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The Obama administration has selectively used intelligence to justify military strikes on Syria, former military officers with access to the original intelligence reports say, in a manner that goes far beyond what critics charged the Bush administration of doing in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war. According to these officers, who served in top positions in the United States, Britain, France, Israel, and Jordan, a Syrian military communication intercepted by Israel’s famed Unit 8200 electronic intelligence outfit has been doctored so that it leads a reader to just the opposite conclusion reached by the original report. The doctored report...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com - Obama Crosses ‘Red Line’ by Supporting Jihadi TerrorismPosted By Raymond Ibrahim On August 29, 2013 @ 12:21 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 4 Comments By now it should be obvious that whenever the U.S. interferes in another nation’s politics in the name of “human rights,” that that is only a pretext. So it is in Syria, as Obama prepares to plunge America in a war with that nation, and, inevitably, its allies. The United States’ stated reason for intervention, as articulated by John Kerry, is that Syrian President Assad used chemical weapons on the...

As the first drops of a cool afternoon rain begin to fall from the sky, the administration that has been described as the most ruthlessly zealous in pursuit of whistleblowers is showering down its own rain of leaks about the upcoming attack on Syria. Stand outside the New York Times building with a bucket in one hand and a thick wad of wood pulp in the other, and you may even be able to figure out whether we’re going to war or, as one official told the Los Angeles Times, the air strikes will be “just muscular enough not to...

The U.S. could hit Syria with three days of missile strikes, perhaps beginning Thursday, in an attack meant more to send a message to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad than to topple him or cripple his military, senior U.S. officials told NBC News on Tuesday. -snip- But Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., an influential voice on military matters, pressed the administration to go further, calling for the U.S. and its allies to provide weapons to "the resistance on the ground." "The important part of this whole situation is, is this just going to be just a retaliatory strike that has no lasting...

As the U.S. reportedly weighs striking Syria, Sen. John McCain blasts the president and his top military officer for being too soft on previous allegations of chemical attacks. In an interview during a diplomatic trip to South Korea, Sen. John McCain—one of the administration’s fiercest critics on Syria policy—said that recent statements by [Joint Chiefs Chairman General Martin] Dempsey signaled to Assad that he could escalate his use of chemical weapons against his own population without significant international consequences. “General Dempsey has to be embarrassed,” McCain said about Dempsey’s letter to House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking Democrat Elliott Engel (D–New...

Thousands of sick and dying Syrians had flooded the hospitals in the Damascus suburbs before dawn, hours after the first rockets landed, their bodies convulsing and mouths foaming. Their vision was blurry and many could not breathe. Overwhelmed doctors worked frantically, jabbing their patients with injections of their only antidote, atropine, hoping to beat back the assault on the nervous system waged by suspected chemical agents. In just a few hours, as the patients poured in, the atropine ran out. To avoid contamination, medics stripped new arrivals down to their underwear and doused them with water before taking them inside....

Obama has retreated time and time again, in the face of clear and present danger from mullahs who preach martyrdom with nukes and long-range missiles. They threaten not just Israel, but the Arab oil regimes that have been Iran's deadly enemy for a thousand years. When Obama pushed over Hosni Mubarak's regime in Egypt, the pillar of peace in the Middle East, the mullahs saw their chance to forge a Shi'ite Crescent between Iran, Syria, and Lebanon, all controlled by Tehran. The purpose is to surround Israel with thousands of modern missiles armed with chemical and possibly nuclear weapons. It...

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...

Contrary evidence arises as U.S. considers punishing Assad regime... NEW YORK – As the U.S. considers a response to what it calls a chemical weapon attack by Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime that killed hundreds of civilians, reliable Middle Eastern sources say they have evidence the culprits actually were the rebel forces trying to take over the government. Secretary of State John Kerry accused the Assad government Monday of covering up the use of chemical weapons in “a cowardly crime” and a “moral obscenity” that shocked the world’s conscience. Kerry claimed the Obama administration had “undeniable” evidence “that the Assad government...

Boehner: "The president has an obligation to the American people to explain the rationale for the course of action he chooses."WASHINGTON — Backed up against a wall after nudging the Syrian red line as far as he could reasonably push it, President Obama responded to calls to make a case for action against the Assad regime by today sending out Secretary of State John Kerry. That Kerry’s message was the main administration narrative was underscored by a weak press conference at the White House after the State Department statement, where Kerry took no questions from the media. “What we saw...

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.

Israeli intelligence can tie the recent gas attack against the Syrian rebels to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, the German publication Focus reports. U.S. Naval War College Professor John Schindler tweeted the story, adding that Israel shared the information with the U.S. and other allies.

After the most recent use of chemical weapons in Syria, President Obama is sheltering his next moves even from his closest advisers as the whole Obama administration inches painfully toward what they all see as the moment of truth in Syria. Once again, he could walk away from the use of force because that option has little backing either in his administration or among Americans generally. But after an endless run of inter-agency meetings at the White House, the sense is that he is nearing three conclusions: first, the Syrian government has put his credibility on the line irrevocably and...

Testimony from victims now strongly suggests it was the rebels, not the Syrian government, that used Sarin Nerve Gas during a recent incident in the revolution-wracked nation, a senior UN diplomat said Monday. Carla del Ponte, a member of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, told Swiss TV there were “strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof,” that rebels seeking to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had used the nerve agent. But she said her panel had not yet seen any evidence of Syrian government forces using chemical weapons (CW), according to the BBC, she added...

So, wait. It wasn’t the Syrian regime, but rather the Syrian rebels who used sarin nerve gas recently? That’s the story being reported tonight by Reuters, from actually named sources among U.N. investigators. But will anybody notice? Or, with Israeli airstrikes already under way, and the neo-cons already demanding another new war, is the news too little, too late…again? The week before last, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, reading from a letter sent by the White House to Congress, announced that the Administration believes that the Syrian government recently used chemical weapons against its own people. If true, it would be...

US President Barack Obama has the authority to launch air strikes against Syria. But he has to notify lawmakers in Congress -- a process which has begun, according to both sides. "The administration is actively consulting with members of Congress, and we will continue to have these conversations in the days ahead," Kerry said Monday in a strongly-worded statement on Syria.

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,"...

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...

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday that the use of chemical weapons in attacks on civilians in Syria last week was undeniable and that the Obama administration would hold the Syrian government accountable for what he called a “moral obscenity” that had shocked the world’s conscience. In some of the most strident language used yet by the administration, Mr. Kerry accused the Syrian government of cynically seeking to cover up the use of the weapons, and he rejected its denial of responsibility for what he called a “cowardly crime.”