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DOES OBAMA KNOW HE'S FIGHTING ON AL-QA'IDA'S SIDE?
[ Part 2.2: "Attached Text" ]
ROBERT FISK
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/does-obama-know-hes-fighting-on-alqaidas-side-8786680.html
Tuesday 27 August 2013
'All for one and one for all' should be the battle cry if the West
goes to war against Assad's Syrian regime
If Barack Obama decides to attack the Syrian regime, he has ensured -
for the very first time in history - that the United States will be
on the same side as al-Qa'ida.
Quite an alliance! Was it not the Three Musketeers who shouted "All
for one and one for all" each time they sought combat? This really
should be the new battle cry if - or when - the statesmen of the
Western world go to war against Bashar al-Assad.
The men who destroyed so many thousands on 9/11 will then be fighting
alongside the very nation whose innocents they so cruelly murdered
almost exactly 12 years ago. Quite an achievement for Obama, Cameron,
Hollande and the rest of the miniature warlords.
This, of course, will not be trumpeted by the Pentagon or the White
House - nor, I suppose, by al-Qa'ida - though they are both trying
to destroy Bashar. So are the Nusra front, one of al-Qa'ida's
affiliates. But it does raise some interesting possibilities.
Maybe the Americans should ask al-Qa'ida for intelligence help -
after all, this is the group with "boots on the ground", something
the Americans have no interest in doing. And maybe al-Qa'ida could
offer some target information facilities to the country which usually
claims that the supporters of al-Qa'ida, rather than the Syrians,
are the most wanted men in the world.
There will be some ironies, of course. While the Americans drone
al-Qa'ida to death in Yemen and Pakistan - along, of course, with the
usual flock of civilians - they will be giving them, with the help
of Messrs Cameron, Hollande and the other Little General-politicians,
material assistance in Syria by hitting al-Qa'ida's enemies. Indeed,
you can bet your bottom dollar that the one target the Americans will
not strike in Syria will be al-Qa'ida or the Nusra front.
And our own Prime Minister will applaud whatever the Americans do,
thus allying himself with al-Qa'ida, whose London bombings may have
slipped his mind. Perhaps - since there is no institutional memory left
among modern governments - Cameron has forgotten how similar are the
sentiments being uttered by Obama and himself to those uttered by Bush
and Blair a decade ago, the same bland assurances, uttered with such
self-confidence but without quite enough evidence to make it stick.
In Iraq, we went to war on the basis of lies originally uttered by
fakers and conmen. Now it's war by YouTube. This doesn't mean that
the terrible images of the gassed and dying Syrian civilians are
false. It does mean that any evidence to the contrary is going to have
to be suppressed. For example, no-one is going to be interested in
persistent reports in Beirut that three Hezbollah members - fighting
alongside government troops in Damascus - were apparently struck down
by the same gas on the same day, supposedly in tunnels.
They are now said to be undergoing treatment in a Beirut hospital. So
if Syrian government forces used gas, how come Hezbollah men might
have been stricken too? Blowback?
And while we're talking about institutional memory, hands up which
of our jolly statesmen know what happened last time the Americans
took on the Syrian government army? I bet they can't remember. Well
it happened in Lebanon when the US Air Force decided to bomb Syrian
missiles in the Bekaa Valley on 4 December 1983. I recall this very
well because I was here in Lebanon. An American A-6 fighter bomber
was hit by a Syrian Strela missile - Russian made, naturally - and
crash-landed in the Bekaa; its pilot, Mark Lange, was killed, its
co-pilot, Robert Goodman, taken prisoner and freighted off to jail
in Damascus. Jesse Jackson had to travel to Syria to get him back
after almost a month amid many cliches about "ending the cycle of
violence". Another American plane - this time an A-7 - was also hit
by Syrian fire but the pilot managed to eject over the Mediterranean
where he was plucked from the water by a Lebanese fishing boat. His
plane was also destroyed.
Sure, we are told that it will be a short strike on Syria, in and
out, a couple of days. That's what Obama likes to think. But think
Iran. Think Hezbollah. I rather suspect - if Obama does go ahead -
that this one will run and run.
