Levin ? Didn’t he used to be a Democrat ?

This is laughable… deja vu all over again

Wow! How disconcerting that someone besides us would stoop so low as to use such diabolical weapons.

http://harpers.org/archive/2013/03/a-letter-to-paul-wolfowitz/?single=1

For you, to help you understand. Just read it.

Wolfowitz.

I’m sure that Asad used chemical weapons on his own military, and also that terrorist in employ of U.S. never posted online video killing bunnies with poison gas.

All based on an Israeli allegation, mere days after getting their political house in order, forming a new government, and Obomber’s visit. Not suspicious at all.

It would be sort of sickly ironic if the CW actually turned out to be something like phosphorus or tear gas that is perfectly fine to use on Palestinian schools and the like. /s

I think I saw this movie around the years ago. So where is Colin Powell to tell us about them weapons of mass,destruction? I like the mushroom cloud image best.

Lets look on the bright side. If we play this right we can send in fifty thousand troops and spur defense spending. Great stimulus. Also too we will be treated as liberators. Great!!

Levin? I guess each Pres has to have his own folks carry the message. Maybe Hagel is not up to it. But we always got Johnny Boy and Lindsey the Tough. Pretty sure they will pitch in.

We’re in trouble if they get their hands on depleted uranium ha ha .

Surprising ? From the guy that uses snot/ spit over hair gel or am i mixing him up with another of these nuts ?

Cartalucci on the subject.

It’s my fave picture of Wolfie. Can’t miss an opportunity to link to it.

There’s a deep cultural meaning. Wolfie didn’t bother to be informed enough about Islam to know that shoes are not allowed inside mosques.

Barack W. Bushama

Cue up The Who: “meet the new boss, same as the old boss”

Obama works from the old Neocon play book: regime change

1. Iraq – FAILED
2. Afghanistan – Failing
3. Iran – Pending
4. Syria – on Deck
5. Lebanon – For nostalgia’s sake
6. Somalia – simmering on low boil
7. Sudan – inert but since we’re already over there…

Add Kenya, Eritrea, Mali, Mindanao into the jumble

Keep doing Israel and the Oiligarchy’s heavy lifting. What the fock does Obama care. It’s not like his daughters or his Puppetmasters’ kids will ever be cannon fodder.

We don’t have jobs for the millenials anyway. might as well put them to good use. We can’t jail everyone out of work to keep the unemployment level below 8%

My niece got a degree, 30k in student loans, can’t find a job. she joined the army last month. Lovely

Can’t wait to watch the final and utter debasement of that millionaire loser John “Lurch” Kerry when he stands before the UN Security Council with his maps and pointer, taking about imminent whatever’s

Brotherhood of Syrian War Veterans, Est. 2013

WHo among us didn;t see THAT oine coming???

Beat those drums.

I don’t understand why NATO doesn’t just bomb the shit out of Syria. They didn’t bother to make up any stories about Libya, just did it.

On the President visiting Isreal: when Benjamin screams in his best Big, Angry, Daddy Voice; ” If not now, When?!!! ” Just how high will Barack jump? I’m betting he can still get at least a foot off the ground. Do you think he can get both of them off the ground?

I wonder if the poison gas canisters still have U.S. bar codes.

I don’t know what the hell is going on but having Israel run our Middle East policy is frightening. They’ve been bombing Syria, who’s to say it wasn’t them? You know, the one that smelt it dealt it. I don’t trust anything Israel says. They are itching to invade someone and they don’t give a shit who. Because even if Syria didn’t use chemical weapons it still needs to be done you know. We have to take out the bad Assad. No one ever says that about Bibi, and he is truly awful.

I would hope they at least got them off there. But who knows with these idiots.

I’d do regime change in the U.S. first, only there’s no one to change it to.

If you read the Cartaluccci linked above, the poison gas came from Libya’s stock, along with U.S. terrorist friends & weapons.

Now you understand why Libya had to be done first. Otherwise where would all the resources come from to do Syria.

However, no telling where Gaddafi got his stuff. He’s been enemy, friend, enemy friend. Some must have come from U.S.

I know you’re no fan of the gold standard. Nor are the MOTU who are happy controlling the USD money supply.

But Qaddafi liked his gold. And his oil.

And while Syria has some oil, I believe it’s reserves are considered limited / costly… and I’ve never heard of significant stocks of gold or other commodities.

My guess is that it’s the usual difference. Who has the natural resources?

And it is interesting to watch MSNBC slamming Bush for Iraq, while effectively promoting war with Iran.

Libya had a huge water system to tap the underground aquifer, one of the largest in the world.

Gadaffi’s sin was that he developed his own resources without “help” from the west.

Haven’t seen whether Evian or Perrier has taken over water system yet.

Syria has had some recently discovered, as yet untapped, HC fields. Not going to find a link, but you can do a search.

But it’s not all about resources. Another mainstay of Israeli-U.S. ME policy is to break states up into warlordism, fighting each other so Israel can maintain its status as regional hegemon.

Breakup or regime change of nationalistic states came first. GladioA, like Nasser. Gaddafi & Syria are still part of that plan.

