Ben Carson Says a Muslim Shouldn’t Be President

Ben Carson Says a Muslim Shouldn’t Be President

    Sunday, September 20, 2015   No comments

'If it's inconsistent with the values and principles of America, then of course it should matter'

GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson said he would not support a Muslim presidential candidate, calling Islam inconsistent with the constitution in an interview on Meet the Press Sunday.

“I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation,” he said. “I absolutely would not agree with that.”

Carson, a retired neurosurgeon who now sits near the top of GOP polls, is known for his devout Christian beliefs. On Sunday, he suggested that not all faiths are equal when it comes to holding elected office. “If it’s inconsistent with the values and principles of America, then of course it should matter,” he said.

Source

European companies beat US to Iran business after nuclear deal reached

European companies beat US to Iran business after nuclear deal reached

    Wednesday, August 26, 2015   No comments

The ink was barely dry on the agreement with Iran to limit its nuclear programme before a German government plane packed with the nation’s economic elite touched down in Tehran.

The trip was the first in a rush of European ministers and business people flocking to a market poised to reopen after years of grinding sanctions. Upscale Tehran hotels are packed and tables at trendy restaurants are scarce as foreigners jostle for bargains, even amid uncertainty over whether President Obama can overcome US congressional opposition to the deal.

The stream of visitors to Tehran is the latest sign of the Atlantic-wide divide between the US and Europe, where there is scant opposition to the pact that aims to crimp Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Barack Obama and secretary of state John Kerry have warned detractors that they would be unable to reimpose a multinational trade embargo if congress rejects the plans. The other five countries that helped broker the deal have also told congress they will not return to the negotiating table. The trips show that US leaders can’t keep Europeans from flying to Tehran ahead of the congressional vote, which must take place by 17 September.

“We are talking here about 80 million people who need energy supplies, who naturally also need healthcare, who want to get back off their knees in the oil and gas businesses. There are opportunities and chances,” Joe Kaeser, chief executive of Siemens, the German industrial conglomerate, told German television last month.

Siemens sent a top official to Tehran with the German vice chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, last month. Their government plane touched down at the Imam Khomeini international airport five days after world powers agreed on the nuclear deal on 14 July. “The agreement reached between the E3/EU+3 and Iran in Vienna has laid the foundations for a normalisation of economic relations with Iran,” Gabriel said, using another term for the group of six world powers that negotiated the deal. The vice chancellor was accompanied by a delegation of top officials from some of Germany’s largest companies, including Daimler, Volkswagen and ThyssenKrupp.

Since Gabriel’s visit, top ministers from France and Italy have visited Tehran. British foreign secretary Philip Hammond was there last weekend to reopen his nation’s embassy. Spain, Sweden and Poland plan to follow in the autumn. Next month Austrian president Heinz Fischer plans to be the first European head of state to visit Tehran since 2004. Vienna hosted an EU-Iran trade conference just a week after the deal was signed.

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Judge Permits Professor Steven Salaita's Free Speech Case Against University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to Proceed

Judge Permits Professor Steven Salaita's Free Speech Case Against University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to Proceed

    Friday, August 07, 2015   No comments

University’s Attempt to Dismiss Salaita Suit Over “Uncivil” Tweets Rejected by Court                    

August 6, 2015, Chicago, a federal judge rejected efforts to throw out a lawsuit against the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) for firing Professor Steven Salaita from a tenured position based on his personal tweets criticizing Israel’s military assault on Gaza last summer.  The university has admitted that it based its decision on Salaita’s tweets, calling them “uncivil.”   The court firmly rejected the university’s claim that it did not have a contract with Professor Salaita, stating, “If the Court accepted the University’s argument, the entire American academic hiring process as it now operates would cease to exist.” The court further rejected the university’s attempt to dismiss Professor Salaita’s First Amendment claims, finding that his tweets “implicate every ‘central concern’ of the First Amendment.”

“Given the serious ramifications of my termination from a tenured professorship to a wide range of people, I am happy to move forward with this suit in the hope that restrictions on academic freedom, free speech, and shared governance will not become further entrenched because of UIUC's behavior,” said Steven Salaita.

The lawsuit, brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights and Loevy & Loevy on Prof. Salaita’s behalf, argues that UIUC violated Salaita’s rights to free speech and due process and breached its employment contract with him. It seeks Professor Salaita’s reinstatement and monetary relief, including compensation for the economic hardship and reputational damage he suffered as a result of the university’s actions. Shortly before the lawsuit was filed, UIUC rejected a recommendation from the university’s own Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure (CAFT) that the university reconsider its decision.

