Principia Discordia

QuoteTEL AVIV -- The Syrian government has used chemical weapons on rebels, Israel's top military intelligence official said at a security conference on Tuesday.

Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, the head of research and analysis in Israeli military intelligence, said that Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime has used chemical weapons multiple times.

"Shrunken pupils, foaming at the mouth and other signs indicate, in our view, that lethal chemical weapons were used," he said.

He said sarin, a lethal nerve agent, was probably used. He also said the Syrian regime was using less lethal chemical weapons, and that Russia has continued to arm the Syrian military with weapons such as advanced SA-17 air defense missiles.

His assessment echoes similar findings from British and French officials.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said here Monday that chemical weapon use would cross a "red line" and that the Pentagon had contingency plans to deal with it.

Quote from: Cain on April 23, 2013, 02:35:11 PM
Syrian rebels have also used chemical weapons.

But then, Israel's not exactly making a deal out of this because of their abhorrence of chemical warfare and war crimes, are they?

QuoteUS Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel has said American intelligence believes "to some degree of varying confidence" that Syria has used chemical weapons.

During a visit to the United Arab Emirates, he said it was suspected that sarin gas had been used against rebels.

Mr Hagel said the use was "small scale" and did not specify where or when.

The White House has warned chemical weapons use would be a "red line" for possible intervention, but says this intelligence does not represent proof.

Speaking to reporters in Abu Dhabi on Thursday, Mr Hagel said "our intelligence community does assess, with varying degrees of confidence, that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria, specifically, the chemical agent sarin".

QuoteIn a letter on Thursday to lawmakers, Miguel Rodriguez, White House director of the office of legislative affairs, said: "Given the stakes involved, and what we have learned from our own recent experiences, intelligence assessments alone are not sufficient - only credible and corroborated facts that provide us with some degree of certainty will guide our decision-making."

The letter was sent to powerful US senators John McCain and Carl Levin.

In response, Senator McCain told reporters: "It's pretty obvious that red line has been crossed."

He recommended arming the opposition, a step the White House has been reluctant to take. He also urged taking steps to ensure that Syria's chemical weapons did not fall into the wrong hands.

"It does not mean boots on the ground," the Arizona senator added.

Quote from: Cain on April 29, 2013, 12:39:29 PM
Doubtful.  Bitram sued the Daily Mail group, which settled out of court, for presenting such claims as true.

Furthermore, if anyone would be looking to send CW to Homs it would be Saudi Arabia.  Qatar is angling for a brokered deal to end the insurrection, allowing the Muslim Brotherhood to take power.

Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, wants to see a smoking crater where Damascus now stands.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 29, 2013, 08:56:25 PM
Well, they've managed to destroy the minaret of the Great Mosque of Aleppo, which was built in 1090 CE.

Well done, lads.

Ever have one of those days, where everything goes wrong?
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(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/61/Blown_out_tank_Aleppo.jpg/800px-Blown_out_tank_Aleppo.jpg)

QuoteThe head of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has declared that Syria has real friends who will not let it fall to the US, Israel or Islamic radicals.

Hassan Nasrallah said Syria's opposition was too weak to bring down Bashar al-Assad's regime militarily.

He was speaking in an address broadcast on Hezbollah's TV station al-Manar.

BBC Arab affairs analyst Sebastian Usher says the speech tacitly confirmed the group has been involved in fighting in neighbouring Syria.

The Syrian opposition has long claimed the Iranian-backed Shia movement has been supplying fighters to help Mr Assad, a key Hezbollah backer.

"A large number [of rebels] were preparing to capture villages inhabited by Lebanese... so it was normal to offer every possible and necessary aid to help the Syrian army," Mr Nasrallah was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.

The Hezbollah leader said it had never hidden its martyrs, but that reports that large numbers of its fighters had been killed were lies.

QuoteAt least 13 people have been killed and many more injured by a powerful explosion in Syria's capital, Damascus, state media and activists say.

A bomb is believed to have been detonated in a square in the central district of Marjeh. Civilians and security personnel are among the dead.

Sporadic gunfire was heard in the area after the blast.

On Monday, Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi survived a car bomb attack, which had targeted his convoy in the capital.

The latest violence comes amid allegations that the Syrian authorities may have used chemical weapons against rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad.

US President Barack Obama has said their use would be a "game changer" - and on Tuesday he insisted facts needed to be established before the US would rethink "the range of options available" for action.

QuoteGovernment forces and rebels have been fighting in and around Damascus for months, but neither have gained the upper hand.

Monday's blast targeting the prime minister was the latest bombing inside government-controlled areas of the capital.

The car bomb exploded as his convoy passed through the Mezzeh neighbourhood, reportedly killing a number of people, including Mr Halqi's bodyguard.

So far no group has said they carried out the latest bombings.

But they do not appear to carry the hallmarks of attacks linked to the Free Syrian Army or the jihadist al-Nusra Front, one of the most prominent rebel groups, our correspondent says.

Quote from: Junkenstein on May 01, 2013, 04:33:39 PM
It really does say something when Hezbollah are looking like the safest pair of hands.

I hadn't thought the PR of obtaining WMD's through properly. I was working under the assumption that if it's lying around, someone will grab it. Who someone is still seems to be determined. Do you think the leadership will be able to get this thinking to the organisation at large? Seems like the kind of thing that could set off a splinter group fairly quickly.

QuoteA former senior official in the Bush administration said on Thursday the use of chemical weapons in Syria might have been a "false flag operation" of Israel, meant to implicate Syrian President Bashar Assad.

"We don't know what the chain of custody is. This could've been an Israeli false flag operation, it could've been an opposition in Syria... or it could've been an actual use by Bashar Assad. But we certainly don't know with the evidence we've been given. And what I'm hearing from the intelligence community is that that evidence is really flakey," retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, told Cenk Uygur in an interview with Current TV.

QuoteThe UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria has sought to distance itself from comments made by one of its members that there was evidence of the nerve gas sarin being used by rebels.

Carla Del Ponte said testimony from victims and doctors had given rise to "strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof".

But the commission stressed that it had not reached any "conclusive findings".

The US said it had no information to suggest rebel fighters had used sarin.

In recent weeks, Western powers have said their own investigations have found evidence that government forces have used chemical weapons.

Quoten a separate development on Monday, two rockets fired from Syria exploded on the Israel-occupied Golan Heights, without causing casualties or damage, the Israeli army said.

The rocket-fire came amid heightened tensions following a series of Israeli air strikes on targets in southern Syria on Friday and Sunday.

Israeli security sources said Sunday's attacks were aimed at preventing the transfer of advanced Iranian-made missiles to the Shia Islamist movement, Hezbollah, in neighbouring Lebanon.

Syria's government acknowledged that military installations were hit at three different locations between Damascus and the Lebanese border. TV footage of the aftermath showed huge destruction, and unofficial estimates put the number of Syrian soldiers killed at between 40 and 300.

QuoteThe U.S. State Department said both Iran and Iraq had used poison gas in the fighting around Halabja and called on both nations to desist immediately.

"This incident appears to be a particularly grave violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol banning chemical weapons. There are indications that Iran may also have used chemical artillery shells in this fighting," department spokesman Charles Redman said in Washington.

He declined, however, to say what evidence the United States had to implicate the Iranians.

QuoteTwo mortar shells struck Israel's Golan Heights on Monday in the early evening local time. Though the IDF described the mortars as accidental spillover from fighting across the border in Syria, they are bound to deepen fears of escalating violence in the region.

On Friday and Sunday Israel reportedly struck Iranian and Hezbollah assets based in Syria. The Israelis have subsequently made extensive efforts to dampen tensions – IAF jets had conducted the air strikes from Lebanese air space, staying out of Syria – but nonetheless Damascus has been signaling that it may escalate the situation.

Most pointedly, Syrian state TV announced today that President Bashar al-Assad was activating Palestinian groups to retaliate against Israel.

Al-Ikhbariya announced that the government had given a green light to Palestinian groups to conduct "operations" against Israeli targets on the Golan Heights. Hezbollah-linked media, meanwhile, reported that Lebanon and Syria had established "popular committees" ready to fight Israel in the region.

The Kuwaiti daily newspaper Al Rai, quoting sources close to Assad, reported that the Syrian leader had used Russian backchannels to tell the Israelis that Damascus would react if Israel struck Syria again. Syria, they said, would consider any such act a declaration of war and would contemplate firing surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles at Israel.

QuoteInternet services have halted across Syria, in what appears to be the second shutdown in six months.

Web monitoring companies reported regular traffic on the internet plummeted to zero just before 19:00 GMT on Tuesday (22:00 local time).

Syria last experienced a shutdown for three days in November 2012.

The government blamed that incident on "terrorists", but internet experts said it was more likely that the government had deliberately shut down the web.

The regime of President Bashar al-Assad has been fighting a bloody internal conflict for two years.

Activists suggested at the time of the last internet shutdown that the government might have been planning a major offensive, or that it might have been attempting to disrupt rebel communications.

However, neither theory was substantiated.

US web companies including Renesys and Akamai logged the latest blackout late on Tuesday.

Jim Cowie of Renesys told the BBC there was not enough information to tell what had caused the latest blackout.

QuoteThe government has set out the case for lifting or amending the EU arms embargo against the main Syrian opposition group, the National Coalition.

The UK said such a move would strengthen moderate forces in the opposition.

It would put also pressure on the Syrian government to enter negotiations on a political solution, the UK added.

The British arguments came in a discussion paper circulated to other EU member states in Brussels.

QuoteThe British document set out two options for changing the current situation, as discussions intensified on how to renew the sanctions regime.

The first option would lift the arms embargo against the Syrian National Coalition completely, which the document said there was a strong argument in favour of.

The second option would see the removal of the words "non-lethal" from a list of exemptions to the embargo, clearing the way for weapons to be sent.

France agrees with the UK that it is time to change the sanctions but other EU countries are anxious that easing the embargo could fuel the conflict.

QuoteSyria's main armed opposition group, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), is losing fighters and capabilities to Jabhat al-Nusra, an Islamist organisation with links to al-Qaida that is emerging as the best-equipped, financed and motivated force fighting Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Evidence of the growing strength of al-Nusra, gathered from Guardian interviews with FSA commanders across Syria, underlines the dilemma for the US, Britain and other governments as they ponder the question of arming anti-Assad rebels.

John Kerry, the US secretary of state, said that if negotiations went ahead between the Syrian government and the opposition – as the US and Russia proposed on Tuesday – "then hopefully [arming the Syrian rebels] would not be necessary".

The agreement between Washington and Moscow creates a problem for the UK and France, which have proposed lifting or amending the EU arms embargo on Syria to help anti-Assad forces. The Foreign Office welcomed the agreement as a "potential step forward" but insisted: "Assad and his close associates have lost all legitimacy. They have no place in the future of Syria." Opposition leaders were sceptical about prospects for talks if Assad remained in power.

Illustrating their plight, FSA commanders say that entire units have gone over to al-Nusra while others have lost a quarter or more of their strength to them recently.

"Fighters feel proud to join al-Nusra because that means power and influence," said Abu Ahmed, a former teacher from Deir Hafer who now commands an FSA brigade in the countryside near Aleppo. "Al-Nusra fighters rarely withdraw for shortage of ammunition or fighters and they leave their target only after liberating it," he added. "They compete to carry out martyrdom [suicide] operations."

Abu Ahmed and others say the FSA has lost fighters to al-Nusra in Aleppo, Hama, Idlib and Deir al-Zor and the Damascus region. Ala'a al-Basha, commander of the Sayyida Aisha brigade, warned the FSA chief of staff, General Salim Idriss, about the issue last month. Basha said 3,000 FSA men have joined al-Nusra in the last few months, mainly because of a lack of weapons and ammunition. FSA fighters in the Banias area were threatening to leave because they did not have the firepower to stop the massacre in Bayda, he said.

QuoteA video which appears to show a Syrian rebel taking a bite from the heart of a dead soldier has brought strong condemnation.

US-based Human Rights Watch identified the rebel as Abu Sakkar, a well-known insurgent from the city of Homs, and said his actions were a war crime.

The main Syrian opposition coalition said he would be put on trial.

The video, which cannot be independently authenticated, seems to show him cutting out the heart.

"I swear to God we will eat your hearts and your livers, you soldiers of Bashar the dog," the man says referring to President Bashar al-Assad as he stands over the soldier's corpse.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) says Abu Sakkar is the leader of a group called the Independent Omar al-Farouq Brigade.

"The mutilation of the bodies of enemies is a war crime. But the even more serious issue is the very rapid descent into sectarian rhetoric and violence," HRW's Peter Bouckaert told Reuters news agency.

QuoteThree months ago, Iraq gave the greenlight for the signing of a framework agreement for construction of pipelines to transport natural gas from Iran's South Pars field - which it shares with Qatar - across Iraq, to Syria.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the pipelines was signed in July last year - just as Syria's civil war was spreading to Damascus and Aleppo - but the negotiations go back further to 2010. The pipeline, which could be extended to Lebanon and Europe, would potentially solidify Iran's position as a formidable global player.

The Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline plan is a "direct slap in the face" to Qatar's plans for a countervailing pipeline running from Qatar's North field, contiguous with Iran's South Pars field, through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and on to Turkey, also with a view to supply European markets.

The difference is that the pipeline would bypass Russia.

Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have received covert support from Washington in the funneling of arms to the most virulent Islamist elements of the rebel movement, while Russia and Iran have supplied arms to Assad.

Israel also has a direct interest in countering the Iran-brokered pipeline. In 2003, just a month after the commencement of the Iraq War, US and Israeli government sources told The Guardian of plans to "build a pipeline to siphon oil from newly conquered Iraq to Israel" bypassing Syria.

The basis for the plan, known as the Haifa project, goes back to a 1975 MoU signed by then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, "whereby the US would guarantee Israel's oil reserves and energy supply in times of crisis." As late as 2007, US and Israeli government officials were in discussion on costs and contingencies for the Iraq-Israel pipeline project.

QuotePresident Barack Obama has said the US has seen evidence of chemical weapons being used in Syria.

However, speaking after meeting Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan, he insisted it was important to get more specific details about alleged chemical attacks.

Earlier, residents of a north Syrian town told a BBC reporter how government forces had dropped poisonous gas canisters on them from helicopters.

The government has repeatedly denied claims it has used chemical agents.

It is unclear why the well-armed regime would deploy chemical weapons, which are illegal under international law.

But allegations of chemical attacks have been made against the government after assaults in various parts of Syria in March and May.

QuoteIn March, Syria's government and opposition blamed each other for an alleged chemical attack in Khan al-Assal in the north, which killed at least 27 people.

Both sides called for an inquiry into the incident, and the UN assembled a 15-strong investigation team.

However, the Syrian government has refused the team access, apparently unhappy with their request for the right to look into all credible allegations.

The UN estimates that two years of conflict in Syria has left at least 80,000 people dead.

QuoteRussia has sent sophisticated anti-ship missiles to Syria, US media report.

The New York Times quotes unnamed US officials as saying the missiles could be used to counter any potential future foreign military intervention in Syria.

Without confirming details, Russia's foreign minister said Russian supplies did not break any international rules.

It comes amid growing alarm that chemical weapons may be being used in Syria, something US President Barack Obama has said would be "a red line".

Meanwhile efforts continue to arrange an international conference on Syria.

The United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met Mr Lavrov in Sochi on Friday to discuss the plans for the conference, which would aim to bring together the Syrian opposition and members of President Bashar al-Assad's government.

QuoteAt an arms fair outside Moscow, five Russian tanks weave gracefully back and forth, their gun barrels rising and falling in time to a waltz. This unusual "tank ballet" was staged by a choreographer from the Bolshoi Ballet.

But these weapons were not built for dancing.

The tanks fire shells, machine guns spray bullets and the demonstration ground almost disappears in clouds of smoke.

Watching in the stands are potential clients: Delegations from Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the Gulf. Russia is the world's second largest arms exporter.

One of its customers is particularly controversial. This year, Syria is due to take delivery of Russian Buk-M2E surface to air missile systems, Pansir-S1 armoured rocket complexes and, according to some reports, Mig-29 fighter jets.

The deals were done before the outbreak of violence in Syria, but despite the fighting there Russia has no intention of tearing up the contracts.

"If the contract was signed before, it's necessary to fulfil," argues Igor Sevastyanov, deputy CEO of Rosoboronexport, the state-controlled arms exporter. "We fulfil our international obligations in accordance with international rules."

QuotePutin's Russia still sees itself as a superpower; as a country which has just as much right as America to sell weapons to whoever it wants, and gain influence wherever it can.

But the Kremlin is pragmatic. If Moscow begins to feel that it has more to lose than to gain from backing President Assad, the Syrian leader might find himself coming under pressure from the East as well as the West.

"We in Russia have no illusion about this regime," says Russian MP Andrei Klimov, "The only thing we'd like to have is a peaceful exit. We don't want to prolong this regime for decades or centuries. Our task is to find a peaceful solution as soon as possible."

QuoteThe EU decision to lift Syrian oil sanctions to aid the opposition has accelerated a scramble for control over wells and pipelines in rebel-held areas and helped consolidate the grip of jihadist groups over the country's key resources.

Jabhat al-Nusra, affiliated with al-Qaida and other extreme Islamist groups, control the majority of the oil wells in Deir Ezzor province, displacing local Sunni tribes, sometimes by force. They have also seized control of other fields from Kurdish groups further to the north-east, in al-Hasakah governorate.

