I have been following the situation regarding Syria for quite some time now, and based on what I've seen, what I've read, and after witnessing increasingly bizarre pronouncements from government officials, I've come to the conclusion that, one, this war was (is) going to happen one way or another (fait accompli), two, we are being lied to about the reasons and the scope of the war, and three, that in the final analysis what we are witnessing is the beginning of a power-play of global proportions.
Regarding the global power-play, one of the things that helped crystallized my conclusions about the nature of these events we are witnessing was the NSA spying revelations by Edward Snowden and The Guardian.
As of today, it looks like the NSA (and other spy/surveillance/security agencies) are not only collecting and storing electronic communications at a global scale, but they are also capable of bypassing encryption data protection.
I'm basing these conclusions on two conditions: First, having an overwhelmingly powerful military capability. Second, having total-information-awareness surveillance capabilities at a global scale.
When I look at those two conditions (and please note that these are just my opinions/conclusions/interpretations), and when I look at the character of the people in power (this is beyond political parties), I see the perfect conditions for a push to establish the U.S. as not only the world's lone superpower, but to prevent any other country from ever being able to challenge us.
Regarding the character of the people in power, the other day Liberty Equality Fraternity and Trees wrote an excellent diary referencing Columbia University sociologist C. Wright Mills, and his book The Causes of World War III
The key quote describing the people in power (a description a totally agree with) is key to understand their character:
Crackpot realists are amoral men and women of worldly affairs who possess exceptionally banal minds. These are the "serious people" who populate government, the higher tiers of corporate America, the think tanks, the televised political talk shows, and other props of the national power structure.
So again, if we add one more condition to the two I mentioned above, then what we have is a
perfect storm scenario for the type of global power play I think is taking place: Amoral men and women of exceptionally banal minds; Unparalleled military might; Total-information-awareness surveillance at a global scale.
Now, I have already been thinking along these lines, and then today I came across an article written by Tom Engelhardt (TomDispatch.com), re-published by Salon.
One interesting segment from the article, which I believe coincides with this idea of global domination/hegemony, mentions the good-all neocons:
In the shadows, however, a government-to-be was forming under the guise of a think tank. It was filled with figures like future Vice President Dick Cheney, future Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, future Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, future U.N. Ambassador John Bolten, and future ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, all of whom firmly believed that the United States, with its staggering military advantage and lack of enemies, now had an unparalleled opportunity to control and reorganize the planet. In January 2001, they came to power under the presidency of George W. Bush, anxious for the opportunity to turn the U.S. into the kind of global dominator that would put the British and even Roman empires to shame.
~SNIP~
In the early Bush years, dreams of domination bred like rabbits in the hothouse of single-superpower Washington. Such grandiose thinking quickly invaded administration and Pentagon planning documents as the Bush administration prepared to prevent potentially oppositional powers or blocs of powers from arising in the foreseeable future. No one, as its top officials and their neocon supporters saw it, could stand in the way of their planetary Pax Americana.
The emphasis is mine
Of course, those were the Bush years; years that Mr. Engelhardt refers to as "stage two in the march into single-superpower delusion."
According to his argument, we are now entering stage three:
Instead, Washington entered stage three of delusional life in a single-superpower world. Its main symptom: the belief in the possibility of controlling the planet not just through staggering military might but also through informational and surveillance omniscience and omnipotence. In these years, the urge to declare a global war on communications, create a force capable of launching wars in cyberspace, and storm the e-beaches of the Internet and the global information system proved overwhelming. The idea was to make it impossible for anyone to write, say, or do anything to which Washington might not be privy.
For most Americans, the Edward Snowden revelations would pull back the curtain on the way the National Security Agency, in particular, has been building a global network for surveillance of a kind never before imagined, not even by the totalitarian regimes of the previous century. From domestic phone calls to international emails, from the bugging of U.N. headquarters and the European Union to 80 embassies around the world, from enemies to frenemies to allies, the system by 2013 was already remarkably all-encompassing. It had, in fact, the same aura of grandiosity about it, of overblown self-regard, that went with the launching of the Global War on Terror — the feeling that if Washington did it or built it, they would come.
The emphasis is mine
My take (again, my opinion/conclusion) is that the revelations by Edward Snowden, by exposing the global reach of the total-information-awareness surveillance state, may have alerted the world to America's true intentions, and if so, that may explain the rush to war with Syria--a war that has the potential of quickly escalating to a major international conflagration.
If all this "delusional power stages" business Mr. Engelhardt is talking about has plausibility, then starting such a major war may actually be the actual goal...
Anyways, regarding the possible war with Syria, things are moving very fast. The New York Time: "Pentagon Is Ordered to Expand Potential Targets in Syria With a Focus on Forces."
President Obama has directed the Pentagon to develop an expanded list of potential targets in Syria in response to intelligence suggesting that the government of President Bashar al-Assad has been moving troops and equipment used to employ chemical weapons while Congress debates whether to authorize military action.
Mr. Obama, officials said, is now determined to put more emphasis on the “degrade” part of what the administration has said is the goal of a military strike against Syria — to “deter and degrade” Mr. Assad’s ability to use chemical weapons. That means expanding beyond the 50 or so major sites that were part of the original target list developed with French forces before Mr. Obama delayed action on Saturday to seek Congressional approval of his plan.
For the first time, the administration is talking about using American and French aircraft to conduct strikes on specific targets, in addition to ship-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles. There is a renewed push to get other NATO forces involved.
The emphasis is mine
In the meantime, Russian ships are already in the region: Russian warships cross Bosphorus, en route to Syria
Three Russian warships crossed Turkey's Bosphorus Strait on Thursday en route to the eastern Mediterranean, near the Syrian coast, amid concern in the region over potential US-led strikes in response to the Damascus regime's alleged use of chemical weapons.
The SSV-201 intelligence ship Priazovye, accompanied by the two landing ships Minsk and Novocherkassk passed through the Bosphorus known as the Istanbul strait that separates Asia from Europe, an AFP photographer reported.
And there are reports that Russia is sending more military assets to the region. Then there is the issue of Iran possibly attacking Israel of the U.S. attacks Syria.
Anyways, at least to me, this looks like the "perfect conditions" for things to escalate pretty quickly once the U.S. attacks Syria.
I'll continue to follow the deliberations in Congress, but again, as I've been arguing for quite some time now, my take is that this has been the plan for quite some time--to attack Syria and remove Assad from power at a minimum, and very possible, an actual power-play at a global scale.
Of course, nobody can say for sure what's going to happen. We'll have to wait and see. One thing I feel pretty confident about is that we are being lied by our own government.
P.S. I welcome spirited debate about this topic, and I'm especially interested in hearing from people who do not agree with my position. However, I will not engage in discussion with people who write personal insults, or engage in disruptive behavior. I ask other serious people to do the same. To learn more about this subject, please visit the following links: New Community Guidelines / The 15 Rules of Web Disruption / Thirteen Rules for Truth Suppression / Disinformation: How It Works.
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