Found on Facebook
June 20, 2013
Our policy on Syria is simply ridiculous. For starters, it’s my belief that we created the revolution there in the first place. That it never would have happened without the help of our CIA. Now 96,000 people are dead. Dead on both sides. Both sides have acted inhumanely, but in my opinion the rebel side is mostly hired guns for the most part so obviously they acted inhumanely.
Now, some ding dong from the neo-con right got Obama to say out loud that if Syria engaged in chemical weapon attacks, that that would be crossing a line in the sand. At that time I knew that they would use any incident and/or even stage an incident where they could say “look they used chemical weapons, you said that was your line in the sand!”
As if someone cares whether they are gassed or shot in the face. Good thing every country around the world didn’t think our nuking 2 different civilian populations, killing 260,000 people was crossing a line in the sand. Or starving the people of Iraq for 10 years killing almost a million. Now back to the point.
So now we are even more engaged, but not really engaged at all… like the worst thing we can be, we are sending them weapons (you know the guys who are raping and pillaging).
According to John Mccain we need to make the fight “fair”, and we need to do even more? What in the hell is “fair” in war? What planet is this lunatic on? You don’t want “fair” fights in war, if you are going to engage you engage, if you are not going to engage you don’t engage. But you don’t want to make things “sort of even”…. you want a quick and decisive victory… now that is only if you actually want to engage at all.
Which if we were to really engage we could pretty much end it in 5 days. Which would be the route to go… if Assad was actually really that bad, and if we weren’t actually the ones who started the fake revolution and if we weren’t arming complete and total douche bags. That’s a lot of freaking ifs.
I saw this coming almost two years ago, Assad was being set up, they need to take Syria down as part of an isolation campaign, we have systematically been eroding the powers in the Middle East and putting in puppets. This is why you live in fear that people from other countries might come here and attack you. This activity is what creates theocracies in these countries, this activity is what creates terrorism, this activity breeds hate. This activity is what gives the “bad guys” new recruits daily.
Do not be fooled into believing that any of this benefits you, it does not. These people were no harm to us, and all we are doing is benefiting corporations and Israel, but obviously that’s who pulls the strings of our government anyway.
Unless you want to go through metal detectors at your child’s soccer games I suggest we all start understanding this.
John Jay Myers is a long-time Libertarian Activist. He has served on the Libertarian National Committee as an At-Large representative, and recently ran for the United States Senate Against Ted Cruz.
Per wikipedia:
April Glaspie’s first meeting with Saddam Hussein, accompanied by Hussein’s translator, Sadoun al-Zubaydi
Glaspie’s appointment as U.S. ambassador to Iraq followed a period from 1980 to 1988 during which the United States had given covert support to Iraq during its war with Iran.
Glaspie had her first meeting with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, on July 25, 1990. In her telegram from July 25, 1990, to the Department of State, Glaspie summarized the meeting as follows:
At least two transcripts of the meeting have been published. The State Department has not confirmed the accuracy of these transcripts, but Glaspie’s cable has been released at the Bush Library and placed online by the Margaret Thatcher Foundation.
One version of the transcript has Glaspie saying:“ We can see that you have deployed massive numbers of troops in the south. Normally that would be none of our business, but when this happens in the context of your threats against Kuwait, then it would be reasonable for us to be concerned. For this reason, I have received an instruction to ask you, in the spirit of friendship — not confrontation — regarding your intentions: Why are your troops massed so very close to Kuwait’s borders? ”
Later the transcript has Glaspie saying:“ We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America. ”
Another version of the transcript (the one published in The New York Times on 23 September 1990) has Glaspie saying:“ But we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait. I was in the American Embassy in Kuwait during the late 1960s. The instruction we had during this period was that we should express no opinion on this issue and that the issue is not associated with America. James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to emphasize this instruction. We hope you can solve this problem using any suitable methods via Klibi (Chedli Klibi, Secretary General of the Arab League) or via President Mubarak. All that we hope is that these issues are solved quickly. ”
When these purported transcripts were made public, Glaspie was accused of having given tacit approval for the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, which took place on August 2, 1990. It was argued that Glaspie’s statements that “We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts” and that “the Kuwait issue is not associated with America” were interpreted by Saddam as giving free rein to handle his disputes with Kuwait as he saw fit. It was also argued that Saddam would not have invaded Kuwait had he been given an explicit warning that such an invasion would be met with force by the United States
Deran, my theory is that we have been involved in the revolution in Syria. My belief is that we should not be.
