We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Sunday, December 20, 2015

Military to Military: Seymour M. Hersh on US intelligence sharing in the Syrian war

Click here to access article by Seymour Hersh from London Review of Books.

You can be certain that many geopolitical analysts will be commenting on, and quoting from, this recent current article in the London Review of Books. Apparently The New Yorker, which formerly carried his articles, found his insider information too hot to handle.

Hersh seems to have insider contacts everywhere that give him confidential information, that is, except within the Obama administration. In the article he quotes a number of sources, particularly within the Joint Chief of Staff, who know that the administration's position against Assad runs counter to all intelligence reports. So, what is missing from Hersh's report is any information on the unknown 800 pound gorilla in the room: any insider reports on why the Empire's Chief Executive's office is pursuing so vigorously and consistently their anti-Assad crusade in spite of its own intelligence reports. (This is not the first time this has happened.)
Obama now has a more compliant Pentagon. There will be no more indirect challenges from the military leadership to his policy of disdain for Assad and support for Erdoğan. Dempsey and his associates remain mystified by Obama’s continued public defence of Erdoğan, given the American intelligence community’s strong case against him – and the evidence that Obama, in private, accepts that case.
However it is not hard to figure out. I have offered an explanation many times in my commentaries. The Empire's capitalist masters, who are addicted to wealth and power, simply must pursue control of the world's resources and markets regardless of the many devastating effects on societies, causing climate destabilization, and posing the threat of a nuclear war.