Abbas Sentenced Hundreds Of Syrian Palestinians To Death In 2013 (poster)

Hat tip to Elder of Zyion

Ma'an reports on a brand new Palestinian Arab lie:

Fatah central committee member Mohammad Ishtayyeh said on Thursday that the Palestinian Authority had attempted to negotiate the return of Palestinian refugees from Syria, but Israel had refused.

Ishtayyeh said in a meeting with diplomats organized by the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Ramallah that the PA had tried with all its might to "end the suffering" of Palestinians in Syria through international mediation.

Israeli officials, however, had refused to allow them to come to the Palestinian territories.

What really happened, from AP, January 10, 2013:

The Palestinian president said he has rejected a conditional Israeli offer to let Palestinian refugees in war-torn Syria resettle in the West Bank and Gaza, charging it would compromise their claims to return to lost homes in Israel.

Abbas said he asked U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon last month to seek Israeli permission to bring Palestinians caught in Syria's civil war to the Palestinian territories. The request came after fighting between Syrian troops and rebel fighters in Yarmouk, the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Syria. About half of the camp's 150,000 residents have fled, according to a U.N. aid agency.

Abbas told a group of Egyptian journalists in Cairo late Wednesday that Ban contacted Israel on his behalf.

Abbas said Ban was told Israel "agreed to the return of those refugees to Gaza and the West Bank, but on condition that each refugee ... sign a statement that he doesn't have the right of return (to Israel)."

"So we rejected that and said it's better they die in Syria than give up their right of return," Abbas told the group. Some of his comments were published Thursday by the Palestinian news website Sama.

Hundreds of Syrian Palestinians have died since then. And it is all because Abbas didn't even give them the choice to live. His "principles" are more important than their lives.

Even as Palestinian Arabs continue to die in Syria, no one is pressuring Abbas to reverse his death sentence. The UN is silent. NGO's are silent. World leaders continue to treat Abbas with respect. Newspaper editorials gush how "moderate" he is.

And Syrian Palestinians continue to die, every day, directly because of a decision Abbas made more than a year ago.

Every single "pro-Palestinian" activist should be asked in every venue they speak if they agree with Abbas. Amnesty International and Oxfam and Human Rights Watch should be asked whether they agree that Syrian Arabs are better off dead than given the even the choice to live.

The Heinrich Boll Foundation, which heard this new Palestinian Arab slander against Israel, should be told the truth.

Shouldn't everyone?

Al-Qaeda Calls for "Immediate Halt" in Syria To Stop Infighting - Yes, John McCain, Your Rebels Include an Al-Qaeda Faction

The Obama administration and John McCain have insisted that the sarin gas attacks on Syrian civilians came from Bashar Assad's Syrian government, and regime-change is needed. A new MIT report says, in essence, American Intelligence is wrong and needs to fix itself. While thinking about the attacks, we also need to think about Benghazi and a possible gunrunning operation from that city to Syrian rebels. Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri is calling for rebels to pull together rather than fighting each other, so if you (hello John McCain!) have doubts that al-Qaeda is fighting among the rebels, get over it. That's the summary for what you'll read below.

Ayman Al-Zawahri

I loathe crediting the United Nations for anything, but in this case, it bears merit. A report released this week issued by a "team of security and arms experts," concludes that the Syrian government had no viable method of delivering the sarin from any distance within Syria exceeding two miles, leaving what has been suspected for some time - Syrian rebels (including al-Qaeda) had to gas their own people in Ghouta, in an effort to get U.S. support in overthrowing Assad.

[Theodore Postol, Prof. of Science, Technology and National Security Policy at MIT] ...a basic analysis of the weapon – some also have described as a looking like a push pop, a fat cylinder filled with sarin atop a thin stick that holds the engine – would have shown that it wasn’t capable of flying the 6 miles from the center of the Syrian government-controlled part of Damascus to the point of impact in the suburbs, or even the 3.6 miles from the edges of government-controlled ground.

He questioned whether U.S. intelligence officials had actually analyzed the improbability of a rocket with such a non-aerodynamic design traveling so far before Secretary of State John Kerry declared on Sept. 3 that “we are certain that none of the opposition has the weapons or capacity to effect a strike of this scale – particularly from the heart of regime territory.”...

[Richard Lloyd, former UN weapons inspector]...Lloyd, who has spent the past half-year studying the weapons and capabilities in the Syrian conflict, disputed the assumption that the rebels are less capable of making rockets than the Syrian military.

“The Syrian rebels most definitely have the ability to make these weapons,” he said. “I think they might have more ability than the Syrian government.” Source: Syria The Truth

On Fox yesterday at 10:26 a.m. CDT, Leland Vittert reported that Syrian rebels are fighting among themselves as much as they are fighting back against the regime. More inn support of that information:

Meanwhile, as infighting among rebels has grown so deadly — nearly 1,400 killed in the past 20 days — Ayman al-Zawahri, the Al-Qaeda head, called for an immediate halt to the internal clashes.

In an audio message posted online Thursday, he said Islamic groups in Syria should set up an Islamic court that would mediate and resolve the factions’ differences.

Islamic fighters should also focus on “bringing down Assad’s secular, sectarian, unjust and criminal regime to set up a just Islamic state.”

The intervention by the Al-Qaeda leader plays directly into Mr. Assad’s argument only his government is preventing Syria’s further descent into chaos. Source: National Post

To think that al-Qaeda would hesitate to gas civilians is extraordinarily naive.

Seymour Hersh quoted in Global Research:

“Theodore Postol, a professor of technology and national security at MIT, reviewed the UN photos with a group of his colleagues and concluded that the large calibre rocket was an improvised munition that was very likely manufactured locally.  He told me that it was ‘something you could produce in a modestly-capable machine shop.’  The rocket in the photos, he added, fails to match the specifications of a similar but smaller rocket known to be in the Syrian arsenal.”

The MIT report dated January 14, 2014 is titled Possible Implications of Faulty US Technical Intelligence in the Damascus Nerve Agent Attack of August 21, 2013 and can be found here.

● The Syrian Improvised Chemical Munitions that were used in the August 21, 2013 Nerve Agent attack in Damascus have a range of about 2 kilometers

● The UN Independent Assessment of the Range of the chemical munition is in exact agreement with our findings

● This indicates that these munitions could not possibly have been fired at East Ghouta from the "heart", or from the Eastern Edge, of the Syrian Government controlled area shown in the intelligence map published by the White House on August 30, 2013.

