The USAID website explains that the organization “carries out U.S. foreign policy by promoting broad-scale human progress at the same time it expands stable, free societies, creates markets and trade partners for the United States, and fosters good will abroad.”
Homemade Sarin Was Used In Attack Near Damascus – Lavrov
By RT
September 26, 2013 “Information Clearing House – Russia has enough evidence to assert that homemade sarin was used on August 21 in a chemical attack near Damascus, the same type but in higher concentration than in an Aleppo incident earlier this year, Russian FM Sergey Lavrov said.
“On the occasion of the incident in the vicinity of Aleppo on March 19, 2013 when the United Nations, under the pressure of some Security Council members, didn’t respond to the request of the Syrian government to send inspectors to investigate, Russia, at the request of the Syrian government, investigated that case, and this report, i.e. the results of this investigation are broadly available to the Security Council and publicly,” Lavrov said.
“The main conclusion is that the type of sarin used in that incident was homemade. We also have evidence to assert that the type of sarin used on August 21 was the same, only of higher concentration.”
The minister said he had recently presented his US counterpart John Kerry with the latest compilation of evidence, which was an analysis of publicly available information.
“The reports by the journalists who visited the sites, who talked to the combatants, combatants telling the journalists that they were given some unusual rockets and munitions by some foreign country and they didn’t know how to use them. You have also the evidence from the nuns serving in a monastery nearby who visited the site. You can read the evidence and the assessments by the chemical weapons experts who say that the images shown do not correspond to a real situation if chemical weapons were used. And we also know about an open letter sent to President Obama by former operatives of the CIA and the Pentagon saying that the assertion that it was the government that used the chemical weapons was a fake.”
Lavrov emphasized that Russia stands fully committed to implementing the Geneva framework of September 14, a bilateral agreement with the United States to move forward with the destruction of Syrian chemical weapons stockpiles under the Chemical Weapons Organization’s supervision.
The foreign minister, however, reminded that the agreement did not suggest adopting any UN resolution that mentions immediate UN Chapter 7 measures against Syria, or rather the potential for the use of military force.
“We set in that framework which we agreed in Geneva that we would be very serious about any violation of the obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention, we would be very serious about any use of chemical weapons by anyone in Syria and that those issues would be brought to the Security Council under Chapter 7.”
UN resolution within two days?
The draft resolution to back Syria’s disarmament could be finalized “very soon,” possibly “within the next two days,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov told the AP.
Although the text of the resolution will include a reference to Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, Gatilov stressed there will be “no automaticity in engaging” in military or non-military actions without a separate discussion at the UN Security Council.
The five permanent members of the Security Council have yet to agree on a final text of the resolution, though the group has indicated significant progress is being made.
Russian news agency Interfax rebutted earlier reports on Wednesday made by Western news agencies that claimed that a deal between the United States, Russia, France, China and Britain on wording of the draft resolution on destruction of chemical weapons in Syria had been reached.
“The alleged report claiming that five Security Council agreed on the main part of the resolution on Syria is not true. The Russian delegation was extremely surprised by the appearance of such information,” a source from the Russian delegation told Interfax.
#Russian UN delegation says reports that the #UNSC has agreed on a resolution are false. #Syria #UN @RT_America @RT_com
— Anastasia Churkina (@NastiaChurkina) September 25, 2013
“This is just their wishful thinking,” the spokesman for Russia’s UN delegation said. “It is not the reality. The work on the draft resolution is still going on,” quoted Reuters.
Earlier AFP and Reuters had reported that three Western diplomats speaking on condition of anonymity indicated that the permanent members of the Security Council had agreed on a new proposal.
“It seems that things are moving forward,” one source told Reuters, adding that there was “an agreement among the five on the core.” “We are closer on all the key points,” he said.
The envoys told AFP that the draft resolution would allow for sanctions under Chapter 7 of the UN charter to be considered if President Bashar al-Assad fails to keep to a Russia-US disarmament plan.
On Tuesday, on the sidelines of the UNGA US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held a “constructive” meeting and agreed to continue pushing towards destruction of chemical weapons held by all sides in Syria under international supervision.
© Autonomous Nonprofit Organization “TV-Novosti”, 2005–2013
via Homemade Sarin Was Used In Attack Near Damascus – Lavrov.
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.
It is indeed a puzzlement.
How could a government that rose to power democratically then destroy democracy and all the freedoms it entails? I mean Hitler did so but that was then and this is now. Isn’t it?
Worse, how could this same government destroy the country’s army and then pick a fight with its friendly neighbor who happens to have a quite strong military backed by one of the world’s largest nations (Russia). This is quite stupid, isn’t it?
