…from beneath the crooked bough, witness 230 years of brutal tyranny by the al Khalifas come to an end

G20 shows that world no longer trusts Obama
By: Thomas Walkom – National Affairs – 6 September, 2013

Politically, the latest G20 summit confirms what until now had only been whispered:

U.S. President Barack Obama no longer commands the moral authority he was once accorded by the rest of the world. Nor does America.

While controversial at home, Obama has always been viewed outside of the United States as a larger-than-life figure.

In part, this is because he is America’s first black president. But in part, Obama’s electoral successes convinced many that the U.S. was returning to sanity — that the dark malevolence represented by his predecessor George W. Bush (and particularly by Bush sidekick Dick Cheney) had finally passed; that America was preparing to become once again a force for good.

Perhaps, this was a naive hope. The U.S. is a great power and great powers are not always nice. Washington’s involvement in blatantly illegal enterprises predated Bush and Cheney.

Yet around the world, America was viewed — in general — as a country whose heart was in the right place.

And Obama was viewed as the leader who could makes U.S actions reflect that heart.

So high were the hopes around Obama that he was awarded the Nobel peace prize simply for being elected.

Over time, the cruel world of reality eroded those hopes. Obama promised to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. He didn’t. He promised a short, sharp war that would defeat the Taliban and bring peace to Afghanistan. That never happened.

He authorized drone strikes against nations with which the U.S. is not at war, strikes that killed not only Americans but others whose only crime was to be in the wrong place.

He permitted the U.S. National Security Agency to snoop on U.S. citizens and foreign allies in an unprecedented manner.

He promised openness but went after whistleblowers like Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning and Edward Snowden with unprecedented zeal.

In an earlier time, any U.S. president who called for international action against chemical weapons would have received a sympathetic response from much of the world.

True, it is hypocritical to single out chemical weapons. Syria has not signed the international convention against chemical weapons. But the U.S. has not signed a similar convention against cluster bombs, which can be just as devastating.

Still, chemical weapons have the capacity to frighten. The idea of civilians being killed in war seems bad enough. The idea of civilians being killed without visible marks upon them seems, for some reason, worse.

In an earlier time, the moral outrage expressed by Obama and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry would have resonated worldwide.

These days, it does not. When Obama claims he has proof that the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad used chemical weapons, a great many people around the world — people who count themselves as friends of the U.S. — simply don’t believe him.

Russian President Vladimir Putin insists that Syrian rebels were behind any chemical attack. He calls Kerry a liar. In earlier times, Putin would have been discounted as a propagandist for Syria’s regime.

But so jaded is today’s world about American motives that the former KGB thug seems more credible than Obama.

Britain won’t join any U.S. attack because the British people no longer trust American leadership. Ditto Germany. Ditto most other nations. That became obvious at the two-day G20 summit in St. Petersburg.

Only 10 of the 20 signed a statement accusing Syria’s government of using chemical weapons. Of those 10, only France has suggested it would participate in a U.S. attack.

Even Canada’s vigorously pro-U.S. Conservative government refuses to lend Obama anything beyond moral support.

Ironically, Jean Chrétien offered the U.S. more military assets for its 2003 attack on Iraq — although the former prime minister technically opposed that war.

Yet in their reluctance to sign on fully to America’s latest war, Harper and Obama’s other recalcitrant allies are being politically rational. Their voters no longer give the U.S. and its vigorous young president the benefit of the doubt.

They are suspicious and rightly so. …source

An act of aggression is illegal in the International Criminal Court and is defined as the use of armed force by one State against another State without the justification of self-defense or authorization by the Security Council. The definition of the act of aggression, as well as the actions qualifying as acts of aggression include for example invasion by armed forces, bombardment and blockade.

Putin presses US Congress over Syria, says Kerry lied
4 September, 2013 – Reuters

(Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday the U.S. Congress had no right to approve the use of force against Syria without a decision from the U.N. Security Council, and that doing so would be an “act of aggression”.

He said “anything that is outside the U.N. Security Council is aggression, except self-defense. Now what Congress and the U.S. Senate are doing in essence is legitimizing aggression. This is inadmissible in principle.”

In remarks that could raise tension further before he hosts President Barack Obama and other G20 leaders on Thursday, Putin also said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry lied to Congress about the militant group al Qaeda’s role in the Syrian conflict.

“They lie beautifully, of course. I saw debates in Congress. A congressman asks Mr Kerry: ‘Is al Qaeda there?’ He says: ‘No, I am telling you responsibly that it is not’,” Putin said at a meeting of his human rights council in the Kremlin.

“Al Qaeda units are the main military echelon, and they know this,” he said, referring to the United States. “It was unpleasant and surprising for me – we talk to them, we proceed from the assumption that they are decent people. But he is lying and knows he is lying. It’s sad.”

Putin did not give any more details.

In an exchange with a senator, Kerry was asked whether it was “basically true” that the Syrian opposition had “become more infiltrated by al Qaeda over time. Kerry said: “No, that is actually basically not true. It’s basically incorrect”.

In another sign of tension, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that since August 31, the U.S. State Department had repeatedly asked for a telephone call between Kerry and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov but Kerry had been unavailable and declined to set a time for the call. …source

Root-cause environmental and energy factors sparking violence will continue to destabilise Arab world without urgent reforms

Peak oil, climate change and pipeline geopolitics driving Syria conflict
by Nafeez Ahmed – 13 May, 2013 – The Guardian

The civil war in Syria has been devastating, generating a death toll fast approaching 100,000, while uprooting millions of civilians from their homes.

But as the US and Russia signed an unprecedented accord on Wednesday in search of a political solution to an increasingly intractable conflict, its underlying causes in a fatal convergence of energy, climate and economic factors remain little understood.

The UN high commissioner for human rights has offered a conservative under-estimate of the death toll at about 70,000 people – accompanied by over 1 million Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries and more than 2 million people internally displaced. According to another independent study, about 79% of confirmed victims of violence in Syria have been civilians.

Although opposition fighters have been implicated in tremendous atrocities, international observers universally confirm the vast bulk of the increasingly sectarian violence to be the responsibility of Bashir al-Assad’s regime.

Yet the conflict is fast taking on international dimensions, with unconfirmed allegations that rebel forces might have used chemical weapons following hot on the heels of US-backed Israeli air strikes on Syrian military targets last weekend.