“The court’s ruling clears the way for Professor Salaita to seek redress for the wrongs done by the university, including violating his right to speak freely on issues of public concern without being fired,” said Center for Constitutional Rights Deputy Legal Director Maria LaHood. “The university must finally face the facts of what it has done to Professor Salaita and principles of academic freedom.”  

Today’s ruling comes on the heels of an Illinois state court’s decision in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit on June 12 ordering university officials to turn over emails related to Professor Salaita’s firing that they had refused to divulge, as well as a vote by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) to censure the university on June 13. The AAUP issued a report in April that concluded UIUC had violated academic freedom and due process.

The university’s leadership has faced increasing nationwide criticism over Salaita’s firing, particularly within the academic community.  Sixteen academic departments of the university have voted no confidence in the UIUC administration, and prominent academic organizations, including the American Historical Association, the Modern Language Association and the Society of American Law Teachers, have publicly condemned the university’s actions. More than 5,000 academics from around the country, including Dr. Cornel West and Angela Davis, have pledged to boycott UIUC, resulting in the cancellation of more than three dozen scheduled talks and conferences at the school. Last September, UIUC students staged a silent walk-out to protest what they said was the university’s silencing of Salaita.

“In its effort to have Professor Salaita’s lawsuit thrown out before discovery into the reasons for its decision, the university’s administration took a number of positions that showed contempt for its constitutional obligations, and raise serious doubts about the university’s commitment to academic freedom and its willingness to honor contractual commitments to its scholars,” said Anand Swaminathan of Loevy & Loevy. “We are extremely pleased that the court has rejected the university’s dubious arguments.”

After a rigorous year-long national search and interview process, the American Indian Studies program at UIUC offered Professor Salaita a tenured faculty position in Fall 2013, which he promptly accepted. Relying on UIUC’s contractual promise, Professor Salaita resigned from his tenured faculty position at Virginia Tech and prepared to move to Champaign. In August 2014, just two weeks before he was due to begin teaching, UIUC Chancellor Phyllis Wise and Vice President Christophe Pierre informed Professor Salaita that it had terminated his appointment. He was not given an opportunity to object or be heard.

Read the Ruling; learn more about the Salaita v. Kennedy, et al.
case.

_________________

Source: CCR Press release

Obama gives a speech about the Iran nuclear deal (Full text)

Obama gives a speech about the Iran nuclear deal (Full text)

    Wednesday, August 05, 2015   No comments

President Obama is continuing his push for the Iran nuclear deal, giving a speech at American University. Here is a complete transcript of his remarks.

OBAMA: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you so much. Thank you. Everybody, please have a seat. Thank you very much.

I apologize for the slight delay; even presidents have a problem with toner.

(LAUGHTER)

It is a great honor to be back at American University, which has prepared generations of young people for service and public life.

I want to thank President Kerwin and the American University family for hosting us here today.

Fifty-two years ago, President Kennedy, at the height of the Cold War, addressed this same university on the subject of peace. The Berlin Wall had just been built. The Soviet Union had tested the most powerful weapons ever developed. China was on the verge of acquiring the nuclear bomb. Less than 20 years after the end of World War II, the prospect of nuclear war was all too real.


With all of the threats that we face today, it is hard to appreciate how much more dangerous the world was at that time. In light of these mounting threats, a number of strategists here in the United States argued we had to take military action against the Soviets, to hasten what they saw as inevitable confrontation. But the young president offered a different vision.

OBAMA: Strength, in his view, included powerful armed forces and a willingness to stand up for our values around the world. But he rejected the prevailing attitude among some foreign-policy circles that equated security with a perpetual war footing.

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CIA and Mossad killed senior Hezbollah figure in car bombing

CIA and Mossad killed senior Hezbollah figure in car bombing

    Saturday, January 31, 2015   No comments

On Feb. 12, 2008, Imad Mughniyah, Hezbollah’s international operations chief, walked on a quiet nighttime street in Damascus after dinner at a nearby restaurant. Not far away, a team of CIA spotters in the Syrian capital was tracking his movements.

As Mughniyah approached a parked SUV, a bomb planted in a spare tire on the back of the vehicle exploded, sending a burst of shrapnel across a tight radius. He was killed instantly.

