Sunday highlights ..... Whodunit ?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-25/military-intervention-syria-us-training-rebels-2011-and-complete-grand-plan-march-20
( US Special Forces been in Syria since 2012 ? Obama caught lying again or when he said " no boots on the ground " , did he mean no infantry troops , no tanks - not Iraq or Afghanistan style boots on the ground ? )
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/25/2013 13:47 -0400
Syria Government the bad guys , says Debka ....
http://www.debka.com/article/23220/US-rebuffs-Syrian-access-to-chemical-site-as-%E2%80%9Ctoo-late-to-be-credible%E2%80%9D
The White House appeared not to be deterred from military intervention by an effort by Damascus to ease tensions by allowing UN inspectors to finally visit the areas allegedly hit with chemical weapons.
Middle East tensions were further ratcheted up during the day by a warning from Tehran. Gen. Massoud Jazayeri, deputy chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces said Sunday: "America knows the limitation of the red line of the Syrian front and any crossing of Syria's red line will have severe consequences for the White House." Iranian and Syrian spokesmen have said that a US attack on Syria would prompt a Syrian missile attack on Israel in retaliation.
The Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman also issued a statement late Sunday saying: "We again resolutely urge all those who are trying to force conclusions on the UN experts and who say that armed action against Syria is possible, to show common sense and avoid tragic mistakes.”
DEBKAfile reported early Sunday morning:
President Barack Obama and UK Prime Minister David Cameron spent 40 minutes on the phone Saturday night amid the strongest indications to date from Washington that direct military intervention by the West was approaching, following a change in the US president’s posture. He has become convinced that the strike would have to be conducted outside the United Nations.
While Western media are reporting at length on Western, Arab and Muslim military preparations, Israel’s armed forces are moving ahead in secrecy. Its officials spread soothing statements asserting Israel’s non-involvement in the Syrian turmoil, as Israel’s military and intelligence agencies get ready for Syria to counter an attack by loosing missiles against their country as well as Jordan and Turkey. All three also expect an explosion of terrorism.
Saturday night, Syrian information minister Omran al-Zoubi, while denying his government was responsible for Wednesday’s poison gas attack, stated over state television that if Syria came under attack, “a mass of flames will ignite the Middle East.”
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Moscow has placed on war alert Russia’s Mediterranean and Black Sea fleets as well as rapid deployment forces in southern and central Russia.
According to DEBKAfile’s sources, Western demands for proof of the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons before taking action have been countered in the last few hours by the discovery that the forensic evidence will be all but impossible to obtain in view of the special mixture contained in the gas shells. Only tiny quantities of sarin were blended in with a large quantity of riot control agents, a formula developed by Iran to camouflage the use of chemical weapons.
Or was it the West / GCC Mercs / Al Qaeda ? Who knows ?
and....
Juan notes Israel has bombed Syria several times - yet the advance of the Syria government continues....Russia stop repeating mistakes ....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/25/us-syria-crisis-us-russia-idUSBRE97O09W20130825
Bluff called ? Seems like it - US and UK still not pleased even though their demand for the inspection has been met....
http://www.france24.com/en/20130825-syria-chemical-attack-evidence-may-have-been-destroyed-hague
Moments ago, Syria relented to the main gating condition that would prevent an all out escalation, and as Russia urged it to, has permitted an inspection of last Wednesday's alleged chemical weapons attack by UN inspectors. The WSJ reports that "Syria would allow United Nations inspectors currently present in Damascus immediate access to areas around the capital where the opposition accused the regime of using chemical weapons against fighters and civilians five days ago. A presenter on Syrian state television reading a statement attributed to an unnamed official at the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the agreement was reached after a meeting between Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem and Angela Kane, the U.N. disarmament chief, who arrived in Damascus on Saturday." Of course, since demand for said inspection was just a straw man as the last time the UN inspected a "certain" chemical weapons attack by Assad it found "rebels may have used sarin" instead, and the US was absolutely certain Syria would not relent to an inspection thus allowing a full scale military attack, the US is now downplaying compliance with this key demand, by saying it is too little too late.
Nato forces in place ?
While the United States is repositioning its naval forces in the Mediterranean as it considers a possible military response to recent developments in Syria (as reported and shown yesterday), at least two other nations are joining in preparation for a naval offensive against the Middle Eastern nation.
Syria allows UN probe on chemical weapons to go forward - this is going forward because the Syria Government knows the claims are BS !
http://rt.com/news/syria-green-light-chemical-inspection-967/
From earlier today....
The agreement was made on Sunday during a meeting between the UN High Representative for Disarmament Angela Kane and the Syrian government officials.
The UN team led by Aake Sellstroem will probe the alleged attack in Damascus suburbs.
UK once again replays its role from Iraq - sock puppet for the US !
UK seems to be wavering somewhat - especially the military. Still lurching for an intervention...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10264658/David-Cameron-to-give-Syria-ultimatum.html
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/08/23/200206/us-response-to-syria-chemical.html#.UhjOsKxIU8g
( US appears to be posturing as a voice of reason , while scheming with the GCC and Western clique to bomb Syria at the first opportunity )
President Barack Obama and UK Prime Minister David Cameron spent 40 minutes on the phone Saturday night amid the strongest indications to date from Washington that direct military intervention by the West was approaching, following a change in the US president’s posture. He has become convinced that the strike would have to be conducted outside the United Nations.
While Western media are reporting at length on Western, Arab and Muslim military preparations, Israel’s armed forces are moving ahead in secrecy. Its officials spread soothing statements asserting Israel’s non-involvement in the Syrian turmoil, as Israel’s military and intelligence agencies get ready for Syria to counter an attack by loosing missiles against their country as well as Jordan and Turkey. All three also expect an explosion of terrorism.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Moscow has placed on war alert Russia’s Mediterranean and Black Sea fleets as well as rapid deployment forces in southern and central Russia.
According to DEBKAfile’s sources, Western demands for proof of the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons before taking action have been countered in the last few hours by the discovery that the forensic evidence will be all but impossible to obtain in view of the special mixture contained in the gas shells. Only tiny quantities of sarin were blended in with a large quantity of riot control agents, a formula developed by Iran to camouflage the use of chemical weapons.
Based on that Washington is now all giddy about waging open war on Syria.
A few days ago the Egyptian military killed hundred of Muslim Brothers who were protesting against a military coup against the elected government.
Washington didn't care.
And what actually makes the hundred something people killed by some unknown substance in Syria different from those killed in Syria by the 3,500 tons of weapons the CIA got from Croatia and distributed to the insurgents in Syria?
I do not think that the U.S. will in any outright way attack Syria. The unknowns for the U.S., including the potential reactions by Russia and China, are just too many and too big.
Death dealers have gotten busy supplying tools of the trade....And I'm not just talking about Turkey and GCC countries....
http://www.worldbulletin.net/?aType=haber&ArticleID=115977
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-25/military-intervention-syria-us-training-rebels-2011-and-complete-grand-plan-march-20
( US Special Forces been in Syria since 2012 ? Obama caught lying again or when he said " no boots on the ground " , did he mean no infantry troops , no tanks - not Iraq or Afghanistan style boots on the ground ? )
"Military Intervention In Syria", US Training "Rebels" Since 2011 And The Complete Grand Plan - The March 2012 Leak
For all those still shocked by the "developing events" in Syria, here is the full rundown as it was orchestrated back in 2011, and as it was released in March 2012 by Wikileaks.
From Wikileaks, released 3/6/2012, typos and grammar errors as in original.
* * *
INSIGHT - military intervention in Syria, post withdrawal status of forces
Released on 2012-03-06 07:00 GMT
A few points I wanted to highlight from meetings today --
I spent most of the afternoon at the Pentagon with the USAF strategic studies group - guys who spend their time trying to understand and explain to the USAF chief the big picture in areas where they're operating in. It was just myself and four other guys at the Lieutenant Colonel level, including one French and one British representative who are liaising with the US currently out of DC.
They wanted to grill me on the strategic picture on Syria, so after that I got to grill them on the military picture. There is still a very low level of understanding of what is actually at stake in Syria, what's the strategic interest there, the Turkish role, the Iranian role, etc. After a couple hours of talking, they said without saying that SOF teams (presumably from US, UK, France, Jordan, Turkey) are already on the groundfocused on recce [ZH: "recce" means reconnaissance] missions and training opposition forces. One Air Force intel guy (US) said very carefully that there isn't much of a Free Syrian Army to train right now anyway, but all the operations being done now are being done out of 'prudence.' The way it was put to me was, 'look at this way - the level of information known on Syrian OrBat this month is the best it's been since 2001.' They have been told to prepare contingencies and be ready to act within 2-3 months, but they still stress that this is all being done as contingency planning, not as a move toward escalation.
I kept pressing on the question of what these SOF teams would be working toward, and whether this would lead to an eventual air camapign to give a Syrian rebel group cover. They pretty quickly distanced themselves from that idea, saying that the idea 'hypothetically' is to commit guerrilla attacks, assassination campaigns, try to break the back of the Alawite forces, elicit collapse from within. There wouldn't be a need for air cover, and they wouldn't expect these Syrian rebels to be marching in columns anyway.
They emphasized how the air campaign in Syria makes Libya look like a piece of cake.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. Air Force Intel guy seems pretty convinced that the Turks won't participate (he seemed pretty pissed at them.)
There still seems to be a lot of confusion over what a military intervention involving an air campaign would be designed to achieve. It isn't clear cut for them geographically like in Libya, and you can't just create an NFZ over Homs, Hama region. This would entail a countrywide SEAD campaign lasting the duration of the war. They dont believe air intervention would happen unless there was enough media attention on a massacre, like the Ghadafi move against Benghazi. They think the US would have a high tolerance for killings as long as it doesn't reach that very public stage. Theyre also questiioning the skills of the Syrian forces that are operating the country's air defenses currently and how signfiicant the Iranian presence is there. Air Force Intel guy is most obsessed with the challenge of taking out Syria's ballistic missile capabilities and chem weapons. With Israel rgiht there and the regime facing an existential crisis, he sees that as a major complication to any military intervention.
