The Syria Thread 2011 - Present

[slimmouse]

21st century wire outlining what is become a growing consensus understanding.

The Stampede of Lies That’s Pushing the West Towards War in Syria

Low-empathy political leaders and media propagandists have abandoned principle in the 21st century. ( if indeed they ever had any - slim)

Editorial
21st Century Wire

“It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.”
- Smedley Butler, 1933

British Prime Minister David Cameron tried and failed this week, but it looks like US President Barack Obama may get his war on in Syria this weekend. He says it’s because of ‘chemical weapons’.

Even at its lowest ebb, the the run-up to the Iraq War never saw so much desperation, so much spinning and overt lying from the government-media-complex about what ‘intelligence’ they claim to have in order to justify a new and dangerous war in Syria. The political narcissism around this current desire for war, makes Bush and Blair’s moral heist in 2003 look like a polite outing.

It’s become a stampede of lies regarding Syria, with our political con men producing every trick in the bag, and yet, none of these PR illusionists dare mention during any of their diatribes on “the moral duty of the international community” – that for the last 2 years the US, UK have given their backing to the armed “Syrian Opposition”, featuring 40,000 of the most vile and violent imported Islamic fundamentalist terrorist brigades the world ever seen, who have infested Syria. Now the US wants to act as al Qaeda’s Airforce in Syria, as it did already in Libya.

In this dirty proxy war, human lives mean very little to puppet masters, as the money flows into the foreign mercenary gangs. Money and arms are being supplied by US and UK allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar, special military (or terrorist?) training by the US, UK and others in Jordan and Turkey. To fill in the gaps, the US and others have been managing Blackwater (Xe) and other private military contractors (mercenaries) operating out of Cyprus and other locations, many of which are active militarily inside of Syria training and commanding ‘the opposition’ in their war to overthrow the Syrian government.

These resources of war continue to fuel the violence in Syria, and political cover is provided by the US, Britain, France, Turkey, Israel and others who seek to benefit from the shattering of the Syrian nation-state, the first of many more nation-states they would like to eliminate through catastrophe, or through wars.

US, UK and French leaders will not talk about the natural gas pipeline they are planning between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean via Syria, of which Saudi Arabia and Qatar would be heavily invested. A gas pipeline from Arabia to Europe would mitigate the influence of Russian gas to Europe.

The world has slid into a political abyss. David Cameron, Barack Obama, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and William Hague have all took turns running point during this three year destablisation effort in Syria, each repeating each other’s script, peppered with half-cocked truths, and endless banquet of cooked-up ‘intelligence’. Each appears to be completely convinced by his/her own highly subjective and wonderfully deceptive version of reality in the Middle East. They bank on public apathy and the chaos of propaganda, in order to clear their path for more extreme violence, with profits for the top end of the military industrial complex and for the top end of a predatory banking sector which makes all wars possible.

Yes, leaders have all been bought and paid for. Yes, the mainstream media has been bought and paid for. But the public has not been bought and paid for yet. In an incredible turn of events on Thursday, the British public set a rare, but clear example of what a functioning democracy can look like by rejecting military aggression. Washington and London political hacks may be too myopic to realise it, but the rest of the world has taken notice, and this small victory over global tyranny cannot be erased.

In 2003, the government-media-complex was cool, cold and calculated in its deception and drive to war, while the public were emotional, wild and desperate in their frustration to stop the establishment’s drive to war.

In 2013, the tables have turned, as political leaders and their media propagandists have become wildly emotional, highly unstable and completely desperate, in their bid to kick-start their war, while the public have been cool, calm and decisive in their condemnation of the war fraud.

We’ve seen it all this time around: inflated figures, reports with actors and sound stages dressed to look like hospitals, and we have seen heads of state site YouTube videos as evidence – videos they now refer to as “open source reporting”. The desperation to ram home a war in Syria has become an obsessive rush, to the point of being vulgar in itself. TV anchors, radio hosts, and newspaper editors are all shilling for war. Why are the politicians and the media pushing this war so hard, even if the people are not?

Syria is only a stepping stone towards the Washington-London-Israeli alliance’s publicly stated objective of a war with Iran. The next move by this nexus is to break-up Syria and then foment unrest in Lebanon, for the purposes of redrawing the Middle Eastern map in order to break up the Shi’ite “land bridge” which connects Iran to the Mediterranean. From there, a confrontation could be forced – with the US-NATO confab on one side, and Russia and China on the other.

This is a worrying prospect, considering the conduct of our leaders who have been shown to lie on a regular basis to their public. Could we trust our current political class to make the right decisions should a World War 3 situation escalate that far? Can anyone answer ‘yes’ to this, especially after watching the adolescent performances of recent… by men and women who call themselves Prime Ministers, Presidents and Secretaries of State? Can these men be trusted with such overwhelming military fire power? Can they be trusted with their nuclear arsenals?

It seems that the establishment are failing to realise the shift that has taken place just now, nor are they able to foresee the blow back they may reap from their rancid enterprise, whereby, the few profit – and the many pay.

You can never fully satisfy the appetite of a political, or corporate psychopath. They always want more. They see markets, and they want to control them. They see populations, and they want to control, or even eliminate them.

Although still confident with their formula for war – one which has worked for them so many times in the past, they could very well fall flat on their face this time in Syria, but even so and unfortunately for humanity, they will cause much damage and suffering in the process.

There is a global awakening taking place, and more than ever, people are finally realising en mass what General Smedley Butler learned back in 1993… those three words: “war is racket”.

Every one knows it seems, except those trapped in their own elite ghettos, so high up in their ivory towers that they’ve all but lost touch with the rest of the human race.

The shift… has just hit the fan.

Link; http://21stcenturywire.com/2013/08/31/t ... -in-syria/

"The shift has just hit the fan". Nice.

