Syria: Was Trump right to attack Assad?

I just have one question for Assad: what the hell were you thinking? The war is going relatively well for him, his position is secure and then he does this. It really makes no sense. Unless Putin wanted to give Trump an excuse to show that he is not a Russian puppet, just to make the inquiry go away. One bombing, not much damage, and the war goes on as before...

The Syrian government did a horrendous thing. But what does this lone bombing really accomplish?

It's hard not to think the worst of Putin and especially Assad, that child-torturer, but I read somewhere that Assad only has 18,000 in his military, which isn't huge given the challenge of holding on to the country. Chems are relatively cheap way of clearing an area plus doesn't trash the buildings. Awful, I know.

(Also read somewhere that pilot of the chem attack was killed by bomb placed under his car.)

Response of Syrian allies Russia and Iran weren't THAT hot, though, were they? Having suffered chem attacks itself during war with Saddam's Iraq, I can understand Iran's initial ambivalence. Russia, however...as bad as Putin is, is he really capable of poisoning children for geopolitical advantage? His "tweet" to save Trump?

Was Trump right to attack? No.

More violence is never the correct first move.

But I am crying out:
Why is death by poison gas any more reprehensible than death by other violent means? Yeah, I get that the international community has banned it, more from battlefield experiences than from its use on civilians. Yeah, I get that the graphics of the suffering are heart-tugging. But so is any other kind of maiming and death by explosives, gunfire, firebombing, et cetera, et cetera.

I don't trust Trump. So, if he were to tick down the list of things I wanted, doing all of them, I'd still hold back my approval.

If Trump weren't in power, I'd support US involvement in Syria. Our inaction has been a major factor in the problems there--with Syrians caught between a murderous dictatorship and a murderous religious insurgency. As it is, I'm conflicted, but I have a strong premonition that the war will continue for years, and Trump will somehow make things worse.

That said, if Trump's action accomplishes only laying down a marker about chemical weapons, I'm four-square behind it. The failure of the Obama administration to enforce the deal it said it made, made chemical weapons acceptable. Much as North Korea got away with an NPT state building a large nuclear arsenal, Syria got away with chemical weapons--once the situation got messy enough that the Obama administration refused to do anything, it was home-free. This undermined both the international consensus against chemical weapons, and US credibility. Whatever the stupidity and incompetence, a renewed willingness to prevent the use of chemical weapons stands out.

More violence is never the correct first move.

Very true. But imagine if a Russian soldier at the Siege of Stalingrad were to pronounce that "More violence is never the correct first move ." Except, you know, Stalingrad was only three years into the war. The Syrians have had six years--not to mention 400,000 dead.

Why is death by poison gas any more reprehensible than death by other violent means? Yeah, I get that the international community has banned it, more from battlefield experiences than from its use on civilians. Yeah, I get that the graphics of the suffering are heart-tugging. But so is any other kind of maiming and death by explosives, gunfire, firebombing, et cetera, et cetera.

There are good reasons here. Bombs can be used indiscriminately, but poison gas is by nature indiscriminate. If anything it tends to kill civilians more than soldiers. Civilians tend to shelter from kinetic weapons in enclosed spaces ground, where poison gas is most effective. And many poison gasses are more lethal to children, as children have more surface area than adults and have less respiratory competence.

Sure, death is death. But an agreed-upon and enforced international consensus against certain particularly horrible weapons--chemical, biological and nuclear weapons--is a good thing.

I would support it if I thought it was part of a long-term coherent strategy. Any strategy would be better than just winging it.

I do fault Obama for his inaction on Syria to an extent BUT Obama was stymied by Congress, and I guess he wasn't willing to bypass them entirely, as Trump seems to have no problems doing. Of course, things that, if done by Obama, would have had Congress calling for his head gets Trump a wink and a nod from a Congress that collectively will stand for absolutely nothing whatsoever. And Trump gets a pass from the media because he was moved by his emotions to bomb Syria. Whereas if Clinton had been president and dared to show any emotion whatsoever, we'd never have heard the end of how terrible it was to have a hysterical woman running things.

Basically, right now we have no leadership, no plan, no strategy, very few grown-ups in Washington, and under those circumstances, should they be killing anybody for any reason? No.

I would support it if I thought it was part of a long-term coherent strategy. Any strategy would be better than just winging it.

Right. I'd support if it weren't being carried out by a drunk monkey. As it is, I cheer the monkey on a little, but I know he's still a monkey. He'll probably throw shit at me next.

(I have to say, I'm glad Obama is no longer president, when such an assertion sounded racist. But "monkey" is perfect for Trump. He's a grinning, screeching, poop-flinging chimp.)

I do fault Obama for his inaction on Syria to an extent BUT Obama was stymied by Congress, and I guess he wasn't willing to bypass them entirely, as Trump seems to have no problems doing.

This is the talking-point today. But it's not how it actually played out. Obama declared he was going to punish Syria. Only after, and quite unexpectedly—don't believe me, read the news then—he decided to submit it to Congress. In doing so--in the announcement--he made it clear he didn't need to. They sat on it and, well, he didn't push. The notion that Congress stopped Obama is silly. Obama didn't want to take the political risk, so he passed the ball, and got to both do nothing and obscure the blame.

"Obama didn't want to take the political risk, so he passed the ball, and got to both do nothing and obscure the blame."

Point taken.

Given that Trump warned the Russians, who apparently warned the Syrians, who apparently moved all valuable assets out of the line of fire, it is difficult to say that Trump actually "attacked" Assad. This was more of a fireworks show than a military action - firing missiles for the sake of firing missiles.

>9 StormRaven:

Basically so. A number of security experts have made the point that, although all the people could drive away, most military equipment can't be driven off the lot so quickly--air bases are not pop-up tents. But certainly it wasn't a huge blow to Assad's capabilities. It did, however, indicate a shift in their risk. If I were Assad, I'd be wary of using chemical weapons, as Trump may well lash out more, if this happens again. Also, while they help, Assad doesn't need them.

>1 madpoet:

It really makes no sense. Unless Putin wanted to give Trump an excuse to show that he is not a Russian puppet, just to make the inquiry go away.

Well, that is a theory that's going around:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/247302#6005512

>7 timspalding:, >8 sturlington: I think that is one of the main faults I have with Obama--he did not push. Aside from his drone program and JSOC ops, what bothers me most is that he did not use the advantages of his office to accomplish things he claimed to believe were right. I disagree about the US role in Syria, disagree that Obama should have done more, done the bombing before Trump, but I do agree that it was his style to refrain from going out on limbs.

>4 2wonderY: I agree that that's a question worth asking. I haven't checked recently regarding where the US is selling cluster bombs. But the argument Spalding makes sounds better than it actually is, as all of the weapons used in remote warfare, including of course any kind of strike by plane or from ships, is inherently indiscriminate as well. Certainly if we were forced to list weapons from worst to least horrific, sarin gas would be voted worse than 500 pound bomb, but humans have come to tolerate far too much. I would hope that with the first civilian casualties from artillery also came the first call to stop before things got out of hand.

>13 RickHarsch:

If you want to put my name on a petition to ban Syria from bombing civilian areas, fine. But there is a considerable moral difference between, say, hitting a civilian population with sarin gas and hitting a military air-base used to launch sarin gas with a bunch of targeted Tomahawk missiles. The latter is indeed "remote warfare." But that's about all they share.

Trump's pinprick made sure to keep his friend Assad safe and his benefactor Putin pacified.

Bullshit posturing by an idiot and a stinking shit who'd sooner bomb "for the children" than allow those children refuge in his FREEDUMB country. The time to intervene--in support or against Assad--was six years ago, BEFORE five million refugees, god knows how many dead, and a country ruined.

And where the fuck were those Repugnant warriors when Obama tried to push for intervention? It's not the first time someone screams "chemical warfare! child-killers!!1!" in this fuckery.

After Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations in 2003 you don't really know who or what to believe as far as how it's parsed to the public....so you're better off not believing them at all. They say Assad did this or that and I say--'okay, maybe'--except with somebody like Trump and his administration and the black op happy CIA that's now working for him and a 24-7 media of fashion models making 30 grand a day parroting whatever the current administration tells them and this particular administration is hardly credible to begin with. These people running the show don't care if people die or have their lives destroyed--they don't and it doesn't matter whether they're Americans or Syrians or whoever--they don't care. They have ends they are trying to gain---that's what they do care about. They think they can profit from other people suffering.

>14 timspalding: As you no doubt already know, I see it entirely different from you. If only it were really sarin gas versus bombing a military base where apparently few people were around, but, you know, this: https://foreignpolicy.com/ and a ton of other stuff...

At this point I am merely tired. Morally, though, I have to say, the US has no ground on which to stand.

>18 RickHarsch: Et Al

I saw a discussion by political talking heads on the tube (I think !) that summarized the "why does it matter what kills children " by saying it is illegal to kill children with poison gas but there is no moral difference in using conventional weapons to do the same. That seemed to explain my feelings on the topic

I couldn't agree more.

Legal or not to tomahawk Syria, how did they do such an apparently bad job? No hits on the runway which from all the war stuff I have viewed is a main objective, and mentioned by John McCain. Did Trump put conditions on the bombardment or is the tomahawk just not that precise?

There's a lot to be said for not restricting oneself to the US (or even AUSCANNZUKUS) media.
http://www.dw.com/en/is-assad-to-blame-for-the-chemical-weapons-attack-in-syria/...

As for Ghouta, those interested may wish to read, for a start, the MIT (the university, not the nominally allied intelligence agency) Science, Technology, and Global Security Working Group's report referenced in the above piece.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1006045-possible-implications-of-bad-int...

>22 davidgn: As for the most recent gas attack I saw where it was claimed the plane that dropped the crap was tracked all the way from the airport that was bombed. The tv analysts claimed it was tracked because they are tracking all air traffic in the area - it was not singled out for any reason until after the fact. Could all be bs I guess but to what advantage?

>23 DugsBooks: Yeah, I have no doubt they've got the radar track they claim on a plane, and likewise that there was some sort of chemical weapons exposure in the area where the plane dropped its payload. The problem is the precise manner in which those circumstances were connected. It's plausible, for instance, that the plane bombed an arms dump which (unexpectedly -- as the Russians claim -- or not) turned out to be holding chemical agents that were subsequently diffused. The advantage is an excuse for the U.S. to interfere further in Syria (largely on behalf of its Gulf state allies and Israel, with Turkey a bit of a wildcard as well) in the interests of achieving the longstanding strategic objective shared by the neocons and those allies of breaking up the "Shia crescent" that has developed in the region following the US's ill-advised decision to depose Saddam Hussein's secular Sunni Baathist regime, which has been getting everyone's knickers in a twist.

In a nutshell.

A few bits worth revisiting, in chronological order:
http://www.businessinsider.com/nyt-columnist-thomas-l-friedman-should-we-be-armi... (Friedman's observation of the fundamental problem)
*ADDED http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alastair-crooke/syria-iraq-fractured_b_7471540.htm... (Including an old British spy's summation of the fundamental wedge strategy, a few paragraphs in)
https://www.salon.com/2016/08/23/israeli-think-tank-dont-destroy-isis-its-a-usef... (Synopsis of a prominent Israeli perspective)
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/07/how-to-salvage-syria.html (A Qatari-funded perspective, offering a plan which involves replacing ISIS with an unidentified force of moderate Sunnis backed by US troops)
https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE233.html (RAND's most recent plan, which was a bit more modest given conditions as of January)

ETA: This attack in and of itself was more a shot across the bow than anything else. But it does seem to indicate an unwillingness to allow Assad's gradual progress in retaking the country piece by piece to continue indefinitely.

ETA: For perspective, a little update on the status of our previous project: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/10/libya-public-slave-auctions-un-mig...
And on the more recent Saudi project in which we are hopelessly entangled: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/yemen-famine-humanitarian-cr...

ETA: Finally, it's worth keeping in mind that the ground reporting we have regarding the chemical attack in Khan Sheikoun comes mainly from these folks:
http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/how-white-helmets-became-international-...
(But of course they've got to be credible, eh? After all, they've won the Right Livelihood Award... not to mention an Oscar for their Netflix doc! Somehow that reminds me of this, which is still on my to-read pile: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajes.2017.76.issue-2/issuetoc )

>6 sturlington: 'I would support it if I thought it was part of a long-term coherent strategy.'

That's the question, isn't it? What is the point? If it is a one-off attack, and Assad realizes that, will it really deter him from using chemical weapons in the future? And if it means the US is now going to war against the Russian-backed Assad regime, well... does the US really want that? It just seems... futile.

>25 madpoet: I don't think the idea is to start a full-blown war (though that may well be the actual outcome). Rather, given that the situation on the ground has been consistently deteriorating from the perspective of interested parties as Assad has continued to recapture territory, I think the basic idea is to attempt to force a stalemate and settlement that leaves Syria as a de facto rump state. Some kind of Sunni buffer territory in the Syrian Jazira (controlled, ultimately, by some force other than ISIS -- which in practical terms means occupied by foreign troops, since there seems to be no indigenous moderate Sunni force capable of holding the region: it's gonna be a hell of a chore just to get the SDF to take and hold Raqqa, never mind the whole western Jazira) would stand beside Rojava in serving to isolating western Syria and Lebanon from Iran and Shiite-controlled Iraq. Something will have to be done about Deir Ez-zor, but I'll leave that question to people more "creative" than myself. Meanwhile, Turkey seems likely to hold on to al-Bab at least, but arms will be twisted to keep them going after the rest of Rojava. That will, however, remain a festering temptation for the neo-Ottomans -- particularly once they manage to restore some of their military capabilities following Erdogan's disastrous purge of his officer corps.

Those are just the broad outlines as I (a casual observer) see them, and of course I'm always interested in hearing other people's takes.

Why would Assad use sarin in a war he’s winning? To terrify Syrians.
There's a long history of brutal attacks with no military purpose.
By Annia Ciezadlo April 11

...Assad doesn’t care about (American observers): He plays less to the West than to his internal audience. The videos of children and first responders dying from sarin gas horrified people, but this is exactly what they were intended to do: They were meant to strike fear into rebels, and send the message that the war was over.

History tells us that Assad had plenty to gain from using chemical weapons, U.S. Tomahawk missiles notwithstanding. Since last year, the Syrian government has been mopping up rebel-held enclaves around Damascus and offering their populations “cease-fire” deals — essentially negotiated surrenders. Each agreement is different, but most allow some of the population to evacuate to Idlib, the most significant remaining redoubt of rebel-held territory. The area around Khan Sheikhoun had seen sporadic fighting in the days before the gas attack; for anyone contemplating a desperate last stand in Idlib, the message was clear: Don’t even think about it...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/04/11/why-would-assad-use-...

____________________________________________________

Russia KNEW about Syrian gas attack in advance - and about a bid to cover it up by bombing hospital treating Assad's victims, say U.S. officials

U.S. officials level incendiary charge against Russia that it knew beforehand about the gas attack on Khan Shaykhun last week
Officials are basing their conclusion on presence of a Russian drone which flew over a hospital as victims fled to get treatment
Hours later a Russian-made fighter bombed the hospital which officials said they believe was an attempt to cover up the atrocity
Unclear if jet was Russian or Syrian as Assad's forces fly Russian-made jets
Local reports spoke about a 'Russian shelling' of a hospital; unclear if this is the one officials are referring to

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4399484/U-S-officials-Russia-knew-advanc...

>26 davidgn: Possibly. Before Syria is carved up, as it inevitably will be, there will probably be a rush to create 'facts on the ground' (i.e. grab as much territory as possible), similar to what happened in Bosnia. The cruise missile attack was maybe a way of showing Assad that the Americans are still in the game.

There is also a possibility that, like Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was a message aimed at a third country (the USSR then, North Korea now).

The time to intervene--in support or against Assad--was six years ago, BEFORE five million refugees, god knows how many dead, and a country ruined.

Let's roll back the LibraryThing time machine and see what you said back then!

For starters, I'm honestly in doubt. What did you mean back in 2011 when you wrote "Stay strong, Bashar!" Honestly, I can't tell if you were joking, although it doesn't seem so to me. It seems to me that you consider Assad a dictator, but not a particularly bad one (see below), and better than alternatives. https://www.librarything.com/topic/112951#2607895

If you really meant that, do you reconsider? Was "stay strong!" really an appropriate response to a murderous dictator? Does being caught (again) gassing civilians make it less appropriate?

In April 2013, https://www.librarything.com/topic/158204#4264619 I wrote:

We should have been supplying the rebels long ago, before the whole thing turned into a charnel house.

You replied:

Why? Why should you have been supplying the rebels exactly? And which ones? All of them? Specific ones? Again, which ones and why exactly? With what end goal? Realistically--what would have been the goal here? Humanitarianism, moral outrage over "monsters"?

I replied with the argument you are making now, but rejected then. Your views were, it seems:

2011 The US must not intervene!
2013 The US must not intervene!
2017 The US shouldn't intervene, because the right time for intervention has passed.

Lastly, we have 2015, https://www.librarything.com/topic/186299#5063017, where you wrote:

I don't give a fig about how "monstrous" Saddam or the Assads were--THEIR Iraq and Syria were better, and better off. If they were "evil", they were a lesser evil. They counterbalanced and kept in check the Islamists the West is so good at exciting.

"If" gassing children is evil, well, at least it keeps the Islamists down.

What's the purpose of our being there? Another regime change in a Middle Eastern Moslem country? Are were going to let Paul Bremer or some other Kissinger associate like John Negroponte have another go at running a country into the ground? Install another US friendly puppet government that the population will seethe against? Meanwhile we have shit health care and our roads and bridges are crumbling all around us. We don't have money for that but we do have money to blow the top several layers of dirt off every square inch of Syria. We're like a patient who is seriously ill and his only concern is shooting his rocks off. The United States has bombed hundreds of hospitals all over the middle east and Afghanistan in the several past years and no one talks about that. What Assad did if he did it deliberately is horrible but what about us? What about our need to blow up and destroy? What makes him so evil and not us? When are we going to stop this kind of bullshit?

>30 lriley: I think we have a sick culture. We are willing to abrogate every constitutional freedom in the name of security except the second amendment. When we as a society have decided that we are okay with young children being shot dead in our classrooms, we cannot truthfully say that our primary concern is the loss of innocent life. Every problem is a problem that must be solved with more weaponry, more violence. I saw War Games. I know where this ends.

>24 davidgn:

The advantage is an excuse for the U.S. to interfere further in Syria (largely on behalf of its Gulf state allies and Israel, with Turkey a bit of a wildcard as well) in the interests of achieving the longstanding strategic objective shared by the neocons and those allies of breaking up the "Shia crescent" that has developed in the region following the US's ill-advised decision to depose Saddam Hussein's secular Sunni Baathist regime, which has been getting everyone's knickers in a twist.

Which is kind of hilarious, considering said neocons were the ones advocating for deposing Saddam in the first place, which has (largely) lead to the destabilization in the region that we're currently witnessing. Some people need to stay out of US foreign policy.

Are any of these fuckers currently whispering in Trump's ear? Is McMaster one? I suppose they are preferable to wackos like Michael Flynn and Steve Bannon (maybe), but still...

>30 lriley:

Meanwhile we have shit health care and our roads and bridges are crumbling all around us. We don't have money for that but we do have money to blow the top several layers of dirt off every square inch of Syria. We're like a patient who is seriously ill and his only concern is shooting his rocks off. The United States has bombed hundreds of hospitals all over the middle east and Afghanistan in the several past years and no one talks about that. What Assad did if he did it deliberately is horrible but what about us? What about our need to blow up and destroy? What makes him so evil and not us? When are we going to stop this kind of bullshit?

Amen to that. As our current president said in that interview that aired before the Super Bowl, "You think our country's so innocent?"

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/04/politics/donald-trump-vladimir-putin/

As self-serving as that remark obviously was, it was kinda hard to refute. :/

The documents of the day:

From the White House:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/04/11/world/middleeast/document-Syria-C...

From Putin's press conference with the Italian president:
https://www.rt.com/news/384333-putin-idlib-attack-provocation/
(One analysis: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/04/putin-predicts-more-false-flag-chem... )

From Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Peace:
Two dozen ex-U.S. intelligence officials urge President Trump to rethink his claims blaming the Syrian government for the chemical deaths in Idlib and to pull back from his dangerous escalation of tensions with Russia.
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/11/trump-should-rethink-syria-escalation/

Concluding:

A handful of CIA veterans established VIPS in January 2003 after concluding that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld had ordered our former colleagues to manufacture intelligence to “justify” an unnecessary war with Iraq. At the time we chose to assume that President George W. Bush was not fully aware of this.

We issued our first Memorandum for the President on the afternoon of Feb. 5, 2003, after Colin Powell’s ill-begotten speech at the United Nations. Addressing President Bush, we closed with these words:

No one has a corner on the truth; nor do we harbor illusions that our analysis is “irrefutable” or “undeniable” adjectives Powell applied to his charges against Saddam Hussein. But after watching Secretary Powell today, we are convinced that you would be well served if you widened the discussion … beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.

