A decade ago, many Americans chose to be fooled by the Lying Squad of Bush, Cheney, and Powell, into rallying 'round for Operation Iraq Liberation. Mission Accomplished! The facts were there, the tell-tale signs it was BS were there (claims that Saddam was in league with al-Qaeda, when al-Qaeda's #1 agenda has always been overthrowing secular Arab dictators). And when all the lies came to light post-war, the great wailing and gnashing of teeth went up. "Nobody could have known!" (Millions of us knew) "Nobody told us!" (No official sources, but in theory you're grownups and should know better than to trust "official sources".)
This time people are telling you, and if you're deliberately closing your ears to those warnings, you'll have no one to blame but yourselves for the consequences.
Here we are, on the brink of war with Syria over its alleged use of chemical weapons, except the only ones alleging that Assad did it are the US, Israel and the high command of the Syrian rebels. The UN's Carla Ponte says otherwise, but even more telling, Syria's Kurds say otherwise, as well.
The Syrian Kurds are no friend of Assad. In the early days of the rebellion, their militia was front and center. As the civil war has dragged on, however, and the Kurds have gotten to better know their "fellow rebels", they've pulled back into a condition of "armed neutrality". They may be the closest thing to reliable sources on the ground that exist in Syria. We owe it to both them and to ourselves to hear what they are saying. Given their history with Assad, it's pretty stunning to see the Kurds come to Assad's defense on this issue, because they understnd he's neither stupid nor crazy. As reported by Reuters:
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would not be "so stupid" as to use chemical weapons close to Damascus, the leader of the country's largest Kurdish group said.
Saleh Muslim, head of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), said he doubted the Syrian president would resort to using such weapons when he felt he had the upper hand in the country's civil war.
He suggested last Wednesday's attack, which the opposition says was carried out by government forces and killed hundreds of people, was aimed at framing Assad and provoking an international reaction.
Read it all. At least you won't be taken by surprise in the postwar world.
