by Stephen Lendman

Obama's Iraq war III is lawless. It has no legal authority. It constitutes cold, calculated, premeditated naked aggression.

The same holds for his three-and-a-half year proxy war on Syria. It was planned long before March 2011 hostilities began. It's now elevated to direct US intervention.

On Tuesday, US warplanes bombed multiple Syrian targets. Precise ones aren't clear. Multiple civilian deaths followed. At least three children died. Civilians suffer most in all wars.

US and Israeli ones target them willfully. They're considered legitimate targets. They're murdered in cold blood.

A local Raqqa resident said "(t)here is an exodus out of (the city) as we speak. It started in the early hours of the day after the strikes."

"People are fleeing toward the countryside." Around one-third of Syria's population already is internally or externally displaced.

US bombing threatens thousands more. They're in the line of fire. They're in harm's way

As long as US bombing continues, not a square inch of Syria is safe. The entire country is vulnerable to attacks.

Expect Washington to take full advantage. Expect Big Lies to conceal its objectives.

They have nothing to do with degrading and destroying ISIS/ISIL/the Islamic state (IS).

They have everything to do with advancing America's imperium. Previous articles explained.

Its so-called coalition allegedly includes Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Bahrain.

Their precise military roles aren't clear. Or if they have or intend having any.

They're likely US partners in name only. To give Washington pseudo-legitimate veneer cover. None whatever exists.

No Security Council authorization. No congressional OK. Little significant non-Western/Middle East support.

All wars are based on lies. Big ones launch them. They're based on deception.

What worked throughout history applies more than ever now. Instant communications facilitate war-making.

Managed news misinformation circulates with electronic ease. Propaganda wars precede hot ones.

They reflect deception, popular fiction and Big Lies. They repeat with disturbing regularity.

Ordinary people are carpet-bombed round-the-clock. Truth is systematically buried.

Washington's imperial war machine is humanity's greatest threat. It rages out-of-control.

It targets one country after another. It ravages and destroys them.

It leaves tens of millions dead, wounded and/or displaced. It turns nations into dystopian wastelands.

Throughout its sordid history, America glorified wars in the name of peace. They're waged against invented enemies.

They include mass slaughter and destruction. America refined the art of killing. It's more able to lay waste to vast areas than any nation in history.

It takes full advantage. It manufactures public consent. It transforms peace-loving Americans into raging US enemy haters. Muslims are today's target of choice.

Coalition to Oppose Arms Trade coordinator Richard Sanders explained earlier, saying:

"Throughout history, war planners have used various forms of deception to trick their enemies."

"Because public support is so crucial (to wage war), the home population is also subject to deceitful stratagems."

"The creation of false excuses to justify going to war is a major first step in constructing public support..."

"The corporate media (are) central to the success of" manufacturing consent." So is repetition.

It drowns out other narratives. MSM scoundrels are master manipulators. So are PR wizards. Their support is crucial in enlisting public support.

Things work the same way every time. Truth is suppressed. Fear-mongering proliferates.

Patriotism and democratic values are highlighted. People are manipulated to support war. To protect national security.

To keep the world safe for democracy. To fight terrorist threats. To eliminate them altogether.

America invents them. It's vital for public support. Naked aggression is conducted to combat them. So-called enemies are more fiction than fact.

Pentagon Papers revelations showed Johnson administration officials lied to the public and Congress.

In their book, "Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq," Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber showed how manipulative propaganda sells people on war.

Big Lies work the same way every time. Government deception, media cooperation, and aggressive PR convince people to support what harms their interests and well-being.

Pentagon officials spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually selling wars. Truth is suppressed. Big Lies substitute.

Alternative voices are shut out. War-mongering is standard fare. Pressure is constant to support what demands condemnation.

To back military intervention. Political solutions are alien to US policy. War-profiteers demand conflicts without end.

Over a century ago, William Randolph Hearst hyped the Big Lie. He did so about Spain sinking the battleship Maine. A coal bunker explosion caused it.

It didn't matter. Hearst told his illustrator: "You furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war."

Big Lies launch them every time. Doing so manipulates public minds. People support what they'd never do otherwise.

Most rely on television for news and information. In June 1950, then Boston University president Daniel Marsh said "(i)f (its craze) continues…we are destined to have a nation of morons."

In May 1961, FCC chairman Newton Minow called commercial television a "vast wasteland."

He described a "procession of game shows, formula comedies, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, cartoons, and endless commercials."

He called many of them "screaming, cajoling and offending…If you think I exaggerate," tune in, he said.

When America goes to war or plans one, media giants march in lock step. They regurgitate state-sponsored propaganda.

They manufacture consent. They let America get away with murder and then some.

They substitute Big Lies for vital truths. They ignore Dwight Eisenhower's farewell address warning.

He cited a "coalition of the military and industrialists who profit by manufacturing arms and selling them to the government."

About the military-industrial complex's "acquisition of unwarranted influence…The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power…"

The fact that "(e)very gun…made, every war ship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, from those who are cold and not clothed…"

The late Canadian Law Professor Michael Mandel explained American lawlessness in his 2004 book titled, "How America Gets Away with Murder: Illegal Wars, Collateral Damage, and Crimes Against Humanity."

He discussed Justice Robert's Jackson's Nuremberg supreme crime against peace declaration. It's more than ever relevant now.

World War I was called the war to end all wars. WW II followed. Is WW III next? Either we prevent it or it'll end us. There's no in between.

Are Obama's Middle East wars prelude to greater conflict? Will Ukrainian crisis conditions trigger it?

Will East/West confrontation follow? Will global conflict erupt? Can humanity survive perpetual wars? Can planet earth sustain them?

On September 23, Obama addressed Speaker John Boehner by letter, saying:

"(O)n September 22, 2014, at my direction, US military forces began a series of strikes in Syria against elements of al-Qa'ida known as the Khorasan Group."

It's Washington's latest alleged terrorist threat. It's unclear if it exists. If it's fake or real.

Obama lied claiming "(t)hese strikes are necessary to defend the United States and our partners and allies against the threat posed by these elements."

He falsely said they protect "national security and (US) foreign policy interests…"

He claimed nonexistent "constitutional and statutory authority as Commander in Chief" to wage war at his discretion. He called it "consistent with…War Powers Resolution" principles.

False! A previous article explained. WPR is clear and unequivocal, stating:

"The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, are exercised only pursuant to

(1) a declaration of war,

(2) specific statutory authorization, or

(3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces."

No declaration of war exists. No legal authority. No national emergency.

No existential or other threats. No enemies targeting America. No Security Council authorization. No congressional OK.

No justifiable reason to wage war. No reason ever to do so except in self-defense if attacked.

None occurred. Expect none forthcoming. Except perhaps False Flag deception.

It won't be the first time if it happens. Or the last. They're an American tradition.

It's been 13 years since the mother of all Big Lies. Maybe Obama has another in mind.

Maybe he'll replicate 9/11. Maybe he'll take state-sponsored terrorism to a higher level.

Maybe he plans much greater mass slaughter and destruction. Maybe he'll launch WW III. Maybe armageddon will follow?

Stay tuned. Forthcoming articles will explain more.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III".

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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