Category: Middle East & Africa
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U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s response on Syria: The United States respects the results
U.S. to release information about Syria’s chemical weapons use
(CNN) — The Obama administration will release declassified intelligence Friday backing up a government assessment that the Syrian regime was responsible for a chemical weapons attack, a senior administration official said.
[U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s response to the vote was more diplomatic.
The United States respects the results, he told journalists in Manila, the Philippines. “Every nation has a responsibility to make their own decisions.”
The United States will continue to consult with the British government and still hope for “international collaboration.”
“Our approach is to continue to find an international coalition that will act together,” he said .]
This comes amid talk among major powers of a military response against the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The administration has said that the information would be made public by the end of the week.
But diplomatic and political developments this week raised the chances of the United States going it alone in a military intervention.
A U.N. Security Council meeting on Syria ended in deadlock, and in the U.S. Congress, doubts about military intervention are making the rounds.
And the United States’ closest ally, Great Britain, backed out of a possible coalition when its lawmakers voted down a proposal on military intervention.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said it is important for the United Kingdom to have a “robust response to the use of chemical weapons, and there are a series of things that (Britain) will continue to do.”British involvement in a military action “won’t be happening,” he said.
But diplomacy is continuing. Speaking in televised comments aired Friday, Cameron said he expects to speak to President Obama over the “next day or so.”
On Friday afternoon, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon intends to consult with countries at the United Nations on developments in Syria and is scheduled to meet with permanent members of the U.N. Security Council at noon Friday.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to speak about Syria at the State Department on Friday at 12:30 p.m. ET.
Iran: U.S. military action in Syria would spark ‘disaster’
Alone or together?
After the British vote, a senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told CNN that going it alone was a real prospect.
“We care what they think. We value the process. But we’re going to make the decision we need to make,” the official said.
Former President George W. Bush said Obama’s “got a tough choice to make.”
“I was not a fan of Mr. Assad. He’s an ally of Iran, he’s made mischief,” he told Fox News on Friday. “If he (Obama) decides to use the military, he’s got the greatest military in the world backing him up.”
In a statement released Friday, former President Jimmy Carter said “a punitive military response without a U.N. Security Council mandate or broad support from NATO and the Arab League would be illegal under international law and unlikely to alter the course of the war.”
A former director of the CIA says he believes Obama would face off with al-Assad alone.
“I can’t conceive he would back down from a very serious course of action,” retired Gen. Michael Hayden told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
[…]
Chemical weapons in Syria: How did we get here?
The government of France supports military intervention, if evidence incriminates the government of using poison gas against civilians.
But on Friday, President Francois Hollande told French newspaper Le Monde that intervention should be limited and not include al-Assad’s overthrow.
Public opinion
Skeptics of military action have pointed at the decision to use force in Iraq, where the United States government under Bush marched to war based on a thin claim that former dictator Saddam Hussein was harboring weapons of mass destruction.
Opponents are conjuring up a possible repeat of that scenario in Syria, though the intelligence being gathered on the use of WMDs in Syria may be more sound.
Half of all Americans say they oppose possible U.S. military action against Syria, according to an NBC News survey released Friday.
Nearly eight in 10 of those questioned say Obama should be required to get congressional approval before launching any military attack against al-Assad’s forces
The poll, conducted Wednesday and Thursday, indicates that 50% of the public says the United States should not take military action against Damascus in response to the Syrian government’s alleged use of chemical weapons against its own citizens, with 42% saying military action is appropriate.
But the survey suggests that if any military action is confined to air strikes using cruise missiles, support rises. Fifty percent of a smaller sample asked that question say they support such an attack, with 44% opposing a cruise missile attack meant to destroy military units and infrastructure that have been used to carry out chemical attacks.
“Only 25% of the American people support military action in Syria,” former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson told CNN’s Piers Morgan on Thursday.
Convincing evidence
To shake off the specter of the Iraq war, the public needs convincing that chemical weapons were used and that al-Assad’s regime was behind it.
“You have to have almost incontrovertible proof,” Richardson told CNN’s Piers Morgan on Thursday.
