Catherina
Catherina's JournalVatican: 100,000 answer pope’s call, fill St. Peter’s Square for Syria peace vigil
Vatican: 100,000 answer popes call, fill St. Peters Square for Syria peace vigil
VATICAN CITY Tens of thousands of people filled St. Peters Square for a four-hour Syria peace vigil late Saturday, answering Pope Francis call for a grassroots cry for peace that was echoed by Christians and non-Christians alike in Syria and in vigils around the world.
The Vatican estimated about 100,000 took part, making it one of the largest rallies in the West against proposed U.S.-led military action against the Syrian regime following the Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack near Damascus.
Francis spent most of the vigil in silent prayer, but during his speech he issued a heartfelt plea for peace, denouncing those who are captivated by the idols of dominion and power and destroy Gods creation through war.
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Vatican officials have stressed that Saturdays event was thoroughly religious, not political. But the gathering nevertheless took on the air of an anti-war rally, with protesters holding up Syrian flags and banners in the square reading Dont attack Syria and Obama you dont have a dream, you have a nightmare. A few rainbow Peace flags fluttered in the breeze.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/tens-of-thousands-answer-popes-call-fill-st-peters-for-syria-peace-vigil/2013/09/07/03d0accc-17e3-11e3-961c-f22d3aaf19ab_story.html
Edit: Live video
On Syria Vote, Trust, but Verify - By Alan Grayson
On Syria Vote, Trust, but Verify
By ALAN GRAYSON
September 6, 2013
WASHINGTON THE documentary record regarding an attack on Syria consists of just two papers: a four-page unclassified summary and a 12-page classified summary. The first enumerates only the evidence in favor of an attack. Im not allowed to tell you whats in the classified summary, but you can draw your own conclusion.
On Thursday I asked the House Intelligence Committee staff whether there was any other documentation available, classified or unclassified. Their answer was no.
The Syria chemical weapons summaries are based on several hundred underlying elements of intelligence information. The unclassified summary cites intercepted telephone calls, social media postings and the like, but not one of these is actually quoted or attached not even clips from YouTube. (As to whether the classified summary is the same, I couldnt possibly comment, but again, draw your own conclusion.)
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The danger of the administrations approach was illustrated by a widely read report last week in The Daily Caller, which claimed that the Obama administration had selectively used intelligence to justify military strikes in Syria, with one report doctored so that it leads a reader to just the opposite conclusion reached by the original report.
The allegedly doctored report attributes the attack to the Syrian general staff. But according to The Daily Caller, it was clear that the Syrian general staff were out of their minds with panic that an unauthorized strike had been launched by the 155th Brigade in express defiance of their instructions.
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We have reached the point where the classified information system prevents even trusted members of Congress, who have security clearances, from learning essential facts, and then inhibits them from discussing and debating what they do know. And this extends to matters of war and peace, money and blood. The security state is drowning in its own phlegm.
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Alan Grayson, a Democratic representative from Florida, is a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/09/07/opinion/on-syria-vote-trust-but-verify.html
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Attended another classified briefing on #Syria & reviewed add'l materials. Now more skeptical than ever. Can't believe Pres is pushing war.
If Americans could read classified docs, they'd be even more against #Syria action. Obama admn's public statements are misleading at best.
U.S. Military and Intelligence Officials to Obama: “Assad NOT Responsible for Chemical Attack”
Exclusive: Despite the Obama administrations supposedly high confidence regarding Syrian government guilt over the Aug. 21 chemical attack near Damascus, a dozen former U.S. military and intelligence officials are telling President Obama that they are picking up information that undercuts the Official Story.
MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Is Syria a Trap?
Precedence: IMMEDIATE
We regret to inform you that some of our former co-workers are telling us, categorically, that contrary to the claims of your administration, the most reliable intelligence shows that Bashar al-Assad was NOT responsible for the chemical incident that killed and injured Syrian civilians on August 21, and that British intelligence officials also know this. In writing this brief report, we choose to assume that you have not been fully informed because your advisers decided to afford you the opportunity for what is commonly known as plausible denial.
We have been down this road before with President George W. Bush, to whom we addressed our first VIPS memorandum immediately after Colin Powells Feb. 5, 2003 U.N. speech, in which he peddled fraudulent intelligence to support attacking Iraq. Then, also, we chose to give President Bush the benefit of the doubt, thinking he was being misled or, at the least, very poorly advised.
The fraudulent nature of Powells speech was a no-brainer. And so, that very afternoon we strongly urged your predecessor to widen the discussion beyond
the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic. We offer you the same advice today.
