SYRIA: Nerve Gas Attack

Thing is, it's not hard to make 'chemical weapons' - over-enthusiastic housewives do it periodically when they mix the wrong kind of household cleaners and end up in hospital.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if Al-Quaeda and the cannibals, sorry, the 'heroic rebels', were mixing up some Hell's-brew of their own when it went wrong.

Cameron's eagerness to start a war when no-one knows what happened does rather suggest a man with something to hide. UN inspectors have already said that they are as sure as they can be that it was the 'heroic rebels' who were behind previous deaths involving gas; there wasn't a cheep out of Cameron then.

Sigh.....


U.S. wins Arab League backing as plans emerge for strike against Syria


The Arab League on Tuesday declared the Syrian regime “fully responsible” for an alleged chemical weapons attack, giving the Obama administration symbolic regional cover to proceed with a punitive offensive that could begin within days.

Two U.S. defense officials, speaking on condition of anonymity so as to discuss sensitive military plans, told McClatchy that military commanders were ready to execute a sea-based strike but were awaiting orders from the White House. The officials said the attack would be carried out exclusively by the four destroyers currently based in the eastern Mediterranean and would not include airstrikes to supplement the expected missile barrage.

U.S. officials emphasized that any military action would be punishment for the Syrian government’s apparent use of chemical weapons, and not an operation to remove President Bashar Assad. That distinction is important to the Obama administration as it searches for a response that deters Assad from chemical warfare but doesn’t drag the United States into a devastating conflict that’s already spilling across borders and inflaming the Middle East.

Vice President Joe Biden told the American Legion National Convention in Houston that there was “no doubt” the Assad regime was responsible for the “heinous use of chemical weapons.”

“Chemical weapons have been used. Everyone acknowledges their use. No one doubts that innocent men, women and children have been the victims of chemical weapons attacks in Syria,” Biden said Tuesday.

Biden, who met with Secretary of State John Kerry for breakfast and also spoke with British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, didn’t allude to any specific intervention, but he warned that “those who use chemical weapons against defenseless men, women and children should and must be held accountable.”

Limiting military action to punitive strikes is also important to nervous Arab states that already are feeling trickle-down effects of the Syrian civil war: huge refugee populations, sectarian flare-ups and the regrouping of al Qaida-style extremists. Should Assad be ousted abruptly, all those problems are only expected to metastasize, as no credible opposition authority is prepared to take charge, according to U.S. military and foreign policy analysts’ assessments.

Pushed by influential Persian Gulf states, the 22-member Arab League issued a strongly worded five-point statement after a two-hour session in Cairo. It called Syria “fully responsible for the ugly crime and demands that all the perpetrators of this heinous crime be presented for international trials.”

There was no discussion at the Arab League about the potential U.S. strike, though the tone of the statement suggested that the possibility of one drove its tough rhetoric. The league also said the United Nations Security Council should put aside internal differences and pass the “necessary resolutions against the perpetrators of this crime,” a reference to a suspected chemical attack a week ago that killed hundreds of Syrians in an eastern suburb of Damascus.

Without directly blaming the Assad regime, Arab League Secretary General Nabil el Araby said that what happened was a “flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.” That language echoed the words of Secretary of State John Kerry, who twice spoke with Araby by phone Monday, before the league convened.

While the Arab League is generally derided as an ineffectual organization, its tacit endorsement of a U.S.-led strike against Syria is important as the Obama administration cobbles together a coalition of Middle Eastern and European allies to avoid the delays and vetoes of trying to authorize action through the U.N. Security Council.

“I think it’s very significant because it shows there are countries in the region that are concerned and want NATO to act,” said Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, the senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “I think of what happened with Libya a few years ago. There was a resolution from the Arab League to intervene. It makes it easier for the administration and provides cover because there is support.”

While U.S. officials hint of impending action, the timing is proving tricky. Wednesday is unlikely because it would force President Barack Obama into the awkward position of attacking Syria on a day commemorating the nonviolent March on Washington by civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Thursday, too, would be problematic because that’s when the British Parliament convenes to discuss a Syria response, and the U.S. is counting on British backing.


British Prime Minister David Cameron called Parliament back as news agencies reported that commercial pilots near Cyprus had spotted British C-130s and radar images of small formations of fighter jets heading to Britain’s Akrotiri airbase on Cyprus, which is only about 150 miles from Syria.