The device was triggered remotely from Tel Aviv by agents with Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence service, who were in communication with the operatives on the ground in Damascus. “The way it was set up, the U.S. could object and call it off, but it could not execute,” said a former U.S. intelligence official.

The United States helped build the bomb, the former official said, and tested it repeatedly at a CIA facility in North Carolina to ensure the potential blast area was contained and would not result in collateral damage.

“We probably blew up 25 bombs to make sure we got it right,” the former official said.

The extraordinarily close cooperation between the U.S. and Israeli intelligence services suggested the importance of the target — a man who over the years had been implicated in some of Hezbollah’s most spectacular terrorist attacks, including those against the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and the Israeli Embassy in Argentina.

The United States has never acknowledged participation in the killing of Mughniyah, which Hezbollah blamed on Israel. Until now, there has been little detail about the joint operation by the CIA and Mossad to kill him, how the car bombing was planned or the exact U.S. role. With the exception of the 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden, the mission marked one of the most high-risk covert actions by the United States in recent years.

U.S. involvement in the killing, which was confirmed by five former U.S. intelligence officials, also pushed American legal boundaries.

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The United States use of drones strikes under President Obama

The United States use of drones strikes under President Obama

    Tuesday, September 30, 2014   No comments

The United States has launched a huge number of drone strikes under President Obama. 

Domestic and international legal authority for attacks on ISIL in Syria

Domestic and international legal authority for attacks on ISIL in Syria

    Tuesday, September 23, 2014   No comments

Senior Obama administration officials said on Tuesday that the airstrikes against the Islamic State — carried out in Syria without seeking the permission of the Syrian government or the United Nations Security Council — were legal because they were done in defense of Iraq.

International law generally prohibits using force on the sovereign territory of another country without its permission or authorization from the United Nations, except as a matter of self-defense. American intelligence agencies have concluded that the Islamic State poses no immediate threat to the United States, though they believe that another militant group targeted in the strikes, Khorasan, does pose a threat.

But the senior administration officials said on Tuesday that Iraq had a valid right of self-defense against the Islamic State — also known as ISIS or ISIL — because the militant group was attacking Iraq from its havens in Syria, and the Syrian government had proved unable or unwilling to suppress that threat. Iraq asked the United States for assistance in defending itself, making the strikes legal, the officials said.

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Seymour M. Hersh on Obama, Erdoğan and the Syrian rebels: Erdoğan's men behind the chemical attack in Syria

Seymour M. Hersh on Obama, Erdoğan and the Syrian rebels: Erdoğan's men behind the chemical attack in Syria

    Monday, April 07, 2014   No comments

In 2011 Barack Obama led an allied military intervention in Libya without consulting the US Congress. Last August, after the sarin attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, he was ready to launch an allied air strike, this time to punish the Syrian government for allegedly crossing the ‘red line’ he had set in 2012 on the use of chemical weapons.​ Then with less than two days to go before the planned strike, he announced that he would seek congressional approval for the intervention. The strike was postponed as Congress prepared for hearings, and subsequently cancelled when Obama accepted Assad’s offer to relinquish his chemical arsenal in a deal brokered by Russia. Why did Obama delay and then relent on Syria when he was not shy about rushing into Libya? The answer lies in a clash between those in the administration who were committed to enforcing the red line, and military leaders who thought that going to war was both unjustified and potentially disastrous.

Obama’s change of mind had its origins at Porton Down, the defence laboratory in Wiltshire. British intelligence had obtained a sample of the sarin used in the 21 August attack and analysis demonstrated that the gas used didn’t match the batches known to exist in the Syrian army’s chemical weapons arsenal. The message that the case against Syria wouldn’t hold up was quickly relayed to the US joint chiefs of staff. The British report heightened doubts inside the Pentagon; the joint chiefs were already preparing to warn Obama that his plans for a far-reaching bomb and missile attack on Syria’s infrastructure could lead to a wider war in the Middle East. As a consequence the American officers delivered a last-minute caution to the president, which, in their view, eventually led to his cancelling the attack.

For months there had been acute concern among senior military leaders and the intelligence community about the role in the war of Syria’s neighbours, especially Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan was known to be supporting the al-Nusra Front, a jihadist faction among the rebel opposition, as well as other Islamist rebel groups. ‘We knew there were some in the Turkish government,’ a former senior US intelligence official, who has access to current intelligence, told me, ‘who believed they could get Assad’s nuts in a vice by dabbling with a sarin attack inside Syria – and forcing Obama to make good on his red line threat.’

