Monday afternoon / evening wrap ...... highlights since the morn !
FWIW.....
http://www.debka.com/article/23224/Mid-East-including-Israel-on-high-alert-after-Obama's-failed-last-ditch-bid-for-Syria-deal-with-Iran
DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources report that the US president delegated two emissaries for two separate tracks.
This response was the signal for orders to American military assets in the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf to go on a state of high preparedness Monday night,DEBKAfile’s military sources report. Iran, Russia and Syria deployed their forces in readiness for a US-led attack on Syria. Syrian units were ordered to leave their bases and spread out across the country’s broad open areas.
The ten military chiefs meeting in Amman focused on coordination of the joint operation against Syria which is expected to begin very shortly.
Participating in the meeting chaired by US chief of staff Gen. Martin Dempsey were the top commanders of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Canada.
The powerful message coming from US Secretary of State John Kerry and the White House spokesman Jay Carney Monday night indicated that the Obama administration was not about to back off its promise of consequences for those responsible for using chemical weapons against civilians and “shocking the world’s conscience.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-26/syriana-official-tells-cnn-us-could-strike-within-hours-russia-warns-against-attack
( US / NATO / GCC / Israel - an attempt to preempt the UN investigation ? How weak is the chemical weapon usage case anyway if the new " Coalition of the Over - Eager " are rushing their War schemes forward - before the UN can even complete its investigation , let alone release any findings relevant to WMD or the presence or lack thereof ? )
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-26/no-debate-white-house-military-response-against-syria-necessary-cbs-says
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-26/clear-staggering-and-compelling-attack-full-kerry-transcript
( If we have evidence , it should be presented to the Un Security Council... )
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/26/2013 15:14 -0400
http://news.antiwar.com/2013/08/26/un-spurns-us-call-to-withdraw-syria-inspectors-as-war-looms/
( Let the UN do its job ....Why are certain parties seeming afraid of that ? )
US and other Western officials are desperate to retain the narrative of Syrian chemical weapons use, and seem to be anticipating the UN investigation doing serious harm to that claim.
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/26/2013 14:16 -0400
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/26/2013 15:59 -0400
So eager to start another War , why such a rush ? Seems like the rush is to get the War started before people can assess what's going on , attack syria before Congress and Europe return from summer vacations , attack while folks are occupied with other things ....
http://rt.com/news/lavrov-syria-press-conference-003/
http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2013/08/26/syria-hague-gets-un-visit-to-chemical-weapons-site-washington-says-not-credible/
( The Slog breaks things down... )
Hague….surprisingly mature for his age
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2402378/MPs-demand-vote-Syria-missile-blitz-David-Cameron-set-recall-Parliament-discuss-plan-launch-air-strikes.html
****
http://rt.com/news/uk-response-without-un-backing-979/
While the rush to start bombing continues , are the Rebels happy the UN is investigating - are the Rebels concerned the UN could upset the War mongering applecart ?
http://rt.com/news/un-chemical-oservers-shot-000/
FWIW.....
http://www.debka.com/article/23224/Mid-East-including-Israel-on-high-alert-after-Obama's-failed-last-ditch-bid-for-Syria-deal-with-Iran
Monday night, Aug. 25, saw one Middle East country after another, including Israel, going on high military alert after they learned that US President Barack Obama had failed to come to an understanding with Tehran on Syria and so avert a US-led operation against Syria over its chemical attacks.
Obama had hoped this understanding would also pave the way to direct dialogue on the nuclear issue with the new Iranian president Hasan Rouhani.
DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources report that the US president delegated two emissaries for two separate tracks.
He found cause for optimism in Tehran’s consent to receive Jeffrey Feltman, UN Deputy Secretary, Monday, Aug. 25, although in his former capacity as US Undersecretary of State and US ambassador to Damascus, Feltman was viewed as an adversary of Iran, Syria and Hizballah.
Feltman arrived suddenly in Tehran Monday and was received by Foreign Minister Javad Zarif without delay.
The other intermediary was Sultan Qaboos of Oman, who arrived in Tehran Monday for a visit with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The other intermediary was Sultan Qaboos of Oman, who arrived in Tehran Monday for a visit with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
He too made no headway in his attempt to persuade his host that the US was amenable to a last-minute understanding on Syria for holding back an attack.
Khamenei responded with a cold threat: If the Americans attack Syria, “the entire Middle East will suffer from burns,” he said.
This response was the signal for orders to American military assets in the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf to go on a state of high preparedness Monday night,DEBKAfile’s military sources report. Iran, Russia and Syria deployed their forces in readiness for a US-led attack on Syria. Syrian units were ordered to leave their bases and spread out across the country’s broad open areas.
The ten military chiefs meeting in Amman focused on coordination of the joint operation against Syria which is expected to begin very shortly.
Participating in the meeting chaired by US chief of staff Gen. Martin Dempsey were the top commanders of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Canada.
The powerful message coming from US Secretary of State John Kerry and the White House spokesman Jay Carney Monday night indicated that the Obama administration was not about to back off its promise of consequences for those responsible for using chemical weapons against civilians and “shocking the world’s conscience.”
Both bluntly accused the Assad regime of the heinous crime of chemical warfare on civilians. “Our understanding is grounded in facts and common sense,” Kerry said: This regime held custody of those weapon stockpiles, had the rockets to use them and was capable of doing so. “Basic humanity is offended by this crime and even more by the attempts to cover it up.
Kerry added: “We have additional information about these attacks. It is being reviewed with our partners and will be released in the coming days.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-26/syriana-official-tells-cnn-us-could-strike-within-hours-russia-warns-against-attack
( US / NATO / GCC / Israel - an attempt to preempt the UN investigation ? How weak is the chemical weapon usage case anyway if the new " Coalition of the Over - Eager " are rushing their War schemes forward - before the UN can even complete its investigation , let alone release any findings relevant to WMD or the presence or lack thereof ? )
Syriana: Official Tells CNN US Could Strike Within Hours; Russia Warns Against Attack
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-26/no-debate-white-house-military-response-against-syria-necessary-cbs-says
"No Debate" At White House That Military Response Against Syria Necessary, CBS Says
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-26/clear-staggering-and-compelling-attack-full-kerry-transcript
( If we have evidence , it should be presented to the Un Security Council... )
A "Clear, Staggering And Compelling Attack" - Full Kerry Transcript
SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY DELIVERS REMARKS ON SYRIA
Well, for the last several days, President Obama and his entire national security team have been reviewing the situation in Syria. And today, I want to provide an update on our efforts as we consider our response to the use of chemical weapons.
What we saw in Syria last week should shock the conscience of the world. It defies any code of morality. Let me be clear: The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons is a moral obscenity. By any standard, it is inexcusable and -- despite the excuses and equivocations that some have manufactured -- it is undeniable.
The meaning of this attack goes beyond the conflict in Syria itself, and that conflict has already brought so much terrible suffering. This is about the large-scale, indiscriminate use of weapons that the civilized world long ago decided must never be used at all, a conviction shared even by countries that agree on little else.
There is a clear reason that the world has banned entirely the use of chemical weapons. There is a reason the international community has set a clear standard and why many countries have taken major steps to eradicate these weapons. There is a reason why President Obama has made it such a priority to stop the proliferation of these weapons and lock them down where they do exist. There is a reason why President Obama has made clear to the Assad regime that this international norm cannot be violated without consequences.
