Pax-salon Mailing List: Fwd: Articles and intelligence analysis on Syria

[Patty Guerrero (pattypax]

for anyone interested in what is happening re. syria.   you can click on the 
web sites, or just read the notes on them in this.  But, call your 
representatives.  Thanks, patty

Begin forwarded message:

> 
> 
> At Coleen Rowley's request I'm sending this email with info and links. She 
> points out that the vote on an attack on Syria is coming up very soon, 
> possibly Monday.   
> 
> I hope you agree on these points and will contact your US Representatives and 
> Senators asking them not to making any military action in Syria, not, at the 
> very least, without the use of the War Powers that Congress must regain from 
> the Executive Branch, and rejecting the AUMF.
> 
> If you are currently in favor of such an attack, I hope these materials 
> change your mind.  If they don't change your mind, I hope they begin to 
> deepen your understanding, as they did for me, of the complexities of the 
> situation and the range of possible results if we went ahead with military 
> action that likely would be part of the US's next many years and possibly 
> significantly shape our legacy to the next generation(s).  
> 
> Tom
>  (NOTE: her first email, at the bottom, is to Jamie Long, an aide to Rep. 
> Keith Ellison, MN-5, Democrat, my Congressperson.)
> 
> Begin forwarded message:
> 
>> From: "rowleyclan [at] earthlink.net" <rowleyclan [at] earthlink.net>
>> Subject: Re: Articles and intelligence analysis on Syria
>> Date: September 4, 2013 11:59:26 AM CDT
>> To: Thomas Dickinson <tgd108 [at] usiwireless.com>
>> Reply-To: "rowleyclan [at] earthlink.net" <rowleyclan [at] earthlink.net>
>> 
>> Thanks for the Polk article---he was a colleague of George McGovern who went 
>> with him, before he died, to try to warn Obama about bombing of Libya but 
>> Obama refused to even talk to them---with McGovern being the former head of 
>> Democratic party and Presidential candidate!  So that tells you how things 
>> have changed for the worse.  We are watching the banality of evil.  
>> 
>> We only have a few days before they will vote---as soon as Monday.  Franken, 
>> Ellison (and probably Klobuchar although her staffers said she's still 
>> undecided--as that is her sneaky political M.O.) will authorize Obama's war. 
>>  So far Nolan, Peterson, Bachmann and Paulsen say they are against.  Kline 
>> is always for war, any war.   Walz and McCollum are giving mixed signals and 
>> seem to be up in the air.  Please send out this info to as many people as 
>> you can to get them to contact their own congresspersons and Senators.  
>> Especially those in McCollum's and Walz's districts.  We are being lied into 
>> it again, and it just gets worse and worse in terms of potential 
>> consequences.   Coleen
>>  
>>  
>> 
>> -----Original Message----- 
>> From: Thomas Dickinson 
>> Sent: Sep 4, 2013 11:44 AM 
>> To: "rowleyclan [at] earthlink.net" 
>> Subject: Re: Articles and intelligence analysis on Syria 
>> 
>> Dear Coleen, 
>> 
>> Thanks for including me in the bcc of this and thanks for talking to 
>> Ellison! Yikes!
>> 
>> Maybe this would be useful, too. I really liked this article at 
>> consortiumnews.org (William R Polk) for the way it helped me see some 
>> history and give a better notion of the complexity of the situation:
>> 
>> consortiumnews.com/2013/09/03/understanding-the-syrian-civil-war/
>> 
>> I read a good article on this by Phyllis Bennis at commondreams.org, but I 
>> think your talking points from her are faster and more succinct.
>> 
>> Tom
>> 
> 
>  First email, from Coleen Rowley: 
>>>> Dear Jamie Long:  
>>>> 
>>>> Several of us talked to Keith Ellison last evening about his pro-war 
>>>> stance on Syria.  He indicated that he trusts the statements being made by 
>>>> John Kerry and others in the Obama Administration as well as from 
>>>> supporters of the "Free Syrian Army".  
