Free Republic

(Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama has not made a decision to order military strikes against the Syrian government in response to last week's alleged chemical weapons attack near Damascus, a senior administration official said on Tuesday.

"Despite graphic media coverage, American policymakers, journalists and citizens are extremely slow to muster the imagination needed to reckon with evil. Ahead of the killings, they assume rational actors will not inflict seemingly gratuitous violence. They trust in good-faith negotiations and traditional diplomacy. Once the killings start, they assume that civilians who keep their head down will be left alone. They urge cease-fires and donate humanitarian aid." This is an almost perfect description of how the United States has acted over the past two years as it has tried to come up with some kind of policy to end the...

Russia and China have stepped up their warnings against military intervention in Syria, with Moscow saying any such action would have "catastrophic consequences" for the region.

There is no evidence that the Syrian government ordered the massacre with chemical weapons, but the West will blame it anyway because they want war, investigative journalist Neil Clark told RT. RT: As we can see the US, Britain, France and Turkey are all waiting on options in Syria. How ready are they to move from words to action at this point? Neil Clark: They are really bent on war and whatever the UN inspectors do this week won’t matter because it is a replay of 2003 when Saddam Hussein was bullied into allowing weapons inspection teams into Iraq. They...

David Cameron is facing demands to set out the legal justification for military action against Syria amid mounting unease over the scale and speed of Britain’s commitment to another conflict in the Middle East. Britain, America and France are united in their readiness to act and do not require any further United Nations resolution under international law, the Foreign Secretary said. John Kerry, the US secretary of state, described the chemical attack as a “moral obscenity” and warned that Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s president, must face “consequences”. Mr Hague’s comments led to calls for ministers to “make their case” and detail...

Secretary of State John Kerry says the use of chemical weapons in Syria is "undeniable" and that the U.S. is considering how to respond:

MOSCOW — A Western military attack on Syria will only create more problems in the region, lead to more bloodshed and result in the same sort of “catastrophe” as previous Western interventions in Iraq and Libya, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said Monday. “Hysteria is growing and confrontation is incited,” Lavrov said in what he portrayed as an emergency press conference. He said the United States and its European allies have condemned the regime of Bashar al-Assad without any evidence that it actually used chemical weapons in an assault on a Damascus suburb on Aug. 21. China's president aims to...

Speaker of the House John Boehner called on President Barack Obama Monday to make a decision on the Syrian conflict, but not without the approval of congress first. "The Syrian regime has blatantly crossed President Obama's red line, the White House has acknowledged, by using chemical weapons on its people," the Ohio Republican wrote in a statement. "The options facing the president are complicated, have far-reaching ramifications, and may require significant resources." "That's why, if he chooses to act, the president must explain his decision publicly, clearly, and resolutely," he added. "The president is commander-in-chief. With that power comes obligations,"...

Warplanes and military transporters have begun arriving at Britain's Akrotiri airbase on Cyprus, less than 100 miles from the Syrian coast, in a sign of increasing preparations for a military strike against the Assad regime in Syria. Two commercial pilots who regularly fly from Larnaca on Monday told the Guardian that they had seen C-130 transport planes from their cockpit windows as well as small formations of fighter jets on their radar screens, which they believe had flown from Europe. Residents near the British airfield, a sovereign base since 1960, also say activity there has been much higher than normal...

UK and US military chiefs are drawing up a list of targets for precision-guided bombs and missiles to strike at the heart of Bashar Al-Assad’s regime. Defence correspondent Ian Drury looks at the options. WHAT TARGETS WOULD THE COALITION HIT? The favoured option among top brass is for limited Western action using ‘stand-off’ weapons from long distance to disrupt Assad’s ability to carry out chemical attacks and damage his military machine. Intelligence on targets would come from pilotless drones patrolling the skies above Syria and special forces on the ground.

Officials with the US Department of Defense have confirmed that the Pentagon has finalized procedures that outline how American forces could soon combat the government of war-torn Syria and officially involve itself in that state’s bloody uprising. After months of rumors suggesting that the US has unofficially made efforts to weaponize rebel forces fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, officials with the Defense Department tell CNN that the Pentagon has finished drafting blueprints that lay-out just how the US military could aid in ousting the leader with America’s own troops. In their report, CNN cites Defense Department officials speaking on condition...