Syria crisis: UN's del Ponte says evidence rebels 'used sarin'
Testimony from victims of the Syrian conflict suggests rebels have used the nerve agent sarin, according to a leading United Nations investigator.
Carla del Ponte told Swiss TV there were "strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof".
However, she said her panel had not yet seen evidence of government forces using chemical weapons.
Syria has recently come under growing Western pressure over the alleged use of such weapons.
Ms del Ponte, who serves on the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, said in an interview with Swiss-Italian TV: "Our investigators have been in neighbouring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals.
"According to their report of last week, which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated."
Ms del Ponte, a former Swiss attorney-general and prosecutor with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, said the UN commission would need to hear further evidence from witnesses to verify what was known so far.
She gave no details of when or where sarin may have been used.
Her commission was established in August 2011 to examine alleged violations of human rights in the Syrian conflict since March 2011.
A separate United Nations team was established to look specifically into the issue of chemical weapons.
It is ready to go to Syria but wants unconditional access with the right to inquire into all credible allegations.
'Game changer'
Both the Syrian government and the rebels have in the past accused each other using chemical weapons.
The United States and the UK have said there is emerging evidence of Syrian government forces having used sarin, with the US saying it had "varying degrees of confidence" that chemical weapons had been deployed.
US President Barack Obama called in April for a "vigorous investigation", saying the use of such weapons would be a "game changer" if verified.
President Bashar al-Assad's government says the claims do not have any credibility, denouncing them as "lies".
Ms del Ponte's allegations concerning the use of sarin by rebels came after Israel carried out a series of air attacks on Syrian military targets near Damascus.
The Syrian government said a research centre and other sites were hit on Sunday and accused Israel of co-ordinating its operation with rebel forces.
US and Israeli officials also said Israeli aircraft hit a shipment of missiles on Friday destined for the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon.
The raids have drawn condemnation from The Arab League.
What is Sarin?
- One of a group of nerve gas agents invented by German scientists as part of Hitler's preparations for World War II
- Huge secret stockpiles built up by superpowers during Cold War
- 20 times more deadly than cyanide: A drop the size of a pin-head can kill a person
- Called "the poor man's atomic bomb" due to large number of people that can be killed by a small amount
- Kills by crippling the nervous system through blocking the action of an enzyme that removes acetylcholine - a chemical that transmits signals down the nervous system
- Can only be manufactured in a laboratory, but does not require very sophisticated equipment
- Very dangerous to manufacture. Contains four main ingredients, including phosphorus trichloride
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"JEWISH NEOCONS", and their right wing Republican hacks, are they back for more, or have they never left? Carl Bernstein thinks so ( Watch the twitch on Donny Deutsch's face) :
"JEWISH NEOCONS", and their right wing Republican hacks, are they back for more, or have they never left? Carl Bernstein thinks so ( Watch the twitch on Donny Deutsch's face) :
We will probably get what we deserve as we are a country of some of the dumbest bastards on the planet:
So, wait. It wasn't the Syrian regime, but rather the Syrian rebels who used sarin nerve gas recently?
ReplyDeleteThat's the story being reported tonight by Reuters, from actually named sources among U.N. investigators. But will anybody notice? Or, with Israeli airstrikes already under way, and the neo-cons already demanding another new war, is the news too little, too late...again?
The week before last, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, reading from a letter sent by the White House to Congress, announced that the Administration believes that the Syrian government recently used chemical weapons against its own people. If true, it would be a move which President Obama had previously described as a "red line" and a "game changer" in the Administration's policy on the two-year old civil war still raging in that country.
Hagel's statement was somewhat measured [emphasis added]: "Our intelligence community does assess, with varying degrees of confidence, that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria, specifically, the chemical agent sarin."
A few days later, during a Presidential press conference, Obama himself was also measured, even back-tracking somewhat on the claim that it was "the Syrian regime" which used the chemical weapon, as Hagel had initially announced, setting off "Breaking News!" tweets around the globe.
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ReplyDeleteMORE RED LINES OR LINES OF BULLSHIT?
"What we now have is evidence that chemical weapons have been used inside of Syria, but we don't know how they were used, when they were used, who used them. We don't have a chain of custody that establishes what exactly happened," the President said, seemingly responsibly. "And when I am making decisions about America’s national security and the potential for taking additional action in response to chemical weapon use, I've got to make sure I've got the facts."
He went on to decry "rushing to judgement without hard, effective evidence," that he planned to work with "neighboring countries to...establish a clear baseline of facts", and that he had "called on the United Nations to investigate."
But the war genie was already out of the bottle. At least for many in both the corporate media and the neo-con Right...
Sen. John McCain, for example, as is his wont, rushed to whatever TV cameras he could find to announce that the intel, as is, was "a compelling argument for the president to take the measures that a lot of us have been arguing for all along."
Syrian rebels, McCain ominously warned on CNN, need to be given "a safe zone, we need to supply them with weapons going to the right people, and we need to be prepared to secure these caches of chemical weapons in the event that [Syrian leader Bashar al Assad] uses them."
And then, with the war hawks squawking over the last several days, it is now being reported that Israel has launched a series of airstrikes against Syria, on the outskirts of its capital, Damascus.
To date, there has been very little pushback against Israel for having unilaterally done so. In fact, the response from the usual quarters has been just the opposite.
