Middle East landscape rapidly changing

[muppet]

Of course not, I've already said that.  Although personally, I think it most likely was the government (or, as it now seems, rogue elements within the army), I believe that nothing should be done until the verdict of the UN weapons inspectors is delivered.

I also stated that I am fully aware that the Americans would not be going into Syria pure of heart to aid the stricken Syrian people.

However, if it does transpire that Assad was responsible, what do you think should be done?  Nothing?

I agree with all of this. But the USA appears not to agree.

If Assad is responsible, and the UN has proof, then I think things will move quickly. Diplomatically things will become awkward for the Russians. They are now talking about getting Assad to destroy all Chemical Weapons or put them beyond use. Diplomacy is slowly beginning to move at least, if not quite fix everything.

But at the moment things resemble the situation in Iraq when you had Hans Blix on the ground unable to find WMDs. But Bush went to war on that basis regardless.

As an aside, I am amazed that I am now talking about Obama in the same type of context as Bush and Iraq, but there you go.

[give her dixie]

Kerry's Offhand Proposal on Syria Arms Welcomed


MOSCOW — A seemingly offhand suggestion by Secretary of State John Kerry that Syria could avert an American attack by relinquishing all of its chemical weapons received a widespread, almost immediate welcome from Syria, Russia, the United Nations, a key American ally and even some Republicans on Monday as a possible way to avoid a major international military showdown in the Syria crisis.

While there was no indication that Mr. Kerry was searching for a political settlement to the Syrian crisis in making his comment, the reactions appeared to reflect a broad international desire to de-escalate the atmosphere of impending confrontation even as President Obama was lobbying heavily at home to garner Congressional endorsement of a military strike.

Mr. Kerry's suggestion — and the Russian and Syrian response — also seemed to represent the first possible point of agreement over how to address the chemical weapons issue that has threatened to turn the Syria conflict, now in its third year, into a regional war.

Asked at a news conference in London if there were steps the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, could take to avoid an American-led attack, Mr. Kerry said, "Sure, he could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week — turn it over, all of it, without delay and allow the full and total accounting." He immediately dismissed the possibility that Mr. Assad would or could comply, saying: "But he isn't about to do it, and it can't be done."

However, in Moscow, Russia's foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, who was meeting with Syria's foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, said in response that Russia would join any effort to put Syria's stockpile of chemical weapons under international control and ultimately destroy them.

Mr. Lavrov appeared at a previously unscheduled briefing only hours after Mr. Kerry made his statement in London, seizing on it as a possible compromise.

"We don't know whether Syria will agree with this, but if the establishment of international control over chemical weapons in the country will prevent attacks, then we will immediately begin work with Damascus," Mr. Lavrov said at the Foreign Ministry. "And we call on the Syrian leadership to not only agree to setting the chemical weapons storage sites under international control, but also to their subsequent destruction."

Mr. Moallem said later in a statement that his government welcomed the Russian proposal, Russia's Interfax News Agency reported, in what appeared to be the first acknowledgment by the Syrian government that it even possesses chemical weapons. The Syrian government historically has neither confirmed nor denied possessing such weapons.

In quick succession, the idea of sequestering Syria's chemical weapons stockpile was also endorsed by Britain's prime minister, David Cameron, and the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon. Mr. Ban said he might propose a formal resolution to the Security Council, which has been paralyzed over how to deal with the Syria crisis from the beginning.

Mr. Cameron told lawmakers in London that if Syria handed over its chemical weapons arsenal for destruction under international supervision, "it would be hugely welcome," news agencies in Britain reported.

In Washington, Representative Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican who heads the House Intelligence Committee, expressed cautious support for Mr. Lavrov's response. "Just the fact the Russians have moved, tells me having this debate on military action is a having a positive outcome," Mr. Rogers said in a telephone interview.

Mr. Rogers still said Congress should vote to support a resolution backing United States military action as a means of increasing American leverage on the Russians.