It’s there, said Arizona Sen. John McCain, and will be visible soon. He thinks that comparisons to Iraq are overblown and that doubts are unfounded.
“Come on. Does anybody really believe that those aren’t chemical weapons — those bodies of those children stacked up?” the Republican senator asked Morgan.
Al-Assad’s government has claimed that jihadists fighting with the opposition carried out the chemical weapons attacks on August 21 to turn global sentiments against it.
Read UK intelligence on chemical weapons
McCain doesn’t buy it.
“The rebels don’t have those weapons,” he said.
The president also needs to assure Congress that a possible intervention would not get out of hand, said Democratic Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.
“The action has to have a very limited purpose, and the purpose is to deter future use of chemical weapons,” he said.
Why Russia, Iran and China are standing by al-Assad
Haunted by Iraq
The parliamentarians in London shot down the proposal in spite of intelligence allegedly incriminating the Assad government.
Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee has concluded it was “highly likely” that Syrian government forces used poison gas outside Damascus last week in an attack that killed at least 350 people, according to a summary of the committee’s findings released Thursday.
A yes vote would not have sent the UK straight into a deployment.
Cameron had said his government would not act without first hearing from the U.N. inspectors and giving Parliament another chance to vote on military action. But his opposition seemed to be reminded of the Iraq war.
Opinion: For the U.S., Syria is a problem from hell
“I think today the House of Commons spoke for the British people who said they didn’t want a rush to war, and I was determined we learned the lessons of Iraq, and I’m glad we’ve made the prime minister see sense this evening,” Labour Party leader Ed Miliband told the Press Association.
The no vote came after a long day of debate, and it appeared to catch Cameron and his supporters by surprise.
For days, the prime minister has been sounding a call for action, lending support to talk of a U.S.- or Western-led strike against Syria.
“I strongly believe in the need for a tough response to the use of chemical weapons, but I also believe in respecting the will of this House of Commons,” the prime minister said.
“We will not be taking part in military action,” Cameron said Friday. “The British Parliament has spoken very, very clearly,” he said.
Though Cameron did not need parliamentary approval to commit to an intervention, he felt it important “to act as a democrat, to act a different way to previous prime ministers and properly consult Parliament,” he said Friday.
He regrets not being able to build a consensus of lawmakers, he said.
Letter from al-Assad
Before the vote, Syria’s government offered its own arguments against such an intervention. In an open letter to British lawmakers, the speaker of Syria’s parliament riffed on British literary hero William Shakespeare, saying: “If you bomb us, shall we not bleed?”
But the letter also invoked Iraq, a conflict justified on the grounds that Iraq had amassed stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and was working toward a nuclear bomb — claims that were discovered to have been false after the 2003 invasion.
“Those who want to send others to fight will talk in the Commons of the casualties in the Syrian conflict. But before you rush over the cliffs of war, would it not be wise to pause? Remember the thousands of British soldiers killed and maimed in Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead, both in the war and in the continuing chaos.”
British Commons Speaker John Bercow published the letter.
U.N. deadlock
Lack of support for military intervention at the United Nations on Thursday was less of a surprise.
Russia, which holds a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, is one of Syria’s closest allies and is most certain to veto any resolution against al-Assad’s government that involves military action.
Moscow reiterated the stance Friday.
“Russia is against any resolution of the U.N. Security Council, which may contain an option for use of force,” Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said Friday.
Map: U.S. and allied assets around Syria
A closed-door Security Council meeting called by Russia ended with no agreement on a resolution to address the growing crisis in Syria, a Western diplomat told CNN’s Nick Paton Walsh on condition of anonymity.
U.N. weapons inspectors are now in Syria trying to confirm the use of chemical weapons. The inspectors are expected to leave the country by Saturday morning.
They are to brief U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who, in turn, will swiftly brief the Security Council on the findings.
Congressional jitters
The president is facing doubts at home as well: More than 160 members of Congress, including 63 Democrats, have now signed letters calling for either a vote or at least a “full debate” before any U.S. action.
The author of one of those letters, Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee of California, said Obama should seek “an affirmative decision of Congress” before committing American forces.