>>>> 
>>>> We asked if he would just read some articles and intelligence analysis 
>>>> that contradicts these official statements and Syrian rebel side' 
>>>> propaganda. So I'm furnishing the following list just as a first 
>>>> installment.  There is much more and I will send them as I spot them in 
>>>> the next few days before Keith has to vote whether to authorize war on 
>>>> Syria or vote against such a war.  
>>>> 
>>>> Much of the intelligence---in fact the dozens of analysts who are writing 
>>>> now--do disagree about some details of the evidence that has been adduced 
>>>> (although they agree it's flimsy at best and way too hasty) but they 
>>>> really don't disagree that nothing beneficial can be accomplished by 
>>>> bombing Syria---committing a war crime under the pretense of "punishing" a 
>>>> war crime doesn't make sense.  Their predictions range from bad to 
>>>> devastating in terms of consequences, not only for the Syrian people (and 
>>>> other people of the Mid-east if the war spreads as a result), but also for 
>>>> the American people.  
>>>> 
>>>> One of the consequences is that the bombing of Assad's forces will tip the 
>>>> balance in favor of the Al Qaeda-aligned (Al Nusra and others) who are now 
>>>> dominating the fighting in the civil war.  So the proposed U.S. bombing of 
>>>> Syria would help Al Qaeda.  There might be a secondary plan of bombing the 
>>>> Wahabi foreign fighters and Sunni extremists many of whom are aligned with 
>>>> Al Qaeda, in addition to the Shiite forces loyal to Assad, but then, of 
>>>> course, that means much more than a "limited strike" and it does risk 
>>>> spreading the violence to the entire Mid-east.  Keith did not seem aware 
>>>> of the dangers of bombing Syria at all.  He seemed to be blindly accepting 
>>>> what he's been told by the Administration.
>>>> 
>>>> So thanks for reading and passing this information along to the 
>>>> Congressman and I will try to keep sending information as I spot it.  
>>>> Right now the pretexts for war on Syria are in the same league as Bush's 
>>>> concocted rationale for invading Iraq.  Nothing good can come from the 
>>>> U.S' committing of a war crime---launching another illegal war of 
>>>> aggression without U.N. approval---by alleging it's to "punish" a 
>>>> different war crime cannot possible serve any beneficial purpose.     
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> http://masspeaceaction.org/3613    (Talking Points Prepared by Phyllis 
>>>> Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies)
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> US general says Syria action could be 'more substantial than thought'
>>>> 
>>>> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10282697/US-general-says-Syria-action-could-be-more-substantial-than-thought.html
>>>>  
>>>> [A former US army chief has claimed that Barack Obama is eyeing 
>>>> intervention in Syria that would go beyond a mere deterrent against 
>>>> chemical weapons to damage the military capacity of the Assad regime.]
>>>> Bashar al-Assad and Barack Obama Photo: EPA
>>>> 
>>>> 9:59AM BST 03 Sep 2013
>>>> 
>>>> General Jack Keane, a former vice chief of staff of the US Army, told BBC 
>>>> Radio 4 that he had spoken to senior Republican senators who had been 
>>>> briefed by the US president on Monday, and had been assured that Mr Obama 
>>>> planned to do significant damage to the forces of Bashar al-Assad. 
>>>> 
>>>> The Obama administration has previously said that military strikes would 
>>>> not be aimed at toppling Assad's government nor altering the balance of 
>>>> the conflict. Instead, the White House has suggested, they would be 
>>>> intended to punish Assad for the alleged gas attack in Damascus on Aug 21 
>>>> and to reinstate Washington's "red line" against the use of chemical 
>>>> weapons. 
>>>> 
>>>> But Gen. Keane said he understood Mr Obama was planning a more substantial 
>>>> intervention in Syria than had previously been thought, with increased 
>>>> support for the opposition forces, including training from US troops. 
>>>> 
>>>> He said the plans could involve "much more substance than we were led to 
>>>> believe". 
>>>> 
>>>> After speaking to Republican senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who 
>>>> attended the briefing with Mr Obama, Gen. Keane said: "What he won't do is 
>>>> topple the regime. There's a distinction here. 