● This mistaken intelligence could have led to an unjustified US military action based on false intelligence

● A proper vetting of the fact that the munition was of such short range would have led to a completely different assessment of the situation from the gathered data

● Whatever the reasons for the egregious errors in the intelligence, the source of these errors needs to be explained

● If the source of these errors is not identified, the procedures that led to this intelligence failure will go uncorrected, and the chances of a future policy disaster will grow with certainty.

● Conspiracies are many, but some are worth considering and must be considered because what Obama and Hillary Clinton are telling us about Benghazi makes no sense, and the support of Syrian rebels makes no sense now that we know that al-Qaeda factions are in the rebel mix. (Source: "Main Policy" issues of the above linked report)

If you prefer to get technical, I encourage you to view the MIT report linked above and take note of the maps of the areas affected and their distance from the grounds held by the Syrian government.

In my opinion, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were likely conspirators in a gunrunning operation from Benghazi to Syria straight into the arms of waiting rebels. Perhaps this explains why Ambassador Chris Stevens was in Benghazi and died on September 11, 2012, along with 3 other Americans AND why General Carter Ham did not know about the CIA annex in Benghazi, and why the Pentagon didn't know the Benghazi Special Mission Compound -- the residence where Stevens and others lived and worked when Stevens was in Benghazi -- existed. Unbe-freaking-lievable, as blogger Proof Positive said in comments on my story about General Ham and the Pentagon a few days ago.

Obama is backing the al-Qaeda side of Syria, just as he is backing the Muslim Brotherhood. Every al-Qaeda leader was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Wake up America!

Washington Times, September 12, 2013:

12 years later, we are back to arming radical Muslims, having forgotten, with stunning speed, the lessons of the previous 30 years.

12 years later we have come full circle.

We all understand that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. It served as the basis of our Cold War foreign policy stance towards revolutions and civil wars around the globe.

But when the enemy of my enemy, is also my enemy, it would seem as though choices for options range between “absolutely not” and “this is a terrible idea.”

Posted by Maggie @ Maggie's Notebook

Popcorn

Are you scared yet?  I am!

Christianity Becoming Extict In Its Birthplace.

Hat Tip to Creeping Sharia

MIDDLE EAST historian Tom Holland told a briefing in London last night that the world is watching the effective extinction of Christianity from its birthplace.In an apocalyptic appraisal of the worsening political situation in the region, a panel of experts provided a mass of evidence and statistics for the end of the region’s nation states under the onslaught of militant Islam.‘In terms of the sheer scale of the hatreds and sectarian rivalries, we are witnessing something on the scale of horror of the European Thirty Years War,’ said Holland.‘It is the climax of a process grinding its way through the twentieth century – the effective extinction of Christianity from its birthplace.’The event titled ‘Reporting the Middle East: Why the truth is getting lost’ at the National Liberal Club in Whitehall, sought answers to the ‘anaemic’ coverage of attacks on Egypt’s Christians on 14 August.
Pre-planned destruction of scores of ancient churches, monasteries, schools, orphanages and businesses had gone unreported for days across the West, Nina Shea, Director of the Hudson Institute Religious Freedom Centre in Washington said.

After the Islamists swept multiple elections during the first revolution in 2011, US newspapers asking how it would change Egypt suggested merely that women would be prohibited from wearing skimpy clothes, and Sharm el-Sheikh would close as a tourist destination.

This was ‘utterly trivial’ she said.  Persecution of Copts, who dated their church to Gospel writer St Mark in Alexandria, was at its worst since the fourteenth century, with ‘horrific levels of violence’.
‘It has been the worst persecution in 700 years against the oldest, largest remaining Christian minority in the Middle East.’

The media had failed to ask the most basic questions, she said.  ‘Why were the Copts singled out, what was the significance and purpose of the attacks?’

A fourth-century church dedicated to St Mary – whom Muslims were supposed to revere – and that was a UNESCO World Heritage site, had been destroyed and designated as a Muslim prayer space.
It was 200 years older than the Bamyan Statues in Afghanistan, yet the mainstream media had ignored its demise.

Yet there was enough evidence to show that the violence was part of a plan to ‘drive out the Copts, to terrorize them into leaving’, she added.

Lapido Chief Executive Dr Jenny Taylor who organized the event which was co-hosted with foreign policy think tank Henry Jackson Society, said the media’s job was impeded by ‘secular blinders’.
They tended to report the Middle East’s religions as a ‘variant of a Westminster debate’ with ‘left-wing underdogs versus right-wing overdogs and the Christians getting lumped in with the overdogs if they get mentioned at all.’

Holland said Egypt was not a developing nation, which needed help to emerge as a Western democracy but had been the world’s first state, with a civilization on a level with China and Iran.  In Roman times, it had been the world’s bread basket.

Now it was the single largest importer of wheat anywhere on the planet.

In answer to a question from the floor he agreed there had been what felt like ‘silence’ from Western churches, governments and indeed Western Muslims after the attacks, which belied Islamist propaganda that the West colluded with Christians.

Shea also spoke about Syria.

Christians in Syria were now ‘caught in the middle’, she said.  There was a shadow war against them by rebels, with jihadis and al-Qaeda factions deliberately attacking Christians.

‘When they conquer a town they set up sharia courts and mini sharia states.  The Christians are fleeing.  Given the choice to be killed or to leave, they leave.  If they stay, the jizya tax is imposed, and then raised.  If they cannot pay they are killed.’

She said Christians dared not go to refugee camps run by rebels as they would be recruited to fight.
The so-called Damascus Plan drafted by the Free Syrian Army for after the war ends, included retribution killings against any who did not oppose Assad.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I feel sorry for the Churches of the Middle East.  In every Muslim nation  they are being destroyed.  In Bethlehem, under the Palestinian Authority, Christians have gone from a majority population of 85% to a minority population of 10%.  Pretty soon the only Christians in the city will be the priests, nuns, and tourists.  Already the Palestinian Authority has decided to turn the Church of the Nativity into a mosque.  The Church of the Nativity is one of the holiest sites in the Christian world.  Yet there will be no protests when this happens.

The only place in the Middle East where there is total and free religious liberty is Israel.  Yet the Christian Churches will not praise Israel for this, but condemns the Jewish State instead.

Between 1949 and 1955 every Arab nation forcibly removed most of the Jews from their nations.  They laughed doing so, saying:

First the Saturday people.
Then the Sunday people.

In most of the Arab world there are not enough Jews to satisfy their blood lust.  For instance there are only 9 Jews in Egypt.  (All elderly women.)  So now it is the turn of the Sunday people to leave.  And like with the Jews, the world is remaining silent.