"Now THAT's a red line," CNN's paid contributor and former George W. Bush Press Secretary (and current apologist) Ari Fleischer tweeted in response to news of the first Israeli attack inside of Syria on Friday.
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ALL THE USUAL SUSPECTS
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"Next time Pres O says he's drawn a red line, ask if he used invisible ink," tweeted Fleischer the week before, after the Administration's initial announcement of the use of sarin in Syria.
Today, the same man who fought so hard to push the nation towards war over invisible weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, kept up his courageous war of words in celebration of the second reported Israeli strike. "The power of a red line: it's bright &easy 2see. Message - don't cross it. They don't come in shades & aren't meant 2b erased," CNN's Fleischer bravely chest-thumped from behind the safety of his home office keyboard.
It seems hard to believe that there would be as much of a celebration, or even collective "oh, well, guess we saw that coming," had Syria, for example, flown warplanes over Tel Aviv or Jerusalem to drop bombs inside of that sovereign nation. But, after all, we've been told Assad is very bad guy who is not only said to have killed some 70,000 of his own people in the two year old civil war there (a fact which few seem to dispute), but now we know he's even crossed a "red line" with the "game changing" use of chemical weapons! Who can blame Israel for taking action where, to hear McCain and Fleischer and friends tell it, Obama is just too weak to do so!
Of course, it's far from clear that Israel's attacks had anything whatsoever to do with taking out chemical weapons facilities or stockpiles in Syria. From the various anonymous U.S. and Israeli officials cited by news agencies, Israel was striking "a shipment of missiles destined for Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement ... a consignment of advanced, long-range, ground-to-ground missiles destined for Hezbollah"
"The shipment did not contain chemical weapons, but the missiles were potentially 'game-changing,' one official told the Associated Press," Washington Post is reporting.
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ReplyDelete(Without citing evidence, the fully-discredited-yet-still-well-paid Fleischer described the missiles as "delivery systems for chemical weapons".)
So, the use of chemical weapons (by whom, we still do not know) is a "game changer". The President failed to act (as the neo-cons tell us), by asking the U.N. to investigate and gather more information before the U.S. goes to war. In the meantime, Israel strikes against "game-changing" weapons in Syria, according to anonymous sources for unproven reasons. And few, if any, rush to cameras to condemn Israel for doing so. Most, including CNN's paid contributors like Fleischer, celebrate their having done so.
But what of those "game changing" chemical weapons? Lo and behold, a report out tonight, based on information from U.N. investigators, seems to indicate that it's the Syrian rebels --- the one that McCain et al are calling for Obama to support immediately --- who may have used the sarin nerve gas which kicked off this entire sequence of events.
From Reuters tonight:
U.N. human rights investigators have gathered testimony from casualties of Syria's civil war and medical staff indicating that rebel forces have used the nerve agent sarin, one of the lead investigators said on Sunday.
The United Nations independent commission of inquiry on Syria has not yet seen evidence of government forces having used chemical weapons, which are banned under international law, said commission member Carla Del Ponte.
"Our investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report of last week which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated," Del Ponte said in an interview with Swiss-Italian television.
"This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities," she added, speaking in Italian.
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ReplyDeleteSo, it was the rebels, according to actual named sources, not the Syrian regime which may have used the sarin gas that set off the chain of events described above over the past week and a half?
Will anybody bother to notice that report? So far, the courageous Fleischer's Twitter feed has remained silent tonight and Grampa McCain is probably already asleep for the night.
Will McCain and Fleischer and the other war hawks soon retract their chest thumping and sabre rattling in light of the U.N. reports? Will they call for the U.S. to take action against the rebels in Syria who may have used chemical weapons?
Will there be an investigation, any investigation at all, into Israel's aggressive --- some might say, unprovoked --- military actions over the past three days?
Or, as is far more likely, will we all largely ignore the Reuters report on the U.N. investigators' findings entirely and carry on, as is, with our previously scheduled war-mongering and our continuing failure to hold war criminals responsible ... so long as they may potentially include those from either the U.S. or Israel?
By BRAD FRIEDMAN on 5/5/2013, 7:33pm PT
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DeleteWe have the US, Israel, France and England saying Assad used sarin. And the UN saying the rebs used sarin. Maybe all are right. Both sides have used sarin. This would put O in a bind. He'd be seeing double red lines. Maybe he'd stay out, and they'd all gas each other to death. The best of all possible worlds?
ReplyDeleteI was keeping count reading the comments sections on some sites yesterday concerning all this. Most people want the US to stay out. An equal number, maybe even more, hope both sides fight to the last man.
DeleteIf Obama were a fair minded man, he would redraw the red line against Assad that seems to have been drawn with disappearing ink, and also draw a red line against the rebs. Counting red lines, that would be four, 2 US, 1 Israeli, 1 Iranian. The Russians don't seem to have issued a red line, publically. They might have issued a red line to Obama privately, which might account for Obama's disappearing ink red line. Does Assad's threat that 'now anything is possible' and 'this is an act of war' amount to a red line? Then, adding, we would have six red lines - 2 US, 1 Russian, 1 Israeli, 1 Iranian, and 1 from Assad. if my math is right.
ReplyDeleteThis might come to be known by historians as 'The Red Line War', and I am not trying to make light of the situation.
Fox News is just reporting that Assad has definitely issued a red line now.
DeleteHe said 'the next time (Israel attacks) we will respond'.
This site was... how do you say it? Relevant!