More than 90 members of Congress, most of them Republican, signed another letter by GOP Rep. Scott Rigell of Virginia. That letter urged Obama “to consult and receive authorization” before authorizing any such military action.
Congress is in recess until September 9.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama was still weighing a potential response to the chemical weapons attacks.
The president has said that he is not considering a no-fly zone and has ruled out U.S. boots on the ground in Syria.
Al-Assad has vowed to defend his country against any outside attack.
UK Government’s legal position on Syrian regime’s chemical weapon use
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VIDEO: Buchanan to Newsmax: Obama’s Syrian Strike Would be Impeachable
Any attack on Syria without Congressional approval would be an impeachable act, political commentator Pat Buchanan has told Newsmax in an exclusive interview.
Urgent: Should U.S. Strike Syria? Vote Here
The former presidential candidate and best-selling author also says he prefers “the devil we know” in Syria — Bashar Assad — to the al-Qaida elements he asserts are leading the rebellion against his regime.
Buchanan has been a senior advisor to three presidents, a two-time candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, and the presidential nominee of the Reform Party in 2000.
President Obama has signaled that he is considering a strike on Syria amid administration claims the Assad regime has used chemical weapons.
In an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV on Thursday, Buchanan says his chief concern about a potential strike is that “the president of the United States is threatening a war and planning a war he has no right to wage. The Congress of the United States alone has the power to authorize war or declare war and it has not done so.
“President Obama is usurping the authority of the Congress first and foremost and he appears about to launch an unconstitutional and unnecessary war. So the President should be called to account by the Congress and told: no war without our approval. That’s the way the Constitution works.
“The key figure is Speaker of the House John Boehner, who should call the House of Representatives back into session on Monday and instruct the president directly: Mr. President, you have no authority and no right to launch acts of war against Syria against whom we have not declared or authorized any war. We are calling on you not to engage in what would clearly be an impeachable act – starting a war against a country without the approval of the Congress when you are asked directly not to do so.
“If the president launched an unnecessary and unconstitutional war, striking a country against whom we have not declared war and has not attacked us, that is de facto an impeachable act that could lead to an open-ended war, the consequences of which we cannot even see.”
The White House has talked about the moral justification for a strike. Asked if there is also a legal justification, Buchanan responds: “There’s no constitutional justification right now in my judgment for a strike on Syria. The U.N. Security Council has not authorized a war, the Congress of the United States has not authorized a war.
“I do agree that the use of poison gas by the Syrian government — if it was President Assad who authorized it — is an obscene act which the international community and the Security Council should take up. But we don’t know who ordered it; we don’t know how it was delivered; we don’t know if Assad knew about it; we don’t know if Assad ordered it.
“But if he did, this is an issue that ought to be taken up by the international community and the Security Council, not the United States of America unilaterally and certainly not the president of the United States based on the flimsy evidence we have seen to date.”
Obama declared unequivocally on Wednesday that the Syrian government was responsible for the chemical attacks on. However, several U.S. officials are now using the phrase “not a slam dunk” to describe the intelligence picture.
Buchanan comments: “I would not understand or comprehend if Assad, no matter how bad a man he may be, would be so stupid as to order a chemical weapons attack on civilians in his own country when the immediate consequence might be that he would be at war with the United States.
“But what the United States should do is quite clear: Gather all the evidence through the U.N., gather all the evidence through our intelligence, take this to the Security Council the same way President Kennedy through Adlai Stevenson took the [evidence] during the Cuban Missile Crisis. We had our photographs, we showed the world what we had, we proved the missiles were in Cuba.
“That is the constitutional and legal way to do this. It is not to act in panic because John Kerry is shocked at the pictures he saw on YouTube.”
Buchanan said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid should call the Senate into session and “if he believes we should go to war, authorize it.”
“That is what George H. W. Bush did before he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait. That is what George W. Bush did. I was against that war on Iraq but the president won the authority from Congress so it was a constitutional and legitimate war no matter that I did not like it.”
If Obama does attack Syria without approval, “it is a clear, unconstitutional, illegal act,” Buchanan reiterated. “If the president did this, he would be a rogue president.”
