Syria: A Line in the Sand

[sadaist]

Hint: It's in the ground and it burns.

My old wedding ring that I buried?

[sadaist]

Follow the money Sadist. What does Libya have that Syria doesn't? Hint: It's in the ground and it burns.

The stupid thing about that is it's soooo fucking obvious. Does our government really think we are that stupid? I mean it's the point where it's so obvious that it can't be the real reason.

[Nitro Express]

The stupid thing about that is it's soooo fucking obvious. Does our government really think we are that stupid? I mean it's the point where it's so obvious that it can't be the real reason.

Look at it from their point of view. The people in Washington and the people on Wall Street have been screwing us for a very long time. What happens is they get used to it being so easy, they get cocky, and they don't see the left hook coming that knocks them on their ass. Look at established politicians who lost in the primaries. They were shocked. They didn't see it coming. A lot of people in the establishment are so far into their own isolated situation they don't see reality.

Some of the smarter ones see it.



It's no different than ancient Rome where they bought off the public with food and entertainment and kept them occupied with that while they stole the treasury for themselves and continued to raise taxes. The weapon of mass destruction in our modern times has been the couch and the television set.

[sadaist]

This is why governments fear the Internet so much and the free sharing of information, knowledge & ideas.

[Nitro Express]

This is why governments fear the Internet so much and the free sharing of information, knowledge & ideas.

Yup. The internet was developed for the military and was there but like always some young entrepreneur developed a way to search the web. Before you had to know what to type in to find what you were looking for and it really made the net pretty much useless.

The control freaks didn't see it coming. They were knocking themselves out buying up the traditional media and trying to control that.

Now people have it and they don't want to give it up and the government is trying to use every excuse to control it. Of course they use the same excuses. Security. They say they care about us and they want to keep us safe all at the same time the banks are stealing billions from us and the government that cares about us does nothing. We even can point out in detail who stole the money but the government that cares so much about us does nothing. They might toss some unemployment benefits and some welfare trinkets our way but that's about it. It like them stealing the candy and then giving us the wrapper off of it.

Once people have something and enjoy it, it's very hard to take away. People have enjoyed free uncensored internet with search capability for almost two decades. It's hard to just come in and say we are going to take some of it away without people throwing a tizzy.

The Mormon church even started telling it's members to stay off the internet because there was porn on it. The real reason was stuff in the church history that the church was able to buy up, hide and suppress was starting to surface on the internet again. Black and white proof that the church has systematically changed it's history over the years and proof Joseph Smith mistranslated some Egyptian artifacts and that made a whole book of Mormon scripture obviously a fraud. So they ran a huge campaign to try and get the members off the internet because members were leaving the church because of it. They yelled and the screamed and the members still used the internet. The next move was to exploit the internet themselves so they spend a fortune running ads on YouTube and other popular websites. It was like watching some little creep trying to hold a breaking dam back and then it breaks and they go with the flood.

[Nickdfresh]

I don't understand why we were so quick to go into Libya but not Syria. And what about all the African nations in the last 15 years that have been slaughtering their people? Where was the outrage & US intervention there? We sure are picky about when we want to stand up & act righteous.

We had lots of NATO airbases in range and former Euro colonial powers with a vested interest in Libya. Unfortunately, Syria is far more isolated and difficult to get at without significant Arab support...

[Hardrock69]

GODDAMMIT!

THIS CANNOT GO ON!!!

[Hardrock69]

I had a friend in L.A. I used to buy pot from.....he was an ex-POW from the Vientnam conflict and he had a lot of stories to tell.....

Wish I knew what happened to him. He was a VERY cool guy....

[ELVIS]

It was good to be a kid in the 70's.

It was a joke from a faux liberal perspective...

[Nickdfresh]

C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition
By ERIC SCHMITT
Published: June 21, 2012

WASHINGTON — A small number of C.I.A. officers are operating secretly in southern Turkey, helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters across the border will receive arms to fight the Syrian government, according to American officials and Arab intelligence officers.
Related

The weapons, including automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition and some antitank weapons, are being funneled mostly across the Turkish border by way of a shadowy network of intermediaries including Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood and paid for by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the officials said.

The C.I.A. officers have been in southern Turkey for several weeks, in part to help keep weapons out of the hands of fighters allied with Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups, one senior American official said. The Obama administration has said it is not providing arms to the rebels, but it has also acknowledged that Syria’s neighbors would do so.

The clandestine intelligence-gathering effort is the most detailed known instance of the limited American support for the military campaign against the Syrian government. It is also part of Washington’s attempt to increase the pressure on President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, who has recently escalated his government’s deadly crackdown on civilians and the militias battling his rule. With Russia blocking more aggressive steps against the Assad government, the United States and its allies have instead turned to diplomacy and aiding allied efforts to arm the rebels to force Mr. Assad from power.

