I'm Disappointed in the Brits

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South Pender
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The British House of Commons voted down a proposal, pushed hard by Prime Minister David Cameron, to help the US in making Bashar al-Assad pay for his unconscionable chemical-gas attacks on civilians, many of whom were children. Once again, everyone condemns this horrible violation of international norms and agreements against weapons of mass destruction, but won't step up to the plate when action against it is needed (although France seems to be on board for assistance if needed). At this point, I'm not sure of Canada's stance beyond condemnation of the Syrian regime. For those who say, "not another Iraq," I say this is qualitatively different. There's no doubt about where the attacks (there have actually been several) came from. Pundits who, in my opinion, should know better are saying, "well, it won't affect the outcome of the civil war in Syria," missing the point altogether. A tough response might not speed up regime change in Syria, but, if the US doesn't respond, what's to keep these god-awful attacks from becoming more frequent, reaching the point of becoming the "new normal." Shame on the Brits. I'd have thought that their experience in the 1930s of shying away from looming military danger would have taught them that certain things can't be tolerated. This is one of those things.
Hazmat
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You need a reality check

The rebels are responsible for the chemical attacks

Perhaps you want a major conflict with the russians and the chinese?

Let's send you and your children to war
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All the evidence points to the chemical weapons coming from government-held areas in Syria and landing in predominantly-rebel held areas. There's further evidence that the rebels lack the sophistication and weaponry to deliver the poisonous gas in the precise way it was done. There are intercepted code messages of Assad government officials discussing the attack in advance as well as deliberating on how to lie low and deny responsibility after its effects. And the August 21 attack is neither the first, nor the latest, just the most devastating. This is not another Iraq, where weapons of mass destruction were suspected, but not found. The Syrian regime has used these weapons, and, if we let it go, what's next? Ignoring further gassing of innocent Syrians, including hundreds of defenseless children or, maybe, a nuclear attack from Iran? This use of weapons of mass destruction has to be nipped in the bud, or more, much worse, horrors await us.

A tough response by the US will definitely not bring on an armed conflict with either Russia or China. Russia is far weaker than it was in the Soviet Union days, and wouldn't dare get involved. They will sabre-rattle, but they are now a pretty hollow threat. The Chinese won't get involved because they have no interest whatsoever in Syria. BTW, I've now discovered Canada's response: severe condemnation, but no plans for military assistance. This is more reasonable for Canada as we lack the attack assets (mainly cruise missiles and missile-delivering ships) needed. Britain, on the other hand, has these assets, as do the French, and the latter have offered military assistance.
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Sir Purrcival
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What you are seeing is the fallout from being too eager to jump into bed with the Americans and their phantom weapons of mass destruction intelligence. Quite true that it is not Iraq but that doesn't change the fact that the Brits leaped when they shouldn't have and now are reluctant to get involved again. That is what happens though when you start following the lead of another nation. Particularly one that has a history of getting it wrong. Even the Americans are proving somewhat reluctant to get involved in a substantive way over fears from the American public that it will lead to another Iraq.

The Bush legacy is still being felt,
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Sir Purrcival wrote:What you are seeing is the fallout from being too eager to jump into bed with the Americans and their phantom weapons of mass destruction intelligence. Quite true that it is not Iraq but that doesn't change the fact that the Brits leaped when they shouldn't have and now are reluctant to get involved again. That is what happens though when you start following the lead of another nation. Particularly one that has a history of getting it wrong. Even the Americans are proving somewhat reluctant to get involved in a substantive way over fears from the American public that it will lead to another Iraq.

The Bush legacy is still being felt,
Good point, Sir P. Ironically, it's hard to imagine two guys more anti-war than Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry. I think Obama has, over and over again in the last few days, promised no "boots on the ground," and isn't even considering a no-fly zone, which he endorsed in Libya. And he has ruled out regime change as an objective. This makes the present Syrian crisis very different from Iraq, but, as you say, the shadow of Iraq does fall over the present initiative.
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Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I want to see some hard core evidence.
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jcalhoun wrote:Hey all,

I honestly think we should sell guns to both sides and make peace with the winner. Whoever replaces Assad will just turn out to be another petty despot that we'll have to bomb into submission 10, 15, 20 years down the road, so what does it matter? Let them have their fight and bleed each other dry until they come to the conclusion, independent of the rest of the world's opinion or interference, that maybe a peaceful coexistence based on compromise is the best way forward.

