Diffusing The Blame

The "we had help in the killing of General Soleimani" propaganda has ramped up since the assassination. This is in marked contrast to the decades-long program in which Americans were taught that we have no business knowing what our government or our spy agencies are doing, and that we must not ask for proof of any claims our rulers make, as that might "endanger sources" or "harm national security".
In May, 2017 there was an uproar when Trump warned Putin about an upcoming "ISIS" attack on a Russian airliner.
How dare he compromise sources!! He put spies at risk!! Better to lose an entire plane full of Russians than to lose one "source".
And now they blithely tell us that a "source" at the Lebanon airport let them know when the plane took off. Because that is apparently such valuable and unobtainable information that it was worth outing a source in Lebanon.

As a German explained it in "They Thought They Were Free", a book written in the 50s about how Hitler consolidated state power:
"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it."

But the imperial media is now putting out article after article claiming that the US was helped by Israeli and other spies to pinpoint the general's whereabouts as he arrived at Baghdad Airport, on a diplomatic mission to negotiate peace between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The US had been informed of his itinerary and the time of his arrival, but the premise is that the US would be unable to blow someone up with a Hellfire missile (although they have been doing it for years) at the airport (which was one of the first places they seized in the invasion of 2003) without Israel providing the coordinates. This diffuses the blame, so that the US doesn't have to take sole responsibility for the atrocity they committed.

In September, 2016, the US attacked an outpost of Syrian soldiers who were protecting the airport at Deir Ezzor, which was used by Syria to bring food to the citizens under siege by ISIS. The US killed 100 Syrian soldiers, allowing ISIS to overrun their post. They also lied to Russia about it, which meant that the attack went on for an hour before the Russians got there to attack ISIS and drive them back, thereby saving the lives of the people of Deir Ezzor.

This was a horrendous war crime and caused a major uproar. Afterwards, the UK, Australia and Denmark came forward and confessed that they also had participated in the attack. All of them claimed that they "accidentally" had bombed the outpost for an hour without realizing what they were doing.

I find these confessions difficult to believe. It seems that American lackeys were used to diffuse responsibility for the war crime in Deir Ezzor.

And I find it equally difficult to believe that the US could not assassinate a general, at an airport they controlled, without help from Israel. This puts me at odds with people who cling to the belief that the US is a force for good in the world, (thereby agreeing with the US State Dept, see the letter they wrote to the Iraqi Parliament explaining why they would not comply with the unanimous vote that the US should withdraw from its occupation of Iraq), and would never think of committing assassinations, invasions, coups, sanctions, bombings, drone kills, or any other acts of aggression unless forced to do so by Israel. So be it. I refuse to believe absurdities, in order to support atrocities, and I don't care if other people prefer to cling to their comforting illusions.