Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Syrian Sales Pitch: New Product!

I continue to be amazed at how most US news media serve as a greek chorus to hype whatever the latest bogeyman is.  Sarin!  ISIS!  Khorosan!  One way or another we're going to be sold on bombing someone.  Funny how that's our go-to foreign policy tool these days, "kinetic action".  Also funny, but not ha-ha funny, is that our allies in the region are arguably (1) worse than Iraq or Syria or Libya or whomever it is we're bombing next and (2) are directly involved with the financing and training of our bogeymen du jour.
The threat of Ibrahim al-Asiri –who with one bomb that could not have worked and several more claimed attacks identified by double agents in Saudi employ not only created the excuse for millions of dollars in TSA scanner profits, but also the ability to label Yemen an “imminent” threat and therefore bomb it — has moved to Syria.
Label the country an “imminent” threat. Then bomb.
In Obama’s statement, he emphasized the Khorasan tie.
Some questions smart people have been asking:
Micah Zenko: If Khorasan group was truly an imminent threat, why would the US delay bombing them just so they could bomb ISIS simultaneously?
Gregory Johnsen: Are people asking why a group calling itself “khurasan” is basing itself in Syria? Or is this just a USG name for a cell?
Spencer Ackerman: Why did a senior official say, just yesterday, that Khorasan was not an imminent threat.
Also:  Why was Asiri claimed to be helping ISIS back in July?
The sources on which this latest justification relies seem to be people — James Clapper and Mike Rogers are two — who have a somewhat strained relationship with the truth and a very cozy relationship with disinformation. Moreover, Congress still hasn’t been briefed on the covert ops (which both Clapper and Rogers do know about) that the CIA has been working, with their Saudi partner, in Syria.
But we’ve got some claim to “imminent” now, so it’s all good.
For longer than I've been alive we've been in bed with arguably the worst country in the entire world, Saudi Arabia.  No good has come of it, and no good will come of it.  Just more of the same awful shit, year after year until we have an honest national conversation about our middle east policies.

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