by Fazal Rahman, Ph.D.
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Originally published on imperialismandthethirdworld, April 8, 2017
April 13, 2017
In some earlier articles (1, 2), I had described the dangers of escalations of wars and civil wars in Syria and Middle East by provocative military actions of Turkey, US, NATO, their so-called Coalition Forces, and foreign and domestic terrorists, financed, trained, and armed by them. In Syria, in opposition to them, and in support of the legitimate government of Syria, which they have been trying to overthrow since 2011, the superpower of Russia and the great regional power of Iran have also intervened very effectively, and have been crucial in turning the tide in favor of the Syrian government. All the major anti-state terrorist groups in Syria are in retreat and the Syrian government forces are getting closer to complete victory and establishment of control over all of its territory.
It is within the above situation that chemicals released from some sources killed around 70 people and injured numerous others. The US and its allies immediately jumped on that opportunity and blamed the Syrian government forces of having attacked with chemical weapons, without any evidence or proof. Syrian government and military, as well as Russia, strongly denied that and have offered a logically and factually credible explanation that the release of those chemicals originated from the chemical weapons depot of the so-called rebels, when it was hit during a raid by the government forces. However, US and Coalition Forces completely ignored and dismissed that explanation and insisted that their own version was indubitable. At the same time, Trump and other high-level government officials started making totally shameless, demonic, and hypocritical “humanitarian” noises against such alleged barbaric chemical attack by the Syrian government forces, so soon after they themselves killed hundreds of civilians and wounded hundreds more, including dozens of children and women, in aerial bombardment of a mosque in Syria, residential areas of Mosul in Iraq, and a raid on an alleged Al-Qaeda compound in Yemen. In contrast to the lack of evidence and proof in case of the alleged chemical weapons attack by the Syrian forces, evidence and proofs of those slaughters are well-documented and are undeniable, even though the US has been stretching the limits of irrationality, lies, and denial of facts to the extreme in these cases. As usual, the thoroughly complacent news and other media in the US are reproducing such bizarre hypocrisies and lies, even in such a dangerously escalating situation, almost totally uncritically. Not a word from them on the earlier and continuing slaughters of 400,000 and forcing millions into exile in Syria-an indubitable consequence of the intervention of Coalition Forces in Syria, under the leadership of US, and funding, training, and arming of thousands of foreign and domestic anti-government fighters-, slaughters of around 3 millions, including tens of thousands of children, and woundings and devastation of lives of countless millions, during the invasions and wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, and diabolical destruction of infrastructures and means of living of the people in all those countries. And let us not forget the US role in Iran-Iraq war, during which it had supplied Saddam Hussain’s military with chemical weapons and trained and guided its personnel in their use, destroying the lives of tens of thousands, including thousands of children.
In absolute solipsistic hypocrisy-totally ignoring all those gigantic crimes against humanity- the American President made the following unbearably fake, demonic, and hypocritical emotional statements about beautiful babies having been among around 70 killed in the alleged chemical attack, which, in all likelihood, resulted from the depots of US-supported anti-government forces:
Trump said: “Using a deadly nerve agent, Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women and children. It was a slow and brutal death for so many.
“Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack. No child of God should ever suffer such horror.
“Tonight, I ordered a targeted military strike on the airfield in Syria from where the chemical attack was launched.
The President added that there could be “no dispute” Syria used banned chemical weapons and he attacked previous attempts to bring Assad into line – which he said had “failed very dramatically”(3).
His assertion of there being no dispute about Syria having used banned chemical weapons, in the above paragraph, is a blatant lie. Russia, Syria, and Iran are disputing and denying it. Also, there is no evidence or proof for it.
Other high-level American government officials and political leaders are also orchestrating similar solipsistic and hypocritical choruses, including the recently appointed ambassador to the UN, the Indian-American chimera, Nikki Haley, who has made a career out of demonstrating that she can outdo any White American in capitalism, corporatism, hypocrisy, ignorance, solipsism, militarism, and imperialism. Just look at her following statements:
US ambassador Nikki Haley threatened military action as world fury mounted over the sickening nerve gas attack.
