Friday, October 2, 2015

Could the Syrian War lead to a Military Coup in America, Britain and Canada?



Although it’s a purely hypothetical question, it deserves an examination.  This video from Kevin Chambers at Wordpress.com begins a very interesting discussion. The video is entitled “When Martial Law Comes It Will Be Welcomed with Open Arms”. 


Excerpt:


When Martial Law Comes It Will Be Welcomed With Open Arms


 In today’s thought for the day, James looks at a couple of stories that reveal the truth about the false notion that change will ever come through the ballot box, and how people can be made to desire their own enslavement.



The idea of a military coup in America has been explored many times before, like in this article from earlier this year published by Global Research.


Excerpt:


“The American Military Coup of 2012″: Encroachment upon Basic Freedoms, Militarized Police State in America


Dunlap cites what he considered a dangerous precedent, the 1981 Military Cooperation with Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies Act, an act that sanctioned US military engagement with law enforcement in domestic “support operations,” including “civil disturbance” operations. The act codified the lawful status and use of military “assets” in domestic police work.


Encroachment upon Basic Freedoms


… the American people have been subject to a series of deeper and deeper encroachments upon our basic freedoms, increasingly extensive deployment of military operations on the home front, perpetrated by a corporate driven military mission creep that now claims the right and duty to arrest and detain us on the word of a Pentagon or White House operative. President Obama’s signing of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) whose Section 1021 sanctions the military detention of American citizens without charge, essentially aims to put the last nail in the coffin of our Constitution, our teetering Republic and our most basic democratic traditions….


The White House had threatened to veto an earlier version of the NDAA, but reversed course (of course) shortly before Congress voted on the final bill, which the President signed on the 31st of December 2011, a day that will go down in infamy.


“President Obama’s action today is a blight on his legacy because he will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law,” said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU executive director. “The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield.”


According to Senator Dianne Feinstein. “Congress is essentially authorizing the indefinite imprisonment of American citizens, without charge,” she said. “We are not a nation that locks up its citizens without charge.” Think again. (Guardian, 12/14/11)


Under the legislation, suspects can be held without trial “until the end of hostilities.” They will have the right to appear once a year before a committee that will decide if the detention will continue….  It breaks with over 200 years of tradition in America against using the military in domestic affairs.”


In America the United States Senate has seized an unparalleled amount of power and that power has been concentrated in the hands of a small majority of the 100 Senators who share an ideology of American Exceptionalism and the right to use military force anywhere they desire, absent any checks and balances. 


A mechanism created by the Senate during the Bush Administration allows billions of unaccounted for dollars to flow to funding such missions as the training of “moderate” rebels in Syria.  From Salon:

Excerpt:


“Crack cocaine for the Pentagon”: Meet the secret slush fund that’s getting hawks high


While the right cuts tons of basic services, here's the secret slush fund the military doesn't want you to discover.


As budget votes get going this week, keep an eye on the three most magical letters in Washington: OCO…. – which stands for Overseas Contingency Operations – represents an escape hatch. Put money into OCO and it doesn’t count as spent, at least not against the constraints Congress has shackled itself with for four years. It’s a great deal – as long as you’re part of the military.


“It’s basically crack cocaine for the Pentagon,” said Gordon Adams, a professor at American University who worked on defense budgets at the Office of Management and Budget during the Clinton administration. “It gives you a flexibility that most domestic discretionary agencies would kill for.”


As OCO became more of what Gordon Adams calls “magic money,” the White House got in on the act. They created a $5 billion counterterrorism account and stuck it in OCO, keeping the fund alive even after Iraq and Afghanistan end. The $1 billion “European Reassurance” fund to support Ukraine came out of OCO.


Three thousand troops to West Africa to handle Ebola? OCO. $500 million to train the Syrian opposition? OCO. Even State Department funding has gone in OCO, as much as $7 billion, over 15 percent of their total expenditures.


The GOP’s budget resolution for fiscal year 2016, due for votes this week, takes the OCO ploy to the extreme. The House designated $96 billion to OCO, $38 billion above the White House’s request, keeping the base budget capped, while flying past it with “emergency” spending….


Remember that the same lawmakers who voted for that believe we can’t afford to feed hungry people in America.


Yes, it’s the slush fund that provided military training for Syrian “rebels” to overthrow the government in Syria, it’s the slush fund that provided for a CIA coup to remove the elected President in Ukraine and much, much more.   The author of that article, David Dayen is right the money is like crack cocaine for the Pentagon. 



And when a crack addict’s supply is threatened, that crack addict becomes very dangerous.  The lengths that the crack addict will go to in order to ensure a steady supply of the drug are now on display in Britain.  The new Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn is threating to cut off the crack supply to the British military.  From Independent.


