Joe,
thnx for acknowledging that there is still an open question about who did this.
But it is no longer "one or the other."
As presented here, there are at least 3 different parties who had motive, opportunity and means to conduct the 21 August chem weapon attacks. We are setting rebel against rebel.
-
Here Dr Cole is introducing the idea that we are now creating "good" rebels to take the place of the Frankenstein "bad" rebels we organized 3 years ago, but now disown.
That raises the possibility that the chem weapon strikes were perpetrated by our former Frankenstein rebels against our Sons of Syria rebels.
-
By the way, our initial "Free Syrian Army" that Eric Prince put together 3 years ago,
with CIA/MOSSAD funding and leadership,
consisting of non-Syrian takfiri Mercenaries,
trained at the very same facilities in Jordan that the new "good" rebels are training at,
these guys don't need our money, C4ISR or Intel anymore.
They get all they need from Qatar, Turkey and elsewhere.
Not only are we not going to send the FSA the weapons we promised, but we are cutting them off from all support.
Since the first set of "rebels" we fabricated turned out to put their own interests ahead of the CIA's, we are fabricating a new set worthy of our support - until they get their feet on the ground and also turn against us.
This "proxy war" stuff is more complicated than 40 years ago.
If it is a "well known fact" that the Syrian government perpetrated that 21 August attack, wouldn't there be some evidence ?
As WH Chief of Staff McDonough answered on the Sunday morning talk shows,
"I believe it, so you can just trust me;"
and
"This isn't a court of law. I don't have to prove anything. The President said so, so you should just accept whatever we decide."
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I just watched WH Chief of Staff McDonough on CNN. He was speaking directly to you and me, Henry James.
If I understood him correctly, he said that the WH has already proven their case against Assad, and they don't need evidence. "This isn't a court of law," one quote.
He gave some "circumstantial evidence" about why it makes sense to him that it was Assad behind the attacks, and told me that if he was convinced, that should be good enough for me. I should trust him to make this decision for me.
What he wouldn't address was the "intercepted phone call."
Maybe the Obama Team realized that we Americans aren't quite as gullible as they had first assumed.
-
I don't think the USA would agree with you about there being this huge difference between killing civilians with artillery fire or aerial bomardment, on the one hand, and killing them with chem weapons on the other.
I live 40 miles from a US military stockpile of 800,000 rounds of artillery that are loaded with mustard gas.
The USA has more chem weapons than any other country.
If Americans really considered chem weapons so horrible, maybe we wouldn't have been one of the last nations to agree to the Chem Weapons Conventtion. But we were.
Cluster munitions are more horrible than poison gas, because they mostly kill children. The USA is the #1 manufacturer of cluster bombs, so we don't agree to the treaty banning cluster bombs that almost the rest of the world has agreed to.
Small arms (handguns and rifles) kill way more innocent civilians than any other type of military weapon. The rest of the world has a treaty on banning these weapons, but the USA won't sign on, because we are the largesty or one of the largest manufacturers.
Same story on landmines.
Chem weapons are scary, no denying it. But a victim of poison gas is no more dead than a gunshot victim. The pain of death by Sarin has not been shown to be any more excruciating than death by artillery fire.
Maybe the larger point is that killing civilians, by any method, is bad.
If that is stipulated, then the Syrian invasion is immoral.
Joe from Lowell said above:
"... this President spent two years pushing back against intervention in Syria before the chemical warfare massacre."
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
That is what most folks seem to think.
As a reliable T-Party crackpot conspiracy theorist, I don't believe it.
I believe that the USA has been helping organize and fund the recruitment, training, payroll and operations of the so-called "Free Syrian Army" since late 2010.
I believe they have training and support facilities in Jordan and Turkey.
I believe our CIA actually exercises more control over the FSA and Mercenary rebels in general than the umbrella group the CIA set up, or andy al-Qaeda-ish high command. Writing pay checks can do that.
I believe MOSSAD is a full partner in these endeavors.
'''''''
My sources for this nonsense, besides an overactive imagination ?
RT, Press TV and such. Propaganda organs.
Much like the US MSM.
.
I didn't read the actual statement.
Did it say anything about horrific violations of international norms against torture or indefinite detention ?
Did it mention International norms in the form of treaties against cluster bombs, which are more hazardous to civilians than chem weapons ?
Or international norms against proliferation of small arms ? (another international treaty the US hasn't yet signed.)
The norms associated with the international treaty banning landmines ?
................
What I see from this isolated corner is a whole slew of international norms that are flouted by the USA.
.
Do you realize when the USA signed and ratified the Chem Weapons Convention ? I know pretty specifically, because OPCW flew me to Den Haag for an interview, anticipating the US joining the civilized world on the issue of chem weapons, and I might have been hired if the US became a signatory. It wasn't very long ago that the USA developed a conscience on this matter, and we joined OPCW not primarily because we opposed this category of weapons, but for other unrelated political considerations.
See how the USA is somewhat isolated from the rest of the industrialized world on far more weapons issues than Syria, or even North Korea ?
Our real connection to civilized values, and arenas in which we provide true leadership, is not in the realm of weapons and military might. It is in science, culture, trade, and human rights.
.
What do you think the message of Jesus Christ says to the USA today:
"Go kill more Muslim children, to avenge the deaths of Muslim children ?"
Note that, as of 5 p.m.GMT, Thursday, 5 September, no actual evidence has been put forth by the US Govt of Syria's role in the 21 August chem weapon attack.
Secretary Kerry "feels pretty sure" that al-Assad did it, based on a very suspicious recording.
The comparison to Yemen is a stretch.
Ali Abdullah Saleh was by 2011 dependent on CIA support for keeping his grip on power.
The CIA gave him hundreds of millions of $$ to fight al-Qaeda in Yemen, and he pretended to do that.
When US support was withdrawn, he had no choice but to step down.
The USA has no such influence in Syria.
Another key difference:
in Yemen, the civil war and aftermath were all domestic.
In Syria, the "civil war" was instigated by the US and Israel.
Our CIA, NSC, DOS and WH are run by foreign policy amateurs.
"... contradicted by French, British, US and Israeli intelligence ..."
Dr. Cole,
the case depends entirely on Israeli intelligence.
France, Britain and the US get their intel in the region from Israel.
-
The phony "intercepted phone call" was produced by Israeli Intelligence.
.
Gary,
what you hope for, I don't think its even possible.
There is no weapon in the US arsenal that I am aware of that can:
"make it more painful to the regime in losses than anything gained by using poison gas."
That's even assuming that the régime even used poison gas, which is not yet a given.
Any attack, including precision surgical strikes on régime military targets, will mostly kill the same folks who do most of the dying in all wars, innocent civilians. In Syria, as in other wars, they are killed by both (all) sides.
And if we did manage to kill al-Assad, and destroy the régime, as many seem to wish, the carnage will get much worse.
What happens in civil wars when the US enters on the weaker side ? Look to the Hindu Kush.
-----
There is no doubt in my mind where AIPAC stands on this.
They stand in solidarity with the Likud government of Israel.
