“This is a policy in search of a justification. It is like the decision has already been made.”
Welcome back to the BUSH WHITE HOUSE!
While the Obama administration has robust European backing and quiet Arab support for a strike on Syria, Obama has to decide whether to take action unilaterally or with a small coalition....
Well, WHICH IS IT? Robust backing and quiet support, or.... SIGH!!!
Some officials in Washington realize that there needs to be a public presentation making the case for war to avoid delay now that our credibility is on the line."
Sorry, we have been getting that for the last week and it has FAILED MISERABLY, and the government's credibility was shot long, long ago!
Turns out Obomber is a bigger jerk than Kohn Kerry.
"Lawmakers want a voice before action against Syria" by Bryan Bender and Matt Viser | Globe Staff, August 28, 2013
Pfft!
WASHINGTON — As President Obama moved closer to taking military action against Syria, some leading members of Congress and foreign policy specialists called Tuesday for more debate of the options and their consequences to hold the Syrian regime accountable for its alleged use of chemical weapons.
A Republican member of the House Armed Services Committee who represents the largest concentration of active-duty military personnel in the nation was preparing a letter to Obama requesting a special session of Congress, currently in recess until Sept. 9, to debate the use of military force in Syria.
I appreciate the effort, but where you been? Too little, too late.
“My deep concern here is that President Obama and some of his predecessors have interpreted their authority more broadly than is called for in our Constitution,” Representative Scott Rigell of Virginia, whose district includes Naval Station Norfolk, said in an interview. “We have had a propensity to engage military forces sooner than we have to.”
Was he referring to Bush because I'm sick of the musical chairs down there?
As of Tuesday evening, Rigell had enlisted 35 other members, including several Democrats, to sign on to his letter to Obama, he said.
The pressure on Obama to recall Congress also could build as a result of the decision in Britain to recall Parliament. Prime Minister David Cameron announced Tuesday that he would cut short his vacation, and officials said Parliament would be called upon to return early from its summer recess to discuss Syrian options. Obama and Cameron consulted by phone Tuesday.
Obama said last year that he would be compelled to take action if Syria crossed what he called a “red line” by using chemical weapons. The administration said earlier this week that there was “undeniable” evidence that the line had been crossed, buttressed by video of hundreds of Syrians, including children, apparently killed by chemical attacks.
U.N. hasn't even analyzed it yet, but they are sure!
See: Israeli intelligence seen as central to US case against Syria
Are you flipping kidding? You can't expect us to believe this garbage.
“There is no doubt who is responsible for this heinous use of chemical weapons attack in Syria: the Syrian regime,” Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday in a speech to the American Legion. “Those who use chemical weapons against defenseless men, women, and children should and must be held accountable.”
Okay, Joe.
Related: Israel used chemical weapons in Gaza
Even that simple search is skewed by Joogle.
Also see:
Israel and the Bomblets
Israel and White Phosphorous
FLASHBACK - Israel Drops White Phosphorus Bombs, Littlest Victims Suffer
FLASHBACK - Israeli crimes against humanity: Gruesome images of charred and mutilated bodies following Israeli air strikes
That was in 2006. Where were you Joe?
Obama’s options are limited. He has all but ruled out sending troops to fight on the ground.
Even though Marines are moving in from Jordan.
But hey, what's one more lie from a jewspaper full of 'em?
Russia is likely to veto an effort at the United Nations to pass a resolution for military intervention.
The only good veto is a U.S. veto protecting Iswail!
As a result, Obama has to decide whether to take action unilaterally or with a small coalition, and what type of action to take.
What happened to the broad coalition blah, blah?
From what the radio is saying, this whole effort is meeting massive resistance in the rest of the world and the fact the it is the Al-CIA-Duh insurgents that are responsible for the chemical attacks is now widely known!!
Obama’s aides said they are considering strategic strikes, such as cruise missile attacks against chemical weapons sites, not a full-fledged aerial assault designed to remove Syrian President Bashar Assad.
WTF?!!! So then the CHEMICALS WILL be LOOSED INTO THE AIR! That will kill MORE PEOPLE than the false flag attack by insurgents!