Even worse, how could a nation, supposedly comprised of a vast majority of Muslims, sign on so quickly to kill its fellow Muslims in direct violation of their sacred Koran (4:92) which says that for doing so “they will burn in hell forever.” This seems somewhat sinful, doesn’t it? Disrespectful, isn’t it? Even blasphemous, perhaps?
And how could this same nation disinherit the one genuine heroic figure it possesses (Atatürk) who almost one hundred years ago rescued it from the rubble of the collapsing Ottoman Empire? Oh, and the prime minister recently called him a drunkard. Imagine abandoning the man who intimately knew the past, acted decisively in the present, and clearly saw the future? Unbelievable, isn’t it? Disgusting even?
And how could the prime minister of this same country speak to the world through the United Nations about the world’s ecological crisis while simultaneously destroying mountains, streams, lakes, rivers, forests, green space in general and even agriculture? And all the while this same prime minister carpet bombs vast swaths of nature to build superfluous bridges, highways, tunnels, airports, and nuclear reactors on fault lines. This seems somewhat hypocritical, doesn’t it? Bordering on deceit, wouldn’t you say?
And this same steward of the nation’s wealth also divines a monstrous canal from the Black Sea to the Marmara sure to disrupt sea currents, water temperatures, and change salinity counts to disturb or even destroy fish life, fisheries and the fishing business, not to mention the possible release of enormous fields of swamp gas long-submerged in the Black Sea. This appears to be a bit grandiose, doesn’t it? Not to mention, recklessly uninformed perhaps?
Need a breath from all of this? Sorry, you cannot afford to have one. Time is of the essence! Anyway, the air in Istanbul and virtually everywhere the government treads stinks from pollution and its own toxic presence. This government has forged a new definition for the words “treachery” and “deceit.”
Actually there is no longer an Istanbul since its now all tricked up with garish lights and bizarre architectural glitter like a trollop on Broadway. All of its cheap finery disguises massive corruption, theft and favoritism.
The government’s trumpets blare about the wonderful economy. Wonderful, indeed. But, sorry people, nothing belongs to the Turkish nation anymore. Everything has been sold: roads, bridges, mines, electric power utilities, factories, businesses, airports, shipyards, ferries, piers, telephone systems…imagine something else, and it’s been sold. This is called the Turkish economic miracle. Weird, isn’t it? And meanwhile omnipresent shopping centers suck the money and lifeblood out of the people and small businesses. It seems all backwards, doesn’t it?
Oh, and let’s not forget the women, both secular and covered varieties. Women, the sex under threat of extinction: by honor killings, rapes, domestic violence, arranged, that is, “forced” marriages, enslavement via “religious” headscarves, by stifled opportunity, by education denial, by kitchen and household captivity, by denial of thought, that is, the right to refuse, rebel and reject, as well as the right to use their bodies anyway they chose: in birth, in abortion, in dance, anyway they chose without the government meddling on bogus religious grounds. And now this so-called government even asserts where and when kissing is appropriate.
So back to the question. How could all this happen so fast? Well, examine the map of Turkey. The country is crawling to the point of infestation with American military personnel and American nuclear weapons, radar installations and bombs, bombs and more bombs. Everyone knows of the conspiracy to destroy Syria between America and Turkey, excuse me, between Obama and his best international friend Erdoğan. It’s a mafia sort of arrangement. Erdoğan’s close friendship with Bashar al-Assad was suddenly interrupted by Obama who, like Al Capone (pictured above), brandished a baseball bat during a telephone conversation with the Turkish version of Vito Corleone in August 2012. While Capone rearranged the skulls, faces and brain tissues of his troublesome lieutenants, Obama merely rendered a subtle post-modern hint of the “or else” side of the offer. Of course, Erdoğan could not refuse anything American and the rest is their shameful, mutual ongoing war crime.
So enthusiastic is al-Assad’s former friend that he even evokes Allah’s blessing on this exercise of imperialist power, a gross human rights violation and murder to the point of genocide. Political Islam and terrorism courtesy of the Turkish prime minister and America’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Shameful, isn’t it? Nauseating, isn’t it? So what needs to be done?
In fact, all of Turkey’s undoing has been done under the cover of Allah. Why? Because Turkey is an Islamic nation. Why so? Because you (and your government) let it be labeled as such. Is America known as a Christian nation? Not really. So why isn’t Turkey considered simply another democratic, secular nation, independent of religion? Good question, isn’t it? Sadly, Turkey is now an almost 100% political Islamic nation. Forget the Koran, it’s murder and money that matter. All the hard-earned secular and democratic rights are in the process of nullification. And all in the name of a politicized religion. The fundamentalist, fascist government is always rendering “spiritual” guidance to protect its “people.” Don’t allow them to do it in your name! Something must, and can, be done! Obama and his fellow schemers everywhere love the idea that Turkey is 99.8% Islamic according to the CIA Factbook. Know one thing! These subverters don’t care if you’re Turkish as long as you’re Islamic. And they get away with murder in your “Islamic” name. Don’t let them! Don’t be an “Islamic” Turk. Instead, be what your government is not. Be a “real” Turk, a secular Turk living life without being labeled by a fascist regime. Let the government and their collaborators be Islamic political hacks. They are not real Turks in the slightest. The proof? Simply examine their behavior, their attitude, their grim-faced arrogance, their VIP mosques. I don’t know what they are but they’re not the Turks that I know. Maybe they’re from Hollywood, central casting’s attempt to characterize Turkish tough guys? Who knows the ways of the CIA? Who cares? Just protest your official assignment of a religious designation! Remove it! Make your secularity official! Be Turkish and nothing but! How?