And I have no doubt that Israeli military and intelligence services are trying to gin up a war to turn Syria into a wasteland, at the behest of that same Likud government.
-
Besides the costs to our reputation and national security,
the missile strike that Obama just delayed is gonna cost in the ballpark of $200 Million.
For that kind of money,
the US taxpayer could furnish 10 million $200 gas masks to the Syrian people. That's enough to give one to half of the population, which would cover all Syrians in the 7 largest cities.
The US taxpayer has already provided about 2 1/2 gas masks for each Israeli.
IIRC,
The UN / OPCW team is only looking into the type(s) of chem weapons used.
AFAIK, the only sources at this time on who employed these weapons are:
*** US (NRO) Photo / Image analysis concerning movement of units and equipment;
*** Opposition / rebel reports on missles found and mortar bombardments; and
*** MOSSAD input on intercepted phone calls.
Whenever a source of "intelligence" has such a clear interest in what we do with the intel they sell us, we should exercise some skepticism.
If it could be taken at face value, this assortment of "intel" would be overwhelming. See, e.g., Secretary Kerry. But it can't.
For $76 Billion a year, the US IC ought to have some actual spies in key countries, and not be totally reliant on partners with an axe to grind.
I just read a CBS News report that Senator John McCain is in such close contact with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that he can report that al-Assad is "euphoric."
Seems dubitable to me, that McCain is calling for al-Assad's murder at the same time that they are BFF.
Like the bologna about mixing Sarin into crowd control munitions like tear gas, consider the source. And I don't mean CBS.
Consider the source of McCain's news. Hint: it ain't the CIA. A US Senator is willingly allowing himself to be manipulated by a foreign, frequently hostile intelligence agency.
You can call it a clever political calculation; I call it leadership.
I'm T-Party, anti-Obama on most everything else, but this is the first time I've felt like saluting the guy.
Even if Congress says no and he attacks anyways, I like that he's insisting that he be held accountable.
Rare in any President.
when you suggest an arms embargo,
are you thinking of applying it to all sides of the conflict, or just the one being caricatured by the Obama Administration ?
I suspect that the UN General Assembly is more concerned about the US flouting international conventions on land mines, small arms and cluster bombs, than they are about Syria's 40-year-old inventory of poison gases.
It would be unwise for Obama to take his shaky case to them, to the US Congress, or to any other bellweather of public sentiment, unless he wants to be reined in so he has an excuse for not acting unwisely.
This rejection of US hegemony by the British people could be a watershed moment.
Aware of CIA instigation of the violence in Syria 2 years ago, through the likes of Eric Prince, I doubt that there is any good case to be made by any of the perpetrators - Obama, Donlin, Panetta or Clinton - for making war on Asad.
Assad is bad; having been point man on an overture in 2003 to loosen up Syrian civil society, I appreciate that more than most. In 2000, he could have been a bold leader and established a new order; instead, he let his father's henchmen like al-Sharaa run the show.
But in these last 2 years, the USA has done more harm to the Syrian people than the al-Assad government, and they know it. The FSA, a non-Syrian Mercenary force of salafist takfiris, is our Frankenstein.
The Chem Weapons meme is as phony as that "intercepted" phone call. Obama should drop it.
If Obama wants Syrian society and culture destroyed, he should find someone else to lead the effort. Greece and Portugal might be suceptible to bribes.
Sorry it took so long, but here's a former MOSSAD officer saying that US officials didn't collect this phone call, Israelis did.
The Cable article clearly says that US Intel officlals "overheard" the phone call, implying that the US IC collected it.
Why would a site like Foreign Policy lie about who was the source ?
"Jordanian-trained" is not accurate; they weren't trained by Jordan.
Jordan is trying to stay neutral, and the US State Department blackmailed/ extorted King Hassan into allowing the FSA training camps, C4ISR and Logistics base to operate from Jordanian territory.
-
These forces, the Eric Prince-assembled "Free Syrian Army," is trained IN Jordan, but BY the CIA and MOSSAD.
Only a handful are Syrian; the rest would fit the definition in Wikipedia of "Mercenary."
-
That is, if reports from the Syrian government can be trusted.
Joe,
I think the reference is not specific to John Kerry, but to the USA's claim of national moral superiority.
While it was folks like Don Rumsfeld and Dick Chaney who were winking in approval, they did it on behalf of you and me, not just the GOP.
40 miles south of my home, the US Army just found 3 more leaking mustard gas bombs. http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_23949548/three-leaking-mustard-gas-shells-isolated-at-pueblo
-
The Good News ?
the remaining 800,000 rounds don't appear to be leaking yet.
And this is just one of 9 such chem weapons depots across the US.
-
Did the USA build 10 million chem weapons with no intention of ever using them ?
God bless America.
One type of weapon, thermobaric, would destroy most evidence of a chem weapon attack. It incinerates everything at high temp and high pressure. This might be what some are thinking of, rather than thinking that high explosive artillery will pulverize evidence to impossibly small bits.
.
FYI, dear readers:
If you are getting your groceries cheaper by swiping a Safeway loyalty card, you are dutifully reporting your purchases to NSA.
If you plan to buy something that might be interpreted to reflect unfavorably on your compliance,
use cash and no loyalty card.
parsing the article,
I believe the nascent tourism industry is primarily for KSA subjects, and secondarily for GCC subjects.
Those would be all Muslims, I think.
In 1975, the Embassy was in Bonn.
I went there seeking a visa. I wanted to swing through there on a tour of the region.
After I made my requet, the consular officer asked me if I was a Muslim ? No.
Did I have business in the kingdom ? No.
What was the purpose of my visit ? Tourism. I wanted to visit, see the sights, meet the people.
He called another consular officer over, and they spoke in Arabic. Then I was asked to wait. He left.
After 20 minutes, he returned.
"We don't have tourists in Saudi Arabia," he told me as a matter of plain fact.
-
There are no citizens of KSA, only subjects.
Technically, slavery was outlawed there in the 1960's.
Having been a grunt, and lived with grunts for many years,
I have to agree with Bill, if I understood him correctly.
Most soldiers are told frequently that they are sacrificing to defend the American way of life.
Heck, Presidents and Secretaries of Defense go on tour of military installations agound the globe to trumpet that bologna.
Who are they to believe ? The Prez, or their lying eyes ?
In fact, when a soldier recognizes how his actions in combat truly fit into the big picture, he often commits suicide.
The Bowe Bergdahl response is quite rare, which is why I think he ought to be celebrated as much or more than Manning, whose motives were less noble than the sympathetic press tells us.
Item #5 above got me thinking about how to restore American credibility so we chould have moral stature to chasten others on holding people without charge -
Kurt,
if your meaning is that the US military, in the persons of the likes of Marty Dempsey and the Joint Chiefs, are running the country, I respectfully disagree.
-
But maybe you are referring to the heads of the Intel Community, in cahoots with the financial oligarchs, as coordinated by the power brokers who run the two major political parties ?
If that's your meaning, then I think your labeling them as an "autocratic military" doesn't exaactly capture that.
Cocomaan,
-
if you think tha Afghan war has been a failure,
you get too much of your news from US sources like Fox and CNN.