But the US, Israel and other external powers are hardly honest brokers. Behind the facade of humanitarian concern, familiar interests are at stake. Three months ago, Iraq gave the greenlight for the signing of a framework agreement for construction of pipelines to transport natural gas from Iran’s South Pars field – which it shares with Qatar – across Iraq, to Syria.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the pipelines was signed in July last year – just as Syria’s civil war was spreading to Damascus and Aleppo – but the negotiations go back further to 2010. The pipeline, which could be extended to Lebanon and Europe, would potentially solidify Iran’s position as a formidable global player.

The Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline plan is a “direct slap in the face” to Qatar’s plans for a countervailing pipeline running from Qatar’s North field, contiguous with Iran’s South Pars field, through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and on to Turkey, also with a view to supply European markets.

The difference is that the pipeline would bypass Russia.

Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have received covert support from Washington in the funneling of arms to the most virulent Islamist elements of the rebel movement, while Russia and Iran have supplied arms to Assad.

Israel also has a direct interest in countering the Iran-brokered pipeline. In 2003, just a month after the commencement of the Iraq War, US and Israeli government sources told The Guardian of plans to “build a pipeline to siphon oil from newly conquered Iraq to Israel” bypassing Syria.

The basis for the plan, known as the Haifa project, goes back to a 1975 MoU signed by then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, “whereby the US would guarantee Israel’s oil reserves and energy supply in times of crisis.” As late as 2007, US and Israeli government officials were in discussion on costs and contingencies for the Iraq-Israel pipeline project.

Syria’s dash for gas has been spurred by its rapidly declining oil revenues, driven by the peak of its conventional oil production in 1996. Even before the war, the country’s rate of oil production had plummeted by nearly half, from a peak of just under 610,000 barrels per day (bpd) to approximately 385,000 bpd in 2010.

Since the war, production has dropped further still, once again by about half, as the rebels have taken control of key oil producing areas.

Faced with dwindling profits from oil exports and a fiscal deficit, the government was forced to slash fuel subsidies in May 2008 – which at the time consumed 15% of GDP. The price of petrol tripled overnight, fueling pressure on food prices.

The crunch came in the context of an intensifying and increasingly regular drought cycle linked to climate change. Between 2002 and 2008, the country’s total water resources dropped by half through both overuse and waste.

Once self-sufficient in wheat, Syria has become increasingly dependent on increasingly costly grain imports, which rose by 1m tonnes in 2011-12, then rose again by nearly 30% to about 4m in 2012-13. The drought ravaged Syria’s farmlands, led to several crop failures, and drove hundreds of thousands of people from predominantly Sunni rural areas into coastal cities traditionally dominated by the Alawite minority.

The exodus inflamed sectarian tensions rooted in Assad’s longstanding favouritism of his Alawite sect – many members of which are relatives and tribal allies – over the Sunni majority.

Since 2001 in particular, Syrian politics was increasingly repressive even by regional standards, while Assad’s focus on IMF-backed market reform escalated unemployment and inequality. The new economic policies undermined the rural Sunni poor while expanding the regime-linked private sector through a web of corrupt, government-backed joint ventures that empowered the Alawite military elite and a parasitic business aristocracy.

Then from 2010 to 2011, the price of wheat doubled – fueled by a combination of extreme weather events linked to climate change, oil price spikes and intensified speculation on food commodities – impacting on Syrian wheat imports. Assad’s inability to maintain subsidies due to rapidly declining oil revenues worsened the situation. …more

Nobel Peace Laureate Obama Pushes War in Powder-Keg Middle East
Finian CUNNINGHAM – 4 September, 2013

Any notion that US President Barack Obama was «giving peace a chance» in his surprise announcement last weekend of not going ahead with military strikes on Syria was firmly scotched this week. The White House has gone into overdrive lobbying Congress members to back war action.

Last Saturday, Obama took the world aback when he suddenly declared that he was putting his war plans on Syria to a Congressional vote. Days before, the American president said that he could assume executive power to order prompt military strikes on the Arab country without relying on sanction from the House of Representatives or Senate.

That military intervention was given urgency following a deadly chemical gas attack near the Syrian capital, Damascus, on 21 August, which the US government and its Western allies have accused the Syrian armed forces of perpetrating. Amateur video appeared to show hundreds of dead civilians from the attack, although the exact circumstances are still not known. As usual the Western mainstream media have amplified Western government claims and have shown a derisory lack of rigor in interrogating official assertions.

However, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad denies any responsibility and has countered that it was the Western-backed anti-government militant groups who carried out the atrocity. The Assad government’s view is supported by allies, Russia and Iran, and many other independent observers, who suspect that the incident was staged as a provocative act. Such an act, it is contended, is aimed at enabling Washington and its allies to respond militarily on the back of earlier ultimatums that any use of chemical weapons in Syria would constitute a «red line» triggering intervention. That view, as we shall see, is consonant with the reckless US drumbeat for war in face of the available evidence pointing to the so-called rebels as having committed the crime.

In his initial vow of military action, President Obama also said that he could give the go-ahead for American forces to strike Syria without a mandate from the United Nations Security Council – a bellicose move that caused much consternation in Moscow, Beijing and other world capitals, including the Vatican.

Then in a seeming about-turn last weekend Obama said that while he still retained the executive authority as Commander-in-Chief, he had decided to seek a vote in Congress on the weighty matter.

Obama said: «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 authorization for the use of force from the American people’s representatives in Congress».

Speaking in the Rose Garden of the White House, bathed in sun and with flowers in bloom, it may have appeared that Nobel Peace Laureate Obama had «seen the light». Perhaps the US president was abruptly coming to this senses, stepping back from the warpath and taking a more reasoned political route over the Syria crisis – one that would «give peace a chance» through debate and dialogue among US lawmakers. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time that the Democrat president has hesitated and flip-flopped in a predicament.

However, the international sigh of relief at Obama’s apparent balking at war was proven short-lived. Far from showing signs of flip-flopping and retreating from the warpath, Obama has over the past days led a cavalry charge on Congress to marshal a Yes vote for his plans to strike Syria. The ominous signs are that the American president is prepared to risk a military adventure in an explosive region of the world where nuclear war is a very real danger. The joint test firing of a US-Israeli ballistic missile in the Eastern Mediterranean on Tuesday underscores that a serious contingency is being contemplated.

The White House, State Department and Pentagon have triple-locked with a «lobbying blitz» on Representatives and Senators to ensure they cast their votes for war when Congress reconvenes next week on 9 September after summer recess. Many lawmakers are wary of the US entering another military quagmire and are apprehensive about the powder-keg danger of the Middle East. The risk of all-out regional war from an American attack on Syria was highlighted again this week by President Assad, who said that «the spark is getting nearer to the powder-keg».

