Diplomacy – American Style

Posted by Marie2 | Sep 12, 2013 | 16 |

Sorry, Syrian “freedom fighters,” no can do that bomb the shit out of Damascus for you, but we’re still with you. U.S. weapons reaching Syrian rebels

The CIA has begun delivering weapons to rebels in Syria, ending months of delay in lethal aid that had been promised by the Obama administration, according to U.S. officials and Syrian figures. The shipments began streaming into the country over the past two weeks, along with separate deliveries by the State Department of vehicles and other gear — a flow of material that marks a major escalation of the U.S. role in Syria’s civil war.

The arms shipments, which are limited to light weapons and other munitions that can be tracked, began arriving in Syria at a moment of heightened tensions over threats by President Obama to order missile strikes to punish the regime of Bashar al-Assad for his alleged use of chemical weapons in a deadly attack near Damascus last month.
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This should help all those rebels that have been leaving the US training sites in Jordan and Turkey and streaming into Syria.

Although the Obama administration signaled months ago that it would increase aid to Syrian rebels, the efforts have lagged because of the logistical challenges involved in delivering equipment in a war zone and officials’ fears that any assistance could wind up in the hands of jihadists. …

No worry that any jihadists will get their hands on these weapons as Kerry and McCain have been assured by the recently fired, not-a-Phd, Syrian “expert,” Elizabeth O’Bagy that there are almost no Islamists in the ranks of the Syrian rebels.

Wonderful. Just Wonderful.

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Marie2

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Marie2 on September 12, 2013 at 3:07 am

May 15 – June 15 UN Report on Syria:

United Nations investigators have listed a wide range of crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Syria, but provided no conclusion on the issue of chemical weapons use.

“On the evidence currently available, it was not possible to reach a finding about the chemical agents used, their delivery systems or the perpetrators,” the team probing human rights violations in Syria said in its latest report on Wednesday.

It was clear however that “the majority of casualties result from unlawful attacks using conventional weapons,” the Commission of Inquiry on Syria said in a statement.
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Oui on September 12, 2013 at 8:20 am

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I expect NSA intelligence will have covered the UN Inspection team and lab tests, so the results should be known by both the US and Israel. Warning: Israëli source!

Leaked UN report: Assad behind chemical attack

(YnetNews) – A report by United Nations inspectors probing an alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria will “probably” be published on Monday, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said.

The UN inspectors left Syria on August 31 after collecting samples as part of their probe into the now infamous August 21 chemical weapons attack in a suburb of the Syrian capital. According to a story published by Foreign Policy Magazine on Thursday, the inspectors have found a “wealth” of circumstantial evidence on the use of chemical agents by Syrian President Bashar Assad.

UN report on Syria likely Monday: France

Cross-posted from my diary – Across the Globe, Praise for Putin ‖ Op-ed.
- Marie2 on September 12, 2013 at 11:49 am
  
  Were the earlier attacks dress rehearsals for how to get a CW false flag through the UN weapons inspectors? Or was it a Syrian field command “oops?”
  
  I’m still having difficulty wrapping my mind around the notion that Assad and/or the Syrian military would launch CW while UN inspectors were in country. That only works if one assumes that Assad and his military are crazy and/or stupid. An assumption that “exceptional” Americans are so quick to buy.
Oui on September 12, 2013 at 8:25 am
A Plea for Caution From Russia by Vladimir V. Putin

MOSCOW (NY Times) — RECENT events surrounding Syria have prompted me to speak directly to the American people and their political leaders. It is important to do so at a time of insufficient communication between our societies.

… The potential strike by the United States against Syria, despite strong opposition from many countries and major political and religious leaders, including the pope, will result in more innocent victims and escalation, potentially spreading the conflict far beyond Syria’s borders. A strike would increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism. It could undermine multilateral efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and further destabilize the Middle East and North Africa. It could throw the entire system of international law and order out of balance.

… Mercenaries from Arab countries fighting there, and hundreds of militants from Western countries and even Russia, are an issue of our deep concern. Might they not return to our countries with experience acquired in Syria? After all, after fighting in Libya, extremists moved on to Mali. This threatens us all. From the outset, Russia has advocated peaceful dialogue enabling Syrians to develop a compromise plan for their own future.

… No one doubts that poison gas was used in Syria. But there is every reason to believe it was used not by the Syrian Army, but by opposition forces, to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons, who would be siding with the fundamentalists. Reports that militants are preparing another attack — this time against Israel — cannot be ignored.

It is alarming that military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United States. Is it in America’s long-term interest? I doubt it.
- Marie2 on September 12, 2013 at 12:44 pm
  
  As you know, the speculation that the CIA Benghazi mission was about collecting arms and shipping them to Syrian rebels never added up for me. There’s not exactly shortage of new weapons available on the open market and no shortage of funds to purchase them. Why recycle old junk from Libya? Does have the advantage of not being traced back to the US, KSA, and Qatar, but it’s sort of a cumbersome and time consuming weapons acquisition process.
  
