West Asia News and Discussions

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Tank net is better audience

[Theo_Fidel]

Target Of Future Drone Attack Urges American Intervention In Syria

http://www.theonion.com/articles/target ... /?ref=auto

DAMASCUS—The target of a future U.S. drone strike aimed at taking out anti-American extremists strongly urged swift U.S. military intervention in Syria, sources confirmed Thursday. “President Obama and American forces must step in and help us overthrow Assad,” said the radical Islamist who will be the object of what will one day be an intense and lengthy manhunt by the CIA and whose death will reportedly be hailed as a major strategic victory by counterterrorism officials. “There needs to be a new regime in Syria immediately.” At press time, a non-target of a future drone strike, currently indistinguishable from the target of one, was saying the same thing.

If you think this is absurd....

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/15 ... a-20130316

CIA begins sizing up Islamic extremists in Syria for drone strikes

The strategy is part of the agency's secret contingency planning to protect the U.S. and its allies as the violence there grows. Some militants in Syria are seen as closely linked to Al Qaeda.

[Singha]

todays TOI says CIA has instead started supplying "Small arms" to the rebels and in a separate initiative the state dept is supplying non-lethal gear like vehicles and communications sets.

question is - where are the rebel held areas getting their POL from?
POL facilities and stocks should be easily locatable

[habal]

a compilation of news by Danny the Syrian, another Liar who was used by CNN for some of it's reports.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEtZyJJI8sc

[anmol]

Exclusive: U.S. total of Syrian gas deaths could include bomb casualties - sources
by Mark Hosenball, reuters.com
September 12th 2013 6:40 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One of the most precise and dramatic details cited by the Obama administration as proof that Syrian forces used chemical weapons in an August 21 attack was the death toll, which an official U.S. government assessment put at 1,429 people, including 426 children.

The number, first released by the White House on August 30, was underscored by Secretary of State John Kerry in a fiery indictment of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, describing videos of what he said were victims of the attack, which Syria denies.

"Instead of being tucked safely in their beds at home, we saw rows of children lying side by side sprawled on a hospital floor, all of them dead from Assad's gas and surrounded by parents and grandparents who had suffered the same fate. The United States Government now knows that at least 1,429 Syrians were killed in this attack, including at least 426 children," he said.

Some U.S. congressional sources are now casting doubt on those figures.

Three congressional sources told Reuters that administration officials had indicated in private that some deaths might have been caused by the conventional bombing that followed the release of sarin gas in suburban Damascus neighborhoods. This disclosure undermined support for President Barack Obama's plan to strike Syria, they said.

A White House spokeswoman referred all questions about the death toll numbers - including a request for comment on whether controversy about the numbers was undermining support on Capitol Hill for administration policy - to intelligence agency spokespeople.

"The Intelligence Community has a high bar for its assessments but it is virtually impossible to achieve 100 percent certitude," said Shawn Turner, chief spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. "That's not the way intelligence works.

"We are extremely rigorous in our methodology and we are constantly challenging ourselves to be more exacting," said Turner. "We have been thorough in our discussions with Congress about our methodology and I'm not aware of any concerns."

One of the congressional sources said that administration officials in closed door briefings said they could not rule out that some victims included in the U.S. death toll were killed either by conventional explosive parts of rockets which carried poison gas or in the artillery barrage the United States says followed the gas attack.

A second source, who is sympathetic to White House policy, said caveats administration officials attached to the 1,429 death total were of sufficient magnitude to cause the source to avoid citing the figure.

A third source said that administration officials confronted pointed questions from members of Congress about the accuracy of the numbers and acknowledged that they "couldn't be sure" about the cause of death for some people counted as victims of chemical poisoning.

An administration official familiar with the briefings denied that there had been any doubts as to how the 1,429 bodies were counted; a second official asserted that Capitol Hill officials had heard what they wanted to hear because so many legislators were opposed to Obama's plan.

Administration sources told Reuters that they relied on a valid intelligence methodology to make the death estimate. An official said that it involved analyzing video pictures of victims, then eliminating from the fatality total any live person, any dead body with visible injuries and shrouded bodies showing blood spots.

Classified intelligence tools then were used to confirm the provenance of the videos and to ensure that bodies were not counted twice, the official said. The official noted that U.S. intelligence had more resources to gather information than human rights or other non-governmental groups, which had smaller death tolls.

"Nobody who has looked at the intelligence thinks this number is way off," a senior U.S. official said.

"That's what the number was that day. We know 1,400 people were killed. As we get new information, the number could change," the senior U.S. official added.

French intelligence says deaths from the gas attacks could be as high as 1,500, but it reported confirmed deaths from video evidence of 281. Estimates of gas attack deaths by British intelligence, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and non-governmental group Doctors without Borders fall within a range of 322 to 355.

The congressional sources said that some members of Congress asked to see raw intelligence gathered by U.S. agencies. But thus far, the administration has provided only reports summarizing intelligence from human informants, electronic eavesdropping and satellite images.

The Syrian government has denied launching any gas attack, although it has acknowledged it has such weapons and is in talks to give them up.

PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT

The United States first cited the 1,429 death toll in a four-page document released by the White House, calling it a "preliminary assessment." Administration officials said that estimate was based on intelligence analysis and never meant to be fixed in stone. Moreover, they expect the ultimate toll will be higher.

In recent days, the administration has avoided the precise figures of the early days.

On September 9, White House National Security Advisor Susan Rice also rounded down the figures, saying that "more than 1400" were killed, including "more than 400 children."

In his speech to the nation on Tuesday night, Obama said that Assad's forces had "gassed to death over 1,000 people, including hundreds of children."

A White House official called it a "stylistic thing". "It's accurate and not meant to signal any walking away from the assessment's figure," the person said.

Paul Pillar, formerly the top Middle East expert for U.S. intelligence, told Reuters the United States should have rounded the figures from the start.

"The administration did not help its case by providing a number that misleadingly implied a degree of precision that would be nearly impossible to achieve amid a civil war," he said.

(Reporting By Mark Hosenball; Editing by Marilyn W. Thompson, Peter Henderson and Tim Dobbyn)

[Philip]

The "fat lady hasn't sung" as yet,very true! Russia is adding more naval assets to the region,even as the US beefs up its own strength.The moving of "carrier killer" warships,though mostly Soviet era and qualitatively inferior to the latest US naval assets,is significant,as Russia now has to underwrite the survival of the Syrian regime once its chem-weapons have been removed.Expect more flow of sophisticated Russian arms to Syria and a screen of Russian warships to protect its interests in Syria.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/s ... nean-syria

Russia sends missile cruiser to Mediterranean as Syria tension mounts
Country's biggest naval deployment since USSR days sent to sea's east as US also beefs up maritime presence in region

Russia sends missile cruiser to Mediterranean as Syria tension mounts

Country's biggest naval deployment since USSR days sent to sea's east as US also beefs up maritime presence in region

Alec Luhn in Moscow
theguardian.com, Thursday 12 September 2013

The Russian destroyer Smetlivy, seen in the background in 2008
The Russian destroyer Smetlivy, seen in the background in this 2008 picture, has been dispatched to the eastern Mediterranean. Photograph: Sergei Chuzavkov/AP

Russia has dispatched a "carrier killer" missile cruiser and other ships to the eastern Mediterranean in its largest naval deployment since Soviet times.

The move comes as the US secretary of state, John Kerry, and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, examine Moscow's plan to place Syrian chemical weapons under international control. Both Russia and the US have been beefing up their naval presence in the Med over the past several weeks.

The destroyer Smetlivy left a naval base in Sevastopol, Ukraine, on Tuesday on a mission to the Syrian coast, a military source told the state news agency Interfax on Thursday.

The source said the Smetlivy would travel to the Mediterranean with the amphibious assault ship Nikolai Filchenkov, which left Novorossiysk on Monday carrying unidentified supplies for the Damascus government.

The missile cruiser Moskva, the flagship of Russia's Black Sea fleet, is also on its way to the Syrian coast to lead the Russian force there. The ship is reportedly known as a "carrier-killer" because it is outfitted with Vulkan missiles, that are designed to destroy large ships.

