As Obama rushes towards conflict in Syria, I thought it would be worth recalling what one key witness to escalation to the Iraq debacle remembered about those days for point of similarity. General Wesley Clark gave the interview below in September 2011 and in it he recalled a conversation he had with a ranking General at the Pentagon just ten days or so after the 9/11 attacks.
At that point the US had already secretly decided to go to war with Saddam Hussein even though there was no evidence to link him to the attack on the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre. A few weeks later Clark again met the same general and this time he was shown a Department of Defence memo outlining how the US could take down seven countries in five years.
Well, more than five years have elapsed since that memo was drafted but some of those countries on the DoD list have indeed fallen into the Western orbit or nearly have. Clark listed them: Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, Iran and Syria. The list was the work of the neoconservative cabal that had infiltrated the highest reaches of US policy formation and whose leader was Bush’s Vice-President Dick Cheney. We thought they had been kicked out in disgrace in 2008 but it looks as if they are back in town.
Toppling Syria is arguably the keystone of this neocon strategy. If Assad falls then so will Lebanon (i.e. Hezbollah) and Iran will be greatly weakened. So will the pro-Shiite government in Baghdad. The stage will be set for the destruction of Islamic rule in Iran and the return of a regime hospitable to the West while Iraq will be isolated. The Middle East and it vast resources of carbon-based fuels will once again will safely under Western control.
It is a neocon wet dream come true and if anyone had predicted in 2008 that Obama would be the president to facilitate all this they would have been laughed out of the room. I have a feeling it won’t work out, just as it failed miserably in Iraq. But before then an awful lot of innocent people are likely to be killed, some in horrible ways. Thank you Mr Obama. Anyway here’s Genera; Clark:
The Broken Elbow 
If the west is forced to back down due to public pressure on this one then Syria would need to prepare for another ‘atrocity’ that will be accredited to Assad. I suspect a massive bomb[a few thousand deaths] will be needed to convince the western public more. Black ops i think they are called. Maybe fire in another ‘terrorist’ attack in europe and that should confuse,frighten and outrage the moderates enough to endorse western ‘intervention’ in Syria. These warmongers wont go away and accept defeat.
And to think these warmongers[obama etc] come to my country and preach to our people how we should rear our kids.
Something is very wrong. Sometimes I feel that those who run this world are indeed a different species. Some say they are just sick puppies. I suspect they are totally human, but the rewards they get for acting thus are too tempting to resist. As with all addictions, it is a false satisfaction that does not ever quite seem enough. and the addict does not take care of basic needs in the pursuit of the next fix. To deal with an addiction to expansion and wars we might profit from looking into the reward system and stop being patsies, nor the outright seller or buyer in this human slavery system.it never was an open market so consumer pressure alone alone will not finally force them to kick this habit buts its a very solid beginning, out of which will evolve many new ways that will address new problems, different with different outcomes than slavery and destruction of our species and our biosphere.. If we don’t stop it now we will be the planet destroyer of space. It is happening now to this planet at the hands of this consuming addiction.