Respectfully, we offer the same advice to you, President Trump.
* * *

For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Eugene D. Betit, Intelligence Analyst, DIA, Soviet FAO, (US Army, ret.)
William Binney, Technical Director, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)
Marshall Carter-Tripp, Foreign Service Officer and former Office Director in the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research, (ret.)
Thomas Drake, Senior Executive Service, NSA (former)
Robert Furukawa, Capt, CEC, USN-R, (ret.)
Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)
Mike Gravel, former Adjutant, top secret control officer, Communications Intelligence Service; special agent of the Counter Intelligence Corps and former United States Senator
Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq and Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate VIPS)
Larry C. Johnson, CIA & State Department (ret.)
Michael S. Kearns, Captain, USAF (Ret.); ex-Master SERE Instructor for Strategic Reconnaissance Operations (NSA/DIA) and Special Mission Units (JSOC)
John Brady Kiesling, Foreign Service Officer (ret.)
John Kiriakou, former CIA analyst and counterterrorism officer, and former senior investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Linda Lewis, WMD preparedness policy analyst, USDA (ret.) (associate VIPS)
David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Near East, CIA and National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Torin Nelson, former Intelligence Officer/Interrogator, Department of the Army
Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (Ret.)
Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)
Scott Ritter, former MAJ., USMC, and former UN Weapon Inspector, Iraq
Peter Van Buren, U.S. Department of State, Foreign Service Officer (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Kirk Wiebe, former Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA
Robert Wing, former Foreign Service Officer (associate VIPS)
Ann Wright, U.S. Army Reserve Colonel (ret) and former U.S. Diplomat

Perhaps I've once again failed to be cynical enough?

ETA: Also, an honorable mention from yesterday: retired Indian ambassador M.K. Bhadrakumar thinks the Turks might know something. Maybe, though a Turkish motive in 2017 is harder to define than in 2013. http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakumar/2017/04/10/turkeys-role-in-idlib-chemical-...

(Of course, cf. the following:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/turkish-mp-who-claimed-sarin-g...
https://youtu.be/FTeZitRDhk0?t=45s )

And finally, a map-tweet illustrating one take on the often-neglected "Pipelineistan" element of this conflict. I won't vouch for the accuracy of the map (which I can't source) or of the tweet, and I'd assign this element second-tier billing at best, but it should be mentioned. https://twitter.com/PavewayIV/status/851830282164555776

(For background cf. http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/08/syria-ultimate-pipelineistan-war/
Counterpoint: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/37685-the-war-against-the-assad-regime-is-not... )

Is this prescription from the Kagans the operative document we should now be mining for insight?
Its equivocations aside, it's about as close as we're likely to get to "the neocon playbook."
http://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/americas-way-ahead-syria

And here are a few critiques-by-tweet (initially of the WSJ op-ed version) from a guy at the Century Foundation. Really, though, the first tweet (from some other guy) says it all:
"It's that time of the year again when American pundits declare the need for the fictitious Sunni Arab army."
https://storify.com/MoonofA/sam-heller-on-the-isw-paper

And the last two cap it off nicely:
"6c. Perspective matters. Look, this – “Every other iteration failed” – is inadvertently telling, and should have prompted introspection."
"6d. If 14 of 15 plans don't achieve your goals – and number 15 is deliberately divorced from ground reality – maybe the goals are a problem."

MIT's Prof. Ted Postol on the White House document:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_Vs2rjE9TdwR2F3NFFVWDExMnc/view

I have reviewed the document carefully, and I believe it can be shown, without doubt, that the document does not provide any evidence whatsoever that the US government has concrete knowledge that the government of Syria was the source of the chemical attack in Khan Shaykhun, Syria at roughly 6 to 7 a.m. on April 4, 2017.

In fact, a main piece of evidence that is cited in the document points to an attack that was executed by individuals on the ground, not from an aircraft, on the morning of April 4. This conclusion is based on an assumption made by the White House when it cited the source of the sarin release and the photographs of that source. My own assessment, is that the source was very likely tampered with or staged, so no serious conclusion could be made from the photographs cited by the White House.

(As cited by Parry, https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/12/trump-withholds-syria-sarin-evidence/ )

-------------------------------------------
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/12/to-russia-with-more-russia-bashing/

On Monday, the New York Times published an article titled “Syria Conspiracy Theories Flourish, at Both Ends of the Spectrum,” which lamented the fact that websites on the left and the right have raised doubts about the casus belli for U.S. military action against Syria.

Noting that some alternative news sites have called the chemical attack a “false flag” operation and others have raised the question of whether Trump’s military action was a “wag the dog” diversion tactic, the Times pointedly attempts to “debunk” the internet memes that have been raising doubts about the chemical attack or calling into question the justification for the U.S. military action.

With an aggressiveness not seen at all when it comes to the unsubstantiated “Russian election-hacking” allegations, the Times fires back forcefully on matters such as whether President Bashar al-Assad had reason to use chemical weapons in the first place or whether anti-Assad forces may have had advance knowledge of the sarin attack. The Times article uses curt, all-caps responses to rebut these claims, such as flatly stating, “FALSE,” “NO EVIDENCE,” or “MISLEADING.”

The Times, for example, points out that Information Clearing House has argued that Assad lacked an obvious tactical or strategic reason to use chemical weapons, and therefore the attack may have actually been carried out by one of the terrorist groups operating in Syria such as Al-Nusra Front. As the Times responds, however, “THIS IS MISLEADING.”

Floating a few reasons that Assad’s forces might have conceivably been motivated to conduct a chemical attack, the Times argues that the attack was “consistent with Mr. Assad’s calculated strategy of attempting to drive out the civilian population in rebel strongholds through bombing neighborhoods and civilian targets.” The Syrian leader may have also “felt emboldened” by perceived shifts in U.S. foreign policies and priorities under Trump, the Times speculates.

Of course, this is simply guesswork on the part of the Times, which is not presenting any facts to counter doubts over the official story, but just responding to the doubts with more conjecture. The Times also seems to be cherry-picking some of the more easily “debunked” stories surrounding the Syria case, failing to address legitimate concerns over the lack of proof of Assad’s culpability. These include doubts raised by the former British ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford, who told BBC Radio last week that there is “no proof that the cause of the explosion was what they said it was.” (ETA: cf. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04zb6yv and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LKsn4ZutxQ and http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-39562082)

It would not make sense for Assad to launch such an attack, Ford said, claiming that it would be “totally self-defeating.” He also objected to the veracity of claims made by eyewitnesses who claimed that they saw chemical bombs dropping from the air. “Well, you cannot see chemical weapons dropping from the air,” he said. “Such testimony is worthless.”
...
In addition to the doubts that have been raised at the United Nations, a number of the U.S.’s closest G7 allies have refused to implement additional sanctions against Syria without proof of Assad’s guilt.

As the BBC reported on Tuesday, “Sanctions against Russian and Syria will not be put in place until after an investigation into last week’s apparent chemical attack, British government sources said. Members of the G7 group of leading industrialized nations agreed to delay implementing sanctions until there was ‘hard and irrefutable evidence’ over the alleged chemical attack.”

Yet the New York Times and other mainstream U.S. outlets continue to report as undisputed fact that Assad’s government intentionally carried out this attack, and furthermore, that Moscow knew about it in advance.

The sorts of unequivocal retorts that the Times uses against journalists and bloggers for raising doubts about the official stories could, of course, just as easily be applied to the official stories themselves. When the Associated Press, for example, reported on Tuesday that “The United States has made a preliminary conclusion that Russia knew in advance of Syria’s chemical weapons attack last week,” the Times could have responded with an emphatic all-caps retort such as “NO EVIDENCE.”
...

The AP story -- as planted by its "sources" -- is a clear attempt to double-down -- but on what cards?

A dear friend posted this on FB...

PRESIDENT ASSAD OF SYRIA IS NOT AN EVIL DICTATOR KILLING HIS PEOPLE- THE ESTABLISHMENT HAS LIED!
September 24, 2016 Dianne Marshall

...The truth is Syrians are greatful to Russia and its’ President Putin for helping to save their nation and support their President Assad! The Obama regime has committed an act of war and should be held accountable...

https://themarshallreport.wordpress.com/2016/09/24/president-assad-of-syria-is-n...

____________________________________________________

I sent the following privately, but alternative facts and fake news have snagged my friend, I'm afraid. (DON"T check out youtube link...):

Torture of boy reinvigorates Syria’s protest movement
Liz Sly | May 29, 2011

The boy’s head was swollen, purple and disfigured. His body was a mess of welts, cigarette burns and wounds from bullets fired to injure, not kill. His kneecaps had been smashed, his neck broken, his jaw shattered and his penis cut off.

What finally killed him was not clear, but it appeared painfully, shockingly clear that he had suffered terribly during the month he spent in Syrian custody.
Hamza Ali al-Khateeb was 13 years old.

...according to the accounts of family members interviewed by Arabic news channels and by human rights activists, the boy had been among a group of people detained when his father took him to an anti-regime rally April 29 in their home town of Jiza, a small southern farming community near the protest flash point of Daraa.

The family members heard no news of Hamza until Wednesday, when Syrian government officials arrived at their home and asked them to sign a document agreeing to accept the boy’s body on the condition that they not show it to anyone or discuss the circumstances of his death. They complied but were shocked by the extent of the injuries and invited an activist to make a video, which was posted on YouTube...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle-east/torture-of-boy-reinvigorates-sy...

Because it deserves to be read, and because he is one of the country's foremost weapons experts, I quote Prof. Postol's conclusion at its full length:

Figure 8 shows the improvised sarin dispenser along with a typical 122 mm artillery rocket and the modified artillery rocket used in the sarin attack of August 21, 2013 in Damascus.

At that time (August 30, 2013) the Obama White House also issued an intelligence report containing obvious inaccuracies. For example, that report stated without equivocation that the sarin carrying artillery rocket used in Damascus had been fired from Syrian government controlled areas. As it turned out, the particular munition used in that attack could not go further than roughly 2 km, very far short of any boundary controlled by the Syrian government at that time. The White House report at that time also contained other critical and important errors that might properly be described as amateurish. For example, the report claimed that the locations of the launch and impact of points of the artillery rockets were observed by US satellites. This claim was absolutely false and any competent intelligence analyst would have known that. The rockets could be seen from the Space-Based Infrared Satellite (SBIRS) but the satellite could absolutely not see the impact locations because the impact locations were not accompanied by explosions. These errors were clear indicators that the White House intelligence report had in part been fabricated and had not been vetted by competent intelligence experts.

This same situation appears to be the case with the current White House intelligence report. No competent analyst would assume that the crater cited as the source of the sarin attack was unambiguously an indication that the munition came from an aircraft. No competent analyst would assume that the photograph of the carcass of the sarin canister was in fact a sarin canister. Any competent analyst would have had questions about whether the debris in the crater was staged or real. No competent analyst would miss the fact that the alleged sarin canister was forcefully crushed from above, rather than exploded by a munition within it. All of these highly amateurish mistakes indicate that this White House report, like the earlier Obama White House Report, was not properly vetted by the intelligence community as claimed.

I have worked with the intelligence community in the past, and I have grave concerns about the politicization of intelligence that seems to be occurring with more frequency in recent times – but I know that the intelligence community has highly capable analysts in it. And if those analysts were properly consulted about the claims in the White House document they would have not approved the document going forward.

I am available to expand on these comments substantially. I have only had a few hours to quickly review the alleged White House intelligence report. But a quick perusal shows without a lot of analysis that this report cannot be correct, and it also appears that this report was not properly vetted by the intelligence community.

This is a very serious matter.

President Obama was initially misinformed about supposed intelligence evidence that Syria was the perpetrator of the August 21, 2013 nerve agent attack in Damascus. This is a matter of public record. President Obama stated that his initially false understanding was that the intelligence clearly showed that Syria was the source of the nerve agent attack. This false information was corrected when the then Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, interrupted the President while he was in an intelligence briefing. According to President Obama, Mr. Clapper told the President that the intelligence that Syria was the perpetrator of the attack was “not a slamdunk.”

The question that needs to be answered by our nation is how was the president initially misled about such a profoundly important intelligence finding? A second equally important question is how did the White House produce an intelligence report that was obviously flawed and amateurish that was then released to the public and never corrected? The same false information in the intelligence report issued by the White House on August 30, 2013 was emphatically provided by Secretary of State John Kerry in testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee!

We again have a situation where the White House has issued an obviously false, misleading and amateurish intelligence report.

The Congress and the public have been given reports in the name of the intelligence community about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, technical evidence supposedly collected by satellite systems that any competent scientists would know is false, and now from photographs of the crater that any analyst who has any competent at all would not trust as evidence.

It is late in the evening for me, so I will end my discussion here.

I stand ready to provide the country with any analysis and help that is within my power to supply. What I can say for sure herein is that what the country is now being told by the White House cannot be true and the fact that this information has been provided in this format raises the most serious questions about the handling of our national security.

Ew. Just ew.

Secretary of State Kerry testified before Congress in 2013 (specifically to a query by long time congresswoman Ilena Ros-Lehtinen--a republican from Florida) that the Saudi's were willing to bankroll a full scale American invasion of Syria to depose the Assad regime. The United States didn't take them up on that but Mr. Kerry mentioned they were very keen on the idea. (They weren't talking about their own troops by the way--they were talking about renting ours. So some of our kids could get killed so they could get richer--not that Kerry parsed it out that way). One of the main ambitions for the Russians in their friendship with the Syrians is to keep their supply chain of oil to Europe. One of the ambitions of the Saudis is a pipeline through Syria that would open up more oil trade for them and as well as the other Gulf states to the same European countries now dependent on Russian oil.

Which is to say there is more than meets the eye. As well whether or not the United States is training or equipping anti-Syrian govt. guerrilla groups allied to the likes of Al Quaeda or ISIS. Whatever our role is it doesn't appear to be very clean to me--nor do the ambitions of the Saudis, the Israeli's, the Turks or the other Gulf states.

Comparing the analysis in >37 davidgn: and >38 timspalding:, I have to say the brevity of #38 is attractive and as far as it goes beyond dispute; whereas the analysis in #37 is just a guy supposedly expert talking about things I know little about, and therefore disputable.

And now Russia has blocked a UN investigation into the chemical attack. Sheesh.

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=56554

>36 margd: Reminds me of my WND-devotee relatives. ;-)

Another take on the White House report from the prolific ex-Panzer Oberstleutnant Oberleutnant, which contributes both more details and further tendentiousness:
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/04/white-house-intelligence-assessment-is-no-s...

Here are the most pertinent bits I take away from it on a quick scan; the rest looks like mostly dross:

That "intelligence community assessment" chapter title is likely already a false claim. Even a fast tracked, preliminary National Intelligence Assessment, for which all seventeen U.S. intelligence agencies must be heard, takes at least two to three weeks to create. A "long track" full assessment takes two month or more. These are official documents issued by the Director of National Intelligence. The summary assessment the White House releases has no such heritage. It is likely a well massaged fast write up of some flunky in the National Security Council.

The claimed assessment starts with a definitely false claim: "We assess that Damascus launched this chemical attack in response to an opposition offensive in Hama province that threatened key infrastructure."

The Hama offensive had failed two weeks ago. Since then the Syrian army has regained all areas the al-Qaeda "opposition" had captured during the first few days. Key infrastructure had never been seriously threatened by it. Over 2,000 al-Qaeda fighters were killed in the endeavor.
...
The attack in Hama had already failed days before the chemical incident in Khan Shaykhun happened. Khan Shaykhun is far from the front line. The incident and the failed al-Qaeda attack in Hama can not possibly be related. It would make no sense at all to launch a militarily useless incident in a place far away "in response" to a defeat of the enemy elsewhere. (The Defense Intelligence Agency likely never signed off on such an objectively false claim.)
...
I do not concur with Postol on the picture of the alleged impact crater of the "attack". I have seen several "versions" of the impact crater on social nets with different metal parts, or none, placed in it. Postol seems to have only seen one version. His conclusions from that version seem right. But the crater "evidence" is tainted and to make overall conclusions from it is not easy. I concur though that the crater is not from an air impact but from a ground event. I am not sure though that it is related to the incident at all.

----------------------------
And hey, it looks like the unidentified Sunni force we're gonna depend on in and around Deir Ez-zor province has finally been identified!
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/12/opinion/why-is-trump-fighting-isis-in-syria.h...

We could simply back off fighting territorial ISIS in Syria and make it entirely a problem for Iran, Russia, Hezbollah and Assad. After all, they’re the ones overextended in Syria, not us. Make them fight a two-front war — the moderate rebels on one side and ISIS on the other. If we defeat territorial ISIS in Syria now, we will only reduce the pressure on Assad, Iran, Russia and Hezbollah and enable them to devote all their resources to crushing the last moderate rebels in Idlib, not sharing power with them.

After rehabilitating al-Qaeda as the tragic heroes of Aleppo and now Idlib, it's beginning to look as though we've now reached the threshold of rehabilitating ISIS as the necessary evils of the Syrian Jazira. Don't worry, they'll be getting a intensive slathering of cosmetic PR attention to mask the ideological whip-sawing. Naturally, we're talking about territorial ISIS, not virtual ISIS! (And after all, it beats sending in division after division of U.S. troops, right? Think how many casualties we'll save!)

ETA: As I put it elsewhere, in an Augustinian mold: "Lord, grant us that ISIS might be totally destroyed, and at our hands... but not yet."

>42 davidgn: I'm re-reading a history of the CIA right now, a highly praised national book award winner by Weiner or Wiener. It's accuracy is difficult to question. And in light of the series of actions by the US I find it bizarre that questions of US government reports here are not taken seriously. This is a government that has been doing atrocious interventionist dirty things all over the world since WWII, beginning with Greece and Italy. Why would anyone take their information at face value? I certainly believe that film of victims is generally real, but rarely would I consider the information surrounding any such event anywhere near accurate or complete. Take the youngest dead Awlaki, killed in a 'successful' mission.

>41 artturnerjr: That's very interesting. I was under the impression that the Russians had been calling for an investigation by the OPCW.
c.f. https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/04/11/putin-calls-investigations-chemical-attack-s...

Either something in the draft resolution adopted for the vote was problematic, or the Russians have decided that something about the story is problematic for themselves or for some third party they wish to protect. With luck we'll soon get a better read on whether this was procedural or strategic.

ETA: This might shed some light on competing draft resolutions: http://www.whatsinblue.org/2017/04/syria-new-draft-resolution-on-chemical-weapon...

ETA: On balance, my own position remains very much in line with Amb. Murray's of a week ago: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2017/04/the-balance-of-probabilities/

For a stronger skeptical position, see also three BBC clips interviewing former UK Ambassador to Syria Peter Ford (cf. >35 davidgn:):
4/7 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04zb6yv
4/7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LKsn4ZutxQ
4/11 http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-39562082

In light of >42 davidgn:, perhaps this should be re-examined?

ISIS Used Chemical Arms at Least 52 Times in Syria and Iraq, Report Says
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/world/middleeast/isis-chemical-weapons-syria-...
(Unfortunately, that might lead to unwanted complexity.)

(Oh, and also this:
Why Is Media Citing Man Accused of Kidnapping Journalists as Credible Source on Syrian Chemical Attack?
http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/shajul-islam-idlib-chemical-attack-syri... )

>7 timspalding: Obama declared he was going to punish Syria. Only after, and quite unexpectedly—don't believe me, read the news then—he decided to submit it to Congress. In doing so--in the announcement--he made it clear he didn't need to. They sat on it and, well, he didn't push. The notion that Congress stopped Obama is silly.

I generally think it would be a good thing, and more Constitutional, if Congress got involved when we were getting involved in fights. Since Obama didn't treat it is a Constitutionally or legally necessary matter, that doesn't do much for his reputation, but Congress could have acted, and hence their responsibility is full here. Obama passed the buck, and Congress sat on it, instead of making a decision or tossing it back in his court.

Well, this is an interesting story the Syrians are purveying today. At the moment no western sources reporting on it.

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/breaking-civilians-killed-us-jets-bomb-isis...

The US-coalition Air Force has conducted airstrikes against ISIS positions in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, targeting a chemical depot for the terror group which resulted in the death of hundreds of militants as well as civilian, the Syrian Ministry of Defense said in an official statement.

“Yesterday between 17:30 – 17:50 p.m., the so-called anti-ISIS coalition fighter jets struck an ISIS position in Hatla village to the east of Deir Ezzor. After the airstrike, a huge white cloud was formed –later on turned yellow – as a result of an explosion in a chemical depot. A hug fire broke out until 22:30 p.m. Hundreds have been killed – including civilians – as a result of breathing toxic materials,” the statement detailed.
....

Waiting for corroboration. This will be a worthwhile one to watch.

>44 davidgn:

Russia Vetoes U.N. Resolution Condemning Syria Chemical Attack

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/12/world/middleeast/united-nations-resolution-sy...

Russia objected to the draft when it was first brought up last week, and on Wednesday it dismissed the resolution as a political tool. Speaking at a news conference in Moscow, Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said his government wanted what it called “an honest investigation.” Russia drafted an alternate resolution but did not put it up for a vote.

The Russian deputy ambassador, Vladimir Safronkov, testily said that the resolution had “an anti-Syrian slant.”

Ms. Haley pointed out that the resolution simply reiterated what the Syrian government was already obliged to do.

A fact-finding team of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has already been assigned to look into whether chemical weapons were used in Syria. A separate team has been authorized by the Security Council to determine who is using those weapons, banned by international law, and concluded that the Syrian government has used banned chemical weapons; Russia criticized that conclusion.

The United States dismissed a compromise measure that several other countries on the council had tried to advance last week. It left out the specific reminder to the Syrian government to turn over flight logs. The United States and its two major Western allies, Britain and France, insisted on that specific language.

Russia supports Syrian Government request to allow OPCW to investigate chemical attack

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/russia-supports-syrian-government-request-a...

So yes, Russia is supporting the OPCW investigation but not the UN one.

And now Russia has blocked a UN investigation into the chemical attack. Sheesh.

What, haven't you been convinced by the murder-apologists here? It was all a false flag!

I generally think it would be a good thing, and more Constitutional, if Congress got involved when we were getting involved in fights. Since Obama didn't treat it is a Constitutionally or legally necessary matter, that doesn't do much for his reputation, but Congress could have acted, and hence their responsibility is full here. Obama passed the buck, and Congress sat on it, instead of making a decision or tossing it back in his court.

Yeah, I might want more Congressional input, but, Democrats can't get suddenly huffy and fundamentalist about War Powers, when presidents of both parties have frequently engaged in actions at least as extensive as firing a few dozen tomahawks off many times. Trump's action was in no ways a unique overreach.