In a highly-charged emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, Ms Haley held up graphic images of babies killed in the atrocity – some still in their nappies – insisting: “Look at those pictures”.
She mounted a withering attack on Russia for propping up tyrannical President Bashar al-Assad, saying: “How many more children have to die before Russia cares?”
Ms. Haley told the session: “When the United Nations consistently fails in its duty to act collectively, there are times in the life of states that we are compelled to take our own action”(3).
Countless millions, who not only do not get sick to their stomachs by such sinister solipsistic lies and hypocrisy, but totally uncritically accept and support them, must be hopelessly brain-washed, dehumanized, and inhumanized.
American political establishment has become so intoxicated with power that it has no hesitation to invent and propagate lies and hypocrisies, some of which are self-evidently totally irrational, anti-logical, and anti-factual. Indeed, Freedom to Lie has become one of the most widely used tools in its propaganda tool box. Is it really patriotic not to question such blatant lies in such critical international affairs and events, like the real nature and causes of wars and civil wars in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and elsewhere, or totally unsubstantiated claims of Syrian government having used the chemical weapons, using it as the pretext for attacking a Syrian airbase? Have the Americans forgotten the official lies that were told to them for the invasion of and war against Iraq, like Saddam Hussain possessing weapons of mass destruction, having links to terrorist organizations, acquiring uranium from Africa, etc.? All of these were later proven to be lies.
It would be complete insanity if the Syrian government forces had used chemical weapons at this particular stage of the war and civil war, when they have already, by and large, defeated the anti-government forces and are close to total victory. They gain nothing from such attack and risk losing what they have gained. It is logically totally impossible and incredible. On the other hand, the anti-government forces, which are in retreat and are being defeated, have a lot to gain if such attack is blamed on the Syrian government forces, as it creates pretexts for greater involvement of US, NATO, and Coalition forces in the Syrian quagmire. In addition to the above-mentioned explanation by the Syrian government and Russia of chemical weapons of rebels hit during a raid by the Syrian government forces, it is also possible that the rebels may have released the chemicals deliberately, with or without the conspiratorial involvement of American and/or other Coalition strategists and tacticians. The basic question that needs to be asked in this very murky situation is: Whose interests are served and whose interests are damaged by such use of chemicals at this phase of war and civil war in Syria? The answer to this question could not be any clearer. The interests of anti-government, US, and Coalition forces are served and those of the government and its allies are damaged by it. It is impossible that the Syrian government and military, as well as their enemies, are not cognizant of that. Logically, the source of chemicals release must have been the anti-government forces. In the current conditions of impending total defeat, they are desperate and are likely to resort to any maneuvers to try to turn the situation in their favor. Same is true of the American and Coalition forces.
US President Trump, who is an extreme example of an American Homo dollarus predator, who is thoroughly intoxicated with dollars-billions of which he has accumulated through predatory, exploitative, and tax-evasive practices-and military power, has jumped on this murky event, and the opportunity created by it, most unscrupulously and dangerously, and ordered a large scale missile attack on a Syrian military base, from warships in the Mediterranean Sea, causing great destruction and killing seven Syrian military personnel. According to media information, Russian personnel were also present at that base. Syrian state television later said that nine civilians were also killed in villages near the base. Four children are said to be among those nine civilians killed in the US attack, according to a Syrian state news agency.
Tomahawk missiles were fired from the USS Porter and USS Ross around 0040 GMT, striking multiple targets – including the airstrip, aircraft and fuel stations – on the Shayrat Air Base, near the city of Homs, which the Pentagon alleged, again without any proof or evidence, was used to store chemical weapons. The strike is said to have destroyed 20 planes, a dozen aircraft hangars and a fuel depot as the runway was heavily bombarded (3). As no chemicals were released during the attack on the base, Pentagon’s allegation of chemical weapons being stored there continues to be without any factual basis, evidence, or proof.
