Fukushima radiation levels ’18 times higher’ than thought
Japanese Economy Minister Toshimitsu Motegi inspected the site on Monday
Radiation levels around Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant are 18 times higher than previously thought, Japanese authorities have warned.
Last week the plant’s operator reported radioactive water had leaked from a storage tank into the ground.
It now says readings taken near the leaking tank on Saturday showed radiation was high enough to prove lethal within four hours of exposure.
The plant was crippled by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) had originally said the radiation emitted by the leaking water was around 100 millisieverts an hour.
However, the company said the equipment used to make that recording could only read measurements of up to 100 millisieverts.
The new recording, using a more sensitive device, showed a level of 1,800 millisieverts an hour.
The new reading will have direct implications for radiation doses received by workers who spent several days trying to stop the leak last week, the BBC’s Rupert Wingfield-Hayes reports from Tokyo.
In addition, Tepco says it has discovered a leak on another pipe emitting radiation levels of 230 millisieverts an hour.
The plant has seen a series of water leaks and power failures.
The 2011 tsunami knocked out cooling systems to the reactors, three of which melted down.
The damage from the tsunami has necessitated the constant pumping of water to cool the reactors.
This is believed to be the fourth major leak from storage tanks at Fukushima since 2011 and the worst so far in terms of volume.
After the latest leak, Japan’s nuclear-energy watchdog raised the incident level from one to three on the international scale measuring the severity of atomic accidents, which has a maximum of seven.
Experts have said the scale of water leakage may be worse than officials have admitted.
Fukushima leak is ‘much worse than we were led to believe’
By Matt McGrathEnvironment correspondent, BBC News
Rupert Wingfield-Hayes travels to the source of the water being contaminated by Fukushima
A nuclear expert has told the BBC that he believes the current water leaks at Fukushima are much worse than the authorities have stated.
Mycle Schneider is an independent consultant who has previously advised the French and German governments.
He says water is leaking out all over the site and there are no accurate figures for radiation levels.
Meanwhile the chairman of Japan’s nuclear authority said that he feared there would be further leaks.
The ongoing problems at the Fukushima plant increased in recent days when the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) admitted that around 300 tonnes of highly radioactive water had leaked from a storage tank on the site.
Moment of crisis
The Japanese nuclear energy watchdog raised the incident level from one to three on the international scale that measures the severity of atomic accidents.
“Start Quote
It is leaking out from the basements, it is leaking out from the cracks all over the place”
Mycle SchneiderNuclear consultant
This was an acknowledgement that the power station was in its greatest crisis since the reactors melted down after the tsunami in 2011.
But some nuclear experts are concerned that the problem is a good deal worse than either Tepco or the Japanese government are willing to admit.
They are worried about the enormous quantities of water, used to cool the reactor cores, which are now being stored on site.
Some 1,000 tanks have been built to hold the water. But these are believed to be at around 85% of their capacity and every day an extra 400 tonnes of water are being added.
"The quantities of water they are dealing with are absolutely gigantic," said Mycle Schneider, who has consulted widely for a variety of organisations and countries on nuclear issues.
"What is the worse is the water leakage everywhere else – not just from the tanks. It is leaking out from the basements, it is leaking out from the cracks all over the place. Nobody can measure that.
Satellite images show how the number of water storage tanks has increased in the past two years. The tanks store contaminated water that has been used to cool the reactors.
"It is much worse than we have been led to believe, much worse," said Mr Schneider, who is lead author for the World Nuclear Industry status reports.
At news conference, the head of Japan’s nuclear regulation authority Shunichi Tanaka appeared to give credence to Mr Schneider’s concerns, saying that he feared there would be further leaks.
“We should assume that what has happened once could happen again, and prepare for more. We are in a situation where there is no time to waste," he told reporters.
The lack of clarity about the water situation and the continued attempts by Tepco to deny that water was leaking into the sea has irritated many researchers.
Dr Ken Buesseler is a senior scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who has examined the waters around Fukushima.
"It is not over yet by a long shot, Chernobyl was in many ways a one week fire-explosive event, nothing with the potential of this right on the ocean."
"We’ve been saying since 2011 that the reactor site is still leaking whether that’s the buildings and the ground water or these new tank releases. There’s no way to really contain all of this radioactive water on site."
"Once it gets into the ground water, like a river flowing to the sea, you can’t really stop a ground water flow. You can pump out water, but how many tanks can you keep putting on site?"
Several scientists also raised concerns about the vulnerability of the huge amount of stored water on site to another earthquake.
Water from the storage tanks has seeped into the groundwater and then into the sea. Efforts to use a chemical barrier to prevent sea contamination have not worked.
New health concerns
The storage problems are compounded by the ingress of ground water, running down from the surrounding hills. It mixes with radioactive water leaking out of the basements of the reactors and then some of it leaches into the sea, despite the best efforts of Tepco to stem the flow.
Some of the radioactive elements like caesium that are contained in the water can be filtered by the earth. Others are managing to get through and this worries watching experts.
"Our biggest concern right now is if some of the other isotopes such as strontium 90 which tend to be more mobile, get through these sediments in the ground water," said Dr Buesseler.
"They are entering the oceans at levels that then will accumulate in seafood and will cause new health concerns."
There are also worries about the spent nuclear fuel rods that are being cooled and stored in water pools on site. Mycle Schneider says these contain far more radioactive caesium than was emitted during the explosion at Chernobyl.
"There is absolutely no guarantee that there isn’t a crack in the walls of the spent fuel pools. If salt water gets in, the steel bars would be corroded. It would basically explode the walls, and you cannot see that; you can’t get close enough to the pools," he said.
The "worsening situation" at Fukushima has prompted a former Japanese ambassador to Switzerland to call for the withdrawal of Tokyo’s Olympic bid.
In a letter to the UN secretary general, Mitsuhei Murata says the official radiation figures published by Tepco cannot be trusted. He says he is extremely worried about the lack of a sense of crisis in Japan and abroad.
This view is shared by Mycle Schneider, who is calling for an international taskforce for Fukushima.
"The Japanese have a problem asking for help. It is a big mistake; they badly need it."
Japan’s nuclear watchdog has said the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is facing a new "emergency" caused by a build-up of radioactive groundwater.
In the mountains above the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, rainfall collects and flows down to the Pacific – through highly contaminated ground.
The Nuclear Regulatory Authority says a barrier built to prevent that water reaching the ocean has already been breached, while tanks built to contain it are nearly full.
On Saturday, thousands of citizens throughout the nation protested military strikes against Syria. A group of activists assembled at the busiest intersection in Spartanburg, S.C. to wave signs and bring awareness to the ongoing push to strike Syria by the Obama administration. A local police officer told them that if someone complained they would have to leave because they did not have a city permit. He also said that activists who continue to protest on the crosswalk would go to jail.
Many of the protestors considered this to be a violation of their 1st Amendment right and challenged the officer by asking him if they committed any crime. They also reminded the officer that they had a right to assemble on public property such as a sidewalk and did not need a permit to do so. Evan Mulch the organizer of the protest told the officer that in the future he would not apply for a permit but would let the police department know when they plan to do the next event.
One protester asked the officer, “what about our right to assembly?” The officer said, “like I said, you have to fill out a form.”
Dr. Bill Bledsoe asked the officer, “What laws am I breaking and are you arresting me?”
“No,” replied the officer. “What I was explaining to him was that you have to have a permit to assemble,” said the officer.
Bledsoe said, “you do not have to have a permit to walk across the street holding a sign.”
One protestor told the officer, “you are pledged to support the Constitution, that’s the #1 law!”
Evan Mulch the who organized the protest told the officer, “what you are conditioning us to do is to ask you for approval to be in a public place – we don’t need your approval.”
An unsettling report prepared by the Emergencies Ministry (EMERCOM) circulating in the Kremlin today on the just completed talks between Russia and the United States inWashington D.C. says that the Obama regime has requested at least 15,000 Russian troops trained in disaster relief and “crowd functions” [i.e. riot control] be pre-positioned to respond to FEMA Region III during an unspecified “upcoming” disaster.
According to this report, this unprecedented request was made directly to Minister Vladimir Puchkov by US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Director Janet Napolitano who said these Russian troops would work “directly and jointly” with her Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), part of whose mission is to secure the continuity of the US government in the event of natural disasters or war.
Important to note, this report says, is that FEMA Region III, the area Russian troops are being requested for, includes Washington D.C. and the surrounding States of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia, “strongly suggesting” that the Obama regime has lost confidence in its own military being able to secure its survival should it be called upon to do so.
As to what “upcoming disaster” the US is preparing for, this report continues, appears to be “strongly related” to last weeks assassination of American reporter Michael Hastings who was killed while attempting to reach the safety of the Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles, and as we had reported on in our 20 June report Top US Journalist Attempting To Reach Israeli Consulate Assassinated.
Further to be noted about Hastings assassination by the Obama regime is the continued US mainstream propaganda news cover-up of it, though many freelance reporters continue to uncover the truth, such as Jim Stone whose investigation noted that the rear portion of Hastings car was blown open and shredded with the rest of the car nicely intact, which runs counter to the “official” story that this vehicle has hit a tree.
Not mentioned in this EMERCOM report is any suggestionthat Russia would comply with this request from the Obama regime, especially in light of the horrifying information being given to Russian intelligence analysts from Edward Snowden who has been labeled as the most wanted man in the world.
According to one Federal Security Services (FSB) bulletin on their continued debriefing of Snowden, and analysis of the information he has provided Russian intelligence officers, his father, Lonnie Snowden, was an officer in the US Coast Guard during the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States who had “direct knowledge” of the true events that occurred and whom the real perpetrators were.
Being directly affected by the events of 9/11, this FSB bulletin says, Snowden “self initiated” a multi-year effort to gain access to America’s top secrets, a mission which when recently completed led him to contact various international reporters, including Hastings, whom he believed could be trusted with disseminating the information he had obtained.
Though known to us directly from our Kremlin sources as to the exact connections Snowden’s information proves regarding 9/11 and both the Bush and Obama regimes, and the even more horrific event soon to come, a June 2013Defence Advisory Notice (DA-Notice) prevents our being able to…at this time.
What can be said though, there is a critical reason billionaires all over the world have been dumping their stocks, and fast; and those who are not able to read between the lines will soon find themselves in the most dangerous situation they’ve ever encountered.
PUBLISHED: 09:18 GMT, 31 August 2013 | UPDATED: 19:44 GMT, 31 August 2013
U.S missile strikes against Syria could start tomorrow after U.N. weapons inspectors left the war-torn country earlier than expected.
The team of chemical weapons inspectors left their Damascus hotel early today fueling speculation of an imminent attack.
It came as the White House delivered an astonishing snub to Britain following Thursday’s shock Commons defeat, with sources saying David Cameron had ‘bungled’ securing British support for military action and that Britain ‘cannot be counted on’.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry last night paved the way for war by saying the American intelligence community had ‘high confidence’ that the regime launched a chemical weapons attack on the outskirts of Damascus last week
But at a press conference today U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky described suggestions the team’s departure opened the window for U.S. military action as ‘grotesque’.
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Strike: The team of chemical weapons inspectors left their Damascus hotel early today fueling speculation of an imminent attack
Leaving: U.N. experts arrive at the entrance of the private jet terminal at Beirut international airport, Lebanon, following their departure from Syria
Mr Nesirky said the team had left Syria for the Netherlands this morning ‘so that they could take the samples to the laboratories where they will be analysed’.
He said other evidence including interviews with doctors and survivors had also been collated.
The secretary general is due to be briefed further by the head of the UN chemical weapons team tomorrow but Mr Nesirky gave no timetable for when the findings would be released.
He said the mandate for the mission was to find out whether chemical weapons had been used and not who was responsible for any attack.
He said: ‘The aim of the game for the mandate is very clear and that is to ascertain whether chemical weapons were used and not by whom and that remains the mandate.’
He also rejected suggestions the the inspectors leaving the country was opening the door for US air strikes.
Departure: A Lebanese special forces policeman escorts the U.N. vehicles at Beirut international airport
Protest: Anti-Syrian regime protesters carry a banner during a demonstration at Kafr Nabil in northern Syria
He said: ‘I have seen all kinds of reporting suggesting that the departure of the chemical weapons team somehow opens a window for military action of some kind.
SYRIA EXPECTING ATTACK ‘AT ANY MOMENT’
Syria is expecting ‘an attack at any moment’, a security official has said.
As the UN chemical weapons inspectors left the country and arrived in the Netherlands to begin investigating evidence, a Syrian official has said the regime is ‘ready to retilitate’.
The official told AFP: ‘We are expecting an attack at any moment. We are ready to retaliate at any moment.’
‘Frankly, that’s grotesque, and it’s also an affront to the more than 1,000 staff, U.N. staff, who are on the ground in Syria delivering humanitarian aid and who will continue to deliver critical aid.’
Nesirky repeated that the inspectors would return later to investigate several other alleged poison gas attacks.
He said the UN mission was ‘uniquely capable of establishing in an impartial and credible manner the facts of any use of chemical weapons based directly on evidence collected on the ground’.
Britain has been left sidelined in any U.S military action against Syria following the humiliating Commons defeat – placing strain on the ‘special relationship’ with the U.S.
Mr Kerry pointedly made no mention of Britain during his speech and instead lavished praise on its ‘oldest ally’ France – which looks likely to join the U.S in a missile strike.
He paid tribute to the French for standing ready to join the U.S in confronting the ‘thug and murderer’ President Bashar Assad. He also praised Australia and even Turkey for their support.
Worried: A family leave Syria today over fears the U.S could launch a missile strike
Leaving: Syrian families undergo security checks as they cross into Lebanon from Syria today
In a passionate speech in Washington, he urged the world to act as he warned ‘history would judge us all extraordinarily harshly if we turned a blind eye to a dictator’.
President Barack Obama yesterday said he is weighing ‘limited and narrow’ action as the administration put the chemical weapons death toll at 1,429 people – far more than previous estimates – including more than 400 children.
Downing Street insisted the U.S special relationship was still intact following a telephone call between the Prime Minister and Mr Obama.
However, White House sources told The Times that David Cameron had ‘bungled’ securing British support for military action.
Another source with knowledge of how the White House reacted to Thursday’s shock Commons defeat, said: ‘It came as a real shock to them. They now know the Brits, because of their political system, cannot be counted on.’
Speaking to Channel 4 News, Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, expressed his frustration. He said: ‘I’m disappointed , because we have a very close working relationship with the U.S.
‘It is a difficult time for our Armed Forces – having prepared to go into this action – to then be stood down and have to watch while the U.S acts alone or perhaps acts with France.’
Decision time: President Barack Obama meets with his national security staff to discuss the situation in Syria, in the Situation Room of the White House
Snub: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry lavished praise on France last night, calling it America’s ¿oldest ally¿ as the two countries prepare for a missile strike against Syria
Halfway around the world, U.S. warships were in place in the Mediterranean Sea. They carried cruise missiles, long a first-line weapon of choice for presidents because they can find a target hundreds of miles distant without need of air cover or troops on the ground.
Seeking to reassure Americans weary after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama insisted there would be no ‘boots on the ground.’
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said today that it would be ‘utter nonsense’ for the Syrian government to use chemical weapons when it was winning the war, and urged U.S. President Barack Obama not to attack Syrian forces.
Strain: Prime Minister David Cameron is pictured being driven away from the rear of Number 10 Downing Street last night . He has been left humiliated following Thursday’s shock Commons defeat
Hard work: Labour leader Ed Miliband works in his office at Westminster yesterday after inflicting Thursday’s humiliating Commons defeat for David Cameron
FRENCH PUBLIC OPPOSED TO SYRIA INTERVENTION, REVEALSPOLL
Determined: French President Francois Hollande has insisted he is ready to launch strikes on President Bashar Al-Assad’s regime
The French people are overwhelmingly opposed to armed intervention in Syria, a new poll reveals today.
It follows President Francois Hollande’s insistence that he is ready to launch strikes on President Bashar Al-Assad’s regime in retaliation for the use of chemical weapons.
As supreme commander of France’s armed forces, Mr Hollande is empowered to go to war without parliamentary approval.
But he will be extremely concerned by the results of today’s BVA poll published in Le Parisien, the French capital’s daily newspaper.
It shows that 64 per cent of the country are ‘hostile’ to taking part in military intervention in Syria.
Major concerns expressed are that such action will turn the country against West and increase the barbarity of Syria’s civil war, which has already claimed more than 100,000 lives.
Of those questioned, 37 per cent believe military action will help turn Syria from a secular republic to an Islamist state.
Thirty five per cent think it will inflame the region, and 22 per cent think it will not change the lives of ordinary Syrians.
Others (17 per cent) express concern at the lack of clear evidence that Bashar has used chemical weapons, and 18 per cent think there will be retaliation against French interests.
Despite such statistics, BVA analyst Celine Bracq said the mood would change if the French do join the USA in military action.
‘Be careful,’ she said. ‘The French are not for getting into a war, but they will largely get behind the head of state – by patriotic reflex – as soon as the operation is triggered.’
Mr Hollande has said that international action against Syria will ‘strike a body blow’ to Assad’s regime, and could start as early as Wednesday.
He said he was determined to act, despite Britain’s Parliament last week rejecting calls for an attack.
In an interview with this weekend’s Le Monde, Mr Hollande said: ‘Each country retains the sovereign right to participate or not in an operation. That applies to Britain as well as France.’
Putin said: ‘That is why I am convinced that it (the chemical attack) is nothing more than a provocation by those who want to drag other countries into the Syrian conflict, and who want to win the support of powerful members of the international arena, especially the United States,"
Mr Cameron- who spoke to the U.S. President following Thursday’s defeat – acknowledged that ‘politics is difficult’ .
But he said he would not have to apologise to Mr Obama for being unable to commit UK military units to any international alliance.
Setting out the approach he would now take to Syria, the Prime Minister said: ‘I think it’s important we have a robust response to the use of chemical weapons and there are a series of things we will continue to do.
Destruction: Residents inspect buildings damaged by what activists said were warplanes belonging to forces loyal to Syria’s president Bashar Al-Assad in Iskat, near the Syrian-Turkish border
Lone supporter: President Francois Hollande of France is the only country supporting the United States as they contemplate armed action against Bashar Assad’s regime over a suspected chemical weapons attack on his own people.
‘We will continue to take a case to the United Nations, we will continue to work in all the organisations we are members of – whether the EU, or Nato, or the G8 or the G20 – to condemn what’s happened in Syria.
‘It’s important we uphold the international taboo on the use of chemical weapons.
‘But one thing that was proposed, the potential – only after another vote – involvement of the British military in any action, that won’t be happening.
‘That won’t be happening because the British Parliament, reflecting the great scepticism of the British people about any involvement in the Middle East, and I understand that, that part of it won’t be going ahead.’
Following the Prime Minister’s conversation with the U.S. President, a Number 10 spokesman said: ‘The PM explained that he wanted to build a consensual approach in Britain for our response and that the Government had accepted the clear view of the House against British military action.
‘President Obama said he fully respected the PM’s approach and that he had not yet taken a decision on the US response.
‘The president stressed his appreciation of his strong friendship with the Prime Minister and of the strength, durability and depth of the special relationship between our two countries.
‘They agreed that their co-operation on international issues would continue in the future and both reiterated their determination to find a political solution to the Syrian conflict by bringing all sides together.’
Anti-war protesters have hailed Parliament’s vote against British intervention in Syria as a ‘victory’ as they gathered in Trafalgar Square today to show their opposition to military strikes.
Around a thousand campaigners carried banners with slogans such as No Attack on Syria and Hands Off Syria and Syrian flags.
Speakers addressed the crowd from below Nelson’s Column as tourists visiting central London looked on.
‘Never let them say demonstrations don’t work – our demonstration has worked,’ Lindsey German, convener of the Stop The War coalition, said to the cheers of protesters.
Stop the War coalition said that 5,000 people had turned out on a sunny and pleasant late summer day to back the protest.
The White House released this map detailing its understanding of the areas where chemical weapons were used
U.S. INTELLIGENCE ON THE SOURCE OF SYRIAN CHEMICAL WEAPONSATTACK
U.S. intelligence community has ‘high confidence,’ short of actual confirmation, that the Syrian government carried out the chemical weapons attack on August 21
Members of the Syrian regime were preparing chemical weapons in the three days prior to the August 21 attack and protected themselves using gas masks
At least 1,429 Syrians were killed in the attacks, including 426 children
The weapons were launched from government-controlled areas into opposition-held or contested territory
The Syrian government has carried out smaller-scale chemical weapons attacks multiple times over the last year
U.S. intelligence officials ‘intercepted communications involving a senior official intimately familiar with the offensive who confirmed that chemical weapons were used by the regime on August 21 and was concerned with the U.N. inspectors obtaining evidence’
On the afternoon of August 21, intelligence officials learned that Syrian chemical weapons personnel were directed to cease operations
Women with Syrian flags painted on their faces chanted ‘USA shame on you’.
There were also several trade union and Communist flags with the hammer and sickle on display.
Veteran left-winger and former Labour MP Tony Benn addressed the crowd and expressed his hope that ‘the voice of peace should become the voice of Britain’.
After leaving Syria, the international contingent of weapons inspectors are heading to laboratories in Europe with the samples they have collected.
Video said to be taken at the scene shows victims writhing in pain, twitching and exhibiting other symptoms associated with exposure to nerve agents.
The videos distributed by activists to support their claims of a chemical attack were consistent with Associated Press reporting of shelling in the suburbs of Damascus at the time, though it was not known if the victims had died from a poisonous gas attack.
The Syrian government said administration claims were ‘flagrant lies’ akin to faulty Bush administration assertions before the Iraq invasion that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
A Foreign Ministry statement read on state TV said that ‘under the pretext of protecting the Syrian people, they are making a case for an aggression that will kill hundreds of innocent Syrian civilians.’ Residents of Damascus stocked up on food and other necessities in anticipation of strikes, with no evident sign of panic.
One man, 42-year-old Talal Dowayih, said: ‘I am not afraid from the Western threats to Syria; they created the chemical issue as a pretext for intervention, and they are trying to hit Syria for the sake of Israel.’
President Obama said Friday that he is considering ‘limited, narrow’ military action against Syria0
Kerry: Syria’s Assad is a thug and murderer
Obama met with his national security aides at the White House and then with diplomats from Baltic countries, saying he has not yet made a final decision on a response to the attack.
Mr Kerry said yesterday that the credibility and security of the U.S. and its allies are at stake.
‘Some cite the risk of doing things,’ he said. But we need to ask, “What is the risk of doing nothing?”’
The U.S. intelligence report said that about 3,600 patients ‘displaying symptoms consistent with nerve agent exposure’ were seen at Damascus-area hospitals after the attack.