White House press secretary Jay Carney said the administration was consulting with members of Congress, but he stopped short of saying whether they would be called back to take any vote authorizing action.
“I don’t want to engage in speculation about a course of action that has not been decided upon,” Carney said. “When the president has an announcement to make, he’ll make it.”
And that, my fellow world and American citizens, is called a DICTATORSHIP!
The situation is delicate for Obama because of some of his past statements.
Oh, we have gotten used to his disassembling and broken promises.
In 2007, when he was running for president, he responded to a Globe questionnaire that asked him to describe scenarios under which a president could bomb Iran without seeking a use-of-force authorization from Congress.
“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 in a written response.
Yeah, but he's president now, so.... !!
If Obama does order the use of military force without congressional authorization, he would be following the same path he took in 2011 when US and NATO forces established a no-fly zone over Libya and provided air support for rebel forces seeking to overthrow the government of Moammar Khadafy.
I would like to remind Obama supporters that always say it's Bush's fault, Libya is a war crime all his own.
Carney on Tuesday argued that if the United States allowed Syria to use chemical weapons “on a significant scale” without responding, it “would present a significant challenge to or threat to the United States’ national security interests.”
Carney also said that, while the United States wants Assad to be deposed, the military action that Obama is contemplating is not to remove him, but to punish Syria for using chemical weapons.
Well, then he MUST GET CONSTITUTIONAL APPROVAL FROM CONGRESS because Syria is NOT AN IMMINENT THREAT TO US!
If he is a democrat and not a dictator, that is.
“I want to make clear that the options that we are considering are not about regime change,” Carney said. “They are about responding to a clear violation of an international standard that prohibits the use of chemical weapons.”
Unless, of course, it is the EUSraeli Empire he heads that does it. And the hell it isn't about regime change. Carney a world-champion liar!
As Obama mulled the options, US officials conferred closely with longtime ally France, as well as Britain, about a possible military response.
Some leading members of Congress, meanwhile, said they wanted more discussion about action aside from a military strike, such as economic sanctions.
The missiles are flying. Hallelujah, hallelujah.
Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, cautioned that even a limited military campaign could escalate into a broader war involving the United States.
One can always hope.
“This action will likely draw us into a much wider and much longer-term conflict that could mean an even greater loss of life within Syria,” Murphy, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement, calling on the president to “exercise restraint, because absent an imminent threat to America’s national security, the US should not take military action without congressional authorization.”
Oh, look, a MEMBER of Congress who has ACTUALLY READ the CONSTITUTION!
Others expressed concern about the possibility of an escalating war.
“There is a risk that when this does not have dramatic effect that people will say, now that our credibility is on the line, we need to do more,” warned Christopher Preble, vice president for defense and foreign policy at the CATO Institute, a leading libertarian think tank. “If I thought there was some magical military instrument that would bring an end to the civil war I would be sympathetic. But there is not.”
Yup, Obama MUST MURDER HUNDREDS if not THOUSANDS because his NON-EXISTENT CREDIBILITY is ON the LINE!
Yeah, let it never be doubted that the AmeriKan government will MURDER INNOCENT PEOPLE over DAMNABLE LIES!
Some analysts said the administration’s pledge to hold Syria accountable does not necessarily have to require a military response — at least not until more scrutiny is given to the mounting evidence of chemical weapons use and the aims of any military intervention are more fully delineated.
Or he could man up and admit that this is a lying government. He can apologize and say from this day forward they will start telling the truth.
“There is no urgency for anything to happen this week or before Congress gets back in session,” said Robert J. Naiman, policy director of Just Foreign Policy, a nonpartisan research organization that seeks what it calls “a foreign policy based on diplomacy, law, and cooperation.” “I worry this is a policy in search of a justification. It is like the decision has already been made.”
But there is.
But the pressure also grew on Tuesday for Obama to act forcefully and quickly. Senator John McCain, a Republican of Arizona, continued his criticism of Obama for not arming anti-Assad rebels sooner and for not acting on previous reports of the more limited use of chemical weapons by the Syrian military.
