«Russia is more frequently mentioned in this context. Russian international maritime presence has grown significantly in recent years, specifically since the Ukraine crisis erupted in 2014», senior NATO commander Gen. Adrian Bradshaw said on July 1 addressing a conference in London on NATO's naval future.

The strategy is a 24 – page document addressed to young Americans ready to serve the country, according to chairman’s foreword.

The main challengers are the state actors, the strategy specifically calls out Iran, Russia and North Korea as aggressive threats to global peace, and non-state groups – particularly the «violent extremist organizations» (VEOs) such as Islamic State and the Taliban. The strategy attempts to create a unified approach to dealing with both, seeking to «deter, deny, and defeat» the states and «disrupt and degrade» the non-state groups (the report terms tem «violent extremist networks», or VEOs). Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are called revisionist states. It’s not clear what a revisionist state implies, probably, the authors mean the countries that pose a challenge to the world system where the US plays the role of global hegemon.

The document says that Russia has repeatedly demonstrated that it does not respect the sovereignty of its neighbors and is willing to use force to achieve its goals. According to the authors, Russia’s military actions are undermining regional security directly and through proxy forces. The strategy asserts that these actions violate numerous agreements that Russia has signed in which it committed to act in accordance with international norms, including the Helsinki Accords (!)

The China’s threat is described in more blur terms. The authors tried to avoid outright confrontational rhetoric. The strategy reads that China’s actions are adding tension to the Asia-Pacific region. For example, its claims to nearly the entire South China Sea are inconsistent with international law. The international community continues to call on China to settle such issues cooperatively and without coercion. China has responded with aggressive land reclamation efforts that will allow it to position military forces astride vital international sea lanes.

The Islamic State leads the list of non-state threats. The strategy does not even mention Al Qaeda with the Islamic States stealing the show as the main target in focus of US military planning. The both – state and non-state actors – pose hybrid threats. The Islamic State and the Russia-supported insurgents in Ukraine are cited by Military Times as examples of such warfare. Thus Russia is painted as a country which poses two threats simultaneously: as an unfriendly country and an actor waging a hybrid war.

The strategy points out that «We are prepared to project power across all domains to stop aggression and win our Nation’s wars by decisively defeating adversaries», the document states. «While we prefer to act in concert with others, we will act unilaterally if the situation demands». In the event of an attack, the U.S. military will respond by inflicting damage of such magnitude as to compel the adversary to cease hostilities or render it incapable of further aggression. War against a major adversary would require the full mobilization of all instruments of national power and, to do so, the United States sustains a full-spectrum military that includes strong Reserve and National Guard forces. They provide the force depth needed to achieve victory while simultaneously deterring other threats.

Fulfilling the mission of propaganda the strategy says the US expands military presence around the world to fight terrorists, not any other purpose. To carry out the mission it needs a global integrated command structure to conduct transregional operations.

US Defense One site hit the nail right on the head with the caption Dempsey’s Final Instruction to the Pentagon: Prepare for a Long War.

All in all, the new Military Strategy does not offer anything really new. It propagates among the military and American people the idea of the need to preserve US global domination. It says the United States is the only global superpower. The only thing that is new here is the expression of growing concern over the nation’s ability to maintain this status.

Why would anyone – a highly decorated soldier at that – prostrate himself with such unthinking subservience? 

Welcome to the American gulag of thought-control. This a culture where the media has all the illusion of freedom and independence, but where in actual fact it operates like a totalitarian regime to crush and punish any dissent. 

Look at the way American mass media is covering the conflict in Ukraine and the recent downing of the Malaysia civilian airliner. It’s a scary, unthinking, uninformed drumbeat of «Russia did it, Putin did it, sanction Moscow». No-one is allowed to step outside this uniformity of thinking, or raise the questions begging to be asked, under pain of being ostracised and vilified by the virtual army of drumheads. 

America has its physical gulags alright in the form of Guantanamo Bay prison and countless other jails that house an inmate population of over two million. But what is also just as real is the virtual American gulag of mass media tyranny and public thought control. 

Its latest inmate on display in virtual stocks is General Martin E. Dempsey, the Chairman of the US Joints of Staff. He is just the latest in a long line of public figures put on a show trial to trot out accusations against Russia over Ukraine and the downing of the Malaysia airliner in the eastern Donetsk region. The airliner crashed under suspicious circumstances on 17 July with the loss of all 298 lives onboard.