To that, Kerry added that ‘a senior regime official who knew about the attack confirmed that chemical weapons were used by the regime, reviewed the impact and actually was afraid they would be discovered.’ He added for emphasis: ‘We know this.’
An estimated 100,000 civilians have been killed in more than two years, many of them from attacks by the Syrian government on its own citizens.
Obama has long been wary of U.S. military involvement in the struggle, as he has been with turbulent events elsewhere during the so-called Arab Spring. In this case, reluctance stems in part from recognition that while Assad has ties to Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, the rebels seeking to topple him have connections with al-Qaida terrorist groups.
Still, Obama declared more than a year ago that the use of chemical weapons would amount to a ‘red line’ that Assad should not cross.
And Obama approved the shipment of small weapons and ammunition to the Syrian rebels after an earlier reported chemical weapons attack, although there is little sign that the equipment has arrived. With memories of the long Iraq war still fresh, the political crosscurrents have been intense both domestically and overseas.
Kerry: There will be no U.S. boots on the ground in Syria
Dozens of lawmakers, most of them Republican, have signed a letter saying Obama should not take military action without congressional approval, and top leaders of both political parties are urging the president to consult more closely with Congress before giving an order to launch hostilities.
Despite the urgings, there has been little or no discussion about calling Congress back into session to debate the issue.
Lawmakers have been on a summer break for nearly a month, and are not due to return to the Capitol until Sept. 9.
Obama has not sought a vote of congressional approval for any military action. Neither Republican nor Democratic congressional leaders have challenged his authority to act or sought to have lawmakers called into session before he does.
Hundreds died in the alleged chemical attacks on Wednesday, including many women and children
Secretary of State John Kerry said images like these contributed to the U.S. assessment that chemical weapons were used in Syria
Senior White House, State Department, Pentagon and intelligence officials met for an hour and half Friday with more than a dozen senators who serve on the Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees, said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del. He described the discussion as ‘open and constructive.’
The White House will brief Republican senators in a conference call today at the request of Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., a spokesman for the senator, Don Stewart, said.
Obama’s efforts to put together an international coalition to support military action have been more down than up.
Hollande has endorsed punitive strikes, and told the newspaper Le Monde that the ‘chemical massacre of Damascus cannot and must not remain unpunished.’
American attempts to secure backing at the United Nations have been blocked by Russia, long an ally of Syria.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged a delay in any military action until the inspectors can present their findings to U.N. member states and the Security Council.
‘President Obama will ensure that the United States of America makes our own decisions on our own timelines, based on our values and our interests,’ he said. ‘Now, we know that after a decade of conflict, the American people are tired of war. Believe me, I am, too. But fatigue does not absolve us of our responsibility.’
Obama says no decision on Syria yet
Military intervention: A US Air Force plane lands at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey yesterday. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said the inspection team in Syria is expected to complete its work by today
He said the U.S. should also feel confident that it has the backing of a number of other nations, including Turkey, Australia, the Arab League and what he called America’s ‘oldest ally,’ France.
Half of Americans say they oppose taking military action against Syria and nearly 80 percent believe Obama should seek congressional approval before using any force, according to a new NBC poll.
The administration supplemented Kerry’s remarks Friday with the release of the intelligence report.
‘It’s findings are as clear as they are compelling,’ Kerry said.
The report concludes with ‘high confidence,’ short of actual confirmation, that the Syrian government carried out the chemical weapons attack.
‘Our high confidence assessment is the strongest position that the U.S. Intelligence Community can take short of confirmation,’ the report says.
‘We intercepted communications involving a senior official intimately familiar with the offensive who confirmed that chemical weapons were used by the regime on August 21 and was concerned with the U.N. inspectors obtaining evidence,’ the report continues. ‘On the afternoon of August 21, we have intelligence that Syrian chemical weapons personnel were directed to cease operations.’
British Prime Minister David Cameron failed to secure Parliament’s backing for military intervention in Syria
The findings also claim that Assad is the ‘ultimate decision maker’ for Syria’s chemical weapons program and that his regime has used the weapons on a smaller scale against citizens several times in the past year.
‘This assessment is based on multiple streams of information including reporting of Syrian officials planning and executing chemical weapons attacks and laboratory analysis of physiological samples obtained from a number of individuals, which revealed exposure to sarin,’ the report says. ‘We assess that the opposition has not used chemical weapons.’ Sarin is a type of nerve gas.
The report further reveals evidence that the regime had been preparing chemical weapons in the three days prior to the attacks and protected themselves using gas masks.
‘Syrian chemical weapons personnel were operating in the Damascus suburb of ‘Adra from Sunday, August 18 until early in the morning on Wednesday, August 21, near an area that the regime uses to mix chemical weapons, including sarin,’ the report says.
The report also cited evidence that the attacks were launched from regime-controlled areas into opposition territory or contested areas.
Calling Assad a ‘thug’ and a ‘murderer,’ John Kerry declared, ‘History would judge us all extraordinarily harshly if we turned a blind eye to a dictator¿s use of chemical weapons.’
Assad propaganda on Syrian TV says ‘U.S. evidence is lies’
Several senior officials related before the release of the report that the intelligence was ‘not a slam dunk’ in terms of tying Assad’s regime to the use of chemical weapons.
The term ‘slam dunk’ is a reference to the then-CIA Director George Tenet’s assurance in 2002 that assessments showing that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was a ‘slam dunk.’
Kerry assured on Friday that the U.S. will not repeat the mistakes of the Iraq war.
‘We are more than mindful of the Iraq experience,’ Kerry said. ‘We will not repeat that moment.’
He later added: ‘Whatever decision [Obama] makes in Syria it will bear no resemblance to Afghanistan, Iraq or even Libya. It will not involve any boots on the ground. It will not be open ended. And it will not assume responsibility for a civil war that is already well underway.’
The administration briefed members of Congress on a conference call Thursday evening to explain its conclusion that Bashar Assad’s government was guilty of carrying out a suspected chemical attack on August 21.
Following the call, House Democratic leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, sided with Republican Speaker John Boehner of Ohio in urging the administration to engage with the full Congress on the matter.
She also said that the administration must provide ‘additional transparency into the decision-making process.’
Intelligence experts around the globe are sounding the alarm that the justification for intervention is far from established.
***
One of the world’s leading experts on chemical weapons, Jean Pascal Zanders, on Friday told The Huffington Post UK that he has significant doubts about the identity of the chemical agent widely blamed for the deaths in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta.
“We don’t know what the agent is,” said Zanders, who until recently served as senior research fellow at the European Union Institute for Security Studies, an EU agency that scrutinizes defense and security issues. “Everyone is saying sarin. There is something clearly to do with a neurotoxicant [such as sarin], but not everything is pointing in that direction.”
The agent used is a crucial piece of information, Zanders said, because the family of neurotoxicants that includes military weapons such as nerve agents also encompasses industrial products like those used to control rodents. Until the actual agent can be identified, any link to the Assad regime is tenuous, Zanders said.
“If say, for example, a neurotoxicant was taken from a factory and used at [Ghouta], then the number of actors who might be responsible for that then increases,” he said
Zanders’ caution was merely the latest bit of skepticism to emerge from the ranks of experienced experts now challenging the adequacy of the case for a strike in Syria.
On Thursday, Lawrence Wilkerson, who reviewed the intelligence presented by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell as justification for the war in Iraq a decade ago, told HuffPost that the preparations for a Syria strike seem devoid of authority.
Wilkerson [who largely drafted Powell’s speech] likened the current debate to a repeat of the days he spent preparing for Powell’s since-debunked testimony, “with people telling me [former Iraq President] Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction with absolutely certainty.”
He added: “It seems like the same thing again.”
That pronouncement followed a striking caution from Hans Blix, who was chief United Nations arms inspector for Iraq in the run-up to the war. In an interview with Nathan Gardels, Blix said that while “indications are certainly in the direction of the use of chemical weapons” in Syria, those now contemplating military action should wait for U.N. inspectors now on the ground to complete their work.
“As we’ve seen before, the political dynamics are running ahead of due process,” Blix said, adding that the dynamic was reminiscent of the way the Bush administration launched the war in Iraq.
“I do not go along with the statement by the U.S. that ‘it is too late’ for Syria now to cooperate. That is a poor excuse for taking military action.”
Most pointedly, Blix warned that missiles aimed at eradicating Assad’s chemical weapons capacities could exacerbate harm.
“Attacking stockpiles with cruise missiles, as I understand it, has the disadvantage that is might spread chemical weapons in the vicinity of any attack,” Blix said.
Zanders, the former EU chemical weapons expert, went even further, arguing thatoutsiders cannot conclude with confidence the extent or geographic location of the chemical weapons attack widely being blamed on the Assad regime.
He singled out the images of victims convulsing in agony that have circulated widely on the Web, including on YouTube.
“You do not know where they were taken,” he said. “You do not know when they were taken or even by whom they were taken. Or, whether they [are from] the same incident or from different incidents.”
Zanders added: “It doesn’t tell me who would be responsible for it. It doesn’t tell me where the films were taken. It just tells me that something has happened, somewhere, at some point.”
Indeed, many experts on chemical weapons have expressed doubt that government-made chemicals were used. And – in a replay of the run up to the Iraq war – the U.S. has done everything it can toprevent U.N. weapons inspectors from doing their job.
At least one former chemical weapons inspector who was involved in gathering intelligence in Iraq 10 years ago saw more similarities to 2003 than differences.
The inspector, who requested anonymity to speak freely, said that reading the unclassified U.S. intelligence report on Friday gave him a sense of deja vu. He said the lack of information about a specific chemical agent could indicate that the administration lacks forensic evidence.
“A lot of this seems circumstantial,” he said. “This document is written by the choir for the choir to preach to the choir.”
And U.S. and British intelligence now that admit they don’t know whether it was the rebels or the Syrian government who carried out the attack.
The French people – like the Americans – oppose war against Syria.
Agence France-Presse and the Local reported yesterday:
On the same day France dispatched a ship towards Syria a survey conducted by IFOP for Le Figaro newspaper shows the French hold a mainly negative view towards a possible military intervention in Syria by the country’s armed forces.
The poll revealed that 59% of the public are against French involvement.
A new poll suggests nearly three in five French people would oppose France joining any military action in Syria.
The fact that the French government – like the American government – is willing to ignore its people’s wishes is stunning. (France was, of course, the empire which formerly ruled Syria as a colony.)
Indeed, most people worldwide are opposed to a strike on Syria:
A new poll by The Sun shows that Brits oppose a missile strike against Syria by a factor of 2-to-1.
A new poll in Germany shows that 69% of the German people were against a military strike on Syria.
A Pew poll from May – after the previous chemical weapon attack – found:
Eight-in-ten Germans (82%) opposed such assistance, as did more than two-thirds of the French (69%) and a majority of the British (57%). Even the Turks (65%), who share a border with Syria and now house 300,000 refugees from the civil war, oppose military aid to the rebels.
Publics in the Middle East are even less supportive of the West getting involved. In five of the six countries that were surveyed in March in the region – Lebanon (80%), Turkey (68%), Tunisia (60%), Egypt (59%) and the Palestinian territories (63%) – publics opposed Americans or Europeans supplying the Syrian rebels with weapons.
Putin: US should present Syria evidence to Security Council
Published time: August 31, 2013 09:55 Edited time: August 31, 2013 15:21
A handout image released by the Syrian opposition’s Shaam News Network shows smoke above buildings following what Syrian rebels claim to be a toxic gas attack by pro-government forces in eastern Ghouta, on the outskirts of Damascus on August 21, 2013. (AFP Photo / Ammar al-Arbini)
Video – Putin: US should present Syria evidence to Security Council
Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared ‘utter nonsense’ the idea that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons on its own people and called on the US to present its supposed evidence to the UN Security Council.
Putin has further called the Western tactic a ‘provocation.’
Washington has been basing its proposed strategy of an attack on Syria on the premise that President Bashar Assad’s government forces have used chemical agents, while Russia finds the accusations unacceptable and the idea of performing a military strike on the country even more so. Especially as it would constitute a violation of international law, if carried out without the approval of the UN Security Council.
Further to this, Putin told Obama that he should consider what the potential fallout from a military strike would be and to take into consideration the suffering of innocent civilians.
The Russian president has expressed certainty that the strategy for a military intervention in Syria is a contingency measure from outside and a direct response to the Syrian government’s recent combat successes, coupled with the rebels’ retreat from long-held positions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (RIA Novosti / Aleksey Nikolskyi)
“Syrian government forces are advancing, while the so-called rebels are in a tight situation, as they are not nearly as equipped as the government,” Putin told ITAR-TASS. He then laid it out in plain language:
“What those who sponsor the so-called rebels need to achieve is simple – they need to help them in their fight… and if this happens, it would be a tragic development,” Putin said.
Russia believes that any attack would, firstly, increase the already existing tensions in the country, and derail any effort at ending the war.
"Any unilateral use of force without the authorisation of the U.N. Security Council, no matter how ‘limited’ it is, will be a clear violation of international law, will undermine prospects for a political and diplomatic resolution of the conflict in Syria and will lead to a new round of confrontation and new casualties," said the Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokesman, Aleksandr Lukashevich, adding that the threats issued by Washington “in the absence of any proof” of chemical weapons use.
On Friday, Washington said a plan for a limited military response was in the works to punish Assad for a “brutal and flagrant” chemical attack that allegedly killed more than 1400 people in the capital Damascus 10 days ago.
The Syrian government has been denying all allegations, calling the accusation preposterous and pointing its own accusations against rebel forces, especially Al-Qaeda-linked extremists who have wreaked havoc on the country in the two years since the start of the civil war.
Someone wants to get the United States into a war with Syria very, very badly. Cui bono is an old Latin phrase that is still commonly used, and it roughly means “to whose benefit?” The key to figuring out who is really behind the push for war is to look at who will benefit from that war.
If a full-blown war erupts between the United States and Syria, it will not be good for the United States, it will not be good for Israel, it will not be good for Syria, it will not be good for Iran and it will not be good for Hezbollah. The party that stands to benefit the most is Saudi Arabia, and they won’t even be doing any of the fighting. They have been pouring billions of dollars into the conflict in Syria, but so far they have not been successful in their attempts to overthrow the Assad regime. Now the Saudis are trying to play their trump card – the U.S. military. If the Saudis are successful, they will get to pit the two greatest long-term strategic enemies of Sunni Islam against each other – the U.S. and Israel on one side and Shia Islam on the other. In such a scenario, the more damage that both sides do to each other the happier the Sunnis will be.
There would be other winners from a U.S. war with Syria as well. For example, it is well-known that Qatar wants to run a natural gas pipeline out of the Persian Gulf, through Syria and into Europe. That is why Qatar has also been pouring billions of dollars into the civil war in Syria.
So if it is really Saudi Arabia and Qatar that want to overthrow the Assad regime, why does the United States have to do the fighting?
Someone should ask Barack Obama why it is necessary for the U.S. military to do the dirty work of his Sunni Muslim friends.
Obama is promising that the upcoming attack will only be a “limited military strike” and that we will not be getting into a full-blown war with Syria.
The only way that will work is if Syria, Hezbollah and Iran all sit on their hands and do nothing to respond to the upcoming U.S. attack.
Could that happen?
Maybe.
Let’s hope so.
But if there is a response, and a U.S. naval vessel gets hit, or American blood is spilled, or rockets start raining down on Tel Aviv, the U.S. will then be engaged in a full-blown war.
That is about the last thing that we need right now.
The vast majority of Americans do not want to get embroiled in another war in the Middle East, and even a lot of top military officials are expressing “serious reservations” about attacking Syria according to the Washington Post…
The Obama administration’s plan to launch a military strike against Syria is being received with serious reservations by many in the U.S. military, which is coping with the scars of two lengthy wars and a rapidly contracting budget, according to current and former officers.
Having assumed for months that the United States was unlikely to intervene militarily in Syria, the Defense Department has been thrust onto a war footing that has made many in the armed services uneasy, according to interviews with more than a dozen military officers ranging from captains to a four-star general.
For the United States, there really is no good outcome in Syria.
If we attack and Assad stays in power, that is a bad outcome for the United States.
If we help overthrow the Assad regime, the rebels take control. But they would be even worse than Assad. They have pledged loyalty to al-Qaeda, and they are rabidly anti-American, rabidly anti-Israel and rabidly anti-western.
So why in the world should the United States get involved?
This war would not be good for Israel either. I have seen a number of supposedly pro-Israel websites out there getting very excited about the prospect of war with Syria, but that is a huge mistake.
Syria has already threatened to attack Israeli cities if the U.S. attacks Syria. If Syrian missiles start landing in the heart of Tel Aviv, Israel willrespond.
And if any of those missiles have unconventional warheads, Israel will respond by absolutely destroying Damascus.
And of course a missile exchange between Syria and Israel will almost certainly draw Hezbollah into the conflict. And right now Hezbollah has70,000 rockets aimed at Israel.
If Hezbollah starts launching those rockets, thousands upon thousands of innocent Jewish citizens will be killed.
So all of those “pro-Israel” websites out there that are getting excited about war with Syria should think twice. If you really are “pro-Israel”, you should not want this war. It would not be good for Israel.
If you want to stand with Israel, then stand for peace. This war would not achieve any positive outcomes for Israel. Even if Assad is overthrown, the rebel government that would replace him would be even more anti-Israel than Assad was.
War is hell. Ask anyone that has been in the middle of one. Why would anyone want to see American blood spilled, Israeli blood spilled or Syrian blood spilled?
If the Saudis want this war so badly, they should go and fight it. Everyone knows that the Saudis have been bankrolling the rebels. At this point, even CNN is openly admitting this…
It is an open secret that Saudi Arabia is using Jordan to smuggle weapons into Syria for the rebels. Jordan says it is doing all it can to prevent that and does not want to inflame the situation in Syria.
And Assad certainly knows who is behind the civil war in his country. The following is an excerpt from a recent interview with Assad…
Of course it is well known that countries, such as Saudi Arabia, who hold the purse strings can shape and manipulate them to suit their own interests.
Ideologically, these countries mobilize them through direct or indirect means as extremist tools. If they declare that Muslims must pursue Jihad in Syria, thousands of fighters will respond. Financially, those who finance and arm such groups can instruct them to carry out acts of terrorism and spread anarchy. The influence over them is synergized when a country such as Saudi Arabia directs them through both the Wahhabi ideology and their financial means.
And shortly after the British Parliament voted against military intervention in Syria, Saudi Arabia raised their level of “defense readiness” from “five” to “two” in a clear sign that they fully expect a war to happen…
Saudi Arabia, a supporter of rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad, has raised its level of military alertness in anticipation of a possible Western strike in Syria, sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.
The United States has been calling for punitive action against Assad’s government for a suspected poison gas attack on a Damascus suburb on August 21 that killed hundreds of people.
Saudi Arabia’s defense readiness has been raised to “two” from “five”, a Saudi military source who declined to be named told Reuters. “One” is the highest level of alert.
And guess who has been supplying the rebels in Syria with chemical weapons?
According to Associated Press correspondent Dale Gavlak, it has been the Saudis…
Syrian rebels in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta have admitted to Associated Press correspondent Dale Gavlak that they were responsible for last week’s chemical weapons incident which western powers have blamed on Bashar Al-Assad’s forces, revealing that the casualties were the result of an accident caused by rebels mishandling chemical weapons provided to them by Saudi Arabia.
“From numerous interviews with doctors, Ghouta residents, rebel fighters and their families….many believe that certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the (deadly) gas attack,” writes Gavlak.
And this is a guy that isn’t just fresh out of journalism school. As Paul Joseph Watson noted, “Dale Gavlak’s credibility is very impressive. He has been a Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press for two decades and has also worked for National Public Radio (NPR) and written articles for BBC News.”
The Voice of Russia has also been reporting on Gavlak’s bombshell findings…
The rebels noted it was a result of an accident caused by rebels mishandling chemical weapons provided to them.
“My son came to me two weeks ago asking what I thought the weapons were that he had been asked to carry,” said Abu Abdel-Moneim, the father of a rebel fighting to unseat Assad, who lives in Ghouta.
As Gavlak reports, Abdel-Moneim said his son and 12 other rebels died in a weapons storage tunnel. The father stated the weapons were provided to rebel forces by a Saudi militant, known as Abu Ayesha, describing them as having a “tube-like structure” while others were like a “huge gas bottle.”
“They didn’t tell us what these arms were or how to use them,” complained a female fighter named ‘K’. “We didn’t know they were chemical weapons. We never imagined they were chemical weapons.”
“When Saudi Prince Bandar gives such weapons to people, he must give them to those who know how to handle and use them,” she warned. She, like other Syrians, do not want to use their full names for fear of retribution.
Gavlak also refers to an article in the UK’s Daily Telegraph about secret Russian-Saudi talks stating that Prince Bandar threatened Russian President Vladimir Putin with terror attacks at next year’s Winter Olympics in Sochi if Russia doesn’t agree to change its stance on Syria.
“Prince Bandar pledged to safeguard Russia’s naval base in Syria if the Assad regime is toppled, but he also hinted at Chechen terrorist attacks on Russia’s Winter Olympics in Sochi if there is no accord,” the article stated.
“I can give you a guarantee to protect the Winter Olympics next year. The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are controlled by us,” Saudi Prince allegedly told Vladimir Putin.
Yes, the Saudis were so desperate to get the Russians to stand down and allow an attack on Syria that they actually threatened them. Zero Hedge published some additional details on the meeting between Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan and Russian President Vladimir Putin…
Bandar told Putin, “There are many common values and goals that bring us together, most notably the fight against terrorism and extremism all over the world. Russia, the US, the EU and the Saudis agree on promoting and consolidating international peace and security. The terrorist threat is growing in light of the phenomena spawned by the Arab Spring. We have lost some regimes. And what we got in return were terrorist experiences, as evidenced by the experience of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the extremist groups in Libya. … As an example, I can give you a guarantee to protect the Winter Olympics in the city of Sochi on the Black Sea next year. The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are controlled by us, and they will not move in the Syrian territory’s direction without coordinating with us. These groups do not scare us. We use them in the face of the Syrian regime but they will have no role or influence in Syria’s political future.”
It is good of the Saudis to admit they control a terrorist organization that “threatens the security” of the Sochi 2014 Olympic games, and that house of Saud uses “in the face of the Syrian regime.” Perhaps the next time there is a bombing in Boston by some Chechen-related terrorists, someone can inquire Saudi Arabia what, if anything, they knew about that.
But the piece de resistance is what happened at the end of the dialogue between the two leaders. It was, in not so many words, a threat by Saudi Arabia aimed squarely at Russia:
As soon as Putin finished his speech, Prince Bandar warned that in light of the course of the talks, things were likely to intensify, especially in the Syrian arena, although he appreciated the Russians’ understanding of Saudi Arabia’s position on Egypt and their readiness to support the Egyptian army despite their fears for Egypt’s future.
