Sic Semper Tyrannis

"Questions Plague UN Report on Syria" Al Akhbar

"A senior United Nations official who deals directly with Syrian affairs has told Al-Akhbar that the Syrian government had no involvement in the alleged Ghouta chemical weapons attack: "Of course not, he (President Bashar al-Assad) would be committing suicide.” When asked who he believed was responsible for the use of chemical munitions in Ghouta, the UN official, who would not permit disclosure of his identity, said: “Saudi intelligence was behind the attacks and unfortunately nobody will dare say that.” The official claims that this information was provided by rebels in Ghouta."  Al Akhbar in English

http://english.al-akhbar.com/blogs/sandbox/questions-plague-un-report-syria

"The Path of Thorns and Roses"

I am curious to know what you all think of this 22 foot high piece of bronze sculpture.  It recently was installed in the Freedmen's and Contraband's Cemetery Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia.  It was commissioned by the city government from a sculptor in California.  pl 

http://freedommarchofart.com/thepathofthornsandroses.html

"How the US is enabling Syriastan" by Pepe Escobar

"If any extra evidence was needed to shatter the myth of a "revolution" struggling for a future "democratic" Syria, the big news of the week cleared any remaining doubts. Eleven, 13 or 14 "rebel" brigades (depending on the source) have ditched the "moderate", US-propped Syrian National Council (SNC) and the not-exactly Free Syrian Army (FSA). The leaders of the bunch are the demented jihadis of Jabhat al-Nusra - but it includes other nasties such as the Tawhid brigades and the Tajammu Fastaqim Kama Ummirat in Aleppo, some of them until recently part of the collapsing FSA."  Pepe Escobar

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The good old Tawhid brigades made a "coming out" statement this week in which a spokesman said that they were tired of not stating their allegiance to the creation of a sharia law state, and that the FSA was a godless instrument of Western infiltration,  Well, from their point of view...

R2P and neocon propaganda has manufactured a major "truth" with regard to the origins of the present civil war in Syria.   According to this "truth" the revolt began as a process of peaceful street demonstrations for human rights by folks who wanted whatever it was that Tom Paine wanted.  This now received "truth" insists that it was only when the evil Assad demon unleashed his cossacks on the crowds that things got nasty.  Well, there were a few such demonstrations but a review of the news from Syria at that time shows that Sunni zealots led by their Imams very quickly made this process into an armed revolt using mosques in places like Deraa and Homs as bases.  The resulting civil war has featured Sunni zealots on one side backed principally by Saudi Arabia and all other Syrians on the other side backed by Russia and Iran.

There are several other IO created truths floating around.  One is the illogical assumption that the 100,000 dead that are mentioned frequently were all killed by the Syrian government.  Say what?

Another is the notion that Hizbullah's forces are under the direct operational control of Iran and can be ordered into battle by Iran or withdrawn as the Iranians see fit.  I doubt that.  pl  

http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-02-270913.html

 

"Is James “The Liar” Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, on the way out?"

 

"I hope so. Part of me will cheer. The dominant, cynical side of me will just wonder who will be signing Clapper’s checks next. My gut says he’ll still be an intelligence insider, just on a private contractor’s payroll. "  Ars Skeptica

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There is no doubt.  Clapper will go back to the contractor world and continue to feather his nest.  pl  

http://scholarsandrogues.com/2013/09/25/is-james-the-liar-clapper-director-of-national-intelligence-on-the-way-out/

Will the US deliver weapons to the al-Nusra Front?

"American hopes of winning more influence over Syria’s fractious rebel movement faded Wednesday after 11 of the biggest armed factions repudiated the Western-backed opposition coalition and announced the formation of a new alliance dedicated to creating an Islamic state. The al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, designated a terrorist organization by the United States, is the lead signatory of the new group, which will further complicate fledgling U.S. efforts to provide lethal aid to “moderate” rebels fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.  The new alliance with an al-Qaeda affiliated group complicates U.S. plans to arm moderates. Obama chides Russia for stance on Syria.  A top Russian diplomat ... repeated skepticism about U.S. positions on the issue. Other members of the new alliance include the Tawheed Brigade, the biggest Free Syrian Army unit in the northern city of Aleppo; Liwa al-Islam, the largest rebel group in the capital, Damascus; and Ahrar al-Sham, the most successful nationwide franchise of mostly Syrian Salafist fighters. Collectively, the new front, which does not yet have a formal name but has been dubbed by its members the “Islamist Alliance,” claims to represent 75 percent of the rebels fighting to topple Assad. "  Washpost

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Well, well, The cat is creeping into sight from the mouth of the bag.  Perhaps the Russians aren't so stupid after all.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/largest-syrian-rebel-groups-embrace-islamic-alliance-in-possible-blow-to-us-influence/2013/09/25/f669629e-25f8-11e3-9372-92606241ae9c_story.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/09/26/did-the-window-for-arming-syrian-rebels-just-close/

Court Appearance

I spent yesterday testifying before the DC Federal District Court in the matter of a habeas hearing for a Guantanamo "detainee."  This is the second time concerning this man.  The DoJ seems to like our forum.  They quote it to me in cross-examination.  pl

Transcript of Obama's General Assembly speech.

"... sovereignty cannot be a shield for tyrants to commit one murder. Or an excuse for the international community to turn a blind eye. While we need to be modest in our belief that we can remedy every evil, while we need to be mindful that the world is full of unintended consequences, should we really accept the notion that the world is powerless in the face of a Rwanda, or Srebrenica? If that’s the world that people want to live in, they should say so, and reckon with the cold logic of mass graves. But I believe we can embrace a different future. And if we don’t want to choose between inaction and war, we must get better, all of us, with policies that prevent the breakdown of basic order; through respect for the responsibilities of nations and the rights of individuals; through meaningful sanctions for those who break the rules; through dogged diplomacy that resolves the root causes of conflict, not merely its aftermath; through development assistance that brings hope to the marginalized. And, yes, sometimes although this will not be enough, there are gonna be moments where the international community will need to acknowledge that the multilateral use of military force may be required to prevent the very worst from occurring."  Barack Obama

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This was basically a hectoring lecture given to the leaders of the world by someone who sees himself as their "daddy."  BHO laid down the law to the rest of the world and asserted that the United States, although slightly chastened by the experiences of the last decade still clings to the notion that it is the "big kid" in the school yard and that what we say "goes."

