Lindsey Graham Cries Wolf

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Jon Stewart lampoons Sen. Lindsey Graham's hysterical panic attack on ISIS. Graham yells that ISIS will come over here and kill everyone.

How stupid is Graham? The Senator wants to arm and train the Free Syrian Army to fight ISIS. One problem with that is that the Free Syrian Army is working with ISIS and both groups have made a peace agreement.

According to Agence France-Presse, ISIS and a number of moderate and hard-line rebel groups have agreed not to fight each other so that they can focus on taking down the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Other sources say the signatories include a major U.S. ally linked to the Free Syrian Army. Moreover, the leader of the Free Syrian Army said Saturday that the group would not take part in U.S. plans for destroying the Islamic State until it got assurances on toppling Assad.

The deal between ISIS and the moderate Syrian groups casts doubt over President Barack Obama's freshly announced strategy to arm and train the groups against ISIS.

Lindsey Graham is a stupid man.

Shocking News: Paul Wolfowitz Misleads On Current Iraq Situation

Andrew Sullivan accused Paul Wolfowitz of lying about ISIS.

We should say al Qaeda. ISIS sounds like some obscure thing; it’s even more obscure when you say Shia and Sunni … It means nothing to Americans whereas al Qaeda means everything to Americans … My point is that these are the same people, they are affiliated with the same people, who attacked the United States on 9/11 and still have an intention of attacking the United States and attacking Europe …

The problem with Wolfowitz's remarks is the al-Qaeda’s General Command released a statement disavowing ties with the ISIS.

ISIS “is not a branch of the al-Qaeda group . . . does not have an organizational relationship with it and [al-Qaeda] is not the group responsible for their actions,” al-Qaeda’s General Command said in a statement, marking the first time the leadership has formally repudiated an affiliate.

The bombing attacks by ISIS angered the Syrian civilian population. The ISIS has tortured women, killed journalist and killed government employees. The ISIS is so brutal that both the United States and Iran view the organization as a security threat. ISIS was generating bad PR al-Qaeda on the Arab Street. The deal-breaking was ISIS defying al-Qaeda orders.

The notion of the U.S. seeking help from Iran came from Secretary of State Kerry, who said he “would not rule out anything” to end the “existential threat” ISIS poses to Iraq. “We’re open to discussions if there is something constructive that can be contributed by Iran, if Iran is prepared to do something that is going to respect the integrity and sovereignty of Iraq,” Kerry told Yahoo News.

ISIS is extremely dangerous. What ISIS isn't is part of al-Qaeda. The goal of ISIS is to take control of Syria and Iraq by force. ISIS is currently more a regional threat. Wolfowitz's statement has no basis in fact.

Michele Bachmann Claims Obama is Arming Al Qaeda & Bringing the End Times

Via Right Wing Watch: Michele Bachmann told conservative radio host Jan Markell President Barack Obama is arming Al Qaeda.

“President Obama waived a ban on arming terrorists in order to allow weapons to go to the Syrian opposition,” Bachmann said. “Your listeners, US taxpayers, are now paying to give arms to terrorists including Al Qaeda.”

Bachmann tells people not to fret. Americans should "rejoice" because this is a sign of the end times. I kid you not.

“This happened and as of today the United States is willingly, knowingly, intentionally sending arms to terrorists, now what this says to me, I’m a believer in Jesus Christ, as I look at the End Times scripture, this says to me that the leaf is on the fig tree and we are to understand the signs of the times, which is your ministry, we are to understand where we are in God’s end times history.”

“Rather than seeing this as a negative, we need to rejoice, Maranatha Come Lord Jesus, His day is at hand,” Bachmann continued. “When we see up is down and right is called wrong, when this is happening, we were told this; these days would be as the days of Noah.”

You can go to the White House web site and read that Obama is only providing "non-lethal aid" to the Syrian rebels.

Today, the President signed a Presidential Determination exercising his authority to waive certain restrictions under the Arms Export Control Act. This action will allow the U.S. Government to provide or license, where appropriate, certain non-lethal assistance inside or related to Syria. This includes: 1) chemical weapons-related personal protective equipment to international organizations, including the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, for the conduct of their operations; 2) chemical weapons-related life-saving assistance for organizations implementing Department of State or U.S. Agency for International Development programs to strengthen local Syrian health care providers’ ability to prepare for and respond to any use of chemical weapons; and 3) defensive chemical weapons-related training and personal protective equipment to select vetted members of the Syrian opposition, including the Supreme Military Council, to protect against the use of chemical weapons. This action is part of longstanding and ongoing efforts to provide life-saving chemical weapons-related assistance to people in need in Syria.

