We are going to war with Syria

Cu Bu wrote:

IMO Obama or his aides made a brilliant move,  He is leaving it to congress wiping his hands of the matter.  If congress votes no he can state that he was in favor looking strong to those supportive of the move.  IF congress votes yes and it turns out badly he can fall back on the vote.  Great political chess match being played here kudos to whomever came up with the strategy

Have to disagree. This is basically because when he said he was gonna do a preemptive strike via executive order there was a huge backlash from everyone. If he went ahead with it it would have been political suicide. It was the only move he had to go to congress, who I firmly believe will vote to strike.

oggy420 wrote:

Cu Bu wrote:

IMO Obama or his aides made a brilliant move,  He is leaving it to congress wiping his hands of the matter.  If congress votes no he can state that he was in favor looking strong to those supportive of the move.  IF congress votes yes and it turns out badly he can fall back on the vote.  Great political chess match being played here kudos to whomever came up with the strategy

Have to disagree. This is basically because when he said he was gonna do a preemptive strike via executive order there was a huge backlash from everyone. If he went ahead with it it would have been political suicide. It was the only move he had to go to congress, who I firmly believe will vote to strike.

no one will remember(see benghazi) he threatened a strike via executive order, he now has congress to play the heal meanwhile assads forces have to be getting potential targets moved into civilian landscape during this time.

OU wrote:

 

New York Times

Middle East



Crisis in Syria

Brutality of Syrian Rebels Posing Dilemma in West

By C. J. CHIVERS

Published: September 5, 2013
 

     The Syrian rebels posed casually, standing over their prisoners with firearms pointed down at the shirtless and terrified men.

The prisoners, seven in all, were captured Syrian soldiers. Five were trussed, their backs marked with red welts. They kept their faces pressed to the dirt as the rebels’ commander recited a bitter revolutionary verse.

“For fifty years, they are companions to corruption,” he said. “We swear to the Lord of the Throne, that this is our oath: We will take revenge.”

The moment the poem ended, the commander, known as “the Uncle,” fired a bullet into the back of the first prisoner’s head. His gunmen followed suit, promptly killing all the men at their feet.

http://nyti.ms/17QH7pl - link to graphic video

This scene, documented in a video smuggled out of Syria a few days ago by a former rebel who grew disgusted by the killings, offers a dark insight into how many rebels have adopted some of the same brutal and ruthless tactics as the regime they are trying to overthrow.

In the more than two years this civil war has carried on, a large part of the Syrian opposition has formed a loose command structure that has found support from several Arab nations, and, to a more limited degree, the West. Other elements of the opposition have assumed an extremist cast, and openly allied with Al Qaeda.

Across much of Syria, where rebels with Western support live and fight, areas outside of government influence have evolved into a complex guerrilla and criminal landscape.

That has raised the prospect that American military action could inadvertently strengthen Islamic extremists and criminals.

In Washington on Wednesday, Secretary of State John Kerry addressed the issue of radicalized rebels in an exchange with Representative Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican. Mr. Kerry insisted, “There is a real moderate opposition that exists.”

Mr. Kerry said that there were 70,000 to 100,000 “oppositionists.” Of these, he said, some 15 percent to 20 percent were “bad guys” or extremists.

Mr. McCaul responded by saying he had been told in briefings that half of the opposition fighters were extremists.

Much of the concern among American officials has focused on two groups that acknowledge ties to Al Qaeda. These groups — the Nusra Front and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria — have attracted foreign jihadis, used terrorist tactics and vowed to create a society in Syria ruled by their severe interpretation of Islamic law.

They have established a firm presence in parts of Aleppo and Idlib Provinces and in the northern provincial capital of Raqqa and in Deir al-Zour, to the east on the Iraqi border.

And while the United States has said it seeks policies that would strengthen secular rebels and isolate extremists, the dynamic on the ground, as seen in the execution video from Idlib and in a spate of other documented crimes, is more complicated than a contest between secular and religious groups.

The video ends abruptly after his fighters dump the soldiers’ broken bodies into a well.

One of the participants, a young man wearing a purple fleece jacket, looks into the camera and smiles.

The New York Times

Gerry Mullany


China Says Syria Strike Could Harm World Economy


A top Chinese official warned Thursday that military action against Syria could damage the global economy by pushing up the price of oil, and he urged a negotiated solution to the crisis.

Zhu Guangyao, China’s vice finance minister, said that “military action would definitely have a negative impact on the global economy, especially on the oil price,” noting that a $10 rise in the price of oil could reduce the growth of the world economy by 0.25 percent.