Until Christian and World leaders cry out and demand a stop to the persecution, the murders, the rapes, the torture of their fellow Christians, the Muslims will keep doing what they want and laughing while we just sit back and do nothing.

40 Years Ago Today

In the Jewish calendar today is Yom Kippur.  40 years ago on this date Egypt and Syria attacked Israel in the hope to destroy that nation.  They almost succeeded.

On October 6, 1973, Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), the holiest day on the Jewish religious calendar, Egypt and Syria took advantage of optimal circumstances to launch attacks that took Israel by surprise. So complete was the element of surprise that when war erupted, Israel was only beginning to mobilize the reserve forces which form the bulk of the IDF. The thin forces stationed along the two fronts had to contain the invading armies until the IDF was prepared to meet them in force. The IAF was hampered by the dense anti-aircraft missile system which the enemy had deployed close to the front.

Egyptian forces succeeded in crossing the Canal and establishing beachheads on the Israeli-held east bank. On the Golan Heights, the Syrians pushed past the cease-fire lines and occupied a large area. They also seized the key Israeli intelligence- gathering position high on Mt. Hermon.

Within two days, the IDF, now fully deployed, blocked the Egyptian and Syrian

advances and took the offensive. Because of the huge quantitative superiority of the Syrian forces, a situation compounded by the proximity of Jewish settlements on the Syrians' path of advance, it was decided to give priority to the northern front. By October 10, the Syrians had been pushed back and the entire Golan was again in Israeli hands, except for the Hermon position, which was only recaptured toward the end of the war. Between October 11 and October 14, the IDF pushed the Syrian forces across the cease-fire lines and penetrated Syrian territory. An Iraqi expeditionary force dispatched to reinforce the Syrians was also successfully blocked.

On the southern front, an early Israeli counter-offensive failed. But Israeli units managed to overcome an attack by Egyptian tank forces, destroying 200 enemy tanks in the process. Shortly afterward, on 15 October, the IDF renewed the counter-offensive. The main thrust of the fighting now was to push across the Canal and strike at Egyptian forces on the other side.

A gap between the Egyptian 2nd and 3rd Armies was chosen as the crossing point. It was a difficult operation, preceded by heavy fighting to clear the approach lines. The Engineering Corps constructed a bridge across the Canal in the face of concerted Egyptian resistance. By October 19, Israeli troops were well established on the west bank. Until the first scheduled cease-fire on October 22, the IDF enlarged the territory under its control. Although the Egyptians had agreed to the cease-fire, it did not take effect at the designated time. By the time an effective cease-fire was actually implemented, on October 24, the IDF had completely surrounded the Egyptian 3rd Army.

On the northern front, the IDF regained control of the Hermon by October 22, removing the last Syrian forces from the area they had seized at the start of the war. The war ended on October 24 in a decisive victory for the Israeli Army. In the north, the Syrians failed to achieve any territorial gain, while the IDF had crossed the old cease-fire lines into Syrian territory, acquiring new vantage points on the Golan. The Syrian Army suffered major losses of manpower and equipment.

Lessons of the War
In the first months after the war, Egyptian and Syrian forces renewed the War of Attrition along the cease-fire lines. The IDF focused on building its force on an unprecedented scale. The enemy attempted to prevent the IDF from conducting a war of movement dominated by tank and air power. Arab armies made extensive use of infantry equipped with anti-tank weapons, exploiting their inherent numerical superiority. In response, the IDF took steps to upgrade and increase its manpower utilization. Extensive and intensive training programs were initiated, focusing on the doctrine of combined operations in which the various branches of the IDF were integrated in a harmonious whole.

A special central training base was established to advance this doctrine. Another lesson of the war was a renewed awareness of the importance of the Infantry. Rearmament continued apace, including the purchase of ground-to-ground and ground-to-air missile systems.

SOURCE

This was the last major war that Israel and her neighbors have fought.  The last war in which armies actually lined up and fought tank to tank, plane to plane and man to man.  Unlike her enemies, Israel held a commission to discover why they were unprepared for war.  And corrected the problems and vow never to be unprepared again.  The wars that Israel fights now are against terrorist and not "freedom fighters" and not an military.  They are fighting pseudo-military men.  Men who have no honor, no military skills and only want to kill civilians.  They can be defeated, but it takes the resolve to shake off the fake pictures of children killed.  The world screams when Israel defends itself.  No tears for dead Israeli children, but tears for dead terrorists.  It is no longer wrong to be an anti-Semite.  In fact it is a badge of honor.

Israelis cannot rely on others for their protection.  For 2000 years Jews have done that with disastrous results.  Such protection brought about rapes, murders, theft of property, dislocation from homes, with the final horror of the Holocaust.  All because Jews were told not to fight and let others protect them.

Once again Israelis are being told to let others protect them.  President Barack Hussein Obama has told Israel that he will prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.  Yet he has lifted some of the sanctions on Iran and Russia is sending Iran S-300 anti-aircraft missiles.  The meaning behind this is that Obama is happy with a nuclear Iran and with the idea of genocide against the Jews.  Israel has to realize that they have no friends and have to act alone in this matter.

If Israel acts soon she will be condemned by every nation on Earth.  But will have saved the Jewish people and the Middle East from Nuclear Annihilation by the hands of the Iranians.

Am Yisrael Chai!

No One of Significance, Including Bashar Assad, Can Be Connected to Sarin Gas Attacks - Yet

Secretary of State John Kerry met with EU Ministers today and he was “very grateful” to receive a “clear and strong response” from the EU Bloc that they now believe there is “strong evidence” that Assad was behind the gassing of his own people. The EU sounds a bit like low-toned war drums drumming but it wants to await the full report of U.N. inspectors (who were not allowed to visit 6 key locations that would have been important to their findings). Never mind. At the same time, the AP is reporting the “best evidence” the US has is evidence from France that Syria’s SSRC would have been involved as the SSRC is the science center that creates the chemical weapons and reports directly to Assad…but they have no such evidence. They cannot name a single person inside the SSRC. The US is admitting SSRC director Amr Armanazi is NOT involved.

Maher Assad - Bashar Assad

AP is saying there is no confirmation of a direct link to Assad knowing about the chemical weapons attack, including his Syrian Commander brother, Maher Assad.

While U.S. officials say Assad is responsible for the chemical weapons strike even if he did not directly order it, they have not been able to fully describe a chain of command for the August 21 attack in the Ghouta area east of the Syrian capital. 

