SYRIA: Nerve Gas Attack

Vladimir Putin 'doesn't exclude' backing military force on Syria if evidence proves 'beyond doubt' Assad used chemical weapons
Russian President says evidence must be submitted to UN Security Council before any action can be considered

Russia's President Vladimir Putin has said he would not rule out endorsing military action in Syria if it could be proven that Bashar al-Assad's regime had used chemical weapons against its citizens.

Though he "doesn't exclude" the possibility of backing force, he said that action should only be taken once evidence has been submitted to the UN Security Council and that, at present, he felt it was "ludicrous" that the government of President Assad would use chemical weapons at a time when it was holding sway against the rebels.

Speaking in an interview with the Associated Press, he said: "From our viewpoint, it seems absolutely absurd that the armed forces, the regular armed forces, which are on the offensive today and in some areas have encircled the so-called rebels and are finishing them off, that in these conditions they would start using forbidden chemical weapons while realizing quite well that it could serve as a pretext for applying sanctions against them, including the use of force.

"If there are data that the chemical weapons have been used, and used specifically by the regular army, this evidence should be submitted to the UN Security Council," he added. "And it ought to be convincing. It shouldn't be based on some rumors and information obtained by special services through some kind of eavesdropping, some conversations and things like that."

Asked what kind of evidence on chemical weapons use would convince Russia, Putin said "it should be a deep and specific probe containing evidence that would be obvious and prove beyond doubt who did it and what means were used."

From:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/vladimir-putin-doesnt-exclude-backing-military-force-on-syria-if-evidence-proves-beyond-doubt-assad-used-chemical-weapons-8797219.html

I - along with millions of others - am baffled as to why the US is NOT producing anything resembling evidence, let alone proof, that Assad was the culprit. The US even seems to be making up casualty numbers as it goes along.

Or has no-one told the US that twitter, YouTube and the Official Rebel Facebook Page are not actually regarded as 'evidence' by grown-ups?

From:

http://news.sky.com/story/1136820/john-mccain-plays-poker-at-syria-hearing

US Senator John McCain has been caught playing poker on his iPhone during a key hearing about the possible use of military force in Syria.

He played a few hands under the table during Tuesday's Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting, which was hearing from the likes of Secretary of State John Kerry and Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel.

===

May explain why he thinks twitter and YouTube are 'evidence'. I wonder, has he remembered what happened to the person who fiddled while Rome burned?

From:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/03/john-kerry-boots-on-the-ground_n_3861860.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

"If [Assad is] foolish enough to respond to the world's enforcement against his criminal activity, if he does, he will invite something far worse and I believe something absolutely unsustainable for him," Kerry said. "Now, that doesn't mean the United States of America is going to war."

And what, pray tell, does Kerry think Assad is going to do if the US (NOT 'the world') starts bombing his country? Just sit and take it?

These clowns couldn't run security at a village fete.

It goes to show how desperate they are to convince the US that it must get involved when the majority do not want that. Kerry sounds like the village idiot.

Do they actually think they can bomb Damascus, and other Syrian towns, with impunity, Lily? That no-one's going to fire back?

I seem to recall that the US and Syria tangled in some minor Middle East skirmish a while back and it ended with US fighter jets in the Med. This isn't a frigging video game. And Assad is no Gaddafi or Saddam, horrible though he may be.

They also seem to have forgotten that Syria supported the US over Iraq; some thanks they are getting. Obama is sending out the message that he'll attack former allies without a second's thought.

Kerry got into a heated exchange with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who told Kerry that he hasn't talked to anybody who supports the call for military action. "Nobody's calling [my office] in favor of this war," he said.
"We don't believe we are going to war in the classic sense," Kerry said. "The president is not asking you to go to war."


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/04/syria-military-strike-faces-first-test-vote/#ixzz2dwWCKMEr

And what, pray tell, does The President think deciding to bomb a Middle East country that is no threat to the US is, besides an act of war?

And an illegal one at that?

Doublespeak, Bonny. This is what the US has had for too long. I had such hopes for the Pres at first but that evaporated quickly as he did not follow through with endless promises made and no results. He is a really proficient speaker. Sort of like a puppet doing what he is told to do?

So much of the country is broke. The statistics are that those on welfare equate to approx 50% and those who work to pay for it all equate to approx the other 50%. It is unsustainable and then you get the cry to war going out AGAIN. The er 'promised' jobs through economic plans by said Pres have not exactly materialized. The American people are badly hurting with inaction over the need for jobs, food, housing that the last thing they want or need is another war. That is where this matter will end.

Oh, it is illegal to give food to the homeless in many parts of the US.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s food police have struck again!

Outlawed are food donations to homeless shelters because the city can’t assess their salt, fat and fiber content, reports CBS 2’s Marcia Kramer.

Glenn Richter arrived at a West Side synagogue on Monday to collect surplus bagels — fresh nutritious bagels — to donate to the poor. However, under a new edict from Bloomberg’s food police he can no longer donate the food to city homeless shelters.

The politicians have a tough sell so that may account for some of the ridiculous things they are saying?

Sorry.....I have taken this a little off topic but you see, America is like other places.