"So far, the Russian rhetoric does not match their activity on the ground," Mr. Rogers, alluding to the Russian supply of arms to the Syrian army. "They're going to have to prove they mean it."

Obama administration officials have discussed the idea of presenting Mr. Assad with an ultimatum. But officials are wary of giving the Syrian leader an opportunity to play for time, and carrying out inspections to make sure the Syrian government has not retained hidden stocks of poison gas as fighting rages appeared to be a near impossibility.

Mr. Lavrov went into more detail than Mr. Kerry's suggestion — which Mr. Kerry's own spokeswoman had described as more of a rhetorical exercise rather than a proposal.

Mr. Lavrov said Russia was proposing that Syria join the international Convention on Chemical Weapons, which bars the manufacture, stockpiling and use of poison gas.

Syria is one of seven nations that have not signed the treaty, the others being Angola, Egypt, Israel, Myanmar, North Korea and South Sudan. "We are counting on a quick, and I hope, positive answer," Mr. Lavrov said Monday evening as Mr. Kerry flew back to Washington to attend briefings on Capitol Hill intended to build support for a military response to Syria's use of the weapon.

For Mr. Hague, whose government has already ruled out participation in a military strike on Syria in deference to Parliamentary opposition, the meeting with Mr. Kerry was nonetheless an opportunity to affirm British support for the United States, is most important ally.

"Our government supports the objective of ensuring that there can be no impunity for the first use of chemical warfare in the 21st century," Mr. Hague said in his joint appearance with Mr. Kerry. "As an international community we must deter further attacks and hold those responsible for them accountable.."

Mr. Hague also said: "We admire the leadership of President Obama and Secretary Kerry himself, in making this case so powerfully to the world."

Mr. Kerry said that Mr. Assad's claims that he was not responsible for the chemical attack on Aug. 21 that provoked an international crisis over whether to launch punitive military strikes were not credible because Syria's arsenal of poison gas is tightly controlled.

Mr. Kerry said that three senior officials in the Syrian government have held control over the nation's chemical weapons stocks and their use: Mr. Assad, his brother Maher and a senior general.

Mr. Kerry said that "high level" members of the government gave the instructions to use chemical weapons in the Aug. 21 attack near Damascus "with the results going directly to President Assad."

When asked if the White House would consider making public additional intelligence to counter Mr. Assad's claims that he had nothing to do with the attack, like physical samples that documented the use of sarin gas produced by the Syrian government, Mr. Kerry said that he did not know what President Obama would decide.

But he asserted that the Obama administration had already made available copious amounts of intelligence, and that the case against Mr. Assad was airtight.

In a discussion on Sunday with Charlie Rose, an American television interviewer, Mr. Assad asserted that Mr. Kerry had lied about the intelligence, drawing an analogy to the presentation that Colin Powell made to the United Nations about Iraq in 2003. Mr. Kerry appeared unruffled by that allegation and recalled that his own experience in dealing with Mr. Assad as a senator had convinced him that the Syrian leader could not be trusted.

In early 2009, Mr. Kerry met with Mr. Assad in Damascus to explore the possibility of improving relations between the United States and Syria. Mr. Kerry said that he confronted Mr. Assad about intelligence confirming that Syria had transferred Scud missiles to Hezbollah.

Mr. Kerry said that Mr. Assad had "denied it to my face," adding, "This is a man without credibility."

Repeating a point he has stressed throughout his four days of discussions with European allies, Mr. Kerry said that if an attack was carried out, it would be limited in scope and duration, would not involve ground troops, and would not drag the United States and its allies into a prolonged conflict. He emphasized that it would be nothing like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the NATO bombing of Kosovo or the intervention in Libya.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/10/world/middleeast/kerry-says-syria-should-hand-over-all-chemical-arms.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

[seafoid]

and what if syria launches chemical weapons at israel in retaliation?

