Madison Ruppert
End the Lie

According to senior Pentagon officials, American military forces are already planning for possible strikes against Iran and Syria utilizing both conventional weaponry and cyberwarfare as the situation in both nations only seems to be getting worse by the day.

General Norton A. Schwartz, U.S. Air Force (Image credit: Sheila Vemmer/Times News Service)

Lieutenant General Herbert Carlisle, deputy chief of staff for operations, plans and requirements with the U.S. Air Force informed a March 8 investors conference sponsored by McAleese and Associates and Credit Suisse that the Department of Defense is exploring their options for military actions.

Carlisle’s statement came on the heels of an interview with the U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta for the National Journal during which he confirmed that the Pentagon is indeed planning for strikes on Iran.

This also came in the wake of Panetta saying that he thinks that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) should begin debating the issue of military intervention in Syria, although NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen claims that that discussion has not yet begun.

While Iran repeatedly denies any intent to develop nuclear weapons and Panetta himself has confirmed that they are not currently developing weapons on two separate occasions, the alleged developments in their program continues to give lawmakers and others the fuel they need to call for war.

In the case of Syria, the entire fiasco has been rife with blatant propaganda (and poor attempts at damage control), predictions of a military coup d’état, reports that the West is already discussing a no-fly zone, reports of cross-border attacks coming from Turkey, reports of Mossad, CIA and Blackwater already operating, even reports of undercover French army officers being captured and much more.

In the case of Iran, Carlisle refused to provide specifics on their planning, citing limitations due to the classified nature of the subject.

“I won’t get into any details on that, obviously, because it’s ongoing operational planning,” he said, according to Defense News.

However, he did confirm that cyberwarfare is an option that they are currently considering.

“There [are] … electronic warfare pieces. There are offensive cyber operations. There are defensive cyber operations. Without stepping over any line of classification, I would say again, everything is on the table. That could be a component,” he said.

Thankfully, it appears that these military officials are aware of the fact that invading Syria would be an entirely different beast than the Libyan operation.

“It requires thought and deliberations,” Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz said at the same conference. “A key challenge is that Syria is not Libya. Syria is a much more demanding air defense environment as a case in point and would require a level of effort far in excess of what we did in Libya.”

The country has a somewhat outdated Soviet-era surface-to-air missile system which would likely require the American military to utilize stealth aircraft like the B-2 bomber and F-22 fighter.

While the F-22 has yet to be used in a combat operation, the B-2 was used at the beginning of the bombing campaign in Libya as well as in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In November of last year, it was reported that Russian ships entered Syrian waters, not only delivering advanced S-300 missile systems but also the technical advisers who would assist in setting up the anti-aircraft missile array.

Israeli news sources called the S-300 one of the most powerful anti-aircraft missile systems available and it was also reported that Russia is installing advanced radar systems throughout Syria to compliment the missile system.

In January of this year, Syrian media also reported that a Russian naval flotilla had arrived in the Syrian port city of Tartus in addition to another report in November of last year which said that Russian ships had entered Syrian territorial waters in order to prevent Western military intervention as the opposition called for a no-fly zone.

Both Russia and China have been some of the strongest opponents of military action in Syria, with China even setting forth a diplomatic plan, which of course the West is completely uninterested in.

Carlisle said that the Department of Defense is already engaging in efforts to prepare for intervention in Syria but claimed that it was not unusual for them to do such a thing.

“In standard military fashion, we plan,” he said. “That’s what we do. So we’ll think about everything and every eventuality. We’ll think about what would be required of us and how we would accomplish it.”

If the reports I have been covering for so long are accurate, they have been planning for intervention in Syria for much longer than they are making out.

At this stage all we can do is hope that the plans to attack both Iran and Syria will never materialize. If anything is certain, it is that both events would be disastrous for everyone involved and both have the unfortunate possibility of starting a much larger and deadlier regional – perhaps even global – conflict.

This is where the lie ends. The American people are waking up to the fact that the mainstream media is controlled by a very small group of elite billionaires who decide exactly what stories to cover. We at End the Lie force politicians to address the real issues, force government to be accountable and transparent, and force real change to occur in our country. Every American needs to get informed and stand up for the principles upon which our wonderful country was founded. Do it now with End the Lie.

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Steven Birn
Steven Birn Speaks

Leon Panetta has been an internationalist for years; He was one of the key UN internationalist types in the Clinton administration and now he serves the same role in the Obama administration.

Knowing this it should come as no surprise when Panetta told Congress last week that the administration believes it must get “international permission” to initiate military action abroad. Whether the administration bothers to seek Congressional permission, that may or may not be done at the good pleasure of the administration.

We’ve already seen this in action. Obama obtained “international permission” for his actions in Libya. He never received authorization from Congress, which is required when a military action takes longer than 90 days. Libya went well over the legal time limit, Obama never sought any authorization from Congress. Compare this to President Bush who obtained authorization for action in Iraq and Afghanistan before action was ever taken against those countries.

It ought to disturb Americans that the administration believes that Congress is irrelevant to military action. The Ron Paul libertarian types and liberals before Obama took office will whine to no end that Bush never received a declaration of war from Congress. It’s debatable whether the authorizations he received were de facto declarations of war. But putting that aside, recall the outrage from the left over the Iraq and Afghanistan wars when Bush was in office and ask yourself where the outrage from the left is over wars Obama has gotten us involved in and wars he’s talking about getting us involved in.

For all the talk of illegal war when Bush was in office, there’s no talk of illegal war from the left now that Obama is in the White House. The fact is that the Libya war became an illegal war when Obama failed to obtain or even request Congressional approval. Syria, should we get involved there, would also be an illegal war if the necessary Congressional approval isn’t obtained in the proper time frame. But the left won’t care. Why? Because they’re more interested in international permission than they are with Congressional permission. In short, they believe our military should be subject to international control.

Want evidence? Go back to the Bush administration. It was the Ron Paul libertarian types who made the Constitutional argument against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The left whined that Bush was a cowboy who was “going at it alone.” Never mind all the other nations who sent troops, the left’s mantra was that cowboy Bush was unilaterally going to war. The far left, which was responsible for protests and which controls the media, have long been on the internationalist bandwagon.

We shouldn’t be surprised at Panetta’s position. The far left hates the American Constitution because it limits the power of government. A certain portion of the far left much prefers decisions be made by a handful of elites, which is where the internationalists come in. Rather than allowing Congress to make decisions about war, the far left would rather a cabal of international elites make the decision for us. In short, they have all the power and we have none. Worse, we have no say in the matter. This is all old news with Panetta, he’s been supporting this nonsense for decades.

Steven Birn is an attorney and conservative political junkie and blogger. For more news and commentary visit Steven Birn Speaks.

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