The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.
– Ernest Hemingway
A nation pushing toward war as a distraction from internal problems and political failures is as old as human civilization itself. It is a tried and true method for hanging on to positions of power and often ends up in massive displays of destruction, chaos and death. Sadly, we find ourselves on the precipice of such a moment right now. With Labor Day 2013 in the history books, we Americans are about to be pushed into another pointless unconstitutional war, with this particular conflict having grave potential to escalate into something far worse than our recent military boondoggles.
Not only is a civil war in Syria, with Bashar al-Assad on one side and Al-Qaeda on the other, nothing we should want to get embroiled in, but our entire rationale for intervention is absurd. Not only did the U.S. government and intelligence agencies play key roles in Saddam’s far worse chemical weapons attacks in the 1980’s, but now we discover that the UK had approved sarin gas components for export to Syria as recently as last year! The sale was only blocked due to EU regulations. Wow. More from the UK Independent:
The Government was accused of “breathtaking laxity” in its arms controls last night after it emerged that officials authorised the export to Syria of two chemicals capable of being used to make a nerve agent such as sarin a year ago.
The Business Secretary, Vince Cable, will today be asked by MPs to explain why a British company was granted export licences for the dual-use substances for six months in 2012 while Syria’s civil war was raging and concern was rife that the regime could use chemical weapons on its own people. The disclosure of the licences for potassium fluoride and sodium fluoride, which can both be used as precursor chemicals in the manufacture of nerve gas, came as the US Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States had evidence that sarin gas was used in last month’s atrocity in Damascus.
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills insisted that although the licences were granted to an unnamed UK chemical company in January 2012, the substances were not sent to Syria before the permits were eventually revoked last July in response to tightened European Union sanctions.
In a previously unpublicised letter to MPs last year, Mr Cable acknowledged that his officials had authorised the export of an unspecified quantity of the chemicals in the knowledge that they were listed on an international schedule of chemical weapon precursors.
Western intelligence has long suspected the Syrian regime of using front companies to divert dual-use materials imported for industrial purposes into its weapons programmes. It is believed that chemical weapons including sarin have been used in the Syrian conflict on 14 occasions since 2012.
After all, war is a racket, and a very profitable one indeed.
Full article here.
In Liberty,
Mike
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as long as they paid a 20% export tax to the prince’s new baby fund