It was very much an R2P talk.  Looking at Ambassador Powers seated at Kerry's side I wondered if she and Susan Rice wrote this diatribe.  I am struck by the tone of the thing.  I imagine that this is a speech that his mother would have approved.   Rice, Powers and Slaughter seem very like what I imagine Obama's mother to have been.  I wonder if HC would keep them in her first term.  pl  

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/transcript-president-obamas-speech-at-the-un-general-assembly/2013/09/24/64d5b386-2522-11e3-ad0d-b7c8d2a594b9_story.html

"Goliath" by Max Blumenthal

"Parash Hill is a scenic overlook near Sderot, which is one of the underserviced development towns originally constructed in Southern Israel to accommodate some of the hundreds of thousands of Jews who arrived to Israel from Arab nations during the 1940s as impoverished victims of government-led campaigns on expulsion. Parash Hill offers sweeping views of the Gaza Strip, and beyond it is the Mediterranean Sea. Here, hundreds of Israelis gathered at the vista to revel in the violence. For them, the hill offered mezzanine seats for the bombing; they cheered or stared with silent satisfaction while the hometown team exacted blood vengeance on the Enemy. “Of course I’m happy,” a twenty-six-year-old Orthodox Jew told a reporter from the UK’s Sunday Times as he watched Israeli jets bombard the strip. “It would be better if innocent civilians weren’t hurt, but the ones who cooperate with Hamas—that’s their problem.” A secular, middle-aged woman pointed to Gaza and calmly explained to Ulla Terkelsen, a Danish TV reporter, “They should just wipe the whole thing off the map.” With a dramatic wave of her hand, she added, “Yeah, I’m a little bit fascist.” A twenty-seven-year-old student surveyed the scene of picnicking Israelis and lamented, “People in Israel are addicted to violence."  Max Blumenthal in "Goliath"

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Max Blumenthal is a brave man, a brave and honest man.  He is the son of my friend Sidney Blumenthal.

"Goliath" will be published by "Nation Press" on the first of October.  I recommend it.  pl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Blumenthal

 

 

"Egypt court bans Muslim Brotherhood 'activities'" BBC

"A court in Egypt has banned "all activities" by the Muslim Brotherhood. The Cairo administrative court said its ruling applied to the Islamist group, its non-governmental organisation and "any organisation derived from it". It also ordered the interim government to seize the Brotherhood's funds and form a panel to administer its frozen assets until any appeal had been heard. "  BBC

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 The picture with Mursi's face on it bears has a label with the words, "na'am lil-shar'ia."  This means "Yes to legitimacy."  The yellow sign bears the four finger sign of the Islamic resistance to the present government and the words, "kulna raabi'a"  This is evidently a reference to the name of the mosque at which there were many MB demonstrators killed.

The MB?  They will be suppressed for a long time.

pl

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24208933

Gas missiles 'were not sold to Syria' - Fiske

"Russia's new "evidence" about the attack includes the dates of export of the specific rockets used and – more importantly – the countries to which they were originally sold. They were apparently manufactured in the Soviet Union in 1967 and sold by Moscow to three Arab countries, Yemen, Egypt and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's Libya. These details cannot be verified in documents, and Vladimir Putin has not revealed the reasons why he told Barack Obama that he knows Assad's army did not fire the sarin missiles; but if the information is correct – and it is believed to have come from Moscow – Russia did not sell this particular batch of chemical munitions to Syria. "  Fiske

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"Saudi Arabia miscalculated the ease with which US-led Western powers could quickly organize a military strike on Syria following the now-confirmed chemical attack of Aug. 21. The push for a quick strike stumbled in Washington, London and Paris, giving way to high-level diplomacy between the United States and Russia and disappointment in Saudi Arabia. The US-Russian framework for the elimination of Syria's chemical arsenal appears to be a deviation from Riyadh’s immediate objectives. By focusing on the sole objective of removing the Bashar al-Assad regime from power, the Saudi leadership may have overlooked that despite having important resources and weight, regional powers like itself can today be constrained by the changing international environment.   Madawi-al Rasheed for Al-Monitor

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Artillery rockets are not "chemical munitions."  They can be a delivery system for high explosives, smoke or chemical munitions.  Nevertheless, this information if true is significant.  Syria has had a long standing and deep relationship of military supply with first the USSR and now Russia.  Low tech supplies like artillery rockets would have been bought (on credit usually) by the Syrian government from the manufacturer not from a third party like Libya. 

There has been a persistant rumor that the Syrian jihadi rebels are being supplied from former Libyan government stocks using Gulf Arab Sunni money as the medium of exchange.

Will this give pause to the war enthusiasts in their drive to replace Assad's government?  I doubt it.  It will simply be said that Russia lies.  pl 

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/gas-missiles-were-not-sold-to-syria-8831792.html

 http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/09/us-russia-deal-sets-saudis-back.html#ixzz2fcxLvaSs

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/private-donations-give-edge-to-islamists-in-syria-officials-say/2013/09/21/a6c783d2-2207-11e3-a358-1144dee636dd_story.html

 

 

 

 

 

Syria submits inventory data

 
"... a spokesman for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which is responsible for policing the treaty outlawing chemical arms, said Syria's submission was an "initial declaration". Mr Luhan said it was now being examined by the organisation's technical secretariat but he declined to say what was in it. A UN diplomat confirmed to Reuters that details had been submitted, adding: "It's quite long... and being translated.""  BBC

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John Kerry says that the Syria crisis is "not a game."  No?  If so, then why is it that the US wants future assertions of Syrian non-compliance to be adjudicated in the OPCW outside the Security Council where Russia has a veto?  pl

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24178830

"Why Iran seeks constructive engagement" By Hassan Rouhani

"At their core, the vicious battles in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria are over the nature of those countries’ identities and their consequent roles in our region and the world. The centrality of identity extends to the case of our peaceful nuclear energy program. To us, mastering the atomic fuel cycle and generating nuclear power is as much about diversifying our energy resources as it is about who Iranians are as a nation, our demand for dignity and respect and our consequent place in the world. Without comprehending the role of identity, many issues we all face will remain unresolved. "  Rouhani

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Identity.  Identity.  Identity.  We all search for identity.  pl 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/president-of-iran-hassan-rouhani-time-to-engage/2013/09/19/4d2da564-213e-11e3-966c-9c4293c47ebe_story.html

Of shotguns and on-line checks.

That is a Remington 870 pump action shotgun.   This is a sporting weapon.  You can hunt deer or people with it but mostly it is useful for hunting ducks, pheasants and rabbits.  Aaron Alexis bought one of these legally at a sporting goods store in Virginia.  The dealer put his paperwork through the online State Police run background check before selling him the shotgun.  The State Police ran the data through the national gun check data base and he came up clean.  Why?  He had no record of mental illness or of a conviction for a felony.  So, people who want to talk about the need for gun sale background checks should remember that this fellow was checked.

There was a lot of media driven early talk on the subject of what this man was armed with.  He had this shotgun and that is all.  He seems to have sawn a foot off the stock and barrel to make it fit into his backpack but that's is all.  He DID NOT have a rifle.  He did not have an AK-47.  He did not have an AR-15.  He did not have any sort of rifle.  He did not have a handgun when he entered the Navy Yard.  He acquired one or two handguns from police and security guards that he shot IN THE YARD.