A lot of jews killed by gas ? We all know that you would be appalled and would condemn it without reservation

Joking about the Shoah is in very poor taste, even by your standards.

[give her dixie]

Congress members speak frankly about US support for the military coup

American Congress members have described the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation and even accused them of being behind the 11/9 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York.

Representatives Michelle Bachman of Minnesota, Steve King of Iowa and Louie Gohmert of Texas recently visited Cairo and met with General Abdul-Fattah Al-Sisi, the Pope of the Coptic Church, and other leaders. Afterwards they spoke frankly about America's support for the coup in a video address to the Egyptian people.

In the video Bachman says: "We are here as members of Congress to say we are with you, we encourage you because together we are going through [the same] suffering... the United States and Egypt...have the same enemy: terrorism."
She adds: "As members of Congress, we speak about ourselves and about the people of our districts and I want to assure the people of Egypt that I, as a member of Congress, will stand strong in continuing [our government's] financial support to the military in Egypt."

Bachman continues: "You have been a partner in [our] war on terrorism, you have acted bravely here in the front lines and we want to make sure [you continue to have] the Apache Helicopters and the F16s and the equipment that you have bravely used to capture terrorists, to take care of this menace that is on your border."

She clearly says the Muslim Brotherhood is the common enemy between America and Egypt, stating that: "Many of you have asked do we understand who the enemy is? We can speak for ourselves. We can do. The Muslim Brotherhood."

Commenting more about that enemy, she says: "You have seen the threat that the Muslim Brotherhood has posed around the world. We stand against this evil."

Bachman then accuses the Muslim Brotherhood of carrying out the 11/9 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York in 2001, declaring: "We remember who caused 11/9 in America. We remember who it was that killed 3,000 brave Americans. We have not forgotten. We know you have dealt with that enemy as well."

Meanwhile, Steve King congratulates the coup leaders for delivering Egypt from the enemy, the Muslim Brotherhood. He says: "I am here to congratulate the Egyptian people for 30 million Egyptians coming into the streets all over this country to take your country back from the people who were going to deny the future and the freedom of the Egyptian people."

He affirms that American support for the Egyptian military would continue: "We want to provide the resources necessary to support the Egyptian military, to support continued relations between the American military and the Egyptian military."

Showing his hostility to the Muslim Brotherhood and equating them with terrorism, he says: "We as American people stand with you and we stand against the Muslim Brotherhood. The American people do not support the Muslim Brotherhood. We oppose all forms of terrorism."

Louie Gohmert says that he never supported President Morsi and was opposed to paying American money to Egypt under Morsi because of his affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood. "I am opposed to providing money and arms for a country that is run by a former or a present Muslim Brotherhood member," he explains.

He also affirms that the United Stated would continue to be a friend to Egypt under the military regime: "This is a country America needs to be a good friend with now and we encourage this incredible step," referring to the military coup.

http://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/americas/7285-congress-members-speak-frankly-about-us-support-for-the-military-coup#sthash.Uu9Gwemr.mJLiB20O.dpuf

[seafoid]

Congress members speak frankly about US support for the military coup

American Congress members have described the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation and even accused them of being behind the 11/9 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York.

Representatives Michelle Bachman of Minnesota, Steve King of Iowa and Louie Gohmert of Texas recently visited Cairo and met with General Abdul-Fattah Al-Sisi, the Pope of the Coptic Church, and other leaders. Afterwards they spoke frankly about America's support for the coup in a video address to the Egyptian people.

In the video Bachman says: "We are here as members of Congress to say we are with you, we encourage you because together we are going through [the same] suffering... the United States and Egypt...have the same enemy: terrorism."
She adds: "As members of Congress, we speak about ourselves and about the people of our districts and I want to assure the people of Egypt that I, as a member of Congress, will stand strong in continuing [our government's] financial support to the military in Egypt."