[seemslikeadream]

Don't Call This a Humanitarian Intervention
Whether you support or disapprove of the coming strike on Syria, don't say it's about saving civilians. Please.
BY CHARLI CARPENTER | AUGUST 30, 2013

In its failed bid to convince Parliament to support airstrikes against Syria, the British government issued a statement on Thursday, Aug. 29, outlining its legal justification for military action. In doing so, it claimed that its position is consistent with an emerging international norm of "humanitarian intervention." Indeed such a norm, while not yet codified in international law, has begun to take shape in recent decades, evidenced in both international documents and the practice and rhetoric of governments. Britain's legal position, however, inadequately reflects these international understandings about the "responsibility to protect." Although it's now largely moot, if the British position had been authorized by Parliament, it would have risked dangerously undercutting this emerging and still fragile norm, while simultaneously threatening the U.N. Charter regime. It is thus noteworthy that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry chose not to mention "humanitarian intervention" in his remarks on Friday, focusing instead on the need to enforce a taboo against chemical weapons. This makes sense, since the military campaign being proposed would not meet the standards by which humanitarian interventions are judged.

The "responsibility to protect" (R2P) doctrine encompasses far more than an imperative toward military intervention, but it does also allow the use of armed force to protect civilians (humanitarian intervention). This new "norm," designed to be used in extreme cases, rests on six principles. Of these, Britain invoked only three, and war planners on both sides of the Atlantic have made a solid case only for two.

The first is "just cause." As the British government stated and many observers have reiterated of late, Syria is in a state of extreme humanitarian distress requiring immediate relief. There is strong evidence in favor of this argument. By any estimate, the civilian death toll at the hands of Bashar al-Assad's regime is staggering, and millions have been displaced. The use of gas against civilians is seen by many to breach an atrocity threshold -- killing hundreds of people (more than 1,400, according to U.S. government evidence). Even without chemical weapons, a strong case could be and has been made for doing something to stop the slaughter. But R2P also says intervention should be a "last resort" -- Britain's second stated principle -- after diplomatic avenues are exhausted. Again, Western powers could make a strong case that this criterion has been met in the case of Syria.

The British government also emphasized that a humanitarian intervention must use means "necessary and proportionate" to humanitarian aims. Here its position is trickier. Of course states are expected to conduct all wars in accordance with the humanitarian principles of necessity, proportionality, and discrimination. They are also expected to observe limits on the means and methods of combat. Would the limited strikes Western powers currently envision meet this standard? It's not at all clear. In fact, the British NGO Article36.org has issued a letter to Prime Minister David Cameron raising concerns over whether use of explosives in densely populated areas could conceivably be understood as a proportional response consistent with humanitarian aims, given their widespread and predictable impact on civilians.
More FP Coverage SYRIA'S CIVIL WAR

Questions and Airstrikes
The Gamble
On Syria, Obama Administration Disproves Obama Doctrine

This brings us to the three R2P principles British lawyers are forgetting -- and the reasons, perhaps, that the United States has not invoked R2P in its justification for strikes. One is that a truly humanitarian intervention must have "right intention" -- it must be designed for the express purpose of protecting civilians from predation at the hands of their government. But it is very clear that the military campaign envisioned is not really about protecting civilians from Assad or an ongoing civil war. Instead, as Kerry reiterated today, the goal is to enforce a weapons norm through a punitive strike. While this may well be a laudable goal in itself and may indeed do some good in reinforcing an important global norm, there is no evidence to suggest that it will have an immediate and beneficial humanitarian effect -- indeed much to the contrary.

Enter another important principle: that any intervention undertaken to protect civilians have a "reasonable likelihood of success" and avoid making things worse. Even if a Western strike were the most effective way possible to enforce the chemical weapons taboo -- and this itself is debated -- it is far less clear that such a strike would have a reasonable likelihood of success when it comes to the wider goal of protecting civilians. In fact, much data and analysis suggests the contrary. A recent study has found that intervening on behalf of rebels increases the number of civilians who are killed. While international relations professor Jon Western of Mount Holyoke College rightly points out that it depends on the type of intervention, successful missions have typically included robust mandates, ambitious goals, a willingness to stay the course, and significant resources from the international community subsequent to the invasion. Many involved regime change. In other words, the kind of intervention most likely to actually protect civilians is the polar opposite of the one now being proposed.

Even if all these criteria were met -- even if Cameron had been defending a well-deserved, last-ditch military campaign for the right reasons using appropriate means and with the best possible plan to sustainably mitigate rather than increase civilian bloodshed -- it would still violate the R2P doctrine if it included the right to act unilaterally. Precisely because the humanitarian intervention norm runs afoul of the U.N. Charter and because fears are so great that it could be used as a smoke screen for wars of aggression, international support for this emerging norm has always been predicated on the idea that it would be used only where a broad multilateral consensus existed that it is the right thing to do.

Consider state practice since 1990. The "good wars" perceived by the international community to have been legitimate cases of humanitarian intervention include operations in Somalia to protect food shipments, northern Iraq to protect Kurdish refugees from attack, Bosnia and Kosovo to end ethnic cleansing, and Libya to forestall a devastating siege. In each case, these efforts were undertaken by a wide coalition of governments deeply invested in the cause. Now consider cases where a single government asserted the right to act unilaterally for humanitarian reasons. When the Russian military entered Georgia in 2008, it claimed it was doing so to protect civilians. When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003 to "liberate its people from a tyrant," the vast majority of states opposed this action as an ill-conceived violation of the U.N. Charter. Neither diplomats at the time nor analysts of political history include these incursions among the canon of legitimate humanitarian interventions. Whatever complex mixture of motives underlay these wars (and whatever mixture underlies "bona fide" interventions like Kosovo and Libya), it is multilateralism that constitutes a perception that a military intervention is legitimately humanitarian.