As opposition groups have turned their guns on each other in the battle over oil, water and agricultural land, military pressure on Bashar al-Assad's government from the north and east has eased off. In some areas, al-Nusra has struck deals with government forces to allow the transfer of crude across the front lines to the Mediterranean coast.

As a result of the rush to make quick money, open-air refineries have been set up in Deir Ezzor and al-Raqqa provinces. Crude is stored in ditches and heated in metal tanks by wood fires, shrouding the region with plumes of black smoke, exposing the local population to the dangers of the thick smog and the frequent explosions at the improvised plants.

QuotePetro-Islamist jihadism

QuoteThen, by the rebel commander's account, the discussion took an unexpected turn.

The Americans began discussing the possibility of drone strikes on Al Nusra camps inside Syria and tried to enlist the rebels to fight their fellow insurgents.

"The US intelligence officer said, 'We can train 30 of your fighters a month, and we want you to fight Al Nusra'," the rebel commander recalled.

Opposition forces should be uniting against Mr Al Assad's more powerful and better-equipped army, not waging war among themselves, the rebel commander replied. The response from a senior US intelligence officer was blunt.

"I'm not going to lie to you. We'd prefer you fight Al Nusra now, and then fight Assad's army. You should kill these Nusra people. We'll do it if you don't," the rebel leader quoted the officer as saying.

QuoteHe said he supported Hezbollah's intervention in Syria because it would deter the rise of Sunni extremist groups like Al Nusra Frontamong the rebels. "If we don't defend our villages," he said, referring to Shiite villages in Syria, "Al Nusra will be outside our homes the next day."

QuoteSyrian rebels have fought with Hezbollah gunmen in a deadly clash on Lebanese soil, a security official and local media said on Sunday, in the latest sign that Syria's civil war is spilling over the country's borders.

It was the worst clash between the two sides on Lebanese territory since the outbreak of the Syria conflict more than two years ago. The violence highlighted the growing risk that the fighting in Syria poses to Lebanon, whose volatile sectarian makeup mirrors that of its neighbour.

Tensions between Hezbollah and Syria's rebels have risen sharply since the Lebanese militia stepped up its armed support for President Bashar al-Assad's regime last month.

Rebel fighters have threatened to attack Hezbollah bases in Lebanon, and on Saturday 18 rockets and mortar rounds hit the eastern Baalbek region, a Hezbollah stronghold.

Overnight, Hezbollah apparently encircled and ambushed a group of Syrian rebels and allied Lebanese fighters they suspected of firing on Baalbek, the Lebanese security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

He said a Hezbollah fighter and several rebels were killed in the clashes in a remote area between Baalbek and the Syrian border.

The Lebanese TV station Al-Mayadeen, seen as sympathetic to the Syrian regime, quoted Lebanese security officials as saying 17 fighters from Jabhat al-Nusra, a rebel group linked to al-Qaida, were killed in the fighting.

QuoteHezbollah wiped out the CIA/Saudi intelligence network in the country a couple of years back.

QuoteSyria's war has reached "new levels of brutality", the UN says, with evidence of fresh suspected massacres, sieges and violations of children's rights.

Children have been taken hostage or forced to watch torture, it says, while others have been killed while fighting.

It says it suspects there are "reasonable grounds" to believe chemical weapons have been deployed.

And it urges foreign powers not to increase the availability of arms in Syria.

The issue of arms has been high on the international agenda of late, with the EU lifting an embargo on the sale of arms to Syria while Russia has insisted it is going ahead with the sale of an advanced S-300 surface-to-air missile defence system to Syria.

On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the contract had not yet been fulfilled and Russia did not want to "disturb the balance in the region".

He said he was "disappointed" by the EU move.

The international powers are struggling to set a date for a peace conference on Syria, where the conflict is believed to have cost at least 80,000 lives.

QuoteSyrian pro-government forces have taken full control of the strategic town of Qusair, state TV and the rebels say.

The town, near the Lebanese border, has been the centre of fighting for more than two weeks between rebels and Syrian troops backed by fighters from the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Syrian state TV said a large number of rebels had died and many had surrendered.

It comes as key rebel leader said his men were ready to fight inside Lebanon.

Gen Selim Idriss of the Free Syrian Army - the main umbrella rebel group - told the BBC that Hezbollah fighters were "invading" Syria and Lebanon was doing nothing to stop them.

Syrian pro-government forces, including Hezbollah fighters, have been battling rebels for control of Qusair for more than two weeks.

The town lies just 10km (six miles) from the Lebanese border and along major supply routes.

QuoteWatch enough YouTube videos of the fighting in Syria, and you'll start to notice it: a long-tubed gun, mounted on the back of either a jeep or large, fast pickup. Usually it's blasting bunkers, blockhouses, fortified positions, or places where snipers are hiding. It even goes after tanks. And whenever it fires, the gun seems to kick up way  more hell behind it than what it sends out the barrel's front end. It's the M40 106mm recoilless rifle, an American-made, Vietnam-vintage weapon that got dropped from the Army and Marine inventory back during the early 70s. Until recently, the 106mm hadn't seen much action in the irregular wars that have swept the globe. Then M40s somehow came into the hands of rebels in Libya and Syria. Suddenly, the 106mm -- light, cheap, easily transportable, simple to operate, and packing a punch all out of proportion to its modest size -- has emerged as a possible Great Asymmetric Weapon of the Day.

Although the US military no longer officially uses the M40, they still keep some around. A few found their way to Afghanistan where they were put to use by certain  Special Forces units. The Danish and Australian armies, which acquired them from the US decades ago under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program, used them extensively during their ground operations there.

In Libya, the M40 was used primarily in urban warfare, killing tanks and fortified positions. How exactly it found its way into the hands of the rebels there is a bit of a mystery. The M40s showed up in Libya along with thousands of brand new Belgian FN rifles, apparently from Western arsenals. That lead many to suspect they were supplied by Western intelligence. The M40s currently being seen in Syria might be coming either from the same sources that supplied the Libyan rebels or even from the Libyans themselves.

There is also a strong possibility that these weapons might actually be of Iranian origin. Iran's state-owned weapons arsenal, the Defence Industry Organisation, has been manufacturing what was originally a licensed-version of the M40. Now called the "Anti-Tank Gun 106," it is being offered on the open market, and is probably being supplied to the Syrian Army, which have since lost them to the rebels.

QuoteThere is no doubt Syria's government has used sarin during the country's crisis, says France's foreign minister.

Laurent Fabius said lab tests in Paris confirmed numerous uses of the nerve agent, adding that those who resort to chemical weapons must be punished.

But he did not specify where or when the agent had been deployed; the White House has said more proof was needed.

The UK also says it has tested samples which give evidence of the use of sarin in Syria.

According to a Foreign Office spokesman, Britain "has obtained physiological samples from inside Syria which have tested positive for the nerve agent sarin".

The UK statement added: "There is a growing body of limited but persuasive information showing that the regime used - and continues to use - chemical weapons" in Syria.

In a new report, the UN commission of inquiry on Syria also urged foreign powers not to increase the availability of arms in Syria.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon described the atrocities listed in the report - which details evidence of fresh suspected massacres, sieges and violations of children's rights - as "sickening and staggering", said his spokesman.

Children have been taken hostage, forced to watch torture and even participate in beheadings, says the report.

QuoteA double suicide bombing has rocked the centre of the Syrian capital, Damascus, Syrian media say.

The blasts happened in Marjeh Square, causing casualties, according to state-run television channel al-Ikhbariya.

In April, at least 13 people were killed in a blast, reported to have been caused by a car bomb, at the square.

The latest attacks come as regime forces prepare an assault to recapture the city of Aleppo from rebels.

Images on al-Ikhbariya showed a scene of widespread damage, with shop fronts blown out and debris littering the street. Blood stains marked the pavement, while people milled around among broken glass and wreckage.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said the blasts had been caused by devices planted in the area, without giving further details.

QuoteNick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party, has waded into controversy about the Syrian crisis by paying a "fact-finding visit" to Damascus as part of a delegation of far-right and nationalist European politicians.

Griffin, the MEP for North-west England, used his Twitter account to attack British government calls to arm the rebels who are seeking to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. "Vile ... smells like an abbatoir," Griffin tweeted after being taken to the scene of a suicide bombing that reportedly killed 14 people in central Damascus. "Hague wants your taxes to arm these terrorists!"

But there were signs that Syrian government supporters were embarrassed by the high-profile presence of the BNP leader. Loyalists described a "low-level media visit" despite Griffin's meeting with Syria's prime minister, deputy foreign minister and plans to meet the minister of information, who an official confirmed had invited the 28-strong European mission.

The foreign ministry did not take the political backgrounds of the visitors into account, insisted Yazan Abdullah, a UK-based Syrian activist who says he supports dialogue and reconciliation. But an official in Damascus contacted by the Guardian expressed surprise at the invitation.

BNP spokesman Simon Darby said Griffin was not being paid by the Syrian regime and did not want his presence to be seen as an endorsement of Assad. Anyone entering Syria, as Griffin and the rest of the party did by road from Lebanon, needs a visa. This requires government approval that can often take months to obtain.

QuoteI then asked what he thought about the fact that many of his official positions regarding the situation were in line with the Syrian-Iranian-Hezbollah axis in the Middle East. He replied, "Well, if you ask me and them, 'If you drop an apple, does it fall to the ground?', we're both going to say yes. Because it's gravity, isn't it? It's just a fact." Which seemed an overly complicated way of saying, "Yes, I suppose I do take many of the same lines as the Syrian-Iranian-Hezbollah axis."

QuoteTo me, the BNP and the al-Assad regime buddying up is kind of like those two weird kids at school, who'd do stuff like openly masturbate at the back of the classroom, joining together to find some kind of strength in numbers. Only they're now just a couple of sweaty-palmed men grimacing at a camera together, instead of alone and exposed.

QuoteMPs will get a vote on whether the UK should arm Syrian rebel forces before such a decision is implemented, Commons speaker John Bercow has said.

Foreign Secretary William Hague has said the government would not take such action "against the will" of MPs.

QuoteAbu Yassin pulls open the heavy iron gate of the school and steps back. "Peace be upon you," he says in Arabic, grinning and extending a hand, his arm stained to the elbow with aluminum powder. "Welcome, welcome." He turns and waves for me to follow. We walk along a short pathway toward the front door, past an assortment of ordnance laid out on the concrete, bombs that fell from the sky but failed to explode: an ovoid 88-millimeter mortar shell, a big 500-pounder with twisted tail fins, a neat row of pale-gray Russian cluster bomblets, their nose fuses removed. "Later! I will open them later!" he says, eyebrows waggling with anticipation.

The four-story school is shaped like a C around a set of basketball courts, paved with stone tiles and pocked at the far end with small dark craters. A set of white plastic lawn chairs and a table have been arranged in the central courtyard near the door leading into the school. A young boy walks over in silence. "Let's see, coffee or tea?" Yassin says, distracted, contemplating the plastic furniture. Another assistant, an older man in a filthy smock, comes out and stands beside us holding a silver cylinder the size of a soda bottle. It's wrapped in clear plastic tape and sprouts a red fuse, which the man proceeds to light. The fuse sputters as he steps forward and pitches the cylinder underhand across the courtyard, where it bounces and rolls to a halt some 30 yards away.

"Explosion!" he yells as Yassin looks on.

With a deafening clap, the bomb bursts in a cloud of flame and smoke, buffeting our faces with a pressure wave. Yassin scurries forward and crouches on his haunches to examine the crater it leaves. Slowly he walks back, shaking his head. "Very bad, very bad," he mutters—but then, remembering his guest, his expression brightens to a smile. "Please, sit down."

Quote from: Cain on July 17, 2013, 02:38:35 PM
The dividing line between a self-defence militia and a death squad is a very thin and somewhat arbitrary one.  When you've got armed goons on the streets, you've got a choice to make: join them, fight them, or stay out of it and hope being defenceless makes you too contemptible to be killed by rampaging militants.

QuoteChemical weapons attacks have killed hundreds on the outskirts of Damascus, Syrian opposition activists say.

Rockets with toxic agents were launched at the suburbs of the Ghouta region early on Wednesday as part of a major bombardment on rebel forces, they say.

The Syrian army says the accusations have been fabricated to cover up rebel losses.

The main opposition alliance said that more than 1,000 people were killed by the attacks.

Activist networks also reported death tolls in the hundreds, but these could not be independently confirmed.

It is also not clear how many died in the bombardment of the sites and how many deaths were due to any exposure to toxic substances.

Quote from: Cain on August 26, 2013, 07:58:10 PM
While it doesn't clinch it, this certainly makes me suspicious about the official narrative.

The Ghouta suburbs are a strategic area which the Syrian National Army recently had the upper hand in.  The fighting there has been constant for the last nine months, but the Syrian Army recently took the town.  The symptoms are inconsistent with a conventional chemical weapon like sarin or mustard, which Syria has in large quantities, and suggest the possibility this was not a conventional warfare gas.

Right away, those throw doubt on the motive and means.  And then, a UN inspection team is shot at?  That's one way to make the Syrian government, who dragged their feet authorizing the investigation, look even more guilty while achieving little except allowing the traces the weapons left to degrade even further.  A shooting won't make the UN leave the country.  So what purpose does it serve?

Just to be clear, I'm not saying the Syrian government is not guilty here.  They might be.  There is just significant room for doubt at this stage, and something as advantageous to the rebel narrative as this makes me really suspicious.

Quote from: Cain on August 26, 2013, 08:59:59 PM
So the evidence is undeniable, therefore there must be an investigation, but an investigation is unneeded because Syria is covering up and destroying evidence but the evidence is undeniable.

Quote from: Cain on August 26, 2013, 09:02:35 PM
Syrian rebels also want to topple the regime in Lebanon, which they see as being in thrall to Hezbollah, and thus Iran, and thus the Global Shiite Conspiracy To Undermine Really Real Islam (for Realness).

Quote from: Cain on August 26, 2013, 09:08:20 PM
Oh, the rebels are quite explicit about who they want to do the toppling.  Hint: it's not them.  Why would they spend blood and treasure, when a pack of "patriotic" retards and scum on the take from the House of Saud will jabber and shout traitor at anyone who argues against the idea of using US troops instead.

QuoteBandar helped negotiate the 1985 Al Yamamah deal, a series of massive arms sales by the United Kingdom to Saudi Arabia worth GB£40 billion (US$80 billion), including the sale of more than 100 warplanes. After the deal was signed, British arms manufacturer British Aerospace (now BAE Systems) allegedly funnelled secret payments of at least GB£1 billion (US$2 billion) into two Saudi embassy accounts in Washington, in yearly instalments of up to GB£120 million (US$240 million) over at least 10 years. He allegedly took money for personal use out of the accounts, as the purpose of one of the accounts was to pay the operating expenses of his private Airbus A340. According to investigators, there was "no distinction between the accounts of the embassy, or official government accounts [...], and the accounts of the royal family." The payments were discovered during a Serious Fraud Office investigation, which was stopped in December 2006 by attorney general Lord Goldsmith.[29][30] In 2009, he hired Louis Freeh as his legal representative for the Al-Yamamah arms scandal.[31]

QuoteIn what was perceived as a return to prominence, in March 2011, Bandar was sent to Pakistan, India, Malaysia, and China to gather support for Saudi Arabia's military intervention in Bahrain.[35][51] In April 2011, Bandar was present in meetings when U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates visited King Abdullah and in a separate visit by National Security Advisor Tom Donilon.[51]
The other goal of his late March 2011 visit to Islamabad (Pakistan) was to raise the prospect of a return engagement for the Pakistan army. The goal was achieved and Pakistan quickly approved the proposal.[52] His visit to China during the same period resulted in the issuing of lucrative contracts in return for political support. Since China is not a friend of the Arab Spring, it is eager for Saudi oil and investment. Bandar secretly negotiated the first big Saudi-Chinese arms deal. Thus, Bandar is the Kingdoms's premier China expert.[52]

QuoteBandar considers himself an American Hamiltonian conservative.[3] Before the 2000 U.S. presidential election was decided, he invited George H. W. Bush to go pheasant shooting on his English estate in a "Desert Storm reunion".[3] After the September 11 attacks in 2001, in an interview in the New York Times, he stated, "Bin Laden used to come to us when America—underline, America—through the CIA and Saudi Arabia, were helping our brother mujahideen in Afghanistan, to get rid of the communist secularist Soviet Union forces. Osama bin Laden came and said 'Thank you. Thank you for bringing the Americans to help us.' At that time, I thought he couldn't lead eight ducks across the street."[57]
Bandar argued some researchers "learn to speak a few words of Arabic and call themselves experts about the affairs of my country."[58] In 2007, during his tenure as National Security Secretary, Bandar proposed that the Kingdom have greater contact with Israel, because he regarded Iran as a more serious threat than Israel.[59]

QuoteLouis Joseph Freeh (born January 6, 1950) served as the fifth Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from September 1993 to June 2001.
Freeh began his career as an agent of the FBI, and was later an assistant United States Attorney and a United States district court judge, the position he held when appointed FBI director. He is now a lawyer and consultant in the private sector.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on August 26, 2013, 08:56:28 PM
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/26/20192545-kerry-accuses-syria-of-using-chemical-agents-and-destroying-evidence?lite

HEEEEEEEERE WE GOOOOOOOOO!