And there is a reason why, no matter what you believe about Syria, all peoples and all nations who believe in the cause of our common humanity must stand up to assure that there is accountability for the use of chemical weapons so that it never happens again.
Last night, after speaking with foreign ministers from around the world about the gravity of this situation, I went back and I watched the videos, the videos that anybody can watch in the social media, and I watched them one more gut-wrenching time. It is really hard to express in words the human suffering that they lay out before us.
As a father, I can't get the image out of my head of a man who held up his dead child, wailing, while chaos swirled around him, the images of entire families dead in their beds without a drop of blood or even a visible wound, bodies contorting in spasms, human suffering that we can never ignore or forget.
Anyone who could claim that an attack of this staggering scale could be contrived or fabricated needs to check their conscience and their own moral compass. What is before us today is real, and it is compelling.
So I also want to underscore that while investigators are gathering additional evidence on the ground, our understanding of what has already happened in Syria is grounded in facts, informed by conscience, and guided by common sense. The reported number of victims, the reported symptoms of those who were killed or injured, the firsthand accounts from humanitarian organizations on the ground, like Doctors Without Borders and the Syria Human Rights Commission, these all strongly indicate that everything these images are already screaming at us is real, that chemical weapons were used in Syria.
Moreover, we know that the Syrian regime maintains custody of these chemical weapons. We know that the Syrian regime has the capacity to do this with rockets. We know that the regime has been determined to clear the opposition from those very places where the attacks took place. And with our own eyes, we have all of us become witnesses.
We have additional information about this attack, and that information is being compiled and reviewed together with our partners, and we will provide that information in the days ahead. Our sense of basic humanity is offended not only by this cowardly crime, but also by the cynical attempt to cover it up.
At every turn, the Syrian regime has failed to cooperate with the U.N. investigation, using it only to stall and to stymie the important effort to bring to light what happened in Damascus in the dead of night. And as Ban Ki-moon said last week, the U.N. investigation will not determine who used these chemical weapons, only whether such weapons were used, a judgment that is already clear to the world.
I spoke on Thursday with Syrian Foreign Minister Muallem, and I made it very clear to him that if the regime, as he argued, had nothing to hide, then their response should be immediate, immediate transparency, immediate access, not shelling. Their response needed to be unrestricted and immediate access. Failure to permit that, I told him, would tell its own story.
Instead, for five days, the Syrian regime refused to allow the U.N. investigators access to the site of the attack that would allegedly exonerate them. Instead, it attacked the area further, shelling it and systemically destroying evidence. That is not the behavior of a government that has nothing to hide. That is not the action of a regime eager to prove to the world that it had not used chemical weapons.
Well, for the last several days, President Obama and his entire national security team have been reviewing the situation in Syria. And today, I want to provide an update on our efforts as we consider our response to the use of chemical weapons.
What we saw in Syria last week should shock the conscience of the world. It defies any code of morality. Let me be clear: The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons is a moral obscenity. By any standard, it is inexcusable and -- despite the excuses and equivocations that some have manufactured -- it is undeniable.
The meaning of this attack goes beyond the conflict in Syria itself, and that conflict has already brought so much terrible suffering. This is about the large-scale, indiscriminate use of weapons that the civilized world long ago decided must never be used at all, a conviction shared even by countries that agree on little else.
There is a clear reason that the world has banned entirely the use of chemical weapons. There is a reason the international community has set a clear standard and why many countries have taken major steps to eradicate these weapons. There is a reason why President Obama has made it such a priority to stop the proliferation of these weapons and lock them down where they do exist. There is a reason why President Obama has made clear to the Assad regime that this international norm cannot be violated without consequences.
And there is a reason why, no matter what you believe about Syria, all peoples and all nations who believe in the cause of our common humanity must stand up to assure that there is accountability for the use of chemical weapons so that it never happens again.
Last night, after speaking with foreign ministers from around the world about the gravity of this situation, I went back and I watched the videos, the videos that anybody can watch in the social media, and I watched them one more gut-wrenching time. It is really hard to express in words the human suffering that they lay out before us.
As a father, I can't get the image out of my head of a man who held up his dead child, wailing, while chaos swirled around him, the images of entire families dead in their beds without a drop of blood or even a visible wound, bodies contorting in spasms, human suffering that we can never ignore or forget.
Anyone who could claim that an attack of this staggering scale could be contrived or fabricated needs to check their conscience and their own moral compass. What is before us today is real, and it is compelling.
So I also want to underscore that while investigators are gathering additional evidence on the ground, our understanding of what has already happened in Syria is grounded in facts, informed by conscience, and guided by common sense. The reported number of victims, the reported symptoms of those who were killed or injured, the firsthand accounts from humanitarian organizations on the ground, like Doctors Without Borders and the Syria Human Rights Commission, these all strongly indicate that everything these images are already screaming at us is real, that chemical weapons were used in Syria.
Moreover, we know that the Syrian regime maintains custody of these chemical weapons. We know that the Syrian regime has the capacity to do this with rockets. We know that the regime has been determined to clear the opposition from those very places where the attacks took place. And with our own eyes, we have all of us become witnesses.
We have additional information about this attack, and that information is being compiled and reviewed together with our partners, and we will provide that information in the days ahead. Our sense of basic humanity is offended not only by this cowardly crime, but also by the cynical attempt to cover it up.
At every turn, the Syrian regime has failed to cooperate with the U.N. investigation, using it only to stall and to stymie the important effort to bring to light what happened in Damascus in the dead of night. And as Ban Ki-moon said last week, the U.N. investigation will not determine who used these chemical weapons, only whether such weapons were used, a judgment that is already clear to the world.
I spoke on Thursday with Syrian Foreign Minister Muallem, and I made it very clear to him that if the regime, as he argued, had nothing to hide, then their response should be immediate, immediate transparency, immediate access, not shelling. Their response needed to be unrestricted and immediate access. Failure to permit that, I told him, would tell its own story.
Instead, for five days, the Syrian regime refused to allow the U.N. investigators access to the site of the attack that would allegedly exonerate them. Instead, it attacked the area further, shelling it and systemically destroying evidence. That is not the behavior of a government that has nothing to hide. That is not the action of a regime eager to prove to the world that it had not used chemical weapons.
In fact, the regime's belated decision to allow access is too late, and it's too late to be credible. Today's reports of an attack on the U.N. investigators -- together with the continued shelling of these very neighborhoods -- only further weakens the regime's credibility.
At President Obama's direction, I've spent many hours over the last few days on the phone with foreign ministers and other leaders. The administration is actively consulting with members of Congress, and we will continue to have these conversations in the days ahead. President Obama has also been in close touch with leaders of our key allies, and the president will be making an informed decision about how to respond to this indiscriminate use of chemical weapons.
But make no mistake: President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world's most heinous weapons against the world's most vulnerable people. Nothing today is more serious, and nothing is receiving more serious scrutiny.
Thank you.
( Let the UN do its job ....Why are certain parties seeming afraid of that ? )
UN Spurns US Call to Withdraw Syria Inspectors as War Looms
US Gears Up to Attack, but Inspectors Continue to Probe Accusations
by Jason Ditz, August 26, 2013
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon today rejected US demands to withdraw chemical weapons inspectors from Syria, with those familiar with the conversation saying he “stood firm on principle.”
US and other Western officials are desperate to retain the narrative of Syrian chemical weapons use, and seem to be anticipating the UN investigation doing serious harm to that claim.