Still, in the United Kingdom not everyone was sure that the time for intervention had arrived. The Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander told the BBC that as far as committing British troops, neither he nor other members of Parliament were “prepared to write the government a blank check.”

An Istanbul-based Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the delicate politics of an intervention, also said it’s unclear when a strike might occur, speculating that it could take up to a month before the United States and its allies reach an agreement on specific action.

The diplomat noted that the Saudis and the Turks, two regional heavyweights, were scheduled to meet in Riyadh this week, followed by a Gulf Cooperation Council meeting on Sept. 2 and a meeting of Arab League foreign ministers on Sept. 3. Then there’s the U.N. General Assembly and the St. Petersburg G8 summit at the end of September, when the Americans might try one final push to get the Russians and other holdouts on board.

“The Americans are interested in creating an international legitimacy” for the intervention, the diplomat said. “They don’t want to be alone. They don’t want to be accused of being a unilateral power.”

At the White House, spokesman Jay Carney declined to say whether Obama would seek permission from the United Nations for any potential action on Syria. He gave no hints as to timing or scope, but he made it clear the administration would act against Assad.

“There must be a response,” Carney said. “We cannot allow this kind of violation of an international norm, with all the attendant grave consequences that it represents, to go unanswered. What form that response will take is what the president is assessing now with his team.”

Youssef reported from Cairo; Allam reported from Washington. James Rosen, Lesley Clark, William Douglas and Anita Kumar contributed from Washington. Matthew Schofield contributed from Berlin; Jonathan S. Landay contributed from Cairo and Roy Gutman from Istanbul.

Read more here: http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2013/08/27/2543355/us-wins-arab-league-backing-as.html#storylink=cpy

Two U.S. defense officials, speaking on condition of anonymity so as to discuss sensitive military plans

And that makes me smell a rat instantly. If the plans are 'sensitive', why are they discussing them in the first place? If they can't or won't show their faces, they're no better than terrorists in balaclavas. Or don't they want to be associated with this when the body bags start coming home, as most of the Middle East goes up in flames?

As far as I am aware, every single nation in the Arab League has armed forces - many of them armed to the teeth. If they're so outraged, they can sort it out.

I have seen no sign of Obama, Cameron, or any other supposed western 'leader' explain why they are considering illegally entering into another nation's civil war TO SUPPORT AL-QUAEDA.

Are they managing to ignore that part of the reports, somehow?

Horrible though Assad may be, he hasn't:

Blown up airliners over Scotland.

Had nightclubs used by US troops in Germany bombed.

Had airliners flown into the WTC or the Pentagon.

Bombed holiday resorts.....etc

No, it's the organisation Cameron and Obama want to HELP that's done all that. Against international law. It's come to a pretty pass when more people in the West trust Putin and the Kremlin than they do Whitehall and Washington.

Where was Cameron's outrage over atrocities like this?

Syrian rebels beheaded a Christian man and fed his body to dogs, according to a nun who says the West is ignoring atrocities committed by Islamic extremists.
The nun said taxi driver Andrei Arbashe, 38, was kidnapped after his brother was heard complaining that fighters against the ruling regime behaved like bandits.
She said his headless corpse was found by the side of the road, surrounded by hungry dogs. He had recently married and was soon to be a father.

Sister Agnes-Mariam de la Croix said: ‘His only crime was his brother criticised the rebels, accused them of acting like bandits, which is what they are.’
There have been a growing number of accounts of atrocities carried out by rogue elements of the Syrian Free Army, which opposes dictator Bashar al-Assad and is recognised by Britain and the West as the legitimate leadership

Sister Agnes-Miriam, mother superior of the Monastery of St James the Mutilated, has condemned Britain and the west for supporting the rebels despite growing evidence of human rights abuses. Murder, kidnapping, rape and robbery are becoming commonplace, she says.
‘The free and democratic world is supporting extremists,’ Sister Agnes-Miriam said from her sanctuary in Lebanon. ‘They want to impose Sharia Law and create an Islamic state in Syria.’


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2255103/Syria-rebels-beheaded-Christian-fed-dogs-fears-grow-Islamist-atrocities.html#ixzz2dI6GxXx1
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Just one of the many reasons I wish Her Maj could intervene and have Cameron and Hague arrested for treason.

when more people in the West trust Putin and the Kremlin than they do Whitehall and Washington.

