Saturday, August 31, 2013

War on Syria: Some US Military Officers Express Reservations

Instead of being able to muster a broad coalition for a military campaign against Syria, US President (and Nobel Prize for Peace awardee) Barack Obama seem to be finding significant roadblocks

UK’s parliament rejected PM David Cameron’s appeal for military action.  The NATO chief says there is no plans for actions against Syria.

Polls indicate that a substantial majority of Americans have been opposed to US involvement in Syria (Gallup May 2013), (Reuters Ipsos August 24 2013) or want congressional approval on military actions on Syria (NBC August 30, 2013)

Nevertheless war mongers like the Economist insist on a war on Syria (I hope those who penned the article would enlist to go to the front line or volunteer to fight with the rebels. It is always easy for someone else to pay the price for perceived political righteousness when these are in reality egotistical foolishness)

A more important development has been the fragmented sentiment of the US military over a Syria campaign.

From the Washington Post
The Obama administration’s plan to launch a military strike against Syria is being received with serious reservations by many in the U.S. military, which is coping with the scars of two lengthy wars and a rapidly contracting budget, according to current and former officers.

Having assumed for months that the United States was unlikely to intervene militarily in Syria, the Defense Department has been thrust onto a war footing that has made many in the armed services uneasy, according to interviews with more than a dozen military officers ranging from captains to a four-star general.

Former and current officers, many with the painful lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan on their minds, said the main reservations concern the potential unintended consequences of launching cruise missiles against Syria.

Some questioned the use of military force as a punitive measure and suggested that the White House lacks a coherent strategy. If the administration is ambivalent about the wisdom of defeating or crippling the Syrian leader, possibly setting the stage for Damascus to fall to fundamentalist rebels, they said, the military objective of strikes on Assad’s military targets is at best ambiguous.
Expect more false flags to be used by the US government to justify a war.

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