That’s why after initial demands to allow inspectors into the site, the US suddenly reversed course when Syria agreed, insisting it was “too late.” Since then, officials have maintained that they are already convinced of Syria’s guilt because of media reports and rebel accounts, and are preparing to launch attacks in the next couple of weeks.
British officials went a step further and tried to preempt the investigators’ results, saying that the evidence might conceivably have been destroyed or “tampered with” and that what the investigators tell the world about what happened in Jobar couldn’t be trusted anymore.
Mirroring the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, officials have already made their decision and are now trying to do anything and everything they can to avoid evidence coming out that would ruin their scheme.
Inspectors Visit Site of Alleged Attack, First Turned Back by Snipers
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http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-26/israel-claims-have-intercepted-syrian-regime-chatter-confirming-assad-behind-attack
( Whatever proofs Israel has - and noting these allegedly have been passed to the West , should be part of any US / UK / French presentation to the Un Security Council. )
Israel Claims To Have Intercepted "Syrian Regime Chatter" Confirming Assad Behind Attack
The planting and harvesting of false flags in Syria will soon need a full crop rotation following the latest "revelation" by Germany's Focus magazine (on Saturday), subsequently reported by the Times of Israel today, that Israeli Defense Forces had listened in on senior Syrian officials discussing a chemical attack last Wednesday in real-time. TOI reports that "according to the report Saturday in Focus magazine, a squad specializing in wire-tapping within the IDF’s prestigious 8200 intelligence unit intercepted a conversation between high-ranking regime officials regarding the use of chemical agents at the time of the attack. The report, which cited an ex-Mossad official who insisted on remaining anonymous, said the intercepted conversation proved that Bashar Assad’s regime was responsible for the use of nonconventional weapons."
More from Times of Israel:
An Israeli TV report on Saturday claimed that the missiles were fired by the 155th Brigade of the 4th Armored Division of the Syrian Army, a division under the command of the Syrian president’s brother, Maher Assad.The nerve gas shells were fired from a military base in a mountain range to the west of Damascus, the Channel 2 report said.The embattled regime has concentrated its vast stocks of chemical weaponry in just two or three locations, the report continued, under the control of Syrian Air Force Intelligence, itself reporting to the president.The TV report further added that “the assessment in Israel” is that the attack was intended to serve as the possible start of a wider operation.On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the situation in Syria couldn’t be allowed to continue.Netanyahu said that Israel “will always know how to protect [its] citizens” should Syrian weapons be turned on the Jewish state.“Our hand is always on the pulse,” he said. “Our finger is a responsible one and if needed, is on the trigger. We will always know how to protect our citizens and our country against those who come to injure us or try to attack us.”Israel, like the rest of the world, has refrained from responding to the Syrian crisis in any large-scale way, taking in only a small number of injured Syrians and reportedly carrying out covert air strikes at regime weapons sites. Yet officials have said action must be taken, with most expecting Washington to respond to the attack.
So let's get this straight: an attack takes place on Wednesday, Focus reports on Saturday, the news becomes mainstream after the US and the entire western world have long made up their mind that the perpetrator was Assad, the source is an anonymous Mossad operative, yet the contents of the actual conversation in which it is proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the perpetrator is "the 155th Brigade of the 4th Armored Division of the Syrian Army, a division under the command of the Syrian president’s brother, Maher Assad" are unknown.
It continues: supposedly the conversation was overheard in "real-time" in which case one wonders why Israel did not go public with this "information" or disclose just what the actual "chatter" was (together with proof of the identities of the speakers of course) earlier, orafter the attack, in which case one can only assume the Assad regime, knowing very well the NSA and the entire world was eavesdropping on every form of electronic communication, was merely begging for the admiration that admission of such an attack would generate on the public arena.
Or something else just as nonsensical along those lines.
Either way, it is probably safe to say the terminal escalation is in play and now the "democratic" regimes are just following through with the PR motions, what actually happened be damned.
Two pieces from RT.....
http://rt.com/news/putin-cameron-syria-attack-020/
( Putin tells Cameron - you have nothing ! Once again , present whatever evidence and proofs to the UN Security Council. )
Putin to Cameron: No evidence Syria chemical weapons attack took place
Russia has no evidence of whether a chemical weapons attack has taken place in Syria or who is responsible, Russian President Vladimir Putin told British Prime Minister David Cameron in a telephone call, according to Cameron’s official website.
The two leaders had an urgent phone call on Monday afternoon regarding the Syrian crisis in the wake of a sniper attack on UN chemical inspectors outside Damascus.
Following the call the British government spokesperson said: “President Putin said that they did not have evidence of whether a chemical weapons attack had taken place or who was responsible.”
Cameron stated that he was sure the alleged attack was instigated by the Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government forces, saying that he believed the opposition did not have the capacity to carry out such a strike.
“The regime had also prevented UN access in the immediate aftermath, suggesting they had something to hide,” he told Putin, according to the British government’s website.
Both national leaders reaffirmed the stance that all G8 attendees took in June: “No-one should use chemical weapons and any use would merit a serious response from the international community.”
The UN mission stated on Monday that it was still possible for the team of experts to gather necessary evidence despite the time elapsed since the alleged attack.
The alleged attack took place last Wednesday in an eastern suburb of Syria’s capital, Damascus. Between ‘dozens’ and over 1,300 people allegedly died, according to conflicting reports. NGO the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Doctors Without Borders (MSF) placed the figures at 322 and 355 dead respectively.
On Monday, both Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his British counterpart, William Hague, made statements about the alleged attack.
"The Prime Minister and President Obama… have agreed that there should be a strong response from the international community," Hague told BBC Radio 4's Today program. Questioned whether military intervention was a possible route, he said "this may be the choice." Cameron is cutting short his holiday to return to London in order to chair a National Security Council meeting, it emerged on Monday.
In his turn, Lavrov stated that the fallout from the alleged chemical attack is aimed at sabotaging discussions in Geneva while the West tries to substitute inspectors' work with their own statements.
“Those involved with the incident wanted to sabotage the upcoming Geneva peace talks. Maybe that was the motivation of those who created this story. The opposition obviously does not want to negotiate peacefully,” Lavrov told an urgently convened press conference in Moscow.
He mentioned that the timing of the alleged attack “suited” the opposition.
A UN mission is in the country and spent Monday taking samples from and speaking to victims of the alleged neurotoxic assault. They will continue their investigation on Tuesday, despite their car having been “deliberately shot at multiple times by unidentified snipers in the buffer zone area,” according to spokesman for the UN secretary-general, Martin Nesirky.
Syrian state TV issued a statement accusing rebel fighters of carrying out the sniper attack, quoting sources in the Syrian Information Ministry, while the Syrian opposition placed the blame with the government.
http://rt.com/news/opposition-geneva-attack-syria-015/
( Talks can't work because there is no unified Rebel side - so the chemical weapon attack is a great alibi ! )
Syrian opposition: No Geneva peace talks after 'chemical attack'
The Syrian National Coalition, the official opposition to President Bashar Assad, has called off the long-delayed peace summit in Geneva, following an alleged chemical attack last week.
“We refused to speak about Geneva after what's happened. We must punish this dictator, Bashar the Chemist we call him, and then we can discuss Geneva," coalition Secretary General Badr Jamous told Reuters in Istanbul.
The Syrian National Coalition was meeting with international opposition backers Friends of Syria in Istanbul, nominally to discuss the upcoming peace talks.