By helping to vet rebel groups, American intelligence operatives in Turkey hope to learn more about a growing, changing opposition network inside of Syria and to establish new ties. “C.I.A. officers are there and they are trying to make new sources and recruit people,” said one Arab intelligence official who is briefed regularly by American counterparts.

American officials and retired C.I.A. officials said the administration was also weighing additional assistance to rebels, like providing satellite imagery and other detailed intelligence on Syrian troop locations and movements. The administration is also considering whether to help the opposition set up a rudimentary intelligence service. But no decisions have been made on those measures or even more aggressive steps, like sending C.I.A. officers into Syria itself, they said.

The struggle inside Syria has the potential to intensify significantly in coming months as powerful new weapons are flowing to both the Syrian government and opposition fighters. President Obama and his top aides are seeking to pressure Russia to curb arms shipments like attack helicopters to Syria, its main ally in the Middle East.

“We’d like to see arms sales to the Assad regime come to an end, because we believe they’ve demonstrated that they will only use their military against their own civilian population,” Benjamin J. Rhodes, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, said after Mr. Obama and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir V. Putin, met in Mexico on Monday.

Spokesmen for the White House, State Department and C.I.A. would not comment on any intelligence operations supporting the Syrian rebels, some details of which were reported last week by The Wall Street Journal.

Until now, the public face of the administration’s Syria policy has largely been diplomacy and humanitarian aid.

The State Department said Wednesday that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton would meet with her Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, on the sidelines of a meeting of Asia-Pacific foreign ministers in St. Petersburg, Russia, next Thursday. The private talks are likely to focus, at least in part, on the crisis in Syria.

The State Department has authorized $15 million in nonlethal aid, like medical supplies and communications equipment, to civilian opposition groups in Syria.

The Pentagon continues to fine-tune a range of military options, after a request from Mr. Obama in early March for such contingency planning. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told senators at that time that the options under review included humanitarian airlifts, aerial surveillance of the Syrian military, and the establishment of a no-fly zone.

The military has also drawn up plans for how coalition troops would secure Syria’s sizable stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons if an all-out civil war threatened their security.

But senior administration officials have underscored in recent days that they are not actively considering military options. “Anything at this point vis-à-vis Syria would be hypothetical in the extreme,” General Dempsey told reporters this month.

What has changed since March is an influx of weapons and ammunition to the rebels. The increasingly fierce air and artillery assaults by the government are intended to counter improved coordination, tactics and weaponry among the opposition forces, according to members of the Syrian National Council and other activists.

Last month, these activists said, Turkish Army vehicles delivered antitank weaponry to the border, where it was then smuggled into Syria. Turkey has repeatedly denied it was extending anything other than humanitarian aid to the opposition, mostly via refugee camps near the border. The United States, these activists said, was consulted about these weapons transfers.

American military analysts offered mixed opinions on whether these arms have offset the advantages held by the militarily superior Syrian Army. “The rebels are starting to crack the code on how to take out tanks,” said Joseph Holliday, a former United States Army intelligence officer in Afghanistan who is now a researcher tracking the Free Syrian Army for the Institute for the Study of War in Washington.

But a senior American officer who receives classified intelligence reports from the region, compared the rebels’ arms to “peashooters” against the government’s heavy weaponry and attack helicopters.

The Syrian National Council, the main opposition group in exile, has recently begun trying to organize the scattered, localized units that all fight under the name of the Free Syrian Army into a more cohesive force.

About 10 military coordinating councils in provinces across the country are now sharing tactics and other information. The city of Homs is the notable exception. It lacks such a council because the three main military groups in the city do not get along, national council officials said.

Jeffrey White, a defense analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who tracks videos and announcements from self-described rebel battalions, said there were now about 100 rebel formations, up from roughly 70 two months ago, ranging in size from a handful of fighters to a couple of hundred combatants.

“When the regime wants to go someplace and puts the right package of forces together, it can do it,” Mr. White said. “But the opposition is raising the cost of those kinds of operations.”

Neil MacFarquhar contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon. Souad Mekhennet also contributed reporting.

NYTimes.com

[Nickdfresh]

Syria rebels kill top chiefs of Assad regime in Damascus bomb strike

Three key figures reported dead amid mass troop defections and rumour of flight to Russia of Bashar al-Assad wife

Ian Black and Martin Chulov
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 18 July 2012 16.23 EDT

Hassan Turkmani, Bashar Assad
Bashar al-Assad, centre, with Hassan Turkmani, right, in 2005. Turkmani died in the bomb blast on 18 July along with Assef Shawkat, Assad’s brother-in-law, and Dawoud Rajha, defence minister. Photograph: Sana/AP

Syria's uprising entered uncharted territory after rebels fighting the regime of Bashar al-Assad killed three of his top security chiefs in a devastating bomb attack in the heart of Damascus – the single worst loss for the government in 16 months of increasingly bloody struggle.

