What should the US do about a nation that uses chemical weapons against a civilian population? This question is the one Obama asks us all in regards to the Syrian situation. My personal position is that Obama should let it slide, since I don’t want a cruise missile strike on Dubya’s house here in Dallas. His chemical weapon? I’ll choose white phosphorous, or WP.

WP is an incendiary agent. Both the Geneva Convention and the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons forbid its use against civilian targets. Because it is a highly efficient oxygen depletion substance, WP is chosen as an anti-tunnel agent: set off a WP grenade in a tunnel and it will use up all the oxygen in the tunnel, suffocating enemy soldiers in the tunnel. Therefore, WP saw heavy use in Vietnam.

It also saw heavy use in the Chechnya War, where about 20% of all Russian artillery rounds fired were WP rounds. Saddam Hussein used WP in poison gas attacks against Iranian positions. Hussein also used it against Kurds in his suppression campaign against them. In the Iraq War and Occupation, US forces employed WP against military targets in civilian areas, which is prohibited in the conventions, mentioned above. The US also employed MK 77 incendiary bombs which, although still referred to as “napalm”, are not, in fact, napalm, which allows the US to use the MK 77 and then later deny it was using napalm when accused of using the substance. Clever dodge there, but at the end of the day, it’s a nasty chemical incendiary that international law forbids in use against civilians.

Israel has also used WP against civilian targets in Lebanon. Does that mean Netanyahu has equal need to hide from a US strike as does Assad? There’s also indisputable evidence of Israel using WP against Gaza refugee camps, just in case the Lebanon stuff isn’t enough to warrant a cruise missile or two slamming into Tel Aviv.

That last sentence stops me cold. I was ready to also note Hamas’ use of WP and Saudi Arabian use of WP against Yemeni insurgents, but let’s visit that “cruise missile or two slamming into Tel Aviv.” There are real people in that city, and heaven knows they’re not deserving of a cruise missile or two, even if the head of their nation has used chemical weapons against a civilian population. Damascus is a similar city, now torn apart by a civil war, but people still live there. They don’t deserve their civil war and they certainly don’t deserve a cruise missile strike from the USA.

Even if the chemical agent in question is the nerve gas toxin sarin, I don’t think hitting Syrian civilians with cruise missiles sends the right message. When Saddam Hussein used sarin both against the Kurds and the Iranian soldiers in the Iran-Iraq War, the USA permitted those actions. He was our ally at the time, and we had knowledge of his use of sarin at the highest levels of our government. Nothing happened to Saddam Hussein until after he was done being our ally. Assad never was our ally, so he’s open to the charge.

Except… well, there’s the matter of Iraqi insurgents attempting to use sarin against US forces occupying Iraq. The attack failed, but the same guys that tried to hit us with sarin are now making up a portion of the forces fighting Assad’s regime in Syria. They have everything to gain by getting the USA involved against Assad, so why not gas a few civilians? The end justifies the means to these wretched murderers, and what’s more, they’ve tried something like this before. Why are we not investigating this angle of the story more? Yes, an agent was used, but who used it and for what purpose?

The record is clear: of all the use of chemical agents in the region, it is the USA and its allies that dominate the incident reports. Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iraq when it was an ally, and the USA itself. Now that al-Qaeda is allied to the USA in this conflict (and is this why we hear very little about the recent upsurge in violence in Iraq?), are we giving it a free pass to use nerve gas to draw the USA into a conflict that clearly no good can come from?

What should we do? Rather than talk about lobbing missiles into the homes of Arabs, how about a discussion of how Qatar and Saudi Arabia are paying for the war in Syria, providing heavy funding to al-Qaeda in the process? How about a discussion of what happens when al-Qaeda becomes an arm of US foreign policy? There is already a growing debate about the soul of the nation in the wake of the Panic of 2008 and the revelations about NSA spying. My final question is in regards to our alliance and finding common cause with al-Qaeda: does it add to that debate, or does it seal it off, providing final proof of what the USA has become?

Italy in the late 1960s posed a difficult situation for the United States. Voters were supporting the Communist Party of Italy, or PCI, in increasing numbers. If Communists were even a part of an Italian government, it would represent a massive failure for the prestige of the USA. Moreover, Communists in government could have led to Italy leaking NATO secrets to the Soviet Union or causing Italy to withdraw altogether.

In Italy, NATO had an organization known as Gladio. Gladio existed to engage in long-term guerrilla struggles with a regime imposed in the wake of a Soviet invasion and takeover. But there was another wrinkle: Gladio’s members didn’t have to wait around for a Soviet takeover to get into action. They could engage in resistance to the nascence of Communist and Socialist movements by engaging in what was called “a strategy of tension.”