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A new MIT report is challenging the US claim that Assad forces used chemical weapons in an attack last August

A new MIT report is challenging the US claim that Assad forces used chemical weapons in an attack last August

    Saturday, January 18, 2014   No comments

A new MIT report is challenging the US claim that Assad forces used chemical weapons in an attack last August, highlighting that the range of the improvised rocket was way too short to have been launched from govt controlled areas.

In the report titled “Possible Implications of Faulty US Technical Intelligence,” Richard Lloyd, a former UN weapons inspector, and Theodore Postol, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), examined the delivery rocket’s design and calculated possible trajectories based on the payload of the cargo.

The authors concluded that sarin gas “could not possibly have been fired at East Ghouta from the ‘heart’, or from the Eastern edge, of the Syrian government controlled area shown in the intelligence map published by the White House on August 30, 2013.”

Based on mathematical calculations, Lloyd and Postol estimate the rocket with such aerodynamics could not travel more than 2 kilometers. To illustrate their conclusion, the authors included the original White House map that depicted areas under Assad control and those held by the opposition. Based on the firing range and troop locations on August 21, the authors conclude that all possible launching points within the 2 km radius were in rebel-held areas.

“This mistaken intelligence could have led to an unjustified US military action based on false intelligence. A proper vetting of the fact that the munition was of such short range would have led to a completely different assessment of the situation from the gathered data,” the report states.

The authors emphasize that the UN independent assessment of the range of the chemical munition is in “exact agreement” with their findings.

The report goes on to challenge the US Secretary of State’s key assessments of the chemical attack that he presented to the American people on August 30th and to the Foreign Relations Committee on September 3rd in an effort to muster a military attack on Syria.

“My view when I started this process was that it couldn’t be anything but the Syrian government behind the attack. But now I’m not sure of anything. The administration narrative was not even close to reality. Our intelligence cannot possibly be correct,” Postol told McClatchy publication.




“The Syrian rebels most definitely have the ability to make these weapons,” he said. “I think they might have more ability than the Syrian government.”

It also remains a mystery why the particular type of rocket that was used in the attack was not declared by the Syrian government as part of its chemical weapons arsenal when it agreed to destroy its chemical weapons and their delivery methods. OPCW inspectors charged with implementing the agreement also did not discover such a rocket in possession of government forces.

Syria agreed to the destruction of its chemical weapons through a deal brokered by Russia and the US after a sarin gas attack on August 21. Western nations blamed the deadly attack on President Bashar Assad’s forces, while Damascus accused the rebels for the incident. The UN fact-finding mission had no mandate to find out who carried out the attack.

Under the UN-backed plan, all of the country’s declared 1,290 tons of toxic agents should be destroyed by June 30. Initially, the first batch of the most dangerous materials was to be moved out of Syria on December 31.

However, the deadline was missed because of the ongoing war in Syria and technical issues. It was only on January 7 that “priority chemical materials” left the Syrian port of Latakia on a Danish ship for international waters.
__________________

Read report “Possible Implications of Faulty US Technical Intelligence

_________
source: RT

Glenn Greenwald: U.S., British Media Are 'Devoted Servants' To Government

Glenn Greenwald: U.S., British Media Are 'Devoted Servants' To Government

    Monday, December 30, 2013   No comments

Journalist Glenn Greenwald did not hold back Friday in criticizing the media during a speech about his work with Edward Snowden.

Greenwald, who reported on the National Security Agency's secret domestic surveillance programs with the help of documents leaked by the former NSA contractor, spoke to the Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg, Germany, via satellite from Brazil. According to Russia Today, he denounced journalists in the United States and Britain, accusing them of failing to challenge those in political power and of discrediting anyone who dared to do so.

“[W]e knew in particular that one of our most formidable adversaries was not simply going to be the intelligence agencies on which we were reporting and who we were trying to expose, but also their most loyal, devoted servants, which calls itself the United States and British media," Greenwald said.

He said that the NSA programs came to light "almost entirely without them and despite them." Their role as journalists, Greenwald claimed, "is not to be adversarial, their role is to be loyal spokespeople to those powerful factions that they pretend to exercise oversight."