Observers have speculated that the buildup is in preparation for an evacuation of Russian citizens in Syria or even to repel a possible US attack against the Assad regime. According to a scientist working on military research, who asked not to be named, the deployment will put Russia in a position to evacuate its citizens currently in Syria and serve as a deterrent against military actions by Turkey and other players in the region.

"The demonstration of strength, the demonstration of the flag, is an additional argument for Russia to be seen as important player," they said. However, the Russian fleet will not be able to stop an American missile or aircraft strike against Syria, they added

Ruslan Pukhov, the director of the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, said that the Mediterranean force is part the biggest deployment of Russian ships worldwide in the post-Soviet era. However, Pukhov denied that the concentration of ships in the eastern Mediterranean was a direct reaction to the growing tensions over the Syrian conflict.

"The rest of the Russian navy is now exercising all over the globe, including a visit to Australia, and all of these were planned months before and are not a reaction to events in Syria … in the past two months," Pukhov said.

In recent months, Russian ships have also conducted training exercises in the Barents Sea and in the Pacific Ocean near Kamchatka. At the end of August, it was reported that the missile cruiser Varyag and two other ships were preparing to set out for the south Pacific to make the Russian navy's first-ever visit to Sydney and to conduct joint exercises with the Australian navy.

Moscow dispatched ships to the Med starting in late August, but officials have maintained that the deployments are routine and not part of a naval buildup. The size of the fleet there has nonetheless increased: Russian forces in the Med will grow to 11 ships by mid September, the newspaper RBC Daily reported.

The US navy deployed an additional destroyer – its fifth – to the eastern Mediterranean at the end of August. The force could launch Tomahawk missiles at targets in Syria if Barack Obama orders an attack.

Retired admiral Vladimir Komoyedov, chairman of the defence committee of the state Duma and the former commander of the Black Sea fleet, told RBC Daily that the increased Russian presence is a demonstration of force that will nonetheless not be able to match US strength in the eastern Mediterranean.

"The fact that we're building up our forces on the Syrian coast is the normal reaction of a government whose interests there are being interfered with," Komoyedov said. "But unfortunately, the force we've assembled there is made up of pretty aged ships built 30 years ago. To compete with the United States, we need a fresh horse."

[habal]

Saar - Elizabeth O'Bagy was well known for her closeness to the Islamist militias operating in Syria. Her `journalism' basically consisted of repeating all claims of the assorted al-Qaeda types. She arranged McCain's carefully scripted meetings with the Syrian rebel commanders, in which McCain never asked any of the rebels their views about democracy, or minorities, or anything uncomfortable. ......

{mock outrage}That simply terrible woman has totally led astray Mr McCain! Shameless!

Devastated by this betrayal of trust and fealty, Johnny doesn't wish to talk about it, and asks for your understanding and prayers, in this very difficult and troubling time.{/mock outrage}



The most heart breaking result of Ronald Reagan`s policy of closing mental institutions is the fact that John McCain has been deprived of a mailing address for decades.

[Philip]

Betrayed by Uncle Sam,yet again!

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/s ... macy-assad

Aleppo rebels angry as diplomacy seems to let Assad off the hook
Syria insurgents, including Liwa Tawheed brigade, despondent as US steps back and European allies appear to abandon them

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/s ... macy-assad

In Aleppo, Free Syrian Army fighters take time to rest as the gruelling war of attrition with the regime carries on. Photograph: Stringer/Reuters

In the basement of a bombed-out police station, a group of Syrian rebels were sheltering from a fighter jet roaring through the twilight sky. But no one was watching the jet. Instead the men were transfixed by a television that blared news of the latest wrangling over whether a US attack would be launched against Bashar al-Assad. Even the sound of the aircraft's firing cannon was dismissed with a mocking cheer.

"Wait till there's a real air force up there," said a young defector who had fought with the rebels of northern Syria for the past year. "The regime will be far more scared of the Americans than we are of them."

That was late last week. By early Wednesday, however, the rebels' mood had changed radically. "We should have known better than to believe them," the group's commander told the Guardian despondently.

News that a mooted attack on the Assad regime had been put on hold and replaced with a diplomatic push has been met with despair and, in some cases, anger in and around Aleppo, where a grinding, gruelling war of attrition has become a way of life.

Battered by bombs, Scud missiles and the tank shells that thump randomly into buildings most days, Aleppo's stone heart has steadily crumbled. So too have the concrete suburbs of the east, which giant missiles have emptied of people. Newly arrived jihadists have added to the misery, splintering a cause that locals believe is theirs alone to fight and trying to turn the Syrian civil war into an arena for the settling of ancient scores.

Throughout it all, though, the rebels of the north held out hope that real help would arrive some time. "We were depending on this," said Sheikh Omar Otthman, a leader of the Liwa al-Tawheed brigade, the main opposition militia in Aleppo, of the now uncertain international intervention. "The suffering of the people of Ghouta could have created an opportunity for all our suffering to be lifted."

Every twist in the fast-shifting international response to the chemical attack in eastern Damascus three weeks ago has been eagerly digested in opposition communities here. But the latest has convinced many that, despite the fuss, no one had been serious about helping them.

"They've spent the past two weeks saying Bashar is a liar and must be punished and that he needs to know that he can't get away with what he does," said Abu Hamza, a former colonel in the Syrian military who became a central figure in the war for the north soon after it began.

"And then they give him a chance to do more of what he has always done, get away with murder. He will stall them, trick them and wear them down. And they will send the ships home. And we'll be left alone."

In the town of al-Bab, a hub of the opposition to the north-east of Aleppo, phones have not worked for almost a year and electricity can be off for days. The town's unswept streets, which are now home to a growing number of black-robed extremists, echo to the sound of generators and clapped-out motorbikes.

"We want to chase them out, but we need the Americans to help us," said Tawfik Merza of the aloof strangers among them. "They are not from us, and they're not for us."

The standoff with the extremists is an unwanted distraction in al-Bab, which continues to be hit with the full range of the Syrian military's arsenal – except for chemicals.

In the early hours of Sunday, a large ballistic missile struck farmland north-east of Aleppo, the first for several months and a pointed reminder that a powerful enemy was still out there. The impact was soon followed by the roar of a fighter jet above the blacked-out town. The next day, Liwa al-Tawheed leaders and cadres stood among fig trees not far from where the missile landed, excitedly plucking fruit, their rifles resting against tree trunks. One fighter offered up a peeled fig. "They're the best fruit you can eat," he said. "Delicious, and healthy. Even in war there is still good."

Another fighter, Abu Hamza, said the missile showed Bashar was still in control. "It shows he is still making decisions. There are three pillars of the Syrian military that we knew to be their strategic assets. The first was the use of the air force, the second was the ballistic missiles, and the third was the chemical weapons. To use any of those things, the permission must come from the commander-in-chief."

Few military commanders or civic leaders here doubt that the Syrian president still has control over his military chiefs. To those running the war here, he also holds sway over a reluctant US and Europe that is proving itself pliable in the hands of Syria's allies.

"Don't they know that to negotiate after threatening force is to show that you are weak?" said Abu Tayeb, a member of the governing council of one of the area's main militias.

To some, however – those who hang on to hope that the Russian-backed proposal to force Syria to give up its stockpile is a ploy to build further consensus to attack – the recent developments do not let the regime off the hook.

"He has surrendered before a shot has been fired," said one senior supporter of the Syrian opposition. "If he carries through with this promise to give up his weapons, he is handing over the most important strategic deterrent that he has. He has always been able to keep the Israelis at bay with the threat of these things. And if he tries to delay, or play games, he will get hit.

"It will be easier for Europe to fall in behind Obama if they can see that he is not acting in good faith, which he won't be."

In al-Bab, the tension has at times been unbearable for locals who had early on coveted help from powerful backers, then given up on intervention, only to see it re-emerge as what seemed to be a real option.

"I'll need to see a doctor after all of this," said Abdullah Namoud, a local from the town. "It is worse than a Turkish TV drama, all these twists and changes."