-
That war has been extremely successful at advancing certain goals that you may not have considered:
*** shoring up the respectability of the Mercenary profession.
*** strengthening supply chain management concerning products derived from the poppy.
*** consolidating the hold that the top 10 or so USAID Contractors (Dr. Shah calls them "implementing partners") have on top-level decision-making in the Agency.
*** building a consensus around TAPI.
*** positioning al-Qaeda as a bogeyman threat into the next decade, to rationalize, if not justify, staggering increases in domestic surveillance, legal arms trafficking, and "law enforcement."
Thanks, GW Bush. Thanks, Dick Chaney. Thanks, Barack Obama.
-
while it is true that I am a bit paranoid,
I am more afraid of the DEA than of al-Qaeda.
DEA poses a much bigger threat to my life and my liberty.
-
Professor Cole,
you got DEA all wrong.
If they had compromising information on a young woman, they are far more likely to use it to coerce her into unwanted sexual liaisons than to use it for law enforcement purposes.
-
I can report how one small mind reacted to this story:
even if it has almost none of the impact intended, this is one of the best uses of US Intel Community funds I've ever heard of, since apparently no children have died as a result of this initiative.
Once again, the IC is targeting the audience back home.
I suspect more US Congressmen will view it than Desi children.
Young college grads don't get picked as "congressional aides" based on their keen and incisive analytical skills;
they get picked due to connections, attractiveness and popularity.
Its how we end up with a Congress filled with airheads.
The Tamarisk didn't enter the Canyon until after Glen Canyon Dam was erected. Salt Cedar is a newly invasive species. Otherwise, excellent article.
Desalination is indeed expensive and energy-consuming. But it is the only recourse.
I estimate that, 50 years from now, 25% of US national energy consumption goes to desalination of seawater and pumping it uphill to fill the same riparian courses eulogized in this article, plus the Kern, San Joaquin, Imperial and Sacramento River Valleys.
The alternative is to not eat.
Anecdotally, parts of the Front Range in the mid-latitudes of Colorado are having what seems like the wettest Summer ever. Doesn't seem to be borne out at the USGS website, though.
It is true that my Church, based in Vatican City, has perpetrated great evil and crimes against humanity.
No excuses.
But Pope JP II told GW Bush publicly that his planned invasion of Iraq was not just.
My local Bishop was reluctant to support the values of Christ, but Rome wasn't, in that case.
In Colorado Springs,
FOX News is the defaullt channel in waiting rooms, bars (if a TV isn't showing sports,) and lobbies.
When I occasionally visit one of the many military or air force installations in the area, FOX News is on in the MP Guard Shack and offices across the base.
Whether by choice or not, most folks I see watching that station appear to be young (I'm 60.)
I predict that the Pakistani Air Force or Yemeni Air Force steps forward in the next week or two to take the blame for a drone strike on the Moscow airport.
This report included Mike Hayden, former NSA liar-in-chief, saying that Snowden was wrong to go against the collective judgment of the IC establishment -- meaning himself.
What value does that add ?
Clive Stafford-Smith put this demo together.
It is not accurate.
In real life (GTMO detention is just about the most real thing on Earth,) men being entereally fed are tied down so tight that they cannot move their heads at all, unlike the demo.
Their waists are tied tightly to the chair.
They CAN lift their fingers, but cannot move either their upper or lower arms.
They cannot move their legs.
About all they can do is move their tongues, and to a limited extent, their lower jaws. They can talk or scream. Sort of.
This demo is much too humane to convey what the actual experience is like.
I ask Kelley Ayotte to go through the next, more realistic Demo. Her and Lindsey Graham.
Then they would have much more credibility when they deny this constitutes abuse.
..............
And to clarify, General Kelly, Commander of US Southern Command, and the 4-star responsible for everything that happens at GTMO, denies that anyone at GTMO is being "force-fed." Raather, he insists that some are being "entereally fed."
A distinction without a difference, no ?
I have official correspondence from the warden in which he states that
"The entire Joint Detention Group (JDG) detainee population (166) are all classified as unpriviliged belligerents."
In other words, Colonel Bogdan puts their number at 166, not the 120 figure in your blog post,
and classifies every single one of them as combatants.
He denies that there might be even one "wrong place, wrong time" guy who was sold for a bounty.
It appears that he is innocent of the 2010 Report of the Guantanamo Review Task Force that said 86 of the men being held were cleared for release.
He apparently does not believe that he is indulging his sadist inclinations / tendencies to the detriment of potentially innocent men.
To him, every single Detainee is a confirmed killer of US military personnel, regardless of what the evidence indicates.
While he may understand that abusing and even torturing these charges is immoral, he apparently rationalizes that they deserve it.
The man is unfit to serve as a Private E-1 Guard, and yet he is Commander of the Guard Force.
He also told me that AR 190-8, the one governing the detention of POW's and Civilian Internees, does not apply to his operation at GTMO. That Reg was written specifically to ensure that US military detention operations followed the Law of War.
Chris M.,
I think you missed the point, by quite a wide margin.
Snowden revealed illegal and unwarranted surveillance.
It is surveillance that WILL be used improperly, and probably already has been used improperly dozens or even hundreds of times.
It collects the sort of information that causes Congressmen to change their votes inexplicably.
It collects the sort of info that allows apparent criminals to escape accountability.
I understand that you don't care about whether our government is constrained by the 4th Amendment.
I think that makes you an outlier in most circles.
This isn't about Snowden personally. It is about your and my rights to be left alone.
A charge sometimes casually thrown around is the one about outside or CIA interference. I haven't read any suggestion that non-Egyptians are influencing these events.
Check or hold ?
I'm scratching my noggin.
How do folks who want the Constitution back vote for the Dem/GOP duopoly ?
A Communist or John Bircher is closer to the Constitution than Obama or Rmoney.
I thought Obama took away our Constitutional protections like the 4th Amendment in order to keep us all safe from imaginary bogeymen.
I thought the rationalization of NSA snooping into my private life was so that Obama would KNOW ALL.
So, how is it that the entire US federal government, from State to NSC to DOD to CIA to even NSA is caught flatfooted by this entirely predictable outcome ?
The headline over at USA Today has Obama "monitoring the situation." Translation: we didn't see it coming.
______________________________
Do we (USA) even have a true Intel Community ?
All the folks at CIA, NSA, NRO, DIA, etc. appear to be idiots, despite them constantly telling us that they are smarter than the rest of us, and based on that, feeling justified in making our key decisions for us, without any democratic input.
The IC is the prime mover behind our slow-roll invasion of Syria, by the way.
They put Blackwater in there 3 years ago.
How could that possibly benefit US security ?
Or do we call them "Intel" as a backhanded insult, making fun of their cognitive disabilities ?
And how does massive data collection of pre-teen American girls texting about lipstick figure into any real "intelligence ?"
We would be safer with a loyal American in charge.
Would someone please get alexander, brennan, clapper and that clique of America-haters and Constitution-haters to move to DPRK, where they would fit in better ?