QuoteThe United States could hit Syria with three days of missile strikes, perhaps beginning Thursday, in an attack meant more to send a message to the Syrian regime than to cripple its military, senior U.S. officials told NBC News.

Quote from: Cain on August 28, 2013, 02:57:20 PM
Since the start of the rebellion, the best thing for civilians in Syria has been to try and get a ceasefire going, and then get the government and rebels down to talk.  But we told the Syrian rebels to pull out of negotiations in Geneva due to take place earlier this year.  So any argument we give a shit about the civilians in Syria and must carpet-bomb the country to save it, are not really washing right now.

Quote from: Cain on August 28, 2013, 03:07:34 PM
I should make a correction there:

During the May-July Geneva peacetalks (ongoing despite a ceasefire) , we worked with Qatar and Saudi Arabia to arm the Islamist groups to the teeth.  As a result, Miley Cyrus pulled out of the talks.

The peace talks were due to resume in upcoming weeks, but due to the twerking attack "by the government", the Miley Cyrus rebels are now pulling out of the peace talks.

Quote from: Junkenstein on August 28, 2013, 07:17:59 PM
Protests are apparently going to be held in the UK on the 31st.

I'm wavering on whether to attend. I'm pretty sure this is still bullshit to grab votes and show them listening to the people by not taking action.... which is what the strategic goal seems to be.

That said, I've been reconsidering my stance on protests and going would probably be useful in that regard.

Anyone else in the UK/elsewhere hearing similar things?

QuotePosts calling for an end to the antagonism begin to drown out the antagonistic posts, resulting in increasingly antagonistic posts calling for an end to the posts calling for an end to the antagonism. Fortunately, many of those engaged in the more contentious arguments have already stated that they do no not plan on attending the event itself.

Quote from: Cain on August 28, 2013, 07:59:53 PM
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-the-saudi-connection-the-prince-with-close-ties-to-washington-at-the-heart-of-the-push-for-war-8785049.html

Quote"It was Prince Bandar's intelligence agency that first alerted Western allies to the alleged use of sarin gas by the Syrian regime in February." "The CIA is believed to have been working with Prince Bandar directly since last year in training rebels at base in Jordan close to the Syrian border. The Saudis are "indispensable partners on Syria" and have considerable influence on American thinking, a senior US official told The Wall Street Journal yesterday. He added: "No one wants to do anything alone"."

Quote from: Alty on August 28, 2013, 08:14:40 PM
Aw, don't tell me I'm the only one giggling.

The Machine™ seems to be in good functioning order.

Quote from: Alty on August 28, 2013, 08:14:40 PM
Aw, don't tell me I'm the only one giggling.

The Machine™ seems to be in good functioning order.

Quote from: Junkenstein on August 28, 2013, 08:21:29 PM

Quote from: Alty on August 28, 2013, 08:14:40 PM
Aw, don't tell me I'm the only one giggling.

The Machine™ seems to be in good functioning order.

As an exercise in highlighting the structure of the system, it's superb.

It's just, you know, the death. And propagation of shittery. All roads and options that seem likely to be adopted lead to bad times. Attempts to take other options will probably be thwarted.

Quote from: NoLeDeMiel on August 28, 2013, 07:48:27 PM

Quote from: Junkenstein on August 28, 2013, 07:17:59 PM
Protests are apparently going to be held in the UK on the 31st.

I'm wavering on whether to attend. I'm pretty sure this is still bullshit to grab votes and show them listening to the people by not taking action.... which is what the strategic goal seems to be.

That said, I've been reconsidering my stance on protests and going would probably be useful in that regard.

Anyone else in the UK/elsewhere hearing similar things?

The 31st as well, in Portland. I'll be in Oklahoma, though, and I'm pretty damned sure I'm not of the ballz to try my luck at demonstrating there.

Also, from the "so fucking true, it's funny" file:

http://pdxintelligencer.com/attempt-to-organize-anti-war-rally-via-facebook-turns-into-bitter-argument-over-tactics/ (http://pdxintelligencer.com/attempt-to-organize-anti-war-rally-via-facebook-turns-into-bitter-argument-over-tactics/)

QuotePosts calling for an end to the antagonism begin to drown out the antagonistic posts, resulting in increasingly antagonistic posts calling for an end to the posts calling for an end to the antagonism. Fortunately, many of those engaged in the more contentious arguments have already stated that they do no not plan on attending the event itself.

Quote from: Surprise Happy Endings Whether You Want Them Or Not on August 28, 2013, 11:46:33 PM

Quote from: NoLeDeMiel on August 28, 2013, 07:48:27 PM

Quote from: Junkenstein on August 28, 2013, 07:17:59 PM
Protests are apparently going to be held in the UK on the 31st.

I'm wavering on whether to attend. I'm pretty sure this is still bullshit to grab votes and show them listening to the people by not taking action.... which is what the strategic goal seems to be.

That said, I've been reconsidering my stance on protests and going would probably be useful in that regard.

Anyone else in the UK/elsewhere hearing similar things?

The 31st as well, in Portland. I'll be in Oklahoma, though, and I'm pretty damned sure I'm not of the ballz to try my luck at demonstrating there.

Also, from the "so fucking true, it's funny" file:

http://pdxintelligencer.com/attempt-to-organize-anti-war-rally-via-facebook-turns-into-bitter-argument-over-tactics/ (http://pdxintelligencer.com/attempt-to-organize-anti-war-rally-via-facebook-turns-into-bitter-argument-over-tactics/)

QuotePosts calling for an end to the antagonism begin to drown out the antagonistic posts, resulting in increasingly antagonistic posts calling for an end to the posts calling for an end to the antagonism. Fortunately, many of those engaged in the more contentious arguments have already stated that they do no not plan on attending the event itself.

HAW HAW HAW HAW!

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on August 29, 2013, 02:44:48 AM

Quote from: Surprise Happy Endings Whether You Want Them Or Not on August 28, 2013, 11:46:33 PM

Quote from: NoLeDeMiel on August 28, 2013, 07:48:27 PM

Quote from: Junkenstein on August 28, 2013, 07:17:59 PM
Protests are apparently going to be held in the UK on the 31st.

I'm wavering on whether to attend. I'm pretty sure this is still bullshit to grab votes and show them listening to the people by not taking action.... which is what the strategic goal seems to be.

That said, I've been reconsidering my stance on protests and going would probably be useful in that regard.

Anyone else in the UK/elsewhere hearing similar things?

The 31st as well, in Portland. I'll be in Oklahoma, though, and I'm pretty damned sure I'm not of the ballz to try my luck at demonstrating there.

Also, from the "so fucking true, it's funny" file:

http://pdxintelligencer.com/attempt-to-organize-anti-war-rally-via-facebook-turns-into-bitter-argument-over-tactics/ (http://pdxintelligencer.com/attempt-to-organize-anti-war-rally-via-facebook-turns-into-bitter-argument-over-tactics/)

QuotePosts calling for an end to the antagonism begin to drown out the antagonistic posts, resulting in increasingly antagonistic posts calling for an end to the posts calling for an end to the antagonism. Fortunately, many of those engaged in the more contentious arguments have already stated that they do no not plan on attending the event itself.

HAW HAW HAW HAW!

You're turning into me.

:lulz:

PROTIP:  Save your butthair clippings, you can eventually make a pillow.

Quote from: Cain on August 28, 2013, 08:40:18 PM
Just read the whole thing

http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/08/27/cruise-killing-on-the-passive-voice/

QuoteDo you get the feeling there are some holes in the intelligence report? Such as, if this was ordered by someone in Assad's chain of command, why a Defense Ministry official would be making "panicked calls" about the strike?

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on August 29, 2013, 02:54:04 PM
Argh!  I'm agreeing with Republicans!

:punchballs:

QuoteThe Obama administration, faced with a wavering ally in Britain and growing hesitation in Congress, insisted Thursday that any attack on Syria would be limited and flatly rejected comparisons to the Iraq war.

QuotePresident Barack Obama has said he has not decided on a military strike against Syria, which would probably come with cruise missile strikes form the Mediterranean Sea. But Harf made clear that the administration would decide its course.

<snip>

Said White House spokesman Josh Earnest at a briefing Thursday, "When the president reaches a determination about the appropriate response ... and a legal justification is required to substantiate or to back up that decision, we'll produce one on our own."

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on August 29, 2013, 10:56:30 PM
So the picture the news is painting right now is that the PM has done a u-turn on the Team America project and actually appears to be bowing to public opinion and backing up weapons inspectors. What the fuck is really happening?

Quote from: Cain on August 29, 2013, 11:01:17 PM
Cameron got pooped on by Parliament.

I believe the reforms done under Brown mean warmaking power no longer resides with the PM, so he can't do shit, legally.

However, I wouldn't rule out some covert action by MI6.  Different laws apply, IIRC, and intelligence services are not bound by the same rules as mere soldiers.  Although it's not 100% clear, and of course, this wont necessarily deter American action (though it does give the opposition a useful rhetorical tool).

Quote from: Cain on August 30, 2013, 12:40:04 AM
Not only that, which is a very good thing, this makes Cameron look weak.  Weak enough for a motion of no-confidence?  Probably not yet.  But I hear knives being sharpened on the back benches...

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on August 30, 2013, 12:33:42 AM

Quote from: Cain on August 29, 2013, 11:01:17 PM
Cameron got pooped on by Parliament.

I believe the reforms done under Brown mean warmaking power no longer resides with the PM, so he can't do shit, legally.

However, I wouldn't rule out some covert action by MI6.  Different laws apply, IIRC, and intelligence services are not bound by the same rules as mere soldiers.  Although it's not 100% clear, and of course, this wont necessarily deter American action (though it does give the opposition a useful rhetorical tool).

It's about time Britain stopped acting like America's fucking valet.

QuoteIranian officials have issued warnings that if a U.S.-led coalition attacks Syria Israel could find itself in the line of fire.

"If such an incident takes place, which is impossible, the Zionist regime will be the first victim of a military attack on Syria," Iran's Fars new agency quoted senior parliamentary official Hossein Sheikholeslam as saying on Monday. Iranian officials often refer to Israel as the "Zionist regime" or "Zionist entity".)

Sheikholeslam's warning follows a similar one from a senior Syrian official on Monday: Khalaf Muftah, a former assistant information minister in Syria, claimed that Damscus would hold Israel as being "behind the (Western) aggression and (it) will therefore come under fire," reports the Times of Israel.

Quote from: Cain on August 30, 2013, 01:17:54 PM

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on August 30, 2013, 12:57:07 PM
From what I'm hearing, the GOP congress seems to be resisting a unilateral attack, for now.  Using some of the Dem's old reasoning, if I'm hearing it right.

You mean "resisting the opposing political party based on partisan spite"? 

Because I have no doubt that the animating principal behind Republican opposition is not principled anti-interventionism and respect for the sovereignty of other nations.

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on August 28, 2013, 08:41:09 PM
You know, the reality we're living in is written more poorly than a Tom Clancy novel.

QuoteThe film's primary themes are:
Establishing a case for war crimes against civilians committed by the United States.
Documenting evidence for the use of chemical devices by the US military.
Documenting other human rights abuses by American forces and their Iraqi counterparts.

Quote from: Junkenstein on September 02, 2013, 12:26:53 PM
So the US now apparently has evidence. At least, it says it has evidence. As usual the idea of "showing" people this evidence is not forthcoming.

This bodes well.

Quotehe evidence continues to mount proving that the Syrian rebels are in fact the ones who are using chemical weapons.

At this point there are various pieces of evidence indicating that the Syrian rebels are responsible for the chemical weapons attacks in Syria, and not one piece of evidence linking the regime of Assad to the attacks.

While it is true that both sides of this conflict are brutal murderers, to accuse the regime in power of these crimes could be used to justify a full scale invasion of the country, making the predicament that much worse for the people who live there.

One piece of evidence yet to be discussed in the mainstream media is the fact that Syrian rebels were caught sneaking chemical weapons into the country this past may.

RT reported that "Turkish security forces found a 2kg cylinder with sarin gas after searching the homes of Syrian militants from the Al-Qaeda linked Al-Nusra Front who were previously detained, Turkish media reports. The gas was reportedly going to be used in a bomb."[1]

The report goes on to suggest that the bomb was intended to be set off in Turkey, but that wouldn't make any sense looking at the context of the past few months.  It is obvious that they were staying near the border inside of Turkey, just about to make their way to the other side of the border with Syria.

QuoteSarin, or GB, is an organophosphorus compound with the formula [(CH3)2CHO]CH3P(O)F. It is a colorless, odorless liquid,[4] used as a chemical weapon owing to its extreme potency as a nerve agent. It has been classified as a weapon of mass destruction in UN Resolution 687. Production and stockpiling of sarin was outlawed by the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993 where it is classified as a Schedule 1 substance.
Even at very low concentrations, sarin can be fatal within one minute after direct ingestion of a lethal dose, due to suffocation from lung muscle spasms, unless some antidotes, typically atropine or Biperiden and pralidoxime, are quickly administered to a person.[4] People who absorb a non-lethal dose, but do not receive immediate medical treatment, may suffer permanent neurological damage.

Quote1950s (early): NATO adopted sarin as a standard chemical weapon, and both the USSR and the United States produced sarin for military purposes.
1953: 20-year-old Ronald Maddison, a Royal Air Force engineer from Consett, County Durham, died in human testing of sarin at the Porton Down chemical warfare testing facility in Wiltshire, England. Ten days after his death an inquest was held in secret which returned a verdict of "misadventure". In 2004, the inquest was reopened and, after a 64-day inquest hearing, the jury ruled that Maddison had been unlawfully killed by the "application of a nerve agent in a non-therapeutic experiment."[23]
1956: Regular production of sarin ceased in the United States, though existing stocks of bulk sarin were re-distilled until 1970.
March 1988: Over the span of two days in March, the ethnic Kurd city of Halabja in northern Iraq (population 70,000) was bombarded with chemical and cluster bombs, which included sarin, in the Halabja poison gas attack. An estimated 5,000 people died.[24]
April 1988: Sarin was used four times against Iranian soldiers in April 1988 at the end of the Iran–Iraq War, helping Iraqi forces to retake control of the al-Faw Peninsula during the Second Battle of al-Faw. Using satellite imagery, the United States assisted Iraqi forces in locating the position of the Iranian troops during those attacks.[25]
1993: The United Nations Chemical Weapons Convention was signed by 162 member countries, banning the production and stockpiling of many chemical weapons, including sarin. It went into effect on 29 April 1997, and called for the complete destruction of all specified stockpiles of chemical weapons by April 2007.[26]
1994: The Japanese religious sect Aum Shinrikyo released an impure form of sarin in Matsumoto, Nagano, killing eight people and harming over 200. (see Matsumoto incident)
1995: Aum Shinrikyo sect released an impure form of sarin in the Tokyo Metro. Thirteen people died. (see Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway)
1998: In the US, Time Magazine and CNN ran unconfirmed news stories alleging that in 1970 U.S. Air Force A-1E Skyraiders engaged in a covert operation called Operation Tailwind, in which they deliberately dropped sarin-containing weapons on U.S. troops who had defected in Laos. CNN and Time Magazine later retracted the stories and fired the producers responsible.[27] The producers, Oliver and Smith, were chastised but defended their position by putting together a 77-page document supporting their side of the story, with testimony from military personnel, which they claim confirms the use of sarin.
2004: Iraqi insurgents detonated a 155 mm shell containing binary precursors for sarin near a U.S. convoy in Iraq. The shell was designed to mix the chemicals as it spins during flight. The detonated shell released only a small amount of sarin gas, either because the explosion failed to mix the binary agents properly or because the chemicals inside the shell had degraded with age. Two United States soldiers were treated after displaying the early symptoms of exposure to sarin.[28]
21 August 2013: Suspected sarin deaths occurred on Wednesday, 21 August 2013, in the Ghouta region of the Rif Dimashq Governorate of Syria during the Syrian civil war. Varying[29] sources gave a death toll of 322[30] to 1,729, and said that none of the victims had physical wounds.[31]

Quote from: Cain on September 01, 2013, 11:00:19 AM
I also see Obama has generously allowed Congress to vote on military action in Syria.  How big of him.

Couldn't find the time for Libya though, hey?  :lol:

Quote from: V3X on September 02, 2013, 06:02:01 PM
I really feel for Obama, but ever since his first inauguration he's struck me as a complete amateur at this politics stuff.

QuoteThink about it:  He can't be reelected.  He isn't going to get impeached over this.  So what's he hiding with this fucking circus?  Everyone's watching the magician's stage babe, and maybe the hand he's flourishing in the air.  What's the other hand doing?

Quote from: Junkenstein on September 02, 2013, 06:56:07 PM

QuoteThink about it:  He can't be reelected.  He isn't going to get impeached over this.  So what's he hiding with this fucking circus?  Everyone's watching the magician's stage babe, and maybe the hand he's flourishing in the air.  What's the other hand doing?

The bold should be asked about any leader pushing for war. It seems to be the way in modern times to give people the Colosseum, streamed live to your home. The circus provided these days is much more bloody and soon to be in FULL GLORIOUS 3D. Offer monkeys blood or X and most tend to go for blood.

What's he hiding? What isn't he hiding? Start with Guantanamo and the rest of the election (and re-election) promises and you've got a bit of a list. Throw in any current affairs (Snowden/NSA for one, the Russia angle is probably not too popular) andit's almost impossible to determine. There's too many things to distract people from. A big bold "humanitarian intervention" is needed sooner or later. The home front isn't as important when there's troops to support. You're not one of those commies who hate our troops are you?