Strategy of tension was the cool summation of a wave of false-flag terror operations, starting with the Piazza Fontana massacre. In the wake of World War Two, the USA partnered with numerous Fascists and Nazis in order to resist Communism. Those Fascists and Nazis were ready and willing to engage in violence as part of a crusade against Soviet power. Those Fascists and Nazis were the backbones of Gladio-type organizations across Western Europe, from Nazi spymaster Reinhard Gehlen’s “Gehlen Org” in West Germany, on down to Gladio itself in Italy. Fascists and Nazis are the logical conclusions of political movements in which the end justifies the means, where evil done in the name of good is considered acceptable.

And so the Italian Fascists carried out a series of bombings and murders and then blamed them on leftists, in the hopes that such terror would drive people to support centrist and right-of center parties. The strategy did not succeed: as the terror claimed lives, the PCI grew to receive a third of all votes cast in Italy. It had grown so strong that, in 1978, Christian Democrat leader Aldo Moro considered inviting them to be part of his government.

15 days later, terrorists killed Aldo Moro’s bodyguards and kidnapped him.

The terrorists demanded an exchange of persons: Moro for some of their members in prison. The Italian government under Moro’s fellow Christian Democrat – and Gladio architect – Giulio Andreotti refused to negotiate, choosing instead to search high and low for Moro’s location.

The kidnappers allowed Moro to release statements to his family and the media. Moro’s statements were highly critical of the government, and there were fears within the Gladio organization that he might reveal their secrets.

55 days after Moro’s kidnapping, the terrorists executed him.

The terrorists claimed to be part of the Red Brigade, but were they really? I don’t want to actually explore the answer to that question. I ask the question, instead, to illustrate the incredible chaos and paranoia that penetrated Italy in that day. The chaos and paranoia arose from over 2000 politically-related murders, with extremists on the left and right ready to murder and frame their opponents for the crimes. Strategy of tension.

Did things actually happen that way? Did the USA act as a prime mover behind a wave of Fascist murders in Italy? Based upon what the USA did in other nations, I’m inclined to believe so. Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, Congo in 1961, Vietnam in 1963, and so on and so on: all these and possibly more were places and years in which the USA murdered people in order to topple governments in the hopes that their chosen replacements would follow along with the script from Washington. No nation was immune to the machinations of the USA, unless that nation allowed the Soviet Union or Communist China to be the one that murdered the politicians that did not follow the bidding of a superpower.

Which leads to another question: did the USA engage in a strategy of tension on home soil? Did the USA’s leaders construct or allow through acts of terror that could be laid at the feet of dangerous extremists in order to justify legislation that made the USA more authoritarian and capable of controlling its population? Given what happened in other nations, this is a serious question. The legislation passed in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing and the coordinated terrorist actions on 11 September 2001 certainly gave greater authority to the central government. Recent experience in Syria, Libya, and Egypt shows that the USA does not hold itself above toppling governments even to this day, so I must ask that terrible question: did the USA engage in a strategy of tension on home soil?

And if it did, what of it? What can we do about it? If the government itself is one built upon the idea of justified murders, opposing it effectively would seem to be a death sentence. Working to change it from within? Congress today looks like an Italian parliament… no, destruction comes from within. Change only comes from outside pressures. Given that violence and propaganda can both silence outside pressures, we in the USA do not seem destined to have change.

Certainly not from me. If non-violent opposition makes a person look like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., or Robert Kennedy, then that’s not a path for me: My family needs me to be here for them. Violent opposition would mean becoming part of the very violence that I abhor; and when violent opposition succeeds in revolution, the violence and oppression continue unabated, even if the list of victims changes.

The world is ruled by sociopaths and blind crusaders. When I have a realization like that, I am comforted by my faith. I am comforted by my deep understanding of my beliefs and my personal experiences that confirm to me that there is a better world beyond this brief mortality. I endure to the end. There is that word, “endure.” I do not flash out with a bang. I endure. All around me is tension, pulling, tugging, grasping – but I must endure it, that I might learn from it. I have my family, I have my friends, I have my God: if my government deserts me, at least I have those things that can give me peace in my heart when all about me is a strategy of tension.

Syria is a mess, and it just gets messier. Chemical weapons are in use there, but not by the Assad government: the rebel factions that the USA is supporting are the guys using them. The USA claims it is helping the rebels because Assad’s goons are plying the poison gas. Turns out, that’s a lie. Our moral high ground in that conflict is non-existent.

Not that we had much in the first place: Most of the rebels are al-Qaeda mercenaries. If they get in power, it won’t be pretty in Syria, at all.