The head of the Saudi intelligence services said that the dispute over the approach to the Syrian issue leads to the conclusion that “there is no escape from the military option, because it is the only currently available choice given that the political settlement ended in stalemate. We believe that the Geneva II Conference will be very difficult in light of this raging situation.”
At the end of the meeting, the Russian and Saudi sides agreed to continue talks, provided that the current meeting remained under wraps. This was before one of the two sides leaked it via the Russian press.
Are you starting to get the picture?
The Saudis are absolutely determined to make this war happen, and they expect us to do the fighting.
And Barack Obama plans to go ahead and attack Syria without the support of the American people or the approval of Congress.
According to a new NBC News poll that was just released, nearly 80 percent of all Americans want Congress to approve a strike on Syria before it happens.
And according to Politico, more than 150 members of Congress have already signed letters demanding that Obama get approval from them before attacking Syria…
Already Thursday, more than 150 members of Congress have signaled their opposition to airstrikes on Syria without a congressional vote. House members circulated two separate letters circulated that were sent to the White House demanding a congressional role before military action takes place. One, authored by Rep. Scott Rigell (R-Va.), has more than 150 signatures from Democrats and Republicans. Another, started by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), is signed by 53 Democrats, though many of them also signed Rigell’s letter.
But Obama has already made it perfectly clear that he has no intention of putting this before Congress.
He is absolutely determined to attack Syria, and he is not going to let the U.S. Congress or the American people stop him.
Obama decides to follow the Constitution and seek Congressional approval for Syrian military strike
Julie Wilson and Alex Jones Infowars.com August 31, 2013
Obama addressed the public on Saturday from the White House Rose Garden. He confirmed US’s intention to use force against Syria, however, is reportedly waiting to enforce military action until Congress is able to hold a debate and vote on the matter.
“House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said on Saturday that he expects the House to consider the measure the week of Sept. 9,” reported The Hill.
Obama claims he has the authority to move forward solo, but surprisingly stated it’s important for the country to debate military intervention.
“I will seek authorization for the use of force from the American people’s representatives in Congress. The country will be stronger if we take this course and our actions will be more effective,” said Obama.
His position most likely stems from innumerable world allies and government officials who have strongly voiced their opposition to military involvement in Syria.
Just as Dr. Paul Craig Roberts wrote today in a piece entitled America Totally Discredited, he assesses this is the greatest diplomatic meltdown in US history.
In his report he acknowledges the greatest danger now is that the White House may attempt to stage something else in order to persuade the unconvinced public into a war with Syria.
“The rest of the world has learned to avoid Washington’s rush to war when there is no evidence,” writes Roberts.
Both Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul have come out saying the chemical attacks have all the hallmarks of a false flag or staged event.
In closing, Obama nonchalantly informed the public that the US is in a position to strike, and that the strike could come tomorrow, next week or even a month from now.
A military response is “not time sensitive,” reiterated the President.
Following the UK Parliament’s decision to vote no against Syrian intervention, “Obama indicated he will not wait for either approval from the U.N. Security Council or the conclusion of U.N. inspectors’ investigation into the Syria attack,” reported Fox News.
Obama’s decision to follow the Constitutional law of the republic for now, is a tremendous victory for America.
Russia sharply steps up criticism of U.S. over Syria
MOSCOW – Russia dramatically escalated its denunciations of American threats to attack Syrian military targets on Saturday, with President Vladimir Putin saying it would have been “utter nonsense” for the Syrian government to use chemical weapons as the Obama administration alleges.
The Foreign Ministry, in a statement issued before President Obama said he would seek congressional authorization before ordering strikes on Syria, said a U.S. attack would be a “gross violation” of international law.
Speaking out for the first time since an apparent chemical weapons attack near Damascus on Aug. 21, Putin called on President Obama to find a nonviolent way out of the crisis.
“I would like to address Obama as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate: Before using force in Syria, it would be good to think about future casualties,” Putin told Russian news agencies in Vladivostok during a tour of the country’s flood-stricken Far East.
“Russia is urging you to think twice before making a decision on an operation in Syria,” he said.
The White House argued Friday that intelligence shows more than 1,400 people died from exposure to chemical weapons in an attack carried out by the Syrian military.
Putin said he was sure the attack was the work of rebels trying to provoke international — and especially American — involvement in the Syrian conflict. The government of Bashar al-Assad, he said, would have had no reason to use chemical weapons at a time when it had gained the upper hand in the fighting.
Doing so, he said, would have been “utter nonsense’’ – with the clear implication that that is how he would characterize the American allegations.
On top of that, he said, the Obama administration’s “claims that proof exists, but is classified and cannot be presented to anybody, are below criticism. This is plain disrespect for their partners.”
Putin’s comments were soon underlined by a stern statement from the Foreign Ministry. After U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul had finished a meeting with Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov on Saturday, the ministry declared, “Russia has expressed its conviction that any forceful action against Syria that the U.S. could carry out in circumvention of the U.N. Security Council would be an act of aggression and a gross violation of international law.”
Putin said he was surprised by the vote in Britain’s Parliament on Thursday not to join a U.S. attack on Syrian military targets. “It shows that there are people guided by common sense there,” he said.
Putin said he and Obama have not discussed Syria since the alleged chemical weapons attack occurred.
The Russian president is fond of needling his opponents, often adopting a tone of apparent reasonableness tinged with a considerable amount of condescension. A U.S. assault on Assad’s government would do nothing to hurt his standing, at home or in many countries abroad, where his contempt for Washington tends to play very well.
“The U.S. president and I certainly discussed this problem at the G-8” summit in June in Northern Ireland, Putin said Saturday. “And, by the way, we agreed then that we would jointly facilitate peace negotiations in Geneva, and the Americans committed themselves to bringing the armed opposition to these negotiations. I understand this is a difficult process, and it looks like they haven’t succeeded in this.”
Obama arrives in St. Petersburg for the G-20 meeting on Thursday and leaves on Friday. The purpose of the gathering is to discuss economic growth, but the White House acknowledges there will be plenty of conversation about Syria on the side. There are currently no plans for a one-on-one meeting between Putin and Obama, who earlier this month decided not to attend a Moscow summit with the Russian president.
On Friday, the head of the foreign affairs committee of the lower house of parliament, Alexei Pushkov, said the Nobel committee should strip Obama of his 2009 Peace Prize if he launches an attack on Syria.
White House to hold Sunday Syria briefings for lawmakers (video)
By Ben Geman – 08/31/13 01:40 PM ET
Administration officials are planning classified and unclassified briefings with senators and House members as some lawmakers clamor for the White House to better explain anticipated U.S. strikes against the Syrian regime for its alleged use of chemical weapons this month in the suburbs of Damascus.
Top Obama administration officials including Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Secretary of State John Kerry will hold separate unclassified phone briefings for Senate Democrats and Republicans Saturday afternoon.
A White House source said National Security Advisor Susan Rice, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper would also participate in the calls.
Vice President Joe Biden was also at the White House on Saturday morning, despite his official schedule saying he would be in Delaware with no public events.
White House sources won’t confirm if Biden will be involved with the Senate calls.
Meanwhile, Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) office said Saturday that administration officials will offer a classified briefing to House members on Sunday afternoon.
The Speaker’s office added that “many classified briefings” will be offered for members who are not in Washington and will be unable to attend Sunday’s briefing.
Also, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) is also making staff members available this weekend to allow lawmakers to review the administration’s classified assessment, delivered late Friday.
The briefings come after the White House on Friday released an intelligence report that said that said 1,429 Syrians — including 426 children — had been killed in the alleged chemical attack in the Damascus suburbs.
President Obama said Friday that the U.S. is considering a “limited” and “narrow” military strike against Syria. The president said the world had "an obligation to make sure we maintain the norm against the use of chemical weapons," although he had not made a final decision about what actions might be taken.
"This kind of attack is a challenge to the world," Obama said. "We cannot accept a world where women and children and innocent civilians are gassed on a terrible scale."
Obama said that while a "wide range of options" for possible military action was under review, the White House was not considering "any boots-on-the-ground approach."
Syrian rebels plan raids to exploit Western strikes – commander
By Erika Solomon
BEIRUT | Sat Aug 31, 2013 11:51am BST
(Reuters) – Opposition fighters across Syria are preparing to launch attacks that exploit anticipated U.S.-led military strikes, but there are no plans to coordinate with Western forces, a Syrian rebel commander said on Saturday.
The United States said on Friday it was planning a limited response to punish Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for a "brutal and flagrant" chemical weapons attack it says killed more than 1,400 people in Damascus 10 days ago. Washington has five cruise-missile equipped destroyers in the region.
The Syrian government denies using chemical arms.
Qassim Saadeddine, a former Syrian army colonel and spokesman for the rebels’ Supreme Military Council, said the council had sent a selection of rebel groups a military plan of action to use if strikes took place.
"The hope is to take advantage when some areas are weakened by any strikes. We ordered some groups to prepare in each province, to ready their fighters for when the strike happens," he told Reuters, speaking by Skype.
"They were sent a military plan that includes preparations to attack some of the targets we expect to be hit in foreign strikes, and some others that we hope to attack at the same time."
The Supreme Military Council is the armed wing linked to the National Coalition, an umbrella group considered to be the opposition’s political leadership abroad.
Saadeddine said the plans had been prepared without any help from foreign powers. He said no information had been offered to them by the United States or any other Western countries such asFrance, which has supported carrying out a strike on Assad.
MILITARY TARGETS
"The United States considers us to be one of the two parties engaged in a civil war, they haven’t spoken to the rebel leadership at large, though they have communicated to the political leaders in the Coalition," Saadeddine said. "There may have been consultations with the head of our council, Salim Idriss, but I cannot confirm this."
Syria’s two-and-a-half year old conflict began as a peaceful protests against four decades of Assad family rule but has become a civil war that has killed more than 100,000 people.
Activists said rockets loaded with poison-gas killed hundreds of people in rebel-held areas outside Damascus, many of them children, on August21. The Syrian government blames rebels fighting to topple Assad for the attack, but Washington says its intelligence shows Assad’s forces were responsible.
Saadeddine said his forces assessed that a Western attack would happen in the coming days and would last about three days.
Saadeddine said the rebels liaising with the council had drawn up a list of potential targets for any strike.
"We think it will be something among military sites such as the headquarters of military leadership, military airports, certain weapon storage areas, or launch pads and installations for large missiles such as Scuds," he said.
Other sites seen by rebels as likely targets, Saadeddine said, were those belonging to elite forces believed most loyal to Assad – the Fourth Armoured Division and the Republican Guard. The opposition blames those units for playing a role in the poison gas attack.
Other rebels contacted, without links to the council, said they were also trying to prepare for a potential strike, but that they were struggling to come up with a plan of action.
After his MSNBC appearance challenging the talking heads of mainstream media generated millions of views on YouTube in a display of just how much the public craves real information, Russell Brand is now back on air exposing the situation and Syria and the mainstream media propaganda.
Appearing in an interview with Alex Jones that filmed today, Russell brings further credibility to the power of the alternatives news and the collapse of the mega media. In fact, Russell’s breakdown of just how distorted the media reporting on the events in Syria are coincides exactly with what I have been reporting on for a number of weeks now. Ultimately, this is a display of just how much of a difference we are making in the alternative news, and more importantly how many millions we can reach by continuing to push out the truthamid the volley of disinformation coming from the media.
TOP OFFICIALS: ALT NEWS DESTROYING SYRIA WAR MACHINE
We are continually making major strides in the informational battle against skewed news, and this fact is now even being admitted by the very high level officials who seek to send us into Syria-style scenarios that could very well initiate World War 3. One such powerful admission I was extremely pleased to hear about and bring to you was the admission by top Obama adviser and Trilateral Commission co-founder Zbigniew Brzezinski that it was actually the ‘global political awakening’ that was putting a wrench in the Syria war machine.
In other words, elite control freaks like Brzezinski know that we aren’t listening to their warmongering propaganda anymore, and instead we are craving the truth on all fronts. And it’s the public craving for the truth that is halting their entire plan to launch the United States and other nations internationally into a hot war with Syria — one that, despite the information being out there, virtually no one realizes is essentially a major combat scenario with Russia through Assad.
Today’s Russell Brand interview truly highlights the effectiveness of not only alternative news juggernauts like Infowars, Drudge Report, and Storyleak, but the overall power of the entire movement as a whole.
Sixth U.S. ship now in eastern Mediterranean ‘as precaution’
By Andrea Shalal-Esa
WASHINGTON | Fri Aug 30, 2013 10:57pm EDT
(Reuters) – A sixth U.S. warship is now operating in the eastern Mediterranean, near five U.S. destroyers armed with cruise missiles that could soon be directed against Syriaas part of a "limited, precise" strike, defense officials said late on Friday.
They stressed that the USS San Antonio, an amphibious ship with several hundred U.S. Marines on board, was in the region for a different reason and there were no plans to put Marines on the ground as part of any military action against Syria.
One of the officials said the San Antonio’s passage into the Mediterranean was long-planned, but officials thought it prudent to keep the ship in the eastern Mediterranean near the destroyers given the current situation.
"It’s been kept there as a precaution," said one of the officials, who was not authorized to speak publicly.
The San Antonio transited through the Suez Canal on Thursday from the Red Sea, and received new orders on Friday to remain in the eastern Mediterranean, near the destroyers, according to defense officials. It is one of three ships that are carrying 2,200 Marines who have been on a six-month deployment in the region around the Arabian peninsula.
The Obama administration released evidence on Friday that it said demonstrated the Syrian government had used chemical weapons against civilians. It made clear on Friday that it would punish Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for the "brutal and flagrant" attack that it says killed more than 1,400 people in Damascus last week.
Officials cautioned the operation under discussion involved a limited, precise set of targets that would be of a short duration, unlike the broader campaign against Libya in March 2011.
The U.S. Navy generally keeps three destroyers in the Mediterranean, but kept two additional destroyers there at the end of their deployments as the situation evolved in Syria over the past week.
The five destroyers are each carrying an estimated three dozen or more Tomahawk missiles for a combined total of about 200 missiles, according to defense officials.
Byron Callan, analyst with Capital Alpha Partners, projected that a limited Syrian strike would use about 200 to 300 Tomahawk missiles, compared to about 221 used in the Libya operation.
Defense officials said a more narrowly targeted operation against Syria could involve even less missiles.
They cited a debate within the Obama administration about striking the right balance between a limited cruise missile attack aimed at delivering a message about chemical weapons, and a broader attack that could be seen as a strong insertion of the United States into the Syrian civil war.
Military and civilian officials have expressed the need for caution to avert a cascading military conflict that could have repercussions throughout the region. Some officials have cautioned that even an attack on military helicopters could be seen as part of a U.S. campaign to disable the Syrian military.
Retired Admiral Gary Roughead, who served as chief of naval operations during the 2011 strikes on Libya, said any strike on Syria would have to be targeted precisely to do the maximum amount of damage to Syrian military headquarters and other key sites – and to avert the possibility of retaliatory action.
"If you’re going to try to shape events, you really need to hurt them," said Roughead, now a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. "You would have to do something that would diminish the effectiveness of the Syrian military and that would be their command and control, perhaps their leadership, and then their ability to control air space."
UN weapons inspectors leave Syria earlier than planned
UN weapons experts left Syria earlier than planned this morning, paving the way for a possible US strike after Washington concluded the regime was responsible for last week’s deadly chemical attack.
By Josie Ensor, Raf Sanchez and Peter Foster in Washington and Jon Swaine in New York
5:26AM BST 31 Aug 2013
The 13 inspectors, led by Ake Sellstrom, brought forward their departure from 7am on Saturday to 4am, despite travel being considered dangerous around that time.
Their departure has opened a window for a possible US strike after President Barack Obama on Friday gave his clearest indication yet that a military intervention was imminent.
He said his administration was looking at the possibility of a "limited, narrow act", while stressing no final decision had been taken on whether to unleash military strikes against Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Meawhile, Syria said Saturday morning it was expecting a military attack "at any moment" after the last of the inspectors left Damascus.
A Syrian security official told AFP: "We are expecting an attack at any moment. We are ready to retaliate at any moment."
The experts are due to report straight back to United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon and detail their conclusions on whether a poison gas attack actually did take place on August 21, based on samples collected on site.
However, the results from testing of alleged chemical weapons in Syria could take up to two weeks.
John Kerry, the US secretary of state, yesterday dismissed any findings of the inspectors as essentially irrelevant because, he said, their mandate was restricted to determining only if chemical weapons had been used, not who launched the attack.
The departure of the inspectors came as the US moved a sixth warship to the eastern Mediterranean.
The USS San Antonio, an amphibious ship with several hundred US Marines on board, was positioned near five US destroyers armed with cruise missiles that could soon be directed against Syria as part of a "limited, precise" strike, according to defence officials.
One of the officials said the San Antonio’s passage into the Mediterranean was long-planned, but officials thought it prudent to keep the ship in the eastern Mediterranean near the destroyers given the current situation.
"It’s been kept there as a precaution," one said.
US intelligence officials said the Syrian regime had killed 1,429 people in a planned chemical weapons attack last week on the suburbs of Damascus. The death tally was disclosed as officials published detailed evidence to support a possible military strike on Syria.
John Kerry, the US secretary of state, warned that "history would judge us" if the world failed to intervene.
American officials released a "substantial body of information" to support their conclusion that Bashar al-Assad’s regime had planned the Aug 21 attack for days.
The four-page document said that intercepted communications between Syrian officials "confirmed that chemical weapons were used by the regime".
US satellites also picked up rockets being prepared and launched from regime territory into the rebel-held Ghouta area shortly before hundreds of civilians, including 426 children, began to foam at the mouth and fall dead "unstained by a single drop of blood".
"Instead of being tucked safely in their beds at home, we saw rows of children lying side by side, sprawled on a hospital floor, all of them dead from Assad’s gas, and surrounded by parents and grandparents who had suffered the same fate," Mr Kerry said.
"This is the indiscriminate, inconceivable horror of chemical weapons. This is what Assad did to his own people."
The intelligence had shown beyond all reasonable doubt that the Assad regime carried out the attack, Mr Kerry said.
"The primary question is no longer, ‘What do we know?’ The question is what are we – we collectively – what are we in the world going to do about it?"
He warned that inaction would send a signal to other rogue nations such as Iran and North Korea.
"If we choose to live in a world where a thug and a murderer like Bashar al-Assad can gas thousands of his own people with impunity, even after the United States and our allies said no, and then the world does nothing about it, there will be no end to the test of our resolve."
The secretary of state’s impassioned statement came in the face of deep scepticism from some sections of Congress and the American public over whether it should strike against the regime.
Both Mr Kerry and Barack Obama were at pains to reassure the public that any intervention would be limited and would not include "boots on the ground". Mr Obama said: "We’re not considering any open-ended commitment." The president said he would continue consulting with Congress.
Polls show that half of the American people oppose military action while 42 per cent are in favour. Members of Congress have urged Mr Obama to call them back for an emergency session.
The secretary of state acknowledged the wariness Americans felt after the faulty intelligence that led to the Iraq war.
"We will not repeat that moment," he said. However, like the Bush administration before it the Obama White House is facing the prospect of going to war in the Middle East without the blessing of the United Nations. Mr Kerry insisted "we believe in the United Nations" but made clear that the White House would not be constrained by the failure to secure a Security Council resolution.
Barack Obama on Syria: text in full
President Barack Obama outlined his plan to launch military intervention in Syria on Saturday, but said he would seek approval from Congress first. Here is the full transcript of his speech.
Obama speaking today at the White House. Photo: CHARLES DHARAPAK/AP
7:49PM BST 31 Aug 2013
Good afternoon, everybody. Ten days ago, the world watched in horror as men, women and children were massacred in Syria in the worst chemical weapons attack of the 21st century. Yesterday the United States presented a powerful case that the Syrian government was responsible for this attack on its own people.
Our intelligence shows the Assad regime and its forces preparing to use chemical weapons, launching rockets in the highly populated suburbs of Damascus, and acknowledging that a chemical weapons attack took place. And all of this corroborates what the world can plainly see – hospitals overflowing with victims; terrible images of the dead. All told, well over 1,000 people were murdered. Several hundred of them were children – young girls and boys gassed to death by their own government.
This attack is an assault on human dignity. It also presents a serious danger to our national security. It risks making a mockery of the global prohibition on the use of chemical weapons. It endangers our friends and our partners along Syria’s borders, including Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq. It could lead to escalating use of chemical weapons, or their proliferation to terrorist groups who would do our people harm.
In a world with many dangers, this menace must be confronted.
Now, after careful deliberation, I have decided that the United States should take military action against Syrian regime targets. This would not be an open-ended intervention. We would not put boots on the ground. Instead, our action would be designed to be limited in duration and scope. But I’m confident we can hold the Assad regime accountable for their use of chemical weapons, deter this kind of behaviour, and degrade their capacity to carry it out.
Our military has positioned assets in the region. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs has informed me that we are prepared to strike whenever we choose. Moreover, the Chairman has indicated to me that our capacity to execute this mission is not time-sensitive; it will be effective tomorrow, or next week, or one month from now. And I’m prepared to give that order.
But having made my decision as Commander-in-Chief based on what I am convinced is our national security interests, I’m also mindful that I’m the President of the world’s oldest constitutional democracy. I’ve long believed that our power is rooted not just in our military might, but in our example as a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. And that’s why I’ve made a second decision: I will seek authorisation for the use of force from the American people’s representatives in Congress.
Over the last several days, we’ve heard from members of Congress who want their voices to be heard. I absolutely agree. So this morning, I spoke with all four congressional leaders, and they’ve agreed to schedule a debate and then a vote as soon as Congress comes back into session.
In the coming days, my administration stands ready to provide every member with the information they need to understand what happened in Syria and why it has such profound implications for America’s national security. And all of us should be accountable as we move forward, and that can only be accomplished with a vote.
I’m confident in the case our government has made without waiting for U.N. inspectors. I’m comfortable going forward without the approval of a United Nations Security Council that, so far, has been completely paralysed and unwilling to hold Assad accountable. As a consequence, many people have advised against taking this decision to Congress, and undoubtedly, they were impacted by what we saw happen in the United Kingdom this week when the Parliament of our closest ally failed to pass a resolution with a similar goal, even as the Prime Minister supported taking action.
Yet, while I believe I have the authority to carry out this military action without specific congressional authorisation, I know that the country will be stronger if we take this course, and our actions will be even more effective. We should have this debate, because the issues are too big for business as usual. And this morning, John Boehner, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell agreed that this is the right thing to do for our democracy.