This importance of collective action is reflected in the codified R2P principles as well. Although lacking the status of treaty law, the R2P doctrine has been laid out in several international documents. In each one, it states the importance of seeking prior U.N. Security Council authorization for action, subsequently calling emergency sessions of the General Assembly, and coordinating emergency operations through regional organizations on a multilateral basis. The 2005 World Summit Outcome document referred to governments' collective "responsibility" to prevent atrocity. These documents do not confer a right upon individual states to decide for themselves. This explains why, despite a willingness to act without a Security Council authorization, the United States is bending over backward in its political rhetoric to emphasize the shared condemnation of Syria by allies in the region and around the globe. And it is particularly important as the United States gauges how to proceed with the military support of an important ally now out of the picture.

Why is multilateralism so important? It is partly because R2P represents a deeply cautious and tentative compromise between two important sets of rules -- the primacy of sovereignty and the primacy of human rights -- each of which plays a vitally important role in promoting human and global security. Neither should be easily disregarded on a whim by a single actor. While human rights must be protected, the U.N. Charter system itself is a collective public good: It ended a bloody history of great-power war and has ushered in the longest era of interstate peace in human history. States rightly allow exceptions to these fundamental rules only in extreme cases.

The rule that governments should collectively judge whether that threshold has been met is also a check on hubris. R2P channels collective outrage, but when push comes to shove collective reticence is often a canary in a coal mine. That key members of the international community -- including countries like Turkey that have a valid self-defense argument due to refugee flows, and members of the Arab League that would be happy to see Assad gone -- are unready to themselves take the lead would be viewed through an R2P lens as an indication that caution and deliberation is warranted. Does this mean inaction is the best policy? Maybe. Maybe not. But it does mean that unilateral intervention, even to ostensibly protect civilians, doesn't make a war "humanitarian" in the court of global public opinion.

[MayDay]

Canada sent millions to Syrian rebels

By Jessica Hume, Parliamentary Bureau

First posted: Saturday, August 31, 2013 04:31 PM EDT | Updated: Saturday, August 31, 2013 04:41 PM EDT

OTTAWA - As the possibility of a military strike against Syria looms, some details of Canada's supporting role in the conflict have emerged.

Canada has given $5.3-million to the Syrian opposition to support the rebels in anti-government propaganda since April 2012, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAIT).

Canadian funding has helped Syrian rebels establish a pirate radio network and training for journalists and bloggers "in an effort to rapidly increase international credibility of the Syrian opposition and visibility of humanitarian news reporting from Syria," the government says.

Canada contributed $650,000 toward helping the Syrian Justice and Accountability Centre establish a secure database as part of a program to help support "research and collect evidence of human rights violations for use in future Syria-led transitional justice processes."

Providing communications equipment has been a priority for the government.

Canada has also provided pre-paid airtime for satellite Internet communication devices with the goal of "increasing co-ordination between opposition networks of local civilian actors involved in local administration and political leadership, during both the conflict and transition phases in Syria," according to the DFAIT.

In a joint project with the U.S. State Department and the U.K., Canada has contributed to an opposition-controlled media apparatus that produces content for broadcast and print.

The Canadian Fund for Local Initiatives has devised training programs specializing in journalism, activism and leadership, conflict-resolution and community development, to which the government has given $237,000.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird have been firm that Canada's role in any military action in Syria will be entirely symbolic.

[smiths]

this relates to the whole NSA GCHQ thing as well


"The GCHQ listening post on Mount Troodos in Cyprus ... did not pick up the intercepts because they do not exist. Mossad fabricated them."

The GCHQ listening post on Mount Troodos in Cyprus is arguably the most valued asset which the UK contributes to UK/US intelligence cooperation. The communications intercept agencies, GCHQ in the UK and NSA in the US, share all their intelligence reports (as do the CIA and MI6). Troodos is valued enormously by the NSA. It monitors all radio, satellite and microwave traffic across the Middle East, ranging from Egypt and Eastern Libya right through to the Caucasus. Even almost all landline telephone communication in this region is routed through microwave links at some stage, picked up on Troodos.

Troodos is highly effective – the jewel in the crown of British intelligence. Its capacity and efficiency, as well as its reach, is staggering. The US do not have their own comparable facility for the Middle East. I should state that I have actually been inside all of this facility and been fully briefed on its operations and capabilities, while I was head of the FCO Cyprus Section in the early 1990s. This is fact, not speculation.

It is therefore very strange, to say the least, that John Kerry claims to have access to communications intercepts of Syrian military and officials organising chemical weapons attacks, which intercepts were not available to the British Joint Intelligence Committee.

On one level the explanation is simple. The intercept evidence was provided to the USA by Mossad, according to my own well placed source in the Washington intelligence community. Intelligence provided by a third party is not automatically shared with the UK, and indeed Israel specifies it should not be.

But the inescapable question is this. 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.

http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/ ... conundrum/

[justdrew]

[seemslikeadream]

It is later learned that the plane, a Boeing 747, was carrying several tons of chemicals, including hydrofluoric acid, isopro-panol and dimethyl methylphosphonate (DMMP)—three of the four chemicals used in the production of sarin nerve gas. The shipment of chemicals—approved by the US commerce department—reportedly came from Solkatronic Chemicals Inc. of Morrisville, Pennsylvania and its final destination was the Institute for Biological Research (IIBR) in Ness Ziona near Tel Aviv, Israel

[seemslikeadream]

By Russell Findlay
Revealed: Britain sold nerve gas chemicals to Syria 10 months after war began

1 Sep 2013 07:21
FURIOUS politicians have demanded Prime Minister David Cameron explain why chemical export licences were granted to firms last January – 10 months after the Syrian uprising began.