Buchanan says he disagrees with former ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton’s assertion that we should seek to take out Assad.Urgent: Should U.S. Strike Syria? Vote Here
“Look who is on the other side of this war,” he tells Newsmax. “We have al-Qaida elements that are murderous, that have tortured people, that have killed Christians, and they’re the leading force in the elements that are fighting against Assad.
“Behind Assad we have the Iranians and Hezbollah and the Russians. It is not our war. Quite frankly, I would prefer the devil we know, which is Assad, to the devil we don’t know, which is that crowd in the rebels who are torturing and killing people and engaging in atrocities of their own.”
Buchanan also says the Republicans have “the power of the purse” and should block spending by those agencies that would implement Obamacare.
And regarding immigration reform, Buchanan doubts that the GOP-controlled House will go along with the amnesty that President Obama wants and the Senate has approved.
He adds: “I believe and hope that the House of Representatives will deny amnesty, deny legal rights to people who’ve broken into our country and broken our laws.”
© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
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Egyptian belly dancer’s anti-Obama video goes viral
MISIR OBAMA’YA DANSÖZ İLE YANIT VERMİŞ, ERDOĞAN DA NASİBİNİ ALIYOR. VİDEO’YU İZLEYİNİZ!
WASHINGTON, August 5, 2013 – As the U.S. went into an anti-terrorist embassy lockdown this weekend throughout the Middle East, one thing, at least, was becoming increasingly clear: the Egyptians sure don’t like President Obama.
Mısır Obama’ya Dansöz ile yanıt verdi, Erdoğan da payını aldı by Turkish ForumProof of this arose this weekend as an anti-Obama YouTube video recently posted by popular Egyptian belly dancer Sama Al Masry went viral, boasting some 163,000 views as of last count on Sunday, August 4.
In her video, Ms. Al Masry heaps curses on the President and his ancestors, and not sparing current U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson either. But this equal opportunity satirist also goes after now-former Egyptian President Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood allies, too, exemplifying the strange anti-Brotherhood alliance that has blossomed recently between Egypt’s secularists and that country’s once detested armed forces.
The Turks and, of course, the Israelis get dissed a bit as well.
It’s getting hard to tell the players without a program.
The ominous recent turn of events in the Middle East, particularly in populous, impoverished, yet influential Egypt, marks the nadir of the President’s failed policy “reset” in that troubled region.
SEE RELATED: Egypt from Nasser to El Sissi: Coup or revolution?
Snapshot of anti-Obama poster being paraded through the streets of Cairo. This is one of the kinder, gentler ones.
Buzzfeed noted this weekend that Marc Lynch, the Institute for Middle East Studies director at George Washington University, recently commented on the “vitriol” of Egypt’s recent “anti-American rhetoric.”
Writing in “Foreign Policy,” Mr. Lynch observed that Egyptian “streets have been filled with fliers, banners, posters, and graffiti denouncing President Barack Obama for supporting terrorism and featuring Photoshopped images of Obama with a Muslim-y beard or bearing Muslim Brotherhood colors,” with some of these same images appearing in Ms. Al Masry’s video.
A significant number of Egyptians—particularly those allied with the Brotherhood—initially hated the current U.S. Administration for having not more vigorously backed the overthrow of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
SEE RELATED: Continued violence despite Army efforts to restore security in Egypt
But soon, after contested elections were held in that country, the secularists and the Army came to hate the Administration for its apparent embrace of Morsi’s and the Brotherhood’s brand of radical Islam along with the Morsi government’s increasingly dictatorial policies along with its clear and continuing repression of religious minorities, notably the Christian Copts.
Now the Muslim Brotherhood hates the Administration for failing to support Egypt’s democratically elected ex-President, while the Army, joined by its former secularist enemies, hates the Administration for not backing its overthrow of radical Islam.
By flipping the Middle East policy of George W. Bush on its head, the Presidency of Barack Obama seems to have achieved the impossible: precisely the same results. It’s an astonishing and distressing development.