 Now, with regard to Alexis' secret level security clearance.  He was given that in the Naval Reserve.  This is a low level clearance done on the basis of a records check.  It is good for ten years because to re-do the check more than that would be an onerous task given the number of people, both civilian and military, who have this level of clearance.  He was discharged from the Navy with an honorable discharge.  He subsequently sought employment with A Defense Department sub-contracting compnay in the field he had worked in when in the Naval Reserve.  This company applied through the appropriate agency for a secret clearance for this man.  The Navy was asked for input.  They replied that this honorably discharged sailor had posessed a secret clearance and that the periodicity of it had not expired.  On that basis the clearance was restored in JPAS, the on-line data base for contractor clearances.  With that in hand the hiring company went to the Navy Yard and asked that Alexis be given passes to enter the Navy Yard and Building 197, where he worked on whatever it was that they had a contract for.  He had worked there every day the week before the attack.

Alexis undocumented descent into madness escaped the attention of all.  Alexis was a paranoind schizophrenic.  This is a degenerative brain disease.  Such people can be quite plausible as to normality for short periods of time and attention.

End of story.  pl

HARPER: A SILK ROAD FUTURE FOR AFGHANISTAN?

Colonel Lang's reminder that next year, American and NATO forces will be gone from Afghanistan "for good" underscores the fact that Afghan's future is in doubt. On Sunday night on Sixty Minutes, the just-retired Deputy Director of the CIA Michael Morrell warned that both Syria and Afghanistan could become future sanctuaries for Sunni jihadists.  In the case of Afghanistan, he warned that a Taliban-led Afghanistan--a very real possibility over the next few years--would certainly pose a global threat of terrorism.  There is, however, an alternative that has been kicking around for a number of years.  In several appearances before Senate and House foreign relations committee hearings, Hillary Clinton, while Secretary of State, had called for a regional conference to devise a cooperative solution to Afghanistan and the entire volatile Central Asian region.  She urged that the conference participants include Afghanistan, the "Stans," Pakistan, India, Russia, China and Iran, with the U.S. and Europeans also participating.  Such a regional approach would necessarily have both security and economic dimensions.

Last week, Pepe Escobar, a well-respected journalist for Asia Times, spotlighted the prospects of a revival of the Silk Road, based on proposals presented by China's new President Xi Jinping at the annual Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) conference.  En route to the SCO event, Xi made several stop-overs in Central Asia. In a September 7 speech in Astana, Kazakhstan, he called for a New Silk Road.  As Escobar reported, "Xi's official `economic belt along the Silk Road' is a supremely ambitious, Chinese-fueled trans-Eurasian integration mega-project, from the Pacific to the Baltic Sea; a sort of mega free-trade zone. Xi's rationale seems to be unimpeachable; the belt is the home of close to 3 billion people and represents the biggest market in the world with unparallel potential."

Escobar went on about the sheer scope of the potential for Central Asia.  "Beijing is already massively investing in new roads and bridges along the Eurasian Land Bridge--another denomination of the New Silk Road... The New Silk Road is all about highways, railways, fiber optics and pipelines--with now the added Chinese push for logistics centers, manufacturing bubs, and, inevitably, new townships."

Here is Escobar's kicker, as if it wasn't already obvious:  "TheSCO is actively discussing its regional options after Washington's withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014.  china and russia will be deeply involved.  Same for Iran--for the moment an SCO observer.  Xi's Silk Road belt, in principle, is not detonating alarm bells in the Kremlin.  The Kremlin spin is that Russia and China's economies are complementary--as in China's `sizeable financial resources' matching Russia's `technologies, industrial skills and historical relations with the region.'|"

It is noteworthy that one of the highlights of the SCO session was a sideline meeting between Putin, Xi and Iran's new President Hassan Rouhani.  Rouhani invited Putin to Moscow and Putin accepted.

The great virtue of letting some of the vested regional interests deal with the post-US/NATO Afghan security challenges is that they all need regional stability to take advantage of the massive gas, oil and precious metal wealth in Central Asia.  China worries about security in the western provinces of Xinjiang and Tibet, Russia faces both the plague of heroin and opium coming out of Afghanistan and the constant threat of Salafist terrorism in the Caucaus.  

If these regional powers can create a stable exit for the U.S. and NATO and take on the security problems that follow, it serves everybody's interests.  No need for some new Great Game.  China's relations with Pakistan are far better than Washington's "best of enemies, worst of friends" tangled ties.  Russia continues to exert sway with India.  If they all cooperate, the New Silk Road dream can become reality over the coming years.  Iran was cooperative with the United States after 9/11 and helped Washington diplomats stand up the Karzai government.  They share a common border with Afghanistan and the Herat area is practically a suburb of the Islamic Republic.  

You say it's a pipe dream?  What if those pipes are filled with vast quantities of natural gas and petroleum turning Central Asia into the next great frontier?  After a dozen years of American misadventures in "Afpak" it is certainly an option worth trying.  American taxpayers, as well as Chinese consumers, may find it appealing.

More on Iran and the Great Game

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

On Saturday TTG brought reports of diplomatic outreach between the US and Iran. Yesterday Eric Follath reported in Der Spiegel that Iran's new president, Hassan Rohani, is prepared to decommission the Fordo nuclear installation that is about 20 kilometers from the Holy City of Qom. This offer would be made as concessions in exchange for the US ultimately lifting sanctions. While there is no way to know if the Follath has a real scoop, or if he has a big a scoop as it appears, there is some overlap with what TTG wrote about. And regardless of the outcome signs of diplomacy actually taking place should always be a welcome sight.

* Adam L. Silverman is the Cultural Advisor at the US Army War College. The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College and/or the US Army.

Bacevich on Brooks

"A military composed of warrior-professionals suits the agenda of hawkish conservatives at least as well as hawkish liberals. For those who dream of liberating the oppressed abroad and reversing the corrupting tide of liberalism at home here is an instrument ideally suited to making those dreams come true. Not persuaded? Consider the views of the noted conservative commentator and New York Times columnist David Brooks."  Bacevich

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Colonel Bacevich has a profound and steady view of people like Brooks.  pl 

http://www.salon.com/2013/09/15/david_brooks_was_wrong_on_iraq_and_afghanistan/singleton/

VCJCS Winnefeld Tells Army: Forget Long Land Wars - Sidney Freedberg

"Winnefeld said the nation would probably not need an Army sized to do any large-scale, long-duration ground operations. The admiral did not only downplay the possibility of prolonged counterinsurgencies like Afghanistan, Iraq, or Vietnam, although he certainly emphasized the decline of COIN: He raised doubt about long wars of any kind. “We’ve seen very recently that the American people are very wary of getting into an extended war of any type,” Winnefeld said, in a veiled reference to Syria. “We should take to heart three principles that [Maj. Gen.] Fox Conner imparted to Eisenhower and Marshall when they were both young officers: never fight unless you have to, never fight alone, and never fight for long.”"  Freedberg

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Well, well, well.  At last we have some rational thought expressed with regard to the future of US arms. 