Now U.S./NATO moving into GladioB, smashing states wh have high probability of sectarian violence forever. Yugoslavia was wet test for that.

Your analysis is historically accurate and very interesting. However, Iran will not be ” destabilized ” in the manner of Iraq, Syria or Libya. Will bunker buster diplomacy be the only option?

as yet untapped, HC fields

doesn’t surprise me. Most places probably have some HC. As you probably know, we’re not about to hit “peak oil” in the sense that we run out of HC. The issue is “peak oil” at a particular cost.

The more deep and less dense the HC, the more costly to extract.

I agree that the central issue is a desire for power. And both natural resources and “others fighting others” can be extremely helpful in maintaining or increasing power.

The thing that boggles my mind is how Bill Kristol, McCain and Lindsay can get so worked up over Iran when… it’s among the most stable governments in the middle east, if not the world.

They’ve had a functioning government since 1979. How many governments have functioned since 1979? It seems to me that many (if not most) governments have not existed for that long. And by most accounts, the gov’t appears to maintain its stability with Ahmadinejad likely leaving office this year… but the government poised to continue.

So we should bomb Iran, while we’re cool with Pakistan having nukes?

Peak oil was invented by oil corps to get prices up, owing to fear.

I’ve read 2 versions of it, one in The Prize (I think that’s where I saw it) where Rock went thru that rumor in the 1860s, or was it 1840s, I forget.

The other place was in Palast who dated it to the 1950s.

Peak oil can’t be revived too often. /s

I’m not even convinced that cost is the problem it’s made out to be. Palast put a $50/bbl cost in Venezuelan crude bc it is so high in sulfur, or dense, or something, it needs special treatment.

HCs located in remote places like Caspian or Siberian, or Stans, need pipeline infrastructure. However, such infrastructure costs a lot less than U.S. is spending on military. For example, the portion of the pipeline betw Iran and Pakistan is estimated to cost $10 billion, a drop in the bucket in today’s terms.

the most stable governments in the middle east

That is precisely U.S./Israel problem.

This eCahn guy is a pretty smart cat so I’ll go with what he says. I’d just add this note that my ME ex-soldiers opinion is that Iran will take out it’s frustrations on Saudi Arabia and some other places if Israel/US take the gloves off, so to speak.

Perhaps a problem for the USG, not necessarily the US. :)

And others see it too. I visited Slovenia in 1999 or so. US bombing was mentioned and, at least among the people who spoke English, it was made clear to me that the anger was targeted toward Clinton… and Slovenians noted that a typical American (me) was not necessarily represented by the USG.

I was thankful that people understood the difference.

eCahn = guy ?

I’m not so sure… :)

tho I believe eCahn may life the “cat” reference…

I think it’s a distraction from the tenth anniversary of Bush and Blair’s war crime commencement.

Oustide of Democracy now, this is all that’s on the news today.

The media are like a flock of caged turkeys. They are so stupid, it’s astounding.

I forget where I saw it today, but I saw the beginning of the supposed leaked HRC / Sid Blumenthal emails.

Interesting point in the emails… it asserted that Saudi was funding the ME upheaval (i.e. Benghazi compound, Algeria gas plant, etc.)

I have no idea if the emails are real. But it will be interesting to hear HRCs response when she gets put on the record.

And even if the emails are real, they were presumably speculative in nature.

Nonetheless, if there’s real evidence linking Saudi financing to American deaths… there will probably be fallout of some sort.

Senior woman for future ref. :-)

Thanks.

I refer to both men and women as guys and dudes. On the terms of endearment scale, it’s meant as a compliment. Probably came from a mix of the sun and sand on the beach in SoCal. All those bohemians, ya know, dude.

One word: Russia

Russia has its only Mediterranean naval base in Syria, in the port city of Tartus.

Russian exports to Syria in 2012 alone amounted to more than a billion dollars. Its investments in the nation amounted to nearly $20 billion in 2009.

Russia is one of the major exporters of arms to Syria. Current contracts amount for more than $4 billion worth of arms deals to the Syrians. The price of owning the base in Tartus wasn’t cheap, and involved Russia canceling billions of dollars worth of debt incurred by Syria during the Soviet era. Nearly all of Syria’s jet fighters, helicopters, and missile systems are Soviet or Russian made.

Business Insider

Russian military advisers are manning some of Syria’s more sophisticated air defences – something that would complicate any future US-led intervention, the Guardian has learned.

The advisers have been deployed with new surface-to-air systems and upgrades of old systems, which Moscow has supplied to the Assad regime since the Syrian revolution broke out 21 months ago.

Guardian

understood and I’m the same way. :)

I hate cyberleaks. You can’t know if they’re faked, planted, real, a mixture of all of the above and other issues I haven’t thought of.

Similar to every protest movement that has been infiltrated, bought off, or otherwise compromised.

Only it’s easier to do in the virtual world.

I’d forgotten that. I used to know it a week or two ago. Thanks for the reminder.

I’m not sure what Russia would do. Putin and Lavrov are being cagey. An improvement over Medvedev, who said: roll all over me.

But if it came to outright bombing, I’m not convinced Russia would do anything, as long as their base is not attacked.

