What will Obama and the Wall Street merchants of death and destruction do next? If we listen to Mark Twain, the militant anti-imperialist, we will understand.

Listen to what Mark Twain had to say over one-hundred years ago and see if it doesn’t ring true today as we try to prevent this war against Syria:

“The loud little handful--- as usual--- will shout for the war. The pulpit will--- warily and cautiously--- object--- at first; the great, big dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, “It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it.”

Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audience will thin out and lose popularity.

Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers--- as earlier--- but do not dare to say so. And now the whole nation--- pulpit and all--- will take up the war cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open.

Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.”

This is from, “The Mysterious Stranger” by Mark Twain. How true all this rings today… from Bush to Obama right down to the over-paid pundits creating the lies needed as a pretext to get us into war after dirty imperialist war as we are being dragged into another war--- this time with Syria which will provide the opening for war with Iran.

We shouldn't be lulled into complacency by Obama's talk about how he intends to give diplomacy a chance. Obama is not giving diplomacy a chance--- it is the overwhelming opposition to Obama's intended barbaric plans to bomb the Syrians that has forced Obama to back away for a bit as he tries to create more and bigger lies and excuses to carry out this carnage.

We need to keep building and bringing more people into active opposition to war with Syria by exposing, as Mark Twain did, the nature of these dirty imperialist wars.

We need to broaden out the peace movement to include all viewpoints and organizations opposed to these wars.

For far too long these foundation-funded peace organizations have been manipulating and controlling the peace movement in a way that doesn't allow or enable all voices for peace to be heard resulting in only token opposition to these wars... now, more than ever, we need everyone out in the streets and that means welcoming all voices for peace at the demonstrations against this war that Obama, like Bush and McCain, were determined to carry out even though only a small minority of the people support their dirty wars.

We have been wrong to view the struggle for peace as being the 99% for peace versus the 1% for war.

In reality, between 25% or 30% of the people in this country are for war because they are part of this Military-Industrial Complex.

Even the AFL-CIO refuses to take a position in opposition to going to bombing Syria because there are backwards thinking labor leaders who are on Obama's pro-war band-wagon.

Under these circumstances it becomes more important than ever that the clear majority for peace stands up and speaks out vigorously so our voices cannot be silenced either by a Wall Street controlled media or government imposed repression.

The Democrats are very good at working behind the scenes preparing their pro-war "citizen" groups to come out on cue in support of war doing just what Mark Twain wrote so eloquently and descriptively about.

We will be seeing the American Legion and the government controlled veteran's organizations coming out for war along with a gaggle of preachers and "fine upstanding pillars" of our communities--- those who profit from war.

This is what happened with America's first dirty imperialist war which Mark Twain and others rose to oppose--- the Spanish-American War; a dirty imperialist war for which were are still paying for as the United States still has troops in the Philippines as we pay for the occupation of Guam and Puerto Rico.

Same thing with Korea and Iraq... we will continue to pay.

It is going to take united, prolonged and massive protests to prevent Obama from carrying out his atrocities in Syria and to counter the "grassroots" support now in the works being readied for the main show. 

Make no mistake--- Obama is one dirty bird; worse than George Bush and we have yet to see his "supporters" waving little plastic American flags made in China encouraging this war.

By the time AIPAC's 300 lobbyists (see New York Times: ( http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/10/world/middleeast/lobbying-group-for-israel-to-press-congress-on-syria.html?_r=0 ) are done marching through the halls of Congress we will be seeing McCain, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi egging on Congress to come up with legislation "authorizing Obama to pound the Syrians with cruise missiles if diplomacy fails."

And, true to character of the Wall Street warmonger he is, Obama will proclaim diplomacy to have failed.

Let us understand this: What is at issue is not the use of chemical weapons nor people dying and dead for U.S. imperialism has a more than 100 year legacy of millions of dead... the issue here is gas and oil and the pipelines needed to transport this gas and oil.

The U.S. war machine isn't exactly "green:" it doesn't run on solar or wind power in protecting Wall street's assets and profits.