I think at this juncture that we can all welcome the new US Ambassador to Australia, John Berry, to explain why Australia should back a US strike on Syria.

John after all, was in the US military and his new husband, Curtis, is an ironman http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/09/18/meet-john-berry-us-ambassador-australia .

We now have several arguments to explain US eagerness to swipe Syria:
- To destabilise Iran.
- To keep other anti-Assad Arab allies on side.
- To dominate the region.
- To secure access to oil.
- To maintain profits for US based business.
- Because the Israelis are dictating policy to the US.
Why do I remain unconvinced? I guess its because each of these individual arguments is contestable. And because all of them put together sounds like a massive conspiracy, spanning the whole gamut of everything that is conservative/neo-liberal/capitalist/Anglo-Saxon, etc.
My plea is that we do not mistake what is possible, even plausible, for what is real. I say again, I deplore US meddling in all sorts of corners of the world. And I accept that furthering US interests goes a long way to understanding such meddling. But I also understand that humans, even powerful ones, often fly by the seat of their pants. Politics, as I see it, is a game of opportunism. And governments' idea of strategic rarely exceeds the next election.

I do hope that Ambassador John Berry's husband, who according to those strange individuals who have an interest in these things, is an iron-man, doesn't go rusty!

WD-40 will help to keep the rust away along with the occasional all over rub with fine wet and dry.

Keeping the pipes rust free requires more effort but I'm sure Ambassador Berry is proficient in the ins and outs of these delicate areas!

On another issue, I wonder if Berry will run the American spy-network from the Embassy as did his predecessor?

Doubtless there will be a conga-line of political arse-lickers from the Tory Party eager to show to the U.S. just how sycophantic most Australians are and how anxious they are to serve in endless U.S. wars!

The other major reason for war on Syria is financial. The US has military bases in about 130 countries and they are causing more financial problems than they are worth. Added to that, the $700+ billion US military budget (not including a comparable amount given to subsidiary defense spending) has to be justified on a year-by-year basis.

The Pentagon can’t keep justifying its out-of-control military budget in the absence of war, especially now that neoliberalism and globalisation have bankrupted the non-military US economy. A similar problem is faced by the handful of corporations that control the global financial markets, many of whom are directly or indirectly involved with US military and defense spending. An absence of war means that their lucrative supply of defense-related contracts dries up.

Picking regular wars with small countries – Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya and now Syria – is the perfect propaganda cocktail for keeping the Pentagon’s war budget healthy, while keeping the conflicts away from any direct threat to US home soil. Apart from the fact that they are small countries offering no real threat to the US, the one thing they have in common is that they do not go along with the Washington consensus.

As with all imperial ventures throughout history, these conflicts are essentially coward’s wars.

Obama fears assassination. Ray McGovern is an ex-CIA senior analyst. Obama when asked why he did not do the right thing in power said,"Don't you remember what they did to Martin Luther King Jr ?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gz3XwHyrVsQ

Obama is just another puppet who does mostly as he's told but to his credit is trying to stop WW3.

What a terrible link Arjay! Really, a youtube video, with some guy doing a voice over and a still shot of Ray McGovern from an unrelated interview. I'm interested in see all points of view, but this just has no credibility at all!