Top US officials, meanwhile, appeared to be locking in support for a military response.
Secretary of Defense Chuck R. Hagel, traveling in Asia, made a round of calls to close US allies.
Damn you, Hagel!
“Secretary Hagel conveyed that the United States is committed to working with the international community to respond to the outrageous chemical attacks that have claimed the lives of innocent civilians in Syria,” said George Little, Hagel’s spokesman.
See: Al Qaeda Rebels Used Sarin Nerve Gas in Syria Attack
Israel, Syria’s neighbor and close US ally, was also preparing for the potential for a wider conflict in the coming days.
Which is just what they want.
“The State of Israel is ready for any scenario,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday after meeting with his top security officials in Tel Aviv. “We are not part of the civil war in Syria, but if we identify any attempt whatsoever to harm us, we will respond, and we will respond in strength.”
They sure as hell are!
See: Israeli air strikes on Syria
Israeli hospital treats Syrian rebel fighters
And who knows what hell Mossad is raising inside Syria?
--more--"
I'm never going to that in there.
"Arab League blames Syria in attack, won’t back strike" by David D. Kirkpatrick and Mark Mazzetti | New York Times, August 28, 2013
CAIRO — The leaders of the Arab world declined to back a retaliatory military strike, denying the United States the kind of broad regional support that US governments have generally sought for interventions in the Middle East.
Yeah, because THEY COULD BE NEXT!
While the Obama administration has robust European backing and quiet Arab support for a strike on Syria, the position of the Arab League and the inability to win a UN mandate complicates the legal and diplomatic case for the White House.
Robust backing and quiet support must be why he as to go around the Congress, NATO, and the UN and do this unilaterally with a small coalition.
The Obama administration has yet to make clear if it has intelligence linking the Syrian government to the use of chemical weapons, though the White House said there was no doubt that had occurred.
What is has is garbage from Israel. Didn't we just go through all this with them regarding Iraq?
Taken together, this leaves the Obama administration on the verge of ordering military action without the kind of broad political, legal, or diplomatic support the United States has typically sought before military interventions in the volatile region, as in Libya in 2011.
Right, we go seek support -- and if we don't get it, we attack anyway!
Administration officials have declined to spell out the legal justification that President Obama would use in ordering a strike, beyond saying the large-scale use of chemical weapons violates international norms. But officials said the president could draw on a range of treaties and statutes, from the Geneva Conventions to the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Because they don't have it. That's why is it avoiding the U.N., NATO, and the U.S. Congress.
Obama, they said, could also cite the need to protect a vulnerable population, as his Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton, did in ordering NATO’s 78-day air campaign on Kosovo in 1999. Or he could invoke the principle of “responsibility to protect,” which some officials cited to justify the US-led bombing campaign in Libya.
So when you going to liberate Palestinians?
Related: Obama to Use Serbian Template in Syria
Except protests and bellowing from the blogs has scaled it back to two days of "punitive" strikes (or so we are told by the corporate pre$$ deceivers), as if that made a difference. Any action at all will be a war crime.
“There is no doubt here that chemical weapons were used on a massive scale on Aug. 21 outside of Damascus,” said the White House spokesman, Jay Carney. “There is also very little doubt, and should be no doubt for anyone who approaches this logically, that the Syrian regime is responsible.”
Where is Kohn Kerry's evidence? U.N. hasn't even analyzed it, yet this shit Carney is out spewing?
A number of nations in Europe and the Middle East, along with several humanitarian organizations, have joined the United States in the assessment about last week’s attack.
With the specter of faulty intelligence assessments before the Iraq war still hanging over US decision making, and with opinion polls showing that only a small fraction of the US public supports military intervention in Syria, some officials in Washington realize that there needs to be a public presentation making the case for war.
I thought that was important.
They don't tell you it is a MERE 9% in favor, meaning it's the military, war profiteering corporations and their workers, and other select special interests that are in favor.
But don't worry; my war-promoting press won't be spending much print on the American people and their opposition.