ReplyDelete! Finally I have found something which helped me.
Cheers!
Feel free to visit my homepage ... Test Force Xtreme Testosterone
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DeleteWhatever it takes.
Some of the regulars get a hard on over this blog too.
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... Syrian government officials on Sunday tried to portray the Syrian opposition as engaged in a common cause with Israel.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteYou're no person, you are a avatar by committee, quot.
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DeleteGuess they figure Israel benefit with every inividual death.
DeleteThey always back the combat solution, if it could benefit continued conflict, civil war and the territorial expansion of Eretz Yisrael. No matter who dies in the process..
Any bets he applauded when Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated?
The "R in rat, it should not be capitalized.
DeleteWish you had some awareness of your surroundings, an understanding of the use of the English language, that would help, too.
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DeleteRat, can't you just shut up for one day?
DeleteYou sound as if you are brain dead.
Well, it's back to bed for me.
Only two days till the whistle blowers begin to whistle!
tweet tweet tweet
We have that to which we may look forward!
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DeleteOnly a NAZI would write something so vulgar, so vile, so despicable, about their own father.
Got to go with WiO on this one. If not goading and derogatory, at least, felony puerile.
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DeleteWhy are Buddhist monks attacking Muslims?
ReplyDeleteBy Alan Strather - Oxford University
... So why have monks been using hate speech against Muslims and joining mobs that have left dozens dead?
This is happening in two countries separated by well over 1,000 miles of Indian Ocean - Burma and Sri Lanka. It is puzzling because neither country is facing an Islamist militant threat. Muslims in both places are a generally peaceable and small minority.
In Sri Lanka, the issue of halal slaughter has been a flashpoint. Led by monks, members of the Bodu Bala Sena - the Buddhist Brigade - hold rallies, call for direct action and the boycotting of Muslim businesses, and rail against the size of Muslim families.
...
... in Sri Lanka, the Burmese situation is far more serious. Here the antagonism is spearheaded by the 969 group, led by a monk, Ashin Wirathu, who was jailed in 2003 for inciting religious hatred. Released in 2012, he has referred to himself bizarrely as "the Burmese Bin Laden".
...
March saw an outbreak of mob violence directed against Muslims in the town of Meiktila, in central Burma, which left at least 40 dead.
Tellingly, the violence began in a gold shop. The movements in both countries exploit a sense of economic grievance - a religious minority is used as the scapegoat for the frustrated aspirations of the majority.
On Tuesday, Buddhist mobs attacked mosques and burned more than 70 homes in Oakkan, north of Rangoon, after a Muslim girl on a bicycle collided with a monk. One person died and nine were injured.
Hate of the "other", makes folk brain dead.
That's an odd article. Buddhists aren't historically exactly pacifists, but slow to anger. Gautama thought war, violence, gun running, hiring out as a mercenary did not conduce to liberation as he is supposed to have said. Buddhists mostly fled when Moslems got into India, while the Hindus resisted.
DeletePerhaps being on an island with no where really to go has something to do with it. The Moslems may not be so peaceful as reported above, and maybe the 'Buddhists' are actually Hindus misidentified.
It does seem out of character with Buddhists as they are generally known to be.
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DeleteOK, I'm going back to bed now anyway.
DeleteHave a great day, WiO.
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DeleteRight, and the little girl was no doubt a midget,...er....little person.
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ReplyDeleteHate of the "other", makes folk brain dead.
heh
Well, it is certainly true of the Moslems.
They even hate one another.
"Do you hate the Arabs, Nissim?"
"No. Of course no."
"Why not?"
"What is the good of hate?"
What indeed? Arabs gorge on hate, they roll in it, they breathe it. Jews top the hate list, but any foreigners are hateful enough. Arabs also hate each other, separately and, en masse. Their politicians change the direction of their hate as they would change their shirts. Their press is vulgarly base with hate-filled cartoons; their reporting describes whatever hate is now uppermost and convenient. Their radio is a long scream of hate, a call to hate. They teach their children hate in school. They must love the taste of hate; it is their daily bread. And what good has it done them?
from Martha Gellhorn's wonderful article about the arabs of Palestine.
(I know I have quoted it before)
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DeleteWell, that's progress.
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ReplyDeleteThe GOP's chief strength, the states.
The GOP's chief weakness, the states.
The GOP's growing strength in governorships and state houses has been remarkable and is a strength of the party. However, the GOP's primary structure dominated by the ideologues in the states assures that only buffoons who will never have enough popular appeal at the national level to win are nominated to run for the presidency .
Read a number of articles this morning on the GOP's 2016 troika of young guns, Rubio, Rand, and Cruz, attractive candidates who any sane person can agree with on certain particulars but who are in their totality, spaceballs.
Forecast for 2016: Another dark year.
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JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad retains control of the country's reputed chemical weapons and they are not sought by his Hezbollah guerrilla allies in neighbouring Lebanon, a senior Israeli official said on Saturday.
ReplyDeleteDefence Ministry strategist Amos Gilad spoke after another Israeli official said Israel had sent warplanes on Friday to attack a Hezbollah-bound missile shipment in Syria, where Assad is battling a more than two-year-old insurgency.
Israel has long made clear it is prepared to resort to force to prevent advanced Syrian weapons reaching Hezbollah or jihadi rebels. In late January, regional sources said Israel destroyed a convoy carrying Syrian anti-aircraft missiles to Hezbollah.
