Scrooge Sends Season's Greetings From Syria
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Estimated Reading Time: Longer than Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer but shorter than The Little Drummer Boy
Since it is the holiday season, I thought now would be a good time to try a different approach to my writing and actually say something nice for once. I know, I know, it is as big a shock to me as it is to you, but sometimes at Christmas there is a wondrous magic in the air that allows people to have their hearts opened and their perspectives changed…just ask Ebeneezer Scrooge (a role I once played…PHENOMENALLY…on stage!!).
In my case, I thought it would be a good time to give credit where credit is due for people who I usually chastise but who have recently done something good and honorable. The catalyst for my change of heart regarding these folks isn’t Scrooge, but Syria.
First on the list is everybody’s least favorite carnival barker, sideshow clown and general asshat Donald Trump. I loathe Trump with the intensity of a thousand suns and have for decades, but like a toddler, when he does something good, he deserves my encouragement. Trump’s decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria is an excellent thing…a truly excellent thing.
My fear with Trump has always been that because he is such a needle-dicked, insecure bully and poseur, that he would start a war to bolster his flaccid virility and tenuous manhood. The fact that Trump is actually ending a war, or at least the U.S.’s involvement in one, is…and I can’t believe I am saying this…a courageous act.
Trump is going against the entire political and media establishment in America. The Military Industrial Complex, the Intelligence community and their lackeys and shills in the corporate media, and the Israeli lobby, do not take kindly to American militarism and imperialism in the Middle East being curtailed in any way. This is why I think Trump was brave to do this (we will see if he actually follows through) because he basically signed his death warrant or the death warrant of his presidency. The forces Trump is taking on with this Syria decision are not known for playing patty cake and they do not forgive or forget. When Kennedy reversed course on the war in Vietnam and shifted toward deescalation, he ended up with his brains all over Jackie’s nice Chanel suit, I would not be shocked if a similar fate awaited The Donald in one form or another. Robert Mueller might be laying in wait on his own grassy knoll as we speak with an indictment in his hands instead of a Mannlicher-Carcano. (Or don’t be surprised if one of the CIA’s friends in ISIS kills a bunch of people in America and Trump is blamed because he pulled out of Syria or as evidenced by Mnuchin’s signals to the big banks, that the propped up, phony, smoke and mirrors American economy has the rug pulled out from under it in order to knee cap Trump and Trumpism once and for all)
Of course, Trump could reverse course on his reversing course, or could start a war somewhere else that is bigger in scale, in a place like Iran, in order to appease the rabidly nefarious neo-con class, but for now, leaving Syria is a very good thing, and because of that I am saying…gulp…Thank you Mr. President.
There are a few other people that stand out for sticking to their convictions regarding Syria. Ted Lieu, the congressman from my neck of the woods, has been a vociferous attacker of Trump but he stood up for Trump’s Syria withdrawal. Republican Senator Rand Paul along with Democratic Representatives Ro Khanna and Tulsi Gabbard and Republican Justin Amash have all done the same. These people have shown themselves to be loyal to something higher than political party, they are loyal to their moral and ethical values and beliefs, and it is refreshing and encouraging to see politicians actually have principles and stand by them.
What is not so encouraging are the plethora of politicians on both sides of the aisle who are slavishly addicted to American militarism. Most disheartening are not just the pro-war Democratic politicians, but everyday liberals who are so hypocritically opposed to Trump’s withdrawal from Syria (including the usually reliable Michael Moore).
It is truly astonishing but these supposedly liberal people are angry at Trump for ending U.S. involvement in a war. Of course most of these dopes didn’t even know the U.S. was so heavily involved in Syria in the first place (the U.S. occupies 1/3rd of the country), but that doesn’t matter, all that matters is if Trump is for something that means it must be bad. This is how the game works now, and the establishment has used that emotionalist response to great effect to get people to go against their own interests.
Liberals are currently being played by the establishment class. Liberals hatred of Trump has blinded them to reality, has muddied their mind, soiled their soul and left them with a permanent case of political myopia. Hating Trump is not a belief system, it is not an ideology, it is not a governing philosophy…it is a moral, ethical, political and philosophical cancer…and it is eating at the heart, soul and mind of liberalism and our democracy as it distorts the judgement and reason of both the liberal and conservative populace.
Great examples of this are how liberals now adore the FBI and CIA. War criminals like John Brennan, Michael Hayden and James Clapper are held up as guardians of all that is good and pure. Robert Mueller and James Comey, two of the worst deep state operators, are held up as paragons of virtue. George W. Bush, who lied us into a war that killed millions, tortured thousands and surveilled millions across the globe, is being rehabilitated in the media and held up as a decent man because he gave Michelle Obama a piece of candy at church…what the fuck?. None of the crimes of these people, from their deceptions on Iraq, to their support and involvement in torture and illegal surveillance, are ever mentioned when they are spoken of in such hushed and reverential tones by know-nothing talking heads. (as an aside, the reason for this might be because St. Barrack Obama decided to look forward and not backward, thus becoming an accomplice to war crimes after the fact…thanks Obama!)