The fact is that 96,000 people are dead in Syria, half of them fighting against the “rebels” and half fighting for. I believe that if any of these people learned that we were behind this mass bloodshed, which did not exist 2 years ago, and possibly never had to happen, there would be a whole lot of people on both sides with an axe to grind. That axe manifesting itself as many more terror attacks.
I do not stand against their right to be free, I don’t believe any country we “liberate” ends up that “free”. I stand for my right to not give a shit…. and not have to worry about the repercussions of a foreign policy gone wild.
I could, but it would take more time than I can devote to it.
Bob Tiernan = LOL!
Deran:
It seems sort of racist to suggest that Arabs don’t want freedom and democracy.
Bob T:
Well, no, not really. Such comments refer to the more fanatic of the Muslims (not “Arabs”) in that area as only about ten or fifteen percent of them can destroy any democratic movement trying to get off the ground or already in place but still too new to be entrenched.
Funny, those who claim to not have any racist bones in their bodies (so-called progressives) have been loudest about saying that democracy is not for that area – that is, until the so-called Arab Spring after which they lost their heads and began unrealistic cheering over free and democratic movements that were either soon crushed by the minority or will be before long.
In this country, we had young people who were murdered in the South while trying to register people to vote in the 1960s. In Iraq c.2005, Michael Moore praised the murderers of young Iraqis who were trying to register people to vote, calling them the “real patriots” of Iraq.
What a piece of garbage.
Bob Tiernan
Paulie:
Wish I didn’t have to wake up in far too few hours and go get signatures so I could prove you incorrect…
Me:
I.e, you can’t.
ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz…….
Bob T
Quite the opposite. Wish I didn’t have to wake up in far too few hours and go get signatures so I could prove you incorrect, but I do. I should have already been sleeping at least a couple of hours ago.
Jill @ 28:
I think it’s equally moronic to that that zero acts of war can be attributed to clever plans. There’s been a definite pattern in the middle east conflicts over the last ten year at least. It’s right to question everything in my opinion.
Bob T:
Sure, the US has gotten involved in a number of Mideast conflicts when it shouldn’t have, but it doesn’t need to work on schemes like having an ambassador to Iraq tell Saddam that we have no interest in how they settle a border dispute over slant drilling so that Saddam will take that as a “green light” and invade and annex a whole country.
The Afghan pipeline plan was another lulu that flipped 180 degrees after 9/11 in order for conspiracy nuts to still have their way. You see, they were complaining that we wanted the pipeline so badly that we were ignoring the Taliban’s human rights violations. Then 9/11 happened and boom! , we were going in, and same nutz said that oh it’s the pipeline! We’re doin’ it because of the pipeline! But wait! I thought we were getting it with the Taliban in there!, and now we’re getting it only because we’ve booted them out! So which izzit? Flexible conspiracies for sure.
Jill:
A mild observation: Since when did being evil have anything to do with smart? They’re two separate things.
Bob T:
Of course they are, but the issue here is that I see no signs that our leaders and their aides are smart enough to work out something like the alleged April Glaspie “goof” on purpose. We simply had no reason to have much of an opinion one way or the other how Iraq and Kuwait dealt with figuring out the exact location of the border so that alleged slant drilling could be dealt with. Why should we have?
Bob T
BT @ 25: ” it’s moronic to believe that all acts of
war can be attributed to clever plans by
people who are otherwise not very bright”.
I think it’s equally moronic to think that zero acts of war can be attributed to clever plans. There’s been a definite pattern in the middle east conflicts over the last ten years at least. It’s right to question everything, in my opinion.
A mild observation: Since when did being evil have anything to do with smart? They’re two separate things.
And sometimes it’s Bill Clinton’s cigar.
Some of the ways their plans have turned out have indeed not been too bright, but that doesn’t mean that they do not scheme – the do, all the time.
Paulie @ 22:
So much distortion, so little time
Bob T:
The distortion is believing that the US
cleverly signalled that it was okay for
Saddam to invade, wipe out, and annex
an entire independent nation over a
slant drilling accusation, or that the
US trained and created a fanatic
Islamic group that had already existed
and which ended up as a very small
non-entity afterwards, until its own
number two reinvigorated it.
