Syria, another ‘humanitarian’ war?

By Chris Marsden:

US military lobbies for war with Syria

9 June 2012

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey told reporters on Thursday that the Obama administration’s continued pursuing of diplomatic solutions in Syria has put military planners in the Pentagon planners in a strategic bind.

Complaining of a “lack of focus,” he declared that with a clear instruction for regime change, “I can build you a plan, and I know how many divisions, I know how many air wings … it takes.”

By Johannes Stern in Germany:

Calls for deployment of German navy against Syria

9 June 2012

On June 1 the Süddeutsche Zeitung published an op-ed titled “Towards a realistic German security policy”, calling for the participation of the German navy in a military intervention in Syria.

The author, Thomas Spreckmann, associate professor of political science and sociology at Bonn University and a regular contributor to the newspapers Die Zeit and Tagesspiegel, has long called for the navy to play a central role in military interventions.

Not long ago he published an article in the magazine Internationale Politik (IP) titled “All men on board: Why the Bundeswehr’s future is on the water”.

That is a direct quote from an infamous 1901 speech by German Emperor Wilhelm II.

Emperor Wilhelm II’s aggressive imperialist navy expansion was one of the causes of World War I.

He called on Germany “as the export nation with the world’s biggest container fleet and the third biggest merchant fleet” to finally start thinking in “maritime” terms.

So, behind the thin layer of “humanitarian” veneer of feigned concern for human rights in Syria are, as so often, Big Money concerns. As a former German President was honest enough to admit about the war in Afghanistan (that president had to resign for being too honest).

German defence minister restructuring army for worldwide operations: here.