Gilad said Assad had huge quantities of chemical weapons, missiles and rockets. "The good news is that this is under full control (of the Syrian government)," he said in a speech.
"Nor is a group like Hezbollah ... keen to take this (chemical) weaponry. It is keen to take weapon systems, like rockets that can reach, say, all the way here," added Gilad, who was speaking in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba.
Israel believes that Hezbollah, which is allied with Israel's arch-enemy Iran, has built up an arsenal of about 60,000 missiles and rockets. The guerrilla group fired 4,000 missiles into Israel during the 2006 Lebanon war.
The Assad government has hedged on whether it has chemical weapons while saying it would not use such arms against Syrians.
The matter has been subject to intensive international scrutiny since Israel and the United States last month published findings indicating Assad forces had used chemical weapons during the insurgency.
Gilad suggested that Hezbollah, unlike a regular military, may not be equipped to handle chemical weapons.
"There is a problem with chemical weaponry. It can also kill those who don't know how to use it. It is not a sympathetic thing. So, for now it is under control. It is very important that it is under control," Gilad said.
(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Pravin Char)
May 6, 2013
ReplyDeleteWas it the Syrian rebels who used Sarin gas on their own people?
Rick Moran
That's a determination from the UN human rights commission looking into war crimes in Syria. They should not be confused with the UN commission set up by Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to specifically investigate the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
Is this a difference without a distinction? It may not be.
Reuters:
U.N. human rights investigators have gathered testimony from casualties of Syria's civil war and medical staff indicating that rebel forces have used the nerve agent sarin, one of the lead investigators said on Sunday.
President Bashar al-Assad's government and the rebels accuse each another of carrying out three chemical weapon attacks, one near Aleppo and another near Damascus, both in March, and another in Homs in December.
The United Nations independent commission of inquiry on Syria has not yet seen evidence of government forces having used chemical weapons, which are banned under international law, said commission member Carla Del Ponte.
"Our investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report of last week which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated," Del Ponte said in an interview with Swiss-Italian television.
"This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities," she added, speaking in Italian.
Del Ponte, a former Swiss attorney-general who also served as prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, gave no details as to when or where sarin may have been used.
The Geneva-based inquiry into war crimes and other human rights violations is separate from an investigation of the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria instigated by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, which has since stalled.
In order to prove the rebels used gas, you have to make a convincing case that they were able to acquire some. It puts the whole thesis in question and raises the possibility that the "independent commission" based in Geneva is being choosy about who they interview about the attacks.
There are many reasons to deflect blame from the Assad regime for chemical weapons attacks, not the least of which is the probability that if the commission were to blame the Syrian government, it would force the west to take military action. I don't know if you've noticed or not, but the overwhelming majority of diplomats at the UN much prefer peace at any price to going to war. Deliberately obfuscating the facts to prevent a wider war is not beyond the realm of the possible.
Then there is the solidarity factor with many states supporting Assad or, more likely, opposing the increasingly jihadist nature of the rebels. Blaming them for the attack suits many political agendas.
I'm not saying it's impossible for the rebels to have gotten their hands on some Sarin gas, and a delivery system for them - special artillery shells the most likely - except the rebels have very few heavy artillery pieces. It just strikes me as unlikely.
How and when they acquired the gas, how it was deployed, and which witnesses are accusing the rebels of using it all have to be answered before a definitived judgment can be made.
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ReplyDeleteHow and when they acquired the gas, how it was deployed, and which witnesses are accusing the rebels of using it all have to be answered before a definitived judgment can be made.
Funny how Moron,...er...sorry, Moran insists these questions be asked and answered with regard to the rebels use of chem weapons but the same standard doesn't apply with regard to Assad's possible use of them.
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Excellent post. I was checking constantly this blog and I am impressed!
DeleteVery useful info specifically the last part :) I care for such information much.
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How and when they acquired the gas, how it was deployed, and which witnesses are accusing the rebels of using it all have to be answered before a definitived judgment can be made.
DeleteAh, who cares about any of that?
An accusation by some UN group or other should be enough for anyone.
I am glad some people here follow Rick so closely.
DeleteAs a free service to Quirk -
DeleteRick Moran archived articles -
http://www.americanthinker.com/rick_moran/
It's a UN group making the accusation, after all. That should seal it. When has a UN group ever been wrong about anything? Name just once. You can't. Thought so. Rick Moran is out of line here, by not immediately accepting the UN report. He is a man of little faith.
DeleteInexplicably, Jay Carney just said the Obama administration is rejecting the UN report, and is blaming the Assad regime.
Delete.
DeleteI am glad some people here follow Rick so closely.
Actually, when I first saw the post I had the guy confused with Rick Moranis, the hoser who played Bob McKenzie on The Great White North, eh.
I was almost through the post and laughing all the while before I realized it was a different guy. After that realization, the issue expressed in my comment became obvious.
Funny how Moron,...er...sorry, Moran insists these questions be asked and answered with regard to the rebels use of chem weapons but the same standard doesn't apply with regard to Assad's possible use of them.
Mine was not a comment attacking Moran personally but merely one pointing out the irony in the fact that he insists on applying a standard to one side in the argument while scrupulously avoiding applying the same standard to the other side in the argument.
The issue at hand:
In the Syrian conflict, President Assad is accused of using chemical weapons against rebel forces and civilians. The rebels agree. The UK and France say the evidence is overwhelming. The U.S. and Israel say the evidence is compelling. The MSM from the WaPo to the Economist bray that the U.S. "must do something".