Undeterred, Obama, together with his Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, have been personally briefing congressional leaders and various committees to back the military assault on Syria. Members of Congress have been ensconced in closed-door meetings where they have reportedly received «declassified» military intelligence to bolster «the case for punitive action» against the Assad government. Media reports suggest that the US lawmakers were merely allowed to view more amateur video footage of alleged chemical victims, as some members emerged from closed teleconference meetings and simply spoke of «shocking images», but no other form of information. Will they vote for war based on dodgy YouTube videos? …more

“Saudi press agency breaks the news of chemical weapons usage in Syria. Israeli intelligence reports they have intercepted a phone call from a Syrian government official talking about chemical weapons. Now, all we need, is official reporting from the new Al Jazeera American (AJAM) here in the USA to confirm and verify the high confidence “facts”… And if only the new[Saudi funded] $100 million UN counterterrorism center to be built within the US were ready to confirm everything…” – Dr. Colin Cavell

How Intelligence Was Twisted to Support an Attack on Syria
3 September, 2013 – By Gareth Porter – Truthout

In a White House handout photo, President Barack Obama meets with his national security staff to discuss the situation in Syria, in the Situation Room of the White House, in Washington, Aug. 31, 2013. (Photo: Pete Souza / The White House via The New York Times)In a White House handout photo, President Barack Obama meets with his national security staff to discuss the situation in Syria, in the Situation Room of the White House, in Washington, Aug. 31, 2013. (Photo: Pete Souza / The White House via The New York Times)

Secretary of State John Kerry assured the public that the Obama administration’s summary of the intelligence on which it is basing the case for military action to punish the Assad regime for an alleged use of chemical weapons was put together with an acute awareness of the fiasco of the 2002 Iraq WMD intelligence estimate.

Nevertheless, the unclassified summary of the intelligence assessment made public August 30, 2013, utilizes misleading language evocative of the infamous Iraq estimate’s deceptive phrasing. The summary cites signals, geospatial and human source intelligence that purportedly show that the Syrian government prepared, carried out and “confirmed” a chemical weapons attack on August 21. And it claims visual evidence “consistent with” a nerve gas attack.

But a careful examination of those claims reveals a series of convolutedly worded characterizations of the intelligence that don’t really mean what they appear to say at first glance.

The document displays multiple indications that the integrity of the assessment process was seriously compromised by using language that distorted the intelligence in ways that would justify an attack on Syria.

Spinning the Secret Intelligence

That pattern was particularly clear in the case of the intelligence gathered by covert means. The summary claims, “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.”

That seems to indicate that U.S. intelligence intercepted such communiations. But former British Ambassador Craig Murray has pointed out on his blog August 31 that the Mount Troodos listening post in Cyprus is used by British and U.S. intelligence to monitor “all radio, satellite and microwave traffic across the Middle East … ” and that “almost all landline telephone communications in this region is routed through microwave links at some stage [and] picked up on Troodos.”

All intelligence picked by the Troodos listening post is shared between the U.S. and British intelligence, Murray wrote, but no commmunictions such as the ones described in the U.S. intelligence summary were shared with the British Joint Intelligence Organisation. Murray said a personal contact in U.S. intelligence had told him the reason was that the purported intercept came from the Israelis. The Israeli origin of the intelligence was reported in the U.S. press as well, because an Israeli source apparently leaked it to a German magazine.

The clumsy attempt to pass off intelligence claimed dubiously by the Israelis as a U.S. intercept raises a major question about the integrity of the entire document. The Israelis have an interest in promoting a U.S. attack on Syria, and the authenticity of the alleged intercept cannot be assumed. Murray believes that it is fraudulent. …more

The Case For And Against Intervening In Syria
30 August, 2013 – The Onion

While the Obama administration has been considering an armed intervention in Syria following the gassing deaths of hundreds of Syrian civilians, a vocal movement in Congress and among the general public has emerged in opposition of any U.S. military role. Here are the arguments for and against American involvement in the war-torn Middle Eastern nation:

FOR:

– It’s the right thing to do, maybe

– Let American people finally sleep at night after years of being tormented by thoughts of innocent Syrians dying

– Will put thousands of honest, diligent American Tomahawk cruise missiles back to work

– We’re the good guys

– Syrian people deserve to be free of a psychotic, oppressive dictator for a few weeks

– Moral obligation to our defense industry

– Footage of missiles being launched off decks of ships, green night-vision images, aerial shots of explosions—all that good stuff

– Have plenty of money, a fresh, rested military—why not?

– Be nice to throw Kathryn Bigelow a bone

– Chance for Obama to put an exclamation point on an already great year

– It’s been a while since we did one of these things

AGAINST:

– Someone might be hurt, or even die

– Could turn Russia and Iran against U.S.

– History

– Fear of setting a precedent of military action without U.N. approval

– Slight, almost infinitesimal chance intervention might be a completely ineffectual act that even further destabilizes the region, touching off massive anti-American sentiment while allowing jihadist radicals to take power

– Painful memories of intervening in Rwandan genocide

– It’s hard

– Bashar al-Assad just had a baby. A baby!

– Bush invaded a foreign country. If Obama invades a foreign country, he will be like Bush. It is not good to be like Bush.

– If we ever want to patch things up with Assad, this won’t exactly make that conversation a cake walk

– Situation might work itself out

…source

Family Concerned After John McCain Wanders Into Syria
28 May, 2031 – Onion

WASHINGTON—Members of Sen. John McCain’s family expressed deep concern Tuesday after receiving word that the aging legislator had wandered off into Syria. “Unfortunately, this has been happening a lot lately; he’ll walk out of the Capitol building, get disoriented, and then we get a call late at night saying that John is in Syria,” McCain’s wife Cindy said upon learning that her 76-year-old husband turned up in the war-torn country after ambling across the Turkey-Syria border and delivering a rambling, incoherent speech to a group of rebels. “Then one of us has to go to Syria, pick him up, and bring him back to Washington. We’re going to have to sit down soon and decide what to do about this before he seriously hurts himself.” McCain’s wife added that her husband’s recent trip to Syria was the most alarming episode for her family since the elderly Arizona senator got into his car, started driving, and ended up lost in the 2008 presidential election. …source

The Syrian Conflict: The Lies of our Government and Corporate Media
By Richard Nogueira – Global Research – 31 August, 2013

The U.S.-Iraq War as precedent: The U.S.-Iraq War was an illegal invasion based on lies that killed over a million innocent Iraqi people.