It is one of the biggest gaps in U.S. understanding of the incident, even as Congress debates whether to launch limited strikes on Assad’s forces in retaliation.

After wrongly claiming that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction before the 2003 U.S. invasion, the U.S. intelligence community, along with the Obama administration, are trying to build as solid a case as they can about what it says was a sarin nerve gas attack that killed over 1,400 people. Source: AP

The U.S. does not believe Assad’s brother Maher was tied to the attacks. It seems there is no one to blame among the few leaders who had the ability to do the gassing. Oh well…

Lindsey Graham: Charleston Harbor in Danger If We Do Not Strike Syria

CBS Charlotte is quoting Senator Lindsey Graham saying failing to strike Syria could result in terrorists striking Charleston Harbor. Alex Jones is reporting a source at a West Texas Air Force Base where B-1 Bombers are housed saying:

Port of Charleston

"secret moth-balled weapons that weren't even supposed to be on the base" were "loaded on trucks and the police said where are these going? Nobody's signing for it. The base commander simply gave orders and everybody knew that this was completely irregular and there had been a big controversy a few years before when this happened in Minot, North Dakota with cruise missiles..." "The truck drivers said all we're told is, this is going to South Carolina and we don't know where it goes from there."

The InfoWars video is below. What do you think about this? One of my thoughts is how desperately creepy Lindsey Graham is, trying to stay relevant in light of valid challenges to his senate seat.

CBS Charleston

Graham told reporters in Goose Creek on Tuesday that taking action against Syria in response to the situation is not a question of yes or no, but rather a question of bad or worse choices.

He says if there is no U.S. response, Iran will not believe America’s resolve to block Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Graham also says those nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists could result in a bomb coming to Charleston Harbor.
He says he’s working to convince South Carolinians weary of war that the situations in Syria and Iran are linked. Graham says Syria could destabilize the entire Middle East.

No surprise, you'll hear talk of "false flags" and "martial law" in the video below.
InfoWars: Lindsey Graham Charleston Harbor Might Be Attacked - Missing Nukes From Texas on Way to South Carolina(video)

Watching History Unfold ~~~ By J. D. Longstreet

From Faultline USA

Obama's War Mongering

 

For one to say: "These are perilous times," in reference to our current position on the time continuum, would be a vast understatement.

With a military spent and degraded, the US stands on the cusp of a THIRD WORLD WAR, which will -- win, lose, or draw, likely finish America for good.

Our President is insistent upon involving the US in the "trigger conflict" which will, undoubtedly, set the wheels in motion that will spark a regional conflagration drawing in the remaining nations of the world due to the strategic location of the shooting war itself.

To make matters worse, our national legislature, the Congress, appears ready to endorse the President's war mongering. Frankly, I had thought they had better sense. But I now believe I was woefully wrong. They really ARE that dumb.

The argument that Obama's war will be short-lived and have a narrow strike zone and limited scope is all unadulterated Bovine Scatology. The moment the first American bomb strikes Syrian soil it's: "GAME ON!" The proverbial powder keg will explode and all hell will break loose all over the world. That includes inside the contiguous United States, as well. This time it is entirely likely that America will have war on its own shores.

If you have ever, as an adult, taken a fall, you know there is a split second when your mind suddenly grasps that your body is going to fall and strike the hard floor and there is absolutely nothing you can do to prevent it. In that same instant your mind begins preparing for the painful aftermath, which it is now certain is forthcoming. All of this takes place in an instant.

That's where this scribe is in assessing Obama's coming war in Syria -- or should I say: Obama's war in the Middle East, or even Obama's Third World War? The frustrating inability to do anything to prevent it is palpable.

It's as though the United States is on a pre-planned excursion into Hell, itself, and the American people, like blind lemmings, are marching right along behind their Luciferian leader into the jaws of perdition having been easily convinced the heat they feel is only the rays of a friendly sun.

The systematic dismantling of the United States by the marxocrats is nearly complete now. Only one thing remains: Destruction of America's military might. That, too, it appears, is approaching an advanced stage.

Consider the following from David G. Bolgiano in an OP-ED piece n the September 1st edition of the Fayetteville Observer of Fayetteville, NC, the home of Ft. Bragg:

"There has been a systemic winnowing of steely eyed killers from our military's senior-leader ranks. In their place are effete politicians with Harvard Kennedy School of Government-like credentials but lacking true, close-in killing experience. Under such leadership, the lives of suspected al-Qaida and Taliban are valued the same as our own young men and women.

This misguided approach to fighting a counterinsurgency fails, as Winston Churchill stated, to "decline utterly to be impartial as between the fire brigade and the fire." This raises a serious overarching question, "Why fight?" If the current crop of leaders and lawyers were running the show back in 1944, the entire E Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of "Band of Brothers" fame would have been court-martialed. Moreover, we would now all be speaking German." SOURCE

Mr. Bolgiano goes on to say in his excellent article: "Unfortunately, ill-informed and untrained lawyers have created an unnecessary legal bogie monster by substituting fuzzy notions from human rights law for the sound doctrine of the law of war. We now conduct war by such silly notions as "warrant-based targeting" and "minimum force." The enemy has become quite adept at using this tactic of "lawfare" to make us much less combat-effective.

Many commanders are afraid to use force when their own troops are under attack." (Emphasis by underlining --MINE. ED) SOURCE

Through decades of scripture study I have wondered, as I am told many of you have as well, why the US (or American army) is not identified amongst the other armies of the great nations of the world in the scripture covering the final battle, the Battle of Armageddon.

Could it be that THE US ARMY WILL NOT BE THERE because -- there will be no United States in existence to send an army.

For old-timers, like me, watching history unfold today is akin to watching a review of things past.

One of the things one learns as one grows older is that history does, in fact, repeat itself. The old adage that those who refuse to learn the lessons from history past are doomed to repeat the mistakes their forebears made -- is also true -- and in spades!

Who would have thought that a few pistol shots resulting in the death of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on June 28th, 1914 would lead to not one, but two, world wars? With brief respites, the nations of the world were at each other's throats for the next 30 some-odd years.

If Obama gets his way, the US will be interfering in a civil war in a nation in which there are no vital national security interests for the United States. None.

Are the people of Britain, France, and Germany smarter than the US? Each have said "no" to standing with Obama in a war which is undoubtedly the "initializer" for a greater conflict.

