Syrian Chemical Weapons Kill Or Maim a 1000

[vandeleur]

British parliament have just voted against british military involvement in Syria .
This isn't the last of it but its clear that although these are horrifying times in Syria there isn't any support that I can see for military involvement in the uk .
Am sure this isn't the last of it . Or the end of government attempts to change this situation .

[Nickdfresh]

Your Wikiening is on fire these days, Nick.

Unlike your stale, rip off of others' shtick. You did notice I actually posted a CSM article, or are you too busy dreaming of fuck-killing Peyton Manning?

[Hardrock69]

On the one hand, I don't believe the gas attacks were done by the Syrian government just because Obama and his overlords say so.

I am not stupid.

On the other hand, just the fact that the stupid motherfucker refuses to step down when his subjects have determined he has outlived his usefulness....to the point where he actively orders his people to murder civilians.....is appalling.

The motherfucker deserves to DIE for genocide.

So even though I say the US has questionable grounds for attacking Syria....and we DAMN sure can't afford to do so on a purely FINANCIAL level.......I say anything that happens that causes that goddamnable fuck to DIE is a good thing!!!!

[FORD]

[Hardrock69]

We are not all the way out of AssRamistan yet either.

The Military Industrial Complex is hungry for more trillions of dollars.....

[Seshmeister]

We're out! - Good...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23892783

Syria crisis: Cameron loses Commons vote on Syria action

MPs have rejected possible UK military action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government to deter the use of chemical weapons.

David Cameron said he would respect the defeat of a government motion by 285-272, ruling out joining US-led strikes.

The US said it would "continue to consult" with the UK, "one of our closest allies and friends".

France said the UK's vote does not change its resolve on the need to act in Syria.

Russia - which has close ties with the Assad government - welcomed Britain's rejection of a military strike.

The prime minister's call for a military response in Syria followed a suspected chemical weapons attack on the outskirts of the capital Damascus on 21 August, in which hundreds of people are reported to have died.

The US and UK say the Assad government was behind the attack - a claim denied by Damascus, which blames the rebels.

Assad said Syria would defend itself against any aggression.

The UK government's motion was in support of military action in Syria if it was backed up by evidence from United Nations weapons inspectors, who are investigating the attack.

They are due to finish their work on Friday and give their preliminary findings to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at the weekend.

After the vote Prime Minster David Cameron said it was clear Parliament did not want action and "the government will act accordingly".

Chancellor George Osborne told Radio 4's Today programme there would now be "national soul searching about our role in the world".

He added: "I hope this doesn't become a moment when we turn our back on all of the world's problems."

Defence Secretary Philip Hammond had told BBC's Newsnight programme that he and the prime minister were "disappointed" with the result, saying it would harm Britain's "special relationship" with Washington.

But he said he did not expect Britain's decision to "stop any action" by other countries.

Labour leader Ed Miliband said on Friday that the House of Commons had spoken "for the people of Britain".

"People are deeply concerned about the chemical weapons attacks in Syria, but they want us to learn the lessons of Iraq," he said.

"They don't want a rush to war. They want things done in the right way, working with the international community."

He said Britain "doesn't need reckless and impulsive leadership, it needs calm and measured leadership".

Ian Pannell: The victims "arrived like the walking dead"

Mr Miliband said Britain's relationship with the US "remains strong" despite the vote. He said there is a lesson that Britain must do what is in its national interest, even if that means doing something different to America.

He also said that Mr Cameron must "find other ways" to put pressure on Mr Assad.

The result of the vote was condemned by former Liberal Democrat leader Lord Ashdown, who tweeted that in "50 years trying to serve my country I have never felt so depressed [or] ashamed".

He later told the BBC that by doing nothing President Assad will use chemical weapons more "those weapons will become more commonplace in the Middle East battlefield" and "we will feel the effects of that as well".

Thirty Conservative and nine Liberal Democrat MPs voted against the government's motion.

The defeat comes as a potential blow to the authority of Mr Cameron, who had already watered down a government motion proposing military action, in response to Labour's demands for more evidence of President Assad's guilt.


Britain will not be involved in any military action that takes place in Syria, the chancellor has confirmed
The BBC's political editor Nick Robinson said the prime minister had now lost control of his own foreign and defence policy, and as a result he will cut a diminished figure on the international stage.

He added that some strong advocates of the transatlantic relationship were worried that America may now question the value and reliability of Britain as an ally.

