By Joseph Ballin
5/18/2017 8:56 AM EST
The Rape of Belgium was the first modern propaganda campaign by the British in order to change the opinion of Americans to join the side of the allies during World War I. Films of the dreaded Hun raping Belgium women and bayoneting babies appeared on Americans films. That is not to say there wasn’t atrocities committed by both sides during World War I, but that was not the reason we got into World War I. The real reason was because wallstreet had funded France and United Kingdom during the war and wallstreet wanted those debts paid back.
Germany and Austro-Hungary posed no threat to the United States. What should have happened was both sides should have ceased hostilities with each other and marched back to their nation’s borders, in a similar manner that brought an end to the bloody massacre that was the Korean War. Now, 100 years later, the U.S. State Department, one of the most evil organizations in human history, is “claiming” that the Assad government has killed and burned thousands of bodies in prisons. When I heard this, flashes of the rape of Belgium and Nayirah al-?aba? testifying before Congress that in Kuwait, Iraqi soldiers were “throwing babies out of incubators”.
The similarities between the Syrian Civil War and World War I are so numerous and obvious they could be put into a giant list. Let’s do that:
*Wilson runs for president under the campaign slogan “He kept us out of war”, winning in November 1916, only to betray his voters by declaring war on Germany in April 1917. A 100 years later, Trump runs for president under the campaign slogan of keeping us out of Syria, winning in November 2016, only to betray his voters by declaring war on Syria in April 2017.
*Both Trump and Wilson are authoritarian racists who advocated arresting journalists and establishing surveillance states.
*Instead of the the evil Kaiser, we now have Assad, the so called “butcher” of Damascus.
*There are various interconnecting alliances with contradictory goals among so called “allies”.
*Anti-war movements are marginalized and crushed by the state.
The more things change, the more things stay the same. Since Congress and US presidency no longer abide by US Constitution when it comes to declaration of war, Trump could at any time, use the thousands of US troops currently in Syria since March 2017 to overthrow Assad. We don’t have to be Nostradamus to see what happens next. We already have Iraq and Libya as models of American “liberation” looks like.
Until I see a shed of proof of Assad’s forces burning bodies or using sarin chemicals I do not believe either of them. Even if they were true, I would not advocate intervening in Syria. The only thing we can do to help is take in ALL Syrian refugees since we helped cause this, provide non-lethal aid to Syria, stop funding the so called “rebels”, and advocate some kind of cease fire.
Any new war will lead to decades long occupation by US military forces. We still have troops in Germany, Italy, Japan, and South Korea. Iraq and Afghanistan are almost 20 year old occupations. Imagine if we took all those US troops back home and instead of nation building over there, we start nation building here.
Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_non-interventionism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolationism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellington_House
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_of_Belgium