I have a nominee to take over for Alexander. He's sitting in a Moscow airport right now.
If only someone had some influence over this loose cannon of a police state government that believes it is their prerogative to run our lives.
Back when the US Constitution was operative, someone in the White House could rein these mad dogs in. At least, that was the theory.
"Ecuador’s Communications Secretary Fernando Alvarado ... said today the government is offering the U.S. $23 million, an amount similar to what the U.S. provides under ATPDEA, to provide human rights training to combat torture, illegal executions and attacks on peoples’ privacy."
Should the USA accept foreign aid offered by Ecuador ?
If we accepted it, would we spend it on putting the President and his White House staff through human rights training ?
Especially the NSC staff and NSA Donilon (if he's still there, or NSA Rice if she's now in that job.)
I guess I'm not clear on the concept of "citizenship."
If Qatar is a kingdom, then the king owns all property, including the human beings who live there.
They are "subjects," not "citizens," as I understand those 2 words.
Even a person "owning" a cell phone, for example, is a misnomer. The phone belongs to the king, who suffers the person to act as if it is their property. But that suffrance can be revoked at any time.
my favorite quote from a member of a US PRT Team in Pashtun territory:
"it's an advantage to have the ANA and ANP only speak and understand Dari, so they can't talk to the local population."
The Afghan-Americans of the Pashtun variety that I know don't like the Taliban, and don't want to be represented or governed by them.
They would prefer to have a secular Pashtun government, or a proportional multi-ethnic government.
But what the US is pushing is domination of Pashtuns by folks that they consider to be foreigners and interlopers. Carpet Baggers.
Look at the ethnic composition of the central government in Kabul.
Look at the ethnic composition of the "Afghan National Army."
Look at the ethnic composition of the officers of the "Afghan National Army."
Look at the ethnic composition of the "Afghan National Police."
The US military and State Department are willfully stupid in backing a race war. How could that possibly lead to long-term stability ?
...........
SIDE NOTE:
The term "Afghan" used to refer to the people we now call "Pashtun" or "Pathan."
Silver,
I will say what you only hint at:
the current war in Afghanistan, which really got going around 2006, is a race-based civil war.
Don't let the Popalzai Pashtun head of what used to be called the Northern Alliance fool you.
This war pits the majority Pashtuns against the alliance of ethnic Tadjiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras, backed by the US military and fronted by the head of the Durrani Popalzai Pashtuns, Karzai.
This is a war to impose the will of the US-backed minority on the US-opposing or otherwise neutral majority.
To be clear, Pashtuns are only a majority of Afghans if you will allow yourself to view the Durand Line as the Pashtuns do.
Shannon,
RBTL mentiontd the USA because that's the center of the story.
The US started all those wars that you talked about being resolved.
They only ended because Negroponte ran out of bullets.
The negotiations were window dressing.
hey, Bill.
I spent about 20 minutes googling to find any news from a Rupert Murdoch media outlet to back up what I said.
No dice.
Most of what I found was from Russia (RT) or Iran (presstv.)
Lots of stuff that's no more credible than my website.
Sorry.
The US helped gin up this war, sending a proxy army of Mercenaries in from Jordan in late 2010.
The Mercenaries have been well-funded by Persian Gulf Tyrants.
But the people of Syria resist foreign interference, and beat our proxies back.
So now we raise the stakes.
If there is a final accounting, this is no way to prepare for it.
Does the Yemeni government have the ability to stop US military actions within their borders ?
There are, in addition to drone strikes launched from outside the country, almost 400 Special Forces soldiers embedded with Yemen military and air force units.
Would the US military bow to the demands of the Yemeni government ?
Why ?
Under what circumstances ?
um, Dr. Cole, DNI Jim Clapper has refudiated your horrible report.
He says it isn't true.
Who ya gonna believe, the nation's top Intel official, or yer lyin' eyes ?
Besides, if he really IS spying on ALL of us, he's only doing it for our own good.
"Now is not the time to look back. We must look forward."
Is this another take on "History is bunk ?"
...............
Seems to me, if we acknowledge the reality of what went on in the wilds of Afghanistan from October 2001 - January 2002, then we may also have to release all those "battlefield captured" prisoners at Guantanamo.
Applying what Aristotle had to say about the excluded middle, either they were knowingly fighting US forces or they weren't.
It seems such a "false flag" attack would serve their purposes.
Who could they get to pull it off ?
and so the echoes of Sarajevo ring ...
one advantage is that the southern border of Syria can be moved far north.
well, that's an advantage to one of the belligerent parties.
"use of chem weapons" is a red herring.
A "red herring" is a distraction.
Joe,
thnx for acknowledging that there is still an open question about who did this.
But it is no longer "one or the other."
As presented here, there are at least 3 different parties who had motive, opportunity and means to conduct the 21 August chem weapon attacks. We are setting rebel against rebel.
-
Here Dr Cole is introducing the idea that we are now creating "good" rebels to take the place of the Frankenstein "bad" rebels we organized 3 years ago, but now disown.
That raises the possibility that the chem weapon strikes were perpetrated by our former Frankenstein rebels against our Sons of Syria rebels.
-
By the way, our initial "Free Syrian Army" that Eric Prince put together 3 years ago,
with CIA/MOSSAD funding and leadership,
consisting of non-Syrian takfiri Mercenaries,
trained at the very same facilities in Jordan that the new "good" rebels are training at,
these guys don't need our money, C4ISR or Intel anymore.
They get all they need from Qatar, Turkey and elsewhere.
Not only are we not going to send the FSA the weapons we promised, but we are cutting them off from all support.
Since the first set of "rebels" we fabricated turned out to put their own interests ahead of the CIA's, we are fabricating a new set worthy of our support - until they get their feet on the ground and also turn against us.
This "proxy war" stuff is more complicated than 40 years ago.
Jeanette,
should we wait and find out who used those chem weapons,
or should we just strike at the party to the conflict that our elites hate ?
If it is a "well known fact" that the Syrian government perpetrated that 21 August attack, wouldn't there be some evidence ?
As WH Chief of Staff McDonough answered on the Sunday morning talk shows,
"I believe it, so you can just trust me;"
and
"This isn't a court of law. I don't have to prove anything. The President said so, so you should just accept whatever we decide."
Joe from Lo,
it really isn't a well-known fact.
-
I just watched WH Chief of Staff McDonough on CNN. He was speaking directly to you and me, Henry James.
If I understood him correctly, he said that the WH has already proven their case against Assad, and they don't need evidence. "This isn't a court of law," one quote.
He gave some "circumstantial evidence" about why it makes sense to him that it was Assad behind the attacks, and told me that if he was convinced, that should be good enough for me. I should trust him to make this decision for me.
What he wouldn't address was the "intercepted phone call."
Maybe the Obama Team realized that we Americans aren't quite as gullible as they had first assumed.
-
Mr. Joe,
I don't think the USA would agree with you about there being this huge difference between killing civilians with artillery fire or aerial bomardment, on the one hand, and killing them with chem weapons on the other.
I live 40 miles from a US military stockpile of 800,000 rounds of artillery that are loaded with mustard gas.
