"… the intelligence community found itself with numerous skeptics in the ranks, leading to sharp exchanges with the Director of Central Intelligence John Brennan and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. A number of analysts threatened to resign as a group if their strong dissent was not noted in any report released to the public, forcing both Brennan and Clapper to back down. This led to the White House issuing its own assessment, completely divorcing the process from any direct connection to the intelligence community. The spectacle of CIA Director George Tenet sitting behind Secretary of State Colin Powell in the United Nations, providing him with credibility as Powell told a series of half-truths, would not be repeated." Giraldi
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We must remember that the WH never revealed what its "evidence" was of Syrian government complicity in the chemical disaster of 20 August. Now you know why. There was none. pl
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/quitting-over-syria/
This suggests that Democrat presidents are no less libertine with truth than Republicans. When it comes to matters of war, war is just too important to let pesky facts get in the way of a PR effective casus belli.
Once we had them babies in incubators.
Then we had Operation Horseshoe.
Then came the Aluminum tubes and the mobile bioweapon labs.
In Libya we had the gvt issued Viagra for mass rapes.
Now we had the alleged CW use by Assad.
It appears that, for the US go go on a war of choice, something like that is a precondition.
Col: Every now and then it is good to be reminded that we have many people in the government who are loyal to America first, and to a politician second.
Bush III
We are coming close to the time when Articles of Impeachment may well be introduced in the U.S. House of Representativeths.
Oddly perhaps it may not be the President!
IMO Joe Biden was always NOT in the top tier of the U.S. Senate either in skills or clout. He does however have an excellent sniffer as to who is in political trouble and he does whatever his merits still want to be President.
Please notice his absence from the Washington scene and events.
And how’s Iraq enjoying its liberation 10 years later:
“BAGHDAD — A wave of attacks against Shiite Muslims in Iraq killed at least 47 people and wounded dozens on Thursday, security officials said, as they were marking the holy day of Ashura, which commemorates the killing of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, 1,300 years ago….”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/15/world/middleeast/iraq.html?_r=0
My WAG, and I do mean wild, is they decided Assad was the only guy who could “make a difference” on getting the chem out of there, so…
None of it makes sense to me any other way. If he wanted to actually hit Syria, why not announce it after the hit, à la Grenada? They say there had been some discussions months before with Putin on the “what ifs” on large scale chem. Nobody wanted an “ally” doing that, but the only way they could think of to end the false-flagging was to remove Assad’s stocks.
In the event something big broke out, they knew Putin would attempt to talk Assad into giving them up, thought it highly probably the Iranians would also do that, so when a “big event” happened they rolled the dice. When word came the Russians had a deal, Obama “decided” to “ask Congress”.
Please don’t post this if it’s too damn silly. I kind of hope it is too damn silly, actually. Being so obsessed with chem they would risk getting us in that mess? “Yikes!” still applies.
Col Lang,
Thank you for the link to the article. Back when the MSM and the RTP crowd were beating the drums of war, my wife and I sent our Senators (Jim Kaine, Mark Warner) and our Representative (Jim Moran) each an email requesting that they not support military action in Syria.
Well, we got our hands slapped, rhetorically by Kaine and Warner. Here is a sample from each:
Frome Jim Kaine:
“Second, after significant classified and unclassified briefings, discussion with military and foreign policy experts, conversation with Virginians, and much thought, I voted in favor of authorizing limited military action. It has a specific purpose – to punish the Assad government for its use of chemical weapons and strongly deter any future use. The authorization is limited in scope and time, guarantees that no American troops will be deployed inside Syria for combat operations, and requires all diplomatic options to be exhausted before the commencement of any military strikes. These actions have helped pressure Assad to consider relinquishing his chemical weapons stockpile to international control. I welcome this development and will continue to carefully examine this and any other credible offers presented by the Russians and Syrians. … I find the gassing of innocent men, women, and children intolerable, and believe there must be a consequence.” I think that Kaine is implying that my wife and I are for gassing innocents and that he is clearly morally superior to us lesser souls.
From Mark Warner:
“Since the April 2011 start of the Syrian conflict, more than 100,000 people have died, at least two million Syrians have become refugees according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and approximately five million Syrians are internally displaced. Based on the evidence that I have seen as a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the evidence presented in the UN Chemical Weapons Report on Syria, I believe that there were chemical attacks in Syria, and that the Syrian regime used chemical weapons against its own people. The evidence clearly points to the Syrian government being responsible for the attacks, which is part of a pattern of chemical weapons use by the regime. The use of chemical weapons clearly violates international norms and rejects international agreements banning the use of chemical weapons.” Clearly, Senator Warner is in the “know” and we should just trust his judgement.
On the other hand, Jim Moran’s response was a bit more cautious:
“The United Nations Security Council is the appropriate place to validate the recent diplomatic breakthrough, so that Syria can be held accountable for the chemical attacks. Should Russia or China again block a Security Council resolution through which the chemical weapons can be secured, then I believe the President has the Constitutional Authority to carry out limited military strikes against the Syrian regime. I fervently hope it does not come to that. If it does, the American people should support such limited action, as they supported Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush and President Clinton in similar circumstances during earlier conflicts, all of which achieved their defined purpose.” However, he does think that Assad was responsible would have voted to intervene.
I wonder how close we actually came to attacking Assad’s troops. Yikes! Squared!
Regards,
For some perspective on what can be known from public information, a crowd-sourced blog was set up to examine the Ghouta incident following the claims and counter claims about who was responsible.
This work process is described as follows:
“This blog was created to counter these disinformation campaigns, by providing an open online collaboration platform to investigate who is behind the attack. It turned out to be very successful with dozens of contributors meticulously documenting and analyzing thousands of pieces of evidence. Due to the sensitivity of the matter, high standards were enforced: Only reliable evidence verified by multiple sources may be used. No unverifiable statements from a single source, no generous interpretations of blurred images, and no cherry-picked circumstantial evidence.”
The resulting findings and full supporting analysis process are at http://whoghouta.blogspot.se/2013/11/the-conclusion.html
The bottom line of this work is “The only plausible scenario that fits the evidence is an attack by opposition forces.”
I would be curious to know what the intelligence professionals among us think of this work?