And the SELF-DELUSIONAL PROPAGANDISTS in Washington show they are TOTALLY CLUELESS! They think if they PACKAGE MORE LIES in brightly-colored boxes with bows we will all get the war fever and start woofing.
PATHETIC!
The only woofing we will be doing is CALLING FOR YOUR HIDE on a STICK!!!
A statement by the Arab League on Tuesday added to the uncertainty, underscoring the complexity of the regional landscape, where years of turmoil have set off fierce sectarian fighting and a tidal wave of refugees and left many fearful that a US strike would further inflame tensions.
Leaders of the Arab world are divided over a potential Western airstrike against Syria in retaliation for the use of chemical weapons, caught between public hostility to intervention and a tangle of shifting rivalries and allegiances.
With the majority of Arabs emotionally opposed to any Western military action in the region no matter how humanitarian the cause, no Arab nation or leader has publicly endorsed such a step. In the region, only Turkey has pledged to support intervention.
But that's an "emotional" response, can you believe this piece of Jewish shit I call a jewspaper?
The implication is the cool-and-collected, lying war criminals are rational decision-makers.
I guess someone would get emotional when it might involve the killings of loved ones, friends, or just innocent people on the basis of blatant and brazen lies!
Heck, I'm way the hell over here and I'm "emotional" about this, or can't you tell by my commentary?
Behind the scenes at least two closely allied Arab heavyweights, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, might be split over which enemy poses the greater immediate threat to their regional interests: the Sunni Islamists who dominate the Syrian rebels, or the Shi’ite Iranian backers of Syria’s president, Bashar Assad.
Shouldn't have hooked your star to the U.S.
The Arab League, a regional diplomatic forum that has expelled Assad’s government, said in its statement that it holds “the Syrian regime responsible for this heinous crime,” but appeared to suggest that the specific perpetrators were not yet known and should be brought to international justice.
What cowardly regimes! They know the truth!
The league called on the UN Security Council to “overcome the disagreements between its members” in order to “take the necessary deterring measures against the perpetrators of this crime, whose responsibility falls on the Syrian regime,” and to end the other abuses.
Obama administration officials, who asked not to be identified, asserted that they were satisfied with the Arab League statement since it assigned responsibility to Assad’s government for the chemical attack, was issued quickly, and called on Security Council members to overcome their differences.
“This was a big diplomatic step forward in laying the groundwork for actions the president might choose, and required days of aggressive diplomacy to avoid delay,” a senior administration official said Tuesday night.
--more--"
Related: Bomb Syria, Even if It Is Illegal
Would you expect anything less from the Jew York Times?
"In Your Face Miley Cyrus Soft Porn As Obama Prepares to Murder Syrians
Kurt Nimmo
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?
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 a 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.
--MORE--"
Also see: Will War Against Syria Trigger Another Recession? The Market Has Spoken: A Syrian War Would Suck
Yes, the latest Fed-created stock market bubble looks like it has finally popped based on the over 100 point loss yesterday, and the dump it took after Kerry's speech. That's why war on Syria is so imperative now. Amurkns need to be distracted. Thank the Gods NFL football will soon be starting.
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
Mainstream Media Cheerleads for Syria War … But Overwhelming Majority of Comments Are Against It
"US expected to show proof in Syria attack" by Mark Mazzetti and Mark Landler | New York Times, August 29, 2013
WASHINGTON — The evidence of a massacre is undeniable: the bodies lined up on hospital floors, those of the living convulsing and writhing in pain, and a declaration from a respected international aid group that thousands of Syrians were gassed with chemical weapons last week.
And yet the White House faces steep hurdles as it prepares to make the most important public intelligence presentation since February 2003, when Secretary of State Colin L. Powell made a dramatic and detailed case for war to the UN Security Council using intelligence — later discredited — about Iraq’s weapons programs.
When one looks back now and recognizes all the false flags, one realizes ALL ARGUMENTS for WAR are based on LIES, and are always "discredited" later.
A decade later, the Obama administration says the information it will make public, likely on Thursday, will show proof of a large-scale chemical attack perpetrated by Syrian forces, bolstering its case for a retaliatory military strike on Syria.
We don't care what you put out, liars!