>>>> 
>>>> "What he has told the two senators is that he also intends to assist the 
>>>> opposition forces, so he is going to degrade Assad's military capacity and 
>>>> he is going to assist and upgrade the opposition forces with training 
>>>> assistance." 
>>>> 
>>>> Gen. Keane said any training would probably be done in neighbouring Jordan 
>>>> rather than in Syria itself. 
>>>> 
>>>> The US general, who retired in 2003, attributed Mr Obama's surprise 
>>>> decision to seek congressional support for intervention to David Cameron's 
>>>> "humiliating defeat" in the Commons. 
>>>> 
>>>> He said the US would "much rather" have British backing for any strikes 
>>>> against Bashar Assad's regime. 
>>>> 
>>>> Gen. Keane explained: "We operate side by side with the UK and we know who 
>>>> our closest ally is. We certainly would much rather do this with the UK 
>>>> side by side, that's how the military feels, I really think the leaders of 
>>>> the country feel. 
>>>> 
>>>> "I think, if I may use some rich language here, the humiliating defeat the 
>>>> Prime Minister suffered in Parliament, I can only surmise was stunning to 
>>>> the President and I think it impacted on him. 
>>>> 
>>>> "I think that's one of the motivations that introduced what I call 
>>>> palpable fear and one of the reasons why he is seeking political cover 
>>>> himself." 
>>>> 
>>>>  
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> To some, US case for Syrian gas attack, strike has too many holes
>>>> [John Kerry]
>>>> 
>>>> Secretary of State John Kerry making a statement about Syria at the State 
>>>> Department in Washington, August 30, 2013 | Charles Dharapak/AP
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> By Hannah Allam and Mark Seibel | McClatchy Washington Bureau
>>>> By Hannah Allam and Mark Seibel McClatchy Newspapers 
>>>> 
>>>> WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s public case for attacking Syria is 
>>>> riddled with inconsistencies and hinges mainly on circumstantial evidence, 
>>>> undermining U.S. efforts this week to build support at home and abroad for 
>>>> a punitive strike against Bashar Assad’s regime. 
>>>> 
>>>> The case Secretary of State John Kerry laid out last Friday contained 
>>>> claims that were disputed by the United Nations, inconsistent in some 
>>>> details with British and French intelligence reports or lacking sufficient 
>>>> transparency for international chemical weapons experts to accept at face 
>>>> value. 
>>>> 
>>>> After the false weapons claims preceding the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, 
>>>> the threshold for evidence to support intervention is exceedingly high. 
>>>> And while there’s little dispute that a chemical agent was used in an Aug. 
>>>> 21 attack outside of Damascus – and probably on a smaller scale before 
>>>> that – there are calls from many quarters for independent, scientific 
>>>> evidence to support the U.S. narrative that the Assad regime used sarin 
>>>> gas in an operation that killed 1,429 people, including more than 400 
>>>> children. 
>>>> 
>>>> Some of the U.S. points in question:
>>>> 
>>>> The Obama administration dismissed the value of a U.N. inspection team’s 
>>>> work by saying that the investigators arrived too late for the findings to 
>>>> be credible and wouldn’t provide any information the United State didn’t 
>>>> already have.
>>>> 
>>>> U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq countered that it was “rare” for such an 
>>>> investigation to begin within such a short time and said that “the passage 
>>>> of such few days does not affect the opportunities to collect valuable 
>>>> samples,” according to the U.N.’s website. For example, Haq added, sarin 
>>>> can be detected in biomedical samples for months after its use.
>>>> 
>>>> The U.S. claims that sarin was used in the Aug. 21 attack, citing a 
>>>> positive test on first responders’ hair and blood – samples “that were 
>>>> provided to the United States,” Kerry said on television Sunday without 
>>>> elaboration on the collection methods.
>>>> 
>>>> Experts say the evidence deteriorates over time, but that it’s simply 
>>>> untrue that there wouldn’t be any value in an investigation five days 
>>>> after an alleged attack. As a New York Times report noted, two human 
>>>> rights groups dispatched a forensics team to northern Iraq in 1992 and 
>>>> found trace evidence of sarin as well as mustard gas – four years after a 
>>>> chemical attack.