I know that Syria has more complicated air defense system, but carpet bombing could overcome that.

There was also this from the Guardian link, talking about the stepped up air defense system put in place after Israel attacked them a few years ago

Such a dense, layered and overlapping air-defence system would require a huge air campaign, heavily reliant on thousands of precision-guided missiles. The UK, France and other American allies in Europe used up their stocks of such weapons in Libya and although details are classified there have been reports that they have not yet returned to pre-Libya levels.

“We know they pretty much ran out of them at the end of Libya. Given the budgetary constraints the Europeans are operating with, and in an era where every euro spent on defence is very heavily scrutinised, it is a hard sell to restock on this stuff,” Ben-Ari said. “And it would not be enough to be at Libya levels. You would need far more for Syria.”

Edit: This is supposed to be a reply to eCahn

It’s been awhile since I’ve thought about this that I really have lost track of the details. You’re absolutely right about bombing Syria would open up a two-front war for NATO.

Not to mention a 3-front war for France. Barely disguised colonialism in parts of western Africa makes that France’s sphere of influence, but Syria used to be France’s part of Sykes-Picot, so France maintains an interest, if not influence.

Recent talk is about a no-fly zone over Syria, but that runs into the same problems of actual bombing the country.

OffT: presstv reporting that Venezuela cut off all diplomatic ties with U.S. Haven’t seen that reported elsewhere, so subject to confirmation.

I thought they kicked the diplomats out the night Chavez died … maybe I’m confusing something else

And about Venezuelan oil, didn’t Chavez offer to keep their oil at $50 bbl, to ease the financial burden on the world economy. But it was contingent on the rest of the producing countries doing it as well … nobody took him up on the offer

If I remember the earlier story accurately, I think Venies kicked out 2 U.S.ians, then U.S. did likewise. I interpret the headline as meaning all U.S.ians getting kicked out.

I don’t know the price the Venies have been charging on oil. The $50 mentioned above is what I remember from Palast saying what would be a profitable, cost-covering price for Venezuelan oil, but don’t know if that’s what they’re actually charging all customers.

After Chavez died, I did a fair amounting of slumming in internet to see what I could find about U.S. weaponizing cancer. Apparently, if you can believe what you read on internet and what is written in a book, the U.S. did it in the 1960s as one of their assassination attempts on Castro. Whole thing, if true, is riveting story.

RT decided to publish them all.

Something about the SV-40 virus, right? All that stuff is over my head. Have you read the book yet?

Can’t remember exactly, but there was something else X-Filesish about that discussion that I found and didn’t link to. But remember about 6 or 7 years ago there was a spate of suspicious bio-medical engineer’s deaths? Genetic engineers, maybe? It turns out that at least a few of the suspicious deaths involved researchers from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Maybe it’s a stretch, but Howard Hughes had definite links to the CIA, and there just happened to be suspicious deaths involving a medical research facility with links to him

Maybe something, maybe nothing …

Interestng options……. although I am far from the intellectual that most of my colleagues are here, a NATO “no fly zone”, similar to the one used in Libya, seems to be the most likely first action. NO reason to put tropps on the ground right now.

What say ye????

Yes, SV-40 virus.

No, I haven’t read the book, but I will in due course.

This research took place in NoLa, mostly at Tulane, but some of it in a RA’s house. Lee Harvey Oswald was minder/bodyguard for RA. It gets more intriguing than that.

I decided that my null hypothesis is that U.S. has weaponized cancer and used it on Chavez. Not wedded to that & will change my mind if it’s bogus.

Virus would be more virulent in 2013 than in 1960s. About 6 Latin American leaders U.S. doesn’t like have cancer.

The one developed in the 1960s went after soft tissue.

Also, most mammals aren’t subject to this virus, wh is why you have to use monkeys. Something about putting rhesus monkey from Africa in same cage as South American monkeys, as apparently monkeys for experimental usage were hard to come by.

You guessed it, speculation about HIV/AIDS.

No fly zone requires NATO planes to fly over Syria to enforce it, and Syria has robust enough air defense system to shoot them down.

Dealing with power obsessed crazies on U.S. side, so can’t rule out any action.

BTW, U.S. weaponization of cancer is only one of the projects I’ve worked on since I last thought about Syria, were another one or two. Plus listened to Yale online course on Hebrew Bible, as a break.

Those are my excuses for being rusty on the Syrian material. :-)

presstv now says one more U.S. diplo kicked out over remarks about “hoping Venezuela elections will be free & fair.” Still not sure they have the story straight.

Read that Venezuela elections are among the best. Apparently they use paper audit of e-voting machines. Govt has programs for encouraging grass roots groups for wider participation in local as well as national govt, in addition to voting in elections. I think they get high voter turnout, and intl observers have given the voting process good grades.

Sorry for the absence. But, didn’t we take out the Libyan anti-aircraft capabilities first. I don’t think that disabling the Syrian air defenses would be a big problem for united NATO forces.

I don’t know. You could do a search & find out for yourself.

Jack Ruby claimed he was injected with cancer when he appealed to Earl Warren to get him out if Dallas and bring him to DC so he could tell his story