You don’t have a “too little time” problem, but
a too little facts problem.
Bob T
Paulie @ 22:
So much distortion, so little time. I wish I could get into this with you; and the whole “left” stuff is precious, too. As if whatever styles itself as the left these days has a monopoly on a foreign policy position which many libertarians and antiwar conservatives also hold.
Bob T:
Being anti-war or anti-aggression is one thing,
but it’s moronic to believe that all acts of
war can be attributed to clever plans by
people who are otherwise not very bright.
Most of the people who spout this stuff are
left of center, which is why I cite them. Yes,
I even know some right-wingers who think
that the WTC attack was planned by the
US government (planned, not just “allowed
to happen:). They’re just as moronic and
silly.
Like Freud said, sometimes a cigar is just
a cigar.
Bob T
How about DT? Preferably while locked in a closet together so they devote each other 100% of each other’s time and not disrupt anyone else at all.
Maybe Mr. Tiernan has been listening to too many talk show hosts. The “left-wing conspiracy” stuff is amusing. But I have the same problem as Paulie–not a lot of time this weekend. So, someone else will have to continue the discussion with BT.
So much distortion, so little time. I wish I could get into this with you; and the whole “left” stuff is precious, too. As if whatever styles itself as the left these days has a monopoly on a foreign policy position which many libertarians and antiwar conservatives also hold.
Deran @ 14
“The CIA role in Afghanistan in the 1980s caused the blowback that lead [led!] to the attacks on Sept 11, 2001.”
Bob T:
That’s crap, too. The Soviets are the ones who made that country a shitty mess and why it’s still a shitty mess, yet where’s the “blowback” on them? (Muslim attacks that involve former USSR states don’t count). It’s because
the USSR was and isn’t a cultural/economic threat like the west is (as Islamists see it).
That the US didn’t “stay” (we had little real presence there) and therefore gets the blame for walking away and leaving a mess is hardly an accurate story. But the Left likes it, and Chumsky and Parenti and Zinn and other fools made or make money giving talks about this to dumb little college kids.
By the way, interesting, isn’t it, that these same
critics who say we should have stayed after the
Soviets left have been saying since 2002 that
we should have left as soon as the Taliban were
removed from power after 9/11. So which is it?
Just oppose leaving when we “leave”, and oppose
staying when we actually did stay?
Oh, one more myth. The “US created the Taliban” myth. Sorry, but the Taliban was created by the Pakistanis because the Pakis needed to end most of the instability to their west so they could concentrate on watching
their alleged number one enemy on their other side, i.e. India.
Bob T
Oranje Mike @ 13
“Do you deny that the Federal Government of the United States funded and trained Bin Laden?”
Bob T:
Yes.
Quit repeating Leftwing conspiracy shit. The world doesn’t exactly operate the way morons like Zinn and Chumsky want you to see it.
Bob T
Paulie @ 10
“Myth?”
Bob T:
Yup. Just because a lot of idiots keep repeating this blather doesn’t make them true. Let’s look at these two.
“CIA created Al Qaeda” — During the Afghan resistance to the USSR, the Saudis bankrolled and influenced those in the south which included
“foreigners” like bin Laden and his followers, while the US bankrolled and supported those in the north (the Northern Alliance) who controlled
quite a large area – so much for the idea that the Taliban had managed
to control the whole country.
The group with bin Laden was never large, and even the Afghans thought little of them (during some Soviet airforce attacks on positions, the
Afghanis would see the bin Laden followers jumping about, hoping to be “martyred” by the Soviets while making little or no effort to
bring down any planes like the Afghans were.
Al Qaeda did not exist yet as we know it now, and was one of two similar groups, the other being Zwahiri’. When the Soviets withdrew and the resistance ended, bin Laden’s group got so small that it probably equaled a squad, and bin Laden went to Sudan where he didn’t do much and wondered whether or not he had any future
with such a movement. Zwahiri is the one who save it, merging his own with bin Laden’s own handful, and giving it a purpose, however twisted. The fatwah of 1998 or so soon followed. But America had nothing to do with this, and hardly “trained” them, either. In one incident, a CIA operative arrived in the southern area (with the help of the Saudis) in order to arrange for the delivery of some Stinger missiles. A tall member of the group (bin Laden) was seen keeping his
distance and the CIA op was told to stay away from him because he hated Americans. So much for that.