It is so terribly easy. Do you know that you are so powerful that you can make Turkey no longer be a 99.8% politically Islamic country? That you can force a true election for secularism? And by so doing you will stun the world. Just have the religious identification on your ID card, your kimlik, changed to a blank, like mine opposite. No police clubs. No pepper gas. No water cannons. No demonstrations. No being beaten by the fascist police. Just one little visit to the Population (Nufus) Bureau and you will feel like you have done something tangible to save your country. You can accomplish more in one hour than the incompetent political opposition has accomplished in ten years. And suddenly the CIA Factbook reveals that what had been a 99.8% Islamic nation is now only 48% or perhaps even less. And who does Erdoğan speak for then? A minority of the people, that’s who. Imagine the earthquake in the imperialist capitals of the world? And nobody gets hurt. Except, hopefully, the ones who deserve it. So do it! Your government is not even Turkish. Politically Islamic Turkishness is irrelevant in the real world, the secular world, our world. Turkey has become politically Islamicized courtesy of America and its collaborators. The Turkish nation, like genetically modified food, has become exclusively political fare for western consumption only. And we all are being devoured. And in case you haven’t noticed, it’s extraordinarily hazardous to our health. In the name of religion this government is destroying your country, your children, and you. Say NO! Change your ID card. Don’t let the fascists label you! Become an OFFICAL secular Turk. You will be amazed at the results. And you will keep your spiritual beliefs in your heart where they belong.
“It’s a Sicilian message. It means Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes.”
Here’s a scene that partly explains why Turkey hasn’t invaded Syria yet: In a recent parliamentary debate, Umit Ozgumus, a leader of the Turkish opposition party CHP, entered a raucous debate with Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu, ranting, “the allegations that Assad is perpetrating massacres are lies!”
Turkey has leveled threats of invasion into Syria as the conflict has deepened over the past two years. But it has not delivered on its threat, largely because of its complex Syria policy: various considerations, including the evolving relationship between the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Turkish army, as well as unrest among the country’s Alawite population and the approaching elections, are all pulling Ankara back from military action against the Assad regime.
The AKP government has spent the last decade subjugating the once-autonomous and staunchly secular military to its power. The military has all but lost its standing with the Turkish public in the wake of ongoing court cases that accuse the army of involvement in a nefarious coup plot to overthrow the government.
Whether or not these allegations are grounded, one thing is clear: the Turkish military is no longer the most respected actor in the country. In 2007, before the Ergenekon case, which alleged that there was a hidden coup plot against the AKP government, polls showed that the Turks trusted the military more than any other institution. Now, Turks trust the presidency, a position filled by former AKP member Abdullah Gul, who has proven himself as a statesman since assuming office in 2007. Abdullah Gul has actively grown his prestige with his successful use of social media and patronage of civic initiatives. Meanwhile, the military’s luster has faded.
This also stems from the fact that the Turkish army, once feared and respected, has proven to be an empty shell. Over a quarter of the top brass of the Turkish military have ended up in jail in connection with coup plots, and arrests continue on a monthly basis. Today, the military is in no position to present itself as an institution to be feared, much less respected. In other words, the AKP has won, and the military has lost. One reason why the Ankara government is reluctant to send the military against Assad is that a victory on the battlefield would quickly allow the military to restore its image.
Ironically, the army does not want to fight against Assad either; the Turkish military is silently aware of its own weaknesses. For many years, Turkey’s military doctrine was built on the assumption that Turkey must prepare for conventional war against its neighbors. Although the military built capacities for overseas deployment following the September 11 attacks and demonstrated impressive ability in Afghanistan, it is woefully ill equipped to successfully partake in a civil war in Syria.
Analysts in Ankara estimate that the best the Turkish army can do against Assad would be to take control of a 10- to 20- mile wide cordon sanitaire in northern Syria, across the Turkish border. That would hardly be a resounding victory for the Turkish military.