Our sources confirm that a chemical incident of some sort did cause fatalities and injuries on August 21 in a suburb of Damascus. They insist, however, that the incident was not the result of an attack by the Syrian Army using military-grade chemical weapons from its arsenal. That is the most salient fact, according to CIA officers working on the Syria issue. They tell us that CIA Director John Brennan is perpetrating a pre-Iraq-War-type fraud on members of Congress, the media, the public and perhaps even you.
We have observed John Brennan closely over recent years and, sadly, we find what our former colleagues are now telling us easy to believe. Sadder still, this goes in spades for those of us who have worked with him personally; we give him zero credence. And that goes, as well, for his titular boss, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who has admitted he gave clearly erroneous sworn testimony to Congress denying NSA eavesdropping on Americans.
Intelligence Summary or Political Ploy?
That Secretary of State John Kerry would invoke Clappers name this week in Congressional testimony, in an apparent attempt to enhance the credibility of the four-page Government Assessment strikes us as odd. The more so, since it was, for some unexplained reason, not Clapper but the White House that released the assessment.
This is not a fine point. We know how these things are done. Although the Government Assessment is being sold to the media as an intelligence summary, it is a political, not an intelligence document. The drafters, massagers, and fixers avoided presenting essential detail. Moreover, they conceded upfront that, though they pinned high confidence on the assessment, it still fell short of confirmation.
Déjà Fraud: This brings a flashback to the famous Downing Street Minutes of July 23, 2002, on Iraq, The minutes record the Richard Dearlove, then head of British intelligence, reporting to Prime Minister Tony Blair and other senior officials that President Bush had decided to remove Saddam Hussein through military action that would be justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. Dearlove had gotten the word from then-CIA Director George Tenet whom he visited at CIA headquarters on July 20.
The discussion that followed centered on the ephemeral nature of the evidence, prompting Dearlove to explain: But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. We are concerned that this is precisely what has happened with the intelligence on Syria.
The Intelligence
There is a growing body of evidence from numerous sources in the Middle East mostly affiliated with the Syrian opposition and its supporters providing a strong circumstantial case that the August 21 chemical incident was a pre-planned provocation by the Syrian opposition and its Saudi and Turkish supporters. The aim is reported to have been to create the kind of incident that would bring the United States into the war.
According to some reports, canisters containing chemical agent were brought into a suburb of Damascus, where they were then opened. Some people in the immediate vicinity died; others were injured.
We are unaware of any reliable evidence that a Syrian military rocket capable of carrying a chemical agent was fired into the area. In fact, we are aware of no reliable physical evidence to support the claim that this was a result of a strike by a Syrian military unit with expertise in chemical weapons.
In addition, we have learned that on August 13-14, 2013, Western-sponsored opposition forces in Turkey started advance preparations for a major, irregular military surge. Initial meetings between senior opposition military commanders and Qatari, Turkish and U.S. intelligence officials took place at the converted Turkish military garrison in Antakya, Hatay Province, now used as the command center and headquarters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and their foreign sponsors.
Senior opposition commanders who came from Istanbul pre-briefed the regional commanders on an imminent escalation in the fighting due to a war-changing development, which, in turn, would lead to a U.S.-led bombing of Syria.
At operations coordinating meetings at Antakya, attended by senior Turkish, Qatari and U.S. intelligence officials as well as senior commanders of the Syrian opposition, the Syrians were told that the bombing would start in a few days. Opposition leaders were ordered to prepare their forces quickly to exploit the U.S. bombing, march into Damascus, and remove the Bashar al-Assad government
The Qatari and Turkish intelligence officials assured the Syrian regional commanders that they would be provided with plenty of weapons for the coming offensive. And they were. A weapons distribution operation unprecedented in scope began in all opposition camps on August 21-23. The weapons were distributed from storehouses controlled by Qatari and Turkish intelligence under the tight supervision of U.S. intelligence officers.
Cui bono?
That the various groups trying to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have ample incentive to get the U.S. more deeply involved in support of that effort is clear. Until now, it has not been quite as clear that the Netanyahu government in Israel has equally powerful incentive to get Washington more deeply engaged in yet another war in the area. But with outspoken urging coming from Israel and those Americans who lobby for Israeli interests, this priority Israeli objective is becoming crystal clear.
Reporter Judi Rudoren, writing from Jerusalem in an important article in Fridays New York Times addresses Israeli motivation in an uncommonly candid way. Her article, titled Israel Backs Limited Strike Against Syria, notes that the Israelis have argued, quietly, that the best outcome for Syrias two-and-a-half-year-old civil war, at least for the moment, is no outcome. Rudoren continues:
For Jerusalem, the status quo, horrific as it may be from a humanitarian perspective, seems preferable to either a victory by Mr. Assads government and his Iranian backers or a strengthening of rebel groups, increasingly dominated by Sunni jihadis.