REUTERS/Nour Fourat
BRITAIN allowed firms to sell chemicals to Syria capable of being used to make nerve gas, we can reveal today.
Export licences for potassium fluoride and sodium fluoride were granted months after the bloody civil war in the Middle East began.
The chemical is capable of being used to make weapons such as sarin, thought to be the nerve gas used in the attack on a rebel-held Damascus suburb which killed nearly 1500 people, including 426 children, 10 days ago.
President Bashar Assad’s forces have been blamed for the attack, leading to calls for an armed response from the West.
British MPs voted against joining America in a strike. But last night, President Barack Obama said he will seek the approval of Congress to take military action.
The chemical export licences were granted by Business Secretary Vince Cable’s Department for
Business, Innovation and Skills last January – 10 months after the Syrian uprising began.
They were only revoked six months later, when the European Union imposed tough sanctions on Assad’s regime.
Yesterday, politicians and anti-arms trade campaigners urged Prime Minister David Cameron to explain why the licences were granted.
Dunfermline and West Fife Labour MP Thomas Docherty, who sits on the House of Commons’ Committees on Arms Export Controls, plans to lodge Parliamentary questions tomorrow and write to Cable.
He said: “At best it has been negligent and at worst reckless to export material that could have been used to create chemical weapons.
“MPs will be horrified and furious that the UK Government has been allowing the sale of these
ingredients to Syria.
“What the hell were they doing granting a licence in the first place?
“I would like to know what investigations have been carried out to establish if any of this
material exported to Syria was subsequently used in the attacks on its own people.”
The SNP’s leader at Westminster, Angus Robertson MP, said: “I will be raising this in Parliament as soon as possible to find out what examination the UK Government made of where these chemicals were going and what they were to be used for.
“Approving the sale of chemicals which can be converted into lethal weapons during a civil war is a very serious issue.
“We need to know who these chemicals were sold to, why they were sold, and whether the UK Government were aware that the chemicals could potentially be used for chemical weapons.
“The ongoing humanitarian crisis in Syria makes a full explanation around these shady deals even more important.”
A man holds the body of a dead child
Reuters

Mark Bitel of the Campaign Against Arms Trade (Scotland) said: “The UK Government claims to have an ethical policy on arms exports, but when it comes down to practice the reality is very different.
“The Government is hypocritical to talk about chemical weapons if it’s granting licences to companies to export to regimes such as Syria.
“We saw David Cameron, in the wake of the Arab Spring, rushing off to the Middle East with arms companies to promote business.”
Some details emerged in July of the UK’s sale of the chemicals to Syria but the crucial dates of the exports were withheld.
The Government have refused to identify the licence holders or say whether the licences were issued to one or two companies.
The chemicals are in powder form and highly toxic. The licences specified that they should be used for making aluminium structures such as window frames.
Professor Alastair Hay, an expert in environmental toxicology at Leeds University, said: “They have a variety of industrial uses.
“But when you’re making a nerve agent, you attach a fluoride element and that’s what gives it
its toxic properties.
“Fluoride is key to making these munitions.
“Whether these elements were used by Syria to make nerve agents is something only subsequent investigation will reveal.”
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said: “The UK Government operates one of the most rigorous arms export control regimes in the world.
“An export licence would not be granted where we assess there is a clear risk the goods might be used for internal repression, provoke or prolong conflict within a country, be used aggressively against another country or risk our national security.
“When circumstances change or new information comes to light, we can – and do – revoke licences where the proposed export is no longer consistent with the criteria.”
Assad’s regime have denied blame for the nerve gas attack, saying the accusations are “full of lies”. They have pointed the finger at rebels.
UN weapons inspectors investigating the atrocity left Damascus just before dawn yesterday and crossed into Lebanon after gathering evidence for four days.
They are now travelling to the Dutch HQ of the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons.
It could take up to two weeks for the results of tests on samples taken from victims of the attack, as well as from water, soil and shrapnel, to be revealed.
On Thursday night, Cameron referred to a Joint Intelligence Committee report on Assad’s use of chemical weapons as he tried in vain to persuade MPs to back military action. The report said the regime had used chemical weapons at least 14 times since last year.
Russian president Vladimir Putin yesterday attacked America’s stance and urged Obama to show evidence to the UN that Assad’s regime was guilty.
Russia and Iran are Syria’s staunchest allies. The Russians have given arms and military backing to Assad during the civil war which has claimed more than 100,000 lives.
Putin said it would be “utter nonsense” for Syria to provoke opponents and spark military
retaliation from the West by using chemical weapons.
But the White House, backed by the French government, remain convinced of Assad’s guilt, and Obama proposes “limited, narrow” military action to punish the regime.
He has the power to order a strike, but last night said he would seek approval from Congress.
Obama called the chemical attack “an assault on human dignity” and said: “We are prepared to strike whenever we choose.”
He added: “Our capacity to execute this mission is not time-sensitive. It will be effective tomorrow, or next week, or one month from now.
“And I’m prepared to give that order.”
Some fear an attack on Syria will spark retaliation against US allies in the region, such
as Jordan, Turkey and Israel.
General Lord Dannatt, the former head of the British Army, described the Commons vote as a “victory for common sense and democracy”.
He added that the “drumbeat for war” had dwindled among the British public in recent days.

[seemslikeadream]

Published on Sunday, September 1, 2013 by the Guardian/UK
Obama, Congress and Syria
The president is celebrated for seeking a vote on his latest war even as his aides make clear it has no binding effect

by Glenn Greenwald

US President Barack Obama meets with senior advisors in the Oval Office to discuss a new plan for the situation in Syria, on August 30, 2013.

It's a potent sign of how low the American political bar is set that gratitude is expressed because a US president says he will ask Congress to vote before he starts bombing another country that is not attacking or threatening the US. That the US will not become involved in foreign wars of choice without the consent of the American people through their representatives Congress is a central mandate of the US Constitution, not some enlightened, progressive innovation of the 21st century. George Bush, of course, sought Congressional approval for the war in Iraq (though he did so only once it was clear that Congress would grant it: I vividly remember watching then-Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Joe Biden practically begging the Bush White House to "allow" Congress to vote on the attack while promising in advance that they would approve for it).