The militias of the north had been preparing for a military operation to coincide with the mooted US attack, which they saw as the first chance they had to advance under air cover.

There had even been a sense among leaders of the northern militias, those that fall under the auspices of the Military Council, which funnels weapons into Syria, that they were expected to seize the moment, if and when the US rockets fell.

Now, with the US effectively having stood down, the palpable hope has been replaced by a sense of confusion.

"I've said from the beginning that this was about the Americans saving their reputation, not about helping us," said a member of the governing council. "That's politics, we know that. But our reality is that nothing will change for us. They're helping themselves, not us."

[Santosh]

What may happen is if US and allies decide to pull a Libya on Syria, Russia may end up attacking US/Allied interests as opposed to attacking the allies themselves. The carrier killer is just positioning but both parties understand the risks of going at each other.

I would be interested to see China's position if gloves were to come off. Would they ally with Russia and start attacking US/Allied interests. Me thinks no. They would limit themselves to observation and try to graduate in the art of high stakes warfare.

[Philip]

A nice picture of Prince Bandar the p*ssmaker emerges from this article.

Syria: Russia rises to the world stage again

http://www.dailymirror.lk/opinion/172-o ... again.html
Friday, 13 September 2013

Big, brutal and clumsy: This was how the West described the Russian bear and used the imagery to heap scorn on the Soviet Union during the Cold War period. In many a Hollywood movie, Russians were portrayed as vodka-drinking bulky villains who were outsmarted and defeated by the American hero. Even in early 20th century political cartoons, Russia symbolised the bear, and Britain, the superpower of that era, the lion.

Hollywood’s fear mongering through the portrayal of political villains -- Russians during the Cold War period and the Islamists now – sustains the financial and political agendas of capitalists and their submissive ruling elite and helps to divert the attention of the American people from crucial economic and social justice issues.
Although the Cold War ended two decades ago and the description of Russia as a big, brutal and clumsy bear still continues in Hollywood and in the Western media, the Russians love their bear. They even made teddy bear ‘Misha’ as the mascot of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

Derided as a sick bear in the post-cold War period and misled time and again in recent years by the United States, it appears that Russia has decided to bare its bear power. Why shouldn’t it? After all it is no longer a wounded bear. The US misled Russia into supporting the UN resolutions on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to America’s dirty war in Iraq.

Again, in 2011, the US and the West tricked Russia and bought its silence when the resolution on the Libyan civil war was put to the vote at the United Nations Security Council. Russia was told that the resolution was only to impose a no-fly zone. But after the resolution was passed, the US and the West deliberately misinterpreted its provisions and unleashed their brutal air power on Libya, changing the course of the civil war in favour of the anti-government rebels. When the West’s illegal intervention led to the killing of Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi and a regime change in Tripoli, Russia was furious.


Russia’s President Vladimir Putin gestures during a press conference at the end of the G20 summit on September 6, 2013 in Saint Petersburg. AFP

As the turn of events in the Syrian crisis shows, Russia has determined not to be a bystander and leave the Americans to decide the world’s fate. The message from Moscow is that it will protect Syria even if it threatens to trigger a world war. During last week’s G20 meeting, Russia’s powerful president Vladimir Putin took on US President Barack Obama who is apparently acting according to a script written by Israel and Saudi Arabia – two countries which would benefit from a regime change in Damascus.

In the eyeball-to-eyeball game, Obama blinked and lost. Now he has agreed to work on Russia’s proposal to solve the immediate issue -- Syria’s chemical weapons.
President Putin wrote a hard-hitting op-ed article in the New York Times on Wednesday, a day before his Foreign Minister Sergie Lavrov met US Secretary of State John Kerry in Geneva to discuss the Russian proposals.

Slamming US foreign policy, Putin said millions of people saw the US not as a model of democracy but as a country relying on brute force.

Putin should have said “billions of people” because it was only last week, G20 leaders from Russia, China, India, Indonesia and Brazil -- countries that represent more than half the world’s population -- rejected the US plan to attack Syria.

In his op-ed article, Putin also warned that the United Nations could suffer the same fate as its precursor, the League of Nations, if “influential countries bypass the United Nations and take military action without Security Council authorisation”.

“The potential strike by the United States against Syria, despite strong opposition from many countries and major political and religious leaders, including the Pope, will result in more innocent victims and escalation, potentially spreading the conflict far beyond Syria’s borders,” he said in the article seen as a direct plea to the American people.



Putin said: “A strike would increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism. It could undermine multilateral efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and further destabilise the Middle East and North Africa. It could throw the entire system of international law and order out of balance.”
Reiterating that the August 21 gas attack was probably carried out by opposition forces “to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons, Putin said, “It is alarming that military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United States. Is it in America’s long-term interest? I doubt it.”

Putin’s unyielding position and his resolve to prevent a US attack on Syria are reminiscent of the good old Cold War days when a global balance of power acted as a check against superpower excesses.

When the Cold War ended, many people thought the sole superpower -- the US -- would act with responsibility. But much to their disappointment, the US abused its sheer military power to dominate the world and plunder other countries’ resources while subverting international law and the UN system.

It is in this context that the rise of Russia under Putin is seen as a welcome development in international relations. Russia and China should act as a responsible counterforce to rein in the US.

The manner in which Russia and China opposed plans by the US and its allies to attack Syria shows their determination not to bow to pressure tactics -- as has often been the case when the US wants to punish Iran.

In the case of Syria, the pressure on Russia came also from an unexpected quarter, Saudi Arabia. Recent events show the geostrategic goals of Saudi Arabia complement those of Israel, so much so that some analysts wonder whether there exists secret cooperation between the Zionist state and Saudi Arabia, the so-called custodian of Islam’s holiest mosques.

An angry Putin, according to reports, warned Saudi Arabia that if Riyadh became too adventurous, Russia would not hesitate to bomb Saudi Arabia. The report of his threat to bomb Saudi Arabia was published on many websites and in newspapers and it came after a four-hour meeting between Putin and Saudi Arabia’s pro-US intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan at Dacha, near Moscow. The report has not been denied by either Russia or Saudi Arabia.

The London Telegraph described the Putin-Bandar meeting as stormy, replete with warnings of a “dramatic turn” in Syria. It said Putin was unmoved by the Saudi warning. “Our stance on Assad will never change. We believe that the Syrian regime is the best speaker on behalf of the Syrian people, and not those liver eaters,” Putin said, referring to footage showing a Jihadist rebel eating the heart and liver of a dead Syrian soldier.

Bandar had the audacity – which probably stems from US commitment to protect Saudi Arabia despite its poor human rights record -- to warn Putin that Saudi Arabia could interfere in Chechnya where Putin ruthlessly crushed a separatist rebellion and brought about a semblance of stability.

According to the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir, Bandar first tried to offer some inducements such as moves aimed at artificially shooting up the world oil prices -- so that Russia also could benefit as a chief exporter -- and allowing Russia to maintain its naval base in Syria even after President Bashar al-Assad was overthrown.
When these inducements failed to change Putin’s position, Bandar hinted at Chechen terrorist attacks on Russia’s Winter Olympics in Sochi if there was no accord. “I can give you a guarantee to protect the Winter Olympics next year. The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are controlled by us,” Bandar allegedly said, reminding Putin that a quite a number of Chechen rebels have joined the so-called Jihad against Assad in Syria.

Putin, being a KGB spymaster himself, is not unaware of the Saudi spy chief’s schemes and knows how to counter Saudi threats. Besides, he is much more capable than Bandar. After all, Russia owes much of its economic recovery to Putin. Once the economy was put on a sound footing, Putin made his ambitions known. He wanted to make Russia a superpower again -- on an equal footing with the United States.

In addition to having a stockpile of more than 4,600 active nuclear warheads, Russia is also the world’s largest conventional power. Under Putin, Russia has made significant breakthroughs in weapons development. Today it has state-of-the art fighter jets that even surprise US military experts. Its fifth generation T-50 fighter jets with the futuristic characteristics of stealth, sustained supersonic cruise, and integrated weapons have effectively eliminated the United States’ edge in the sky.