Many emerging-market stock indexes and currencies, particularly in India, Indonesia and Turkey, have tumbled recently as talk of American military action against Syria has intensified, but markets in China have largely weathered the storm.

Mr. Zhu made his comments in St. Petersburg, Russia, before the gathering of world leaders for the G-20 summit meeting, at which President Obama is expected to meet with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, with Syria a likely topic.

China, adhering to its longstanding policy of noninterference in countries’ internal affairs, has warned against military action against Syria, expressing doubts about evidence that the government used chemical weapons on its people.

In warning against military action, Mr. Zhu said he hoped that “the world economic balance will become more stable rather than more complex and more challenging.”

Russia Warns Of Nuclear Disaster If Syria Is Attacked

September 5, 2013 7:40 AM

WASHINGTON (CBSDC/AP) – A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman warned any military intervention in Syria would create a nuclear disaster.

“If a warhead, by design or by chance, were to hit the Miniature Neutron Source Reactor (MSNR) near Damascus, the consequences could be catastrophic,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich stated, according to Russia Today.

Lukashevich said if a military strike were launched without seeking approval from the United Nations Security Council that new suffering for other countries of the Middle East and North Africa would occur. He added that the region could be at risk of “contamination by highly enriched uranium and it would no longer be possible to account for nuclear material, its safety and control.”

He urged the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to complete a risk evaluation carrying out “an analysis of the risks linked to possible American strikes on the MNSR and other facilities in Syria.”

Rueters quoted an IAEA spokesperson stating the agency was aware of the statement, but is waiting for a formal request asking the agency to complete risk evaluation and that the group would consider the questions raised if a request is received.

A Senate panel voted Wednesday to give President Barack Obama the authority to use military force against Syria in response to a deadly chemical weapons attack.

The vote was 10-7, with one senator voting present. The full Senate is expected to vote on the measure next week.

Russia says it's compiled 100-page report blaming Syrian rebels for a chemical weapons attack

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/09/05/201268/russia-releases-100-page-report.html#.UiitsuzD-M8#storylink=cpy

By Matthew Schofield | McClatchy Foreign Staff

BERLIN — Russia says it has compiled a 100-page report detailing what it says is evidence that Syrian rebels, not forces loyal to President Bashar Assad, were behind a deadly sarin gas attack in an Aleppo suburb earlier this year.

In a statement posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website late Wednesday. Russia said the report had been delivered to the United Nations in July and includes detailed scientific analysis of samples that Russian technicians collected at the site of the alleged attack, Khan al Asal.

Russia said its investigation of the March 19 incident was conducted under strict protocols established by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the international agency that governs adherence to treaties prohibiting the use of chemical weapons. It said samples that Russian technicians had collected had been sent to OPCW-certified laboratories in Russia.

The report itself was not released. But the statement drew a pointed comparison between what it said was the scientific detail of the report and the far shorter intelligence summaries that the United States, Britain and France have released to justify their assertion that the Syrian government launched chemical weapons against Damascus suburbs on Aug. 21. The longest of those summaries, by the French, ran nine pages. Each relies primarily on circumstantial evidence to make its case, and they disagree with one another on some details, including the number of people who died in the attack.

Pentagon knew in 2012 it would take 75,000 GROUND TROOPS to secure Syria’s chemical weapons facilities

DAVID MARTOSKO
UK Daily Mail
September 5, 2013

Securing Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles and the facilities that produced them would likely require the U.S. to send more than 75,000 ground troops into the Middle Eastern country, MailOnline learned Wednesday.


That estimate comes from a secret memorandum the U.S. Department of Defense prepared for President Obama in early 2012.


U.S. Central Command arrived at the figure of 75,000 ground troops as part of a written series of military options for dealing with Bashar al-Assad more than 18 months ago, long before the U.S. confirmed internally that the Syrian dictator was using the weapons against rebel factions within his borders.

Report: China Sends Warships to Coast of Syria

PLA dispatches vessels to “observe” US maneuvers

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
September 5, 2013

China has reportedly sent warships to the coast of Syria to “observe” the actions of US and Russian ships as tensions build in preparation for a potential military strike on Syria which could come as soon as next week.



According to the Russian news outlet Telegrafist.org, the People’s Liberation Army dispatched the Jinggangshan amphibious dock landing ship and the vessel was seen passing through the Red Sea towards the Suez Canal, the waterway in Egypt that leads to the Mediterranean Sea and waters off the coast of Israel, Lebanon and Syria.