The post 2011 SOFA with Iraq is still being negotiated. These guys were hoping that during Biden's visit that he would announce a deal with Maliki, but no such luck. They are gambling ont he idea that the Iraqis remember the iran-iraq war and that maliki is not going to want to face the threat of Iranian jets entering Iraqi air space. THey say that most US fighter jets are already out of Iraq and transferred to Kuwait. They explained that's the beauty of the air force, the base in Kuwait is just a hop, skip and jump away from their bases in Europe, ie. very easy to rapidly build up when they need to.They don't seem concerned about the US ability to restructure its forces to send a message to Iran. They gave the example of the USS Enterprise that was supposed to be out of commission already and got extended another couple years to send to the gulf.WHen the US withdraws, we'll have at least 2 carriers in the gulf out of centcom and one carrier in the Med out of EuCom. I asked if the build-up in Kuwait and the carrier deployments are going to be enough to send a message to Iran that the US isn't going anywhere. They responded that Iran will get the message if they read the Centcom Web Site. STarting Jan. 1 expect them to be publishing all over the place where the US is
building up.
building up.
Another concern they have about an operation in Syria is whether Iran could impede operations out of Balad air force base in Iraq.
The French representative was of hte opinion that Syria won't be a libya-type situation in that France would be gung-ho about going in. Not in an election year. The UK rep also emphasized UK reluctance but said that the renegotiation of the EU treaty undermines the UK role and that UK would be looking for ways to reassert itself on the continent ( i dont really think a syria campaign is the way to do that.) UK guy mentioned as an aside that the air force base commander at Cyprus got switched out from a maintenance guy to a guy that flew Raptors, ie someone that understands what it means to start dropping bombs. He joked that it was probably a coincidence.
Prior to that, I had a meeting with an incoming Kuwaiti diplomat (will be coded as KU301.) His father was high up in the regime, always by the CP's/PM's side. The diplo himself still seems to be getting his feet wet in DC (the new team just arrived less than 2 weeks ago,) but he made pretty clear that Kuwait was opening the door to allowing US to build up forces as needed. THey already have a significant presence there, and a lot of them will be on 90-day rotations. He also said that the SOFA that the US signs with Baghdad at the last minute will be worded in such a way that even allowing one trainer in the country can be construed to mean what the US wants in terms of keeping forces in Iraq. Overall, I didnt get the impression from him that Kuwait is freaked out about the US leaving.
Everyhting is just getting rearranged. The Kuwaitis used to be much better at managing their relations with Iran, but ever since that spy ring story came out a year ago, it's been bad. He doesn't think Iran has significant covert capabililiteis in the GCC states, though they are trying. Iranian activity is mostly propaganda focused. He said that while KSA and Bahrain they can deal with it as needed and black out the media, Kuwait is a lot more open and thus provides Iran with more oppotunity to shape perceptions (he used to work in inforamtion unit in Kuwait.) He says there is a sig number of kuwaitis that listen to Iranian media like Al Alam especially.
On the Kuwaiti political scene - the government is having a harder time dealing with a more emboldened opposition, but the opposition is still extremely divided, esp among the Islamists. The MPs now all have to go back to their tribes to rally support for the elections to take place in Feb. Oftentimes an MP in Kuwait city will find out that he has lost support back home with the tribe, and so a lot of moeny is handed out.The govt is hoping that witha clean slate they can quiet the opposition down. A good way of managing the opposition he said is to refer cases to the courts, where they can linger forever. good way for the govt to buy time.He doesnt believe the Arab League will take significant action against Syria - no one is interested in military intervention. they just say it to threaten it.
Syria Government the bad guys , says Debka ....
http://www.debka.com/article/23220/US-rebuffs-Syrian-access-to-chemical-site-as-%E2%80%9Ctoo-late-to-be-credible%E2%80%9D
The US has little doubt the Syrian government used chemical weapons against civilians and any decision to open the site to UN inspectors comes “too late to be credible,” a senior US official said Sunday, Aug. 25.
The official made clear the Syrian government's agreement to let United Nations inspectors visit the site of an alleged chemical weapons attack was inadequate.
The official made clear the Syrian government's agreement to let United Nations inspectors visit the site of an alleged chemical weapons attack was inadequate.
"At this juncture, any belated decision by the regime to grant access to the UN team would be considered too late to be credible, including because the evidence available has been significantly corrupted as a result of the regime's persistent shelling and other intentional actions over the last five days," the official said.
"If the Syrian government had nothing to hide and wanted to prove to the world that it had not used chemical weapons in this incident, it would have ceased its attacks on the area and granted immediate access to the UN five days ago," the senior Obama administration official said.
The White House appeared not to be deterred from military intervention by an effort by Damascus to ease tensions by allowing UN inspectors to finally visit the areas allegedly hit with chemical weapons.
Middle East tensions were further ratcheted up during the day by a warning from Tehran. Gen. Massoud Jazayeri, deputy chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces said Sunday: "America knows the limitation of the red line of the Syrian front and any crossing of Syria's red line will have severe consequences for the White House." Iranian and Syrian spokesmen have said that a US attack on Syria would prompt a Syrian missile attack on Israel in retaliation.
The Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman also issued a statement late Sunday saying: "We again resolutely urge all those who are trying to force conclusions on the UN experts and who say that armed action against Syria is possible, to show common sense and avoid tragic mistakes.”
DEBKAfile reported early Sunday morning:
Western and Middle East powers led by Washington began moving Saturday night and Sunday morning, Aug. 25, toward a first strike against Syria following the Assad regime’s large-scale chemical attack in eastern Damascus last Wednesday. The first targeted strike may well signal the start of a series of US-led attacks aimed at toppling the Assad regime, DEBKAfile’s military sources report. They may consist of imposing a no-fly zone and the sealing off of sectors in northern and southern Syria against government forces.
Russian forces also went on war alert
President Barack Obama and UK Prime Minister David Cameron spent 40 minutes on the phone Saturday night amid the strongest indications to date from Washington that direct military intervention by the West was approaching, following a change in the US president’s posture. He has become convinced that the strike would have to be conducted outside the United Nations.
Military commanders from Western and Muslim countries are meeting Sunday in the Jordanian capital of Amman to coordinate action in Syria, with the participation of the US, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, France, Italy and Canada. Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the US Chiefs of Staff chairs the meeting. Saturday night, four American destroyers were moving closer to Syria, armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles, which are capable of precision strikes.
While Western media are reporting at length on Western, Arab and Muslim military preparations, Israel’s armed forces are moving ahead in secrecy. Its officials spread soothing statements asserting Israel’s non-involvement in the Syrian turmoil, as Israel’s military and intelligence agencies get ready for Syria to counter an attack by loosing missiles against their country as well as Jordan and Turkey. All three also expect an explosion of terrorism.
Saturday night, Syrian information minister Omran al-Zoubi, while denying his government was responsible for Wednesday’s poison gas attack, stated over state television that if Syria came under attack, “a mass of flames will ignite the Middle East.”
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Moscow has placed on war alert Russia’s Mediterranean and Black Sea fleets as well as rapid deployment forces in southern and central Russia.
Three Syrian hospitals told the humanitarian group Médecins Sans Frontières Saturday that they had received around 3,600 patients suffering from symptoms related to a poison gas attack. Of these, 355 had reportedly died.
According to DEBKAfile’s sources, Western demands for proof of the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons before taking action have been countered in the last few hours by the discovery that the forensic evidence will be all but impossible to obtain in view of the special mixture contained in the gas shells. Only tiny quantities of sarin were blended in with a large quantity of riot control agents, a formula developed by Iran to camouflage the use of chemical weapons.
Or was it the West / GCC Mercs / Al Qaeda ? Who knows ?
Defeated NATO Dangerously Desperate in Syria
August 25, 2013
Did the West Gas Thousands to Rescue Failed Syrian War?
As far back as 2007, it was a documented fact that the West, including the United States and its allies Saudi Arabia and Israel, conspired to use terrorists drawn from the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda in an attempt to overthrow the governments of Iran and Syria.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his 2007 New Yorker article, "The Redirection," stated (emphasis added):
Not only has this conspiracy been exposed, but it has categorically failed. The Syrian government has routed even the most dug-in terrorist proxies, making irreversible gains against a clearly depleted enemy. While the US continuously threatens to "arm the opposition," it is a fact that any and all weapons, cash, and support the US had, it has already sent over the last 3 years. This includes untold millions in cash, and literally thousands of tons of weaponry airlifted by the US and UK. The US and its regional allies have also scoured the global extremist networks they have built up over decades for every last fighter they could possible find - all to no avail.
There is nothing left except direct military intervention, which cannot be sold as helping an opposition now clearly exposed as being Al Qaeda. That means, the humanitarian intervention, "right to protect" (R2P) must be wiped clean of NATO's lies and crimes in Libya, and prepared for Syria. Only what exactly could the West use to justify an intervention against the Syrian government that is worse than what it and its proxies have already done to tens of thousands of Syrian civilians?
With a victorious Syrian government mopping up NATO's terrorist proxies and currently hosting UN chemical weapons inspectors in Damascus, the use of chemical weapons now would defy all logic - from a tactical level, to a strategic and political level. Chemical weapons, according to the US military's own reviews of their extensive use in the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980's, reveal the true nature of chemical warfare - a truth the Western media has all but avoided in their speculative and purposefully manipulative coverage of the alleged incident.