  Then this morning a little birdie whispered to me, remember Air America and Iran-Contra. Could have been a threefer — untraceable weapons to Syrian fighters, paid for by Qatar (considering the time-line), and some off-the-books profit for the CIA. Nice racket until the thing was blown either inadvertently or intentionally. The CIA Benghazi mission need not even have been a weapons transit hub — only a purchase and payment hub.
  
  If I’m getting closer, it follows that the weapons pipeline to Syrian fighters would slow down with the loss of the Benghazi mission. However, seems doubtful that the weapons pipeline would have had a single supply source. But, why would those other spigots not have been opened wider but turned off as well? heh — because the very people (McCain, huckleberry, etc.) that wanted arms to Syria wouldn’t shut up about Benghazi. That heh could be on top of a heh that it was Libyan fighters that also wanted weapons for Syria that took out the CIA Benghazi mission.
  - Oui on September 12, 2013 at 2:19 pm
    
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    Qatar has been at the front buying modern arms in Libya and transporting ship loads to Syria. I had linked this months ago, a quick search gave me this link:
    
    CIA Gun-running, Qatar-Libya-Syria
    Although Saudi Arabia have recently been kindly given “the Syrian card” by the United States – with Prince Bandar once again becoming “Prince of the Jihad”; it has become common knowledge that since the onset of the Syrian crisis, it was Qatar at the forefront of supplying arms and funds to both the political and militant elements of the so-called “opposition”. This has undoubtedly included tacit support of the dominant radical elements among the plethora of brigades on the ground in Syria; with Jabhat al Nusra being the most obvious beneficiary of Qatari largesse. Earlier this year it was reported that the CIA had been in direct “consultation” with the Qatari Monarchys’ network of arms smugglers – run primarily from the Emir’s palace in Doha. Accordingly, it seems certain that both the CIA and Qatari intelligence were involved in an operation to ship arms stockpiles from “rebels” in Libya; to the “rebels” in Syria: both varieties of which are inextricably linked to Al Qaeda affiliates and radical Salafi-Jihadi militants.
    
    It’s exactly as during the Clinton presidency, the CIA running covert operations for arms and munitions shipments by air to Tuzla in Bosnia. Funds provided by Saudi Arabia, arms bought in the Ukraine and transported at night by Turkey. Search for the Croatian Arms Pipeline. That’s why Ms Clinton has so much foreign policy experience to duplicate arms running to Al Qaeda rebels in Syria. The result of arms running was an Al Qaeda base in Bosnia.
    
    An earlier link of mine about Croatian pipeline here @BooMan – CIA Is a Terror Linked Organization.
    - Marie2 on September 12, 2013 at 3:15 pm
      
      Important to keep timelines straight which too many of the reports on this stuff don’t do all that well. The linked article is from August 2013; so, it doesn’t exactly represent what was known some time ago.
      
      There’s this:
      
      Furthermore, the Independent revealed in March 2011 that Obama had requested Saudi Arabia supply arms to the Libyan militants. Obama had also given his blessing for Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to ship arms into Benghazi, urging them to supply non-US manufactured arms to avert suspicion – in violation of the No-Fly Zone and arms embargo he helped to enforce, and all in total violation of the US Constitution and International Law.
      
      The Libyan rebellion began in Feb 2011 and continued until Oct 2011. So, nothing particularly odd about arms flowing into Benghazi with US approval in March 2011. Non-US manufactured arms to skirt the law.
      
      Unknown is how many and what sorts of weapons made it into Libya during that period. And in whose hands they ended up. It’s not as if Libyan rebels didn’t seize Gaddafi arsenals. Also unknown is the extent of Saudi and Qatar cooperation in 2011 and when that began to fray.
      
      But is it really plausible that the CIA would then stick around in Benghazi to round up those weapons? Why would Libyans, particularly those in Benghazi, turn over weapons that they would see as having rid them of Ghaddafi? If, in their view, they had a surplus, they would sell them, but not give them away. Or trade non-US manufactured weapons for US manufactured weapons.
      
      Still not buying that Benghazi was a good or even necessary transport hub for new weapons destined for Syrian fighters.
Oui on September 12, 2013 at 9:03 am

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The rumors were picked-up yesterday on France24 Debate about Syria.

Israel: Proposed Syrian WMD compromise could serve as template for Iran

JPost – Washington, however, appears to be holding out hope that it can solve the Iranian impasse through diplomacy. US President Barack Obama is eager to “turn a new page” in his government’s relations with Iran and its newly installed president, Hassan Rouhani, it was revealed on Tuesday.

According to the London-based pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat, Obama communicated his message to the Tehran regime through an emissary, the ruler of Oman, Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al Said.