All this proving that pictures and videos are worth a thousand words. While watching (video above) don’t miss the frequent deployment of what appears to be a golf club. (Note that portions of the video and its crude but clear English-language captions may not be suitable for family viewing.)
Read more of Terry’s news and reviews at Curtain Up! in the Entertain Us neighborhood of the Washington Times Communities. For Terry’s investing and political insights, visit his Communities columns, The Prudent Man and Morning Market Maven, in Business.
Read more: http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/entertainment-news-and-reviews/2013/aug/4/egyptian-belly-dancers-anti-obama-video-goes-viral/#ixzz2bGaHXkYk
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Rabbi Yisroel Feldman speaking in New York City at International Al-Quds Day rally
Rabbi Yisroel Feldman speaking in New York City at International Al-Quds Day rally
August 2, 2013
With the help of AlMighty
A Saloom Aliekoom
Greetings to all those gathered here today – welcome in the name of the Almighty. We are here to join the honorable people who have come together to express their pain at the injustice of the Zionist occupation of Al Quds.
Just because the other side is stronger and they are in power now, does not mean that they are in the right. The injustice remains an injustice, and it cries out to the world. The truth will always run after the lie and call out, “You are a lie!”
We are here to express our pain in regard to the Zionist occupation: we declare that it is wrong, false and unjust.
Yes, it has existed for several decades, but that still doesn’t make it right and justified. Neither does it mean that it will continue to exist forever. No, falsehood has its limits.
We must note that the Zionist occupation of Al Quds is not only a crime in the case of Al Quds. The entire Zionist occupation, their settlement in the Holy Land with the plan to take it over and expel the Palestinian people and oppress them, is a crime that cries out to the heavens. It is murder, theft and cruelty that cannot be tolerated. It is a double crime – against the Jewish Torah and against the standards of morality by which mankind lives.
If one robs another, resulting in a fight between them, and the fight continues for a long time, with the robber prevailing, and then, in order to end the fight, it is agreed that the robber will keep only part of the stolen property (as in the “Two State Solution”) this does not rectify the injustice.
The Zionist occupation of Palestine cannot be justified, even in one inch of the Holy Land.
Jews did come to live in the Holy Land over the generations, but not with the intention of ruling the land. The Jewish immigrants were welcomed by the Palestinian residents of the land with honor and respect, and the Jews lived side by side with the Palestinians and their leaders in mutual respect and peace.
The problems began when the Zionists came, with their plan to rule over the Palestinian people.
We would be more than happy to return to the old state of affairs, living peacefully together, but it must be under a Palestinian government so that the rights of every last Palestinian is not compromised in any way.
We must also make it clear that Zionism is not only a crime in terms of human morality; it is also strictly forbidden according to the Jewish faith and Torah. The very idea that the Jewish people should gather together and build themselves up in an independent country – that idea constitutes a breach of our faith. These are things that only the Almighty will do, without any human help. In the Torah and Prophets it is clearly written that there will come a time when the Almighty Himself will reveal His kingship on earth. He will change the minds of all people in the world, and all will worship Him together. He alone will gather all the Jews from around the world with great miracles, and, with the agreement of all peoples of the world, He will bring us to the Holy Land. People of all nationalities and of all races will live peacefully and serve the Creator together.
All Jews believe in this; whoever does not believe in this, excludes himself from the Jewish people. The Zionist ideal that the Jewish people should arise on their own and build their own country is thus against our faith. Such an ideal could only have been born in the minds of outspoken non-believers in Judaism. And therefore, when the Zionist plan became known, all the rabbis of the world launched a battle against it.
This ideal only became widely accepted through the Zionists’ tricks and deceptions – but true rabbis were not fooled. The Orthodox Jewish battle against Zionism will never cease; even if a day comes when the entire world makes peace with the facts as they are presently, the true Jews will not make peace with these facts.
We will always continue to proclaim that the Zionist “fact” is a lie, a deception; it is against our true faith, and it must come to an end. It must collapse on its own; the Almighty’s patience will not last forever. This falsehood cannot have the smallest connection with the truth that the Almighty will one day reveal to the world.
This is what we are looking forward to; we believe in it and we wait for it.
A Saloom Aliekoom