QuoteFrance says the chemical attack near Damascus last month "could not have been ordered and carried out by anyone but the Syrian government".

A report presented to parliament by Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault says the assault on 21 August involved the "massive use of chemical agents".

It concludes that at least 281 deaths can be attributed to the attack.

Quote from: V3X on September 02, 2013, 07:40:32 PM
He's a Constitutional Law professor who doesn't seem to understand what the 4th Amendment says (or the 2nd, for that matter).

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on September 03, 2013, 02:52:10 PM

Quote from: V3X on September 02, 2013, 07:40:32 PM
He's a Constitutional Law professor who doesn't seem to understand what the 4th Amendment says (or the 2nd, for that matter).

Now you're giving him WAY TOO LITTLE credit.

Because the strongest possibility is that he DOES understand, but doesn't CARE.

Quote from: V3X on September 03, 2013, 03:17:43 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on September 03, 2013, 02:52:10 PM

Quote from: V3X on September 02, 2013, 07:40:32 PM
He's a Constitutional Law professor who doesn't seem to understand what the 4th Amendment says (or the 2nd, for that matter).

Now you're giving him WAY TOO LITTLE credit.

Because the strongest possibility is that he DOES understand, but doesn't CARE.

Say it isn't so!

You are right of course, but I still think the Obama Administration is 20% Obama trying to crystallize somekimd of old-school Lincolnesque legacy and 80% experts telling him what to do in the meantime.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on September 03, 2013, 08:02:48 PM
But I guess that's easier to stomach than "I voted for The Smiler, when I thought I was voting for a reformer".

Quote from: The SmilerFailing to respond "would send a signal to rogue nations, authoritarian regimes and terrorist organizations that they can develop and use weapons of mass destruction and not pay a consequence,"

Quote from: Cain on September 06, 2013, 05:22:38 PM
Well, there is what they say, and what they do.

To carry out precision missile strikes, you need boots on the ground.  Rebels wont cut it, you need special forces "painting" the target in question.

There will also likely be resistance, so knocking out Assad's airforce before the strikes is necessary.  No planes = no US boats bombed.

And then, the "strategic" targets will, mysteriously, turn out to soften Assad's defences in such a way it allows the rebels to capture them or advance and so continue to threaten Assad's regime.

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on September 06, 2013, 08:22:36 PM
Oh, fucking hell.


THE TWO-MAN CON IS SUPPOSED TO KEEP THE RELATIOSHIP BETWEEN THE TWO A SECRET.


They can't even get Evil Consipracy right.

Quote"The president promises a military operation in Syria of limited scope and duration,

Quote from: Junkenstein on September 06, 2013, 10:18:25 PM
The world keeps getting funnier one link at a time.

Quote"The president promises a military operation in Syria of limited scope and duration,

:lulz:

Quote from: Alty on September 06, 2013, 10:48:50 PM
:lol:

http://news.yahoo.com/iran-support-syria-end-military-chief-101944728.html

Is this a thing? Does this matter? Will Iran get Really Pisses Off?

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on September 06, 2013, 10:50:37 PM

Quote from: Alty on September 06, 2013, 10:48:50 PM
:lol:

http://news.yahoo.com/iran-support-syria-end-military-chief-101944728.html

Is this a thing? Does this matter? Will Iran get Really Pisses Off?

Iran:  Not pussies.

Quote from: Cain on September 09, 2013, 09:19:33 AM
Here's a fun thought: would US aid to Syrian rebels constitute material support of designated terrorist organizations?  Even by John Kerry's laughably low estimate, 1 in 6 to 1 in 4 fighters in Syria are affiliated with al-Nusra.

Quote from: Cain on September 06, 2013, 08:20:58 PM
My god, they're putting the band (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century) back (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_surge#American_Enterprise_Institute) together (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academi).

Quote from: Junkenstein on September 09, 2013, 02:23:52 PM
My guess would be that this is a continuation of the proxy setup.

Saudi Arabia and Israel seem to be trying to keep their hands as clean as possible (A big win for Israel, as it's a world leader in Drone Exports) by pushing US action. France would just be being sensible here really. Why have your own boots on the ground first when US ones can take the literal and metaphorical flak. Better to be seen as "peacekeepers" and "Democratic advisor" after the anti-US sentiment becomes too much (read bloody) to deal with.

There's also the angle that France "stalling" allows the US to keep playing for time. No one wants to go there, it's just inevitable. What's guaranteed is that the first nation to go will wish it hadn't within 2 years.

Quote from: Junkenstein on September 09, 2013, 03:34:45 PM
(http://www.scifilists.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/its-a-tarp-719413.jpg)

Quote from: Cain on September 09, 2013, 04:22:03 PM
I'm not sure what the French are thinking...maybe the UK vote plus Germany has caused concern among their elites.  But did anyone else catch this by Obama:

Quote"I did not put this before Congress just as a political ploy or as symbolism," Obama said. "I put it before Congress because I could not honestly claim that the threat posed by Assad's use of chemical weapons on innocent civilians and women and children posed an imminent, direct threat to the United States."

"In that situation, obviously, I don't worry about Congress," Obama said. "We do what we have to do to keep the American people safe."

Hey, Mr Constitutional Scholar, remember this?

QuoteThe Congress shall have power To...To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; [...] To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.

Sound familiar?  I mean, it's only Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution.  Very obscure, apparently.

Quote from: Cain on September 09, 2013, 06:40:21 PM
Yeah.  This song and dance was old under Bush and Clinton, but at least people went through the motions of pretending to disagree. 

Now, no-one gives a fuck.  And people wonder why the Man on a White Horse scenario is the one I predict for the US future.

Quote from: Facemeat on September 09, 2013, 06:44:34 PM

Quote from: Cain on September 09, 2013, 06:40:21 PM
Yeah.  This song and dance was old under Bush and Clinton, but at least people went through the motions of pretending to disagree. 

Now, no-one gives a fuck.  And people wonder why the Man on a White Horse scenario is the one I predict for the US future.

I don't think it's that no one gives a fuck. I think it's that we're all so busy being spied on by our own government, being homeless, having our reproductive rights trampled, and dying of preventable diseases because we can't afford healthcare that it just feels hopeless to protest.

Quote from: Cramulus on September 09, 2013, 06:50:00 PM
On tumblr, I've seen infographics which convey

SYRIA IS JUST A DISTRACTION FROM WHAT THE NSA IS DOING

and in other places,

THE NSA NEWS IS JUST A DISTRACTION FROM WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON IN SYRIA

Quote from: Lord Cataplanga on September 09, 2013, 06:51:55 PM

Quote from: Facemeat on September 09, 2013, 06:44:34 PM

Quote from: Cain on September 09, 2013, 06:40:21 PM
Yeah.  This song and dance was old under Bush and Clinton, but at least people went through the motions of pretending to disagree. 

Now, no-one gives a fuck.  And people wonder why the Man on a White Horse scenario is the one I predict for the US future.

I don't think it's that no one gives a fuck. I think it's that we're all so busy being spied on by our own government, being homeless, having our reproductive rights trampled, and dying of preventable diseases because we can't afford healthcare that it just feels hopeless to protest.

That's silly. If those kind of problems made people feel too overwhelmed to protest, then the entire world would be full of hopeless people who barely protest.

Quote from: Cain on September 09, 2013, 07:23:13 PM

Quote from: Facemeat on September 09, 2013, 06:44:34 PM

Quote from: Cain on September 09, 2013, 06:40:21 PM
Yeah.  This song and dance was old under Bush and Clinton, but at least people went through the motions of pretending to disagree. 

Now, no-one gives a fuck.  And people wonder why the Man on a White Horse scenario is the one I predict for the US future.

I don't think it's that no one gives a fuck. I think it's that we're all so busy being spied on by our own government, being homeless, having our reproductive rights trampled, and dying of preventable diseases because we can't afford healthcare that it just feels hopeless to protest.

To clarify: no-one in national politics gives a fuck.  Except maybe a couple of minor Congressthings.

QuoteNow, no-one gives a fuck.  And people wonder why the Man on a White Horse scenario is the one I predict for the US future.

Quote from: Cain on September 09, 2013, 08:01:31 PM
Think Caesar, Napoleon, Mussolini, Hitler.  Political deadlook leads to an authoritarian ruler who can override said parlysis to "solve problems" effectively.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on September 10, 2013, 09:40:13 PM
So, Assad agreed to the Russian plan.

Kerry immediately came out and said how "we're not going to wait long".

Much butthurt in the beltway.  Putin wins.

Quote from: Junkenstein on September 10, 2013, 09:47:19 PM
So everyone wins then. Russia's embarrassed the US, the US has bought some time, Assad sticks around and the rebels crack on.

Business as usual, call the weapons inspectors and let them commence looking in empty sheds and shrugging.

Quote from: Junkenstein on September 10, 2013, 09:51:32 PM
But will he turn everything over? How can we be sure? Best send troops to check.

Quote from: V3X on September 10, 2013, 09:57:46 PM
From an optimist's perspective, this could be a rare example of diplomacy actually beating war to a solution. Thank god I'm no optimist.

Quote from: Brother Nihil on September 11, 2013, 03:33:23 AM
Have any of you considered that to discuss "current events" in this manner is to buy into the manufactured illusions presented as truth, to become entangled in the samsaric web of lies, and to be carriers for the memetic virus sometimes called "consensus reality"? Is it not better to construct one's own reality, manufacture more pleasing illusions and thereby become the masters of Maya rather than its slaves?

Quote from: Brother Nihil on September 11, 2013, 03:33:23 AM
Have any of you considered that to discuss "current events" in this manner is to buy into the manufactured illusions presented as truth, to become entangled in the samsaric web of lies, and to be carriers for the memetic virus sometimes called "consensus reality"? Is it not better to construct one's own reality, manufacture more pleasing illusions and thereby become the masters of Maya rather than its slaves?

Quote from: V3X on September 11, 2013, 03:37:52 AM
I have considered that, but then I graduated high school and had to move out of my Dad's basement. The world is a different place when you have to live in it.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on September 11, 2013, 03:42:59 AM
Yeah.  Then I quit smoking pot.  That would have been in 1986 sometime.

Fucking hippies.

Quote from: Brother Nihil on September 11, 2013, 03:33:23 AM
Have any of you considered that to discuss "current events" in this manner is to buy into the manufactured illusions presented as truth, to become entangled in the samsaric web of lies, and to be carriers for the memetic virus sometimes called "consensus reality"? Is it not better to construct one's own reality, manufacture more pleasing illusions and thereby become the masters of Maya rather than its slaves?

Quote from: Brother Nihil on September 11, 2013, 03:33:23 AM
Have any of you considered that to discuss "current events" in this manner is to buy into the manufactured illusions presented as truth, to become entangled in the samsaric web of lies, and to be carriers for the memetic virus sometimes called "consensus reality"? Is it not better to construct one's own reality, manufacture more pleasing illusions and thereby become the masters of Maya rather than its slaves?

QuoteA young researcher whose opinions on Syria were cited by both Senator McCain and Secretary of State John Kerry in congressional testimony last week has been fired from the Institute for the Study of War for allegedly faking her academic credentials

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on September 11, 2013, 09:20:22 PM
Not much to say about this, but...

http://www.buzzfeed.com/susannahgeorge/syria-researcher-elizabeth-o-bagy-fired?s=mobile

QuoteA young researcher whose opinions on Syria were cited by both Senator McCain and Secretary of State John Kerry in congressional testimony last week has been fired from the Institute for the Study of War for allegedly faking her academic credentials

QuoteThe Journal was forced to post a clarification that "in addition to her role at the Institute for the Study of War, Ms. O'Bagy is affiliated with the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a nonprofit operating as a 501(c)(3) pending IRS approval that subcontracts with the U.S. and British governments to provide aid to the Syrian opposition."

Quote from: What The Fox Say on September 11, 2013, 09:25:28 PM

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on September 11, 2013, 09:20:22 PM
Not much to say about this, but...

http://www.buzzfeed.com/susannahgeorge/syria-researcher-elizabeth-o-bagy-fired?s=mobile

QuoteA young researcher whose opinions on Syria were cited by both Senator McCain and Secretary of State John Kerry in congressional testimony last week has been fired from the Institute for the Study of War for allegedly faking her academic credentials

Ohhhh lord.

I like how this:

QuoteThe Journal was forced to post a clarification that "in addition to her role at the Institute for the Study of War, Ms. O'Bagy is affiliated with the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a nonprofit operating as a 501(c)(3) pending IRS approval that subcontracts with the U.S. and British governments to provide aid to the Syrian opposition."

wasn't the problem. Apparently we just don't believe in conflict of interests anymore.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on September 11, 2013, 09:27:54 PM

Quote from: What The Fox Say on September 11, 2013, 09:25:28 PM

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on September 11, 2013, 09:20:22 PM
Not much to say about this, but...

http://www.buzzfeed.com/susannahgeorge/syria-researcher-elizabeth-o-bagy-fired?s=mobile

QuoteA young researcher whose opinions on Syria were cited by both Senator McCain and Secretary of State John Kerry in congressional testimony last week has been fired from the Institute for the Study of War for allegedly faking her academic credentials

Ohhhh lord.

I like how this:

QuoteThe Journal was forced to post a clarification that "in addition to her role at the Institute for the Study of War, Ms. O'Bagy is affiliated with the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a nonprofit operating as a 501(c)(3) pending IRS approval that subcontracts with the U.S. and British governments to provide aid to the Syrian opposition."

wasn't the problem. Apparently we just don't believe in conflict of interests anymore.

We - by which I mean our nations - don't believe in anything, anymore.  That's why we fall for this shit.  That's why a rolling ball of incompetence and failure is just "how the world works". 

When a man or a nation loses his or its principles, a monster is created.

Quote from: V3X on September 12, 2013, 06:45:17 AM
I see Putin put an op-ed in the NYT, which I understand is a rarely executed maneuver. Basically disputed Obama's argument point by point. It seems Russia is trying to go ahead and move into the #1 position. Personally I have no issue with this. 21st century America might as well be 1960s USSR anyway.

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on September 12, 2013, 03:37:05 PM

Quote from: V3X on September 12, 2013, 06:45:17 AM
I see Putin put an op-ed in the NYT, which I understand is a rarely executed maneuver. Basically disputed Obama's argument point by point. It seems Russia is trying to go ahead and move into the #1 position. Personally I have no issue with this. 21st century America might as well be 1960s USSR anyway.

If they keep outlawing homosexuality, I have a big problem with this.  At least in the US, the gayness is spreading.

Quote from: What The Fox Say on September 14, 2013, 05:57:02 PM
Is it just me, or does that article come across as sycophantic fanboyism?

Quote from: Cain on September 14, 2013, 06:30:32 PM

Quote from: What The Fox Say on September 14, 2013, 03:54:10 PM
That was VERY interesting. What happens if Russia decides to become America's watchdog, stepping in to provide reasonable solutions that avert our intentions to invade? It happens once and it's whew, what a relief, but if it happens two or three times it starts to be embarrassing and obvious. What then?

Well, they did try it in the case of Iraq and Libya.  Both times though, the international and particular situation prevented meaningful action on their behalf.

And Russian grand strategy is to contain America as much as possible, via multilateral and institutional means.  So I expect to see much more of this in the future, if only attempted.

Quote from: Cain on September 14, 2013, 10:28:53 PM

QuoteAlso I am unaccustomed to things like presidents of other world powers taking out op-eds in our newspapers. Has that ever happened before?

Occasionally, but foreign leaders normally have other ways to get their message out.

And V3x is right, the usual crowd - now denied the blood of Syrian civilians - are calling for Obama's blood instead.  Shameful capitulation, weakening of American resolve, carte blance to genocidal dictators, the spirit of appeasement, worse than Munich 1938, Obama is Neville Chamberlain and Assad is Hitler and Justin Bieber will now release a new album.

The usual doomsaying.

I'd keep an eye on Kerry, too.  His belligerence over the whole thing was rather...intense.  One wonders what a thwarted Secretary of State with Presidential ambitions and powerful connections in the Senate might do as revenge.

Quote from: Cain on September 16, 2013, 12:28:28 AM
Remind me: did the US military ever admit using white phosphorus in Fallujah in 2004?

Just thinking, since we're talking about chemical war crimes and all...

Quote from: Junkenstein on September 16, 2013, 09:12:51 PM
Question: how are these figures so quickly and easily available? I would have thought some clever fuck would have been able to slap a secrecy stamp over lobbying funds by now.

They seem to come out rather quickly and accurately all the time and no one cares.

Quote from: Junkenstein on September 16, 2013, 09:14:54 PM
I'd really hoped that wasn't the case.

Quote from: Cramulus on September 16, 2013, 09:20:20 PM
Here's the best tool I've found to look them up:

http://civic.beaconinitiative.com/congress

You can look up any congressional representative and get a list of their voting record, donors, recent bills, and links to their recent speeches.


btw, this tool was developed by Wes Unruh, co-author of the Art of Memetics and an all around bad ass.

QuoteSyrian President Bashar al-Assad has said he is committed to a plan to destroy his country's chemical weapons but warned it could take about a year.

Quote"So it depends, you have to ask the experts what they mean by quickly. It has a certain schedule. It needs a year, or maybe a little bit more."

And when asked whether he would be willing to hand over chemical weapons to the US, President Assad said: "It needs about one billion. It is very detrimental to the environment. If the American administration is ready to pay this money and take the responsibility of bringing toxic materials to the United States, why don't they do it?"

