[Peace-discuss] Change the propaganda, not the war

[C. G. Estabrook]

Or, how to keep your 'Authorization for the Use of Military Force' current...

The Bush-Obama wars in the Middle East, over the last dozen years, are not a departure from - but a direct continuation of - consistent US policy since WWII, to control MIdeast oil and gas, "the world's greatest material prize," as the State Department said in 1945. 

But the propaganda cover, directed primarily at the US public (who pay for wars not in their interest, but only in the interest of the 1%), has indeed changed, and changes frequently. The Cold War excuses gone, 'terrorism' came along just in time to fill Colin Powell's 'enemies gap' and provide a justification for continued US military occupation of the Mideast. 

The 9/11 attacks were a convenient but specious excuse for the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, and the US government worked hard - unsuccessfully - to link those crimes to Iraq, in order to invade that country. For each war (or each war theater, as Obama says) the administration secured an AUMF (Authorization for the Use of Military Force) from Congress.

But as the Obama administration continues its war through the Mideast and beyond (including a global assassination campaign and 25,000-member 'Special Operations' death squads active in more than 100 countries), Americans have become increasingly skeptical of those decade-old justifications. Is Obama really killing kids in Pakistan with drones to counter "associated forces" of the al-Qaeda who carried out the attacks of September 11, 2001? Can he make us believe that?

But now a new possibility presents itself: a new AUMF, centered on Syria but applicable thorough the Greater Middle East, based on - wait for it - "Weapons of Mass Destruction"! Specifically of course the Syrian government's chemical weapons (which they really do have): the neoliberal parties - Republicans and Democrats - have learned nothing and forgotten nothing, but continue to rework the same propaganda. 

Will it work again, this time for the White House child-killer? 

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