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  • Moving Toward War in Syria

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Last week the House passed yet another bill placing sanctions on Iran and Syria, bringing us closer to another war in the Middle East. We are told that ever harsher sanctions finally will force the targeted nations to bend to our will. Yet the ineffectiveness of previous sanctions teaches us nothing; in truth sanctions lead to war more than they prevent war.

    Until last year, Libyan sanctions were touted as a great success story. The regime would change its behavior. Yet NATO bombed the country anyway.

    Last week we learned that President Obama signed an intelligence “finding” directing the CIA to covertly assist rebels in Syria. The administration seems determined to fight yet another war in Syria that has nothing to do with American national interests.

    We already know that a similar “finding” was signed under the latest Bush administration directing US intelligence to undermine the Iranian government and promote regime change there. Neoconservatives have long demanded that we overthrow the Syrian government before moving on to war against Iran. This bellicosity continues regardless of which party is in the White House.

    In Syria we see once again how our interventionist policies backfire and make us less secure. Recent news reports point to ties between the Syrian opposition and al-Qaeda (and other extremist groups). A recent article in the Guardian, a British newspaper, exclaimed that, “Al-Qaida turns tide for rebels in battle for eastern Syria.” The article quotes an al-Qaeda leader in Syria saying that he meets with the main US-backed Syrian rebel organization, the Free Syrian Army, “almost every day.” So by promoting civil war in Syria we end up fueling al-Qaeda.

    According to another recent press report, German intelligence services estimate that nearly 100 terrorist attacks have been committed by al-Qaeda or related organizations in Syria over the past six months. Last month a suicide bomber in Syria killed a defense minister and several top government officials. The US government, which has been fighting a “War on Terror” for more than a decade now, refused to condemn that act of terrorism.

    This raises the question of whether the US administration is supporting the same people in Syria that we have been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed these same concerns earlier this year when asked whether the US has been reluctant to arm the Syrian rebels. She answered, “To whom are you delivering them? We know al-Qaida. Zawahiri is supporting the opposition in Syria. Are we supporting al-Qaida in Syria?”

    That is a very good question. It clearly demonstrates that the United States has no business at all being involved in the Syrian civil war. In the 1980s we supported a resistance movement in Afghanistan that later gave birth to elements of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. When will we learn our lesson and stop intervening in conflicts we don’t truly understand, conflicts that have nothing to do with American national interests?

    http://www.lewrockwe … om/paul/paul818.html


    News and Politics 📎and tagged

  • Congress isn’t gridlocked — it’s just totally irresponsible

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Despite looming deadlines related to budget sequestration and decade-old “temporary” tax rates that expire at year’s end, massive entitlement crises and much more, Congress has effectively stopped work on serious legislation until at least some time after November’s election.

    Many observers and participants — including the entire GOP and Democratic leadership — are quick to cry gridlock and to blame inaction on some new awful hyper-partisan or ideological era.

    But there isn’t gridlock, which usually results from Democrats and Republicans sharing power and clashing over alternative positions. Gridlock slows things down — almost always a good thing — but it doesn’t stop serious legislation from happening. Welfare reform, balanced budgets, defense cuts and capital-gains tax rate cuts in the 1990s were all the product of gridlock that slowly gave way to consensus.
    And today’s Congress is more than happy to pass legislation when it suits members’ interests. In just the past few months, for instance, the ostensibly gridlocked Congress reauthorized the Export-Import Bank program that gives money to foreign companies to buy U.S. goods; extended sharply reduced rates for government-subsidized student loans; re-upped the Essential Air Service program that subsidizes airline service to rural communities; and voted against ending the 1705 loan-guarantee program that gave rise to green-tech boondoggles such as Solyndra and Abound. None of these were party-line votes — all enjoyed hearty support from both Democrats and Republicans.

    Another instance of budding bipartisanship is the pork-laden farm bill that extends sugar subsidies, maintains crop subsidies and creates a “shallow-loss program” that effectively guarantees incomes for farmers at a time when that sector is doing historically well. The bill passed the Senate with 16 GOP votes. Though the House version of the bill is still being worked out, no one doubts it will not only pass, but largely resemble the Senate version.

    What we’re actually witnessing — and have been for years now — is not gridlock, but the abdication of responsibility by Congress and the president for performing the most basic responsibilities of government. Despite the fiscal crisis that Washington knows will occur if it fails to deal with unsustainable spending and debt, it hasn’t managed to produce a federal budget in more than three years.

    To their credit, House Republicans have drafted, voted on, and passed a budget, but they are busy now trying to worm their way out of the very spending cuts — the sequestration deal — they insisted on as a condition for raising the debt limit last summer.

    One of the most egregious failures of the president’s budget was that it, as in his previous budgets, offered no serious plan to stabilize the largest entitlement programs. Instead, the president and congressional Democrats lambasted Republicans for actually addressing the problem in their budget.

    Full article: http://thehill.com/o … tally-irresponsible-


    News and Politics

  • Paul Delegate Purge Sparks GOP Civil War In Maine

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Divisions among Maine Republicans deepened Wednesday over Romney backers’ attempt to purge Ron Paul supporters — who the Romney camp fears could wreak havoc at the Republican National Convention — from the state’s delegation.

    Peter Cianchette, a Bush donor and ambassador, and Maine Republican National Committeewoman Janet Martens Staples Saturday filed a challenge to 14 pro-Paul delegates and alternates, as the Boston Globe reported. Both were listed as Romney endorsers in a campaign press release in February.

    Today, 23 members of the state Republican committee signed on to a letter to party chairman Charlie Webster denouncing the move, and demanding Staples’ own resignation.

    “The recent actions taken by National Committeewoman Jan Staples against the Maine Delegation are destructive to party unity, blur our focus on maintaining Republican majorities in the Maine House and Senate and provide fodder for opponents in the Democrat Party to attack our candidates in upcoming races,” they write in the letter, provided to BuzzFeed by a Maine Republican.

    “It is with great sadness and humility that I am calling a special meeting of our body. I thought that we had finally began healing after the convention. I thought we were ready to move on, work out our differences and strengthen our party in the House and Senate,” Jonathan Pfaff a Cumberland committeeman and Paul supporter wrote in an email circulating the letter. “Unfortunately, our National Committeewoman, Jan Staples, has other priorities. She has decided to put her own personal agenda ahead of Maine Republicans. Some have argued she’s done this out of spite for her unsuccessful bid to be re-elected. Some have argued that she’s being offered a deal by Mitt Romney’s campaign.”

    Full article: http://www.buzzfeed. … p-civil-war-in-maine

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