The USA has more chem weapons than any other country.
If Americans really considered chem weapons so horrible, maybe we wouldn't have been one of the last nations to agree to the Chem Weapons Conventtion. But we were.
Cluster munitions are more horrible than poison gas, because they mostly kill children. The USA is the #1 manufacturer of cluster bombs, so we don't agree to the treaty banning cluster bombs that almost the rest of the world has agreed to.
Small arms (handguns and rifles) kill way more innocent civilians than any other type of military weapon. The rest of the world has a treaty on banning these weapons, but the USA won't sign on, because we are the largesty or one of the largest manufacturers.
Same story on landmines.
Chem weapons are scary, no denying it. But a victim of poison gas is no more dead than a gunshot victim. The pain of death by Sarin has not been shown to be any more excruciating than death by artillery fire.
Maybe the larger point is that killing civilians, by any method, is bad.
If that is stipulated, then the Syrian invasion is immoral.
Joe from Lowell said above:
"... this President spent two years pushing back against intervention in Syria before the chemical warfare massacre."
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
That is what most folks seem to think.
As a reliable T-Party crackpot conspiracy theorist, I don't believe it.
I believe that the USA has been helping organize and fund the recruitment, training, payroll and operations of the so-called "Free Syrian Army" since late 2010.
I believe they have training and support facilities in Jordan and Turkey.
I believe our CIA actually exercises more control over the FSA and Mercenary rebels in general than the umbrella group the CIA set up, or andy al-Qaeda-ish high command. Writing pay checks can do that.
I believe MOSSAD is a full partner in these endeavors.
'''''''
My sources for this nonsense, besides an overactive imagination ?
RT, Press TV and such. Propaganda organs.
Much like the US MSM.
.
Thanks, Joe from Lowell.
I didn't read the actual statement.
Did it say anything about horrific violations of international norms against torture or indefinite detention ?
Did it mention International norms in the form of treaties against cluster bombs, which are more hazardous to civilians than chem weapons ?
Or international norms against proliferation of small arms ? (another international treaty the US hasn't yet signed.)
The norms associated with the international treaty banning landmines ?
................
What I see from this isolated corner is a whole slew of international norms that are flouted by the USA.
.
Do you realize when the USA signed and ratified the Chem Weapons Convention ? I know pretty specifically, because OPCW flew me to Den Haag for an interview, anticipating the US joining the civilized world on the issue of chem weapons, and I might have been hired if the US became a signatory. It wasn't very long ago that the USA developed a conscience on this matter, and we joined OPCW not primarily because we opposed this category of weapons, but for other unrelated political considerations.
See how the USA is somewhat isolated from the rest of the industrialized world on far more weapons issues than Syria, or even North Korea ?
Our real connection to civilized values, and arenas in which we provide true leadership, is not in the realm of weapons and military might. It is in science, culture, trade, and human rights.
.
Frost,
haters gotta hate, I guess.
What do you think the message of Jesus Christ says to the USA today:
"Go kill more Muslim children, to avenge the deaths of Muslim children ?"
Note that, as of 5 p.m.GMT, Thursday, 5 September, no actual evidence has been put forth by the US Govt of Syria's role in the 21 August chem weapon attack.
Secretary Kerry "feels pretty sure" that al-Assad did it, based on a very suspicious recording.
thnx, Dr. Cole, for this call to action.
I will contact my Bishop today.
There is evidence of the use of Sarin gas.
There is no evidence of who used it.
If there was, it would have been leaked, and that's what we would be prattling on about.
That "intercept" was recorded in a studio.
The same studio that made the recordings that Colin Powell played at the UN in 2003.
have you heard the latest ?
Obama is now saying that it was his stunt double, not him, who set the red line.
The comparison to Yemen is a stretch.
Ali Abdullah Saleh was by 2011 dependent on CIA support for keeping his grip on power.
The CIA gave him hundreds of millions of $$ to fight al-Qaeda in Yemen, and he pretended to do that.
When US support was withdrawn, he had no choice but to step down.
The USA has no such influence in Syria.
Another key difference:
in Yemen, the civil war and aftermath were all domestic.
In Syria, the "civil war" was instigated by the US and Israel.
Our CIA, NSC, DOS and WH are run by foreign policy amateurs.
Tom Englehart errs when he says that the US uses drones to kill enemies.
Mostly we don't know who we are killing with them.
"... contradicted by French, British, US and Israeli intelligence ..."
Dr. Cole,
the case depends entirely on Israeli intelligence.
France, Britain and the US get their intel in the region from Israel.
-
The phony "intercepted phone call" was produced by Israeli Intelligence.
.
-
$53 B + $23 B = a lot.
That's approximately 2/3 of the Army's budget, not including the separate costs of ongoing wars.
Gary,
what you hope for, I don't think its even possible.
There is no weapon in the US arsenal that I am aware of that can:
"make it more painful to the regime in losses than anything gained by using poison gas."
That's even assuming that the régime even used poison gas, which is not yet a given.
Any attack, including precision surgical strikes on régime military targets, will mostly kill the same folks who do most of the dying in all wars, innocent civilians. In Syria, as in other wars, they are killed by both (all) sides.
And if we did manage to kill al-Assad, and destroy the régime, as many seem to wish, the carnage will get much worse.
What happens in civil wars when the US enters on the weaker side ? Look to the Hindu Kush.
-----
There is no doubt in my mind where AIPAC stands on this.
They stand in solidarity with the Likud government of Israel.
And I have no doubt that Israeli military and intelligence services are trying to gin up a war to turn Syria into a wasteland, at the behest of that same Likud government.
-
Besides the costs to our reputation and national security,
the missile strike that Obama just delayed is gonna cost in the ballpark of $200 Million.
For that kind of money,
the US taxpayer could furnish 10 million $200 gas masks to the Syrian people. That's enough to give one to half of the population, which would cover all Syrians in the 7 largest cities.
The US taxpayer has already provided about 2 1/2 gas masks for each Israeli.
IIRC,
The UN / OPCW team is only looking into the type(s) of chem weapons used.
AFAIK, the only sources at this time on who employed these weapons are:
*** US (NRO) Photo / Image analysis concerning movement of units and equipment;
*** Opposition / rebel reports on missles found and mortar bombardments; and
*** MOSSAD input on intercepted phone calls.
Whenever a source of "intelligence" has such a clear interest in what we do with the intel they sell us, we should exercise some skepticism.
If it could be taken at face value, this assortment of "intel" would be overwhelming. See, e.g., Secretary Kerry. But it can't.
For $76 Billion a year, the US IC ought to have some actual spies in key countries, and not be totally reliant on partners with an axe to grind.
I just read a CBS News report that Senator John McCain is in such close contact with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that he can report that al-Assad is "euphoric."
Seems dubitable to me, that McCain is calling for al-Assad's murder at the same time that they are BFF.
Like the bologna about mixing Sarin into crowd control munitions like tear gas, consider the source. And I don't mean CBS.
Consider the source of McCain's news. Hint: it ain't the CIA. A US Senator is willingly allowing himself to be manipulated by a foreign, frequently hostile intelligence agency.
