“70% of Brits back US policy in Syria” says former Minister. But does the Pentagon?

Ben Bradshaw was interviewed on America’s NPR station three days ago. Billed as ‘spokesperson for the Labour party’, he asserted (1) that a majority of MPs now want another vote on “war with  Syria” because they feel they were “rushed” into a quick decision last week; (2) that Cameron didn’t “present the case” for war to the country in the same convincing way that Obama was doing (whom he praised for his courage); and (3) that 70% of British voters  back the US approach to Syria.

Mr Cocksure is an odd cove. A key player in the Manglesum knitting circle, he has long been seen as a Blairite who continues to admire the Devil and all His Works. But don’t forget that Bent Ben was schooled initially by the Foreign Office (and in anti-terrorism) at a crucial time. Once recruited, never forgotten: hence how easily he was recruited to add further bollocks to the already enormous testicular hill of beans that is Western output on the Syrian crisis.

It never ceases to amaze me how the Black Dude has gone Pentagon native over the last year. In a statement made during 2012, when he said that the use of chemical weapons would be ‘a red line’, the President knew that it was the one thing Bashar Assad wouldn’t try. To be frank, everyone knew he wouldn’t: he had enough on his plate as it was. Besides, Obama was trying to get reelected, and his intelligence services (egged on by the British) kept on telling him that Assad was on his last legs. Clearly, they underestimated the incompetent nastiness of the Muslim Brotherhood.

So soon it became necessary to start pinning things on the Syrian donkey. First came the ‘violations of Turkish airspace’, then Erdogan’s ludicrous claims that Assad had bombed his airbases. And when that didn’t work, well….there was always that nice red line there to remind everyone that Barry is a man of his word. “Yes we can” he said, but they couldn’t. So came the myth of the appalling gas attack on, er, someone or other…children, yes, there were children of course. Except it was staged…as now seems increasingly apparent. Rather like most of Hamas’s “Israeli’s bomb schools” spiel is fairly closely related to the fact that Islamists occupy the schools, and take the children there for “protection”. Nice folks, Islamists: burn 113 Christians to death in an African church on Christmas Day, and then by the following morning they’re waxing sanctimoniously from the 24-hands horse about Israeli bulldozers.

But in the final act, the hawk/Dude roles were reversed by a military élite that discovered just how big a pain in the arse the Muslim Brotherhood could be in Egypt. This is now a major problem for the Obama Administration: on Friday 29th August, the President Obama was gung-ho to launch a sustained 72-hour cruise missile and drone attack on strategic military targets in Syria. But when push came to shove, the Generals weren’t entirely up for it: Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey, backed by the top brass, opined that the policy was “too hasty”….and America’s most reliable ally wasn’t on board.

As Cameron had his legs removed by MPs of little power but more discernment, so too did Obama find himself stymied by those who have doubts – big time – about State’s choice of allies in the Middle East. Meanwhile, opposition to the adventure is gaining ground out there in voterland: this top-rated internet piece at Huffington Post (it’s a rabidly pro-Democrat site) succinctly points out the ten ‘claims’ made by the Obama White House, and how they all too obviously fall apart when interrogated.

But the Western intelligence agencies – and Camerlot – are still determined to turn the tide. In this resolve, they are helped by poltroons like Ed Miliband, a man who (I’m told) personally approved Bradshaw’s odd outburst of anti-Islamism – because he sees it as a way of looking more up for a fight than David Cameron is. You see, the Ed Miller Band is our Friend  in Hard Times: be my friend, join the army, kill the wrong people, then get fired. The directionless hypocrisy is beyond belief.

No wonder Tom Watson resigned from his Front Bench post.