Excerpt:


British Army 'could stage mutiny under Corbyn', says senior serving general
Generals would not 'allow a prime minister to jeopardise the security of the UK'                              


A senior serving general has reportedly warned that a Jeremy Corbyn government could face "a mutiny" from the Army if it tried to downgrade them.


The unnamed general said members of the armed forces would begin directly and publicly challenging the labour leader if he tried to scrap Trident, pull out of Nato or announce “any plans to emasculate and shrink the size of the armed forces.”


He told the Sunday Times: “The Army just wouldn’t stand for it. The general staff would not allow a prime minister to jeopardise the security of this country and I think people would use whatever means possible, fair or foul to prevent that. You can’t put a maverick in charge of a country’s security…


Labour's Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn on scrapping Trident and leaving Nato: 'I don't think that is going to happen…'


The Sunday Times reported that half of Mr Corbyn’s Cabinet have approached David Cameron to say they are prepared to defy the whip and vote with the government so long as Mr Cameron comes up with a coherent plan.


The Army is ready to “use any means possible, fair or foul” to keep the crack coming, I bet the means they use will be more foul than fair.   That half of Corbyn’s cabinet are the Tony Blair, Gordon Brown wing that took Britain and America to war in Iraq with their “sexed up” evidence against Saddam Hussein.


And when Kevin Chambers at Wordpress says it is a “false notion that change will ever come through the ballot box” he’s right.  After all the people in Britain voted Corbyninto office to stop the austerity Cameron has exacted on the people to pay for the crack cocaine for the military. 


The people in Scotland and the UK want the Trident nuclear weapon program stopped, but the military is threatening to overthrow the government officials to stop the people’s will. 

On October 1, 2015 Mint Press reported that the Canadian and American military brass have explored combining their militaries.



Excerpt:


Canadian Military Explored Plan To Fully Integrate Forces With U.S.


CBC News has learned that a Canadian military effort to formally create integrated forces with the United States for expeditionary operations included an even more ambitious option — a plan to fully integrate military forces, explored during a meeting with the top generals from the two countries….


Information provided by the Department of National Defence shows the Canada-U.S. Integrated Forces program was led at the highest levels, with then Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Tom Lawson and the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey (now retired), meeting on “several occasions” to hash out a plan that included an option for “fully integrated forces…”


On Monday, CBC News reported that the Canadian military had been working on a plan to create a binational integrated military force with the U.S., under which air, sea, land and special operations forces would be jointly deployed under unified command outside Canada….


Discussion of the plans for an integrated unit was contained in an October 2013 briefing note prepared by the military’s Strategic Joint Staff and obtained through access to information.


Government not part of discussions


A Conservative spokesman also said the party had no desire to establish a “standing integrated force.”


But the new information from the Defence Department shows the planning was deliberate and sustained, and it happened at the highest levels of both forces.


Those two comments raise the possibility the plan was being pursued without the specific direction or approval of the Conservative government….


There would also be deep concerns about maintaining national control over the Canadian Forces, particularly as it relates to questions about the use of force and varying interpretations of international law.


In the end, the Defence Department says, “Gen. Lawson indicated that Canada was not prepared to field fully integrated land forces at this time.”


“The two armies do not intend to field formally integrated forces at this time,” wrote DND spokesman Dominique Tessier in an email….


Norad has also assumed increasing responsibility to provide warning and target information for naval forces that protect the maritime approaches to North America.


But those efforts are focused on defence; the integrated forces planning was for expeditionary forces to be deployed on operations overseas.


What is even more chilling is the absence of a fourth estate.  The amount of control over the media in America, Britain and Canada by Rupert Murdoch is a threat to the security, safety and constitutionally provided freedom of the people of these nations.



In America, we have Freedom of the Press guaranteed in our Constitution.  This is so the Press can function as a watchdog for the people, protecting them from the excesses and abuses of a corrupt government.  Seymour Hersh is one such journalist that has tirelessly reported on government abuse.  From Journal NEO:

Excerpt:


Seymour Hersh has risked much over his decades of journalism. He is a true journalist who has been attacked, slandered, and shunned by all sides simply because he seems to resist taking any side.


When he reported on US atrocities in Vietnam, he was first attacked and denounced as a traitor or worse. In time, both the truth and Hersh were vindicated and the importance of what he did as a journalist to both inform the public and serve as a check and balance against the special interests of ruling power were recognized with a Pultizer Prize.


In 2007, when he exposed the then Bush-administration’s plans to use the Muslim Brotherhood and militant groups linked to Al Qaeda to overthrow the government of Syria – the result of which is unfolding today – the New Yorker gladly welcomed his work as a message they perceived would resonate well with liberal audiences.