2996 people were killed in the September 11 attacks. Another 6000 or so injured. The way the United States responded to that was all out of proportion. How many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis are dead now--and a large majority of them were non-combatants. We took a tragedy and we made it so much worse and Iraq had a not a thing to do with the September 11 attacks. Out of that tragedy we're all over the Middle East 16 years later. The deaths of our own military personnel we've put on the ground in the region since then has eclipsed the the number of deaths from 9-11 a long time ago. We bomb hospitals all the time. The media ignores that. All kinds of Americans all in on putting Syria in its place but somewhere someone is thinking about how much money they can make out of creating all kinds of misery--how much power they can attain from a pipeline. The American public is getting used again. It's being used just like it was used in the days leading up to the preemptive strike of Iraq. We're going to spend blood on a war we're never going to win whether we depose Assad and his govt. or not. We're going to take hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars offshore to put in the pockets of the military/industrial complex and a bunch of superwealthy assholes--monies that could be spent for health care, for infrastructure, for a lot of things that the people of the United States need and it's just going to be bullshit and lies again---more havoc and death to thousands if not hundreds of thousands that's going to have our name all over it.

If people want that, fine--you know deep down whether you were gulled on Iraq or not. If you fall for the same shit again--fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

>50 lriley: I believe the quote is: "Fool me once, shame on...shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

Speaking of which: who remembers the name Scott Ritter?

I do.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/syria-chemical-attack-al-qaeda-played-donald...

>49 timspalding:

What, haven't you been convinced by the murder-apologists here? It was all a false flag!

Tim, I don't know who is responsible for the gas attacks. I don't really trust any of the parties involved - I don't trust Assad, I don't trust Putin, and I don't trust Trump. I trust the American mainstream media a little more (a little than most people these days, anyway), but my recollection is that the New York Times et al. were rah-rahing the George W. Bush administration in the lead-up to the Iraq War with the best of them, so I don't really trust them either. My understanding from my (admittedly limited - there are only so many hours in a day) research on the matter is that nothing like a clear international consensus on the party or parties responsible for the attack has emerged, among the US's allies or otherwise. So though I'm skeptical about everything I hear (as is my wont), I'm also actually open to hearing what everybody has to say on the matter. For now, anyway. :)

We all know that the U.S government has a history of lying a lot, especially from Reagan on - it also seems many times the government's agents lie to the government.

Does Assad have a history of lying also? Even if so, then it is still loggerheads - one liar vs. another liar.

Let's let the false flag idea be the default. So - what credible evidence do we have that Assad beyond any reasonable doubt is really responsible for gas attacks?

And as to the above, what would constitute credible evidence?

I have no idea who on this site is calling the gas attack or whatever it was a 'false flag' operation. Some here have expressed doubts about the US version. Some good and simple arguments have put forth for taking that position. Spalding seems to be the only person here who is convinced that the Assad forces did just what the US says they did but he has been quite diligent in his refusal to debate anyone who is not so credulous as he.

Spalding seems to be the only person here who is convinced

Which is the problem. This is an echo chamber of people who don't believe what the vast majority of journalists, analysts, NGOs and governments believe. You guys will believe any poorly-sourced, half-assed anti-US nonsense you find on some silly fringe website. You'll give credence to claims by state sources in Russia and Syria, which are brutal dictatorships without a free press, but you won't believe dozens of mainstream newspapers around the world. You guys are climate denialists, flat-eathers, anti-vacciners, etc.

'You guys'? I have found a great many of davidgn's sources to be reasonable, and I have yet to see you argue one of them. For instance. I tend to agree with davidgn and Iriley so I will call me and those two US. WE are not climate deniers, not flat-earthers, not anti-vacciners. One thing we have in common is absolute knowledge of US lies from the end of WWII to the present. I suppose if this were the time of the Italian elections in 1948, you would call US the same sort of crap, and I would be telling you that I don't know for sure, but it appears to me, from some sources and from my knowledge of the year before in Greece, that the US is interfering (massively, as it turned out) in the Italian elections. The list of lies and war crimes goes on non-stop already into the Trump administration. Why would I not be skeptical? And, by the way, I have not read anything from any non-US sources on the attack in question.

So the problem is not that you have nothing to say, then, it is that some of us do. And some have sources that are outside the mainstream, the mainstream that called Trump presidential the first time he spoke like sort of an adult. Sure. I would say from the evidence of just this one thread that you would be more likely to be a climate denier. You don't argue, as they don't; you are overly credulous, as they are; and you are willingly manipulated by the same organization that you know perfectly well has manipulated you in the past.

It is perhaps worth noting here that the US and its allies kill civilians and other allies all the time when we are involved in military actions.* So it's probably best to make pretty goddamn sure we have correctly identified the perpetrators before we start firing missiles and dropping bombs; a lot of innocent lives are lost when that starts happening, even when we're going after the real bad guys.

*For example: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/world/middleeast/syrian-fighters-airstrike-am... ("the third time in a month that American-led airstrikes may have killed civilians or allies, and it comes even as the Pentagon is investigating two previous airstrikes that killed or wounded scores of civilians in a mosque complex in Syria and in a building in the west of Mosul, Iraq.") (Sorry for the link to a "poorly-sourced.. silly fringe website", Tim. ;))

And of course a precision bomb was just dropped on Afghanistan.

For those in aquatic distress: this ain't a rescue swimming course, but it makes for a pretty decent life ring in a pinch.
http://www.unsworks.unsw.edu.au/primo_library/libweb/action/dlDisplay.do?vid=UNS...

This article introduces The Admiralty Code - a cognitive tool, used by police investigators and intelligence analysts, which can also assist learners in evaluating information and distinguishing it from potential misinformation or disinformation. One reason for using inquiry-based learning methods in education is that they develop students' capabilities for engaging in self-directed inquiry, throughout their lives. But the carefully-designed information environments in which students conduct inquiry-based learning in schools or colleges are much more benign than the ones in which they will conduct their self-directed inquiries, later on. Information environments such as the internet or the mass media present the inquirer with an excess of information, as well as misinformation and even disinformation. the challenge of distinguishing essential from non-essential information, and of evaluating its trustworthiness, is not addressed sufficiently by inquiry-based learning methods in benign education environments. Use of The Admiralty Code has the potential to correct this shortcoming. Application of The Admiralty Code is illustrated by an analysis of the evidence surrounding the mysterious loss of HMAS Sydney in 1941.

ETA: Regarding the SANA report: it is flatly denied in the course of this article. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/world/middleeast/assad-syria-video-faked.html...
On balance, I tend to believe the denial unless further evidence is forthcoming.

There's a distinction to be drawn between acknowledging the existence of adversarial states' claims and "giving credence to" them. I give blind credence to nothing.

Apparently Tim isn't sated enough by all the needless deaths over the past 16 years in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, etc. I wonder as well who all these journalists and analysts etc. are that he cites and what makes their opinions more relevant than others. The experts on the 24-7 news channels and in the major newspapers all were sure as sure could be that Saddam had WMD and that his dictatorship posed a serious threat to the rest of the world---and they were wrong. And millions of other people have paid in one way or another for their mistakes while they blithely go on prating about the next existential threat. More often than not the military and intelligence experts you see on a 24-7 channel are linked to corporate entities that profit from the conflicts they're asked to speak about--something that's almost never spoken about to the audience that views them.

And FWIW I never said that the Russian or Syrian govt.'s were great. What I have said is that the United States govt. isn't any better and IMO is probably worse as far as human rights abuses and it should be kept in mind as well that the United States ranks No. 1 amongst all nations as far as incarcerating people.

> 56

"This is an echo chamber of people who don't believe what the vast majority of journalists, analysts, NGOs and governments believe."

But why the fuck do they "believe" what they say is true? As to journalists, all they do is just repeat what some other journalist says - it comes over the AP wire and they just fucking repeat it - if we trace back to the original journalist what if he or she is a god damn goof who just makes shit up? Analysts and government spokesmen also tend to just repeat what other analysts and government spokesmen say.

In science there are methods to check if someone is making crap up. Are there equivalent methods in politics - regarding alleged political "facts"? Just because a lot of people "believe" something or repeat it endlessly does not make it true. Look at religion, for example. So - is politics a science or a religion?

So what are the actual empirical facts here - what and where is the evidence?

Is it so god damn unreasonable to start with a skeptical attitude and say "Show me"? Are all the people in Missouri fucking assholes? Was "doubting Thomas" a fucking asshole? I don't think so.

>62 JGL53: No easy answers, but intelligence analysts spend a lot of time thinking about such things.
Jack Davis is (was?) apparently something of a legend in their circles, and this compendium of his notes is very much worth reading: http://www.oss.net/dynamaster/file_archive/040319/cb27cc09c84d056b66616b4da5c02a...

ETA: Was. https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publication...

After that, the general consensus seems to be that one should read Heuer, particularly Structured Analytic Techniques for Intelligence Analysis and Psychology of Intelligence Analysis (which I have not yet done). Other common recommendations include Clark's Intelligence Analysis: A Target-Centric Approach and Fingar's Reducing Uncertainty (which comes complete with Lawrence Wilkerson's recommendation).

Of course, once the intelligence analysis process becomes politicized, none of that theory and praxis is good for much. Analyst Ray McGovern's autobiographical tale of the Gulf of Tonkin incident comes immediately to mind as an example. http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/011108a.html
McGovern, incidentally, is usually the main drafter of the VIPS memos (cf. >33 davidgn:).

Hey, whaddya know: Wilkerson (Colin Powell's former Chief of Staff) is also speaking out on the present controversy.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&a...
An interview very much worth watching. Frankly, he's one of the few names I respect.

He was also interviewed for this piece:
https://www.ncronline.org/news/politics/us-strike-syria-raises-moral-questions-a...

#64--James Woolsey's an idiot and Nikki Haley the greatest embarrassment of all Trump's appointees. Not that I disagree with that. The specter of Dick Cheney coming up at the end. I remember Wilkerson being really angry about how the Bush 2 administration manipulated Colin Powell towards their agenda on Iraq's supposed WMD and then threw him under the bus later when they needed a scapegoat.

This is not all that unlike the Shock Doctrine that Naomi Klein wrote about some years ago. Take a crisis or create one to advance your own agenda.

>61 lriley:

The experts on the 24-7 news channels and in the major newspapers all were sure as sure could be that Saddam had WMD and that his dictatorship posed a serious threat to the rest of the world---and they were wrong.

I think it's fair to say there were some dissenting voices in the American MSM. They were pretty few and far between, but they were there.

>65 lriley:

Nikki Haley the greatest embarrassment of all Trump's appointees

Wow - that's saying something!

>66 artturnerjr:"I think it's fair to say there were some dissenting voices in the American MSM. They were pretty few and far between, but they were there"

After the hype reached a peak I called our N.C. Rep. John Edward's office and they said the mass destruction weapons were BS and they were voting against the second Iraq invasion. For what that is worth. MSM = main stream media?

> 66, 67

OK. We can agree that it is much more accurate to say - rather than ALL - that instead MOST and NEARLY all, MOST of the time, right up until it was impossible to ignore the reality, the fascists and their dupes ruled (nearly) entirely in the U.S.

Remember what happened to Bill Maher and Natalie Maines (of the Dixie Chicks) just to name two celebrity victims of the fascist-induced atmosphere of terror and intimidation? No criticism, constructive or not, regarding the Bush administration was allowed in the media - hardly, not really. I at least am old enough to remember those times. It was not pleasant - suppression of free speech by threats and intimidation is not pretty.

Now we have trumpandstuff. And what the god damn fuck is it?

The trenchant analogy: the U.S. is like a gigantic multi-part extremely complex machine that has developed many parts now that are horribly warped, twisted and ill-fitting that the whole damn machine is radically off-balanced and is slowing but surely just shaking itself apart. Complete self-destruction is a quite possible scenario in the near future. (if not the ultimate in fuck-ups - total thermonuclear war wherein everyone in the freaking world assumes the position and then kisses their asses good-bye.)

>67 DugsBooks:

MSM = main stream media?

Correct.

>68 JGL53:

Remember what happened to Bill Maher and Natalie Maines (of the Dixie Chicks) just to name two celebrity victims of the fascist-induced atmosphere of terror and intimidation? No criticism, constructive or not, regarding the Bush administration was allowed in the media - hardly, not really. I at least am old enough to remember those times. It was not pleasant - suppression of free speech by threats and intimidation is not pretty.

Oh yeah. The general feeling was that if you weren't on board for the Iraq invasion agenda, you were being unpatriotic at best and treasonous at worst. Nobody went to prison or anything over it, but that was very much the zeitgeist.

i think what was meant about haley was the disappointment that she took on the role

Actually I was commenting on Wilkerson's assessment on the video of Woolsey and Haley. He called Woolsey an idiot and Haley the greatest embarrassment of all Trump's appointees--mentioning as well that he's from the same state as her and maybe that had something to do with that remark--I don't know. I know less of Haley than I do of Woolsey by the way but I've watched Woolsey over the years of number a times with some analysis or another and he is a complete tool for the neoconservatives--or in other words an asshole jerkoff piece of shit dickwad. Wilkerson's simple assessment that he's an idiot IMO put it very kindly.

He suggested more about Woolsey but had no need to continue. Yes, it was that they know each other, being from the same state, and he seemed to think she had sunk to depth he'd never have imagined. That outcome is a typical Trump effect.

>68 JGL53: True that!

#68--coming from a very republican happy congressional district--the 29th in NYS--I remember that time very well. It was pretty ugly for quite a while. At least half the cars running around had those stupid flags flying off the front hood and/or 'I support the troops' bumper stickers. That invasion empowered a lot of people to show off all the idiocy they'd been suppressing for so long. I had to put up with a lot of shit for opposing the Iraq invasion from a lot of people--and they weren't all republicans. There were a lot of people just absolutely ecstatic over shock and awe. And they didn't give two shits really who those bombs were falling on--whether they were kids, grandma's, someone's pet parakeet. The US was setting the world to rights. It's why sometimes now I like to shove it in the same people's faces....but the thing is a lot of them deny they were for that invasion now but pretty much theiy're the same ones that want to do this bullshit again. And the way I see it they don't really care how many people are going to get killed or maimed. As long as it gives them a reason to fly their fucking flags it's all good to them.

Regarding Wilkerson, there are a couple of interviews that stick firmly in my memory.

First, this from 2011 around the time Cheney released his autobiography, where he frankly discusses his complicity in the Iraq war: https://www.democracynow.org/2011/8/30/ex_bush_official_col_lawrence_wilkerson

And second, this from 2015 on the state of the American empire (which is really unforgettable):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgig1QVU2lY

ETA: See also this most recent MSNBC interview:
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/04/ex-state-official-trump-administration-cant-even...

I should note that Dr. Postol has produced two follow-ups to his original report.

Addendum to A Quick Turnaround Assessment of the White House Intelligence Report Issued on April 11, 2017 About the Nerve Agent Attack in Khan Shaykhun, Syria (4/13?) (as reprinted on Col. Lang's blog, which is also worth reading): http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/04/addendum-to-a-quick-t...

A Critique of ‘False and Misleading’ White House Claims About Syria’s Use of Lethal Gas
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/critique_white_house_fabrications_syrias_all...

And a reminder of the author's bio:
Theodore A. Postol is professor emeritus of science, technology and national security policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a specialist in weapons issues. At the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, he advised on missile basing, and he worked later as a scientific consultant to the chief of naval operations at the Pentagon. He is a recipient of the Leo Szilard Prize from the American Physical Society and the Hilliard Roderick Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and he was awarded the Norbert Wiener Award from Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility for uncovering numerous and important false claims about missile defenses.
---------------------------------------------------
I also recommend the latest installment of Radio War Nerd, which (among other considerations) offers the only coherent case I have found for why the Syrian government may have been at fault in this instance, courtesy an unnamed informant of Ames and Dolan's with a track record of providing reliable information. Of course trust is not transitive, but I'll take any sound argument under advisement. The basic contention seems to be that some rogue commander may have acted without authorization from the top, and I'll say this much for it: in the scheme of things, it seems more likely than the supposition that Assad has completely lost his marbles. https://huffduffer.com/PixelRobot/401546
---------------------------------------------------
Parry also has an update.
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/14/did-al-qaeda-fool-the-white-house-again/

Likewise Crooke.
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/14/trump-lurches-into-chaos-and-conflict/
---------------------------------------------------
And finally, for remedial purposes, here's a piece slightly older than I am that deserves wide readership -- particularly by those who can't tell their Bob Parrys from their Alex Joneses, or their Dr. Ted Postols from their Dr. Kevin Barretts.
http://bostonreview.net/archives/BR10.3/loftus.html
The money quote: "It may not be hyperbole to suggest that one third of modern American history is classified."

Are we being snookered?

"It's clear that Russian-American relations are in their worst period since the end of the Cold War," the (Russian) foreign ministry said.
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/11/russia-declares-us-relations-in-worst-period-sinc...

_______________________________________________________

...just four months into his presidency, Trump announced the U.S. “may be at an all-time low in terms of relationship with Russia.” His remarks come the same week as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s visit to Moscow.

Tillerson echoed Trump’s remarks, reportedly telling President Vladimir Putin that Russia’s relationship with the U.S. is at a “low point.”...

http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/is_this_the_worst_moment_in_american-russia...

_______________________________________________________

@realDonaldTrump
Things will work out fine between the U.S.A. and Russia. At the right time everyone will come to their senses & there will be lasting peace!
13 Apr 2017

_______________________________________________________

ETA:

Trump aide McMaster says U.S.-Russia relations have 'nowhere to go but up'
Adam Edelman | April 16, 2017

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/h-mcmaster-u-s-russia-relations-article...

Noam Chomsky on US attacks of Afghanistan and Syria and related matters:

https://youtu.be/cO7wK9OO07w (audio only)

Full talk:

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3118 (audio and video)

>64 davidgn:

Chomsky speaks highly here of Lawrence Wilkerson and other sources you have mentioned. Speaking for myself, I can think of no higher recommendation.

>78 artturnerjr: I have had my bones to pick with Chomsky, but you could do worse. ;-)

The segment you linked is very much worth the time.

Here's Hans Blix:
Hans Blix: Trump's Missile Attack Motivated By Domestic Politics
http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/publications/articles_multimedia/trumps_mi...

>77 margd: I'm inclined to follow Cohen's take in the latter piece on the US-Russia relations picture, and I'm genuinely concerned about what both sides are calling a complete breakdown of trust. Cohen is quite right to highlight that as the bottom-line takeaway and to underline how inherently dangerous it is.

The CNBC reporting is more or less straight stenography, and unsurprisingly the interviewees in the embedded video do their best to pooh-pooh the situation.

As for Trump's tweet, I think Crooke's treatment of T.A. Frank's piece in Vanity Fair addresses its import:

T.A. Frank in Vanity Fair warns succinctly: “He first went for establishment nominees in filling his Cabinet, then hit the wall of resistance from his base, and tacked back toward Bannon, then hit a wall of mainstream outrage over his travel ban, then lurched toward Reince Priebus and more stress on procedures, until he hit a wall with health-care overhaul, then lurched into an attack on Syria, running into a wall of outrage from his base and approval from all the wrong people. So he’ll probably lurch away from Syria, or try to. But acts of war have a momentum of their own, and for many of Trump’s deplorables, this was not a compromise but a betrayal.”

Mr. Frank has put his finger on the problem exactly: It is three inter-connected problems, in fact. Firstly, in betraying your friends (your political base), to court your enemies: you risk losing both – but the loss of the former can be fatal, and the fleeting approbation of enemies, is, at best, granted on a short lease.

Just to be clear, the activist base that brought Trump to the Presidency is not happy. The divisions within Trump’s team are not just a matter of bad chemistry between Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner that can be corrected by a slap over the wrist – they are deeply ideological. Kushner (and Ivanka) are globalist, liberals from New York, and are both erstwhile Democrats. They represent the polar opposite of that for which stands Bannon and the America Firsters and nationalists.

But secondly, with legislative and GOP paralysis looming, mid-term elections in 2018, and strife within the Trump team already disorientated by Presidential “lurchings,” there is risk of systemic break-down.

And thirdly, in allowing McMaster to “weaponize” the “Tomahawk tweets” as an ultimatum to Putin (together with McMaster’s ambitions to “surge” in Syria and Iraq) Trump risks events spiraling out of control. There are interests in Syria who would happily escalate the situation into a standoff between America and Russia, in which either Putin or Trump will be humiliated by having to “blink first.”

Mr. Frank is likely right that Trump will “probably lurch away from Syria, or try to,” but as one expert on Russia ominously noted: “When I hear of the notion of imposing a no-fly zone over Syria, against the will of Russia, I get a knot in my stomach, because I fully understand where this could lead.”

We are lurching to a situation as potentially serious as was the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

T. A. Frank's piece:
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/04/trump-syria-bomb-into-washingtons-heart

Crooke also addresses McMaster's plans earlier on in his piece, including a reference to Col. Lang's blog:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/04/mcmaster-and-russia.h...
Really, best to read Crooke's whole article: https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/14/trump-lurches-into-chaos-and-conflict/

Additionally: I generally avoid citing ZH, but this is a good summary of the Cernovich/Eli Lake (Bloomberg) story; just skip the editorializing, especially final paragraph:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-13/trump-may-send-50000-troops-syria
Those acutely allergic to that website can instead proceed directly to Lake: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-04-13/trump-said-no-to-troops-in-sy...

At the moment it seems that there's a policy impasse. So, we wait.
Might as well enjoy ourselves. ;-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7bkfvy4yTQ&list=PLC48GxtzmGhy72V84omTcKrdjE...