You can call it a clever political calculation; I call it leadership.
I'm T-Party, anti-Obama on most everything else, but this is the first time I've felt like saluting the guy.
Even if Congress says no and he attacks anyways, I like that he's insisting that he be held accountable.
Rare in any President.
when you suggest an arms embargo,
are you thinking of applying it to all sides of the conflict, or just the one being caricatured by the Obama Administration ?
I suspect that the UN General Assembly is more concerned about the US flouting international conventions on land mines, small arms and cluster bombs, than they are about Syria's 40-year-old inventory of poison gases.
It would be unwise for Obama to take his shaky case to them, to the US Congress, or to any other bellweather of public sentiment, unless he wants to be reined in so he has an excuse for not acting unwisely.
This rejection of US hegemony by the British people could be a watershed moment.
Aware of CIA instigation of the violence in Syria 2 years ago, through the likes of Eric Prince, I doubt that there is any good case to be made by any of the perpetrators - Obama, Donlin, Panetta or Clinton - for making war on Asad.
Assad is bad; having been point man on an overture in 2003 to loosen up Syrian civil society, I appreciate that more than most. In 2000, he could have been a bold leader and established a new order; instead, he let his father's henchmen like al-Sharaa run the show.
But in these last 2 years, the USA has done more harm to the Syrian people than the al-Assad government, and they know it. The FSA, a non-Syrian Mercenary force of salafist takfiris, is our Frankenstein.
The Chem Weapons meme is as phony as that "intercepted" phone call. Obama should drop it.
If Obama wants Syrian society and culture destroyed, he should find someone else to lead the effort. Greece and Portugal might be suceptible to bribes.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/28/israeli-intelligence-intercepted-syria-chemical-talk
Sorry it took so long, but here's a former MOSSAD officer saying that US officials didn't collect this phone call, Israelis did.
The Cable article clearly says that US Intel officlals "overheard" the phone call, implying that the US IC collected it.
Why would a site like Foreign Policy lie about who was the source ?
"Jordanian-trained" is not accurate; they weren't trained by Jordan.
Jordan is trying to stay neutral, and the US State Department blackmailed/ extorted King Hassan into allowing the FSA training camps, C4ISR and Logistics base to operate from Jordanian territory.
-
These forces, the Eric Prince-assembled "Free Syrian Army," is trained IN Jordan, but BY the CIA and MOSSAD.
Only a handful are Syrian; the rest would fit the definition in Wikipedia of "Mercenary."
-
That is, if reports from the Syrian government can be trusted.
How does this play in the 2016 Presidential race ?
Obama could hit him with WMD's to make the point against using WMD's.
I think cluster bombs qualify as WMD's.
But Tel Aviv is our ally.
Joe,
I think the reference is not specific to John Kerry, but to the USA's claim of national moral superiority.
While it was folks like Don Rumsfeld and Dick Chaney who were winking in approval, they did it on behalf of you and me, not just the GOP.
40 miles south of my home, the US Army just found 3 more leaking mustard gas bombs.
http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_23949548/three-leaking-mustard-gas-shells-isolated-at-pueblo
-
The Good News ?
the remaining 800,000 rounds don't appear to be leaking yet.
And this is just one of 9 such chem weapons depots across the US.
-
Did the USA build 10 million chem weapons with no intention of ever using them ?
God bless America.
One type of weapon, thermobaric, would destroy most evidence of a chem weapon attack. It incinerates everything at high temp and high pressure. This might be what some are thinking of, rather than thinking that high explosive artillery will pulverize evidence to impossibly small bits.
.
But I don't think Syria has that type of weapon.
FYI, dear readers:
If you are getting your groceries cheaper by swiping a Safeway loyalty card, you are dutifully reporting your purchases to NSA.
If you plan to buy something that might be interpreted to reflect unfavorably on your compliance,
use cash and no loyalty card.
one way to break the grip of Wall Street might be for a 3rd party to win some seats in Congress.
Greens, Constitutionalists, doesn't matter.
when I go to a shopping mall, I'm out in public.
I have no expectation of privacy.
-
that's the difference.
or,
allow Senators like Ron Wyden to read classified info,
but the threaten him with imprisonment if he tells what he knows.
-
Jacob,
if U think Bradley Cooper has it bad,
consider the plight of Bradley Manning.
parsing the article,
I believe the nascent tourism industry is primarily for KSA subjects, and secondarily for GCC subjects.
Those would be all Muslims, I think.
In 1975, the Embassy was in Bonn.
I went there seeking a visa. I wanted to swing through there on a tour of the region.
After I made my requet, the consular officer asked me if I was a Muslim ? No.
Did I have business in the kingdom ? No.
What was the purpose of my visit ? Tourism. I wanted to visit, see the sights, meet the people.
He called another consular officer over, and they spoke in Arabic. Then I was asked to wait. He left.
After 20 minutes, he returned.
"We don't have tourists in Saudi Arabia," he told me as a matter of plain fact.
-
There are no citizens of KSA, only subjects.
Technically, slavery was outlawed there in the 1960's.
Having been a grunt, and lived with grunts for many years,
I have to agree with Bill, if I understood him correctly.
Most soldiers are told frequently that they are sacrificing to defend the American way of life.
Heck, Presidents and Secretaries of Defense go on tour of military installations agound the globe to trumpet that bologna.
Who are they to believe ? The Prez, or their lying eyes ?
In fact, when a soldier recognizes how his actions in combat truly fit into the big picture, he often commits suicide.
The Bowe Bergdahl response is quite rare, which is why I think he ought to be celebrated as much or more than Manning, whose motives were less noble than the sympathetic press tells us.
Speaking as a crazy conspiratorial libertarian type (T-Party, Constitution Party) with newfound broken-clock credibility,
what is so great about a new deal that takes from the young very poor to give to the elderly less poor ?
Anthony,
Snowden expects to be killed.
He has from the start.
Does that change your psychoanalysis ?
Item #5 above got me thinking about how to restore American credibility so we chould have moral stature to chasten others on holding people without charge -
we need to start releasing men from Gitmo.
Kurt,
if your meaning is that the US military, in the persons of the likes of Marty Dempsey and the Joint Chiefs, are running the country, I respectfully disagree.
-
But maybe you are referring to the heads of the Intel Community, in cahoots with the financial oligarchs, as coordinated by the power brokers who run the two major political parties ?
If that's your meaning, then I think your labeling them as an "autocratic military" doesn't exaactly capture that.
Cocomaan,
-
if you think tha Afghan war has been a failure,
you get too much of your news from US sources like Fox and CNN.
-
That war has been extremely successful at advancing certain goals that you may not have considered:
*** shoring up the respectability of the Mercenary profession.
*** strengthening supply chain management concerning products derived from the poppy.
*** consolidating the hold that the top 10 or so USAID Contractors (Dr. Shah calls them "implementing partners") have on top-level decision-making in the Agency.
*** building a consensus around TAPI.
*** positioning al-Qaeda as a bogeyman threat into the next decade, to rationalize, if not justify, staggering increases in domestic surveillance, legal arms trafficking, and "law enforcement."
