I found the coverage of How Senate Foreign Relations Committee members voted on Syria on Politico.

At least Ed Markey did not vote yes, perhaps for the right reasons.  He is reserving final judgment partially because he wants to see more evidence.

Editor:

In the pictures and videos of the victims of the Syrian nerve gas attack people do not behave as would be expected of such victims. The reported death toll rate is far below what one would expect of such an attack.

So let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that Bashar al Assad was not the perpetrator of these attacks.  Even John Kerry said that it would be irrational for Assad to have done so.

The rebels themselves could have perpetrated the attacks or at least staged the videos to make it seem as if there were an attack.  The UN has already determined that some previous attacks have been perpetrated by rebels.  There are reports that the Aug 21 incident was an accident caused by the rebels.  Further reports say that Saudi Arabia is supplying the rebels with chemical weapons.

John Kerry says that it would be irrational to assume the rebels did it, but offers no reasons for such a conclusion.

After President Obama announced his red line, the rebels knew what it would take to drive the U.S.A to action.  Now that the Senate hearings have elicited testimony that there could be further retaliation if the first one does not prevent another nerve agent attack, the rebels know exactly what they have to do to get us to make further attacks.

Is it irrational to think that the rebels now have control of how we manage our response to the Syrian civil war?  Is this kind of control something that we want them to have?

So, if we must respond to the use of chemical weapons, let us make sure we punish the perpetrators rather than rewarding them with the response they seek.  Let us at least wait for the report from the UN inspectors. If we do not get this right, we may be promoting the use of chemical weapons.

/Steven Greenberg

I wonder what President Obama is willing to risk to get his desired resolution from Congress.  Is he willing to promise to resign if it turns out the intelligence analyses he is depending on are wrong? Is anybody in the CIA hierarchy willing to make such a promise?

The Wall Street Cheat Sheet has the article Here’s Buffett’s Billion-Dollar Advice to the Washington Post.  There is a lot more in the article that is worth reading to understand Warren’s advice, but here is a fact we all ought to consider.

Writing Graham in 1975, Buffett began by saying that, “There are two aspects of the pension cost problem upon which management can have significant impact: 1. maintaining rational control over pension plan promises to employees and 2. increasing investment returns on pension plan assets.” While this may seem intuitive to some, it has become clear that both the private and public sector are bad at managing pensions. Very, very bad.

Both private pension plans and Social Security ought to take note of what Buffet is saying.

Since at least 2005, I have been pushing for reforms that would heed Warren Buffet’s advice.

See previous posts Social Insecurity – Investment Rules Need Rethinking, Author’s Response to Social Insecurity – Investment Rules Need Rethinking, and Why a Pay-As-You-Go System (Social Security) is not like a Ponzi scheme.

Even before I started this blog in its current form, I was promoting this solution.

I wrote the following in response to a comment on Facebook by reader DavidF.   I decided to turn it into a post because it clarifies what I think the Congress needs to demand before they make a decision.

Obama is just following the Bush model. Bush went to Congress and got authorization for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. If only the Congress had taken their responsibility more seriously back then, we probably wouldn’t be facing half the situations we are facing now.

Yesterday, I think Kerry made a plausible case for why we need to take action if it turns out that Assad is responsible for the attacks. However, he keeps assuming that Assad did it, even while he says it would be irrational for Assad to have done it. He states without explanation that it is irrational to assume the rebels did it.

I think it is irrational to think that anybody but the rebels did it. Perhaps he does have some evidence to prove his case, but if so, it is so classified that the public will never hear it. I hope the Senators press him on this issue in the classified hearings, and accept nothing short of definitive proof.

Also Kerry’s reasons for not waiting for the UN report are not good enough. If he is so sure that the results will not tell us anything we don’t already know, then he should have no worry about waiting. The problem for me is that the videos of the victims cast severe doubt on some of Kerry’s assumptions. That is why I need to hear the UN report before I would be comfortable making a decision. The Congress ought to tell this to Kerry in no uncertain terms. “No decision until the UN reports.”  If Obama insists on a decision right now, then “No” is the answer.