April 12, 2018
MY CORNER by Boyd Cathey
SYRIA Part IV: Perpetual War for Unobtainable Peace: Is This What We Want?
Can We Halt the Rush to Armageddon?
Friends,
For
the first three days this week I’ve discussed Syria, emphasizing that what is
occurring there—and what may well happen there in future days if the United
States should engage in massive attacks in response to the purported chemical
attack in the village of Douma, near Damascus—could well have incalculable
consequences, not just for us, but for the entire world.
I
realize that there may be some who question why we should spend so much time on
this topic—after all, Syria is thousands of miles away, and it’s not like it
directly affects our personal lives, our personal budgets, our children’s
schools, our job, or our health.
What
about the bloated budget, we might ask? Why not get back to examining the
illegal immigration issue at our border and which, in many cases, is destroying
our culture? And how do we deal with the continuing “Deep State” attempt to
unseat our elected president?
Certainly,
these domestic issues are closer to us and have more immediate effect.
Yet,
the issues in play in Syria and our policies in the Middle East—the possible
ramifications of renewed and massive American involvement, the potential
unleashing of a new worldwide epidemic of mindless terrorism, and the likelihood
of confrontation with Russia—these issues could profoundly shape our personal
lives and our future. And we desperately need to see and understand that—and we
need to let our elected representatives in Washington and President Trump know
of our deep concern.
Once
again it was Tucker Carlson on this nightly primetime program, “Tucker Carlson
Tonight,” who fearlessly punched back at the seeming consensus among
Neoconservative war hawks, the Republican establishment, and the near-totality
of the Democratic Party who, it appears, are clamoring for bloodthirsty war in
that Middle East quagmire, that maelstrom of death, destruction and degradation
which has, for centuries, engulfed and destroyed empires, while serving as the
sandy grave for millions of men, boys and civilians.
What
is so blatantly apparent—so appallingly troubling—about the zealous
Neoconservative cries for war and American involvement is that these same rabid
war hawks who push for a massive “retaliatory strike” in Syria because of what
happened in Douma, based on very dubious evidence and facts on the ground
provided by highly colored and prejudicial sources (opponents of the Syrian
government of Bashar al-Assad), have no plan—have really no idea—what follows,
or what policy might actually come afterwards.
In
other words, we are supposed to take the word of violent Jihadis (the Army of
Islam) on the ground, of those anti-Assad partisans, who make unverified
claims, and then we must commit massive American air and possibly ground forces
in a civil war that had been winding down…in a war that Assad, a more moderate
Muslim with strong Christian support (there are several million Christians
living in Syria), had been winning against his Islamist Jihadi opponents (the
same folks that John McCain had embraced back in 2013, calling them
“moderates”).
In
other words, we are supposed to commit American jets and potentially the lives
of thousands American boys to take revenge, essentially, for a purported
chemical attack for which we still lack the concrete proof that it occurred as
the anti-Assad “observers” and “videographers” claim it did. (All the videos
and photographs thus far come from them.)
In
other words, we are supposed to engage in a high risk game of chicken with the
substantial Russian military assets in Syria—risking conflict, indeed,
something that Senators McCain and Graham actually want to happen.
We
are being pushed and shoved, cajoled and bullied into war by political
charlatans and by a more or less united news media (including much of Fox,
except for Carlson), who see Syria as a back door to confrontation and, yes, eventually
war with Russia--because Russia has refused to accept the tutelage and imposed ironclad
rules of the New World Order. The words of McCain, Graham, the pronouncements
of the Neocons on Fox (e.g. General Jack Keane, Oliver North, and so on), the
“Amens” coming from the Democrat pols on Capitol Hill (who see this as just one
more way to “get at” the president), betray a lunacy, a manic and deranged
headlong leap into a cauldron filled with blood, anguish, incalculable expense,
and unimaginable suffering.
Tucker
Carlson had two guests at the beginning of his program on April 11: the first
was Noah Rothman, associate editor of Commentary
Magazine.
The
Wikipedia identifies Commentary this
way:
Commentary is a monthly American magazine
on religion, Judaism, and politics, as well as social and
cultural issues. Founded by the American Jewish Committee in 1945, it was edited by Norman
Podhoretz from 1960 to 1995. Besides its
strong coverage of cultural issues, Commentary provided a
strong voice for the anti-Stalinist left. Podhoretz, originally liberal Democrat turned neoconservative, moved the magazine to the right and toward the Republican Party in the 1970s and 1980s.
Commentary is currently edited by Norman Podhoretz’s son, Neoconservative
writer John Podhoretz, an original Never Trumper who once called President
Trump “nauseating and disgusting” and who favors, like his chums over on the
“farther Left,” an open door immigration policy and supports same sex
marriage. [https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/podhoretz-trump-is-disgusting-and-nauseating-638632003668]
Yet it is some of these same Neocons, foreign policy hawks
who actually disdain the “America First” agenda, who now have managed to
surround the president and occupy positions of authority in foreign policy,
demanding and insisting that Donald Trump—whom they really despise but find a
convenient vehicle for their purposes—take massive retaliatory action in Syria,
against a country that has not attacked us, against a state that has never
threatened us, based on unverified accusations made by fierce enemies of that
country’s president.
And we are told that it is all in our national interest.
We are lectured that we must, as in the chilling and chiliastic words of the
ultra-propagandistic “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” go marching off to war: “As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men
free.”
But the visions of the dead and maimed,
rotting corpses in arid deserts, grieving parents and wives and children, also
remain in our thoughts…and for what? For, as Tucker Carlson reminds us in the
starkest of terms, we are not told why, we are simply told to shut up and
follow along, while our arm chair generals and fanatical Neocon globalists plot
their next move in a geopolitical war that threatens to destroy us all.
I pass on the segment from Carlson’s
program from Wednesday night, April 11: the first fifteen minutes include his
opening monologue, followed by his intense debate with Noah Rothman (whose
paramount interests, like that of his magazine, are always Israel First), and
then about five minutes with former British United Kingdom Independence Party
leader Nigel Farage, who makes some very simple and very reasonable
comments…comments which we all should acknowledge.
Again, the time is nearly past: time to
contact our representatives and the White House.
Watch the video:
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