This is a playoff situation in which you need both teams to lose, but at least you dont want one to win well settle for a tie, said Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul general in New York. Let them both bleed, hemorrhage to death: thats the strategic thinking here. As long as this lingers, theres no real threat from Syria.
We think this is the way Israels current leaders look at the situation in Syria, and that deeper U.S. involvement albeit, initially, by limited military strikes is likely to ensure that there is no early resolution of the conflict in Syria. The longer Sunni and Shia are at each others throats in Syria and in the wider region, the safer Israel calculates that it is.
That Syrias main ally is Iran, with whom it has a mutual defense treaty, also plays a role in Israeli calculations. Irans leaders are not likely to be able to have much military impact in Syria, and Israel can highlight that as an embarrassment for Tehran.
Irans Role
Iran can readily be blamed by association and charged with all manner of provocation, real and imagined. Some have seen Israels hand in the provenance of the most damaging charges against Assad regarding chemical weapons and our experience suggests to us that such is supremely possible.
Possible also is a false-flag attack by an interested party resulting in the sinking or damaging, say, of one of the five U.S. destroyers now on patrol just west of Syria. Our mainstream media could be counted on to milk that for all its worth, and you would find yourself under still more pressure to widen U.S. military involvement in Syria and perhaps beyond, against Iran.
Iran has joined those who blame the Syrian rebels for the August 21 chemical incident, and has been quick to warn the U.S. not to get more deeply involved. According to the Iranian English-channel Press TV, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javid Zarif has claimed: The Syria crisis is a trap set by Zionist pressure groups for (the United States).
Actually, he may be not far off the mark. But we think your advisers may be chary of entertaining this notion. Thus, we see as our continuing responsibility to try to get word to you so as to ensure that you and other decision makers are given the full picture.
Inevitable Retaliation
We hope your advisers have warned you that retaliation for attacks on Syrian are not a matter of IF, but rather WHERE and WHEN. Retaliation is inevitable. For example, terrorist strikes on U.S. embassies and other installations are likely to make what happened to the U.S. Mission in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, look like a minor dust-up by comparison. One of us addressed this key consideration directly a week ago in an article titled Possible Consequences of a U.S. Military Attack on Syria Remembering the U.S. Marine Barracks Destruction in Beirut, 1983.
For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Thomas Drake, Senior Executive, NSA (former)
Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)
Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq & Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan
Larry Johnson, CIA & State Department (ret.)
W. Patrick Lang, Senior Executive and Defense Intelligence Officer, DIA (ret.)
David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Middle East (ret.)
Todd Pierce, US Army Judge Advocate General (ret.)
Sam Provance, former Sgt., US Army, Iraq
Coleen Rowley, Division Council & Special Agent, FBI (ret.)
Ann Wright, Col., US Army (ret); Foreign Service Officer (ret.)
http://consortiumnews.com/2013/09/06/obama-warned-on-syrian-intel/
Democracy Now job opening for Full-time Linux Systems Administrator in NYC
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Sorry, I didn't know where else to post this.
No War on Syria DC Protest has started
PROTEST TODAY 12 NOON Rally at White House #dontattacksyria http://AnswerCoalition.org Live stream: http://www.ustream.tv/OccupyCarlisle
Another livestream here: http://www.ustream.tv/rootsmedia
Russia lawmakers cancel trip to US for Syria talks after Congressional leaders refuse to see them
A Free Syrian Army fighter aims a weapon as he takes a defensive position in Deir al-Zor September 5, 2013. Picture taken September 5, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Khalil Ashawi
WASHINGTON | Fri Sep 6, 2013 2:15pm EDT
(Reuters) - Russian lawmakers have canceled plans to travel to the United States to discuss the crisis in Syria with their U.S. counterparts after congressional leaders refused to see them, the Russian ambassador to Washington said on Friday.
The Obama administration has been intensely lobbying Congress to authorize a U.S. military strike against Syria in response to the alleged use of chemical weapons by Syria's government in that country's civil war.
Presumably the Russian lawmakers would have taken the opposite view and lobbied their U.S. counterparts against supporting U.S. military action in Syria, which Moscow opposes.