That is so true.  Whoever would have thought that in the past?

Bonny, thanks for the link and very good question  .

Why wasn't Cameron outraged about this?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/03/syrian-rebels-un-aleppo-footage

quote:

The UN high commissioner for human rights has called for an investigation into allegations that Syrian rebels executed dozens of government soldiers captured after a battle near Aleppo.

Navi Pillay said that images of the killings in Khan al-Assal in July were deeply shocking, and highlighted yet again the need to ensure those responsible for violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law on all sides are made to account for their crimes.

Pillay said that captured or wounded soldiers should be treated humanely and in accordance with international law.

"Opposition forces should not think they are immune from prosecution. They must adhere to their responsibilities under international law," she said.

http://nsnbc.me/2013/07/31/khan-al-assal-massacre-to-cover-up-chemical-weapons-use-by-jabhat-al/

Christof Lehmann (nsnbc),- Both Russia and Syria have condemned the massacre in Khan al-Assal, committed by the Jabhat al-Nusrah affiliated “Liwaa Ansar al-Khilafa” brigade. Russia is calling for an immediate political settlement of the conflict in Syria. Syria´s Ambassador to Moscow stressed, that the al-Qaeda linked terrorists committed the massacre on 27 July to cover-up the use of chemical weapons in the area.

further quote:

The chemical weapons attack in Khan al-Assal, with an improvised chemical laden rocket, killed 25 and injured another 110. During the subsequent massacre, another 123 were murdered and many still remain missing. Mass graves were discovered, which showed that the terrorists had attempted to hide their tracks by mutilating many of the bodies before attempting to incinerate them.

Just how stupid do Cameron and Obama think people are?

So, what is to be done? Just leave them to get on and slaughter each other? Personally, I've got nothing against that when it comes to two opposing forces, but it is always innocent civilians, mainly women and children, who most suffer.

It's their own women and children they are killing, Sabot, the only possible international solution, IMO, would be for the UN to go in and hold the coats while providing humanitarian relief.

For Cameron to not even bother to wait for the UN report, to just announce he's going to bomb a sovereign state in the Middle East is insanity. Even worse, he's doing it to support the very people who detest the West and all it stands for.

The 'rebels' had committed some appalling atrocities, but there hasn't been a peep out of him about that. Not a word from him about them slaughtering prisoners, beheading Christian priests and Muslims from different sects, frequently filming themselves doing it.

He's said nothing about 'rebels' eating their dead enemies' internal organs and the whole thing being stuck on YouTube, for anyone with a strong stomach. Go figure, because I can't. Both sides are horrible, and it's utter folly, IMO, to pour petrol on that particular fire.

Oh my, who's leaned on Cameron?

Syria Vote Will Not Approve UK Military Action
The Government appears to delay a decision on intervention after Labour demands "compelling evidence" on chemical weapons use.

Direct British military involvement in Syria will not be authorised in Thursday's House of Commons vote, after Labour threatened to oppose the Government's motion.

Any direct action by UK forces will require a further vote in the Commons once the United Nations has considered a report from weapons inspectors investigating the alleged use of chemical weapons in Damascus.

But the motion will ask MPs to agree the principle that a "strong humanitarian response" is required from the international community and "this may, if necessary, require military action that is legal, proportionate and focused on saving lives by preventing and deterring further use of Syria's chemical weapons".

Labour had said it would oppose the Government's motion on Syria unless it insisted on waiting for UN inspectors' report.

It tabled an amendment outlining conditions it said should be met before any intervention to deter the further use of chemical weapons, after last week's attack that allegedly killed more than 1,300.

It demanded "compelling evidence that the Syrian regime was responsible for the use of these weapons", that action would be legal in international law and that the Parliament can vote on UK participation.

More at:

http://news.sky.com/story/1134206/syria-vote-will-not-approve-uk-military-action

Don't tell me Her Maj really did threaten to arrest him for treason?

Maybe there have been enough raised eyebrows from all sides to urge caution? I don't understand why some are so gung-ho to get started without at least reading the UN report and ensuring there is proper validation.

We don't want history to repeat itself.

Quite, Lily. Humanitarian aid preferably through the UN, with the right reserved to shoot ANYONE who opens fire on ambulances or refugees, for instance, is a long way removed from lobbing cruise missiles at - what? Does he even know?

