Though action depicted below was clearly, in my view, the result of the basis of the commentary that follows the depiction, it, of course, means whatever you want it to, which is the point. But if you want the actual text of the speech, HOVER and/or click for a slightly larger version in a new window/tab:
[BACK TO YESTERDAY'S DRIVEL]
The British PM may as well have admitted to being in on a false flag.
In fact - even if he didn't flutter his lashes metaphorically with that
come-hither look heads of state are wont to work when trying to convince others of the worthiness of the actions behind their titillating entreaties, or bat them in succession in the tell-tale fashion reserved for those who know that what they are saying might come back to bite them in their reputations if not their future public speaking earnings - when he sputtered the sentence,
"In the end there is no 100 percent certainty about who is responsible, but I think we can be as certain as possible that when we have a regime that has used chemical weapons on 14 occasions, that is most likely responsible for this large scale attack, that if nothing is done it will conclude that it can use these weapons again and again and on a larger scale and with impunity."
he blinked. You know, like, how the Irish would say,
literally.
Anyone learned in the skill of
taking the stand can tell you that "when we have" conceals the nearly indistinguishable but less persuasive "if we had".
I will grant you that making an equally spurious claim about the previous fourteen occasions as if they are a given is a brilliant use of
dubious distraction as supporting evidence.
And he almost pulled it off. Of course, it doesn't matter.
It is clear from the reactions of politicians opposed to this military action that coming right out and saying, "We cannot be sure that the Americans staged this latest attack, but given the
recent revelations regarding their support of the same on an
untold number of occasions, that it is most likely working in cooperation with whoever did stage this latest attack, and if we go along with them on this adventure, they will continue to use these tactics again and again and on a larger scale and with impunity," is akin to smearing your Handcock all over demands for "the truth".
But for the guy who is supposed to be leading the charge on behalf of the limey lapdogs, what his "cannot be 100 percent sure, in the end" actually says is that he knows, or at least thinks he knows, that what he is saying is bullshit.
When you're lying, it doesn't matter if it's a slam-dunk or not. One reason they hired you for the job is to appear to make open shots. Nobody is going to admit that a shorts-less PM just clanged it off the back of the rim until the janitor is sweeping popcorn from between the seats. Cameron looked Michael Jordanesque, switching hands mid-air to wildly spin the ball off the backboard and into the hoop - only to miss an easy layup and crying, "Bloody hell!" I guess he put too much English on it.
Bubba and Blair, now they could lie with distinction. Dubya, despite his rep, was effective at avoiding the truth. Cameron and the Rama would get cleaned out at the poker table. Could it be that the Rama's contorted stammering on the bully pulpit - as compared to his forceful proclaiming on the campaign trail - is his own intelligence blasting away at the arguments in his head just as they are exiting his mouth?
"I'll see your, uh, 'let me be clear' and raise you an, uh, 'uh'."
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Angela Merkel for her part simply did her best Lebowski with a "this will not stand." But it's clear where the Germans stand any time you see Sahra Wagenknecht arguing
one against four (four-and-a-half if you count the hostess) on a panel tasked with giving the public a serious discussion on the matter.
Again, she couldn't just come out and say what everybody wonders - namely, that American spies coordinated the torturous murder of all those civilians in Syria - without completely destroying her future in politics, especially with an approaching election, even if it is the least important ever.
The best anyone can do is allow themselves to be forced into the "the evidence is not clear" and "even if it is, your argument for intervention is stupid" corner - an unenviable position if there ever was one - while recreant reporters of embeddedly scooped disinfo like Julian Reichelt use "I've been to Syria" to mean "I know what is good for Syrians more than you" and the production team at the public station on which this propaganda is broadcast uses an iPad with images of writhing poisoned children to poll the public.
Having seen in the past an installment of this programme on which they did a bait & switch with just such a people-on-the-street survey, I was hoping (the whole bile-in-the-gullet inducing time) that it would be revealed at the end that they'd been showing victims of NATO drone attacks or one of the massacres carried out by the US, like the one in
Fallujah. Not a chance.
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And not a chance that any serious reporter would call for the punishment of the highest commander of the perpetration of that inhumanity. Then, a full-court press amounting to "there's no evidence that they did it" and "even if they did, white phosphorous is only an incendiary weapon, not a chemical one" was a perfectly reasonable position to take.
And what about the
stockpiles of chemical weapons that governments have on hand - at least the ones who sign treaties and trade pacts - and the fact that a larger GDP creepily correlates with the amount of continued production of the same, all while they promise to "completely destroy" them by some date that corresponds to a future presiding tenure? Either they're being used, they're wanting to be used, or they're being sold with the precise cost-benefit analysis of the same in mind, an analysis meant for "the adults" who would never suggest that the purpose of manufacture was to use them in any way.
In short, all the press need do - whether it's
our press or
their press - is forward the host state's gaming of the evidence. With that, pundits and editorialists have all they need to coalesce with the appropriate conclusions. Even if the media didn't conflate the Doctors Without Borders' reports of victims of chemical weapons attacks with sworn statements that they'd seen the Syrian Army do it, it doesn't matter. Because even if they didn't do it, they probably did.