In comparison to the United States’ US$ 700 billion annual defence budget, Russia spends around US$ 63 billion on defence. That Russia has achieved what the US has achieved in weapons technology with a defence budget that is one tenth that of the US is indeed an achievement. Such advanced military technology vouch for Putin’s determination not to make the same mistake the Soviet Union had made. The communist giant during the cold war era spent blindly on defence to keep up with the US — a move that paved the way for its economic decline and its disintegration in 1991. Putin wants to make Russia not only militarily strong but economically too.
Today, Russia is the world’s number two oil exporter. It supplies 34 per cent of Europe’s natural gas needs. While the US has a debt to GDP ratio of 101 per cent, Russia’s ratio is about 8 per cent. While the US runs into a trade deficit of more than half a trillion dollars, Russia records a large trade surplus.

As the Syrian crisis, messed up by the Americans, the Israelis and the Saudis, perpetuate the unimaginable scale of human suffering, the world should support the Russian proposal not only on the chemical weapons issue but also on moves to find a solution to the problem. With four million internally displaced people and two million Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries, we cannot allow countries with vested interests to play politics with the lives of the people.

[jamwal]

Target Of Future Drone Attack Urges American Intervention In Syria

http://www.theonion.com/articles/target ... /?ref=auto

DAMASCUS—The target of a future U.S. drone strike aimed at taking out anti-American extremists strongly urged swift U.S. military intervention in Syria, sources confirmed Thursday. “President Obama and American forces must step in and help us overthrow Assad,” said the radical Islamist who will be the object of what will one day be an intense and lengthy manhunt by the CIA and whose death will reportedly be hailed as a major strategic victory by counterterrorism officials. “There needs to be a new regime in Syria immediately.” At press time, a non-target of a future drone strike, currently indistinguishable from the target of one, was saying the same thing.

[/quote]


Are you trolling ? Never heard of The Onion before ?

[anmol]

Guess who is paying pro-rebel lobbying outfit SETF that pays Ms Elizabeth O’Bagy whose report was cited by both Secretary of State John Kerry and Senator John McCain ?
Ans: Contractors getting paid by Department of the State.

dailycaller.com/2013/09/09/who-funds-syrian-rebel-advocate-obagy-and-the-syrian-emergency-task-force-you-do/

Who funds Syrian rebel advocate O’Bagy and her 'Task Force?'
by See All Articles, dailycaller.com
September 9th 2013

The Syrian Emergency Task Force, the pro-rebel lobbying outfit that employs widely quoted intervention advocate Elizabeth O’Bagy as its political director, receives funding from the U.S. Department of State and related government contractors.

In an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller earlier last week, O’Bagy explained how she got paid. O’Bagy has been roundly condemned for working for a pro-Syrian lobbying group at the same time she was casting the Syrian rebels in a positive light. She works as an analyst at the neoconservative think tank, the Institute for the Study of War.

“Most of the contracts that I’ve been a part of through the Task Force have been through CSO, which is the Conflict and Stabilization Office[sic],” O’Bagy told The Daily Caller. O’Bagy was likely referring to the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, a State Department-funded organization.

“My salary comes from the Institute for the Study of War. I don’t get a salary from working with the Task Force,” O’Bagy said. “I get paid contracting fees for very specific contracts.”

How much she makes is “completely dependent on the contract,” says O’Bagy. “Usually, they [the SETF] kind of write in a specific fee. So it’s not a percentage of the contract, but it’s like I get, just off the top of my head, like two thousand dollars to help implement this project. And then I just get that standard contracting fee. And I actually get a 1099.”

State Department contracting firms like “ARK [Access Resources Knowledge], Chemonics, Creative [Associates International]—a number of the big contractors” set up the contracts and pay the Syrian Emergency Task Force, O’Bagy told TheDC.

With each contract, O’Bagy made more money. This revelation raises serious questions about her incentives to support American involvement in Syria. Both Secretary of State John Kerry and Senator John McCain cited O’Bagy’s work in the push for military action but did not disclose her ties to the rebel groups.

When asked about the potential conflict of interest, O’Bagy said she was working for the Syrian people.

“Frankly I mean the humanitarian crisis is just so horrific that I honestly could not spend significant amounts of time there without trying to contribute to the humanitarian situation in one way or another and that’s just kind of me as a human being. I literally could not go there without trying to use my knowledge for the betterment of these various humanitarian aid programs,” she told TheDC.

O’Bagy, whose Georgetown MA/PhD focuses on Arab women’s issue, explained that the work had been helpful to her dissertation, which she has written but not yet defended.

While John McCain has called her “doctor,” she isn’t one technically. “You can call me doctor, if you want,” O’Bagy said. She graduated Georgetown in 2013. The U.S. government has spent over a $1 billion on aid to the Syrian rebels, with nearly half going to the Department of State, which is used for “institution building,” and the other half going to USAID, which is used for diaspora community relations.

[Austin]

Russia to expand Mediterranean fleet to 10 warships – Navy chief

The Russian Navy intends to build its presence in the Mediterranean Sea - particularly in the area close to Syrian shores - to up to 10 battleships, announced Admiral of the Fleet Viktor Chirkov.

“The task is crystal clear: to avoid a slightest threat to the security of the state. This is a general practice of all fleets around the world, to be there when a tension level increases. They are all going to act on operational command plan of the offshore maritime zone,” Chirkov told journalists on Friday. "Russia will be building up its Mediterranean fleet until it is deemed sufficient to perform the task set."

Russia began military build-up in the Mediterranean in 2012, and starting from December last year the Navy established a constant presence in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea.

[habal]

The opposition has to do heavy lifting for wannabe initiate war-criminal Sultan Erdokhan. His err-dukan has been saved by his opposition when they had to mend his Syrian, Iraqi, Iranian, Egyptian foreign policy. Maybe he needs to close his dukan and join Kerry, McCain, O'Bagy, & Obama in their smoking chambers. They are smoking some unique stuff over there. If you don't believe me just look at any pic of Kerry.

"Main opposition CHP says it defended Turkish PM in Egypt talks"

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/main-o ... sCatID=338

Meanwhile Muslim Brotherhood, banned in egypt is taking the time-off to mend and repair it's image by indulging in charitable and humane activities.

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood to Coptic Christians: Convert to Islam, or pay ‘jizya’ tax

The Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters have began forcing the roughly 15,000 Christian Copts of Dalga village in Egypt to pay a jizya tax as indicated in Koran 9:29, author and translator Raymond Ibrahim reported on Sunday.

According to Fr. Yunis Shawqi, who spoke yesterday to Dostor reporters in Dalga, all Copts in the village, “without exception,” are being forced to pay the tax.
“[The] value of the tribute and method of payment differ from one place to another in the village, so that, some are being expected to pay 200 Egyptian pounds per day, others 500 Egyptian pounds per day,” Mr. Shawqi said, according to the translator.
In some cases, families not able to pay have been attacked. As many as 40 Christian families have now fled Dalga, Mr. Ibrahim reported.
The taxes are not unique to Egypt either.
Just over the weekend Syrian rebels went into a Christian man’s “shop and gave him three options: become Muslim; pay $70,000 as a tax levied on non-Muslims, known as jizya; or be killed along with his family,” Christian Science Monitor reported.

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... z2ekpHA0uE
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

In Yemen meanwhile, Islamic activities are gathering apace ..

Yemeni child bride, eight, dies of internal injuries on first night of forced marriage to groom five times her age

An eight-year-old child bride has died in Yemen of internal bleeding sustained during her wedding night after being forced to marry a man five times her age, activists have claimed.

The girl ... died in the tribal area of Hardh in northwestern Yemen, which borders Saudi Arabia.

Activists are now calling for the groom, who is believed to be around 40 years old, and her family to be arrested so they can face justice in the courts.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... om-40.html

[pankajs]

Analysis: Syria chemical weapons proposal is Putin’s masterstroke - JPost

White House spokesman Jay Carney on Wednesday asserted that Russian prestige was now “on the line” regarding Syria.

Carney’s statement recalled an earlier remark by US President Barack Obama himself. Speaking to reporters, Obama said, “I didn’t set a redline. The world set a redline.”

