How does anyone know, assuming that it was a chemical attack, that it was not orchestrated by the rebels to suck in the United States or other outside powers? After all, they have an obvious motive to do so. There are also substantial quantities of chemical weapons floating around the Middle East now thanks to the looting of Libyan arsenals after the fall of Qaddafi. And finally, the timing is terribly convenient for them, given that UN inspectors are in Damascus now just a handful of miles away. This is not said to try to justify one side or another in this situation. However, I think it behoves the one to be at least as skeptical of the story coming out of the rebel side and that of its apologists in Europe and Turkey as of the story coming out of the Syrian government.
Mace Abdullah, you write, "We did the right thing in Libya, conspicuously left out of your rather one-sided analysis..."
My wife has relatives who live in Benghazi and from what we hear things are not going very well there. I think you had better qualify your claims about Libya.
Juan, you are absolutely on the mark in your description of the situation. The insanity of the situation is that the Washington political class, the "very serious people" of the punditocracy and the entrenched "national security" apparatus in this country, through their support of lawless regimes in Israel, Egypt and elsewhere, create the very conditions that lead this country into the state of permanent war in which it finds itself. I find the circularity of cause and effect mind boggling. I have no problem with other countries refusing to do US bidding as the Turks did at the beginning of the Iraq War. But there is a sort of mad irony when the very creatures we nurture and create (the Mubaraks, Omer Suleimans, Netanyahus, Baraks, Salehs) do it.
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How does anyone know, assuming that it was a chemical attack, that it was not orchestrated by the rebels to suck in the United States or other outside powers? After all, they have an obvious motive to do so. There are also substantial quantities of chemical weapons floating around the Middle East now thanks to the looting of Libyan arsenals after the fall of Qaddafi. And finally, the timing is terribly convenient for them, given that UN inspectors are in Damascus now just a handful of miles away. This is not said to try to justify one side or another in this situation. However, I think it behoves the one to be at least as skeptical of the story coming out of the rebel side and that of its apologists in Europe and Turkey as of the story coming out of the Syrian government.
Mace Abdullah, you write, "We did the right thing in Libya, conspicuously left out of your rather one-sided analysis..."
My wife has relatives who live in Benghazi and from what we hear things are not going very well there. I think you had better qualify your claims about Libya.
Juan, this is exactly on target. Well said.
Juan, you are absolutely on the mark in your description of the situation. The insanity of the situation is that the Washington political class, the "very serious people" of the punditocracy and the entrenched "national security" apparatus in this country, through their support of lawless regimes in Israel, Egypt and elsewhere, create the very conditions that lead this country into the state of permanent war in which it finds itself. I find the circularity of cause and effect mind boggling. I have no problem with other countries refusing to do US bidding as the Turks did at the beginning of the Iraq War. But there is a sort of mad irony when the very creatures we nurture and create (the Mubaraks, Omer Suleimans, Netanyahus, Baraks, Salehs) do it.
Juan,
Great post today. Keep at it.
Regards,
Howard