The English, the French, even the Yanks have had their civil wars. All were messy, and all resulted in long periods of stability afterward. They've got to figure this out for themselves, just as the Iranians, Egyptians, etc. have to. Is it sad? Damn right. But the west is too weak to just go into the world's hellholes and impose civility & civilization.

There is a reason there are no democracies and so much barbarism in the middle east; I think we have to stop kidding ourselves that we can just boot the bad guys and all good things will begin to flourish. This isn't Holland circa 1945.

Cheers,

James
All that would be true were Obama's goal regime change. It isn't, and he's made that clear. He has no heart for war and never has. There will be no American soldiers in Syria, and, very likely, no American aircraft in the skies over Syria. Obama has made it clear from Day 1 of the Syrian conflict that it will have to be settled by the Syrians.

The issue is different. There has long been almost a universal agreement (ratified by something like 198 countries and signed even by Syria) that use of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons is against international law. Does the world establish that law and then just ignore it when someone violates it? Ideally, the U.N. would level sanctions for violation of international law, but we know that the U.N. is completely ineffectual now, having long ago been co-opted by third-world states, with the Security Council basically neutered by thug states Russia and China. So international law cannot be enforced by the U.N. Unfortunately, it remains for the strong democracies to step up in situations like this.

And, by the way, there is a democracy in the Middle East: Israel. Maybe, once again we'll have to depend on the Israelis to stop this thug, al Assad, just as they did in 1981 when they put Iraq out of the nuclear-arms business with their strike on Osirak.
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Toppy Vann
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The world International Criminal Court (ICC) and other sanctions is how the thugs of this regime should be dealt with. The US have a wee bit of a problem on the ICC as they are the only major western democracy who not only didn't sign on to this court but who have treaties with over 100 other nations to make sure no American guilty of any similar crimes will be turned over these legal authorities for trial where they will be tried by western standard (high) judges and laws.

Instead of this the USA and the UK PM want to go rogue once more and use dubiously legal interpretations as the UN won't get involved. It used to be about peace keeping but for lots of reasons this is not easy and certainly not in multi-party sectarian disputes like this one.

With the state of the British economy and that of a lot of Europe in a state from underperforming to in some countries 50% of youth unemployed - they don't need another expensive conflict that creates more hatred towards them than it does good. The citizens of Syria will get hit by their attacks as welll - the only difference in being killed as collateral damage is that the intention is better.

Ironies of the game is played by the USA are long but a few of my favourites are:

1. They helped train bin Laden to fight the USSR with the Afghans. He turned on them.
2. The CIA supported Saddam's use of chemical weapons not that long before they took him out. All public and in CIA documents.
3. The weapons used to kill the US Ambassador and staff in Libya were probably from the west when they helped to topple that regime. Some militants they helped turned on them.
4. The US continues to find the tyrants and rogues who toppled the lousy but democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as they need the Suez Canal access, etc etc.
5. The USA now how have embraced the Bush - Cheney doctrine - let's get them before they get us thinking and the DEM Pres. is now no better than Bush Jr.
6. The White House independent budget office said that they put the Iraq and Afgan wars on the credit card.
7. The USA would have its leaders if they signed to to ICC up for trial for Guantanamo abuses of human rights. -holding people without trial and then just letting them go (or not).
8. Donald Rumsfeld is not supporting Obama's shot across the bow.

And what did Canada get for some $20 billion wasted in fighting there after the dithering PM Paul Martin let Gen. Hillier morph the agreed mission under PM Chretien from the hunt for bin Laden to fighting Afghans who do this stuff like some enjoy sports, the arts and going fishing. It's recreation for these guys.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internatio ... inal_Court

Pres. Clinton knew he couldn't win and even if Obama wanted to agree he can't.
Positions in the United States concerning the ICC vary widely. The Clinton Administration signed the Rome Statute in 2000, but did not submit it for Senate ratification. The Bush Administration, the US administration at the time of the ICC's founding, stated that it would not join the ICC. The Obama Administration has subsequently re-established a working relationship with the court.[3]
The International Criminal Court (commonly referred to as the ICC or ICCt)[2] is a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression (although jurisdiction for the crime of aggression[3] will not be awakened until 2017 at the earliest).[4][5]

The ICC was created by the Rome Statute which came into force on 1 July 2002.[6][7] The Court has established itself in The Hague, Netherlands, but its proceedings may take place anywhere.[8] It is intended to complement existing national judicial systems, and may only exercise its jurisdiction only when national courts are unwilling or unable to investigate or prosecute such crimes.

