Ted Rall for November 04, 2013

“I told you if you didn’t quit stealing that kid’s lunch money, I’d kick your @ss.”.(bully gives the kid back his lunch money),Conclusion: Threats don’t work.

Well, you never know when you might need a good little war for political diversion… Why ruin a good thing?

Typical SNAFU. The empire once again s—ts in its own bed.

Well, Ted, you are once again to be commended for pulling no punches at either side. I think lots of Republicans are starting to become more libertarian in their approach to the war machine. It’s pretty clear that no matter who is in power, the Federal Reserve and the War Department (DOD name from 1789-1947) call the shots.

Don’t forget it was the UN inspectors telling us that Saddam’s Chemical weapons…Sorry, Harley. The UN Inspectors were saying that they had so far seen no evidence of WMDs, but felt they needed more time to be sure. Saddam wanted to keep up the deception that he might still have some WMDs because he was afraid of Iran. By February, with 50,000 US troops on his border, Saddam was more worried about them & was actively cooperating with UN inspections. Bush & Blair pulled the plug on inspections.

And the Wahabbis will cleanse Syria of all infidels, meaning all Shi’a and Christians, which will keep Hezbollah busy and out of Israel’s hair.There are a LOT of splintered rebel groups, but the threats of ethnic cleansing are coming from the fringes. It seems like the extreme elements have driven some bystanders into Assad’s camp, though. It looks like the Islamists may be in the majority among the rebels, but not all are hardliners & secularists are still present. Most of the rebels are Syrians, but foreign mujahedin are in the most extreme groups.Given the choice of supporting Islamists, Assad or staying the heck out of it, I think the third option is most agreeable.http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/report/2013/05/14/63221/the-structure-and-organization-of-the-syrian-opposition/

Oh come on, Ted. You know the threat had to be credible to work… or maybe you didn’t.

SkepticCal asks, “Have you had enough of Barack Obama’s foreign policy?” Yeah!! I want a new war!!! Something big enough to rate theme music on CNN!!!! You know, with reporters running around in flack jackets!!!! That’s more fun than NASCAR!!!!

Sorry to be so dense, but I don’t understand the locust in the last panel. Can someone explain it to me?

From my own prespective it was Russia that stepped in. That said

1. Russia is not the enemy2. Not all diplomats have the same influence. As fun as it is to imagine, there are cultural and historical divides, sometimes somebody else needs to step up to get the desired result

Thanks—I don’t think i would have ever gotten that. (I thought the chirps might be from a cricket, not a locust, but I still couldn’t figure it out.)

“Of COURSE a lib would say America gave anyone else chemical weapons” You really need to keep up with current events. The US not only gives chemical weapons to other countries, they use them on other countries. The US has used napalm and depleted uranium, just to name two.

Syria is disarming and we didn’t attack.