Heaven knows, Bonny. You have to know what you are dealing with, in no uncertain terms, before going off like a loose cannon?

Do they think that doing a Rambo is going to win them respect, or something?  

They wouldn't be so keen if they had to go and do it themselves.

This is a good article, I think?



John GlaserEditor at Antiwar.com
GET UPDATES FROM JOHN GLASER


Obama's War of Choice in Syria Isn't Defensive or Humanitarian


The seemingly impending war the U.S. is about to launch on Syria is not about saving people from the Assad regime's violence. That is glaringly true given what the Obama administration is actually planning to do.

Airstrikes. No, not the kind that will last for months until the Assad regime is toppled. Regime change is pretty explicitly not the goal. Instead, the Obama administration and senior officials speaking to the press have suggested the airstrikes will be limited.

Limited to what? Is the goal to bomb the Assad regime's stockpiles of chemical weapons so that he can never again use them on his own people? According to Mark Thompson at Time, taking out Syria's chemical weapons caches "is fraught with perils," because not only is the U.S. unsure of where they are located, but bombing them could create "plumes of deadly vapors that could kill civilians downwind of such attacks." If Obama takes this route, he'll kill more civilians with chemical weapons than would have died without a U.S. military response.

Instead, Obama may target "military, and command and control, targets -- including artillery and missile units that could be used to launch chemical weapons -- instead of the bunkers believed to contain them." Ok, and what appreciable effect will this have? On the one hand, such strikes wouldn't amount to leveling Assad's entire military infrastructure since Obama is intent to "maintain the functions of the state" in order to avoid a power vacuum that would boost the al-Qaeda-linked rebels and possibly allow them to get their hands on Assad's chemical weapons (which they have said they would use).  As Phil Giraldi, former CIA intelligence officer, told me back in March, "Obama has come around to the view that regime change is more fraught with dangers than letting Assad remain."

On the other hand, these limited airstrikes against a selection of military targets might encourage Assad to act out with even more fury and indiscriminate violence, just as Clinton's initial bombing of Serbia caused Milosevic to dig in his heels before eventually giving up (most of the Serb atrocities against Kosovar Albanians occurred after the U.S. bombing).

So U.S. airstrikes won't neuter Assad's ability to continue to fight, may prompt worse violence from Assad, and may even directly kill more Syrian civilians.

It seems clear these airstrikes are not about preventing more regime violence or saving the Syrian people. So what are they about?

According to Thompson, "U.S. defense officials are weighing air strikes to punish Assad's government for their suspected use of chemical weapons." As former State Department official Aaron David Miller wrote yesterday, Obama is planning "a single retaliatory attack that strives to make a point rather than a difference."

Punitive war. That's something I'm betting the Norwegian Nobel Committee never would have predicted a recipient of their peace prize engaging in. This is not defensive war, since the Assad regime doesn't present even the remotest threat to America. It isn't a humanitarian war either, since U.S. airstrikes won't cripple the Assad regime's military capacity and may even get more civilians killed.

Obama is waging a war, as Miller explained, "to make a point." Given the fact that a mere 9 percent of Americans actually support a U.S. military intervention in Syria, I wonder what it would do to public opinion if Obama was honest with the American people about his petty disciplinary war. If the president sat in the Oval Office and told the American public that he was bombing another country, not to protect Americans or even Syrians, but "to make a point" or "punish" the Assad regime, with no greater utility, I seriously doubt the mission would gain any legitimacy in the eyes of voters.

With a backbone like an earthworm, President Obama is bowing to pressure - not from the American public or from Congress, but from "foreign-policy experts and politicians," as Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, described it -- to go to war for his own "credibility."

Obama told the world that Assad's use of chemical weapons would be a "red line" that would prompt U.S. military action. So, to protect Obama's reputation as a reliable war-maker who keeps his promise to bomb people, we have to go to war in Syria? It's difficult to imagine a weaker case for using international force.

Which brings us to a final point: for this apparently imminent U.S. bombing raid to be legal, it has to get the approval of both the U.S. Congress and the United Nations Security Council. Congress is likely to push back on Obama's call to war and Russia and China are sure to veto any proposal at the UN.