But then in 2013, when Hersh brought forward information contradicting the West’s official narrative regarding a chemical attack on the outskirts of Damascus, the New Yorker decided not to publish it. His report, “Whose Sarin?” instead found itself published in the London Review of Books…


Hersh’s  report went on in detail covering the manner in which Western leaders intentionally manipulated or even outright fabricated intelligence to justify military intervention in Syria – eerily similar to the lies told to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the escalation of the war in Vietnam after the Gulf of Tonkin incident.


And not only did the report punch holes through the official narrative, it helped hobble what little momentum was left for Western military aggression against Syria based on the lies told by the US and its allies regarding the chemical attack.


In Hersh’s follow up report, “The Red Line and the Rat Line,” also published by the London Review of Books, he revealed information not only further exposing the lies told by the US and its allies, but suggested NATO member Turkey and close US-ally Saudi Arabia may have played a role in supplying those responsible for the attack with the chemical weapons….


Using what they collectively called “open source intelligence” – watching YouTube videos and looking at Google Earth – they claimed the type of rocket and nerve agent used could only have been deployed by the Syrian government.


 Recently it was reported in alternative media sources that the Pentagon has legalized the killing of journalists.  From Counter CurrentNews:



Excerpt:


Pentagon Just Legalized Killing ‘Belligerent’ Journalists As Part of ‘Law of War’


The Pentagon just changed the rules of war to include legitimizing the killing of any journalists they deem “belligerent.”


The new “laws of war” were released as part of a book of instructions on legitimate warfare practices approved by the United States military.


This “rule book” of sorts details what the US government deems the acceptable ways of killing those they claim are the “enemy”… including journalists whose reporting they do not approve.


The manual explains that the Pentagon considers such journalists “unprivileged belligerents,” even though they are not “enemy combatants.”


Now, the American 1,176-page “Department of Defense Law of War Manual” says that it is perfectly legitimate to shoot, explode, bomb, stab, or cut journalists they deem “belligerent.”


After four years of war in Syria, the world is finally saying enough is enough.  President Bashar Assad has requested Russian and Iranian military assistance to join his Syrian forces to fight against the terrorists and rebels that seek to overthrow the elected government of Assad.


Russia, in compliance with international law, has launched a bombing campaign to drive back the enemies of the Syrian people.  Simultaneously, Iran has ground troops pushing into Syria to drive out the terrorists and rebels that the U.S. and its allies have trained and supported.  From TheAustralian:



Excerpt:


Vladimir Putin’s muscular play breaks Syria open


This week Vladimir Putin comprehensively humiliated Barack Obama at the UN.


The contrast could not be starker. The US President spoke overtime, for more than 45 minutes, but did nothing. The Russian President spoke for 20 minutes and transformed the strategic environment in the Middle East.


Obama lectured Putin in public and in private, telling him not to intervene militarily in Syria.


Putin listened politely enough, then speedily launched bombing raids in Syria.


Putin said any Russian intervention in Syria would be directed against Islamic State forces. In fact, although Australian intelligence does not yet have this fully confirmed, it seems the strikes were mostly in locations where Islamic State is not a significant presence. They allegedly hit some rebel forces trained and approved by the Americans.


Putin’s military move was accompanied by diplomatic gains. Russia, Iran, the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad and the government of Iraq, notionally allied to the US, have joined in an intelligence-sharing arrangement against Islamic State. The Baghdad government approved the use of Iraqi airspace by Russian planes and Russian personnel will be stationed at an intelligence facility in Baghdad.


The Russian moves transform strategic calculations in Syria and have left Washington completely flat-footed and almost irrelevant….


All this week at the UN, Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has argued it is essential to seek a political solution in Syria, that no option should be ruled out — meaning that Assad be allowed to stay in power — and that negotiating any solution must involve dialogue with Russia and, more important, with Iran.


For this she has been criticised by some US and Australian commentators, who believe she may be too accommodating to Iran or that Assad’s bloody record in the Syrian civil war means he must be deposed. In fact, Bishop has been absolutely right. She has been ahead of the curve and has helped create some extra diplomatic space for the Americans to go where they now need to go….


The problem is that most of the Sunni Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states, as well as Sunni Turkey, several European nations and the US itself, had insisted that Assad leave office as a precondition for such talks….


Given the degree of international support for Assad, his regime is no longer likely to collapse. Therefore Bishop’s position is the height of realism at its most noble — the West must negotiate with the forces on the ground.


So it looks like the Pentagon’s crack cocaine supply is going to be cut off and that puts the people of America, Britain and Canada in a dangerous situation.  If the Syrian war ends and ISIS is eradicated it will be hard to convince the people that they need to give up the health, wealth and welfare for freedom.   In the words of the song Bobby McGee “freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.”



By Patricia Baeten

No comments:

Post a Comment