The war drums are beating, growing louder and more synced with each runway departed and missile fired. As if by a switch, our media has become homogenized, with only one bare and concise notion emerging: we MUST go to war. And here we go – again.
While most of our great country ignored the last 8 years of destabilizing policies in the Middle East, the forces desiring war in Syria were hard at work. And, contrary to the opinion of so many partisans, these forces wear neither elephants nor donkeys as lapels. As we quickly enter into our first full day at war, let’s reminisce about the time we were almost tricked into going into Syria to avenge chemical weapon attacks – way back in 2013.
On September 1st, 2013, our Nobel Peace Prize winning president attempted to seek congressional authorization for an attack against Syria in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack. Social and traditional media swelled with reports detailing how the Syrian government used chemical weapons on their own people.
There was one major problem to this story: American backed rebels in Syria were the ones using chemical weapons, not the Assad regime. According to the Washington Times, “Carla del Ponte, a member of the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, told Swiss TV there were ‘strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof,’ that rebels seeking to oust Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad had used the nerve agent.” The articles goes into further detail regarding rebel use of sarin nerve gas.
Appropriately, the US Congress rejected the fake war premise.
As the old phrase goes, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
When the Syrian Government, with no motive or need to use chemical weapons, accidentally bombed rebel stockpiles of chemical weapons, the stage was set for great drama known as the war run-up. Pictures of suffocating children soon found their home on every news-feed and front page in America, and there was only one agreed upon cause to such tragedy: “Assad is killing his people.”
One of the most quoted researchers in this current news cycle, Professor Shoham of Bar-Ilan University says that “while the rebels have also used chemical weapons in the past – mainly chlorine, but also mustard gas – and may have those agents, in principle the likelihood that they have nerve gas is very low.” Let’s return to 2013, when the United Nations declared that rebels were using sarin gas. Yes, apparently one of the most cited researchers making the media rounds forgot when rebels used sarin in 2013.
Steve Bannon is no longer on the NSC , and John McCain and the hawkish wing of the Republican party are praising Donald Trump. As if overnight, Donald Trump has transformed from outsider to part of the status quo. Unfortunately for America and the global victims of imperialism, that status quo is perpetual war and ceaseless untruths. If someone tells you these attacks on Assad were justified, remind them how the world media pegged him as the guilty party in 2013 – you know, before discovering it was the United States backed rebels.