Bush cronies and Iraq war demagogues like Max Boot, David Frum, William Kristol and Richard Painter are regulars on America’s liberal network MSNBC, and their complicity in war crimes and their moral and ethical depravity are never mentioned. Nicolle Wallace, a former Bush administration official even has her own show on the “liberal” network.
These national security establishment shills in the media pout and preen like cheap tarts at a red light street when it comes to Trump and his “lawlessness”…but international and domestic laws are nothing but props for these people as evidenced by their embrace of torture, surveillance, the use of depleted uranium and white phosphorus by U.S. forces and their support for the war in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan and their unabashed adoration Israel and its illegal occupation of the Palestine.
The establishment, in an impressive bit of propaganda jiu jitsu, has used the fear of Trump to bolster their grip on the minds of Americans, most especially liberal Americans who should know better, or at least think they know better.
If only liberals would stop claiming to be “woke” and actually wake the fuck up and realize that the #Resistance is being co-opted by insidious and duplicitous neo-cons. Understand this, all of these newly politically active liberal anti-Trumpers out there are being indoctrinated and propagandized to worship the military/intelligence industrial complex, and that will be disastrous for the future of America and the world.
The allegedly liberal NBC and MSNBC have been the worst agents of disinformation and propaganda in this respect. Proven Intelligence Agency asset, NBC’s Ken Dilanian, has been breathlessly reporting how Trump is endangering America by leaving Syria and how the Pentagon is in shock and horror at the news. I wonder if the CIA proof read Dilanian’s work which is his standard operating procedure.
Another example of MSNBC’s madness has been the lather raving Russophobe and liberal charlatan Rachel “Mad Dog” Maddow has been in for days now, particularly when 5 star douchebag and ”confirmed life-long bachelor” (*wink-wink*) General “Mad Dog” Mattis, announced, no doubt with his signature lateral lisp, his resignation as Secretary of Defense over Trump’s Syria withdrawal.
MSNBC has had a cavalcade of “national security experts” on as well to assure liberals that leaving Syria now is the worst decision ever and jeopardizes American lives. It is amazing to me that we are supposed to listen to and believe these “national security experts” as they are the same geniuses who got us into Iraq, which went so well, and Yemen, where that is going so well, and Libya, where that went so well, and Syria, which is again…going so, so well. These are the same moral and ethical stalwarts that have allied us with the deplorable terrorists of the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia, which gave us 9-11, and the Nazi coup in Ukraine….both of which have gone so swimmingly.
These are the same “national security experts” who got us into Somalia in the 90’s, Nicaragua and El Salvador in the 80’s, South America in the 70’s and Vietnam in the 60’s…all of which worked out incredibly well too...right? RIGHT? Sadly, watching MSNBC has now turned into watching Soviet era state-tv or Fox News, where no voices in opposition to the war are ever allowed to be heard.
Watching the media’s hysteria in the wake of Trump’s Syria plan has been extremely enlightening and entirely disheartening. As far as I can tell, there have been no voices in the corporate media that have pointed out the most obvious fact about America’s involvement in Syria…namely that it is entirely illegal. Not only is it illegal under U.S. law, as congress has not approved the war, but it is also illegal under International law, as the U.S. is illegally occupying a third of Syria. The fact that the media instinctively supports any and all military action by the U.S., and only gets up in arms over a proposed withdrawal of troops, tells you all you need to know about who is pulling the strings on the information machine. U.S. military withdrawal from anywhere in the world, be it Japan, Germany, Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria, is entirely inconceivable to the corporate media, who are totally blind to their imperialism and militarism. Somewhere Noam Chomsky is nodding to himself saying, “I told you so, you stupid sons of bitches”
You know what else is never mentioned on NBC or anywhere else in the media? The Richard Engel scam that NBC participated in with anti-Assad forces (aka ISIS) when the reporter claimed he was kidnapped by Assad’s forces and then was saved by anti-Assad groups that killed his kidnappers. NBC hyped the story no end and kept up the charade after Engel was returned safely, even though the network knew that his story was bunk, and that the truth was that it was anti-Assad forces (aka ISIS, no doubt with an assist from the CIA) that kidnapped Engel in a bit of false flag political theater. I wonder why no one mentions that story when Syria is brought up?
Another topic that never gets explored are the alleged chemical weapons attacks that the U.S. blamed on Assad but that were in actuality false flag attacks by anti-Assad forces to dupe the American public into supporting more U.S. military intervention in the region. The media, despite compelling evidence to the contrary, simply regurgitates the dubious official story in regards to these attacks and blames it on Assad. I wonder why the corporate media doesn’t want to look to hard into those stories? I also wonder why liberals are so willing to accept them as proven fact? Maybe because they have stopped thinking rationally and are victims of their own emotionalism.