Opposition leaders have blamed Bashar Assad for unleashing Wednesday’s chemical assault on a rebel-controlled Damascus suburb, which Doctors without Borders (MSF) says took at least 355 lives.
Since then, Arab League-United Nations envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who would have mediated the negotiations has attempted to salvage the conference, saying that the incident proved “that no military solution is possible”.
Brahimi and other diplomats had hoped Monday's Istanbul meeting would sort out final details before the UN-backed talks that had been hampered by escalation of warfare in Syria, political falling-out among the opposition and arguments over pre-conditions for the negotiations.
Geneva-2, conceived at a summit in the same city over a year ago, was meant to set out conditions for a ceasefire, and outline the transition to a new regime.
Earlier on Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the timing of the chemical attack “suited” the opposition, “who obviously do not want to negotiate peacefully”, instead they want to “sabotage” the talks.
“Why go to a conference if you believe that the regime’s infrastructure will all be destroyed anyway by allies, and then you can just march into Damascus unopposed, and take control?” said the official in Moscow.
Some Western politicians have called for a military intervention in Syria, following reports of chemical weapons use in a Damascus surburb. The attack had previously been designated as a ‘red line’ by the West.
A protest by several hundred exiled Syrians in Belgium also called for the West to step in.
“We are asking for military intervention. We want the Europeans to protect the Syrian population, who are being massacred before the entire world. What happened to human rights?,” asked Rabih Chaar, said the local Syrian opposition to Euronews.
A UN-mandated expert team is currently in Damascus, attempting to unravel the timeline of the chemical alleged attack.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-26/western-warplanes-begin-arriving-cyprus
( Premature to plan for War before any evidence is established.... )
Western Warplanes Begin Arriving In Cyprus
Remember what the 2012 leaked Stratfor memo said about the focal point of western airborne power? Here it is again: "Syrian air defenses are a lot more robust and are much denser, esp around Damascus and on the borders with Israel, Turkey. THey are most worried about mobile air defenses, particularly the SA-17s that they've been getting recently. It's still a doable mission, it's just not an easy one. The main base they would use is Cyprus, hands down. Brits and FRench would fly out of there. They kept stressing how much is stored at Cyprus and how much recce comes out of there. The group was split on whether Turkey would be involved, but said Turkey would be pretty critical to the mission to base stuff out of there. EVen if Turkey had a poltiical problem with Cyprus, they said there is no way the Brits and the FRench wouldn't use Cyprus as their main air force base." (sic) Well, it has begun. Guardian reports that "Warplanes and military transporters have begun arriving at Britain's Akrotiri airbase on Cyprus, less than 100 miles from the Syrian coast, in a sign of increasing preparations for a military strike against the Assad regime in Syria."
From the Guardian:
Two commercial pilots who regularly fly from Larnaca on Monday told the Guardian that they had seen C-130 transport planes from their cockpit windows as well as small formations of fighter jets on their radar screens, which they believe had flown from Europe.Residents near the British airfield, a sovereign base since 1960, also say activity there has been much higher than normal over the past 48 hours.If an order to attack targets in Syria is given, Cyprus is likely to be a hub of the air campaign. The arrival of warplanes suggests that advanced readiness – at the very least – has been ordered by Whitehall as David Cameron, Barack Obama and European leaders step up their rhetoric against Bashar al-Assad, whose armed forces they accuse of carrying out the chemical weapons attack last Wednesday that killed many hundreds in eastern Damascus.
More on Akrotiri airbase from wikipedia:
Akrotiri has played a crucial role during Britain's recent operations in the Middle East. During both major campaigns against Iraq, in 1991 and 2003, and also during the no-fly zone operations between, it operated as a staging post for British forces en-route to the region.A constant problem of airfields located outside the territory of the country whose forces are based there is that of overflight rights. The UK has a treaty with Cyprus that guarantees British access to Akrotiri in any circumstances. Under the treaty, the stations employ many locals and contribute to the local economy.A sizeable over-the-horizon radar antenna was erected within the base raising concern for the effect on local wildlife and on the health of people living in nearby Limassol. Several demonstrations and protests took place, with most memorable incident the act of MP (MEP since 2004) Marios Matsakis to chain himself on the antenna. Amateur radio operators report that the radar is causing interference in bands allocated for amateur radio use by the ITU. From the international amateur radio union region 1 monitoring system news letter (April 2002): The lowest frequency was 18000 kHz, the highest frequency so far during the current solar cycle is 30500 kHz. The bandwidth is normally 50 to 60 kHz, the signal strength S9 + 70 dB thus causing very harmful interference to the Amateur Radio Service.Akrotiri was also the location of the main transmitter of the well known numbers station, the Lincolnshire Poacher, although transmissions ceased in 2008. Akrotiri is also the location of the Limassol BBC Relay that broadcast the BBC World Service radio signal to the Middle East.Due to the station's relative proximity to the Middle East, it is often used by British allies when needed, such as for casualty reception for Americans after the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing[5] and as a staging post before heading into theatres of combat in the Middle East/Persian Gulf theaters.The U-2s of the 9th Reconnaissance Wing were used in Operation Cedar Sweep to fly surveillance over Lebanon, relaying information about Hezbollah militants to Lebanese authorities, and in Operation Highland Warrior to fly surveillance over Turkey and northern Iraq to relay information to Turkish authorities. These flights were the topic of acrimonious diplomatic cables between British officials and the American embassy, later leaked by Wikileaks, with David Miliband saying that "policymakers needed to get control of the military". The British were concerned that the flights over Lebanon were authorised by the Lebanese Ministry of Defence rather than the entire cabinet, and that the intelligence so gained could lead to the UK being complicit in the unlawful torture of detainees. After warnings that these issues "could jeopardize future use of British territory", John Rood, a senior Bush administration official, and Mariot Leslie, the Foreign Office's director general for defence and intelligence, became involved. Leslie said that the U.S. was not actually expected to check on detained terrorists, but that future spy missions would require full written applications.In July 2006 RAF Akrotiri played a major role as a transit point for personnel evacuations out of Lebanon during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict (see International reactions to the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict and Joint Task Force Lebanon).In March 2011, the station was used as a staging base for support aircraft involved in Operation Ellamy. Tanker support and logistical units were based here to support aerial operations over Libya.Akrotiri is also the winter training grounds of the RAF display team, the Red Arrows.The station hosts the main hospital for British Forces Cyprus, The Princess Mary's Hospital (TPMH), located on Cape Zevgari.
Now: about those Russian warships - are they still parked in Cyprus?
Recall: Russian Pacific Fleet Warships Enter Mediterranean For First Time In Decades, To Park In Cyprus
in a historic event, the Russian Pacific fleet,for the first time in decades, crossed the Suez Canal and entered the Mediterranean,direction Cyprus' port of Limasol (hi Cyprus - Russia will be arriving shortly) in what is now the loudest implied warning to the US and Israel amassing military units across Syria's border that Russia will not stand idly by as Syria is used by the Israeli "Defense" Forces for target practice. “The task force has successfully passed through the Suez Channel and entered the Mediterranean. It is the first time in decades that Pacific Fleet warships enter this region,” Capt. First Rank Roman Martov said. This is what is also known as dropping hints, loud and clear.
The group, including the destroyer Admiral Panteleyev, the amphibious warfare ships Peresvet and Admiral Nevelskoi, the tanker Pechenga and the salvage/rescue tug Fotiy Krylov left the port of Vladivostok on March 19 to join Russia’s Mediterranean task force.
