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Tucker Carlson Reminds Us of What It Means to Go to War
Lately, Tucker Carlson has been my favorite of the Fox News talking heads. Right now, he happens to be the only voice out there who is carefully examining the latest of the USA Must Go To War chorus that sprung up against the alleged “Assad-led” use of chlorine gas against Syrian civilians in a Damascus suburb.
He reminds us that we still do not know if Assad was behind the last attack utilizing poison gas — an attack that occurred just about one year ago. He touches on the rather famous notion, via Sherlock Holmes, of what question to ask before assigning a criminal mind to a particular crime: who benefits? Tucker points out quite rightly that Assad had just heard that Trump was pulling the US out of Syria days before this attack. So why would Assad do this now? Assad may be many things, but stupid is not one of them.
Tucker then points out that there are many reasons to avoid dropping bombs and going into a full-fledged hot war against the people of Syria. Seventy people died in this chlorine gas attack. Should we avenge those deaths by killing thousands or tens of thousands more people? And included in the new number of possible war dead would be the surviving members of one of the only intact Christian communities in the Middle East.
Here is the pertinent video of Carlson’s rant against this new war:
https://youtu.be/U0niyl-vDBk
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Published in General
It’s entirely possible to make a case against intervention in Syria without dismissing our most reliable allied intelligence and embracing RT talking points. Now Russia is conveniently blaming Great Britain.
I would have loved to see Tucker and Noah Rothman have a debate about intervention in Syria on the merits. Instead we get Tucker taking offense at being called “ostensibly patriotic” while using Russian talking points and trying to bait Rothman for 7 minutes (watch the video, and note all the side swipes from from Tucker vs. Rothman’s straight answers).
Would also be nice to have a debate in the capital by the people who have the Constitutional authority to declare war. I realize there is an election coming up, but they need to take some of the burdens of power that come with its privileges.
I am not sure it is the best strategy, whether by Trump or Obama, to announce these things.
That said isn’t this the opposite argument that we were making about Obama and Iraq? I may be mis-remembering but I thought that the main “attack” on Obama for this was that Al-quida or ISIS or whomever would just wait it out and attack when America had left.
Now the thought is that the bad guys will attack while we are still their because we say we are leaving? It would seem that this would not be smart, if you want America out let them leave. If you want America to leave, don’t give them a reason stay.
Whatever “message” Trump decides to send in Syria is actually addressed to North Korea. If that message is that the US talks tough but then folds it tents and goes home at the first sign of trouble, little rocket man will take notice.
Won’t little rocket man take notice regardless, for example, tough talk followed by tough action.
And I will reply as I already have, that there are 2.5 million people who are discussing facts relating to the other side of the issue per the American taking on of the war against the people of Iraq. And that includes many people who were privy to the various statements made by Israeli officials.
I am sure you can use Google or the search engine of your choice. As well as looking to comments made earlier these past ten days, before the recent chemical attack, that reflect the various Israeli officials’ displeasure with Trump stating we need to pull out of Syria.
This is information many of my friends, all of whom are now Dem Exit, pieced together over long years of discussion on various blogs. I will see if I have time to bring about a collection of pieces of information that support this. (I no loner use the HD storing this, so it involves shifting around furniture and connecting and re-connecting – sigh.) You can utilize a search engine and find out that not once before the summer of 2013 did Obama utilize the bully pulpit, and then it was for the purpose of asking us citizens to support the idea of “boots on the ground” in Syria immediately. (The US had already been funding Syria’s “rebels” and “militants” since at least 2012.
@dougwatt
Hopefully you will first read my earlier reply, right above this one.
But I did a quick google search and here is something of value that came up: it is a piece relating Seynmour Hersh’s very astute remarks and insights on how Hillary was behi9nd the earlier Sarin gas attacks (maybe circa 2012 or 2013?)
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/04/28/seymour-hersh-hillary-approved-sending-libya-sarin-syrian-rebels.html
from the article:
However, now, for the first time, Hersh has implicated Hillary Clinton directly in this «rat line». In an interview with Alternet.org, Hersh was asked about the then-US-Secretary-of-State’s role in the Benghazi, Libya US consulate’s operation to collect weapons from Libyan stockpiles and send them through Turkey into Syria for a set-up sarin-gas attack, to be blamed on Assad in order to ‘justify’ the US invading Syria, as the US had invaded Libya to eliminate Gaddafi.
Hersh said: «That ambassador who was killed, he was known as a guy, from what I understand, as somebody, who would not get in the way of the CIA. As I wrote, on the day of the mission he was meeting with the CIA base chief and the shipping company. He was certainly involved, aware and witting of everything that was going on. And there’s no way somebody in that sensitive of a position is not talking to the boss, by some channel».
This was, in fact, the Syrian part of the State Department’s Libyan operation, Obama’s operation to set up an excuse for the US doing in Syria what they had already done in Libya.
Full article at above link.
Hersh is one of the few journalists that I have respect for. As an indie reporter (now retired) I gathered more than enough evidence about how controlled the media has been for the last several decades. Even before this brouhaha relating to how the Mainstream media only reports stories against Trump, I knew first hand how controlled it is.
