Securing Syria's Weapons May Require US Troops

[deltex1]

America cannot put together an international force because there is not a single country that trusts us. There is not a single country that sees obama as any kind of leader. Other countries are not going to throw away lives on obama's foolishness.

Russia has a better chance of an international coalition than we do.

**** the international coalition ...demand cooperation. If they say no send the message that will reverberate for the next hundred years, Are ye with me Katz????

 

[deltex1]

So useful to move this to a "military" topic...tyvm....

 

[tinydancer]

i wrote a report on sept 3 pertaining to J kerry's lobbying for boots on the ground. I don;t have link posting abilities here yet so I'll include a couple of quotes from that report:

Kerry:“I don’t want to take off the table an option that might or might not be available to a president of the United States to secure our country.”

....afterwards TN Senator Bob Corker(R) went off on Kerry - at which point Kerry backed down off his insistence of keeping the boots on the ground option on the table(notice his last sentence):

Kerry: “Let’s shut the door now,” Kerry said. “The answer is, whatever prohibition clarifies it to Congress or the American people, there will not be American boots on the ground with respect to the civil war.“

... the last 6 words of his statement speak volumes. It looks good on paper, but in all reality it's an escape clause because --- if troops are sent into Syria to clean up a chem site, all the Obama admin has to do to justify it will be to dredge that escape clause "with respect to the civil war" back up and claim the cleanup is not in relation to the civil war.

Same ole tired, worn out magic show ... poof!

Here's a link for you:

75,000 troops needed to secure chemical weapons if Damascus falls ? RT News

 

[tinydancer]

Here's the lead up to and including the exchange.

While the Senate committee initially opted to limit US military involvement in the country to 90 days with no potential of ground operations, Republican Senator John McCain joined forces with Democratic Senator Chris Coons to add a provision calling for "decisive changes to the present military balance of power on the ground in Syria."

The Obama administration’s vacillations on Syria were perhaps best exemplified by Secretary of State John Kerry. Speaking before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, Kerry suggested it would be preferable to give the White House the power to send in ground forces in the event that Syria “imploded” or if chemical weapons were at risk of being obtained by extremists.

"I don't want to take off the table an option that might or might not be available to a president of the United States to secure our country," he told the committee in the run up to the vote.

After being told by Senator Bob Corker – the top Republican on the committee – his sentiments regarding boots on the ground were not “a very appropriate response,” Kerry quickly backtracked.

"Let's shut the door now," Kerry said.

"The answer is, whatever prohibition clarifies it to Congress or the American people, there will not be American boots on the ground with respect to the civil war.

75,000 troops needed to secure chemical weapons if Damascus falls ? RT News

 

[tinydancer]

They've obviously been planning this for quite some time.

The President and Kerry are lying their asses off to the Senate, to the Congress and to the American people.

 

[QuickHitCurepon]

The White House and the Pentagon have repeatedly ruled out "boots on the ground" in Syria, but Defense Department officials were less certain Thursday on whether U.S. military personnel might be sent to help secure or destroy Syria's chemical weapons.



Securing Syria's Weapons May Require US Troops | Military.com

Our troops would be targets of opportunity. Then we would be obliged to retaliate and hence: quagmire and more wasted American lives.

Their mission would be to remove the CW. Anything else would simply be a skirmish.

 

[tinydancer]

So useful to move this to a "military" topic...tyvm....

Why has it been moved?

This is political.

 

[georgephillip]

In 2006 Israel invaded Lebanon with the expectation of reaching the Litani River within days. That belief seem well-grounded based on the success the IDF had obtained during its previous invasions; however, in 2006 Hezbollah prevented all but a few Jews from reaching the Litani, and Israel's incursion failed.

Some believe that "failure" was a temporary set-back to a New Middle East designed to redraw the borders of Syria, Lebanon, and Turkey in order to accommodate the new state of "Free Kurdistan" garrisoned by NATO troops dedicated to protecting oil pipelines running from the Caspian Sea to the eastern Mediterranean.

If so, any military as relatively formidable as that of a Syrian state aligned with Iran will not be tolerated, and no lie will be big enough to prevent its destruction:

America?s Ridiculous Position on Syria » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

"First, every honest, well-read person, not trying to promote American special interests, knows there is no proof that Assad used chemical weapons. Absolutely none. Even as I write, an Australian newspaper, The Sydney Morning Herald, reports that the UN inspection team could find no evidence of chemical weapons used in the place cited by Syria’s rebel army.

"A video which made the rounds among American allies and which purported to show the attack has been declared a fake by the UN. Russia’s secret services also declared it a fake.

"The only other bit of 'evidence' worth mentioning is a supposed recording of Syrian officials provided to American officials by Mossad. Yes, that’s Mossad, the very people who pride themselves on deception and who have a long track record of expertly using it, even in several cases successfully against the United States.

"You do not kill thousands of people and destroy a country’s infrastructure citing rubbish like that.

"Again, as I write this, a former British Ambassador, Craig John Murray, states that the United States has been deceived by Mossad with its purported recording and that Britain’s super-sensitive listening post in Cyprus, vastly superior to Israel’s listening assets, had picked up no such information.