But what makes the celebratory reaction to yesterday's announcement particularly odd is that the Congressional vote which Obama said he would seek appears, in his mind, to have no binding force at all. There is no reason to believe that a Congressional rejection of the war's authorization would constrain Obama in any way, other than perhaps politically. To the contrary, there is substantial evidence for the proposition that the White House sees the vote as purely advisory, i.e., meaningless.

Recall how - in one of most overlooked bad acts of the Obama administration - the House of Representatives actually voted, overwhelmingly, against authorizing the US war in Libya, and yet Obama simply ignored the vote and proceeded to prosecute the war anyway (just as Clinton did when the House rejected the authorization he wanted to bomb Kosovo, though, at least there, Congress later voted to allocate funds for the bombing campaign). Why would the White House view the President's power to wage war in Libya as unconstrainable by Congress, yet view his power to wage war in Syria as dependent upon Congressional authorization?

More to the point, his aides are making clear that Obama does not view the vote as binding, as Time reports:

To make matters more complicated, Obama's aides made clear that the President's search for affirmation from Congress would not be binding. He might still attack Syria even if Congress issues a rejection."
It's certainly preferable to have the president seek Congressional approval than not seek it before involving the US in yet another Middle East war of choice, but that's only true if the vote is deemed to be something more than an empty, symbolic ritual. To declare ahead of time that the debate the President has invited and the Congressional vote he sought are nothing more than non-binding gestures - they will matter only if the outcome is what the President wants it to be - is to display a fairly strong contempt for both democracy and the Constitution.

Bombing

There are few things more bizarre than watching people advocate that another country be bombed even while acknowledging that it will achieve no good outcomes other than safeguarding the "credibility" of those doing the bombing. Relatedly, it's hard to imagine a more potent sign of a weak, declining empire than having one's national "credibility" depend upon periodically bombing other countries.

UPDATE

According to the Guardian's Spencer Ackerman, Secretary of State John Kerry, this morning on CNN, said this when asked whether the Congressional vote would be binding: "[Obama] has the right to do this no matter what Congress does."

[parel]

CNN Caught Staging News Segments on Syria With Actors
Posted on September 1, 2013 by Womens Rights Advocate

Anderson Cooper and CNN have been caught staging fake news about Syria to justify military intervention.

The primary “witness” that the mainstream media is using as a source in Syria has been caught staging fake news segments. Recent video evidence proves that “Syria Danny”, the supposed activist who has been begging for military intervention on CNN, is really just a paid actor and a liar.

While Assad is definitely a tyrant like any head of state, a US invasion of the country is a worst case scenario for the people living there.

By pointing out that the mainstream media is orchestrating their entire coverage of this incident, we are not denying that there is a tremendous amount of death and violence in Syria right now. However, we are showing that the mainstream media version of events is scripted and staged propaganda.

The following video shows him contradicting himself while off air, and even asking crew members to “get the gunfire sounds ready” for his video conference with Anderson Cooper on CNN.



more story and videos at link...

[8bitagent]

So kudos to the RI poster who had a gut feeling this wasn't going to happen. The quaint "Obama's rose garden epiphany" is a polite way of saying Obama had an "oh shit" moment. It's hard at this point to see America carrying through with its threat...that is unless there's a fresh chem weapon attack or Assad does something really stupid. But this whole charade reminds me of a drunk fratbot outside a bar hollering and screaming how "he's gonna kick so and so's ass" but then backs down while his friends pretend to hold him back saying "its not worth it".

It is sickening all those people were gassed to death in Syria as its sickening that so many civilians have died in Syria since 2011. But does Kerry have the same stern face when it comes to America's own mass killings of civilians?

In 1970 American authorities killed 4 students. Hell one pepper spray incident by a cop on protestors gets a million times more outcry from my fellow progressive activists then 10,000 killed by the Syrian government. I'm against all bad governments. But like Russia's slaughter of tens of thousands of Russian Chechens, the West and Gulf allies were secretly sponsoring Chechen jihadists...just like whats going on in Syria. And I believe all sides, warts and all should be revealed.

Robert Fisk is dead on. When the US was helping Saddam gas people, it was ok. When the UK was selling Syria gas in 2010 it was ok. Hell when Mccain and Obama were supporting Ghadafy in 2010 it was ok.

[parel]

Kerry also referenced this photo during his impersonation of Colin Powell last weekend.

BBC News uses 'Iraq photo to illustrate Syrian massacre'
The BBC is facing criticism after it accidentally used a picture taken in Iraq in 2003 to illustrate the senseless massacre of children in Syria.


Mis-captioned photo on BBC website

The photograph was actually taken by Marco di Lauro in Iraq in 2003

Photographer Marco di Lauro said he nearly “fell off his chair” when he saw the image being used, and said he was “astonished” at the failure of the corporation to check their sources.

The picture, which was actually taken on March 27, 2003, shows a young Iraqi child jumping over dozens of white body bags containing skeletons found in a desert south of Baghdad.

It was posted on the BBC news website today under the heading “Syria massacre in Houla condemned as outrage grows”.
The caption states the photograph was provided by an activist and cannot be independently verified, but says it is “believed to show the bodies of children in Houla awaiting burial”.

A BBC spokesman said the image has now been taken down.

Mr di Lauro, who works for Getty Images picture agency and has been published by newspapers across the US and Europe, said: “I went home at 3am and I opened the BBC page which had a front page story about what happened in Syria and I almost felt off from my chair.
“One of my pictures from Iraq was used by the BBC web site as a front page illustration claiming that those were the bodies of yesterday's massacre in Syria and that the picture was sent by an activist.

“Instead the picture was taken by me and it's on my web site, on the feature section regarding a story I did In Iraq during the war called Iraq, the aftermath of Saddam.

“What I am really astonished by is that a news organization like the BBC doesn't check the sources and it's willing to publish any picture sent it by anyone: activist, citizen journalist or whatever. That's all.

He added he was less concerned about an apology or the use of image without consent, adding: “What is amazing it's that a news organization has a picture proving a massacre that happened yesterday in Syria and instead it's a picture that was taken in 2003 of a totally different massacre.
“Someone is using someone else's picture for propaganda on purpose.”