Now there’s news that Israel shot a cruise missile into the air defense systems that Russia sold to Assad’s government. The Russian reaction? The largest military maneuver operation since the Soviet days. Not content to leave off at poking the Russian bear in that area, Netanyahu has begun to beat the “Iran might have nukes!” drum once again. Never mind that his own nation exists in violation of all manner of non-proliferation treaties. The USA ignores Israel’s violations and complains about everyone else’s.

Except now, we’re very much in a new Cold War with Russia. If Russia is supporting Assad, that means it has ties with Iran, at least as far as that issue goes. It recently accepted Snowden as a political refugee. Russia is a nation with thousands of nuclear missiles – it’s not a nation one would want to upset. Yet, here we are. Russia could have been a friendly nation, but we have antagonized that nation to where it’s back to the way things were in the 80s.

Our foreign policy is our own worst enemy.

The USA is outraged that other nations are not cooperating with the extradition of Edward Snowden. The USA is demanding that the other nations follow the law in this matter. The problem with that is the fact that the USA hasn’t followed other bits of international law, particularly in regards to Snowden’s revelations about how the USA swallowed wholesale their network transmissions.

I’m also concerned about how the USA has targeted Snowden more than it has targeted its massive security apparatus. So far, the only real successes of observing everyone’s communications have been in the area of harassing political opponents and blackmailing leaders of rival intelligence agencies. Never mind the criminality of the electronic harvest: consider the cost! Twelve years of this, and it’s only shown that it can bolster a president’s power against only his political enemies. It’s all so useless and inefficient.

Now for the legality of all that… it’s only needed if the USA is not run by the people. 100 years ago, authors of the day were already remarking on the stranglehold major corporations exercised on the USA’s government. It’s gotten worse since then. Consider why the security apparatus is justified: we must catch the terrorists! Why, then, are there terrorists? They hate us?

Well, why do they hate us? It’s not our freedom-loving lifestyle, I guarantee. It’s the way the USA topples popular governments and supports ruthless regimes in the lands of the terrorists. It’s also in the way the USA raises up terrorist groups to further our foreign policy in some lands, and then abandons them when our aims are achieved.

So what are our aims? Not freedom and justice for all – the support for terrorists and dictators on our payroll gives the lie to that idea. Our aims, all too frequently, are to allow our corporations to have exploitative access to foreign markets and resources, particularly in the oil industry.

So, we have terrorists on our case because ExxonMobil, Chevron, and other oil majors are the real Joint Chiefs of Staff. We need a security apparatus ostensibly to protect us from the terrorists, but that same apparatus is turned on we, the people, to keep us from opposing the powers that be. Edward Snowden revealed something of the extent of that security apparatus, and yet the official outrage from the Senate and House is directed at Snowden, not his former spymaster employers.

I could explain what is going on to Russians about my age or older. We have samizdat in the form of Wikileaks. We have defectors in the lands of our political rivals. (Consider: Gerard Depardieu defected to Russia…) We now have evidence that the apparatchniks are in control and their reach is long and broad and deep.

Snowden violated the law: fine. But Snowden violated the law in order to reveal how we in the USA are ruled by some very, very bad laws that need to go away. The fact that the elected leaders of the USA are not taking on the apparatchniks reveals that they themselves are members of that group.

So is the USA going down the path of Communist Russia? Not at all. It’s going down the path of Mexico. From the 1930s forward, Mexico was ruled first by a single party – PRI – and now by their elites. They have peaceful changes of top political leaders who are beholden to major interests. In Mexico, there is a law for the rich and a law for everyone else. Of course, the metaphor is not a complete one.

In Mexico, the people still turn out for major political rallies. In Mexico, the government does not yet harvest everyone’s electronic communications. And, finally, in Mexico, people don’t just talk about taking up arms to oppose an oppressive, non-representative government: they actually take up arms and fight for their rights.

The fact that gun nuts here haven’t yet risen up in actual insurrections shows how America as a whole has lost its spine to resist. And that’s why the apparatus shown us by Mr. Snowden has not triggered an uprising – and why those same gun nuts aren’t being rounded up by the apparatchniks. The gun nuts are controlled, docile, and not a threat. It doesn’t matter if they have guns or not to protect themselves from an overly oppressive government. They have no intention of actually resisting the government. They just want to pretend like they could. Those guns are a safety valve, believe it or not.

The fact that our political leaders can vilify Snowden without wagging a finger at the security apparatus and not worry about losing their seats in the Senate or House is the ultimate punctuation at the end of the Snowden affair. The USA does not respect international law, sponsors terrorists that we manage to get to turn on us, is run by major corporations, uses the threat of armed conflict to cow smaller nations into handing their economy and population over to those major corporations, justifies a massive security apparatus, and does not fear its own people because they are all bark and no bite. That is what the Snowden affair reveals in its totality.