This is a death sentence for the very flawed COIN doctrine.  That will go down hard with a lot of the hard heads who have spent the last ten years trying to absorb COIN as a new and wonderful thought.  About five years ago I ran a conference on tribalism as a factor in warfare in the modern age.  Among the guests was a young army brigadier general who had a staff job in which he was responsible for thinking great thoughts about the future.  He was rebuked by several attendees for the slowness of army adaptation to counter-guerrilla operations in Iraq. He replied that "they" had been working on this problem from a doctrinal point of view for six years and that they could not be expected to proceed more rapidly than that.  Most successful army officers are by nature not good at the "vision thing."  They are intelligent but not able by temperament to deal with futures that they have not seen.  They will have a hard time giving up all the silliness contained on the Army/Marine Corps manual on COIN.  You know that book.  It is the Petraeus masterpiece.  Ten years hence they will have settled into some other corpus of received wisdom but the transition will be painful.  It will be something like the long, sad, farewell to the horse.

The R2P folks and the neocons will try to fight this change but history and money are forces that will block their efforts.  pl  

http://breakingdefense.com/2013/09/13/vcjcs-winnefeld-tells-army-to-forget-long-land-wars-congress-get-out-of-our-way/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_Conner

 

Prudent Advice--Foresman

Over at the American Conservative, Gian Gentile offers some good advice to our policy makers, listen to the Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"Dempsey ran afoul of Cohen apparently because he has urged caution in the rush to war against the Damascus regime of Bashar al-Assad. The general announced that while the application of U.S. power might tip the balance in the ongoing civil war pitting Assad against a wide range of insurgent groups, it likely would fail to resolve or mitigate “the underlying and historic ethnic, religious and tribal issues that are fueling this conflict.”"  HF

A Virginia Gentleman - TTG

Photo taken by L. Todd Spencer of the Virginian-Pilot   

Tomorrow the UN will release its report on the Ghouta gas attack and the next round of pressurizing debate will begin. In the meantime, I invite all members of this committee to enjoy the story of Bill Dixon. Bill is a Virginia gentleman, a waterman and a hunter. His story is what many would consider a fluff piece. I think it is the story of a man with a sophisticated awareness of the world around him who has found contentment in that world. 

I first read this story about six weeks ago in my local paper.  I was enjoying a cup of tea while feeding my scurry of squirrels and murder of crows from my deck. It brought a smile to my face. Enjoy the story and accompanying video of the Virginia deer whisperer.

TTG

"Of Thee I Sing: Noisy Mediocrities" by Richard Sale

 

National conceit governs the world.  No country views itself with impartial eyes.
No country ever gives a full and solid account of its shortcomings, its
failures, its lack of skill and essential capacities.

In order to belittle each other, every country relishes holding up another’s failures, likes to endlessly deride, to depict a rival nation in dark colors as the seat of all the evil in the world – America has done this to the point of exasperation.  Yet you learn nothing by dwelling on your idea that you virtues, habits, and victories are superior in meaning and majesty to everybody else’s, yet we Americans continue to do this to the point of nausea.

I have just read two articles whose clumsy language and oceanic complacency irked me t the bottom of the soul. One of them was by Sebastian Junger urged that the United States striker Syria and the other was a retort to Russian leader Putin’s Op-ed in the New York Times.

We have two schools of conceit here. The first school makes us feel invulnerable
in our righteous purposes to the extent that we feel that we are able to correct
the wrongs of the world through brute force, our action to be driven and
excused by our superior “values” and our selfless worship of humanitarian aims.
It is not American welfare that we pursue, it is the worlds. The second article
is a school for helping to develop more insidious and commonplace and
impenetrable national vanity.

Recasting "The Great Game" - TTG

Some Iranian news agencies have reported that a message from Obama was carried to Iran last month by Oman’s ruler, Sultan Qaboos bin Said, whose country was a mediator before — when Iran released three Americans convicted of espionage despite claims they innocently crossed the border while hiking in Iraq in 2009. The Obama administration has indicated interest in possible groundbreaking one-on-one nuclear talks with Iran after nearly 35 years of diplomatic estrangement. Envoys from Iran and the U.S. have previously held meetings on Iraq mediated by Baghdad officials. 

The push for possible Iran-U.S. dialogue received a boost by the alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria, which the U.S. and allies have blamed on Assad’s forces. Obama has suggested Iran — a strong opponent of chemical weapons — could help pressure ally Assad into accepting a Russian-brokered plan to surrender stockpiles of lethal gas to international control. Iran suffered chemical attacks from Saddam Hussein’s forces — then backed by Washington — in the 1980-88 war with Iraq. (Washington Post)

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The Obama administration on Tuesday eased longstanding restraints on humanitarian and good-will activities between Iran and the United States, including athletic exchanges. It was at least the second American government relaxation of Iranian sanctions this year and came as Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, has signaled his desire to improve relations. 

Trollhunter, a review by Alan Farrell

Directed by: Andre Ovredahl (also written by him, too, the which make him an auteur, concept requiring some transduction, I’m thinking, into Skandanavian ethos/culture, explicable perhaps by that “Andre” of obvious Mediterranean extraction coupled with the more manly and Norse “Ovredahl” (“oaf valley” in Norwegian… or Finnish …or Swedish… like there’s a difference). Starring: Otto Jespersen, Johanna Morck, Tomas Larsson, Erland Tosterud, Hans Hansen (no kidding), and Kristin Kristinstotter as the Little Mermaid. Subbed in English: from the original Norwegian… or Swedish …or Danish … like there’s a difference.

This little sleeper from 2011 follows in the wake of Blair Witch (might call it Blair Which), features hand held, shaky-frame photography, unappetizing “normal” people (ugh…them!), vaguely impelled by extra-normal curiosity toward the para-normal with abnormal vigor and supra-normal resilience. And they’re Swedes… or Norwegians …or Finns (like there’s a difference), socialized Nordics all of a late evincing a profoundly uncurious outlook upon the world where Stuff Happens. Well, anyhow… when it does, who you gonna call? Gonna call Johanna, Kalle, and Tomas, three film class students from the University and Uppsala (or sommeres in Finland… or Denmark… or Finland) determined to latch onto the spectral Hans (oddly, though Johanna plays Johanna, Hans does not play Hans nor Tomas Tomas), whose comings and goings in a beaten-up Land Rover (or perhaps Range Rover… like there’s a difference) sliced by cryptic slashes along the ribcage (the Rover, not Hans) just beg for exposure. Hans is after something, up to something. Johanna, Kalle, and Tomas aim to discover what.