The real purpose was to control Iraqi natural resources (both oil resources and strategic regional geography), for globalist exploitation – so that corporations like JPMorgan Chase, CitiBank, Goldman Sachs, Halliburton, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, ExxonMobil, BP, Shell Oil Company, etc., etc., could enrich themselves to even greater heights.

This reality is both an egregiously immoral and unethical event as well as a violent horror that has destroyed millions of lives and left a country, Iraq, in shambles and at even greater mercy to the evil globalist forces that do not care about humanity, but base all their values on profit over people.

It is good to remember a little of the actual history here as well, since lack of this type of knowledge is part what makes the public at large so susceptible to government and corporate media lies, shaping what is politically viable by the establishment of disinformation.

Firstly, we need to remember that in general most of the Middle East as most of the rest of the developing world during the 20th century was under European and American colonization – essentially brutal standards that denied indigenous people their basic rights.

Part of that story is how Saddam Hussein came to power in Iraq. The CIA had hired him when he was in his early twenties to assassinate Qasim, a reformist leader that led a rebellion against the British puppet monarchy that was used to oppress the Iraqi people.

Saddam Hussein’s assassination attempt failed and he was whisked to safely by back-up CIA forces to hide in Egypt for two years, until continued efforts to kill Qasim were finally successful.

Once returned to Iraq, Saddam Hussein was set-up, again by the CIA, as head of Iraqi Intelligence. During this time the CIA taught him everything he was to learn to become a brutal murderous dictator. During that time, under his command (under the tutelage of the CIA), Iraqi society was purged of many different types of Iraqi citizens (constitutionalists, socialists, communists, democrats, etc.), that wanted to create a fairer society that allowed for more democratic participation.

“Purged” is of course a euphemism for murdered. It is difficult to know exactly how many, but at least hundreds of thousands of innocent people Iraqis were “purged”.

Over time The CIA found other uses for Saddam Hussien. One recently confirmed project was to supply him with chemical weapons of mass destruct (Sarin Gas) to be used against our “enemies” – the Iranians.

Ironically The Iranians were unhappy with the U.S. because America had previously done the same thing to Iran (Operation Ajax) – deposing a democratically elected moderate reformist (Mohammad Mosaddegh) with the reinstated Shah of Iran. The Shah then went on to torture and kill his own citizens to make sure his country was open to globalist exploitation – for sure, he was personally well compensated.

In 1980 there was a revolution in Iran, a hostage taking at the American Embassy – the Iranians were ready to kill Americans because they felt just in wanting a society free of American colonial rule.

So, Iranian Revolution against U.S. oppression, Saddam Hussein was employed with the task of gassing the Iranian Army, and the U.S. was more than just passingly complicit. (Saddam also had the idea to gas Iraqi Kurds who were independently fighting his dictatorial rule on his domestic front.)

The problem was that even Saddam Hussein became tired of U.S. oppression. The war he had been instigated to press against Iran left Iraq bankrupt and he started to flex his military muscles to express that Iraq wanted to be free from the oppression of U.S. Empire.

Big mistake on his part. Once you join this criminal gang of globalists and do a lot of their dirty work you are not allowed to then just walk away from them. The result of his rebellion was that he went from being a “public darling” of the U.S. (doing all the globalists dirtiest work of political purging) to suddenly being a “terrorist” – he became a threat to corporate profit centers.

Back to center stage today; Iraq’s neighbor, Syria and its President Bashar Assad:

While Assad may not be someone you and I might vote for, the U.S. has no business, no right, deposing him just because he does not play ball with our murderous globalists.

Plus, as independent forces in the Middle East, Syria is understandably now aligned with Iran, which continues to be the perverse target of U.S. aggressions. As Prof. Chossudovsky has said, “the road to Teheran goes through Damascus.”

The current insurgents that make up the Syrian opposition are 95% non-Syrian, in fact many al Qaeda groups are present and fighting Assad. (The al Qaeda were themselves originally organized and funded by the CIA. They were Mujahedeen fighters in Afghanistan were brought together, fanaticized, militarized even further, and trained to be the terrorists we are supposed to be at war with today.

On Thursday evening, 29 August 2013, President Obama, addressed the latest conflict-flares in Syria, paving the road to military attacks on Syria, again based on lies and disinformation, but also, inadvertently, admitting to the total illogic of America’s desire for war with Syria to depose President Bashar Assad. …more

Obama’s Bombs
By As’ad AbuKhalil – 2 September, 2013 – Angry Corner – Al Akhbar

The Syrian people are holding their breaths. And if you read Western media and believe their correspondents in … Beirut (who are surrounded by March 14 supporters who are members of the same Saudi coalition with the Syrian exile opposition), then the Syrian people – who have been receiving bombs from the Syrian regime, the Syrian armed opposition and Israel – are eager for more bombs from Barack Obama to fall on them. The West never intervenes and never invades and never enslaves and never colonizes without invoking high moral values. Why should this time be different? We knew that both John Kerry and Obama would invoke high moral views and feign outrage. They want us to believe that they just could not stomach watching scenes of carnage in Syria. But why did their stomach not turn when they watched scenes of carnage of the US-funded Egyptian army? And what about Bahrain and Palestine? But the list is too long.

But Kerry was more audacious. He stumbled upon new adjectives for Bashar: a “thug and murderer.” But why did Kerry have intimate one-on-one meetings with the thug and murderer, and why did he have private family dinners with the thug and murderer and his wife? Western governments often pretend that they never knew that their allies and friends were committing human rights abuses until they decide to take a stand for reasons that have nothing to do with human rights abuses.

But Obama drew a line in the sand and created a red line and is now compelled by virtue of imperial hubris and machismo to bomb. Not that Obama has stopped bombing. Thus far, Obama has bombed Mali, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the list is growing. The man who faulted Bush for launching a “dumb war” (his language carries no sense of idealism, of course), is about to launch another “dumb war” by his own terminology. A sign of typical American imperialist arrogance is the insistence that the US can manage to keep an attack or a war of aggression “limited.” The US engagement in Lebanon between 1982 and 1984 was supposed to be limited until it got out of hand and until Reagan declared – not an end to the US involvement – but a mere “re-deployment” of US troops (and the US troops were never re-deployed back in Lebanon since.)

