The video clip (above) features Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) telling the truth about the destruction of Syria from the perspective of a strong critic of America’s policy of regime-change in the Middle East. A military veteran who has seen war, having served two tours in Iraq — and who has visited Syria in the aftermath of our covert invasion — Rep. Gabbard’s unflinching stance has made her the target of a host of vicious and slanderous attacks.
But setting aside Rep. Gabbard’s anti-war views for a moment, we find that even an unwavering pro-war perspective can help us get at that truth. Here (below) is quite a different perspective, coming from Danielle Pletka, arguably the most prominent public face of The American Enterprise Institute (AEI). For those unfamiliar with the AEI, it’s the neoconservative foreign policy think tank that has authored much of America’s Middle East policy in the post-9/11 period. The AEI is one of the primary architects, for instance, of Bush’s invasion of Iraq — and the “Troop Surge” policy of 2007, which featured, among other atrocities, the ethnosectarian cleansing of most of Baghdad’s Sunnis (making 2007 the deadliest year of the war, by far, for Iraqi civilians). AEI is also responsible, in large part, for Washington’s decision (Bush through Obama) to flood Syria with radical Salafist militants, armed, trained, and coordinated by the CIA and JSOC, working toward regime-change in Damascus. The following quote from Ms. Pletka — an enthusiastic proponent of Washington’s regime-change agenda — is from her appearance, in September of 2013, on C-Span’s Washington Journal.
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“There’s always going to be a slippery slope. It’s always dangerous. I think that the argument that is important to understand is that there are people arming some among the rebels. The Qatari government, the Saudi government, were arming the rebels for quite some time. The problem is, who were they arming? I would say the Saudis, less so, and the Qataris, more so, were arming the most extremist Islamists among the rebels, those who are most closely affiliated with al Qaeda. So, they were getting all the help. Meanwhile, those who are more aligned with our values — those who want a democratic future for Syria, those who support secularism, those who support minorities in Syria (which there are a significant number) who want to protect them — they have been getting the short end of the stick, because it’s only Western powers who would support them. SUBCONTRACTING FOREIGN POLICY TO GULF COUNTRIES IS NEVER A GOOD IDEA.”
[Only that’s precisely what we’ve done. Because partnering with Gulf despots in order to finance and arm Mujaheddin warriors, serving as the West’s covert partners and proxies, always ends well… right?]
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ADDENDUM (4/12/17) — #ResistTrumpsWar
With regard to the notion that “Assad gassed his own people…”
The conventional “wisdom” is very likely wrong (as usual). The official narrative repeated endlessly by the corporate media is actually contradicted in the fine print of those same media organs. But here’s a truth you can bank on: In the absence of solid evidence supporting the claim that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons during this yearslong conflict, we have reams of evidence that the Washington-backed Salafist militants trying to overthrow Assad and create a Sunni-dominated Caliphate have done so… repeatedly.
From the New York Times article of just a few months ago, entitled “ISIS Used Chemical Arms at Least 52 Times in Syria and Iraq, Report Says:”
“The coalition is concerned about ISIL’s use of chemical weapons,” Col. John Dorrian, a military spokesman in Iraq, said in an email on Monday, using another name for the Islamic State. “ISIL has used them in Iraq and Syria in the past, and we expect them to continue employing these types of weapons.”
Now, move along. There’s nothing to see here — just Washington’s terrorist proxies for regime-change repeatedly caught using chemical weapons.
[I don’t mean to distract from the “Putin’s Pee Pee Puppet” and “Russian hacking” campaigns… but there are millions of lives at stake and the future credibility and security of our country, too.]