Speaking of emotionalism, remember when the media used a dead little Syrian boy washed ashore on a beach to try and get the U.S. more militarily involved in the Syrian war? Such naked pleas to emotion are a hallmark of manipulation and propaganda and are used to cover the truth, not reveal it, and in the case of that poor little boy, are a case of American foreign policy making it rain outside and then Americans complaining about the weather.
The truth is this, the U.S. and its intelligence agencies started the civil war in Syria. The intelligence community and their assets and shills in the corporate media have been feeding the American people a truck load of bullshit and blatant propaganda in order to drum up animus toward Assad and Syria (as well as toward Putin and Russia). This entire Syria (and Iraq before it) operation has been done for the benefit of neo-conservatives, Israel and powerful oil and gas interests that are all virulently opposed to Iran and Russia. The civil war in Syria that started in 2011 was, just like the coup in Ukraine in 2014, just another geo-political maneuver by the U.S. in an attempt to isolate, weaken and ultimately destroy Russia economically and eventually militarily by drawing Russia into two quagmires.
The U.S. has also been in a full scale, blatant and shameless propaganda war against Russia and Russians for a long time, but that shifted into overdrive in 2014 with the coverage of both Ukraine and the Sochi Winter Olympics. The saddest part of all this is that since it began under Obama, liberals have fully and whole-heartedly embraced the vicious anti-Russian xenophobia being peddled by the corporate media and our government. Liberals blind hatred of all things Russian went into the stratosphere with the alleged “hacking” of the election, which is such a foolish and vacuous story that it truly boggles the mind that liberals, who pride themselves on being so smart, fall for it. But to be fair, Russia makes an easy scapegoat, and it is much easier for Democrats to blame Russia than blame themselves.
Ok…I am not doing a good job of being filled with the Christmas spirit here, so I am going to end on a positive note. There is one media member in particular who has been the target of my ire and been on the receiving end of many a vicious drubbing from me over the years because he was consistently behaving like a brain-addled buffoon. An example of my distaste for this person is that I once eloquently and accurately described him as a “spittle-flecked, syphilitic baboon”. But since it is the Christmas season, I want to extend my thanks and gratitude and even my momentary respect to my favorite spittle flecked, syphilitic baboon…MSNBC’s Chris Matthews of Hardball fame.
Matthews actually stood up for genuine progressive values and principles when, during his “Let Me Finish” segment on Hardball last week, he fervently and ferociously took to task the neo-con and neo-liberal war mongers and chicken hawks who were so outraged by Trump’s withdrawal from Syria. I was genuinely shocked, and frankly moved, to see Matthews so boldly and brazenly take on the Washington Establishment and their default setting of war, war and more war.
What Matthews understands is that it is easy to get into a war and very difficult to get out of one. Once troops are in place, any attempt to withdraw them will be met with cries from war-mongering armchair tough guys of “appeasement” or “defeatism” or “anti-Americanism”. “Right-minded serious people”, as liberals like to think of themselves, will chastise any attempts at withdrawal by saying “now is not the right time” or that “we need a plan for the aftermath” or “we need to think about the children” or “what about our allies” or my favorite “we need to listen to the generals”, because yes, the people we need to listen to are the ones whose livelihood depends on maintaining war.
Anyone clamoring for the U.S. to stay in Syria, or Iraq or Afghanistan, needs to pick up a history book. As the Pentagon Papers show, the Washington establishment and the Military/Intelligence Industrial Complex knew full well for years that Vietnam could never be won but sacrificed young American boys and men at the altar of American Empire and ego rather than do the right, but difficult thing.
The powers that be knew before any invasions ever took place that Iraq and Afghanistan were ultimately unwinnable wars, but winning those wars was never the point, fighting them was. Those wars in particular and the War on Terror in general, have generated billions if not trillions in profits for the weapons, construction, intelligence, surveillance, energy and technology sectors of the U.S. economy. War is big business and with the militarism of American Empire, business is booming. Pulling out of Syria is bad for the war business and bad for Israel which means it is bad for the business of corruption in Washington, which also booms during wartime. (As an aside, if you want to see real election meddling, turn your gaze from Russia and open your eyes to the real power behind the American throne…Israel)
And this is why I tip my cap to Chris Matthews, Ted Lieu, Ro Khanna, Justin Amash, Tulsi Gabbard, Rand Paul and even Donald Trump. These folks are swimming against the overpowering tide of blood-thirsty, greed-fueled war mongering, the deep-seeded moral and ethical depravity in the form of indifference to other people’s suffering among political elites and the shameless corruption of the Washington/media establishment and the Military Industrial Complex, and they deserve our praise for speaking up when everyone else, most depressingly liberals, are shouting for more war, more empire, more death and more destruction.
In conclusion, I wish all my readers, all my friends, all my enemies and everyone everywhere, even the spittle-flecked, syphilitic baboon Chris Matthews and spittle-flecked, syphilitic orangutan Donald Trump, a very Happy Christmas. May the celebration of the birth of Jesus bring about a birth of conscience in the halls of power and in the hearts and minds of less powerful people across the globe.
©2018