Currently, 122 states[9] are states parties to the Statute of the Court, including all of South America, nearly all of Europe, most of Oceania and roughly half the countries in Africa.[10] A further 31 countries,[9] including Russia, have signed but not ratified the Rome Statute.[10] The law of treaties obliges these states to refrain from “acts which would defeat the object and purpose” of the treaty until they declare they do not intend to become a party to the treaty.[11] Three of these states—Israel, Sudan and the United States—have informed the UN Secretary General that they no longer intend to become states parties and, as such, have no legal obligations arising from their former representatives' signature of the Statute.[10][12] 41 United Nations member states[9] have neither signed nor ratified or acceded to the Rome Statute; some of them, including China and India, are critical of the Court.[13][14] On 21 January 2009, the Palestinian National Authority formally accepted the jurisdiction of the Court.[15] On 3 April 2012, the ICC Prosecutor declared himself unable to determine that Palestine is a "state" for the purposes of the Rome Statute and referred such decision to the United Nations.[16] On 29 November 2012, the United Nations General Assembly voted in favor of recognizing Palestine as a non-member observer state.[17]
The ICC has been accused by many, including the African Union, for primarily targeting people from Africa; to date, most of the ICC's cases are from African countries.[18][19][20][21] Four out of eight current investigations originate, however, from the referrals of the situations to the Court by the concerned states parties themselves.[22]
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Toppy Vann wrote:The world International Criminal Court (ICC) and other sanctions is how the thugs of this regime should be dealt with.

I agree that al Assad should stand before the ICC, but the problem is that this won't happen any time soon, if at all. Let's remember how long it took the Serbian thugs Milosevic, Karadzic, and Mladic to get to the Hague. The Bosnian conflict ended in the mid 90's, yet Karadzic hasn't been sentenced yet, and Mladic's trial is just beginning. If al Assad remains in power (i.e., the regime wins), he'll never see the Hague, and he loses power, it could be years for this to occur, and more years for him to be found and eventually indicted. In the meantime, how many more innocent Syrians will be killed or horribly burned and maimed by chemical attacks if he's not made to pay now for crossing the line between conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction?
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jcalhoun wrote:The typically brilliant South Pender wrote:
The issue is different. There has long been almost a universal agreement (ratified by something like 198 countries and signed even by Syria) that use of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons is against international law. Does the world establish that law and then just ignore it when someone violates it?
In short, yes.

See, I don't think this is different. It is now becoming clear that the US knew of the chemical weapons attack three days prior to its being launched. If the mere use of chemical weapons is some sort of actual line in the sand (as opposed to Obama's pretend 'redline') then shouldn't the Americans have taken some action to prevent it? Should they not have, at the least, warned the rebels, parachuted in gas masks & mop equipment (chemical suits, etc) ? How about some stern warnings to Assad? Maybe if they'd killed some of his children in airstrikes (as the Yanks did with Gaddafi in the 80's) he'd take them seriously. But they did nothing. And they will continue to do nothing.

That tells me a couple of things. Primarily it tells me this is a sideshow, and that our elites will wring their hands and tut-tut a lot, but nothing will happen. Just like nothing happened in Rwanda, or Somalia, or (pick your atrocity).

The simple truth of the matter is that if Assad and his forces don't fight dirty, they are going to all be dragged into the streets and shot (if they're lucky). And I don't mean just him and his leaders, but the entire Alawite minority. So I don't think Assad gives two sheets about using chemical weapons; frankly, under those circumstances, neither would I. If the Israelis were on the brink, I'd expect them to use the bomb. I don't see this as especially different. Yes, yes, I know...civil war and all that jazz....

