The timing of General Dempsey's August 19 , 2013 letter and today's alleged use of chemical weapons is an interesting coincidence - if there is such a thing ! Did this " event " suddenly occur to overwhelm military opposition to intervention ? )
http://rt.com/usa/syria-rebels-toxic-arms-797/
Seems too cute by far - does anyone think the Syria government actually would use chemical weapon with UN inspectors in country ? Do we have a hidden hand ( Saudis / UK / Qatar / ) at play here ?
http://rt.com/op-edge/syria-gas-attack-chemical-propaganda-796/
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/21/2013 07:47 -0400
http://www.infowars.com/dubious-chemical-weapons-attack-in-syria-coincides-with-un-visit/
http://rt.com/news/syria-chemical-weapons-un-775/
http://rt.com/usa/syria-rebels-toxic-arms-797/
Helping Syrian rebels wouldn’t benefit US - Dempsey
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff does not believe the Syrian rebels would support US interests in case America helps them defeat Assad, according to General Martin Dempsey’s letter, obtained by AP.
In an August 19 letter to Congressman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), Dempsey writes that the US military had the capability to destroy the Syrian air force and thus shift the balance of the two year old war in favor of the rebels. The General however doubts the reasonability of doing so.
"The use of U.S. military force can change the military balance,” Dempsey said. “But it cannot resolve the underlying and historic ethnic, religious and tribal issues that are fueling this conflict.''
Engel is an advocate of increasing US military presence in Syria. He proposed the use of cruise missiles and other weapons against Assad-controlled air bases in his letter to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, dated August 5. Dempsey has on the contrary continually warned the country’s political elite against stronger military commitment in the conflict, citing the US experience in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In his letter, Dempsey points out the factionalism of the Syrian opposition, not all of which shares the Western vision of the country’s future.
“Syria today is not about choosing between two sides but rather about choosing one among many sides,''Dempsey says. “It is my belief that the side we choose must be ready to promote their interests and ours when the balance shifts in their favor. Today, they are not.''
Dempsey described Syria's war as “tragic and complex”, which has been supported by the recent developments there.
On Wednesday, reports emerged of deadly chemical weapons use in Syria, with conflicting accounts of the events in the media giving the number of casualties from dozens to over 1,000. The news came on the same day that the UN inspectors arrive in Damascus to investigate allegations of use of toxic arms.
The Syrian conflict has already killed more than 100,000 people, with atrocities being committed on all sides. On Tuesday, Kurdish militias battled against Al-Qaida-linked fighters in the northeast of Syria. Iraqi officials had to set up an entry quota for Syrian Kurds fleeing escalating violence against them in what’s developing into a full blown side conflict of the Syrian war.
When the House and Senate Intelligence Committees gave a green light to arm Syrian rebels in July, Martin Dempsey was not optimistic about the move, warning of the huge expenses military options entailed, specifying that a no-fly zone over Syria could cost the US between $500 million and $1 billion a month to maintain. He reiterated his concerns in the letter to Engel.
“It is a deeply rooted, long-term conflict among multiple factions, and violent struggles for power will continue after Assad's rule ends,” he wrote. “We should evaluate the effectiveness of limited military options in this context.”
Dempsey thus supported the Obama administration's current policy of providing humanitarian assistance and some limited help to moderate opposition, saying that would be “the best framework for an effective U.S. strategy toward Syria.''
Seems too cute by far - does anyone think the Syria government actually would use chemical weapon with UN inspectors in country ? Do we have a hidden hand ( Saudis / UK / Qatar / ) at play here ?
Syria: Will Killing of Hundreds with Sarin Gas force Obama’s Hand?
Posted on 08/21/2013 by Juan Cole
Syrian sources on the ground and expatriate human rights organizations are alleging Wednesday morning that Syrian aircraft have killed hundreds of people in rebel-held East and West Ghouta and some other areas outside the capital with bombings and poison gas.
The attack comes as international observers are in the country to investigate past alleged use by the regime or rebels of poison gas (mainly sarin) in its attempt to put down a two-year-old insurgency. It is the third alleged use of sarin by the regime against the rebels in Zamalka, Rif Dimashq (pop. 50,000)
The BBC and other news organizations are reporting the allegations while noting that we have no independent observers at the scene who can verify them.
