Free Republic

U.S. President Barack Obama resisted pressure on Friday to abandon plans for air strikes against Syria and enlisted the support of 10 fellow leaders for a "strong" response to a chemical weapons attack. Obama refused to blink after Russian President Vladimir Putin led a campaign to talk him out of military intervention at a two-day summit of the Group of Twenty developed and developing economies in St. Petersburg. He persuaded nine other G20 nations plus Spain to join the United States in signing a statement calling for a strong international response, although it fell short of supporting military strikes, underscoring...

CNN has obtained 13 different videos that the administration has told the Senate Intelligence Committee depict the gruesome scene of a chemical weapons attack in Syria on August 21. While the videos are hard to watch, they do not prove who is responsible for the attack, nor do they provide an answer for whether military strikes are the correct course.

President Obama, John Kerry, John McCain and Lindsey Graham are all peddling the anti-Syrian government line and now they have a beloved "red line," whereby they can assist the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and various al-Qaeda terrorist groups. Of course, when Carla del Ponte stated earlier this year that the United Nations believed that terrorist forces had used chemical weapons; then, of course, this was conveniently ignored by America, France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Kingdom. Similarly, it appears that Obama, Kerry, McCain and Graham don't believe in a red line when it applies to al-Qaeda affiliates, the Free...

While U.S. leaders continue pushing for war against the Syrian government, today “Al-Qaeda-linked rebels,”reports AP, “launched an assault on a regime-held Christian mountain village in the densely populated west of Syria and new clashes erupted near the capital, Damascus, on Wednesday… In the attack on the village of Maaloula, rebels commandeered a mountaintop hotel and nearby caves and shelled the community below, said a nun, speaking by phone from a convent in the village. She spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.” Arabic news agency Al Hadath gives more information concerning this latest terror attack on Syria’s Christians,...

Public opinion polls are virtually unanimous. The American people oppose military intervention in Syria, despite poll questions worded in a way that assumes the Syrian government perpetrated chemical weapons attacks against its own people. The Washington Post/ABC News poll asked: The United States says it has determined that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons in the civil war there. Given this, do you support or oppose the United States launching missile strikes against the Syrian government?” Who could imagine the question being put in words more likely to elicit a favorable response? Nevertheless, Americans were resoundingly against military intervention....

A Maaloula resident said the rebels, many of them sporting beards and shouting God is great, attacked Christian homes and churches shortly after moving into the village overnight. They shot and killed people. I heard gunshots and then I saw three bodies lying in the middle of a street in the old quarters of the village,' said the resident, reached by telephone from neighboring Jordan. 'So many people fled the village for safety.' Now, Maaloula 'is a ghost town. Where is President Obama to see what befallen on us?' asked the man. Another resident who fled the village of 3,000...

Sen. Rand Paul said Sunday he would not filibuster the president's request to launch strikes against Syria but that he would insist Barack Obama abide by Congress's demands if it votes to prohibit military intervention in the civil war. The Kentucky Republican told "Fox News Sunday" a filibuster would only delay a vote authorizing use of force. "I will insist there is full debate on this and I will insist that I get an amendment and my amendment will say that the vote is binding -- that the president cannot, if we vote him down, decide to go to war...

Citing German intelligence Syrian forces may have used gas without Assad's permission, says German daily. Commanders had been urging Assad for authorization to use chemical weapons for more than four months but hadn't received it, Bild reports based on intercepted radio messages... This could mean that Assad may not have approved the attack close to Damascus on August 21... Bild said the radio transmission was intercepted by a German naval reconnaissance vessel, the Oker, sailing close to the Syrian coast The chief of staff of Germany's armed forces General Volker Wieker...told lawmakers the influence of al-Qaida linked forces within the...

We spend a lot of time debating the domestic ramifications of President Obama’s handling – to use the word loosely – of the situation in Syria, ranging from political fallout to impacts on upcoming elections. But it’s a big world out there and other countries have taken a keen interest in the subject. You can now bump up the level of engagement that China has in this mess, as they have dispatched a warship of their own to the party. China has reportedly sent warships to the coast of Syria to “observe” the actions of US and Russian ships as...

If .. Barack Obama isn’t happy with his press coverage in the United States, he ought to take a look at how he’s being portrayed in the Arab media. As Obama steps up his push for congressional authorization for a strike on Syria, the president is coming under withering criticism by opinion leaders throughout the Middle East, according to a review by POLITICO and experts of Arabic- and English-language media in the region. The increasingly unfavorable coverage Obama’s receiving in the Arab world - even come from the press in countries that support U.S. intervention in Syria - is doing...

