Did Bashar Al-Assad use lethal gas to kill his own people? In an exclusive interview with Charlie Rose to be aired Monday night on PBS, Assad has emphatically denied that he had anything to do with the alleged chemical weapons attack that took place during August 2013.

A teaser to the interview was played on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday morning followed by a tweet from the Charlie Rose Show

Monday night at 9pm on PBS – the global tv exclusive where @charlierose interviews President Bashar Al #Assad.#Syria pic.twitter.com/SngiQR0Qiy

— Charlie Rose Show (@CharlieRoseShow) September 8, 2013

It would be the height of naivete to believe a dictator’s assertions on their face value, but if the Iraq debacle has any lessons for America, then we cannot be so naive as to trust any “intelligence” coming out of Washington DC either.

Unless you suffer from dementia, you would remember how we were fed the never ending stream of lies by mainstream media prior to the invasion of Iraq that cost us over 10,000 American lives, over 675,000 disability cases, and several trillions in treasure.

As the famous middle-American saying goes, Fool me once, shame on you! Fool me twice, shame on me!

Despite massive problems at home, President Barack Obama wants Pentagon to launch military strikes against Syria — and expects US Congress to rubber stamp authorize them first.

If the war in Syria spreads all the way to Iran, will the American and European economies be able to withstand a sudden and massive blockade across the Gulf of Hormuz, without creating a cataclysmic oil and currency crisis? Why are there no protests outside White House and Capitol Hill with the same strength and ferocity as they were during Bush’s catastrophic Iraq and Afghanistan wars to stop this madness?

Poll after poll shows overwhelming American public reluctance to sink deeper and deeper into yet another West-Asian conflict. Pro-war Senators are being rebuked in no uncertain terms at town-hall meetings.

Outside Washington DC, the middle-class wages, jobs and living standards have remained where they were during 1970s. But inside the beltway, there appears to be a bi-partisan effort in favor of deeper involvement in Syria.

Many members of Congress are tempted to seek juicy careers as multi-million dollar paid lobbyists for the finance-media-military complex which makes them extremely prone to vote “yes” for more wars and intervention. Still others could have “skeletons in the closet” as far as their personal lives are concerned, so for fear of unsavory revelations, they are susceptible to making choices in their own self-interest rather than public interest.

Whatever opposition there is to these seemingly endless wars is coming from the far-right wing of the GOP led by Rand Paul, the high profile but powerless Senator from Kentucky.

Americans are not eager to be plunged into another questionable or misguided war. Read my entire @CNN op-ed here: http://t.co/ImPfLnSItw

— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) August 29, 2013

So is the tide of public opinion enough to force a “no” vote out of Congress on Syria? We are about to find that out this week.

[image via wikipedia]