Bachman continues: "You have been a partner in [our] war on terrorism, you have acted bravely here in the front lines and we want to make sure [you continue to have] the Apache Helicopters and the F16s and the equipment that you have bravely used to capture terrorists, to take care of this menace that is on your border."

She clearly says the Muslim Brotherhood is the common enemy between America and Egypt, stating that: "Many of you have asked do we understand who the enemy is? We can speak for ourselves. We can do. The Muslim Brotherhood."

Commenting more about that enemy, she says: "You have seen the threat that the Muslim Brotherhood has posed around the world. We stand against this evil."

Bachman then accuses the Muslim Brotherhood of carrying out the 11/9 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York in 2001, declaring: "We remember who caused 11/9 in America. We remember who it was that killed 3,000 brave Americans. We have not forgotten. We know you have dealt with that enemy as well."

Meanwhile, Steve King congratulates the coup leaders for delivering Egypt from the enemy, the Muslim Brotherhood. He says: "I am here to congratulate the Egyptian people for 30 million Egyptians coming into the streets all over this country to take your country back from the people who were going to deny the future and the freedom of the Egyptian people."

He affirms that American support for the Egyptian military would continue: "We want to provide the resources necessary to support the Egyptian military, to support continued relations between the American military and the Egyptian military."

Showing his hostility to the Muslim Brotherhood and equating them with terrorism, he says: "We as American people stand with you and we stand against the Muslim Brotherhood. The American people do not support the Muslim Brotherhood. We oppose all forms of terrorism."

Louie Gohmert says that he never supported President Morsi and was opposed to paying American money to Egypt under Morsi because of his affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood. "I am opposed to providing money and arms for a country that is run by a former or a present Muslim Brotherhood member," he explains.

He also affirms that the United Stated would continue to be a friend to Egypt under the military regime: "This is a country America needs to be a good friend with now and we encourage this incredible step," referring to the military coup.

http://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/americas/7285-congress-members-speak-frankly-about-us-support-for-the-military-coup#sthash.Uu9Gwemr.mJLiB20O.dpuf

Presumably Bachman's next stop is Riyadh where she'll tell the Saudi royal samily that Wahabbism is the enemy that brought down the Twn towers and kicked America's ass in Afghanistan.

[give her dixie]

'Flooding the Zone' with Bullshit on Syria

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/09/09/flooding-the-zone-with-bullshit-on-syria/

[Mike Sheehy]

and what if syria launches chemical weapons at israel in retaliation?

A lot of jews killed by gas ? We all know that you would be appalled and would condemn it without reservation

Joking about the Shoah is in very poor taste, even by your standards.

Oh, its no joke I can assure you. I have absolutely no doubt about what you are and what your type are capable of given the right opportunity.

[thejuice]

Even if the USA and Russia were to back away from this conflict, there still remains the influence of Saudis and Qatar as well as Iran on how things will turn out. Qatar had funded Morsi in Egypt while the Saudis backed the military in his removal. One commentator from Turkey said that Saudi Royalty are not going to allow the Arab spring to spread and will make sure things go back to the way they were. That's pretty reprehensible and just goes to show that even if the US and Russia can find reason to disengage with this conflict its still going to be a bloody affair that could have a wide range of consequences for the entire region.

[give her dixie]

Lobbying Group for Israel to Press Congress on Syria

JERUSALEM — The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington, plans to dispatch 300 of its members to Capitol Hill on Tuesday as part of a broad campaign to press Congress to back President Obama's proposed strike on Syria, the group said Monday.

The push by the group, known as Aipac, which included asking its supporters to call members of Congress, came as Israeli newspapers reported Monday that President Obama urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to get personally involved in lobbying Congress. The reports said that Mr. Netanyahu had called several members himself.