A country faces few decisions as grave as using military force, even when that force is limited. I respect the views of those who call for caution, particularly as our country emerges from a time of war that I was elected in part to end. But if we really do want to turn away from taking appropriate action in the face of such an unspeakable outrage, then we must acknowledge the costs of doing nothing.
Here’s my question for every member of Congress and every member of the global community: What message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price? What’s the purpose of the international system that we’ve built if a prohibition on the use of chemical weapons that has been agreed to by the governments of 98 per cent of the world’s people and approved overwhelmingly by the Congress of the United States is not enforced?
Make no mistake – this has implications beyond chemical warfare. If we won’t enforce accountability in the face of this heinous act, what does it say about our resolve to stand up to others who flout fundamental international rules? To governments who would choose to build nuclear arms? To terrorist who would spread biological weapons? To armies who carry out genocide?
We cannot raise our children in a world where we will not follow through on the things we say, the accords we sign, the values that define us.
So just as I will take this case to Congress, I will also deliver this message to the world. While the U.N. investigation has some time to report on its findings, we will insist that an atrocity committed with chemical weapons is not simply investigated, it must be confronted.
I don’t expect every nation to agree with the decision we have made. Privately we’ve heard many expressions of support from our friends. But I will ask those who care about the writ of the international community to stand publicly behind our action.
And finally, let me say this to the American people: I know well that we are weary of war. We’ve ended one war in Iraq. We’re ending another in Afghanistan. And the American people have the good sense to know we cannot resolve the underlying conflict in Syria with our military. In that part of the world, there are ancient sectarian differences, and the hopes of the Arab Spring have unleashed forces of change that are going to take many years to resolve. And that’s why we’re not contemplating putting our troops in the middle of someone else’s war.
Instead, we’ll continue to support the Syrian people through our pressure on the Assad regime, our commitment to the opposition, our care for the displaced, and our pursuit of a political resolution that achieves a government that respects the dignity of its people.
But we are the United States of America, and we cannot and must not turn a blind eye to what happened in Damascus. Out of the ashes of world war, we built an international order and enforced the rules that gave it meaning. And we did so because we believe that the rights of individuals to live in peace and dignity depends on the responsibilities of nations. We aren’t perfect, but this nation more than any other has been willing to meet those responsibilities.
So to all members of Congress of both parties, I ask you to take this vote for our national security. I am looking forward to the debate. And in doing so, I ask you, members of Congress, to consider that some things are more important than partisan differences or the politics of the moment.
Ultimately, this is not about who occupies this office at any given time; it’s about who we are as a country. I believe that the people’s representatives must be invested in what America does abroad, and now is the time to show the world that America keeps our commitments. We do what we say. And we lead with the belief that right makes might – not the other way around.
We all know there are no easy options. But I wasn’t elected to avoid hard decisions. And neither were the members of the House and the Senate. I’ve told you what I believe, that our security and our values demand that we cannot turn away from the massacre of countless civilians with chemical weapons. And our democracy is stronger when the President and the people’s representatives stand together.
I’m ready to act in the face of this outrage. Today I’m asking Congress to send a message to the world that we are ready to move forward together as one nation.
Thanks very much.
US President Barack Obama to put Syria strike to Congress vote
Delaying what had appeared to be an imminent strike, President Barack Obama announces he will seek congressional approval before launching any military action meant to punish Syria for its alleged use of chemical weapons in an attack that killed hundreds.
US President Barack Obama said he will ask the US Congress to authorize military action against Syria, lifting the threat of immediate strikes on President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Mr Obama said he had decided he would go ahead and take military action on Syria but he believed it was important for American democracy to win the support of lawmakers.
The decision represents a significant gamble for Obama, who has an estranged relationship with lawmakers, especially Republicans, and he risks suffering the same fate as British Prime Minister David Cameron, who lost his own vote on authorizing military action in parliament.
"I will seek authorization for the use of force from the American people’s representatives in Congress," Obama said.
During an interview with Newsmax Thursday, three-time presidential adviser Pat Buchanan joined the growing number of mainstream voices now specifically labeling the recent chemical attacks in Syria as a false flag.
“…First, this thing reeks of a false flag operation,” said Buchanan. “I would not understand or comprehend that Bashar al-Assad, no matter how bad a man he may be, would be so stupid as to order a chemical weapons attack on civilians in his own country when the immediate consequence of which might be that he would be at war with the United States. So this reeks of a false flag operation.”
See the video below:
Throughout the course of the Syrian conflict, the Obama administration and its western allies have continually failed at their attempts to bring down the Assad government. Despite the administration’s claims of an “undeniable” Assad chemical attack, US officials have continued to cast doubt on the evidence.
Evidence pointing to a rebel-backed false flag chemical attack to blame Assad has continued to pile up as public approval for a Syrian intervention crumbles. Not only did the British parliament vote down the Cameron government’s attempts to intervene militarily, A Reuters poll from earlier this week found that 91 percent of Americans oppose military air strikes.
Just last Thursday, Al-Qaeda-backed Syrian rebels admitted to Associated Press correspondent Dale Gavlak that they had carried out the chemical attacks after being supplied the weapons from Saudi Arabia. The information backs up comments made by Syria’s deputy foreign minister as well as multiple YouTube videos showing the US funded rebels launching chemical attacks with “Saudi factory” labeled weapons.
Ron Paul’s statement calling the chemical attacks a false flag while on Fox News last Wednesday has seemingly opened the flood gates for other journalists to come forward with their similar findings. During an interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News Friday, photojournalist Jonathan Alpeyrie, who was kidnapped and held captive by Syrian rebels for 81 days last April, said he also believed the recent chemical attack was a rebel backed false flag operation.
This coincides with the fact that Obama is now publicly on the same side as Al-Qaeda, as Anthony Gucciardi has broken down:
While the mainstream media has ridiculed and almost completely ignored the historical reality of false flag operations, prominent voices within the alternative news have now forced the term into the public narrative. The power structure has begun to panic from what they themselves have deemed the “global political awakening.” Powerful documentary films have been incremental tools in relaying information to the public on historical examples of state-sponsored terror.
Does Obama know he’s fighting on al-Qa’ida’s side?
‘All for one and one for all’ should be the battle cry if the West goes to war against Assad’s Syrian regime
If Barack Obama decides to attack the Syrian regime, he has ensured – for the very first time in history – that the United States will be on the same side as al-Qa’ida.
Quite an alliance! Was it not the Three Musketeers who shouted “All for one and one for all” each time they sought combat? This really should be the new battle cry if – or when – the statesmen of the Western world go to war against Bashar al-Assad.
The men who destroyed so many thousands on 9/11 will then be fighting alongside the very nation whose innocents they so cruelly murdered almost exactly 12 years ago. Quite an achievement for Obama, Cameron, Hollande and the rest of the miniature warlords.
This, of course, will not be trumpeted by the Pentagon or the White House – nor, I suppose, by al-Qa’ida – though they are both trying to destroy Bashar. So are the Nusra front, one of al-Qa’ida’s affiliates. But it does raise some interesting possibilities.
Maybe the Americans should ask al-Qa’ida for intelligence help – after all, this is the group with “boots on the ground”, something the Americans have no interest in doing. And maybe al-Qa’ida could offer some target information facilities to the country which usually claims that the supporters of al-Qa’ida, rather than the Syrians, are the most wanted men in the world.
There will be some ironies, of course. While the Americans drone al-Qa’ida to death in Yemen and Pakistan – along, of course, with the usual flock of civilians – they will be giving them, with the help of Messrs Cameron, Hollande and the other Little General-politicians, material assistance in Syria by hitting al-Qa’ida’s enemies. Indeed, you can bet your bottom dollar that the one target the Americans will not strike in Syria will be al-Qa’ida or the Nusra front.
And our own Prime Minister will applaud whatever the Americans do, thus allying himself with al-Qa’ida, whose London bombings may have slipped his mind. Perhaps – since there is no institutional memory left among modern governments – Cameron has forgotten how similar are the sentiments being uttered by Obama and himself to those uttered by Bush and Blair a decade ago, the same bland assurances, uttered with such self-confidence but without quite enough evidence to make it stick.
In Iraq, we went to war on the basis of lies originally uttered by fakers and conmen. Now it’s war by YouTube. This doesn’t mean that the terrible images of the gassed and dying Syrian civilians are false. It does mean that any evidence to the contrary is going to have to be suppressed. For example, no-one is going to be interested in persistent reports in Beirut that three Hezbollah members – fighting alongside government troops in Damascus – were apparently struck down by the same gas on the same day, supposedly in tunnels. They are now said to be undergoing treatment in a Beirut hospital. So if Syrian government forces used gas, how come Hezbollah men might have been stricken too? Blowback?
And while we’re talking about institutional memory, hands up which of our jolly statesmen know what happened last time the Americans took on the Syrian government army? I bet they can’t remember. Well it happened in Lebanon when the US Air Force decided to bomb Syrian missiles in the Bekaa Valley on 4 December 1983. I recall this very well because I was here in Lebanon. An American A-6 fighter bomber was hit by a Syrian Strela missile – Russian made, naturally – and crash-landed in the Bekaa; its pilot, Mark Lange, was killed, its co-pilot, Robert Goodman, taken prisoner and freighted off to jail in Damascus. Jesse Jackson had to travel to Syria to get him back after almost a month amid many clichés about “ending the cycle of violence”. Another American plane – this time an A-7 – was also hit by Syrian fire but the pilot managed to eject over the Mediterranean where he was plucked from the water by a Lebanese fishing boat. His plane was also destroyed.
Sure, we are told that it will be a short strike on Syria, in and out, a couple of days. That’s what Obama likes to think. But think Iran. Think Hezbollah. I rather suspect – if Obama does go ahead – that this one will run and run.
Syrian rebels pledge loyalty to al-Qaeda
Mona Alami, Special for USA TODAY9:04 a.m. EDT June 14, 2013
(Photo: AP/Edlib News Network ENN)
BEIRUT — A Syrian rebel group’s April pledge of allegiance to al-Qaeda’s replacement for Osama bin Laden suggests that the terrorist group’s influence is not waning and that it may take a greater role in the Western-backed fight to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The pledge of allegiance by Syrian Jabhat al Nusra Front chief Abou Mohamad al-Joulani to al-Qaeda leader Sheik Ayman al-Zawahri was coupled with an announcement by the al-Qaeda affiliate in Iraq, the Islamic State of Iraq, that it would work with al Nusra as well.
Lebanese Sheik Omar Bakri, a Salafist who says states must be governed by Muslim religious law, says al-Qaeda has assisted al Nusra for some time.
"They provided them early on with technical, military and financial support , especially when it came to setting up networks of foreign jihadis who were brought into Syria," Bakri says. "There will certainly be greater coordination between the two groups."
The United States, which supports the overthrow of Assad, designated al Nusra a terrorist entity in December. The Obama administration has said it wants to support only those insurgent groups that are not terrorist organizations.
Al Nusra and groups like it have seen some of the most significant victories against Syrian government forces in the course of the 2-year-old uprising in which Assad’s forces have killed about 80,000 people. Rebels not affiliated with al-Qaeda have pressed Washington for months to send weaponry that will allow them to match the heavy weapons of the Syrian army. They’ve urged the West to mount an air campaign against Assad’s mechanized forces.
President Obama refuses to provide any direct military aid. Foreign radical Islamists streaming into the fight from the Middle East and Europe are making headway with the Syrian population by providing services and gaining ground in battles.
Tamer Mouhieddine, spokesman for the Syrian Free Army, a force made up of Syrian soldiers who have defected, said the recent announcements would not change his group’s attitude toward al Nusra.
"The rebels in Syria have one common enemy — Bashar Assad — and they will collaborate with any faction allowing them to topple his regime," he said.
He confirmed that al Nusra is generating loyalty in Aleppo, a region battling for months with Assad, by providing financial support as well as setting up charities.
Aaron Zelin at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in Washington says al Nusra’s ability to provide security and basic needs such as bread and fuel to Syrian civilians, as well as to reopen shops and restart bus services, has won gratitude from people who would not usually adhere to its strict ideology.
Zelin says some Syrian people have criticized al Nusra for banning alcohol, forcing women to wear a full veil and whipping men who are seen with women in public.
"This illustrates the need for American leadership in the Syrian conflict, particularly with regard to helping non-Qaeda-aligned rebels contain the growth of (al Nusra) and similar groups," he said. "Washington should also try to take advantage of cleavages within the rebellion and civilian population, since al Nusra is outside the mainstream and more concerned with establishing a transnational caliphate than maintaining the Syrian state."
Groups such as the Islamic Liwaa al Tawhid, which collaborates with al Nusra on military operations, worried that Assad would use the announcement from al Nusra as evidence for his claim that he is fighting terrorists, not Syrian citizens who wish an end to his dictatorship, Mouhieddine said.
"We are willing to fight alongside any faction targeting the Assad regime, as long as it does not have a foreign agenda, which seems now the case" of al Nusra, he said.
Obama authorizes secret support for Syrian rebels
By Mark Hosenball
WASHINGTON | Wed Aug 1, 2012 9:04pm EDT
(Reuters) – President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing U.S. support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government, sources familiar with the matter said.
Obama’s order, approved earlier this year and known as an intelligence "finding," broadly permits the CIA and other U.S. agencies to provide support that could help the rebels oust Assad.
This and other developments signal a shift toward growing, albeit still circumscribed, support for Assad’s armed opponents – a shift that intensified following last month’s failure of the U.N. Security Council to agree on tougher sanctions against the Damascus government.
The White House is for now apparently stopping short of giving the rebels lethal weapons, even as some U.S. allies do just that.
But U.S. and European officials have said that there have been noticeable improvements in the coherence and effectiveness of Syrian rebel groups in the past few weeks. That represents a significant change in assessments of the rebels by Western officials, who previously characterized Assad’s opponents as a disorganized, almost chaotic, rabble.
Precisely when Obama signed the secret intelligence authorization, an action not previously reported, could not be determined.
The full extent of clandestine support that agencies like the CIA might be providing also is unclear.
White House spokesman Tommy Vietor declined comment.
‘NERVE CENTER’
A U.S. government source acknowledged that under provisions of the presidential finding, the United States was collaborating with a secret command center operated by Turkey and its allies.
Last week, Reuters reported that, along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Turkey had established a secret base near the Syrian border to help direct vital military and communications support to Assad’s opponents.
This "nerve center" is in Adana, a city in southern Turkey about 60 miles from the Syrian border, which is also home to Incirlik, a U.S. air base where U.S. military and intelligence agencies maintain a substantial presence.
Turkey’s moderate Islamist government has been demanding Assad’s departure with growing vehemence. Turkish authorities are said by current and former U.S. government officials to be increasingly involved in providing Syrian rebels with training and possibly equipment.
European government sources said wealthy families in Saudi Arabia and Qatar were providing significant financing to the rebels. Senior officials of the Saudi and Qatari governments have publicly called for Assad’s departure.
On Tuesday, NBC News reported that the Free Syrian Army had obtained nearly two dozen surface-to-air missiles, weapons that could be used against Assad’s helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. Syrian government armed forces have employed such air power more extensively in recent days.
NBC said the shoulder-fired missiles, also known as MANPADs, had been delivered to the rebels via Turkey.
On Wednesday, however, Bassam al-Dada, a political adviser to the Free Syrian Army, denied the NBC report, telling the Arabic-language TV network Al-Arabiya that the group had "not obtained any such weapons at all." U.S. government sources said they could not confirm the MANPADs deliveries, but could not rule them out either.
Current and former U.S. and European officials previously said that weapons supplies, which were being organized and financed by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, were largely limited to guns and a limited number of anti-tank weapons, such as bazookas.
Indications are that U.S. agencies have not been involved in providing weapons to Assad’s opponents. In order to do so, Obama would have to approve a supplement, known as a "memorandum of notification, to his initial broad intelligence finding.
Further such memoranda would have to be signed by Obama to authorize other specific clandestine operations to support Syrian rebels.
Reuters first reported last week that the White House had crafted a directive authorizing greater U.S. covert assistance to Syrian rebels. It was unclear at that time whether Obama had signed it.
OVERT SUPPORT
Separately from the president’s secret order, the Obama administration has stated publicly that it is providing some backing for Assad’s opponents.
The State Department said on Wednesday the U.S. government had set aside a total of $25 million for "non-lethal" assistance to the Syrian opposition. A U.S. official said that was mostly forcommunications equipment, including encrypted radios.
The State Department also says the United States has set aside $64 million in humanitarian assistance for the Syrian people, including contributions to the World Food Program, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other aid agencies.
Also on Wednesday, the U.S. Treasury confirmed it had granted authorization to the Syrian Support Group, Washington representative of one of the most active rebel factions, the Free Syrian Army, to conduct financial transactions on the rebel group’s behalf. The authorization was first reported on Friday by Al-Monitor, a Middle East news and commentary website.
Last year, when rebels began organizing themselves to challenge the rule of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Obama also signed an initial "finding" broadly authorizing secret U.S. backing for them. But the president moved cautiously in authorizing specific measures to support them.
Some U.S. lawmakers, such as Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, have criticized Obama for moving too slowly to assist the rebels and have suggested the U.S. government become directly involved in arming Assad’s opponents.
Other lawmakers have suggested caution, saying too little is known about the many rebel groups.
Recent news reports from the region have suggested that the influence and numbers of Islamist militants, some of them connected to al Qaeda or its affiliates, have been growing among Assad’s opponents.
U.S. and European officials say that, so far, intelligence agencies do not believe the militants’ role in the anti-Assad opposition is dominant.
While U.S. and allied government experts believe that the Syrian rebels have been making some progress against Assad’s forces lately, most believe the conflict is nowhere near resolution, and could go on for years.
Khalid Shakfeh, a microbiology student at the University of South Florida, was questioned by officials with the Department of Defense (DoD) after he returned from a trip to Syria in which he helped transport and provide humanitarian materials, reported WTSP.
The 18-year old student is an American citizen born of Syrian immigrants. Shakfeh and his sister traveled with the Syrian American Council, a group that aims at supporting human rights, civil liberties and promotes a friendly relationship between Syria and the US.
During the March trip, Shakfeh said he provided basic medical supplies like gauze, Tylenol and Advil to Syrians who lacked access to basic necessities.
Upon his return, Shakfeh says he was contacted by the MacDill-based U.S. Special Operations Command(SOCOM), a group that specializes in synchronize planning of global operations against terrorist networks.
“What did you? What were the people there facing? What do they need and things like that?” asked SOCOM officials.
Shakfeh told officials that he could provide them the “best” and “most clear” answers if they submitted their questions in writing. SOCOM failed to submit to his request.
A few days later officials sought after Shakfeh again, this time at his father’s medical practice. The American student stood his ground again telling the DoD officials that he would submit his answers if they provided him the questions in writing. The DoD declined and Shakfeh says he hasn’t heard from them since.
“The FBI and other government agencies actively targeting us just to harass… a means of harassment,” Shakfeh said.
Spokesperson for the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Hassan Shibly, said he’s seen patterns of the US government targeting people based on their background, color, and religion, questioning and harassing them without cause.
He calls the behavior by the DoD “un-American and unacceptable.”
The fact the US government has been targeting US Syrian immigrants for some time now, illustrates the US’s perception of the relationship between the two countries.
As of Friday, the US announced no specific plans on how they intend to move forward on the Syrian conflict, but has moved a sixth warship into the Mediterranean as a “precaution.”
The US currently has six warships in place, with reportedly five destroyers each carrying an estimated three dozen or more Tomahawk missiles for a combined total of about 200 missiles, according to a Reuters report.
Many of the leaks about U.S. strike plans for Syria, a copious flow of surprisingly specific information on ship dispositions and possible targets, have been authorized as a way for President Obama to signal the limited scope of operations to friends and foes.
But a number of leaks have been decidedly unauthorized — and, according to Obama administration sources, likely emanating from a Pentagon bureaucracy less enthusiastic about the prospect of an attack than, say, the State Department, National Security Council or Obama himself.
"Deeply unhelpful," was how one West Winger described the drip-drip of doubt.
"They need to shut the f–k up," said a former administration official. "It’s embarrassing. Who ever heard this much talk before an attack? It’s bizarre."
An obvious example was a report in Thursday’s Washington Post in which current and former officers listed their worries about Syria:
“I can’t believe the president is even considering it,” said [one] officer, who like most officers interviewed for this story agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity because military personnel are reluctant to criticize policymakers while military campaigns are being planned. “We have been fighting the last 10 years a counterinsurgency war. Syria has modern weaponry. We would have to retrain for a conventional war.”
Far more damaging have been a series of disclosures that more subtlely undermine Obama’s claim that the Syria action will be quick and clean, punitive and tailored. Earlier this week theNew York Timesreported on doubts that the main weapon likely employed against Syrian President Bashar Assad, the Tomahawk cruise missile, would have a meaningful impact on the regime’s chemical weapons facilities which are widely scattered and likely to be well hidden. This graf, I’m told, chafed in particular:
The weapons are not often effective against mobile targets, like missile launchers, and cannot be used to attack underground bunkers. Naval officers and attack planners concede that the elevation of the missile cannot entirely be controlled and that there is a risk of civilian casualties when they fly slightly high.
The back-and-forth is hardly unprecedented; For decades, military officials — the people who actually have to implement war plans — have been a source of dissent. Think Pentagon Papers. And Obama officials say the criticism isn’t coming from Secretary Chuck Hagel and his cadre of top aides but lower-ranking brass.
One top leader who has been publicly skeptical of the costs and dangers of getting involved in the Syrian civil war is Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey who offered a cost estimate of $1 billion per month for a no-fly zone and buffer-zone ground force during congressional testimony earlier this summer.
During the same appearance Dempsey predicted such areas could become sanctuaries for Islamic radicals and said even a limited strike, of the type being contemplated now, could cost "billions."
Following twin war drum speeches by Secretary of State John Kerry and Obama on Friday, the corporate media, led by the traditional master of war propaganda, the New York Times, speculated that the United States might not attack Syria if it can’t nail down support.
“Deprived of the support of Britain, America’s most stalwart wartime ally, the Obama administration scrambled behind the scenes to build international support elsewhere for a strike that might begin as early as this weekend,” the Time reports. “Officials were still holding out hope that at least one Arab country might publicly join the military coalition.”
One Arab nation? How pathetic. None of this matters because so-called partners, consensus and the “need to establish American credibility” has little to do with the drive to bomb Syria.
Bombing Syria — or any other country — is about business: the prospect of bombs over Damascus is about profits for the military-industrial complex. It is about transnational corporations and international banks that stand to gain both obscene profits and unprecedented political power in a geopolitical chess game.
If you doubt this, check out the graphs below. They reveal something not broadcast on the front page of the New York Times: wars and rumors of war drive the markets.