US media typically cheer any president who is about to launch war on another country. In the 30 years that I have lived in the US, I would say that US media consistently support military interventions by a sitting president with the exception of interventions in Latin America. When it comes to US interventions in Latin America, some in the US establishment media raise questions and express skepticism. But that is not the case when a US president declares war on Middle East or African countries. There you see liberals and conservatives in agreement. Nicholas Kristof (the patronizing columnists for The New York Times who fancies himself as a modern Indiana Jones-type who goes on a white horse to formerly-colonized lands to rescue native women from bad native men) sounds very much John McCain when it comes to Syria. For some reason – call it Israel – there is no right and left, Republicans or Democrats, when it comes to the Middle East. …more

Britain quizzed over sale of chemicals to Syria
3 September, 2012 – By Olivia Alabaster – The Daily Star

BEIRUT: The British government is being asked to explain why it granted export licenses for the sale of chemicals to Syria which can be used in the production of nerve gases, after the civil war was well underway.

The export licenses – for sodium fluoride and potassium fluoride – were granted in January 2012, 10 months after the civil war had begun and by which point nearly 6,000 people had been killed, according to Local Coordination Committees, an activist network, and concerns about the use of chemical weapons had already been expressed.

A member of the Commons’ Committees on Arms Export Control, Thomas Docherty MP has written to Business Secretary Vince Cable, asking for further details on the deal.

The chemicals, which can be used in the production of sarin gas, did not reach Syria in the end, as EU sanctions introduced in the summer of that year blocked their export.

“However,” Docherty writes, “the actions of the U.K. government leave serious questions to be answered.”

“Did any discussions take place between your officials and those in either the Foreign and Commonwealth Office or Ministry of Defense to determine exactly what these chemicals could be used for?,” Docherty asks in the letter, seen by The Daily Star.

He adds, “When did the U.K. government first become aware of their potential use in chemical weapons?”

The revelations, which were first reported in the Scottish Sunday Mail, come as the U.S. weighs taking militarily against the Syrian regime, as it says it has evidence the government used sarin gas in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta on Aug. 21, killing at least 1,429 people, including over 400 children.

Damascus has confirmed that it has chemical weapons, but has said it would not use them against its own people, and vehemently denies claims that it carried out the Ghouta attack.

British government guidelines state that “the government will not issue licenses for exports which would provoke or prolong armed conflicts or aggravate existing tensions or conflicts in the country of final destination,” according to the Campaign Against Arms Trade, a British NGO.

“The chemicals licenses were issued when Syria was in turmoil, with massive government repression and armed opposition,” Kaye Stearman, spokesperson for the CAAT, said.

“The parliamentary CAEC had already criticized the government for lack of caution when approving licenses – this episode seems to bear their criticisms out,” she added.

In a statement issued Monday, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which issued the export licenses, claimed the intended recipient company in Syria had “demonstrated that the chemicals were for a legitimate civilian end use – which was for metal finishing of aluminium profiles used in making aluminium showers and aluminium window frames.”

It added, “The U.K. government operates one of the most rigorous arms export control regimes in the world, and has been at the forefront of implementing an international sanctions regime on Syria.”
…more

Dubious Intelligence and Iran Blackmail: How Israel is driving the US to war in Syria
Max Blumenthal – 1 September, 2013 Mondoweiss

President Barack Obama’s August 31 announcement that he would seek congressional authorization to strike Syria has complicated an aggressive Israeli campaign to render a US attack inevitable. While the Israelis are far from the only force in bringing the US to the brink of war – obviously Assad’s own actions are the driving factor – their dubious intelligence assessments have proven pivotal.

On April 25, the head of the Israeli army’s Military Intelligence research and analysis division, Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, delivered a high profile lecture at the military-linked Institute for National Security Studies. “To the best of our professional understanding, the [Syrian] regime has used lethal chemical weapons,” Brun declared, referring to March 19 attacks near Damascus and Aleppo.

“The very fact that they have used chemical weapons without any appropriate reaction,” Brun said, “is a very worrying development, because it might signal that this is legitimate.”

The stunning statement by the Israeli army’s top intelligence analyst was significantly stronger than suspicions expressed days before by the UK and France about the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons. It was clearly aimed at Obama, who had declared in the summer of 2012 that chemical weapons attacks on civilian targets would transgress a “red line” and trigger US military action. But the White House pushed back against the Israeli ploy, dispatching Secretary of State John Kerry to demand Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supply more conclusive evidence.

“I don’t know yet what the facts are,” Kerry said after a phone call with Netanyahu, “I don’t think anybody knows what they are.”

Specious intelligence brightens the red line

Flash forward to the August 21 Ghouta massacre, where over 1000 Syrian civilians died without any sign of external wounds in a series of attacks. As in April, Israel has come forward with intelligence supposedly proving that the victims of the attacks died from nerve gas deployed by units from Assad’s Syrian Arab Army (SAA).

On August 24, Israel’s Channel 2 broadcast a report claiming that the 155th Brigade of the 4th Armored Division of Assad’s SAA fired the nerve gas shells on Ghouta. Channel 2 added that Israel was relaying its concerns to Washington, suggesting an urgent demand for US action. The report was echoed by an August 30 article in Germany’s Focus magazine claiming that Israeli army’s Unit 8200 — a cyber-warfare division that functions much like the American NSA — had intercepted communications of top Syrian officials ordering the chemical attack.

Oddly, neither outlet was able to reproduce audio or any quotes of the conversation between the Syrian officials. Channel 2 did not appear to cite any source at all – it referred only to “the assessment in Israel” – while Focus relied on an unnamed former Mossad official for its supposed bombshell. The definitive nature of the Israeli intelligence on Ghouta stood in stark contrast to the kind introduced by other US allies, which was entirely circumstantial in nature. At the same time, it relied on murky sources and consisted of vague assertions.

The Assad regime may indeed be responsible for the Ghouta massacre, but Israel’s military-intelligence apparatus does not exactly have a reputation for trustworthiness. (Consider, for example, the Israeli army’s shameless attempt to link the Gaza Freedom Flotilla to Al Qaeda by plastering Israeli media with crude and easily discredited propaganda, always sourced to anonymous national security officials.) Yet in his determination to see the US attack the country he recently referred to as “Iran’s testing ground,” Netanyahu appeared to be succeeding in his campaign to bring Obama’s red line back into focus.

The rush to war, interrupted

On August 26, an Israeli delegation containing Netanyahu’s National Security Advisor Yaakov Amidror and a collection of Shin Bet and top army officials arrived in Washington for a series of meetings coordinated by US National Security Advisor Susan Rice. The agenda was to plan for the aftermath of a US strike on Syria that was already inevitable, at least from the perspective of the meeting’s participants.

The following day, Vice President Joseph Biden became the highest level US official to blame Assad for Ghouta, declaring, “There is no doubt who is responsible for this heinous use of chemical weapons in Syria: The Syrian regime.” The Obama administration supported Biden’s claim by citing classified communications intercepted from Syrian officials – intelligence that appeared to have been supplied by the Israelis.