But while those reports could not be confirmed, the intense push by Aipac and other Jewish and pro-Israel groups put Israel in a bind, after a week of trying to stay on the sidelines of the debate. Mr. Netanyahu's government strongly supports an American strike to punish President Bashar al-Assad of Syria for his apparent use of chemical weapons, and as a warning to his Iranian patrons. But Israelis are deeply worried about being blamed by a wary American public for another military gambit in the Middle East, or of losing their broad bipartisan support if they land on the wrong side of the vote.

"It is a major dilemma, what Israel should do on the Hill," a senior Israeli official said Monday, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of a dictate from Mr. Netanyahu not to discuss the Syria situation publicly. "We don't want to be identified with pressing for a strike. This is not for us — we don't want anybody to think this is for us," the official said. "But if the president asks us for assistance, who are we to refuse?"

Mark Regev, a spokesman for Mr. Netanyahu, declined to discuss the prime minister's conversations with Mr. Obama, or to say whether Mr. Netanyahu had indeed called members of Congress, as reported by the newspaper Yediot Aharonot. The Israeli official who spoke anonymously pointed to a Facebook post last week by Michael B. Oren, Israel's ambassador to Washington, agreeing with President Obama's argument for attacking Syria, as having given the green light for Aipac to spring into action.

But if Aipac, as an American organization, has a role to play in Washington debates, several Israeli analysts said that any direct involvement by Israeli officials was problematic.

"Israel as Israel should stay away from this campaign," said Zvi Rafiah, a longtime Israeli diplomat and consultant on American politics. "We should not be the one that pushes the American people to do or not do anything they want or don't want."

Mr. Rafiah, who served in Washington during the Yom Kippur War in 1973, recalled lobbying Congress directly to press the White House to intervene. "But then we were in danger — that's different," he said. "Now Israel is not attacked by anyone. Now Israel has the might — I hope, as I'm told — to defend itself. Now we are only concerned about the stature, the leadership, of the United States in the world."

Shmuel Sandler, an expert on American-Israel relations at Bar Ilan University, said: "There was no option but to support the president — we had to choose between bad and worse, and worse is Assad winning. It would be better to be clear about the fact that we did not initiate it and that Obama asked us."

Mr. Obama and his secretary of state have repeatedly invoked Israel in their arguments for a strike. The White House has reached out to Aipac, as well as to the Anti-Defamation League and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, who held a conference call on Monday to discuss lobbying strategy.

Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul general in New York, said five members of Congress had called to consult with him in the past four days.

"There's nothing sinister, nothing conspiratorial, nothing wrong with the lobbying arm relating to Israel and the Middle East supporting the president on this issue," said Abraham H. Foxman, the Anti-Defamation League's national director. "You don't need a phone call from the prime minister to understand that Israel's interest is with the United States taking military action because it's a message to Iran. You don't have to be a nuclear physicist to figure out where Israel stands."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/10/world/middleeast/lobbying-group-for-israel-to-press-congress-on-syria.html?_r=0

[johnneycool]

Kerry's Offhand Proposal on Syria Arms Welcomed


MOSCOW — A seemingly offhand suggestion by Secretary of State John Kerry that Syria could avert an American attack by relinquishing all of its chemical weapons received a widespread, almost immediate welcome from Syria, Russia, the United Nations, a key American ally and even some Republicans on Monday as a possible way to avoid a major international military showdown in the Syria crisis.

While there was no indication that Mr. Kerry was searching for a political settlement to the Syrian crisis in making his comment, the reactions appeared to reflect a broad international desire to de-escalate the atmosphere of impending confrontation even as President Obama was lobbying heavily at home to garner Congressional endorsement of a military strike.

Mr. Kerry's suggestion — and the Russian and Syrian response — also seemed to represent the first possible point of agreement over how to address the chemical weapons issue that has threatened to turn the Syria conflict, now in its third year, into a regional war.

Asked at a news conference in London if there were steps the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, could take to avoid an American-led attack, Mr. Kerry said, "Sure, he could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week — turn it over, all of it, without delay and allow the full and total accounting." He immediately dismissed the possibility that Mr. Assad would or could comply, saying: "But he isn't about to do it, and it can't be done."