Washington has called on Iran to move beyond rhetoric take practical steps which demonstrate its willingness to improve ties with the West, according to Al-Hayat.

Report: US and Iran laying framework for first direct talks in over 30 years
- Marie2 on September 12, 2013 at 11:38 am
  
  Not getting what template these people are seeing. The one where we send in spooks, export US trained and armed fighters into Iran, position US warships for an attack on Iran, and then back off when Iran cowers and offers to do whatever it is we want?
  
  Putin seems to have laid out the only non-violent template to put off all these western backed hot wars. Syria destroys its CW in return for a long-term guarantee that we and our allies won’t meddle or attack Syria.
Oui on September 12, 2013 at 11:27 am
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John Kerry meets coup plotter Henry Kissinger on the 40th anniversary of Chile’s Sept. 11 by Amy Goodman

Kissinger’s role in plotting and supporting the 1973 coup in Chile becomes clearer as the years pass and the documents emerge, documents that Kissinger has personally fought hard to keep secret. Peter Kornbluh of the nonprofit National Security Archive has been uncovering the evidence for years, and has recently updated his book, “The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability.” Kornbluh told me that Kissinger was “the singular most important figure in engineering a policy to overthrow Allende and then, even more, to embrace Pinochet and the human-rights violations that followed.” He said that Kissinger “pushed Nixon forward to as aggressive but covert a policy as possible to make Allende fail, to destabilize Allende’s ability to govern, to create what Kissinger called a coup climate.”

« click for more

ITT Director McClone | CIA Director Helms | State Kissinger

Salvador Allende, a physician by trade, first gained worldwide attention when he came within three percent of winning Chile’s 1958 presidential election. Six years later, the United States decided to no longer leave such elections to chance. It was time to introduce the Chilean people to democracy, American-style.

The U.S. government, mostly through the covert efforts of the Central Intelligence Agency, spent more money per capita to support Allende’s opponent, Eduardo Frei, than Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater combined to spend that same year in the American presidential election.

“I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist because of the irresponsibility of its own people.”
–Henry Kissinger, June 27, 1970

“In 1970,” writes historian Howard Zinn, “an ITT director, John McCone, who had also been head of the CIA, told Kissinger and Helms that ITT was willing to give $1 million to help the U.S. government in its plans to overthrow the Allende government.”

“The stage was set for a clash of two experiments,” says Blum. Allende’s socialism was pitted against what was later called a “prototype or laboratory experiment to test the techniques of heavy financial investment in an effort to discredit and bring down a government.” This clash would reach its climax on Sept. 11, 1973.

The socialist experiment ended in violence on that day and Allende himself was said to have committed suicide … with a machine gun. Of course, the U.S. claimed no complicity in or even knowledge of the coup at the time. However, when the State Department declassified 5000 documents in 1999, a different story was told.

For example, a CIA document from the day before the coup stated bluntly, “The coup attempt will begin September 11.” Ten days later, the Agency announced, “severe repression is planned.” With thousands of opponents of the new regime gathered in soccer stadiums, a Sept. 28 State Department document detailed a request from Chile’s new defense minister for Washington to send an expert advisor on detention centers.

The Nation – Peter Kornbluh: Kissinger’s Role in the Chilean Coup Isept. 11, 2013
- Marie2 on September 12, 2013 at 11:56 am
  
  The “Obama is great” minions are already out there asserting that this is a wise move because Kissinger has expertise and skill wrt to Russia and Baker has ME creds.
  
  Simpler — there is only one US war making body. They only appear to be on different sides to bamboozle the ignorant partisan minions.
- Oui on September 12, 2013 at 1:50 pm
  
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  To avoid confusion, this is the event when photo was taken …
  U.S. President Barack Obama makes a statement during a meeting on the New START treaty in the Roosevelt Room of the White House November 18, 2010 in Washington, DC.
  
  On Wednesday, Secretary Kerry also met with the bipartisan Foreign Affairs Policy Board [current members] for a meeting and a dinner for talks – plus photo.
  ○ John Kerry gets advice from Henry Kissinger on dealing with Russia ahead of crunch talks over Syria with Putin’s foreign minister plus more photo’s.
  - Marie2 on September 12, 2013 at 2:03 pm
    
    Good work on correcting the record. The mistake of whoever began circulating this photo yesterday is understandable given the inclusion of Kerry in the 2010 conclave. Given the success (cough, cough) of that 2010 effort, weird that they would invite that old war criminal back to give Kerry more advice. Did note that Kissinger and his wife were invited and attended one of Obama’s big shindigs. Weird that anyone in this country can continue to assert that there’s a meaningful difference between the GOP and DEM on matters of foreign affairs.
Oui on September 13, 2013 at 5:56 am

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Kerry and Lavrov have an excellent working relationship and are devoted to a political solution for the Syria crisis. Since the end of May, efforts of Kerry for diplomacy have been stymied from inside the White House. I suspect the NeoCon influence of National Security adviser Susan Rice as the culprit. Ms Rice has a close relationship with PBO and put sufficient doubt in his mind to take a tough stand on the Assad regime and threaten military action. Obama himself decided to step away from the brink of starting another prolonged war on a Muslim nation.