A document produced by the US Marine Corps, titled, "Lessons Learned: The Iran-Iraq War" under "Appendix B: Chemical Weapons," provides a comprehensive look at the all-out chemical warfare that took place during the devastating 8 year Iranian-Iraqi conflict. Several engagements are studied in detail, revealing large amounts of chemical agents deployed mainly to create areas of denial, not mass casualties. In the end, it is determined that conventional weapons are by far more effective and more preferable.
The effectiveness and lethality of chemical weapons is summarized in the document as follows (emphasis added):
Why then would the Syrian government choose now, of all times, to give the West exactly what it was looking for, right as the window was closing on the West to accomplish its goals versus Syria and neighboring Iran?
The answer is, the Syrian government did not use chemical weapons in Damascus, or elsewhere. And while the strawman currently being knocked down by the Western media is whether the attacks were faked or real, the stark reality is that NATO and its terrorist proxies most likely did expose a large number of people to something, seeking mass casualties in a last ditch effort to salvage what is clearly the end of their "Arab Spring" blitzkrieg.
As previously reported, NATO and its proxies in Syria have both the means and the motivation to carry out chemical weapon attacks.This includes access to Libya's stockpile of chemical weapons and a NATO-enabled pipeline feeding fighters, cash, and weapons from Libya into Syria via NATO-member Turkey.
Image: (via the Guardian) "Chemical containers in the Libyan desert. There are concerns unguarded weapons could fall into the hands of Islamist militants. Photograph: David Sperry/AP"
It was also confirmed that the US had been providing select terrorist units operating in Syria, training in the handling of chemical weapons. CNN had reported in December of 2012, in a report titled, "Sources: U.S. helping underwrite Syrian rebel training on securing chemical weapons," that:
While absolutely nothing adds up across the West's corporate media networks, one story that does add up is the claim by Syrian troops that terrorist tunnels have been discovered containing chemical agents - as reported in Reuters' article, "Syrian soldiers enter rebel tunnels, find chemical agents: state TV."
What we are now witnessing is an attempt by the West's corporate-financier establishment to push for direct intervention faster than the facts can come out over what exactly happened near Damascus. Just as was the case in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, the West hopes people can be made hysterical enough, long enough, to get a "foot in the door," so the bombs can start dropping. Failing to do so at this juncture would spell the absolute end of the West's current plans versus Syria and Iran - and so however tenuous and discredited this latest plot may seem, expect dangerous desperation from the West.
Now more than ever, Syria and its allies must be prepared to defend against provocations both militarily and diplomatically.
As far back as 2007, it was a documented fact that the West, including the United States and its allies Saudi Arabia and Israel, conspired to use terrorists drawn from the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda in an attempt to overthrow the governments of Iran and Syria.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his 2007 New Yorker article, "The Redirection," stated (emphasis added):
"To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda."Starting in 2011, this conspiracy was catapulted into all out war - albeit behind the tenuous smokescreen of "pro-democracy activists" and the so-called "Free Syrian Army" fighting for "freedom" within and along Syria's borders.
Not only has this conspiracy been exposed, but it has categorically failed. The Syrian government has routed even the most dug-in terrorist proxies, making irreversible gains against a clearly depleted enemy. While the US continuously threatens to "arm the opposition," it is a fact that any and all weapons, cash, and support the US had, it has already sent over the last 3 years. This includes untold millions in cash, and literally thousands of tons of weaponry airlifted by the US and UK. The US and its regional allies have also scoured the global extremist networks they have built up over decades for every last fighter they could possible find - all to no avail.
There is nothing left except direct military intervention, which cannot be sold as helping an opposition now clearly exposed as being Al Qaeda. That means, the humanitarian intervention, "right to protect" (R2P) must be wiped clean of NATO's lies and crimes in Libya, and prepared for Syria. Only what exactly could the West use to justify an intervention against the Syrian government that is worse than what it and its proxies have already done to tens of thousands of Syrian civilians?
With a victorious Syrian government mopping up NATO's terrorist proxies and currently hosting UN chemical weapons inspectors in Damascus, the use of chemical weapons now would defy all logic - from a tactical level, to a strategic and political level. Chemical weapons, according to the US military's own reviews of their extensive use in the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980's, reveal the true nature of chemical warfare - a truth the Western media has all but avoided in their speculative and purposefully manipulative coverage of the alleged incident.
A document produced by the US Marine Corps, titled, "Lessons Learned: The Iran-Iraq War" under "Appendix B: Chemical Weapons," provides a comprehensive look at the all-out chemical warfare that took place during the devastating 8 year Iranian-Iraqi conflict. Several engagements are studied in detail, revealing large amounts of chemical agents deployed mainly to create areas of denial, not mass casualties. In the end, it is determined that conventional weapons are by far more effective and more preferable.
The effectiveness and lethality of chemical weapons is summarized in the document as follows (emphasis added):
Chemical weapons require quite particular weather and geographic conditions for optimum effectiveness. Given the relative nonpersistence of all agents employed during this war, including mustard, there was only a brief window of employment opportunity both daily and seasonally, when the agents could be used. Even though the Iraqis employed mustard agent in the rainy season and also in the marshes, its effectiveness was significantly reduced under those conditions. As the Iraqis learned to their chagrin, mustard is not a good agent to employ in the mountains, unless you own the high ground and your enemy is in the valleys.Therefore, had the Syrian government used chemical weapons and somehow was able to create the perfect circumstances to create mass casualties, they did so solely to produce an abhorrent civilian death toll and the perfect pretext for Western intervention, knowing full well such weapons would be otherwise useless in battling armed formations. Since Syria's chemical weapons would most likely be under the lock and key of its most elite forces, as they are in Iran, revealed in a RAND Corporation document, that would mean that their use was approved by the highest ranking members of the Syrian government and military - this would be the same government and military that exhibited unlimited restraint against intentional and coordinated provocations carried out by NATO-member Turkey and their regional partner, Israel - restraint exhibited solely to avoid providing the West with the pretext for direct military intervention.
We are uncertain as to the relative effectiveness of nerve agents since those which were employed are by nature much less persistent than mustard. In order to gain killing concentrations of these agents, predawn attacks are best, conducted in areas where the morning breezes are likely to blow away from friendly positions.
Chemical weapons have a low kill ratio. Just as in WWl, during which the ratio of deaths to injured from chemicals was 2-3 percent, that figure appears to be borne out again in this war although reliable data on casualties are very difficult to obtain. We deem it remarkable that the death rate should hold at such a low level even with the introduction of nerve agents. If those rates are correct, as they well may be, this further reinforces the position that we must not think of chemical weapons as “a poor man’s nuclear weapon.” While such weapons have great psychological potential, they are not killers or destroyers on a scale with nuclear or biological weapons.
Why then would the Syrian government choose now, of all times, to give the West exactly what it was looking for, right as the window was closing on the West to accomplish its goals versus Syria and neighboring Iran?
The answer is, the Syrian government did not use chemical weapons in Damascus, or elsewhere. And while the strawman currently being knocked down by the Western media is whether the attacks were faked or real, the stark reality is that NATO and its terrorist proxies most likely did expose a large number of people to something, seeking mass casualties in a last ditch effort to salvage what is clearly the end of their "Arab Spring" blitzkrieg.
As previously reported, NATO and its proxies in Syria have both the means and the motivation to carry out chemical weapon attacks.This includes access to Libya's stockpile of chemical weapons and a NATO-enabled pipeline feeding fighters, cash, and weapons from Libya into Syria via NATO-member Turkey.
Image: (via the Guardian) "Chemical containers in the Libyan desert. There are concerns unguarded weapons could fall into the hands of Islamist militants. Photograph: David Sperry/AP"
....
It was also confirmed that the US had been providing select terrorist units operating in Syria, training in the handling of chemical weapons. CNN had reported in December of 2012, in a report titled, "Sources: U.S. helping underwrite Syrian rebel training on securing chemical weapons," that:
The United States and some European allies are using defense contractors to train Syrian rebels on how to secure chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria, a senior U.S. official and several senior diplomats told CNN Sunday.
The training, which is taking place in Jordan and Turkey, involves how to monitor and secure stockpiles and handle weapons sites and materials, according to the sources. Some of the contractors are on the ground in Syria working with the rebels to monitor some of the sites, according to one of the officials.NATO not only ensured that chemical weapons in Libya remained in the hands of a proxy regime now openly arming, aiding, and sending fighters to assist terrorists in Syria, but also appears to have ensured these terrorists possessed the know-how on handling and using these weapons.
While absolutely nothing adds up across the West's corporate media networks, one story that does add up is the claim by Syrian troops that terrorist tunnels have been discovered containing chemical agents - as reported in Reuters' article, "Syrian soldiers enter rebel tunnels, find chemical agents: state TV."
What we are now witnessing is an attempt by the West's corporate-financier establishment to push for direct intervention faster than the facts can come out over what exactly happened near Damascus. Just as was the case in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, the West hopes people can be made hysterical enough, long enough, to get a "foot in the door," so the bombs can start dropping. Failing to do so at this juncture would spell the absolute end of the West's current plans versus Syria and Iran - and so however tenuous and discredited this latest plot may seem, expect dangerous desperation from the West.
Now more than ever, Syria and its allies must be prepared to defend against provocations both militarily and diplomatically.
and....
Juan notes Israel has bombed Syria several times - yet the advance of the Syria government continues....Russia stop repeating mistakes ....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/25/us-syria-crisis-us-russia-idUSBRE97O09W20130825
(Reuters) - Russia warned the United States on Sunday against repeating past mistakes, saying that any unilateral military action in Syria would undermine efforts for peace and have a devastating impact on the security situation in the Middle East.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said its statement was a response to U.S. actions to give it the option of an armed strike against Syria.