Taking a break

The last few weeks have been "pressurized" as the Brits say.  I am a bit tired and will take some tme off until Sunday or Monday barring a catastrophe.  pl

"Syria rebel coalition rejects Russia chemical weapons handover proposal" CBS News

"The military wing of the U.S.-backed Syrian National Coalition (SNC), an umbrella opposition group fighting against President Bashar Assad, has flatly rejected a proposal by Russia which would see the regime hand over control of its vast chemical weapons stockpiles to international control to avoid U.S. military strikes. After more than two and a half years of bloodshed in Syria which has left more than 100,000 people dead and millions displaced, the Russian initiative was announced Monday and quickly agreed to by Assad's government."  CBS News

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Yes.  The SNC, some of John McCain's little friends, rejects the possibility of the removal from the country of the weapons that they insist have been used by the Syrian government.  Does this strike anyone as odd?  pl  

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57602558/syria-rebel-coalition-rejects-russia-chemical-weapons-handover-proposal/

AIPAC Dirty Tricks

 

"When you're already the biggest stealth lobby of any foreign government, respecting the law just doesn't pay. Many lobbyists work aggressively to get their way on Capitol Hill by bundling donor contributions, passing inside information that lawmakers can profit from before ordinary investors and creating a favor bank. Some of those activities are unethical, but surprisingly few are actually illegal. AIPAC tactics fall into a different category. The lobbying group never bothered to incorporate until its parent organization was ordered to register as an Israeli foreign agent in 1962. AIPAC hurriedly spilt off and quietly incorporated just six weeks later in order to continue the public (and secret) work of its defunct parent organization the AZC. AIPAC flouts U.S. laws for its foreign patron—the government of Israel—when the stakes are high enough. If other lobbies tried any of these tactics, their executives would go to jail. Unsurprisingly, few domestic American causes require spying, smearing opponents and fixing elections. More worryingly, AIPAC now has enough elected and political appointee friends embedded in high places, along with establishment media power—that warranted investigations can be quickly quashed. The following five "dirty tricks" are undoubtedly being carefully considered by any Congressmember thinking of voting against AIPAC's drive to entangle the U.S. in wars against Syria and Iran: "   irmep

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

Food for thought.  pl  

http://www.irmep.org/AIPAC_dirty_tricks.htm

"U.S. military confirms rebels had sarin" WND

"The document, classified Secret/Noforn – “Not for foreign distribution” – came from the U.S. intelligence community’s National Ground Intelligence Center, or NGIC, and was made available to WND Tuesday. It revealed that AQI had produced a “bench-scale” form of sarin in Iraq and then transferred it to Turkey. A U.S. military source said there were a number of interrogations as well as some clan reports as part of what the document said were “50 general indicators to monitor progress and characterize the state of the ANF/AQI-associated Sarin chemical warfare agent developing effort.” “This (document) depicts our assessment of the status of effort at its peak – primarily research and procurement activities – when disrupted in late May 2013 with the arrest of several key individuals in Iraq and Turkey,” the document said. “Future reporting of indicators not previously observed would suggest that the effort continues to advance despite the arrests,” the NGIC document said. The May 2013 seizure occurred when Turkish security forces discovered a two-kilogram cylinder with sarin gas while searching homes of Syrian militants from the al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra Front following their initial detention."   WND

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

The administration's case against Syria over the 21st of August disaster is gradually disintegrating.  It will continue to do so.  pl  

http://www.wnd.com/2013/09/u-s-military-confirms-rebels-had-sarin/#j3LFpSudsmWFoFO3.03

U.S. Political Discourse By Richard Sale

 

Eugene Robinson, in a recent Washington Post column called the ruler of Syria, Bashar Assad, a "thug." In another column he referred to Assad as "The urbane ophthalmologist-turned-ogre." (I thought that Assad had begun as a computer expert.) In any case, Robinson, who really should know better, is now joined by a vast multitude of the unthinking idealistic because of his belittling, commonplace remarks. Recent media reports, in talking about Assad, have carelessly thrown around references to Munich, the Holocaust, and have used such phrases such as "Assad’s gangster regime," "brute," the "Assad criminal crowd," "The Assad gang," which sounds very much like anti-American Soviet propaganda after WW II.

Much of U.S. media is pro-Israel by conditioned reflex and have been marketing threats that pretend that if we don’t bomb Syria and then, after that, bomb Iran, it will "be the end of civilization as we know it," the same dogma using the same words that Republican Party hacks and party bankers used in 1933 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to get the country off the gold standard. Insults directed at Assad have reached a horrific pitch of intensity.

Why is this happening?

Gun Control Defeat in Colorado

"Any wind still left in the sails of gun control advocates likely died—at least for now—when Colorado voters successfully recalled two state senators on Sept. 10. This stern punishment came after lawmakers in the Mile High state toughened regulations on background checks and limited the size of ammo magazines. It was a rout. Billionaire New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg led a team of deep-pocketed out-of-towners in trying to rescue state senate president John Morse and his colleague Sen. Angela Giron, both Democrats. But the grassroots rebellion, fanned and funded by the National Rifle Association and other conservative groups, was more motivated. Said Tim Knight, a leader of the uprising: “Tonight is a victory for the people of the state of Colorado, who have been subject to the overreach of a Democrat agenda on guns, taxes and accountability.” Time

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

i will abstain from gloating.  pl

Read more: http://nation.time.com/2013/09/11/recall-vote-throws-wrench-in-colorados-liberal-shift/#ixzz2eavTElnM

 

Obama Blinked

Faced with looming defeat in Congress and threatened by the possibility that truth about the gas disaster might emerge, President Obama chose the better part of valor and backed away from personal disaster.

The interventionist party is enraged.  His wife is evidently pleased  and Fox News seems unhappy that World War III has not begun.

The speech was so boringly predictable that as someone here suggested I fell asleep immediately after listening and woke up around midnight for the purpose of finding my actual bed as opposed to my "couch potato" bed in front of the idiot box.

Russia saved our collective ass.  We ought to be grateful for that.  Saying that is not easy for me.  I have a lot of celtic blood and am quick to anger and slow to forget.  Nevertheless, they saved our asses this time.

Kerry is going to meet with Lavrov in Geneva to work out the details.  Kerry will try his smarmy best to have a deal that is impossible for the Syrians or anyone else to execute.  That would make it easier for the interventionists to claim that the Syrians are in non-compliance so that they can start this all over again.   That is what the interventionists did before Iraq.  It worked then and so they will try it again.

I trust that Lavrov will be on guard against this inevitable behavior on the part of the Winter Soldier.

We will see.  pl

http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/foreign-policy/syria?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=email238-text1&utm_campaign=syria

Waiting for Obama. pl

I am going to withhold comment on the developing situation until I hear what BHO says.  pl

HARPER: BEWARE OF FALSE FLAG INCIDENT

The countdown to U.S. military action against Syria has taken another dramatic twist over the past 24 hours, with a Russian proposal, backed by Syria, Iran and the Obama Administration, now being formulated to avert American military action.  The proposal, contrary to much of the media chatter, was discussed between Putin and Obama in St. Petersburg last week, and was also discussed between Lavrov and Kerry.  All of the talk about a Kerry "slip of the tongue" was media confusion.  Bottom line:  Obama knows that he will not get the Congressional votes he needs for authorization to use force.  He also knows that the mood on Capitol Hill is such that, if he ordered military strikes without Congressional backing, he might face impeachment.  Under any circumstances, the chances of Obama setting a world record for early lame duck status were soaring.  The American public do not want to hear about another war that has no justification under legitimate U.S. national security concerns.  They want jobs, other domestic economic improvements, and an end to the surveillance state.  The consent of the governed says "no" by an overwhelming margin.