Related: CONFIRMED: US Claims Against Syria – There is no Evidence
Guess where they got the "evidence?"
Yet with the botched intelligence about Iraq still casting a long shadow over decisions about waging war in the Middle East, the White House faces a US public deeply skeptical about being drawn into the Syrian conflict and a growing chorus of lawmakers from both parties angry about the prospect of a US president once again going to war without specific congressional approval.
Obama just blinked?
US officials said Wednesday there was no “smoking gun” directly linking Syrian President Bashar Assad to the attack, and they tried to lower expectations about the public presentation.
PFFFFFFFFTT!
That means they HAVE NO EVIDENCE AT ALL, and are going to LIE ABOUT IT AGAIN as they LOWER EXPECTATIONS(?!!?)!!
They said it will not contain specific electronic intercepts of communications between Syrian commanders or detailed reporting from spies and sources on the ground.
Because that would expose the Israeli-fed shovel full of shit, and they know no one is going to believe it -- no should they.
But even without hard evidence tying Assad to the attack, administration officials asserted, the Syrian leader bears ultimate responsibility for the actions of his troops and should be held accountable.
Sigh.
(Blog editor shakes his head as he is absolutely apoplectic at the outright brazenness of this lying government)
Administration officials said that communications between military commanders intercepted after Wednesday’s attack provided proof that the assault was not the result of a rogue unit acting against orders. It is unclear how much detail about these communications, if any, will be made public.
Yeah, too bad there is proof all over the web that is was the U.S-BACKED INSURGENTS that are RESPONSIBLE for the CHEMICAL WEAPONS ATTACKS!
In an interview Wednesday with PBS “Newshour,” President Obama said he still had not made a decision about military action. But he said that a military strike could be a “shot across the bow, saying ‘stop doing this,’ that can have a positive impact on our national security over the long term.’’
He sounds more like Bush every day.
Despite the Obama administration’s insistence that the graphic images of the attack go far in making a case for military action in Syria, some experts said that the White House had its own burden of proof.
Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said that whatever evidence the administration puts forward would be the US intelligence community’s “most important single document in a decade.”
The Obama administration, Cordesman said, needs to use intelligence about the attack “as a key way of informing the world, of building up trust in US policy and intelligence statements, and in moving US strategic communications from spin to convincing truth.”
Just the fact that he has to say that means whatever the U.S. puts forth is not to be believed -- nor should it be.
And yet it appears that the public presentation of the Syria evidence will be limited.
Translation: This is nothing but a BIG PILE of BS!
US officials said the assessment they are preparing will be similar to a modest news release they issued in June to announce the Assad government had used chemical weapons “on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year.”
Those were the insurgents, but that paragraph there tells you there is NOTHING NEW HERE! It's going to be the SAME OLD SLOP we have HEARD BEFORE!!!!
--more--"
Also see:
Let UN inspectors finish their work in Syria
Mass. senators urge caution on Syria action
Syrian natives worry about relatives
Can you tell I don't really care what the Boston Globe has to say anymore? They are seriously shoveling that s*** when the AmeriKan media has helped bring us to the brink?
"Commit a War Crime to Cover Up a War Crime? Phoney Syria Poison Gas Story Planted By Mossad in the Western Media
Global Research, August 28, 2013
This is where it all started: The Israeli intelligence front the Debkafile, which is the source of the story that implicated the Assad government and/or its military in the gas attack on East Ghouta and now forms the basis for the war on Syria.
DEBKAfile’s military sources affirm that, just as the Assad brothers orchestrated the chemical shell attack on Syrian civilians, so too did Hizballah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah set in motion the rocket attack on Israel. – ‘The sarin shells fired on Damascus – by Syrian 4th Division’s 155th Brigade – were followed by rockets on Israel and car bombings in Lebanon‘, Debkafile, 24 August 2013Let’s try sum up what we do know:
On the 21 August from a suburb of Damascus, Douma (or Duma) then under ‘rebel’ control, two missiles were fired at another ‘rebel’ controlled suburb of Damascus called East Ghouta, killing an unknown number of people, including children. It is assumed now that some kind of nerve gas or at least poison gas was used. The New York Times have documented this here, although they’ve moved some of the locations on the map. In this regard how does the NYT reconcile their take on the source of the missiles with the Mossad version, which makes them artillery shells fired from the mountains in the South ( see the Mossad version below, such as it is). This is confirmed by Pepe Escobar’s report of Russian satellite evidence.