It drew a parallel between reports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces had used chemical weapons and Washington's 2003 intervention in Iraq following accusations by then-President George Bush's administration that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's government possessed weapons of mass destruction.
"We once again decisively urge (the United States) not to repeat the mistakes of the past and not to allow actions that go against international law," the ministry said.
"Any unilateral military action bypassing the United Nations will ... lead to further escalation (in Syria) and will affect the already explosive situation in the Middle East in the most devastating way."
Moscow said any military action would severely hamper joint U.S.-Russian efforts for an international peace conference to end a civil war that has killed more than 100,000 people.
"The threat to use force against the Syrian regime sends the (Syrian) opposition conflicting signals," the ministry said. "All sponsors of the opposition, which have influence over it, must seek the fastest possible agreement from Bashar al-Assad's opponents to hold talks."
U.S. President Barack Obama met his security advisers on Saturday to debate options following reports of the alleged chemical attack. U.S. naval forces have been repositioned in the Mediterranean to give Washington the option of an armed strike.
Syria's opposition accused Assad's forces of gassing many hundreds of people - by one report as many as 1,300 - on Wednesday. Syria said earlier on Sunday it had agreed to let the experts visit the site.
Russia, which has suggested that Syrian rebels may have carried out the attack, also said on Sunday that assigning blame too soon over the alleged poison gas strike would be a "tragic mistake", before a U.N. investigation on Monday.
The Russian MP's Tweet Heard Around The World
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/25/2013 - 12:56
Head of Syrian Hama province assassinated - report
A car bomb has killed the head of the Syrian central province of Hama, Anas Abdul Razaak Naem, on Sunday, Syrian state television reported. The attack is blamed on opposition fighters. Al-Naem was appointed by President Bashar al-Assad on July 2011 after the dismissal of the previous governor. The death toll of the incident is still unknown.
Head of Syrian Hama province assassinated - report
A car bomb has killed the head of the Syrian central province of Hama, Anas Abdul Razaak Naem, on Sunday, Syrian state television reported. The attack is blamed on opposition fighters. Al-Naem was appointed by President Bashar al-Assad on July 2011 after the dismissal of the previous governor. The death toll of the incident is still unknown.
and death dealing continues ...
Last Update: Sunday, 25 August 2013 KSA 19:08 - GMT 16:08
Syrian state TV: Hama province governor assassinated in car bomb blast
Al Arabiya
The governor of the Hama province in central Syria was assassinated in a car bombing on Sunday, state television reported, in an attack it blamed on opposition fighters, Agence France-Presse reported.
“Terrorists assassinated Anas Abdel Razzaq al-Naem, the Hama governor, in a car bomb attack in the Jarajma district of Hama,” AFP quoted state television as saying.
“Terrorists assassinated Anas Abdel Razzaq al-Naem, the Hama governor, in a car bomb attack in the Jarajma district of Hama,” AFP quoted state television as saying.
Al-Naem was appointed by President Bashar al-Assad on July 2011 after the dismissal of the previous governor.
While state television said people were killed and others were injured, it did not provide a death toll figure.
The blast comes after another car bomb attack reportedly exploded late Saturday in the capital’s Christian-dominated Burj al-Rous district.
[Developing story]
Bombs away ?
Obama’s Limited Options: Bombing Syria unlikely to be Effective
Posted on 08/25/2013 by Juan Cole
As pressure on President Obama to bomb Syria over its alleged use of chemical weapons ramps up, it is worth revisiting parts of a post I did last June in response to a similar push by the Clintons. It should be remembered that Israel has already bombed Syria a few times, to little apparent effect.
… Obama has also been getting substantial pressure from the French and British to do something, and French intelligence has been the most vigorous in pressing the case that the Baath regime in Syria crossed the red line of chemical weapons use. France and Britain have longstanding imperial interests in the Levant, and both fear that the Syrian civil war could produce terrorism that spills over onto Western Europe. Unstated is that it may also produce a refugee crisis in which tens or hundreds of thousands of new immigrants wash up on European soil. Immigrants and terrorism are two key issues in French and British politics, and may be spurring them to action.
Likewise, the Baath and Hizbollah counter-attacks against the opposition in the past two months have yielded battlefield victories and the reassertion of Damascus over parts of the country that had been lost. Russian support appears to have increased in kind and quality, and Iran is playing the Shiite card. If someone doesn’t intervene soon on the rebel side, Washington hawks realize, the war might soon be over and the pro-Iranian regime will survive (just as Algeria’s did).
Obama seems to be attempting to find a face-saving way of getting a little involved but not too much, by sending light weaponry (which of course is not what the rebels need). [and now by a few strategic strikes from the air.]
[Bill] Clinton compared what the US could do in Syria to Ronald Reagan’s effort against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. But that covert operation of giving billions of dollars and high-tech weaponry to Afghan jihadis was a huge catastrophe, contributing to the creation and rise of al-Qaeda and setting the background for the emergence of the Taliban. It surely would have been far preferable to let the Soviets try to build a socialist state in Afghanistan, as they tried in Uzbekistan. The whole thing would have fallen apart in 1991 anyway. (There is no truth to the notion that the Afghanistan war bled the Soviet Union or contributed to its collapse. Soviet military spending was flat in the 1980s). The Reagan jihad destabilized both Afghanistan and Pakistan and left us with a long term terrorism problem. We let the Soviets alone in Kazakhstan, and we never worry about today’s Kazakhstan.
You never, ever want to encourage the rise of private militias and flood a country with high- powered weaponry.
[This week the NYT was told that a model for bombing Syria could be found in the 1990s ] bombing of Serbian forces in the Balkans to protect the Bosnians.
But the situation in Syria is not like that in the Balkans, in these ways:
– Syria has stockpiles of chemical weapons, the exact position of which is unknown; indiscriminate bombing raids on Syrian military facilities could release those chemicals on civilian populations. [That is, responding to use of chemical weapons with indiscriminate bombing could inadvertently become a deployment of ... chemical weapons!]
– Unlike in Bosnia, this is not a war by an outside force like the Serbs of ethnic cleansing against a neighbor, but rather it is a civil war. The Alawites, Christians and secular-minded Sunnis in Syria are afraid of the rebel forces and either support or are neutral toward the Syrian government; together they may well come to half the country. That isn’t exactly a mandate for outside intervention.
– Syria’s tanks and artillery are inside cities such as Homs and Damascus, and couldn’t be destroyed from the air without risking hitting civilian apartment buildings. If you want to see a war go bad real quickly, just kill dozens of innocent civilians in their own home from the air.
– The backing for the regime of Russia and Iran makes this more like Vietnam, where the Russians and Chinese supported the Viet Kong, than like the Balkans in the early 1990s when the Russians were weak and supine.
– Flooding Syria with medium or heavy weaponry could destabilize it and its neighbors, including Israel & Palestine, for decades, as the CIA did to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Often in the past, US intelligence actually urged locals involved in covert wars to grow and peddle drugs to get money for weapons, creating long-term problems of narco-terrorism, which still plague Afghanistan and Pakistan.
– The prominence of the Al Nusra Front and other hard liners affiliated to al-Qaeda in the opposition ranks means the US could end up arming terrorists and helping them take over a whole country.
Given the logistical and tactical difficulties of intervening from the air, and given the lack of a UNSC resolution authorizing the use of force, Obama … encouraging the [ opposition] to create a long-term civil resistance instead of going the militarization route. Some struggles have to be fought over a couple of decades, and those typically only succeed if non-violent. [Tunisia's use of nonviolence and its elites' resort to bargaining and compromise are the success story, not the more violent struggles in the region.]
.
http://www.france24.com/en/20130825-syria-chemical-attack-evidence-may-have-been-destroyed-hague
Syria chemical attack evidence may have been destroyed: Hague
British Foreign Secretary William Hague speaks in Simi Valley, California June 25, 2013. Hague on Sunday warned that any evidence of a chemical attack by the Syrian may regime may have already been destroyed.
AFP - British Foreign Secretary William Hague on Sunday warned that any evidence of a chemical attack by the Syrian regime may have already been destroyed.
"The fact is that much of the evidence could have been destroyed by that artillery bombardment," he cautioned during a press conference after Damascus gave its green light to a mission by UN inspectors.
"The fact is that much of the evidence could have been destroyed by that artillery bombardment," he cautioned during a press conference after Damascus gave its green light to a mission by UN inspectors.
Syria To Allow Inspection Of Alleged Chemical Weapons Attack; US Rebuffs, Says "Too Late'
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/25/2013 - 09:53
Moments ago, Syria relented to the main gating condition that would prevent an all out escalation, and as Russia urged it to, has permitted an inspection of last Wednesday's alleged chemical weapons attack by UN inspectors. The WSJ reports that "Syria would allow United Nations inspectors currently present in Damascus immediate access to areas around the capital where the opposition accused the regime of using chemical weapons against fighters and civilians five days ago. A presenter on Syrian state television reading a statement attributed to an unnamed official at the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the agreement was reached after a meeting between Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem and Angela Kane, the U.N. disarmament chief, who arrived in Damascus on Saturday." Of course, since demand for said inspection was just a straw man as the last time the UN inspected a "certain" chemical weapons attack by Assad it found "rebels may have used sarin" instead, and the US was absolutely certain Syria would not relent to an inspection thus allowing a full scale military attack, the US is now downplaying compliance with this key demand, by saying it is too little too late.Distribution Of US, French And UK Forces Near Syria
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/24/2013 - 22:34
While the United States is repositioning its naval forces in the Mediterranean as it considers a possible military response to recent developments in Syria (as reported and shown yesterday), at least two other nations are joining in preparation for a naval offensive against the Middle Eastern nation.Syria allows UN probe on chemical weapons to go forward - this is going forward because the Syria Government knows the claims are BS !
http://rt.com/news/syria-green-light-chemical-inspection-967/
Syrian govt greenlights UN chemical weapons probe
Syria has given the “green light” for UN experts to visit the site of an alleged chemical weapons attack in a Damascus suburb, state TV reports, citing the Foreign Ministry.