Therefore, he continued, it was not his “credibility” that was on the line. Rather, it was “the international community’s credibility” that was to be tested.

These curious statements reflect perhaps better than anything else the sense of confusion emanating from Washington surrounding the events of the past week. The president’s remarks came just prior to the US’s surprise agreement to a Russian proposal that would ostensibly see Syria voluntarily give up its chemical weapons capability. Carney’s words were said in the days following the accord.

But both statements contain an unmistakable effort to deflect attention, and transfer responsibility.

This effort has characterized the US response to the Syrian crisis in general, and the regime’s use of chemical weapons in particular.

Is “Russian prestige” indeed on the line if Syria does not cooperate in parting from its chemical weapons capability? The innocence of this remark must have raised wry smiles in the Kremlin.

Russian prestige in the Middle East derives from the sense that Moscow is a staunch patron that sticks by its clients. Bashar Assad’s Syria is the ally of the Russians.

For a moment last week, Assad was genuinely concerned about his future. Few in Damascus believed that an American strike, if it came, would remain limited.

The Syrian dictator feared that American attacks would inevitably widen, weakening his armed forces and paving the way for a rebel victory.

All that is over now. Putin spotted the enormous American reluctance to undertake an attack of any kind (as evinced in Obama’s remarks above, in US Secretary of State Kerry’s astonishing pledge that any attack would be “unbelievably small,” and so on).

He therefore came forward with a proposal that would be just credible enough not to make the acceptance of it utterly ridiculous. Washington happily accepted the olive branch and hurried away from any further possibility of military action.

Russian credibility is not in question – it is already assured. Moscow has ensured the safety of its ally and his war effort.

So now it’s back to the war. The Russian weapons lifeline to the autocrat is buzzing with increased activity. The arms ships making their way from the Ukrainian port of Oktabyrsk have increased in number in recent weeks, shipping analysts say.

They are bringing the vital spare parts for Assad’s planes and tanks.

The dictator, in turn, has renewed his war effort.

Newly invigorated, Assad’s planes attacked a field hospital near Aleppo on Wednesday. At least 11 people, including a doctor, were killed.

And what of the proposal for Syria to cede its chemical weapons capability? It is worth remembering the years of maneuvering and obfuscation during the search for such weapons in Iraq, as Saddam Hussein’s regime led hapless inspectors by the nose from place to place, with nothing of consequence ever resulting.

And unlike Hussein’s Iraq back then, Syria is currently the perfect environment for a despot who might wish to restrict and prevent the movement of inspectors: namely, a situation of civil war. “You’re in the middle of a brutal civil war where the Syrian regime is massacring its own people,” as one US official quoted by Reuters put it. “Does anyone think they’re going to suddenly stop the killing to allow inspectors to secure and destroy all the chemical weapons?” Russia is now in a win-win situation.

If, for whatever reason, the Syrians do choose to part with an appreciable fraction of their chemical weapons capability, President Vladmir Putin will be able to bask in an aura of statesmanship. It was he, after all, who proposed this path.

And if the Syrians prove recalcitrant and obstructive, no one will blame the Russian president – on the contrary. He has always denied that the regime used chemical weapons in the first place. Why would anyone think he would care whether they hand the weapons over or not? It will instead be seen as a further achievement for him, as the Americans squirm and try to justify why they are not returning to the path of military action, even though the will of the “international community” is being flouted.

Putin will be able to claim credit in the event of Syrian compliance, and in the event of Syrian defiance.

Contrary to Obama’s statement, the entire world knows that the American president laid down a redline for Assad regarding use of chemical weapons.

The entire world knows that Assad flouted that redline. And the entire world now knows that very little is going to be done about it.

It’s not just that Russian prestige is not on the line over any of this. It is that American prestige is now in the hands of the Russians. Putin can make the chemical weapons proposal work, or not work. Assad is in no position to refuse him.

And Putin, but not Obama, gains either way.

Presumably, the White House is hoping that the Russian president will choose to be kind.

[pankajs]

Putin: Syria’s bid to join treaty banning chemical weapons proves its good faith - WaPo

[pankajs]

Putin is the one who really deserves that Nobel Peace Prize - FoxNews

[pankajs]

Reader Reactions to Putin’s Letter - NYT

[Philip]

Nice way to win over powerful friends.Whom the Gods wish to destroy they first make mad.

http://thediplomat.com/china-power/syri ... s-embassy/

Syrian Rebels Attack Chinese Diplomats, Embassy
By Zachary Keck
September 13, 2013

Chinese diplomats in Syria as well as Beijing’s embassy are under regular threat from rebel attacks, China’s ambassador to Syria has confided to local media outlets.

In an interview with the Global Times, Zhang Xun, China's ambassador to Syria said that Beijing’s embassy in Damascus has increasingly been caught in the cross-hairs of fighting between rebel and government forces in recent months.

In one notable instance, shrapnel and shell fragments from a mortar attack deflected off a nearby building and landed inside the Chinese embassy.

“A shell hit the ceiling of a building some 60 meters away and the fragments bounced into our building,” Zhang told reporters from the Global Times, showing them the actual shells, which he kept in an envelope in his office.

Zhang said that in another attack last month, Syrian rebels fired mortar shells at President Bashar al-Assad's motorcade. They missed the Syrian leader but hit a building that was located just 10 meters from the Chinese embassy. The shock from the attack damaged the nearby embassy, however.

“Several windows in our corridor were shattered. Some of the shrapnel fell onto my balcony,” Zhang said of the attack, which took place on the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr.

According to the report, the Chinese embassy is located in the heart of Damascus near the Bashar al-Assad’s presidential palace and key military buildings, which unsurprisingly are often the targets of rebel attacks.

Another diplomat from the embassy told the Global Times that Chinese personnel have been targeted directly by rebel forces, particularly when they are meeting with Syrian officials. Indeed, according to a Want China Times report, Zhang was nearly killed in a sniper attack during a meeting he held with Syria’s foreign minister.

The Global Times article says that Zhang now keeps a bullet-proof vest, gas mask and pistol in his office.

There are also reports that the rebels are actively plotting attacks against the Chinese embassy, presumably in retaliation for China’s continued support for the Assad regime. The Want China Times report said that a brigade commander in the Free Syrian Army, one of the rebel forces fighting the Syrian government, has vowed to launch a “full-scale attack” on the Chinese embassy.

Meanwhile, the Global Times claims that a local driver the embassy had employed was arrested earlier this year by Syrian authorities for allegedly planning to place bombs under the embassy car. The article, which said the driver had confessed to the crime, added that he had been recruited by Syrian rebel forces during a trip to Jordan in February.

Following the incident Beijing assigned eight armed Chinese police officers to protect the embassy and its personnel. The only other Chinese embassies to have such protection are those in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ambassador Zhang admitted that he has been frightened by the uptick in violence.

“To be honest, it would be a lie if I said I'm not a little bit scared," Zhang was quoted as saying in the report.

This was a dramatic admission given Zhang’s past statements on the issue of safety in the country. Soon after taking over the ambassadorship in 2011, Zhang dismissed concerns that Chinese nationals in Syria were in any danger.

“Their lives are guaranteed and their properties as well,” Zhang told state media at the time, referring to Chinese nationals. “"There is no need for extra worries.”

The Chinese nationals themselves apparently disagreed, judging from the exodus away from the war-torn nation in the nearly two years since then. According to Chinese media reports, there were around 1,200 Chinese nationals inside Syria when Zhang took over as ambassador. Today there are just 20, not counting the embassy staff itself. Eight of those remaining are reporters.

This is probably a huge relief to the Chinese government. Beijing was profoundly affected by the situation in Libya in early 2010, when the Chinese government had to evacuate 36,000 nationals from that country in just 10 days after civil war broke out as part of the initial Arab Spring wave.

Nonetheless, China has remained defiant on maintaining a diplomatic presence in Syria. According to the Global Times report, China is one of just a dozen or so countries that haven’t closed down their embassies during the past two and a half years of fighting. Some of the other countries that have maintained their diplomatic presence in Syria include Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba.