Within hours, or even minutes, videos of the alleged effects of the attack were circulating on the Web and without a pause for a breath (let alone any evidence), led by the UK and followed closely by France, they were blaming the Assad government for the attack and pressing for an immediate attack on Syria, with or without authorisation from the UN Security Council.
For more on this see this Wiki, where details on the launch of the two missiles can be found. It’s not exactly a coherent presentation as it’s an assemblage of links and descriptions, but it looks like the missiles were launched from a Syrian Special Forces base in Douma (or Duma) then occupied by the ‘rebels’.
The ‘Evidence’
For several days, in fact until today, 28 August, there was no evidence offered in the mainstream media that confirmed the allegations made by the US, the UK and France. Then a story released by the Israeli Mossad intelligence service to the German magazine Focus on the 24 August got picked up by the mainstream media. Today the 28th a report in the London Guardian newspaper tells us that the ‘evidence’ was from an Israeli source, specifically the 8200 intelligence unit of the Israeli Defence Forces,“which specialises in electronic surveillance, intercepted a conversation between Syrian officials regarding the use of chemical weapons, an unnamed former Mossad official told Focus. The content of the conversation was relayed to the US, the ex-official said.” – The Guardian, 28 August 2013A more complete article on the Israeli connection can be found in a Times of Israel article dated 27 August:
It was Brun, the IDF’s top intelligence analyst, who in April shocked the international community by declaring that the army was quite certain that Assad had used chemical weapons against rebel forces in Syria in March.
This time, too, Israeli military intelligence has reportedly played a key role in providing evidence of Assad’s chemical weapons use. On Friday, Israel’s Channel 2 reported that the weapons were fired by the 155th Brigade of the 4th Armored Division of the Syrian Army, a division under the command of the Syrian president’s brother, Maher Assad. The nerve gas shells were fired from a military base in a mountain range to the west of Damascus, the TV report said.
The report did not state the source of its information. But subsequently, Germany’s Focus magazine reported that an IDF intelligence unit was listening in on senior Syrian officials when they discussed the chemical attack. According to the Focus report Saturday, a squad specializing in wire-tapping within the IDF’s prestigious 8200 intelligence unit intercepted a conversation between high-ranking regime officials regarding the use of chemical agents at the time of the attack. The report, which cited an ex-Mossad official who insisted on remaining anonymous, said the intercepted conversation proved that Assad’s regime was responsible for the use of nonconventional weapons.
Giora Inbar, the former head of the IDF’s liaison unit in southern Lebanon, said Tuesday that Israeli military intelligence made a priority of intelligence-gathering in Syria, was very well-informed, and was widely trusted. The United States was “aware of” Israel’s intelligence on the doings of the Syrian regime, he said in a Channel 2 interview, “and relies upon it.” – ‘Israeli intelligence seen as central to US case against Syria‘, Times of Israel (my emph. WB)Here’s a Google translation of the relevant passage from the Focus article:
Mossad: “poison gas missile by Syrian government forces”
According to the findings of Israeli intelligence community, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is responsible for the gas attack in Damascus. One unit of the Military Intelligence Service Amam, which specializes in wireless spy “Unit 8200″, controlled (tapped?) at the time of the gas attack, the communication of the Syrian army. A former Mossad officer told FOCUS, the analysis has clearly shown that the bombardment with poison gas missiles was made by Syrian government forces. – ‘UN calls on Syria to allow access for poison gas inspectors‘, Focus magazine, 24 August 2013I think what’s apparent here is that Mossad used a device that is quite common when governments/intelligence agencies want to plant a phoney story; release it through a relatively unknown publication and wait for it to be picked up by the MSM. After all, if the ‘crack’ 8200 Unit was actually listening in on the 21st of August “at the time of the attack” to Syrian Army radio, why didn’t they immediately release the information to the world (even as it happened!)? Isn’t that what you or I would have done with that kind of war-starting information?