During the debate, Labour had seen its own amendment - calling for "compelling" evidence that the regime was responsible for chemical attacks - rejected by MPs by 114 votes.

But, unexpectedly, MPs also rejected the government's motion.

Labour's shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander said the government defeat was down to the "fatally flawed" case put to MPs by Mr Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, claiming the pair's credibility was now diminished.

'The system works'
Shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy said so many of Mr Cameron's own MPs had voted with Labour because they were now "unwilling to take him at his word".

Conservative rebel Crispin Blunt said he hoped the vote would "relieve ourselves of some of this imperial pretension that a country of our size can seek to be involved in every conceivable conflict that's going on around the world".


Obama administration officials on Thursday told a group of US lawmakers in a conference call that it was "beyond a doubt that chemical weapons were used, and used intentionally by the Assad regime," said Eliot Engel, the senior Democratic member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said the US would "continue to work with Britain and consult with Britain as we are with all our allies".

On Friday French President Francois Hollande told the newspaper Le Monde that he would still be willing to take action without Britain's involvement.

He said he supported taking "firm" punitive action over an attack he said had caused "irreparable" harm to the Syrian people.

Germany, however, has ruled out taking part. Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told the Osnabruecker Zeitung newspaper that "such participation has not been sought nor is it being considered by us".

Meanwhile, Mr Assad told a group of Yemeni MPs on Thursday that Syria would defend itself against any aggression, according to Syria's Sana news agency.

"Syria, with its steadfast people and brave army, will continue eliminating terrorism, which is utilised by Israel and Western countries to serve their interests in fragmenting the region," he said.

[Nickdfresh]

Pussies... :D

[WACF]

Glad the UK bowed out.

This has been a very bizarre process...the media going on and on about how a strike will happen.

Could you imagine WWII with media and people in power with loose lips like now?

[tbone888]

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/29/facebook-post-said-to-be-by-assads-son-dares-americans-to-attack/?_r=0

[Nickdfresh]

U.S. military officers have deep doubts about impact, wisdom of a U.S. strike on Syria
By Ernesto Londoño, Published: August 29

The Obama administration’s plan to launch a military strike against Syria is being received with serious reservations by many in the U.S. military, which is coping with the scars of two lengthy wars and a rapidly contracting budget, according to current and former officers.

Having assumed for months that the United States was unlikely to intervene militarily in Syria, the Defense Department has been thrust onto a war footing that has made many in the armed services uneasy, according to interviews with more than a dozen military officers ranging from captains to a four-star general.

Former and current officers, many with the painful lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan on their minds, said the main reservations concern the potential unintended consequences of launching cruise missiles against Syria.

Some questioned the use of military force as a punitive measure and suggested that the White House lacks a coherent strategy. If the administration is ambivalent about the wisdom of defeating or crippling the Syrian leader, possibly setting the stage for Damascus to fall to fundamentalist rebels, they said, the military objective of strikes on Assad’s military targets is at best ambiguous.

“There’s a broad naivete in the political class about America’s obligations in foreign policy issues, and scary simplicity about the effects that employing American military power can achieve,” said retired Lt. Gen. Gregory S. Newbold, who served as director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the run-up to the Iraq war, noting that many of his contemporaries are alarmed by the plan.

New cycle of attacks?

Marine Lt. Col. Gordon Miller, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, warned this week of “potentially devastating consequences, including a fresh round of chemical weapons attacks and a military response by Israel.”

“If President [Bashar al-Assad] were to absorb the strikes and use chemical weapons again, this would be a significant blow to the United States’ credibility and it would be compelled to escalate the assault on Syria to achieve the original objectives,” Miller wrote in a commentary for the think tank.

A National Security Council spokeswoman said Thursday she would not discuss “internal deliberations.” White House officials reiterated Thursday that the administration is not contemplating a protracted military engagement.

Still, many in the military are skeptical. Getting drawn into the Syrian war, they fear, could distract the Pentagon in the midst of a vexing mission: its exit from Afghanistan, where U.S. troops are still being killed regularly. A young Army officer who is wrapping up a year-long tour there said soldiers were surprised to learn about the looming strike, calling the prospect “very dangerous.”

“I can’t believe the president is even considering it,” said the officer, who like most officers interviewed for this story agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity because military personnel are reluctant to criticize policymakers while military campaigns are being planned. “We have been fighting the last 10 years a counterinsurgency war. Syria has modern weaponry. We would have to retrain for a conventional war.”

Dempsey’s warning

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has warned in great detail about the risks and pitfalls of U.S. military intervention in Syria.

