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Obama’s Syria Indictment
TND Guest Contributor: Phil Butler |
The latest news from Washington is that the government will cease its covert training and supply of al-Qaeda in Syria. This is a dramatic turn of events, but not an unexpected one.
The notion “We funded al-Qaeda,” still reverberates in many conversations, but somewhere in the White House, in some remote situation room, other pressing concerns have arisen. Can’t you just hear the distinct clicking of the gears of the mind, of important army men and intellectual bureaucrats? I can hear them saying, “What is our next move?”
The situation in Syria and Russia’s inevitably brisk actions there have suddenly catapulted it to the geostrategic forefront. This festering sore has so far been hidden from most Americans, but now there’s a new terror on our faces, the realization we must save face, or at least exit the theater with dignity.
Not only the face of those decision makers but the collective dignity of our nation is at stake. We are losing the trust of the world and all the people we want to listen to us; this is what’s at stake in those deserts so far away.
I urge you to continue reading, whether or not your tender sensibilities are injured by what I have to say. The conclusion will slap you awake, or at least it should.
“There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.” – John Fitzgerald Kennedy
JFK, Nixon, and Passive Aggressive Strategies
Since I was a little kid in El Paso, Texas, my country has been involved in some kind of military action or other. In 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Vietnam was the emerging, glowing hot spot. We know all too well how that turned into the debacle that later became the subject of Oliver Stone films.
At the end of that debacle, Richard Nixon’s Vice President resigned, Nixon himself stepped down and America’s militarism was quiet, at least for a spell. Then we became victims of our own success. The moral limits were reached, our government became inseparable from the corporate and elitist oligarchs who “attempted” to gain total control.
Our American system bloated beyond the limits of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and in essence, the forms of law that governed this system. While this is a subject for a much larger discourse, to say the parties no longer matter is an understatement.
When the drive to engage in conflict reemerged in the late 1970s the Cold War was rekindled. We had not had enough, you see. Washington’s string pullers may have thrown the Nixon leadership under the bus, but the power brokers quickly put in place what my political science professor called “a passive-aggressive” administration. Jimmy Carter was anything but a simple peanut farmer you see. As his choice of National Security Adviser, and other key cabinet appointments, ultimately proved, America’s leadership has never had peaceful intentions. I could go on here, but we’ve more important things to discuss. Brzezinski is still around, and so is Nixon’s Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. I mention them so that you understand that nothing has changed in Washington.
Let’s leave this history discussion behind and simply recall our endless wars and police actions, so as to grasp what is needed now to bolster our nation’s credibility and its position as leader of the democratic world. Those wars in the past, and the ones we witness now, were not “real wars,” not in the sense that America really “felt” them. This fact is no happenstance, for it was Richard Nixon himself who abolished the draft. After that decree, the choice of who went to kill and die was set in stone. Let that sink in, and then consider the anesthetic our leadership applied to our collective conscience on foreign wars.
With this, the reader is fully prepared to consider the Arab Spring we fueled, and the Syrian mess Russia now has to sort out. Yes, Vladimir Putin and Russia are cleaning up an American mess, no matter what you’ve been told. And the world knows it my friends, the world knows it.
The Buck Stops with Obama
For the purposes of this report, it does not matter who controls President Barack Obama. It is enough to point out, as is obvious to most people, that no recent president has ever acted on his own initiative. I call your attention to this here, because I want the purpose of our story to be 100% transparent.
Most of the people who installed this president in office will shun our logical advice. What we will suggest in no way plays into their contingency strategies. However, the American strategy I will recommend shortly will appeal to others with interest in the Obama administration. For certainly, there are those among you (yes, I know you are reading) who will be less “insulated,” shall we say, from the shit storm about to take place.
It is these individuals who will serve as the American citizens’ strongest allies in the weeks to come. These are the key people with the most to lose, the individuals this administration’s muck-ups will eventually destroy.
Now that I have your undivided attention…
Four Syria Strategies Destined to Fail
Syria was a powder keg long before Vladimir Putin had had enough of the West’s regime change strategies. As wee all know by now, the CIA, Senator John McCain and a host of other beastly players dealt the ISIL cards underneath the table of international détente. Me calling them psychotic murderers here puts me in pretty good company, in the truth department.
But lambasting the Neocons, calling Israel’s government the one resident evil behind all this killing, even hand painting the names and faces of every politician or jihadist involved won’t help the situation of my beloved country. The American people don’t need to see the whole disastrous tapestry in order to understand the mess the United States is in.
You’ve read now, and you’ve been patient, so I will now outline where we are. I will now suggest the only course available for America, and for the elite 1% that sought another series of wars in the Middle East. Are you ready? I’ll bet you are.
Vladimir Putin’s air power, in connection with various forces on the ground in Syria, will shortly dispense with ISIL. The Pentagon knows this, because US and coalition generals have been fooling around over the deserts of Syria and Iraq for months and years now. Right now, in our White House situation room, several strategies are being mulled over.
Here’s a look at those strategies, following by a more effective solution.
First, but least likely, the US and the coalition could amend current policy and join with Russia, Iran, and the legitimate Syrian government to clear out the jihadists and ISIL. This would free up the region for legitimized and constructive talks between all parties concerned. This will not happen.
Second, America and her allies could assume the middle position and simply allow Putin and Russia to eradicate ISIL and Assad’s opponents. But obviously this would mean that Obama and his constituents (I don’t mean us) would lose face even more, and power as well. This won’t happen, the powers that be have spent too much on this already.
