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Page added on June 14, 2013
US “Finds” Chemical Weapon Use Against Syrian Rebels; Military Proposes Arming Rebels, No-Fly Zone
The “red-line” has been crossed. The New York Times is reporting that:
- U.S. CONCLUDES SYRIA USED CHEMICAL WEAPONS AGAINST REBELS: NYT, and
- NYT SAYS EUROPEAN OFFICIALS REACH SAME CONCLUSION ON SYRIA
- MCCAIN SAYS U.S. TO PROVIDE WEAPONS TO SYRIAN REBELS
And alongside that finding, as part of (or justification for?) the arming of the Syrian rebels, the WSJ reports that the US Military is calling for a limited no-fly zone inside Syria. The seriousness of this escalation must be put in the context of a desperately-needed distraction for the current administration – which makes the decisions being made even more concerning in their potential for extremes.
American and European intelligence analysts now believe that President Bashar al-Assad’s troops have used chemical weapons against rebel forces in the civil war there, an assessment that will put added pressure on a deeply divided Obama administration to develop a response to a provocation that the president himself has declared a “red line.”
According to an internal memorandum circulating inside the government on Thursday, the “intelligence community assesses that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year.”
…
“Our intelligence community has high confidence in that assessment given multiple, independent streams of information,” the memorandum said.
…
According to a C.I.A. report, which was described by an American official who declined to be identified, the United States has acquired blood, urine and hair samples from two Syrian rebels — one dead, and one wounded — who were involved in a firefight with Syrian government forces in mid-March near the town of Utubya, northeast of Damascus.
The samples showed that the rebels were exposed to sarin and supports the conclusion that the regime has used the weapon.
In recent days, the British and French government have also asserted that there is evidence that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons.
A U.S. military proposal for arming Syrian rebels also calls for a limited no-fly zone inside Syria that would be enforced from Jordanian territory to protect Syrian refugees and rebels who would train there, according to U.S. officials.
Asked by the White House to develop options for Syria, military planners have said that creating an area to train and equip rebel forces would require keeping Syrian aircraft well away from the Jordanian border.
To do that, the military envisages creating a no-fly zone stretching up to 25 miles into Syria which would be enforced using aircraft flown from Jordanian bases and flying inside the kingdom, according to U.S. officials.
Watch John McCain and Lindsey Graham pat themselves on the back for just escalating Europe’s crusade to get a Qatar natgas pipeline through a US-friendly Syria regime live on C-Span, at the expense of countless lives as mere “collateral damage.”
We eagerly look forward to the Russian (and Chinese) re-escalation. Things just got real and are going to move quickly from here on out.
And for those who are still confused…
13 Comments on "US “Finds” Chemical Weapon Use Against Syrian Rebels; Military Proposes Arming Rebels, No-Fly Zone"
Newfie on Fri, 14th Jun 2013 1:05 am
America arms the rebels and Russia arms the government thereby starting a proxy war between them.
GregT on Fri, 14th Jun 2013 1:52 am
How much longer will the ‘Dome On The Rock’ be allowed to stand?
dissident on Fri, 14th Jun 2013 1:58 am
The FSA, including the Al Qaeda aligned Salafi jihadis coming from across the middle east, is losing so the USA is rushing to save it. This chemical weapons BS is more inane than the WMD crap fed the world in 2003 to justify the Iraq invasion.
Will the world swallow such ridiculous lies again?
Dmyers on Fri, 14th Jun 2013 2:30 am
I couldn’t watch the video. It’s been a hard day already.
Oh, boy! A chance to intervene militarily again!
This is just the latest “…they’re taking babies out of incubators and throwing them on the floor!” routine.
Ain’t nobody gonna take a baby out of an incubator and ain’t nobody gonna use no chemical weapons on a bunch o’ good rebels, without somebody’s ass gittin’ kicked.
That’s how these things seem to work. I wish we could all function on a higher level than that.
dave thompson on Fri, 14th Jun 2013 3:05 am
It seems the US government/military industrial complex is hell bent to keep the machine of war steamrolling over the middle east. The bankers that own everything have to keep the bottom line in tip top shape in so doing………
BillT on Fri, 14th Jun 2013 4:14 am
You cannot sell weapons with out a war to consume them. People do not count. We are expendable. The elite would kill off 6 billion of us tomorrow and never look back. The top 1/100% (about 700,000) are the rich bastards behind the world’s problems. You and I are dust beneath their feet.