The American people have cast their lot with the peoples of Britain, France and Germany. BUT -- the LEADERS of the American people seem ready to defy the American people, the lessons of history, and even common sense, to involve the United States in a conflict that (I BELIEVE) will ultimately lead to the collapse of the US and it's final break up into a number of smaller nations.

Somehow, the American people have come to view electing a President as equal to electing a prom king or even a student body president. It has become a popularity contest. And THIS is the result. A leader who, when he deigns to lead at all, tends to lead the nation toward defeat and destruction.

Today America resembles an out of control "Merry-Go 'Round," or carousel, accelerating faster and faster with no way for the riders to get off. The ONLY option is to hold on and wait for the crash.

Believing His Own BS~~~~A Commentary By J. D. Longstreet

Stolen from Faultline USA

Oh, this is embarrassing! Our wimp of a President trying to fit into the hat of the Commander-in-Chief. Geez! He could at least take the "Kick Me" sign off his back.

Look. This is what you get when you put a guy in an office for which he is not suited, not ready for, and does not have the cahones to make hard decisions. And believe me, Mr. Obama is decision averse! He hates making decisions of any kind but he hates hard decisions the most dragging his feet hoping he can outlast the problem, run out the clock, and not have to make a decision at all.

I've known other people just like that. It strikes me that the people who delay making decisions are the very same people who condemn the final decision maker if the slightest thing goes wrong.

See, here's where I am having an immense problem with Obama's feckless behavior. Our national honor is now at stake and he, Obama, has caused it to be called into question and that just stinks!

We have this expression down south that covers situations like this. It is something like this: "It's is really bad to run a man down and THEN HAVE YOUR BUTT WHIPPED!"

Mr. Obama's mouth has written a check his butt cannot cash! The man is folding like a wilted suit before the gaze of -- NO -- not Assad! Putin!

Anyone running their mouths as often as our motor-mouth President must be prepared to stick his foot in it fairly often. Occasionally, he may step so deeply into it, that he must be willing to fight to back up his spoken rhetoric. If he isn't willing to go all out to preserve his honor, and the honor of those he represents, well then, he isn't much of a man.

The thing is this: You cannot take a nation like the US to the brink of war with threats unless you are willing to carry through. Apparently Obama, as is his wont, believed his own BS. He apparently believed that his just uttering the words would so fill the hearts of the enemy with fear and dread that they would shut-up and slink away with their collective tails between their legs.

Didn't happen.

Those of us who live out here in the real world never thought it would and said so publicly. All he has accomplished is to make America look like a paper tiger -- a reflection, perhaps, of its leader.

Oh, and he has emboldened our enemies the world over. By his feckless action, or lack there of, he has made the situation exponentially worse.

Whereas, a few days ago, a pinprick, surgical, strike might actually have served a purpose, done some good, (The operative word in the preceding sentence is "MIGHT.") now, however, a pinprick, surgical, strike will do absolutely nothing besides provide a propaganda victory to the enemy.

Now, the US Forces must make a major strike, seriously damaging the command and control centers of Assad's government, his airfields, his harbor(s), his transportaion modes, his communications, take out his air forces, his navy -- in other words, we have to throw that ole "shock and awe" at Assad, or -- do nothing at all.

Oh, dear reader, how many times have we reminded America that liberal's have no understanding of military force nor its application. You are seeing it play out right before your eyes today. No matter how this Syrian adventure of Mr. Obama's plays out, it will not be good for the US.

Normally, I would say that calling off the attack would do the US less harm than if we carry through with a strike so surgical as to be perceived as a face-saving slap on the wrist. Not now.

Our national honor has been laid upon the alter of Obama's over inflated vanity by his words, vacuous words that demonstrated a distinct lack of intelligence or thought; that were, in fact, stupid and even silly It is a sacrifice we cannot afford to make. No nation can.

Obama made this bed, now America must lie upon it.

Personally, I didn't want this war. I can find no definable US interest in Syria. Frankly, it appears (to me) to be more of a "micturition contest" between Obama and Putin than anything else.

Obama has brought us to the stage at which anything less than a full scale attack will be interpreted by the remainder of the world as turning tail and running. Sorry, folks, but that's the way it is. As a conservative commentator has said so many times: "Words mean things." A President has a responsibility to measure his every utterance.

Someone once said: "A man is never so empty as when he is full of himself." I am very much afraid we have a Commander-in-Chief who has suddenly found himself backed into a corner by his own rhetoric. Unfortunately, he has forced the country into the same corner with him and that is unacceptable in the extreme.

First Gas, Then Fire

Over a week ago President Bashar al-Assad of Syria launched a gas attack on his own people.  Hundreds of civilians are dead and thousands are wounded.  Now to follow up such a hideous act, Assad has launched an incendiary bomb into the city of Aleppo.

Citizens from the area of the city of Aleppo in northern Syria, suffering from burns most likely caused by a incendiary bomb similar to napalm, were shown on Friday on a BBC network broadcast.

According to the report, 10 were killed and many more injured in a bombing on a school.

The broadcast shows a man, identified as a teacher in the bombed school, suffering from burns in most of his body.

The broadcast shows a man, identified as a teacher in the bombed school, suffering from burns in most of his body.

Wounded from the attack:

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"The plane bombed a residential area in Orum a-Kubra," he said. "We tried to evacuate quickly, but it appears that fate had the upper hand today."

"The students gathered in one place, and then the plane got us," he added.

In another video, taken after the attack, a doctor who treated the wounded said that 10 students were killed and about 50 injured, most of them suffering from severe burns caused by napalm.

The BBC report described the scene and said the wounded looked like "walking dead."

A BBC reporter at the scene estimated the bomb contained either a napalm type explosive or thermite.

A British medic, Dr Rola, who was in Syria with the charity Hand In Hand, treated the victims at the hospital.

She said: "It is just absolute chaos and carnage here. We have had a massive influx of what looks like serious burns, seems like it must be some sort of, not really sure, maybe napalm, something similar to that.

"But obviously within the chaos of the situation it is very difficult to know exactly what is going on."

She said later: "We feel like some sort of, not even a second class citizen, like we just don't matter. Like all of these children, and all of these people who are being killed and massacred, we don't matter.

"The whole world has failed our nation and it is innocent civilians who are paying the price.".

Meanwhile, the NBC network released a survey which shows 50% of Americans oppose an US strike against Syria. Close to 80% of the surveyed said the President Barack Obama must have the Congress' go-ahead before a military intervention against Assad's regime.