Giora Inbar, a former Israeli intelligence officer, told Channel 2 that the US was not only “aware of” Israel’s intelligence gathering efforts in Syria, it “relies upon it.”

With Kerry and Rice joining Biden in the spotlight to make the case for bombing Syria, the White House released an intelligence report “assess[ing] with high confidence that the Syrian government carried out the chemical weapons attack against opposition elements in the Damascus suburbs on August 21.”

The content of the report was extremely general in nature, containing a caveat that some intelligence had been omitted “to protect sources and methods.” One of the report’s strongest passages referred to “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.” Though no source was named, the language tracks almost exactly with the Israeli intelligence leaked to Channel 2 and Focus magazine.

It was August 30 when the report appeared. By this point, the question was not whether the US would bomb Syria, but how soon.

And then Obama blinked.

Iran blackmail, the coming campaign

Now that Obama has turned to Congress to authorize force against Syria, he is under relentless attack in Israel, with a chorus of pundits and politicians hammering him for his act of betrayal and cowardice in the face of evil. Amidst the din of condemnation, a talking point has emerged that will likely figure at the heart of Israel’s case to Congress and the American public this week.

The message was neatly summarized in the headline of a piece by the Likud-friendly correspondent Herb Keinon in the Jerusalem Post: “Weak world response on Syria boosts chance of strong Israeli action on Iran.” Referring to Obama’s decision and the British’ parliament’s vote against participating in a strike on Syria, Keinon wrote, “That kind of international dallying is not the type of behavior that will instill confidence in Israeli leaders that they can count on the world when it comes to Iran.”

At Haaretz, Amos Harel reinforced the talking point in a piece of analysis that claimed “Arabs perceive Obama as weak” – but which cited absolutely zero Arabs. Running through a litany of examples of supposed American weakness, Harel concluded, “it’s no wonder that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is becoming increasingly persuaded that no one will come to his aid if Iran suddenly announces that it is beginning to enrich uranium to 90 percent.”

The threat of a unilateral Israeli strike on Iran if the US does not act on Syria is slowly seeping into American media, and will almost certainly grow more pronounced this week as pro-Israel pundits and members of the Obama administration unite on their message. AIPAC may also join the push for congressional authorization, a move the night flower-style lobby managed to avoid during the run-up to invading Iraq. If the Israel lobby is forced into the open, it could hold the prospect of an attack on Iran like a gun to the heads of members of Congress, warning them that the price of inaction is a regional conflagration.

Though Congress will be under unrelenting pressure from powerful forces to authorize force, the vote provides an unprecedented opportunity for opponents of US military intervention in the Middle East to mobilize. Anti-war forces may not be able to match the financial muscle or public relations power of pro-war elements, but they have opinion firmly on their side. And a direct conflict with the American public may be the one fight Netanyahu does not want to pick. …source

Russia asks Turkey for info on sarin terrorists
6 June 2013 – Turkish Weekly

Russia has called on Turkey to share its findings in the case of Syrian rebels who were seized on the Turkish-Syrian border with a 2kg cylinder full of nerve gas sarin.

Russia’s top foreign official Sergei Lavrov tolday said the Kremlin wanted to get clear on the issue of chemical weapons used in Syria, since the allegation had taken on the role of a trading card in the conflict, becoming a focus of constant provocations.

“I do not rule out that some force may want to use it [the rumour] to say that the “red line” has been crossed and a foreign intervention is needed,” the minister said.

“We are still waiting on a comprehensive report from our Turkish colleagues,” he added, citing the incident when a gang of terrorists carrying a canister with nerve gas sarin was arrested inside the Turkish territory about two weeks ago.

Moscow calls to pick side in Syria conflict

Russia’s chief of foreign affairs has urged the international community to finally take its pick and decide whether it is going to side with forces set to topple the Syrian regime or with the ones calling for a nationwide dialogue on Syrian peace.

Speaking at a press conference, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said: “We want that… the international community took off the blinders that make its focus on its immediate urge to overthrow one leader, then unseat another one, while turning a blind eye on the outcome of these actions.”

“Whatever has been happening during this ‘Arab Spring,’ it is clear now that these events are closely connected, so it is important to choose who you are siding with… with those who want to cut the knot without looking back at the suffering nation – or with those who want to solve this problem though dialogue,” Mr. Lavrov said.

Russia urges prompt inquiry into chemical arms use in Syria – Lavrov
All of the possible instances of chemical weapons use in Syria should be established as soon as possible, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

“I would like to support Guido [German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle] regarding the need to urgently establish all of the facts linked to reports about the possible use of chemical weapons by the sides,” Lavrov said at a press conference in the Kaliningrad region on Thursday.

A serious mistake was made when the Syrian government’s request to investigate the possible use of chemical toxic substances in the city of Aleppo on March 19 was left without any response, but unlimited and unhindered access to any facility on Syrian territory was demanded instead, the Russian minister said.

All opposition groups in Syria should be able to be involved in reaching compromise – Lavrov

Russia insists that all structures related to the settlement of the situation in Syria should take part in the international conference on Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

“All structures should be present at that conference. That applies not only to the national coalition, which has so far failed to take a constructive stance in the conference. That also applies to those opposition structures that do not want to be present at the Geneva conference if it is called under the ‘umbrella’ of the national coalition,” Lavrov told a press conference on Thursday.

Among the organization that want to take an independent part in the conference are the National Coordination Committee and the Syrian Kurds, he said.

“We believe all opposition structures in Syria should be given an opportunity to communicate their viewpoint and participate in the achievement of a compromise, which will ensure peace, stability, ad equal rights for all ethnic and religious groups in the country,” Lavrov said.

Russia vows to bring Iran to Syria parley amid Western criticism

Russia is set to push for Iranian presence at the planned Syria conference, dubbed Geneva II, in Switzerland, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday.

Mr. Lavrov stressed Moscow was intent on bringing all countries who can influence the parley to the negotiating table. And one of those world powers is Tehran, he pointed out.

The West has met this motion with a great deal of resentment. “At the current stage our partners have been quite outspoken and critical about Iran’s participation,” Sergei Lavrov said at a briefing today. “We think they are mistaken,” he added.

The Russian foreign minister vowed that Russia “will keep pressing for including all influential parties in the conference.” …source

Many – from alternative news outlets to mainstream to governments – find the Obama administration’s justification for launching an attack on Syria full of holes.