Arthur on Fri, 14th Jun 2013 8:30 am
There we go again… remember the uranium yellow cake from the N-country? Same story, same tired old lies. A military industrial complex that knows no better to do than wage war in all directions, all under the familiar ‘humanitarian’ pretext of a regime that is walking on it’s last legs and probably has no other means than attempt the flight forward from a financial mess, to create an excuse and blame foreigners for an impending financial armageddon at home. And the NSA will deliver info-profiles of all potential opponents in a detail the KGB could only dream of. The US cannot afford another Iraq style invasion, that again would succeed initially, Assad would be toppled without much trouble, but then the nightmare begins. Jihadists from all over the islamic world (2+ billion) will smell their chance to travel to the Syrian killing fields and start hunting down Americans. Like in Iraq, in the end, the Americans will be trapped in some compound, and the American taxpayer will bleed dead. And this time China and Russia will be more than happy to deliver all the weapons the jihadists would want and organize the downfall of Anglosphere by proxy in the very same location where it’s rise began: the Middle-East. Syria has the potential to unleash an islamic revolution that will in the end accomplish the removal of any western presence from the ME.
http://www.worldtribune.com/2013/05/31/nato-data-assad-winning-the-war-for-syrians-hearts-and-minds/
“The data, relayed to NATO over the last month, asserted that 70 percent
of Syrians support the Assad regime. Another 20 percent were deemed neutral and the remaining 10 percent expressed support for the rebels.”
Wonderful, isn’t it, the western world and their fake ‘democracy’ motivations. Well, just like the USSR empire found it’s grave in Afghanistan, the western world with it’s unsustainable industrial society, based on eternal economic growth and fossil fuel, it’s globalism and multiculturalism, has lived beyond it’s expiration date and it will be good thing if it disappeared from ‘the page of time’. The Atlantic alliance is a setup, where the white race is being used by zionist interests to erect a global slave state that is not in the liberty interests of Europeans in Europe or North-America. Let’s celebrate it’s demise, so it can make way for something new. So mr Graham and mr McCain: do what you have to do anyway, get involved in Syria and flush America and the West through the toilet.
DC on Fri, 14th Jun 2013 8:36 am
I expect the US will attack directly, and both ‘parties’ of the US war machine will support it, like they always do. In this case however, ‘both’ US parties need the distraction badly. Spying on well, everyone is something both parties support whole-heartedly. Neither faction of the war-machine can afford to play theatre with this issue-so the plan will likely be to ramp up the war against the people of Syria to even deadlier levels..
All we can do is hope the Russians are able to install and train the crews for those AA missile batteries, and fast, they are going to be needing them soon if the spy scandal does not blow over of its own accord soon (unlikely).
There are no CW being used in Syria, well, except for the ones the US provided its proxies to use.
BillT on Fri, 14th Jun 2013 3:07 pm
Arthur, I think Denmark has a battle group in Afghanistan, or did. “…A recent survey has determined that Denmark by far has the highest count of casualties relative to population…”
So, as a member of NATO and a sucker to the Empire, you too are helping them pillage the world. If NATO just said no, the US would be castrated.
Arthur on Fri, 14th Jun 2013 4:22 pm
Bill, they do not have battle groups, but there are/were German, Dutch and other European soldiers there to help nation building and train police, but no active combat other than defense against attack. But nobody actively joined the US in Iraq, except for the British. If it were up to me, I would terminate NATO today. But nobody asks me anything in this respect 😉
Meanwhile Germany is refusing to arm the rebels. Probably only Americans, British and French are going to do that.
I do not think the US would be castrated if NATO was abolished. The castration of the US will come when the dollar will no longer be reserve currency. Today the news arrived that for the first time in US history the number of whites are declining and that now between 0-5 year old it is 50/50. And if you do not include 65+ (“useless eaters”, pardon my french), the US, before the end of the decade, will be a majority third world country. Meanwhile the countdown for the first spark in the US powder keg has began, that will come with the latest with the next major financial crisis. The Teaparty and OWS were small signs of things to come. Have a good look at Syria, because that will come to America as well, although there is good chance that the central government will be able to suppress any unrest with marshall law. I always was sceptical about the Philipines as a location to survive peakoil, but I do think that it could be a good idea to anticipate these troubles on US soil and act accordingly, either by leaving the US or relocate within the US, not for resource shortage survival but to avoid ‘civil unrest’.
Juan Pueblo on Fri, 14th Jun 2013 5:47 pm
Let the Syrians kill each other. Syria has become a failed state and will never fully recover from this tragedy.
Let’s fix our problems first, before we create new problems elsewhere.
Arthur on Fri, 14th Jun 2013 5:53 pm
About the chemical weapons claims:
http://www.infowars.com/man-behind-syrian-chemical-weapons-claim-is-fiction-writer-who-covered-up-benghazi/
DC on Fri, 14th Jun 2013 7:11 pm
Uh, Juan, Syrians wouldnt be dieing now if not for your US corporate overlords waging a bloody war against one of the few remaining secular, moderate nations left in the ME. The idea that Syrians up and suddenly decided to start killing one another for no particular reason, is false. The US funds, trains, transports, and has directed this mass murder in Syria since day one. The idea that the US should fix ‘its’ problems first is ludicrous on its face. The US has no intention of fixing problems it itself, deliberately sets out to create.
The only ‘solutions’ on the table, are the ones that end up with increased US control and more wealth and power flowing upwards to the 1%.