However, in Moscow, Russia's foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, who was meeting with Syria's foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, said in response that Russia would join any effort to put Syria's stockpile of chemical weapons under international control and ultimately destroy them.

Mr. Lavrov appeared at a previously unscheduled briefing only hours after Mr. Kerry made his statement in London, seizing on it as a possible compromise.

"We don't know whether Syria will agree with this, but if the establishment of international control over chemical weapons in the country will prevent attacks, then we will immediately begin work with Damascus," Mr. Lavrov said at the Foreign Ministry. "And we call on the Syrian leadership to not only agree to setting the chemical weapons storage sites under international control, but also to their subsequent destruction."

Mr. Moallem said later in a statement that his government welcomed the Russian proposal, Russia's Interfax News Agency reported, in what appeared to be the first acknowledgment by the Syrian government that it even possesses chemical weapons. The Syrian government historically has neither confirmed nor denied possessing such weapons.

In quick succession, the idea of sequestering Syria's chemical weapons stockpile was also endorsed by Britain's prime minister, David Cameron, and the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon. Mr. Ban said he might propose a formal resolution to the Security Council, which has been paralyzed over how to deal with the Syria crisis from the beginning.

Mr. Cameron told lawmakers in London that if Syria handed over its chemical weapons arsenal for destruction under international supervision, "it would be hugely welcome," news agencies in Britain reported.

In Washington, Representative Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican who heads the House Intelligence Committee, expressed cautious support for Mr. Lavrov's response. "Just the fact the Russians have moved, tells me having this debate on military action is a having a positive outcome," Mr. Rogers said in a telephone interview.

Mr. Rogers still said Congress should vote to support a resolution backing United States military action as a means of increasing American leverage on the Russians.

"So far, the Russian rhetoric does not match their activity on the ground," Mr. Rogers, alluding to the Russian supply of arms to the Syrian army. "They're going to have to prove they mean it."

Obama administration officials have discussed the idea of presenting Mr. Assad with an ultimatum. But officials are wary of giving the Syrian leader an opportunity to play for time, and carrying out inspections to make sure the Syrian government has not retained hidden stocks of poison gas as fighting rages appeared to be a near impossibility.

Mr. Lavrov went into more detail than Mr. Kerry's suggestion — which Mr. Kerry's own spokeswoman had described as more of a rhetorical exercise rather than a proposal.

Mr. Lavrov said Russia was proposing that Syria join the international Convention on Chemical Weapons, which bars the manufacture, stockpiling and use of poison gas.

Syria is one of seven nations that have not signed the treaty, the others being Angola, Egypt, Israel, Myanmar, North Korea and South Sudan. "We are counting on a quick, and I hope, positive answer," Mr. Lavrov said Monday evening as Mr. Kerry flew back to Washington to attend briefings on Capitol Hill intended to build support for a military response to Syria's use of the weapon.

For Mr. Hague, whose government has already ruled out participation in a military strike on Syria in deference to Parliamentary opposition, the meeting with Mr. Kerry was nonetheless an opportunity to affirm British support for the United States, is most important ally.

"Our government supports the objective of ensuring that there can be no impunity for the first use of chemical warfare in the 21st century," Mr. Hague said in his joint appearance with Mr. Kerry. "As an international community we must deter further attacks and hold those responsible for them accountable.."

Mr. Hague also said: "We admire the leadership of President Obama and Secretary Kerry himself, in making this case so powerfully to the world."

Mr. Kerry said that Mr. Assad's claims that he was not responsible for the chemical attack on Aug. 21 that provoked an international crisis over whether to launch punitive military strikes were not credible because Syria's arsenal of poison gas is tightly controlled.

Mr. Kerry said that three senior officials in the Syrian government have held control over the nation's chemical weapons stocks and their use: Mr. Assad, his brother Maher and a senior general.

