I have to introduce myself prior to getting to the meat of my reply.
My name is Omar I. Al Shammari Al Aztara.
I am a Telecommunications/Electronic/Systems Engineer and formerly in the Employ of the US Army on a base in Doha, Qatar known as ASG QA Camp As Sayliyah. Most of the operations that have taken place in the Arab region were planned and executed with US assets on this (CIA) Base.
Beirut is where I call home these days. Being that this city is only 1.5 hours away by car to Damascus, Syria, I felt it necessary to register to comment instead of occasionally browsing for years as a lurker without a login. This at the risk of my own safety due to the broad powers allowed for within the "Patriot Act" enacted during GWB's tenure as president.
Syria is like any other country going through the growing pains of a nation coming to terms with Autonomy but being pulled in two directions by the East and the West. It is no secret that Qatari Mercenaries in the Employ of the US Army are very active in the rebellion and are wholeheartedly responsible for the extended resistance to the pro Assad forces representing the government of that country. The equipment being used there is supplied by the APS 5 program on the Army Depot known as CAS for short. The base is a site staffed by uncleared non-US and non-Host nation people who do everything from signals interception to participation in all out Offensive operations in this region. The Killing of Ghaddafi, the dethroning of Mubarak and the ongoing attempts to wrest control of Syria from the clutches of President Assad are all done from the warehouses on that base. Let's not get into all the warehouse and sand covered armament placed there directed at Iran.
Special operations forces in civvies with or without beards are there executing the long arm of US foreign policy. As a person of my former position and without any alliance to anything other than a salary formerly in the deep six figures, I was privileged to be in on many conferences that covered open source information and sent it up to the Regional CAOC, NMCC and Langley.
Having covered all of that, if anyone here really wants to believe that the US isn't already deep in Syria they are welcome to put the blinders on and tune out of this thread.
My problem with the ongoing state of affairs in this "obvious to anyone in this region" project is that the US demands the transparency of any working person or non-working person drawing an income from a US enterprise. Why can't we demand transparency from the US Government when they push a foreign policy that has stripped away financial privacy from most Americans whether they are expats or good domestic workers and residents?
Why cause the collateral killing of innocent mothers and fathers, sons and daughters for the gain of a territory with no major political revenue beside that of implanting a western friendly open market that will buy a ton of worthless stuff ready to be sold there even more? The objective is not the land or the ouster of the regime. The end is the removal of a people's identity and replacement with the white picket fence and the whole nine yards with the Jones' as your neighbors with a better car and a bigger line of credit to force them into eternal labor.
Sir Laurence of Arabia got the ball rolling in anticipation of the energy vacuum in the west by going to the Arab lands and showing off his cool stuff as well as his psy-ops ability to draw the lines in the sand. Thus effectively dividing and conquering the borderless Arab lands that subsisted on Camel transported trade goods that brought you coffee from Ethiopia via Yemen across north Africa, Ancient Turkey and across into the markets of Europe and the land mass of the Americas.
Hernan Cortez divided and conquered an empire in the very same way some 480 years ago shortly after landing in the fishing village ow known as Veracruz, Mexico.
I remember reciting the pledge of allegiance when going to grade school as a boy in the Los Angeles area. It said: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands (as) one nation under God. Indivisible, with liberty and Justice for all.
Why then do we practice everything but that outside the borders of the USA? Why divide? Why conquer? Why remove Liberty? Why practice Injustice for all? Why kill Republics and cultivate Totalitarian Dictatorships in their wake? Why did they go to Afghanistan only after hitting Iraq and whacking Saddam Hussein some years after. Why continue the ongoing hostilities with the actually very peace loving Persians in Iran who practice a faith that requires the greeting "Peace be upon you" to be stated when encountering strangers at rest or walking? These people are generally peaceful as are the pacified Americans sitting at home in front of their giant HDTV Flat-screens that they bought on credit usually charging above 14% interest? These pacified Americans depend on Selective Seratonin Re-Uptake Inhibitors and other types of anti-depressant drugs just to remain productive in their despised existence as slaves to a system that would abandon them out in the world just like it abandoned it's factory workers to the inner city streets that they grew weary of as youths.
Sorry for the rant.. I just happen to think of the big picture when the seed of discord is planted in my mind. I suppose it is very much like the cultivation of enemies that the US practices everyday around the world.
Signed,
A loyal Patriot to the Constitution of the United States. Aka Omar "My American Friends call me Shamrock" Al Shammari