I suggest you read a good book about this such
as “The Looming Tower”, by Lawrence Wright.
Now on to the “US caused the Iraq annexation of Kuwait”.
Iraq was having a “border dispute” with Kuwait regarding the exact location of the border which was essentially an invisible line in the desert, save for portions near proper border crossings and any other spots where any of the population lived on built up areas near the border.
This lack of certainty may have given the Kuwaitis the opportunity to do some slant drilling, or so the Iraqis claimed. Maybe they did, and maybe they didn’t.
Saddam wanted the USA to back him up regarding his opinion of where the exact borderline existed and thus allow him to do something about having his oil sucked out from under him by the Kuwaitis, if that’s what the Kuwaitis were doing. The ambassador to Iraq
(or the asst, I can’t remember exactly), April Glaspie, in the famous interview, said that the US was not interested in taking sides in the border dispute. The moron Left has taken that one and has claimed that it was the US government’s way of inviting Saddam to do what he did so that, I guess, we could attack him.
Well, the Left seems to think that the solution to
dealing with unwanted slant drilling was to occupy a whole nation and annexing it so it doesn’t exist any longer. Did Saddam consider sending a military force across the border in order to destroy the drilling equipment, after which he could have left and warned that he’d do it again? No, he wiped out Kuwait, and the crappy Left said that Kuwait “wasn’t a real country anyway”. This from people who for decades have been trying to have yet
another new nation drawn on a map by, in part,
westerners (i.e. Palestine).
But anyway, sorry, but the US State Dep’t did not “set up” the invasion and annexation of a whole country by its refusal to take sides in a little dispute about slant drilling and the exact location of a line in
the desert.
Bob T.
I do not doubt that as the old song says, “People everywhere just want to be free” (or at least some of them do).
What I don’t understand is why people think replacing one dictator with another (or even with the tyranny of the majority) will lead to such freedom.
Being able to choose a new master does not make one any less of a slave.
… but the Israeli air attacks were actual foreign intervention in Syria, and I don’t read John Jay Myers being outraged abt that.
Is John J Myers a resident or citizen of Israel? Why would he express indignation or concern over what some third world country does when commenting on US intervention?
PEACE
Bulgaria wants a restoration of King Simeon III and Brazil wants to restore the Emperor. 😉
What abt the protests in Turkey? Are those a CIA plot too? Because the would be tyrant, Erdogan is leading the charge against Syria, which is supposedly a CIA op. How does this get explained based on Mr. Myers’ hypothesis abt Syria? And Bulgaria and Brazil, are those mass protests a CIA plot as well?
I know the CIA has overthrown governments and carried out ops that changed the course of history. But, again, that does not diminish the authentic desires of any people to be free. Does it?
@13 The CIA’s role in training the anti-Soviet mujahadin is not the CIA operating al-Qaeda. The CIA role in Afghanistan in the 1980s caused the blowback that lead to the attacks on Sept 11, 2001. The CIA was not involved in Sept 11.
Whether or not the CIA or USA was involved in someway with the resulting overthrow of Mubarak and Qaddafi does not mean that the peoples of Egypt and Libya were not seeking democracy and justice and freedom. Mubarak and Qaddafi, like Assad, were/are Cold War relics and the peoples of those countries were sick and tired of those tyrants.
I think there is confusion between the CIA/US self interest and the self interest of the people of any one country. Those people do have authentic real self interests, and they are not incapable of wanting a better world for themselves and theirs.
I am not doubting foreign intelligence services are trying to bend events in Syria to their will. That does not detract from the authenticity of the desires of those people for freedom and democracy. It just doesn’t, no matter how deep into conspriciology one wants delve.
It seems sort of racist to suggest that Arabs don’t want freedom and democracy. It also seems sort of convenient if one is wanting to promote Israel as the sole democratic nation in the Middle East.
Speaking of Israel. Didn’t the Israeli air force carry out to actual attacks on Syria? Isn’t that a problem too? I’m not opposed to making sure Hizbullah doesn’t get more heavy weapons, but the Israeli air attacks were actual foreign intervention in Syria, and I don’t read John Jay Myers being outraged abt that.
#9, Do you deny that the Federal Government of the United States funded and trained Bin Laden?
@11 That’s just crazy talk.