That all having been said, some astute military thinkers are worried that some other big players in the Syrian saga--Israel and Saudi Arabia to name just two--are not at all happy that the U.S. and Russia may be working on a way to avoid military action. They look beyond the immediates of Syria to the pending negotiations with Iran.  If a deal is reached to put Syrian chemical weapons under UN control, and Iran is party to the arrangement, this opens the door for a better outcome to the upcoming P5+1 and Iranian-American bilateral talks.  Both Israel and Saudi Arabia would be deeply alarmed at such an outcome.  

In this context, some of my astute military and intelligence observers are warning of a false flag attack in Syria, staged by Syrian rebels or even Israeli covert ops teams, to put the Syria situation back on an immediate war footing.  

Things are moving so fast on the diplomatic front that I feel it important to issue this warning.  I hope that I am wrong and my friends who passed along this concern are just being overly cautious, perhaps even a bit paranoid.  

Comments are, as always, welcome.

Clapper "cherry-picked" for his "assessment" on Syria

"Contrary to the general impression in Congress and the news media, the Syria chemical warfare intelligence summary released by the Barack Obama administration Aug. 30 did not represent an intelligence community assessment, an IPS analysis and interviews with former intelligence officials reveals. The evidence indicates that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper culled intelligence analyses from various agencies and by the White House itself, but that the White House itself had the final say in the contents of the document. Leading members of Congress to believe that the document was an intelligence community assessment and thus represents a credible picture of the intelligence on the alleged chemical attack of Aug. 21 has been a central element in the Obama administration’s case for war in Syria. That part of the strategy, at least, has been successful. Despite strong opposition in Congress to the proposed military strike in Syria, no one in either chamber has yet challenged the administration’s characterisation of the intelligence. But the administration is vulnerable to the charge that it has put out an intelligence document that does not fully and accurately reflect the views of intelligence analysts. Former intelligence officials told IPS that that the paper does not represent a genuine intelligence community assessment but rather one reflecting a predominantly Obama administration influence. In essence, the White House selected those elements of the intelligence community assessments that supported the administration’s policy of planning a strike against the Syrian government force and omitted those that didn’t. In a radical departure from normal practice involving summaries or excerpts of intelligence documents that are made public, the Syria chemical weapons intelligence summary document was not released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence but by the White House Office of the Press Secretary."  Gareth Porter

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

Nathan Hale told the British soldier who put the noose around his neck that he regretted that he had but one life to give for his country.  A statue of Hale standing with his hands tied behind him is placed in front of the old building at CIA headquarters as well as this one at Yale.

James Clapper, Lieutenant General (ret.) USAF is currently Director of National Intelligence for the United States of America.

According to Porter, Clapper "cherry-picked" across the IC to find bits and pieces of opinion and "data" with which to construct a document that he then did not sign.  This is why the document was issued by the WH press office rather than as an IC assessment.  Perhasps he has some fear of the judgment of history.

This procedure of constructing public "reality" through control of the narrative is identical to that followed by the Iraq Group in Cheney's White House and the Office of Special Plans in Rumsfeld's office.  The level of contempt displayed for the citizenry is equal to that of the Bush Administration.

We are coming to the end of the Republic that our fathers built.  The Principate approaches.  pl  

 

http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/09/obamas-case-for-syria-didnt-reflect-intel-consensus/

Syria and Egypt - 9 September, 2013

"It should be no secret by now that much of the U.S. intelligence community is troubled by the quality of the information being used to justify a new war in the Middle East. It should also surprise no one to learn that former and current intelligence officers network and share information. For what it’s worth, one circle that I connect with has been buzzing over the past week with a discussion of the intelligence produced by the administration to justify war. A preponderance of roughly ten to one of our correspondents believe that the administration’s case for military intervention is greatly flawed, judging by the intelligence that has so far been revealed to justify an attack. The several dissenters from that view agree that the administration argument as expressed in its brief “Government Assessment” is lacking in corroborative detail and is a poorly written political document that pretends to be an intelligence assessment. But they are not yet at the point where they can support any single one of the alternative explanations for what took place in Syria three weeks ago and are willing to give the White House the benefit of the doubt. Which is not intended to suggest that anyone thinks that attacking Syria is desirable, either from a political, military, or practical point of view. "  The American Conservative/ Giraldi

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/whats-the-evidence-behind-the-case-for-war/

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

"September 8, 2013 As reported in the Mint Press News on August 29, 2013, the Jabhut al-Nusar militia, an al-Qaeda affiliated militia headquartered in Iraq, transported and released the Sarin gas used in the Ghouta gas attack. Mint Press reporter Yahya Ababneh was on the ground in Ghouta and spoke with members of the Jabhut al-Nusar militia and other rebels and their families who were directly affected by the gas. It was they who told him that the sarin gas had been provided by Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan. The gas was alleged to have been formulated in a former Iraqi chemical weapons factory. The sarin gas was purportedly released by untrained members of the Jabhut al-Nusar militia in the town of Ghouta Sham. This allegation has been substantiated by Doctors without Borders who treated the injured survivors, including injured Jabhut militia members who complained that they had not been properly trained in the use of the gas weapons they had transported into Syria from Iraq. The Jabhut al-Nusar is reputed to be uncooperative and to maintain little communications with the other Syrian militias fighting against the Assad regime."  Examiner.com

http://www.examiner.com/article/did-the-rebel-militias-gas-syrian-civilians?cid=rss

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

"The priest, Father Yoannis, moved behind a wall in the charred skeleton of an ancient monastery to describe how it was torched by Islamists and then looted when they took over Dalga, in southern Egypt, after the ouster of the country’s president, Mohamed Morsi, on July 3. “The fire in the monastery burned intermittently for three days,” Father Yoannis said. “The looting continued for a week. At the end, not a wire or an electric switch is left.”     NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/07/world/middleeast/islamists-seize-town-in-southern-egypt-and-attack-christians.html?_r=0

 

Islamist jihadis capture Christian town in Syria

"Secretary of State John Kerry's public assertions that moderate Syrian opposition groups are growing in influence appear to be at odds with estimates by U.S. and European intelligence sources and nongovernmental experts, who say Islamic extremists remain by far the fiercest and best-organized rebel elements. At congressional hearings this week, while making the case for President Barack Obama's plan for limited military action in Syria, Kerry asserted that the armed opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad "has increasingly become more defined by its moderation, more defined by the breadth of its membership, and more defined by its adherence to some, you know, democratic process and to an all-inclusive, minority-protecting constitution. "And the opposition is getting stronger by the day," Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday. U.S. and allied intelligence sources and private experts on the Syrian conflict suggest that assessment is optimistic. While the radical Islamists among the rebels may not be numerically superior to more moderate fighters, they say, Islamist groups like the al Qaeda-aligned Nusra Front are better organized, armed and trained. "  Reuters

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

In Kerryland, the Syrian rebels are brave, clean, loyal, tolerant.  Altogether they are in his world a lot like Boy Scouts.  Like the Boy Scouts they are homophobic and do not want women in their "ranks."  They shoot PWs in the back.  They burn churches much as their "brethren" in Egypt do.  The jihadis in Syria freely express their intention to abolish the state of Syria and create an Islamic emirate that would be a stepping stone toward their goal of creating a larger and more unified umma under Wahhabi, Sunni rule.  pl

