"Russia Says American Evidence on Syria 'Does Not Convince Us at All'" - abcnews

"Russia is rejecting American evidence of chemical weapons use in Syria as "inconclusive" and urging the United States to declassify all of its intelligence. "What we were shown before and recently by our American partners, as well as by the British and French, does not convince us at all," Sergei Lavrov said, according to Interfax, in Russia's most direct rebuke yet to the American claims. "There are no facts, there is simply talk about what we definitely know. But when you ask for more detailed evidence, they say that it is all classified, therefore it cannot be shown to us. This means there are no such facts to encourage international cooperation," the minister told a group of students this morning. "  abcnews

-------------------------------

""There are no facts, there is simply talk about what we definitely know. But when you ask for more detailed evidence, they say that it is all classified, therefore it cannot be shown to us." 

This Russian statement is a justified condemnation of hucksterism at its worst.  We have become pitchmen for selling snake oil.   pl  

http://abcnews.go.com/International/russia-american-evidence-syria-inconclusive/story?id=20133916

Comments

[Fred]

All Nero had was a fiddle. But at least history shows he actually tried to help his people. A very sad commentary of the standard of leadership of a United States Senator.

[bth]

There are only two ground routes we can use into and more importantly out of Afghanistan. Pakistan controls one. Russia the other. That is power that Keane has forgotten.

[Fred]

They would pay for it by ending 'entitlement' programs.

[MRW]

They already have delivered the S-300 and are apparently thinking of rolling in a S-400. Can remember where I read that Syria has 72 Onyxes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/world/middleeast/russia-provides-syria-with-advanced-missiles.html?pagewanted=all

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-800_Oniks

[MRW]

"Russians will not be able to really contest US mano a mano with conventional arms for, at least, another generation. If the Russians had "serious enough" military capability now, we would not be so gung ho in our adventurism."

What are you smoking? They have missiles we have no antidote for.
http://rbth.ru/science_and_tech/2013/08/08/russian_supersonic_missiles_behave_like_wolves_28781.html

I can't get into Jane's Defense Weekly to get the article I want that discusses how these weapons give our guys diarrhea. As the Colonel implied, Keane is a fool.

[MRW]

I blame the Israelis. Period.

[MRW]

"Syria 'receives' Russian S-300 air defense system," May 30, 2013
http://www.dw.de/syria-receives-russian-s-300-air-defense-system/a-16849276

[Tony Papert]

I strongly recommend Gareth Porter's excellent long article of this morning, "How Intelligence was Twisted to Support an Attack on Syria"

http://truth-out.org/news/item/18559-how-intelligence-was-twisted-to-support-an-attack-on-syria

[CTuttle]

My, my, quite the pickle, eh...?

King Playstation fired four top Military Advisors...

The four officers leaked information about a situation room, which was established by the Saudi Arabian defense minister, the CIA, and the Israeli intelligence agency the Mossad on Jordanian soil, the report said quoting a British diplomatic source.

The officers are also accused of providing the Syrian army with certain information about the routes, which Saudi militants used while entering Syria to fight against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

The senior military officers were advisers to the chairman of Jordan’s chiefs of staff and had strongly objected to Amman’s participation in a foreign-sponsored insurgency in Syria.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/09/04/321956/jordan-fires-4-for-leaking-syria-info/

[joe brand]

Watching John McCain declare the rebels fighting the Assad regime to all be moderates -- guaranteed! -- and John Kerry insist that bombing Syria wouldn't be an act of war, I feel deep despair at the quality of the American political class. This one goes so much deeper than the immediate problem.

America: what went wrong?

[robt willmann]

Now version 2.0. The proposed "Syria Joint Resolution for Markup" that should get a failing grade from a mail order law school. However, since it has been generated by the Foreign Relations Committee of the U.S. Senate ....

http://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Syria_Joint_Resolution1.pdf

http://www.foreign.senate.gov/press/ranking/release/corker-new-syria-authorization-significantly-limits-scope-scale-and-duration-of-military-action-against-assad-regime-in-syria

Please have at hand your anti-nausea medication, or a pint of good whiskey, in order to be able to read it.