US President Obama and other top Washington officials have immediately sought to politicise the disaster, accusing the Russian government and ethnic Russian self-defence militia in eastern Ukraine of bringing down the passenger jet. Hardly a shred of credible evidence has been presented. Much of the so-called evidence cited so far by Washington, its European allies and the Western media has turned out to be unverifiable secret information of amateurish faked data cooked up the Western-backed Kiev regime, whose capacity for lies, denials and outlandish claims knows no bounds. 

Yet on the back of this cringing vacuity in reliable information, Washington and the European Union so-called leaders are moving this week to ratchet up economic sanctions on Russia’s strategically important energy, finance and defence industries. 

What Washington lacks in credible evidence to implicate Russia on over the airline disaster it is making up for it in bluster – and lots of it. Or to put it another way, out and out propagandistic assertion.

So, out parading in the propaganda procession is Barack Obama, his foreign minister John Kerry, presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, Democrat Congress leader Nancy Pelosi and senior Senator Diane Feinstein. Then we have political grandees and arch US imperialists Zbigniew Brzezinski and Madeline Albright. All of these senior figures have been regaling the American media outlets with boilerplate platitudes accusing Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin of having some involvement in the downing of the MH17 airliner. At the very least, according to this chorus of chattering marionettes, Putin is guilty of supplying the pro-independence rebels with the weaponry.

This is even before an independent international investigation into the disaster has got underway. This week Dutch and Australian investigators have been blocked from accessing the crash site because the Western-backed Kiev regime is waging a war on the pro-independence ethnic Russian population in the east of Ukraine. Why is the West backing a regime that is blocking an investigation? Why is the West backing a regime that is killing hundreds of civilians in indiscriminate shelling of towns and villages? Why are the Western media and politicians not asking these glaring questions? 

Now adding his penny’s worth of gravitas to the mindless chorus pillorying Putin is America’s highest ranking military man – General Dempsey.

Adding a new twist to the lynch mob invective, Dempsey reiterated accusations that Putin’s Russia is firing missiles across its border into Ukraine. Dempsey was speaking at a security conference in Aspen, Colorado, last week. It was clear that he was making reference in the context of the downed MH17 airliner.

Dempsey told his audience: «You’ve got a Russian government that has made the conscious decision to use its military force inside of another sovereign nation to achieve its objectives – first time, I think, probably, since 1939 or so that that’s been the case.»

Aside from his ropey grasp of history, the top US General gave no evidence to support his claim that Russia was indeed firing artillery into Ukraine. He was simply regurgitating unverified claims that were made earlier that same day by the US State Department’s spokeswoman Marie Harf. The US has subsequently released satellite images that supposedly prove its claims against Russia. But those images, posted on social media, have been derided as unintelligible owing to low resolution and offering no verifiable location data. 

Yet Dempsey proceeded to claim that his counterparts in the Russian military are on his side – that is, that these Russian senior military figures are in some way dissenting from Moscow policy.

Dempsey accused Vladimir Putin of pursuing a geopolitical strategy in Europe that is akin to «lighting a fire that he loses control of». 

The American General goes on to name his counterpart Russia’s Chief of Staff  Army General Valery Gerasimov and to claim that Gerasimov is «reluctant" about Putin’s alleged interference in Ukraine and Europe.

Dempsey, quoted in a US Department of Defence report, said: «I think that the Russian military is probably reluctant – you know, this is risky for me to say this, and 10 of them could end up in a gulag tomorrow – but I think that the Russian military and its leaders that I know are probably somewhat reluctant participants in this form of warfare.»

Russia’s General Gerasimov has previously denounced Washington’s «colour revolutions» in Ukraine and elsewhere as a new generation of warfare aimed at destabilising Russia. Gerasimov and the Russian military are well aware that the conflict raging in Ukraine is a direct result of US illegal regime change in that country. The fatal demise of the Malaysian airliner has to be seen in that critical US-fomented context, as has the ongoing shelling across Ukraine’s border into Russia’s territory – in complete contradiction to what Dempsey and other talking heads in Washington are claiming.