Admiral Panteleyev destroyer
Admiral Nevelskoi
The task force currently includes the large anti-submarine ship Severomorsk, the frigate Yaroslav Mudry, the salvage/rescue tugs Altai and SB-921 and the tanker Lena from the Northern and Baltic Fleets, as well as the Ropucha-II Class landing ship Azov from the Black Sea Fleet. The task force may be enlarged to include nuclear submarines, Navy Commander Admiral Viktor Chirkov said last Sunday.
Shore leave for a whole lot of submarines just a few hundred kilometers from Syria? Surely.From Rian.
“The task force has successfully passed through the Suez Channel and entered the Mediterranean. It is the first time in decades that Pacific Fleet warships enter this region,” Capt. First Rank Roman Martov said.The Defense Ministry said in April Russia has begun setting up a naval task force in the Mediterranean, sending several warships from the Pacific Fleet to the region. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in March a permanent naval task force in the Mediterranean was needed to defend Russia’s interests in the region.A senior Defense Ministry official said the Mediterranean task force's command and control agencies will be based either in Novorossiysk, Russia, or in Sevastopol, Ukraine.Admiral Vladimir Komoyedov, head of the parliamentary defense committee, previously told RIA Novosti that the Mediterranean task force should be comprised of 10 warships and support vessels as part of several tactical groups tasked with attack, antisubmarine warfare and minesweeping.The Soviet Union maintained its 5th Mediterranean Squadron from 1967 until 1992. It was formed to counter the US Navy's 6th Fleet during the Cold War, and consisted of 30-50 warships and auxiliary vessels.
It appears that the squadron is being reincarnated and quite rapidly at that.
It also appears that the two key naval forces in the Mediterranean are finally starting to position themselves for what may soon be a face off.
* * *
This was the May rehearsal. Now, it's the real thing.
So eager to start another War , why such a rush ? Seems like the rush is to get the War started before people can assess what's going on , attack syria before Congress and Europe return from summer vacations , attack while folks are occupied with other things ....
http://rt.com/news/lavrov-syria-press-conference-003/
Following last week’s chemical attack, the West has engineered a media campaign to facilitate a military incursion, says Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The diplomat also cast doubts on the veracity of US and European claims about the incident.
“Official Washington, London and Paris say they have incontrovertible evidence that the Syrian government is behind the chemical attack in Damascus, but they have not yet presented this evidence. Yet, they keep saying that the ‘red line’ has been crossed,”Lavrov said during an emergency press conference in Moscow.
“Now, we are hearing calls for a military campaign against Bashar Assad.”
Last Wednesday, footage began to emerge of civilians in a Damascus suburb suffering from what appeared to be the effects of a neurotoxic gas.
Medical aid group Doctors without Borders have reported that at least 355 people have died as a result of the incident.
The Syrian opposition, which has been involved in the 30-month conflict with the government of Bashar Assad, said state forces had been behind the release. The Syrian government has denied the claims, saying that the use of chemical weapons after repeated warnings from the international community would be “illogical”.
In his conference, Lavrov questioned the rebel version of events.
“There is information that videos were posted on the internet hours before the purported attack, and other reasons to doubt the rebel narrative.”
“Those involved with the incident wanted to sabotage the upcoming Geneva peace talks. Maybe that was the motivation of those who created this story. The opposition obviously does not want to negotiate peacefully.”
http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2013/08/26/syria-hague-gets-un-visit-to-chemical-weapons-site-washington-says-not-credible/
( The Slog breaks things down... )
SYRIA: Hague gets UN visit to chemical weapons site, Washington says “not credible”
It’s that zero-support Special Relationship again
Hague….surprisingly mature for his age
This is what the BBC says about the chemical weapons atrocities with which Bashar Assad is credited: ‘Attacks using chemical weapons have killed hundreds of people near the Syrian capital, Damascus, the opposition alliance says’. The Opposition alliance, folks, is a polite way of saying “Those nice guys in the Muslim Brotherhood what America backs, like”. So we can trust them, right?
In a classic clanger of a quote in the Telegraph last Wednesday, William ‘Mekon’ Hague told the Party’s house magazine, “Evidence of the attack is deteriorating every day”. And he dismissed claims that the Brotherhood may have staged or even committed the atrocity themselves. Given they have form in this area, it is baffling me as to why Willy is so sure….given that he presented no evidence at the time – or since.
He did say he wanted the UN to go in and check the veracity of the story. But yesterday, Camerlot was gung-ho for a joint US/UK action against Assad. I wonder why the UN inspection route has been abruptly dropped, but not Mr Hague: he dismissed suggestions that the attack could have been faked by rebels fighting against Assad’s regime. “I think the chances of that are vanishingly small,” he concluded.
Why? Hague went on to add, “This is our priority at the moment: to make sure that a UN team can investigate on the ground and establish the facts.”If this does not happen, Mr Hague said Britain would return to the UN Security Council to “get a stronger mandate and for the world to speak together more forcefully about this so that there can be access.”
But yesterday, um, that didn’t seem to be on the agenda any more. Guess why…
Overnight, ABC news in Australia reports that the the Assad regime has approved the UN demand to visit the chemical weapons site.
But a United States official said the development was “too late to be credible” and Washington was all but certain the government had gassed its own people.
What will little lapdog Willy say now, we ask ourselves? The whole thing is a sick joke.
……………………………………………………..
Three days after the Coalition came to power, I posted to say that William Hague, the new Foreign Secretary, had flown to Washington when he should’ve flown to Berlin and Paris, followed by Brussels. Since then, the bloke has been falling – at first steadily, and latterly right off a cliff – in my estimation. Now we are seeing the results of Hague and his idiot-run FCO in the shape of a planned attack on Syria.
Our self-styled élite will never learn. But anyway, these are the real facts surrounding this lunacy:
1. Neither the US nor the UK has presented one shred of evidence to pin chemical weapons attacks on the regime.
2. We are going to war in support of an Islamist organisation – the Muslim Brotherhood – because that’s who America is backing. They are trying (and failing) to wrest power from a non-Islamist (but equally repugnant) Assad regime run by minority Alawhites.
3. For eighteen months now, the agents of US/UK “policy” in Syria have been calling the imminent demise of Bashar Assad. ‘Atrocities’, ‘Attacks on Turkey’ and so forth were all false flag stunts to justify later actions…..as are the chemical weapons accusations. They were all wrong, so now we are furthering policy to oust Assad by the illegal use of force.
4. Both Britain and America are hugely dependent on oil as a resource, and some degree of stability in the Middle East. This is now their “strategy” for achieving it….ie, the usual one: invent a crime and a danger, and then punish it militarily. (See Iraq, Libya, Gulf War etc etc).
5. The US backs the Muslim Brotherhood because they are an anti-Iran schism inside Islam. Both the US & the UK want Iran taken out because of its bomb building process….and because Israel is our ally. I’d like to know which clown came up with the idea of backing terrorists in order to get rid of terrorists: should we therefore have backed Protestant Militia in Northern Ireland against the IRA in the 1980s?
6. We can only gape in wonder at the US/UK hypocrisy in condemning the Egyptian military ‘coup’, while preparing to launch one against Assad themselves. The military in Egypt are being demonised because….guess who, the Muslim Brotherhood, are opposing the military.