According to the report, the ship has not been sent to engage in any aggressive actions but is merely there to “observe” the actions of Russian and US warships. However, the Jinggangshan is equipped for combat, is armed with missiles, and was utilized as part of a “show of force” in maneuvers aimed at defending the South China Sea earlier this year.

The report states that additional PLA warships have also been sent to the region but that their identity is unknown.

Yesterday it was reported that Russia was sending three more ships – two destroyers and a missile cruiser – to the eastern Mediterranean to bolster its forces which already include three other warships dispatched over the last two weeks.

Earlier this week, Russia criticized the United States for sending warships close to Syria, with Russian Defense Ministry official Oleg Dogayev remarking, “The dispatch of ships armed with cruise missiles toward Syria’s shores has a negative effect on the situation in the region.”

Five U.S. destroyers and an amphibious ship are currently positioned in the eastern Mediterranean awaiting strike orders. The USS Nimitz and three other warships are also stationed in the nearby Red Sea.

In a related story, China today toughened its rhetoric on Syria, warning President Barack Obama that, “Military action would have a negative impact on the global economy, especially on the oil price – it will cause a hike in the oil price.”

The Global Times, a newspaper described by Foreign Policy Magazine as “hyper nationalistic” and an “angry Chinese government mouthpiece, also published an editorial yesterday which slammed Obama for failing to prove that last month’s chemical weapons attack was the work of the Syrian government, charging that Washington’s “geopolitical interests” in the region were behind the military build-up.

The editorial, which also complains of the total lack of media coverage in America concerning reports that Syrian rebels admitted responsibility for last month’s chemical weapons attack, accuses the White House of “ignoring logic as it beats war drums.”

The video below shows the Jinggangshan warship in action during an exercise earlier this year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/05/world/middleeast/brutality-of-syrian-rebels-pose-dilemma-in-west.html?_r=0

I think what gets lost in all this is that the rebels are essentially at a job interview telling the rest of the world what they want to hear.

After being linked by the Drudge Report, Fox News covered an Infowars exclusive story featuring a Syrian rebel admitting to using chemical weapons in order to follow Osama Bin Laden’s mantra of killing women and children.

The Fox News story concerned the overwhelming amount of evidence that the Obama administration would be backing terrorists who have been responsible for atrocities if it went ahead with an attack on Syria.


Lawmakers who were early champions of a U.S. strike on Assad regime targets in Syria have stayed mum as video clips emerge appearing to show opposition soldiers both killing unarmed men and indicating they have possession of chemical weapons.

The latest, a video on InfoWars.com, purported to show a rebel militant in Syria claiming to have chemical weapons, and saying he’s willing to target women and children. The video, which FoxNews.com has not been able to independently authenticate, only adds to the confusion over which side has the moral high ground and the reasons for U.S. military action in Syria.

The Fox report also links to a separate video which shows rebel commanders discussing chemical weapons. “The message is if the West doesn’t act, we (the rebels) too will have no red lines, and will use chemical weapons,” according to an analysis by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

Watch the original video of the rebel admitting to chemical weapons use below. The footage has already been viewed over 100,000 times on YouTube.

Biden pulled a biden

Ed Asner: Hollywood Stars Fear Being Labeled Racist if They Oppose Obama on Syria

 Asner, the Emmy Award winning star of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, told the Hollywood Reporter, “A lot of people don’t want to feel anti-black by being opposed to Obama.”

“It will be a done deal before Hollywood is mobilized,” he added “This country will either bomb the hell out of Syria or not before Hollywood gets off its ass.”

Whereas a plethora of celebrities vehemently opposed the invasion of Iraq under the Republican administration of George W. Bush, barely a handful have voiced their disapproval of Obama’s push for air strikes against Syria.

Madonna made headlines for posting a sign opposing the attack on her Instagram account, while actress Alyssa Milano leaked a fake sex tape which blithely regurgitated the White House’s talking points on the necessity for military intervention.

Are Hollywood celebrities really afraid of being labeled racist if they speak out against Obama’s attack on Syria, or are they more concerned with being portrayed as hypocrites for campaigning for Obama’s election and then standing back in silence as he breaks every promise he made?

We will not go to war with Syria, not right now. Obama is just fronting because he knows it won't pass.

we will go to war with Syria, and then Iran. No, not now, but soon. Once they set their crosshairs on a country they won't just back down and leave them alone.

oggy420 wrote:

we will go to war with Syria, and then Iran. No, not now, but soon. Once they set their crosshairs on a country they won't just back down and leave them alone.

Define "soon".

oggy420 wrote:

ha do I see bird in that crowd?

I like this guy

like Ron Paul but with more fire