But the Russians, who first proposed the trip to Washington a few days ago, decided against it after the leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate declined to get involved, Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak said.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/06/us-syria-crisis-usa-russia-idUSBRE9850XN20130906
Wave those fucking self-righteous flags... and then in 2 years when all hell has broken loose, expect pity that "you was fooled". There's more detail in the original RT article but I wouldn't want that to get in the way of the propaganda and rush to war. Funny that, it's always the same people too. .. And the same flags.
US Officials: Attack On Syria May Lead To War With Iran
US Officials: Attack On Syria May Lead To War With Iran
By: DSWright Friday September 6, 2013 11:17 am
According to the Wall Street Journal, an attack by President Obama on the Assad government in Syria will lead to a series of retaliatory strikes by Iran and affiliates on US targets. Now a war with Iran is on the table.
The U.S. has intercepted an order from Iran to militants in Iraq to attack the U.S. Embassy and other American interests in Baghdad in the event of a strike on Syria, officials said, amid an expanding array of reprisal threats across the region.
Military officials have been trying to predict the range of possible responses from Syria, Iran and their allies. U.S. officials said they are on alert for Irans fleet of small, fast boats in the Persian Gulf, where American warships are positioned. U.S. officials also fear Hezbollah could attack the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.
Missile and air strikes would likely kill some Hezbollah militants who are allied with Iran. An Iranian retaliation for attacking the Assad government would likely lead to the US retaliating against Iran and now we may understand AIPAC's support. A war with Syria will lead to retaliations by Syrias allies Iran and Hezbollah which would then justify strikes on Irans nuclear facilities the Israelis have been practically begging for.
Is that what this is all really about opening a door to war with Iran to stop their nuclear weapons program? There is considerable evidence the Al Qaeda linked opposition in Syria has used chemical weapons, no word from the Obama Administration on that. And we know America participated in Iraq gassing Iran, so the general principle or norm of stopping chemical weapons since World War I is nonsense.
Is that what this is all really about opening a door to war with Iran to stop their nuclear weapons program? There is considerable evidence the Al Qaeda linked opposition in Syria has used chemical weapons, no word from the Obama Administration on that. And we know America participated in Iraq gassing Iran, so the general principle or norm of stopping chemical weapons since World War I is nonsense.
While the U.S. has moved military resources in the region for a possible strike, it has other assets in the area that would be ready to respond to any reprisals by Syria, Iran or its allies.
Those deployments include a strike group of the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and three destroyers in the Red Sea, and an amphibious ship, the USS San Antonio, in the Eastern Mediterranean, which would help with any evacuations.
Thinking ahead are we?
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http://news.firedoglake.com/2013/09/06/us-officials-attack-on-syria-may-lead-to-war-with-iran/
US a threat to world peace - Nelson Mandela
He said this back in 2002 but it's still totally relevant.
Later, on September 16, when Washington condemned as mere duplicity Iraqs offer to allow unconditional inspection of its weapons facilities by U.N. inspectors, and again threatened war, Mandela asked: What right has Bush to say that Iraqs offer is not genuine? We must condemn that very strongly. No country, however strong, is entitled to comment adversely in the way the U.S. has done. They think theyre the only power in the world. Theyre not and theyre following a dangerous policy. One country wants to bully the world
http://monthlyreview.org/2002/11/01/november-2002-volume-54-number-6
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2002/09/09/nelson-mandela-the-u-s-a-is-a-threat-to-world-peace.html
Gen. Dempsey: Syria no-fly zone could cost US $1B per month
Gen. Dempsey: Syria no-fly zone could cost US $1B per month
By Jeremy Herb - 07/22/13 05:27 PM ET
Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey told lawmakers Monday that a no-fly zone in Syria would cost $500 million initially and as much as $1 billion per month to maintain.
In a letter to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.), Dempsey also warned that a no-fly zone risks U.S. forces deploying into Syria if U.S. aircraft are shot down.
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We must anticipate and be prepared for the unintended consequences of our action, Dempsey wrote. Should the regime's institutions collapse in the absence of a viable opposition, we could inadvertently empower extremists or unleash the very chemical weapons we seek to control.
Dempseys letter comes after he and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) got into a heated dispute over U.S. military intervention in Syria at his confirmation hearing last week.
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http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/policy-and-strategy/312675-gen-dempsey-syria-no-fly-zone-could-cost-1b-per-month
Syrian Woman Rips Into McCain At Town Hall For His Support For Bombing Syria
Published on Sep 5, 2013
At a Town Hall meeting a Syrian woman who lost a member of her family at the hands of the U.S. backed Syrian rebels that would benefit from a U.S. strike against Syria, one that AZ Senator John McCain supports, rips into him about spilling more Syria blood.
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