*poof*
What Russia-gate Has Wrought
For five months, there was a daily drumbeat on Russia-gate, the sprawling conspiracy theory that Russia had somehow put Donald Trump in the White House, but suddenly the “scandal” disappeared, notes Robert Parry.
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/16/what-russia-gate-has-wrought/

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/16/trump-uses-tiny-nation-to-insult-russia/

"Donald Trump has just approved Montenegro’s accession into NATO, the latest sign that hopes for a new détente with Russia have been dashed. Though Montenegro is a tiny nation and its inclusion doesn’t significantly affect NATO’s capabilities, ... Thus, the significance of NATO membership for the tiny Balkan country of Montenegro, which ranks 161st in size among the world’s nations and is even smaller than Connecticut. But Montenegro was part of the former Yugoslavia, putting it inside what Russia considers to be its sphere of influence."

Davidgn, does this not bother you at all? This idea that Montenegro choosing to join NATO is "Trump using a " (nameless in the title) "tiny nation"? That this article says "the significance of NATO membership for the tiny Balkan country of Montenegro" and is concerned only about the US and Russia, and not "the significance of NATO membership for ... Montenegro"? That the statement "putting it inside what Russia considers to be its sphere of influence" treats Montenegro as part of a Russian empire? That "In 1999, NATO brushed aside Russia’s protests and absorbed Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic" ignores the fact that Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic chose to join NATO, and the idea that Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic have the right to enter into alliances that benefit them?

That you keep citing a website that is very much pro-imperialism, and seem unconcerned about that, is worrying.

>82 prosfilaes:

Montenegro has been in line to join NATO for years, with the full support of basically all other members, but especially its NATO neighbors. I believe 25 of 28 members have now okayed it, and the vote in the Senate was 97-2. There is nothing remotely interesting, alarming, remarkable, notable or surprising in Trump in supporting that vote. To make this about anything else is to be a political and geopolitical idiot.

>82 prosfilaes: I didn't cite that piece, now did I? I thought it was relatively weak. The headline in particular struck a sour note -- though from a Russian perspective I imagine it would be quite accurate. It does, however, include a lot of important context (ETA cf. http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-shifrinson-russia-us-nato-deal--20160... ) that can't be repeated often enough, for which Montenegro's accession to NATO is merely the news hook, and on that account I can see why Parry published it. I have no idea who the hell the author, Ted Snider, is.

The New York Times recently published an op-ed (>42 davidgn:) wherein Tom Friedman proposed a de facto alliance with ISIS (and not for the first time). The fact that you (and the whole damn country) keep citing a website that is very much pro-cynical strategic exploitation of terrorist headchoppers, and seem unconcerned about that, is worrying.

>82 prosfilaes: Russian investments in Montenegro might be of interest. Over here, it said that Russians developing the Montenegrin coast have virtually ruined its natural beauty. Probably this is mostly Budva and other smaller coastal towns. Apparently Kotor has avoided this for now. This of course is not state monies, but wealthy Russians in a sympatico environs.

An investigation might find more than that, but certainly nothing new in regard to the connections between Russia and its millionaires...

Anyway, here's a helpful guide for anyone who wants to become personally involved: https://www.internations.org/montenegro-expats/russians?&utm_source=google_a...

Jeffrey D. Sachs making sense again.
Our misguided ‘wars of choice’
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2017/04/16/our-misguided-wars-choice/B1rbAvrv...

>84 davidgn: I didn't cite that piece, now did I?

No, but you've said things like it. Even now, you avoid responding to the idea that Montenegro and other nations have an absolute right to enter into alliances with anyone they can make an agreement with.

Tom Friedman proposed a de facto alliance with ISIS (and not for the first time).

When you say >42 davidgn: "And after all, it beats sending in division after division of U.S. troops, right?" you're mocking the idea of the US not getting more deeply militarily involved in a foreign local conflict. It proposes instead of moving American military influence around Russia, that we let them deal with a problem that's closer to their borders.

To quote that article: "Yes, in the long run we want to crush ISIS everywhere, but the only way to crush ISIS and keep it crushed on the ground is if we have moderate Sunnis in Syria and Iraq able and willing to replace it. And those will only emerge if there are real power-sharing deals in Syria and Iraq — and that will only happen if Assad, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah feel pressured to share power." If you disagree, then you should reply to that idea.

Wars should be cynical; idealistic wars end up with shit like Vietnam, where instead of trying to make a reasonable deal for everyone, we had to fight the Communists, even when we had no chance of winning.

> 87: 'Wars should be cynical; idealistic wars end up with shit like Vietnam, where instead of trying to make a reasonable deal for everyone, we had to fight the Communists, even when we had no chance of winning.'


I think most people who argue against a particular war are against war of any kind.

'Wars should be cynical; idealistic wars end up with shit like Vietnam, where instead of trying to make a reasonable deal for everyone, we had to fight the Communists, even when we had no chance of winning.'

This reads almost like gobbledegook to me. I would say that wars are always catastrophic for the people who have to fight them or for the civilian populations who are caught in the crosshairs and that war should be avoided if at all possible--war does nothing really to advance the progress of the human race and a country that engages in war all the time will have it blow back on it eventually.

To say war should be a cynical thing---well it is cynical when the Bush administration overlooks the fact that the 9-11 perpetrators were mostly Saudi's and Algerians and creates a narrative along with evidence to point the finger at an Iraq govt. that had nothing to do with it and then to stage their preemptive strike that not only killed and maimed a lot of innocent people but then installed a puppet govt. and later on seems surprised that millions of Iraqis resist it. It's cynical as well that they throw trillions of dollars out to the military/industrial complex (along with any number of Bush friendly start up businesses) to exploit that situation into a 'business' opportunity. We can't afford universal health care but we could afford that. You must have seen yourself the blocks of C notes all bundled and duct taped that they threw around like footballs. That was cynicism. And if I'm reading you right (I hope I'm not) you think that's a good thing?

And Vietnam was anything but an idealistic war--you'd be closer to call it an ideological war.

And again with your remark about 'reasonable deals' you're just looking at it from 'War is good for business' end. You're not comprehending the disaster to the people actually involved in the fighting and/or surviving component of it. You've disengaged yourself from the real reality of what you're talking about.

>86 davidgn:

First, in the Spanish-American War, the Vietnam War, and the Mideast wars, the United States attacked the other countries first, not in self-defense, as in World War II. Lyndon Johnson expanded the war in Vietnam on the pretext that North Vietnam had attacked the USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin, but Johnson knew that the claim was false. Nor had Saddam, Khadafy, or Assad attacked the United States.

That's taking a complex story and simplifying it until it makes your case. In WWII, the US Lend-Lease plan put us in the midst of things even if we weren't at war. And when Pearl Harbor happened, we went after the Germans (who hadn't attacked us) at least as hard as the Japanese. In the Vietnam War, we slowly upped our support of one side in a civil war, and North Vietnam did attack the USS Maddox on August 2, 1964.

Third, these wars of choice have been disasters, one after the next. In the Spanish-American war, the United States gained an empire and fertile farmland in Cuba, but also decades of political instability in that country and the Philippines that eventually resulted in Philippine independence and an anti-American revolution in Cuba. In World War I, the US intervention turned the tide toward the victory of France and the United Kingdom over Germany and the Ottoman Empire, only to be followed by a disastrous peace settlement, instability in Europe and the Middle East, and the rise of Hitler in the ensuing chaos 15 years later.

As opposed to what? We know what happened in real life, but we can't know what would have happened if things had been different. Sans the Spanish-American War, Cuba would have either become free (as Cuban historians had it) or the rebellion would have failed (as Spanish historians had it.) It seems likely either way that Cuba would have still had decades of political instability. Likewise, Philippine independence sooner or later was an inevitability. What would have happened to an independent Philippines in WWII? What about a Spanish controlled Philippines? If you want a Hitler wins WWII scenario, it seems you could do worse than a Franco-controlled Cuba and Philippines.

Likewise, what happens if the US didn't get involved in WWI? (Calling WWI a war of choice seems a little odd, given the Lusitania and the Zimmerman telegram.) Most historians think that Germany was on the route to losing anyway, which is why they took the actions that provoked the US to war. The disastrous peace settlement wasn't the US's fault; the death of the Ottoman Empire was going to cause Middle East instability; and European instability seems inevitable if they broke up the old empires, and quite likely if they didn't. A fascist populist coming to power in Germany seems quite likely if Germany lost, no matter how you cut it.

I agree by and large with his reforms, but his history seems to be an example of picking the facts to tell the story he wants, instead of studying the facts to find the best course of action.

And when Pearl Harbor happened, we went after the Germans (who hadn't attacked us)

Hitler declared war on the US in tandem with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He was by far the more dangerous and important opponent. Besides, you know, if we had a "Japan First" policy, it would be called racist now.

>91 timspalding:

Not to mention the Germans were bombing the shit out of one our major allies (the UK) and had occupied a good chunk of another (France). I don't think we needed a great deal of prodding to go full-on against them.

>92 artturnerjr:

The US people were anti-war right up until Pearl Harbor, though.

>93 timspalding:

Oh yeah. We were still in a strongly isolationist phase, iirc.

>90 prosfilaes:

The 'North' Vietnamese did not attack the Maddux. (There are innumerable sources: I happened to come across one yesterday: Tim Weiner's 'Legacy of Ashes', a history of the CIA.)

Prosfilaes wrote this, he really did: 'In the Vietnam War, we slowly upped our support of one side in a civil war, and North Vietnam did attack the USS Maddox on August 2, 1964.'

I have responded to the oblivious second half. The first half? There's no excuse for such ignorance among thinking, reading, adult people any longer. The US paid for roughly 80% of the French attempt to hold on to their colony. After they beat the French, an international agreement was made that elections, meaning unification, would occur in 1956. The US refused to allow them. They created a leader in Diem, whose assassination they suborned in 1963. They spent a great deal of money propping up Diem. There was no civil war that the US stumbled upon. They created one, which is more properly seen as a war of re-unification and liberation.

This contrasts interestingly with the Korean War, which the US failed to understand was part of an ongoing civil war.

>93 timspalding: The US people were anti-war right up until Pearl Harbor, though.

We had a Lend-Lease Plan and a peacetime draft. We were pretty clear coming in the war against Germany at some point; it was just a matter of looking for a justification.

Tim,

I think the time-line goes like this:

Sunday, 7th December, Japanese Naval pilots attack Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. December 8th, Roosevelt calls for a Congressional declaration of war--this was still required in those days!--against Japan saying, "a state of war exists between..." etc. Then,

(Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor#Aftermath )

..."Congress obliged his request less than an hour later. On December 11, Germany and Italy, honoring their commitments under the Tripartite Pact, declared war on the United States. The pact was an earlier agreement between Germany, Italy and Japan which had the principal objective of limiting U.S. intervention in any conflicts involving the three nations.121 Congress issued a declaration of war against Germany and Italy later that same day."

>97 proximity1:

Right, the US declared war on Hitler because Hitler had declared war on us. Indeed, they had not yet attacked us, but that's not material, and to bring it up rather silly.

>92 artturnerjr:

By the time of Pearl Harbor, the main German air campaign against the UK had been over for half a year. See, e.g., The Bombing of Britain 1940-1945 Exhibition.

Before this becomes a WWII discussion thread (my, so much more comfortable!), let me interject.

Catching up on reading this morning, and I'm presently in the process of reading the following:
http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/24722-2/
viz. the Century Foundation's roundtable on the Syrian war, which I hadn't previously seen. The first edition from last summer was alternately informative and infuriating. I'm just starting on the second edition, out March 30th, which lays out the situation on the eve of Khan Shaykhun.
(ETA: A very interesting piece in Der Spiegel that comes up: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/assad-power-slips-in-syria-as-warlords... )

The latest Radio War Nerd out yesterday still maintains a very tentative position that someone in the Syrian government forces hierarchy was likelier than not responsible for Khan Shaykhun, citing i.a. UO-Norman's Prof. Joshua Landis, Aymenn Al-Tamimi, and Carla del Ponte (head of the UNHCHR's investigation who assigned blame to the Syrian rebels for using Sarin in 2013 -- and someone who has my trust and respect as well), who apparently have all come out in support of this version in one respect or another (though I haven't yet determined where, in del Ponte's caseFound it: https://www.rts.ch/info/monde/8524527-carla-del-ponte-la-responsabilite-d-assad-... via https://twitter.com/Cleonarda68/status/852164614456528896 ). The first forty minutes or so are spent agonizing over the matter. I'll try to spend some time digging deeper into the various sources if I get a chance: I'd like to know what they know that I don't.
(ETA: See also this piece, discussed about 15:30 in: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/08/us-airstrikes-mark-new-tur... )
(ETA: And here's an apt quote from Dolan given the direction of this thread, around 36:30: "Memory consists of 1939 to 1945, and then there's a complete fog until whatever you're mad about right now")

https://huffduffer.com/PixelRobot/402515

As for Pros's newfound appreciation for Daesh as an American proxy and related issues... I'll get to that.

ETA cf. also Robert Fisk:
If Trump cares so much about Syrian babies, why is he not condemning the rebels who slaughtered children?
Dozens of children were killed in Syria this weekend but where is the US president’s lament on how ‘beautiful’ they are, let alone action? Where are the denunciations by the EU and the UK? The West must react with equal outrage when it is Shias that are the victims of terrorism. Or do we just not care?
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syria-suicide-attack-refugee-buses-trump-onl...
and an unexpected HuffPo piece in a similar vein:
It’s Time To Acknowledge Shi’ite Genocide
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/its-time-to-acknowledge-shiite-genocide_us_5...

ETA: Also cf. Kuwaiti media journo Elijah J. Magnier, whose work on Syria has been excellent. I've been trying sporadically to follow him for some months now. https://twitter.com/EjmAlrai
https://elijahjm.wordpress.com/2017/04/11/the-fire-of-the-syrian-war-is-spreadin...
https://elijahjm.wordpress.com/2017/04/06/did-assad-use-chemical-weapons-on-khan...
(And re: the 4/6 piece, note how the "Fua-Kefraya versus Zabadani-Madaya exchange" turned out... see the Independent and HuffPo pieces immediately above.)

>98 timspalding: So who decides what's material here? Is it like, it's my ball/my rules?

>101 RickHarsch:

No. If you can't understand why it's dumb to complain about the US declaring war on Hitler after he declared war on us, I can't help you.

Is that what I said? No, someone just thought a minor historical point might be straightened out, but as it was your mistake you got huffy. I complain about people like you deliberately misrepresenting what people write, though--that is obviously not what he was 'complaining' about.

>103 RickHarsch:

That's taking a complex story and simplifying it until it makes your case. In WWII, the US Lend-Lease plan put us in the midst of things even if we weren't at war. And when Pearl Harbor happened, we went after the Germans (who hadn't attacked us) at least as hard as the Japanese. In the Vietnam War, we slowly upped our support of one side in a civil war, and North Vietnam did attack the USS Maddox on August 2, 1964.

I made no case at all about WWII.

The pettiness of leaping to the Vietnam was and telling lies is bizarre and goes against an enormous amount of historical research, loads of documents, and common sense. But this is your pettiness post, so have at it.

(For you interested in history out there, the Maddox found three patrol boats from the north of Vietnam approaching in response to operations against them perpetrated by the US, as Weiner puts it 'commando raids' run by the CIA. So seeing a large US vessel within the territorial waters they claimed for no apparently good reason, three boats approached and the Maddox fired, planes bombed, four died, the return fire put one bullet hole in the Maddox. Common sense is all that is necessary given the context, but those who can't accept that can see any number of sources and find the true story and one way or another it amounts to US attacks, US provocation, and US manipulation of its own government, its own people and some million or so more dead. As to why anyone with any claim to an interest in history would deny all this, I would say it's some kind of ego problem or derangement. Derangement caused by misplace emotional weight placed on the ego. I really don't know.)

(Oh, and the civil war thing...the US created the 'civil war' by ignoring the convention that brokered the end to the war with the French and refused to allow elections. I think anyone who knows anything about the history of the Vietnam war knows what a farce Ngo Dinh Diem was, so there is no need to go into much detail there. But I sure wonder why people defend the US actions like that, interfering directly and forcefully at great cost in machinery and lives when they certainly would not tolerate it at home. The Vietnamese fought a war of liberation that had much more cause for it than the US revolution, more moral heft, and it also happened to be a war of unification in a region that had been unified as much as regions could be in the pre-industrial age for something like 2000 years.)

Right. I wasn't quoting you.

You weren't doing anything really, then, were you?

Also, when quoting, it helps to point out that your are quoting. I know you were not quoting me because I did not write that. But as you present it, it sure looks like you are quoting me. I don't see your point at all, other than petty provocation.

I see: you were quoting 17 posts back. But why? Petty provocation. Are you trying to get me to call you an ignoramous?

Many updates to >100 davidgn:
And see:
NYT Mocks Skepticism on Syria-Sarin Claims
Exclusive: The New York Times and other major media have ruled out any further skepticism toward the U.S. government’s claim that Syrian President Assad dropped a sarin bomb on a town in Idlib province, reports Robert Parry.
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/18/nyt-mocks-skepticism-on-syria-sarin-claims...

In the old days of journalism, we were taught that there were almost always two sides to a story, if not more sides than that. Indeed, part of the professional challenge of journalism was to sort out conflicting facts on a complicated topic. Often we found that the initial impression of a story was wrong once we understood the more nuanced reality.

Today, however, particularly on foreign policy issues, the major U.S. news outlets, such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, apparently believe there is only one side to a story, the one espoused by the U.S. government or more generically the Establishment.

Any other interpretation of a set of facts gets dismissed as “fringe” or “fake news” even if there are obvious holes in the official story and a lack of verifiable proof to support the mainstream groupthink. Very quickly, alternative explanations are cast aside while ridicule is heaped on those who disagree.

So, for instance, The New York Times will no longer allow any doubt to creep in about its certainty that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad intentionally dropped a sarin bomb on the remote rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province in northern Syria on April 4.

A mocking article by the Times’ Jim Rutenberg on Monday displayed the Times’ rejection of any intellectual curiosity regarding the U.S. government’s claims that were cited by President Trump as justification for his April 6 missile strike against a Syrian military airbase. The attack killed several soldiers and nine civilians including four children, according to Syrian press reports.

Rutenberg traveled to Moscow with the clear intention of mocking the Russian news media for its “fake news” in contrast to The New York Times, which holds itself out as the world’s premier guardian of “the truth.” Rather than deal with the difficulty of assessing what happened in Khan Sheikhoun, which is controlled by Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate and where information therefore should be regarded as highly suspect, Rutenberg simply assessed that the conventional wisdom in the West must be correct.

To discredit any doubters, Rutenberg associated them with one of the wackier conspiracy theories of radio personality Alex Jones, another version of the Times’ recent troubling reliance on McCarthyistic logical fallacies, not only applying guilt by association but refuting reasonable skepticism by tying it to someone who in an entirely different context expressed unreasonable skepticism.
...

Par for the course. Please pardon my contempt.

Washington Post “fact-checker” Glenn Kessler awarded “four Pinocchios” – reserved for the most egregious lies – to former National Security Adviser Susan Rice for asserting last January that the Syrian government had surrendered all its chemical weapons as part of a 2013 agreement.

Kessler declared: “The reality is that there were confirmed chemical weapons attacks by Syria – and that U.S. and international officials had good evidence that Syria had not been completely forthcoming in its declaration regarding its surrendered chemicals, and possibly retained sarin and VX nerve agent …. and that the Syrian government still attacked citizens with chemical weapons not covered by the 2013 agreement,” i.e., the chlorine cases.

But Kessler has no way of actually knowing what the truth is regarding Syria’s alleged chemical weapons use. He is simply repeating the propagandistic groupthink that has overwhelmed the Syrian crisis. Presumably he would have given four Pinocchios to anyone who had doubted the 2003 claims about Iraq hiding WMD because all the Important People “knew” that to be true at the time.

What neither Rutenberg nor Kessler seems willing or capable of addressing is the larger problem created by the U.S. government and its NATO allies investing heavily in information warfare or what is sometimes called “strategic communications,” claiming that they are defending themselves from Russian “active measures.” However, the impact of all these competing psychological operations is to trample reality.

The role of an honest press corps should be to apply skepticism to all official stories, not carry water for “our side” and reject anything coming from the “other side,” which is what The New York Times, The Washington Post and the rest of the Western mainstream media have done, especially regarding Middle East policies and now the New Cold War with Russia.

The American people and other news consumers have a right to expect that the Western media will recall the old adage that there are almost always two sides to a story. There’s also the truism that truth often resides not at the surface but is hidden beneath.

MIT physics professor Theodore Postol is convinced that the sarin gas was not dropped from an airplane but exploded on the ground. That the narrative by the Trump administration and supported by media conglomerates like the New York Times and Washington post is a bunch of horseshit. The same Postol debunked the Obama administrations claim of a Syrian gas attack in 2013. It's unfortunate that our government continues in its attempts to bullshit the public and with created evidence that's so easily seen through by a real expert on these things.

First rule--Trump and company are full of shit on everything. Second rule--be very skeptical of anything or anyone in the State Dept., Military or CiA these days. Third rule--don't trust the major media.

>99 cpg:

Thanks for that.

>107 RickHarsch:

All I was ever pointing out was the silliness of talking about how the US attacked Hitler—and "hard"—even though Hitler hadn't "attacked us." If you cannot follow the thread of a conversation, it isn't my fault.

>111 timspalding: 'If you cannot follow the thread of a conversation, it isn't my fault.' Your petty jousts are a distraction, yes. Also I do not understand why you felt the need to quote Prosfilaes' poor history.

>98 timspalding:

"Indeed, they had not yet attacked us, but that's not material, and to bring it up rather silly."

LOL!