QuoteSeveral people have been killed and wounded in an explosion in the Syrian capital, Damascus, Syrian state TV reports.

The state new agency Sana said a "terrorist bombing" attack had taken place in the Tadamon district in the south of the capital.

Tadamon has been a battleground between rebel forces and the army for months.

Later on Monday, the UN General Assembly is due to meet, with much of its focus on the Syria crisis.

The UK-based activist group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, says a car bomb killed at least seven people and wounded 15, some of them critically.

More than 100,000 people have died in the conflict, according to the UN, and millions have fled the country or been made homeless.

Quote from: Junkenstein on September 24, 2013, 03:11:17 PM
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24227704

QuoteSeveral people have been killed and wounded in an explosion in the Syrian capital, Damascus, Syrian state TV reports.

The state new agency Sana said a "terrorist bombing" attack had taken place in the Tadamon district in the south of the capital.

Tadamon has been a battleground between rebel forces and the army for months.

Later on Monday, the UN General Assembly is due to meet, with much of its focus on the Syria crisis.

The UK-based activist group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, says a car bomb killed at least seven people and wounded 15, some of them critically.

More than 100,000 people have died in the conflict, according to the UN, and millions have fled the country or been made homeless.

Just a reminder that shit is still
a)bad
b)ongoing

here. Also interesting to see how long the 100,000 number is going to be used for. There's been more than 100,000 dead since before the furore about the recent chemical attack. I suspect the actual number to be at least 110,000 - 150,000 +.

This clusterfuck has plenty of mileage yet.

Quote from: Mean Mister Nigel on September 25, 2013, 07:44:51 AM

Quote from: Junkenstein on September 24, 2013, 03:11:17 PM
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24227704

QuoteSeveral people have been killed and wounded in an explosion in the Syrian capital, Damascus, Syrian state TV reports.

The state new agency Sana said a "terrorist bombing" attack had taken place in the Tadamon district in the south of the capital.

Tadamon has been a battleground between rebel forces and the army for months.

Later on Monday, the UN General Assembly is due to meet, with much of its focus on the Syria crisis.

The UK-based activist group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, says a car bomb killed at least seven people and wounded 15, some of them critically.

More than 100,000 people have died in the conflict, according to the UN, and millions have fled the country or been made homeless.

Just a reminder that shit is still
a)bad
b)ongoing

here. Also interesting to see how long the 100,000 number is going to be used for. There's been more than 100,000 dead since before the furore about the recent chemical attack. I suspect the actual number to be at least 110,000 - 150,000 +.

This clusterfuck has plenty of mileage yet.

"millions have fled the country or been made homeless" is a flag that the death toll is probably vastly higher than that.

QuoteUN inspectors are investigating seven alleged chemical weapons attacks in Syria - three of which happened after the 21 August Damascus incident that sparked threats of US military action.

The UN said its team of inspectors is set to finish its work by Monday.

The day after, a separate team is due to arrive in Damascus to inspect Syria's chemical weapons stockpile.

QuoteThe text will then be incorporated into a UN Security Council resolution - which has been agreed by both the US and Russia - calling on Syria to give up its chemical weapons.

The resolution will condemn the use of chemical weapons in an attack on the outskirts of Damascus on 21 August which killed hundreds of people - but will not attribute blame.

Quote from: Cain on October 11, 2013, 06:04:29 AM
Ladies and germs, I present (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24486627) Our Brave Allies, the Syrian Rebels:

QuoteSyrian rebel forces killed as many as 190 civilians and seized more than 200 hostages during a military offensive in August, Human Rights Watch says.

In a report, HRW says the deaths occurred in pro-government Alawite villages in rural Latakia governorate.

It said the findings "strongly suggest" crimes against humanity were committed.

Rebels and government forces have both been accused of abuses since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began more than two years ago.

Syrian opposition forces comprise many groups, some of which are allied to al-Qaeda.

HRW says it conducted an on-site investigation and interviewed more than 35 people, including survivors and fighters from both sides of the offensive.

In its 105-page report, it says that in the early hours of 4 August opposition fighters overran government positions in the Latakia countryside of northern Syria and occupied more than 10 Alawite villages.

I remember reading about this at the time....in the socialist Arab web.  No-one else was reporting on it at the time.  No, instead they were reading Elizabeth O'Bagy's content-lite love poems to the martial and moral superiority of the Syrian rebels in the Wall Street Journal.

QuoteIsraeli aircraft have carried out a strike near the Syrian coastal city of Latakia, a US official says.

The official said the strike targeted Russian-made missiles intended for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Latakia is a stronghold of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, where his Alawite community is concentrated.

This is believed to be the fifth or sixth Israeli attack in Syria this year. Israel does not comment on specific operations.

map
Israeli officials have repeatedly said it would act if it felt Syrian weapons, conventional or chemical, were being transferred to militant groups in the region, especially Hezbollah.

Quote'There are literally thousands of tactical radio frequencies used by field units in Syria for mundane routine communications,' he said, 'and it would take a huge number of NSA cryptological technicians to listen in – and the useful return would be zilch.' But the 'chatter' is routinely stored on computers. Once the scale of events on 21 August was understood, the NSA mounted a comprehensive effort to search for any links to the attack, sorting through the full archive of stored communications. A keyword or two would be selected and a filter would be employed to find relevant conversations. 'What happened here is that the NSA intelligence weenies started with an event – the use of sarin – and reached to find chatter that might relate,' the former official said. 'This does not lead to a high confidence assessment, unless you start with high confidence that Bashar Assad ordered it, and began looking for anything that supports that belief.' The cherry-picking was similar to the process used to justify the Iraq war.

QuoteAn intelligence document issued in mid-summer dealt extensively with Ziyaad Tariq Ahmed, a chemical weapons expert formerly of the Iraqi military, who was said to have moved into Syria and to be operating in Eastern Ghouta. The consultant told me that Tariq had been identified 'as an al-Nusra guy with a track record of making mustard gas in Iraq and someone who is implicated in making and using sarin'. He is regarded as a high-profile target by the American military.

On 20 June a four-page top secret cable summarising what had been learned about al-Nusra's nerve gas capabilities was forwarded to David R. Shedd, deputy director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. 'What Shedd was briefed on was extensive and comprehensive,' the consultant said. 'It was not a bunch of "we believes".' He told me that the cable made no assessment as to whether the rebels or the Syrian army had initiated the attacks in March and April, but it did confirm previous reports that al-Nusra had the ability to acquire and use sarin.

QuoteThis week, the US and Britain suspended non-lethal aid – such as communications equipment and trucks – to rebels in northern Syria, after bases belonging to the largely moderate, Western-backed Free Syrian Army were ransacked and their equipment seized by the Islamic Front. This rebel-on-rebel fratricidal orgy sums up so much that has gone wrong with Syria's revolution.

QuoteSaudi Arabia, fed up with American hesitation to provide arms or drop bombs, impatient with the Free Syrian Army's weakness, and eager to check Iranian influence at a time when Washington and Tehran are moving closer together, is throwing its weight behind members of the Islamic Front, particularly the Damascus-based Army of Islam. Riyadh sees these groups as the only way to contain the growing influence of al-Qaeda. It is also gambling that the Front's members won't turn their guns outside the region or give sanctuary to jihadists once Assad falls. Washington and London do not agree; hence the suspension of aid.

This has important implications for the West's entire approach to Syria. Six out of the seven groups in the Islamic Front have explicitly rejected US and Russia-backed peace talks, the so-called Geneva II conference set for January 22, and some have threatened to try for treason those moderate rebels who attend. It is, therefore, impossible to imagine anything productive coming out of next month's talks, whose main purpose appears to be keeping up appearances of diplomacy. Those who might attend – like the Syrian National Coalition, the political body linked to the moderate rebels – have little ability to influence events on the ground; those with the influence, like the Islamic Front, will not show up (nor is it clear that the Assad regime would talk to them if they did). The US might threaten the Islamists with a terrorism designation if they don't participate, but it is hard to see this working.

QuoteMr Fabius said France was working on making the talks scheduled for next month in Switzerland a success, but that there was "a great deal of doubt".

The moderate anti-government groups which France has been working with were "in serious difficulty", he said.

The US, UN and Russia have been struggling for months to get the talks, known as Geneva II, off the ground.

QuoteTo my mind, Saudi Arabia has looked at this state of affairs and decided that the best policy is one of obstinately supporting the insurrection until Assad is driven out, no matter how protracted and nasty the process is.

I think Saudi Arabia is reacting to the US abdication of leadership to assert its own bloody-minded realist strategy for the Middle East (and, in the process, discredit Qatar as amateur soft power enthusiasts without the belly to do the dirty work needed to neutralize the Iranian challenge).

Perhaps Saudi Arabia is living the neo-con Clean Break dream in reverse.  Instead of carrying the fight from Iraq to Syria, and then Iran, as Dick Cheney dreamed, militant Islamists backed by Saudi Arabia (or powerful elements within Saudi Arabia) are closing in on the overthrow of the Assad regime and creating the social, political, and military conditions for an anti-Maliki insurrection in Iraq's Sunni heartland.

QuoteWith the prospect of the chaos in Syria slopping over into Iraq and endangering Maliki's pro-Iranian administration, I don't think Saudi Arabia is going to be too interested in putting the brakes on Syria's headlong rush into collapse.

QuoteA team of security and arms experts, meeting this week in Washington to discuss the matter, has concluded that the range of the rocket that delivered sarin in the largest attack that night was too short for the device to have been fired from the Syrian government positions where the Obama administration insists they originated.

***

The authors of a report released Wednesday said that their study of the rocket's design, its likely payload and its possible trajectories show that it would have been impossible for the rocket to have been fired from inside areas controlled by the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

QuoteBut John Kerry and the perpetual assholes at the CIA, NSA, DIA all concluded Assad was so guilty of this attack that they couldn't even spare the time to determine he was responsible.  No, he had to die right now.

Remember that.  It's been over a decade since Iraq, and people are still pulling this bullshit.  And it almost worked.

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on January 19, 2014, 03:44:04 PM
So, the rebels used sarin as a false flag attack, or something?  What happened to the "rogue general" theory?

Quote from: Junkenstein on January 20, 2014, 09:13:15 AM

QuoteBut John Kerry and the perpetual assholes at the CIA, NSA, DIA all concluded Assad was so guilty of this attack that they couldn't even spare the time to determine he was responsible.  No, he had to die right now.

Remember that.  It's been over a decade since Iraq, and people are still pulling this bullshit.  And it almost worked.

What's a fucking scary picture is the indications that the people western governments support are in actuality the ones firing CW. It's more confirmation of what's been suspected for some time and makes the current clusterfuck of disarming/disposing little more than show.

There's a horrible part of me that suspects some people are going to be very, very happy with a hunt for chemical weapons in Syria. It's not Iraq, but you take the war you've got, right?

Quote from: Cain on January 22, 2014, 09:17:36 PM
That and "but we have to do something" syndrome.  Even when we don't have the power to affect outcomes.  Even when the costs of meddling outweigh the benefits.  Even when we have no national interests at stake.

Quote from: Cain on January 22, 2014, 09:17:36 PM
That and "but we have to do something" syndrome.  Even when we don't have the power to affect outcomes.  Even when the costs of meddling outweigh the benefits.  Even when we have no national interests at stake.

QuoteThe arms trade, by it's nature, wants to sell arms to everyone it can.  But doing so is from the POV of a state, stupid and irresponsible.  That states do it regardless is more proof that states are prevented from fully realising where their own interests lie.  Normally by governmental incompetence, arms industry PR, ideology, personal links between the arms industry and government officials or similar.

QuoteThe UK and France have blamed the Syrian government for the collapse of peace talks with the opposition in Geneva.

"The responsibility for it lies squarely with the Assad regime," UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said.

His French counterpart, Laurent Fabius, said the government had "blocked any progress".

QuoteFor months there had been acute concern among senior military leaders and the intelligence community about the role in the war of Syria's neighbours, especially Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan was known to be supporting the al-Nusra Front, a jihadist faction among the rebel opposition, as well as other Islamist rebel groups. 'We knew there were some in the Turkish government,' a former senior US intelligence official, who has access to current intelligence, told me, 'who believed they could get Assad's nuts in a vice by dabbling with a sarin attack inside Syria – and forcing Obama to make good on his red line threat.'

QuoteWithin a few days of the 21 August attack, the former intelligence official told me, Russian military intelligence operatives had recovered samples of the chemical agent from Ghouta. They analysed it and passed it on to British military intelligence; this was the material sent to Porton Down. (A spokesperson for Porton Down said: 'Many of the samples analysed in the UK tested positive for the nerve agent sarin.' MI6 said that it doesn't comment on intelligence matters.)

QuoteThe UK defence staff who relayed the Porton Down findings to the joint chiefs were sending the Americans a message, the former intelligence official said: 'We're being set up here.' (This account made sense of a terse message a senior official in the CIA sent in late August: 'It was not the result of the current regime. UK & US know this.') By then the attack was a few days away and American, British and French planes, ships and submarines were at the ready.

QuoteThe full extent of US co-operation with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar in assisting the rebel opposition in Syria has yet to come to light. The Obama administration has never publicly admitted to its role in creating what the CIA calls a 'rat line', a back channel highway into Syria. The rat line, authorised in early 2012, was used to funnel weapons and ammunition from Libya via southern Turkey and across the Syrian border to the opposition. Many of those in Syria who ultimately received the weapons were jihadists, some of them affiliated with al-Qaida. (The DNI spokesperson said: 'The idea that the United States was providing weapons from Libya to anyone is false.')

In January, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report on the assault by a local militia in September 2012 on the American consulate and a nearby undercover CIA facility in Benghazi, which resulted in the death of the US ambassador, Christopher Stevens, and three others. The report's criticism of the State Department for not providing adequate security at the consulate, and of the intelligence community for not alerting the US military to the presence of a CIA outpost in the area, received front-page coverage and revived animosities in Washington, with Republicans accusing Obama and Hillary Clinton of a cover-up. A highly classified annex to the report, not made public, described a secret agreement reached in early 2012 between the Obama and Erdoğan administrations. It pertained to the rat line. By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar; the CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi's arsenals into Syria. A number of front companies were set up in Libya, some under the cover of Australian entities. Retired American soldiers, who didn't always know who was really employing them, were hired to manage procurement and shipping. The operation was run by David Petraeus, the CIA director who would soon resign when it became known he was having an affair with his biographer. (A spokesperson for Petraeus denied the operation ever took place.)

QuoteBy the end of 2012, it was believed throughout the American intelligence community that the rebels were losing the war. 'Erdoğan was pissed,' the former intelligence official said, 'and felt he was left hanging on the vine. It was his money and the cut-off was seen as a betrayal.' In spring 2013 US intelligence learned that the Turkish government – through elements of the MIT, its national intelligence agency, and the Gendarmerie, a militarised law-enforcement organisation – was working directly with al-Nusra and its allies to develop a chemical warfare capability. 'The MIT was running the political liaison with the rebels, and the Gendarmerie handled military logistics, on-the-scene advice and training – including training in chemical warfare,' the former intelligence official said. 'Stepping up Turkey's role in spring 2013 was seen as the key to its problems there. Erdoğan knew that if he stopped his support of the jihadists it would be all over. The Saudis could not support the war because of logistics – the distances involved and the difficulty of moving weapons and supplies. Erdoğan's hope was to instigate an event that would force the US to cross the red line. But Obama didn't respond in March and April.'

QuoteVictoria Nuland, the State Department spokesperson, counseled Syrian dissidents to defy the Assad regime's offer of an amnesty in return for handing in illegal weapons, as the LA Times reported:

QuoteSyria accused Washington of "inciting sedition, supporting the acts of killing and terrorism," the official Syrian news agency said, quoting an official source at the Foreign Ministry.
...
The comments came a day after State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland declared that she would counsel Syrians to reject the amnesty, in which those the government terms arms violators were asked to turn themselves in with their weapons "to the nearest police station" during a one-week period that began Saturday. Those who surrender and have not killed anyone "will be released soon," the Interior Ministry vowed.

"I wouldn't advise anybody to turn themselves in to regime authorities at the moment," Nuland told reporters in Washington.

Nuland, by the way, is married to PNACer and neocon pundit Robert Kagan.  Recalling Dick Cheney's enthusiasm for driving to Damascus post-Iraqi Freedom, maybe we should call the Syria enterprise Clean Break II: The Do-Over.

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on December 09, 2013, 01:26:10 PM
That first bit, about cherry-picking intel... Do you think that's a deliberate move of anti-rationalism, or does it just not occur to them that confirmation bias exists outside the internet?

QuoteSyria's President Bashar al-Assad has claimed the upper hand in what he called a "turning point" in the three-year long civil war.

President Assad made the comments in an address at Damascus University,

His forces have been steadily recapturing rebel-held towns near the Lebanese border for several months.

More than 150,000 people have been killed in the conflict, with millions forced to flee their homes.

"This is a turning point in the crisis," President Assad said.

He added that his army was winning what he called "the war against terror".

Government forces have secured the main north-south highway in Syria in recent months, and have cut off vital supply routes for rebel forces.

QuoteOn Friday, the government and opposition forces accused each other of using poison gas in the village of Kafr Zita.

The attack killed two people and left dozens injured.

QuoteIn August last year, a chemical attack near the capital killed hundreds of people.