SOURCE

On September 6, 2007 Israel destroyed Syria's nuclear reactor. Could you imagine Assad with a nuke or two?  Would he use it on his own people?  I do believe he would use a nuke on his own people.  He has already used Sarin gas and now an incendiary bomb.  Syria has descended into Hell.  A Hell of their own making.  How this will end is not known to the future, but it will not be a good ending for the Syrian people.

Guns Of August 2013

In July 1914 the Great Powers of Europe ((Italy, France, Germany, the British Empire, the Austria-Hungarian Empire and Russia) failed to come to a diplomatic solution to the growing nationalism, the colonialism that the Great Powers forced upon the Third World, the growing call for war that was filling the continent of Europe.  Then the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie by Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian national member of the Serbian nationalist organization, the Black Hand, in the city of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. This was the final straw that broke the proverbial camel's back for the Great Powers and the Guns of August fired.

Now in this last week of August we are beginning to hear the Guns of August rolling again.  A different part of the World, (The Middle East not Europe.) and different players (Syria, Iran, Hezbollah, Russia, Israel, United States, Great Britain.).  Diplomacy has failed, Assad of Syria will not listen to the world.  And the Assad regime attacked his own civilian population with Sarin gas.  But the outcome of their actions just might ignite the world into a global war.

From Debka:

Ahead of the US strike on Syria, the Israeli security cabinet in special session Wednesday, Aug. 28, ordered the partial mobilization of select, qualitative IDF reserve forces: Rocket, Air Force, missile interception, Home Defense command and intelligence units. Anti-missile Arrow, Patriot and Iron Dome systems were spread out more widely than ever before across the country. US and Syria wound up last military preparations for the US strike. Barring last-minute hold-ups, debkafile’s military sources report the American operation is scheduled to start Friday night, early Saturday Aug. 30-31.(Confirmed)

In the past 24 hours, the US Air Force finished a major buildup at the big US Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. B-1B bombers and F-22 Raptor stealth fighter jets were brought over from other US Mid East air facilities on the Omani island of Masirah and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

These squadrons were not assigned to the US military strike against Syria, say our military sources, but will stand ready to move in should unforeseen complications in the course of the US missile assault on Syria call for the introduction of extra assets from outside.

Israeli officials and spokesmen continued to insist Wednesday on low expectations of a Syrian counter-offensive against their country. Nevertheless, the new US air force reinforcements in Qatar will stand ready to rush to the aid of US allies - Israel, Jordan and Turkey - in the event of their coming under Syrian Scud attack.

On the opposite side, the Syrian army Tuesday started scattering personnel, weapons and air assets to safe places to reduce their exposure to damage and losses from US assaults.

Our military sources report that personnel, tanks and artillery of the Syrian Army’s 4th and Republican Guard Divisions, which are held responsible for the Aug. 21 chemical attack on civilians, were being moved into fortified shelters built last year against potential foreign military intervention.(Confirmed)

Syrian army command centers in Homs, Hama, Latakia and the Aleppo region were also being split up and dispersed, after a tip-off to Syrian and Russian intelligence that they would be targeted by the US strike. Syria has also transferred its Air Force fighter planes, bombers and attack helicopters to fortified shelters which are armored against missile and air attack.

In Israel, the IDF Wednesday installed two Iron Dome missile interceptors in the northern “Valleys” region and Safed in addition to Haifa. Another Iron Dome battery was posted in the heavily populated central district. Arrow, Patriot anti-missile missiles, as well as Iron Domes, have been deployed more widely across Israel than ever before. debkafile’s military sources report that Israel’s Arrow and Patriot interceptors are linked to the US missile shield with which their operation is synchronized.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Israel was ready for any scenario. Although it takes no part in the Syrian civil war crisis, Israel would not hesitate to fight back for any attempted attacks – and would do so forcefully.

Wednesday morning, the machinery for distributing gas masks to the population broke down under the pressure of demands to distribution centers across the country. The Homeland Ministry’s website crashed. Former Interior Minister Ellie Yishay complained of a shortage of protective masks due to budget cuts. He said there are only enough to supply 40 percent of the population.

Will someone please tell me why are we getting involved in a civil war?  Have we not learned from past experience (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan) that we cannot defeat a military using conventional military tactics and Obama's idea of rules of engagement.  Rules written to give the enemy every advantage.

All I can see if we attack Syria is that we support al-Queda and enter into a war we cannot extract ourselves from for years.  A war that will cost the US thousands of lives and billions of dollars.

US Hits Syria. Syria Hits Israel. Obama Stops Israel From Hitting Back.

The world is watching very carefully what the US response (if any) to the recent Chemical Weapons attack Bashar al-Assad committed upon his people.  Will Obama actually put his money where his mouth is?  Will it be big enough? And what will Assad's reaction be?  We keep hearing the answer to that question from the Syrians.

There is little logic in the Netanyahu government’s public assurances that the Syrian ruler Bashar Assad would not risk a major showdown with Israel for fear of an IDF response powerful enough to overthrow his regime. This argument fails to take into account the calculus in Washington: President Barack Obama would not countenance, at least in the initial stage, an Israeli military strike on a scale greater than the limited operation he is contemplating for his own armed forces in the wake of the Syrian government’s chemical weapons attack on Damascus last Wednesday, Aug. 21. Israel would therefore not be allowed to endanger Assad’s rule.

Assad’s Russian advisers are no doubt briefing him on this Israel-Syrian equation.

According to debkafile’s military sources, Israeli strategists prefer to believe that Syria will choose Jordan for a conventional missile strike in reprisal for a US attack - rather than go for Israel.

This assumption was refuted by the words of Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem Tuesday, Aug. 27, at a press conference he held in response to US allegations of his government’s responsibility for using chemical weapons in East Damascus.

Accusing the US Secretary of State John Kelly of telling lies and fabricating evidence against his government, Moallem insisted it had not used chemical weapons or delayed permission for the UN team to launch its investigation under guaranteed security in government-controlled sites. That team only arrived Saturday, Aug. 23, and was not ready for its mission before Monday, Moallem insisted.

He went on to question US objectives in seeking to attack Syria, and answered his own question by saying: “Anything that happens in this area is in Israel’s interest. Such aggression will first of all benefit Israel, secondly, the military efforts of Al Nusra, al Qaeda’s armed group in Syria. “So the Americans would be serving Israel first and Al Qaeda second.”

As for Jordan, Moallem stressed Syria’s friendly and neighborly ties with the Hashemite kingdom. “We have no thought of acting against Jordan,” he said, and advised Amman not to let itself be persuaded to give up its friendship with Damascus.

debkafile’s military sources add: Washington may avoid the need to punish Syria for a potential attack on Jordan by harnessing the Saudi Air Force. In response to a joint US-Amman invitation, Saudi warplanes could cross through Hashemite airspace and blast targets in Syria. They would use intelligence input and coordination support from US air commands.

