Parties engaged in argument tend to their arguments. Viewers, however, may observe how each uses — or abuses — not only language but their conversational partners, and “talking over” a partner, mouthing the same to near death, is abuse.
Keeping in mind “malignant narcissism”, listen for and to the script — and note how the “transcript” has been altered from the video.
Kerry also said he had no doubt that Assad was responsible for the chemical weapons attack in east Damascus on 21 August, saying that only three people are responsible for the chemical weapons inside Syria – Assad, one of his brothers and a senior general. He said the entire US intelligence community was united in believing Assad was responsible.
In state-level affairs, the sovereign or government-in-power may be held accountable for what takes place within its purview. So right off the bat this week, the nit of The Guardian headline, “Assad did not order Syria chemical weapons attack, says German press” has a disingenuous cant to it.
If not Bashar, what about Maher?
If not Maher, what about an officer in charge under his command?
The German intelligence findings concerning Assad’s personal role may complicate US-led efforts to persuade the international community that punitive military action is justified. They could also strengthen suspicions that Assad no longer fully controls the country’s security apparatus.
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I’m not making the call, but the single case for pointing to a rebel false flags seems to stand on an accident involving the mishandling of chemical weapons stocks.
Or a recording — edited, underscored, produced, disseminated — showing a successful launch of a “blue bonnet” style rocket (using what looks like a launch vehicle matched to the purpose).
One case: two stories . . . .
That leaves the public with a spy story in a world waiting for the journalists to get into what I’m going to call “Political Spychology” — the massive, multinational industry devoted to capturing, listening, sniffing, stealing, interpreting signal for military as well as industrial purposes.
I am of the mind that the Syrian Civil War has degraded the central power of the Assad regime but neither installed nor shifted the same toward any coherent and responsible party: instead, it has drawn the state toward gross political anarchy and with a look in many places not dissimilar to Mogadishu’s: hard destruction around and through which shifting tides of suffering humanity amid armed gangs, loosely aligned at best, state or rebel, make their way.
Their situation will worsen as the lack of honesty and integrity across the field and the presence of grandiose ambitions in some ensures greater anarchy, brutality, and political dissolution.
To get the chemical weapons off the field is not to solve the war: it’s to make it a little more discerning (at least between combatant and noncombatant targets), humane, and secure because while other weapons projectiles explode or hit something with finite effect, poisonous gasses drift and are indiscriminate even on the gentlest of their lethal breezes.
To solve the war is to address the poetry of the mind of the warrior romantics involved in imagining themselves “God’s darlings” — Haider Mobarak’s phrase related to the narcissism involved — and striving to prove as much so through the intimidation, murder, and subjugation of all presumably less admirable and beloved-by-God others.
Live today at 12:30 PM ET, White House National Security Adviser Susan E. Rice. Ambassador Rice will discuss the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons against Syrian civilians, the longstanding international norm against the use of chemical weapons, and the need for action to deter the Assad regime from future use of chemical weapons.
I’m sure the clip is well known — it dates from October 5, 2010 — but it’s a rainy early evening here, and I’ve just come back from the new used book bookstore in town, and I am helpless before bookcases.
When I was a little iddle boy, debates like the one at the address above would have fallen into the category that is “thinking about the unthinkable”. These days, that unthinkable has to be thought about around the world, not only on the Korean peninsula or around Kashmir in the completely absurd India vs. Pakistan debacle or other now old nuclear armed regions but in the middle east as well, and there not only Israel (perhaps) vs. Whoever (this playing the anti-Semites line of rant) but Whoever vs. Whoever.
During the above debate, those who tune in will hear description of the thinking that would be at work in a “poly-nuclear”middle east.
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