QuoteThe head of the task force in charge of eliminating Syria's chemical weapons says Damascus still holds about 7.5% of its 1,300-tonne stockpile at one site.

Quote"The biggest bulk of the chemical weapons material is removed but not yet destroyed and that counts towards the 30 June deadline. That's why it's so important to get the remainder of the chemical weapons material that is still in one site," Ms Kaag, the head of the OPCW, told the BBC.

She also said the UN was concerned by recent reports that Syrian forces had used chlorine gas as a weapon.

Chlorine was not a substance included in the deal, which is widely seen as having averted US military action against the Syrian government.

Quote from: Cain on May 21, 2013, 05:24:26 PM
It's getting to the point that the US would be better off allying itself with Assad if it wants to combat Islamic extremism.

QuoteThis may well surprise experts, but senior administration officials tell me that Obama has been modifying his objective and is now prepared to work with Assad, to some degree, along with the moderate rebels, against what the White House finally has come to see as the real and major threat—the jihadists.

Quote"If the United States decided to effectively accept Mr. Assad's continued rule on the grounds that he can provide a bulwark against terrorism, as some foreign policy thinkers have recommended, "that would crystallize the thinking of all these groups by convincing them that they are under an immediate American threat," said Emile Hokayem, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

"A lot of these groups don't have a fixed idea about a global jihad, and they could go one way or the other, depending on Western policy," he said."

QuoteAs many as 500,000 people have been forced to flee Iraq's second city of Mosul after Islamist militants effectively took control of it.

Troops were among those fleeing as hundreds of jihadists from the ISIS group overran the city and much of the surrounding province of Nineveh.

Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki responded by asking parliament to declare a state of emergency to grant him greater powers.

The US said the development showed ISIS is a threat to the entire region.

ISIS - the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant - is an offshoot of al-Qaeda which now controls considerable territory in eastern Syria and western and central Iraq, in a campaign to set up a militant enclave straddling the border

QuoteMany police stations were reported to have been set on fire and hundreds of detainees set free.

"The army forces threw away their weapons, changed their clothes, abandoned their vehicles and left the city," Mahmud Nuri, a resident fleeing Mosul, told the AFP news agency.

The BBC's Jim Muir says the Iraqi security forces appear to have nothing to fight back against the ISIS militants.

QuoteThe Iraqi government is struggling with a surge in sectarian violence that killed almost 800 people, including 603 civilians, in May alone, according to the UN. Last year, more than 8,860 people died.

Quote from: Cain on April 23, 2013, 02:35:11 PM
Syrian rebels have also used chemical weapons.

But then, Israel's not exactly making a deal out of this because of their abhorrence of chemical warfare and war crimes, are they?

Quote from: Cain on June 12, 2014, 12:29:41 PM
Um yeah.  I'm fairly sure I was referring to Israel-Syrian tensions going back to the 1940s, and the currently existing Israeli-Saudi Arabian alliance to turn Syria into a hellhole, as part of an overall plan of demolishing Iranian influence in the region.

QuoteSunni militants have seized the northern Iraqi buffer city of Tal Afar, officials and residents say.

Militants led by ISIS - the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant - captured key cities including Mosul and Tikrit last week, but some towns were retaken.

Fighting in Tal Afar began on Sunday, with mortar shelling of some districts as militants tried to enter the city.

QuoteBarack Obama: "The US will do our part, but understand that ultimately it is up to the Iraqis as a sovereign nation to solve their problems."

QuoteThe price of Brent crude spiked on Friday over concerns about the ongoing violence.

QuoteSo does Boris think Blair should be tried? We have to presume that, yes, he does. His objection to the notion is not based on principle, but on the sense that, somehow, Blair would find a way to wriggle free of his predicament and escape justice [sic]. If, presumably, there were a better chance of securing a conviction Boris would be shouting Go for it, boys.

Which is interesting, not least because Boris voted in favour of the war too. As, of course, did a majority of MPs. They did so for any number of reasons though few did so with relish or without some reservations. Boris himself now argues that he never believed all that "nonsense" about Saddam Hussein's weapons stockpiles.

QuoteStill, this isn't quite what Boris is complaining about. Rather, a) Boris did not believe the government's arguments for the war, b) he voted for it anyway and c) he now complains he was hoodwinked. I can see how you might think two of these things could simultaneously be true; it is rather more difficult to create an acceptable scenario in which all three satisfy some serious burden of truth.

Quote from: Junkenstein on June 16, 2014, 12:39:57 PM
That's probably adding an undue layer of irony to the whole thing - Western intervention is political suicide at the moment and with various elections upcoming it's smarter to follow the public feeling and shun the whole thing as "someone else's problem". Get yourself elected then start a morally righteous war. Seems to be a habit over the past few decades.

I should probably make myself some kind of chart, it's getting increasingly difficult for me to keep a track of actors, interests and who's a proxy for who.

QuoteForeign Secretary William Hague has said he intends to re-open Britain's Embassy in the Iranian capital Tehran.

Mr Hague said the "circumstances were right" following an improvement in bilateral relations in recent months.

Full diplomatic relations with Iran were suspended after attacks on the British embassy in Iran in 2011.

QuoteThe current turmoil in Iraq meant there also was a "short-term congruence of interests" that made the move more likely and which could also lead to what he described as "arm's-length" military co-ordination between Tehran, Baghdad and Washington.

"Iran is often seen as the enemy and has seen us as the enemy," he said.

"Against a backdrop of an improving relationship with the prospect of a nuclear deal, there is a prospect of having a more constructive relationship with Iran because there is a bigger enemy - which is Isis."

However, he warned the "potential for falling out with Iran is always very high".

Quote from: Junkenstein on June 16, 2014, 12:39:57 PMI should probably make myself some kind of chart, it's getting increasingly difficult for me to keep a track of actors, interests and who's a proxy for who.

Quote from: Cain on June 17, 2014, 10:29:02 AM

Quote from: Junkenstein on June 16, 2014, 12:39:57 PMI should probably make myself some kind of chart, it's getting increasingly difficult for me to keep a track of actors, interests and who's a proxy for who.

(http://i2.wp.com/www.joshualandis.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/Think-Progress-The-tangled-web-in-the-fight-for-Syrias-future.jpg)

QuoteThe Syrian National Coalition believes that ISIS is closely linked to the terrorist regime and serves the interests of the clique of President Bashar Al-Assad.... The murder of Syrians by this group leaves no doubt about the intentions behind their creation, their objectives, and the agendas they service, which is confirmed by the nature of their terrorist actions that are hostile to the Syrian revolution.

QuoteThere is no doubt that the jihadi presence in Syria- whether in the form of ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra, or the multiple muhajireen-led battalions- is useful to the Assad's narrative on the rebellion as a foreign-backed "takfiri/Wahhabi" conspiracy against Syria.

[...]

The mere existence of such rhetoric and the IF's prominence- regardless of what happens on the ground- are enough to provide considerable credence to the regime's characterization of the opposition as sectarian. Further, the sectarian rhetoric of the IF has translated to results on the ground...

[...]

However, it must be emphasized that no conclusive evidence exists illustrating an active ISIS-regime collaboration; and for Jabhat al-Nusra, it is even more implausible. Much of the lines of argument applied to ISIS can also be applied to other groups outside the jihadi fold: most notably, the YPG and some of the IF.

Quoteslamist-led militants have attacked Iraq's biggest oil refinery with mortars and machine guns, reportedly attacking from two directions.

Smoke billowed from a spare parts warehouse on the site at Baiji, 210km (130 miles) north of Baghdad, security and refinery sources told Reuters.

Government forces have made new air strikes on militants advancing towards the capital.

Fighting is also reported in the western city of Ramadi.

QuoteUsing unusually strong language, Mr Maliki accused Saudi Arabia - which is largely Sunni - of backing ISIS.

Quote from: KSA London Embassy"The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia wishes to see the defeat and destruction of all Al-Qaeda networks and the Islamic State of Iraq and Al Sham (ISIS) operating in Iraq. Saudi Arabia does not provide either moral or financial support to ISIS or any terrorist networks. Any suggestion to the contrary, is a malicious falsehood. Despite the false allegations of the Iraqi Ministerial Cabinet, whose exclusionary policies have fomented this current crisis, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia supports the preservation of Iraq's sovereignty, its unity and territorial integrity. We wish to see the protection of all civilians and the alleviation of their current suffering. We oppose all foreign intervention and interference in the internal affairs of Iraq. Instead, we urge all the people of Iraq, whatever their religious denominations, to unite to overcome the current threats and challenges facing the country."

Quote from: Cain on June 19, 2014, 08:39:57 PM
Nah, we'll keep it in here.  Iraq, Syria...possibly Lebanon and Jordan soon as well.  All part of the same processes and causes.

In other news, ISIS has seized a Saddam-era chemical weapons facility.  The US says it's not operational...but we'll see soon enough,

Quote from: Junkenstein on June 20, 2014, 08:03:25 AM
This seems to be escalating very quickly indeed:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-27936652

Quote from: Cain on June 20, 2014, 03:12:45 PM
Interestingly enough, ISIS say their aim is to undo Sykes-Picot, probably the quintessential 20th century approach to foreign policy.

And if Jordan is in their sights, as reports suggest it might be, then this is getting into old school empire-building territory.  An actual caliphate, controlling even the meagre Northern Iraqi and Raqqa oil supplies...it doesn't bear thinking about.  At least Saudi Arabia is constrained by the need to put its excess cash into London banks and property markets, but I somehow think a house in Kensington is not on the ISIS wishlist.

QuoteAbu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the head of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), has been careful to reveal little about himself and his whereabouts.

There are only two authenticated photos of him, and unlike al-Qaeda leaders such as Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, he does not appear in video messages.

Even his own fighters reportedly do not speak about seeing him face to face.

QuoteBut Baghdadi has a reputation as a highly organised and ruthless battlefield tactician, which analysts say makes his organisation more attractive to young jihadists than that of Zawahiri, an Islamic theologian.

Quote from: Cain on June 23, 2014, 10:24:44 AM
Sure, depending on who is in the inner circle and the methods of authentication used.  Presumably, the high up commanders, the "inner circle" of ISIS would be privy to the secret, if this is in fact the case.  Chances are you can only approach "al-Baghdadi" with the express permission of these men.

That would of course require a tight-knit leadership who trust and can work together...but given the military nature of ISIS and their successes, I think we can safely assume this is true.

QuoteThe city of Mosul has witnessed an increased effort by extremist groups, likely al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) but possibly the Ba'athist group Jaysh Rijal al-Tariqah al-Naqshabandia (JRTN), to seize control of the city. Reporting from Mosul is severely limited at this time, not because violence has been reduced, but instead because journalists were targeted in late 2013, effectively placing the city under a media blackout. A campaign of intimidation is underway, suppressing reporting and masking all but the most spectacular attacks. Attacks upon local government figures and Mosul University students indicate that security conditions in the city center are very dangerous at this time. ISF operations in Anbar do not reduce threats to other urban capitals in Iraq, especially Mosul, where the militant organizations AQI and JRTN have both been active.

[...]

These incidents are indicators that AQI or JRTN may be establishing control of neighborhoods within Mosul. They are also grave signs that the Iraqi Security Forces do not control the city. While all eyes are focused on Anbar, it is essential to observe warning signs of AQI's next campaign objective, which elements of AQI outside of Anbar have a prime opportunity to pursue. If these incidents are indeed perpetrated by AQI, we can discern that its campaign objectives lie beyond controlling Fallujah, and indeed that the organization has scoped a wider path to restoring an Islamic state in Iraq.

QuoteYou might be surprised how effective couriers and short-distance radio can be.  General Van Riper used those to effectively communicate on a tactical level during the Millennium Challenge 2002 war games.

QuotePresident Barack Obama has asked the US Congress to approve $500m (£294m) to train and equip what he described as "moderate" Syrian opposition forces.

The funds would help Syrians defend against forces aligned with President Bashar al-Assad, the White House said.

The aid would also counter Islamist militants such as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis), it added.

Quote"This funding request would build on the administration's longstanding efforts to empower the moderate Syrian opposition, both civilian and armed," the White House said.

It will also "enable the Department of Defense to increase our support to vetted elements of the armed opposition".

The money will help stabilise areas under opposition control and counter terrorist threats, the White House said.

The rebels that would receive the funds would be vetted beforehand in order to alleviate concerns of equipment falling into the hands of militants hostile to the US and its allies, the White House said.

QuoteThe Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis) announced the establishment of the caliphate in an audio recording posted on the internet on Sunday.

QuoteConsider: more than 58 Arabic linguists have been kicked out since "don't ask, don't tell" was instituted. How much valuable intelligence could those men and women be providing today to troops in harm's way?

In addition to those translators, 11,000 other service members have been ousted since the "don't ask, don't tell" policy was passed by Congress in 1993. Many held critical jobs in intelligence, medicine and counterterrorism. An untold number of closeted gay military members don't re-enlist because of the pressure the law puts on them. This is the real cost of the ban — and, with our military so overcommitted and undermanned, it's too high to pay.

QuoteThe president of Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan Region has told the BBC he intends to hold a referendum on independence within months.

Massoud Barzani said that Iraq was already "effectively partitioned".

While the Kurds would play a part in a political solution to the crisis caused by jihadist-led Sunni Arab rebellion, independence was their right, he added.

QuoteIn the past month, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters have moved into previously disputed areas that have been abandoned by Iraqi security forces in the face of Isis's advance, such as the oil-rich region of Kirkuk.

"Everything that's happened recently shows that it's the right of Kurdistan to achieve independence," Mr Barzani told the BBC.

"From now on, we won't hide that that's our goal. Iraq is effectively partitioned now. Are we supposed to stay in this tragic situation the country's living? It's not me who will decide on independence. It's the people. We'll hold a referendum and it's a matter of months."

QuoteThe highest-ranking GRU defector Stanislav Lunev claimed that such Russian-made devices do exist and described them in more detail.[6] These devices, "identified as RA-115s (or RA-115-01s for submersible weapons)" weigh from fifty to sixty pounds. They can last for many years if wired to an electric source. In case there is a loss of power, there is a battery backup. If the battery runs low, the weapon has a transmitter that sends a coded message—either by satellite or directly to a GRU post at a Russian embassy or consulate." According to Lunev, the number of "missing" nuclear devices (as found by General Lebed) "is almost identical to the number of strategic targets upon which those bombs would be used."[6]

QuoteThe first attempt of radiological terror was carried out in November 1995 by a group of Chechen separatists, who buried a caesium-137 source wrapped in explosives at the Izmaylovsky Park in Moscow. A Chechen rebel leader alerted the media, the bomb was never activated, and the incident amounted to a mere publicity stunt.[7]

In December 1998, a second attempt was announced by the Chechen Security Service, who discovered a container filled with radioactive materials attached to an explosive mine. The bomb was hidden near a railway line in the suburban area Argun, ten miles east of the Chechen capital of Grozny. The same Chechen separatist group was suspected to be involved

Quoteraqi military officials have denied that troops have abandoned positions along the border with Saudi Arabia.

Interior ministry spokesman Brig Gen Saad Maan told the BBC that the border force was functioning normally.

Earlier, al-Arabiya TV reported that Saudi Arabia had deployed 30,000 soldiers along the 900km (560-mile) frontier after Iraqi forces withdrew.

The Saudi personnel were fanning out along the border to prevent attacks by jihadist-led Sunni rebels, it said.

Last week, King Abdullah ordered all necessary measures to be taken to protect Saudi Arabia against "terrorist threats".

QuoteMilitant members and sympathizers of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have circulated pictures of what they said was the passport of the so-called "caliphate" declared last week by the militant group.

The "State of the Islamic Caliphate" appears to be inscribed at the top of the purported passport. At the bottom, it says: "The holder of the passport if harmed we will deploy armies for his service."

ISIS reportedly said the new document will be distributed to 11,000 citizens living in cities bordering Iraq and Syria.

The militant group, which operates in both Iraq and Syria, said their caliphate would spread from Aleppo in northern Syria to Diyala in eastern Iraq.

The passport is reportedly being printed in a government facility in Mosul that was built in 2011.

QuoteLast week, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi called on Muslims with military, medical and managerial skills to flock to its newly-declared pan-Islamic state, in an audio recording.

"Those who can immigrate to the Islamic State should immigrate, as immigration to the house of Islam is a duty," said Baghdadi.

The newly named "caliph" said the appeal especially applied to "judges and those who have military and managerial and service skills, and doctors and engineers in all fields."

Quoteraq has warned the UN that Sunni militants have seized nuclear materials used for scientific research at a university in the city of Mosul.

In a letter seen by Reuters, Iraq's envoy to the UN said nearly 40kg (88lb) of uranium compounds were seized.

The letter appealed for international help to "stave off the threat of their use by terrorists in Iraq or abroad".

US officials reportedly played down the threat, saying the materials were not believed to be enriched uranium.

The officials added that it would be difficult for the rebels to use the materials to make weapons.

QuoteThe letter comes a day after Iraqi officials confirmed that the rebels were in control of a disused chemical weapons factory.

QuoteThe UN has said at least 2,417 Iraqis, including 1,531 civilians, were killed in "acts of violence and terrorism" in June.

QuoteWhile Iraq benefited from a UN resolution banning trade in its antiquities after the US invasion of 2003, Syria has been given no such protection. Unesco can only function inside Syria with the permission of the Syrian regime - a permission which has not been forthcoming.