**************************** 

"Christians make up roughly 10% of the population. Syria is ruled by a government dominated by Alawites, whose faith is an offshoot of Shiism. The regime is opposed by an opposition with a large Sunni presence. Aid agencies say Syria's 2 million Christians are often targeted for suspected sympathies to President Bashar al-Assad's regime. Two top bishops have been kidnapped; a well-known priest is missing. Antoinette Nassrallah, the Christian owner of a cafe in Maaloula, told CNN last year she had seen government TV images depicting radical Muslim attacks on Christians. She said she has heard about such violence in Aleppo. "For now in our area here it's fine," she said last year. "But what I heard, in Aleppo, they are killing, destroying many of churches -- very, very old churches." Many of Syria's Christians have fled to Lebanon where they shelter in monasteries."  CNN

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

The present Syrian government is the protector of religious minorities.  If you pray, pray for the people of Maaloula.  pl

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/05/us-syria-crisis-usa-rebels-idUSBRE98405L20130905

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/08/world/meast/syria-civil-war/

VIPS Warning to POTUS on Syria intelligence

 

"We regret to inform you that some of our former co-workers are telling us, categorically, that contrary to the claims of your administration, the most reliable intelligence shows that Bashar al-Assad was NOT responsible for the chemical incident that killed and injured Syrian civilians on August 21, and that British intelligence officials also know this. In writing this brief report, we choose to assume that you have not been fully informed because your advisers decided to afford you the opportunity for what is commonly known as “plausible denial.” We have been down this road before – with President George W. Bush, to whom we addressed our first VIPS memorandumimmediately after Colin Powell’s Feb. 5, 2003 U.N. speech, in which he peddled fraudulent “intelligence” to support attacking Iraq. Then, also, we chose to give President Bush the benefit of the doubt, thinking he was being misled – or, at the least, very poorly advised. Secretary of State John Kerry departs for a Sept. 6 trip to Europe where he plans to meet with officials to discuss the Syrian crisis and other issues. (State Department photo) The fraudulent nature of Powell’s speech was a no-brainer. And so, that very afternoon we strongly urged your predecessor to “widen the discussion beyond … the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.” We offer you the same advice today..."  VIPS

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

I am a co-drafter and signer of this appeal.  pl 

 

http://consortiumnews.com/2013/09/06/obama-warned-on-syrian-intel/

 

Tell Congress what you want.

I urge all and sundry US citizens to twitter, FB or otherwise communicate to their congresspersons their wishes with regard to the coming votes on resolutions concerning the use of force in Syria.  pl

Syria - 6 September, 2013

 

"They are embarrassed to be associated with the amateurism of the Obama administration’s attempts to craft a plan that makes strategic sense. None of the White House staff has any experience in war or understands it. So far, at least, this path to war violates every principle of war, including the element of surprise, achieving mass and having a clearly defined and obtainable objective. They are repelled by the hypocrisy of a media blitz that warns against the return of Hitlerism but privately acknowledges that the motive for risking American lives is our “responsibility to protect” the world’s innocents. Prospective U.S. action in Syria is not about threats to American security. The U.S. military’s civilian masters privately are proud that they are motivated by guilt over slaughters in Rwanda, Sudan and Kosovo and not by any systemic threat to our country. They are outraged by the fact that what may happen is an act of war and a willingness to risk American lives to make up for a slip of the tongue about “red lines.” These acts would be for retribution and to restore the reputation of a president. Our serving professionals make the point that killing more Syrians won’t deter Iranian resolve to confront us. The Iranians have already gotten the message. "  Robert Scales

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

I seem to recall that Scales was a cheer leader for the Iraq invasion and an adviser to DoD in that case.  If I am wrong, tell me so.  Nevertheless, I think that in this instance he has been to the mountain and returned with the golden tablets.  His point about CJCS' body language with regard to Kerry is absolutely correct. pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/us-military-planners-dont-support-war-with-syria/2013/09/05/10a07114-15bb-11e3-be6e-dc6ae8a5b3a8_story.html 

Ha'aretz reports here that the targeting list is being expanded to include all syrian military heavy weapons.  This makes it clear that the statements by the WH to the effect that the strikes would be about deterrng the use of CW is nonsense.  The objective is weakening of government forces to enable a rebel victory in th ewar.  pl

http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.545586

a letter from the Speaker of the Syrian parliament to the Speaker of the US House of Representatives.  pl

http://interactive.news.sky.com/PDF/US%20House%20of%20Representatives.pdf

 

HARPER: OBAMA'S SYRIA FLIGHT FORWARD

I am told by current intelligence officials that President Obama intends to bomb Syria in the coming days--with or without Congressional approval.  With the whip count in the House of Representatives looking worse and worse for the war party, the White House is pressing Harry Reid to rush the Senate vote, perhaps as early as Monday evening, Sept. 9, the day that the Congress returns to Washington and the debate is scheduled to begin.  If Obama can get a Senate majority, sources close to the White House say that he will order strikes before the House can get started.  Perhaps this is why Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is saying that a House vote is unlikely before the week of Sept. 16, given that passions are running so high on the issue.  The reality is that opposition in the House is growing and the chance of a "yes" vote from the GOP-led lower chamber is well below 50 percent.

President Obama's problems go way beyond the Halls of Congress.  He is facing three daunting problems with his Syria war scheme, according to one senior US intelligence officer.  First, the case that Assad ordered the chemical weapons attack on Aug. 21 is, at best, circumstantial.  A triangulation of intercepts by Israeli, German and US sigint agencies has been pitched to Congress as "proof" that Assad did it.  But the case is flimsy and, ultimately, is all based on interpretations of conversations involving Syrian military commanders, Iranian diplomats and Hezbollah leaders.  Clearly the American people are also unconvinced, as the opposition to any military action is polling well above 80 percent in most recent polls.

Second, even if President Obama were to win support of one or both Houses of Congress, any US unilateral action without approval of the United Nations Security Council is a violation of international law.  Obama is about to order a war of aggression which is explicity barred by the UN Charter.

Third, in his private White House meeting on Monday with Senate hawks John McCain and Lindsey Graham, President Obama assured them that the planned bombing campaign would indeed alter the military balance on the ground in Syria in favor of the rebels.  The President told McCain and Graham one thing behind closed doors, while professing that his military plan is merely a punishment and deterrent to assure Assad won't ever consider using chemical weapons again in public. Remember that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates resigned from the Cabinet over the decision to establish a no-fly zone over Libya on "humanitarian grounds."  Gates was correct when he warned that a no-fly zone is an act of war and that once the combat begins, it only ends with regime change.  Is the President lying to McCain and Graham to get their critical support in the Senate or is he lying to the American people when he says that the objectives of the military operation are strictly limited?