Suspicions That Rebels Launched Chemical-weapons Attack Refuse to Die
By Russ Wellen, 3 September, 2013 – Foreign Policy in Perspective

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad once again denied, in so many words, that his regime was responsible for chemical-weapons attacks. In an interview with Le Figaro, he said, “I’m not at all suggesting that the Syrian army does or does not possess such weapons.” Then he reiterated what he said in an earlier interview:

Let’s suppose that our army wishes to use WMD: is it really going to do so in an area where it is actually present and where soldiers have been wounded by these weapons, as the UN inspectors found during their visit to the hospital where they were being treated? Where is the logic in that?

However far-fetched, according to Washington group-think and what’s now conventional wisdom, a hotly disputed article by Dave Gavlak at Mint Press News based in Minneapolis suggests that’s in our best interest not to discard the-rebels-did-it scenario just yet. Gavlak writes:

… from numerous interviews with doctors, Ghouta residents, rebel fighters and their families, a different picture emerges. Many believe that certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the dealing gas attack.

However implausible to most, the tale “many” tell is too plausible to ignore. In other words, it sounds too realistic and detailed to be the work of their imaginations. Based on the excerpt below, see what you think.

“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.

Abdel-Moneim said his son and 12 other rebels were killed inside of a tunnel used to store weapons provided by a Saudi militant, known as Abu Ayesha, who was leading a fighting battalion.

… Abdel-Moneim said his son and the others died during the chemical weapons attack. That same day, the militant group Jabhat al-Nusra, which is linked to al-Qaida, announced that it would similarly attack civilians in the Assad regime’s heartland of Latakia on Syria’s western coast, in purported retaliation.

The next touches are especially convincing.

“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. … A well-known rebel leader in Ghouta named ‘J’ agreed. “Jabhat al-Nusra militants do not cooperate with other rebels, except with fighting on the ground. They do not share secret information. … And unfortunately, some of the fighters handled the weapons improperly and set off the explosions,” ‘J’ said.

Feeding those suspicions, the Independent reports

It was Prince Bandar’s intelligence agency that first alerted Western allies to the alleged use of sarin gas by the Syrian regime in February.

More on Prince Bandar, Russia and the Chechens in a future post. Meanwhile, if you still need to hear reservations about the Syrian regime mounting the attacks from a source more respectable than Mint Press News, Hannah Allam and Mark Seibel summed them up for McClatchy yesterday:

The case Secretary of State John Kerry laid out last Friday contained claims that were disputed by the United Nations, inconsistent in some details with British and French intelligence reports or lacking sufficient transparency for international chemical weapons experts to accept at face value.

The first reservation cited:

The Obama administration dismissed the value of a U.N. inspection team’s work by saying that the investigators arrived too late for the findings to be credible and wouldn’t provide any information the United State didn’t already have.

U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq countered that it was “rare” for such an investigation to begin within such a short time and said that “the passage of such few days does not affect the opportunities to collect valuable samples.”

Second:

Another point of dispute is the death toll from the alleged attacks on Aug. 21. Neither Kerry’s remarks nor the unclassified version of the U.S. intelligence he referenced explained how the U.S. reached a tally of 1,429, including 426 children.

… Anthony Cordesman [of the Center for Strategic and International Studies] criticized Kerry as being “sandbagged into using an absurdly over-precise number” of 1,429, and noted that the number didn’t agree with either the British assessment of “at least 350 fatalities” or other Syrian opposition sources. … He added that the blunder was reminiscent of “the mistakes the U.S. made in preparing Secretary (Colin) Powell’s speech to the U.N. on Iraq in 2003.”

Third – and an embarrassing and possibly deadly gaffe on the part of the United States:

Another eyebrow-raising administration claim was that U.S. intelligence had “collected streams of human, signals and geospatial intelligence” that showed the regime preparing for an attack three days before the event. … That claim raises two questions: Why didn’t the U.S. warn rebels about the impending attack and save hundreds of lives? And why did the administration keep mum about the suspicious activity when on at least one previous occasion U.S. officials have raised an international fuss when they observed similar actions? …more

Episode 10: Pine Ridge, South Dakota from Radical Resistance Tour on Vimeo.

U.S. Senator McCain: Congress’ rejecting use of force in Syria would be catastrophic
2 Spetember, 2013 – Reuters

WASHINGTON: U.S. Senator John McCain said on Monday that a vote by the U.S. Congress against President Barack Obama’s proposal for using military force in Syria would be catastrophic.

“If the Congress were to reject a resolution like this after the president of the United States has already committed to action, the consequences would be catastrophic,” McCain told reporters after a meeting with the president at the White House. McCain, a Republican, said he was encouraged by the meeting but that there was “a long way to go” to get the resolution passed.

McCain said that he and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham – who was also in the meeting with Obama – favored changes in the resolution that would broaden it to make it more than just a response to the use of chemical weapons by the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“We do want an articulation of a goal that over time will degrade Bashar al-Assad’s capabilities, increase and upgrade the capabilities of the Free Syrian Army and the Free Syrian Government so they can increase the momentum on the battlefield,” McCain said.

Both McCain and Graham have long favored U.S. intervention against Assad in the civil war in Syria, while Democrat Obama has tried to stay out of the conflict until now.

“We appreciate the president meeting with us. We had a candid exchange of views and I think we have found some areas that we can work together. But we have a long way to go,” McCain said.
…source

French PM says no vote in parliament on Syria
2 September, 2013 – Agence France Presse

PARIS: French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said there would be no vote during Wednesday’s parliamentary debate on the Syria crisis, adding that there was no doubt that Damascus was behind a deadly chemical attack.

“The regime of Bashar al-Assad has committed the irredeemable on August 21,” Ayrault said on Monday.

The prime minister, who met prominent lawmakers to discuss the crisis, said President Francois Hollande was “continuing efforts to forge a coalition as soon as possible” to punish the Syrian regime for the attack.

But he added that “there is no question that France will act on its own”.

“It is up to the president to decide if a vote… should be held,” Ayrault said of the emergency parliamentary session. He said there would be no vote on Wednesday as in all probability no coalition would have been formed by then.

The United States and other Western and Arab countries blame the alleged gas attack in the Damascus suburbs on the Assad regime, which itself strenuously denies any responsibility and points an accusing finger at the opposition forces.

Washington says that based on its intelligence, more than 1,400 people were killed in the gruesome incident. Frane on Monday spoke of “at least 281” deaths.

US President Barack Obama has deferred any military action in Syria, seeking Congressional approval while the British parliament has rejected any intervention there.