Yet, what do we know.
We know that a 'miniscule' amount of something was presented by 'opposition forces' and that it was claimed to have come from a government attack. However, there is no trail of evidence. We don't have evidence of where the sample came from. We don't know if it was used in a chemical weapon attack. If it was used, we don't know when, where, how, or by whom it was used. Yet the powers that be assert we can 'assume' it was used by Assad.
This despite the fact that
Initially, various types of chemical weapons were mentioned. Also, eye witness accounts and video seem to show peoples' reactions were inconsistent with the agents mentioned.
In addition, there are numerous countries in the area who are directly involved or acting through their surrogates in Syria that have access to chemical weapons. False flag operations are always a possibility.
And from the other side
Assad denies using chemical weapons and instead accuses the rebels. There is a report by a UN group that is at odds with 'information' provided to the UN by the UK and France. Russia and China indicate that these particular charges are simply warmongering by the West, trying to gin up an excuse for war as was done in Iraq.
Also, logically we have to ask
Since there have been more 'red lines' drawn in the Syrian conflict than can be seen on one of Bob's college term papers, does it make sense that Assad would employ these weapons (except as a last resort)and invite invasion by many of the major parties urging his departure? Or on the other hand, is this an ideal situation for a false flag operation by opposition forces?
So in summary, at this point, we don't know shit about the chemical weapons in Syria, when, where, how, or by whom they were used. So the question remains, why would any of these media guys insist on a particular standard in the conflict for one side when they don't insist on exactly the same standard for the other?
Oh wait, I forgot. The report, based on testimony and video evidence, that reported that
there was evidence of the use of chemical weapons by rebel groups was actually put together by a U.N. agency, always a questionable source. Especially so, when countered by a commentator who tows the always reliable MSM line which in this case insists that it is all too obvious that Assad used chemical weapons, a commentator who at times writes for the American Thinker, a commentator that Farmer Bob of Idaho is enthralled enough with to provide reading lists of his various columns. You know pretty compelling stuff.
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Delete"Since there have been more 'red lines' drawn in the Syrian conflict than can be seen on one of Bob's college term papers...."
Heh, that's pretty good, Quirk, your brain is starting to work again. I am happy.
Not bad, not bad at all.
But the brain isn't working perfectly, yet.
DeleteYou erred and put two
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at the end, stead of your normal one.
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DeleteEmphasis, my boy, emphasis.
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Excellent post. I was checking constantly this blog and I am impressed!
ReplyDeleteVery useful info specifically the last part :) I care for such information much.
I was looking for this certain info for a
long time. Thank you and good luck.
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DeleteWill see you in the Walmart parking lot.
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DeleteTrunk to trunk, fraud to fraud, Walmart parking lot, a Quirk/Anon meet.
Deuce,
ReplyDeleteNo time to go back and print out the lexicon of horrors that was "Woodward and Bernstein." What was that song? "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves?"
Both of those guys were hanging on by a thread at the Post when they, luckily for their careers, found themselves useful in the mission to take down Nixon.
I loathe Geraldo, but even he has more veritas than those mugs...
They are manufactured caricatures. To use them to prove, or make, a point is ridiculous.
You love history and research. Go back and read about those two and what their reputations were before they served a "higher purpose."
I know that. I am amused at the twist that is making a comeback. You had to love the look on Donny Deutsche!
DeleteA love of history and research leads to the conclusion Lincoln was a pedophile and was thrilled at the idea of young me dying.....
ReplyDeletehttp://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=32623.40
Psychologist, therapist and former Kinsey sex researcher Tripp-author of the 1975 classic The Homosexual Matrix-died in May 2003 at the age of 83, just after completing this riveting new study that makes a surprisingly compelling case for Lincoln's bisexuality. Tripp merges a sexual psychologist's knowledge with a prosecutor's eye for evidence as he scrutinizes letters, diaries and oral histories gathered by early Lincoln researchers. Seeing what others either could not or would not see......
http://theintimateworldofabrahamlincoln.com/
............
Sexuality of Abraham Lincoln
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln)
Jump to: navigation, search
The sexual orientation of Abraham Lincoln is a topic of debate[1] introduced by a small number of people, without backing up claims with contemporary or modern evidence. While Lincoln was married to Mary Todd from November 4, 1842, until his death on April 15, 1865, and fathered four children with her, psychologist C. A. Tripp has observed that Lincoln's problematic and distant relationship with women stood in contrast to his warmer relations with a number of men in his life and that two of those relationships had possible homosexual overtones.[2] Some Lincoln biographers, including David Herbert Donald, have strongly contested these claims.[3] As an astute politician, Lincoln was a man with many friends, Donald says. In countering claims of homosexuality, Donald cites Lincoln's letters, in which he frequently refers to acquaintances, even political enemies, as "my personal friend".[4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Intimate_World_of_Abraham_Lincoln
Whistleblower: Hillary cut State’s counter-terrorism bureau out of Benghazi loop
ReplyDeleteposted at 8:41 am on May 6, 2013 by Ed Morrissey
In the previous post, I noted that Darrell Issa’s witnesses in the House Oversight hearings on Benghazi would make life difficult for both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Fox News reported late yesterday that one witness in particular will testify that Hillary purposefully cut out of the loop the State Department’s bureau for counter-terrorism as Benghazi burned — which will prompt all sorts of questions as to why any Secretary of State would make that decision........
