In August 1914 Germany invaded “gallant little Belgium” expecting a quick rollover. Using guerrilla tactics, Belgians fought back enraging the Kaiser and his generals who brutally punished the civilian population burning down whole villages. Nothing stirred patriotic blood lust more than Allied poster images of apelike Germans bayoneting Belgian babies - a brilliant exercise in unverified atrocity propaganda. The result four years later was 38 million wartime dead. Belgian babies in 1914 became Kuwaiti babies in 1990 when Congress heard false testimony from a phony 15 year old girl “eyewitness” that Sadam’s soldiers flung hundreds of babies from their incubators to die. That lie seeded “horrified” minds for the coming US-Iraq war. Then, a few days ago, 69 Cruise missiles crashed into Assad’s Shayrat air base giving the Syrian fliers and their Russian sponsors plenty of warning. Or Russian fliers and their Syrian sponsors. Around the world, as Reuters reports, our missile attack was seen as a mere “slap on Assad’s wrist”, Not so. Exxon’s gift to diplomacy, US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, has announced that we would come to the defence of innocent civilians “anywhere in the world”. That’s anywhere, Ivanka. A missile strike on Canada which has been slow to heal the wounds of its aboriginals? Or Australia with its notorious labor camps for boat people? Who exactly retooled “No Foreign Wars, America First” Donald Trump into The Man With A Bleeding Heart Hurling Tomahawk Missiles at baby-gassing Assad? Step up fashionista -national security advisor First Daughter Ivanka. Her blab mouthed brother Eric spilled the beans to a British paper that his sister pushed their father to avenge “these horrific images” of choking kids in Idlip, Syria. All these years of barrel bombs, indiscriminate artillery strikes and gunship strafing…? Not good TV. Memory lane: Also in 1914, on the eve of war, international pacifists met, as they had for years, to denounce militarism and swear they’d never fight one another. Yet overnight, once drums rattled and bugles called to colors, the main organized peacemakers of Britain, France, Italy and Germany voted to give their governments money to start the slaughter. Democrat senate leader Chuck Schumer, Democrat House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, Democrat Elizabeth Warren all cheered on Ivanka’s missiles each with a tiny degree of reluctance. Bernie Sanders waffled. No Jeanette Rankin there. Only Brian Williams, on Rachel’s MS NBC TV didn’t waffle. He called Ivanka’s missiles “weapons of beauty”. |
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