Death merchant Raytheon’s stock price went to a 52-week high this week.
Lockheed Martin saw its stock spike to a six month high on Monday, the day war propaganda started up in earnest.
During the Napoleonic Wars, the banker Nathan Mayer Rothschild was instrumental in financing the British war effort. He not only organized the shipment of bullion to the Duke of Wellington’s armies scattered across Europe, he also received and used to his advantage political and financial information denied his competitors. Rothschild famously exploited news of England’s victory over Napoleon at Waterloo to manipulate the markets and bought up the bond market after the war. It’s no different now. Corporations and banks — far more powerful today than in Nathan Mayer Rothschild’s day — invariably drive the United States government to war. Speeches by the blue blood John Kerry Heinz and the teleprompter reader Obama who was carefully groomed by the CIA to be the first black president — and thus more teflon coated than Ronald Reagan — are minor players.
A foolish President Obama and moronic Secretary of State Kerry have handed the United States government its worst diplomatic defeat in history and destroyed the credibility of the Office of the President, the Department of State, and the entire executive branch. All are exposed as a collection of third-rate liars.
Intoxicated with hubris from past successful lies and deceptions used to destroy Iraq and Libya, Obama thought the US “superpower,” the “exceptional” and “indispensable” country, could pull it off again, this time in Syria.
But the rest of the world has learned to avoid Washington’s rush to war when there is no evidence. A foolish Obama was pushed far out on the limb by an incompetent and untrustworthy National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, and the pack of neoconservatives that support her, and the British Parliament cut the limb off.
What kind of fool would put himself in that vulnerable position?
Now Obama stands alone, isolated, trying to back away from his threat to attack without authorization from anyone–not from the UN, not from NATO, not from Congress who he ignored–a sovereign country. Under the Nuremberg Standard military aggression is a war crime. Washington has until now got away with its war crimes by cloaking them in UN or NATO approval. Despite these “approvals,” they remain war crimes.
But his National Security Advisor and the neocon warmongers are telling him that he must prove that he is a Real Man who can stand alone and commit war crimes all by himself without orchestrated cover from the UN or NATO or a cowardly US Congress. It is up to Obama, they insist, to establish for all time that the President of the United States is above all law. He, and he alone is the “decider,” the Caesar, who determines what is permissible. The Caesar of the “sole superpower” must now assert his authority over all law or Washington’s hegemony over the world is lost.
As I noted in an earlier column today, if Obama goes it alone, he will be harassed for the rest of his life as a war criminal who dares not leave the US. Indeed, a looming economic collapse could so alter the power and attitude of the United States that Obama could find himself brought to justice for his war crimes.
Regardless, the United States government has lost its credibility throughout the world and will never regain it, unless the Bush and Obama regimes are arrested and put on trial for their war crimes.
Obama’s destruction of US credibility goes far beyond diplomacy. It is likely that this autumn or winter, and almost certainly in 2014, the US will face severe economic crisis.
The long-term abuse of the US dollar’s reserve currency role by the Federal Reserve and US Treasury, the never-ending issuance of new debt and printing of dollars to finance it, the focus of US economic policy on bailing out the “banks too big to fail” regardless of the adverse impact on domestic and world economies and holders of US Treasury debt, the awaiting political crisis of the unresolved deficit and debt ceiling limit that will greet Congress’ return to Washington in September, collapsing job opportunities and a sinking economy all together present the government in Washington with a crisis that is too large for the available intelligence, knowledge, and courage to master.
When the proverbial hits the fan, the incompetent and corrupt Federal Reserve and the incompetent and corrupt US Treasury will have no more credibility than Obama and John Kerry.
The rest of the world–especially Washington’s bullied NATO puppet states–will take great delight in the discomfort of “the world’s sole superpower” that has been running on hubris ever since the Soviet collapse.
The world is not going to bail out Washington, now universally hated, with currency swaps, more loans, and foreign aid. Americans are going to pay heavily for their negligence, their inattention, their unconcern, and their ignorant belief that nothing can go wrong for them and that anything that does is temporary.
Two decades of jobs offshoring has left the US with a third world labor force employed in lowly paid domestic nontradable services, a workforce comparable to India’s of 40 years ago. Already the “world’s sole superpower” is afflicted with a large percentage of its population dependent on government welfare for survival. As the economy closes down, the government’s ability to meet the rising demands of survival diminishes. The rich will demand that the poor be sacrificed in the interest of the rich. And the political parties will comply.
Is this the reason that Homeland Security, a Nazi Gestapo institution, now has a large and growing para-military force equipped with tanks, drones, and billions of rounds of ammunition?
How long will it be before American citizens are shot down in their streets by “their” government as occurs frequently in Washington’s close allies in Egypt, Turkey, Bahrain?
Americans have neglected the requirements of liberty. Americans are so patriotic and so gullible that all the government has to do is to wrap itself in the flag, and the people, or too many of them, believe whatever lie the government tells. And the gullible people will defend the government’s lie to their death, indeed, to the death of the entire world.
If Americans keep believing the government’s lies, they have no future. If truth be known, Americans have already lost a livable future. The neocons’ “American Century” is over before it begun.
Update: I have heard from educated and aware friends that the presstitute media on the evening news are beating the drums for war. This shows what paid whores the US media is and their total disconnect from reality. Anyone who wastes their time on the US media is a brainwashed idiot, a danger to humanity.
Update 8:52 PM August 30: Is the White House idiot going to be a victim of his own careless presidential appointments?
Does he have no one to tell him how to escape the dilemma his moronic Secretary of State and National Security Advisor have put him in? Someone needs to tell the WH Fool that he must say that he accepts the conclusion of the world community that there is not sufficient evidence for launching a military attack on Syria and killing even more people than were killed in the alleged, but unproven, chemical attack, and that he awaits further and better evidence.
God help the moron and the unfortunate country that the fool represents.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. His latest book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West is now available.
PM: Syria’s army has ‘finger on the trigger’
Saturday, 31 August 2013
The Syrian regime is ready to retaliate to a military strike ‘at any moment.’ (File photo: Reuters)
Al Arabiya
Syria’s army is ready for potential foreign strikes against it and has its “finger on the trigger,” Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi said in comments carried Saturday on state television, Agence France-Presse reported. “The Syrian army is fully ready, its finger on the trigger to face any challenge or scenario that they want to carry out,” AFP quoted him as saying in a written statement aired on television.
Syria is expecting a military strike “at any moment,” a security official said on Saturday, Only hours after U.N. inspectors left the country after investigating the aftermath of suspected chemical weapons attacks said to be perpetrated by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, a security official said on Saturday that Syria is expecting a military strike “at any moment.”
“We are expecting an attack at any moment. We are ready to retaliate at any moment,” an unnamed Syrian security official told AFP news agency.
The departure of the U.N. inspectors has given the United States an opportunity to carry out a military strike, after President Barack Obama on Friday indicated that military intervention was pending.
The U.S. president said that his administration was looking at the possibility of a “limited, narrow act,” while emphasizing that no final decision had yet been made on possible military strikes against the Syrian regime.
The U.N. inspectors are due to report back to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and present their conclusion on whether or not a poison gas attack took place on August 21.
The Syrian regime has denied responsibility for the alleged attacks which the U.S. government says caused the deaths of some 1,400 people.
Pretending to believe in a chemical attack by the Syrian government against its own people, Washington, London and Paris are beating the drums of war. Should we take these threats seriously coming from states having announced as imminent the fall of Syria for more than two years? Although one should not exclude this option, Thierry Meyssan thinks it is less likely that an intervention organized by Saudi Arabia. Western agitation would rather aim to test the responses of Russia and Iran.
“Washington and London have pronounced Assad guilty before the conclusions of UN inspectors. They will accept nothing but a guilty verdict . Any other verdict will be rejected,” said the President of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Duma, the journalist and geopolitician, Alexei Pushkov.
What bee has the Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Barack Obama, got in his bonnet? Sunday, August 25, the White House issued a statement in which an anonymous senior official said that there is “little doubt” of the use by Syria of chemical weapons against its opposition. The statement added that Syria ’s agreement to let the UN inspectors in the area is “too late to be credible .”
If the use of chemical weapons on the outskirts of Damascus, Wednesday, August 21, 2013 is likely, the Security Council of the United Nations has not concluded that it was the work of the Syrian government. At an emergency meeting held at the request of the West, the ambassadors were surprised to see their Russian colleague present satellite photos showing the firing of two rounds at 1:35 am from the rebel zone Duma in rebel areas affected by gas (at Jobar and between Arbin and Zamalka ) at times coinciding with the related disorders. The pictures do not tell us whether they were chemical shells, but they suggest that the “Brigade of Islam“, which occupies Duma, has hit three birds with the same stone: first, to remove the support of its rivals in the opposition; second, accuse Syria of using chemical weapons; finally, disrupt the offensive of the Syrian Arab army clearing the capital.
If the Syrian government, similar to its enemy, Israel, is not a signatory to the Convention against chemical weapons and has large stocks, the jihadists also have some, as confirmed by Carla Del Ponte, to the fury of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. In December, the Free Syrian Army released a video showing a chemical laboratory and threatening the Alawites. This week, the government discovered several caches of chemical weapons, gas masks and antidotes in the suburbs of Damascus. The products came from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United States and the Netherlands. Also, it is at the request of the Syrian government, not the West, that UN inspectors are present in Syria for two weeks to investigate allegations of use. Finally, on 29 May 29, 2013, the Turkish police arrested a dozen members of the Al-Nosra Front and seized chemical weapons that were to be used in Syria.
However, on Friday, President Obama met his National Security Council to review the attack options against Syria in the presence of Ambassador Samantha Power, leader of liberal hawks. He decided to strengthen the U.S. military presence in the Mediterranean by sending a fourth destroyer, loaded with cruise missiles, the USS Ramage. This is in addition to the USS Gravely, the USS Barry and USS Mahan, which remains in the zone when it should return to port.
Saturday, he called British Prime Minister David Cameron on the phone. And on Sunday, he spoke with French President Francois Hollande. The three men agreed that intervention was necessary without specifying how. Sunday again, the Secretary of State John Kerry called his British, French, Canadian and Russian counterparts to say that the United States was convinced that Syria had crossed the “red line“. If the first three speakers listened at attention, Russia’s Sergey Lavrov expressed surprise that Washington pronounced itself before the report of the UN inspectors. He referred to the “extremely grave consequences” that would result form an intervention in the region.
Monday, the French defense minister, Jean -Yves Le Drian, was in Qatar and was to go to the UAE to coordinate with them. While the Israeli national security adviser, General Yaakov Amidror, was received at the White House. During a telephone conversation between the British Prime Minister David Cameron and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the latter stressed that there was no evidence of use of chemical weapons by Syria. For his part, the Chinese Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs, Li Baodong, called his U.S. counterpart, Wendy R. Sherman, to urge the United States to exercise restraint. Aware of the risk of a regional war in which Christians would suffer, Pope Francis reiterated his call for peace.
Should we therefore think that the West will go to war without a mandate from the Security Council, as NATO did in Yugoslavia? This is unlikely because at the time Russia was in ruins. Today, after issuing three vetoes to protect Syria, it must intervene or forsake any international action. However Sergey Lavrov has wisely rejected a Third World War. He said that his country was not ready to go to war against anyone, even over Syria. It could therefore be an indirect intervention in support of Syria, as China did during the Vietnam War .
Iran then, through its Deputy Chief of Staff, Massoud Jazayeri, indicated that the attack on Syria would be crossing the “red line” and that if it took this step, the White House would endure “serious consequences.” Though Iran has neither the resources of Russia, nor alliances, it is certainly one of the top 10 global military powers. Therefore, to attack Syria is to run the risk of retaliation against Israel and uprisings in much of the Arab world, including Saudi Arabia. The recent intervention of the Lebanese Hezbollah and the statements of its Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, such as the Palestinian organization PFLP- General Command, leave no doubt.
Questioned by the Russian press, Syrian President Bashar al -Assad, said: “The statements made by US politicians, Western and other countries is an insult to common sense and an expression of contempt for the public opinion of their peoples. This is nonsense: first accuse, then gather evidence. This task is carried out by a powerful country, the United States ( … ) This kind of accusation is a purely political response to the series of victories won by government forces against the terrorists. ”
In Russia, the President of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Duma, the journalist and geopolitician, Alexei Pushkov, commented on his Twitter account : ” Washington and London have pronounced Assad guilty before the conclusions of UN inspectors . They will accept nothing but a guilty verdict . Any other verdict will be rejected. ”
The notion of a new war in Syria squares badly with the economic problems of the United States and Europe. If selling weapons is a way to earn money, destroying a state without hope of return in the short or medium term can worsen the situation.
According to a Reuters / Ipsos poll conducted after the August 21st attack, 60% of the US public opposed intervention in Syria against 9% who supported it . If they were convinced of the use of chemical weapons in Syria, they remained 46% in opposition to the war and 25% in support. The same survey indicates that U.S. respondents are even less fond of secret war : 89 % said the US should not arm the rebels, against 11% who want to arm them more. Finally, four options were offered to respondents : airstrikes ( supported by 12%), creating a no-fly zone ( 11%), the financing of a multinational force ( 9%), and direct U.S. action ( 4%).
In France, Le Figaro, published by the arms dealer Dassault, asked its readers and, at the end of the day, 79.60 % opposed the war versus 20.40% in support. It will certainly be difficult to reverse public opinion and go to war.
Another interpretation of events is possible: some videos showing the victims of chemical attacks actually circulated on the Internet a few hours before the attacks. It will always be possible for Westerners to “discover” the deception in time and backtrack. However, the case of chemical weapons in Iraq has shown that Westerners could lie to the international community and escape with impunity once their evil deed is accomplished.
The charges from jihadists and their Western sponsors emerged while the Syrian Arab Army launched a major offensive, “Shield of Damascus” to free the capital. The shot of the two shells of the “Brigade of Islam” came at the beginning of the offensive, which continued for 5 days and resulted in significant losses among jihadists (at least 1,500 killed and wounded of the about 25,000 present). All this agitation may be only psychological warfare to both hide this defeat and attempt to cripple the Syrian offensive. This is especially a way for Washington to test the Iranian response after the election of Sheikh Hassan Rohani to his presidency. And it is now clear that the latter will not oppose the policy of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
However, during the war against Libya, I had underestimated the ability of the United States to violate all the rules, including those of NATO. Basing myself on documents from the Atlantic Alliance, I insisted on the long resilience of the Libyan Jamahiriya confronting its armed opposition. I ignored the holding of a secret meeting on the NATO base in Naples behind the back of the Atlantic Council. At the time, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Denmark, Turkey, Israel, Qatar and Jordan secretly planned the use of Alliance assets to bomb Tripoli. Not trusting their allies, whom they knew would be opposed to an attack so costly in human lives, they had not informed them. The Atlantic Alliance was no longer an Alliance proper but an ad hoc coalition. In a few days, the taking of Tripoli caused at least 40,000 deaths, according to internal reports of the Red Cross. Such a manoeuvre may be being organized : the Chiefs of Staff of approximately the same states, plus Saudi Arabia and Canada, are gathered since Sunday and until tonight in Amman under the chairmanship of the CentCom commander, General Lloyd J. Austin III. They are considering five options: supplying weapons to the Contras, targeted bombings, creating a no-fly zone, establishment of buffer zones and land invasion.
The Atlanticist press calls to war. The London Times ad .
President Barack Obama could well follow the war plan drawn up by his predecessor George W. Bush on 15 September 2001, who foresaw, in addition to attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, those of Libya and Syria, as was revealed by the former Commander of NATO, General Wesley Clark. Except that, for the first time, the target has serious allies.
However, the new U.S. rhetoric contradicts all the efforts of the Obama administration for the last year that sought to eliminate obstacles to the holding of the Geneva 2 Conference: resignation of General David Petraeus and supporters of the secret war, non-reappointment of Hillary Clinton and the ultra-Zionists ; indictment of irreducible opponents of an alliance with Russia, especially within NATO and the missile shield . It also contradicts the efforts of John Brennan to cause clashes in the Syrian armed opposition to demand the abdication of the Emir of Qatar, and to threaten Saudi Arabia.
On the Syrian side, we are preparing as much as is possible for any eventuality, including the NATO bombing of command centers and ministries coordinated with an assault by jihadists against the capital. However, the most likely option is not triggering a regional war that would overwhelm the Western powers. It is an attack in the fall, supervised by Saudi Arabia and endorsed by the fighters it is currently recruiting . Eventually, this operation could be supported by the Arab League.
Remember that recently announced leak at Fukushima (which we first noted nearly a month ago), which Tepco promised was nothing really, only to subsequently admit 300 tons of radioactive water was seeping out of the destroyed nuclear power plant daily into the ocean (and everywhere else), a leak which subsequently was raised from a stage 1 to stage 3 in radioactive severity, and that it had for all intents and purposes lost control of the containment process, oh and, by the way, it would no longer lie about how severe the situation truly was?
Credit: Nicolas Raymond via Flickr
Well, turns out it lied. As Businessweek reports, “the leak at a contaminated water storage tankdiscovered last week at the Fukushima plant may have continued since last month before it was detected and the tank drained, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.
“May” being the operative word here. Just like “glitch” is the operative word when, daily, something breaks in the markets usually around the time AAPLtakes out a major support level.
“Crews found elevated levels of radiation in July near where the leak was ultimately detected on Aug. 19, Mayumi Yoshida, a spokeswoman for the utility known as Tepco, said today by phone.
Tepco originally characterized the leak as a small one before determining by the change in the tank’s water level that 300 metric tons of contaminated water had escaped. A protective barrier around the tank didn’t stop the leak because a valve in the concrete structure had been left open, Tepco said.
Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority last week labeled the leak a “serious incident” in its worst assessment of the problems at Fukushima since the earthquake and tsunami of 2011 caused reactors to melt down.
The good thing is that, just like in Syria with the whole false flag Syrian chemical weapon theater, “democratic” government bureaucrats always tell their citizens the truth, not only because they are entitled to it, but because said bureaucrats always hold the truth so much dearer than their largely irrelevant bureaucraticcareers.
Even if, on occasion, they fib a little, and millions of innocent people die or are irradiated. Hey, nobody said centrally-planning an insolvent world was easy, or that mistakes wouldn’t be made.
Jerome Corsi WND August 27, 2013 With the assistance of former PLO member and native Arabic-speaker Walid Shoebat, WND has assembled evidence from various Middle Eastern sources that cast doubt on Obama administration claims the Assad government is responsible for last week’s attack.
A video posted on YouTube, embedded below, shows Free Syrian Army, or FSA, rebel forces launching a Sarin gas attack on a Syrian village.
Another video posted on YouTube shows what appears to be Syrian rebel forces loading a canister of nerve gas on a rocket to fire presumably at civilians and possibly government forces.
As seen below, a screen capture from the video shows rebel civilian forces placing a suspicious blue canister on top of a rocket-launching device.
A separate YouTube video from Syrian television shows a government-captured arsenal of what appears to be nerve gas weapons seized from a rebel stronghold in Jobar, Syria.
The image below shows canisters in the seized rebel arsenal from Jobar that appear to resemble the canister launched by rebel forces in the first image above.
Syrian TV news report of rebel weapons seized in Jobar, Syria
A close-up from the Syrian television news report, seen below, shows a chemical agent identified as having been made by a “Saudi factory.”
Syrian TV news report showing chemical agents identified as manufactured in Saudi Arabia
A report from the Russian Arabic-language channel RT Arabic shows captured rebel arsenals apparently with chemical agents manufactured in Saudi Arabia and gas masks, supporting Russian claims that the rebels are the culprits in the alleged chemical attack.
On Aug. 23, LiveLeak.com hosted an audio recording of a phone call broadcast on Syrian TV between a terrorist affiliated with the rebel civilian militia “Shuhada al-Bayada Battalion” in Homs, Syria, and his Saudi Arabian boss, identified as “Abulbasit.” The phone call indicates rebel-affiliated terrorists in Syria, not the Assad government, launched the chemical weapons attack in Deir Ballba in the Homs, Syria, countryside.
The terrorist said his group, which comprises 200 terrorists escaped from al-Bayadah to al-Daar al-Kabera through a tunnel, needed to buy weapons to attack Homs.
The Saudi financier, who was in Cairo, asked the Syrian terrorists to give details about his group and how it will receive the money. The Saudi admitted his support to terrorists in Daraa and the Damascus countryside. The Syrian terrorist told him that one of the achievements of his “battalion” was the use of chemical weapons in Deir Ballba.
The recorded phone call disclosed the cooperation between two terrorist groups in Syria to bring two bottles of Sarin Gas from the Barzeh neighborhood in Damascus.
Russian media sources have consistently reported Syrian military have discovered rebel warehouses containing chemical weapons agents and have documented rebel chemical weapons attacks on the Syrian civilians the military.
“The [weapons inspection] team must be able to conduct a full, thorough and unimpeded investigation,” said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday night. However, the team is only mandated to determine if chemical weapons were used, not who used them, Mr. Ban’s spokesman said.
In other words, even if it was the rebels who carried out the attack, it will still be used as an excuse to attack the government.
The fix is in … the U.S. will get the war it planned 20 years ago.
Neoconservatives Planned Regime Change Throughout the Middle East and North Africa 20 Years Ago
General Wesley Clark … said the aim of this plot [to "destroy the governments in … Iraq, … Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran”] was this: “They wanted us to destabilize the Middle East, turn it upside down, make it under our control.” He then recounted a conversation he had had ten years earlier with Paul Wolfowitz — back in1991 — in which the then-number-3-Pentagon-official, after criticizing Bush 41 for not toppling Saddam, told Clark: “But one thing we did learn [from the Persian Gulf War] is that we can use our military in the region – in the Middle East – and the Soviets won’t stop us. And we’ve got about 5 or 10 years to clean up those old Soviet regimes – Syria, Iran [sic], Iraq – before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us.” Clark said he was shocked by Wolfowitz’s desires because, as Clark put it: “the purpose of the military is to start wars and change governments? It’s not to deter conflicts?”
[I]n the aftermath of military-caused regime change in Iraq and Libya … with concerted regime change efforts now underway aimed at Syria and Iran, with active andescalating proxy fighting in Somalia, with a modest military deployment to SouthSudan, and the active use of drones in six — count ‘em: six — different Muslim countries, it is worth asking whether the neocon dream as laid out by Clark is dead or is being actively pursued and fulfilled, albeit with means more subtle and multilateral than full-on military invasions (it’s worth remembering that neocons specialized in dressing up their wars in humanitarian packaging: Saddam’s rape rooms! Gassed his own people!). As Jonathan Schwarz … put it about the supposedly contentious national security factions:
As far as I can tell, there’s barely any difference in goals within the foreign policy establishment. They just disagree on the best methods to achieve the goals. My guess is that everyone agrees we have to continue defending the mideast from outside interference (I love that Hillary line), and the [Democrats] just think that best path is four overt wars and three covert actions, while the neocons want to jump straight to seven wars.