Mass defections of soldiers and a rampage by pro-regime militiamen were reported in the capital amid a swirl of rumours, including one that Assad's wife, Asma, had fled to Russia and another that troops were being issued with gas masks, raising fears of the use of chemical weapons.

The president's whereabouts was also unclear, with one unconfirmed report that he had been wounded and left Damascus for Latakia on the coast.

Reports from Damascus on Wednesday described loud explosions, gunfire in the streets, attack helicopters firing and clouds of smoke over residential areas.

Earlier, Syrian state TV confirmed the deaths of Assef Shawkat, Assad's brother-in-law and the deputy head of the armed forces, and his closest security adviser, as well as Dawoud Rajha, the minister of defence and the regime's most senior Christian figure. Hassan Turkmani, his crisis management chief, was also killed.
...

Cont'd at TheGuardian.co.uk



Syria’s nerve agents
By Editorial Board, Wednesday, July 18, 6:16 PM

THE BOMB BLAST in Damascus on Wednesday blew a hole in the regime of Bashar al-Assad and could lead to the government’s loss of control over territory. That, in turn, could leave his chemical weapons vulnerable.

Syria holds one of the largest stockpiles of chemical weapons in the Middle East, composed of blister and nerve agents, including sarin, for which it has manufacturing facilities. It is believed to have sought out the deadliest nerve agent ever created, VX. The chemicals have been weaponized in aerial bombs, missile warheads and artillery shells. Details about storage locations are sketchy, and there have been reports of recent transfers, but it was believed the weapons were distributed among 45 sites around the country. Intelligence agencies say that Syria has prepared chemical weapons for use with its Scud and SS-21 missiles.

Even if Mr. Assad is not inclined to use chemical weapons in this civil war, there is a danger that they will be up for grabs as the regime’s power crumbles. One drop of sarin can kill an adult. Thirteen people died and hundreds were injured when the nerve agent was released on Tokyo subway cars in 1995 by the Aum Shinrikyo cult. One can only imagine the terror and uncertainty that would follow the disappearance of sarin shells or warheads from Syria.

Syria never signed the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, and it must be assumed that international inspectors would not be welcomed by the Assad government. But if Syria begins to crack up, international intervention may be required on an emergency basis. If carried out while the street fighting rages, such intervention would be dangerous. The planning should be underway. Russia, after so many months of supporting Mr. Assad, ought to see that controlling these weapons is in its interest, too, and join in the planning.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, located in The Hague, which oversees the treaty and carries out chemical weapons destruction, has no legal mandate for work in Syria, but it does have valuable expertise for inspection and monitoring, and it could get involved if asked by the United Nations. However, an armed force may also be required to secure the weapons, and that will demand careful coordination with the opposition.

Israel understandably sees the chemical weapons and missiles in Syria as a serious threat. But any Israeli intervention could inflame an already deteriorating situation. One reason for the United States and others to begin planning now for what to do with Syria’s chemical weapons is to keep Israel from acting unilaterally. But the larger reason is to head off a nightmare scenario, when an artillery shell filled with sarin goes missing in the middle of a civil war.

© The Washington Post Company

[Dr. Love]

ah fuck it... what's one more war?

[baru911]

Syria’s nerve agents?? Gee, wonder where those came from? Let's see. Ummm, there was this dude in Iraq that used nerve agents on the Kurds and killed 5000 of them in Halabja. Then when the "World's Policeman" was advising they were going to move in on the dude in Iraq all of his nerve agents just disappeared. What other Country has a border with Iraq? Oh, that's right Syrai.

We don't need to move into Syrai. Iran is their ally. Not a good move. However, all bet are off the table if a nerve agent traced back to Syrai goes into/off in Israel. Nothing good comes out of us going into Syrai.

[ELVIS]

Yeah, Syrai sucks...

[FORD]

Oh, now Syria has chemical weapons?

Our resident BlacKKKwater shill is probably correct in referencing the common link to Iraq, but not in the way that he thinks......

It's probably more like the same "intelligence sources", the same media whores, and the same NuttyYahoo puppets, spinning this lie as they did the lies about Iraq.

Yeah Assad's an asshole. So was Hussein. Big fucking deal. NuttyYahoo is the single biggest threat in the middle east. And the BCE business partners, the House of Saud literally financed "Al Qaeda".

We don't need a war with ANYBODY in that fucked up part of the world, but if we needed to be there at all, why not go after the ones who actually are causing the problems? NuttyYahoo in particular is determined to start World War III, as evidenced by every time he tries to blame Iran for any random event that happens anywhere on the goddamned planet.