It is a stretch to speculate that Dempsey was engaging in some form of psychological games with his Russian counterparts. The evidence would show that the American military chief is too stupid to carry off such a game of black arts. 

What his public display most probably shows is just how low-grade US intelligence is. If America’s top military leader can seriously regurgitate amateurish lies and fabrications in order to score cheap political points then that illustrates how degraded the highest offices in the US have become.

A soldier is supposed to be a noble warrior standing up for integrity with courage. In America, evidently the leader of its soldiers is too busy worried about getting in line with the prevailing propaganda narrative and thought-police, rather than making independent judgements based on objective evidence and integrity. 

As with all the other pundits and politicians slavishly obeying the whip of US media uniformity, it looks like General Dempsey is afraid too, very afraid, of ending up in the gulag that is American isolation for daring to think or speak the truth.

As of the evening of Friday, August 29, President Obama was on track to launch a sustained 72-hour cruise missile and drone attack on pre-selected air defense and other strategic military targets in Syria.

Obama had been convinced by his national security adviser Susan Rice, UN ambassador Samantha Power, and deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes, all «Responsibility to Protect» advocates, that he could trump congressional approval for his attack by claiming that humanitarian operations do not require approval under the War Powers Resolution or Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. Rhodes, who lacks any military experience, as is also the case with Rice and Power, is in his position because of his family ties. Rhodes’s brother, David Rhodes, formerly an executive with Fox News, is the president of CBS News. In addition, the brother of Obama’s special adviser, Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, is Ben Sherwood, President of ABC News. Power is married to Obama’s former «information czar» Cass Sunstein, who developed methods to combat information unfriendly to the president through campaigns of «cognitive dissonance».

Many of Washington's insiders went to bed Friday night firmly convinced that Obama would give the final order to attack Syria sometime during the early Saturday morning hours of August 30. However, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, made a hurried trip to the White House during the early morning hours of Saturday to make one last final plea to hold off on any attack.

Dempsey told Obama that the president's military plan would not work. «If you do this, the plan will fail and you'll get in deeper. And without congressional approval, you'll be screwed,» Dempsey told Obama.

Dempsey's warning about Congress had merit. Already, 210 House members, Republicans and Democrats, signed a letter to Obama warning him not to attack Syria without congressional authorization.

At least temporarily, Dempsey's argument prevailed and Obama decided to hold off on any attack until Congress reconvened after Labor Day. Obama decided he would seek a congressional vote to authorize a military strike on Syria. Administration officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry and Vice President Joe Biden, began arms twisting members of Congress to approve Obama’s military operation against Syria. The Israeli Lobby organization, American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) weighed in with its considerable political heft to force members of Congress with whom its showers with campaign contributions, to fall in line behind Obama’s war plans.

During the evening of September 1, The New York Times initially reported Israeli involvement in lobbying Congress on its website: «One administration official, who, like others, declined to be identified discussing White House strategy, called AIPAC ‘the 800-pound gorilla in the room,’ and said its allies in Congress had to be saying, ‘If the White House is not capable of enforcing this red line’ against the catastrophic use of chemical weapons, ‘we’re in trouble’». The newspaper quickly took down the report after it appeared in its web edition.

AIPAC’s financial largesse bestowed upon members of the U.S. Senate is witnessed by its chief recipients being the loudest supporters of military action against Syria. The second largest recipient of AIPAC money from 2006 to 2012 — $772,327 — is Arizona Republican Senator John McCain, who has been a champion of Syrian rebels, including the human organ-eating guerrillas of the Jabhat al Nusra, an Al Qaeda-affiliate. Another major recipient of AIPAC cash is New Jersey Democratic Senator Robert Menendez who has rung up $343,394 in AIPAC donations. Menendez, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was tasked by the Obama White House to shepherd its Syria attack resolution to final approval.

In temporarily overriding Rice, Power, Rhodes, and Kerry, who all favored a Labor Day weekend military strike, Dempsey incurred the wrath of the R2P faction that dominates the National Security Council. State Department sources began spreading the word that Obama would still attack Syria without congressional approval. The Pentagon, on the other hand, pointed out that none of the National Security Council «heavies,» Rice, Power, or Rhodes, had any military experience and that Kerry was channeling the wishes of his good friend Senator John McCain, who has consistently supported Al Qaeda-led rebels in Syria and Libya.