For the soldiers (and other U.S. persons) who may end up risking their lives inside the borders of Syria, check this out--

"Section 3. Limitation. The authority granted in section 2 does not authorize the use of the United States Armed Forces on the ground in Syria for the purpose of combat operations."

There are 7 separate parts to that sentence that does not limit as much as the sales talk would have you believe. Can you separate out the 7 parts? Do you know what each part means, and covers or does not cover?

Never forget that written governmental law is mostly just vocabulary and definitions, and its creators and operators think they are being clever and cute when they play the game ....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHlt1W83JFU

... but the game has real effects on real people.

[GulfCoastPirate]

Not a chance. The country would explode.

[confusedponderer]

I would be disinclined to gamble with the lives of a hundred million Americans only to stick it to Iran and Russia, but then, I probably don't have Keane's ego.

The idea is apparently to start a staring contest, in the hope that Russia backs down before things get nasty.

Lunacy. This is not Kindergarten or high school where the worst it will get you are a few bruises. Potentially this would be about thermonuclear war.

[confusedponderer]

Also, I am not sure whether they themselves intercepted this.

However, iirc the German Navy had one SIGINT Vessel of the Oker class listening in in the eastern mediterranean.

http://web.archive.org/web/20130205024210/http://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/syrien2182.html">http://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/syrien2182.html">http://web.archive.org/web/20130205024210/http://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/syrien2182.html

One of those probably is on station atm, I'd like to know what they intercepted, as they are probably closest.

I have not heard of anything in this regard coming from the Verteidigungsministerium. Of course, BND staff may be operating from the vessel.

[Eliot]

The Israelis hit a depot storing the Yakhonts. Presumably they weren't storing them all in one central location though. Presumably.

To the best of my knowledge the Russians haven't delivered the S-300 yet. According to RIA Novosti

"The delivery, originally scheduled for spring 2013, has been pushed back to June 2014, Vedomosti business daily said, citing an annual report by the Moscow-based company Avangard, which manufactures rockets for S-300 systems."

[Babak Makkinejad]

They never will; this is just their way of extracting something out of US; or so they hope.

[Babak Makkinejad]

This is not about Assad the man.

It is about who would rule on whom within the zero-sum, winner-take-all politics of the Arab world.

Let us say that Assad is removed today; do you think the war for and in Syria will end?

Syrians killed Junbalat in Lebeanon, the war continued there anyway.

Israelis have killed numerous Palestinian leaders and the war for Palestine has continued.

[The beaver]

FYI:

This is a snippet of what Mr Brenner is saying:
I will try to watch it this afternoon or else tomorrow

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23957000

[Fred]

Sure it would. How's the explosion in Detroit where benefits got cut 10-20% already? Obama's top fund raiser is the EFM, he's railroading pension holders into a nice fat cut in benefits. I doubt you'll see any explosion from that either.

[Karim]

Luckily the Verfassungsschutz doesn't have that problem. They know they are working for the NPD :)
But you're right about Merkel. She was delighted by the British parliament vote, it let her off the hook. It might have been difficult for her to repeat the Libya exercise: officially abstaining and secretly supplying intelligence, and some logistics if I recall.

[CK]

That whole 2008 Olympics, aggression by Georgia comes to mind doesn't it. I believe McCain and Graham wanted the USA to go to war against evil Russia then.

[MRW]

I thought it was launchers they hit, begins with a B.

[Karim]

The Spiegel article mentioned the Oker, but "insiders" told the Spiegel that it can't hear much from Damascus because of the mountains. It will, however, remain in place to provide assistance in a possible US attack.

[kao_hsien-chih]

Oh, I don't doubt Russians have some very capable assets, but I do doubt they'll be able to deploy enough of them to "win" in a "limited" engagement--which I figure is where people like Keane are coming from. If not a "limited" engagement, it'd be a full blown conventional war...which I imagine nobody "important" expects Russians will escalate to, but, if we are willing to risk a big mess over Syria which means nothing to us, why shouldn't we expect Russians, who actually do have some (albeit not that much) skin in the game, to escalate in response? And if things get to that point, what's to keep anyone from going nuclear if they feel necessary? That's what I'm getting at.

[Walrus]

Zanzibar, the simplest explanation is that the Saudis have offered to make Obama personally rich beyond any dreams of avarice, same with UK politicians who have proved to not be averse to taking money.