Good God! Has New York joined the EU or something? Oh, isn't he the meddling fool who decreed what size Coke cups should be?

What? Obama is now claiming that the 'world' drew that famous red line? No, it was him, which is how this mess has come about.

Ah well, he's in Sweden now, and he can't dodge Putin forever.

Meanwhile, Jihadists, cannibals and priest-decapitators are apparently flooding into Syria, safe in the knowledge that the President of the US has their back.

bb1 wrote:Good God! Has New York joined the EU or something? Oh, isn't he the meddling fool who decreed what size Coke cups should be?

Actually Bonny, I have often noticed how something EU ridiculous that happens in the UK makes its way here.
At first I thought it coincidental.

Yes that is he!

Unfortunately, the feeding of the homeless is illegal in many cities here now. Appalling situation.

Now:

"I didn't set a red line. The world set a red line," Obama told reporters on the first day of a four-day trip to Sweden and Russia to attend a G-20 summit in St. Petersburg.

Then:

"A red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized," Obama said then. "That would change my calculus. That would change my equation."

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/04/politics/us-syria/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

He is a liar.  

What is really going on about this issue? Who is really behind it?

Time to stop lying not only to the American people but to the world.

Speaking of lying........

http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syria-casualties-20130904,0,681916.story

U.S. figure for casualties in Syria attack much higher than others'

Britain, France and a key opposition group cite lower numbers of dead in the alleged chemical attack.



By Ken Dilanian and Shashank Bengali
September 4, 2013, 4:00 a.m.

WASHINGTON — The death toll given by the Obama administration for an alleged Syrian chemical weapons attack is far higher than confirmed counts of two key allies and a main activist group, which said it was shocked by the U.S. figure.

In pressing Congress to authorize a military strike against Syria, the administration has asserted that the government of President Bashar Assad killed 1,429 people, including at least 426 children, in an Aug. 21 attack on the suburbs of Damascus.

But Britain and France have cited far lower numbers of confirmed deaths, raising questions about the intelligence the White House is using to make its case to launch missile strikes against Syria.

U.S. officials say they can't disclose how they derived their figure without compromising intelligence, but they say it is based on a variety of sources and they stand by it.

British intelligence organizations said last week that they believed at least 350 people had been killed. French intelligence said Monday that it had confirmed at least 281 deaths through open-source videos, although its experts had created models that were consistent with as many as 1,500 deaths.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, generally regarded as one of the most reliable sources of information on casualty figures in Syria, says it has confirmed 502 deaths, including 80 children and 137 women. Rami Abdul-Rahman, a Syrian expatriate who runs the organization from his home in Britain, said he was shocked by the White House's count.

"I don't know where this number came from," Abdul-Rahman said in a phone interview.

He said some Syrian opposition groups disseminate propaganda and exaggerated death tolls in an attempt to sway American politicians.

"The U.S. took this high number from one part of the Syrian opposition that is supported by the U.S. government," Abdul-Rahman said. "We don't trust them."

U.S. intelligence officials said they didn't base their assessment on reports from any single opposition group.

Adding to the confusion, a day after Secretary of State John F. Kerry said that "the United States government now knows that at least 1,429 Syrians were killed in this attack," President Obama on Saturday only referred to "well over 1,000" fatalities.

Kerry didn't cite any casualty figures in his testimony Tuesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And according to an official familiar with a formal intelligence assessment sent to Congress, the document did not include those figures.

The casualty figures are important because the administration is resting its case for military action in part on the scale of the attack. A senior administration official said a previous use of chemical weapons by Assad's military caused "100 to 150" casualties, which prompted the Obama administration to offer lethal aid to Syrian rebels, but not to contemplate direct military action.

"This is a much larger scale of use," the official said Friday. "It's indiscriminate."

U.S. intelligence officials said Tuesday that foreign intelligence agencies use different methods and resources and often arrive at different casualty counts. A British official in Washington said the British estimate was lower because it was released a few days before the American one.

Shawn Turner, a spokesman for the U.S. director of national intelligence, said, "The information that led to our understanding of the scale of the attack came from a number of sources, including international and Syrian medical personnel, videos, witness accounts and social media reports.

"We've said from the beginning that our estimates were preliminary and that we expect to update the number as we obtain more information," he said.

A senior administration official, who would not be quoted by name discussing classified intelligence, said Obama was not signaling any retreat from the higher figure and that officials believed the death toll could even go beyond 1,429.

A second official said, "The president has no intelligence reason to walk back from that number."

The precision of the U.S. figure, given the initial confusion surrounding the attack and the often contradictory reports of the violence in Syria, also raised questions among some observers. Anthony Cordesman, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote Monday that the U.S. estimate was "absurdly over-precise" and that Obama's language created "a mix of contradictions over the most basic facts."

For now, however, lawmakers do not seem to doubt the intelligence assessment and are instead raising concern about the scope, length and objective of a military campaign against Assad.

Given that the CIA does not have a strong presence in Syria, a former CIA official said, the agency is probably basing its estimates on whatever sources it may have in the Assad government; on reporting from opposition groups; and in mathematical modeling based on the number of rockets fired, wind patterns, dispersal rates, hospital admissions and other data.

