The Roadblock

Interesting developments on the Syria Front. Indeed, it makes one wonder if there isn't some other game being played here than simply wars and distractions and palace intrigues.

The Obama campaign to send Sadda... erm, Assad a "message" ground to a halt as the week came to a close. The British Parliament had said "no" to Blighty involvement in the operation; Hollande in France said he was eager to participate, but the French People said "non!" The Saudis suddenly put on the brakes. Even the always belligerent Israelis were skeptical of a Syrian operation at this time...

Obama went before the cameras -- once the protestors were removed from beyond the West Wing of the White House -- and said he was still ever-so-firm and ever-so-resolute, and he would put the question of further actions against Sadda... err, Assad to a Congressional vote, and the Congressional leaders said, "OK, we'll get back to you after our vay-kay, mkay?"

Yeah. Right.

Something -- ooou my, what could it be -- occurred between the Kerry Speech on Thursday and the Obama Apparition in the Rose Garden on Friday Saturday. There was an intervention of some sort by someone.

The very kind of intervention, if I may be so bold, that I and many others longed for to put the brakes on the misbegotten Imperial adventures of the Bush/Cheney Regime. The very kind of intervention that never came.

But last week, at the last moment, Somebody Who Matters said, "No. We're not going to do this thing now, maybe not ever."

Huh.

Who'd a thunk?

Of course many sabers were being rattled during the run up to the Aktion. Among them were Russian and Iranian sabers, direct threats to our client states of Israel and Saudi Arabia. If we were to "do" Syria -- at this time at any rate -- then there would be more than Hell to Pay, capice? Of course it's gangster business, but we've known that all along. The whole world has become a gangster world, hasn't it? Maybe it always was one.

Someone must have said, "You know, this could be serious."

Yes. Well.

So are all these Imperial aggressions. So are they all.

I guess we can return our focus to the NSA now.

Carry on.

Surely there will be a good story about Greenwald any minute now...
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UPDATE:  This is what they're saying happened to forestall the Syrian Aktion. Make of it what you will.

Snowden Who?

All eyes are now on the upcoming American war of aggression against Syria/Iran (they're joined at the hip, dontchaknow) and the NSA Scandal has been all but forgotten. Of course the NSA would have provided all of the necessary signals intelligence for the successful prosecution of this war of aggression because that's what they do, what they're supposed to be doing at any rate, on behalf of the Department of (War)Defense, of which the NSA is a part.

You'd never know any of that from this hysteria over NSA surveillance of you'n'me, for none of that ever entered any of the stories about the agency and its whistleblower, Young Snowden. Of course not.

What the agency is supposed to be doing on behalf of the Department of Defense, of which they are a part, was never at issue. It was all the other things they had the potential to do and sometimes did as an exploit or lark that raised all the libertarian hackles out there. Yes, most of those hackles were libertarian, and most of the story-telling was typical of libertarian propaganda about government, criminal government employees, and potentials for government intrusion into all of our lives, yadda yadda.

I've seen it too many times to count on the internets.

But here we are, literally moments before the launch of yet another war of aggression in the Middle East, and the news cycle will admit of nothing else for the duration.

After Labor Day we will once again enter some vestibule of hell.

Had our attention been focused on the looming new war of aggression, we might have raised a stink about it well before now. But instead, we'll slouch into a killing spree in Syria, which may precipitate further hostilities with Iran, and That Old Man's Hard On may finally find release as he sees yet more brown people blown to smithereens. It's his greatest joy.

"Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran."

Propaganda and its uses have matured since Orwell's day; but the upshot of endless war is the same.