Thanks, GW Bush. Thanks, Dick Chaney. Thanks, Barack Obama.
thank you, Congressman Rogers, for making your case to this audience.
Now go try to sell that story to your colleagues.
-
-
while it is true that I am a bit paranoid,
I am more afraid of the DEA than of al-Qaeda.
DEA poses a much bigger threat to my life and my liberty.
-
Professor Cole,
you got DEA all wrong.
If they had compromising information on a young woman, they are far more likely to use it to coerce her into unwanted sexual liaisons than to use it for law enforcement purposes.
-
I can report how one small mind reacted to this story:
even if it has almost none of the impact intended, this is one of the best uses of US Intel Community funds I've ever heard of, since apparently no children have died as a result of this initiative.
Once again, the IC is targeting the audience back home.
I suspect more US Congressmen will view it than Desi children.
Putin didn't buy the dog in the photo.
He simply took it from an American billionaire.
Young college grads don't get picked as "congressional aides" based on their keen and incisive analytical skills;
they get picked due to connections, attractiveness and popularity.
Its how we end up with a Congress filled with airheads.
Local streamflow graph - 2013 off the chart:
http://nwis.waterdata.usgs.gov/co/nwis/peak/?site_no=07103980
The Tamarisk didn't enter the Canyon until after Glen Canyon Dam was erected. Salt Cedar is a newly invasive species. Otherwise, excellent article.
Desalination is indeed expensive and energy-consuming. But it is the only recourse.
I estimate that, 50 years from now, 25% of US national energy consumption goes to desalination of seawater and pumping it uphill to fill the same riparian courses eulogized in this article, plus the Kern, San Joaquin, Imperial and Sacramento River Valleys.
The alternative is to not eat.
Anecdotally, parts of the Front Range in the mid-latitudes of Colorado are having what seems like the wettest Summer ever. Doesn't seem to be borne out at the USGS website, though.
It is true that my Church, based in Vatican City, has perpetrated great evil and crimes against humanity.
No excuses.
But Pope JP II told GW Bush publicly that his planned invasion of Iraq was not just.
My local Bishop was reluctant to support the values of Christ, but Rome wasn't, in that case.
In Colorado Springs,
FOX News is the defaullt channel in waiting rooms, bars (if a TV isn't showing sports,) and lobbies.
When I occasionally visit one of the many military or air force installations in the area, FOX News is on in the MP Guard Shack and offices across the base.
Whether by choice or not, most folks I see watching that station appear to be young (I'm 60.)
The United States Government is at war with any Muslim group or organization that pushes back against American hegemony.
about kids living in poverty -
do you have data on how many were born to unmarried women ?
I predict that the Pakistani Air Force or Yemeni Air Force steps forward in the next week or two to take the blame for a drone strike on the Moscow airport.
This report included Mike Hayden, former NSA liar-in-chief, saying that Snowden was wrong to go against the collective judgment of the IC establishment -- meaning himself.
What value does that add ?
what a remarkable coincidence.
Even the world's most serious hard news site needs a little eye candy now and then.
Bill,
I mostly disagree with your posts.
But I value your respectful discourse.
I also enjoy JT's posts.
Dr. Cole ought to put you 2 in the profit-sharing plan.
Clive Stafford-Smith put this demo together.
It is not accurate.
In real life (GTMO detention is just about the most real thing on Earth,) men being entereally fed are tied down so tight that they cannot move their heads at all, unlike the demo.
Their waists are tied tightly to the chair.
They CAN lift their fingers, but cannot move either their upper or lower arms.
They cannot move their legs.
About all they can do is move their tongues, and to a limited extent, their lower jaws. They can talk or scream. Sort of.
This demo is much too humane to convey what the actual experience is like.
I ask Kelley Ayotte to go through the next, more realistic Demo. Her and Lindsey Graham.
Then they would have much more credibility when they deny this constitutes abuse.
..............
And to clarify, General Kelly, Commander of US Southern Command, and the 4-star responsible for everything that happens at GTMO, denies that anyone at GTMO is being "force-fed." Raather, he insists that some are being "entereally fed."
A distinction without a difference, no ?
I have official correspondence from the warden in which he states that
"The entire Joint Detention Group (JDG) detainee population (166) are all classified as unpriviliged belligerents."
In other words, Colonel Bogdan puts their number at 166, not the 120 figure in your blog post,
and classifies every single one of them as combatants.
He denies that there might be even one "wrong place, wrong time" guy who was sold for a bounty.
It appears that he is innocent of the 2010 Report of the Guantanamo Review Task Force that said 86 of the men being held were cleared for release.
He apparently does not believe that he is indulging his sadist inclinations / tendencies to the detriment of potentially innocent men.
To him, every single Detainee is a confirmed killer of US military personnel, regardless of what the evidence indicates.
While he may understand that abusing and even torturing these charges is immoral, he apparently rationalizes that they deserve it.
The man is unfit to serve as a Private E-1 Guard, and yet he is Commander of the Guard Force.
He also told me that AR 190-8, the one governing the detention of POW's and Civilian Internees, does not apply to his operation at GTMO. That Reg was written specifically to ensure that US military detention operations followed the Law of War.
"(both sides in Egypt’s struggle blame the US and the West for supporting the other)"
That's what I assume.
Maybe the NSA is battling the CIA in a proxy war.
So, Gitmo ain't the only locale where torture is ongoing. It's happening right here on this blog.
Bill,
what do you hope to gain by strapping LOGIC onto the waterboard ?
at 07/07/2013 at 5:46 pm, Bill sez:
"The United States has not, and does not, spirit dissidents out of China or anywhere else on Air Force One."
From what I read, neither did Evo Morales. But that is just as irrelevant as your statement.
The point seems to be that it is not illegal for Morales to do so.
Folks in other countries do not have to obey our laws, do they ?
Chris M.,
I think you missed the point, by quite a wide margin.
Snowden revealed illegal and unwarranted surveillance.
It is surveillance that WILL be used improperly, and probably already has been used improperly dozens or even hundreds of times.
It collects the sort of information that causes Congressmen to change their votes inexplicably.
It collects the sort of info that allows apparent criminals to escape accountability.
I understand that you don't care about whether our government is constrained by the 4th Amendment.
I think that makes you an outlier in most circles.
This isn't about Snowden personally. It is about your and my rights to be left alone.
A charge sometimes casually thrown around is the one about outside or CIA interference. I haven't read any suggestion that non-Egyptians are influencing these events.
Check or hold ?
How 'bout them Yankees ?
I'm scratching my noggin.
How do folks who want the Constitution back vote for the Dem/GOP duopoly ?
A Communist or John Bircher is closer to the Constitution than Obama or Rmoney.
wait a minute.
I thought Obama took away our Constitutional protections like the 4th Amendment in order to keep us all safe from imaginary bogeymen.
I thought the rationalization of NSA snooping into my private life was so that Obama would KNOW ALL.
So, how is it that the entire US federal government, from State to NSC to DOD to CIA to even NSA is caught flatfooted by this entirely predictable outcome ?