Obama is faced with another grim reality. Some within the Pentagon ranks are so displeased with Obama's policies on Syria, they have let certain members of Congress of both parties know that «smoking gun» proof exists that Obama and CIA director John O. Brennan personally authorized the transfer of arms and personnel from Al-Qaeda-linked Ansar al Sharia Islamist rebels in Libya to Syria's Jabhat al Nusra rebels, who are also linked to Al Qaeda, in what amounts to an illegal «Iran-contra»-like scandal. The proof is said to be highly «impeachable».

When the documented proof is released that Obama and Brennan, the latter the point man who oversees operations involving Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan al Saud and Al Qaeda, were personally aware that arms from the caches of the late Muammar Qaddafi of Libya were transferred to Al Qaeda forces in Syria for use in terrorist attacks, there will be demands for impeachment hearings. The arms transfer was directly involved in the Libyan Islamist rebel attack on the CIA annex in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, an event from which Obama has not been able to extricate himself.

Bandar, who has been nicknamed «Bandar Bush» by members of the Bush family because of his close ties to them and «Bandar bin Israel» because of his close links to the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, is the principal player in seeking the overthrow of the Bashar al Assad government in Damascus. Bandar is carrying out a Saudi policy that would see the Syrian government replaced with a Sunni fundamentalist regime that would circumscribe the rights of Christians, Alawites, and Shi’as, essentially how Saudi Arabia today treats not Sunni Wahhabis within its borders.

One of the reasons why Obama and his cohorts have cracked down on whistleblowers in a manner unprecedented in recent U.S. history is to limit the fallout from military and intelligence professionals coming forth with details on how Obama, like his predecessor, has «cooked» the intelligence to pave the way to war. In this case, White House intelligence charging Syria for using chemical weapons is solely based on dubious signals intercepts provided by Israel. Not only is intelligence on the rebels’ use of chemical weapons in Damascus and Homs, sarin gas in Damascus and chlorine gas in Homs, being suppressed but National Security Agency and British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) intercepts from the Mount Troodos facility in Cyprus directly contradict signals intelligence by Israel’s Unit 8200 that purportedly show that Syrian army commanders ordered the sarin gas attack on Ghouta on August 21.

The White House finds itself relying on the use of propaganda and disinformation to stake its phony claims. The BBC has been caught using photographs of dead civilians in Iraq to show «victims» of Assad’s alleged chemical attack. Likewise, Al Jazeera, a conduit for the Muslim Brotherhood power brokers in Qatar has shown footage of «victims» of Assad’s government covered with fake bandages and Hollywood «blood».

Men and woman in U.S. military are acutely aware that Obama and his advisers are lying in order to get the U.S. involved in another quagmire in a Muslim nation. This time, the generals and admirals are standing with their ranks in opposing another Obama «war of choice» in support of Saudi Salafist expansion and Israeli regional imperialism.
 

According to Mr. Dempsey’s estimates, sending troops to help train the rebels outside of Syria would cost $500 million a year. The General said that more robust options, including establishing no-fly or buffer zones inside Syria, or containing Syria’s government-held chemical weapons, would cost at least a billion dollars a month and require ships, aircraft and up to several thousand troops.

It should be noted here that acting upon the Chief Executive’s decision the Central Intelligence Agency has already begun moving weapons to Jordan from a network of secret warehouses. It plans to start arming small groups of vetted Syrian rebels within a month, expanding U.S. support of moderate forces battling President al-Assad. The shipments, coordinated with allies, are timed to allow a concerted push by the rebels in August. Up to a few hundred of the fighters will enter Syria under the program each month. At that rate, U.S. and Saudi officials believe it would take four to five months before there are enough rearmed and trained moderate fighters to make a meaningful difference against Mr. Assad's forces. The U.S. effort is designed to strengthen forces loyal to Gen. Salim Idris, the top Syrian rebel commander backed by the West. But officials acknowledged the difficulty of getting reliable information about the backgrounds of individual soldiers. Mr. Obama has opted to arm the rebels covertly using the CIA, limiting public disclosures about the effort and restricting oversight to a small group of lawmakers who oversee secret programs.