But here's the critical question: what would US cruise missile strikes accomplish after the fact? Nothing. So why blow 100 million plus? If the US levels the playing field, and the Sunnis end up slaughtering several million non-Sunnis, does the US then step in? As I said in my earlier post, it's better that we just stand back and let 'em fight it out.

Say what you like about George Bush, but I'm quite sure if his advisers told him three days in advance that Syria was going to use NBC weapons, he'd have stomped them into the ground. Obama? Frick'en amateur hour. Just like Benghazi. Just like Egypt. It's foreign relations via drone. What Obama is telegraphing to the world is that the US is weak and has no stomach for a fight on moral grounds. Kinda like Clinton with his Somalia/Bosnia 'so long as there aren't any casualties' foreign policy.

Incidentally, Foreign Policy magazine is always worth a read (if you aren't already in on it).
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts ... s_launched

Cheers,

James
Good points, James. Perhaps just a difference in philosophy between us on this. First, I don't think the cost is a big factor in this issue. Forty well-placed cruise missiles could, in my opinion, do considerable damage to regime assets and yet cost less than $50M. Second, a 3-day window, if that turns out to be the case, is nowhere near sufficient time to mobilize the resources needed to carry out what you've suggested. Third, as I have already noted, I don't think retaliation for use of chemical weapons will affect the outcome of the Syrian civil war, but no one, including Obama, believes it will. The purpose would be solely to prevent repeated similar offenses, and I think that a well-thought-out, well-executed cruise-missile strike could have that effect. Fourth, you have quite rightly noted that, regardless of how the civil war goes, tens or hundreds of thousands of innocent Syrians will die, and, if al Assad goes, the revenge on the Alawites will be brutal. But, the distinction is being made here between conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction, even though both are deadly. I think it's a distinction worth maintaining (although I sense you don't) for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is to continue to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Finally, I fear that you may be right, given Obama's behavior the last two days--i.e., that his initial (correct) impulses may be watered down to a too-limited or no real response now that he's agreed to get congressional backing. The time to strike has long passed (although a strike in the near-future is still worthwhile, in my opinion), and Obama, who does not strictly need a congressional vote, is in dithering mode. But, if the US "has no stomach for a fight on moral grounds," the Brits have even less, and that was the point in my OP.
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Sir Purrcival
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An interesting point about international law prohibiting the use of chemical weapons signed by Syria and yet they have them. Sort of tells you how much treaties are worth doesn't it.
When it comes to Bush and preemptive strikes, well you might be right but in some ways, Iraq was a preemptive action as well. At least that was how it was billed to rid the world of all the WMD's that Hussein supposedly had. That turned into a political nightmare for the US and set that country into 10 years of armed intervention at a huge cost of lives and money. The results of which are certainly not clear cut positive.

If Bush were in the White House today, under the same circumstances, I don't think he would be so quick to act as you might think for the simple reason that he wouldn't entirely be pulling the strings. He would be in his final term but you can be sure that the GOP bigwigs would already be planning for the next election. Committing the US to a military action on the basis of something that hadn't happened could and would probably be seen as a clear path to not keeping the White House given the mood of the American public. I'm sure the the Dems are having those same conversations right now. Any response they make will have to be minimal and quick. And it needs to have a rock solid reason for doing it. No vague or unclear reasoning will be sufficient. Do you think the US really needed to wait for the UN fact finders to decide whether such weapons had actually been used? They probably knew hours afterwards but they can't afford to do anything on the basis of their intelligence alone. Too close to the Iraq thing which they will try to avoid at all costs.
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President Pulls Lawmakers Into Box He Made

Obama Speaks on Syria: President Obama spoke in the Rose Garden at the White House on Saturday, saying that he would seek Congressional approval for a strike on Syria.

By MARK LANDLER, the New York Times

Published: August 31, 2013

President Obama on Saturday presented his most fervent case yet that Syria needed to be punished for a deadly chemical weapons attack.

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s aides were stunned at what their boss had to say when he summoned them to the Oval Office on Friday at 7 p.m., on the eve of what they believed could be a weekend when American missiles streaked again across the Middle East.