Chinese diplomats in Syria say they intend to continue to hold out in Syria.

“"Diplomats must stick to their positions until the last Chinese national willing to leave Syria is pulled out,” GT quoted one person at the embassy as saying.

[habal]

Putin's winning more fans in US than he can handle, the most loved Russian President for Americans perhaps.

Pat Buchanan, Rush Limbaugh &

Conservatives Now Love Russia’s President More Than Their Own

Pat Buchanan called Putin’s op-ed in the New York Times “outstanding.”

[He pointed] out that it was the Russian president, and not President Barack Obama, who was best speaking to American opinion on Syria.

“I read it twice,” Buchanan said, “and, candidly, it was an outstanding piece.

Vladimir Putin made a better case against U.S. strikes in Syria than the President of the United States did last night.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/pat-buchanan ... statesman/

Rush Limbaugh believes Putin gets “American exceptionalism” better than Obama.

“We’ve got the communist leader of Russia more proudly quoting the Declaration of Independence than our own president does!… Do you people at the White House not know what’s happened here? Vladimir Putin has positioned himself as a mature adult who stopped your immature child from messing around in somebody else’s sandbox that he had no right being in and didn’t know what he was doing.”

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/trump-on-cnb ... hoolchild/

Donald Trump

Trump on CNBC: Putin’s ‘Amazingly Well-Written’ Op-Ed Made Obama Look Like a ‘Schoolchild’

Donald Trump called in to CNBC Thursday to react to Vladimir Putin‘s huge op-ed in The New York Times. Trump told Maria Bartiromo the op-ed was “amazingly well-written” and revealed a big disparity between how well Putin has handled Syria and how poorly President Obama has. Trump said the op-ed was utterly humiliating for Obama and made Putin look like the real leader.

Trump said Putin is trying to “become the world leader,” and is simultaneously embarrassing and bailing out Obama with the op-ed. He said Putin looks like the professor and Obama’s a small “schoolchild.”

Trump kept piling on Obama, noting how no matter what he seems to do, scandals never stick to him.

“He’s Teflon, he appears to escape from everything, whether it’s Benghazi or whatever it might be, so many different things.”
Trump said flatly that Putin’s op-ed is really good for Russia and horrible for the U.S., acknowledging that it’s hard to dispute some of the points he raises.

[Lalmohan]

^^^ all of that just tells you how much the deep-state despises having obama as president

[chanakyaa]

^^^ all of that just tells you how much the deep-state despises having obama as president

Errr...sir, 2014 senate and modestly 2016 presidential elections have been officially kicked off.

[pankajs]

For Turkey’s Leader, Syria’s War Worsens His Problems at Home

On Thursday, Mr. Erdogan, a strong advocate for military intervention in the Syrian war, reacted angrily to the United States’ decision to delay a military strike there — a decision analysts said had left Mr. Erdogan more politically vulnerable at home.

<snip>

This week, as Mr. Obama announced he was delaying strikes, the decision seemed to catch Mr. Erdogan by surprise. After volunteering to take part in any military coalition, and advocating a sustained intervention that he hoped would cause the collapse of the Syrian government, diplomatic maneuvering by Russia had left Mr. Assad, for the moment at least, comfortably in power. And it left a central plank of Mr. Erdogan’s foreign policy in disarray.

Cengiz Candar, a Turkish political columnist, said the American decision amounted to an “embarrassment” for Mr. Erdogan, especially given his other recent setbacks.

Mr. Erdogan, who has shied away from any unilateral action against Syria, relied on Mr. Obama to take the lead, leaving the prime minister further exposed to his domestic critics. “The public is very reluctant about military action, and we have a prime minister who wants drastic military action,” Mr. Candar said. “He invested all his assets in the American-led action, and it hasn’t come.”

He predicted Mr. Erdogan’s opponents would step up their criticism of the prime minister’s Syria policy, including allegations that the government is aiding jihadist rebels in Syria, a charge officials have strongly denied.

Kadri Gursel, another political columnist, said that Mr. Erdogan, by “championing” intervention, had been left in a lonely spot by the latest diplomatic turns. “He was very vocal about a process which he doesn’t control,” Mr. Gursel said. “This is upsetting for him.”

The developments in Syria came during a week that delivered Mr. Erdogan plenty of other unsettling news. Turkey lost its bid to host the 2020 Olympics to Tokyo, in what was seen at least partially as a consequence of the government’s response to the protests. And the P.K.K., the Kurdish separatist group, announced that it was halting the withdrawal of its fighters from Turkey, in a sign of the troubled negotiations between the government and the Kurdish group to end three decades of armed conflict.

Also this week, delegates from Turkey’s main opposition traveled to Egypt in a trip that seemed intended to highlight Mr. Erdogan’s troubles and his waning regional influence. His Islamist allies have stumbled in several countries. And Turkey’s relations with Egypt have been all but severed since the Egyptian military ousted former President Mohamed Morsi, one of Mr. Erdogan’s closest regional allies.

[Austin]

US media tends to be personality specific they will make Putin a hero today and demon tomorrow.

If the peace deal on Syria comes through it will be a collective victory for UN , Syria , US and Russia.

Putin is not going to cry if he gets Noble or not , Obama got Noble for doing nothing at all

Better give Noble to Assad

[anmol]

Putin is the one who really deserves that Nobel Peace Prize
by K.T. McFarland, foxnews.com
September 10th 2013

In one of the most deft diplomatic maneuvers of all time, Russia’s President Putin has saved the world from near-certain disaster. He did so without the egoistical but incompetent American president, or his earnest but clueless Secretary of State, even realizing they had been offered a way out of the mess they’d created.

The eventful day started out Monday morning with the Obama administration making a full court press for an American attack on Syria: lobbying members of Congress, scheduling an historic series of presidential interviews with top news anchors, and sending Secretary Kerry to London to persuade our reluctant allies to scramble their jets, too.

Then Secretary Kerry made an off-hand comment that the only way an American attack would be called off is if the Syrians turn over all their chemical weapons to an international body. Then he added, “but that isn’t going to happen.”

The words were hardly out of his mouth when Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov essentially said, "we can live with that," and the Syrian Foreign Minister chimed in with "we can, too."

Meanwhile, the State Department dismissed it, saying Kerry didn’t really mean what he said, it was just a "rhetorical" answer to a hypothetical question.

It was as if Team Obama couldn’t take "yes" for an answer.

So, in stepped former Secretary Clinton, looking like the only adult in the room, to say that the Kerry Proposal made sense.

Well, that got Team Obama’s attention!

The president, never one to let a crisis go to waste, told journalists that the proposal was something he and Putin had discussed at the G-20 Summit last week.

By Tuesday night’s speech President Obama will surely be taking full credit, saying the Syrians and Russians caved only because Obama drew the "red line" a year ago, and threatened military action against Syria.

So in 24 hours an off-hand phrase was picked up by Putin, became a Kerry Proposal and ultimately the Obama Peace plan, proving once again the Washington dictum that "success has many fathers."

The fact is Obama seemed headed for an attack on Syria that no one wanted and few thought would succeed. Most thought it would only end in disaster, either with the U.S. drawn into an attack/retaliation cycle of escalation that could go on for years and spread into a regional war, or result in the overthrow of President Assad by an Al Qaeda affiliated rebels.

While the Russians may have toyed with the idea of letting American get bogged down in yet another losing Middle East war, they didn’t want to risk a war that might pull them in, or lose control of the Assad government to radical Sunni jihadists.

So Putin stepped in and threw Obama a lifeline.

For a few hours it seemed Obama might not grab at it. But he has, and will no doubt claim full credit for it being his idea all along.

The Washington press corps will no doubt believe him, as usual, and lavish their usual praise.

But the world knows that Vladimir Putin is the one who really deserves that Nobel Peace Prize.

It turns out that leading from behind left a big opening up front. Putin stepped right in. And Obama still hasn't figured it out.