A spokesman for the BBC said: “We were aware of this image being widely circulated on the internet in the early hours of this morning following the most recent atrocities in Syria.

“We used it with a clear disclaimer saying it could not be independently verified.
“Efforts were made overnight to track down the original source of the image and when it was established the picture was inaccurate we removed it immediately.”

[seemslikeadream]

from UrbanSurvival

Syria: Is it Really a Gas Field War?
Posted on September 2, 2013

With US markets closed for the holiday, we can turn our attention to other developing matter this morning:

We have a somewhat speculative, but possible answer to one of the big question facing America right now: “Was the administration’s decision to rope congress (belatedly) into the Syria debate, done with clean hands, or had something already happened which might indicate the Syrians have already deployed some high-tech Russian missiles and any first-strike could turn the region into a real powder keg?”

We get some hints in this direction from the (Google Translate) version of a report from the http://www.southlebanon.org site. In it, the group alleges the possible shoot-down of an American F-22 Raptor along with four Tomahawk missiles. A key point in the translation: “The paper loss of U.S. forces to aircraft F-22 advanced north of Jordan, which hosts on its territory five F-22, was the main reason to postpone the process of aggression against Syria…”

Although the period leading up to any outbreak of hostilities is certainly a window where a lot of Tokyo Rose type misinformation is expected, I noted in my (unusual) Saturday update, the president’s remarks were delayed 41-minutes from the announced time. So the window is there for a quick “Oh-oh, shoot down – let’s kick it to Congress and tell them about this on background since it means Russian missile air defenses are in place and operational…” decision to have been made.

As of this morning, SecState John Kerry is gearing up his information campaign as the Obama administration seeks authorization to ask from Congress; a move which the Wall St. Journal’s online eds figure will be a defining task for the history books.

While we’re warming up the popcorn and beer, and adjusting CSPAN for the upcoming debate, we wonder whether the F-22 Raptor – sold as the current “best of class” weapons system – can be shot down – as this will be key in any conflict..

Unfortunately, as was reported back in 2007 here, the F-22 may be stealthy, alright, but dog fighting is still an art and lesser planes (with better pilots) can take out Raptors with real ‘surprise and overwhelm’ tactics. Sure, computers are great, but stick and rudder is what dog fights are about.

Now let’s zoom out a ways: We can sketch in the set-up for president Obama’s meeting day after tomorrow with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Russia may have become pseudo-democratic, but they haven’t axed their war making plans and, more to the point, with the backing of Russian oil oligarchs, they appear to have plans to dominate global energy Leverage, leverage. How to do it? Raw military power sold to friends… and new high tech arms. A sampling on their latest:

The Russians have a new ground defense missile system which is said in some respects to be superior to the US Patriot missile system. It’s called “Vityaz” and it’s part of their new S-350E series.
Aviation Week has details on the system over here, as well, in its MAKS Notebook section.

While both the US and Russia will be busy the next couple of days tuning up their pose and posture for the Wednesday meeting, we see a number of other developments going on which will feed in to the conference.

One is the claim by a Syrian minister that a US strike on Syria would benefit al Qaeda. Which, considering the whole WOT (war on terror) is based on demonizing that group just doesn’t make sense. Except that the conflict is in the lands where ‘’The enemy of my enemy is my friend…’ so things get seriously twisted up in policy-making.

If you’re looking for logic, notice the position of the key power-player in the Arab world, the Saudis who are supportive of a strike on Syria.
So Why War, Why Now?

My hunch is that it’s all about Leviathan, or had you forgotten? Remember that huge gas find announced in 2010 off Israel, Greece and Cyprus?

If you’re not aware of Leviathan, as most American’s aren’t, the Syrians wouldn’t seem to have any major natural resources worth fighting over, It could be dismissed as a kind of “so what?” country as the world plays out my 30+ year end-game Manufacturer’s Resource Wars scenario, which is now well underway.

imageIf we postulate that there’s usually an economic motivation behind warfare, since America doesn’t need more rocks and sand dunes,, we can see some very curious developments showing around the Leviathan gas fields off the coasts of Cyprus, Israel, Greece (and Lebanon).

According to Wikipedia (ref):

“Lebanon initially argued that the field extends into Lebanese waters. Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri stated that Israel is “ignoring the fact that according to the maps the deposit extends into Lebanese waters,” Agence France-Presse reported on June 9.[11] Israeli Minister of National Infrastructures Uzi Landau responded “We will not hesitate to use our force and strength to protect not only the rule of law but the international maritime law,” in an interview. Robbie Sable, a professor of international law at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, has stated that the claim may be complex due to Lebanon’s border with Israel being indented, making it harder to establish where Israel’s sea boundary ends and Lebanese waters begin.[11]

In August 2010, Lebanon submitted to the United Nations its official view regarding the maritime border, indicating that it considered the Tamar and Leviathan gas fields to be outside Lebanese territory (though it indicated other prospective fields in the region may be within Lebanese territory). The US expressed support for the Lebanon proposal.

Informed speculation would be that the Leviathan fields could extend even further north than presently mapped, and this would put resource off the Syrian coast, which is where the Russians have a sizeable naval installation, (Tartus) granted them by the Assad government. So, naturally, they will defend the potential new gas fields to the west because Syria would no doubt like a piece.

The tripartite agreement on Leviathan – doesn’t mention Syria is a pisser because why? It’s not off Syria’s coast.

However, Lebanon is a big pain in the side of Syria. Damascus sits actually well south of the Lebanese port city of Beirut and is thus land-locked.

With Peak Oil arriving, in a shark-tooth fashion, the Obama administration, aligned with Israel and the key energy player in the region, Saudi Arabia, has a keen interest in denying the Syrian- Russian group, and perhaps the Chinese longer term, access to key offshore energy resources, which will be utterly crucial on the backside of Peak Energy.