In a two-hour meeting of passionate, sharp debate in the Oval Office, he told them that after a frantic week in which he seemed to be rushing toward a military attack on Syria, he wanted to pull back and seek Congressional approval first.

He had several reasons, he told them, including a sense of isolation after the terrible setback in the British Parliament. But the most compelling one may have been that acting alone would undercut him if in the next three years he needed Congressional authority for his next military confrontation in the Middle East, perhaps with Iran.

If he made the decision to strike Syria without Congress now, he said, would he get Congress when he really needed it?

“He can’t make these decisions divorced from the American public and from Congress,” said a senior aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the deliberations. “Who knows what we’re going to face in the next three and a half years in the Middle East?”

The Oval Office meeting ended one of the strangest weeks of the Obama administration, in which a president who had drawn a “red line” against the use of chemical weapons, and watched Syrian military forces breach it with horrific consequences, found himself compelled to act by his own statements. But Mr. Obama, who has been reluctant for the past two years to get entangled in Syria, had qualms from the start.

Even as he steeled himself for an attack this past week, two advisers said, he nurtured doubts about the political and legal justification for action, given that the United Nations Security Council had refused to bless a military strike that he had not put before Congress. A drumbeat of lawmakers demanding a vote added to the sense that he could be out on a limb.

“I know well we are weary of war,” Mr. Obama said in the Rose Garden on Saturday. “We’ve ended one war in Iraq. We’re ending another in Afghanistan. And the American people have the good sense to know we cannot resolve the underlying conflict in Syria with our military.”

The speech, which crystallized both Mr. Obama’s outrage at the wanton use of chemical weapons and his ambivalence about military action, was a coda to a week that began the previous Saturday, when he convened a meeting of his National Security Council.

In that meeting, held in the White House Situation Room, Mr. Obama said he was devastated by the images of women and children gasping and convulsing from the effects of a poison gas attack in the suburbs of Damascus three days before. The Aug. 21 attack, which American intelligence agencies say killed more than 1,400 people, was on a far different scale than earlier, smaller chemical weapons attacks in Syria, which were marked by murky, conflicting evidence.

“I haven’t made a decision yet on military action,” he told his war council that Saturday, according to an aide. “But when I was talking about chemical weapons, this is what I was talking about.” From that moment, the White House set about formulating the strongest case for military action it could.

Last Sunday, it issued a statement dismissing the need to wait for United Nations investigators because their evidence, the statement said, had been corrupted by the relentless shelling of the sites. By Monday, Secretary of State John Kerry, who had long advocated a more aggressive policy on Syria, delivered a thunderous speech that said President Bashar al-Assad was guilty of a “moral obscenity.”

By midweek, administration officials were telling reporters that the administration would not be deterred by the lack of an imprimatur from the Security Council, where Syria’s biggest backer, Russia, holds a veto.

Yet the president’s ambivalence was palpable, and public. While Mr. Kerry made his fiery case against Mr. Assad, Mr. Obama was circumspect, sprinkling his words with caveats about the modest scale of the operation and acknowledgments of the nation’s combat fatigue.

“We don’t have good options, great options, for the region,” the president said in an interview Wednesday on PBS’s “News Hour,” before describing a “limited, tailored” operation that he said would amount to a “shot across the bow” for Mr. Assad.

White House aides were in the meantime nervously watching a drama across the Atlantic. They knew that Prime Minister David Cameron’s attempt to win the British Parliament’s authorization for action was in deep trouble, but the defeat on a preliminary motion by just 13 votes on Thursday was a jolt. Although aides said before the vote that Mr. Obama was prepared to launch a strike without waiting for a second British vote, scheduled for Tuesday, the lack of a British blessing removed another layer of legitimacy.

Mr. Obama was annoyed by what he saw as Mr. Cameron’s stumbles, reflecting a White House view that Mr. Cameron had mishandled the situation. Beyond that, Mr. Obama said little about his thinking at the time.

It was only on Friday that he told the aides, they said, about how his doubts had grown after the vote: a verdict, Mr. Obama told his staff, that convinced him it was all the more important to get Congressional ratification. After all, he told them, “we similarly have a war-weary public.”

And if the British government was unable to persuade lawmakers of the legitimacy of its plan, shouldn’t he submit it to the same litmus test in Congress, even if he had not done so in the case of Libya?