Deliberations and stances

The deliberations over military intervention are proceeding. Last month, the Obama administration concluded that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons against the rebels. Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes said then that, «the intelligence community estimates that 100 to 150 people have died from detected chemical weapons attacks in Syria to date; however, casualty data is likely incomplete». US Secretary of State John Kerry called for «immediate» air strikes on Syria but the idea was rejected by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 

General Martin Dempsey said then, «The State Department didn’t fully grasp the complexity of such an operation». He pointed out that Syria has a sophisticated air defense system that would have to be neutralized with almost inevitable losses before any air strikes could be delivered. The US Air Force, he noticed, could not simply «drop a few bombs» on Syria without first carrying out some 700 sorties to disable the country’s integrated air defense, and that without any kind of exit strategy the Pentagon would not back the plan.

The mentioned above chemical weapons story was met with skepticism inside the country and worldwide, including Russia and China. The US never came up with anything like a solid proof. Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, later presented to the UN evidence supplied to his government that suggested the Syrian opposition fighters used chemical weapons. With regards to foreign intervention, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said back then that, «Providing arms to either side would not address this current situation». In May, the United Nations independent commission of inquiry on Syria reported «strong, concrete suspicions» that the US-backed rebels had deployed sarin gas. «This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities», said commission member Carla Del Ponte. Preparations for a possible attack against Syria reportedly began after the use of chemical weapons in Aleppo on 5 March 2013. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and despite having received an 800 pages official report from a Russian expert commission, who investigated at the scene and who had samples analyzed in internationally recognized laboratories, the Obama administration continues issuing unconfirmed accusations against the Syrian government.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) and his father, former congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas), have also cautioned the White House against aiding Syrian rebels. «You will be funding today the allies of al Qaeda» by aiding Syrian rebels, Sen. Paul said in May. (http://conservativeangle.com/rand-paul-my-colleagues-just-voted-to-arm-allies-of-al-queda/) But GOP heavyweights Sens. John McCain (R-Arizona) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have been relentless with efforts to equip opposition fighters. «I don’t care what it takes», Graham told Foreign Policy’s The Cable earlier this year. «If the choice is to send in troops to secure the weapons sites versus allowing chemical weapons to get in the hands of some of the most violent people in the world, I vote to cut this off before it becomes a problem». The GOP has other vibrant war mongers among its ranks. The influential chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said on July 10, that the administration of President Barack Obama should prepare to target Syrian «airfields, airplanes and massed artillery» using stand-off weapons in addition to arming and training the opposition to the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Levin Senator Levin and Senator Angus King said after visiting the Middle East that only increased US support for vetted rebel groups could level the playing field with Assad and his Russian, Iranian and Hezbollah allies and lay the ground for a political settlement. These limited but «essential steps», Mr. Levin said, afford «the best hope and perhaps the only hope» to end a two-year-old conflict that is threatening US national interests by destabilizing Syria’s neighbors and creating potential «safe havens» in Syria for anti-US extremists. In a joint statement Levin and King said the U.S. and its allies should arm and train the militants and consider «options for limited, targeted strikes at airplanes, helicopters, missiles, tanks and artillery». However, to give the devil his due, they were not calling for American troops on the ground in Syria. The senators noted that «doing nothing may be the worst option of all», potentially destabilizing U.S. allies in the region, including Turkey and Jordan, and threatening Israeli interests.

JCS strike plan

On July 22 the Chairman set out five options for military intervention in Syria in a non-classified letter addressed to the US Congress. The US military online news site Stars and Stripes provides a review of US war plans against Syria as set forth in the document. While outlining the options, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey stressed again that the decision of whether to go to war was one for civilian leaders. The paper detailed risks like the empowering of extremists and retaliatory strikes by the Syrian government. CJCS noted, «Once we take action, we should be prepared for what comes next», Mr. Dempsey wrote. «Deeper involvement is hard to avoid». The options range from nonlethal intelligence and weapons training to a boots-on-the-ground plan to «assault and secure» the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons. Beyond training, Dempsey said the United States could conduct lethal stand-off strikes that would degrade the regime’s air defenses as well as ground, missile and naval forces. Such an option would require hundreds of aircraft and ships and, «depending on duration, the costs would be in the billions».