The Obama flight forward in Syria is also premised on the belief that the Assad government and its allies will sit back and do nothing in retaliation for US strikes.  Is there any basis in reality for this assumption?  When Secretary of State John Kerry, testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday tried to dismiss the al-Qaeda penetration of the Syrian opposition, Russian President Vladimir Putin was so angry that he publicly called Kerry a liar.  US intelligence estimates, that Kerry has clearly seen, warn of the degree of penetration of the Syrian rebel forces by radical jihadists who hate the United States.  Under pressure, Kerry admitted that 15-25 percent of the rebel fighters are jihadists.  Is there a Special National Intelligence Estimate on how the Russians or the Iranians or Hezbollah will respond to Obama's US missile barrage?  The answer is "no."  

Yet President Obama has taken it as an article of blind faith that there will be no retaliation for the so-called "limited" US strikes that he could order at any moment after the Senate vote early next week.  This President, who knows nothing about military affairs, is bringing the United States to the brink of what could rapidly escalate into world war.  It seems that 80 percent of the American people are smart enough to realize that and want nothing of it.  In his remarks in Sweden earlier this week, President Obama was at his Narcissistic peak, proclaiming that "history" has drawn the red line on Assad's use of chemical weapons and that he is merely acting as the messenger and executioner of "history's judgment."  

UN findings dismissed in advance by the US Government - just like in Iraq

 

These were UN Inspectors in Iraq just before the US demanded they be withdrawn so that the US could attack.  they had reported at that point that they had the cooperation of the Iraqi government but could find no weapons or programs still in existence.  They asked for more time.  They were denied the time. 

At present the US government, evidently repeating in great detail the "Wag the Dog" scenario that worked well for the Bush Administration is once again dismissing in advance any and all findings that  ight come from the present UN investigators who were in Syria.  pl

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-dismisses-un-inspections-in-syria-of-alleged-chemical-weapons-sites/2013/09/04/2b1cf3c4-14e3-11e3-880b-7503237cc69d_story.html

http://en.rian.ru/world/20130905/183172658/Ammo-Used-Near-Aleppo-Syria-in-March-Was-Makeshift---Russia.html

"Russia's Putin calls John Kerry a liar on Syria" SF Gate

 

"Putin recalled watching a congressional debate where Kerry was asked about al-Qaida. Putin said he had denied that it was operating in Syria, even though he was aware of the al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra group. Putin said: "This was very unpleasant and surprising for me. We talk to them (the Americans) and we assume they are decent people, but he is lying and he knows that he is lying. This is sad." It was unclear exactly what Putin was referencing, but Kerry was asked Tuesday while testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee if the Syrian opposition had become more infiltrated by al-Qaida. Kerry responded that that was "basically incorrect" and that the opposition has "increasingly become more defined by its moderation." "  SF Gate

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

It seems to me that it is well established that both ISIS and al-Nusra are AQ clones.  Kerry and the other administration henchpersons are attempting to convince that the somewhat secular but nevertheless altogether Sunni Free Syrian Army is the strongest of the rebel factions and the most likely to take control of Syria if the government falls.

Is this an article of faith, or is there actually some indication that Kerry might be correct? 

And then of course there was the moment before the senate when Kerry said that he did not want to exclude a future possibility of US ground troops in Syria.  What was that about?  pl 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/04/us-syria-crisis-usa-kerry-idUSBRE9820ZR20130904

http://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/Russia-s-Putin-calls-John-Kerry-a-liar-on-Syria-4786886.php

 

Various materials on the Syria Crisis

 

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

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fine-print-time-to-show-and-tell-on-syria/2013/09/02/dcd71a90-124f-11e3-bdf6-e4fc677d94a1_story.html

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/09/02/201027/to-some-us-case-for-syrian-gas.html 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/uns-carla-del-ponte-says-there-is-evidence-rebels-may-have-used-sarin-in-syria-8604920.html 

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/article3779257.ece

http://www.todayszaman.com/news-316966-report-police-foil-al-nusra-bomb-attack-planned-for-adana.html

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-september-3-2013/uncle-jonny-stew-s-good-time-syria-jamboree

Don't miss this celebration in the parliament of Fredonia courtesy of TTG.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyeKYQdYISg

pl

"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

"U.S. intervention in Syria: War for virtue" by Henry Allen

"As John Updike wrote: “America is beyond power, it acts as in a dream, as a face of God. Wherever America is, there is freedom, and wherever America is not, madness rules with chains, darkness strangles millions. Beneath her patient bombers, paradise is possible.” The United States doesn’t fight for land, resources, hatred, revenge, tribute, religious conversion — the usual stuff. Along with the occasional barrel of oil, we fight for virtue. Never mind that it doesn’t work out — the Gulf of Tonkin lies, Agent Orange, waterboarding, nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, the pointless horrors of Abu Ghraib, a fighter plane wiping out an Afghan wedding party, our explanation of civilian deaths as an abstraction: “collateral damage.” Just so. We talk about our warmaking as if it were a therapeutic science — surgical strikes, precision bombing, graduated responses, a homeopathic treatment that uses war to cure us of war. “Like cures like,” as the homeopathic slogan has it; “the war to end all wars” as Woodrow Wilson is believed to have said of World War I. We send out our patient bombers in the manner of piling on blankets to break a child’s fever. We launch our missiles and say: “We’re doing it for your own good.”"  Henry Allen

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

I have long dealt with the minimally hidden messianism of the American tradition and style.  A great many people do not accept or comprehend the extent to which this kind of "thinking' colors our decisions.  pl  

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/us-action-in-syria-another-war-for-virtue/2013/09/01/a91b8bcc-1327-11e3-a100-66fa8fd9a50c_story.html

The Kerrys Dining Out with the "Thug and Murderer" and his "missus."

2010 in Damascus.  pl

 

British SIGINT never heard Kerry's "evidence."

"Mossad have nothing comparable to the Troodos operation. The reported content of the conversations fits exactly with key tasking for Troodos, and would have tripped all the triggers. How can Troodos have missed this if Mossad got it? The only remote possibility is that all the conversations went on a purely landline route, on which Mossad have a physical wire tap, but that is very unlikely in a number of ways - not least nowadays the purely landline route. Israel has repeatedly been involved in the Syrian civil war, carrying out a number of illegal bombings and missile strikes over many months. This absolutely illegal activity by Israel- which has killed a great many civilians, including children - has brought no condemnation at all from the West. Israel has now provided “intelligence” to the United States designed to allow the United States to join in with Israel’s bombing and missile campaign. The answer to the Troodos Conundrum is simple. Troodos did not pick up the intercepts because they do not exist. Mossad fabricated them. John Kerry’s “evidence” is the shabbiest of tricks. More children may now be blown to pieces by massive American missile blasts. It is nothing to do with humanitarian intervention. It is, yet again, the USA acting at the behest of Israel. "  Craigmurray

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I can't judge Craig Murray's judgement concerning the relative capabilities of British GCHQ and Israeli Unit 8200, but this is cerainly interesting.  pl  

http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/08/the-troodos-conundrum/