Mr. Obama’s backing of a NATO air campaign against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in 2011 had left a sour taste among many in Congress, particularly rank-and-file members. More than 140 lawmakers, Republicans and Democrats, had signed a letter demanding a vote on Syria.

Moving swiftly in Libya, aides said, was necessary to avert a slaughter of rebels in the eastern city of Benghazi. But that urgency did not exist in this case.

Indeed, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Mr. Obama that the limited strike he had in mind would be just as effective “in three weeks as in three days,” one official said.

Beyond the questions of political legitimacy, aides said, Mr. Obama told them on Friday that he was troubled that authorizing another military action over the heads of Congress would contradict the spirit of his speech last spring in which he attempted to chart a shift in the United States from the perennial war footing of the post-Sept. 11 era.

All of these issues were on Mr. Obama’s mind when he invited his chief of staff, Denis R. McDonough, for an early evening stroll on the south lawn of the White House. In the West Wing, an aide said, staff members hoped to get home early, recognizing they would spend the weekend in the office.

Forty-five minutes later, shortly before 7, Mr. Obama summoned his senior staff members to tell them that he had decided to take military action, but with a caveat.

“I have a pretty big idea I want to test with you guys,” he said to the group, which included Mr. McDonough and his deputy, Rob Nabors; the national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, and her deputies, Antony J. Blinken and Benjamin J. Rhodes; the president’s senior adviser, Dan Pfeiffer; and several legal experts to discuss the War Powers Resolution.

The resistance from the group was immediate. The political team worried that Mr. Obama could lose the vote, as Mr. Cameron did, and that it could complicate the White House’s other legislative priorities. The national security team argued that international support for an operation was unlikely to improve.

At 9 p.m., the president drew the debate to a close and telephoned Mr. Kerry and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to tell them of his plans.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/world ... wanted=all

One of the best books I have ever read is: "How We Decide," by Jonah Lehrer. Shades of meaning. Nuances. Consequences. Reactions. Knee jerk responses. Hesitation. Good decisions. Bad decisions.

I had a biker acquaintance/friend whose response to most conflicts was: "Kill 'em." LOL

No easy choices for Obama. Bring in Congress. Better to have them onboard. Less carping before he acts. Less carping after he acts.

IMO ... Delaying action is irrelevant. It can even have a positive effect. No need to try to have surprise.

If Congress approves, it looks like a limited strike will take place. Any positive effect? Will it save civilian lives? Maybe. Will it destroy chemical weapons? Maybe. Will it change any outcome in the conflict? I doubt it. Will it make more American enemies? Maybe. Will it inspire more anti-US terrorism? Maybe. Will it win any friends? I doubt it. Will it help the US image around the world? I doubt it. Will it hurt the US image around the world? Maybe. Wlll it cause war with Russia? No. Will it cause war with Iran? No.

Why do it? Sometimes, when you have power, you have to act. You cannot stand by. Sometimes.

Should he do it? ???

With great reluctance. And of course I do not have access to the information available to Obama or Cameron.
...........
"I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VII, "Letter to Albert G. Hodges" (April 4, 1864), p. 281.
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http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/20/world/mea ... ?hpt=hp_t2
Watchdog: Syria submits 'initial disclosure' of chemical weapons program

By Samira Said. Joe Sterling and Barbara Starr, CNN

Syria moving chemical weapons

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is the world's chemical arms watchdog
The normal 60-day process for declaring arms is being cut to seven days for Syria
This fast-tracking of the disclosure of chemical weapons is "irregular," an official says
Secretary of States John Kerry says: "Time is short"

(CNN) -- Syria has submitted an "initial disclosure" of its chemical weapons program, a spokesman for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said Friday.

The group -- the international chemical weapons watchdog -- is expecting the government to submit more information in the next day or two, spokesman Michael Luhan said. He did not elaborate on the contents of the disclosure.

The information submitted by Syria is now being reviewed by the OPCW's technical secretariat.

The group's executive council -- which was to meet Sunday at The Hague, Netherlands -- has postponed the meeting until sometime next week, Luhan said, because "more time is needed to prepare draft documents and draft decisions."

