Now that the chances for an imminent bombing campaign against Syria have receded, the bloodthirsty warmongers that infest the top levels of the US political and media worlds are sad, even though US support for the rebels continues. They were so looking forward to seeing the US once again demonstrate its high-tech weaponry by unleashing death and destruction on a small country containing Muslims and Arabs, whom we all know are sub-human and thus their lives don’t count.
The Daily Show looks at the war proponents’ disappointment.
(This clip aired on September 16, 2013. To get suggestions on how to view clips of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report outside the US, please see this earlier post.)
Peace, at least, in this case, the US not getting hip deep in open hostilities, doesn’t play well for some groups. The insiders and hangers-on in DC, often referred to as “The Village” don’t like turning up a perfectly good chance to toss a few missiles around. They talk about it being “weakness” but in reality the weakness they most fear is government leadership they can’t shame/cajole/threaten/ persuade into any particular action, and of course, missing any opportunity to make a financial/political windfall profiteering or trading off their connections.
I think Jon Stewart makes a good point about military action never being ‘off the table’.
One of the first rules of leadership is that you maintain authority by using as little of it as possible and delegating as much as possible.
I have profound doubts as to how we, anyone, can extract/deactivate chemical weapons in the middle of a civil war. There are too many variables. Both sides have multiple factions and it only takes one deciding that it can make some gains being contrary for the whole situation to fall apart. Something of a miracle if it can be done but even marginal success in this could open other diplomatic doors. There are possibilities. The chemical weapons initiative could potentially solve the civil war if a general cooperative mood breaks out but the civil war deranging the chemical weapons issue seems much more likely because of the passions involved with any civil war, particularly one where over 100,000 people have died. It’ll take more than a bouquet of flowers and a box of chocolates to smooth the ruffled feathers.
Worse comes to worse the chemical weapons thing falls through in some messy way, we sling some missiles around to prove our outrage, and the civil war goes back to grinding bones. The weeks or months wasted on the chemical weapons more than being paid for in the ongoing attrition of war fighting capability and money by Hezbollah, Iran, Assad’s army, and the highly mobile and fundamentalist inspire Mujaheddin army that was first raised under RR to fight the USSR in Afghanistan. Yes, even as Jon Stewart makes his points, and the GOP and Washington insiders whine the dull roar in the background is the sounds of the Syrian meat grinder doing what it does so well. As far as the US and Russia are concerned that roar is the sound of fanaticism on the part of fundamentalism dying and the road to some hope of progress.
Don’t underestimate how draining the support of Hezbollah and Syria is for Iran. They may end up, in some ways, copying the history of France in the late 1700s. France, in the middle of economic problems of its own, and international conflict with Great Britain, crippled its own economy by deeply investing in the revolution in the British colonies. Without France to supply money, a navy, artillery, and a good part of the officer corps the US would still be part of Britain. But France paid a price. The cash that went to the colonies couldn’t be used to placate the French citizenry. Bread and circuses works to buy time. The French aristocracy ran out of money and time. Modern liberalism, which would come back to change the character of the liberated colony, was created when the aristocracy ran out of money and the peasants, always revolting, figured they couldn’t screw things up any worse than their so-called betters.
This also, in reaction to certain excesses, triggered the creation of modern conservatism. It can also be argued that loss of the New World colonies, and the rise of anti-colonialism, was the critical wound that would eventually fester and deprive Britain of manpower and resources needed to hold on to Iran. But that is a story for another time.
Iran, after many false starts and crackdowns, may see its own internal revolution. Under financial pressure, sanctions, Russia not wanting a nuclear power on its doorstep, and with many internal divisions, not to mention its own pro-democracy movement, it may be Iran, now that Egypt has stumbled, that shows the middle east how to create a liberal state after bringing down a religious aristocracy.
The reason that, contrary to Prof. Singham’s conspiracy theories, Obama is reluctant to get involved in the Syrian Civil War.
http://goo.gl/VRjlEp