The moral burden on the United States

Barack Obama: “For nearly seven decades, the United States has been the anchor of global security. This has meant doing more than forging international agreements; it has meant enforcing them. The burdens of leadership are often heavy, but the world’s a better place because we have borne them.” Matthew Rothschild responds at Common Dreams:

Was the U.S. an anchor of global security and an enforcer of international agreements when it overthrew the Mossadegh government in Iran in 1953, or the Arbenz government in Guatemala in 1954? Is the world a better place because the U.S. helped overthrow Salvador Allende’s democratically elected government in Chile almost exactly 40 years ago? Is the world a better place because the United States killed 3 million people in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia and because we dropped 20 million gallons of napalm (waging our own version of chemical warfare) on those countries? Is the world a better place because the United States supported brutal governments in El Salvador and Guatemala in the 1980s, which killed tens of thousands of their own people? Is the world a better place because George Bush waged an illegal war against Iraq and killed between 100,000 and a million civilians? And what international agreements was the United States enforcing when it tortured people after 9/11?
Bill Maher:
Forget the Syria debate, we need to debate on why we're always debating whether to bomb someone because we're starting to look, not so much like the world's policeman, but more like George Zimmerman -- itching to use force and then pretending it's because we had no choice.

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Alan Grayson’s simple questions to the warmongers

Check out Alan Grayson's simple questions to Chuck Hagel and John Kerry at the 12:50 min mark on Democracy Now. Pathetic evasive answers by our "leaders." All while America rots at home from neglect. All while the big banks and the military industrial complex demonstrate that they own Congress. This is all so sad. I hope grade school teachers are telling the kids the truth about how their government operates. I completely support Representative Alan Grayson. The U.S. should stay out of Syria. I suspect that 50% of what we are hearing from the Obama Administration regarding Syria is untrue or unsubstantiated. Consider signing this Petition. Also, I'm not impressed with the Republican "peaceniks." If President Romney were leading the effort to attack Syria, 90% of them would be cheering him on. What we are witnessing is not rational. It is tribal.

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U.S. President actually considers consulting Congress before going to war

Glenn Greenwald:

It's a potent sign of how low the American political bar is set that gratitude is expressed because a US president says he will ask Congress to vote before he starts bombing another country that is not attacking or threatening the US. That the US will not become involved in foreign wars of choice without the consent of the American people through their representatives Congress is a central mandate of the US Constitution, not some enlightened, progressive innovation of the 21st century.

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Obama administration tries running Bush’s WMD play to beat war drums

Continuing the many ways in which the Surveiller-in-Chief is resembling George W. Bush, Obama is now pushing for military action in Syria, using the retread justification of Weapons of Mass Destruction (gasp!). [More]

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