this morning, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) explained her belief that a response to Syria’s use of chemical weapons is necessary; however, she is unsure whether that needs to be done militarily. “I can’t believe that the only way to address it is a slight bombing which will somehow punish somebody or deter somebody,” she said.
Asked whether the president would be justified in taking action even after Congress potentially votes down his proposals, Norton said: “No, oh boy, no. I think it’ll be like the red line trap. He said if the red line you cross it. I think once you say, ‘I’m going to Congress,’ you can’t say, ‘Okay, I’m going to do it anyway.’”
As D.C.’s delegate to Congress, Holmes is unable to actually cast a vote in the debate, but she told Press: “If [Obama] gets saved at all, I think it’ll be because, it’ll be because of loyalty of Democrats. They just don’t want to see him shamed and humiliated on the national stage.”
She elaborated: “At the moment, that’s the only reason I would vote for it if I could vote on it.”
If this was Bush, people would be standing in front of him holding up shoes.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/dem-congresswoman-only-reason-id-vote-to-strike-syria-would-be-loyalty-to-obama/
AY,
And DU, Depleted Uranium, isn’t a banned munition, a war crime, crime against humanity, it’s a Forever Love powder to both our troops their families,, our enemies & all the grand kids.
I’ll raise you two cruisers, a pair of tomahawks and some martyrs to your ……. wait…. are jokers wild….
Please repost my link to anyone you care about, you/they may not get another chance to act!!!
I/the video couldn’t explain the Rotten situation we are in any better!
Ten Reasons Why America Does Not Need to Go to War Over Syria
By John W. Whitehead
September 04, 2013
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, from those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.—Dwight D. Eisenhower
For once, I would love to hear a government official reject a call to war because it is immoral; because we have greater needs here at home that require our attention and our funds; because we’re already $1 trillion poorer due to these endless, mindless wars; because America should not be policing the world; because we refuse to enrich the military industrial complex while impoverishing our nation; because endless wars will never result in peace; because we have meddled enough in foreign policy in the Middle East and cannot risk any further blowback; because we’re sick and tired of fomenting civil wars in far-flung places; because we’re not going to assist rebel fighters in overthrowing a foreign government, only to later unseat those same forces when they can’t be controlled; because using the overused fear tactic about “weapons of mass destruction” doesn’t carry much weight anymore; because the only “compelling national security interest” right now is taking back control of our run-away government; because in the words of Jean-Paul Sartre, “When the rich wage war, it’s the poor who die”; because while there may be causes worth dying for, there are none worth killing for; because Gandhi was right when he asked “What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?”; because all war is a crime; and because there are never any winners in war, only losers.
…
Eighth, Bob Dylan was right—we are masters of war. Fifty years after 21-year-old Bob Dylan penned his diatribe against war profiteering, “Masters of War,” it continues to ring true in a world armed to the teeth with U.S. government-financed weapons. The United States is the leading international supplier of armaments, some of which inevitably end up in our enemies’ hands, as well as those of terrorists. As William D. Hartung, director of the Arms Trade Resource Center, pointed out in his report, “Welfare for Weapons Dealers: The Hidden Costs of the Arms Trade,” “Domestic economic considerations have emerged as a predominant factor in arms transfer decision making.” In other words, how much money private U.S. companies can make is often the determination in deciding which international agents the U.S. government approves to buy our weapons.
Ninth, our claim to the moral high ground in this Syria discussion is nothing short of hypocritical given our historic use of weapons widely condemned by the global community. As journalist Andrea Germanos reports:
From cluster bombs to depleted uranium to napalm, recent history of U.S. warfare shows a trail of weapons leaving long-lasting civilian harm… According to the Cluster Munition Coalition, from the 1960s to 2006, the U.S. dropped cluster bombs on Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Albania, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Napalm was not only widely used by the U.S. during the years of the Vietnam War but also in 2003 during the invasion of Iraq, though it only admitted to having used it in Iraq after irrefutable evidence was out.
The U.S. also used white phosphorus on Iraq and Afghanistan. White phosphorus was used in 2004 during the assault on Fallujah, and the New York Times reported its use as recently as in 2011 in Afghanistan.
And finally, as Albert Einstein recognized, “Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.” This is not about what Obama wants, or what Congress agrees to—the decision to go to war ultimately rests with the American people. We need to say no to war.