Ten years after the start of the War on Terror bollocks, we are backing the US in a kack-handed Middle East policy promising war on two fronts….and one invasion immediately. Like every US foreign venture since Korea, it involves ludicrously optimistic war aims, naive policy strategies, and cynical agendas.
There is only one thing Britain needs to get here: out of the Special Relationship, once and for all.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2402378/MPs-demand-vote-Syria-missile-blitz-David-Cameron-set-recall-Parliament-discuss-plan-launch-air-strikes.html
MPs were last night demanding a binding vote over plans to launch missile strikes on Syria without the backing of the United Nations.
The Prime Minister is expected to announce that Parliament will be recalled this week to debate plans by Britain, France and the United States to launch strikes against Syria in retaliation for last week’s barbaric chemical weapons attack.
Sources said David Cameron was ‘likely’ to give way to demands from Tory MPs, Lib Dems and Labour to allow the Commons to have a ‘say’ on the crisis before any attack is launched.
But despite a growing domestic backlash over the prospect of intervention, it was unclear whether MPs will be given a binding vote.
Russia and Syria both raised the prospect of dire consequences if the West launches attacks without a UN mandate.
US Secretary of State John Kerry called last week’s attack a ‘moral obscenity’, but Syrian tyrant Bashar al-Assad warned: ‘Failure awaits the United States as in all previous wars it has unleashed, starting with Vietnam and up to the present day.’
And experts insisted that any attack could be illegal without UN authorisation – leaving British ministers and military commanders open to war crimes charges.
MPs last night said it was vital that any military action had their backing in a binding Commons vote.
Former Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell said it was ‘inconceivable’ that any attack would be launched before UN weapons inspectors have reported back and ‘Parliament has met, discussed and voted on the issue’.
Nick Clegg is also believed to back a Commons vote, as does Labour. But some ministers are wary of setting a precedent and insist the Government must have the ‘flexibility’ to respond swiftly to events without recourse to Parliament.
With polls showing the public is wary of any intervention in Syria’s bloody civil war, many Tory MPs also demanded a vote.
Tory Andrew Bridgen, who co-ordinated a letter to Mr Cameron signed by 81 Conservative MPs demanding a say on Syria, said MPs had previously been assured they would get ‘a debate and a substantive vote’ before action is taken.
He said ministers should now honour their promise, adding: ‘We live in a parliamentary democracy, not a brutal dictatorship. The letter was specifically about arming the rebels but also about any further escalation of the crisis.’
Tory MP Sarah Wollaston said a debate and vote were essential to air widespread public concerns about intervention in Syria.
She added: ‘I sense that we are on a headlong rush into escalating this conflict and I think Parliament can act as a natural brake to that.’
Fellow Tory Douglas Carswell also said it would be ‘unacceptable’ for Mr Cameron to launch military action without the approval of Parliament.
Mr Carswell pointed out that in opposition Mr Cameron had called for curbs on the power of the prime minister to prevent military action without Parliamentary approval.
He added: ‘If the case for military involvement in Syria is as strong as those at the top of this Government seem to believe, they will have no difficulty in coming to the House of Commons and making their case.’
Shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander said: ‘Both the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister have made commitments to the House of Commons that Parliament would be recalled before a decision about further UK involvement in Syria was taken.
‘While of course I understand the Foreign Secretary’s reluctance to discuss specific military deployments, he and the Prime Minister do need to be open about the objectives, the legal basis, and the anticipated effect of any possible UK military action in Syria.
‘I would fully expect the Prime Minister to make his case to Parliament.’
The calls came as the Prime Minister cut short his holiday to return to London to take charge of the crisis.
Mr Clegg has also cancelled a planned visit to Afghanistan to take part in a crunch meeting of the National Security Council in London tomorrow, at which plans for missile strikes against Syria could be finalised.
****
http://rt.com/news/uk-response-without-un-backing-979/
Britain says response to Syria chemical attack possible without unanimous UN backing
A response to the use of chemical weapons in Syria is possible without the unanimous consent of the UN Security Council, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague has said.
“I would argue yes it is, otherwise it might be impossible to respond to such outrages, such crimes, and I don't think that's an acceptable situation," Hague said on BBC radio, when asked whether it would be possible to respond to the use of chemical weapons without the backing of the UN Security Council.
Meanwhile, Britain’s Royal Navy is reportedly moving ships into place for a possible strike with the US on Syria in the next few days.
Citing government sources, British daily The Telegraph wrote that as military commanders were discussing a list of potential targets, the Royal Navy is deploying vessels for a series of cruise missile strikes on Syria.
Since last week’s chemical weapons attack on a Damascus suburb that left over 300 civilians dead, political rhetoric has been building against President Bashar Assad, alleging the regime carried out the attack against its own citizens. On Sunday, Britain added its voice to the chorus of countries urging for intervention in Syria.
Foreign Secretary William Hague condemned the Assad regime, stating that “all the evidence points in one direction.”
"We cannot, in the 21st century, allow the idea that chemical weapons can be used with impunity, that people can be killed in this way, and there are no consequences for it," he said.
Branding Assad a dictator, Hague stressed a “strong response” was essential in light of the use of chemical weapons to “slaughter” Syrian citizens. British Prime Minister David Cameron has also chosen to cut short his summer break and return to the UK to chair a Security Council meeting on Wednesday.
Syrian President Bashar Assad responded to the calls for an international reaction to the chemical attack, warning that any international intervention in Syria would end in failure.
"The comments [accusing the regime of using chemical weapons] made by politicians in the West and other countries are an insult to common sense... It is nonsense," Assad said, adding the accusations were completely “political.”
Russia also urged caution, calling on Washington to avoid “repeating past mistakes.”
“All of this makes one recall the events that happened 10 years ago, when, using false information about Iraqis having weapons of mass destruction, the US bypassed the United Nations and started a scheme whose consequences are well known to everyone,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Moscow has also said a UN investigation into last Wednesday’s attack is of paramount importance and it was essential that its results were not influenced before time.
A team of UN experts arrived at the site of the attack on Monday in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, however doubts have already been raised over the validity of an investigation.
Washington has already alleged that an investigation would be “too late to be credible.” The British government echoed the US, stating that valuable evidence could have been destroyed in subsequent bombing of the area or tampered with.
"The fact is that much of the evidence could have been destroyed by that artillery bombardment. Other evidence could have degraded over the last few days and other evidence could have been tampered with," Hague told reporters on Saturday.
The toxic gas attack in Ghouta triggered a wave of media hysteria with mixed reports alleging that thousands had been killed. On Saturday, French charity Medcins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) said that 355 people had died and over a thousand were exhibiting systems related to neurotoxic poisoning. However, the non-profit organization said it was impossible to discern who was behind the attack.
Top Dem: We Will Ignore Congress on Syria Attack
Rep. Eliot Engel calls for cruise missile assault
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
August 26, 2013
Infowars.com
August 26, 2013
Calling on President Obama to launch a cruise missile attack on Syria, Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., the top Democrat on the House Foreign Relations Committee, told Fox News that Congress would not be consulted on the move and that lawmakers would have to “assent” to it at a later date.
Appearing on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, Engel disagreed with his counterpart Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who said Obama should seek Congressional authorization before any military action.
“I do agree with Senator Corker that I think Congress needs to be involved, but perhaps not initially,” said Engel, adding, “Perhaps the president could start and then Congress needs to resolve it an–and assent to it.”
In other words, Engel wants Obama to launch the attack on Syria with complete disregard for the War Powers Resolution, which states that military action must be preceded by Congressional approval, and then only use Congress later as a rubber stamp.