"An agreement was concluded today (Sunday) in Damascus between the Syrian government and the United Nations during the visit of the UN high representative for disarmament, Angela Kane, to allow the UN team led by professor Aake Sellstroem to investigate allegations of chemical weapons use in Damascus province," a ministry statement said.
The agreement "is effective immediately".
The UN said its chemical weapons experts will start probing the site in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta as early as Monday.
Syrian authorities pledge to impose a ceasefire during the UN team inspection.
The announcement comes amidst a media build up implying that Western powers accuse Assad’s government for the toxic gas attack on August 21 that reportedly killed anywhere between ‘dozens’ to ‘1,300’ people in a Damascus suburb.
Earlier Britain and the US suggested the Syrian government was reluctant to give a UN investigative team access to the site of the reported attack because it “has something to hide” and wants to give the evidence time to degrade.
Shortly before the move, a senior US official said there was "very little doubt" that a chemical weapon had been used by Assad's forces.
The agreement comes despite the fact that earlier in the day the Syrian Information Minister, Omran Zoabi said that Damascus would cooperate "significantly and transparently" with UN investigations but would not allow any "inspection that will prejudice national sovereignty".
Meanwhile, Western officials stated they are considering “a serious response” from the international community if it is proven that government forces used chemical weapons against civilians.
On Saturday, British PM David Cameron’s spokesperson said that both the UK and the US have tasked officials to examine all the options.
From earlier today....
Syria gives green light to UN chemical arms probe
Sun Aug 25, 2013 1:8PM GMT
0
The Syrian government has given green light to the UN team of chemical weapons inspectors to investigate the site of the recent alleged chemical attack in the country.
The agreement was made on Sunday during a meeting between the UN High Representative for Disarmament Angela Kane and the Syrian government officials.
The UN team led by Aake Sellstroem will probe the alleged attack in Damascus suburbs.
UK once again replays its role from Iraq - sock puppet for the US !
UK seems to be wavering somewhat - especially the military. Still lurching for an intervention...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10264658/David-Cameron-to-give-Syria-ultimatum.html
9:00PM BST 24 Aug 2013
369 Comments
The Prime Minister spoke with President Barack Obama by telephone to ask for help with convening an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council.
He wants to put forward a “game-changing” resolution that would give the Syrian government, led by Bashar al-Assad, “one last chance” to disarm.
Mr Cameron is said to have been left sickened by images of children killed by the chemical weapons.
One charity yesterday said at least 355 people had died and 10 times that number were treated for poisoning.
Britain and France have blamed the Assad regime for the chemical attack.
On Saturday night four American destroyers were moving closer to Syria, armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles, which are capable of precision strikes.
Gen Sir Nick Houghton, the Chief of the Defence Staff, is to take part in a summit in Jordan tomorrow with his US, French, Turkish, Saudi Arabian and Qatari counterparts.
It follows the strongest indications to date from Washington that direct military intervention by the West was possible in the conflict.
Diplomats talked of a “change in the American posture” following the attack on the suburb of East Ghouta on Wednesday.
Mr Cameron’s officials were drafting the text of a resolution to put before the UN said to be modelled on one that offered Saddam Hussein, the late Iraq leader, “a final opportunity” to disarm in 2002.
The move risks a public row with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, who does not want any action taken against his ally.
But US officials were studying the Kosovo conflict, in which Nato launched weeks of air strikes without UN support and in the teeth of Russian opposition.
The Prime Minister is also to hold a meeting of the National Security Council. However, senior military figures have said privately that the “window of opportunity” for a successful intervention in Syria has long been closed.
Three Syrian hospitals yesterday told the humanitarian group Médecins Sans Frontières that they had received around 3,600 patients suffering from symptoms related to the attack. Of these, 355 had reportedly died.
President Assad’s regime has denied that it has used chemical weapons , describing the claims as “absolutely baseless".
( US appears to be posturing as a voice of reason , while scheming with the GCC and Western clique to bomb Syria at the first opportunity )
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, along with key ally Britain, strongly suggested that a chemical attack was the reason for scores of civilian deaths in Syria this week but continued to push for a U.N. investigation before committing to any punishment for President Bashar Assad’s regime.
Whether the death toll is more than 1,000, as Syrian opposition figures claim, or in the low hundreds, as visible in photographs and videos from the scene in an eastern suburb of Damascus, officials sounded increasingly confident that some type of chemical agent was used.
So far, however, a U.N. inspection team that’s now inside Syria hasn’t been granted access to examine the site in Ghouta, leaving the United States and its partners caught between global outrage over the disturbing images and the need for conclusive evidence before vowing a response. If confirmed, it would be the most flagrant violation yet of President Barack Obama’s “red line,” which already was breached with small-scale chemical attacks before this week’s mass-casualty assault, according to the administration.
Obama defended his wait-and-see approach to Syria, though he suggested that the window for U.S. action was narrowing. In an interview on CNN, he called the latest potential chemical weapons attack “clearly a big event of grave concern” and said that U.S. officials are pushing for action from the U.N. – and for the Syrian government to allow investigators access to the site.
A U.S. defense official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to speak candidly, told McClatchy late Friday that a fourth Navy destroyer equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles was moved closer to Syria on Thursday.
But the official said any reports of preparations for a possible missile attack were “way overstated,” and he said the three warships already in place in the eastern Mediterranean Sea had more than enough firepower to launch an attack were one to be made.
Senior U.S. officials are in close touch with their counterparts in allied European and Arab nations to discuss options for a response, presumably some form of military intervention. The administration has garnered scorn from Syrian opposition figures and rebels for waiting out the conflict, now in its third year. More than 100,000 have been killed, and it is now a bloody fight between rebel forces with al Qaida backing and a regime that’s supported by Iran, Russia and the Lebanese militants of Hezbollah.
Obama warned in the CNN interview that the notion that the U.S. could solve a “sectarian, complex” conflict like Syria is “overstated.” But he added that “when you start seeing chemical weapons used on a large scale, that starts getting to some core national interests.”
Jeffrey White, a defense fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a research center, said that if the chemical weapons story holds up to scrutiny, Obama will be under intense pressure to respond with some form of direct military action, short of sending in forces. But he said that so far the administration has resisted such calls to strike, and there’s no guarantee that would change even with a solid finding of chemical weapons use.
“Based on what they’ve done so far, I can’t say they will (take military action),” White said. “Proposals have gone to the White House and died there, fast.”
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Friday that the attack “is not something that a humane or civilized world can ignore.” But he echoed Obama in saying that the international priority was getting the U.N. team into the area to investigate. If Assad doesn’t grant access within days, Hague said, the evidence would deteriorate and then “we will need to be ready to go back to the Security Council to get a stronger mandate.”
Even Russia, which continues to support Assad politically and with weapons, is urging the regime to allow the inspectors access, according to statements from Moscow. The Syrian government has denied the chemical weapons allegations, but it hasn’t made public statements about whether it would allow the U.N. inspectors into Ghouta.
“Right now, we just see the Assad regime that is standing in the way of that investigation, and that’s something that we’re quite concerned about and that puts the Assad regime not just at odds with the United States and with the U.N. investigative team that’s there, but with the broader international community,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Friday.
When asked whether Obama would be considering unilateral action, Earnest said that the president is “committed to working with the international community on this” and noted the “encouraging statement from the Russians.”
Assad isn’t the only holdup to an investigation; another potential snag is the U.N.’s own risk assessment about traveling into such a volatile area. Kevin Kennedy, a retired Marine colonel who’s in charge of U.N. security, told reporters Friday that his office hadn’t yet determined whether it was safe enough for the inspectors to visit Ghouta, according to The Cable blog on the website of Foreign Policy.
“There’s places in Syria we’ve not gone to for months simply because it’s just not safe to go and we can’t mitigate the risk,” Kennedy told a small group of reporters at the U.N., according to the report.
Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, is scheduled to attend a high-level meeting in Jordan next week to discuss the security situation in the region and the ongoing crises in neighboring countries, particularly Syria. Top military leaders from Britain, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, France, Germany, Italy and Canada also will attend the meeting, which has been planned since June.
From afar, an increasing number of world experts on chemical weapons are more confident than in previous alleged attacks that such arms were used in Ghouta. Because they don’t have firsthand access to witnesses, soil samples and other evidence, the analysts are carefully studying a flurry of amateur videos posted online that show shrapnel from the purported delivery systems and dozens of people suffering symptoms that are consistent with the effects of nerve agents.
“The exact nature of the agent or agents is impossible to determine from the pictures or film footage, even though a minority of people seem to show outward signs of exposure to a neurointoxicant,” a family of compounds that includes bug sprays at one end of the spectrum and the warfare agents sarin and VX at the other, Jean Pascal Zanders, a chemical weapons expert at the European Union Institute for Security Studies, wrote in a blog post Friday.
“As the location and time of film footage cannot be ascertained, it is impossible to say whether the civilians were exposed to a mixture of toxic agents or different agents were released over different suburbs,” Zanders wrote. “Images of dead birds, cats and dogs tend to support impressions of a large volume of a rather fast-acting agent having been released in some locations.”
Dan Kaszeta, a chemical and biological warfare expert who runs the consulting firm Strongpoint Security, emphasized that without access to the scene, researchers will have a very difficult time determining exactly what happened.
