http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-15/us-sends-400-troops-patriot-missiles-turkey-preparation-syrian-hostilities-escalatio
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 12/15/2012 10:23 -0500
and......
http://www.examiner.com/article/unauthorized-syrian-war-obama-sends-400-troops-to-turkey-3-000-back-to-iraq
and....
http://news.antiwar.com/2012/12/14/us-sending-missiles-troops-to-syrian-border/
Of course there is no reason to believe Syria is considering an attack on Turkey in the first place, and indeed much of northern Syria is already in the hands of Turkish and NATO-backed rebel factions, making such a strike even less plausible.
US Sends 400 Troops, Patriot Missiles To Turkey In Preparation Of Syrian Hostilities Escalation
Update: the logical response did not take long. From moments ago: Iranian Army chief says Patriot missiles in Turkey would set stage for "world war" - ISNA News Agency. We now await a response from Russia, China and other regional powers who may not be quite as comfortable as Turkey with having yet another branch of US liberating forces (especially when it has implications on Russian and Qatari gas pipeline plans) operating in their back yard.
* * *
Even as the Nobel peace prize award-winning administration has been vocallypartially withdrawing, but never fully, US troops from various middle eastern nations over the past several years, it appears that it has decided to open up a brand new military front, and position US soldiers in yet another hotspot, which is sure to escalate in the future, namely Syria, where yesterday, quietly in the media blanket coverage of the Newtown tragedy, the Pentagon said that some 400 US troops and several Patriot missile batteries would be stationed as part of a NATO force to protect Turkey from "potential Syrian missile attack."
As the AP reports, "Defense Secretary Leon Panetta signed a deployment order en route to Turkey from Afghanistan calling for 400 U.S. soldiers to operate two batteries of Patriots at undisclosed locations in Turkey, Pentagon press secretary George Little told reporters flying with Panetta." As is well known to those who follow the local conflict, the traditional narrative is that the US is supporting the oppressed Syrian rebellion, which has been fighting the Assad regime as glorious guerrilla freedom fighters. What is less known is that parts if not all of the Syrian rebellion have an "explicit stamp of approval" from Al Qaeda, the same Al Qaeda, which when useful, is carted out to justify US foreign, and at times very domestic, interventions, and the trampling of all civil liberties (see U.S. Terrorism Agency to Tap a Vast Database of Citizens) , in various other parts of the world.
During a brief stop at Incirlik Air Base, Panetta told U.S. troops that Turkey might need the Patriots, which are capable of shooting down shorter-range ballistic missiles as well as aircraft.He said he approved the deployment "so that we can help Turkey have the kind of missile defense it may very well need to deal with the threats coming out of Syria," he said.The U.S., Germany and the Netherlands are the only NATO members who have the upgraded PAC-3 missiles, capable of missile interception. Each battery has an average of 12 missile launchers, a NATO official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because alliance regulations do not allow him to speak on the record.In a statement issued Friday NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said "the deployment will be defensive only.""It will not support a no-fly zone or any offensive operation. Its aim is to deter any threats to Turkey, to defend Turkey's population and territory and to de-escalate the crisis on NATO's south-eastern border," Lungescu said.Panetta did not mention how soon the two Patriot batteries will head to Turkey or how long they might stay.Earlier this week in Berlin, German Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Link told lawmakers that current plans call for the missile sites to be stationed at Kahramanmaras, about 60 miles north of Turkey's border with Syria. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Thursday that the Netherlands, Germany and the U.S. are working closely with Turkey "to ensure that the Patriots are deployed as soon as possible." But he predicted they would not become operational before the end of January. Turkey joined NATO in 1952, three years after the alliance was formed.At Incirlik Air Base, about 60 miles north of the Syrian border, an Air Force member asked Panetta what the US would do if Syria used chemical or biological weapons against the rebels. Panetta said he could not be specific in a public setting, but added, "we have drawn up plans" that give President Barack Obama a set of options in the event that U.S. intelligence shows that Syria intends to use such weapons.What was not asked is how NATO and the US would react if instead of the Assad regime, a false flag "attack" was launched by the Al Qaeda controlled Syrian rebels, always willing to escalate the conflict. From the NYT:The lone Syrian rebel group with an explicit stamp of approval from Al Qaeda has become one of the uprising’s most effective fighting forces, posing a stark challenge to the United States and other countries that want to support the rebels but not Islamic extremists.Money flows to the group, the Nusra Front, from like-minded donors abroad. Its fighters, a small minority of the rebels, have the boldness and skill to storm fortified positions and lead other battalions to capture military bases and oil fields. As their successes mount, they gather more weapons and attract more fighters.The group is a direct offshoot of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Iraqi officials and former Iraqi insurgents say, which has contributed veteran fighters and weapons.“This is just a simple way of returning the favor to our Syrian brothers that fought with us on the lands of Iraq,” said a veteran of Al Qaeda in Iraq, who said he helped lead the Nusra Front’s efforts in Syria.Basically, the US is implicitly supporting Al-Qaeda, even as it dispatches of its leader in a quiet burial at sea, witnessed by what appears to be absolutely nobody.Unexpectedly, someone did ask Panetta the right question: i.e., how Syria would respond to what is obviously an offensive escalation by NATO (and US) forces. The answer confirmed that when it comes to playing its now obsolete role of Globocop, it's fire "defensive" missiles first, ask questions later:Asked by another Air Force member whether he thought Syria would "react negatively" to the Patriot deployments, Panetta said, "I don't think they have the damn time to worry" about the Patriots since the regime's leaders are struggling to stay in power.He indicated that Syria's reaction to the Patriots was not a major concern to him.Separately, NATO will deploy its Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft, or AWACS, to Turkey on a training exercise this month, the NATO said.He said the exercise was not connected to the deployment of the Patriots.The aircraft, which can detect launches of ground-to-ground missiles, will exercise command and control procedures as well as test the connectivity of various NATO and Turkish communications and data sharing systems, the official said.Clearly, the US military is finally preparing for a major push in hostilities against the Assad regime, and as a result we expect the amount of false flag developments will surge. We don't expect the mainstream media to dare to ask why the US is - openly - supporting an Al Qaeda funded and organized resistance.What certainly will not be asked by anyone is how Russia and China will respond to what is a clear escalation in the redrawing of geopolitical balance of power vis-a-vis what has become the most divisive military hotspot currently in the world.
and......
http://www.examiner.com/article/unauthorized-syrian-war-obama-sends-400-troops-to-turkey-3-000-back-to-iraq
On Friday, CNN reported that PresidentBarack Obama’s United States Defense Secretary Leon Panetta “signed and order” while en route to Turkey “to send two Patriot missile batteries and 400 U.S. troops to operate them.”
The surface-to-air interceptors will help in "dealing with threats that come out of Syria," Panetta said after landing at Incirlik Air Base, a U.S. Air Force installation about 80 miles from Syria's border.
In October, US News reported that Panetta had already disclosed that over 100 American troops had been sent near the Jordanian border with Syria.
In an unusual show of breaking party ranks, Ohio Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich criticized Obama for deploying American troops to Jordan "without notifying Congress."
Putting U.S. troops on that border draws the U.S. much closer to war in Syria, which is a nightmare already and can be more of a nightmare for our country.
The Washington Post reported Thursday that the observation by western intelligence agencies of Syrian units making advanced preparations -- mixing precursors for chemical weapons and loading trucks with ready-to-use bombs and shells -- prompted President Barack Obama to warn Syria last week against using chemical weapons on the Syrian people.
However, two Western officials briefed on the intelligence findings – who spoke on the condition of anonymity -- said the Syrian government forces had stopped preparations late last week and that there was no evidence that activated chemical weapons were loaded onto aircraft or deployed to the battlefront.
Earlier this week, Panetta admitted the threat had eased, though it had not been eliminated.