Is it "silly" to quibble about whether chemical-weapons were, say, dropped from military aircraft under under Syrian-government command or whether the chemicals were already on the ground and were dispersed when they were hit by bombs from Aircraft or shells from artilery? Is it "silly" to consider whether, in either case, the explosives struck the chemicals accidentally or struck them by design?

Since you're the arbiter of what is "silly" and what isn't, you can inform us on this and similar points.

Under international law as I understand it was then practiced, had Hitler for some reason decided to abrogate the treaty obligations to join Japan in its state of war with the U.S. and announce Germany as "neutral" vis-à-vis the U.S.-Japan conflict, the U.S. should not have had any legal grounds to treat Germany as a belligerant. This should have had important practical consequences both at home and abroad. "Silly" me.

>113 proximity1: It's not your ball.

In passing: Dr. Postol has come out with a final summary, which may be found here, i.a.:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/The-Nerve-Agent-Attack...
I'll be reading it shortly.

>109 lriley: Postol doesn't claim to show what did in fact happen happen, but just as in 2013 he does demonstrate that what the White House report claimed to have happened could not have happened as stated -- a massive red flag.

Here's the summary:

Introduction
This analysis contains a detailed description of the times and locations of critical events in the alleged
nerve agent attack of April 4, 2017 in Khan Shaykhun, Syria – assuming that the White House Intelligence
Report (WHR) issued on April 11, 2017 correctly identified the alleged sarin release site.
Analysis using weather data from the time of the attack shows that a small hamlet about 300 m to the east
southeast of the crater could be the only location affected by the alleged nerve agent release. The hamlet
is separated from the alleged release site (a crater) by an open field. The winds at the time of the release
would have initially taken the sarin across the open field. Beyond the hamlet there is a substantial amount
of open space and the sarin cloud would have had to travel long additional distance for it to have dissipated
before reaching any other population center.

Video taken on April 4 shows that the location where the victims were supposedly being treated from sarin
exposure is incompatible with the only open space in the hamlet that could have been used for mass
treatment of victims. This indicates that the video scenes where mass casualties (dead and dying) were
laid on the ground randomly was not at the hamlet. If the location where the bodies were on the ground
was instead a site where the injured and dead were taken for processing, then it is hard to understand why
bodies were left randomly strewn on the ground and in mud as shown in the videos.
The conclusion of this summary of data is obvious – the nerve agent attack described in the WHR did not
occur as claimed. There may well have been mass casualties from some kind of poisoning event, but that
event was not the one described by the WHR.

The findings of this analysis can serve two important purposes:

1. It shows exactly what needs to be determined in an international investigation of this alleged atrocity. In
particular, if an international investigation can determine where casualties from the nerve agent attack
lived, it will further confirm that the findings reported by the WHR are not compatible with the data it cites
as evidence for its conclusions.

2. It also establishes that the WHR did not utilize simple and widely agreed upon intelligence analysis
procedures to determine its conclusions.

This raises troubling questions about how the US political and military leadership determined that the Syrian government was responsible for the alleged attack. It is particularly of concern that the WHR presented itself as a report with “high confidence” findings and that numerous high-level officials in the US government have confirmed their belief that the report was correct and executed to a standard of high confidence.

>113 proximity1:

Indeed. Extremely silly. It would indeed be something if the chemical weapons were dropped by the Israeli Airforce, or whatever today's conspiracy theory is. But it is not material whether the US declared war on Germany after they had declared war on the US and attacked us, or merely after they had declared war on us but not yet attacked us.

>100 davidgn: As for Pros's newfound appreciation for Daesh as an American proxy and related issues... I'll get to that.

Given your speed at getting to that in previous discussions, probably when hell freezes over. And my problem is you take a suggestion that the US back out of a conflict and leave it to local forces, and you spin it as ISIS being an American ally or proxy. And I don't know what model of behavior you want here, what behavior you consider appropriate for the US to do. I'm left wondering if there's anything we could be doing in Syria that you would approve of.

Again, I don't speak in approval of the idea that we back out of this conflict; I don't know what to do in Syria. But I do think it's an idea that deserves something other than abuse.

#117---I guess some of us have come to the conclusion that our interventionism in the Middle East has been a lot more harmful than good. It's a fact that I don't see any good out of anything we've done in the region going back into the 50's. Seems to me that you see success everywhere.

>117 prosfilaes:
Given your speed at getting to that in previous discussions, probably when hell freezes over
Okay, you got me. I'll have to keep it short for tonight.

First of all, please let someone unpack Friedman's piece a little for you. Frankly, I don't think I'm doing much spinning at all; on the contrary, you're white-washing.

Friedman's words: "In Syria, Trump should let ISIS be Assad’s, Iran’s, Hezbollah’s and Russia’s headache — the same way we encouraged the mujahedeen fighters to bleed Russia in Afghanistan." Encouraged, indeed. Remind me to dig you up a primer on that history -- and no, Charlie Wilson's War won't cut it by a long shot.

http://fair.org/home/thomas-friedmans-perverse-love-affair-with-isis/
In a nutshell: "Friedman is not advocating the US stop bombing ISIS on anti-war grounds or because US bombing has led to thousands of civilian deaths... but because giving ISIS space to breathe will kill more Syrians, Iranians and Russians." It's really quite explicit.
--------------------------------
As for the point you want me to address (If you disagree, then you should reply to that idea.): the problem in a nutshell is that even in the long-shot scenario that some sort of power-sharing deal could be worked out (and the difficulties in this are explored in intimate detail in the Century Foundation roundtables), there is no indigenous Sunni arab force that could displace ISIS in Deir Ezzor province. You've got the Assad/Iran/Hezbollah/Russia axis, you've got the SDF up in Rojava which will be hard pressed to advance much beyond Raqqa, and finally you've got the Turks and their proxies who, apart from being on the wrong side of the country, have very big eyes and very stubby arms just now. They've been itching to get a hand in on the march on Raqqa, even though in practice they were barely able to take al-Bab. (Also, the US has put its own people on the ground in Manbij to deter the Turks from trying any stupid moves against the SDF in Rojava). Any talk of getting some moderate Sunni Arab force to hold the ground in Deir Ezzor province is fanciful at best: the force simply does not exist. It's a fiction designed to obscure a cynical plan to keep the Assad/Iran/Hezbollah/Russia axis bleeding as long and hard as possible. But of course, as you say: war should be cynical. Either distance yourself from Friedman or own the implications.

I highly recommend those Century Foundation roundtables I referenced in >100 davidgn:. Very enlightening, even though the first doesn't address the war in the east at all and the second makes only most oblique reference to the school of thought represented by the RAND and ISW plans I cited above, (which would involve significant numbers of American troops on the ground indefinitely). For the record I'll say that of the four participants' positions, I share the most ground with Sam Heller (who acquits himself quite well on the whole but especially so in the second roundtable, where his concluding remarks come across as downright prophetic in light of the following week's events), and disagree most often with Thanassis Cambanis. If you can make the time, read at least the second installment in the series.

I probably missed something, but I'll try to respond further tomorrow.

Oh, yes, there was this:
>82 prosfilaes: That you keep citing a website that is very much pro-imperialism, and seem unconcerned about that, is worrying.

In one sense I already replied, but to do so more directly:
Even the Tories get things right on occasion.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2015/03/its-nato-thats-empire-building-not-putin/

You seem to insist on viewing the 21st-century Russians as an imperial power, but not the US and NATO. That seems to me rather odd, to say the least. As far as these nations having chosen to join NATO: since when have client states not sought one or another imperial guarantor, particularly once the pot has been sweetened for them? Where is the unique virtue you seem to see in this arrangement? The issues are complex, but it makes little sense to cry "pro-imperialism!" at positions that are better described as pro-neutrality. If you're worried about Russia suddenly deciding it wants the Baltics back, you might want to look a bit askance at those who have a project of unseating Putin: most of his viable competition is far more nationalistic.

The biggest reason the US can't stand Putin is that we helped install him as Yeltsin's successor, whereupon he had the ingratitude to abscond with our '90s-era vassal state. I found an interview with Mark Ames which lays it out better than any piece I've found to date. Deserves a wide audience, but it will never get it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7HwvFyMg7A

From a certain perspective, your insistence elsewhere that there were "no reparations" exacted from the Russians might be regarded as a signature failure of imagination. You might almost as well say that nobody ever conquered Fiji in the 19th century; the Fijians merely entered into mutually suitable business transactions.
http://arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/whatthenmustwedo.pdf (See CHAPTER XVIII)

Remember, kids: when you harbor doubts, you harbor the Kremlin!

ht "B":
U.S.: 'No doubt' That Villain-Of-The-Day Has Banned Weapons

Mattis: 'No doubt' Syrian regime has chemical weapons, April 21, 2017

"There can be no doubt in the international community's mind that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of its agreement and its statement that it had removed them all. There is no longer any doubt," Mattis told reporters.

Full text of Dick Cheney's speech, August 27, 2002

Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us. And there is no doubt that his aggressive regional ambitions will lead him into future confrontations with his neighbors ...

“Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.”
― Edmund Burke

Science is occasionally wrong, even very wrong.

That's why I don't believe climate is change is real.

Welcome to Conspiracy-Theory Logic 101.

>122 timspalding: That grotesque conflation might go without comment if anyone really believed that the "intelligence failures" of 2002-3 were the result of a disinterested search for scientific or objective truth gone awry. My memory may be failing me, but what was it the Downing Street memo said? "The intelligence was fixed around the policy"?

The neocons never went away. Same crowd, same MO. Lay low and take advantage of the memory-wipe effect of an 8-year semi-hawk-resistant Democratic administration, rinse, repeat. Or at least, that's a scenario anyone in their right mind should think twice before dismissing out of hand.

ETA: Trump's administration initially presented an obstacle (albeit of an abjectly loathsome sort in its own right), but quickly proved a pushover: http://lobelog.com/bannon-down-pentagon-up-neocons-in/

It should be said that the destabilization of the Syrian govt. goes all the way back to the Bush/Cheney administration which also speaks to the 'The intelligence was fixed around the policy' analysis. This has been something on the United States foreign policy agenda for a long time and something that suits our Saudi, Israeli and Gulf State allies.

>122 timspalding: In context, that's one of the dumbest posts I have ever read here. In 2002 neither I nor any friends here in Slovenia or in the US needed any memos to know absolutely that the US was lying in order to have their war. And like davidgn suggests, nothing has changed in the highest circles of the US foreign policy making cabal. And yes, Spalding, those people conspire. They have secret meetings, they do diabolical (like that word?) things. They scheme.

Back to science, the mind you are presenting here is a mind that would cripple scientific effort in the womb. You are a science abortion fanatic.

Put it another way: we know (thanks above all to Dr. Postol) that the Trump White House "intelligence" memo was cooked. The question at this point is whether the objective facts of the case that would have been established in the course of a (hypothetical) competent and objective investigation would have given rise to a narrative more convergent with, or divergent from, the narrative that has arisen from the cooked memo. Of course, when one's first step is to cook an operative intelligence memo, one risks what might delicately be termed a "crisis of confidence."

>124 lriley:

Indeed, the United States has never been friendly with Syria, which allied with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and consistently threatened, and occasionally went to war, with our ally, Israel. While I get that support for or opposition to the US is the center of your political views, Syria is a good example of where such thinking runs a-cropper, and I suggest hating both countries might be called for.

Syria has long been a particularly nasty and oppressive state. It's destruction of Hamma, renowned for its wanton brutality, was, it turns out, only a prelude. A glance through the yearly reports of Amnesty International then, or in other years, and you will get a feel for it. I trust you don't think Amnesty International are American lackeys, but who knows?

In 2002 neither I nor any friends here in Slovenia or in the US needed any memos to know absolutely that the US was lying in order to have their war.

A stopped clock is occasionally right. But, while extreme doctrinaire leftists around the world, and, I guess, a small circle of like-minded people in Slovenia, no doubt agreed, all western intelligence agencies believed that Saddam retained the chemical weapons he demonstrably designed, manufactured and possessed in enormous quantities. This was not merely a US miscalculation.

The comparison with scientific errors is extremely apt. Every conspiracy theory has its example of when the consensus is wrong. Tell people that vaccines prevent children from dying, and they'll dredge up thalidomide or argue that, if nutritionists change their mind on the dangers of eggs, we can scarcely trust them here. As a believer in the scientific method, I believe even the scientific consensus on vaccines is liable to being wrong--maybe in the future we will discover some way, other than autism, that vaccines are harming our children. Until then, I'll go with the evidence.

Here, while the Slovenian Friends may see things--or rather know--that the Syrian rebels, Jews, the CIA or the Secret Lizard People, attacked a rebel-controlled area with sarin gas, killing their own in some disturbed attempt to smear a good and just Syrian government with a terrible crime, most international observers, governmental and not, believe otherwise. (Yes, the Trump administration says so too.)

Once in a decade such a consensus may indeed prove to be wrong. But it's thoughtless to prefer the bizarre and unlikely explanation just because, in some oblique way--involving excusing the suffering and death of children--it supports something the US says or does.

#127--is this a defense of the Bush/Cheney preemptive attack on Iraq?--if you happened to take a gander at david's links to Larry Wilkerson (who was Colin Powell's chief of staff when Powell was Secretary of State) by the way--you might get from that they weren't exactly very sure what chemical weapon's Iraq actually did have--just kind of sure he did have something. And even if it did have the weapons that the Bush administration said it did our reasons for invading Iraq was still not justifiable---or maybe you could explain to us why it was? That decision to attack Iraq was arguably the worst ever foreign policy decision ever made by this country (and we have had some colossally bad ones) and here we are trying to make another which could be as bad or near as bad---and you're going to cheerlead it?

As for Israel it's earned a well deserved reputation for being one of the more belligerent (if not the most belligerent) actors in the region. And it is an oppressive state at least to it's Palestinian population. And to continue onto other oppressive states Saudi Arabia, Qatar, etc. are oppressive states. They are big allies of ours too....which is to say however oppressive Syria is and whatever its links to the former Soviet Union....we're not any better for our associations either.

>127 timspalding: I fail to see when it became bizarre and unlikely to suppose that al-Qaeda might sacrifice the lives of innocent people for its own strategic ends. Perhaps that's just a blind spot of mine.

>127 timspalding:

1. In 1949 the CIA installed a stooge in Syria. A few years later he was duly removed. That, and the behavior of US allies over the canal and a failed coup attempt in 1957 defined relations between the US and Syria. Our genius on Mideast history relates it thusly: 'the United States has never been friendly with Syria, which allied with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and consistently threatened, and occasionally went to war, with our ally, Israel.' So, a) wrong, they were friendly; b) why were they allied with the Soviet Union?; c) our ally, Israel--no more need be said.

2. 'A stopped clock is occasionally right.' What a winning cliche.

3. Hans Blix.

4. Colin Powell.

5. I would venture to guess that most people in the world who gave it thought disbelieved US lies. And I find it incredible that you or anyone would base any argument on those lies. What is it that separates you from Trump? Is it a personal matter? I don't see any political difference, nor moral. Though you do have a bigger vocabulary.

6. Why are you talking about doctrinaire leftists?

7. '...all western intelligence agencies believed that Saddam retained the chemical weapons he demonstrably designed, manufactured and possessed in enormous quantities. This was not merely a US miscalculation.' That is simply not true. I have no reason to call it a lie. If you don't know and you don't believe the multitude of sources to that effect, maybe you could ask yourself why the US made up lies if they believed such weapons were there. I suppose you would revise the history of the Vietnam war as well, gallant globeloving warriors stepping in for France again?

>129 davidgn: In the rather brief history of US foreign policy since WWII we've seen barbarism on an international scale of unparalleled agility abetted by intricate interlayered deceit. A consensus, Spalding claims, yet the consensus eludes and excludes him. It's a pretty grotesque mirror.

>130 RickHarsch:
(6) I have to second that. I'll accept "leftist" (though to be accurate, for the most part my tether rebounds somewhere in the outfield of the center-left), but "doctrinaire" puzzles me. I've known some doctrinaire leftists (for instance, the guy in my high school class who was voted "most likely to join the FARC" -- and no, I didn't particularly like him). I've known a lot more people on the left who are rather rigid in their thinking. As for myself, I struggle to apply any description other than heterodox. Presumably this is an ideological tic of Tim's own, perhaps a charitable one in its way: those who persist in believing perversities which run contrary to accepted Beltway cocktail circuit opinion, and who exhibit no egregious symptoms of pathological cognitive defect, must therefore persist in their perversities on account of certain hidebound ideological commitments which prevent them from seeing the Truth of the Beltway. These may therefore safely be dismissed, but need not be pitied, for they have freely chosen to persist in such perversities.

(7) Just because the BND gave us Curveball doesn't mean they were sold on invading. But really, let's start simple: try the Chilcot report. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/chilcot-report-inquiry-tony-blair-...
Might make for salutary reading. I haven't read much of it myself, to be honest (something about 1.2M words might have put me off), but perhaps this is an occasion. Blair may have been "certain," but his intelligence reports were not.

Or, let's start even simpler. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/sep/13/paul-wolfowitz/wo...
I wasn't aware Tim made a habit of parroting war criminals' self-justifying talking points, but there's always a time to start. (This is what comes of watching too much Meet the Press.)

Also, as a good citizen of NATO, Tim should be aware that when it comes to matters like this, it's only what the US (or at most the FVEYs) thinks that matters. "Fuck the EU" -- "freedom fries" and all.

>131 davidgn: A compliment, in its way. Well, since we're locating oursselves, I would have to say I'm left of any doctrine I've come across, but then I don't consider Stalin to have been a leftist.

While it is certainly true that Spalding has supported innumerable war crimes in his arguments and agreed and supported many war criminals, he has so much company that it may fairly be said its an attraction to the warmth of consensus.

Really, the Lawrence Wilkerson interview should be required viewing. (And yes, if you go off looking for dirt on Wilkerson, you'll be readily served with an old FP piece from 2013 that trashes his take on Ghouta -- does so, in fact, by deliberately distorting his words to make him sound crazy and proceeding to call him just that. Looking further afield, you'll find semi-unhinged voices calling for Colin Powell to distance himself from him based on this false reporting. What one needs to recognize is that this sort of "immune response" is par for the course. If someone goes against the grain, they're going to pay for it: period.)

------------------
I've been catching up on Radio War Nerd recently, and was very tickled to see that RWN #76 featured an extended interview with Robert Parry, detailing the autobiography of another young Masshole who skipped starry-eyed off to Washington only to discover the... infelicitous exigencies of doing real investigative journalism in politically sensitive areas (and this in the '80s). I wish I'd written down the quote, but one line that stuck in my head was something along the lines of, "There is no virtue in being prematurely right in Washington." Hell, the interview was so good, I may just listen to the whole thing again on the excuse of confirming the quote. For the curious, it might explain a lot about the attitudes of certain cynics. Unfortunately, it might also be heavy lifting for those who still maintain illusions in need of shattering about the press. Here's the reposted version, officially released for free as a public service:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/radio-war-nerd-8732460 - starts around 33:00

For those needing more of a primer (or at least safety in numbers), I'll also put in another plug for Kristina Borjesson's Into the Buzzsaw, which inexplicably managed to win the National Press Club's Rowse Award for Press Criticism. Of course, for those who make a habit of outsourcing their political epistemology to the WaPo and its ilk, it's still entirely possible to fuck this up. If you make it your mission to seek out (and take at face value) hit pieces discrediting the contributors, you won't be disappointed for choice. That's the way the public-diplomatic immune system works, without regard for quaint considerations such as whether or not the targeted reporting is accurate. It's not fair, it's not right, and it's not honest -- and that, in fact, is the entire point of the book. But if one's overriding interest is in professing Received opinions (in the sense of Received Pronunciation), and one is mortified of the possibility of entertaining opinions which might be poorly received at cocktail parties, this book will be of no help whatsoever.

Finally, for the truly timid those who insist upon starting at square one, taking on the preliminary notion that perhaps the media in our country might not be so hot and examining some reasons why that might be so, it may be worth beginning with something by Robert McChesney. Say, Rich Media, Poor Democracy, which still packs a punch despite being rather long in the tooth by now. It won Harvard's Goldsmith Book Prize, for heaven's sake. Even the jumpiest ostrich-impressionist should be able to engage with it.

One last recommendation: Protestant theologian Jacques Ellul's Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes. If I could somehow convince everyone to read and reflect upon even just the foreword and preface, I think an important purpose would be served.
https://www.ratical.org/ratville/AoS/Propaganda.pdf

>134 davidgn: I read Ellul's classic The Technological Society about 35 years ago, and it still rings true.

Here's one more important document, which honestly feels like a blast from the past for me. The trouble is that whereas I read and absorbed it within a few years of its initial appearance, some here have obviously neither read nor assimilated it. If we're starting at (what was for me) the beginning, however, then so be it.

http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB177/Info%20Operations%20Roadmap%20Truth%20...

Truth from These Podia
Summary of a Study of Strategic Influence, Perception Management,
Strategic Information Warfare and Strategic Psychological Operations in Gulf II
By Sam Gardiner, Colonel, USAF (Rtd.), October 8, 2003

The author has taught strategy and military operations at the National War College, Air War College and Naval War College. He was recently a visiting scholar at the Swedish Defence College. During Gulf II he was a regular on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer as well as on BBC radio and television, and National Public Radio.

The study was not funded by any organization, and the author's arguments are not meant to represent those of any organization.

As I recall, the neocons tried to take Gardiner apart as well.

ETA: Here's an unabridged version, which I haven't seen before. I'll have to read the entirety at some point: http://www.comw.org/warreport/fulltext/0310gardiner.pdf
And cf. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Sam_Gardiner

I missed Postol's correction of a typical interdisciplinary physics vs. meteorological conventions snafu, complete with updated analysis, out 4/21. See:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Postol-Important-Corre...