“As we weigh our options, we should be able to conclude with some confidence that use of force will move us toward the intended outcome,” Dempsey wrote last month in a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Once we take action, we should be prepared for what comes next. Deeper involvement is hard to avoid.”

Dempsey has not spoken publicly about the administration’s planned strike on Syria, and it is unclear to what extent his position shifted after last week’s alleged chemical weapons attack. Dempsey said this month in an interview with ABC News that the lessons of Iraq weigh heavily on his calculations regarding Syria.

“It has branded in me the idea that the use of military power must be part of an overall strategic solution that includes international partners and a whole of government,” he said in the Aug. 4 interview. “Simply the application of force rarely produces and, in fact, maybe never produces the outcome we seek.”

The recently retired head of the U.S. Central Command, Gen. James Mattis, said last month at a security conference that the United States has “no moral obligation to do the impossible” in Syria. “If Americans take ownership of this, this is going to be a full-throated, very, very serious war,” said Mattis, who as Centcom chief oversaw planning for a range of U.S. military responses in Syria.

The potential consequences of a U.S. strike include a retaliatory attack by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah — which supports Assad — on Israel, as well as cyberattacks on U.S. targets and infrastructure, U.S. military officials said.

“What is the political end state we’re trying to achieve?” said a retired senior officer involved in Middle East operational planning who said his concerns are widely shared by active-duty military leaders. “I don’t know what it is. We say it’s not regime change. If it’s punishment, there are other ways to punish.” The former senior officer said that those who are expressing alarm at the risks inherent in the plan “are not being heard other than in a pro-forma manner.”

President Obama said in a PBS interview on Wednesday that he is not contemplating a lengthy engagement, but instead “limited, tailored approaches.”

A retired Central Command officer said the administration’s plan would “gravely disappoint our allies and accomplish little other than to be seen as doing something.”

“It will be seen as a half measure by our allies in the Middle East,” the officer said. “Iran and Syria will portray it as proof that the U.S. is unwilling to defend its interests in the region.”

Still, some within the military, while apprehensive, support striking Syria. W. Andrew Terrill, a Middle East expert at the U.S. Army War College, said the limited history of the use of chemical weapons in the region suggests that a muted response from the West can be dangerous.

“There is a feeling as you look back that if you don’t stand up to chemical weapons, they’re going to take it as a green light and use them on a recurring basis,” he said.

An Army lieutenant colonel said the White House has only bad options but should resist the urge to abort the plan now.

“When a president draws a red line, for better or worse, it’s policy,” he said, referring to Obama’s declaration last year about Syria’s potential use of chemical weapons. “It cannot appear to be scared or tepid. Remember, with respect to policy choices concerning Syria, we are discussing degrees of bad and worse.”

© The Washington Post Company

[Va Beach VH Fan]

The President, any U.S. President, is in a really tough situation with this...

On one hand, majority of Americans want nothing to do with this situation.... We're sick of "war"....

But I just can't see Obama, or even if this happened during a Republican administration, doing nothing... It just opens up a chemical can of worms in that region.... If we let Syria get away with it, will that prompt Iran?

However, if/when he does order the strike, IMO he had better take out Assad, otherwise there is not much benefit, to me anyway....

Sure, he could bomb the oil refineries, but that would probably drive up the price of gas here....

But if he just bombs a few Government buildings, and then Assad gets paraded out after it's over, it will be a PR disaster....

Like I said, really difficult situation....

[Nickdfresh]

I don't think Syria has much in the way of oil refineries. The sky appears to be the limit there on asshole refineries, though...

[FORD]

Actually, it's not the oil so much as it is the natural gas......

The Syrian "civil war" began soon after Syria, Iran, and Iraq signed a deal to build a gas pipeline.

But the Saudis and Qatar want THEIR pipeline to dominate the region.

Coincidence?

[FORD]

[Nickdfresh]

Actually, it's not the oil so much as it is the natural gas......

The Syrian "civil war" began soon after Syria, Iran, and Iraq signed a deal to build a gas pipeline.

But the Saudis and Qatar want THEIR pipeline to dominate the region.

Coincidence?

Probably.

I think it also began when the Syrian secret police cunts abducted several boys for painting anti-Assad slogans on walls. Then they posted pic's of the boys being tortured and raped and this set off the latest rebellion. There have been several uprisings against the Assad dynasty over the years as their a minority regime drawn from the Druze. This one is just more successful...