According to the newspaper, these are the five options outlined by Mr. Dempsey for U.S. military action in the Syria:

• «The least involved — a train, advise and assist mission – would require no U.S. troops to be directly involved with fighting as they operated outside Syria and delivered supplies and training, Dempsey said. At an estimated $500 million annually, it could raise opposition fighters’ capabilities but carries a risk that extremists could gain access to U.S. weapons.

• A second option, limited stand-off strikes, would target «high-value regime air defense, air, ground, missile and naval forces as well as the supporting military facilities and command nodes», with strikes launched outside Syria. «Depending on duration, the costs would be in the billions», Dempsey wrote. Although attacks would degrade Syrian regime capabilities over time, they could spark retaliatory attacks and endanger civilians, he wrote.

• A third option, establishing a no-fly zone, would go further, taking out Syrian air defenses to control the skies throughout the country. Because U.S. aircraft would be required to fly over Syrian airspace, the risk to U.S. troops would be higher, Dempsey said. The no-fly zone would cost $500 million upfront and up to $1 billion a month to maintain, he said.

• The U.S. military could also establish buffer zones to protect the borders of Turkey or Jordan, or to protect Syrian civilians, Dempsey wrote. Doing so would require partial no-fly zones and would carry many of the same risks and costs.

• The most complex option Dempsey outlined — controlling chemical weapons — would require a no-fly zone, air and missile strikes and thousands of troops on the ground. Doing so would cost more than $1 billion a month, he said, adding: «Risks are similar to the no-fly zone with the added risk of U.S. boots on the ground».

I think it serves the purpose to remember here that, aside from the arms deliveries mentioned above, the US Special Forces in Jordan are training rebels for ground assistance during U.S. air raids against high profile military and political targets in Syria. A major, internationally backed, political and military campaign against Syria is expected in August and September. The United States has left these around 800 combat-equipped troops (over 1000 according to some sources) as well as air defense systems in Jordan after a training exercise there. «This detachment that participated in the exercise and remained in Jordan includes Patriot missile systems, fighter aircraft, and related support, command, control, and communications personnel and systems», Obama said in June.

Many a time US officials have previously said Washington is considering implementing a no-fly zone above Syria, and last month the Pentagon left a fleet of F-16 fighter planes and its Patriot anti-missile system on the Jordanian border following a routine military exercise.

* * *

Embroiling the nation in a dangerous and unnecessary conflict while handing over heavy weaponry to rag-tag motley crew groups, predominantly terrorists, who have vowed to attack the US and Israel once they are finished with Syria, hardly meets the interest of common Americans facing everyday life woes in the times of financial constraints and huge deficits. The fight against the very same troubles caused in large measure by getting bogged down in costly faraway lands adventures. In June a Pew Poll showed that 70% of Americans oppose arming the Syrian «rebels», a figure which marks the highest level of opposition since the conflict began two years ago.  In a major address at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Senator Levin conceded that there is scant US popular support for increased involvement in the Syrian conflict and «no consensus» on the issue on Capitol Hill. Indeed, recent polls show that a majority of Americans opposes even giving weapons to Syrian rebels. Mr. Levin may not like it, but it is the truth he has to admit. 

At that, Moscow still hopes to discuss the issue of chemical weapons at an international peace conference for Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said on July 24, adding that Moscow was for a comprehensive investigation of all such instances. He recalled that Russia had made its contribution to such an investigation, recently submitting to the United Nations a comprehensive study of soil samples taken from the site of a reported chemical attack by Syrian opposition forces outside the northern city of Aleppo in March. The study determined that the nerve agent sarin was used and that it was not «industrially manufactured».

Washington and Moscow announced plans for the peace conference last month, but the steps taken by the US administration appear to be aimed at giving priority to meddling into the fray instead of conversing at a round table. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will meet next week, and further talks on the conference are expected to follow. So there is still a chance to grab, a modest start to launch a major negotiation process. But the US seems to be stepping on the shoots of the would-be fledgling start to plunge the world into a quagmire of another military prolonged and costly adventure. It does so against the will of American grassroots who have had enough their feelings so masterly expressed by real American John Fogerty (the one who has gone through thick and thin to have a right to say what he feels) in his famous Déjà Vu that Senator McCain and like-minded persons appear to have never heard. These people don’t care what an average Joe thinks. It’s up to the US political brass to decide if it they serve common people or war-minded big business tycoons and hawks.