.......
To quote Hillary, what difference at this point would it make? It’s about to rain all over her 2016 parade by painting her as an incompetent, of course, but that’s actually a by-product of her own choices. The bigger issue now is the cover-up. Why would the Obama administration try to keep a counter-terrorism response group on the sidelines during a terrorist attack? Who got to the ARB and made it into a CYA exercise rather than a real investigation?
Who knew what, and when?
Stay tuned, because Issa’s carrying dynamite, and it’s not clear exactly how the explosion will manifest itself. Expect lower-level officials to throw themselves on it to protect both Obama and Clinton, but so far it looks like higher-level officials want to go on the record, and that’s bad news for the White House.
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/05/06/whistleblower-hillary-cut-states-counter-terrorism-bureau-out-of-benghazi-loop/
In two days the whistles blow! Stay tuned!!
Benghazi Fallout
DeleteDiplomat: U.S. Military Told "You Can't Go" Amid Benghazi Attacks
Witness to Say Clinton Sought End Run Around Counterterror Bureau
How Talking Points Were Changed
All at Real Clear Politics now.
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ReplyDeleteand the way in which by which you are saying it. You're making it entertaining and you continue to care for to stay it smart. I can't wait to learn far more from
you. That is really a great web site.
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DeleteWho told SOCAFRICA they couldn’t go to Benghazi?
ReplyDeleteThe account from Gregory Hicks is in stark contrast to assertions from the Obama administration, which insisted that nobody was ever told to stand down and that all available resources were utilized. Hicks gave private testimony to congressional investigators last month in advance of his upcoming appearance at a congressional hearing Wednesday.
According to excerpts released Monday, Hicks told investigators that SOCAFRICA commander Lt. Col. Gibson and his team were on their way to board a C-130 from Tripoli for Benghazi prior to an attack on a second U.S. compound “when [Col. Gibson] got a phone call from SOCAFRICA which said, ‘you can’t go now, you don’t have the authority to go now.’ And so they missed the flight … They were told not to board the flight, so they missed it.”…
“I believe if we had been able to scramble a fighter or aircraft or two over Benghazi as quickly as possible after the attack commenced, I believe there would not have been a mortar attack on the annex in the morning because I believe the Libyans would have split. They would have been scared to death that we would have gotten a laser on them and killed them,” Hicks testified. Two Americans died in the morning mortar attack.
More from Hicks via the Examiner:
“They were told not to board the flight, so they missed it,” Hicks added. “So, anyway, and yeah. I still remember Colonel Gibson, he said, ‘I have never been so embarrassed in my life that a State Department officer has bigger balls than somebody in the military.’ A nice compliment.”
He added that “at that time, the third attack, the mortar attack at 5:15, had not yet occurred, if I remember correctly.”…
Hicks is certain that the special forces team was needed. “We fully intended for those guys to go, because we had already essentially stripped ourselves of our security presence, or our security capability to the bare minimum,” he said in the interview.
Benghazi whistleblower: U.S. special forces were told to stand down during attack
posted at 1:21 pm on May 6, 2013 by Allahpundit
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/05/06/reports-benghazi-whistleblower-claims-u-s-special-forces-were-told-to-stand-down-during-attack/
COMING UP WEDNESDAY!
Even Bob Beckel said on Fox that if the testimony is as expected, 'somebody ought to go to prison'.
DeleteHezbollah fighters joined Syrian government forces in the siege of a rebel-held town inside the war-torn country on Monday, local residents said, deepening the Iran-backed group's involvement in Syria's civil war and raising alarm among U.S. officials.
ReplyDelete...
The latest phase of Syria's conflict places fresh U.S. concerns on Hezbollah, a Tehran-backed group that is a member of Lebanon's governing partnership...
On this day three years ago, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged nearly 1000 points in the matter of minutes before rebounding quickly. The “Flash Crash” exposed plenty of flaws in the market.
ReplyDeleteSenator Graham on Fox - "The dam is about to break on Benghazi."
ReplyDeleteSeems some CIA agents are about to come in from the cold too.
Rufus, make sure you watch on Wednesday.
It's gonna be like this, Rufus -
Deletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEdM6Ys6spA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2beeXgvQlk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_Xcl9Lew-c
Gonna be just like that.
Billary and Bama gonna be washed right away.
Never build a house outta straw, Rufus, nor a dam outta sand.
DeleteWhy? Do I look like an idiot Idaho potato farmer?
DeleteBob, do you realize how many hours of your life you've now wasted on those charlatons?
No one gives a fuck, Bob.
It don't matter how much you hate the color of his skin, Bob, Obama's the President (And will be for four more years unless one of your crazy, potato farming/NRA plastic pop-gun toting, morons gets incredibly lucky.)
:)
DeleteHey, you're the guy that fessed up to voting racist.
Ah, Ruf, the wheels may come off the trolley. And you voted for the charlatans.
"Do I look like an idiot Idaho potato farmer?"
Not at all. You look like a toothless tobacco chewing red neck moron with a big beer gut.
But we both know, it not looks that count.
Your guy is so morally corrupt he let those people die to preserve a campaign slogan, and has lied about it ever since. And you don't give a shit.
I would never vote for any Democrat for President Rufus, not with what the Democratic Party has become these days.
DeleteRace has zero to do with it.