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Whose sarin: The Syrian army is not the only party in the country’s civil war with access to sarin

Whose sarin: The Syrian army is not the only party in the country’s civil war with access to sarin

    Monday, December 09, 2013   No comments

Seymour M. Hersh

Barack Obama did not tell the whole story this autumn when he tried to make the case that Bashar al-Assad was responsible for the chemical weapons attack near Damascus on 21 August. In some instances, he omitted important intelligence, and in others he presented assumptions as facts. Most significant, he failed to acknowledge something known to the US intelligence community: that the Syrian army is not the only party in the country’s civil war with access to sarin, the nerve agent that a UN study concluded – without assessing responsibility – had been used in the rocket attack. In the months before the attack, the American intelligence agencies produced a series of highly classified reports, culminating in a formal Operations Order – a planning document that precedes a ground invasion – citing evidence that the al-Nusra Front, a jihadi group affiliated with al-Qaida, had mastered the mechanics of creating sarin and was capable of manufacturing it in quantity. When the attack occurred al-Nusra should have been a suspect, but the administration cherry-picked intelligence to justify a strike against Assad.

In his nationally televised speech about Syria on 10 September, Obama laid the blame for the nerve gas attack on the rebel-held suburb of Eastern Ghouta firmly on Assad’s government, and made it clear he was prepared to back up his earlier public warnings that any use of chemical weapons would cross a ‘red line’: ‘Assad’s government gassed to death over a thousand people,’ he said. ‘We know the Assad regime was responsible … And that is why, after careful deliberation, I determined that it is in the national security interests of the United States to respond to the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons through a targeted military strike.’ Obama was going to war to back up a public threat, but he was doing so without knowing for sure who did what in the early morning of 21 August.

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In an interview with SPIEGEL, Syrian President Assad: "West Is More Confident in Al-Qaida than Me"

In an interview with SPIEGEL, Syrian President Assad: "West Is More Confident in Al-Qaida than Me"

    Sunday, October 06, 2013   No comments

In an interview to be published in the Monday issue of SPIEGEL, Syrian President Bashar Assad speaks out about inspections of his country's chemical weapons, possible new elections and the role of Germany, the United States and Russia in his country's crisis. He also continues to vehemently deny any role in chemical weapons attacks on civilians and the armed opposition.

"We did not use chemical weapons," he tells the magazine. "This is a misstatement. So is the picture you paint of me as a man who kills his own people."
He also expresses doubts about the United Nations report on the Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack. "No one can say with certainty that rockets were used," he says. Instead, he accuses the rebels themselves of using Sarin gas.

Addressing the chemical weapons inspections now beginning in Syria, he says: "We're very transparent. The experts can go to every site. They are going to have all the data from our government." Until the weapons are destroyed, they will remain "under full control," he adds.

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U.S. and Russia reach a deal on Syria's chemical weapons: A plan that Kerry initially said "can’t be done, obviously," is now "the plan"

U.S. and Russia reach a deal on Syria's chemical weapons: A plan that Kerry initially said "can’t be done, obviously," is now "the plan"

    Saturday, September 14, 2013   No comments

GENEVA — The United States and Russia have reached an agreement that calls for Syria’s arsenal of chemical weapons to be removed or destroyed by the middle of 2014, Secretary of State John Kerry said on Saturday.

Under the agreement, Syria must submit a “comprehensive listing” of its chemical weapons stockpiles within a week.

American and Russian officials also reached a consensus on the size of Syria’s stockpile, an essential prerequisite to any international plan to control and dismantle the weapons.

“If fully implemented,” Mr. Kerry said, “this framework can provide greater protection and security to the world.”

If President Bashar al-Assad of Syria fails to comply with the agreement, the issue will be referred to the United Nations Security Council.

Mr. Kerry said that any violations would then be taken up under Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter, which authorizes punitive action. But Mr. Lavrov made clear that Russia, which wields a veto in the Security Council, had not withdrawn its objections to the use of force.

The joint announcement, which took place on the third day of intensive talks here, eased the United States’ confrontation with Syria.

Arms control officials on both sides worked into the night, a process that recalled the treaty negotiations during the cold war.

The issue of removing Syria’s chemical arms broke into the open on Monday when Mr. Kerry, in a news conference in London, posed the question as to whether Mr. Assad could rapidly be disarmed only to state that he did not see how it could be done.