Kathleen Troia "K.T." McFarland is a Fox News National Security Analyst and host of FoxNews.com's "DefCon 3." She served in national security posts in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations. She was an aide to Dr. Henry Kissinger at the White House, and in 1984 Ms. McFarland wrote Secretary of Defense Weinberger's groundbreaking "Principles of War " speech. She received the Defense Department's highest civilian award for her work in the Reagan administration.

[RamaY]

What will be the impact of Syria de-escalation on KSA and Turkey? Would we see any Burkha-revolutions?

[vishvak]

If Prez of USA can be given peace prize why not Prez of Syria especially for holding minorities safe from al-mobs.

[Garooda]

Putin: Syria’s bid to join treaty banning chemical weapons proves its good faith - WaPo

It just seems too soon and unexpected as they were never a member of the CWC. Everything is happening too soon too quick. Its puzzling.

[vishvak]

The narrative seems to be focused on chem weapons instead of pillaging al-mobs.

Threat of force against Syria for chemical weapons outside UNSC v/s al-mobs support which is practically terrorism. UNSC must simultaneously take action against al-mobs for peace.

[Satya_anveshi]

US media tends to be personality specific they will make Putin a hero today and demon tomorrow.

If the peace deal on Syria comes through it will be a collective victory for UN , Syria , US and Russia.

Putin is not going to cry if he gets Noble or not , Obama got Noble for doing nothing at all

Better give Noble to Assad

+1. Imagine that proposal comes from Putin himself

[Austin]

If Prez of USA can be given peace prize why not Prez of Syria especially for holding minorities safe from al-mobs.

Coz Prez of USA and USA itself is Exceptional

[ramana]

The narrative seems to be focused on chem weapons instead of pillaging al-mobs.

Threat of force against Syria for chemical weapons outside UNSC v/s al-mobs support which is practically terrorism. UNSC must simultaneously take action against al-mobs for peace.

A true example of cognitive dissonance that distracted the US govt.

Syrian CW wouldn't deter a US attack but the possession caused a pause.

RamaY, Every action has a reaction. The jihadis will turn back on their sponsors for not carrying thru the plan to give them a victory.

Look at the rebels attack on PRC!

Next it will be Erdogan and KSA and Gelf.

[habal]

this may be what actually distracted US attack .. persistent Russian stonewalling of US trial missiles ..

So those were not so experimental ABM test-fire after all !

Russia had shot down two missiles fired from Spain, and perhaps some others too over Jordan.

http://aangirfan.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09 ... fired.html

On 3 September 2013, the USA fired two missiles 'in the direction of Damascus'.

The missiles were reportedly fired from Spain.

Reportedly, Russia shot down the missiles, went on war alert and sent a stiff warning to US intelligence.

The UK House of Commons fairly swiftly voted against war.

http://presidentialfield.com/truth-us-r ... frontation

A well informed diplomatic source told As-Safir newspaper that “the US war on Syria had started and ended the moment those two ballistic missiles were fired, leaving inconsistent information, as Israel denied and Russia confirmed, until an Israeli statement was issued indicating they were fired in the context of an Israeli-US joint drill and fell in the sea, and that they were not related to the Syrian crisis.”

The source further told the Lebanese daily that “the US forces fired these two rockets from a NATO base in Spain, and were instantly detected by the Russian radars and confronted by the Russian defense systems, so one of them exploded in the airspace and the second one diverted towards the sea.”

In this context, the source pointed out that “the statement issued by the Russian Defense Ministry, which stated the detection of two ballistic missiles fired towards the Middle East, intended to neglect two points: the first was the location from which the two rockets were fired, and the second was their downing. Why? Because the moment the full military operation was launched, Head of the Russian Intelligence Service contacted the US intelligence and informed it that “hitting Damascus means hitting Moscow, and we have removed the term “downed the two missiles” from the statement to preserve the bilateral relations and to avoid escalation. Therefore, you must immediately reconsider your policies, approaches and intentions on the Syrian crisis, as you must be certain that you cannot eliminate our presence in the Mediterranean.”

Obama Lied-Russia Shot Down 2 US Missiles Fired From Spain.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxEjah7X0sg

[Garooda]

Interesting Take on the Syria Situation based on what it is at the moment along with intuitions, general consensus along with a bit of logic based on strategic and national interests that any armed nation would practice.

Diplomatic Solutions...Will it work?

10 Reasons Why A Diplomatic Solution To The Syria Crisis Is Extremely Unlikely
Over the past few days, there has been a tremendous wave of optimism that it may be possible for war with Syria to be averted. Unfortunately, it appears that a diplomatic solution to the crisis in Syria is extremely unlikely. Assad is certainly willing to give up his chemical weapons, but he wants the U.S. to accept a bunch of concessions that it will never agree to. And it certainly sounds like the Obama administration has already decided that “diplomacy” is going to fail, and they continue to position military assets for the upcoming conflict with Syria.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are all going to continue to heavily pressure the Obama administration. They have invested a huge amount of time and resources into the conflict in Syria, and they desperately want the U.S. military to intervene.

Fortunately, overwhelming domestic and global opposition to an attack on Syria has slowed down the march toward war for the moment, but unfortunately that probably will not be enough to stop it completely. The following are ten reasons why war is almost certainly coming…

#1 Assad wants a guarantee that he will not be attacked by the United States or by anyone else before he will give up his chemical weapons.

That is extremely unlikely to happen.

#2 Assad is not going to agree to any chemical weapons deal unless the U.S. stops giving weapons to al-Qaeda terrorists and other jihadist rebels that are fighting against the Syrian government.
That is extremely unlikely to happen.

In fact, according to the Washington Post, the U.S. has been ramping up the delivery of weapons to jihadist rebels in Syria…

The CIA has begun delivering weapons to rebels in Syria, ending months of delay in lethal aid that had been promised by the Obama administration, according to U.S. officials and Syrian figures. The shipments began streaming into the country over the past two weeks, along with separate deliveries by the State Department of vehicles and other gear — a flow of material that marks a major escalation of the U.S. role in Syria’s civil war.

#3 Assad is suggesting that the Israelis should give up their weapons of mass destruction.
That is extremely unlikely to happen.

#4 The Syrian “rebels” desperately want the U.S. military to intervene in the war in Syria. In fact, that was the entire reason for the false flag chemical weapon attack in the first place.
The “top rebel commander” is now declaring that the Free Syrian Army “categorically rejects the Russian initiative”, and he is calling on the United States to strike the Assad regime immediately.

#5 Saudi Arabia desperately wants the U.S. military to intervene in Syria. The Saudis have spent billions of dollars to support the rebels in Syria, and they have been lobbying very hard for an attack.

#6 Qatar desperately wants the U.S. military to intervene in Syria. Qatar has also spent billions of dollars to support the rebels in Syria, and it has been reported that “Arab countries” have even offered to pay for all of the costs of a U.S. military operation that would remove Assad.

#7 Turkey has wanted a war which would remove Assad for a very long time. And CNN is reporting that Turkey has moved troops to the border with Syria in anticipation of an upcoming attack.

#8 Many members of the U.S. Congress want this war. Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham are virtually foaming at the mouth, and Robert Menendez, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that he “almost wanted to vomit” after reading Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plea for peace in the New York Times.

#9 Obama does not want to look weak, and he seems absolutely obsessed with starting a war with Syria. For the moment, he has been backed into a corner diplomatically by Russia, but the Obama administration is already laying the groundwork for making it look like “diplomacy has failed”. According to CNN, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is already talking about the “consequences” that will happen when the Syria deal falls apart…

Any agreement reached must be “comprehensive,” “verifiable,” “credible” and “able to be implemented in a timely fashion,” Kerry said, adding that “there ought to be consequences if it doesn’t take place.”

#10 There have been reports that U.S. soldiers are now receiving orders to deploy to Syria. For example, the following is from a recent article by Paul Joseph Watson…

Venture capitalist Dan Bubalo claims he was told by a source close to Ft. Hood that US troops have been ordered to deploy to Syria.
Writing for conservative columnist Mychal Massie’s website, Bubalo cites a “close and verifiable source” who told him that a friend at Ft. Hood had received news that he was to be sent to Egypt for the next nine months.
“This particular soldier said that while he was not really thrilled about the assignment to Egypt, it was better than the soldiers that remained at the military base BECAUSE THEY HAD JUST RECEIVED THEIR DEPLOYMENT ORDERS TO GO TO SYRIA,” writes Bubalo.
If you want to read the original report, you can find it right here.