QuoteIraqi Kurds have taken over two oil fields amid a growing dispute with the government in Baghdad, Iraqi and Kurdish sources say.

Kurdish peshmerga forces seized control of production facilities at the Bai Hassan and Kirkuk oil fields in the north of the country on Friday.

Kurdish MPs have also withdrawn from Iraq's central government.

They did so after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki accused the Kurds of harbouring extremists.

QuoteTensions came to a head when Prime Minister Maliki said on Wednesday that the Kurdish provincial capital Irbil was a haven for Isis fighters.

Soon after, a spokesman for Massoud Barzani said Mr Maliki "had become hysterical" and urged him to step down.

QuoteSuicide attackers have mounted a bomb and gun attack on a prison convoy in Iraq, killing 51 prisoners and nine police officers, security sources say.

Roadside bombs exploded as the convoy was taking the prisoners from the town of Taji to the capital, Baghdad, justice ministry and medical sources told Reuters.

Gunmen opened fire and a battle ensued with security forces, AFP reports.

There were no immediate figures for casualties among the militants.

The prisoners, who were suspected militants, had been evacuated in the convoy after mortar rounds hit military bases in Taji at dawn on Thursday, Iraqi officials told AP.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on August 07, 2014, 08:36:23 PM
I'm hearing hysterical shit about ISIS beheading Christian children.

I am at the moment assuming this is RWN propaganda.

QuoteUS President Barack Obama says he's authorised the US military to carry out airstrikes in Iraq against Islamic militants if they advance toward the city of Erbil.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on August 07, 2014, 08:36:23 PM
I'm hearing hysterical shit about ISIS beheading Christian children.

I am at the moment assuming this is RWN propaganda.

Quote from: Junkenstein on August 07, 2014, 11:41:19 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on August 07, 2014, 08:36:23 PM
I'm hearing hysterical shit about ISIS beheading Christian children.

I am at the moment assuming this is RWN propaganda.

Everything is propaganda.

Cain, question: is it likely there is a solid estimation of Isis numbers/strength but they still hold a strong advantage from planning stage leaving various parties looking slow? Suspect planning has been far more detailed than previously thought.

Also angles of victories being positive feedback loop in these conflicts, much easier to steamroller successes/ harder to stem losses. Highly motivated fighters(jail breaks) also allows for extreme tactics(suicide bombs/missions with no hope of return etc)?

Possible benefits via leadership structure too? The various nation boundaries involved again help only Isis.

Quote from: Pæs on August 08, 2014, 01:48:37 AM
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/middle-east/10362462/US-orders-airstrikes-in-Iraq

QuoteUS President Barack Obama says he's authorised the US military to carry out airstrikes in Iraq against Islamic militants if they advance toward the city of Erbil.

Quote from: Cain on August 08, 2014, 08:18:17 AM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on August 07, 2014, 08:36:23 PM
I'm hearing hysterical shit about ISIS beheading Christian children.

I am at the moment assuming this is RWN propaganda.

Actually, it wouldn't surprise me.

Iraq does have a small but significant Christian population. Christians were ethnically (religiously?) cleansed from Mosul, many were robbed and some were tortured and killed while trying to leave.

There's also a certain mountain in northern Iraq where lots of Christians have been fleeing to, which is currently surrounded by ISIS forces.

Plus there is the overall fundamentalism of ISIS...which sees even other Sunni Muslims as apostates and pagans and treats accordingly.  The stories out of Raqqa are like something out of Taliban Afghanistan, mixed with Nazi Germany.

I would be suspicious of anyone who focuses overly on Christians though.  ISIS hates everyone, and most of their victims are Sunni Muslim, then Shiite.

Quote from: http://www.vox.com/2014/8/8/5982275/obamas-implicit-bargain-with-isis-for-iraqInvading Iraq's Kurdish region, it turned out, was Obama's red line for ISIS. There are a few reasons why. The Kurdish region is far stabler, politically, than the rest of Iraq. (Kurds are ethnically distinct from the rest of Iraq, which is largely ethnic Arab; most Kurds are Sunni Muslims.) The Kurdish region, which has been semi-autonomous since the United States invaded in 2003 and has grown more autonomous from Baghdad ever since, also happens to be a much more reliable US ally than is the central Iraqi government. It has a reasonably competent government and military, unlike the central Iraqi government, which is volatile, unstable, deeply corrupt, and increasingly authoritarian.

QuoteThere are conflicting reports about whether Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Iraqi troops have fully retaken Mosul dam from Islamic State (IS) militants.

Iraqi military spokesman Lt-Gen Qassim Atta told state TV the dam - Iraq's largest - had been "fully cleansed".

Troops had been backed by a joint air patrol, he added, without specifying if there had been any US air strikes.

However, journalists in the area said fighting was continuing and jihadists remained in control of the main gate.

QuoteThey said IS fighters had put up stiff resistance, and had planted many roadside bombs and other explosive devices.

Quoteyria's foreign minister has offered to help the US fight the Islamic State (IS) militant group, which has seized swathes of land in Iraq and Syria.

Walid Muallem said Syria was "the centre of the international coalition to fight Islamic State".

The US has already bombed IS fighters in Iraq and has hinted it would be willing to take action in Syria.

Western powers generally shun Syria's government, accusing it of carrying out atrocities in its three-year civil war.

But Mr Muallem warned that the US must co-ordinate with the Syrian government before launching any air strikes on its territory.

"Anything outside this is considered aggression," he said.

QuoteUS officials say Egypt and the UAE were behind air strikes in Libya last week that targeted Islamist militia.

A senior US official told the BBC that Washington was not consulted about the attacks and was "caught off-guard".

The air strikes on militia positions around Tripoli's international airport were reportedly carried out by Emirati fighter jets using bases in Egypt.

The Egyptian authorities have denied involvement, and there has been no direct comment from the UAE.

The strikes failed to stop militias from Misrata and other cities, which operate under the banner Libya Dawn and include some Islamist groups, seizing the airport from a militia from Zintan that had controlled it since 2011.

The airport, Libya's largest, has been closed for more than a month because of the fighting.

Hundreds of people have died since clashes broke out in Tripoli in July.

Quoteighters from Islamic State (IS) have taken control of a key Syrian government airbase, activists say.

The Tabqa airbase was the last remaining stronghold of Bashar al-Assad's government in Raqqa province..

State TV confirmed that government forces had "evacuated" the airbase. Days of fighting there have reportedly killed hundreds on both sides.

QuoteOnly weeks after Sunni jihadists in Iraq declared the establishment of an Islamic caliphate covering parts of Syria and Iraq, Libya's Ansar al-Shari'a movement has declared an Islamic emirate in eastern Libya after driving government forces and their allies from the city of Benghazi. The defeat of the strongest pro-government forces in eastern Libya has provided the Islamists with an impressive victory, but Ansar al-Shari'a and its allies are still struggling to obtain the support of Benghazi's urban population and the powerful tribes dwelling in its hinterland.

Quote"If neglected, I am certain that after a month they will reach Europe and, after another month, America," he said at a reception for foreign ambassadors Friday.

"These terrorists do not know the name of humanity and you have witnessed them severing heads and giving them to children to walk with in the street," the king said, urging the ambassadors to relay his message directly to their heads of state.

QuoteOn Friday the UK government raised its terror threat level from "substantial" to "severe," the fourth highest of five levels, in response to events in Iraq and Syria. The move means a terrorist attack is highly likely, although there is no intelligence to suggest one is imminent, Home Secretary Theresa May said.

QuoteNothing changes peoples minds like success...and should ISIS continue to succeed, and do so well enough to also support their aims and goals, I can groups switching their alleigance without too much trouble

• more airstrikes
• international coalition
• funding groups who are both against ISIS and Assad

QuoteSyrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem had last month warned the U.S. against carrying out airstrikes on Syrian territory without Damascus' consent, saying any such attack would be considered an aggression.

QuoteHadi Bahra, chief of the Syrian National Coalition opposition group, said mainstream Syrian rebels desperately need the kind of support that would enable them to form a reliable and well-equipped force to fight the extremists.

"Today, we are one step closer to achieving that goal," he said.

He said the Syrian Coalition "stands ready and willing to partner with the international community," not only to defeat the extremists, but also "to rid the Syrian people of the tyranny of the Assad regime."

QuoteAnd it's not like Turkey have been rabidly searching for a way to bring Assad down for nearly 3 years now.

Quote"The problem is not that we're facing a fringe of crazy people, a sort of weird cult confined to a few fanatics.

"If it was, we could probably root it out, kill or imprison its leaders, deter its followers and close the doors to new recruits."

Quote from: The Suu on September 22, 2014, 01:47:09 PM
Also, they went missing from the mall. THE MALL. 2 days ago. Like they haven't been able to pull up surveillance footage yet?

Quote from: Junkenstein on September 22, 2014, 03:10:17 PM
Where do you think you live, some kind of surveillance state?

Quote from: The Suu on September 22, 2014, 05:42:45 PM

Quote from: Junkenstein on September 22, 2014, 03:10:17 PM
Where do you think you live, some kind of surveillance state?

Sorry, we're aren't the UK.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on September 22, 2014, 05:43:53 PM

Quote from: The Suu on September 22, 2014, 05:42:45 PM

Quote from: Junkenstein on September 22, 2014, 03:10:17 PM
Where do you think you live, some kind of surveillance state?

Sorry, we're aren't the UK.

:lulz:  Of course we aren't.   :lulz:

Our cameras are privately owned.

Quote from: The Suu on September 22, 2014, 05:44:51 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on September 22, 2014, 05:43:53 PM

Quote from: The Suu on September 22, 2014, 05:42:45 PM

Quote from: Junkenstein on September 22, 2014, 03:10:17 PM
Where do you think you live, some kind of surveillance state?

Sorry, we're aren't the UK.

:lulz:  Of course we aren't.   :lulz:

Our cameras are privately owned.

And let's face it, the defense budget doesn't have enough money to pay for the tapes.

Quote from: The Suu on September 22, 2014, 05:43:23 PM
So they found them trying to cross into Canada.

Those don't sound like terrorists, those sound like refugees who don't want to go home.

Quote from: Cain on September 23, 2014, 05:31:59 PM
We're bombing Iraq.  Again.

Probably Syria too.  Dominic Grieve made a decent legal case for it....though dont be surprised if our relationship with Iraq sours suddenly after.  One way in which we can legally justify attacking Syria is by a clause whereby Iraq has the right to attack in order to repulse an invading force.  Iraqi allies can then "assist" in such an exercise.

Problem 1: The Iraqi Army is a sham.  All army positions are up for grabs to the highest bidder.  Competent officers tend to be death squad leaders...or of suspect loyalties.  Their advanced weaponry was captured by ISIS.

Problem 2: This essentially involves Iraq going to war with Syria.  But Iraq are currently allied with Syria against ISIS.

So we'll have to twist their arm to get them to give us the legal grounds for invasion.

QuoteReports that UK jihadists were involved in a prisoner swap between Islamic State (IS) and Turkey are "credible", Whitehall officials have told the BBC.

The Times alleges that Shabazz Suleman, 18, and Hisham Folkard, 26, were among as many as 180 IS fighters traded for 49 Turkish hostages.

They were taken prisoner from the Turkish consulate in Mosul, Iraq, in June and released last month.

Officials confirmed Mr Suleman, from High Wycombe, disappeared in Turkey.

The Foreign Office is providing consular assistance to his family but there has been no confirmation that he was one of the Turkish government-held prisoners.

The Times said it was passed a leaked list of those handed over to IS and the two Britons were among the names.

Along with the two Britons, the newspaper alleges the list also included three French citizens, two Swedes, two Macedonians, one Swiss and one Belgian.

QuoteStorm's stories about cozying up to terrorists are only eclipsed by his dealings with the CIA, Britain's MI5 and MI6, and PET, the Danish intelligence service. They provide a window into the operations of an otherwise secret world that former U.S. vice-president Dick Cheney famously called the "dark side," and the portrayal is indeed dark.
He admired the British agents the most, as he claims they told him not to trust the Americans and refused to be part of the drone operation to kill Awlaki. They also disagreed with the plan to send Awlaki his third wife.
In his role as matchmaker, Storm hooked up Irena Horak, an unwitting Croatian woman who converted to Islam, with Awlaki and helped arrange her move to Yemen in 2010. The CIA bugged her belongings. Her whereabouts today are unknown.
Storm still has much of their correspondence and the video Horak sent to Awlaki, which is part of a huge electronic file that helps give his story credibility.
"What was key in terms of our confidence in his story was the overwhelming amount of corroborating evidence he presented us from his hard drive, from his phone, from his passport, from his bank transfers ... there are gigabytes of this stuff," says Paul Cruickshank, CNN's terrorism analyst, who co-wrote the book with Storm and journalist Tim Lister. "His story fit this huge amount of audiovisual material."
Storm eventually feared the CIA was trying to get rid of him as "collateral damage" in targeting Wuhayshi and felt telling his story was his only way out. Of course by going public, first in 2012 to Denmark's newspaper Jyllands-Posten, he burnt his bridges with the intelligence agencies.

Quote"Only Yazidi women are kidnapped. We don't know, actually, why exactly the Yazidi women [are targeted]," she said. 

Dakhil says that of the more than 500,000 Yazidis in Iraq, some 25,000 Yazidi girls have been abducted by IS militants. 

"We don't know exactly [where all of them are], but some are [kept] at [various] prisons here, still in Iraq, and some have been taken to Syria, and some are in Mosul," she said. "They are taken to be raped, and they are selling them -- $150 for a girl."

QuoteThe exact number of women who have joined jihadist groups in Syria is impossible to ascertain, but terrorism analysts at London's International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation estimate there are some 30 European women in Iraq and Syria who either accompanied their jihadist husbands or have gone with the intention to marry members of ISIS and other militant groups. That may be less than 10% of the number of Western men currently estimated to be fighting in Syria and Iraq, but the fear is that the number of women involved may grow more quickly. A recently established French hotline for reporting signs of jihadist radicalization has seen 45% of its inquiries involve women, according to the Interior Ministry, and there have been several cases of women, one as young as 16, arrested at France's airports under suspicion of trying to travel Syria to join Islamist rebels.

QuoteTurkey has agreed to let the US use its military bases in the campaign against Islamic State militants, US National Security Adviser Susan Rice says.

Ms Rice said the US welcomed the new agreement, which included use of the Incirlik air base in Turkey's south.

QuoteMore than £250,000 of suspected Islamic State (IS) funds have been seized at Manchester Airport and other north-west ports in the past year, anti-terrorist officers said.

The NW Counter Terrorism Unit used civil powers under the Terrorism Act to confiscate cash found hidden in luggage or under clothing.

Most was seized from passengers flying from Manchester to Turkey, said police.

Quote"At the Turkish border with Syria there are shops where you can buy guns, boots, rations and if you are going out there to fight you need money and you want equipment."

QuoteShia militias in Iraq have kidnapped and killed scores of Sunni civilians in recent months, a report by campaign group Amnesty International has said.

The killings were in apparent revenge for attacks by Islamic State (IS).

Amnesty said the militias had been supported and armed by the Iraqi government and operated with impunity.

Quote...accusations against Shia militias in Iraq come two days after IS confirmed, in the latest issue of its propaganda magazine Dabiq, that it had captured and enslaved women and children from the Yazidi minority.

It said the women and children were seized around the town of Sinjar in northern Iraq and "were then divided according to the Sharia amongst the fighters of the Islamic State who participated in the... operations".

Some of the women were subsequently "sold", the magazine said.

QuoteThe Amnesty report, based on interviews conducted in Iraq in August and September, provides details of what it says were sectarian attacks carried out by militiamen in the cities of Baghdad, Samarra and Kirkuk.

It says scores of unidentified bodies have been found, many still handcuffed and with gunshot wounds to the head, suggesting execution-style killings. Many others who disappeared remain unaccounted for.

QuoteA terror suspect was considering an indiscriminate Mumbai-style attack and had an address for Tony Blair and his wife, Cherie, the Old Bailey has heard.

Erol Incedal plotted to attack a "significant individual" or killings similar to the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which left 174 dead, prosecutors said.

He also had a phone containing material supporting Islamic State, they added.

Mr Incedal, 26, from London, denies preparing for acts of terrorism. He is being tried partly in secret.

The jury heard Mr Incedal had no settled plan of attack. But the prosecution suggested the possession of the Blairs' address was significant.

QuoteHe is also accused of plotting with someone abroad and possessing a secure digital memory (SD) card "useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism."

Jurors were told on Monday that parts of the trial would never become public.

QuoteThe judge told the jury that "a limited number of journalists" would be able to attend to see and hear this evidence - but they would not be able to report what is said.

He added that there would be a third part of the trial where even those accredited journalists would be excluded from hearing the evidence.

"This is another reason why you must not talk about the private proceedings with anyone else outside of your number," said the judge.

QuoteMore than $1bn earmarked for the reconstruction of Iraq was stolen and spirited to a bunker in Lebanon as the American and Iraqi governments ignored appeals to recover the money, it has been claimed.

Stuart Bowen, a former special inspector general who investigated corruption and waste in Iraq, said the stash accounted for a significant chunk of the huge sums which vanished during the chaotic months following the 2003 US-led invasion.


Bowen's team discovered that $1.2bn to $1.6bn was moved to a bunker in rural Lebanon for safe keeping – and then pleaded in vain for Baghdad and Washington to act, according to James Risen, a journalist who interviewed Bowen for a book, Pay Any Price: Greed, Power and Endless War , to be published this week.