Unsurprisingly, Russia has strongly condemned it and stated the escalations of tensions with the US because of that. Such actions, in a highly explosive and complex politico-military situation like Syria, can very dangerously drag the world closer to World War Three, which will be the end of human species, as well as most other species of life, on this thoroughly polluted and evilized planet.
“We strongly condemn the illegitimate actions by the U.S. The consequences of this for regional and international stability could be extremely serious,” Russia’s deputy U.N. envoy, Vladimir Safronkov, told a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Friday.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev charged that the U.S. strikes were one step away from clashing with Russia’s military (4).
Russia, which has hundreds of military troops on the ground in Syria targeting rebel-held areas, said it will strengthen Assad’s regime and help shoot down enemy warplanes in the wake of the US strike.
It also mocked the “extremely low” effectiveness of Trump’s attack, claiming just 23 of the 59 cruise missiles fired from US Navy destroyers had hit their target.
Putin, who condemned the attack, branded Trump’s move as an “illegal act of aggression against a sovereign nation” warning it would “damage US-Russia ties” and demanded an emergency UN meeting (3).
Trump has dug out some of the most conceited, arrogant, predatory, and imperialistic military and other Republican Homo dollarus, and placed them on top in all the key decision-making positions of the government. Just looking at their pictures is unbearable for any authentic and sensitive human being. Dehumanization, inhumanization, and predatory brutality are self-evident on their faces, and can be perceived instantly by people, who have even a minimum of authentic humanity and sensitivity left in them. One wonders about the human nature of countless millions, who not only do not perceive that, but identify with them and their policies and actions, with their obscene lies, dishonesty, hypocrisies, intellectual and spiritual perversions, and crimes against humanity. In a very short period of time, after the elections, almost all their policies and actions are proving to be extremely reactionary, anti-environment, anti-democratic, anti-common people, anti-mankind, anti-human health, anti-peace, militarist, belligerent, extremely arrogant, nakedly imperialistic, pro-corporate, and predatory. That is the logical and predictable outcome of some of the worst predators gaining control of all the levers of government and politico-economic control.
The US and NATO took full advantage of the Grand Betrayal of socialism and anti-imperialism in the USSR, and its destruction, under some of the worst traitors of history, Gorbachev and Yeltsin, turned Russia into a vassal state, and unleashed various demonically destructive and devastating invasions and wars of aggression in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Libya, and Syria. However, under the leadership of Putin, Russia has, by and large, restored its sovereignty and integrity, recovered economically, politically, and militarily, and is reasserting its superpower status internationally, within the current inter-capitalist and inter-imperialist international competitive reality. China has also become an economic and political superpower, and is also rapidly enhancing its military power. It will not be long before it catches up militarily with the US and Russia. There are also other regional powers, like Iran and North Korea, which, if cornered and pushed, can put up strong resistance and inflict great damages on the aggressors. This is a new international reality and new balance of forces. Most political and military leaders in the US, as well as other NATO countries, are still mentally stagnating in the sinister post-Soviet “Full Spectrum Dominance” delusions. Subjectively, they are lagging far behind the objective reality, in this regard. This is extremely dangerous, as it can and will lead to the ultimate war of all, the World War Three.
In a previous paper (5), I had described the dialectic of capitalist democracy, imperialism, and fascism in the US and the Third World, and had proposed that after the demise of fascist-type dictatorships in numerous Third World countries, supported and/or created by the US, fascism is going to blow back to the US. Under the current US administration, it seems to be happening at a faster pace.
When political, economic, and philosophical truth becomes as rare, expendable, and replaceable with lies in a society, as it has become in the USA, that society is destined for destruction and self-destruction.
Notes
4. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-idUSKBN1782S0
Dr. Fazal Rahman is an interdisciplinary researcher and writer, with background in many areas of biological and social sciences. He has lived and worked in many countries, like Pakistan, Brazil, USA, Lebanon, and Zambia, as a scientist and head of research and development programs and centers. He has done in-depth and extensive studies on Marxism, Leninism, phenomenology, existentialism, political economy of capitalism and socialism, political economy of US and former USSR, technocracy, psychology, mass psychology, and genetics, etc.