It would be nice if Bachmann had reading comprehension skills.

Rep. Lois Frankel Listening Session on Syria

Rep. Lois Frankel will hold a listening session for her constituents tomorrow night. Frankel is still undecided on whether or not military action is the right solution for the use of chemical weapons in Syria. This is an opportunity for Floridians to voice their thoughts on the current situation in Syria.

Frankel is sending out 50,000 robocalls to District 22 voters. If you live in Frankel's district, if can sign up for the phone-in session at her Congressional website.

What: Rep. Lois Frankel Listening session on Syria

When:  September, 11, 2013
Teleconference is scheduled to go from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

What Is Obama's Long Game On Syria?

Rep. Jim McGovern makes a similar case that Tas has made on this blog.

MCGOVERN: (INAUDIBLE) to me, this is not about rejuvenating the military. I want to fix sequestration, too. I mean the — the president is whether or not what he’s proposing is the right thing to do, whether it’s the effective thing to do. And I just don’t believe that’s that — that’s the case.

The point made by Tas.

So, my first question regarding intervention in Syria -- and not to be crass -- but what the fuck is the goal? Seriously, what is it? Do we want to topple the Assad government, or just drop a few bombs? Are we going to take out chemical weapons stock piles, or Assad government buildings? Since those stock piles and government buildings are likely in densely populated areas, how can we avoid killing Syrian citizens? Or do we arm the rebels? If we arm the rebels, how do we make sure that we're not inadvertently arming al-Qa'ida and other extremists? What happens if we topple the Assad government, will we commit 400,000 - 500,000 troops needed to quell the chaos and looting that comes after a government has fallen?

President Obama is a careful politician who doesn't want to say something that he would have to commit to later. That problem with that is the American people don't know what are Obama's long-term intentions for Syria.

Here Comes the AIPAC Lobbyists

Anyone who says that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) doesn't have political influence in Washington is either living in denial or lying. AIPAC is sending 250 lobbyists to Capitol Hill to convince Congress to support military action against the Assad regime in Syria. Haaretz reports on the lobbying effort.

"We plan a major lobbying effort with about 250 activists in Washington to meet with their senators and representatives," an AIPAC source said on Saturday.

For obvious PR reasons, AIPAC doesn't want action against Syria to be seen as an Israeli issue. That might be in part to Israel's lobbying effort for the Iraq war. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair admits to concernd for Israel factoring into invading Iraq.

"As I recall that discussion, it was less to do with specifics about what we were going to do on Iraq or, indeed, the Middle East, because the Israel issue was a big, big issue at the time. I think, in fact, I remember, actually, there may have been conversations that we had even with Israelis, the two of us, whilst we were there. So that was a major part of all this."

It is brilliant lobbying and foreign policy, on the part of Israel, to get the United States to fight Israel's enemies. If policy-makers in the United States keep getting letting themselves be suckers then you can't blame the Israeli government from taking advantage.

Quote of the Day

"You can continue killing your own people, you just can't kill them with chemical gas."

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, making her case for a bombing campaign against the Assad regime in Syria. Her comment took  Shepard Smith of Fox News by surprise.

Sadly, this actually sums up the position of the Obama administrator.

The Syrian Failure

"War is killing as many of your enemies as you possibly can and making life insufferable. If you can't do that, you're not going to win. And [Assad] is trying to punish everybody, because if the opposition ever were to unify, setup a good government where they supplied government services -- everyone would trample over to the other side. [The rebels] haven't been able to do that, [and Assad's] best ally is the fact that they're dysfunctional."

That's a quote from Joshua Landis, the Syrian expert behind the blog Syria Comment (which has been around long before the Syrian Civil War started), in the podcast I posted from journalist Lara Setrakian. I think that quote illustrates just how fucked the situation in Syria is, but do yourself a favor and watch the whole podcast.

As I've mentioned previously on this blog, the intervention I wanted in Syria should have happened 18-24 months ago; because that's when it would have been effective. The question being debated now is whether the US should intervene now, but nobody is discussing what that intervention should entail, whether it can be effective, and what are the unintended consequences?