Could Bosnia prove a lesson on Syria?

This jibes with a timeline in the U.S.-Russian deal forged last week in Geneva, Switzerland, to begin destroying Syria's chemical arsenal. Under the Geneva framework deal, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last Saturday was to declare the weapons program in a week.

"This is irregular," Luhan said, explaining that this level of fast-tracking the disclosure of chemical weapons "has never been done before."

The normal 60-day process for declaring arms is being expedited to seven days "because of the extraordinary concern about Syria's weapons," he said.

"Until now, each country has been typical. The United States, Russia, Libya, India, none have been in a state of war or conflict," Luhan said.

Once the group has received the declaration, Luhan said, "we have to go through it in detail and plan how to conduct the on-the-ground inspection mission, to verify the accuracy of the declaration and put seals on all the materials to make sure they are secure."

A technical briefing on the Syria mission that was to have been held Monday will be rescheduled once a new date has been set for the executive council meeting.

Officials report Syria moving stockpiles

The Syrian regime is again moving around its stockpile of chemical weapons, leaving the United States trying to figure out what al-Assad will do next with his deadly arsenal, officials say.

CNN has learned that the U.S. intelligence community is closely watching the latest developments as diplomats try to form a plan for al-Assad to relinquish those stockpiles to international control.

One U.S. official with access to the latest intelligence on Syria tells CNN the regime "is actively moving its stockpiles in the last 24 hours."

The official says the latest intelligence information shows there is movement at additional sites beyond what the United States had observed in the last two weeks.

"It's continuous but still unclear what they are really doing," the official said.

Officials don't know whether the weapons are being moved to account for the stockpiles to the United Nations or to hide them.

One official confirmed the Obama administration received specific information in recent months from Russia that the chemical weapons are secure. That assessment came from communications between Moscow and Damascus.

The U.S. intelligence community also has continued to use satellite imagery, intercepts and human sources on the ground inside Syria to develop its own picture.

The United States has no reason to believe the weapons are not secure. But as CNN previously reported, there is also disagreement within the intelligence community about whether the United States knows the location of the entire stockpile.

High-stakes diplomacy playing out

The stakes over halting the Syrian civil war heightened after an August 21 chemical weapons attack outside Damascus that the U.S. estimates killed about 1,400 people.

The United States and other Western nations blame the regime for the attack. Russia and Syria say they think rebels used the weapons.

Citing international norms against the use of chemical weapons, President Barack Obama called for the authorization to use military force in Syria and wanted Congress to approve that move

As the United States threatened force to degrade al-Assad's ability to carry out more chemical weapons attacks, a diplomatic opportunity arose between Russia and the United States to put Syria's stockpile under international control.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hammered out a deal in Geneva last week compelling Syria to accept the agreement.

Speaking ahead of next week's U.N. General Assembly meeting, Kerry said Thursday that while "the complete removal of Syria's chemical weapons is possible here, through peaceful means," urgency is needed.

The U.N. Security Council must be prepared to act next week, Kerry said, citing the U.N. chemical weapons report about the attack.

While the report did not blame any side for the attack, Kerry said that it offered "crucial details," making the case implicating al-Assad "only ... more compelling." Russia called the report "distorted" and said it was based on insufficient information.

Despite the diplomacy, the United States hasn't dropped its threat of force and is wary, saying Syria could be using the diplomacy as a stalling tactic.

"Time is short. Let's not spend time debating what we already know," Kerry said.

The United Nations estimates more than 100,000 people have died since March 2011, a period in which harsh government crackdowns against protesters devolved into an all-out civil war.

Another 2 million people have fled their homeland, and more than 4.25 million have been displaced within Syria, the United Nations says.
Obama has been catching flack from both sides. "Do nothing." "Do more." "Putin is making Obama look weak."

Well, Syria is making conciliatory noises. Assad says he wecomes UN inspectors.

Progress? Well, does anyone trust Assad? Or Putin? Is Assad moving chemicals to hide them? Who knows? But no missiles have been fired. Steps seem to be underway in regard to inspections. World attention has been directed at the situation. Assad seems to acknowledge that world opinion, and threats of military strikes, matter to his regime, at least for public consumption.
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