"I would suspect most of that information would be on the high side initially," the former official said. "You'll have sources who want to influence you, so they'll give higher figures."

Syria's political and military opposition is severely fragmented. The U.S. figure more closely matches reports by pro-opposition organizations such as the Local Coordination Committees and the United Revolutionary Medical Office in eastern Ghouta, a Damascus suburb hit by the alleged chemical attack.

The latter group said it had documented at least 1,302 deaths, about two-thirds of which were women and children. That figure was cited by the U.S.-based Syrian Support Group, which has a federal license to funnel aid to Syrian rebels.

ken.dilanian@latimes.com

shashank.bengali@latimes.com

I know these things are always divisive, Lily, but this is an insult to the intelligence. The entire world can see the President of the United States, and assorted hangers-on, quite blatantly lying about starting a war with a sovereign state that is no danger whatsoever to the US. And refusing to present anything resembling evidence to support this.

I find it absolutely shocking, as an onlooker - for now, though I have no doubt that idiot Cameron will try to find a way to drag the UK into it. Obama's story is changing by the hour, almost, and everyone can see it.

And he STILL hasn't explained why he expects US troops to fight, and to lose their lives, for the benefit of Jihadists and Al Quaeda.

He said some Syrian opposition groups disseminate propaganda and exaggerated death tolls in an attempt to sway American politicians.

No sh#t, Sherlock. I've wondered myself where the US has been getting its figures from. If as many suspect it was the Jihadists who did it, they really have played the US for fools.

Bonny, this whole thing smacks of something or another.

They should shut up and do nothing unless and until they get firm proof which is shown to the people.

Putin is right about this. If the US has all this 'evidence', then the correct thing to do is to present it all to the UN. Let the whole world see Assad committed this atrocity. I have no doubt the US would get international support then - isn't that what they want?

The fact that the US won't do that, is in fact over-riding/ignoring the UN to start an insane war, which appears to be illegal and a breach of the UN charter, tells the world that actually, they don't have any evidence, and it was far more likely to be their new Jihadist allies who did it, as they have used chemical weapons before.

It's not as if this issue is not of deadly importance, is it?  

ETA:  I forgot to post this earlier on which is the link that Bonny posted.

Obama  8/20/12
“We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus,” Obama said. “That would change my equation. .?.?. We’re monitoring that situation very carefully. We have put together a range of contingency plans.”

Obama   9/4/13
Opening a three-day trip overseas at a delicate moment for his presidency, Mr. Obama challenged lawmakers and allies to stand behind his plans for a cruise missile attack on the government of President Bashar al-Assad in retaliation for what the Obama administration has concluded was a chemical attack that killed 1,400 people in the suburbs of the Syrian capital, Damascus, last month.
“I didn’t set a red line,” Mr. Obama said during a news conference here in Stockholm. “The world set a red line.”
He added, “My credibility’s not on the line. The international community’s credibility’s on the line. And America and Congress’s credibility’s on the line


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/04/mccain-opposes-syria-strike-resolution/#ixzz2dwWSZu6R

Even by politician standards, to come out with a bare-faced lie like that one, is astounding - it actually suggests some kind of mental problem? Did he think it wouldn't take news teams, oh, about 30 seconds to repeat exactly what he did say on the subject of red lines?

It makes me wonder if he thinks the world is still so in love with him that he can do no wrong?

Someone doesn't agree...

One of Syrian President Bashar al Assad's advisers has said the United States is using "lies" and "fabrications" to justify the use of the military force.

Dr Bouthaina Shaaban told Sky News the Syrian government was not behind the August 21 attack in which the US estimates 1,400 people were killed, and accused the West of standing in the way of democracy.

"They claim to want to be targeting weapons in exactly the same way they claimed to be targeting weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," she said.

"They are using the same lies, the same fabrications, the same claims, in order to target our country and our people."

More at-

http://news.sky.com/story/1136853/syria-us-using-lies-to-justify-strikes

A woman in a senior government position? And not looking like a black postbox? Omaba's Jihadist friends won't like that.

She is also correct when she mentions countries that do not even have constitutions. They are basically benign dictatorships.

God help the West if they get this wrong and even more, God help the area under siege.

I have little doubt that it was the Jihadists who carried out the attack, Lily, to sucker Obama and co in - or give them an excuse to attack Syria.

Syria isn't acting like a country with something to hide. Obama and Kerry, on the other hand....

That is a very probable scenario, Bonny. Obama and Kerry are very poor actors.  

From:

http://news.sky.com/story/1137300/g20-summit-syria-tensions-set-to-dominate

Mr Putin has said he will only support action if very strong evidence shows that the Syrian regime was behind the alleged August 21 gas attacks.

He threw another wrench into relations on Wednesday by accusing US Secretary of State John Kerry of lying.

He said Mr Kerry's denial that an al Qaeda-linked group is fighting with the Syrian opposition was "very unpleasant and surprising for me".

"He is lying and he knows that he is lying. This is sad," said Mr Putin.


The whole world knows Kerry is lying. This is a shameful spectacle, and a sad day for America.