Does the White House situation room have a map of the Mideast posted on a cork-board and a bunch of darts in a nearby bucket? Is that how our fearless leaders decide which oily nation to bomb/invade/plunder next?
Think they should, perhaps, clean up the other two murderous messes before sending our beleaguered troops and our bombs into another theater in the never-ending terror wars?
Naaaaaaaah ... where's the fun in that, right?
Syria is next up on the terror-wheel, and the US will justify its airstrikes because the Syrian government under President Bashar al-Assad has used chemical weapons against its own people. Sound familiar?
Secretary of State John Kerry, doing a long-faced version of Colin Powell circa 2003, presented the justification for another war without end, Amen, at the State Department:
"In some of the most aggressive language used yet by the administration, Mr. Kerry accused the Syrian government of the "indiscriminate slaughter of civilians" and of cynical efforts to cover up its responsibility for a 'cowardly crime.'
"Mr. Kerry's remarks at the State Department reinforced the administration's toughening stance on the Syria conflict, which is now well into its third year, and indicated that the White House was moving closer to a military response in consultation with America's allies.
"Administration officials said that although President Obama had not made a final decision on military action, he was likely to order a limited military operation -- cruise missiles launched from American destroyers in the Mediterranean Sea at military targets in Syria, for example -- and not a sustained air campaign intended to topple Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, or to fundamentally alter the nature of the conflict on the ground.
"In the coming days, officials said, the nation's intelligence agencies will disclose information to bolster their case that chemical weapons were used by Mr. Assad's forces. The information could include so-called signals intelligence -- intercepted radio or telephone calls between Syrian military commanders."
Or, the information could just come from their preferred source of disinformation, Saudi Prince Bandar, who has made a career out of using the might of the US military to topple his enemies in the Mideast, as The Independent, UK reports:
"He has been gone from the capital for eight years, but Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who as Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington wielded influence over no fewer than five different US presidents, has re-emerged as a pivotal figure in the struggle by America and its allies to tilt the battlefield balance against the regime in Syria.
"Appointed by the Saudi king, his uncle, last year as the head of the Saudi General Intelligence Agency, Prince Bandar has reportedly for months been focused exclusively on garnering international support, including arms and training, for Syrian rebel factions in pursuit of the eventual toppling of President Bashar al-Assad.
"It is a long-term Saudi goal, that in the past several days has been subsumed by the more immediate crisis over the purported use of chemical weapons by Damascus, which, according to Riyadh, must be met by a stern response. That message is being delivered to President Barack Obama by the current Saudi Ambassador in Washington, Adel al-Jubeir, who is a Bandar protege.
"As ambassador, Prince Bandar left an imprint that still has not quite faded. His voice was one of the loudest urging the United States to invade Iraq in 2003. In the 1980s, Prince Bandar became mired in the Iran-Contra scandal in Nicaragua."
Bandar was the chief apologist for the 15 Saudi hijackers who attacked this country on 9-11-2001. And he obtained safe passage for the bin Laden family to leave America after the attack. He then steered the Bush Crime Family to forget the Saudi involvement in 9-11 and instead, turn it's sights toward Iraq, even though there was no evidence Iraq had anything to do with 9-11, or posed any threat to the US (despite Colin Powell's miserable magic show at the UN Security Council). Why Bandar's bloodlust for Saddam? Because Saddam attacked Kuwait -- a key part of the Saudi oil kingdom.
Bandar's ties and sympathies to al Qaeda are well documented, and yet he is one of our most influential, trusted and revered "friends" in the region. Robert Scheer explains it all:
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