"I can see in a moment how it happens,” Kucinich told U.S. News in October. “We're a few dozen miles from the Syrian border and all of a sudden we are within the reach of physical danger. All it takes is a single incident.”
"We can't spend a lot of time worrying about whether that pisses off Syria," Panetta said Friday after signing the order to deploy Patriot missiles and 400 U.S. troops to Turkey.
The Obama administration and the CIA declined to answer questions about the episode.
In the meantime, Iran’s Press TV reported Monday that “over 3,000 US troops have secretly returned to Iraq via Kuwait” in “multiple stages” and that “almost 17,000 more are set to secretly return to Iraq via the same route for missions pertaining to the recent developments in Syria and northern Iraq.”
According to Press TV’s correspondent, the US troops are mostly stationed at Balad military garrison in Salahuddin province and al-Asad air base in al-Anbar province.
Obama did not seek congressional approval for this either. But this was hardly the first, or even the second time.
Obama also bypassed Congress when he sent drones into Libya last year. While Republicans argued the move was in violation of the War Powers Resolution. Obama argued that his actions did not qualify as “hostilities.”
When the Libya campaign had gone on for nearly three months, Republican House Majority Leader John Boehner joined several Republicans and Democrats to express astonishment Obama’s "no hostilities" claim.
"Yet we've got drone attacks under way. We're spending $10 million a day, part of an effort to drop bombs on Gadhafi's compound," USA Today quoted Boehner telling reporters at a news conference. "It doesn't pass the straight face test in my view that we're not in the midst of hostilities."
“Conceptually,” the United States Library of Congress explains on its website, “the War Powers Resolution can be broken down into several distinct parts.”
The first part states the policy behind the law, namely to "insure that the collective judgment of both the Congress and the President will apply to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities," and that the President's powers as Commander in Chief are exercised only pursuant to a declaration of war, specific statutory authorization from Congress, or a national emergency created by an attack upon the United States (50 USC Sec. 1541).The second part requires the President to consult with Congress before introducing U.S. armed forces into hostilities or situations where hostilities are imminent, and to continue such consultations as long as U.S. armed forces remain in such situations (50 USC Sec. 1542).The third part sets forth reporting requirements that the President must comply with any time he introduces U.S. armed forces into existing or imminent hostilities (50 USC Sec. 1543); section 1543(a)(1) is particularly significant because it can trigger a 60 day time limit on the use of U.S. forces under section 1544(b).
First -- that Panetta first announced the introduction of “U.S. armed forces into existing or imminent hostilities” on Oct. 10 – Obama has already violated the 60-day War Powers Resolution “time limit” that requires him to “consult” with and to receive “statutory authorization from Congress.”
Second – while horrific -- the events in Syria do not qualify as “a national emergency created by an attack upon the United States.”
Ironically, it was the Democrat Kucinich who noted that the Obama administration’s October announcement -- of the deployment of “U.S. armed forces into existing or imminent hostilities” against Syria -- came exactly ten years after the House of Representatives gave President George W. Bush the authority to invade Iraq, which was in response to the 9-11 attack during which 3,000 Americans were killed on U.S. soil.
and....
http://news.antiwar.com/2012/12/14/us-sending-missiles-troops-to-syrian-border/
US Sending Missiles, Troops to Syrian Border
Officials: Turkey Deployments Aimed at 'Defending' Border
by Jason Ditz, December 14, 2012
US troops and Patriot missile batteries will be deployed to southern Turkey, along the border with Syria, in a move US officials claim is aimed at defending against a possible Syrian attack on its much larger and vastly more powerful neighbor.
Of course there is no reason to believe Syria is considering an attack on Turkey in the first place, and indeed much of northern Syria is already in the hands of Turkish and NATO-backed rebel factions, making such a strike even less plausible.
The deployment is said to includetwo missile batteries and 400 US troops. This is not the only US deployment on the Syrian border, however, as additional US troops were sent to the Jordanian borderto prepare a possible invasion of Syria.