Mr. Kerry said that "high level" members of the government gave the instructions to use chemical weapons in the Aug. 21 attack near Damascus "with the results going directly to President Assad."

When asked if the White House would consider making public additional intelligence to counter Mr. Assad's claims that he had nothing to do with the attack, like physical samples that documented the use of sarin gas produced by the Syrian government, Mr. Kerry said that he did not know what President Obama would decide.

But he asserted that the Obama administration had already made available copious amounts of intelligence, and that the case against Mr. Assad was airtight.

In a discussion on Sunday with Charlie Rose, an American television interviewer, Mr. Assad asserted that Mr. Kerry had lied about the intelligence, drawing an analogy to the presentation that Colin Powell made to the United Nations about Iraq in 2003. Mr. Kerry appeared unruffled by that allegation and recalled that his own experience in dealing with Mr. Assad as a senator had convinced him that the Syrian leader could not be trusted.

In early 2009, Mr. Kerry met with Mr. Assad in Damascus to explore the possibility of improving relations between the United States and Syria. Mr. Kerry said that he confronted Mr. Assad about intelligence confirming that Syria had transferred Scud missiles to Hezbollah.

Mr. Kerry said that Mr. Assad had "denied it to my face," adding, "This is a man without credibility."

Repeating a point he has stressed throughout his four days of discussions with European allies, Mr. Kerry said that if an attack was carried out, it would be limited in scope and duration, would not involve ground troops, and would not drag the United States and its allies into a prolonged conflict. He emphasized that it would be nothing like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the NATO bombing of Kosovo or the intervention in Libya.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/10/world/middleeast/kerry-says-syria-should-hand-over-all-chemical-arms.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Looks like the Russians have jumped on this in a bid to keep their man in power.

As long as it saves lives on the ground, it can only be good.

[seafoid]

It's very positive if Syria escapes bombing by dismantling its chemical weapons but it's hypocritical in the extreme to allow Israel to hang onto its nuclear weapons. Why is Israel subject to different rules to everyone else? 

[southdown]

Can anyone give a rough figure on how many people have been killed as a result of US drone strikes in the last year or so?

[Itchy]

I'm sure Seafood would have those figures Southdown, its probably something like 400 million people. Did you know those Drones are all blessed by a Rabbai before they take off?

[seafoid]

Itchy's droning on hasn't killed anyone yet although some posters claim to die of boredom reading his output.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_attacks_in_Pakistan
has some numbers

[give her dixie]

An excellent piece by John Pilger that is well worth taking the time to read.


The silent military coup that took over Washington

This time it's Syria, last time it was Iraq. Obama chose to accept the entire Pentagon of the Bush era: its wars and war crimes

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/10/silent-military-coup-took-over-washington

On my wall is the Daily Express front page of September 5 1945 and the words: "I write this as a warning to the world." So began Wilfred Burchett's report from Hiroshima. It was the scoop of the century. For his lone, perilous journey that defied the US occupation authorities, Burchett was pilloried, not least by his embedded colleagues. He warned that an act of premeditated mass murder on an epic scale had launched a new era of terror.

Almost every day now, he is vindicated. The intrinsic criminality of the atomic bombing is borne out in the US National Archives and by the subsequent decades of militarism camouflaged as democracy. The Syria psychodrama exemplifies this. Yet again we are held hostage by the prospect of a terrorism whose nature and history even the most liberal critics still deny. The great unmentionable is that humanity's most dangerous enemy resides across the Atlantic.

John Kerry's farce and Barack Obama's pirouettes are temporary. Russia's peace deal over chemical weapons will, in time, be treated with the contempt that all militarists reserve for diplomacy. With al-Qaida now among its allies, and US-armed coupmasters secure in Cairo, the US intends to crush the last independent states in the Middle East: Syria first, then Iran. "This operation [in Syria]," said the former French foreign minister Roland Dumas in June, "goes way back. It was prepared, pre-conceived and planned."

