Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) notes: "One tendency in the corporate media seemed to be to jump to the conclusion that the chemical attacks were launched by the Assad regime, while admitting that perhaps this was not yet proven." Suggestions that the "rebel forces" used sarin gas have not been proven either.
As the bombs and missiles are readied for use against preselected targets, we have Secretary of State Kerry, a one time anti-war activist, formerly a leader of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, is leading the rhetorical charge for war.
The often-hawkish Washington Post reported, "Secretary of State John F. Kerry says President Obama is determined to hold Syria accountable for using chemical weapons and will decide soon how to respond. Kerry called Syria's actions "a moral obscenity." On Friday, he said he has "high confidence" that Assad "s regime is responsible. That sounds like faith-based reasoning since the actual facts cited were thin.
This is a unilateral determination on the part of the United States, to rush to war, even as UN inspectors who were in Syria, have yet to report the findings of their investigation. They are expected to confirm chemical weapons were used without saying who used them. UN Secretary General Ban is calling for a resumption of diplomacy and to let the inspectors finish their jobs
The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, citing their government's intelligence services, insist that the Syrian government has been using chemical weapons all along, and speculates that there was some internal military screw-up in Syria that led to the recent mass gassing incident that was clearly not in its interest to be associated with.
Syria officially denies all responsibility, and, in the last day called on the UN to probe what they say are gas attacks by rebel forces. They accuse the Saudis of supplying chemical weapons to the militias they back.
As UN Secretary General calls on the US to take a diplomatic route, the reverberations of the British Parliament nixing U.K. involvement, widely seen as a "set back" to Prime Minister David Cameron's government, is cited in the U.S. debate. Former British PM Tony Blair's "dodgy" (i.e. misleading) dossier" justifying British backing of the Iraq War was widely referenced in the debate.
France's
former conservative government was among the biggest critics of US policy then,
but now, under a nominal Socialist
government, is backing Obama's decision to go ahead with a bombing raid that experts
say is expecting to be targeting 38 sites,
Others say that the West's rush to war is intended to pre-empt any finding of responsibility by Syrian "rebels," and, also, to try to alter the strategic balance of the internal military conflict that had running against the "rebel" offensive fighting the Assad government.
The United States initially called the UN involvement "too late," a clear effort to pre-empt its relevance and ignore its findings.
This conjures up George Bush giving Saddam and his sons an ultimatum to leave Iraq in 48 hours. When the UN does not jump to Washington's orders, it often become dispensable and ignored.
"Too late" on what calendars? The UN inspectors were fired upon before they could even get into position in rebel held territory.
Who
did it? Was the Syrian government that
invited them the culprits, or, more likely, the self-styled "rebels. Who
would have the most to gain by delaying
an investigation? The "rebels," said to include 6000
jihadis from Al Qaeda and like-minded groups that would certainly have more of
an interest in the keeping the question of responsibility muddled.
The chemical warfare controversy mushroomed just as US backed "rebels," trained in Jordan, were being infiltrated into Syria. This calls into question President Obama's claim that the missile attack he has authorized does not have any "regime-change" mission.
The US outrage over the use of chemical weapons is also selective and being questioned. Foreign Policy Magazine reported that the CIA now admits the the US was complicit when Saddam Hussein used nerve gas:
"The U.S. government may be considering military action in response to chemical strikes near Damascus. But a generation ago, America's military and intelligence communities knew about and did nothing to stop a series of nerve gas attacks far more devastating than anything Syria has seen, Foreign Policy has learned."
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