What democracy? What rule of law?: Americans Oppose Criminal US Syrian Attack, But Obama is Set to Launch It

By Dave Lindorff

If you needed more evidence that former president Jimmy Carter was correct when he said, in response to reports of the massive National Security Agency spying program exposed by Edward Snowden, that that democracy no longer exists in the US, just look at Washington’s push to launch a new war against Syria.  According to the latest Reuters poll, 60 percent of Americans, despite weeks of propaganda out of Washington, and cheerleading in the corporate media, oppose a US war in Syria. Only nine percent are in favor of the US launching an attack.

Does that matter? Clearly not. The aircraft carriers and cruise-armed submarines and surface ships have been moved into position. The corporate media quote unnamed government “sources” as saying that “only the timing of an attack” is in question, and even suggesting that an attack could come as early as tomorrow.

UN inspectors have just gone to the site of an alleged gas attack to see if such a thing actually happened, as charged by Syrian rebels. But is the US (which reportedly tried to scuttle the independent UN investigation into the alleged gas attack) waiting to see whether there even was an attack, and to hear whether if there was one, it was the work of the Syrian government, or, as some have charged, of the rebels themselves? No. Rather, the Obama administration and the war-mongers in Congress are already declaring that the attack “certainly” occurred, and that it was the Syrian government’s doing. (Hey, if the US really wanted a justification for a war, and was "certain" Syrian troops were behind the poison gas attack, wouldn't they have wanted UN investigators' confirmation of the crime and the guilty party?)

The media are talking about an “intervention” in, not an invasion of Syria. CBS News reports that President Obama has “ordered up” a legal justification to be used for attacking Syria, with “particular emphasis is being placed on alleged violations of the Geneva Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention.”

Not mentioned is that there is a broader international law that flat-out bans the launching of a war by one nation against another, unless there is an “imminent” threat of attack against the attacking nation by the nation being attacked. Violating that law is called a “crime against peace” under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and under the terms of the UN Charter...

For the rest of this article by DAVE LINDORFF in ThisCantBeHappening!, the new uncompromising three-time Project Censored Award-winning online alternative newspaper, please go to: www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/1932