When the public is "psychologically scarred", as the Channel 4 reporter Jonathan Rugman described the British people's overwhelming hostility to an attack on Syria, suppressing the truth is made urgent. Whether or not Bashar al-Assad or the "rebels" used gas in the suburbs of Damascus, it is the US, not Syria, that is the world's most prolific user of these terrible weapons.

In 1970 the Senate reported: "The US has dumped on Vietnam a quantity of toxic chemical (dioxin) amounting to six pounds per head of population." This was Operation Hades, later renamed the friendlier Operation Ranch Hand – the source of what Vietnamese doctors call a "cycle of foetal catastrophe". I have seen generations of children with their familiar, monstrous deformities. John Kerry, with his own blood-soaked war record, will remember them. I have seen them in Iraq too, where the US used depleted uranium and white phosphorus, as did the Israelis in Gaza. No Obama "red line" for them. No showdown psychodrama for them.

The sterile repetitive debate about whether "we" should "take action" against selected dictators (ie cheer on the US and its acolytes in yet another aerial killing spree) is part of our brainwashing. Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international law and UN special rapporteur on Palestine, describes it as "a self-righteous, one-way, legal/moral screen [with] positive images of western values and innocence portrayed as threatened, validating a campaign of unrestricted political violence". This "is so widely accepted as to be virtually unchallengeable".

It is the biggest lie: the product of "liberal realists" in Anglo-American politics, scholarship and media who ordain themselves as the world's crisis managers, rather than the cause of a crisis. Stripping humanity from the study of nations and congealing it with jargon that serves western power designs, they mark "failed", "rogue" or "evil" states for "humanitarian intervention".

An attack on Syria or Iran or any other US "demon" would draw on a fashionable variant, "Responsibility to Protect", or R2P – whose lectern-trotting zealot is the former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans, co-chair of a "global centre" based in New York. Evans and his generously funded lobbyists play a vital propaganda role in urging the "international community" to attack countries where "the security council rejects a proposal or fails to deal with it in a reasonable time".

Evans has form. He appeared in my 1994 film Death of a Nation, which revealed the scale of genocide in East Timor. Canberra's smiling man is raising his champagne glass in a toast to his Indonesian equivalent as they fly over East Timor in an Australian aircraft, having signed a treaty to pirate the oil and gas of the stricken country where the tyrant Suharto killed or starved a third of the population.

Under the "weak" Obama, militarism has risen perhaps as never before. With not a single tank on the White House lawn, a military coup has taken place in Washington. In 2008, while his liberal devotees dried their eyes, Obama accepted the entire Pentagon of his predecessor, George Bush: its wars and war crimes. As the constitution is replaced by an emerging police state, those who destroyed Iraq with shock and awe, piled up the rubble in Afghanistan and reduced Libya to a Hobbesian nightmare, are ascendant across the US administration. Behind their beribboned facade, more former US soldiers are killing themselves than are dying on battlefields. Last year 6,500 veterans took their own lives. Put out more flags.

The historian Norman Pollack calls this "liberal fascism": "For goose-steppers substitute the seemingly more innocuous militarisation of the total culture. And for the bombastic leader, we have the reformer manqué, blithely at work, planning and executing assassination, smiling all the while." Every Tuesday the "humanitarian" Obama personally oversees a worldwide terror network of drones that "bugsplat" people, their rescuers and mourners. In the west's comfort zones, the first black leader of the land of slavery still feels good, as if his very existence represents a social advance, regardless of his trail of blood. This obeisance to a symbol has all but destroyed the US anti-war movement – Obama's singular achievement.

In Britain, the distractions of the fakery of image and identity politics have not quite succeeded. A stirring has begun, though people of conscience should hurry. The judges at Nuremberg were succinct: "Individual citizens have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity." The ordinary people of Syria, and countless others, and our own self-respect, deserve nothing less now.