MCCAINSYRIA
By Isa Abu Jamal | Political Blind Spot Middle East Correspondent
Just when the U.S. statements about the Syrian Civil War seemed like they couldn’t get any stranger, Senator John McCain said that President Obama gave Syria the “green light” to use chemical weapons.
This comes as a growing number of Western politicians have seemingly presciently determined that last week’s chemical attack was carried out by the Assad regime. This determination seems to have been made in spite of the fact that throughout the past few months, various chemical attacks have been determined by the U.N. to have been carried out by anti-regime forces.
While we broke the news that the U.S., Britain and now even France are considering bombing Syria within the week, it is now widely acknowledges that Obama Administration officials have informed various media outlets that the U.S. is considering cruise-missile or bomber strikes against regime targets. As usual, this we are told, will be a limited-time bombing campaign, somewhat like when the U.S. decimated the establishing United States of Africa, based out of Libya, with their pro-terrorist bombing campaign there. Of course, it was these same Western-backed, anti-Qaddafi “freedom fighters” who later carried out the now infamous Ben-Ghazi attacks last September.
But Senator McCain suggested that the Administration not bombing Syria quickly enough to suit him, was essentially a “green light” to Assad to use chemical weapons.
“Dempsey made an incredible illogical statement and then a few days later we saw a massive use of chemical weapons,” McCain said of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “I’m sure that Bashar al-Assad paid attention to the top military man in America’s words that we were not going to get involved.”
“Obama also shares blame” in McCain’s eyes, “for giving Assad the impression he could escalate the use of chemical weapons by not responding forcefully to previous alleged chemical-weapons attacks over the past year,” according to Josh Rogin of the Daily Beast.
“Assad was able to use chemical weapons before and there was no response, and so why not do it again?” McCain asks. “This should surprise no one. They viewed that not as a red line but as a green light, and they acted accordingly.”
The Senator’s comments might hold some water if earlier chemical attacks this year had in fact been demonstrated to have been the work of Assad. As they have not, this latest – almost contagious – assumption, seems to be borne more out of government propaganda than any hard facts.