“I certainly would do cruise missile strikes,” added Engel, throwing his support behind military intervention that would likely see rebel fighters who are being led by Al-Qaeda terrorists seize power.
Engel’s rhetoric is identical to that which surrounded the military attack on Libya, which was also green lighted without Congressional approval after the Obama administration ludicrously termed the assault a “kinetic military action.”
When Obama faced criticism from Congress over the 2011 attack, he churlishly dismissed the issue, remarking, “I don’t even have to get to the Constitutional question,” before claiming that his authority came from NATO and the UN.
According to Congressman Walter Jones, this amounted to “an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under article II, section 4 of the Constitution.”
Passed after the Vietnam War, the War Powers Resolution states that the President’s powers as commander-in-chief should be “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.”
Following last week’s alleged chemical weapons attack near Damascus, the United States and Britain have begun to make preparations for cruise missile attacks on Syria that are expected to take place within days, despite Bashar Al-Assad’s government agreeing to a United Nations-led inspection of the areas where the incident occurred.
15 Signs That Obama Has Already Made The Decision To Go To War With Syria
The Obama administration seems absolutely determined to help radical Islamic jihadists that havebeheaded Christians, that have massacred entire Christian villages, and that have pledged loyalty to al-Qaeda topple the Assad regime and take over Syria. Yes, the Assad regime is horrible, but if these jihadist lunatics take control it will destabilize the entire region, make the prospect of a major regional war much more probable, and plunge the entire nation of Syria into a complete and utter nightmare. It has been estimated that somewhere around 100,000 people have already been killed in the civil war in Syria, and now it looks like the U.S. military and the rest of NATO plan to become directly involved in the conflict. The Obama administration is actually considering an attack on Syria even though the American people are overwhelmingly against it, Obama does not have Congressional approval to start a war, and he will never get approval for military action from the UN because it will be blocked by Russia. This is setting up to become a colossal foreign policy disaster for the United States.
A potential war with Syria has been brought to the forefront because of a chemical weapons attack near Damascus last week that killed as many as 1,400 people. The Obama administration and several other western nations are blaming this attack on the Assad regime.
But others are pointing out that it would make absolutely no sense for the Assad regime to do such a thing. They appear to be winning the civil war, and Assad knows that Obama has previously said that the use of chemical weapons in Syria would be a “red line” for the United States.
So why would the Assad regime launch a brutal chemical weapons attack against women and children just miles from where UN inspectors were staying?
Why would Assad risk war with the United States and the rest of NATO?
Assad would have to be extremely stupid or extremely suicidal to do such a thing.
The ones that benefit from this chemical weapons attack are the jihadist rebels. The odds of foreign intervention in the conflict just went way, way up.
We will probably never learn the real truth about who was actually behind that attack. And even if it had not happened, the U.S. and the rest of NATO would have probably come up with another justification to go to war anyway. They appear absolutely obsessed with getting rid of Assad, but they have not really thought through the consequences.
The following are 15 signs that Obama has already made the decision to go to war with Syria…
#1 Syria has agreed to allow UN officials to inspect the site of the recent chemical weapons attack that killed up to 1,400 people, but a “senior U.S. official” says that such an inspection would be “too late to be credible“.
#2 According to ABC News, the White House is saying that there is “very little doubt” that the Assad regime was behind the deadly chemical weapons attack last week.
#3 Four U.S. warships with ballistic missiles are moving into position in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. If the command is given, they will be able to rain Tomahawk cruise missiles down on targets inside Syria within minutes…
U.S. defense officials told The Associated Press that the Navy had sent a fourth warship armed with ballistic missiles into the eastern Mediterranean Sea but without immediate orders for any missile launch into Syria.U.S. Navy ships are capable of a variety of military actions, including launching Tomahawk cruise missiles, as they did against Libya in 2011 as part of an international action that led to the overthrow of the Libyan government.
#4 CBS News is reporting that “the Pentagon is making the initial preparations for a Cruise missile attack on Syrian government forces”.
#5 On Saturday, Barack Obama met with his national security team to discuss what actions should be taken in Syria.
#6 U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel says that Barack Obama has asked him to “prepare options for all contingencies” as far as a conflict with Syria is concerned.
#7 After a phone conversation with British Prime Minister David Cameron about the situation in Syria, the White House announced that both leaders expressed “grave concern” about the chemical weapons attack that took place last week.
#8 Military commanders from the United States, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, France, Italy and Canada are meeting in Amman, Jordan on Sunday to coordinate plans for upcoming attacks on Syria.
#9 According to France’s second largest newspaper, rebel forces that have been trained by the CIA have been pouring toward Damascus “since mid-August“…
According to our information, the regime’s opponents, supervised by Jordanian, Israeli and American commandos moving towards Damascus since mid-August. This attack could explain the possible use of the Syrian president to chemical weapons.According to information obtained by Le Figaro , the first trained in guerrilla warfare by the Americans in Jordan Syrian troops reportedly entered into action since mid-August in southern Syria, in the region of Deraa. A first group of 300 men, probably supported by Israeli and Jordanian commandos, as well as men of the CIA, had crossed the border on August 17. A second would have joined the 19. According to military sources, the Americans, who do not want to put troops on the Syrian soil or arming rebels in part controlled by radical Islamists form quietly for several months in a training camp set up at the border Jordanian- Syrian fighters ASL, the Free Syrian Army, handpicked.
#10 The U.S. military moved a significant number of F-16 fighter jets to Jordan earlier this year for military exercises, and kept them there afterward “at the request of the Jordanian government“.
#11 According to a government document that Wikileaks released back in March 2012, NATO personnel have been on the ground inside Syria preparing for regime change since 2011.
#12 The Times of Israel is reporting that an internal military assessment has concluded that “Washington is seriously considering a limited yet effective attack that will make it clear to the regime in Damascus that the international community will not tolerate the use of weapons of mass destruction against Syrian civilians or any other elements”.
#13 U.S. Senator John McCain recently said that if the U.S. military does not hit Syria, it will be like “writing a blank check to other brutal dictators around the world if they want to use chemical weapons”.
#14 According to the New York Times, “the NATO air war in Kosovo” is being studied “as a possible blueprint for acting without a mandate from the United Nations”.
#15 The White House has released a statement that says that the Obama administration has no plans to put “boots on the ground“, but it did not rule out any other types of military action.
This is not a conflict that the U.S. military should be involved in.
And we should especially not be on the side of the rabidly anti-Christian, rabidly anti-Israel and rabidly anti-western forces that are attempting to take control of Syria.
The terrorists that the Obama administration is backing are absolutely psychotic. Just check out the following example from a recent article posted on the Blaze…
New video posted on YouTube purports to show the graphic murder – execution style – of three Syrian truck drivers who did nothing more than belong to a minority faith the local Al Qaeda affiliate does not like.In the video, a small band of Islamist radicals with the Al Qaeda-linked ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) group is seen waving the tractor trailers off the side of an Iraqi road and then proceeds to interrogate the unsuspecting drivers about their prayer habits, trying to discover if they are Sunnis or members of the Alawite minority in Syria.When they “fail” the Sunni jihadis’ pop roadside quiz, the truck drivers are seated in a line in the median of the road and shot in the back of their heads firing squad style by the self-appointed law enforcers, jury, judge and executioner.
Why in the world would the United States want to arm such people?