Pardon me for launching into part of a recent Peoplenomics article (on Peak Energy/Oil) but using official US Energy Information Administration data on the total amount of both oil and gas resource consumed by the USA, we can see two things extremely clearly in the following charts: First is the ugly fact that despite all the hyperbole about shale resource, US domestic oil production peaked in 1973:



And the second chart shows rather unequivocally, that total US energy consumption has already peaked as of August 2005:



All of which begins to explain the criticality of Leviathan as a resource to be developed, and one which has a Russian naval base sitting less than 100-miles from prime drilling areas protecting a country whose capitol is barred from exploiting the resource because of the pesky independence of Lebanon, which the Syrians have been trying to eliminate for years.

In fact, Wikipedia points us to events aimed at establishing Syrian dominance of Lebanon just in the past eight years:

On 14 February 2005, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated in a car bomb explosion.[46] Leaders of the March 14 Alliance accused Syria of the attack,[47] while the March 8 Alliance and Syrian officials claimed that the Mossad was behind the assassination.[48] The Hariri assassination marked the beginning of a series of assassinations that resulted in the death of many prominent Lebanese figures.[nb 2]

The assassination triggered the Cedar Revolution, a series of demonstrations which demanded the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon and the establishment of an international commission to investigate the assassination. Under pressure from the West, Syria began withdrawing,[49] and by 26 April 2005 all Syrian soldiers had returned to Syria.[50][51]

The UNSC Resolution 1595 called for an investigation into the assassination.[52] The UN International Independent Investigation Commission published its preliminary findings on 20 October 2005 in the Mehlis report, which cited indications that the assassination was organized by Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services.[53][54][55][56]

On 12 July 2006, Hezbollah launched a series of rocket attacks and raids into Israeli territory, where they killed three Israeli soldiers and captured a further two.[57] Israel responded with airstrikes and artillery fire on targets in Lebanon, and a ground invasion of southern Lebanon, resulting in the 2006 Lebanon War. The conflict was officially ended by the UNSC Resolution 1701 on 14 August 2006, which ordered a ceasefire.[58] Some 1,191 Lebanese[59] and 160 Israelis[60] were killed in the conflict. Beirut’s southern suburb was heavily damaged by Israeli airstrikes where Hezbollah military infrastructure was deeply embedded among the civilian population.[61]

The continued support of the Syrians for Hezbollah is further evidence that the effort to destabilize the region is in play with major Russian support because this would give Vlad Putin even more control over the world energy picture. On point, I trust you noticed the recent headlines in The Telegraph that the “Saudis offer Russia secret oil deal if it drops Syria.”

Russia is playing the long game on energy and Syria is part of it.

I’ve laid this out for subscribers in recent weeks leading up into this event, but since you might have some “down-time” to actually let this sink in a bit, I decided to lay it out in simplified form because this is likely the kind of picture which the State Department will be painting for Congress when debate kicks off this week.

Whether the nerve gas in Syria was mishandled by rebels, possibly supplied by the Saudis, or whether the nerve gas was indeed lobbed in by Syrian forces loyal to Assad, the real deal to me seems like another energy play over a mega-field.

Wars are seldom about high moral ground anymore, or the US would have intervened in the Republic of Congo, Rwanda, or any of the other ethnic cleansings which have broken out periodically. Where we do seem to be able to muster up some gumption is where cash is involved and energy resources on the scale of Leviathan will be more critical than you can imagine in less than 20-year’s time.

Marketing of wars is about making peace – at least that’s the sales pitch. But under the covers it’s usually about making money - or at least rounding up the resource to keep or expand a lifestyle – as appears the case here when you test fit the pieces.

You did catch the headline: “Revealed: Government let British company export nerve gas chemicals to Syria”?

[seemslikeadream]

September 02, 2013

Fact and Fiction
Debunking Obama’s Chemical Weapons Case Against the Syrian Government
by ERIC DRAITSER

The document entitled “U.S. Government Assessment of the Syrian Government’s Use of Chemical Weapons on August 21, 2013”, released in tandem with public statements made by Secretary of State John Kerry, is merely a summary of a manufactured narrative designed to lead the US into yet another criminal and disastrous war in the Middle East. Having been released prior to even preliminary reports from UN chemical weapons investigators on the ground in Syria, the document is as much a work of fiction as it is fact.

It begins with the conclusion that “The United States Government assesses with high confidence that the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs on August 21, 2013.” Naturally, one would immediately wonder how such a conclusion was reached when even the expert investigators on the ground have yet to conclude their own study. If these experts with years of training in the field of chemical weapons, toxicology, and other related disciplines, have yet to make such a determination, it would seem more than convenient that the US has already reached their own assessment.

Moreover, based on its own admissions as to the sources of this so-called “intelligence”, very serious doubt should be cast on such a dubious government report. The document explains that:

These all-source assessments are based on human, signals, and geospatial intelligence as well as a significant body of open-source reporting…In addition to US intelligence information, there are accounts from international and Syrian medical personnel; videos; witness accounts; thousands of social media reports from at least 12 different locations in the Damascus area; journalist accounts; and reports from highly credible non-governmental organizations.

First and foremost, any critical reading of this document must begin with the notions of “human intelligence” and “witness accounts”. Such terminology indicates that the US is simply basing pre-conceived conclusions on rebel sources and the much touted “activists” who seem to always be the sources quoted in Western media reports. Secondly, it is obvious that US officials have cherry-picked their eyewitness accounts as there are many, from both sides of the conflict, which directly contradict this so-called high-confidence assessment.

As reported in the Mint Press News by Associated Press reporter Dale Gavlak, Syrians from the town of Ghouta – the site of the chemical attack – tell a very different story from the one being told by the US government. Residents provide very credible testimony that “certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the dealing gas attack.” What makes such testimony even more compelling is that it comes from anti-Assad Syrians, many of whom have seen their children die fighting Assad’s forces. One of the Ghouta residents described his conversations with his son, a fighter tasked with carrying the chemical weapons for the Nusra Front jihadi group, who spoke of Saudi-supplied weapons being unloaded and transported. His son later was killed, along with 12 other rebels, inside a tunnel used to store weapons.

