Personally, I avoid talking to people who haven’t learned anything from the last mess. But liberals will always bend over backward to be “fair,” thus providing protective cover to the war machine:
There are four pieces of information that all left groups have a duty to report about Syria, but they have either ignored or minimized:
1) Obama presented zero evidence to back up his main justification for war: that the Syrian Government used chemical weapons against civilians.
2) A top UN investigator, Carla Del Ponte, blamed a previous chemical weapons attack on the U.S.-backed rebels.
3) Any attack on Syria, no matter how “limited,” has a high risk of expanding into neighboring countries if Syria exercises its right as a sovereign nation to defend itself.
4) A war against Syria will be a violation of international law, since it is not approved by the UN, and therefore will make President Obama a war criminal.
There has been a broad spectrum of leftist failure to address these issues and condemn Obama’s war, ranging from those who take an overtly pro-war position to those who use anti-war slogans that are stained with pro-war justifications. A consistent “Hands Off Syria” message was hard to find.
The most guilty parties who have aided and assisted Obama’s expected war plans will have blood-stained hands after the bombing begins. Perhaps the best example of this coterie is Van Jones, the former adviser to Obama who founded the Rebuild The Dream organization. On CNN, Jones announced his new appetite for foreign war:
“I think we need to stand behind this president and send a clear message to Assad that this type behavior is not acceptable.”
Many liberals took Jones’ “stand by our president” approach, even if it wasn’t stated as directly as Jones did, and even after “our president” was unable to present any sensible reason for waging another aggressive war in the Middle East.
A notch lower on the leftist spectrum of Syria war guilt is MoveOn.org, which has done everything in their power not to portray President Obama’s actions in their true light. But MoveOn had to take a more creative approach to covering up for Obama in Syria.
MoveOn organized a “teach-in” that was streamed on their website. The panel of speakers — with one exception — presented Obama’s position in a very evenhanded, “objective” way, presenting the president as an entirely reasonable person for wanting to bomb Syria, even if it might not be the best way to deal with the situation.
Instead of pointing out the flagrant similarities between Obama’s Syria war rationale and George Bush’s Iraq War lies, these similarities were papered over, thus legitimizing Obama’s criminal actions.
The worst Obama apologist on the panel was Matt Duss from the Center for American Progress, who explained that, although he was against a war on Syria, he “respects” that “other progressives of good faith may come to a different view.”
Since this was written, Van Jones has come out against bombing Syria. Good.
Obama is already a war criminal by the same standard he annunciates for Assad. This merely makes him a serial offender.
When discussing Obama’s decision to ask Congress to vote on authorization for attacking Syria, Brian Lehrer on WNYC this morning was nearly giddy with delight that Obama had decided to include the “will of the people.” at a least a bit. He realized Obama might just go ahead anyway if he loses this vote, since Obama believes he has the right and power to just do War.
Not one mention was made of checking on the validity of the “evidence” of offer from Obama and Kerry. WOW.
How can we no not have learned from the Iraq illegal invasion? The PTB’s have sure as hell learned that they can now just lie with impunity to the public, mislead, skip any inconvenient facts, etc. and GET AWAY WITH IT.
Assad must be punished for the chem attack, whether he ordered them or not, whether Syrian forces committed the acts or the rebels did! Because our government wants REGIME CHANGE, no matter what.
I am sick to my stomach. I can sense the Congress already doing the “must support the Commander in Chief no matter what thing”.
Help!
Quite frankly I believe that both the Rebels and Assad have used chemical weapons. In attacks back in March the weapons were reported to be serin using less sophisticated delivery and lacked stabilizers used for long term storage. Some weapons in other attacks had organophosphates, basically which can be extracted from insecticides. With the latest inspection, it is believed the weapons were more sophisticated and used serin.
All parties are holding their “intelligence” and it just points to guilt either way.
I have a problem with the word definitions and the semantics here. I do not believe true liberals support this run up to God- knows- what- attack on Syria. Just because somebody is a Democrat, or supports election of Democrats does not mean that they are “liberal”.
The great majority of Democrats in power are corporate-loving New Democrats or Blue Dogs. They are not liberals.
Which is why I couldn’t care less anymore if any Democrat anywhere wins anything. Which is why I “unsubscribed” for any junk e-mails coming in from MoveOn.
The sad thing is that the one truly bipartisan thing we can count on is that all members of the Big Executive Big Corporate- Loving Unity Perpetual War Party will vote to say “Hell Yes, Bombs Away, Anytime, Anyplace”.
This is like the Spanish Civil War – there is no “good side”