Then there was the panic on Saturday 24 August by the USUK to try and get the UN inspection team’s visit to Syria, cancelled. Now what was that all about? The USUK backed it up with talk about it ‘being too late’ and that the Assad regime had ‘cleaned up’ (this in an area then not controlled by the Syrian government). Too late to find out if hundreds of people had been gassed?
The sudden reversal and overt hostility toward the U.N. investigation, which coincides with indications that the administration is planning a major military strike against Syria in the coming days, suggests that the administration sees the U.N. as hindering its plans for an attack.
Kerry asserted Monday that he had warned Syrian Foreign Minister Moallem last Thursday that Syria had to give the U.N. team immediate access to the site and stop the shelling there, which he said was “systematically destroying evidence”. He called the Syria-U.N. deal to allow investigators unrestricted access “too late to be credible”. – ‘In Rush to Strike Syria, U.S. Tried to Derail U.N. Probe‘, Gareth Porter, IPS, 28 August 2013In yet another version of the Mossad-inspired story, in the Israeli Tikum Olam we read:
It [Ynet on the 27 August] says that three senior Israeli military-intelligence officers are currently in Washington briefing their U.S. counterparts on the Unit 8200 intercepts. The paper also claims that the primary evidence the west is using on which to base its charges of Syria government responsibility is the IDF secret intercepts. This makes me nervous for several reasons: one, because IDF claims are notoriously unreliable. This brings to mind the Mossad’s notoriously biased “evidence” offered regularly to the IAEA to “prove” Iran’s intent to develop nuclear weapons. Two, it makes me wonder what Israel’s ulterior motives may be in weighing in like this. – German Report That Israel’s NSA Affirms Syria Government Responsibility for Chemical Attacks, By Richard Silverstein, Tikum Olam, 26 August 2013
And what of the UN mandate that forbade the inspection team from apportioning blame, should it be able to do that? Everything looks set to fail except the option to bomb.
Why the rush to war?
And ultimately, why the rush to war without even falsified evidence to offer until this late stage?Surely, if on the day of the attack the Israelis had released the information of an alleged gas attack by the Syrian government, it would have given the US and the UN, every (albeit twisted) justification to attack instead of relying on “belief” and “common sense” as Hague and Kerry both asserted?
I never thought I’d see the private intelligence arm of the US state, Stratfor utter the following but I think it’s another indication of a false flag plot gone seriously amiss that only an immediate attack on Syria could have masked:
Stratfor’s job is to analyze the world as objectively as possible, and the situation in Syria is among the most difficult we have seen. The problem is we really don’t know what happened. The general consensus is Syrian President Bashar Assad ordered the use of chemical weapons against his enemies. The problem is trying to figure out why he would do it. He was not losing the civil war. In fact, he had achieved some limited military success recently. He knew that U.S. President Obama had said the use of chemical weapons would cross a red line. Yet Assad did it.
Or did he? Could the rebels have staged the attack in order to draw in an attack on al-Assad? Could the pictures have been faked? Could a third party, hoping to bog the United States down in another war, have done it? The answers to these questions are important, because they guide the U.S. and its allies’ response. The official explanation could be absolutely trueÐor not. – Stratfor Email 28 August 2013No wonder Stratfor is circumspect about the cause of the chemical attack. Worse, it’s even doubting the US government when it says, “The official explanation could be absolutely trueÐor not.”
If as Gareth Porter asserts, the US wanted the inspection team canceled because I assume, it didn’t want to have to bomb them as well as the unfortunate Syrians, then it follows that regardless of the evidence, the Empire had planned to rain death and destruction from afar on Syria, and had planned to do so since last year. And then it was presented with the perfect opportunity until those damn UN inspectors got in the way!
Waging war would avoid the embarrassing act of actually finding out what went on and as we know the victor writes the history. By the time cooler heads get to have a look at the facts, it’s all ‘history’.
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