QuoteThe disclosure of the bunker shines a light on one of the occupation's murkier puzzles: the fate of pallets of shrink-wrapped $100 bills which the Bush administration loaded on to Air Force C-17 transport planes in order to prop up the occupation of post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. About $12bn to $14bn was sent in the airlift and another $5bn via electronic transfer.

QuoteWashington had long since forgotten about the cash and shrugged when informed about his discovery, he said. The CIA expressed little interest, the FBI said it lacked jurisdiction and the US embassy in Beirut denied his team permission to visit the bunker, because it was too dangerous.

"We struggled to gain timely support from the interagency as we pursued this case," Bowen said.

One reason for such indifference, Bowen believed, was because it was "Iraqi money stolen by Iraqis".

QuoteBowen challenged that defence, saying there were few credible records of how the money was spent. "Our auditors interviewed numerous senior advisers of the CPA, and we learned from them that the controls on the Development Fund of Iraq money were inadequate," he said. "We didn't make this up; we learned this from CPA staff."

Bowen said he suspected some, possibly all, of the money had since been moved from the bunker.

QuoteIn June, tens of thousands of Iraqi Security Forces in Nineveh province north of Baghdad collapsed in the face of attacks from the militants of the Islamic State (IS or ISIS), abandoning four major cities to that extremist movement. The collapse drew much notice in our media, but not much in the way of sustained analysis of the American role in it. To put it bluntly, when confronting IS and its band of lightly armed irregulars, a reputedly professional military, American-trained and -armed, discarded its weapons and equipment, cast its uniforms aside, and melted back into the populace. What this behavior couldn't have made clearer was that U.S. efforts to create a new Iraqi army, much-touted and funded to the tune of $25 billion over the 10 years of the American occupation ($60 billion if you include other reconstruction costs), had failed miserably.

QuoteTo understand what really happened, a little history lesson is in order.  You'd need to start in May 2003 with the decision of L. Paul Bremer III, America's proconsul in occupied Iraq and head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), to disband the battle-hardened Iraqi military.

QuoteBremer and his team vowed to create a new Iraqi military from scratch.  According to Washington Post reporter Tom Ricks in his bestselling book Fiasco, that force was initially conceived as a small constabulary of 30,000-40,000 men (with no air force at all, or rather with the U.S. Air Force for backing in a country U.S. officials expected to garrison for decades).  Its main job would be to secure the country's borders without posing a threat to Iraq's neighbors or, it should be added, to U.S. interests.

Bremer's decision essentially threw 400,000 Iraqis with military training, including a full officer corps, out onto the streets of its cities, jobless.  It was a formula for creating an insurgency.  Humiliated and embittered, some of those men would later join various resistance groups operating against the American military.  More than a few of them later found their way into the ranks of ISIS, including at the highest levels of leadership.  (The most notorious of these is Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, a former general in Saddam's army who was featured as the King of Clubs in the Bush administration's deck of cards of Iraq's most wanted figures.  Al-Douri is now reportedlyhelping to coordinate IS attacks.

QuoteIn the military, it's called an "after action report" or a "hotwash" — a review, that is, of what went wrong and what can be learned, so the same mistakes are not repeated. When it comes to America's Iraq training mission, four lessons should top any "hotwash" list:

1. Military training, no matter how intensive, and weaponry, no matter how sophisticated and powerful, is no substitute for belief in a cause.  Such belief nurtures cohesion and feeds fighting spirit.  ISIS has fought with conviction.  The expensively trained and equipped Iraqi army hasn't.  The latter lacks a compelling cause held in common.  This is not to suggest that ISIS has a cause that's pure or just. Indeed, it appears to be a complex mélange of religious fundamentalism, sectarian revenge, political ambition, and old-fashioned opportunism (including loot, plain and simple). But so far the combination has proven compelling to its fighters, while Iraq's security forces appear centered on little more than self-preservation.

2. Military training alone cannot produce loyalty to a dysfunctional and disunified government incapable of running the country effectively, which is a reasonable description of Iraq's sectarian Shia government.  So it should be no surprise that, as Andrew Bacevich has noted, its security forces won't obey orders.  Unlike Tennyson's six hundred, the Iraqi army is unready to ride into any valley of death on orders from Baghdad. Of course, this problem might be solved through the formation of an Iraqi government that fairly represented all major parties in Iraqi society, not just the Shia majority. But that seems an unlikely possibility at this point.  In the meantime, one solution the situation doesn't call for is more U.S. airpower, weapons, advisers, and training.  That's already been tried — and it failed.

3. A corrupt and kleptocratic government produces a corrupt and kleptocratic army.  On Transparency International's 2013 corruption perceptions index, Iraq came in 171 among the 177 countries surveyed. And that rot can't be overcome by American "can-do" military training, then or now. In fact, Iraqi security forces mirror the kleptocracy they serve, often existing largely on paper.  For example, prior to the June ISIS offensive, as Patrick Cockburn has noted, the security forces in and around Mosul had a paper strength of 60,000, but only an estimated 20,000 of them were actually available for battle. As Cockburn writes, "A common source of additional income for officers is for soldiers to kickback half their salaries to their officers in return for staying at home or doing another job."

When he asked a recently retired general why the country's military pancaked in June, Cockburn got this answer:

"'Corruption! Corruption! Corruption!' [the general] replied: pervasive corruption had turned the [Iraqi] army into a racket and an investment opportunity in which every officer had to pay for his post. He said the opportunity to make big money in the Iraqi army goes back to the U.S. advisers who set it up ten years ago. The Americans insisted that food and other supplies should be outsourced to private businesses: this meant immense opportunities for graft. A battalion might have a nominal strength of six hundred men and its commanding officer would receive money from the budget to pay for their food, but in fact there were only two hundred men in the barracks so he could pocket the difference. In some cases there were 'ghost battalions' that didn't exist at all but were being paid for just the same."

Only in fantasies like J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings do ghost battalions make a difference on the battlefield. Systemic graft and rampant corruption can be papered over in parliament, but not when bullets fly and blood flows, as events in June proved.

Such corruption is hardly new (or news). Back in 2005, in his article "Why Iraq Has No Army," James Fallows noted that Iraqi weapons contracts valued at $1.3 billion shed $500 million for "payoffs, kickbacks, and fraud." In the same year, Eliot Weinberger, writing in the London Review of Books, cited Sabah Hadum, spokesman for the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior, as admitting, "We are paying about 135,000 [troop salaries], but that does not necessarily mean that 135,000 are actually working." Already Weinberger saw evidence of up to 50,000 "ghost soldiers" or "invented names whose pay is collected by [Iraqi] officers or bureaucrats."  U.S. government hype to the contrary, little changed between initial training efforts in 2005 and the present day, as Kelley Vlahos noted recently in her article "The Iraqi Army Never Was."

4. American ignorance of Iraqi culture and a widespread contempt for Iraqis compromised training results.  Such ignorance was reflected in the commonplace use by U.S. troops of the term "hajji," an honorific reserved for those who have made the journey (or hajj) to Mecca, for any Iraqi male; contempt in the use of terms such as "raghead," in indiscriminate firing and overly aggressive behavior, and most notoriously in the events at Abu Ghraib prison.  As Douglas Macgregor, a retired Army colonel, noted in December 2004, American generals and politicians "did not think through the consequences of compelling American soldiers with no knowledge of Arabic or Arab culture to implement intrusive measures inside an Islamic society.  We arrested people in front of their families, dragging them away in handcuffs with bags over their heads, and then provided no information to the families of those we incarcerated.  In the end, our soldiers killed, maimed, and incarcerated thousands of Arabs, 90 percent of whom were not the enemy.  But they are now."

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on October 28, 2014, 05:10:05 PM

Now, I'm learning to believe everything Cain and Junk write.

Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 28, 2014, 05:27:40 PM

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on October 28, 2014, 05:10:05 PM

Now, I'm learning to believe everything Cain and Junk write.

This is the only place I get my news anymore.

Quote from: Cain on October 29, 2014, 07:46:55 AM
Er, I've gotten plenty wrong in this thread, to be honest.  I didn't expect the Saudis to kick ISIS to the curb quite so fast, or Qatar to, well, not.

Quote from: Sexy St. Nigel on October 29, 2014, 02:51:12 AM

Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 28, 2014, 05:27:40 PM

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on October 28, 2014, 05:10:05 PM

Now, I'm learning to believe everything Cain and Junk write.

This is the only place I get my news anymore.

:lulz: me too. Seriously, I don't even bother looking elsewhere. Although I have to choose wisely when I decide whether to read Junk's posts because sometimes that shit is too disturbing.

QuoteRecent statements by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, and an alleged new group called the "Soldiers of the Caliphate in the Land of Egypt" has given rise to speculation that ISIS may be seeking to expand beyond Iraq and Syria into new territories such as Egypt. This fear is compounded by the recent arrest of an individual at the Cairo airport, allegedly seeking to travel to Syria for training with ISIS. He is also accused of recruiting Egyptians to train in Syria for the purpose of returning to Egypt to carry out attacks against security forces. It is possible that Egyptian authorities are falsely associating individuals or groups with ISIS in an attempt to legitimize harsh security measures. At this time it does not appear that ISIS is operating in Egypt or actively seeking to gain an operational footprint there, although recent events suggest viable routes for expansion by the Islamic State should it choose to pursue them. - f

QuoteA former member of ISIS has revealed the extent to which the cooperation of the Turkish military and border forces allows the terrorist group, who now control large parts of Iraq and Syria, to travel through Turkish territory to reinforce fighters battling Kurdish forces.

A reluctant former communications technician working for Islamic State, going by the pseudonym 'Sherko Omer', who managed to escape the group, told Newsweek that he travelled in a convoy of trucks as part of an ISIS unit from their stronghold in Raqqa, across Turkish border, through Turkey and then back across the border to attack Syrian Kurds in the city of Serekaniye in northern Syria in February, in order to bypass their defences.

"ISIS commanders told us to fear nothing at all because there was full cooperation with the Turks," said Omer of crossing the border into Turkey, "and they reassured us that nothing will happen, especially when that is how they regularly travel from Raqqa and Aleppo to the Kurdish areas further northeast of Syria because it was impossible to travel through Syria as YPG controlled most parts of the Kurdish region."

Quote from: Sexy St. Nigel on November 09, 2014, 03:55:02 PM
But Cain, Turkey is perfect and beautiful and there is no corruption there.

Quote from: Doktor Howl on November 10, 2014, 12:27:05 AM

Quote from: Sexy St. Nigel on November 09, 2014, 03:55:02 PM
But Cain, Turkey is perfect and beautiful and there is no corruption there.

And it's way more free than America.

Unless you wish to say unkind things about the government or the founding father.  Then grab your ass.

Interestingly enough, both Rat and Purple Eris loved Turkey so much, they moved to England.

QuoteUS air strikes in Syria are encouraging anti-regime fighters to forge alliances with or even defect to Islamic State (Isis), according to a series of interviews conducted by the Guardian.

Fighters from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and Islamic military groups are joining forces with Isis, which has gained control of swaths of Syria and Iraq and has beheaded six western hostages in the past few months.

Some brigades have transferred their allegiance, while others are forming tactical alliances or truces. Support among civilians also appears to be growing in some areas as a result of resentment over US-led military action.

"Isis now is like a magnet that attracts large numbers of Muslims," said Abu Talha, who defected from the FSA a few months ago and is now in negotiations with other fighters from groups such as the al-Nusra Front to follow suit.

QuoteThe United States plans to buy arms for Sunni tribesmen in Iraq including AK-47s, rocket-propelled grenades and mortar rounds to help bolster the battle against Islamic State militants in Anbar province, according to a Pentagon document prepared for Congress.

The plan to spend $24.1 million represents a small fraction of the larger, $1.6 billion spending request to Congress focusing on training and arming Iraqi and Kurdish forces.

But the document underscored the importance the Pentagon places on the Sunni tribesmen to its overall strategy to diminish Islamic State, and cautioned Congress about the consequences of failing to assist them.

QuotePentagon officials stopped short of confirming reports that a key Iraqi city is close to falling to the self-proclaimed Islamic State.

If the city of Ramadi was truly in danger on being overrun by ISIS, it would be a devastating setback to those hoping that the terror group has been thrown back on its heels.

But some Pentagon officials were skeptical.

"As of yesterday, Ramadi was not about to fall," a defense official explained to The Daily Beast.

And at U.S. Central Command, which leads the American military effort in the region, said they had no indications that there had been an immediate change in the security situation in Ramadi.

Residents reportedly told local reporters Wednesday that ISIS had claimed the villages of Sjariyah, Albu-Ghanim and Soufiya, in Iraq's restive Anbar province. Those villages lead to Ramadi, the capital of the province. There were several tweets from locals suggesting that Ramadi was about to fall.

Reports that Ramadi is about to fall comes as the Iraqi government is take the campaign against ISIS to the Sunni-dominated Anbar province.  ISIS has been pressing onto Ramadi for nearly a year.

On Monday, Pentagon officials said that Iraqi forces, backed by U.S.-led coalition air strikes, had reclaimed 25 percent of Iraqi territory from ISIS since June 2014, when the group took Mosul, Iraq's second largest city.  And earlier this month, Iraqi officials said they had regained control of the Sunni central city of Tikrit from ISIS. The campaign, which Iraqi launched without American help, faltered until U.S.-led coalition air strikes began.

QuoteIslamic State militants have seized the main government building in Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's largest province.

As many as six suicide car bombs and mortars were used in the assault on the compound that houses the main police HQ and governor's office.

At least 50 police officers are reported to have been taken prisoner at the site.

IS and Iraqi troops have been battling for months to take control of the strategically important Anbar province.

Quote from: Cain on May 21, 2015, 05:43:34 PM
Yeah.  While of course, those same borders hamper US efforts to fight ISIS.

Quote from: Cain on May 21, 2015, 05:43:34 PM
Yeah.  While of course, those same borders hamper US efforts to fight ISIS.

I'm also amused at the failure of the nonstop news cycle to realise that ISIS are fighting an insurgent war, and thus will not play to their timetable.  Go back a few months, and you'll see more than a few writers prophesying the decline and death of Islamic State, how they were on the defensive and failing to hold territory.

They don't fucking get it.  ISIS is Al-Qaeda in Iraq.  It took a beating from the US and Awakening Councils, it retreated into the Iraqi desert and licked its wounds before striking again.  It took Fallujah, then feigned weakness while building up sufficient forces for the Mosul offensive last summer.  And here, yet again, they fell back, adapted their tactics and struck where their enemies were weak.  Because they're insurgents.

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on May 21, 2015, 06:20:50 PM

Quote from: Cain on May 21, 2015, 05:43:34 PM
Yeah.  While of course, those same borders hamper US efforts to fight ISIS.

I'm also amused at the failure of the nonstop news cycle to realise that ISIS are fighting an insurgent war, and thus will not play to their timetable.  Go back a few months, and you'll see more than a few writers prophesying the decline and death of Islamic State, how they were on the defensive and failing to hold territory.

They don't fucking get it.  ISIS is Al-Qaeda in Iraq.  It took a beating from the US and Awakening Councils, it retreated into the Iraqi desert and licked its wounds before striking again.  It took Fallujah, then feigned weakness while building up sufficient forces for the Mosul offensive last summer.  And here, yet again, they fell back, adapted their tactics and struck where their enemies were weak.  Because they're insurgents.

Is there some financial interest involved why no reporter/"expert" mentions this?

Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 21, 2015, 06:17:23 PM

Quote from: Cain on May 21, 2015, 05:43:34 PM
Yeah.  While of course, those same borders hamper US efforts to fight ISIS.

The US and our allies & client states have never been good at recognizing when the rules have changed.

Quote from: Cain on May 22, 2015, 03:26:49 PM

Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 21, 2015, 06:17:23 PM

Quote from: Cain on May 21, 2015, 05:43:34 PM
Yeah.  While of course, those same borders hamper US efforts to fight ISIS.

The US and our allies & client states have never been good at recognizing when the rules have changed.

One of the benefits of hegemony.  Being at the top means your own stupidity may not actually destroy you.

Well, up until the point it does, of course.

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on May 21, 2015, 06:20:50 PM

Quote from: Cain on May 21, 2015, 05:43:34 PM
Yeah.  While of course, those same borders hamper US efforts to fight ISIS.

I'm also amused at the failure of the nonstop news cycle to realise that ISIS are fighting an insurgent war, and thus will not play to their timetable.  Go back a few months, and you'll see more than a few writers prophesying the decline and death of Islamic State, how they were on the defensive and failing to hold territory.

They don't fucking get it.  ISIS is Al-Qaeda in Iraq.  It took a beating from the US and Awakening Councils, it retreated into the Iraqi desert and licked its wounds before striking again.  It took Fallujah, then feigned weakness while building up sufficient forces for the Mosul offensive last summer.  And here, yet again, they fell back, adapted their tactics and struck where their enemies were weak.  Because they're insurgents.

Is there some financial interest involved why no reporter/"expert" mentions this?

QuoteTurkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has suggested he and the US are ready to drive so-called Islamic State (IS) from its Syrian stronghold of Raqqa.

Mr Erdogan said US counterpart Barack Obama floated the idea of joint action against the militants when they met at the G20 summit in China.

He said Turkey would have "no problem" with such action.

Last month Turkey launched an operation inside Syria, targeting both IS and Kurdish rebels.