“One issue is that you can’t really test for sarin gas, you test for chemicals that are released as it decomposes,” he said, adding that hospitals in Lebanon or Syria probably don’t have the state-of-the-art chemical laboratories to carry out the tests.
There’s a wide range of reported casualties, which only adds to the confusion and fuels the accusations of the pro-Assad camp that the opposition is exaggerating the numbers in hopes of inviting foreign military intervention that could help collapse the Syrian regime.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-rebel monitoring group based in London, said on its Facebook page that it has documented the deaths of 136 people, including dozens of women and children, in the Ghouta attacks. A representative of the group said in an online interview that researchers were combing through hundreds of other names of purported victims and expects the final casualty figures to increase.
State Department officials say they’ve received reports that between 1,000 and 1,800 people were killed, figures that have been put forth by opposition figures.
How long before Americans get fed up with having no actual say in their government ?
http://rt.com/news/syria-obama-serious-response-952/
( American public opinion largely against intervention , meanwhile western politicians plan to intervene anyway )
Americans oppose Syria intervention, as West mulls ‘serious response’
As Obama’s advisers have presented options for responding to an alleged chemical attack in Syria, the US president and British PM agreed on Saturday that “use of chemical weapons would merit a serious response.”
However, the American public shows no willingness to get involved in another costly conflict in the Middle East, a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll suggests.
Only 9 percent of the surveyed believe President Barack Obama should take action on Syria, while some 60 percent of Americans said the United States should not intervene in Syria's bloody civil war.
According to the poll taken on August 19-23, 25 percent of Americans would back intervention if it is proven that the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons against civilians, while almost double that number – 46 percent – would still oppose such a move.
Obama discussed the latest developments in Syria with British PM David Cameron on Saturday and both expressed grave concern over the alleged Wednesday attack. "They reiterated that significant use of chemical weapons would merit a serious response from the international community and both have tasked officials to examine all the options," said a spokesperson for Cameron.
On Saturday, Obama received a "detailed review of a range of potential options" he requested his advisers to prepare for the US and the international community to respond to the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria. The statement from the White House did not provide any details about the options presented. “In coordination with international partners and mindful of the dozens of contemporaneous witness accounts and records of the symptoms of those killed, the US intelligence community continues to gather facts to ascertain what occurred,” the statement read.
Speaking at a press conference in Malaysia on Sunday, US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel indicated that the US military is ready to exercise options on Syria, should Obama choose military action. “President Obama has asked the Defense Department to prepare options for all contingencies. We have done that and we are prepared to exercise whatever option - if he decides to employ one of those options," Hagel told reporters.
Earlier on Friday he suggested that the Pentagon is moving naval forces closer to Syria in preparation for a possible decision by Obama. Reports say that among the military options under consideration are missile strikes on Syrian units believed to be responsible for chemical attacks, or on Assad's air force and ballistic missile sites.
Earlier on Friday he suggested that the Pentagon is moving naval forces closer to Syria in preparation for a possible decision by Obama. Reports say that among the military options under consideration are missile strikes on Syrian units believed to be responsible for chemical attacks, or on Assad's air force and ballistic missile sites.
Obama himself, however, has been cautious about intervention in Syria. In Friday's interview with CNN, the president said the United States should be wary of “being drawn into very expensive, difficult, costly interventions that actually breed more resentment in the region.”
The Syrian government, which blames rebel forces for the alleged attack, has warned against any military action against Damascus, saying such a move would set the Middle East ablaze. Meanwhile on Saturday, Syrian state media reported that rebels have used chemical weapons against regime forces in the Damascus suburb of Jobar, where soldiers discovered stockpiles of toxic poisoning antidotes.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has said that nearly 3,600 patients with neurotoxic symptoms were treated in three Damascus hospitals on the day a toxic gas attack was reported, while 355 patients were reportedly pronounced dead.
The international medical humanitarian organization said it received information from hospitals it has been supporting in Syria. At the same time, MSF director of operations, Dr. Bart Janssens said in a press-release published on the organization’s webpage that they are unable to “establish who is responsible for the attack”.
The international medical humanitarian organization said it received information from hospitals it has been supporting in Syria. At the same time, MSF director of operations, Dr. Bart Janssens said in a press-release published on the organization’s webpage that they are unable to “establish who is responsible for the attack”.
The revelation by MSF happened within a week of a UN investigative team entering the country to examine three different sites of alleged chemical weapons usage. It was also just hours after UN disarmament chief, Angela Kane, arrived in the Syrian capital of Damascus to apply pressure on the Syrian government to grant access to the site of the reported attack in the Damascus suburbs on Wednesday.
Moscow has commented that it was monitoring events surrounding the alleged attack. “We’re getting more new evidence that this criminal act was of a provocative nature,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Aleksandr Lukashevich, said in a statement on Friday.
“In particular, there are reports circulating on the Internet that the materials of the incident and accusations against government troops had been posted for several hours before the so-called attack. Thus, it was a pre-planned action,” he said.
Professor of International Law at Georgetown University, Daoud Khairallah, told RT that the US would not act without verifiable evidence.
“The US can’t take any action without verifiable evidence about who is the party who is responsible. If it turns out that it was the rebels that used this poisonous material, the US will be embarrassed because it will be the allies of US, the opposition the US has been supporting and claiming that these are people who are seeking democracy and rule of law in Syria.”
“The US would like to prove that it was the regime who has done this, but it has not been independently proved or verified and without independent verification I doubt that Obama will act. Obama did say that ‘we need to be sure who has used these weapons, evaluate the costs to the US both financially and morally, we need international approval.’”
http://www.debka.com/article/23220/Western-Mid-East-military-action-prepared-for-Syria-Israel-Jordan-Turkey-face-up-to-Syrian-counter-attack-Russia-on-war-alert
( Alleged intervention planning - Coalition of the willing seem to include Israel , US , Jordan , France , Uk , Saudis , Turkey , Qatar , Italy and Canada )
Western and Middle East powers led by Washington began moving Saturday night and Sunday morning, Aug. 25, toward a first strike against Syria following the Assad regime’s large-scale chemical attack in eastern Damascus last Wednesday. The first targeted strike may well signal the start of a series of US-led attacks aimed at toppling the Assad regime, DEBKAfile’s military sources report. They may consist of imposing a no-fly zone and the sealing off of sectors in northern and southern Syria against government forces.
Russian forces also went on war alert
President Barack Obama and UK Prime Minister David Cameron spent 40 minutes on the phone Saturday night amid the strongest indications to date from Washington that direct military intervention by the West was approaching, following a change in the US president’s posture. He has become convinced that the strike would have to be conducted outside the United Nations.
Military commanders from Western and Muslim countries are meeting Sunday in the Jordanian capital of Amman to coordinate action in Syria, with the participation of the US, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, France, Italy and Canada. Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the US Chiefs of Staff chairs the meeting. Saturday night, four American destroyers were moving closer to Syria, armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles, which are capable of precision strikes.
While Western media are reporting at length on Western, Arab and Muslim military preparations, Israel’s armed forces are moving ahead in secrecy. Its officials spread soothing statements asserting Israel’s non-involvement in the Syrian turmoil, as Israel’s military and intelligence agencies get ready for Syria to counter an attack by loosing missiles against their country as well as Jordan and Turkey. All three also expect an explosion of terrorism.
Saturday night, Syrian information minister Omran al-Zoubi, while denying his government was responsible for Wednesday’s poison gas attack, stated over state television that if Syria came under attack, “a mass of flames will ignite the Middle East.”
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Moscow has placed on war alert Russia’s Mediterranean and Black Sea fleets as well as rapid deployment forces in southern and central Russia.
Three Syrian hospitals told the humanitarian group Médecins Sans Frontières Saturday that they had received around 3,600 patients suffering from symptoms related to a poison gas attack. Of these, 355 had reportedly died.
According to DEBKAfile’s sources, Western demands for proof of the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons before taking action have been countered in the last few hours by the discovery that the forensic evidence will be all but impossible to obtain in view of the special mixture contained in the gas shells. Only tiny quantities of sarin were blended in with a large quantity of riot control agents, a formula developed by Iran to camouflage the use of chemical weapons.
http://rt.com/news/iran-warns-us-red-line-961/
( Iran warns West not to cross Syria red line - are they serious or just bluffing... )
Iran has warned the US not to cross “the red line” on Syria threatening it would have “severe consequences” for the White House. This follows a statement from Syrian officials who said a strike would create “very serious fallout” for the whole region.
"America knows the limitation of the red line of the Syrian front and any crossing of Syria's red line will have severe consequences for the White House," the Iranian Fars news agency quoted deputy chief of staff of Iran's armed forces, Massoud Jazayeri, as saying.
Syrian authorities also warned the United States against any military intervention, saying this would"inflame the Middle East".
"US military intervention will create very serious fallout and a ball of fire that will inflame the Middle East,"Information Minister Omran Zoabi told the Syrian state news agency, SANA.
The warning comes as Western officials stated they are considering “a serious response” from the international community to the alleged use of chemical weapons in the Arab state.
On Saturday, British PM David Cameron’s spokesperson said that both the UK and the US have tasked officials to examine all the options.
At the same time, US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said that the Defense Department is “prepared to exercise whatever option - if he [Obama] decides to employ one of those options".
Earlier on Friday Hagel suggested the Pentagon might move naval forces closer to Syria in case Obama decides to proceed.
However, US media reports that four US Navy Destroyers – USS Ramage, USS Gravely, USS Barry and USS Mahan – are being pre-positioned in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, although officials stress that the US Navy has received no orders to prepare for military action.
All four warships are said to have been equipped with cruise missiles.
It was initially planned that the USS Mahan would be replaced with the recently arrived USS Ramage, but navy commanders decided to change the agenda and now have four warships in the region instead of three.