For the moment, Obama and Kerry will dance around and make it look like they are considering peace. They will try to get Congress to authorize a strike “if diplomacy fails”.

But they already know that diplomacy is going to fail. Once they are ready, Obama will declare that the conditions for war set forth in the congressional authorization have been fulfilled and then he will start raining cruise missiles down on Syria.

And when Obama does strike Syria, he will officially be allying the United States with al-Qaeda and other radical jihadist groups.

Middle Eastern expert Jonathan Spyer has spent a lot of time on the ground among the Syrian rebels recently. The following is what he has to say about who they are…

“Undoubtedly outside of Syria, and in the Syrian opposition structures, there are civilian political activists and leaders who are opposed to al-Qaida and opposed to Islamism,” Spyer explained to TheDC in an email interview. “There are also civilian activists and structures within the country which are opposed to al-Qaida and Islamism. But when one looks at the armed rebel groups, one finds an obvious vast majority there who are adherents of Islamism of one kind or another — stretching from Muslim Brotherhood-type formations all the way across to groups openly aligned with al-Qaida central and with al-Zawahiri.”
“The ‘moderate’ force which we are told about supposedly consists of those rebel brigades aligned with the Supreme Military Command, of Major-General Salim Edriss,” he continued. ”Most of the units aligned with the SMC actually come from a 20-unit strong bloc called the Syrian Islamic Liberation Front. This includes some powerful brigades, such as Liwa al-Islam in the Damascus area, Liwa al Farouq and Liwa al Tawhid. These and the overwhelming majority of the units aligned with the SMC are Islamist formations, who adhere to a Muslim Brotherhood-type outlook.”And as NBC News recently pointed out, a high percentage of these “rebels” have come in from outside Syria…

Abu Abdul Rahman, a 22-year-old from Tunisia, sat in a safe house earlier this week in Antakya — a southern Turkey town that’s fast becoming a smugglers transit route. He was waiting for a smuggler to take him across the border to fight in Syria. “Almighty Allah has made Jihad a duty on us. When our Muslim brethren are oppressed, it is a duty to support them wherever they are, because Muslims are not separated by countries,” he said.
Abdul Rahman is one of thousands of al-Qaeda volunteers who are flocking to Syria to join what they see as a battle to defend Muslims no one is bothering to help.
“This was a dream for me, to wage jihad for Allah’s sake, because this is one of the greatest deeds in Islam, to lift aggression off my brothers, to bleed for Allah and no other,” he said.
Is this really who Obama intends for us to become “allies” with?

Is he insane?

In article after article, I have documented how Obama’s Syrian rebels have been ruthlessly murdering Christians, using chemical weapons and dismembering little girls.

Today, I found an account from a Time Magazine reporter that chillingly describes the brutality of these fanatics…

I don’t know how old the victim was but he was young. He was forced to his knees. The rebels around him read out his crimes from a sheet of paper. They stood around him. The young man was on his knees on the ground, his hands tied. He seemed frozen.
Two rebels whispered something into his ear and the young man replied in an innocent and sad manner, but I couldn’t understand what he said because I don’t speak Arabic.
At the moment of execution the rebels grasped his throat. The young man put up a struggle. Three or four rebels pinned him down. The man tried to protect his throat with his hands, which were still tied together. He tried to resist but they were stronger than he was and they cut his throat. They raised his head into the air. People waved their guns and cheered. Everyone was happy that the execution had gone ahead.
Should the U.S. military be used to help those jihadist thugs take control of Syria?

If Obama gets us into this war, it has the potential to spin totally out of control very rapidly.

Let us hope and pray that it does not happen. Because if we do go to war in Syria, it could ultimately lead us down the road to World War III.

This article first appeared here at the American Dream. Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog. Follow him on Twitter.

[ramana]

Need to balance with what US assets are there in Spain?
Such a missile would fall under the IRBM treaty which eliminated them in mid 80s!

Garooda, Most likely Russia will have to station their troops in Syria as guarantees to the Syrian CW elimination.

[habal]

They had rotated Marines from Fort Hood posted in Egyptian Sinai to Syria recently. They were told that they would be deployed in Syria. And those marines at Fort Hood were rotated to Egyptian Sinai. So Americans had indeed made full-fledged preparation for war.

[vishvak]

Is there any international law -explicit- against countries bankrolling wars? Use of force is allowed only under UNSC or for self-defense if I remember correctly.

[Garooda]

this may be what actually distracted US attack .. persistent Russian stonewalling of US trial missiles ..

So those were not so experimental ABM test-fire after all !

Russia had shot down two missiles fired from Spain, and perhaps some others too over Jordan.

http://aangirfan.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09 ... fired.html

On 3 September 2013, the USA fired two missiles 'in the direction of Damascus'.

The missiles were reportedly fired from Spain.

Reportedly, Russia shot down the missiles, went on war alert and sent a stiff warning to US intelligence.

The UK House of Commons fairly swiftly voted against war.

http://presidentialfield.com/truth-us-r ... frontation

A well informed diplomatic source told As-Safir newspaper that “the US war on Syria had started and ended the moment those two ballistic missiles were fired, leaving inconsistent information, as Israel denied and Russia confirmed, until an Israeli statement was issued indicating they were fired in the context of an Israeli-US joint drill and fell in the sea, and that they were not related to the Syrian crisis.”

The source further told the Lebanese daily that “the US forces fired these two rockets from a NATO base in Spain, and were instantly detected by the Russian radars and confronted by the Russian defense systems, so one of them exploded in the airspace and the second one diverted towards the sea.”

In this context, the source pointed out that “the statement issued by the Russian Defense Ministry, which stated the detection of two ballistic missiles fired towards the Middle East, intended to neglect two points: the first was the location from which the two rockets were fired, and the second was their downing. Why? Because the moment the full military operation was launched, Head of the Russian Intelligence Service contacted the US intelligence and informed it that “hitting Damascus means hitting Moscow, and we have removed the term “downed the two missiles” from the statement to preserve the bilateral relations and to avoid escalation. Therefore, you must immediately reconsider your policies, approaches and intentions on the Syrian crisis, as you must be certain that you cannot eliminate our presence in the Mediterranean.”

Obama Lied-Russia Shot Down 2 US Missiles Fired From Spain.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxEjah7X0sg

Sounds like a conspiracy theory to me. First of all there are no ballistic missiles stationed in Spain from US. Ones that were fired were from F15I were missile simulators. As per few other links out on google, the simulator missiles were pre-programmed to crash into the ocean. And why just use 2 missiles to start a war with Syria? Hmmmm. The USN has plenty of assets much closer to Syria. Why launch something all the way from spain?

[Lilo]

...The UK House of Commons fairly swiftly voted against war....

Looks like Sanku ji is right. The perfidious Albion was well deterred by the Bear.
Some people were however attributing it to the (myth of )"democratic" decision making in Briturd land.

Shows that when it comes to such major criminal matters there is never any democracy in such places.
Its all Maya of deep state onree.

House of commons vote was on 29th and missile launch news was given out by Russians on 2nd. Near by dates show possibility of military maneuvers behind the scenes influencing the vote. At that time itself, such an announcement by Russians of detecting supposedly fighter launched missiles was odd to say the least.

[Garooda]

Need to balance with what US assets are there in Spain?
Such a missile would fall under the IRBM treaty which eliminated them in mid 80s!
Garooda, Most likely Russia will have to station their troops in Syria as guarantees to the Syrian CW elimination.

Exactly and why would they launch 2 missiles all the way from spain to start a major war knowing very well about the syrian and its allies defenses? There is USAF and USN bases in spain. However it just doesn't make sense to use 2 missiles to start a war from that far with Syria when you have 5 Arleigh Burke destroyers with 56 tomohawk missiles each along with SSN in the much closer surrounding waters off syria
Military_Bases_Dot_Com
Moron Air Base and Naval Station Rota.