It is essential to also dispute the very notion that “social media reports” constitute credible evidence to be used in making a case for war. It is a long-established fact that US and other intelligence agencies are able to manipulate twitter, Facebook and other social media in whatever way they see fit. As the Guardian reported back in 2011:

The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda…each fake online persona must have a convincing background, history, and supporting details, and that up to 50 US-based controllers should be able to operate false identities from their workstations ‘without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries.’

It seems as if the United States is now using social media, a system over which they have control, to justify their pre-fabricated war narrative. Additionally, the idea that videos constitute a shred of evidence is laughable. As any investigator can tell you, videos are easily manipulated and, even if they are untouched, they cannot be used to assess the culprit of a crime. Videos merely show what is visible, not the underlying motives, means, and opportunity – all part of genuine investigation.

Finally, one must feel serious apprehension at the idea of journalist reports as being part of this pastiche called a “high confidence assessment,” for the simple reason that Western coverage of the conflict in Syria is mostly coming from journalists outside the country or those already sympathetic to the rebel cause. Whether they are paid propagandists or simply convenient tools used as mouthpieces of the corporate media, their reports are highly suspect, and certainly should have no role in shaping war-making policy.

It is critical to examine the “intelligence information” referred to in the assessment. It would seem that, according to the document itself, much of the case for war is based on human intelligence. Many news outlets have reported that the entire case against Assad is being based on an intercepted phone call provided to US intelligence by none other than the Israelis. Israel, with its long track record of fabricating intelligence for the purposes of war-making, is not exactly a neutral observer. As one of the principal actors in the region calling for the overthrow of the Assad government, Tel Aviv has a vested interest in ensuring a US intervention in Syria.

The ardently pro-Israel FOX News reported that:

The initial confirmation that the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad was responsible for a chemical weapons attack Aug. 21 came from a tip from the Israeli intelligence service…a special unit of the Israeli Defense Force – an intelligence unit that goes by the number 8200…helped provide the intelligence intercepts that allowed the White House to conclude that the Assad regime was behind the attack.

It would seem rather convenient that one of the primary beneficiaries of a war to topple Assad would be the primary source of the sole piece of evidence purportedly linking Assad to the attack. If this strikes you as at best a flimsy pretext for war, you would be correct.

The report also outlines the way in which Washington arrived at its conclusion that Assad carried out the attacks. The document states:

We assess with high confidence that the Syrian government carried out the chemical weapons attack against opposition elements in the Damascus suburbs on August 21. We assess that the scenario in which the opposition executed the attack on August 21 is highly unlikely. The body of information used to make this assessment includes intelligence pertaining to the regime’s preparations for this attack and its means of delivery, multiple streams of intelligence about the attack itself and its effect, our post-attack observations, and the differences between the capabilities of the regime and the opposition.

In analyzing the above excerpt, it should be immediately clear to anyone who has been following events in Syria closely, that this conclusion is based on faulty premises and outright lies. First, the idea that it is “highly unlikely” that the chemical attack was carried out by the opposition is an impossible assertion to make given that there is abundant evidence that the “rebels” carried out chemical attacks previously. As the widely circulated video showing rebels mounting chemical weapons onto artillery shells demonstrates, not only do they have the capability and delivery system, they have a significant supply of chemicals, certainly enough to have carried out the attack. Moreover, the multiple massacres carried out by Nusra Front and other extremist rebel factions demonstrates that such groups have no compunction whatsoever about killing innocent civilians en masse.

As for the claim that the US has based their conclusions at least in part on “the regime’s preparations for this attack”, this too is a dubious assertion simply because there has been no evidence provided whatsoever to support it. Ostensibly, the United States would like international observers to “take their word for it” that they have such evidence, but the fragile public simply cannot be allowed to see it. More echoes of Bush’s lies before the Iraq War.

And the so-called “post-attack observations” are again suspect because, as I have previously noted, the US has not bothered to wait for the results of the UN chemical weapons investigation. Therefore, these observations could only come from anti-Assad sources on the ground or international observers not present at the site who merely repeat the same information fed to them from those same anti-regime sources.

As if intended as a cruel joke to the reader, the document points out that, despite the claim that this is an irrefutable, evidence-based conclusion, it is in fact based on nothing but hearsay and rumor. Buried at the end of the first page is the most important quote of all:

Our high confidence assessment is the strongest position that the U.S. Intelligence Community can take short of confirmation [emphasis added].

So, the US is supposed to wage war on a country that has not attacked it or any of its allies based on admittedly unconfirmed evidence? This would be laughable if it weren’t so utterly outrageous and criminal.

The “U.S. Government Assessment of the Syrian Government’s Use of Chemical Weapons on August 21, 2013” is a poorly constructed attempt to justify the politically, militarily, and morally unjustifiable war against Syria. It relies on lies, distortions, and obvious propaganda to create the myth that Assad is the devil incarnate and that the US, with its clear moral high-ground, must take it upon itself to once again wage war for the sake of peace. Nothing could be more dishonest. Nothing could be more disgusting. Nothing could be more American. Let’s hope Congress shuts it down.

Eric Draitser is an independent geopolitical analyst based in New York City. He is the founder of StopImperialism.com and a regular contributor to CounterPunch.

[conniption]

Obama Seeks Syria Support From Senators Warmongering, al-Qaeda supporting McCain and Graham

23:57 min
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3gJlwke268

Published on Sep 2, 2013

Joined by fellow GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Republican Sen. John McCain was at the White House Monday for talks on Syria. The White House is engaging in what officials call a "flood the zone" persuasion strategy with Congress.

[justdrew]

did those two get married?

anyway, from infowars: