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While viewing CBS news coverage last night, I was stunned into disbelief of what I was watching. I thought possibly I had misunderstood it because I wasn't initially fully concentrating on what was being presented. So, I checked the segment online, and sure enough, I had understood it.
The 2:29m segment reports on a local Syrian militia who are residents supported by their communities to fight against the rebels. They receive Syrian government support with arms and other equipment and a salary which many decline to accept being totally committed to protecting their country. These Syrians are essentially portrayed as freedom fighters! View the video:
Then I saw reported on CNN some coverage about a dramatic picture on the front page of the NY Times of Syrian rebels executing captured Syrian soldiers. Such mainstream media coverage represents an abrupt about-face to the constant theme of anti-Syrian government propaganda in the past several months.
Earlier in the afternoon I received an email from my local Congressman asking my views about Obama's proposed attack on Syria. Believe me, I am not any kind of friend of this congressman. He was polling all of his constituents on his email list. This is the first time that a congressman or senator in my 55 years of adulthood ever asked me for my opinion on anything.
I cite these three incidents as evidence of a deep split in our ruling class, a split more serious than I have ever discovered before in my examination of US history. I'm not sure what is happening here, but the split appears to be roughly composed of two ruling class factions as delineated by Webster Tarpley in this article last November.
Roughly they divide into what is often referred to as "hard power" and "soft power" advocates. The former are heavily represented in the military-industrial complex, Zionists, and other rogue elements identified by Tarpley; while soft power advocates in their international policies prefer to use financial incentives and threats to promote Empire rule, and domestically to preserve the facade of "democratic" rule as they promote their capitalist agendas. But now in contrast with his position in 2007, we see Obama proclaiming that he has the right to attack Syria without Congressional approval.
But this divide among the ruling class over the issue of Syria is anything but clear. It appears to me that the Obama administration and the soft power advocates are trying to head off the influence of the hard power advocates with this proposed strike on Syria. Not wanting to be outflanked, the hard power advocates are playing "hard-to-get" possibly trying to discredit the soft power advocates. This duplicitous strategy might be a preparation for a conservative victory in the next elections, and after that, an all-out campaign to create a fascist regime that would promote more aggressive agendas of world domination abroad and a police state at home.