Also, reports say that among the military options under consideration are missile strikes on Syrian units believed to be responsible for chemical attacks, or on Assad's air force and ballistic missile sites.
Syrian rebels fighting to oust President Bashar Assad have accused government forces of attacking people in the Damascus suburbs with toxic gas on Wednesday, claiming it killed anywhere between ‘dozens’ to ‘1,300’.
Official Damascus has dismissed the accusations and in response blames rebel forces for the alleged attack. Earlier Syrian government said that in light of the event it was ready to engage in “maximum”cooperation with UN experts, according to Russia’s foreign ministry.
Following the August 21 attack reports, Russia’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement suggesting the alleged attack was a provocation on behalf of the rebel forces.
“A homemade rocket with a poisonous substance that has not been identified yet – one similar to the rocket used by terrorists on March 19 in Khan al-Assal - was fired early on August 21 [at Damascus suburbs] from a position occupied by the insurgents,” the Ministry then said in a statement.
Western powers, however, suspect Assad’s forces and demand that the UN team be allowed to examine the scene of the recent attack in a Damascus suburb. The UN team arrived in Syria on Sunday to inspect three sites under an agreement reached with Syrian authorities.
French President Francois Hollande stated on Sunday there was "a body of evidence indicating that the August 21 attack was chemical in nature and that everything led to the belief that the Syrian regime was responsible for this unspeakable act".
Iran claims that the Syrian government had told Tehran it would allow UN inspectors to visit the site of the reported attack.
However, a report on state-owned SANA suggested UN inspectors would not be allowed to visit the site of the recent reported attack because it was not part of a previously agreed list of locations.
Damascus would cooperate "significantly and transparently" with UN investigations but not allow any"inspection that will prejudice national sovereignty", SANA quoted Information Minister Omran Zoabi as saying.
At the same time the still volatile situation in Syria is set to deteriorate even further with opposition forces claiming to have received military aid from Turkey. Also Al-Qaeda’s affiliated bloc Al Nusra, involved in anti-government fighting, pledged in a YouTube video to target Alawite villages and towns in response to the alleged chemical attack.
Syria denies using chemical weapons - in fact they point the finger for its usage at the Rebel forces ( does it matter to the West at this point ? ) Death toll significantly lower than initial estimates - and is any of this reliable and from unbiased sources ( does that matter at this point ? )
Links to consider....
“Doctors” Behind Syrian Chemical Weapons Claims are Aiding Terrorists
Tony Cartalucci
Infowars.com
August 25, 2013
Infowars.com
August 25, 2013
The “evidence” upon which the West is propping up its narrative of the Syrian government using chemical weapons against large numbers of civilians hinges so far entirely on claims made by “Doctors Without Borders.” In the New York Times article, “Signs of Chemical Attack Detailed by Aid Group,” it is reported:
An international aid group said Saturday that medical centers it supported near the site of a suspected chemical weapons attack near Damascus received more than 3,000 patients showing symptoms consistent with exposure to toxic nerve agents on the morning of the reported attack.Of those, 355 died, said the group, Doctors Without Borders.The statement is the first issued by an international organization working in Syria about the attack on Wednesday in the suburbs northeast of Damascus, the capital.
While it is often described by the Western media as “independent,” nothing could be further from the truth.
To begin with, Doctors Without Borders is fully funded by the very same corporate financier interests behind Wall Street and London’s collective foreign policy, including regime change in Syria and neighboring Iran. Doctors Without Borders’ own annual report (2010 report can be accessed here), includes as financial donors, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Google, Microsoft, Bloomberg, Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital, and a myriad of other corporate-financier interests. Doctors Without Borders also features bankers upon its Board of Advisers including Elizabeth Beshel Robinson of Goldman Sachs.
Complicating further Doctors Without Borders so-called “independ” and “aid” claims is the fact that their medical facilities are set up in terrorist held regions of Syria, especially along Syria’s northern border with NATO-member Turkey. In an interview with NPR, Doctors Without Borders’ Stephen Cornish revealed the nature of his organization’s involvement in the Syrian conflict, where he explains that aid is being sent to regions outside of the Syrian government’s control, and that his organization is in fact setting up facilities in these areas. Cornish admits [emphasis added]:
Over the past months, we’ve had a surgery that was opened inside a cave. We’ve had another that was opened in a chicken farm, a third one in a house. And these structures, we’ve tried to outfit them as best as we can with enough modern technology and with full medical teams. They originally were dealing mainly with combatant injuries and people who were – civilians who were directly affected by the conflict.
In other words, the Wall Street-funded organization is providing support for militants armed and funded by the West and its regional allies, most of whom are revealed to be foreign fighters, affiliated with or directly belonging to Al Qaeda and its defacto political wing, the Muslim Brotherhood. This so-called “international aid” organization is in actuality yet another cog in the covert military machine being turned against Syria and serves the role as a medical battalion.
The “hospitals” in Damascus being supported by Doctors Without Borders are in areas now under threat of being retaken by government forces, and it’s these facilities that the Western media is drawing on for “evidence” that first, a chemical attack took place, and second, that it was the government who carried it out. What the Western media is not telling their audiences, is that even Doctors Without Borders admits their own team members are not present at these medical facilities and have only been sending supplies to them – in other words, this evidence is hearsay emanating from terrorist held areas, merely dressed up and spun as actual evidence from a so-called “reputable” international organization.
In Doctors Without Borders’ own official statement, it was reported that:
Since 2012, MSF has built a strong and reliable collaboration with medical networks, hospitals and medical points in the Damascus governorate, and has been providing them with drugs, medical equipment and technical support. Due to significant security risks, MSF staff members have not been able to access the facilities.
It was further explained that:
“MSF can neither scientifically confirm the cause of these symptoms nor establish who is responsible for the attack,” said Dr. Janssens.
It is most likely hoped that the vast majority of those reading their news simply take the compromised Western media for their word and never bother to read what Doctors Without Borders actually is doing in Syria or what they even really said regarding the most recent incident. A similar routine was used in Libya where Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International spent their legitimacy attempting to create a pretext for Western military intervention there.
US Set to Launch ‘Iraq, The Sequel’, in Syria
If you liked the run up to the US attack on Iraq, with the lurid fictional tales of mobile chemical weapons labs and Saddam’s nukes, you will love “Iraq, The Sequel”, currently unfolding in Syria. It is everything the interventionists have been hoping for: a heady brew of Kosovo, Iraq, and Libya all rolled into one. The possibility for an infinitely more toxic conflagration is exponentially higher, to boot, adding for the interventionists much excitement to the mix.
Here is the latest:
A fourth US warship capable of launching the type of cruise missiles that turned Libya to rubble and paved the way for al-Qaeda affiliates to take control of that country is now rushing to the waters off of Syria, ready to unleash destruction. Chuck Hagel, who some antiwar commentators foolishly believed would put an end to Washington’s military adventurism, is feverishly preparing plans for President Obama to attack. The media worldwide, interventionist to the core, is pushing willing leaders in the US, France, and the UK to finally treat Syria to another devastating “liberation.”
What has prompted this sudden dramatic move just over the past few days toward a Western invasion of Syria? A pretext. A claimed chemical attack near Damascus that has produced, according to an estimate from Médecins Sans Frontières, perhaps some 300 deaths. It is unclear whether a bona fide chemical attack has taken place, and it is even more unclear who might be responsible should the attack indeed be the work of some chemical agent. Yet all of a sudden another Washington/Paris/London war is to be set in motion. How banal the triggers for war have become. Almost like a video game.
Somehow we are supposed to believe that within 72 hours after the arrival of a UN chemical weapons inspection team to assess — with the Syrian government’s cooperation — the sites of previous claimed chemical weapons attacks, that same Syrian government would launch a chemical weapon attack on civilians just miles from where the UN inspectors are staying. The UN inspectors were there on invitation from the Syrian government and that same government would launch chemicals right into their neighborhood.
Unless Assad is indeed suicidally insane, which he has given no indication of being heretofore, it quite simply makes no sense. Why risk the overt wrath of the entire rest of the world — alienating even your final allies in Iran and Russia — for so measly a gain: killing 300 civilians in a war to the death against US/Saudi/Turk supported jihadists? There is no military justification and no justification at all short of the Assad clan being a Middle Eastern form of the Manson Family. Is that the argument?
As the always thoughtful Moon of Alabama blog points out, the hypocrisy of the West is stunning. Based exclusively on reporting by the Syrian opposition itself, some sort of substance has killed anywhere from 100-360 people outside Damascus, and the West is ready for war. Meanwhile, just over a week ago, the Egyptian military massacred more than a thousand unarmed Muslim Brotherhood protestors in Egypt and the West not only did not condemn the act but has endorsed further crackdowns against supporters of the duly elected government in Egypt — in the name of democracy.
Thousands killed by the US allied Egyptian military is glossed over; dubious unconfirmed reports from highly biased sources, of a hundred or so killed in a war that has claimed by some estimates 100,000 lives, and the warships steam toward a date with destruction. Why are these 100 killed any different than those thousands of Syrians killed with CIA supplied weapons in case after documented case of Syrian insurgent atrocities? No answer.
Credible reports coming from the pro-government press in Syria that the rebels have time and time again — including just yesterday — used crude chemical agents in their fight to overthrow the government are routinely ignored by the same Western media that dutifully reports every utterance from the rebels’ own mouthpiece, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
However, the claims that chemical agents were used has come under very skeptical scrutiny from those who understand such matters. Although the press with its signature lack of curiosity is reporting breathlessly on the preparations for war (it’s good for ratings and for the profits of their military-industrial complex invested corporate owners), there are thankfully still some media outlets willing to consider those odd things called facts.