>>>> 
>>>> The U.S. assertion also was disputed in an intelligence summary the 
>>>> British government made public last week. "There is no immediate time 
>>>> limit over which environmental or physiological samples would have 
>>>> degraded beyond usefulness," according to the report, which was 
>>>> distributed to Parliament ahead of its vote not to permit Britain to 
>>>> participate in any strike.
>>>> 
>>>> Another point of dispute is the death toll from the alleged attacks on 
>>>> Aug. 21. Neither Kerry’s remarks nor the unclassified version of the U.S. 
>>>> intelligence he referenced explained how the U.S. reached a tally of 
>>>> 1,429, including 426 children. The only attribution was “a preliminary 
>>>> government assessment.”
>>>> 
>>>> Anthony Cordesman, a former senior defense official who’s now with the 
>>>> Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, took aim 
>>>> at the death toll discrepancies in an essay published Sunday.
>>>> 
>>>> He criticized Kerry as being “sandbagged into using an absurdly 
>>>> over-precise number” of 1,429, and noted that the number didn’t agree with 
>>>> either the British assessment of “at least 350 fatalities” or other Syrian 
>>>> opposition sources, namely the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which 
>>>> has confirmed 502 dead, including about 100 children and "tens" of rebel 
>>>> fighters, and has demanded that Kerry provide the names of the victims 
>>>> included in the U.S. tally.
>>>> 
>>>> “President Obama was then forced to round off the number at ‘well over 
>>>> 1,000 people’ – creating a mix of contradictions over the most basic 
>>>> facts,” Cordesman wrote. He added that the blunder was reminiscent of “the 
>>>> mistakes the U.S. made in preparing Secretary (Colin) Powell’s speech to 
>>>> the U.N. on Iraq in 2003.”
>>>> 
>>>> An unclassified version of a French intelligence report on Syria that was 
>>>> released Monday hardly cleared things up; France confirmed only 281 
>>>> fatalities, though it more broadly agreed with the United States that the 
>>>> regime had used chemical weapons in the Aug. 21 attack.
>>>> 
>>>> Another eyebrow-raising administration claim was that U.S. intelligence 
>>>> had “collected streams of human, signals and geospatial intelligence” that 
>>>> showed the regime preparing for an attack three days before the event. The 
>>>> U.S. assessment says regime personnel were in an area known to be used to 
>>>> “mix chemical weapons, including sarin,” and that regime forces prepared 
>>>> for the Aug. 21 attack by putting on gas masks.
>>>> 
>>>> That claim raises two questions: Why didn’t the U.S. warn rebels about the 
>>>> impending attack and save hundreds of lives? And why did the 
>>>> administration keep mum about the suspicious activity when on at least one 
>>>> previous occasion U.S. officials have raised an international fuss when 
>>>> they observed similar actions?
>>>> 
>>>> On Dec. 3, 2012, after U.S. officials said they detected Syria mixing 
>>>> ingredients for chemical weapons, President Barack Obama repeated his 
>>>> warning to Assad that the use of such arms would be an unacceptable breach 
>>>> of the red line he’d imposed that summer. Then-Secretary of State Hillary 
>>>> Clinton chimed in, and the United Nations withdrew all nonessential staff 
>>>> from Syria.
>>>> 
>>>> Last month’s suspicious activity, however, wasn’t raised publicly until 
>>>> after the deadly attack. And Syrian opposition figures say the rebels 
>>>> weren’t warned in advance in order to protect civilians in the area.
>>>> 
>>>> “When I read the administration’s memo, it was very compelling, but they 
>>>> knew three days before the attack and never alerted anyone in the area,” 
>>>> said Radwan Ziadeh, a Syrian opposition activist who runs the 
>>>> Washington-based Syrian Center for Political and Strategic Studies. 
>>>> “Everyone was watching this evidence but didn’t take any action?”