Are you comparing a pulling out of Syria (whatever we have there?) as comparable to Obama’s withdrawal from Iraq, an invasion that was very clearly the United States?
I don’t see such a clear picture in Syria, in fact, it looks as if the beneficiary of escalating US involvement in Syria against Assad, in any form, is the militant rebels.
Decent comment. Also, it is almost impossible as a stateside citizen to follow what is going on over there. Are there eight groups of militant rebels against Assad? Or nine? Or fewer? The PBS sponsored show “POV” had a really good report on Syria some time ago. (Had to be 2015 or earlier.)
And it was amazing how many Syrian people started off as soldiers for Assad, but switched sides six months later, and vice versa. Several times the Syrians being interviewed spoke of their belief that much of the disarray was due to US, Israeli and Saudi funding. There simply didn’t seem to be any side wherein an individual could be fighting for coherent goals. It was just about killing and killing and more killing. Of anyone who got in the way of whichever side they were on.
Frank Kellogg was responsible for US officials signing a peace treaty in 1928, at a time when Hitler was still considered a punk/side liner in politics, and certainly not someone who would make the Brown Shirts an every day item. So I hardly undnerstand how he can be blamed for not being prescient about what would happen later on.
You don’t seem to understand the mind set of that era. Even if you look back to the two reigning American magazines of the time, Look and Life, both heralded Mr Hitler for his uniting Germany and perhaps setting us all up for a wonderful peaceful decade ahead. And those magazines were printing those articles in 1935 and 1936!
Please do not trouble yourself with any more research on my account. The website you linked to is a Moscow based think tank. It includes articles blaming the Mossad for 9/11, blames Poland for not resisting the Germans, written by a Russian. It is definitely an anti-Zionist website, which is a code word for anti-Semites. I scrolled through the authors they list as contributors, read many of the articles, and there are some amazing conspiracy theories.
Link
Yeah, and it’s not much of a code at that. But then, neither is the word neo-con as used in many circles. Those who want a fig leaf to cover anti-Semitism don’t seem to care if it is a very small leaf indeed.
Oh yes indeed, I believe he will.
I think the message was meant more for Putin than Kim Jon Un. Putin is the person cureently flexing his muscles around the world. He’s the one with armies of internet trolls trying to sow confusion and turmoil among his enemies. He’s the one using nerve agents and radioactive poisons in other countries. He’s the one who is a big risk for invading his neighbors. He’s still raising hell in the Ukraine, and he’s up to no good in the middle east.
I suspect that the attack on the American base and the gas attack have Putin’s fingerprints on them. He’s using Syria to test American resolve and fighting spirit, so that he can better calibrate his actions in Europe.
He may have thought that if he could manage an attack on an American base (a deniable attack using ‘mercenaries’), he could create another Beirut type situation and America would pull out.
He knew America attacked the regime in Syria after their first gas attack, but he also knew the Americans were under no risk as Syria didn’t have the ability to fight back. But then he moved S-400 missiles into the country and stepped up other air defense operations. He also moved some guided missile cruisers and attack subs into the region. This raised the stakes dramatically for the U.S.
You could imagine Obama’s response to this after having his coterie of idiot advisors weigh in. Attacking Syria would risk having a confrontation with Russia. What if Russia responds by sinking an American ship, or shooting down a bomber? It could start a war between nuclear powers! Can’t have that, so we best bluster and bluff, but ultimately do nothing.
Putin might have wanted to test the new administration to see if they were really made of sterner stuff or if they would back off given the risks.
If so, he got his answer. And if this was a test by Putin, the answer made the world a safer place.
Carlson at 2:14: “Universal bipartisan agreement on anything is usually the first sign that something deeply unwise is about to happen.”
Wow. I usually like and respect Carlson, but this seems ridiculous.
Let’s get this straight. Say that everybody agrees that you shouldn’t drink arsenic, or shoot yourself in the head. So, according to Carlson, this is the first sign that it is deeply unwise to . . . not drink arsenic, or not shoot yourself in the head.
This is troubling rhetorical excess.
Also troubling is Carlson’s repeating what appears to be a deceptive, Left-wing talking point about Defense Sec. Mattis supposedly admitting that we have no proof that Assad used sarin gas last year. This seems to have come from a Newsweek article on Feb. 8, reporting on a press conference on Feb. 2. I’ve looked at the transcript (here), and it is not completely clear, but seems to be referring to new reports by the State department the prior day of different allegations regarding chemical weapons, not the sarin attack that led to the cruise missile attack in 2017. Mattis stated
And later:
In context, Mattis seems to be saying: we have new reports of chemical weapons use; we don’t have evidence of it yet (meaning of the new reports); but we know they did it before during our administration, and we’re taking it seriously, because you all remember what we did the last time (i.e. launched the cruise missile attacks).
It strikes me as deliberate misinterpretation to consider this an admission that Mattis did not have evidence of Syrian sarin gas use to support the cruise missile attacks last year.
There was a team of people looking into the Sarin gas attacks of Spring 2017, and their conclusions were about to be released to the public. I didn’t pay attention to who was doing investigation, as the gas attack was so last year. Then the new attack occurred, and qui bono is my reply to it…