From: Baghdasarian
[ Part 2.2: "Attached Text" ]
ROBERT FISK
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/does-obama-know-hes-fighting-on-alqaidas-side-8786680.html
Tuesday 27 August 2013
'All for one and one for all' should be the battle cry if the West
goes to war against Assad's Syrian regime
If Barack Obama decides to attack the Syrian regime, he has ensured -
for the very first time in history - that the United States will be
on the same side as al-Qa'ida.
Quite an alliance! Was it not the Three Musketeers who shouted "All
for one and one for all" each time they sought combat? This really
should be the new battle cry if - or when - the statesmen of the
Western world go to war against Bashar al-Assad.
The men who destroyed so many thousands on 9/11 will then be fighting
alongside the very nation whose innocents they so cruelly murdered
almost exactly 12 years ago. Quite an achievement for Obama, Cameron,
Hollande and the rest of the miniature warlords.
This, of course, will not be trumpeted by the Pentagon or the White
House - nor, I suppose, by al-Qa'ida - though they are both trying
to destroy Bashar. So are the Nusra front, one of al-Qa'ida's
affiliates. But it does raise some interesting possibilities.
Maybe the Americans should ask al-Qa'ida for intelligence help -
after all, this is the group with "boots on the ground", something
the Americans have no interest in doing. And maybe al-Qa'ida could
offer some target information facilities to the country which usually
claims that the supporters of al-Qa'ida, rather than the Syrians,
are the most wanted men in the world.
There will be some ironies, of course. While the Americans drone
al-Qa'ida to death in Yemen and Pakistan - along, of course, with the
usual flock of civilians - they will be giving them, with the help
of Messrs Cameron, Hollande and the other Little General-politicians,
material assistance in Syria by hitting al-Qa'ida's enemies. Indeed,
you can bet your bottom dollar that the one target the Americans will
not strike in Syria will be al-Qa'ida or the Nusra front.
And our own Prime Minister will applaud whatever the Americans do,
thus allying himself with al-Qa'ida, whose London bombings may have
slipped his mind. Perhaps - since there is no institutional memory left
among modern governments - Cameron has forgotten how similar are the
sentiments being uttered by Obama and himself to those uttered by Bush
and Blair a decade ago, the same bland assurances, uttered with such
self-confidence but without quite enough evidence to make it stick.
In Iraq, we went to war on the basis of lies originally uttered by
fakers and conmen. Now it's war by YouTube. This doesn't mean that
the terrible images of the gassed and dying Syrian civilians are
false. It does mean that any evidence to the contrary is going to have
to be suppressed. For example, no-one is going to be interested in
persistent reports in Beirut that three Hezbollah members - fighting
alongside government troops in Damascus - were apparently struck down
by the same gas on the same day, supposedly in tunnels.
They are now said to be undergoing treatment in a Beirut hospital. So
if Syrian government forces used gas, how come Hezbollah men might
have been stricken too? Blowback?
And while we're talking about institutional memory, hands up which
of our jolly statesmen know what happened last time the Americans
took on the Syrian government army? I bet they can't remember. Well
it happened in Lebanon when the US Air Force decided to bomb Syrian
missiles in the Bekaa Valley on 4 December 1983. I recall this very
well because I was here in Lebanon. An American A-6 fighter bomber
was hit by a Syrian Strela missile - Russian made, naturally - and
crash-landed in the Bekaa; its pilot, Mark Lange, was killed, its
co-pilot, Robert Goodman, taken prisoner and freighted off to jail
in Damascus. Jesse Jackson had to travel to Syria to get him back
after almost a month amid many cliches about "ending the cycle of
violence". Another American plane - this time an A-7 - was also hit
by Syrian fire but the pilot managed to eject over the Mediterranean
where he was plucked from the water by a Lebanese fishing boat. His
plane was also destroyed.
Sure, we are told that it will be a short strike on Syria, in and
out, a couple of days. That's what Obama likes to think. But think
Iran. Think Hezbollah. I rather suspect - if Obama does go ahead -
that this one will run and run.
From: Baghdasarian