A third strategy exists if the United States, NATO, and other allies are prepared for all out war with Russia and her allies, including China. Mr. Obama and the others could, if they are so instructed, intervene against Russia on behalf of the jihadists. An overt attempt to kill Assad would be met with everything including open revolution. This is the least likely contingency. Europe will say no.
Finally, we have the strategy we are seeing taking shape now, one of revisiting the Soviet-Afghanistan conflict which Brzezinski and the Carter administration masterminded. This process is already underway. President Obama and Congress have just made high profile announcements that the policy of arming insurgents in Syria will end now that the Russians are really killing jihadists.
Secretary of Defense Ash Carter is already predicting casualties in this new Afghanistan. “Aha!” someone was heard yelling in the Pentagon; “Killing Russians and sapping Putin’s strength!” Why it’s a stroke of genius! But wait, this is not 1980, Americans know about the CIA arming Osama bin Laden, we have WikiLeaks, and we know the NSA has spied on us all. Hell, we know Obama’s secret agents have spied on our allies, including Germany and Japan.
Furthermore, the 1% cannot rest so sure that the little people have not just about had enough. Evidence of this can be seen from Ankara to Berlin, where 250,000 gathered this week to put a stop to a contract with America (TTIP).
However this scenario is Obama’s most likely choice, despite the evidence of unrest on the horizon. For now, that is. There is, however, a fifth plan.
“The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
For the Crime of Utter Failure
In any of the aforementioned solutions to America’s current foreign policy nightmare, the people of the United States lose. We’ve only got the fall back position by degrees, to console us once all is said and done.
The hard line, right wing conservative out there will argue; “We can whip them Ruskies and get rid of Assad.” I needn’t elaborate much on this attitude; these people get other people killed. Liberals in my country will steadfastly deny we’ve any culpability whatever in this world crisis. After all, they were watching Oprah Winfrey when she endorsed Barack Obama. These people are still reaching under their seats for the prize Mrs. Winfrey gives all her guests. And like I said, most of the elites who give the Obamas of the world their marching orders will be less than thrilled with the concept of impeachment. Why even Oprah may not want to be branded as “wrong, wrong, wrong” in her selection of American uprightness.
I would be negligent indeed if I did not point out that Barack Obama has lost something fundamental. He has forgotten what he was born to, what it is to be an American.
Barack Obama led us into all this, period. He, and key administration officials like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, are now neck deep in an undeclared world war – a war they’ve been evangelizing since 9/11. We are victims, all of us Americans, of our own success. We alone have survived all these foreign wars, and the Cold War, while other nations have felt the sting of battle, and of true hardship.
I’m reminded of something Abraham Lincoln once said:
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”
Right about now several in the situation room are exchanging knowing glances. A nod of the head, a shifting of the eyes, and Mr. Obama himself is thinking, “Christ, would they?”
You’re feeling it, I know you are. All it will take is one key revelation, something more than the “open mic” thing with Russia’s Dmitry Medvedev. “Yes, this could be a way out, we could buy time and regroup.” Then the pieces will fall into place, the realization that there has to be a scapegoat. I can smell the gears burning now; “How can we make this a win, what is the up side?”
As for “We the People” of the United States of America, these words from the Declaration of Independence bear repeating here:
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
This passage provokes the question; “Has Barack Obama committed such a string of grievous acts?” We must invoke that the US House of Representatives at the very least undertakes to weigh all that has transpired these last 7 years. In Mr. Obama’s defense, it’s as if he has forgotten that he is supposed to be an American. But then again, maybe he never was one?
Yes, what you are reading is a call to call to accountability an American president. Before you dismiss the suggestion, I urge you to study another critical moment in American history.
In the early 1970s, a little incident that became known as the Watergate scandal forced a far more influential and powerful chief executive to step down. Watergate, for those who were not around, encompassed an array of clandestine and often illegal activities undertaken by members of the Nixon administration. Ultimately, one of the most powerful politicians who has ever held any office was forced to resign in shame. Nixon resigned, essentially, for concealing the political wiretapping of his opponents. Please let that sink in.
Richard M. Nixon became the first president in our history to step down from the highest office in the world. He was only threatened with impeachment, I might add, not actually impeached. That whole debacle boiled down to Nixon keeping secret certain tapes that held crucial evidence of his misdeeds. In a situation not unlike Hillary Clinton’s Email debauchery, the man who opened up China, ended the draft and backed out of the commitment in Vietnam, the politician who initiated détente and the first ABM treaties with the Soviet Union, was forced to resign.
Barack Obama swore an oath:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
As to what grounds a sitting president can be impeached on, most legal scholars agree that whatsoever the House of Representatives deems “high crimes” and treason to be are the grounds on which to try Barack Obama.
Could Congress indict this president over the NSA’s activities, Guantanamo or other illegal prisons, CIA or State Department meddling on foreign soil, or simply foreknowledge of Hillary Clinton’s dealings? This is a matter for our representatives to sort out. But the matter before the people is simpler. Does America want to maintain her rightful position among the world’s countries? If the answer is “yes,” then impeaching Obama is the only guaranteed way to bring our system back in line. Any other solution will have a predictably negative outcome.
Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
This article was published at the New Eastern Outlook and is reprinted with permission.
Source: http://thenewsdoctors.com/obamas-syria-indictment/
