And Caesar’s spirit, raging for revenge,

With Ate by his side come hot from hell,

Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice

Cry “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war,

That this foul deed shall smell above the earth

With carrion men, groaning for burial.

~ Julius Caesar Act 3, scene 1, 270–275

More about that Aleppo car bombing… U.S. officials: Al Qaida behind Syria bombings…

…The Iraqi branch of al Qaida, seeking to exploit the bloody turmoil in Syria to reassert its potency, carried out two recent bombings in the Syrian capital, Damascus, and likely was behind suicide bombings Friday that killed at least 28 people in the largest city, Aleppo, U.S. officials told McClatchy.

The officials cited U.S. intelligence reports on the incidents, which appear to verify Syrian President Bashar Assad’s charges of al Qaida involvement in the 11-month uprising against his rule. The Syrian opposition has claimed that Assad’s regime… …staged the bombings to discredit the pro-democracy movement calling for his ouster…

I wonder if our Lamestream Media and the Syrian Opposition will try to blame Assad for this targeted assassination… Top general killed in Damascus ambush…

…Three gunmen ambushed a military general on a residential street in Damascus today, the Syrian government reported, in an assassination of a government stalwart that was the first of its kind in the Syrian capital and another step away from the non-violent roots of the anti-government protests.

The general, Dr Issa al-Khouli, a middle-aged physician and brigadier general who ran the Hameish military hospital, was shot dead as he stepped from his house in the morning, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency reported.

As Pepe Escobar wrote today…

…Be afraid. Be very afraid. The Return of the Keyboard Warriors – a prized Return of the Living Dead spin-off – is at hand. From Republican chicken hawks to public intellectuals, right-wing America is erupting in renewed neo-conservative revolt. The year 2012 is the new 2002; Iran is the new Iraq. Whatever the highway – real men go to Tehran via Damascus, or real men go to Tehran non-stop – they want a war, and they want it now… {snip}

…If this is what passes for intellectual analysis in the upper strata of the Anglo-American axis, no wonder the whole business of Empire is doomed.

Far more insidious than The Invasion of the Keyboard Warriors is its effect on the warrior-in-chief, US President Barack Obama. Recently, Obama has been conducting product placement for Robert Kagan’s new book, The World America Made. Kagan, a neo-con stalwart, advises Mitt Romney – who may, or may not, become the Republican presidential nominee, assuming he wins over the visceral repulsion he provokes in extreme right-wing circles.

As Andrew Levine from the Institute for Policy Studies has shrewdly observed, [4] Obama the neo-con may be a very clever move to pre-empt Mitt and win even more votes. But it may be an exercise in transparency, as Obama, even before his State of the Union address, has been reciting Kagan to the letter, as in forget Asia, this will be another American century, and I will be at the helm; thus remember, it is I that coined the only change you can believe in.

And that’s when this really becomes a scary movie; if Obama the neo-con concludes that to get to his new, dominant American century first he needs to do some vacuum-cleaning in Southwest Asia, blowback or not, he’ll do it – to the delight of the Keyboard Warrior brigade.

Ever more Pepe…

…Here’s a crash course on the “democratic” machinations of the Arab League – rather the GCC League, as real power in this pan-Arab organization is wielded by two of the six Persian Gulf monarchies composing the Gulf Cooperation Council, also known as Gulf Counter-revolution Club; Qatar and the House of Saud… {snip}

…The report is adamant. There was no organized, lethal repression by the Syrian government against peaceful protesters. Instead, the report points to shady armed gangs as responsible for hundreds of deaths among Syrian civilians, and over one thousand among the Syrian army, using lethal tactics such as bombing of civilian buses, bombing of trains carrying diesel oil, bombing of police buses and bombing of bridges and pipelines.

Once again, the official NATOGCC version of Syria is of a popular uprising smashed by bullets and tanks. Instead, BRICS members Russia and China, and large swathes of the developing world see it as the Syrian government fighting heavily armed foreign mercenaries. The report largely confirms these suspicions.

The Syrian National Council is essentially a Muslim Brotherhood outfit affiliated with both the House of Saud and Qatar – with an uneasy Israel quietly supporting it in the background. Legitimacy is not exactly its cup of green tea. As for the Free Syrian Army, it does have its defectors, and well-meaning opponents of the Assad regime, but most of all is infested with these foreign mercenaries weaponized by the GCC, especially Salafist gangs…

Now, there’s truly much f*ckery afoot, as the dogs of war are unleashed…

Russia accuses West of arming Syrian rebels…

…Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Western states were stirring up trouble in Syria, where Assad has pursued a violent crackdown since March on protests against his 11-year rule.

“Western states inciting Syrian opposition to uncompromising actions, as well as those sending arms to them, giving them advice and direction, are participating in the process of fomenting the crisis,” Itar-Tass news agency quoted Ryabkov as saying.

He did not specify which nations were arming Syrian rebels. {snip}

…Ryabkov, speaking on a visit to Colombia, said Russia would take “drastic measures” if the West kept trying to intervene in Syria’s internal affairs through the Security Council.

“The U.N. council is not a tool for intervention in internal affairs and is not the agency to decide which government is to be next in one country or another,” Ryabkov said. “If our foreign partners don’t understand that, we will have to use drastic measures to return them to real grounds.” {snip}

…Russia’s lower house of parliament adopted a statement on Friday condemning the West for “intervening in other states’ affairs and imposing outside decisions on them”.

Some lawmakers in the assembly, which is controlled by Putin’s ruling party, called for firmer resistance to the West.

“There is criticism in the Duma that Russia’s position on Syria is not strong enough. They say Russia should press its point harder,” Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Foreign Affairs, told Reuters…

The Russian Duma response is on a par with our own fetid, AIPAC-led Congress Critters’ rabid response…! Here’s a poignant example…

…Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, who chairs the Middle East subcommittee on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told FoxNews.com the U.S. should consider arming the opposition.

“They are essentially completely defenseless right now, and I think that’s inhumane,” Chabot said.

As MJ Rosenberg bluntly pointed out… Iran War: What Is AIPAC Planning?

Now, I don’t blame the Russians for their concern(s)… Billions at stake as Russia backs Syria… And, the fate of Russia’s only military base outside the former Soviet Union, a naval facility in the Mediterranean port of Tartus, Syria…! Of which the Russians have recently dispatched one of their aircraft carriers to…!

But I digress… Now, it seems that the War Propaganda machine is working some serious overtime… 15,000 elite Iranian special-ops ‘head’ to Syria… I remain dubious about that claim…! And it would seem that I’m not alone…

Chemical Weapons and Iranian Invasions: Syria Hysteria Turns to Wild Rumors

State Dept Claims Assad Allies Planning ‘Exit Strategy’…

As Pogo famously said, We have met the enemy and He is us…!

*gah*