Turkey has been seeking deployments of Patriot missiles for quite some time, and while they could be used to impose a no-fly zone in the region, NATO officials insist that this isn’t going to be the case, and that the deployment is rather meant to defend Turkey from a non-existent missile threat.
and........
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/12/201212151928850664.html
Syrian Scuds 'land near Turkish border' | |||
Comments by NATO's senior military commander were first to confirm that the missiles have come "fairly close" to Turkey.
Last Modified: 15 Dec 2012 01:51
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US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta signed an order on Friday to send two Patriot missile batteries to Turkey [EPA]
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| Several Scud missiles fired at rebels by Syria have landed "fairly close" to the Turkish border, NATO's senior military commander said in a blog explaining why Patriot anti-missile batteries are being deployed to Turkey. Friday's comments by US Admiral James Stavridis, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, were the first to confirm that Scuds have come down near the border of Turkey, a NATO member state.
Stavridis also described the situation in Syria as "chaotic and dangerous".
'Very worrisome' US and NATO officials said on Wednesday that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces had fired Scud-style ballistic missiles at rebels in recent days in what US officials described as an escalation of the 20-month civil war. "Over the past few days, a handful of Scud missiles were launched inside Syria, directed by the regime against opposition targets. Several landed fairly close to the Turkish border, which is very worrisome," Stavridis wrote.
Stavridis voiced particular concern about Scuds because they can be fitted with chemical warheads. Syria is known to possess chemical weapons. "Given a number of recent cross-border incidents with artillery and mortars landing in Turkey and killing Turkish civilians, we are concerned with possible Scud missile activity inside Syria. Scuds ... are particularly worrisome because they can carry chemical payloads," he said. Turkey has scrambled jets along its frontier with Syria and responded in kind when shells from Syria landed inside its borders. If any Scuds strayed over the border into Turkish territory, it could carry the risk of spreading the conflict. Ankara twice this year has invoked Article 4 of the NATO charter which provides for consultations when a member state feels its security is threatened. 'Chaotic situation' NATO agreed last week to Turkey's request to send Patriots to reinforce its air defences against possible missile attack from Syria. The United States, Germany and the Netherlands are to send six Patriot batteries in all. "Syria is clearly a chaotic and dangerous situation; but we have an absolute obligation to defend the borders of the alliance from any threat emanating from that troubled state," Stavridis wrote.
and just look at the different views / spin on the recent talks between Iran and the US , as well as Iran and the IAEA.......
US-Iranian nuclear talks fail. Iran has plutonium for 24 Nagasaki-type bombsDEBKAfile Special Report December 15, 2012, 12:03 PM (GMT+02:00)
Fatman: Implosion-type nuke
The secret, one-on-one nuclear negotiations President Barack Obama launched with Iran have run into a blank wall. A senior Iranian team member, Mostafa Dolatyar, said Friday, Dec. 14 in New Delhi that the diplomatic process for solving the nuclear issue with Iran was in effect going nowhere, because the demand that Tehran halt its 20-percent enrichment of uranium “doesn’t make sense.”
He went on to say: “They [the world powers] have made certain connections with purely technical issues and something purely political. In so far as this is the mentality and this is the approach from 5 + 1 (the Six World Powers) - or whatever else you call it - definitely there is no end for this game.”
DEBKAfile: The phrase “or whatever else you call it” may be taken as Iran’s first veiled reference to the direct talks with Washington that were launched Dec. 1 in the Swiss town of Lausanne.
Mostafa Dolatyar is not just a faceless official. He is head of the Iranian foreign ministry’s think tank, the Institute for Political and International Studies, as well as a senior member of the Iranian team facing US negotiators in Lausanne. His remarks were undoubtedly authorized by the office of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who, through him, posted a message to Washington: If the enrichment suspension demand stands, the game’s over.
After more than 15 years of on-and-off, largely aimless, nuclear diplomacy with world powers and evasive tactics with the UN nuclear agency, Tehran is for the first time showing signs of impatience and not just is usual disdain. This is because two things have changed:
1. For all those years, Tehran availed itself of every diplomatic opening for protracted bargaining about its nuclear program for the sake of buying time, free of pressure, to push that program forward. Now, the Iranians are telling the US and Europe that they have arrived at their destination. For them, time is no longer of essence, as it may be for the West.