The Israeli Haaretz newspaper is one of those, and it reports (via Sic Semper Tyrannis blog) that those who know a bit about chemical warfare are unconvinced by Syrian insurgent reports of chemical weapons use.
Western experts on chemical warfare who have examined at least part of the footage are skeptical that weapons-grade chemical substances were used, although they all emphasize that serious conclusions cannot be reached without thorough on-site examination. Dan Kaszeta, a former officer of the U.S. Army’s Chemical Corps and a leading private consultant, pointed out a number of details absent from the footage so far: “None of the people treating the casualties or photographing them are wearing any sort of chemical-warfare protective gear,” he says, “and despite that, none of them seem to be harmed.” This would seem to rule out most types of military-grade chemical weapons, including the vast majority of nerve gases, since these substances would not evaporate immediately, especially if they were used in sufficient quantities to kill hundreds of people, but rather leave a level of contamination on clothes and bodies which would harm anyone coming in unprotected contact with them in the hours after an attack. In addition, he says that “there are none of the other signs you would expect to see in the aftermath of a chemical attack, such as intermediate levels of casualties, severe visual problems, vomiting and loss of bowel control.”Steve Johnson, a leading researcher on the effects of hazardous material exposure at England’s Cranfield University who has worked with Britain’s Ministry of Defense on chemical warfare issues, agrees that “from the details we have seen so far, a large number of casualties over a wide area would mean quite a pervasive dispersal. With that level of chemical agent, you would expect to see a lot of contamination on the casualties coming in ,and it would affect those treating them who are not properly protected. We are not seeing that here.” Additional questions also remain unanswered, especially regarding the timing of the attack, being that it occurred on the exact same day that a team of UN inspectors was in Damascus to investigate earlier claims of chemical weapons use. It is also unclear what tactical goal the Syrian army would have been trying to achieve, when over the last few weeks it has managed to push back the rebels who were encroaching on central areas of the capital. But if this was not a chemical weapons attack, what then caused the deaths of so many people without any external signs of trauma?
Tomahawk missiles may be flying by the time you read this article. But do not make the mistake of believing the lies being told to make the case for another war. This is another war based entirely on lies and the result will be the destruction of the people of Syria. Another war crime under cover of “humantiarian intervention.”
Links to consider....
http://www.moonofalabama.org/
August 24, 2013
What Is The Sudden Issue With Syria?
According to the insurgency supporting Syrian Observatory 136 people have been killed two days ago by some unknown substance released during ongoing fights by unknown perpetrators in some villages east of Damascus.Based on that Washington is now all giddy about waging open war on Syria.
A few days ago the Egyptian military killed hundred of Muslim Brothers who were protesting against a military coup against the elected government.
Washington didn't care.
And what actually makes the hundred something people killed by some unknown substance in Syria different from those killed in Syria by the 3,500 tons of weapons the CIA got from Croatia and distributed to the insurgents in Syria?
I do not think that the U.S. will in any outright way attack Syria. The unknowns for the U.S., including the potential reactions by Russia and China, are just too many and too big.
Death dealers have gotten busy supplying tools of the trade....And I'm not just talking about Turkey and GCC countries....
400 tonnes of arms sent to rebels after chemical attack
"Twenty trailers crossed from Turkey and are being distributed to arms depots for several brigades across the north," Mohammad Salam, a rebel operative who witnessed the crossing from an undisclosed location in Hatay, told Reuters.
World Bullletin / News Desk
Four hundred tonnes of arms have been sent into Syria from Turkey to boost insurgent capabilities against Syrian government forces, opposition sources said, after a suspected chemical weapons strike on rebellious suburbs of Damascus.
The source said the Gulf-financed shipment, which crossed from the Turkish province of Hatay in the past 24 hours, was one of the single biggest to reach rebel brigades since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad turned violent two years ago.
"Twenty trailers crossed from Turkey and are being distributed to arms depots for several brigades across the north," Mohammad Salam, a rebel operative who witnessed the crossing from an undisclosed location in Hatay, told Reuters.
A senior officer in the Gulf and Western backed Supreme Military Council, an umbrella group for rebel units, confirmed the shipment, and said that weapons airlifts into Turkey have increased since rebel held neighborhood and suburbs of Damascus were gassed last week.
Syrian opposition accounts that between 500 and well over 1,000 civilians were killed this week by gas in munitions fired by pro-government forces, and video footage of victims' bodies, have increased calls abroad for military intervention after 2 1/2 years of international inaction on Syria's conflict.
Syrian authorities sought to avert blame on Saturday by saying its soldiers had found chemical weapons in suburban Damascus tunnels used by rebels. But Western powers have cited preliminary evidence indicating that Syrian government forces were behind the chemical attack, and the United States is repositioning naval forces in the Mediterranean to give US President Barack Obama the option of a military strike.
Iran's foreign minister said the Syrian government had told Tehran it would allow U.N. inspectors to visit areas reportedly affected by chemical weapons, Iran's Press TV said on Sunday.
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/jack-kelly/obama-administration-covers-up-missile-theft-700500/
Obama administration covers up missile theft
August 23, 2013 4:40 pm
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The Obama administration is covering up the theft of 400 surface to air missiles by "some very ugly people," the lawyer for a Benghazi whistleblower told WMAL Radio in Washington D.C. last week.
Joe DiGenova, a former U.S. attorney, represents Mark Thompson, who was Deputy Coordinator for Operations in the State Department's Bureau of Counterterrorism.
He was referring to MANPADS (man portable air defense systems) such as the American Stinger or the Russian SA-24. They're now in the hands of al Qaida, Mr. DiGenova said.
The theft was the reason why the administration shut down 22 diplomatic missions, he said.
"They were afraid that there was going to be a missile attack on one of the embassies," Mr. DiGenova said.
Fear that U.S. troops coming to the rescue might be shot down may also be why no help was sent during the seven hour siege of our consulate in Benghazi and its annex on 9/11/2012, he said.
"We had troops in Croatia ready to deploy," Mr. DiGenova said.
A former diplomat told him AFRICOM "had special ops assets in place that could have come to the aid of the Benghazi consulate immediately," Roger Simon of PJ Media reported in May.
He didn't know whether the missiles were taken from the CIA annex, but "it's clear" the annex was "somehow involved" in distributing them, Mr. DiGenova said. He didn't say to whom.
MANPADS from Libya have been reported in the hands of Somali pirates, an Islamist militia in Niger, and Syrian rebels.
Libyan dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi bought thousands of MANPADS from Russia over the years, which fell into Islamist hands when he was overthrown, Con Coughlin, defense editor for the London Telegraph, wrote in October 2011.
The CIA annex "had been a base for, among other things, collecting information on the proliferation of weaponry looted from Libyan government arsenals, including surface-to-air missiles," Reuters News Service reported last October.
Rebels had MANPADS before Qaddafi fell. They used them to shoot down Libyan air force aircraft during the civil war.
The rebels got some early in the conflict from raids on regime weapons depots.
Rebels showed him Stinger missiles, a reporter for the Australian Broadcasting Company said in March, 2011. There's an enormous difference in capability between the modern Stinger and the old Soviet SA-7s (first manufactured in 1972) looted from the regime's arsenals.
Perhaps Ben Knight, the Aussie reporter, was using the term to describe MANPADS generally. But rebel leaders specifically requested Stingers. The rebels were getting Stingers from foreign sources, Khadafy's intelligence service suspected.
Ambassador Chris Stevens was in Benghazi on 9/11/2012 to buy back from al Qaida groups Stinger missiles "issued to them by the State Department," Mr. Simon said he was told by two former diplomats.
The CIA was against giving missiles to insurgents for fear they would fall into the wrong hands, but Secretary Clinton wanted "to overthrow Khadafy on the cheap," one of his sources told him, Mr. Simon said.
"This left Stevens in the position of having to clean up the scandalous enterprise when it became clear that the 'insurgents' actually were al-Qaeda," he wrote.
Whatever was going on, the administration is going to considerable lengths to conceal it.
There were "dozens" of CIA operatives at the annex on 9/11/2012, CNN reported Aug. 1. Survivors "have been subjected to frequent, even monthly polygraph examinations."
"The goal of the questioning, according to sources, is to find out if anyone is talking to the media or Congress," CNN said. "It is being described as pure intimidation, with the threat that any unauthorized CIA employee who leaks information could face the end of his or her career."
The administration is "dispersing" witnesses across the country, and is changing their names to hide the truth from Congress, charged Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-SC, a member of the House Oversight Committee investigating Benghazi, and a former federal prosecutor.
The Obama administration "did not take proper measures to secure the weapons," said Rep. Peter King, R-NY, who heads the Counterterrorism and Intelligence subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee.
"They are now responsible for all the stepchildren of violence that happens as a result of this," Mr. DiGenova said. "That's why they have lied repeatedly about what happened in Benghazi."
http://www.worldbulletin.net/?aType=haber&ArticleID=115988
( Turkey missiles being put to prompt use ... )
http://www.worldbulletin.net/?aType=haber&ArticleID=115988
( Turkey missiles being put to prompt use ... )
Nusra Front threatens to rocket villages in Assad stronghold
"For every chemical rocket that had fallen on our people in Damascus, one of their villages will, by the will of God, pay for it." Abu Mohammad al-Golani said.
World Bulletin / News Desk
The head of the Nusra Front has pledged to target villages in Assad stronghold with rockets in revenge for an alleged chemical attack on the outskirts of Damascus, according to an audio recording seen on Sunday.
"For every chemical rocket that had fallen on our people in Damascus, one of their villages will, by the will of God, pay for it," Abu Mohammad al-Golani said in the recording posted on YouTube.
"On top of that we will prepare a thousand rockets that will be fired on their towns in revenge for the Damascus Ghouta massacre."