Again to Postol--he debunked Syria's role in the 2013 chemical attack and if he's correct here (and honestly it looks that way to me) then the narrative presented to the world by US intelligence services and the Trump administration collapses and it looks like just another lame attempt to stage a coup of a leader we've decided we didn't like and to potentially throw our troops into another middle eastern maelstrom to defend and support a pack of lies---and it's not like that hasn't happened recently?...is it?

I swear there are people here that don't care. Lies? Any excuse is good for them. I know there are people in DC with real political power and/or persuasion and people in the military/industrial complex and corporate and financial institutions and the govt.'s of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States just salivating at the hope that something will happen that they'll benefit from.

>138 lriley: What amazes me is that when attempts are made to get at the truth behind a story created in part by an official body whose job it is to deceive (the problem being how they are used, not necessarily that it is wrong to spy on a potential enemy), a body who by nature conspires, those who attempt to unravel the story are denigrated as 'conspiracy theorists'.

(And, by the way, I have never been fascinated enough by the assassination of JFK to read a full book on it, other than by Ellroy, but it comes up a lot in various books I read, like recently reading Weiner's history of the CIA, and there is always proof that the Warren commission at best had nohwere near full access to evidence.)

Fuck. http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/04/turkish-airstrikes-complicate-us-operations...

And cf. the context: https://komnews.org/turkey-launch-operation-syrian-kurdish-corridor-within-month...

The mad-sighthound Turks just jerked their chain in going after the Rojava and Iraqi Kurds, and it seems they managed to blow up some Barzani-led Kurds across the Iraq border (a power bloc with which they had previously been playing relatively nicely). The question now is whether the Trump administration will jerk back. If not, I agree with "b" that ISIS is clearly the immediate winner -- which would fit with certain parties' cynical plans.

As background, my thoughts are well represented by this from Aron Lund (in which I bolded a gem of a quote):

Any transition away from the Islamic State in the Euphrates region will be violent and messy, and whatever its other weaknesses, the SDF seems well equipped to deal with those primary challenges. The YPG/PKK component of the SDF brings military and administrative muscle, and it supplies the central control necessary to pull off a large operation. Who else has that?

The Ankara-backed Sunni Arab groups do not, and, importantly, they also have no way of getting to Raqqa. There is no credible third option. The Institute for the Study of War and the American Enterprise Institute recently suggested the United States should solve its Islamic State problem by shifting support away from both Turkey and the SDF to instead occupy the Syrian-Iraqi border and hatch a brand new force of pro-Western Bedouin clans in that region. This is fantasy. Say what you will about the Turkish-backed groups, but they do have the crucial advantage of actually existing, albeit in the wrong place.

The reality is that the only U.S. ally on the scene is the SDF, in which the Pentagon has already invested heavily. It is a problematic partner for the United States in many ways, but it is also as potent, palatable, and pliable an ally as anyone in Washington can realistically hope to find in eastern Syria at this point. If it’s not good enough, then maybe waging proxy warfare in the Euphrates valley is simply not for you. And beyond the SDF there’s no force in that region with the muscle needed to take on the Islamic State except the Assad regime."

And also this concluding remark from Sam Heller:

If I can circle way back to the start, on how Syria’s war is a composite of multiple overlapping conflicts: I am concerned that the United States may be edging towards an intervention that would inflame Syria’s existing conflicts and layer on dangerous new ones.

Earlier, Aron referenced the Institute for the Study of War-American Enterprise Institute’s latest report, in which the paper’s authors advocate a sort of unilateral, omni-directional intervention in east Syria—a U.S. occupation that would be used to incubate a Sunni Arab sectarian army to fight jihadists and then Iran, in both Syria and Iraq. The recommendations are detached from any ground reality and, frankly, unhinged. But there are also rumors, at least, that they have traction with key members of Trump’s national security team.

At a moment when Syria’s war otherwise seems headed towards a partial denouement, this sort of ultra-hawk interventionism seems like the kind of exogenous shock that could push Syria and the broader region in new, unpredictable directions. Things in Syria are already terrible, and they weren’t headed towards much that was any better. But I don’t think we should underestimate our capacity to make things worse, and this time—from the U.S. perspective—with substantially more American exposure in terms of political risk and Americans in the line of fire.

I’m worried that we might have a lot of new discussion material in our next roundtable because America has done something extreme. But I’m hoping we don’t.

(from https://tcf.org/content/report/four-perspectives-syria-round-ii/ - mentioned multiple times above)

This Turkish move looks like a SYN waiting for an ACK. If Trump lets slip these sighthounds of war against the Kurds, I'd read it as a clear signal that a strategic realignment ultimately slated to include a major U.S. invasion is on track: just what the neocons ordered. (ETA: In this case, the neocon strategists would ideally want to see Deir Ez-zor fall -- probably to ISIS -- before the U.S. troops show up to liberate it. As I said earlier, the government presence in that city fucks up the map. As for the civilians trapped there: well, we're being cynical here, right?)

I've mentioned the Cernovich/Eli Lake reporting above. Here's Col. Lang's take on that, wherein he provides some additional details based on his experience:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/04/httpsmediumcomcernovi...

As described elsewhere, Lang is: "a distinguished American military Arabist, formerly in charge of the Middle East, South Asia and Terrorism at the Defense Intelligence Agency, the first Director of its ‘Humint’ service, and also the first Professor of Arabic at West Point." (official bio: http://turcopolier.typepad.com/about.html)
Lang can be a prickly character, but I don't dismiss his take lightly -- particularly when it goes against the grain.

Here he is on the cold-blooded massacre of 80 children by al-Qaeda during the "Fua-Kefraya versus Zabadani-Madaya exchange" (cf. >100 davidgn:):
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/04/this-evacuation-was-a...
(That's one way to prevent any further population exchanges in Idlib. Seems like a strategic move on al-Qaeda's part to keep things frozen.)

And here he is on Khan Shaykhoun and Shayrat:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/04/ghouta-redux-was-this...
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/04/us-intervention-in-sy...
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/04/i-told-you-so-idlib-p...
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/04/httpswwwnytimescom201...

Other members of his "committee of correspondence" have much to say as well -- e.g.:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/04/the-great-illusion-by...
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/04/where-are-the-heroes-...
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/04/mcmaster-and-russia.h...
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/04/the-white-house-repor...

Strangely little is said about the plight of the Kurds in general, which seems, obviously, to be from fear of Turkish volatility. But a long overdue Kurdish state, pardon my simple mind, would be a stabilizing force in the region were it to have multinational support, bilateral US and Russian support.

blast away

>141 RickHarsch: You've hit the nail on the head, Rick: the problem is Turkey, which will do whatever it can to prevent a Kurdish state on its southern border-- Turkey's worst case scenario. Erdogan would prefer Syria united under his old adversary Assad, or even ISIS, to an independent Kurdish state in Syria or Iraq. An autonomous Kurdish state, though, they could (and will probably have to) live with.

Apparently one of Col. Lang's co-bloggers can also read maps.
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/04/russian-ground-forces...

I also get the feeling there is nothing we would like more than for the IS jihadis to overrun Deir ez-Zor. That would leave the path open for a jihadi safe area extending from the entire Euphrates valley to the Iraqi border. The only thing standing in our way is that bull of a Druze General and his boys holding Deir ez-Zor.

Incidentally, he ain't kidding about General Zahreddine. That's one badass Druze. Care to put a face with a name?


He also advances an alternate theory of the significance of today's bombing of the Kurds, which I can take or leave.

Meanwhile, Lang himself seems to think we might be pivoting to Asia for the summer.
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/04/grooming-the-senate-f...
"All 100 senators are invited to the White House compound tomorrow for a briefing on North Korea. This is an unusual event. During the first Gulf War I was sent to the Congress every day to brief both houses. Notice that we went to them and not the other way 'round."

I'm skeptical that that pot will boil over, since I've always been of the opinion that we value Seoul's continued existence. Then again, I'm not exactly in the crystal ball-gazing business. When the natives of Seoul start to worry, I'll start to worry -- and not a second sooner. (Tim Shorrock, reporting from Seoul a week back for The Nation. He also did a great interview for Radio War Nerd, Episode #62.)

ETA: More to the point, here's what Lang had to say on Khan Sheykhoun:

At the same time, pressure is building on the international scene for a real investigation of the 4 April, 2017 gas event at Khan Shaykun in southern Idlib Province, Syria. There is so much now written about this that it seems inevitable that a high profile enquiry will be made. It appears that the R+6 will re-capture Khan Shaykun soon. That will create an interesting situation for the investigators whomever they will be.

For once, I'm just gonna paste the whole thing. After all, it's addressed to you! (Well, most of you.)

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/26/intel-vets-voice-doubts-on-syrian-crisis/

Intel Vets Voice Doubts on Syrian Crisis
Two dozen former U.S. intelligence professionals are urging the American people to demand clear evidence that the Syrian government was behind the April 4 chemical incident before President Trump dives deeper into another war.

AN OPEN MEMORANDUM FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

From: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

Subject: Mattis ‘No Doubt’ Stance on Alleged Syrian CW Smacks of Politicized Intelligence

Donald Trump’s new Secretary of Defense, retired Marine General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, during a recent trip to Israel, commented on the issue of Syria’s retention and use of chemical weapons in violation of its obligations to dispose of the totality of its declared chemical weapons capability in accordance with the provisions of both the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions.

“There can be no doubt,” Secretary Mattis said during a April 21, 2017 joint news conference with his Israeli counterpart, Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman, “in the international community’s mind that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of its agreement and its statement that it had removed them all.” To the contrary, Mattis noted, “I can say authoritatively they have retained some.”

Lieberman joined Mattis in his assessment, noting that Israel had “100 percent information that (the) Assad regime used chemical weapons against (Syrian) rebels.”

Both Mattis and Lieberman seemed to be channeling assessments offered to reporters two days prior, on April 19, 2017, by anonymous Israeli defense officials that the April 4, 2017 chemical weapons attack on the Syrian village of Khan Shaykhun was ordered by Syrian military commanders, with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s personal knowledge, and that Syria retained a stock of “between one and three tons” of chemical weapons.

The Israeli intelligence followed on the heels of an April 13, 2017 speech given by CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies that, once information had come in about a chemical attack on Khan Shaykhun, the CIA had been able to “develop several hypothesis around that, and then to begin to develop fact patterns which either supported or suggested that the hypothesis wasn’t right.” The CIA, Pompeo said, was “in relatively short order able to deliver to (President Trump) a high-confidence assessment that, in fact, it was the Syrian regime that had launched chemical strikes against its own people in (Khan Shaykhun.)”

The speed in which this assessment was made is of some concern. Both Director Pompeo, during his CSIS remarks, and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, during comments to the press on April 6, 2017, note that President Trump turned to the intelligence community early on in the crisis to understand better “the circumstances of the attack and who was responsible.” McMaster indicated that the U.S. Intelligence Community, working with allied partners, was able to determine with “a very high degree of confidence” where the attack originated.

Both McMaster and Pompeo spoke of the importance of open source imagery in confirming that a chemical attack had taken place, along with evidence collected from the victims themselves – presumably blood samples – that confirmed the type of agent that was used in the attack. This initial assessment drove the decision to use military force – McMaster goes on to discuss a series of National Security Council meetings where military options were discussed and decided upon; the discussion about the intelligence underpinning the decision to strike Syria was over.

The danger of this rush toward an intelligence decision by Director Pompeo and National Security Advisor McMaster is that once the President and his top national security advisors have endorsed an intelligence-based conclusion, and authorized military action based upon that conclusion, it becomes virtually impossible for that conclusion to change. Intelligence assessments from that point forward will embrace facts that sustain this conclusion, and reject those that don’t; it is the definition of politicized intelligence, even if those involved disagree.

A similar “no doubt” moment had occurred nearly 15 years ago when, in August 2002, Vice President Cheney delivered a speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars. “There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction,” Cheney declared. “There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies and against us.” The message Cheney was sending to the Intelligence Community was clear: Saddam Hussein had WMD; there was no need to answer that question anymore.

The CIA vehemently denies that either Vice President Cheney or anyone at the White House put pressure on its analysts to alter their assessments. This may very well be true, but if it is, then the record of certainty – and arrogance – that existed in the mindset of senior intelligence managers and analysts only further erodes public confidence in the assessments produced by the CIA, especially when, as is the case with Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction – the agency was found so lacking. Stuart Cohen, a veteran CIA intelligence analyst who served as the acting Chairman of the National Intelligence Council, oversaw the production of the 2002 Iraq National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that was used to make case for Iraq possessing WMD that was used to justify war.

According to Mr. Cohen, he had four National Intelligence Officers with “over 100 years’ collective work experience on weapons of mass destruction issues” backed up by hundreds of analysts with “thousands of man-years invested in studying these issues.”

On the basis of this commitment of talent alone, Mr. Cohen assessed that “no reasonable person could have viewed the totality of the information that the Intelligence Community had at its disposal … and reached any conclusion or alternative views that were profoundly different from those that we reached,” namely that – judged with high confidence – “Iraq had chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of the 150 kilometer limit imposed by the UN Security Council.”

Two facts emerge from this expression of intellectual hubris. First, the U.S. Intelligence Community was, in fact, wrong in its estimate on Iraq’s WMD capability, throwing into question the standards used to assign “high confidence” ratings to official assessments. Second, the “reasonable person” standard cited by Cohen must be reassessed, perhaps based upon a benchmark derived from a history of analytical accuracy rather than time spent behind a desk.

Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the United Nations on Feb. 5. 2003, citing satellite photos and other “intelligence” which supposedly proved that Iraq had WMD, but the evidence proved bogus.
The major lesson learned here, however, is that the U.S. Intelligence Community, and in particular the CIA, more often than not hides behind self-generated platitudes (“high confidence”, “reasonable person”) to disguise a process of intelligence analysis that has long ago been subordinated to domestic politics.

It is important to point out the fact that Israel, too, was wrong about Iraq’s WMD. According to Shlomo Brom, a retired Israeli Intelligence Officer, Israeli intelligence seriously overplayed the threat posed by Iraqi WMD in the lead up to the 2003 Iraq War, including a 2002 briefing to NATO provided by Efraim Halevy, who at the time headed the Israeli Mossad, or intelligence service, that Israel had “clear indications” that Iraq had reconstituted its WMD programs after U.N. weapons inspectors left Iraq in 1998.

The Israeli intelligence assessments on Iraq, Mr. Brom concluded, were most likely colored by political considerations, such as the desire for regime change in Iraq. In this light, neither the presence of Avigdor Leiberman, nor the anonymous background briefings provided by Israel about Syria’s chemical weapons capabilities, should be used to provide any credence to Secretary Mattis’s embrace of the “no doubt” standard when it comes to Syria’s alleged possession of chemical weapons.

The intelligence data that has been used to back up the allegations of Syrian chemical weapons use has been far from conclusive. Allusions to intercepted Syrian communications have been offered as “proof”, but the Iraq experience – in particular former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s unfortunate experience before the U.N. Security Council – show how easily such intelligence can be misunderstood and misused.

Inconsistencies in the publicly available imagery which the White House (and CIA) have so heavily relied upon have raised legitimate questions about the veracity of any conclusions drawn from these sources (and begs the question as to where the CIA’s own Open Source Intelligence Center was in this episode.) The blood samples used to back up claims of the presence of nerve agent among the victims was collected void of any verifiable chain of custody, making their sourcing impossible to verify, and as such invalidates any conclusions based upon their analysis.

In the end, the conclusions CIA Director Pompeo provided to the President was driven by a fundamental rethinking of the CIA’s analysts when it came to Syria and chemical weapons that took place in 2014. Initial CIA assessments in the aftermath of the disarmament of Syria’s chemical weapons seemed to support the Syrian government’s stance that it had declared the totality of its holding of chemical weapons, and had turned everything over to the OPCW for disposal. However, in 2014, OPCW inspectors had detected traces of Sarin and VX nerve agent precursors at sites where the Syrians had indicated no chemical weapons activity had taken place; other samples showed the presence of weaponized Sarin nerve agent.

The Syrian explanation that the samples detected were caused by cross-contamination brought on by the emergency evacuation of chemical precursors and equipment used to handle chemical weapons necessitated by the ongoing Civil War was not accepted by the inspectors, and this doubt made its way into the minds of the CIA analysts, who closely followed the work of the OPCW inspectors in Syria.

One would think that the CIA would operate using the adage of “once bitten, twice shy” when assessing inspector-driven doubt; U.N. inspectors in Iraq, driven by a combination of the positive sampling combined with unverifiable Iraqi explanations, created an atmosphere of doubt about the veracity of Iraqi declarations that all chemical weapons had been destroyed. The CIA embraced the U.N. inspectors’ conclusions, and discounted the Iraqi version of events; as it turned out, Iraq was telling the truth.

While the jury is still out about whether or not Syria is, like Iraq, telling the truth, or whether the suspicions of inspectors are well founded, one thing is clear: a reasonable person would do well to withhold final judgment until all the facts are in. (Note: The U.S. proclivity for endorsing the findings of U.N. inspectors appears not to include the Khan Shaykhun attack; while both Syria and Russia have asked the OPCW to conduct a thorough investigation of the April 4, 2017 incident, the OPCW has been blocked from doing so by the United States and its allies.)

CIA Director Pompeo’s job is not to make policy – the intelligence his agency provides simply informs policy. It is not known if the U.S. Intelligence Community will be producing a formal National Intelligence Estimate addressing the Syrian chemical weapons issue, although the fact that the United States has undertaken military action under the premise that these weapons exist more than underscores the need for such a document, especially in light of repeated threats made by the Trump administration that follow-on strikes might be necessary.

Making policy is, however, the job of Secretary of Defense Mattis. At the end of the day, Secretary of Defense Mattis will need to make his own mind up as to the veracity of any intelligence used to justify military action. Mattis’s new job requires that he does more than simply advise the President on military options; he needs to ensure that the employment of these options is justified by the facts.

In the case of Syria, the “no doubt” standard Mattis has employed does not meet the “reasonable man” standard. Given the consequences that are attached to his every word, Secretary Mattis would be well advised not to commit to a “no doubt” standard until there is, literally, no doubt.

For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

William Binney, Technical Director, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)
Marshall Carter-Tripp, Foreign Service Officer (ret) and former Office Division Director in the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research
Thomas Drake, former Senior Executive, NSA
Bogdan Dzakovic, Former Team Leader of Federal Air Marshals and Red Team, FAA Security, (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)
Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq & Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate VIPS)
Larry C Johnson, CIA & State Department (ret.)
Michael S. Kearns, Captain, USAF (Ret.); ex-Master SERE Instructor for Strategic Reconnaissance Operations (NSA/DIA) and Special Mission Units (JSOC)
Brady Kiesling, former U.S. Foreign Service Officer, ret. (Associate VIPS)
Karen Kwiatkowski, former Lt. Col., US Air Force (ret.), at Office of Secretary of Defense watching the manufacture of lies on Iraq, 2001-2003
Lisa Ling, TSgt USAF (ret.)
Linda Lewis, WMD preparedness policy analyst, USDA (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Edward Loomis, NSA, Cryptologic Computer Scientist (ret.)
David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Near East, CIA and National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Torin Nelson, former Intelligence Officer/Interrogator (GG-12) HQ, Department of the Army
Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)
Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)
Scott Ritter, former MAJ., USMC, former UN Weapon Inspector, Iraq
Peter Van Buren, U.S. Department of State, Foreign Service Officer (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Kirk Wiebe, former Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA
Lawrence Wilkerson, Colonel (USA, ret.), Distinguished Visiting Professor, College of William and Mary (associate VIPS)
Sarah G. Wilton, Intelligence Officer, DIA (ret.); Commander, US Naval Reserve (ret.)
Robert Wing, former Foreign Service Officer (associate VIPS)

----------------------------------------------------
ETA: Sharp eyes might note the absence of former CIA White House briefer Ray McGovern, who used to do most of the drafting of these VIPS memos. Sitting this one out, it seems. Here's what Ray has to say (in a comment below):

In my view, the most salient conclusion from the evidence at hand has to do with Trump’s unpredictability and his recklessness in ordering “his” generals to fire the Tomahawks before there was time or inclination to do an intelligence assessment worthy of the word. There were no adults in the room. It was a rush to fire more than a rush to judgment, and rather than speak a word of restraint, Trump’s mad-dog defense secretary, his JCS chairman, and his national security advisor were happy to discharge the order to discharge the missiles.

Only then, was there some attempt to “fix” the intelligence. CIA colleagues were reportedly reluctant to go down that road again, and so McMaster had his political hacks prepare the shoddy four-pager, which has since been ripped to shreds by Ted Postol (whose work needs to be referenced in any commentary like this one). From Postol and from other sources, we are 90 percent sure the generals are lying.

It was not the “initial assessment that drove the decision to use military force.” The attack does not seem to have been “an intelligence-based conclusion.” The driving force, pure and simple, was Trump. To bury in the middle of the piece a comment that “the intelligence data has been far from conclusive,” well YES TO THAT. (See Ted Postol.) And there was absolutely no military reason to rush ahead absent a well-considered assessment, based on an examination of all the intelligence, re what had actually happened.

Trump’s mad-dog generals were happy to test their cohones, as well as more sophisticated weapons. Ex post facto, they hustled to “fix” the intelligence (reaching out to the media) and making liberal use of “social media” — which John Kerry famously described as an “extraordinarily useful tool.” This, in my view, is the most important story.

So why devote the first seven paragraphs to various facets of the deceitful cover story that Postol already demolished. To give space to self-interested assertions that “intelligence” played any significant role does not help. It was unpredictable, reckless Trump – acting rashly for his personal political purposes; and it worked like a charm. A big bump in the polls! And who can say any longer that he is soft on Russia?

Again, it seems to me clear that there was NO intelligence assessment — preliminary or otherwise; and it seems quite unrealistic to expect a National Intelligence Estimate now or any time soon.