All of these topics are more important than simply asking whether we should intervene, because what the intervention entails will determine if the intervention is successful. I'm not your classic peacenik who applies the imperial thought framing to every US military move. Indeed, anyone who thinks that Obama actually wants to go to war with Syria hasn't paid attention to the situation for the past couple of years; and I doubt half of those people could even find Syria on a map. But I'm not a hawk either, and my bar for deciding when to commit the US military is pretty high. Intervention and military actions must be pragmatic, with goals clearly set and plans to achieve those goals laid out and able to be executed.

So, my first question regarding intervention in Syria -- and not to be crass -- but what the fuck is the goal? Seriously, what is it? Do we want to topple the Assad government, or just drop a few bombs? Are we going to take out chemical weapons stock piles, or Assad government buildings? Since those stock piles and government buildings are likely in densely populated areas, how can we avoid killing Syrian citizens? Or do we arm the rebels? If we arm the rebels, how do we make sure that we're not inadvertently arming al-Qa'ida and other extremists? What happens if we topple the Assad government, will we commit 400,000 - 500,000 troops needed to quell the chaos and looting that comes after a government has fallen?

In short, what are we going to do? Amazingly, I haven't heard anyone ask this yet, the question has only been should we do something. The answer to that question is "Yes, if the outcome is positive." Like in Libya -- NATO intervention early stopped their civil war from expanding to levels of Syrian brutality.

If the Obama administration isn't going to present to Congress answers to these questions, then I hope Congress votes down his attempts to intervene in Syria. It's not that I wish to see the utter brutality of the Syrian civil war to continue -- I just don't want to see it get worse.

Syria will go down as Obama's primary foreign policy failure. He didn't stand up to Russia or China in the UN to intervene early when success would have been more likely; then he ignored the Syrian situation until Assad used chemical weapons. Despite Assad's egregious actions, Obama lost the support of even our stalwart ally Britain in his efforts to put together a coalition to intervene. Obama hasn't displayed any forethought or ability to plan ahead while witnessing the crisis in Syria unfold. Any action Obama takes now, without a clear plan, would only make the situation more grave. Haphazard bombing could quickly lead into a need for ground troops in a war where Assad will launch a chemical weapons attack on us. At that point, if Obama doesn't have the resolve to fight a war, he's going to lose. This is a situation that we cannot get involved in. Syria isn't Iraq, but Bush's misguided/criminal actions resulted in too many needless deaths of Iraqis and Americans. Enough is enough.

Rand Paul's Offensive Syria Remark

Republicans have been allowed to say racist shit for so long. Case in point is Senator Rand Paul on Meet the Press. Paul's reasoning for why the United States should not take military action on Syria is because Paul believes Bashar al-Assad is only killing Muslims.

“I don’t see American interests involved on either side of this Syrian war. I see [Bashar] Assad, who has protected Christians for a number of decades, and Islamic rebels on the other side who have been attacking Christians,” Paul said.

Paul comes from the Glenn Reynolds libertarian school of genocide against all Muslims. Fighting the entire Muslim population on the planet is impossible. The only way this makes sense is when people like Paul and Reynolds view national security through their racist beliefs. This other quote from MTP tips Paul's hand.

"I think the Islamic rebels winning is a bad ide for the Christians, and all of a sudden we'll have another Islamic state where Christians are persecuted," Paul said on NBC's "Meet the Press.

Paul has publicly voiced his opposition to the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the Fair Housing Act. Paul hired neo-Confederate Jack Hunter to write his biography. It is certainly fair to question Paul's bizarre racial views.

How to Create a Disaster [#syria #intervention]

The international community is playing with fire when they support foreign interventions, and there will be years of debate over whether NATO’s intervention in Libya essentially created a civil war there that led to 30,000 Libyans being killed.  Conversely, without intervention, the international community risks seeing the Syrian government commit another massacre similar to the Hama massacre in 1982, where 20-40,000 Syrians were killed.

I wrote this back in December, 2011.  These words are still haunting me. 

This was after the US put a coalition together to intervene in the Libyan conflict.  The result of that conflict and our intervention was a death toll of 30,000 Libyans — but the question is whether more would have perished without intervention?