Regarding the plausibility of these reports, the con is that it is not easy to kill a dispersed population with sarin. Chemical weapons are mostly battlefield weapons, used in WWI and the Iran-Iraq War at a military front where troops were massed together. In contrast, when the terrorist cult Om Shinrikyo loosed sarin gas in the Tokyo subway in 1995, they killed 12 people instead of the thousands they were aiming for. This is because the circulating air in the subway dispersed the gas. Likewise, towns are heat pumps throwing warm air into the atmosphere, and this air circulation would typically disperse the gas.
The rebels are alleging that the gas was delivered by fighter-jets in the form of gas-tipped missiles and that they know it is sarin because the victims were nauseous.
The more likely scenario for hundreds of deaths like this would be the firing by helicopter gunships of sarin-tipped missiles at close quarters into markets or schools. Fighter jets fly high and don’t have that accuracy (Syria doesn’t have smart bombs)
The pro is that if hundreds of people are dead for reasons other than shrapnel, then something killed them, and we could be seeing a repeat by the Baath Party in Syria of the Iraqi Baath Party’s genocidal Anfal campaign against Kurdish separatists in 1987-88 toward the end of the Iran-Iraq War.
If the regime did use gas, what are its motives? Iraq used gas in the 1980s because it had far fewer troops than Iran and wanted to level the playing field. Likewise, the Syrian army has shrunk through Sunni desertions to a shadow of its former self and so can’t control the whole country any more. Its recent advances in the Homs area were offset by losses around Aleppo in the north, including the fall of a major military air base. Weakened armies facing a demographically larger foe often resort to unconventional armaments.
Likewise, the regime clearly is seeking to terrify the population into submission. Again, Saddam Hussein tried that with the Kurds and Shiites. Mass killings of restive populations by a regime raise the cost of insurgency, the regime hopes to unacceptably high levels. Could the Baath have done this? This is the regime that slaughtered at least 10,000 at Hama in 1982, so sure.
Did they do it? Hard to tell this morning. But if they did, it will increase pressure on a reluctant Obama to speed up promised shipments of weapons to the rebels. If Damascus is playing it this way, it is clearly calling Obama’s bluff. Lesson to Mr. Obama: don’t bluff and don’t set red lines unless you’re really committted to reacting if they are crossed.
http://rt.com/op-edge/syria-gas-attack-chemical-propaganda-796/
Syria gas attack story has whiff of Saudi war propaganda
Published time: August 21, 2013 15:12
The reports of massive chemical attacks in Syria might become the “red line” for the US for active military intervention. But even rudimentary analysis of the story shows it is too early to believe its credibility.
The Middle Eastern newspaper, Al Arabiya, reports that “At least 1,300 people have been killed in a nerve gas attack on Syria’s Ghouta region, leading opposition figure George Sabra said on Wednesday…” The paper went on to claim that the Government of President Bashar al Assad was responsible for the attacks. If confirmed it could be the “red line” that US President Obama previously stated would tip the US into active military intervention in Syria, using No Fly Zones and active military steps to depose Assad.
That in turn could erupt into a conflagration across the Middle East and a Super Power confrontation with Russia and China and Iran on one side, and the USA, UK, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar on the opposite side. Not a happy prospect for world peace at all.
Therefore the story is worth analyzing carefully. When we do, several things jump out as suspicious. First the newspaper breaking the story was Al Arabiya, initially saying that at least 500 people have been killed, according to activists. From there it got picked up by major international media. Making the story more fishy by the minute were reports from different media of the alleged number of dead that changed by the minute - 635 then to 800 by USA Today and 1,300 by Rupert Murdoch’s SkyNews.
Al Arabiya, the origin of the story, is not a neutral in the Syrian conflict. It was set up in 2002 by the Saudi Royal Family in Dubai. It is majority-owned by the Saudi broadcaster, Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC). Saudi Arabia is a major financial backer of the attempt to topple Syria’s government. That is a matter of record. So on first glance Saudi-owned media reporting such an inflammatory anti-Assad allegation might be taken with a dose of salt.
When we examine the printed content of their story, it gets more suspicious still. First they cite “activists at the Syrian Revolutionary Command Council said regime fighter planes were flying over the area after the bombardment, accusing the forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad of using chemical agents.”This is doubtful on many levels. First we can imagine that anti-government (unnamed) “activists” fighting Assad’s forces would not be exactly neutral.