2. The second development was revealed on Dec. 5 by The Wall Street Journal in a short leader captioned “From Bushehr to the Bomb.” This revelation was not picked up by any other Western - or even Israeli - publication despite its sensational nature.
Drawing on US intelligence sources, the paper suggested that the withdrawal of 136 fuel rods from Iran’s nuclear reactor at Bushehr in mid-October – on the pretext of wandering metal bolts – and the rods’ return in the last week of November “could have been a test run for the Iranians should they decide to reprocess those rods into weapons-grade plutonium.”
American, Russian and Israeli nuclear experts have always maintained that the technology for extracting plutonium from fuel rods was too expensive and complicated to be practical - and certainly beyond Iran’s capacity.
The Wall Street Journal begs to differ: “…experts tell us that the rapid extraction of weapons-usable plutonium from spent fuel rods is a straightforward process that can be preformed in a fairly small (and easily secreted) space.”
This means that Tehran can easily manufacture plutonium bombs without building a large plutonium reactor like the one under construction at Arak.
The paper goes on to reveal that, by this method, Iran could extract 220 pounds (just under 100 kilos) of plutonium, enough to produce as many as “24 Nagasaki-type bombs” – a reference to the World War II bombing of the Japanese city on Aug. 9, 1945.
One of those bombs – nicknamed “Fat Man” (after Winston Churchill) – is equal to 20 kilotons.
DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources note that if this disclosure represents the true state of Iran’s nuclear program, the game really is over. The diplomacy-cum-sanctions policy pursued by the West to force Iran to abandon enrichment and shut down its underground facility in Fordo has become irrelevant. So, too, have the red lines Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu drew so graphically before the UN Assembly on September 27.
What Mostafa Dolatyar was saying in effect is that Iran has outplayed its adversaries up to the game’s finishing line.
and.....
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http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/iaea-confident-of-nuclear-deal-with-iran/story-e6frf7k6-1226537224857
IAEA confident of nuclear deal with Iran
- AAP
- December 14, 2012
THE UN nuclear agency has expressed confidence that it will clinch a deal with Iran next month under which Tehran will at last answer "credible" evidence that it has conducted atomic weapons research.
Herman Nackaerts, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief inspector, said after what he called "good meetings" in Tehran that the deal would include access to the Parchin base where the agency suspects explosives tests applicable for nuclear weapons took place.
Such a breakthrough, if it really happens, could indicate that Iran, feeling the pinch from massive sanctions pressure, may give ground in parallel diplomatic efforts with six world powers stalled since June. But that is a big "if", experts say.
"We have agreed to meet again on 16 January next year, where we expect to finalise the structured approach and start implementing it then shortly after that," Nackaerts told reporters at Vienna airport, saying Parchin was "part of" the arrangement under negotiation.
On Thursday, Iran's envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, was quoted by state media as saying in typically upbeat fashion that the meeting was "constructive, positive, and good progress has been made".
The IAEA wants Iran to address substantively a mass of what the agency calls "overall, credible" evidence set out in a major 2011 report that until 2003, and possibly since, Iran did weapons research.
Iran denies seeking or ever having sought nuclear weapons, and says its program is exclusively peaceful.
So far, including in a string of previous fruitless meetings between the IAEA and Iran this year both in Tehran and Vienna, Iran has rejected the alleged evidence outright.
This is because the bulk is from foreign intelligence agencies, including from arch foe Israel, the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear-armed state which has refused to rule out bombing Iran to stop it also getting the bomb.
The IAEA has zeroed in on Parchin near Tehran because its information on activities there is "independent", such as from commercially available satellite imagery or an unnamed "foreign expert".
Tehran also says the IAEA has already visited the site near Tehran twice in 2005. The agency counters that since then, it has received additional information that makes it want to go back.
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