Syria isn’t Libya, but, unfortunately, I think we have an answer to that question. When you know that Syria, unlike Libya, had a history of killing tens of thousands of its civilians before their civil war began, the question goes from being merely academically inquisitive to burning; searing.  The question brands itself onto your conscience, and the shame rises up like steam that brings tears to your eyes.

I’m not for intervention in Syria now, I’m for it yesterday.  A year ago, or more.  Back when intervention would have made a positive difference.  I can’t think of positive aspects to the intervention being offered now.  By not wanting to take the situation seriously - as seriously as Libya was regarded, at least - Obama has painted himself into a corner by allowing over 100,000 Syrians to die before Assad’s chemical weapons attack.  Obama didn’t build coalitions in case the Syrian conflict escalated to this point, and now even Britain isn’t with us.  (Let that diplomatic blow sink in for a minute.)  Since 2011, violence in Iraq has skyrocketed and the world might see two full blown civil wars in the region, a destabilized government in Egypt, and blowback in Lebanon.  Israel might feel threatened and stage an attack.  What happens then? 

This is a nightmare scenario.  If Obama thinks it can be avoided by dropping a few bombs on Syria - likely killing more civilians than anybody else - then he’s out of his fucking mind. 

This is what happens with you let problems fester.  This is what happens when you see a wound and don’t treat it properly.  And this won’t just set back the whole MidEast region a couple generations of development, but it will also cause more people to lose faith in the US government. 

We certainly got the change that we voted for.  I’m not sure what happened to the hope, though.

Write A Caption: Obama the Chess Master

Another fine example White House supporters can use that President Barack Obama is a 3D chess master.

Same Neoconservatives Wrong on Iraq Urging Military Action On Syria

A group of neoconservatives that were wrong about the Iraq war are now urging military action against the regime in Syria. The letter was (unsurprisingly) published in The Weekly Standard.

"At a minimum, the United States, along with willing allies and partners, should use standoff weapons and airpower to target the Syrian dictatorship’s military units that were involved in the recent large-scale use of chemical weapons. It should also provide vetted moderate elements of Syria’s armed opposition with the military support required to identify and strike regime units armed with chemical weapons," the experts write.

"Moreover, the United States and other willing nations should consider direct military strikes against the pillars of the Assad regime. The objectives should be not only to ensure that Assad’s chemical weapons no longer threaten America, our allies in the region or the Syrian people, but also to deter or destroy the Assad regime’s airpower and other conventional military means of committing atrocities against civilian non-combatants. At the same time, the United States should accelerate efforts to vet, train, and arm moderate elements of Syria’s armed opposition, with the goal of empowering them to prevail against both the Assad regime and the growing presence of Al Qaeda-affiliated and other extremist rebel factions in the country."

Here are the less than distinguished names that signed the list. When is Joe Lieberman are Bill Kristol ever wrong on foreign policy?

Ammar Abdulhamid

Elliott Abrams

Dr. Fouad Ajami

Dr. Michael Auslin

Gary Bauer

Paul Berman

Max Boot

Ellen Bork

Ambassador L. Paul Bremer

Matthew R. J. Brodsky

Dr. Eliot A. Cohen

Senator Norm Coleman

Ambassador William Courtney

Seth Cropsey

James S. Denton

Paula A. DeSutter

Larry Diamond

Dr. Paula J. Dobriansky

Thomas Donnelly

Dr. Michael Doran

Mark Dubowitz

Dr. Colin Dueck

Dr. Nicholas Eberstadt

Ambassador Eric S. Edelman

Reuel Marc Gerecht

Abe Greenwald

Christopher J. Griffin

John P. Hannah

Bruce Pitcairn Jackson

Ash Jain

Dr. Kenneth Jensen

Allison Johnson

Dr. Robert G. Joseph

Dr. Robert Kagan

Lawrence F. Kaplan

Jamie Kirchick

Irina Krasovskaya

Dr. William Kristol

Bernard-Henri Levy

Dr. Robert J. Lieber

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman

Tod Lindberg

Dr. Thomas G. Mahnken

Dr. Michael Makovsky

Ann Marlowe

Dr. Clifford D. May

Dr. Alan Mendoza

Dr. Joshua Muravchik

Governor Tim Pawlenty

Martin Peretz

Danielle Pletka

Dr. David Pollock

Arch Puddington

Karl Rove

Randy Scheunemann

Dan Senor

Ambassador John Shattuck

Lee Smith

Henry D. Sokolski

Quote of the Day

"The investigation is… too late, and will actually tell us what we already know: CW was used."