The Saudi air base at Tabuk near the Jordanian border was reported Tuesday to have placed its F-15 squadrons on the ready. A French squadron of Rafale bombers is also based at Tabuk.

The situation could take a different turn if Syria targeted the US forces deployed in Jordan.

For all these reasons, Israel is more likely than Jordan to be first in line for Syrian payback for a US attack. IDF commanders are well aware of this danger and are gearing up for the challenge. Part of their planning may be to stage the first Israel-Syrian military confrontation in Jordan and over its skies and not just in Israel.

That Israel is under explicit threat was made amply clear in statements coming Tuesday from Syria, Hezbollah, Iran and implicitly, Russia. When Moallem said Tuesday that Syria would defend itself in the case of a US strike “using all available means,” he felt safe in including Syrian allies in this category.

Those allies are evidently resolved not to stand by idly if Syria is attacked.

The nature of their promised assistance to Bashar Assad was no doubt conveyed to Barack Obama’s intermediaries, UN Deputy Secretary Jeffrey Feltman and Oman’s Sultan Qaboos, Monday, when they met Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani Monday, to promote the US president’s bid for an understanding on Syria –– as reported exclusively by debkafile.

So the US president must by now know how many players will jump in and where, in consequence of an American attack on Syria. This means that Washington may find it impossible to keep the operation within the predetermined confines desired by the US president. Jerusalem as well as Washington realizes how widely the fallout may spread, but Israeli leaders are keeping this prospect under their hats to avoid public panic.

SOURCE

Normally this would be just hot air coming out of Syria, but the fact that Israeli are stocking up on Gas Masks and protective gear.  They are nervous.  And rightly so.  It is also a fact that President Barack Hussein Obama is NOT a friend of Israel, in fact before he became President he was in favor of the total destruction of Israel.  His actions since he became President have made him the most anti-Israel President since Dhimmi Carter.  I would not put it past him to threaten to attack Israel if they tried to defend themselves.

Obama loves the trappings of the Presidency, but not the work.  I doubt that he will attack Syria with enough force to make it very clear to Assad that he cannot act in such a manner to his own people.  In reality Obama will do a little action and claim victory.  Assad (and Iran) will laugh seeing that if they use such weapons, the world will only slap them on the wrist.  And Israel will be the one who suffers.

Assad Is Out Of Control

In 48 hours Bashar al-Assad, Iran and Hezbollah launched attacks at the Syrian Rebels (and civilians), Israel, and Lebanon as is being reported by Debka.com.

In the space of 48 hours, the Assad regime, Iran and Hezbollah launched a three-point offensive against foreign intervention, debkafile reports. Here are some facts: The sarin nerve gas atrocity of Wednesday, Aug. 21, alleged to have claimed more than 1,000 lives, was the work of the 155th Brigade of the Syrian army’s 4th Division, headed by President Bashar Assad’s younger brother Gen. Maher Assad.

The poison gas shells were fired from the big Mount Kalmun army base south of Damascus, one of the three repositories of Syria’s chemical weapons. In response to a demand from Moscow last December, Assad collected his chemical assets in three depots. The other two are Dummar, a suburb 5 kilometers outside Damascus, and the Al-Safira air base, west of Aleppo. Not a single shell or gram of poison gas is loaded for use at any of the three sites without an explicit directive from the president or his brother.

Therefore, the clamor raised by the US and French presidents, Western prime ministers and Russian leaders for an independent investigation to turn up evidence of the use of chemical weapons in Syria and identity of its perpetrator – the Assad regime, says the West, and a rebel provocation, according to Moscow – is nothing but playacting. The facts are known and the evidence is present. And the price for refusing to come down to earth and putting an immediate stop to this horrifying precedent may be unimaginably grim – not just for Israel and Jordan – but for the rest of the Middle East and beyond.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu commented Thursday, Aug. 22 that Iran is using Syria as its testing ground while closely monitoring international responses to its actions.

His remark followed the four Grad rockets fired on northern Israel the day after the chemical attack in East Damascus. His words were scarcely noticed, mainly because Israel’s own spokesmen were busy spreading a blanket of disinformation over the attack, attributing it vaguely to “Global Jihad” (whatever that is).

debkafile’s military sources affirm that, just as the Assad brothers orchestrated the chemical shell attack on Syrian civilians, so too did Hizballah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah set in motion the rocket attack on Israel.

By good fortune, the two which exploded in built-up areas caused damage but no casualties and a third was intercepted by Iron Dome.

Nasrallah had his disposal two Palestinian terrorist groups functioning in Lebanon and Syria under direct Iranian command. They are the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian – General Command (PFLP-GC) and Jihad Islami – both of them eager to attack Israel. Then, on Friday night, two car bombs blew up outside Sunni mosques in the northern Lebanese town of Tripoli, killing 42 people and injuring 500.

The triple coordinated outrages added up to a dire warning from Tehran and Damascus about what they have in store for the region, and especially Syria’s neighbors, as payback for foreign intervention in the Syrian civil war. On the subject of intervention, the French daily Le Figaro took the liberty last Thursday, Aug. 23, of lifting wholesale and publishing without credit the exclusive report carried Wednesday, Aug. 21, by debkafile. We were the first publication in the world to reveal on Saturday, Aug. 17 the entry from Jordan into southern Syria of a unit of US-trained Syrian rebel commandos, under the caption: Reported Syrian gas attack after first US-trained rebel incursion from Jordan. In that report, debkafile was also the first to expose Assad’s poison gas attack as a warning of the heavy price he would exact for intervention in the Syrian war by foreign forces or by rebels trained by foreign forces – in this case US instructors and officers based in Jordan.

CBS News reported Friday that US and Israel intelligence monitoring known chemical weapons sites detected activity there 20 minutes before the chemical shells were fired Wednesday. Those agencies were therefore on top of valuable advance information, but did nothing to stop - or even warn against – the coming poison gas attack.

Washington and other Western capitals as well as Israel continued to circle around reality Friday and Saturday, when Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel let it be known that US warships had been sent to the region for possible cruise missile attacks, in case the president decided on action against Syria.

The Secretary “forgot” to mention that, had the president really wanted to do something, all he had to do was keep the USS Truman aircraft carrier, which was present in the Mediterranean on Wednesday, the day of the chemical attack, from sailing out through the Suez Canal Thursday.