***
The neocon end as Clark reported them — regime change in those seven countries — seems as vibrant as ever. It’s just striking to listen to Clark describe those 7 countries in which the neocons plotted to have regime change back in 2001, and then compare that to what the U.S. Government did and continues to do since then with regard to those precise countries.
We noted last month that Congress is less popular than North Korea, cockroaches, lice, root canals, colonoscopies, traffic jams, used car salesmen, Genghis Khan, Communism, BP during the Gulf oil spill, Nixon during Watergate or King George during the American Revolution.
The Washington Post notes today that a Syria intervention is less popular than Congress. So that means that the American people would much rather get a root canal or a colonoscopy than bomb Syria.
Indeed, while John Kerry announced today that the Syrian government used chemical weapons, Reuters noted:
The polls suggest that so far, the growing crisis in Syria, and the emotionally wrenching pictures from an alleged chemical attack in a Damascus suburb this week, may actually be hardening many Americans’ resolve not to get involved in another conflict in the Middle East.
The bottom line is that Americans are sick of war.
Remember what the 2012 leaked Stratfor memo said about the focal point of western airborne power? Here it is again: “Syrian air defenses are a lot more robust and are much denser, esp around Damascus and on the borders with Israel, Turkey. THey are most worried about mobile air defenses, particularly the SA-17s that they’ve been getting recently. It’s still a doable mission, it’s just not an easy one. The main base they would use is Cyprus, hands down. Brits and FRench would fly out of there. They kept stressing how much is stored at Cyprus and how much recce comes out of there. The group was split on whether Turkey would be involved, but said Turkey would be pretty critical to the mission to base stuff out of there. EVen if Turkey had a poltiical problem with Cyprus, they said there is no way the Brits and the FRench wouldn’t use Cyprus as their main air force base.” (sic) Well, it has begun. Guardian reports that “Warplanes and military transporters have begun arriving at Britain’s Akrotiri airbase on Cyprus, less than 100 miles from the Syrian coast, in a sign of increasing preparations for a military strike against the Assad regime in Syria.”
Two commercial pilots who regularly fly from Larnaca on Monday told the Guardian that they had seen C-130 transport planes from their cockpit windows as well as small formations of fighter jets on their radar screens, which they believe had flown from Europe.
Residents near the British airfield, a sovereign base since 1960, also say activity there has been much higher than normal over the past 48 hours.
If an order to attack targets in Syria is given, Cyprus is likely to be a hub of the air campaign. The arrival of warplanes suggests that advanced readiness – at the very least – has been ordered by Whitehall as David Cameron, Barack Obama and European leaders step up their rhetoric against Bashar al-Assad, whose armed forces they accuse of carrying out the chemical weapons attack last Wednesday that killed many hundreds in eastern Damascus.
Akrotiri has played a crucial role during Britain’s recent operations in the Middle East. During both major campaigns against Iraq, in 1991 and 2003, and also during the no-fly zone operations between, it operated as a staging post for British forces en-route to the region.
A constant problem of airfields located outside the territory of the country whose forces are based there is that of overflight rights. The UK has a treaty with Cyprus that guarantees British access to Akrotiri in any circumstances. Under the treaty, the stations employ many locals and contribute to the local economy.
A sizeable over-the-horizon radar antenna was erected within the base raising concern for the effect on local wildlife and on the health of people living in nearby Limassol. Several demonstrations and protests took place, with most memorable incident the act of MP (MEP since 2004) Marios Matsakis to chain himself on the antenna. Amateur radio operators report that the radar is causing interference in bands allocated for amateur radio use by the ITU. From the international amateur radio union region 1 monitoring system news letter (April 2002): The lowest frequency was 18000 kHz, the highest frequency so far during the current solar cycle is 30500 kHz. The bandwidth is normally 50 to 60 kHz, the signal strength S9 + 70 dB thus causing very harmful interference to the Amateur Radio Service.
Akrotiri was also the location of the main transmitter of the well known numbers station, the Lincolnshire Poacher, although transmissions ceased in 2008. Akrotiri is also the location of the Limassol BBC Relay that broadcast the BBC World Service radio signal to the Middle East.
Due to the station’s relative proximity to the Middle East, it is often used by British allies when needed, such as for casualty reception for Americans after the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing[5] and as a staging post before heading into theatres of combat in the Middle East/Persian Gulf theaters.
The U-2s of the 9th Reconnaissance Wing were used in Operation Cedar Sweep to fly surveillance over Lebanon, relaying information about Hezbollah militants to Lebanese authorities, and in Operation Highland Warrior to fly surveillance over Turkey and northern Iraq to relay information to Turkish authorities. These flights were the topic of acrimonious diplomatic cables between British officials and the American embassy, later leaked by Wikileaks, with David Miliband saying that “policymakers needed to get control of the military”. The British were concerned that the flights over Lebanon were authorised by the Lebanese Ministry of Defence rather than the entire cabinet, and that the intelligence so gained could lead to the UK being complicit in the unlawful torture of detainees. After warnings that these issues “could jeopardize future use of British territory”, John Rood, a senior Bush administration official, and Mariot Leslie, the Foreign Office’s director general for defence and intelligence, became involved. Leslie said that the U.S. was not actually expected to check on detained terrorists, but that future spy missions would require full written applications.
In July 2006 RAF Akrotiri played a major role as a transit point for personnel evacuations out of Lebanon during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict (see International reactions to the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict and Joint Task Force Lebanon).
In March 2011, the station was used as a staging base for support aircraft involved in Operation Ellamy. Tanker support and logistical units were based here to support aerial operations over Libya.
Akrotiri is also the winter training grounds of the RAF display team, the Red Arrows.
The station hosts the main hospital for British Forces Cyprus, The Princess Mary’s Hospital (TPMH), located on Cape Zevgari.
Now: about those Russian warships – are they still parked in Cyprus?
in a historic event, the Russian Pacific fleet, for the first time in decades, crossed the Suez Canal and entered the Mediterranean, direction Cyprus’ port of Limasol (hi Cyprus – Russia will be arriving shortly) in what is now the loudest implied warning to the US and Israel amassing military units across Syria’s border that Russia will not stand idly by as Syria is used by the Israeli “Defense” Forces for target practice. “The task force has successfully passed through the Suez Channel and entered the Mediterranean. It is the first time in decades that Pacific Fleet warships enter this region,” Capt. First Rank Roman Martov said. This is what is also known as dropping hints, loud and clear.
The group, including the destroyer Admiral Panteleyev, the amphibious warfare ships Peresvet and Admiral Nevelskoi, the tanker Pechenga and the salvage/rescue tug Fotiy Krylov left the port of Vladivostok on March 19 to join Russia’s Mediterranean task force.
Admiral Panteleyev destroyer
Admiral Nevelskoi
The task force currently includes the large anti-submarine ship Severomorsk, the frigate Yaroslav Mudry, the salvage/rescue tugs Altai and SB-921 and the tanker Lena from the Northern and Baltic Fleets, as well as the Ropucha-II Class landing ship Azov from the Black Sea Fleet. The task force may be enlarged to include nuclear submarines, Navy Commander Admiral Viktor Chirkov said last Sunday.
Shore leave for a whole lot of submarines just a few hundred kilometers from Syria? Surely. From Rian.
“The task force has successfully passed through the Suez Channel and entered the Mediterranean. It is the first time in decades that Pacific Fleet warships enter this region,” Capt. First Rank Roman Martov said.
The Defense Ministry said in April Russia has begun setting up a naval task force in the Mediterranean, sending several warships from the Pacific Fleet to the region. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in March a permanent naval task force in the Mediterranean was needed to defend Russia’s interests in the region.
A senior Defense Ministry official said the Mediterranean task force’s command and control agencies will be based either in Novorossiysk, Russia, or in Sevastopol, Ukraine.
Admiral Vladimir Komoyedov, head of the parliamentary defense committee, previously told RIA Novosti that the Mediterranean task force should be comprised of 10 warships and support vessels as part of several tactical groups tasked with attack, antisubmarine warfare and minesweeping.
The Soviet Union maintained its 5th Mediterranean Squadron from 1967 until 1992. It was formed to counter the US Navy’s 6th Fleet during the Cold War, and consisted of 30-50 warships and auxiliary vessels.
It appears that the squadron is being reincarnated and quite rapidly at that.
It also appears that the two key naval forces in the Mediterranean are finally starting to position themselves for what may soon be a face off.
Decision to attack Syria already made over a year ago
Paul Joseph Watson Infowars.com August 27, 2013
Desperate to maintain a narrative that will justify a cruise missile attack on Syria, the Obama administration is seemingly trying everything within its power to sabotage the UN chemical weapons investigation in Syria.
Image: WhiteHouse.gov
The reason is obvious – the last time the United Nations investigated claims of chemical weapons use in Syria, its inspectors concluded that it was the rebels and not Assad’s forces who were likely behind the sarin gas attack.
Eager to avoid a repeat that would completely derail the march to war, the White House in concert with Britain has repeatedly attempted to scupper the UN investigation or render it meaningless.
In the latest example, the Wall Street Journal reports that the Obama administration told UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon that “there wasn’t adequate security for the U.N. inspectors to visit the affected areas to conduct their mission,” a clear warning (or a blatant threat) that inspectors should pull out entirely.
It was announced today that inspectors had postponed their work until Wednesday for “safety” reasons.
This warning followed an incident, almost certainly the work of US-backed rebels, where a convoy of UN vehicles was fired upon by a sniper, causing the inspectors to temporarily suspend their work. Rebels have repeatedly acted with hostility against UN workers and peacekeepers, with one FSA group kidnapping 21 peacekeepers back in March.
While discouraging the UN from completing its investigation, the US and Britain have already declared that last week’s attack involved the use of chemical weapons and that it was the work of Bashar Al-Assad’s forces, despite numerous other examples where rebels have prepared and used chemical weapons themselves.
Even when Syria allowed UN inspectors to enter the affected region, the Obama administration responded that it was “too late,” and that the evidence could have been destroyed – so why bother investigating at all?
Why is the Obama administration and the British government so keen to prevent or dismiss as irrelevant the UN’s investigation?
The only reason is that it would threaten the already agreed upon narrative that Bashar Al-Assad, in complete defiance of any logic, ordered a chemical weapons attack right when UN inspectors were already in the country, timing the attack at the most opportune moment to justify western military intervention.
With western warplanes now already in place in Cyprus, along with a number of warships at sea, the die has been cast and the UN chemical weapons investigation will continue to be sabotaged or simply ignored, lest it turn up evidence that contradicts the rush to war.
“Boots on the ground” only effective way to remove Bashar al-Assad from power in Syria
Kurt Nimmo Infowars.com August 27, 2013
Cruise missiles fired from Navy destroyers deployed in the Mediterranean Sea will not break the resolve of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad or significantly hobble his military.
Defense officials told the Washington Post late last week that a destroyer scheduled to leave the Mediterranean was kept in place to keep more resources in the area. As noted in the above video, other assets are being positioned.
On Sunday, Sen. Bob Corker, who was briefed by Obama administration officials over the weekend, said a “response is imminent” in Syria. “I think we will respond in a surgical way,” he explained.
During a news conference on Monday, Secretary of State John Kerry set the stage for an attack.
A cruise missile attack, however, short of more robust military action will undoubtedly fail, according to Chris Harmer, a senior naval analyst at the Institute for the Study of War.
In July, Harmer wrote a study pointing out how the U.S. could degrade key Syrian military installations with virtually no risk to U.S. personnel, reports John Hudson for Foreign Policy. One aspect of the report suggested TJAM, or Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles, attacks pinpointed against the al-Assad regime. “It could be done quickly, easily, with no risk whatsoever to American personnel, and a relatively minor cost,” said Harmer.
The report was embraced by Arizona Senator John McCain.
In July, McCain cited Harmer’s report. “For a serious accounting of a realistic limited military option in Syria, I would strongly recommend a new study that is being released today by the Institute for the Study of War,” said McCain. “This new study confirms what I and many others have long argued: That it is militarily feasible for the United States and our friends and allies to significantly degrade Assad’s air power at relatively low cost, low risk to our personnel, and in very short order.”
“I never intended my analysis of a cruise missile strike option to be advocacy even though some people took it as that,” Harmer told Foreign Policy. “I made it clear that this is a low cost option, but the broader issue is that low cost options don’t do any good unless they are tied to strategic priorities and objectives,” he explained. “Any ship officer can launch 30 or 40 Tomahawks. It’s not difficult. The difficulty is explaining to strategic planners how this advances U.S. interests.”
“Punitive action is the dumbest of all actions,” he said. “The Assad regime has shown an incredible capacity to endure pain and I don’t think we have the stomach to deploy enough punitive action that would serve as a deterrent.”
In March, Joseph Halliday, a senior analyst for the Institute for the Study of War, produced a comprehensive comparative report on the strategy and capabilities of the Syrian army under both the current president Bashar al-Assad and his father and predecessor, Hafez al-Assad.
Halliday concluded that although the CIA’s mercenaries led by the al-Nusra Front and al-Qaeda had taken an appreciable toll of al-Assad’s military, it remains largely intact. A reorganization of loyalist brigades and dependence on irregular army militias have kept the armed forces loyal, writes Lauren Williams for The Daily Star. The report concludes that al-Assad is increasingly dependent on core trusted units to control all of the country.
Although suffering from a high rate of defection, between 55,000-75,000 troops have been reorganized into loyalist units and deployed strategically under the command of trusted elite unit commanders.
“There has been significant reorganization of the deployable units. They have taken the most trusted soldiers out of the conventional battalions,” Holliday told The Daily Star.
“The vast majority of the commanding officers are Alawites, or those in leadership positions have close ties to the regime through family ties or commercial interests. This is true even at division commander level,” Holliday noted.
The Syrian Army employs fear and intimidation to reduce defections. “Loyalist gangs, usually made up of Alawites, and locally coordinated loyalist forces under the name of the Popular Committees, mostly organized along the lines of other minority sects, have been used as an important bolster to army units,” writes Williams.
“There are the shabbiha, Alawite gangs extended to members of the Assad family, or those from, say, slums in mixed areas made up of loyalist gangs who are not Alawite and often responsible for the worst kind of brutality,” Halliday explained.
In June, following a long stalemate, the tide turned against the CIA’s rebels in Syria. Following the loss of the key strategic city of Qusair on the Lebanese border, the rebels, propped up by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, suffered a serious setback.
“Bolstered by his Iranian and Russian backers, Assad’s forces have launched a series of counter-offensives in recent weeks against mainly Sunni Muslim rebels battling to overthrow him and end his minority Alawite family’s four-decade grip on power,” Reuters reported on June 5.
Cruise missile attacks are not likely to reverse this dynamic. If the United States is serious about toppling the al-Assad regime, it will be necessary to deploy “boots on the ground” as it did in Iraq and Afghanistan, an option the Obama administration and the Pentagon have ruled out.
“Nobody has asked us to [go into Syria]. The Syrian opposition does not think that it’s a good idea,” Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communication, said in June. “We certainly don’t think it’s in our national interest to send U.S. Troops.”
The neocons in Congress, however, understand that deploying troops inside Syria will be the only effective way to take out al-Assad under the WMD guise. In March, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham said troops must be sent into Syria to secure its chemical weapons.
“Absolutely, you’ve got to get on the ground,” Graham said. “There is no substitute for securing these weapons. I don’t care what it takes.”
“Look, there is no way that any strikes inside Syria would be easy to accomplish and they could potentially drag us much deeper into the conflict than we would like, but it is also true that the military is war-weary and is facing budgetary uncertainties,” said Michael P. Noonan, the Director of the Program on National Security at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, after Kerry proposed a “surgical strike option” in April.
Kerry’s proposal was shot down by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Three times more Americans supported US involvement in Vietnam at war’s lowest ebb
Paul Joseph Watson Infowars.com August 27, 2013
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Support for an attack on Syria amongst Americans is more than three times lower than support for US involvement in Vietnam at the very lowest ebb of the war, illustrating how universally unpopular such a move would be despite the media claiming Obama would “lose credibility” if he does not launch a military assault.
Chickenhawk politicians and the corporate press have repeatedly floated the talking point that Obama must follow through on his “red line” threat in order to save face and rescue credibility. Credibility with whom? Certainly not the American people – only 9 per cent of which support intervention in Syria according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.
If Obama got the United States embroiled in a conflict with Syria, it would be the least popular war in the history of the country.
Even at its most dire point in May 1971, 28 per cent of the American people still thought it was the right decision to send troops into Vietnam.
Despite the predictable hellhole it later turned into, Obama’s intervention in Libya was supported by a comparatively huge 47 per cent of Americans back in 2011, while 76 per cent initially supported the invasion of Iraq and 90 per cent backed the assault on Afghanistan.
As Washington’s Blog highlights, other things that Americans find more appealing than attacking Syria include “North Korea, cockroaches, lice, root canals, colonoscopies, traffic jams, used car salesmen, Genghis Khan, Communism, BP during the Gulf oil spill, Nixon during Watergate or King George during the American Revolution.”
Even Congress with its 15 per cent approval rating is almost twice as popular as the notion of attacking Syria.
With missile strikes set to be launched as early as Thursday, it seems the only “credibility” the Obama administration is concerned about retaining is their credibility with the military-industrial complex, which is about to lead America into yet another ludicrous, dangerous and unaffordable conflict which will empower Al-Qaeda led terrorists in seizing control of a major middle eastern country.
Forget claims about chemical weapons attacks, Syria has been targeted for annihilation for at least 12 years. As General Wesley Clark explains in the clip below, the Pentagon put the country on a list of seven nations destined for destruction in the weeks after 9/11.
This is why the White House couldn’t care less about the fact that the vast majority of Americans oppose intervention – the fix is already in.
Miley distraction predominates as the elite prepare to decimate Syria.
Kurt Nimmo Infowars.com August 27, 2013
Is it a coincidence that the establishment’s “entertainment” media has dwelled on the girl-next-door suddenly transformed into a grotesque slut as the Obama administration prepares the wallop Syria with cruise missiles?
Corporate media ramps up hype ahead of attack.
Following a speech by blue blood Skull and Bones member and current Secretary of State, John Kerry, on Monday setting the stage for an attack, the corporate media is now reporting that an attack may arrive Thursday.
No doubt the Miley-turned-into-pole-dancer meme will still be going strong in three days and distracting millions of Americans as the missiles fly in Damascus with the inevitable “collateral damage” of men, women and children who have nothing to do with al-Assad or the political prerogatives of the global elite.
On Monday, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that a scant 9 percent of respondents approve of the Obama administration attacking Syria. Even approval of Congress ranks higher at 15 percent approval, according to the Washington Post.
Max Fisher, writing for the former crown jewel of the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird, seems to be as clueless as the rest of the establishment media: “The calculus for and against is complicated enough in foreign policy terms. But the White House is also a political institution, and it will surely keep the domestic politics, which appear to oppose any intervention very strongly, well in mind,” he writes.
In fact, as should be obvious, most of all to those who claim to cover politics in the district of criminals, the White House does not give a whit about “domestic politics” or what the American people think. The White House, after all, is a puppet stage where marionettes posing as esteemed leaders and their over-paid adjutants read from prepared scripts.
Blue blood Kerry’s scripted speech delivered yesterday from the State Department, just down the street from the Council on Foreign Relations (as former Sec. of State Clinton fawningly admitted in 2009), and for good reason, is a primary example of this sort of tedious choreography. Kerry made effusive reference to the children killed in a chemical attack he explicitly blamed on Bashar al-Assad (minus any evidence, never mind compelling evidence) while, of course, steering away from the obvious: cruise missiles, fired willy-nilly into populated urban areas like Damascus, will kill many more innocent children.
If America is, as our appointed leaders and their stage handlers repeatedly tell us, a “representative democracy” (as opposed to a constitutional republic, as the founders designed), then all Americans will once again have the blood of innocents on their hands in much the same way the German people had blood on their hands after Hitler and his Wall Street financed henchmen finished killing millions (a track record exceeded only by the psychopaths Josef Stalin and Mao Tse-tung).
Of course, America is not a democracy or a republic. It is a fascist police state, albeit soft at this juncture in history. It is a plutocracy ruled for and by a small number of international bankers and transnational corporations.
If Syria ends up a smoking ruin, its civilian infrastructure destroyed and population poisoned by depleted uranium, it will be a criminal act completely beyond not only the control of the average American, but his and her comprehension as well.
Polls aside, most Americans have but the slightest inkling of what the corporate-bankster state and its military machine do, as evidenced by Iraq. It is not a subject of documentaries broadcast on CNN, Fox News, or the other Mockingbird alphabet news conglomerates. Reality and dead babies, especially when numbered in the hundreds of thousands, are now routinely papered over.
Instead, we are distracted by a 20-year old woman, a corporate scripted role model for millions of girls who believe that one has to act like a prostitute in order to be popular and cool. It does not matter that young women and girls in Syria will, in short order, be reduced to bloody corpses, possibly by Thursday.
Rogue government moves toward war despite American’s opposition
Julie Wilson Infowars.com August 27, 2013
What better way to lift the veil of distraction from the government’s recently exposed domestic spy program than a brand new war?
Photo: Turkish Naval Forces via Wikimedia Commons
America is most likely going to war with Syria this week in what would be history’s most unpopular war yet.According to Reuters, Americans adamantly oppose Syrian intervention with only 9 percent believing Obama should attack the nation.
The poll reveals Americans would be more inclined to support the war if provided actual facts indicating Syrian President Bashar al-Assad did in fact use chemical weapons against his people.
In a period of 7-10 days, American’s support for the war has fallen from 30.2 percent to 25 percent, and those opinions stand only if proof of a chemical weapons attack is provided. Despite the people’s opposition, the US is still aggressively positioning themselves for attack.
The claim Assad used chemical weapons against his people is asinine considering the country’s awareness that a Western assault would soon follow. Syria has consistently expressed reluctance to become entangled with the United States military.
Despite blatant war propaganda including photographs of dead women and children who allegedly succumbed to a chemical weapons attack in a Damascus suburb this week, Americans still aren’t convinced.
NBC News reports that the US could strike Syria with three days worth of missiles in an attempt to “send a message” rather than cripple Syria’s army. Warplanes and military transporters are assembling on Britain’s Akrotiri airbase on Cyprus, which is likely to serve as a hub for the air campaign.