Ted Postol wrote: “The facts are now very clear: There is very substantial evidence that the president and his staff took decisions without any intelligence, or far more likely ignored intelligence from the professional community that they were given, to execute a missile attack in the Middle East that had the danger of creating an inadvertent military confrontation with Russia.”

That is BIG; I cannot remember a time (except for a brief episode under Reagan in the fall of 1983 when we were all close to being fried in a nuclear exchange) when the Russians … and now the Chinese and the Koreans have had to prepare against such unpredictable recklessness. This, I think, is the main thing Americans should draw from April 2017. It is safe to expect the Russians to revert to the old hair-trigger “launch-on-warning.” Use ’em, or lose ’em.

So I think we, indeed, the entire world ought to be concerned about Trump’s behavior on April 4-6, given the abundant evidence that he went off half-cocked and ordered the missile attacks (with or without Ivanka’s pleading). And that the mad-dog four-stars followed orders without demurral and absent any reliable intelligence.

“What I do is I authorize my military,” Trump told reporters recently. “We have given them total authorization and that’s what they’re doing and, frankly, that’s why they’ve been so successful lately.”

Right. Fifteen years of unmitigated success!

Ray McGovern

#145--personally I don't think Putin is nearly as crazy as Trump is. That in any nuclear showdown Trumps finger will be on the button first. Well....first he'll hide out in a bunker somewhere.

Well, the shit that goes down while you're sleeping, eh?

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/05/us-attacks-syrian-government-forces-it-now-...

Yesterday a small battalion size force (~2-300 men) of the regular Syrian army, Syrian National Defense Organization volunteers and Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF/PMU of the Kata'ib al-Imam Ali) marched on the road from the west towards al-Tanf. They were about 23 kilometers away from the border station when they were attack by U.S. aircraft coming in low from Jordan. The U.S. jets directly fired at the convoy, allegedly after earlier giving some "warning shots". At least one Syrian tank and several other vehicles were destroyed. Six Syrian government forces were reported killed and more were wounded.

The U.S. command claimed that this was a "defensive" move to "protect" its soldiers at the al-Tanf station. There are U.S. and British special forces stationed near the station who lead and train the NSA contingent - all together a few 100 men.

The U.S. attack was clearly a willful, illegal attack on Syrian ground against legitimate forces of the sovereign Syrian government. (The Iraqi PMU contingent in Syria is a legitimate allied force under control of the Iraqi prime minister.) There is no clause in international law, no U.N. resolution or anything similar, that could justify such an attack. The U.S. military has no right at all to be at al-Tanf or anywhere else in Syria. There is nothing to "defend" for it. If it dislikes regular Syrian and Iraqi forces moving in their own countries towards their own border station and retaking it, it can and should move out and go home. Moreover - the U.S. claims it is "fighting ISIS" in Syria. Why then is it attacking the Syrian government forces while these launch a large move against the very same enemy?

Pugnacious and contentious? Maybe, but what do you expect from a German tank commander?

The rest of the piece provides important context -- particularly the addendum.

There are some maps flowing around which assert that Iran is seeking a military land communication route via Iraq into Syria and beyond. They show some fantasy route up north through Iraqi and Syrian Kurdish territory as the "current route" and the roads between Damascus and Baghdad as "future route". The claim is that military equipment moves along these roads.

It is nonsense. Iran did not and does not need such land routes for military exchanges with its allies in Syria and Lebanon. Where was that Iranian land route in 2006 when the U.S. occupied Iraq while Israel attacked Lebanon? Where was that land route when ISIS occupied half of Iraq and Syria? There was no such route and Iranian support still reached Hizbullah in 2006 and later Syria. It came by air, by ship and, most important, by other means.

By holding up such fantasy maps certain interests want to insinuate that the area is "strategically important" for the U.S. and that the U.S. must therefore occupy south-east Syria. It is true that the road network between Syria and Iraq has some economical importance. Like all roads these are used for local commerce. But history demonstrates that they are not militarily strategic asset in the sense of an essential, overarching need.

See also:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-aircraft-strike-syrian-regime-forces-al-tanf-base...
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-led-coalition-strikes-pro-syrian-government-forces-...

ETA: See also this, probably the best capsule summary of the situation, via. "TTG" on Col. Lang's blog. It's possible to nitpick the third paragraph in this blockquote along the lines of "Assad must in any case acquiesce to the loss of the southeastern part of his country."
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/05/incident-at-al-tanf-t...

First, let’s establish the importance of Al-Tanf. It lies along the Baghdad-Damascus highway on the Syrian-Iraqi border. Its importance to Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon (the dreaded Shia Crescent) should be obvious. That is also why it is so important to the Coalition, the Saudis, Qataris and the Israelis. The Coalition is using the Al-Tanf area as a base for their new unicorn army whose real purpose is, not to fight IS, but to ensure Syria does not regain her territorial integrity. US and British special operations forces are training and equipping rebel units there including the Maghaweir Al-Thawra group. This outfit recently advanced east of Al-Tanf towards the Euphrates. If the SAA took Al-Tanf, these rebels would be cut off from their Coalition support.

The Coalition has unilaterally declared a thirty kilometer or so exclusionary zone around Al-Tanf. Even so, our new unicorns at Al-Tanf have been attacked by IS jihadis at least twice. They have also been attacked by Russian and Syrian aircraft on two occasions. Yesterday, the Coalition decided to enforce their exclusion zone. Syrian forces were denied access to Syrian territory by lethal US force.

Yesterday’s attack on the Syrian column was done with the full knowledge and direction of the CJCS and President. We deliberately risked killing Russian advisors who accompanied this SAA column. This attack exposes this administration’s true objectives in the region. Apologists cannot write this off as some mistake attributed to the fog of war or some clever three dimensional chess gambit. It is a craven embrace of the “Assad must go” policy and everything it stands for.

How will the R+6 respond? The offensive to open the Damascus-Baghdad highway will continue. The assault from the west with the SAA’s 5th and 7th armored divisions has already made good progress in the Al-Sweida Governate against the US-backed Jaysh Assoud Al-Sharqiya. Further north, the SAA’s 5th Legion along with forces from Hezbollah, NDF and the Imam Ali Battalions are poised to resume their offensive towards Al-Tanf. These forces will now, undoubtedly, be accompanied by Russian and Syrian air defense and air support. The SAA column struck by coalition aircraft today was probably just a reconnaissance in force. What’s coming? Here’s a possibility. “And I looked, and behold a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.”

Lang's comment on TTG's piece:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/05/incident-at-al-tanf-t...

All
it now appears to me certain that the US intends to occupy at least the SE quadrant of Syria for the purpose described by TTG. That is to build a force there that can serve as a future means of overthrowing the Syrian government. I fear that Trump under the influence of Mattis/McMaster also gave Erdogan permission to occupy Idlib Governorate in the NW of Syria whenever he thinks that appropriate. From that position the Turkish Army could advance south in conjunction with and behind an advance by the US backed force from the Al-Tanf area. The hard core jihadi rebels in the Idlib Governorate seem to understand this and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (Al-Qa'ida) is moving its fighters into position along the Hatay border to try to resist this.

Well, it's him that said it. I've been... preoccupied these past few weeks, so I've missed a lot of the latest developments and have no comment. I've got a lot of catching up to do.

Some commenter on Lang's blog recommended this French Poli Sci PhD/Reserve Colonel's analysis from last week. I haven't read it yet (not exactly in a position to do so just now), but it certainly looks thorough.
http://galacteros.over-blog.com/2017/05/l-est-syrien-enjeu-veritable-des-quatrie...

The war continues to brew.
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/05/httpswwwalmasdarnewsc...

Comment by MofA's "b" (yes, these guys talk to one another) is not to be missed.
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/05/httpswwwalmasdarnewsc...

So, it's not just the US and UK in Al Tanf; the Norwegians are there now too. Incredible.

Watch the TV news tonight; see if there's a peep about the fireworks show that's about to kick off.

For anyone who wants to follow the evolution:

The walk-back of the al-Tanf incident, which Dunford blames on a jumpy ground commander:
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/05/talking-tactics-lacking-strategy-the-genera...

The strategic reason (apart from the skeletal character of the forces that could be brought to bear, contingent of Norwegians notwithstanding) that the real fireworks haven't popped off (much wailing and gnashing of teeth):
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/05/httpssouthfrontorgira...

Iraq, Russia, Syria and Iran are now proclaimed to be allies by the Iraqi Interior Minister (police and police troops)The US with its encrusted neocon, ziocon and R2P Borg blew the last 15 years in the Islamic World and we are obviously invincibly ignorant and determined to remain so. pl

Catching up on Operation Grand Dawn:

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/05/httpssouthfrontorgsyr...

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/05/operation-grand-dawn-...

Although details are scarce and often conflicting, it appears the R+6 operation to reclaim Syria's southern border is proceeding. It is also about to come face-to-face with the Coalition plan to carve out a safe area in this part of Syria. We shall see who blinks first.

Unless the U.S. is planning to throw the US/UK/NO special forces in Al-Tanf into a meat grinder to lubricate the manufacture of a very messy casus belli in public opinion, it seems fair to say the bluff has been called.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
See also this exchange between "TTG" and "b" regarding the NYT's report of a plan to privatize Iraqi Highway 1 between Baghdad and Amman, under contract with Olive Corp. (Ain't neoliberalism magic?) "Olive Corp is part of Constellis Corp which also owns Triple Canopy and Akademi, the former Blackwater. "
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/05/operation-grand-dawn-...

And "b"s longer piece dissecting the NYT article here:
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/05/us-wants-control-of-anbar-and-beyond-iraq-a...

Turkey and Saudi Arabia have enabled the Sunni insurgency in Iraq of which ISIS is just the latest incarnation. To allow the U.S. to control the road and thereby Anbar province in the name of Turkey and Saudi Arabia would guarantee that future Sunni insurgencies could threaten Baghdad whenever "needed". Just remember how Obama said he used ISIS to throw then Prime Minster Maliki out of office

The reason, the president added, “that we did not just start taking a bunch of airstrikes all across Iraq as soon as ISIL came in was because that would have taken the pressure off of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

A U.S. controlled west-Iraq and south-eastern Syria would be a highway for Saudi Arabian miscreants from their country up towards Baghdad and Damascus. It would be an incarnation of the "Salafist principality" the U.S. and other early ISIS supporters have wished for since at least 2012.

The U.S. is willing to obfuscate and to lie to further its imperial plans. The NYT is, as usual, complicit in that:

Playing on painful memories and fears of Iraqis, news outlets have also run false reports that Blackwater — the private security firm that acted with impunity in the early days of the American occupation and gunned down innocent Iraqis in Baghdad’s Nisour Square in 2007 — had taken on the project.

“The politics of this country are challenging,” said Christian Ronnow, executive vice president of Constellis, the parent company of Olive Group, a private security firm that has worked for years in Iraq.

What the NYT claims are "false reports" are in fact reasonable conclusions:

The Constellis Group combines the specialized skills and operational excellence of ACADEMI, Edinburgh International, Strategic Social and Triple Canopy,

ACADEMI

is an American private military company founded in 1997 by former Navy SEAL officer Erik Prince as Blackwater, renamed as XE Services in 2009 and now known as Academi since 2011 after the company was acquired by a group of private investors.

Olive Group is Constellis Group is Academi is Blackwater - the "false reports" in Iraqi media are way more truthful on that than the NYT is.

The U.S. project in Anbar province and its potential control of Highway 1 through private U.S. forces threatens to put an economic stranglehold on Iraq, Syria and Jordan. I trust that nationalist forces in those countries as well as their allies will do their best to prevent it.

#150--makes me think of the US Calvary pushing the American Indian further and further west only with a more modern twist. Bases = forts. Toll roads.

>151 lriley: Toll roads with the armed force to protect them baked into the contract, no doubt.
I Can't Believe It's Not An Occupation!™

Meanwhile, Prof. Postol is at it again:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/05/the-new-york-times-vi...

The NYT recently stooped to wholesale recycling of analysis from Bellingcat, that propaganda organ of the Atlantic Council. Postol responds:

This report shows that NONE of the bomb-damage areas identified by Bellingcat and shown in the New York Times video show any indication of bomb damage from 500 to 1000 pound bombs. That is, the data from the panoramic view is clearly and unambiguously inconsistent with the claims of bomb damage from the satellite photographs. In fact NONE of the forensic data claimed by Bellingcat in the New York Times as evidence of general-purpose bomb damage on April 4 supports the conclusions that are said to have been derived from the forensic data. In all, when these false claims about information provided in the forensic data are brought together with the claims about a sarin release site, the conclusion is inescapable that all of the evidence referred to by Bellingcat in the New York Times shows no evidence to support their narrative.

This means that the narratives put forward by the New York Times, and the closely related Human Rights Watch report of May 1, are all based on forensic evidence and conclusions that are unambiguously false.

(By the way: Postol's co-authored piece last March in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists is required reading:
How US nuclear force modernization is undermining strategic stability: The burst-height compensating super-fuze
http://thebulletin.org/how-us-nuclear-force-modernization-undermining-strategic-... )

Robert Parry has now gotten around to covering Prof. Postol's take-down.

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/06/07/nyts-new-syria-sarin-report-challenged/

Makes an excellent point passim, one that can't be repeated often enough:

The Times also has displayed a bizarre bias when Syrians speak from government-controlled areas. Then, the Times always inserts language suggesting that the interviewees may be under coercion. Yet the Times assumes that “witnesses” inside Al Qaeda-controlled territory are commenting honestly, freely and without fear of contradicting the jihadists.

The Times’ double standard is particularly curious because United Nations investigators don’t even dare enter these jihadist zones because the jihadists have a history of beheading journalists and other civilians who get in the way.

An example of this bias was on display in Wednesday’s Times in an article about the family of Omran, the boy made famous by a photo of him in an ambulance. The article discussed the family’s ordeal and mentioned the father’s vocal support for the Assad government.

However, because the family backed Assad, the Times inserted this caveat: “Syrians appearing on state television or on channels associated with the Assad government are not able to speak freely. The government exerts tight control over all information broadcast about the war, including interviews with civilians, who can be coerced and threatened with arrest if they criticize the government.”

Yet, the Times treats interviews with people inside jihadist-controlled territory as inherently truthful with the interview subjects described in favorable or neutral terms, such as “rescue workers,” “journalists,” “eyewitnesses” or sometimes “activists.” There is rarely any suggestion that Al Qaeda might either be controlling these messages or intimidating the interviewees, who are usually denouncing Assad, what the Times and other mainstream news outlets want to hear.

But the conclusion is particularly foreboding.

When I interviewed Postol on Wednesday, he said he had received no responses from either the Times or Bellingcat, adding: “It seems to me that the analysts were ignorant beyond plausibility or they rigged the analysis. … To me, this is malpractice on a large scale.”

Referring to some of the photographed scenes in Khan Sheikhoun, including a dead goat that appeared to have been dragged into location near the “sarin crater,” Postol called the operation “a rather amateurish attempt to create a false narrative.”

But the problem of the Times and Bellingcat presenting dubious – or in Postol’s view, “fraudulent” – information about sensitive geopolitical and national security issues has another potentially even darker side. These two entities are part of Google’s First Draft Coalition of news organizations that are expected to serve as gatekeepers separating “truth” from “fake news.”

The emerging idea is to take their judgments and enter them into algorithms to scrub the Internet of information that doesn’t comport with what the Times, Bellingcat and other approved news outlets deem true.

That these two organizations would operate with a pattern of “confirmation bias” on sensitive war-and-peace issues is thus doubly troubling in that their future “groupthinks” could not only mislead their readers but could ensure that contrary evidence is whisked away from everyone else, too.

We have always been at war with Eastasia.

Hersh on Khan Sheikhoun, with h/t to Col. Lang for the excerpt. Gonna brew some coffee shortly and try to read these in their entirety.

To the dismay of many senior members of his national security team, Trump could not be swayed over the next 48 hours of intense briefings and decision-making. In a series of interviews, I learned of the total disconnect between the president and many of his military advisers and intelligence officials, as well as officers on the ground in the region who had an entirely different understanding of the nature of Syria’s attack on Khan Sheikhoun. I was provided with evidence of that disconnect, in the form of transcripts of real-time communications, immediately following the Syrian attack on April 4. In an important pre-strike process known as deconfliction, U.S. and Russian officers routinely supply one another with advance details of planned flight paths and target coordinates, to ensure that there is no risk of collision or accidental encounter (the Russians speak on behalf of the Syrian military). This information is supplied daily to the American AWACS surveillance planes that monitor the flights once airborne. Deconfliction’s success and importance can be measured by the fact that there has yet to be one collision, or even a near miss, among the high-powered supersonic American, Allied, Russian and Syrian fighter bombers." Hersh

----------

Speaks for itself. pl

https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article165905578/Trump-s-Red-Line.html

https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article165905618/We-got-a-fuckin-problem.htm...

https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article165906452/The-Fog-of-War.html

https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article165906278/Islamic-States-Horror-Arsen...

Via:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/06/httpswwwweltdepolitik...

All I can say is, thank God the German media still has a few people with balls. Just you wait: the knives are about to come out for the Welt am Sonntag.

McGovern on the above:
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/06/25/intel-behind-trumps-syria-attack-questione...

He's probably right, actually, that this will be met with silence by the English-language MSM (just as Postol was).

As for the pseudo-alternative media, the (Saudi- and UAE-funded) Atlantic Council's mouthpiece responds here.
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2017/06/25/will-get-fooled-seymour-hersh-we...

And it goes on. The White House has released a statement that Syria is "preparing" for another chemical attack and that if it does they'll suffer for it. But, defense officials have no idea what info it has, where it came from, and weren't consulted about it.

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/06/defense-officials-caught-off-guard-by-white-hous...

>156 rastaphrog: Thanks for that. This is worrying. The media backlash is a slightly hopeful sign.

Read this in light of the strategic ground situation: checkmate in two... unless someone decides to clear the pieces from the board by main force.
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/06/syria-the-us-concedes-defeat-of-its-south-e...

In light of which Macron (for instance) seems ostensibly to have given up:
Sanity Emerging in Europe over Syria?
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/06/httpswwwalmasdarnewsc...

It's worth noting that "b" has also pointed out a contradictory current in French rhetoric that has made him prick up his ears, though that current doesn't seem to have made any appearances since May:
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/06/white-house-says-it-will-fake-chemical-weap...
As I've noted many times before, "b" continues in his habitual mode of floating what might be called "exaggerations in the direction of truth." In the present climate, however, his work remains invaluable.

Meanwhile: "Publius Tacitus" at Col. Lang's blog has a response to Bellingcat, which includes a reminder regarding the credentials of the hack known as "Eliot Higgins":

The pushback against Sy Hersh's latest piece of genuine investigative journalism in which he exposes the lie that the Government of Syria hit Khan Sheikyoun with a sarin gas attack on 4 April 2017 is based on ignorance and misinformation. One of those leading this effort is Eliot Higgins, who blogs under the handle, Bellingcat. Well worth asking, Who is Eliot Higgins? According to Wikipedia:

In 2012, when Higgins began blogging the Syrian civil war, he was an unemployed finance and admin worker who spent his days taking care of his child at home;(1) he is married to a Turkish woman.(3)(4) . . .

Higgins has no background or training in weapons and is entirely self-taught, saying that "Before the Arab spring I knew no more about weapons than the average Xbox owner. I had no knowledge beyond what I'd learned from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rambo."(1) Higgins does not speak or read Arabic.(4)

Higgins is credited with being among the first to report on the widespread use of improvised barrel bombs by the Syrian government, a phenomenon which has spread to other troubled nations such as Iraq to combat insurgencies and opposition forces.(5)(6)

Ah yes, an uneducated, inexperienced guy with an opinion who happens to be married to someone of Turkish descent. Nothing unusual there, right? Of course he's an expert on sarin (sarcasm fully intended).

The fact that this gentlemen is treated as a credible source is further proof of the insanity that has taken over the public debate. He knows nothing other than what he has read. He has not been through live agent training at Fort McClellan (I have). He has no scientific background in the subject matter and no experience (other than playing video games) with actual chemical weapons (Ted Postol, who has written extensively on the subject, does have actual scientific and military expertise on the topic). Higgins knows nothing of the military doctrine for employing such weapons. He knows nothing of the process and procedures required for a military unit to safely handle, load, activate and deploy such weapons.

Actual people with such expertise look at the public accounts about what supposedly happened at Khan Sheikyoun and scratch their heads. Why?

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/06/the-white-helmet-buff...

There seems to be this continuing charge by US Media that the Syrian govt. gassed its own people---which was pretty much debunked by MIT Professor Postol some time ago. My wife was watching CNN last night and I could hear Wolf Blitzer and some of his guests going on and on about it. I mean the other end of their shtick was about a number of Trump's campaign promises that are turning into flat out lies--when they're lying or misleading the public themselves about what's going on in Syria. I mean half of it's true and the other half isn't.

Wolf Blitzer leading the neocon media charge, eh? Tell me what else is new. ;-)

The thing that I'd guess is that CNN like Fox like MSNBC are spoon fed by their contacts within the security agencies who have an agenda to keep the region continually boiling and when the good MIT professor completely debunked this latest they go on repeating this misinformation as if it were true and ignoring that the evidence that Syrian jets bombing the village was absolutely fabricated. And for whoever reads this the professor proved that the gas could not have been dropped from a plane.

Hersh interviewed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBWyuDng8rI
Interviewer can't keep his German media outlets straight. Otherwise helpful.

Col. Lang responds to >156 rastaphrog: (emphasis mine).
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/06/unsupported-assertion...