The headline over at USA Today has Obama "monitoring the situation." Translation: we didn't see it coming.
______________________________
Do we (USA) even have a true Intel Community ?
All the folks at CIA, NSA, NRO, DIA, etc. appear to be idiots, despite them constantly telling us that they are smarter than the rest of us, and based on that, feeling justified in making our key decisions for us, without any democratic input.
The IC is the prime mover behind our slow-roll invasion of Syria, by the way.
They put Blackwater in there 3 years ago.
How could that possibly benefit US security ?
Or do we call them "Intel" as a backhanded insult, making fun of their cognitive disabilities ?
And how does massive data collection of pre-teen American girls texting about lipstick figure into any real "intelligence ?"
We would be safer with a loyal American in charge.
Would someone please get alexander, brennan, clapper and that clique of America-haters and Constitution-haters to move to DPRK, where they would fit in better ?
I have a nominee to take over for Alexander. He's sitting in a Moscow airport right now.
If only someone had some influence over this loose cannon of a police state government that believes it is their prerogative to run our lives.
Back when the US Constitution was operative, someone in the White House could rein these mad dogs in. At least, that was the theory.
oops.
AP reports that Communications Secretary Alvarado wasn't offering Ecuadoran money in the form of foreign aid to the US; rather, he was suggesting what the US should do with the additional import duties collected on Ecuadoran goods should be used for. See, e.g.,
http://www.newsday.com/news/world/ecuador-heats-rhetoric-as-obama-downplays-snowden-1.5579439
Whatever.
Y'all are dodging the bigger question here.
Bloomberg reports http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-27/ecuador-cancels-trade-pact-over-u-s-blackmail-in-snowden-case.html that
"Ecuador’s Communications Secretary Fernando Alvarado ... said today the government is offering the U.S. $23 million, an amount similar to what the U.S. provides under ATPDEA, to provide human rights training to combat torture, illegal executions and attacks on peoples’ privacy."
Should the USA accept foreign aid offered by Ecuador ?
If we accepted it, would we spend it on putting the President and his White House staff through human rights training ?
Especially the NSC staff and NSA Donilon (if he's still there, or NSA Rice if she's now in that job.)
I guess I'm not clear on the concept of "citizenship."
If Qatar is a kingdom, then the king owns all property, including the human beings who live there.
They are "subjects," not "citizens," as I understand those 2 words.
Even a person "owning" a cell phone, for example, is a misnomer. The phone belongs to the king, who suffers the person to act as if it is their property. But that suffrance can be revoked at any time.
well, if they only get 200 million communications a day, its only a small fraction of the actual traffic.
Small consolation.
and it costs tens of thousands of dollars less to make that trek than to climb Everest.
yeah, once the ceremony starts, about 4:45 PM, there's no crossing until about 9:15 AM the next day.
why can't it just stay open ?
"Trust me."
------------ R. M. Nixon
my favorite quote from a member of a US PRT Team in Pashtun territory:
"it's an advantage to have the ANA and ANP only speak and understand Dari, so they can't talk to the local population."
The Afghan-Americans of the Pashtun variety that I know don't like the Taliban, and don't want to be represented or governed by them.
They would prefer to have a secular Pashtun government, or a proportional multi-ethnic government.
But what the US is pushing is domination of Pashtuns by folks that they consider to be foreigners and interlopers. Carpet Baggers.
Look at the ethnic composition of the central government in Kabul.
Look at the ethnic composition of the "Afghan National Army."
Look at the ethnic composition of the officers of the "Afghan National Army."
Look at the ethnic composition of the "Afghan National Police."
The US military and State Department are willfully stupid in backing a race war. How could that possibly lead to long-term stability ?
...........
SIDE NOTE:
The term "Afghan" used to refer to the people we now call "Pashtun" or "Pathan."
Silver,
I will say what you only hint at:
the current war in Afghanistan, which really got going around 2006, is a race-based civil war.
Don't let the Popalzai Pashtun head of what used to be called the Northern Alliance fool you.
This war pits the majority Pashtuns against the alliance of ethnic Tadjiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras, backed by the US military and fronted by the head of the Durrani Popalzai Pashtuns, Karzai.
This is a war to impose the will of the US-backed minority on the US-opposing or otherwise neutral majority.
To be clear, Pashtuns are only a majority of Afghans if you will allow yourself to view the Durand Line as the Pashtuns do.
Actually, that's the THIRD rule of international crisis management.
Shannon,
RBTL mentiontd the USA because that's the center of the story.
The US started all those wars that you talked about being resolved.
They only ended because Negroponte ran out of bullets.
The negotiations were window dressing.
Doesn’t apply in the middle of a civil war with any party, whether the authoritarian government or their opponents, massacring people.
hey, Bill.
I spent about 20 minutes googling to find any news from a Rupert Murdoch media outlet to back up what I said.
No dice.
Most of what I found was from Russia (RT) or Iran (presstv.)
Lots of stuff that's no more credible than my website.
Sorry.
The US helped gin up this war, sending a proxy army of Mercenaries in from Jordan in late 2010.
The Mercenaries have been well-funded by Persian Gulf Tyrants.
But the people of Syria resist foreign interference, and beat our proxies back.
So now we raise the stakes.
If there is a final accounting, this is no way to prepare for it.
But, people in Government tell us that they are our Best and Brightest.
I hear ya, sisters and brothers.
Sympatico.
While yer up, could you reinsert my feeding tube ?
just don't interfere with the broacast of "Dancing with the Stars," and the ordinary citizen will be OK with this.
What did Diane Feinstein say ? They are doing it for our own good ?
Good enough for me.
How 'bout them Spurs ?
Does the Yemeni government have the ability to stop US military actions within their borders ?
There are, in addition to drone strikes launched from outside the country, almost 400 Special Forces soldiers embedded with Yemen military and air force units.
Would the US military bow to the demands of the Yemeni government ?
Why ?
Under what circumstances ?
um, Dr. Cole, DNI Jim Clapper has refudiated your horrible report.
He says it isn't true.
Who ya gonna believe, the nation's top Intel official, or yer lyin' eyes ?
Besides, if he really IS spying on ALL of us, he's only doing it for our own good.
John Poindexter ?
Paging Admiral John Poindexter.
Please come to a white courtesy telephone.
While the 2006 movie "The Road to Guantanamo" is fictionalized, it gives a moving account of these massacres.
"Now is not the time to look back. We must look forward."
Is this another take on "History is bunk ?"
...............
Seems to me, if we acknowledge the reality of what went on in the wilds of Afghanistan from October 2001 - January 2002, then we may also have to release all those "battlefield captured" prisoners at Guantanamo.
Applying what Aristotle had to say about the excluded middle, either they were knowingly fighting US forces or they weren't.
I have some really, really good news, folks:
the guards at Gitmo AREN't force-feeding anyone, after all.
So says their 4-star General Commander:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/04/3433333/southcom-general-has-nothing-to.html
Money quote:
“We don’t force-feed right now at Gitmo,” the Marine general said.
That's a relief!