So on top of this being a war of choice with no humanitarian utility beyond making Obama feel tough and reliable, it is also sure to be a violation of the Constitution and international law. Couple this with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey's warning back in April that "unintended consequences are the rule with military interventions of this sort," Obama's new war in the Middle East is shaping up to be a doozy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-glaser/obamas-war-of-choice-in-s_b_3822652.html

Thanks, Lily, yes, that is a good piece. I hope Obama and Cameron have been forced to think twice by the deluge of protest about their proposed insanity from the electorate, military, etc.

Anyway, if those two and Hague are so keen on wars, nothing is stopping them from grabbing a rifle and joining the rebels. Though it probably wouldn't be long before they found themselves missing their heads....

That's a great idea, Bonny.

Let those in favor toddle off and try to do what they are advocating and then come back and tell us all about it..... 

Good. Thank you, Bonny.

Thank God. Stopping this juggernaut may be the single most useful thing Milliband and many MPs have ever done, as the lunatics had been talking about starting bombing tomorrow.

He's not nearly a fraction rocked as the poor Syrian people would be.......and the rest of the world.

And from this side of the pond

http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-syria-united-nations-resolution-20130828,0,618597.story

Russian resistance torpedoes United Nations resolution on Syria[






Protesters opposed to military action against Syria block the road outside Downing Street in central London on Wednesday. (Facundo Arrizabalaga / European Pressphoto Agency / August 28, 2013)


By Paul Richter
August 28, 2013, 1:59 p.m.
WASHINGTON – A final Western effort to win a United Nations blessing for military action against Syria appeared to collapse Wednesday, but the United States and its allies were still expected to launch a retaliatory attack in response to President Bashar Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons.

Despite the apparent diplomatic failure, the White House received an endorsement from the 28-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the key Western military alliance.

After a meeting of the allaince's policymaking arm, NATO Secretary-General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in a statement in Brussels that reports of a chemical weapons attacks by Syria “cannot go unanswered. Those responsible must be held accountable.”

The statement didn’t commit NATO to joining any military operation, but gave its blessing for such an effort, said George Benitez, an analyst with the Atlantic Council of the United States and editor of the Natosource blog. “They’re saying: ‘We support what you’re going to do.'"

He said there appeared to be  fewer misgivings about military action than before other recent U.S.-led interventions. Germany and Poland, which kept a distance from the U.S., French and British attack on Libya in 2011, supported the NATO statement, for example.

At the U.N., in a meeting of the five permanent members of the Security Council, British representatives proposed a resolution condemning Syria’s use of banned chemical agents and called for all necessary means to respond to it.

But officials from Russia, Syria’s principal international backer, made it clear that they would oppose the resolution, killing the idea and foreclosing any further discussion, diplomats said.

Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman, said the Obama administration found the British proposal “strong and compelling.” She laid blame for the failure of the diplomatic effort on continued Russian opposition “to any meaningful [Security Council] action on Syria.”

Harf said U.S. officials would consult other countries about possible military action as well as other options, and “will take appropriate actions to respond in the days ahead.”

The White House has sought to build international support for punitive airstrikes against Assad’s government for the purported poison gas attack on the outskirts of Damascus on Aug. 21. More than 300 people were killed, and more than 3,000 were injured, according to the Syrian opposition and aid organizations.

Assad’s government denied responsibility for the attack, blaming rebels who have fought to oust him from power since early 2011. The United States and its allies have not yet offered proof to back up their contention that the Syrian government had carried out chemical attacks.

U.S. officials said the goal of any alliance attack on Syria would be to degrade Assad’s military and deter it from further use of chemical weapons. They said they are not trying to topple Assad or change the balance of power in the civil war.

Under international law, military action is justified in self-defense or with a U.N. blessing. But Harf said a strong response is warranted in this case because chemical weapons use violates international law and as well as international norms.

“They have violated the general laws of war,” she said.

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paul.richter@latimes.com

I seriously question his sanity and his fitness to be in office, Lily. It's only a week since those ghastly beach photos, and now he's all set to bomb a sovereign state that is no threat to the UK with NO authority whatsoever.

I am mightily relieved his plans have been halted before he did something truly ghastly.

Bonny, me too and another sigh of relief comes from this side of the world. I doubt that even emperor Obama will go ahead now either.

Under international law, military action is justified in self-defense or with a U.N. blessing. But Harf said a strong response is warranted in this case because chemical weapons use violates international law and as well as international norms.

“They have violated the general laws of war,” she said.


As she doesn't even know who 'they' are, she'd be well advised to wind her neck in.