“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 a full and total accounting for that,” Mr. Kerry said. “But he isn’t about to do it, and it can’t be done, obviously.”

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Pierre Piccinin: Assad not Responsible for Ghouta Gas Attack, rebels used gas in Ghouta to trigger Western intervention

Pierre Piccinin: Assad not Responsible for Ghouta Gas Attack, rebels used gas in Ghouta to trigger Western intervention

    Tuesday, September 10, 2013   No comments

A Belgian writer held hostage for five months in Syria has said that his own rebel captors denied that President Bashar al-Assad was responsible for the Ghouta massacre.

Pierre Piccinin said that he and fellow hostage Domenico Quirico, an Italian war reporter, heard their jailers talking about the chemical weapon attack and saying that Assad was not to blame.

Quirico confirmed to La Stampa newspaper that they had eavesdropped such a conversation through a closed door but added that he had no evidence to substantiate what he heard.

Piccinin said the captives became desperate when they heard that the US was planning to launch a punitive attack against the regime over the gas attack in the Damascus suburb.
 

"It wasn't the government of Bashar al-Assad that used sarin gas or any other gas in Ghouta," Piccinin told Belgian RTL radio after he was released.

"We are sure about this because we overheard a conversation between rebels. It pains me to say it because I've been a fierce supporter of the Free Syrian Army in its rightful fight for democracy since 2012," Piccinin added.

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How has the West responded to ‘gassing’ in West Asia?

How has the West responded to ‘gassing’ in West Asia?

    Sunday, September 08, 2013   No comments

Actually the first to use chemical weapons [gas] in the Middle-East were the British. Soon after the First World War when the British created the state of Iraq consisting of the three former Turkish Vilayats [provinces] of Basra, Baghdad and Mosul; the southern Kurds much to their dislike had been added to the new state of Iraq and in protest broke out in open rebellion. Faced with the prospects of a prolonged conflict, with added financial costs and loss of British life; the British decided that the ‘best method’ for putting down the revolt was to use gas. As the then Colonial Secretary, Sir Winston Churchill had remarked, “I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas.” The then RAF Chief Sir Hugh Trenchard in a report to the British Cabinet admitted that this was a “cheaper form of control.” Even the redoubtable Lawrence of Arabia wrote to the London Observer that “it is odd we do not use poison gas on these occasions.” The poor Kurds were the first to receive the ‘gas’ treatment and as history would prove not the last time!

Let us move ahead in time and come to Saddam Hussein. Iranian official history records that Iraq first used chemical weapons against its soldiers on January 13, 1981. It is reported that between December 28, 1980 and March 20, 1984 Iranians list 63 separate gas attacks by the Iraqis. There is no doubt that the US was acutely aware of what was going on. In a Memorandum on November 1, 1983, officials of the State Department warned the then Secretary of State George Shultz that they had information that the Iraqis were using chemical weapons on an ‘almost daily’ basis. Equally blunt was the warning that Iraq had acquired chemical weapons capability from Western firms, including possibly from a US subsidiary. The US was also aware that chemical weapons were being used against ‘Kurdish insurgents’. At the same time the US, according to a media report, continued to provide Iraq with critical battle planning assistance and satellite data on Iranian military movements, knowing very well that Iraq was using chemical weapons against Iran as also Kurdish insurgents.

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Obama: "I didn't set a red line. The world set a red line"

Obama: "I didn't set a red line. The world set a red line"

    Thursday, September 05, 2013   No comments

Wednesday in Stockholm, Reuters reporter Steve Holland asked President Obama, "Have you made up your mind whether to take action against Syria whether or not you have a congressional resolution approved? Is a strike needed in order to preserve your credibility for when you set these sort of red lines?"

Addressing just the second question, Obama replied, "Let me unpack the question. First of all, I didn't set a red line. The world set a red line. The world set a red line when governments representing 98 percent of the world's population said the use of chemical weapons are abhorrent and passed a treaty forbidding their use even when countries are engaged in war. Congress set a red line when it ratified that treaty..."

Let's do some unpacking of our own. First, Obama absolutely is the one who created a red line out of thin air on Syria. Here is what he said on Aug. 12, 2012: "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. That would change my equation."

"A red line for us." "My calculus." "My equation." As of August 2012, there was no doubt in Obama's mind whose red line it was.