Unsurprisingly, oil prices are up in reaction to the Syrian mess. It’s worth keeping in mind that President Putin is at the top of the list of world leaders who benefit from this. The linkage between oil prices and Russia’s revenues cannot be ignored in calibrating what has, and may happen yet in the Middle East. Hydrocarbons account for two-thirds of Russian export revenues and nearly half of its state budget. And until very recently just two regions, Russia and the Middle East, dominated world trade in oil and gas. Russia has regularly boasted of being an “energy superpower”. Indeed...

Lawmakers who were early champions of a U.S. strike on Assad regime targets in Syria have stayed mum as video clips emerge appearing to show opposition soldiers both killing unarmed men and indicating they have possession of chemical weapons. Yigal Carmon, the president of the Middle East Media Research Institute, who also reviewed the tape, said, "The message is if the West doesn't act, we (the rebels) too will have no red lines, and will use chemical weapons." "There are times where we have to make hard choices if we're going to stand up for the things we care about,"...

...[W]atching President Barack Obama stumble through his news conference from the G-20 summit last week and trying to talk us into war with Syria, I couldn't help thinking about dogs. It was a stupid thought, yes, but I didn't put it there. One of the president's men put it there. A guy named David Axelrod, who brought it up on Twitter. Axelrod, the Democratic mouthpiece of Chicago mayors, is the guy who aligned himself with an inexperienced Illinois legislative back-bencher and ended up installing him in the White House. And after the president announced he would seek congressional approval for...

At least celebrated investigative journalist Jake Tapper admits that the Obama videos depicting sarin attacks in Syria, released by CNN 8 p.m, last night could not be verified for authenticity. “CNN cannot independently verify the authenticity of these videos but we’re reporting on them because we have verified the Obama administration is showing them to members of congress as they hope to build a case to support military strikes against the Assad regime.” (CNN, Sept. 7, 2013). If CNN cannot independently verify the authenticity of these videos, then why are they showing them? Some 13 videos graphically depicting the gruesome...

American interests in Syria are clear: preventing terrorists from acquiring chemical weapons; depriving Iran of its most important ally and staging-base in the Middle East; and preventing al Qaeda from establishing an uncontested safe haven in the Levant. Reasonable people can disagree about the extent to which President Obama’s proposed “limited strike” will secure these interests, but not about whether the interests are real or vital. Bashar al-Assad has one of the largest chemical weapons arsenals in the world. Al Qaeda franchises control territory in Syria and have some of the most effective fighting forces on the ground. Iran’s own...

An al Qaeda-linked rebel group has wrested control of the historic Christian town of Maaloula from regime forces, opposition groups said Sunday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the hardline Islamist rebels of the al-Nusra Front seized control Saturday night. Videos posted on YouTube in recent days showed fighting between rebels and government forces in the tiny sleepy town, an hour's drive from the capital Damascus. "We cleansed Maaloula from all the Assad dogs and all his thugs," a rebel commander shouts at the camera in a video posted online over the weekend. What the capture will mean for...

The advocates of war against Syria have taken Theodore Roosevelt's advice and turned it upside down. They believe that in confronting Bashar al-Assad, the United States should speak loudly and carry a tiny stick. Some liberals like nothing better than the chance to thunder righteously against evil incarnate, and Syria brings out the moralist in them. Sen. Robert Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, asked Tuesday, "Will we, in the name of all that is human and decent, authorize the use of American military power against the inexcusable, indiscriminate and immoral use of chemical weapons?" John Kerry agreed....

I have come to the point that I cannot believe a thing President Obama says. That’s not quite the same as saying I don’t believe anything he says. When he speaks he may be telling the truth, he may not be, or he may be parsing his words to mislead. But it’s impossible to know which is which? ...With respect to Syria, the president tells us there will be no U.S. boots on the ground. Um, would that be like: •If you like your health coverage you can keep it. Most people won’t be able to. •Health insurance premiums for...

The buzz in the Middle East media is that the real reason President Obama changed his mind about striking Syria last week was not, in fact, that he is indecisive. Nor was it that the concept of war goes against his grain. Nor that there’s a major division between his personal advisors and government officials. Nor that the Arab League voted against America striking Syria and wanted the United Nations to intervene. Nor even that the British House of Commons pulled the rug out from under him by voting against a British attack on Syria—essentially slapping Obama’s primary supporter, Prime...

Christopher Greene at AMTV hammers McCain.