The story gets even murkier. Further in the text of the article we read that the “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said dozens of people were killed, including children, in fierce bombardment.” Now the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) has been the source of every news report negative against the Syrian Assad government since the war began in 2011. More curious about the humanitarian-sounding SOHR is the fact, as uncovered by investigative journalists, that it consists of a sole Syrian refugee who has lived in London for the past 13 years named Rami Abdul Rahman, a Syrian Sunni muslim who owns a clothing shop and is running a Twitter page from his home. Partly owing to a very friendly profile story on the BBC, he gained mainstream media credibility. He is anything but unbiased.
The other aspect of the suspicious reports is the “convenient” fact they coincide with the arrival two days earlier of an official UN weapons inspection team, allowed by the government, to investigate allegations of chemical weapons use in the Syrian war. It begs the most obvious question: What conceivably would Bashar al Assad stand to gain from using banned chemical weapons just at the time he has agreed to let a UN chemical weapons team into Syria?
They initially were called to investigate evidence of any chemical weapons used in a March 19 attack in Khan al-Assad and in two other locations. In May, Carla Del Ponte, a member of the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria, said that testimony gathered from casualties and medical staff in Syria indicated that the nerve agent sarin was used by rebel fighters. They found no evidence of use by Government forces. That proved highly embarrassing to the faction of war hawks in the Pentagon and State Department, agitating for Obama to escalate direct military intervention including a no-fly zone, de facto an act of war against Assad’s regime. In 2012 Obama declared that the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian President would cross a “red line” and change US calculations on whether or not it should intervene in the conflict.
Finally, the region reported to be the site of the poison gas attack by Assad forces, Eastern Ghouta, was re-secured from the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra jihadist terrorists, by Government troops in May as part of a major series of rollback victories against the insurgent forces and is not currently a scene of any major resistance to Assad forces.
Pending confirmation by genuinely independent judges of the latest allegations of Al Arabiya, we are well-advised to leave the reports in the category of war propaganda, in league with others such as the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964. That incident, we might recall, was faked by the Pentagon to railroad Congress into giving President Lyndon B. Johnson authority to “assist any Southeast Asian country whose government was considered to be jeopardized by communist aggression." The resolution became Johnson's legal justification for deploying US forces and the onset of open war against North Vietnam.
Hundreds Dead In Syrian Chemical Attack As Even Impartial Experts Allege "False Flag"
Overnight, it wasn't Egypt but Syria that woke up to the latest massacre, this time in a chemical weapons-induced slaughter when more than 200 people were killed shortly after 3 am local time, in what would be by far the worst reported use of chemical arms in the two-year-old civil war. Naturally, Syrian activists promptly accused the President al-Assad of conducting the attack that killed numerous women and children even though it was their chemical weapons warehouse in the Damascus area that was uncovered just over a month ago.
Not surprisingly the state TV and Syrian emissaries abroad promptly denied any responsibility for the attack. And, as on previous occasions, the traditional narrative of penning this wholesale murder of civilians on the ruling administration leaves much to be desired. So much so that even experts are now wondering if it wasn't merely the latest provocation attempt by the US (and Al-Qaeda) -supported rebels to push public opinion further against Assad and permit the greenlighting of an eventual military escalation.
From Reuters:
The timing and location of the reported chemical weapons use - just three days after the team of U.N. chemical experts checked in to a Damascus hotel a few km (miles) to the east at the start of their mission - was surprising."It would be very peculiar if it was the government to do this at the exact moment the international inspectors come into the country," said Rolf Ekeus, a retired Swedish diplomat who headed a team of UN weapons inspectors in Iraq in the 1990s."At the least, it wouldn't be very clever."Ekeus said the mandate of the U.N. team was limited to three sites but could be amended to investigate fresh claims - which would be simpler to verify than the other months-old cases."It is easier to do sampling and testing, and also to look at the victims, if there are sick people or even dead people (on the scene). It is easier to get to doctors and get to the place where the event happened."Charles Lister, an analyst at IHS Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Centre, also said it made little sense for the Syrian government to use chemical agents now."Nonetheless, the Ghouta region (where the attacks were reported) is well known for its opposition leanings. Jabhat al-Nusra has had a long-time presence there and the region has borne the brunt of sustained military pressure for months now," he said, referring to a hardline Sunni Islamist rebel group allied to al Qaeda."While it is clearly impossible to confirm the chemical weapons claim, it is clear from videos uploaded by reliable accounts that a large number of people have died."
So let's see: an irrational act by a man who knows every act of his is under the international media microscope, and not just any act but the worst chemical weapons attack to date which would promptly force a "democratic" intervention into his country, or merely a false flag attack in which the so-called rebels, aka Qatari mercenaries, are killing their own to pin the blame, and the international retaliation, on Assad?
