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The Atlantic has the article Your Labor Day Syria Reader, Part 1: Stevenson and Lofgren.
Here are two of the items from Mike Lofgren that are quoted in the article.
1. The administration’s declassified intelligence summary of the chemical weapons incident reads like a White House lawyer’s advocacy brief rather than a neutral assessment of evidence. Some of it is just circular reasoning, asserting as fact that which ought to be proven. Also, it uses up a paragraph refuting a hypothetical which was never a significant issue: no serious person, to my knowledge, ever asserted that a gas attack never happened…. Otherwise, the paper says, in effect, “we have the intelligence back-up, but you, the public can’t see it. Trust us.” That really worked out well in the past, didn’t it?
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4. Many have criticized Obama’s “red lines” statement as poor policymaking, like writing a post-dated check and not worrying whether someone would cash it. Obama was buying time, while simultaneously narrowing his future options. His domestic negotiations proceed exactly like that: he accepted the sequester he didn’t want to buy time for the debt limit increase. Obama negotiated with himself on the fiscal cliff deal, and thereby retained the vast majority of the Bush tax cuts when they would have expired anyway.
This article is the one I promised to search for in my previous post Your Labor Day Syria Reader, Part 2: William Polk.
The Atlantic has the article Your Labor Day Syria Reader, Part 2: William Polk. At the end of this blog post, I’ll give credit to the instigator of my search for this article. I can only give a hint to the value of reading this article by posting a small part of the 13th and final question addressed by the article.
13: So what could we possibly gain from an attack on Syria?
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Finally, if the missile attacks do succeed in “degrading” the Syrian government, it may read the signs as indicating that fighting the war is acceptable so long as chemical weapons are not employed. They may regard it as a sort of license to go ahead in this wasting war. Thus, the action will have accomplished little. Thus, as General Zinni points out, America will likely find itself saddled with another long-term, very expensive and perhaps unwinnable war. We need to remind ourselves what Afghanistan did – bankrupting the Soviet Union – and what Iraq cost us — about 4,500 American dead, over 100,000 wounded, many of whom will never recover, and perhaps $6 trillion.Can we afford to repeat those mistakes?
Read the rest of the article for much, much more.
Now for the credits. In a comment on my previous post, Obama Warned on Syrian Intel, reader MardyS suggested the article quoted above by way of Bill Moyers staff’s article Trying to Make Sense of Syria? Here’s Our Essential Reader. I found the Moyers article it by using the title given by Mardy and putting it into a Google search.
The Moyers article is where I found the link to The Atlantic article Your Labor Day Syria Reader, Part 2: William Polk.
At this point Sharon, my SO, is getting hungry (as am I), and wants me to stop picking loose threads and unraveling any more sweaters. This is the reason why I have not yet searched for the hinted at Part 1 of this article.
After dinner, I found Your Labor Day Syria Reader, Part 1: Stevenson and Lofgren.
The New York Times story Reports of Syria Chemical Attack Spur Question: Why?, published ages ago (over a week ago) on August 27, 2013 has recently come to my attention.
Still, the government is not monolithic. There are different power centers within its security forces, and some analysts have speculated that Mr. Assad’s brother Maher, the leader of the feared Republican Guard, could have given the order, or that it was carried out by irregular forces. Evidence from videos and witnesses suggested that the toxic substances in last week’s attack were delivered by improvised tube-launched missiles that could be used by smaller, more mobile units than were thought to be needed for chemical weapons.
The part about the tube-launched missiles was used by somebody referring to this article to make the case for the rebels having perpetrated the attack. The actual article in The New York Times is more inclined to blame it on factions in the Syrian government than it is to blame it on the rebels.
I decided to throw this in just in case you hear one side of the argument. I didn’t want you to go away thinking that you had actually learned something on which you could rely.
The Consortium News has published the open letter to the President headlined Obama Warned on Syrian Intel.
Exclusive: Despite the Obama administration’s supposedly “high confidence” regarding Syrian government guilt over the Aug. 21 chemical attack near Damascus, a dozen former U.S. military and intelligence officials are telling President Obama that they are picking up information that undercuts the Official Story.
MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Is Syria a Trap?
Precedence: IMMEDIATE
We regret to inform you that some of our former co-workers are telling us, categorically, that contrary to the claims of your administration, the most reliable intelligence shows that Bashar al-Assad was NOT responsible for the chemical incident that killed and injured Syrian civilians on August 21, and that British intelligence officials also know this. In writing this brief report, we choose to assume that you have not been fully informed because your advisers decided to afford you the opportunity for what is commonly known as “plausible denial.”
Just as I was about to think that maybe there might be some credibility in the President’s case, the other side rolls out some heavy artillery (if true). Perhaps this is just fake mockups of heavy artillery to fool the other side.
As Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden seem to show, whistle-blowers are the only source of honest information about what our government is doing. No wonder President Obama has been trying so hard to intimidate any would-be whistle-blower.
Reader Supported News has the article America’s Empire Has No Clothes.
Pelosi is 73. She has been in Congress since 1987. She has not led any crusade against chemical weapons used by Iraq, the U.S., or anyone else. On September 4, she refused to comment on past U.S. support for Iraq’s use of chemical weapons. But NOW chemical weapons are important to her? Not credible.
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Kerry is 70. He served in the Senate for almost 30 years (1985-2013). He did not object loudly to Iraq’s use of chemical weapons at the time, nor did he make a big issue of it after the fact. Despite his active pursuit of a variety of well-publicized issues, Kerry has never led any crusade against chemical weapons used by anyone. But NOW chemical weapons are important to him? Not credible.
So the question is, “Why now has this issue become so important that we are willing to start a new front in the war over this?” We shouldn’t rush in until we have some answers to this question. Perhaps looking at my previous post Iran-Contra Redux? Prince Bandar Heads Secret Saudi-CIA Effort to Aid Syrian Rebels, Topple Assad will start supplying the answers.
Of course Kerry has the excuse that he is not working for himself now. Now he is presenting the President’s point of view.
The other reason for the President jumping on board now may be that McCain and Graham have been pushing the President hard on this issue to the point of questioning his manhood if he does not take bold action. Look at the “Iran-Contra Redux?” post mentioned above to see more of the why of the McCain/Graham connection.
Democracy Now has two related video interviews. The first is Iran-Contra Redux? Prince Bandar Heads Secret Saudi-CIA Effort to Aid Syrian Rebels, Topple Assad.
The Wall Street Journal recently revealed new details about how Prince Bandar bin Sultan al-Saud — Saudi’s former ambassador to the United States — is leading the effort to prop up the Syrian rebels. Intelligence agents from Saudi Arabia, the United States, Jordan and other allied states are working at a secret joint operations center in Jordan to train and arm hand-picked Syrian rebels. The Journal also reports Prince Bandar has been jetting from covert command centers near the Syrian front lines to the Élysée Palace in Paris and the Kremlin in Moscow, seeking to undermine the Assad regime. “Really what he’s doing is he’s reprising a role that he played in the 1980s when he worked with the Reagan administration to arrange money and arms for mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan and also worked with the CIA in Nicaragua to support the Contras,” says Wall Street Journal reporter Adam Entous. “So in many ways this is a very familiar position for Prince Bandar, and it’s amazing to see the extent to which veterans of the CIA were excited to see him come back because, in the words of a diplomat who knows Bandar, he brings the Arabic term wasta, which means under-the-table clout. You know his checks are not going to bounce and that he’ll be able to deliver the money from the Saudis.”
The second part of the interview is titled U.S.-Russian Tensions Heighten over Syria; Roots of Conflict Stem from NATO Bombing of Libya.
Part two of our conversation with Wall Street Journal national security correspondent Adam Entous. He discusses his latest article, “U.S. Decided Not to Horse-Trade with Russia on Assad.” Entous writes: “President Barack Obama’s 15 seconds of face time with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, while American and Russian warships patrolled the eastern Mediterranean, spoke to a deep chill that has created one of the biggest complications to the U.S.’s plan to strike Syria.”
The links you find on the Democracy Now web site look like they might merit some serious follow-up.