You know that, but spout B.S. anyway.
Charlatons = Issa, Graham, etal.
DeleteIsrael's willingness to hit Syrian targets it sees as threats to its own existence has complicated the Obama administration's internal debate over arming President Bashar Assad's foes and may change the way U.S. approaches allies as it tries to boost the rebels, including with possible military aid.
ReplyDelete...
Israeli warplanes targeted caches of Iranian missiles that were bound for Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based terror group that has threatened Israel. The weapons would have allowed Hezbollah to strike Tel Aviv and as far as southern Israel from inside Lebanese territory.
.
ReplyDeleteHow does this scenario sound.
Israel attacks Syria.
The boys in OZ haven't had a war in a year or more so
In Washington, the reported Israeli attacks stoked debate about whether American-led airstrikes were the logical next step to cripple the ability of the Syrian president to counter the rebel forces or use chemical weapons. That was already being discussed in secret by the United States, Britain and France in the days leading to the Israeli strikes, according to American and foreign officials involved in the discussions, with a model being the opening days of the attacks on Libya that ultimately drove Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi from power.
Lawmakers from both parties urged President Obama to move toward arming the rebels. “The idea of getting weapons in — if we know the right people to get them — my guess is we will give them to them,” Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Obama has been reluctant to get involved; however,...
Senator Graham on Fox - "The dam is about to break on Benghazi."
Obama has a sudden change of heart, the drones start to fly, the munchkins in OZ cheer but the Benghazi hearings continue.
Obama goes on TV and complains that the GOP are being political in a time of war. Have they no shame.
Benghazi fades as the deaths mount in Syria.
.
That actually sound somewhat plausible, like Clinton distracting from Monica.
DeleteSo Ruf's guy, who let the people die in Benghazi, changes the subject from the dead there by letting some more of ours die in Syria.
And Ruf says I've wasted my time on charlatans.
I'd take Romney any day.
Obama Said Assad's 'Days Numbered' -- Almost 600 Days Ago... Drudge
DeleteHey, you, helicopter driver, grab those guys over there, and tak'em across the Mediterranean to downtown Benghazi. Drop'em off so they can mosey around and shoot a few bad guys, and check and see if any of those spooks are still alive.
DeleteWhat childish drivel.
No commander over the age of six would ever consider such a ham-boned idea.
That guy got out there cowboyin' around and got some of his folks killed.
The whole thing is past strange. Did not our involvement with Syria begin with Obama surreptitiously running guns into Syria from Libya? Stevens was involved in that, so he isn't exactly innocent, but he shouldn't have been left to die, he and the others. Sacrificed to a political program.
DeleteThe whole fiasco is entirely the fault of Obama and Hillary.
What was Obama doing running guns into Syria in the first place?
Now after foolishly drawing red lines he's really got his balls in vise.
And this -
Hey, you, helicopter driver, grab those guys over there, and tak'em across the Mediterranean to downtown Benghazi. Drop'em off so they can mosey around and shoot a few bad guys, and check and see if any of those spooks are still alive.
What childish drivel.
No commander over the age of six would ever consider such a ham-boned idea.
That guy got out there cowboyin' around and got some of his folks killed.
is a very minority opinion among all the stuff I've read on this subject.
An opinion of one, really.
And what was needed and wanted was a C-130 or some jets, not a helicopter from Italy.
Your dumb fuck President got the whole thing going running guns surreptitiously from Libya into Syria, moron.
DeleteAnd now he looks, to anyone who will look, like the total idiot, fool, and proud knave that most people have always know him to be.
May 7, 2013
DeleteSpecial forces in Tripoli told 'you can't go' to Benghazi
Rick Moran
Tripoli is about 30 minutes flying time to Benghazi. If what this diplomat says is true, the administration is going to be forced by congress to come clean on who gave the order that prevented special forces from coming to the assistance of our embattled diplomats.
Benghazi is not going away.
CBS News:
The account from Gregory Hicks is in stark contrast to assertions from the Obama administration, which insisted that nobody was ever told to stand down and that all available resources were utilized. Hicks gave private testimony to congressional investigators last month in advance of his upcoming appearance at a congressional hearing Wednesday.
According to excerpts released Monday, Hicks told investigators that SOCAFRICA commander Lt. Col. Gibson and his team were on their way to board a C-130 from Tripoli for Benghazi prior to an attack on a second U.S. compound "when [Col. Gibson] got a phone call from SOCAFRICA which said, 'you can't go now, you don't have the authority to go now.' And so they missed the flight ... They were told not to board the flight, so they missed it."
No assistance arrived from the U.S. military outside of Libya during the hours that Americans were under attack or trapped inside compounds by hostile forces armed with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and AK-47 rifles.
Hicks told congressional investigators that if the U.S. had quickly sent a military aircraft over Benghazi, it might have saved American lives. The U.S. Souda Bay Naval Base is an hour's flight from Libya.
"I believe if we had been able to scramble a fighter or aircraft or two over Benghazi as quickly as possible after the attack commenced, I believe there would not have been a mortar attack on the annex in the morning because I believe the Libyans would have split. They would have been scared to death that we would have gotten a laser on them and killed them," Hicks testified. Two Americans died in the morning mortar attack.
Who was minding the store in Washington? We now know that the counterterrorism task force that knew of every military asset that was available was never called to meet. We know that President Obama was nowhere to be found. We assume defense secretary Gates was being informed of what was going on but he and CIA chief David Petraeus both say that there was nothing to be done militarily.