Deaths are certainly tragic, but what would be just as tragic is if a western government is backstopping this wholesale murder of innocent civilians merely to promote its own petrodollar agenda.
http://www.infowars.com/dubious-chemical-weapons-attack-in-syria-coincides-with-un-visit/
Dubious Chemical Weapons Attack In Syria Coincides With UN Visit
Red line? Past evidence shows western-backed rebels were behind biological attacks
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
August 21, 2013
Infowars.com
August 21, 2013
Dubious claims that Bashar Al-Assad’s forces launched a massive chemical weapons attack near Damascus coincide with a team of UN investigators entering Syria and could provide the long awaited “red line” necessary to justify direct NATO military intervention.
“More than 200 people have been killed in an alleged chemical weapons attack near Damascus, reports Sky News. “Activists claim “toxic gas” was used by President Bashar al Assad’s forces during a bombardment of rebel-held areas outside the Syrian capital. It comes three days after a 20-strong team of UN weapons inspectors arrived in Damascus to investigate whether chemical weapons have been used in the conflict.”
The extent of the “evidence” behind such claims rests on a 22 second video that shows children being treated for apparent breathing difficulties.
The Assad government responded by slamming the reports as “false” and claiming they were aimed at distracting UN inspectors.
Charles Lister, an analyst at IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Center, told the Jerusalem Post that the timing of such an attack raises eyebrows. “Logically, it would make little sense for the Syrian government to employ chemical agents at such a time, particularly given the relatively close proximity of the targeted towns (to the UN team),” he said.
As we have documented for well over a year, the inevitability of a chemical weapons attack has been consistently hyped by the media despite the fact that by engaging in such actions, the Assad regime would guarantee international condemnation and create a casus belli for its own destruction.
The fact that launching indiscriminate biological attacks makes absolutely no sense militarily for Assad means it’s far more likely that such attacks are being staged by rebels – many of whom are being led by bloodthirsty Al-Qaeda terrorists – with support from the likes of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey.
Indeed, the strongest evidence suggests that chemical weapons attacks are being launched by western-backed rebels, but such reports have received scant media attention in comparison to claims such as today’s.
Back in May, UN human rights investigator Carla del Ponte said that according to evidence her team had gathered, “The rebels have used chemical weapons, making use of sarin gas.”
Two months earlier, an audio recording emerged of a phone conversation between two members of the Free Syrian Army during which discussion centered around a plan to carry out a chemical weapons attack capable of impacting an area the size of one kilometer.
Video also emerged last year showing opposition rebels killing rabbits after dispersing an unidentified chemical weapon into a glass box.
Other major attacks initially blamed on the Syrian Army were later to proven to be the work of anti-Assad militants, such as the Houla massacre.
As we have exhaustively documented, western support for the FSA has intensified in recent months despite the fact that the rebels are being led by Al-Qaeda terrorists who routinely commit beheadings, ransack Christian churches, conduct terrorists bombings against innocent people, all while burning US flags and chanting anti-American slogans while singing the praises of Osama Bin Laden.
We predicted on numerous occasions that a massive chemical weapons attack would be blamed on the Assad regime to provide a justification for direct US and NATO military involvement in Syria.
Almost a year ago we wrote about a “false flag plot to frame President Bashar Al-Assad’s forces for launching a chemical weapons attack as a pre-cursor to a NATO intervention.”
Back in June we also also covered a Wall Street Journal report which revealed how the CIA was moving weapons from secret warehouses to Jordan ahead of an August offensive in Syria.
While it remains unclear whether these claims will be exploited as the primary justification for a military assault, blanket mainstream media coverage will ensure they will be used to intensify international pressure on the Assad government.
http://rt.com/news/syria-chemical-weapons-un-775/
Reports of massive chemical attack near Damascus as UN observers arrive in Syria
Wildly varying reports have emerged of recent chemical weapons use in Syria, with hundreds allegedly killed in the latest attack. This comes on the same day that the UN inspectors arrive in Damascus to investigate allegations of use of toxic arms.
The casualty figures range from dozens to almost 1,200 deaths.
Initially, Al-Arabiya posted news of 280 victims on Twitter. Later, the news outlet upgraded the figure up to 1,188 victims quoting the Free Syrian Army.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had a much lower figure, claiming dozens of people were killed, including children.
News agencies such as Reuters and AP mostly put the numbers of victims at hundreds, but say that reports can't be independently verified.
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