What’s more, without solid NATO backing the Turkish military, though a much more powerful force than the Syrian military, would not be able to maintain its comparative advantage against the Assad regime and likely anti-Turkish insurgency led by the regime supporters. Without White House support for a unilateral Turkish campaign against Assad, even the most hawkish Turkish generals will shy away from a campaign until they are sure Turkey will not be left to go it alone.
And besides wanting to withhold a possible public relations boost to the military, the AKP has its plenty of reasons to shy away from outright war. For starters, Turkey is home to a 500,000 thousand strong Alawite community that lives mostly in the country’s southernmost Hatay province. Alawites in Turkey are ethnically related to Syrian Alawites, many of whom are steadfast in their support to the Assad regime. And many Turkish Alawites are related to Syrian Alawites through marriage and family ties. So for the Turkish Alawites, what happens in Syria does not stay in Syria. Recent demonstrations by Turkish Alawites in favor of the Assad regime have fueled these anxieties, further diminishing Ankara’s appetite for war in Syria.
And if the AKP wasn’t already skittish about the military option in Syria, the main opposition party, the CHP, has taken a contrarian stance. Many in the CHP still harbor 1970’s style anti-Americanism, opposing U.S. policies and cooperation with the U.S., as well as any sort of military action on ideological grounds.
There is also the fact that the CHP has a large Alevi base. (The Alevis, who comprise about 15 percent of the Turkish population, are not related to the similar-sounding Alawites.) But both groups take issue with the AKP’s Syria policy.
The Alevis are staunchly secular and therefore categorically opposed to the AKP’s conservative and occasionally Islamist flavor. They stand against the AKP policies, and they will be another reason for the CHP to maintain its visceral opposition to the AKP’s Syria policy.
The CHP, which has support from about a quarter of the Turkish population, now stands in the way of a more active Turkish policy against Assad. In a recent example, four CHP deputies visited Assad in Damascus in early March. In a public relations stunt, the deputies undermined Ankara with claims that the Turkish people “reject intervention in Syria and want nothing more than neighborly relations” with Assad. To which the Syrian dictator purportedly responded: “I appreciate the stance of the Turkish people and political parties, who unlike the Turkish government favor stability in Syria.” The CHP will oppose the AKP’s Syria policy, even if this means divorcing itself from reality.
Last but not least, there is the issue of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s political goals. Erdogan has won three successive elections, recently breaking the record for longest-serving Turkish prime minister. Now, he has set his sights on becoming Turkey’s next president in the forthcoming 2014 elections.
Throughout his decade in power, his greatest political asset has been Turkey’s phenomenal economic growth, averaging over 5 percent annually. Erdogan wins because Turkey grows, and Turkey is growing because it is the only stable country among its European and Middle Eastern neighbors. If this virtuous cycle continues, Erdogan will win the next elections. If, however, Turkey enters a war in Syria, it could slide into the ranks of the “problem states” in its neighborhood. This would break Erdogan’s recipe for political and economic success by putting in jeopardy the more than $40 billion that comes into the Istanbul stock market annually, driving the country’s growth.
The odds are against unilateral Turkish action against Assad. Yet, at the same time, Ankara cannot tolerate Assad in power, or live with a sectarian civil war next door. Turkey’s leaders are acutely aware that war will spill over into Turkey, stoking violence between the country’s Alawites and Sunnis and tarnishing Turkey’s coveted reputation as a “stable country in an unstable region.” This would also end Erdogan’s presidential dream.
VOA News
April 06, 2013
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been lying about the Syrian uprising.
In comments made to Turkish journalists earlier this week and released later in televised broadcasts, Mr. Assad said both Turkey and Jordan are “playing with fire” to let Syrian insurgents train on their soil. He accused Erdogan of working with Israel to destroy Syria, and said Ankara is contributing directly to the killing of Syrians.
Turkey and Jordan both harbor hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees.
Meanwhile, Activists say a Syrian government airstrike on a mainly Kurdish area in the northern city of Aleppo has killed 15 people.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says nine children and three women are among those killed in Saturday’s attack on the Sheikh Maksoud neighborhood in Aleppo.
Activists in the area reported the number of dead is likely to rise due to a large number of severe injuries.
The observatory said that after the airstrike, Syrian-based Kurdish fighters killed five soldiers in an attack on an army checkpoint on the outskirts of Sheikh Maksoud.
On Friday, Syrian rebels said they seized a military checkpoint on a main highway between Damascus and Jordan.
A rebel commander told the Reuters news agency that the Umm al-Mayathen checkpoint is a major army garrison. He says the rebels will now capture the border crossing and cut off the military’s supply lines.
And the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says Syrian forces bombed a key Damascus neighborhood, trapping people under the rubble.
The United Nations says the Syrian civil war has killed about 70,000 people since March, 2011. Most of the victims have been civilians.
via Assad: Turkey Untruthful About Syrian Uprising.