>>>> 
>>>> Among chemical weapons experts and other analysts who’ve closely studied 
>>>> the Syrian battlefield, the main reservation about the U.S. claims is that 
>>>> there’s no understanding of the methodology behind the 
>>>> intelligence-gathering. They say that the evidence presented points to the 
>>>> use of some type of chemical agent, but say that there are still questions 
>>>> as to how the evidence was collected, the integrity of the chain of 
>>>> custody of such samples, and which laboratories were involved.
>>>> 
>>>> Eliot Higgins, a British chronicler of the Syrian civil war who writes the 
>>>> Brown Moses blog, a widely cited repository of information on the weapons 
>>>> observed on the Syrian battlefield, wrote a detailed post Monday listing 
>>>> photographs and videos that would seem to support U.S. claims that the 
>>>> Assad regime has possession of munitions that could be used to deliver 
>>>> chemical weapons. But he wouldn’t make the leap. 
>>>> 
>>>> On the blog, Higgins asked: “How do we know these are chemical weapons? 
>>>> That’s the thing, we don’t. As I’ve said all along, these are munitions 
>>>> linked to alleged chemical attacks, not chemical munitions used in 
>>>> chemical attacks. It’s ultimately up to the U.N. to confirm if chemical 
>>>> weapons were used.”
>>>> 
>>>> Holes in the case already have allowed Russia to dismiss the U.S. evidence 
>>>> as “inconclusive,” with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov saying in a speech 
>>>> Monday that Moscow was shown “some sketches, but there was nothing 
>>>> concrete, no geographical coordinates, or details…and no proof the test 
>>>> was done by professionals,” according to the state-backed RT news agency.
>>>> 
>>>> “When we ask for further clarification, we receive the following response: 
>>>> ‘you are aware that this is classified information, therefore we cannot 
>>>> show it to you,’” Lavrov said. “So there are still no facts.”
>>>> 
>>>> Lavrov’s remarks signaled that Russia, one of the last Assad allies, was 
>>>> nowhere near being convinced enough stop its repeated blocking of U.N. 
>>>> Security Council resolutions targeting the regime. 
>>>> 
>>>> But there’s also skepticism among U.S.-friendly nations, such as Jordan, 
>>>> which declined to endorse action until it studies the findings of a U.N. 
>>>> chemical weapons investigation, and the United Kingdom, where Parliament 
>>>> voted against intervention even before the U.S. released an intelligence 
>>>> assessment that contradicted one released a day before by British 
>>>> authorities.
>>>> 
>>>> It’s unclear how much a factor the evidence was in Parliament’s decisions; 
>>>> there’s also a high degree of wariness of any U.S.-led intervention after 
>>>> the Iraq experience.
>>>> 
>>>> The U.S. did get a boost Monday from the commander of NATO, Anders Fogh 
>>>> Rasmussen, who told a news conference he’d seen “concrete information” 
>>>> that convinced him of the Assad regime’s responsibility for an apparent 
>>>> chemical attack that killed hundreds of people in August.
>>>> 
>>>> Rasmussen said it would send a “dangerous signal to dictators” if the 
>>>> world didn’t respond, but he left it up to NATO nations to decide their 
>>>> own responses and didn’t advocate action beyond protecting member state 
>>>> Turkey, which borders Syria.
>>>> 
>>>> U.S. allies across the Arab world and Europe have said they prefer 
>>>> delaying any potential military strikes until after the U.N. inspection 
>>>> team releases its findings. The U.N. mandate is to determine whether 
>>>> chemical weapons were used, but not to assign culpability. U.N. officials 
>>>> have said they’re trying to expedite the inspection team’s work while 
>>>> protecting the integrity of the process.
>>>> 
>>>> Jonathan Landay in Amman, Jordan, Matthew Schofield in Berlin and Special 
>>>> Correspondent Mitchell Prothero in Beirut contributed to this report.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Read more here: 
>>>> http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/09/02/201027/to-some-us-case-for-syrian-gas.html#.UiZCdyIo6Ul#storylink=cpy
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Gareth Porter:  
>>>> http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/18559-how-intelligence-was-twisted-to-support-an-attack-on-syria
>>>>  
>>>> 
>>>>