So September 11 is also Assad's Birthday................
Samantha Power talks about Russia blocking votes in UN Security Council, conveniently leaving out our own record of blocking votes against Israel that address Palestinian issues
From @bmaz and @lou_reuters https://twitter.com/bmaz/status/376770639119409152
Here is the main link http://www.un.org/depts/dhl/resguide/scact_veto_en.shtml
Assad may not have given permission for chemical attack says German intelligence, army had been asking for permission to use chemicals for 4 months
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/08/us-syria-crisis-germany-idUSBRE98707B20130908
Syrian brigade and division commanders had been asking the Presidential Palace to allow them to use chemical weapons for the last four-and-a-half months, according to radio messages intercepted by German spies, but permission had always been denied, the paper said.
Germany's foreign intelligence agency (BND) could not be reached for comment.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel repeated in an interview with Bild am Sonntag that Germany would not take part in any military intervention but that the use of chemical weapons should not go without response.
Merkel is fighting to win a third term in a federal election in two weeks. Germans are overwhelmingly opposed to military action in Syria.
Kerry seeks Arab League Support ----oh wow he repeats ""Munich Moment"" crap in Europe
Meanwhile the BBC has learnt that the UK government has sent chemical protection suits to some members of the opposition forces in Syria this week, as it continues to give technical and non-lethal aid to members of the Syrian national coalition.The G20 summit in Russia last week failed to produce international agreement, with US President Barack Obama at odds with Russia's President Vladimir Putin, who blames the gas attack on rebels.
Both Russia and China, which have refused to agree to a UN Security Council resolution against Syria, insist any military action without the UN would be illegal.
Many remain concerned that military action could draw the US into a prolonged war and spark broader hostilities in the region.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/09/07/heres-michele-bachmann-thanking-the-egyptian-military-for-the-coup-and-crackdowns/
My comments on this bizarre video
http://libdem2.blogspot.com/2013/09/video-bachmann-king-and-gohmert-in-egypt.html
Manning and Wikileaks are still influencing debate on war, NYT cites leaked cables in articles
https://twitter.com/GregMitch/status/376693905271447552
Syria’s top leaders amassed one of the world’s largest stockpiles of chemical weapons with help from the Soviet Union and Iran, as well as Western European suppliers and even a handful of American companies, according to American diplomatic cables and declassified intelligence records.
The growth of Syria’s ability was the subject of a sharply worded secret cable transmitted by the State Department under Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s name in the fall of 2009. It instructed diplomats to “emphasize that failure to halt the flow” of chemicals and equipment into Syria, Iran and North Korea could render irrelevant a group of antiproliferation countries that organized to stop that flow.
The cable was included in a trove of State Department messages leaked to WikiLeaks in 2010.
Charles Lister
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/09/06/a-terrorism-experts-twitter-rant-about-how-we-get-syrian-rebels-all-wrong/?Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/09/06/you_got_a_better_idea
Surely they don't think, "Let those crazy Muslims kill each other," or "It's none of our business." That would be callous. It would be un-American.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says that "we should avoid further militarization of the conflict, revitalize the search for a political settlement." The International Crisis Group has echoed this sentiment, as has Alex de Waal, the Africa scholar who now runs the World Peace Foundation at Tufts.
Military action may kill chance for diplomacy-------Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, has said that a U.S. strike would "put the planned Geneva-2" peace conference "a long way back or even kill it altogether."
there is a widespread belief here that if America is allowed to settle every conflict by intervening in other countries, sooner or later it will come to Russia. This is a very, very deep belief."
Senate resolution states ""It is the policy of the United States to change the momentum on the battlefield in Syria so as to create favorable conditions for a negotiated settlement that ends the conflict...""
But maybe the resolution is self-defeating: since no political settlement in Syria is even imaginable unless Russia puts pressure on the Assad regime to compromise with the rebels, bombing Syria may not hasten a political settlement but rather make it unattainable.
So why is Obama bombing instead of talking? Has America's arch-diplomat lost faith in diplomacy, as Vali Nasr charges in Dispensable Nation?
There is, however, a harder question for those of us who believe that the United States should mount a campaign to not just cripple Syria's ability to use chemical weapons but to reduce its capacity to kill its citizens through conventional means, as well. The ultimate goal of such an effort would be both to protect Syrians and to force Assad to negotiate. This is what Kerry means when he talks about changing Assad's "calculus," and it is the principle which Sen. John McCain has embedded in the Senate resolution, which also speaks of aiding the Syrian political and military opposition.
All choices in Syria are not simply bad but discreditable; that's why doing nothing seems so appealing. Those of us who advocate doing something are all left with our possibly delusory hopes. Perhaps the best answer is to try everything: degrading the regime's capacity and enhancing the rebels', talking to Russia and Iran, even shaming the government, as Thomas Friedman suggests.
Senate ""secret video evidence"" of Ghouta chemical attack is from youtube
http://www.redflagnews.com/headlines/13-graphic-videos-released-by-us-senate-committee-this-is-what-senators-saw-after-chemical-weapons-use-in-syria
Each of these 13 videos explicitly claim to show victims of a chemical or poison gas attack. At the request of Chairman Feinstein, these videos were selected by the Open Source Center to depict a representative range of YouTube content posted regarding the reported 21 August chemical weapons (CW) attacks in the suburbs of Damascus, Syria. All of the videos were posted on YouTube by pro-Syrian opposition users. With one exception, all 13 videos were posted by a pro-opposition Internet news channel that consistently posts user-created videos concerning the Syrian conflict. The news channel does not primarily generate content, but instead re-posts content originally posted by others.
The integrated video link
http://www.senate.gov/isvp/?type=arch&comm=intel&filename=intel090613
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