All the military pieces needed to bomb Syrian are being put into place. According the excellent sources, the Akrotiri Airforce Base on Cyprus is ready for action. Syria is preparing for an attack as well. I've been 100% positive it was coming. Now I'm only 90% sure. Cameron botched the opportunity, if one ever existed, for making a compelling case in front of Parliament Thursday and Obama is coming under a great deal of public pressure to hold off at least until the UN inspectors report whether it was Assad or the someone else who unleashed the gas attack on civilians in the Damascus suburbs last week. Cameron admitted, reluctantly that here is “no smoking piece of intelligence” proving who used chemical weapons.I've been talking with Members of Congress and with candidates all week-- and there is no consensus on anything beyond the need for Obama to consult Congress. It shouldn't surprise anyone that the Member who has made the most articulate argument for not rushing into a premature attack on Syria is Alan Grayson (D-FL). Listen to the interview up top. Ryan Grimm's HuffPo piece on Alan is titled Alan Grayson On Syria Strike: 'Nobody Wants This Except The Military-Industrial Complex'. And, Grayson is too much of a gentleman to point a finger at his colleagues, but you see the whores who have taken the biggest bribes from weapons manufacturers-- Buck McKeon (R-CA), Adam Smith (D-WA), Mike Rogers (R-MI)-- doing much of the heavy lifting in terms of spreading pro-war propaganda to the American public.
"One thing that is perfectly clear to me in my district, and I think is true in many other districts from speaking to other members, is that there is no desire, no desire on the part of people to be the world's policeman," Grayson said on SiriusXM's "The Agenda with Ari Rabin-Havt," which aired Thursday morning. "For us to pick up this gauntlet even on the basis of unequivocal evidence of chemical warfare by the Syrian army, deliberately against its own people-- even if there were unequivocal evidence of that-- that's just not what people in my district want."That doesn't mean that opposition is universal, Grayson allowed. "I did notice, for what it's worth, that the manufacturer of the missiles that would be used has had an incredible run in their stock value in the last 60 days. Raytheon stock is up 20 percent in the past 60 days as the likelihood of the use of their missiles against Syria becomes more likely. So I understand that there is a certain element of our society that does benefit from this, but they're not the people who vote for me, or by the way the people who contribute to my campaign," he said. "Nobody wants this except the military-industrial complex."
Raytheon stock is up almost 20% since Washington has been rumbling about attacking Syria. Not counting close to $15 million in congressional lobbying, last year Raytheon spent $3,532,914 on federal campaigns, one of the half-dozen biggest spenders helping hawkish candidates and incumbents. The 10 biggest recipients of their legalistic bribes in the House last year were:
• Buck McKeon (R-CA)- $24,000• Ron Barber (New Dem-AZ)- $17,000• Jim Langevin (D-RI)- $15,150• Trent Franks (R-AZ)- $13,000• John Boehner (R-OH)- $12,900• Peter King (R-NY)- $11,000• David Cicilline (D-RI)- $10,999• Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD)- $10,750• Bill Young (R-FL)- $10,750• Frank Guinta (R-NH)- $10,400
UPDATE: Cameron Leave Obama On His Own... Or With The FrenchParliament was unconvinced. And it wasn't just Labour. It was a lot of Tory backbenchers who ended Cameron's dreams of war. Obama needs to really rethink all the bad advise he's been getting from the warmongering imbeciles in the Military Industrial Complex... and fast.
