I am not inclined to cast a charitable interpretation of the president’s actions surrounding Syria, but when events and your own intelligence agencies conspire to lead you into a war you do not want, there are a few ways to fight back. One is to pass the buck to Congress and let them kill the idea. Another is to get the support of Congress to start a war and then use that leverage to force a non-military solution. Still another is to get Congress to pass a different authorization providing leverage not for military force but for a non-military solution. Any of these three possible solutions are preferable to what people expected the president to do, which was to launch unilateral strikes almost immediately without asking for anyone’s permission.
I honestly don’t know what exactly is going on. But I do know that those three alternatives to punitive strikes are still on the table. For the president, the latter two must look better than the first one. But maybe he sincerely wants to make a futile and pointless and dangerous gesture by sending cruise missiles at Assad. That’s what he says he wants to do, anyway, even if it makes no sense to anyone but John Kerry.
Are these the people the US wants to support and see in power after the missle strikes?
NYT article raises questions about possible US allies in Syria as rebels ransack Christian village | Mondoweiss
Horrifying fate of Assad’s soldiers executed on camera by Syrian rebels | Mail Online
Here the original by the NYT.
Brutality of Syrian Rebels Posing Dilemma in West – NYTimes.com
More to figure out.
Russia warns of nuclear disaster if Syria is hit — RT News
I really hope the US figures these questions out before starting a war with Syria.
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Did you catch this:
Mitt Romney Campaign Donation From Egyptian Billionaire Naguib Sawiris Examined
Wikipedia Naguib Sawiris
Still suspect that Nakoula wasn’t some lone wannab filmmaker. However, even if he was, the airing in Egypt of a trailer for his cheesy production continues to smell to me like a ploy to discredit Obama and tip the election in favor of Romney. He was much too quick with his statements on the protests at the US embassy in Cairo and very slow to point towards Benghazi.
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○ Jihadists: It’s Our Duty to Fight Against Alawites
The Iranians and the Shia press refer to the butcher jihadists of Al-Nusra Front, Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiyya and Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham as Takfiris. See the recent
beheadingsmurders of Syrian Catholic priest Father François Murad 49, and two of his assistants..
You know what I think. I’ll not repeat it. But really Booman, doesn’t it all make sense if I am right? Obama is not who you think he is.
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As the world community nearly unanimous urge the leaders at the G20 Conference to find a path of dialogue and a political solution to the Syrian bloodshed, in New York the newly appointed Ambassador Samantha Power blocked any path to the UN Security Council by blatant LIES.
Many of us have vivid memories of Khrushchev hitting the desk with his shoe at the UN General Assembly during the Cold War (Video). The Western nations knew where the propaganda was coming from: Soviet Union, China and the European East-Bloc countries. I’m truly puzzled and watch in disbelief how recent UN Ambassadors fail at diplomacy: John Bolton, Susan Rice and Samantha Power.
○ G20: U.S. Decided Not to Horse-Trade With Russia on Assad
In the linked video on Khrushchev, there was a courageous reply by Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld,
not knowing he would be assassinated in September 1961 while serving the United Nations.
Maybe not so courageous in 1960:
Lamumba executed January 1961. (Before the numerous US/CIA plans to assassinate him.)
Ms. Powers revealed who she is when she was making the media rounds wrt Dafur and never once mentioned the US killing and destruction in Iraq. Fifty years ago she likely would have been weeping tears for the S. Vietnamese peasants and urging the bombing of Hanoi.
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President Obama finds himself isolated on the Syria issue at the G20 conference in St. Petersburg. Among the world’s largest 20 economies, only France is on board for a military attack on Damascus with Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia offering full support.
No boots on the ground and all expenses paid by the Arab states. What’s the risk for the US taxpayer? Fortunately, Obama will find an attack on Syria a hard sell in the House of Representatives.
China expressed fear of US military action in Syria the BRICS nations are anti-intervention fearing ipmerial adventures. The European Union came out with position closer to Russian President Vladimir Putin than to Obama.
How have the tables been turned in just a matter of weeks as during the recent G8 Meeting it was President Putin who was isolated.
Of course, Prince of Darkness Bandar is offering inmates on death row in Riyadh a chance for redemption and a promise of paradise by contracting as jihad fighter to Syria. It’s all about domestic protest against the Alawites in Syria ye know! Off with those Christian heads.
France24 Interview with Stephen M. Walt
Do we need a reminder? US Will Be Ousted by Saudi King Abdullah in Middle-East
Was it the intelligence agencies or the national security advisers with their knee-jerk Responsibility to Protect bias? Was it overweaning fear of McCain and Graham and the usual Republican rhetoric of Democrats being weak on defense, not muscular enough, appeasers, wimps? Was it some adviser’s cute distraction from the NSA scandal or the upcoming budget/debt limit fight? Whatever it is, it has become a huge unforced error that stands to trap the loyal Democrats in Congress in an unpopular war vote on the eve of the 2014 campaign season. And the Republican framing is a double-whammy: we are forced into a lose-lose decision because the President didn’t act forcefully enough, soon enough in supporting the opposition to Assad. It’s a bullshit argument, but that’s what they’re up to.
It is very interesting that the intelligence agencies were not monitoring Syrian communications in real time, given the US aid to the rebels already committed. It was only after the attack that the intelligence agencies went back to identify the incriminationg evidence.
Blowing off the UN is the single, most serious aspect of this policy. Asserting absolute Article 2 presidential power to wage war is a close second. The President seems to have read too much about Ronald Reagan and not enough about the early history of the United Nations, the Geneva Conventions, and the history of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
There are ways of strengthening the Chemical Weapons Convention momentum; acceleration of the final destruction of US and Russian chemical weapons, currently scheduled for 2014 is one concrete step. Convincing those holdout countries with which the US has good relations to join the CWC is another. The US cannot continue to pontificate about WMD while its closest Middle Eastern ally, Israel, has signed on none of the treaties.
There are ways of dealing with Syria in a way that permits coming back and holding the Assad government officials, if they indeed did conduct a chemical attack, accountable to the international community. High on the list of changing that context is renormalization of diplomatic relations with Iran.
But if your intention is to destroy the pathological US national security state, I can think of no better sleight-of-hand than Obama’s defense of NSA and Kerry’s advocacy for military action. But sleights-of-hand can come back to bite because of their fundamental dishonesty. Too much cynical manuevering creates a cynical and distrustful public.
And Pelosi and Feinstein this week have shown the utter contempt with which members of Congress hold their constituents and the privilege that they have come to associate with being in office. Insider privilege that constituents will not be allowed to know.
This exercise demonstrates the huge and dangerous disconnect between the inhabitants of the three branches of government and ordinary citizens.
Has signed CWC, not ratified treaty – Sarin Gas: Israel Has Not Ratified CWC.
Exactly. And likely because ratification would require declaration of inventories, inspections, and the requirement to dismantle any inventories. Given the history of the use of chemical agents in the Holocaust, Israel is in a political bind if it has chemical weapons inventories. Signing but not ratifying the CWC is a way to finesse that image problem domestically and with American Jewish supporters of Israel.
The question is whether they are stuck politically having to keep this ambiguous situation regardless of whether they have ever had inventories.
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BBC News: Syria rebels withdraw from ancient Christian town of Maaloula