Susan Rice, National Security Advisor, dismissing the need for a United Nations investigation on if chemical weapons were used in Syria.

I have no doubt that President Bashar al-Assad is capable of using chemical weapons on his own people. After the Iraq war, we don't need another National Security Advisor making claims on weapons without first making a strong case to the American people and the international community. Rice isn't doing much to assure Americans that the case for war against Syria will be transparent.

Lara Logan on Marie Colvin

Lara Logan talks about the late journalist Marie Colvin.

The mother of journalist Marie Colvin, who died in a rocket attack in Syria, said her daughter was on the verge of leaving the city because it was so dangerous.

Rosemarie Colvin described her daughter as passionate about her work, even when it got extremely hard.

The 55-year-old Sunday Times reporter died alongside French photographer Remi Ochlik, 28, in a rocket attack on the besieged city of Homs this morning.

Logan believes that Colvin may have been targeted by the Syrian government. Colvin was reporting that the Syrian government was killing civilians with impunity.

For those wondering: Colvin lost her eye covering a war in Sri Lanka.

Is Amina Arraf Story A Hoax?

I blogged about the disappearance of Syrian blogger Amina Abdalla. Now there are reports that Abdalla may not even exist.

But although many Syrian activists said they had corresponded with Arraf online, none acknowledged actually meeting her. A friend in Montreal, Sandra Bagaria, who started a campaign for Arraf’s release and said she knew her well, said she had corresponded with Arraf only by e-mail. Photographs of Arraf released by the friend and on her Web site are of a woman in London, Jelena Lecic, who said her identity had been stolen, according to a statement from the woman’s publicist.

The cousin, Rania Ismail, whose Facebook page identifies her as a “fulltime mommy” in Lilburn, Ga., did not respond to e-mails, although she had previously corresponded with journalists. Spokesman Mark Toner said the State Department was “seeking to confirm the details of [Arraf’s] case — including her citizenship.”

A British woman, Jelena Lecic, said the photos of Arraf/Abdalla are actually of her.

Read more »

Blogger Amina Abdalla has Been Abducted

Amina Abdalla is the author of the blog A Gay Girl in Damascus. Abdalla has written negatively about the Syria's repressive government. Abdalla has been a target of the government for quite some time. Abdalla's cousin, Rania O. Ismail, told Abdalla's readers that she was abducted.

Read more »

Riverbend Leaves Iraq

Further proof that the surge is only creating more violence. Popular Baghdad blogger Riverbend has left Iraq. She is now living in exile with million of other Iraqis.

Riverbend writes about how she sat on her suitcase and cried. She packed so too many items because she couldn't bear leaving pieces of her life behind. She needed the help of a neighbor to close the suitcase.

The last few hours in the house were a blur. It was time to go and I went from room to room saying goodbye to everything. I said goodbye to my desk- the one I’d used all through high school and college. I said goodbye to the curtains and the bed and the couch. I said goodbye to the armchair E. and I broke when we were younger. I said goodbye to the big table over which we’d gathered for meals and to do homework. I said goodbye to the ghosts of the framed pictures that once hung on the walls, because the pictures have long since been taken down and stored away- but I knew just what hung where. I said goodbye to the silly board games we inevitably fought over- the Arabic Monopoly with the missing cards and money that no one had the heart to throw away.

I knew then as I know now that these were all just items- people are so much more important. Still, a house is like a museum in that it tells a certain history. You look at a cup or stuffed toy and a chapter of memories opens up before your very eyes. It suddenly hit me that I wanted to leave so much less than I thought I did.

Riverbend may never see her house again. Ever.

In America, this war is seen through partisan lenses. The violence has real world consequences for people. Imagine the horror an Iraqi family goes through having to identify a family member in a morgue with rotting bodies. Imagine New Orleans after Katrina. That is what the worst parts of Iraq are like on a daily basis.

How does America ask people to live without electricity?

How does America have death squads as police in Iraq?

How does America let people in neighborhoods so besieged with violence that children can't walk to school?

These are the questions Iraqis are asking.

Our hearts and thoughts go out to Riverbend and her family.