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U.N. Chief: Use Of Force Is Only Legal In Self-Defense Or With U.N. OK

U.N. Chief: Use Of Force Is Only Legal In Self-Defense Or With U.N. OK

    Tuesday, September 03, 2013   No comments

The United Nations' Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says if his inspectors find that chemical weapons were used in Syria, it would represent a "serious violation of international law and an outrageous war crime."
...

Ban also made it clear that there only two types of attacks against Syria that would legal under the U.N. charter: self defense and one authorized by a U.N. resolution.

"That is the firm principle of the United Nations," Ban said, clearly implying that a unilateral attack by the United States against Syria would be illegal.

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Representative Adam Smith: Simply lashing out with military force under the banner of 'doing something' will not secure our interests in Syria

Representative Adam Smith: Simply lashing out with military force under the banner of 'doing something' will not secure our interests in Syria

    Friday, August 30, 2013   No comments

What seemed inevitable just 48 hours ago – an imminent U.S. missile attack on Syrian targets in response to an alleged chemical attack that reportedly killed hundreds of Syrian citizens – stalled Thursday as the justification for military action faced increasing questioning both here and abroad.

Growing calls by both Republican and Democratic lawmakers for consultations with, if not formal authorisation by, Congress before Obama takes any military action have raised the potential political costs on Capitol Hill if Obama proceeds on his own.

While the administration continues to express certainty that the Syrian government was responsible for the alleged Aug. 21 attack, the Associated Press, quoting U.S. intelligence officials, reported Thursday that such a case fell short of a “slam dunk” – a reference to then-CIA director George Tenet’s mistaken declaration that President Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the run-up to the Iraq War.

Some officials cited in the story said they could not entirely rule out the possibility that rebels were responsible for the attack on a Damascus suburb – as alleged by the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

According to AP, officials could not tie Assad or his inner circle to any directive ordering the use of chemical weapons or even to foreknowledge of the attack, suggesting that the decision may have made by lower-ranking military officers or a rogue commander.

The administration has scheduled a telephone conference call with members of Congress for Thursday evening, but officials said the briefing would not include classified information that could confirm the nature of the attack or who was responsible. A White House spokesman said the administration still hopes to release an unclassified intelligence assessment by the weekend.

Meanwhile, the administration faced other problems overseas, not least of which was the refusal earlier this week of the Arab League to explicitly endorse a military attack and the appeals by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his special envoy for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, to await the findings of U.N. inspectors who have been in Syria this week investigating the site of the alleged attack, taking testimony and blood samples from its victims. Ban said Thursday the inspectors would not leave Syria until Saturday.

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A senior Turkish diplomat has strictly denied a news report that cited a Syrian rebel operative as saying that 400 tons of arms have been sent into Syria from Turkey

A senior Turkish diplomat has strictly denied a news report that cited a Syrian rebel operative as saying that 400 tons of arms have been sent into Syria from Turkey

    Sunday, August 25, 2013   No comments

“As has been the case with similar news reports in the past, this claim is definitely not true,” the diplomat, speaking under condition of anonymity, told the Hürriyet Daily news on Aug. 25, recalling Ankara’s earlier statements that Turkey was not involved in alleged arms deliveries to the Syrian rebels.

Earlier, opposition sources had claimed that 400 tons of arms had been sent into Syria from Turkey to boost insurgent capabilities against Syrian government forces, after a suspected chemical weapons strike on rebellious suburbs of Damascus.



The source said the Gulf-financed shipment, which crossed from the Turkish province of Hatay in the past 24 hours, was one of the single biggest shipments to reach rebel brigades since the uprising turned violent two years ago.

“20 trailers crossed from Turkey and are being distributed to arms depots for several brigades across the north,” Mohammad Salam, a rebel operative who witnessed the crossing from an undisclosed location in Hatay, told Reuters.

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Report: Syrian soldiers find chemical agents in rebel tunnels

Report: Syrian soldiers find chemical agents in rebel tunnels

    Sunday, August 25, 2013   No comments

According to Reuters, Syrian state television reported that some soldiers were overcome by fumes after coming across the chemical agents in the tunnels while patroling Jobar.

The soldiers were taken away by ambulance, and government forces were preparing to bomb the insurgent-held suburb, according to state TV.

Some called the claim a thinly-veiled attempt to strengthen the government's denials of responsibility for the reported nerve gas attack that killed hundreds earlier this week.

Obama and his security team met Saturday to discuss those reports and weigh possible military options.
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