Sources say unidentified snipers fired at a vehicle carrying UN inspection team members, further delaying the investigation. The team only needed to travel 15 minutes to get from their hotel to the Mouadamiya district of west Ghouta in Damascus, where the chemical weapons attack is said to have taken place, but they arrived on the scene 4 hours late in a vehicle riddled with bullet holes.
The Guardian’s report said doctors traveling with the UN team took blood and urine samples and recorded video statements from more than 20 victims. The team also collected samples of soil where the chemical rocket allegedly landed, but were unable to access the main six sites where the majority of the chemical rockets allegedly had fallen. The Syrian regime asked them to leave immediately and could not guarantee the team’s safety if they remained.
Dr. Abu Akram confirmed his clinic had 2,000 victims of the gas attack in which 500 were in critical condition. “Eighty people were pronounced dead at the hospital and I now have 20 victims in intensive care,” he said.
The victims told the UN inspection team that they had been sleeping in their homes when the attack occurred.
According to the Guardian, a US military strike on stockpiles of chemical weapons could widely disperse neurotoxins causing far more harm than the alleged previous attack.
As of today the positioning of Navy destroyers and submarines in the Mediterranean Sea will enable the US military to launch Tomahawk missile strikes at Syria with the precision of hitting not just buildings but specifically targeted windows.
Russia and China have both warned the US against attacking Syria before the UN inspection team’s investigation is complete. Both nations made it clear they would be “deeply displeased” if the US proceeds with an attack.
Russia’s deputy prime minister, Dmitry Rogozin described the West as “acting in the Islamic world like a ‘monkey with a hand grenade.’” Russia has subsequently sent aircraft into Syria in an attempt to evacuate their people.
A report by Paul Joseph Watson states that the West’s decision to attack Syria was made over a year ago. The US government’s decision to move forward with an attack on Syria in spite of Americans being heavily against it, further illustrates how out of control our criminal political system has become.
However, this time around Americans are waking up to the rogue government’s war propaganda, noticing it as Obama’s diversion to the tyranny that’s arrived on American soil under the domestic spy program carried out by paramilitary forces now acting domestically.
Syrian president says that the recent American wars have only destabilized the Middle East and other parts of the world.
Kit Daniels Infowars.com August 27, 2013
In a recent interview with the Russian newspaper Izvestia, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has stressed that Syria is not a puppet state and that the majority of rebels his government is fighting are connected to al-Qaeda.
Credit: Fabio Rodrigues Pozzebom via Wikimedia Commons
When asked what parts of Syria remain under rebel control, Assad said that his government has been dealing with an “influx of large amounts of terrorists from other countries – estimated in the tens of thousands at the very least.”
“The majority of those we are fighting are Takfiris, who adopt the al-Qaeda doctrine,” he said.
Assad further emphasized that American politicians should listen to the American people rather than try to install “puppet leaders” across the world to satisfy their own political objectives.
“Today there are many Western politicians, but very few statesmen,” he said. “Some of these politicians do not read history or even learn from it, whilst others do not even remember recent events.”
“Have these politicians learned any lessons from the past 50 years at least?”
Assad further stated that the U.S. has waged many wars since Vietnam but has failed to achieve its political objectives from any of them.
“Have they not learned that they have gained nothing from these wars but the destruction of the countries they fought, which has had a destabilizing effect on the Middle East and other parts of the world?” he asked. “Have they not comprehended that all of these wars have not made people in the region appreciate them or believe in their policies?”
His statements aren’t surprising considering the comprehensive documentation that support his claims, including admissions by U.S. government officials.
“Syrian rebels have been responsible for a plethora of atrocities, from terrorist attacks and massacres, to forcing people to become suicide bombers, to attacks on Christian churches and making children carry out grisly beheadings of unarmed prisoners,” Watson wrote.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has even admitted to BBC that these Syrian rebels on the same side as the U.S. in Syria are terrorist groups.
“We have a very dangerous set of actors in the region, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, and those who are on our terrorist list, to be sure, supporting – claiming to support the opposition in Syria,” she said.
Details of secret talks between Putin, Saudi prince leaked; Intel head admits to controlling Chechen jihadists in Syria Steve Watson Infowars.com Aug 27, 2013
Saudi intelligence has issued a tacit threat to have terrorist attacks carried out in Russia at the Winter Olympics in February 2014, should the state continue to support the Assad regime in Syria.
The threat was revealed in leaked transcripts of a closed-door meeting three weeks ago between Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan.
It appears that following initial vocal concerns expressed by Gulf state diplomats and senior leaders of the Syrian opposition, the leaked material was provided to the Russian media. More details then emerged in the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir, which is sympathetic to Hezbollah and thus extremely inhospitable toward Saudi Arabia.
The respected middle east news agency Al Monitor carries a translated version of the As-Safir report which suggests that during the talks, Bandar, who heads the primary Saudi intelligence agency, allegedly presented a cornucopia of offers and threats with regards to Syria.
In return for Russia’s cooperation, Bandar is alleged to have promised to safeguard Russia’s naval base in Syria should Assad be forced from power.
Perhaps the most interesting snippet in the report, has Bandar suggesting that should Russia elect not to reach an agreement over Syria, Chechen terrorist attacks may be carried out on the Russian hosted Winter Olympics next year in Sochi.
“I can give you a guarantee to protect the Winter Olympics next year.” Bandar is alleged to have said. What makes the pledge threatening is that he is also quoted as saying “The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are controlled by us.”
“The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are controlled by us, and they will not move in the Syrian territory’s direction without coordinating with us.” Bandar is quoted as saying. “These groups do not scare us. We use them in the face of the Syrian regime but they will have no role or influence in Syria’s political future.” he added.
Bandar also allegedly said that he was speaking with the full backing of the US government.
The London Telegraph also reported on the leaked notes, noting the Saudi prince’s attempt to further sweeten Putin with a secret sweeping oil deal and a pledge to safeguard Russia’s gas contracts should he abandon support for the Assad government.
The deal appears to be in the form of an offer to form a Russian/OPEC alliance on oil production that would significantly affect global markets. While Syria is not a major oil producer, any military action taken against the country could have wider repercussions on oil markets.
Vladimir Putin is said to have responded “We know that you have supported the Chechen terrorist groups for a decade. And that support, which you have frankly talked about just now, is completely incompatible with the common objectives of fighting global terrorism that you mentioned. We are interested in developing friendly relations according to clear and strong principles.”
The Russian president is also said to have commented “Our stance on Assad will never change. We believe that the Syrian regime is the best speaker on behalf of the Syrian people, and not those liver eaters.” referring to the rebels.
Bandar is said to have responded that there would be “no escape from the military option” if Russia were to decline the Saudi terms for accord.
The leaked transcripts do dovetail with initial reports that sourced anonymous European and Arab diplomats.
It is possible that the leaked transcripts could be embellished by Russian intelligence, for propaganda purposes. However, the detail contained within them makes them appear authentic. Regardless, the report makes for compelling reading, particularly considering Saudi Arabia’s eagerness to take decisive action to overthrow and remove the Syrian government permanently.
Webster Tarpley has also recently detailed the fallout of the Saudi/Russian standoff:
Potential military strike in Syria sparks concern in Congress
Updated at 3:40 p.m. ET
Some members of Congress are calling on President Obama to get congressional approval — or at least consult more closely with the legislative branch — before launching military strikes against the Syrian government for its alleged use of chemical weapons.
Play VIDEO
Kerry: Syria use of chemical weapons "undeniable"
On Monday — giving a clear indication that the administration is readying for action — Secretary of State John Kerry said the evidence "is screaming at us" that chemical weapons were used in Syria. On Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said that the world’s most powerful military was "in place to be able to fulfill and comply with whatever option the president wishes to take" in Syria. Mr. Obama and his administration have communicated with some lawmakers on the situation in Syria this week, but some congressmen insist the president should follow the War Powers Resolution of 1973 and receive authorization from Congress before using any military force in Syria.
Rep. Scott Rigell, R-Va., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, began collecting signatures in Congress Tuesday for a letter urging Mr. Obama to get congressional approval before launching any strikes. By early Tuesday afternoon, more than 20 congressmen had signed onto Rigell’s letter, including at least one Democrat, Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas.
"Engaging our military in Syria when no direct threat to the United States exists and without prior congressional authorization would violate the separation of powers that is clearly delineated in the Constitution," the letter says. "If you deem that military action in Syria is necessary, Congress can reconvene at your request. We stand ready to come back into session, consider the facts before us, and share the burden of decisions made regarding U.S. involvement in the quickly escalating Syrian conflict."
Libertarian-leaning Republicans in Congress, including Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky. and Justin Amash, R-Mich., said via Twitter on Tuesday that any action without congressional approval would clearly be unconstitutional.
On Monday, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, communicated with the White House on the situation in Syria but he urged the administration to increase its engagement with Congress.
"The Speaker made clear that before any action is taken there must be meaningful consultation with members of Congress, as well as clearly defined objectives and a broader strategy to achieve stability," Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck said in a statement.
A handful of senior lawmakers have confirmed to CBS News that they’ve also consulted with the executive branch on Syria. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon, R-Calif., has been briefed by senior Defense Department officials about the developing situation, a congressional spokesman said.
On Monday, an aide to Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that members of the administration including Kerry have reached out to Menendez. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, spoke to administration officials a couple of times over the weekend and on Monday about the evolving situation in Syria. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, has spoken to both Mr. Obama and National Security Adviser Susan Rice in recent days.
Other senators on Monday called for more consultation with Congress.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,called the use of chemical weapons "despicable" but said that "absent an imminent threat to United States national security, the U.S. should not be engaged in military action without Congressional approval."
Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Intelligence Committee, said in a statement, "Secretary Kerry was clear that it is now a question of how, not whether, the United States will respond, but Congress still needs to hear from the president directly. More importantly, the president needs to explain his plan to the American people, who are understandably reluctant to support further military engagement in the Middle East."
Udall said he has "real concerns" that a surgical strike in Syria could lead the U.S. into deeper involvement in a complicated civil war, but that remaining on the sidelines could also have grave consequences.
Other lawmakers, meanwhile, came out more forcefully for action against Syria.
Rep. Elliot Engel, D-N.Y., the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement Monday, "I hope that the Administration will now move quickly to act against the Assad regime and show the world that the use of such weapons will not be tolerated."
Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., a member of the Homeland Security Committee, told CNN on Monday that "we have to act." Furthermore, he said that Mr. Obama doesn’t necessarily have to get congressional approval.
"I believe, as commander in chief, he has the right to take this action," he said. "It’s in his interest to consult with the leadership in the House and Senate, but I don’t believe he has to."
King added that he’s still not an advocate of the Syrian opposition, explaining, "I believe that in the last year or so they’ve become significantly controlled by al Qaeda."
In an interview with the Daily Beast, McCain suggested Mr. Obama is partially to blame for the continued use of chemical weapons in Syria.
"Assad was able to use chemical weapons before and there was no response, and so why not do it again? This should surprise no one," McCain said. "They viewed that not as a red line but as a green light, and they acted accordingly."
AMMAN, Jordan — A meeting of top military officials from 10 regional and Western nations, including Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrapped up Tuesday as the Obama administration appeared to be preparing for military action in Syria amid claims that government forces used banned chemical weapons.
Jordan’s semi-official Petra news agency said the conference was held at the invitation of Jordan’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Mishaal Zaben, and Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, commander of U.S. Central Command.
Jordanian officials and foreign diplomats refused to comment on the meeting, beyond saying it was focused on the escalating crisis in Syria and aimed at coordinating security responses across the region. The State Department said it was not related to the Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack near Damascus.
“The exchange is designed to increase the collective understanding of the impact of regional conflicts on nations, foster ongoing dialogue and improve security relationships,” said an official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Jordanian officials and diplomats stressed that the meeting, which also brought together top military officials from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Canada, was not called in response to the alleged use of chemical weapons on Aug. 21 near Damascus in which several hundred people reportedly perished.
A former top Jordanian politician, who remains close to this country’s political establishment, said the military leaders were looking at ways to help Jordan and prevent a spillover of Syria’s civil war into neighboring nations, which have already taken in hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees. It was also meant to plan for an influx of even more displaced Syrians “if events take a turn for the worse,” said the official, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak on the record.
Stratfor, a Texas-based geopolitical intelligence firm, noted that among those taking part in the two-day conference in Amman were Turkey, Jordan and Britain — from its bases in Cyprus — which would be among the most relevant countries in the event of a possible military response against Syria.
“Given that Turkey and Jordan are particularly vulnerable to retaliation from Iran and Syria, the diplomacy surrounding their participation will be critical,” said a Stratfor report on Tuesday.
Although Damascus has vehemently denied its forces used chemical weapons in the attack, France and Britain have been equally adamant in claiming that all the evidence pointed to Syrian forces’ culpability.
U.N. investigators, who on Monday gained access to the victims and to affected areas on the eastern edge of Damascus, have not yet determined the nature of the weapons used in the attack.
Until now, the Obama administration has been reluctant to get involved in the Syrian conflict or to lend its full backing to armed opposition groups fighting the government due to concerns over the Islamist nature of some of the most effective insurgent contingents. In addition, deep splits within the opposition alliance have not inspired confidence in its ability to govern Syria.
But with momentum for military action building, Secretary of State John Kerry warned Damascus on Monday that mounting evidence indicated its forces had launched the chemical attack, saying it “goes beyond the conflict in Syria itself” and would not be allowed to pass “without consequences.”
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Tuesday in conversations with his French and British counterparts said the U.S. is committed to “working with the international community to respond to the outrageous chemical attacks,” and that “the United States military is prepared for any contingency involving Syria,” Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said in a statement.
In an interview with BBC television, Hagel said the U.S. military was prepared to strike Syria at once if President Barack Obama gives the order.
“We are ready to go,” Hagel said, adding that “to me it’s clearer and clearer” that the Syrian regime was responsible, but that the administration was waiting for intelligence agencies to make that determination.
Four U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyers — and possibly a nuclear-powered submarine — were being moved into cruise missile range of Syrian targets.
The Jordanian military, numbering about 120,000 troops, has been redeploying a large part of its combat units to the northern border with Syria to prevent a spillover of the fighting. Jordanian officials say about 560,000 Syrians have already fled across the frontier.
Although the international community — including the United States as Jordan’s largest foreign aid donor — has picked up much of the tab for caring for the refugees, Western governments fear that the mass influx could destabilize Jordan, a resource-poor kingdom seen as a key U.S. ally in the region.
The United States is believed to have about 1,000 troops based in Jordan, including a headquarters unit, an F-16 fighter detachment at Mafraq air base, as well as Patriot anti-missiles at two sites in the kingdom. These were left in place after taking part in a massive international military exercise in Jordan in June.
In addition, the USS Kearsarge, a Marine amphibious assault ship, is reported to be steaming near Jordan’s only port of Aqaba.
The UN Security Council’s permanent members are meeting for the second time in two days to discuss Syria’s crisis.
Envoys from the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China entered the meeting on Thursday afternoon at UN headquarters.
A tension-filled meeting Wednesday ended with the council bitterly divided over a UK-proposed resolution to authorise the use of military force against Syria in retaliation for an alleged chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds near Damascus.
Delegates vote on a resolution in the United Nations Security Council. Photo: AP
United Nations: The five permanent members of the UN Security Council have held new talks on the Syria chemical weapons crisis but made no apparent progress on UN action.
The 45-minute meeting was the second since Britain proposed a draft Security Council resolution which would allow ‘‘all necessary measures’’ to protect Syrian civilians after a suspected chemical weapons attack last week in which hundreds died.
None of the envoys from Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States commented as they left however.
The United States, Britain and France are considering a military strike against President Bashar al-Assad’s forces over the suspected chemical weapons attack.Russia and China oppose any UN-sanctioned action however and have warned other countries against any attack.
Britain’s UN ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said Russia, Dr Assad’s key backer, had called the latest meeting.
‘‘I hope that means that they (the Russians) are now prepared to support the British draft resolution,’’ Lyall Grant told reporters as he went into the talks.
Public becomes more aware of government’s constant lies and contradictions
Julie Wilson Infowars.com August 29, 2013
There is one war the American people are winning, and that’s the info war.
Government and the mainstream media have lost all credibility, leaving opportunity for the alternative media to swoop in and expose the truth, waking up people across the globe.
The continued unraveling of government scandals backed up by a clearly biased mainstream media narrative has Americans fed up and unwilling to consent to another war.
Nearly a month ago, Infowars reported that the Department of Defense had announced plans to increase its public affairs efforts due to the independent media’s devastating effect on their ability to control its negative news stories.
The DoD specifically blamed DrudgeReport.com and citizen journalists as the reason for no longer have the people’s support.
“The public is more quickly becoming aware of the constant patterns of contradictions and habitual lying by a government long ago captured by a group of corrupt interests,” we reported.
In an effort to expand the reach of alternative media, Alex Jones has joined forces with Anthony Gucciardi’sStoryleak.
Last month, the Secretary of Defense for public affairs, George Little, admitted, “..we cannot hide our bad news stories. Bad news gets out one way or the other and we must come to terms with telling bad stories as well as the good.”
During a White House briefing, Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest, desperately tried to convince the public of the need for war with Syria. Earnest reiterated the importance of the U.S. need to respond to the use of chemical weapons in order to “enforce a critically international norm.”
“It is not OK for totalitarian dictators to flout chemical weapons with impunity,” said Earnest.
“The global community wants this norm enforced,” Earnest stated; he failed, however, to draw a parallel between the US’s own murder of innocent men, women and children via the covert drone program and the Assad regime’s alleged use of chemical weapons against civilians.
Of course that comparison can’t truly be made because the West and its allies are likely responsible for the chemical weapons attack, not Assad.
When asked if Obama planned to obtain a vote from Congress to authorize an attack on Syria, Earnest said the President will seek “robust congressional consultation” and will act to “protect international norms against weapons of mass destruction.”
Earnest rejected comparisons of an attack on Syria to the invasion of Iraq, persisting it’s not the goal of the U.S. to change Syria’s regime, such as it was in Iraq.
The Deputy Press Secretary maintained an attack on Syria would be “limited and discrete.” He also said the U.S. government does not believe they need to wait for the U.N. chemical weapons team to complete their investigation because they already know Assad is responsible and any other details are irrelevant.
Reporters in attendance to the White House briefing were noticeably pushing hard for more information, calling the government’s so-called “proof” merely circumstantial evidence.
Reporters asked whether the U.S. government intends to release the remaining proof they allegedly have, but Earnest clammed up citing the information as classified and expressed his inability to speak on it.
He told reporters the classified information needed to be withheld due to national security reasons, but reporters kept pushing, asking if the Obama administration really believes Assad’s use of chemical weapons is a “direct imminent threat to the United States.”
“Assad’s willingness to use chemical weapons endangers the global community,” said Earnest.
The public’s growing skepticism of the governments’ narrative can only be attributed to the explosive growth of alternative media.
According to a report by Story Leak, “…former US National Security Adviser and Trilateral Commission co-founder Zbigniew Brzezinski commented on the growing inefficiency of war due to the increased political knowledge of the public.”
Americans are waking up. If our rogue government decides to go to war with Syria, it will certainly be against the wishes of the American people, fueling their skepticism and furthering their mistrust of the mainstream media.
Senator says rebels more likely to be behind chemical weapons attack
Paul Joseph Watson Infowars.com August 29, 2013
Kentucky Senator Rand Paul says it’s more likely the Syrian rebels were behind last week’s chemical weapons attack, warning President Obama that military escalation risked provoking a major war with Russia in the longer term.
“There are some questions, it sounds more and more like chemical weapons were used but there are some questions and it should be investigated who used them,” said Paul during a radio interview, adding, “Pat Buchanan had an article the other day and he asked the Latin phrase cui bono – to whose benefit is this?….This is to the benefit of the rebels because now it’s bringing other people in on their side, so there’s a great incentive for this to have actually been launched by rebels not the Syrian Army.”
Despite the Obama administration initially claiming it was “undeniable” that Bashar Al-Assad’s forces were behind last week’s attack, US officials admitted to the New York Times that there is no “smoking gun” that directly links President Assad to the attack.
US intelligence officials also told the Associated Press that the intelligence proving Assad’s culpability is “no slam dunk.”
Numerous different examples of rebels using chemical weapons have largely been ignored by the mainstream media as the war drums grow louder.
Warning that possible intervention in Syria was not some kind of “geopolitical chess game,” Paul said Obama seemed to have learned nothing from the Cold War.
“Are we going to slide into a major war with Russia on the other side of this and draw Russia into this war as well….this isn’t just a game of hey let’s push a button and blow up some people and tell them they shouldn’t use chemical weapons,” said Paul.
The Senator also chided Obama’s implication that a cruise missile attack would not represent an act of war, adding, “The problem is, what if one of our planes get shot down or what if some of the CIA trainers over there who are training troops get killed – then there’ll be an overwhelming outcry for getting more involved.”
In a separate radio interview, the Kentucky Senator slammed Obama for dismissing the need to secure constitutional authorization to launch a military assault, warning that American lives could potentially be lost because of “a President who is drunk with power.”
“We shouldn’t allow this, and we fight with every tool we have to try to stop him,” concluded Senator Paul.
Paul says that only Congress can declare war on Syria.
Kit Daniels Infowars.com August 29, 2013
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) stated today that the U.S. government should obey the Constitution to the letter and that only Congress, not the president, can declare war on Syria, which he does not believe is an immediate threat to U.S. national security.
“We have a separation of powers,” he said in a radio interview on the Mike Huckabee Show. “The Constitution says that when we go to war, Congress declares war and the president executes the war.”
“If the president is contemplating war or contemplating offensive action against Syria, there should be a joint session of Congress and he should try and convince us for the need for it.”
Show host Mike Huckabee said that the Constitutional issue Paul raised is “the critical one” because the War Powers Act of 1973 clarified that unless the U.S. is already under attack or under eminent danger of a pending attack, the president has to have Congressional approval in order to commit U.S. armed forces into conflict.
“Nobody, nobody can claim that Syria is about to drop one [a bomb] on the U.S.,” Huckabee said.
“The interesting thing about it is that when President Obama was a Senator in 2007, he said exactly that no president should unilaterally go to war without the authority of Congress,” Paul responded.
“The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation,” Obama said.
The then-Senator from Illinois further emphasized that the president can only act unilaterally in “instances of self-defense.”
Paul pointed out that President Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, did come to Congress about taking military action in Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which came to a vote.
“There needs to be a big debate particularly because it’s so muddled in Syria that we may well be allies with al-Qaeda if we go in,” he said.
Huckabee mentioned that al-Qaeda has apparently sensed an opportunity in Syria to join the movement against the current Syrian government.
“I’m a little surprised that John McCain continues to act as if everything is fine and these are all good people we can trust,” he said.
Huckabee continued saying that McCain seems to be the only person he knows of with that point of view.