Now we will hear testimony that directly contradicts the brass. Ultimately, of course, Obama is responsible and his story that there was "nothing to be done" continues to unravel.
OVER THE past four years, bee colonies have undergone a disturbing transformation. As helpless beekeepers looked on, the machinelike efficiency of these communal insects devolved into inexplicable disorganization.
ReplyDelete...
No matter what we do to control our fossil-fuel use and carbon output, our climate has already been permanently changed for the next millennium. To prevent the planet from becoming uninhabitable, we’ll have to take our control of the environment a step further and become geoengineers, using technology to shape geological processes.
...
Eventually, however, the day will come when we will have to move beyond patrolling our planetary backyard and start laying the foundations for a true interplanetary civilization. Asteroid defense and geoengineering will only take us so far.
Can Humans Survive?
This is a serious matter. We're screwed without the bees, even though I hate 'em, being allergic to them.
DeleteYou get stung enough, your allergy bucket will overflow too.
Can Humans Survive?
DeleteMay 6, 2013 4:45 AM EDT
Five mass extinctions have nearly wiped out life on earth. The sixth is coming.
OVER THE past four years, bee colonies have undergone a disturbing transformation. As helpless beekeepers looked on, the machinelike efficiency of these communal insects devolved into inexplicable disorganization. Worker bees would fly away, never to return; adolescent bees wandered aimlessly in the hive; and the daily jobs in the colony were left undone until honey production stopped and eggs died of neglect. Colony collapse disorder, as it is known, has claimed roughly 30 percent of bee colonies every winter since 2007.
The Great Dying
Are we in the first act of a mass extinction that will end in the death of millions of plant and animal species across the planet, including us? (Eric Prine/Gallery Stock)
If bees go extinct, their loss will trigger an extinction domino effect, because crops from apples to broccoli rely on these insects for pollination. At the same time, over a third of the world’s amphibian species are threatened with extinction, and Harvard evolutionary biologist and conservationist E.O. Wilson estimates that 27,000 species of all kinds go extinct per year.
Sam's article -
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2013/05/06/the-sixth-mass-extinction-is-upon-us-can-humans-survive.html
Lt. Governor Peter Kinder said, “Missouri has a well-earned reputation as a ‘gun-friendly’ state. I am proud to represent a state that values the Constitution and stands against the federal government’s attempts to infringe upon our 2nd and 10th Amendment rights.
ReplyDelete...
The Missouri legislature is also on the cusp of passing the Second Amendment Preservation Act, (HB436 and SB325) which nullifies all federal oversight related to firearms in the state. The act declares the General Assembly’s position on the authority of the federal government and declares as invalid certain federal gun laws, prohibiting the enforcement of such laws.
The state has made national headlines here and here in recent weeks with their no holds barred approach to declaring their Tenth Amendment rights to simply nullify federal laws that are extra-Constitutional.
ReplyDeleteThe Blog
U.S. Military in Tripoli Ordered Not to Go to Benghazi
12:08 PM, May 6, 2013 • By STEPHEN F. HAYES
A top U.S. diplomat will testify Wednesday that as fighting raged in Benghazi, Libya, in the early morning hours of September 12, 2012, military officials in the region told a second rescue team preparing to deploy from Tripoli to Benghazi not to make the trip.
In an interview with the House Oversight and Reform Committee last month, Greg Hicks, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Libya during the attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, recalled his conversations with Libyan government officials and U.S. military leaders as he tried to get support to U.S. diplomatic and intelligence officials under attack in Benghazi. Hicks says he received a call from the Prime Minister of Libya shortly after 3am informing him that Ambassador Chris Stevens had been killed. Hicks became the top US diplomat in Libya after Stevens died.
In the hours that followed, Hicks says, the Libyan military agreed to fly a C-130 from Tripoli to Benghazi in the early morning hours of September 12 – a flight that was to include a second team of Special Operations soldiers – dispatched from the Libyan capital to join a team sent earlier to Benghazi. But as those reinforcements were leaving for the flight, they were told to stand down. Hicks received the news in an early morning phone call from a top military commander in the region.
“So Lieutenant Colonel Gibson, who is the SOCAFRICA commander, his team, you know, they were on their way to the vehicles to go to the airport to get on the C‑130 when he got a phone call from SOCAFRICA which said, ‘you can't go now, you don't have authority to go now,’’ Hicks recalled. “And so they missed the flight.”
Pushed to clarify whether they second rescue missed flight because they were told not to take it, Hicks responded: “They were told not to board the flight, so they missed it.”
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What Did Lew Do?
Hicks says he was talking to officials in Washington all night but because the C-130 would be taking off from Mitiga International Airport, on the other side of Tripoli, he didn’t have time to push anyone in the United States to reverse the decision. “The flight was leaving. And, you know, if they missed ‑‑ you know, if the vehicles didn't leave when they leave, they would miss the flight time at the airport.”
Hicks remembers Gibson saying: “I have never been so embarrassed in my life that a State Department officer has bigger balls than somebody in the military.”
The team would have likely arrived after the fighting in Benghazi had ended, but those who made the decision not to send them had no way of knowing that when they ordered them to remain in Tripoli.
Hicks will also tell the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Wednesday that military officials twice declined to send air support to Benghazi because the U.S. military didn’t have “tanker assets” to support the trip from Aviano, Italy.