1. “Let me be clear: President Obama is not asking the United States to go to war.”
–John Kerry, Sept. 3
Translation: We are asking the United States to go to war without calling it war.
2. “The evidence here [against the Syrian government] is so clear and so powerful.”
–John Kerry, Sept. 1 on ABC This Week
Translation: There is nothing clear or powerful about the “evidence,” but if we keep repeating this line maybe you will just believe us. Anonymously some officials have admitted that the “evidence” is “no smoking gun” but that will not be said that publicly. We will also omit the fact that the intelligence reports come out of the same office (Director of Intelligence James Clapper) that last year lied in front of Congress about the existence of the NSA domestic surveillance program.
3. It is “undeniable” and there is “no doubt” that the Syrian government ordered the chemical weapons attacks.
Translation: We are simply going to ignore that the Syrian government is vehemently denying the accusations, and that tens of millions of people around the world indeed have lots of “doubt” about our version of events.
4. “The belated decision by the [Syrian] regime to grant access to the UN team is too late to be credible.”
-White House statement, Aug. 25
Translation: We actually never wanted the UN to investigate the attack, we just wanted to use the UN as a cover to legitimize our own airstrikes. We tried to dissuade the UN inspectors—who were accepted by the Syrian government the day after submitting their request—from going but now that the inspectors have gone ahead and gone to Syria, we have to discredit their investigation in advance.
5. “The options that we are considering are not about regime change.”
–White House spokesman Jay Carney.
Translation: We know you all are tired of “regime change” efforts, so we are going to use a different slogan. But really this is about regime change, it just might not happen right away. The U.S. federal government from which we are always cutting social programs and needed services, intends to continue funneling weapons and money to armed groups in Syria, applying international sanctions, and threatening larger-scale military action until the government of Bashar al-Assad is ousted.