The present occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is a capricious and undisciplined man. He does not read anything but balance sheets (perhaps those are briefed to him). He watches 24/7 cable news incessantly and forms his understanding of the world from these citadels of superficiality and corporate agenda. His advisers and counselors are family members, cronies and seemingly heroic and photogenic generals who seem to represent an adolescent self-image of what he might have been.

STOP LISTENING TO THIS GUY WHEN HE TWEETS OR PRESS ANNOUNCES TO THE WORLD!

His latest blather sent to the world a few nights back through the long suffering press secretary Spicer was evidently based on nothing but the visible movement of trucks and other ground equipment around and on the Syrian air base that he last attacked with a hundred million dollars worth of TLAMs after his daughter cried over the jihadi propaganda film production from Khan Shaykhoun.

The after the fact support of DoD for DJT's wild Spicer delivered statement means nothing. Mattis undoubtedly feels that his choice is either to support the CinC or leave.

IMO President Trump has too shallow and trivial a mind to be taken seriously on foreign policy and military affairs. Hey, pilgrims, in the military we kill people and destroy things. That is what we do. The application of lethal violence in support of state policy is why we exist. The necessary corollary to that principle is the expectation that state policy will be relatively sane.

Thus far, the foreign policy of the Trump Administration seems lacking in fact based logic and overwhelmingly based on the "hobby horses" of various splinter groups represented among his counselors.

If I were the Syrian government, I would request, nay, demand that international observer groups be stationed at ALL SAF airbases to ascertain exactly what ordnance is uploaded for combat operations. Americans and Russians should be included in these groups. The observers need not be briefed on targets but they would need to be able to verify ordnance loads.

Unless that happens we face the prospect of yet another false flag gas "attack." It seems likely that Christian or other non-Sunni captives were used as props in the last one. We should be careful not to enable future attacks of this nature by giving credence to the wild statements of the man in the White House unless they are backed by credible evidence. pl

What a spectacle: a Mad Dog attempting to reign in a bunch of bona fide moon howlers.

"Harper," via the newly rebranded Col. Pat Lang's Outpost:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/06/harper-mattis-walks-b...

En route to Brussels, Defense Secretary James Mattis told reporters that the Syrians are not planning a chemical weapons attack, walking significantly back from statements made earlier in the week by White House press spokesman Sean Spicer. "They didn't do it," Mattis was quoted by the Washington Post. Mattis' face-saving claims that the Trump warnings to Russia and Syria "worked" and that the Syrians no longer planned the chemical weapons attack from Shayrat air base came in the context of growing published skepticism about the veracity of the intelligence, claiming that the U.S. had detected signs of a planned CW attack....

--------------------------------------------------
Meanwhile: Facebook seems to have stopped accepting postings via Col. Lang's blog...
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/06/facebook-has-stopped-...

...and deleted the last year of Col. Lang's posts on Facebook's site.
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/06/facebook-has-stopped-...

Glitch? I guess we'll see.

Good thing you kept Killary out of the White House, though.

>164 LolaWalser: That means YOU, davidgn!

>164 LolaWalser: >165 RickHarsch: *yawn*

Meanwhile: didn't make the PBS news tonight (I mean, hell, why would it?), but... Phew! Looks like we're not gonna start WWIII on the say-so of people like these. (At least, not today).

U.S. Retreats From Al-Tanf - Gives Up On Occupying South East Syria

The U.S. is giving up its hopeless position at the Syrian-Iraq border crossing near al-Tanf in south east Syria. The U.S. military had earlier bombed Syrian forces when they came near that position but it then found itself outmaneuvered, cut off from the north and enclosed in a useless area.

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/06/us-retreats-from-al-tanf-gives-up-idea-of-o...

"b" includes a useful recap, but here's an in-depth analysis of the strategic situation on the eve of the withdrawal:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/06/syrian-update-ttg.htm...

And a new update from the comments section on the latter. Remember Scott Ritter?

sid_finster said...
...
Scott Ritter...boy howdy did he ever catch holy hell for refusing to go along with the Establishment Narrative on WMD in Iraq. Every neocon, every establishment shill and apologist called him a traitor or worse, and he was essentially blacklisted for being right.

Well, Scott Ritter is back, and he's at it again!
Reply 29 June 2017 at 02:09 PM

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/ex-weapons-inspector-trumps-sar...

Here's Max Blumenthal being interviewed on the question of Trump's latest outburst and the Hersh piece. From the 27th, but still worth watching. Blumenthal is a name I trust. (Well, Max Blumenthal. Not his father Sidney so much -- at least not when speaking/writing publicly; his leaked candid emails were interesting.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db1LO9zZe5s

And here's a top-notch roundtable with Paul Jay, editor of The Real News. The single best big-picture analysis I've seen in some time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAEF0iToJ5Y&t=2s

ETA:
And an appearance five days ago from Lawrence Wilkerson. (Of course, Wilkerson's commentary does not get stale quickly. )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM68c_uAJXg

Looks like Postol appeared on KPFA's Flashpoints today this week.

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/06/30/is-trump-making-up-syria-sarin-claims/

Here's the recap show. The segment in question starts about 17 minutes in... though it's preceded by an interview with Thomas Drake, so might as well start from the top!
https://archives.kpfa.org/data/20170630-Fri1700.mp3

TP: Well, it could unravel badly, if there’s a significant chemical attack by the rebels and nobody is able to get the president to think about the consequences of blaming the Syrians and Russians, without evidence. That’s the problem. If there’s no evidence that the Syrians and Russians were in any way involved in this … and there’s no incentive for them, I should point out.

If you’re winning the war, why would you attack people that are far behind the lines with nerve agent? It’s just ridiculous. You know, if you’re going to use the nerve agent… if you’re desperate, and you’re going to use the nerve agent, you’re gonna use it up in the combat areas. And you already know that the United States will bring the full force of its military power on you, if they determine that you, in fact, engaged in this attack, and you’re winning the war. So why
would you risk this tremendous setback that would occur if the United States came after you? So, it makes no sense from the point of view of motives, and also, there’s no forensic evidence to support that there was a nerve agent attack.

Everything you look at, which is used to claim that there’s evidence, turns out to be false. The New York Times published a video online, and I wrote a paper about it, that’s now widely circulating, that showed that every piece, without exclusion, every piece of forensic evidence they showed, derived from videos, proved the opposite of what they were claiming. Every piece, there was not an exception.

And if this is the way the mainstream news media is going to handle this matter, then where are the American people going to get a more thought-out and informed … view of this information? And this is a hand in hand recklessness, not only… I mean if people want to point at Mr. Trump, fine, but they ought to look at their own newspapers, because they are not doing their job.

There’s a very interesting article in the New York Times on page A11 today June 29 of print version; June 28 online. And for the first time the New York Times is talking about an “alleged” nerve agent attack. That’s a complete change in their rhetoric. And I’m hoping that this is an indication that somebody at the Times finally got the message. But this article now, is now talking about an alleged chemical agent attack, which is absolutely different, an absolute 180 degree turnaround from what they were saying, even a day before. So, we’ll see. I’m hoping that this is actually an indication that the New York Times has finally figured out there’s something wrong. I’ve been in contact. They have the information I’ve provided to them. But they don’t seem to want to respond.

DB: Hmmm, the “paper of record.” Alright, well, we’re going to watch this obviously very closely. We’re all sitting on the edge of our chairs, and we’re all biting our fingernails off because this really is, I guess you would agree, one of the most dangerous times in modern history, in our lives.

TP: This is almost like a Cuban Missile Crisis, without the public’s attention. You know, we’re getting into that kind of territory now. Except nobody seems to be aware, in the general public, how serious this matter is.

>166 davidgn: is a relief, but for how long?

With the failure of the southern, al-Tanf-based-moderate-Sunni-Arab-unicorns-displace-ISIS-in-the-Syrian-Jazira--with-heavy-air-support-and-somehow-hold-it-against-all-comers plan, US strategic attention will naturally turn to the Kurds. Elijah Magnier, writing for Kuwait's Al-Rai, continues to be an excellent resource, and he presents a compelling take (though frankly, his model of the strategic logic involved seems much more clear-cut than the de facto Beltway muddle).

https://elijahjm.wordpress.com/2017/07/09/the-kurds-in-iraq-and-syria-are-being-...

Meanwhile, for those who can't be bothered about the Kurds (who, as perennial regional footballs, should as always be careful what they wish for), there's this (which I should have posted earlier):

http://www.alternet.org/world/undermining-sy-hershs-syria-bombshell

A brief excerpt:

Whitaker is mischaracterizing the evidence. The doubts raised by Hersh’s investigation have been shared by former senior intelligence and security officials, such as Lawrence Wilkerson, Philip Giraldi and Ray McGovern, as well as journalists with extensive contacts in the intelligence field, such Robert Parry and Gareth Porter.

Concerns with the official narrative have also been raised by undoubted experts on ballistic and chemical weapons issues, such as Ted Postol and Scott Ritter. They doubt a sarin attack by Assad’s forces took place, based on technical matters they are well-placed to judge.

Remember it was Ritter, a weapons inspector in Iraq, who warned that Saddam Hussein had no WMD as the US and UK were making precisely the opposite, mendacious case for war. Ritter’s voice was excluded from the corporate media in 2002-03, precisely when it might have pulled the rug from under those in the political and media establishments cheering on the disastrous US-UK invasion of Iraq.

Whitaker and the interventionists argue, apparently with a straight face, that this time the corporate media are silencing Hersh only because of a supposed “flakiness” in his journalism. So how do they explain the fact that in 2002-03 the same media silenced experts like Ritter and Hans Blix, former head of the UN agency monitoring Iraq’s weapons program, while aggressively promoting entirely flaky individuals like the supposed Iraqi “opposition leader” Ahmed Chalabi? If the media considered Ritter and Blix, but not Chalabi, as flaky in the run-up to the illegal Iraq invasion, maybe it’s time for Whitaker and editors like him to reassess the meaning of flaky.

----------------------------------------

Also, speaking of Alternet: "b" has a nice exposé this week on some of their key journos' (Max Blumenthal, Ben Norton, and Rania Khalek in particular) "evolution" (which is to say, the unexplained and unapologetic 180-degree reversal) with respect to their positions on Syria. I had lost track of what they were saying five years ago, and it's useful to be reminded of the degree to which they got it wrong in the hurly-burly of the Arab Spring. Nonetheless, I've approvingly cited work by (I think) all of the above here, and I will continue to do so. In particular, I can't forget Mark Ames' report of Blumenthal's gutsy performance in holding forth before a depressing crowd of hipster-bearded liberal interventionists at a Verso Books forum in Brooklyn last year (ooh... apparently that's online. I'm going to listen to that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUS8rkvn0hk ). I understand "b"'s indignation, but better late than never, I say -- and particularly so given that the journalistic establishment still persists in holding its head squarely within its hindquarters.

In any case, some readers here are particularly well-placed to sympathize with individuals who have great difficulty in openly admitting their errors.

-----
ETA: Response and counter-response:
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/07/syria-a-grayzone-of-opinionated-turncoats.h...

Speaking of those guys: they (specifically Blumenthal and Norton) have a podcast now!

Moderate Rebels, episode 1 (to which I am presently listening)
https://twitter.com/ModerateRadio/status/893054711632363521
-------------------------------
ETA: Some may find the term "Idlib" offensive in context, but it's a solid performance.

In any case, the cover picture is all kinds of win.

I've been hearing about Awamiya for the past few weeks, but most probably haven't.
You might almost say the Saudis are... bombing their own people?

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/awamiya-rubble-49215058

And meanwhile, in Sanaa...
https://twitter.com/HishamAlRadhi/status/893929508897771520

Nobody is going to care about the humanitarian crisis and the cholera epidemic being fueled by Saudi's genocidal blockade (I mean, hey, they're just Yemenis, not East-Aleppines or anything), but you might think people could at least be bestirred to protect the architecture. Oh well.

Episode 2 just out, and I've started listening. Anyone who's read the Century Foundation roundtables I shared on Syria -- and especially anyone who hasn't -- needs to listen to this.

https://soundcloud.com/moderaterebelsradio/syria-cia-al-qaeda-episode-2

I'll transcribe a small section from near the beginning here (with Max Blumenthal speaking):

There has been so much propaganda on the war in Syria. In fact, there have been more lies and distortions in the reporting and discussion of this war than in any other conflict I've ever seen. So this episode is also personally important for me, because in the early years of the war in Syria, I myself was very mistaken about the conflict. There were a lot of things I didn't really understand correctly, and I had a really misleading, cartoonish view of the Syrian opposition and the Syrian government and its allies: an incredibly widespread yet grossly distorted view of the conflict, one that is largely the product of mountains and mountains of propaganda that has been expertly cultivated by the U.S. government, Gulf regimes, and exiled opposition figures. So in this episode we dive deep, compiling the evidence that led my views to evolve, that demonstrates that many of the top talking points used by Western supporters of the opposition -- talking points I myself once believed -- are simply false or, at best, only show part of the picture; and that shows conclusively that the U.S. knowingly empowered extremist groups in Syria just as it did in the war in Afghanistan in the 1980s. And how not just Syrians, who have already horrifically suffered for much too long, but the entire world will have to live for decades to come with the dire consequences of this war.

Saudi's MbS making kissy-kissy with Iraq's al-Sadr, eh? That's... different. Similarly, Pillar's recent piece (followed a few days later by a logical corollary) took me a bit by surprise, but I suspect I wasn't the only one behind the curve.

The best antidote, it seems, would be to read more Lobe and more Escobar.
https://lobelog.com/muqtada-al-sadrs-saudi-visit-and-iraqs-shifting-shia-politic...
http://www.atimes.com/article/winners-post-daesh-era/

Syrian government forces used chemical weapons more than two dozen times: U.N.
September 6, 2017

...In their 14th report since 2011, U.N. investigators said they had in all documented 33 chemical weapons attacks to date.

Twenty seven were by the government of President Bashar al-Assad, including seven between March 1 to July 7. Perpetrators had not been identified yet in six early attacks, they said.

...The independent investigators...also said they were “gravely concerned about the impact of international coalition strikes on civilians”.

“In al-Jina, Aleppo, forces of the United States of America failed to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians and civilian objects when attacking a mosque, in violation of international humanitarian law,” the report said...

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-warcrimes/syrian-governme...

Quick, someone say something obfuscatory about Israel being the real "rogue nation"!

Nah. But in the interest of a broader picture, I will share this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/world/middleeast/isis-chemical-weapons-syria-...

And these:
https://twitter.com/TheWarNerd/status/905440606369050626
https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/905307018050682880

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/09/jubilo-the-siege-is-l...

Just a guess: had I not mentioned it, most people reading this wouldn't have known that the city of Deir-Ezzor was finally liberated yesterday from a 3-year siege by ISIS.

Quick, someone say something childish to prevent thought from threatening frightened minds.

Trump and Putin Are the Real Targets of Israel's Alleged Strike in Syria
Exceptional strike, attributed to Israel, signals Netanyahu can disrupt a ceasefire in Syria
if Israel's security interests are ignored ■ Incident comes amid anti-Hezbollah war game
Amos Harel Sep 07, 2017

...according to reports from Syria, the target was a government target: a chemical weapons plant – or according to another version, a missile plant – belonging to the Assad regime rather than a warehouse or weapons convoy for use by Lebanon’s Hezbollah. (Israel's more usual target?)

The timing of the action attributed to Israel is sensitive. At the end of July, in an effort led by Russia, the Assad regime reached a partial cease-fire with rebel groups. Although the fighting has continued in various areas, its intensity has declined in many places and the agreement marks a continued stabilization of the regime, which faced a possible collapse just two years ago.

The United States, whose interest in Syria has been on the decline, acceded to the Russian initiative. Washington and Moscow also failed to heed Israeli protests that the agreement to reduce friction in southern Syria failed to require Iran and allied militias to steer clear of the Golan Heights.

Therefore the attack attributed to Israel, the first to be reported since the agreement was reached, may be interpreted as an Israeli signal of sorts to the world powers: You still need to take our security interests in account. We’re capable of disrupting the process of a future settlement in Syria if you insist on leaving us out of the picture...

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.811078

>183 RickHarsch: Interesting. They're following through -- or at least making the initial overtures. cf. this from a week ago:

The Reasons for Netanyahu’s Panic
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is pushing the panic button over the collapse of the Saudi-Israeli jihadist proxies in Syria and now threatening to launch a major air war, as ex-British diplomat Alastair Crooke describes.
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/09/01/the-reasons-for-netanyahus-panic/

And here's Col. Lang, commenting on (inter alia) a Haaretz piece...
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/09/israel-vs-russia-and-...
and more recently on a JPost piece:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/09/httpwwwjpostcomopinio...

-------------------------
Saw a good pointer to this piece with excerpts; think the whole thing will be worth the read:
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/israels-geopolitical-gut-check/

And not unrelated, see this: https://consortiumnews.com/2017/09/06/nikki-haley-falsely-accuses-iran/
And this: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/haley-debuts-trumps-case-for-end...

>181 margd: A friend from the far flung forests of Slovene academia just sent me a Chomsky talk in which Chomsky, referring to the UN Charter, notes that there are TWO rogue nations in the Middle East/acting in the Middle East: Israel, of course, and the United States.

Parry's piece responding to >179 davidgn:.
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/09/07/a-new-hole-in-syria-sarin-certainty/

Also an update yesterday from Lang:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/09/israel-is-testing-rus...

And an excellent big-picture piece today from Crooke.
Syria’s Survival Is Blow to Jihadists
Despite last-ditch efforts by Israel and its allies to salvage the “regime change” project in Syria, the looming defeat of the Western-backed jihadists marks a turning point in the modern Middle East, says ex-British diplomat Alastair Crooke.
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/09/08/syrias-survival-is-blow-to-jihadists/

Another piece from Parry demonstrating a muddier picture regarding chemical weapons in Syria:
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/09/10/echoes-of-iraq-wmd-fraud-in-syria/

And Col. Lawrence Wilkerson on the thrust of UN Ambassador Haley's recent antics:
http://therealnews.com/t2/story:19970:Here-We-Go-Again

>186 2wonderY: Did you ever see that movie, 'Wag the Dog'? I bet Trump has...

I did see Wag the Dog, but donʻt get the connection (186-187).
As I remember it, it made fun of Albania, making it a stand-in for "absolutely unimportant country" which nevertheless had war declared on it. It was mildly funny, but not exactly a "rolling-in-aisles" case.

>188 rolandperkins: The point of the movie, and what Wag the Dog refers to, was that the war with Albania was being used to distract from domestic politics.

Did Trump attack Assad?

"Did Trump attack Assad?"
(190)

The title question presumably is short for "Was Trump right to attack Assadʻs government?" My view is that the Assad regime needs to have SOMEBODY attacking it -- even if for the wrong reason.
But it is an issue that Trump just about ruled himself out of during the campaign: He came out against "regime change".

"the point of Wag
the Dog. . ." (188-189)

Thanks, jjwilson.

The two party system and big corporations in the US keep us distracted with bread and circuses. Both Democrats and Republicans are guilty. And is it any wonder considering who funds their campaigns? I see this as true with most countries.

Cynical me sees us stuck in "The Matrix". Governments and corporations have us hooked up and are draining us. They don't want us to wake up and realize the situation because it would disrupt their purposes. So, keep us dreaming... keep us sleeping.... and when people stir, distract them with bread and circuses. And we repeatedly swallow the blue pill.

There's hope but only if enough of us wake up and challenge the status quo. Choose the red pill.

>193 pmackey: "Religion is the opium of the masses" -Karl Marx

Today, Marx would say it is social media and smartphones.

Woud be nice to have steady hand on tiller in times like these...chemical weapons, estimated 800,000 refugees, risk of military confrontation with Russia & proxies...

Syria's Assad approves gas attack in Idlib despite warning, report says
Edmund DeMarche |

Dangerous standoff developing in Syria between US and Russia

Syrian government troops backed by forces from Russia and Iran may be about to launch a final offensive designed to crush the remaining opposition in the country's seven-year civil war; the U.S. warns of dire consequences if the assault happens.

...Assad's approval (chlorine gas attack in the Idlib province) comes about a week after President Trump warned the strongman and his allies not to “recklessly attack” the province. Trump called any gas attack a potential “grave humanitarian mistake.”

...U.N. officials believe an offensive on Idlib would trigger a wave of displacement that could uproot an estimated 800,000 people and discourage refugees from returning home. The U.S. and France have warned an Idlib offensive would trigger a humanitarian crisis and warned that a chemical attack in Idlib would prompt a western retaliation.

...Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday urged his counterparts to accept a cease-fire and avert a “bloodbath” in Idlib. But Russian President Vladimir Putin called for a “total annihilation of terrorists in Syria,” while Iranian President Hassan Rouhani spoke of “cleansing the Idlib region of terrorists.”

...“We haven’t said that the U.S. would use the military in response to an offensive,” (US) senior administration official told the paper. “We have political tools at our disposal, we have economic tools at our disposal. There are a number of different ways we could respond if Assad were to take that reckless, dangerous step.”

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/09/10/syrias-assad-approves-gas-attack-in-idli...

>195 margd: Do you find it credible that Assad is going to use chlorine and has let it be known?

>196 RickHarsch:

To do you find it credible that Osama Bin Laden attacked the US after letting it be known he was going to?

The point of poison gas—even the military point—is the terror it causes, before and after.

I have a hard time equating Bin Laden with Assad. One was a stateless actor and the other isn't and Assad has never really posed a threat to the United States proper. If anything he is a regional threat but considering that IMO along with other stateless actors--Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia are other regional threats in the same region.

Primarily the region has concerned us because of oil and gas resources--because of our being joined at the hip with the Israeli and Saudi Arabian regimes which are both IMO undemocratic. As for Iran--that's just a continuation of antipathy ever since the Shah was deposed---and he deserved to be really. He was every bit as brutal as Assad if not more so. But he was our friend and so......some friendships never die--some enmities never end.