“No one I have talked to in our military, none of the intelligence officers seem to believe that there is a pure group that’s coalesced with the rebels right now,” he said. “If we go take on Syria, we might be emboldening Iran and at the same time empowering al-Qaeda.”
“The interesting thing is that I believe we need leadership in our country that has a healthy reluctance to war,” Paul responded. “We should understand and obey the separations of powers and Congress should be the one making this decision.”
Paul made reference to a James Madison statement on war in the Federalist papers.
“He [Madison] said the executive branch is the one most likely to go to war, therefore we vested the power to declare war with Congress,” he said. “The Constitution separated that power precisely to slow things down and have a debate.”
Paul said that the president absolutely has the authority for military response under a current or eminent attack, but that’s not what’s happening. Instead, supporters for the war in Syria are suggesting that the country is “somehow a threat to our national security.”
“That needs to be debated out in the open because to my knowledge there is no evidence that Syria is any threat to any U.S. personnel abroad or anywhere,” Paul said. “I’ve spoken out publicly that there needs to be a joint session of Congress before any military action is taken.”
“There needs to be a vote in Congress.”
Currently a letter is circulating around the U.S. House stating that the president has a “moral and constitutional obligation” to go to Congress before proceeding with a war. So far, it has been signed by 132 representatives, including 20 Democrats.
This growing movement, complimented by Paul, has been led by Rep. Scott Rigell (R-Va.)
Prior to his interview with Sen. Paul, Huckabee spoke to Rigell about the letter.
“This is not a partisan issue and we’ve never approached it that way,” Rigell said. “It is truly a constitutional issue.”
Timescale for attack now up in the air; Support for military action crumbling; Hezbollah deploys troops to border; EU urges Israel to show restraint; Assad uses diplomatic back channels to deny retaliation threats Steve Watson Infowars.com Aug 29, 2013
Foreign intelligence sources have claimed that The White House is using the threat of military action in Syria as a bargaining chip to make a deal with Russia, while the media in Washington is beginning to question the certainty of an imminent strike.
Intel website DEBKAfile states that its sources in Washington and Moscow claim that Obama “has applied the brakes” on military strikes scheduled for Friday or Saturday while Secretary of State John Kerry completes secret negotiations with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
The site notes that the US wants to “strike a deal” with Vladimir Putin’s government:
“The US would soften its military action against the Assad regime and his army and reduce it to a token blow,” the report states, “after which the American and Russian presidents would announce the convening of Geneva-2 to hammer out a solution of the Syrian crisis and end the civil war.”
The report notes that a delay in releasing a promised intelligence report to provide evidence of the Syrian government’s culpability in chemical attacks, along with the President’s declaration this morning that he hasn’t made his mind up yet, are covers for the ongoing back channel deal brokering.
Washington insiders have also suggested that Obama’s window for making a decision on any attack is rapidly closing because he is scheduled to travel to Europe next Wednesday for the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg.
“The Kerry-Lavrov back channel has not yet achieved results and so, Thursday, the fate of the US strike on Syria was still highly fluid and its timeline changeable.” Debkafile reports.
Meanwhile, it seems that the mainstream media is beginning to doubt the veracity of US threats.
Guardian Washington correspondent Paul Lewis reports that he detects “a degree of uncertainty” creeping in against the assumption that the president is on the brink of launching military strikes “probably this weekend”:
“The problem facing White House is three-fold. First, its intelligence assessment, pinning culpability for the chemical weapons attack on Assad, may not be as watertight as many had been expecting. Second, and partly as a result of that, cracks are appearing in Congress, which is fully aware there is minimal support among the US electorate for strikes. Third and perhaps most interestingly is the lack of international support.” the Guardian reporter notes.
“Most of the experts I’ve spoken to today believe the US is still likely to forge ahead with limited strikes against Syria. But the speed at which they were moving toward that position may have been significantly reduced.” the reporter adds.
A British parliamentary revolt against military action, as well as widely circulated reports quoting inside sources saying that the intelligence does not provide a “smoking gun” or “slam dunk” against Assad has also no doubt contributed to a delay in the timeline for striking Syria.
The Iranian Fars News Agency also reports that Vladimir Putin is convinced that the Syrian government has not used chemical weapons “since they have been advancing in the war and did not need to do it.”
In a phone conversation with Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani, Putin is said to have stated ” if US has any evidence to prove that Syria has used chemical weapons, as they claim, they should give their information to the UN inspectors.”
Fars also reports that Syrian Deputy Foreign Fayssal Mekdad has today presented the UN team with undeniable proof that militants, not the Syrian army, had used the weapons.
Meanwhile, during a meeting with military leaders, Assad is said to be expecting a military strike, and has pledged “This is a historic confrontation that we will come out of victorious.”
“Since the beginning of the crisis, and we were sure that the moment will come when our real enemy knocks his head into our country intervening.” Syrian newspaper Al-Akhbar reports.
In Lebanon, government sources have said that Hezbollah has declared a state of alert among its cadres and started deploying troops to the southern border amid mounting expectations of a US strike on Syria.
It has been reported that officials in Europe have urged the Israeli government to “exercise restraint in case of an assault by Assad or other ‘actors’ supporting him.”
Over the past week various Syrian officials have stated that Israel would become a target should Syria be attacked. A report in Kuwait’s al-Rai newspaper, however, cites European Union officials who have said that Assad has “used diplomatic back channels to convey that he does not intend to attack Israel as this would lead the Syrian campaign to uncharted territory.”
The New York Times is the premier propaganda organ of the globalist international order.
It demonstrated its chops during the invasion of Iraq when propaganda hack, Judith Miller, faithfully telegraphed neocon lies and fabrications, thus lending momentary credence to the argument for invading a country seriously enfeebled by more than a decade of medieval sanctions.
The Times “backed NATO’s killing machine in Libya,” writes Stephen Lendman. “It sanitized mass killing, destruction, and human misery. Now it’s waging war on Syria and Iran. It vilifies regimes Washington opposes. It defends sabotage and targeted assassinations… The New York Times supports Washington’s permanent war policy. Its agenda suppresses truth and full disclosure.”
Now, in addition to paving over truth with the sort of rank lies peddled by the neocon operative Miller and other establishment propaganda specialists in and out of government, the Times advocates Obama violate the Constitution and ignore international law, thus offhandedly excusing serious criminality under a thin and hypocritical veneer of redefined morality.
“There are moral reasons for disregarding the law, and I believe the Obama administration should intervene in Syria,” writes Ian Hurd, an associate professor of political science at Northwestern. “But it should not pretend that there is a legal justification in existing law.”
Hurd argues that there “is no doubt that Mr. Assad’s government has violated humanitarian principles throughout the two-year-old war,” a war Hurd fails to put in the appropriate context – the war in Syria is a civil war between al-Qaeda and other fanatical jihadists supported by the CIA and the government of Syria
Instead, Hurd raises the specter of the Rwandan genocide and the supposed Balkan mass killings of the 1990s, the latter also largely a propaganda operation contrived by the United States and NATO. According to Hurd, the war crimes perpetuated by NATO in the former Yugoslavia, including the use of depleted uranium, were “illegal but legitimate” because they addressed a government declared larger crime, a crime invented by theClinton administration and NATO’s war ministers.
Hurd and other apologists for organized mass murder would have us accept the obvious fabrication (as U.S. intelligence now hints) and illogical conclusion that al-Assad used chemical weapons on his own people at precisely the same time the United States and its war partners were fishing for an excuse to attack.
Mr. Hurd offers the “illegal but legitimate” argument, a basic contradiction, as the only course of action. He calls for “constructive noncompliance,” in other words rejection of the international law on one hand and the Constitution on the other.
If the United States, now guilty of numerous illegal wars since the end of the Second World War (and the slaughter of millions), “accepts that the rule of law is the foundation of civilized society, it must be clear that this represents a new legal path,” a path terminating in even more murder and criminality, Hurd states.
The New York Times has reached a new level and is apparently striving to rival the well-oiled propaganda machines of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
A reporter with Israel’s most widely read newspaper has been told by defense establishment officials that a US-led attack on Syria will begin on Saturday and end when Barack Obama meets Vladimir Putin on Wednesday.
Despite an apparent softening in rhetoric as British Prime Minister David Cameron faces a parliamentary revolt over military intervention, in addition to reports that the intelligence against Assad’s regime is by no means a “slam dunk,” Israel Hayom reporter Amir Mizroch tweets that the attack will begin on Saturday immediately after UN inspectors have left the country.
Inspectors had initially planned to leave on Sunday after concluding their investigation but their departure a day early has increased speculation that air strikes are imminent.
British and American military might is now fully in place and prepared for strikes which experts say will takethe form of Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles fired from warships or submarines.
Mizroch also highlights remarks made by former Mossad director Danny Yatom, who says that the apparent delay on green lighting military strikes is only so Bashar Al-Assad can’t use the UN inspectors as human shields.
Mizroch was also told that Israel sent Assad a message via Russia threatening that if Syria attempts to attack Israel, Damascus will be targeted and Assad’s regime will be toppled.
This threat was made despite attempts by Gulf nations to secure a promise from Israel that it would act with restraint if Syria attempts retaliatory strikes against Israel in response to a western onslaught. Israel replied that it would act with restraint, but only if aggression against it “did not exceed reasonable bounds.”
In a related story, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro has promised a “strong and serious response,” to Assad’s alleged chemical atrocity last week, despite American officials admitting to the New York Times that there is no “smoking gun” that directly links President Assad to the attack.
US intelligence officials also told the Associated Press that the intelligence proving Assad’s culpability is “no slam dunk,” a far cry form the Obama administration’s rhetoric, which held that Assad’s responsibility was “undeniable.”
After a 29-month cover-up, the Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) is now calling for international help and has all but admitted Fukushima’s radiation leaks are spiraling out of control. In addition to the leakingwater storage units that are unleashing hundreds of tons of radioactive water each day, Tepco now says 50% of its contaminated water filtration capability has been taken offline due to corrosion.
The result is that radiation leaks are escalating out of control and attempted remediation efforts are faltering. This is in addition to the fact the Japanese government’s attempted brainwashing propaganda campaign has also been exposed. It attempted to convince people that if they drank beer or smiled, they would be immune to radiation poisoning. (Yes, this is how desperate they’ve become…)
From day one, the Fukushima fiasco has been all about denial: Deny the leaks, shut off the radiation sensors, black out the news and fudge the science. Yet more than two years later, the denials are colliding with the laws of physics, and Tepco’s cover stories are increasingly being blown wide open.
Russia’s nuclear company, Rosatom, of which Rosenergoatom is a unit, sent Japan a 5 kilogram (11 pound) sample of an absorbent that could be used at Fukushima almost three years ago, Asmolov said. It also formed working groups ready to help Japan on health effect assessment, decontamination, and fuel management, among others, Asmolov said. The assistance was never used, he said.
That’s because for Tepco to welcome any assistance, it would first have to admit it has a problem. And that’s unacceptable in a business culture where egos run rampant and the idea of taking responsibility for your actions is considered abhorrent.
To save their own careers, Tepco experts would gladly sacrifice the health of millions of Japanese citizens.
27 families file suit against TEPCO
The problem with denial in the face of a world-class radiation disaster is that sooner or later the body bags start to pile up. Now, 74 people from 27 families are filing suit in the Osaka District Court, seeking 15 million Yen each for psychological and physical damage. (And they are the lucky ones who are still living.)
The group will argue that Tepco should have taken stronger measures to protect the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant from earthquakes and tsunami after the government’s Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion warned in 2002 that there was a 20 percent chance of a magnitude 8 or so quake occurring in the Japan Trench in the Pacific Ocean within 30 years.
Fishing ban reinstated
Part of the Fukushima denial was the claim that fish were somehow not being irradiated by the numerous leaks of highly radioactive water. This cover-up was further enforced by lifting a fishing ban that had been announced in the days following the original Fukushima meltdown event in 2011.
[The fishermen] are very angry. They’ve obviously believed that Tepco has been lying to them for weeks, if not months. You know, they seem to suggest that that the cover-ups get worse… They believe Tepco’s probably sitting on more secrets that they don’t want anyone to know about. So there’s a feeling that Tepco just cannot be trusted and that these fisherman probably don’t really feel like they have a future anymore.
Tepco lying? Say it isn’t so!
Zeolites to the rescue?
In desperation, Tepco is now trying to figure out how to stop thousands of tons of radioactive water from leaking into groundwater supplies (and ultimately into the ocean).
Those ideas, according to CTV News in Canada, include things like “freezing” the soil around the leak, creating an underground ice barrier that would require ongoing freezing, presumably for hundreds of thousands of years. You’d probably need to build another nuclear power plant to power the freeze cores, come to think of it.
Another idea, put forth by Arnie Gundersen, arguably the most sane observer in all this, involves digging a 2-meter-wide trench all the way down to bedrock, then filling the trench with zeolites which scientists now reluctantly admit trap radioactive isotopes. Note carefully that when people talk about consuming zeolites as a detox liquid, many modern-day doctors call it “quackery.” But when push comes to shove, even they have to admit zeolites absorb radioactive elements. (You can’t argue with the laws of physics. Zeolites work!)
Tepco answers to no one
Tepco “…does not directly answer to any regulatory bodies, including the country’s nuclear watchdog,” reports CTV. Sounds a lot like Big Pharma and the FDA, doesn’t it? Industry is running the regulators.
Gunderson goes on to explain in that same CTV article:
The Japanese government under Abe doesn’t want to admit (to the cost) because they are trying to restart a nuclear energy program and the last thing they need to do is tell the Japanese people that ‘oh by the way, you’re on the hook for another half trillion dollars.’
The article goes on to reveal something rather startling:
Some experts believe some of the radioactive material from the damaged core has moved into the earth. The recent spike in radiation levels in the water may therefore be coming from groundwater coming into contact with the melted cores.
Whack-a-Mole!
Finally acknowledging over two years of utter bureaucratic failure and delusional propaganda, the Japanese government is now taking over the Fukushima cleanup effort. Today, Trade Minister Toshimitsu Motegi told the international press, “We’ve allowed Tokyo Electric to deal with the contaminated water situation on its own and they’ve essentially turned it into a game of ‘Whack-a-Mole,’” reports Business Week
What’s wrong with Whack-a-Mole? It’s the wrong game, of course, Tepco would prefer we all played Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) instead so that everyone hops around like maniacs to avoid all the radiation.
Or better yet, how about the game of Hide-and-Seek? Where did all the radiation go? It’s hiding! Oh, that’s so much better, thank you!
“From now on, the government will move to the forefront,” uttered Motegi, not realizing he was paraphrasing the anti-government derogatory phrase used in the USA: “We’re from the government, and we’re here to help.”
Because when industry reaches a point of total bureaucratic failure resulting in a global disaster that threatens all life on the planet, everybody knows the obvious solution is to put the government in charge!
The government, you see, can simply pass a new law that says radiation is no longer considered dangerous. In an instant, the entire problem is solved and Japan saves hundreds of billions of dollars in cleanup costs. After all, if Obama can declare America’s jobs disaster to be a “success,” and if doctors can declare methyl mercury injected into children a “vaccine treatment,” then why not allow the Japanese government to declare Fukushima solved?
Better yet, Japan should turn Fukushima into a cancer radiotherapy clinic where Americans can receive “radiation treatments” for cancer, because we all know that radiation prevents cancer, right? That’s what the cancer clinics tell us, anyway.
Fukushima can become the world’s newest medical tourism hot spot for cancer patients. Walk in with cancer and you’ll walk out with so many other symptoms that you won’t even notice the cancer anymore! That’s the miracle of modern medical science. Sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline, of course.
“We have to stop calling these events nuclear disasters,” I’d imagine a Japanese government official uttering any day now. “They are actually nuclear opportunities for job creation,” he’ll probably explain.
In 1999, The Independent published an article entitled “World’s top sweetener is made with GM bacteria,” which revealed that Monsanto was knowingly adding aspartame to soft drinks in the United States – and that aspartame is made from GM bacteria. This report, which remains one of the earliest disclosures on aspartame in a mainstream newspaper, received little attention after its publication – possibly because its implications were underestimated at the time – and it has long been forgotten.
Since 1999, the world has become a little more attentive to Monsanto and aspartame, but ignorance still abounds about the latter’s genesis. While more and more people are starting to awaken to aspartame’s destructive effects on our health, do they know how it is actually made? Fortunately, a 1981 patent for aspartame production, once confined to the drawers of patent offices, is now available online for everyone to see – and it confirms everything that Monsanto was happy to tell us in 1999 before their meteoric growth necessitated greater prudence.
The production process
The patent, which is entitled Process for producing aspartame and is credited to Bahl, Rose, and White, summarizes the process as follows:
“The artificial sweetener aspartame, a dipeptide with the formula Asp-Phe-me, is produced using a cloned micrcorganism [sic]. A DNA which codes for a large stable peptide comprised of the repeating amino acid sequence (Asp-Phe)n is inserted into a cloning vehicle which in turn is introduced into a suitable host microorganism. The host microorganism is cultured and the large peptide containing the repeating Asp-Phe sequence is harvested therefrom. The free carboxyl group of the large peptide is benzylated and then hydrolysed to benzyl Asp-Phe dipeptides. This dipeptide is methylated and then debenzylated to formaspartame.”
This scientific jargon obfuscates (perhaps deliberately) a truly disturbing process:
1.) ‘Cloned microorganisms’ (which the patent later reveals to be genetically modified E. coli) are cultivated in tanks whose environments are tailored to help them thrive.
2.) The well-fed E. coli cultures defecate the proteins that contain the aspartic acid-phenylalanine amino acid segment needed to make aspartame.
3.) The proteins containing the Asp-Phe segments are ‘harvested’ (i.e. lab assistants collect the bacteria’s feces).
4.) The feces are then treated. This includes a process of methylation (adding an excess of the toxic alcohol, methanol, to the protected dipeptide).
While common sense dictates that this abomination doesn’t belong anywhere near our bodies, the patent’s authors made no secret about their belief that aspartame constitutes a safe and nutritioussweetener:
“Aspartame is not only sweeter than sucrose, but is preferable as a food to sucrose. While sucrose can provide the body with little more than energy, aspartame is composed of amino acids, the building blocks of body proteins, and like other proteins is broken down by the digestive enzymes in the stomach to its constituent amino acids thus providing nutritive value. […] For these reasons, aspartame holds significant promise in replacing sugar as a sweetener.”
So there we have it: An official document that not only reveals the shocking truth behind aspartame production, but also freely admits that it was intended for mass consumption as a sucrose substitute. Therefore, the next time someone claims that your reservations about this sweetener are unfounded, direct them to this patent – the truth behind aspartame is now in plain view.
About the author: Michael Ravensthorpe is an independent writer whose research interests include nutrition, alternative medicine, and bushcraft. He is the creator of the website Spiritfoods, through which he promotes the world’s healthiest foods, whether they be established superfruits such as mangosteen or lesser-known health supplements like blackstrap molasses.
No national debate over spate of black on white crimes
Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones Infowars.com August 23, 2013
Despite engaging in a seemingly endless and racially-charged national debate about the Trayvon Martin case, the US corporate media has shown no interest in reviving this obsession despite a spate of black on white murders, at least two of which indicate a racially-charged hate crime motivation behind the killings.
Image: Chris Lane.
George Zimmerman’s acquittal last month drew a line under nearly 18 months of hand-wringing over the threat posed to black people by racially-charged hate crimes. Black ideologues like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and others were constantly in the headlines holding up the Trayvon case as a dire warning that African-Americans could now be targeted for murder merely as a result of the color of their skin.
In light of several high profile black on white murders in recent days, the invective has been noticeably less verbose. The most anger Jesse Jackson could muster over the gang-initiation hate crime slaying of Australian student Chris Lane was a tepid tweet stating that the incident should be “frowned upon.”
Lane was slaughtered by a gunshot to the back as part of a gang initiation by three juveniles, an incident which the media initially tried to downplay as “bored teens.” Two of the suspects are black. It subsequently emerged that one of the suspects had posted racist tweets on his account before the murder, stating “90% of white ppl are nasty. #HATE THEM.” Another reads, “Ayeee I knocced out 5 woods since Zimmerman court!.” “Woods” is a racist term for white people.
Barack Obama, who personally inserted himself into the Trayvon Martin case on two separate occasions, was “not familiar” with Lane’s murder, according to the White House.
As one respondent to the story remarked, “If this had been 2 white kids beating up an old black dude, it’d be all over the national news by now.”
The story has received local attention but comparatively little national coverage, despite the Drudge Report prominently linking the story. Drudge has consistently highlighted the problem of black on white crime over the last few years and been attacked for doing so.
The national media has also largely ignored what could be the most shocking story out of all three – the apparent “Trayvon-revenge” killing of David Santucci in downtown Memphis by three African-Americans named Mario Patterson, Dondre Johnson and Jerrica Norfleet.
According to Santucci’s brother Miguel De Diago, police are covering up the fact that the murder was a racist hate crime and that Santucci was killed because he was white in revenge for George Zimmerman’s acquittal. Although authorities claim the murder was motivated by robbery, nothing was taken from Santucci, he still had his wallet, keys and cell phone on him after being shot dead.
These three murders all occurred within the last two weeks, but the press attention they have received in comparison to the Trayvon case has been virtually non-existent.
Trayvon Martin supporters have made the claim that these murders have not sparked a national debate because the culprits were arrested and charged, unlike George Zimmerman who was initially released.
However, this misses the point entirely. During Zimmerman’s trial, no racially-based motivation for the shooting was uncovered, yet a national debate about race ensued. In at least two of these cases, there are clear indications that two white men were indeed the victims of racist hate crime, yet the outrage has been comparatively muted.
Image: Murder suspects.
As Pat Buchanan highlights, “interracial violence is overwhelmingly black-on-white,” yet the national debate over the Trayvon Martin case would suggest the opposite. The media is deliberately avoiding difficult questions about why black culture encourages broken homes and criminal behavior in preference of manufacturing the myth that blacks are under some kind of endemic hate crime assault from whites.
In reality, crime statistics drawn from Justice Department and FBI figures show that “Blacks are an estimated 39 times more likely to commit violent crime against a white person than vice versa, and 136 times more likely to commit robbery.”
Facts cannot be labeled “racist”. The deliberate policy of the national media in hyping the idea that blacks face a growing hate crimes threat from whites – when it clearly appears that the opposite is true – means the genuine problem of black violence and how to address its root causes for the benefit of all Americans no matter what their skin color is being buried.
Real News, False Flag News, Globalization News, Zionist Illuminati News, Agenda 21 News, Police State News… All the News you Dont get and Wont get on the Controlled Mainstream Media Giant Networks
By Matt McGrathEnvironment correspondent, BBC News
Canadians Under News Tyranny 