Why in the world would the United States want to go to war to help such people take power?
It is utter insanity.
And as I mentioned earlier, most Americans are totally against getting involved. According to a stunning new poll, 60 percent of all Americans are against U.S. military intervention in Syria, and only 9 percent are in favor of it.
So in light of all that you have just read, why is the Obama administration so determined to help the rebels in Syria?
Chemical shell shrapnel
DEBKAfile Special Report Aug 26, 2013, 9:51 AM (IDT)
Five days late, UN team of experts Monday, Aug. 26, start scouring a site in eastern Damascus for shrapnel from the poison gas shells or rockets fired by the Syrian army’s 155th Brigade last Wednesday.DEBKAfile: This was decided between the UN Secretariat and the White House Sunday night. They agreed that the only chance of finding evidence was to examine a targeted site or injured victims. Since, the latter are unavailable, the experts hope that even after a Syrian cleanup they may turn up shell fragments however microscopic.
More>Saudi/Qatar Invasion of Syria Could Dovetail Western Air Strikes
Notwithstanding the official statements coming out of Washington that President Barack Obama has still not decided on his military options against Syria’s chemical attack, DEBKAfile’s sources confirm that limited, targeted Western military action is scheduled for the coming week.
The position of the Gulf emirates and Saudi Arabia is less cut and dried. Riyadh doesn’t want a targeted strike but an early all-out offensive for overthrowing the Assad regime once and for all.
This opens up the possibility of a separate Saudi-Qatari-UAE assault in Syria, coordinated with Washington, but conducted in different regions from those targeted by the US-led lineup.
The result is potentially the pursuit of a broad-based pan-Arab offensive on the Syrian regime, alongside a surgical Western strike.
h
Air Strikes on Syria “Within Days”
Tim Ross and Ben Farmer
London Telegraph
August 26, 2013
London Telegraph
August 26, 2013
Royal Navy vessels are being readied to take part in a possible series of cruise missile strikes, alongside the United States, as military commanders finalise a list of potential targets.
Government sources said talks between the Prime Minister and international leaders, including Barack Obama, would continue, but that any military action that was agreed could begin within the next week.
As the preparations gathered pace, William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, warned that the world could not stand by and allow the Assad regime to use chemical weapons against the Syrian people “with impunity”.
Britain, the US and their allies must show Mr Assad that to perpetrate such an atrocity “is to cross a line and that the world will respond when that line is crossed”, he said.
ttp://rt.com/news/assad-interview-syria-chemical-989/
Accusations that Syria used chemical weapon 'against logic' - Assad
Syrian leader Bashar Assad has stressed that the claims of his government using chemical weapons made by Western countries are “an insult to common sense” and “nonsense,” in an interview to Russia’s Izvestia newspaper.
"The statements made by the politicians in the USA and in other Western countries represent an insult to common sense and neglect of the public opinion of citizens in those countries. It’s nonsense: first, they bring charges, and then they collect evidence. And it’s one of the most powerful countries that does it – the US. They accused us on Wednesday, and in only two days the American leadership announces they started to collect the evidence.… They accuse our army of using chemical weapons in the area that’s reportedly controlled by the terrorists. In fact, there is no precise front line between the army and the insurgents in that area. And how can a government use chemical weapons – or any other weapons of mass destruction – in the area where government troops are concentrated? This is against elementary logic."
The Syrian leader also indicated that not only the accusations stopped making sense, but the whole Western "peacemaking" plan in Syria has run amok: the Us and its allies have attempted to launch the mission, but failed to convince Russia and China to vote for it.
"They have failed to convince their peoples and the rest of the world that the policy, which they carry out in the Middle East, is smart and effective. Moreover, it appears that the situation here is different compared to the one in Egypt and Tunisia."
"One and the same plot of the Arabic revolutions is no longer convincing. They may launch any kind of war but they don’t know how long it would last and how much of a territory it would cover. They have realized that their plot has gone out of control."
The main cause of the continuing conflict, the Syrian leader pointed out, is the influx of tens of thousands of foreign insurgents that arrive in Syria every month and kill innocent people. What’s more, the terrorists are provided with money and weapons from abroad. And, according to Assad, world leaders don’t understand the dangers that terrorism may entail – despite past experience.
“Nowadays there are many politicians, although very few leaders, among the heads of states. The point is that they don’t know history and don’t learn its lessons. Some of them forget even the recent past. Have they learnt the lessons of past 50 years? Have they even glanced through the documents of their predecessors who failed in all wars they started since Vietnam? Have they realized those wars brought about nothing but havoc and instability in the Middle East and in other regions? To those politicians I would like to explain that terrorism isn’t a bargaining chip to pull out and use anytime one wants, and then put back. Terrorism, as a scorpion, can bite anytime. You can’t be for the terrorism in Syria and against it in Mali.”
“Nowadays there are many politicians, although very few leaders, among the heads of states. The point is that they don’t know history and don’t learn its lessons. Some of them forget even the recent past. Have they learnt the lessons of past 50 years? Have they even glanced through the documents of their predecessors who failed in all wars they started since Vietnam? Have they realized those wars brought about nothing but havoc and instability in the Middle East and in other regions? To those politicians I would like to explain that terrorism isn’t a bargaining chip to pull out and use anytime one wants, and then put back. Terrorism, as a scorpion, can bite anytime. You can’t be for the terrorism in Syria and against it in Mali.”
However, Russia’s aid helps to improve at least the economic situation in the conflict-torn country, Assad indicated, not revealing any particular details though.
“I want to say that all contracts that have been concluded with Russia are being fulfilled. And no crisis or pressure from the US, Europe and the Gulf states interfered with the deliveries. Russia provides for Syria the things that are necessary for its protection, and the protection of its people. And the things Russia delivers to Syria according to our military contracts will undeniably lead to the improvement of the Syrian economy.”
While the rush to start bombing continues , are the Rebels happy the UN is investigating - are the Rebels concerned the UN could upset the War mongering applecart ?
2 mortar bombs strike Damascus area where UN inspectors staying
At least two mortar bombs struck a wealthy district of central Damascus on Monday. One of the mortars fell near the Four Seasons hotel, where the UN experts are staying, residents told Reuters. Syrian state media said three people were wounded, adding that the mortar bombs were locally made.
http://rt.com/news/un-chemical-oservers-shot-000/
Snipers shoot at UN chemical inspectors in Syria – UN spokesman
A UN inspection team vehicle in Syria has been shot at by snipers, a UN spokesman says. The team has currently come back to the government checkpoint to replace the damaged vehicle. There have been no reports of casualties so far.
The inspectors’ car “was deliberately shot at multiple times by unidentified snipers in the buffer zone area," the spokesman for the UN secretary-general, Martin Nesirky, said.
The incident has allegedly forced the UN inspectors to suspend the investigation, the UN spokesman pointed out, as cited by AFP.
However, NBC news reported that the team will return to the inspection area after replacing the vehicle, which is no longer serviceable, at the checkpoint.
Damascus has issued a statement accusing rebel fighters of carrying out the attack.
Earlier, the team of UN experts drove off from central Damascus to inspect the site of the alleged chemical weapons attack in one of the suburbs near the capital. The convoy included six cars and was accompanied by a vehicle of security forces and an ambulance, Reuters reported.
On Sunday, the Assad government gave a green light to the mission to allow investigators access to the sight of reported attack in the suburb of Guta which according to various sources caused from "dozens" to 1,300 fatalities.
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