The French president can order military action without parliamentary approval but some lawmakers have urged Hollande to put the issue to a vote.
…source

Criminal insanity of US regime
2 September, 2013 – By Finian Cunningham

This is from the leader of the same terror state that supplied former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein with chemicals weapons and the coordinates to gas thousands of Iranians and Kurds during the 1980s; it is the same United States of terror that dropped white phosphorus on the Iraqi city of Fallujah and others in 2005-2006 during its genocidal war of illegal occupation; it is the same terror state that poisoned Iraq and generations of children with depleted uranium; the same terror state that supplies Israel and other allies such as Saudi Arabia and Bahrain with a plethora of toxic chemicals that are then fired into civilian homes every day of the week.

They say absolute power corrupts absolutely. That adage applies more than ever to the president of the United States, his administration and the Wall Street flunkeys that sit in Congress.

But the corruption extends beyond the usual meaning of a dysfunctional moral compass to include the incapacity for intelligent reasoning and self-reflection. The political class of most powerful country on earth has been so over-indulged in arrogance and hubris that it is no longer able to realize how ridiculous it appears to the rest of the world. In short, criminal insanity seems to be the condition of US rulers and their puppets, including those in the mass media.

The American president and his cronies on Capitol Hill preen and talk as if into a charmed mirror that reflects loveliness to the beholder, yet the rest of the world sees ghastly, frightening clowns, loaded up on self-righteousness, delusion, inordinate firepower and a reckless ease for squeezing the trigger.

Indeed, such is the ridiculous posing by Washington that the US – the world’s number-one terrorist state – seems to have added a new weapon to its arsenal of planet-destroying armaments – one that induces uncontrollable laughter in victims to the point of death from asphyxiation or from a busted gut.

President Barack Obama may have been testing out this new “mass laughter” weapon last weekend when he announced that he was seeking approval from Congress to launch military strikes on Syria. This was after his administration accused the Syrian government of “murdering over 1,000 of its own people” with chemical weapons in the suburbs of Damascus on 21 August.

The death of hundreds of innocent civilians, including women and children, is certainly no laughing matter. But it is a cruel mockery to their memory that the US president should try to use these deaths as an excuse to escalate his transparent and criminal agenda for regime change in Syria.

While the Americans huff and puff that they have “high confidence” in their secret allegations against the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad, the rest of the world is more convinced that it is the US-backed mercenaries who committed mass murder with chemical weapons supplied by Washington’s ally Saudi Arabia.

So out-of-control is the delusional US president that it took his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to make a telephone call and remind Obama that he is a Nobel Peace Laureate and should act accordingly instead of playing with fire that might engulf the region and the entire globe.

“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 said, as if he was addressing an imbecile, which he was. “Russia is urging you to think twice before making a decision on an operation in Syria.”

Apart from the world’s most reactionary and lawless regimes, Saudi Arabia and Israel, the rest of humanity is also urging the American government to think twice before it murders countless more people in a region already teetering on the brink of conflagration. Even the normally gung-ho British have backed away from such reckless adventurism. …more

Russia may send lawmakers to US to discuss Syria
2 September, 2013 – By Laura Mills – Associated Press

MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin proposed on Monday to send a delegation of Russian lawmakers to the United States to discuss the situation in Syria with members of Congress.

Two top Russian legislators suggested that to Putin, saying polls have shown little support among Americans for armed intervention in Syria to punish its regime for an alleged chemical weapons attack.

Russian television showed Putin meeting on Monday with Valentina Matvienko, the speaker of the upper house, and Sergei Naryshkin, the lower house speaker, at his residence outside Moscow.

The lawmakers said maybe U.S. legislators can be persuaded to take a “balanced stance” on the issue. Putin supported the initiative, which would require formal approval by the Foreign Ministry.

Russia has sent legislators to the U.S. before to try to persuade Congress about pending legislation. But sending a delegation to Washington to discuss Syria’s civil war could be seen as a publicity stunt, given the strong positions Moscow already has taken as a key ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime.

The U.S. has accused Russia of providing military support to Assad that has allowed him to cling to power during Syria’s civil war.

On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed evidence of the alleged chemical weapons use by the Syrian regime as “absolutely unconvincing.”

He said the evidence presented by the U.S. to Moscow showed “there was nothing specific there, no geographic coordinates, no names, no proof that the tests were carried out by the professionals.” He did not describe the tests further.

The U.S. said it has proof that Assad’s regime is behind attacks that Washington claims killed at least 1,429 people, including more than 400 children in a suburb of the Syrian capital of Damascus on Aug. 21. Syrian officials have denied the allegations, blaming rebel fighters.

Lavrov has brushed aside Western assertions of an alleged Syrian regime role. Russia, along with China and Iran, has staunchly backed Assad throughout the conflict.

“What our American, British and French partners showed us in the past and have showed just recently is absolutely unconvincing,” Lavrov said at Russia’s top diplomatic school. “And when you ask for more detailed proof, they say all of this is classified so we cannot show this to you.”

On Saturday Putin spoke out against the prospect of U.S. military intervention in Syria, calling such a move “foolish nonsense” that “defies all logic.”
…more

Russia: US fails to present hard evidence of Syria chemical attack
2 September, 2013 – Al Akhbar

The United States has failed to present concrete evidence that the Syrian government was behind last month’s alleged chemical attack in a Damascus suburb, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday.

Moscow vehemently opposes US-led plans for a military assault against the government of President Bashar al-Assad in response to the alleged attack, even though the timetable has now been put back by President Barack Obama’s decision to put it to Congress.

“What we were shown before and most recently by our American partners as well as the British and the French absolutely does not convince us,” Lavrov said at a university lecture in Moscow.

“And when you ask for more detailed evidence, they say that it is all secret and they cannot show you. Thus, there are no such facts for the purposes of international cooperation,” he added.

President Vladimir Putin said over the weekend it would have been “utter nonsense” for the government to launch such an attack when it has the military ascendancy.

Lavrov said Russia had been shown some evidence by the West but doubted its validity, saying “there was nothing concrete, without geographic coordinates or names.”

He accused the West of concealing comments by “many experts” who have expressed “serious doubts” about the validity of the video footage of the attack posted on the Internet.

“If we are going to state that these are pictures of the use of chemical arms and of the effects on the victims then there is a mass of disparities and absurdities,” Lavrov said.

“There are very many doubts,” he said. “There are no facts, just talk that ‘we probably know this,'” he added.

The dispute between the West and Russia over Syria is expected to be at the center of the G20 summit which is to be hosted by Putin later this week in Saint Petersburg. …source

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