Furthermore, America doesn’t need to send more warships to the region for possible attacks on Syria. It holds plenty of assets at US air and missile bases crisscrossing the Middle East, southern and central Europe and the Persian Gulf. All are fully capable of conducting a variety of operations against Syria without bringing in extra warships.

Except that none of these assets has so far been ordered into action.

What could the Obama administration do if it was so minded?

debkafile’s exclusive military sources described three options available:

One: Striking the Syrian unit which perpetrated the poison gas last Wednesday east of Damascus.

Two: Destroying the Syrian army’s three chemical weapons depots.

Or Three: Coordinated attacks on the first two targets.

For Options Two and Three, the attack would have to destroy all the poison shells at once before they exploded and leaked contamination across wide regions of Syria and neighboring Turkey, Israel and Jordan. The Syrian ruler is capable of having the shells’ contents mixed and armed ready for use ahead of a US attack, thus maximizing the deadly impact of lethal gases across a broad Middle East region.

Notwithstanding the grave risks of action, the consequences of inaction by the US and Israel would be worse: It would give Damascus and Tehran a green light for escalating their viciousness – and not just against the Syrian people. If the barbarity is not stopped, they will get away with making nerve gas and other poison substances acceptable weapons for fighting their foes. Lebanon and Israel are in extreme jeopardy.

SOURCE

President Barack Hussein Obama talks a good talk, but that is all that he does.  A year ago he drew a line in the sand.  Bashar al-Assad has crossed it not once but twice.

Obama's Red Line



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It is a shame that it was said by a man with a yellow streak a mile wide down his back.

The civilians of Syria are caught in the middle.  On one side is Assad, backed by Hezbollah and Iran.  On the other side is al Qaeda and strict Islamic Law (They are already destroying the churches.)  Either side wins and they will lose.  Yet this is a civil war.  A war no one should get involved with.  This is a problem that the Syrians must solve on their own.

Russia Is Pulling Out Of Syria

And they are doing it fast.  Very fast.

You know that things are heating up in Syria when longtime ally of Bashar al-Assad's Syria is pulling their troops out of Syria.  Add to that Israel going on high alert, President Obama and his Security Council is not concerned, and one can expect the area to blow up soon.

Shortly after the DEBKA aired a special video on the Syrian war’s widening circle, Moscow announced Wednesday June 26, that the evacuation which had begun Friday of all military and diplomatic personnel from Syria was now complete, including the Russian naval base at Tartus.

“Russia decided to withdraw its personnel because of the risks from the conflict in Syria, as well as the fear of an incident involving the Russian military that could have larger consequences,” said a defense ministry official in Moscow. He stressed that a 16-ship naval task force in the eastern Mediterranean remains on post and arms shipments, including anti-air weapons, would continue to the Syrian government in keeping with former contracts.

In another sign of an impending escalation in Syria, the Israeli Golan brigade staged Wednesday an unannounced war maneuver on the Golan, attended by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and top army chiefs. In London, Prime Minister David Cameron called the government’s National Security Council into session in Downing Street on Syria. Opposition leader Ed Milliband was invited to attend the meeting, a custom observed only when issues of the highest security importance are discussed.

Earlier Wednesday, debkafile carried the following report in its special video presentation under the heading: Putin and Obama cross swords on Syrian. What Next?

The sullen confrontation between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama at the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland last week condemned Syria to five months of escalating, unresolved vicious warfare – that is until the two leaders meet again in September.

For now, tempers are heating up between Washington and Moscow on Syria and other things too, notably the elusive American fugitive Edward Snowden.



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US and Israeli intelligence watchers see the Syrian crisis entering seven ominous phases:

1. The Syrian army plus allies and the fully-mobilized opposition will hurl all their manpower and weapons into winning the city.

Military experts don’t expect the rebels to hold out against Assad’s forces beyond late August.

2. Neither side has enough manpower or game-changing weaponry for winning the war outright.

That is, unless Presidents Obama or Putin steps in to retilt the balance.

3. The US and Russia are poised for more military intervention in the conflict up until a point just short of a military clash on Syrian soil – or elsewhere in the Middle East. US intelligence analysts have judged Putin ready to go all the way on Syria against the US - no holds barred.

The Russian president is meanwhile deliberately goading Washington and raising temperatures by playing hide-and-seek over the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, charged with espionage for stealing and leaking classified intelligence. At home, he is considered variously as a traitor and a brave whistleblower.

For several hours Snowden vanished between Hong Kong and Moscow – until the Russian president admitted he was holed up in the transit area of Moscow airport and would not be extradited by Russia to the United States.

4. Iran, Hizballah and Iraq will likewise ratchet up their battlefield presence.

5. A violent encounter is building up between Middle East Shiites flocking to Syria to save the Assad regime alongside Russia, and the US-backed Sunni-dominated rebel forces.

It could scuttle the secret US-Iranian negotiating track on its nuclear program, which was buoyed up by the election of the pragmatic Hassan Rouhani as President of Iran.

6. The Geneva-2 Conference for a political solution for the Syrian crisis is dead in the water. Moscow and the US are divided by unbridgeable issues of principle, such whether Bashar Assad should stay or go and Iranian representation.

7. So long as the diplomatic remains stuck in the mud, the prospects of a regional war spreading out of the Syrian conflict are rising. Iran, Israel, Jordan and Lebanon may be dragged in at any moment – if they have not already, like Lebanon.

A small mistake by one of the Syrian warring parties in Syria could, for example, touch off Israeli retaliation and a wholesale spillover of violence.

Source

What we are seeing is the product of President Barack Hussein Obama's foreign policy of leading from behind.  Behind truly is.  As we are getting the shaft right up our Ass.

46 Years Ago Today.

Israel did the impossible.  Taking on Egypt, Jordan and Syria, Israel defeated all three in 6 days.

The Six-Day War, 1967


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Also known as the War of 1967, this war was fought between Israeli and the Arab Forces across large areas across the Middle-East. Tension between Israel and her Arab neighbours had been growing for several months. Egypt, known as the United Arab Republic at the time, Jordan and Syria were all involved in the conflict. By the end of the war Israel had taken control of the Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula (from Egypt), West Bank and Eastern Jerusalem (from Jordan) and the Golan Heights from Syria.

Not bad for a nation only 19 years old at the time. A nation nobody gave any chance to survive their War of Independence let alone win such a war.

A textbook example of how to go to war and win.

SABATON, Counterstrike


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