🙂
Speaking of conspiracy theories, one of the most outrageous is that the United States government is recording eveything we say and write…I guess I need a new tin foil hat.
Myth?
Oranje Mike @6:
The CIA screwed the pooch when they decided to topple the secular tyrants in the Arab world and North Africa without accounting for the jihadists that would rise against them and us at the same time.
Bob T:
There’s a difference between the CIA “toppling” someone on its own and when the “toppling” occurs because a US president wants it to happen by either staying out (Egypt) or pitching in (Libya). It’s also silly to consider a case like that of Mubarek to be attributed to US policy of not helping him stay in power. He was toppled because of what Egyptians were doing. Heck, you might as well blame Argentina or Mexico for toppling him because they, too, didn’t help him stay in power.
This is just idiotic stuff from the same people who brought us the “CIA created Al Qaeda” myth and the “US caused the Iraq annexation of Kuwait” myth.
Bob Tiernan
Besides, now that America has attained total freedom, and a complete economic recovery, and has become the greatest nation that has ever existed by being number one in every area of existence, would it be wrong if we became involved around the world to bring about the perfection in other nations that we have achieved here?
The National Endowment for Democracy does not exist and is nothing but a conspiracy theory advanced by the Blame-America-First crowd.
But, if it did actually exist and included the International Republican Institute (run by the GOP) and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (run by Dems), funded by the federal government, and these alleged organizations went around the world funding groups who opposed regimes not favored by the U.S., it would also be a conspiracy theory. We all know such a thing couldn’t possibly happen.
And, even if it could happen, it would be a conspiracy theory if anyone suggested that these organizations that couldn’t possibly exist would involve themselves in regime change operations in places like Libya, Syria and former Soviet Union states.
The very idea that some are advancing that the U.S. would give military aid to radical Islamic militants in places like Syria is patently absurd and nothing more than a conspiracy theory, right?
#2, You claim the United States should not intervene and then claim the “revolutionaries” have turned to Al-Qaeda because they have no choice.
Should we arm them or not? You can’t play both sides.
The CIA screwed the pooch when they decided to topple the secular tyrants in the Arab world and North Africa without accounting for the jihadists that would rise against them and us at the same time.
Or perhaps that was their plan all along. Destabilize the region and make an excuse to wage war on Iran down the pike.
Deran @ 2:
Noninterventionism does not mean we can not be in solidarity with the democratic aspirations of the Syrians.
Bob T:
That should read “…with the democratic aspirations of SOME Syrians”.
Revolutions in these countries will belong
to the most vicious of those involved as
they will destroy and drive away those
capable of making something good out
of the whole mess.
Oh, I do agree that Myers is too much into
conspiracy theory crap. In fact, almost
all of his article is crap of the “America
did it” variety.
Bob Tiernan
What Jill said.
And the real kicker is that Myers is essentially taking the position of the stalinist Party of Socialism and Liberation. Ironic.
This is grotesque.
To condem the democratic and freedom aspirations of the Syrian people as just flunkies of the US CIA is so very stupid. Two years ago there was no civil war, there were nonviolent, nonsectarian mass protests calling for an end to the Cold War relic Assad regime, and for democracy and liberty.
But Putin, the Butcher of Grozny and the Beijing Butchers of Tiananmen Square propped up Assad and he used military weapons against the peaceful protestors.
Now, because of the Russians and Chinese, what was a peaceful democratic movement has become a civil war, and jihadists have become a real threat to the democratic aspirations of the Syrian peoples.
I am opposed to any US or any foreign military intervention. At the same time, I can only think of the Spanish Civil War, where the anti-fascists were defeated in no small part because of a supposed arms embargo on both sides of that civil war. Which Hitler and Mussolini quickly broke and armed Franco. The anti-fascists ended up looking to Stalin for help, he took their gold reserve and gave them a few rifles, and they were defeated.
From the beginning of the Syrian protests the opposition administered areas of Syria via locally created Local Coordination Committees, a decentralized democratic network. Now the jihadists and the foreign intelligence agencies have moved in and the Syrian revo has become a mess.
Mr. Meyers is obsessed with conspiracies and has no idea what is the history of the Syrian democratic revo. Noninterventionism does not mean we can not be in solidarity with the democratic aspirations of the Syrians.
I miss Mr. Myers. I wish he’d vist us here again.