○ Kerry In Moscow – A Breath of Fresh Air May 7, 2013
○ Obama ahead of G8 – Syria Crossed Red Line June 15, 2013
○ John Kerry Again Rules Out Military Action in Syria June 26, 2013
○ Rice and Kerry: War Inside the White House Aug. 8, 2013
○ Barack Obama and an Act of War plus follow-up Aug. 26, 2013

If John Kerry and Sergey Lavrov illustrate their determination …
STEP 1 – Resolve CW issue on Syria
STEP 2 – Arms embargo and a political solution for Syria
STEP 3 – Resolve nuclear issue of Iran with president Rouhani
STEP 4 – Finalize a peace treaty between Israel and Palestine

Obama made a courageous decision stepping away from 35 years of biased US policy on the Middle East. Angry Arab states Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar plus Turkey and Israel. Praise from Russia, Iran and Iraq (Maliki).
- Oui on September 13, 2013 at 8:37 am
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  I don’t know this writer, I do agree with his analysis to see recent developments as an opportunity to correct historic wrongs.
  
  Opinion: The Post-Assad Opportunity Yousef Al-Dayni
  
  (Alsharq Al-Awsat) – Those who view the Syrian crisis through the lens of the Iraq war are missing out on the fact that Bashar Al-Assad’s allies all come from outside the Arab world. None of his allies can be said to be moderate or neutral Arab states, or even post-Arab Spring countries.
  
  It is for this reason that the Iranian axis is made up of proxy states or dissatisfied groups or movements that do not respect the concept of national sovereignty, instead prioritizing their own narrow interests over that of the national interest. Therefore, the moderate Arab states, led by the Gulf, are now facing a historic opportunity regarding the Syrian crisis, in the same way that Egypt is facing a historic opportunity following the collapse of the Muslim Brotherhood.
  
  The Gulf states’ opportunity is to rearrange regional balances following the collapse of the Assad regime according to a new Arab political identity built on interest-based alliances rather than pan-Arab slogans. Behind the amiable façade of such slogans, the reality is dominated by political struggles and ineffective alliances based on shared ideologies, rather than national interest.
  
  In this case, Ankara’s seeming move towards the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, backed by some Gulf states, can be viewed as an even worse repetition of the grander Arab Spring scenario. This could be viewed as Turkey, utilizing its political and economic influence, attempting to reproduce a similar scenario in Syria and empower the Brotherhood there. This post-Assad scenario must be confronted by the moderate Arab states, particularly the Gulf states and Egypt.
  
  ○ US/Russia Should Lead – A Yalta Conference on Middle East
Oui on September 13, 2013 at 4:20 pm
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The foreign ministers of the allied nations France, United Kingdom and the United States will meet at a top level meeting in Paris on Monday. By chance, or not quite certain what the UN Report will disclose …

UN Report to be presented to UNSG Ban Ki-moon this weekend

Earlier Friday, the head of the UN chemical weapons inspection team, Ake Sellstrom, said that the UN report on the alleged use of chemical weapons on August 21 in Syria was complete and would be delivered to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon over the weekend, AP reported.

The US is confident that the results of the report will “reaffirm that chemical weapons were used in Syria” without assigning blame on any of the conflicting sides in the Syrian civil war, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said Friday.

The foreign ministers of France, Britain and the US are to meet for talks over lunch in Paris on Monday to discuss the Syrian crisis, France’s Foreign Ministry said.

Russia, US and UN: Geneva peace talks only way to stop Syria violence

Russia, the US and the UN have agreed that the only solution to the ongoing Syrian crisis lies within the framework of the “Geneva-2” peace talks, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

After their meeting in Geneva on Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, US State Secretary John Kerry and UN and Arab League Special Envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi “reaffirmed their commitment to an early launch of Syrian dialogue in Geneva between representatives of the Syrian government and main opposition groups,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said.

The meeting between Lavrov, Kerry and Brahimi in Switzerland was focused on “practical issues” to prepare the way for an international peace conference over Syria.

The three diplomats agreed that “a political settlement is the only possible way to an early end to violence in Syria and to overcome acute humanitarian consequences of the Syrian conflict,” the Russian Foreign ministry said. This settlement should be “based on the implementation of all provisions of the Geneva communiqué of June 30, 2012,” the statement said.

The representatives of Russia, US and UN decided to meet for trilateral talks at the next regular session of the UN General Assembly in New York on Sept. 17.

Diplomacy – American Style

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