Germany, based on its secret service operations, also has publicly stated that Assad did not use chemical weapons."

 

[Desperado]

"The only other bit of 'evidence' worth mentioning is a supposed recording of Syrian officials provided to American officials by Mossad. Yes, that’s Mossad, the very people who pride themselves on deception and who have a long track record of expertly using it, even in several cases successfully against the United States."

You mean the same Mossad that provided the US with rock solid proof that Iraq had WMD's?

 

[georgephillip]

"The only other bit of 'evidence' worth mentioning is a supposed recording of Syrian officials provided to American officials by Mossad. Yes, that’s Mossad, the very people who pride themselves on deception and who have a long track record of expertly using it, even in several cases successfully against the United States."

You mean the same Mossad that provided the US with rock solid proof that Iraq had WMD's?

FWIW, RT alleges Israel is a bigger threat to US national security than Libya:

"While US politicians boast strong ties with Israel, CIA officials suggest Israel is one of its biggest counter-intelligence threats. With spyware that rivals that of American agencies, it is extremely difficult to detect the extent of its spying.

"In a CIA ranking of the world’s intelligence agencies and their willingness to help the US fight the War on Terror, Israel fell below Libya.

"Speaking to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity, current and former US intelligence officials blame Israel for incidents that indicate attempts to acquire secret information."

Best of friends? CIA considers Israel one of its biggest spy threats ? RT USA

 

[Desperado]

So the UN has said both sides have and have used Sarin gas.
So now we send in our troops to secure the CW that Assad admits to.
What happens if the "rebels" now use their CW to attack our troops?
This is an absolute no win situation that we should not be involved in.

 

[georgephillip]

So the UN has said both sides have and have used Sarin gas.
So now we send in our troops to secure the CW that Assad admits to.
What happens if the "rebels" now use their CW to attack our troops?
This is an absolute no win situation that we should not be involved in.

Someone has to tell that 800 pound gorilla:

"The New York Times explained some of the logic behind the pressure: 'Administration officials said the influential pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC was already at work pressing for military action against the government of Mr. Assad, fearing that if Syria escapes American retribution for its use of chemical weapons, Iran might be emboldened in the future to attack Israel. …

"'One administration official, who, like others, declined to be identified discussing White House strategy, called AIPAC ‘the 800-pound gorilla in the room,’ and said its allies in Congress had to be saying, ‘If the White House is not capable of enforcing this red line’ against the catastrophic use of chemical weapons, ‘we’re in trouble’.”

"Even more interesting, this part of the story was deleted by the New York Times, according to M.J. Rosenberg[8], which is consistent with the fact that the lobby prefers to act discreetly.

"Now, to the objections..."

The People Against the 800 Pound Gorilla » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

 

[Trajan]

The White House and the Pentagon have repeatedly ruled out "boots on the ground" in Syria, but Defense Department officials were less certain Thursday on whether U.S. military personnel might be sent to help secure or destroy Syria's chemical weapons.



Securing Syria's Weapons May Require US Troops | Military.com

Look, none of this is going to happen, the Syrians giving up their weapons, there fore no troops.

This was all an exercise in getting Obama a cover for his ass.

 

[skye]

Kerry on his stop in Jerusalem on Sunday is still warning Syria that the threat of force is real if it does not carry out an internationally brokered agreement to hand over its chemical weapons.

Sep 15, 2013

News from The Associated Press

 

[Connery]

Moved to proper forum

 

[Connery]

While troops may be necessary for a variety of reasons, Obama stated, "any agreement needs to be verifiable and enforceable and we agreed that, ultimately, what's needed for the underlying conflict is a political settlement".

Securing Syria's Weapons May Require US Troops | Military.com

 

[Londoner]

Has anyone noticed John Kerry's new face? It looks like he had a stroke or botched cosmetic surgery.

 

[skye]

Has anyone noticed John Kerry's new face? It looks like he had a stroke or botched cosmetic surgery.

I wouldn't give a flying fig about his face.

It's his brains that worry me.

 

[Trajan]

any accounting/ disposition of weapons will take some large number of troops, assad is making sure it does, there-fore putting a blanket ahead of time on an US intervention, as in boots n the ground....etc.


Updated September 13, 2013, 9:49 p.m. ET

Elite Syrian Unit Scatters Chemical Arms Stockpile
Assad Regime Has Moved Weapons to as Many as 50 Sites


A secretive Syrian military unit at the center of the Assad regime's chemical weapons program has been moving stocks of poison gases and munitions to as many as 50 sites to make them harder for the U.S. to track, according to American and Middle Eastern officials.

The movements of chemical weapons by Syria's elite Unit 450 could complicate any U.S. bombing campaign in Syria over its alleged chemical attacks, officials said. It also raises questions about implementation of a Russian proposal that calls for the regime to surrender control of its stockpile, they said.

U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies still believe they know where most of the Syrian regime's chemical weapons are located, but with less confidence than six months ago, U.S. officials said.


snip-

Unit 450 also started using dozens of smaller sites. The U.S. now believes Mr. Assad's chemical arsenal has been scattered to as many as 50 locations in the west, north and south, as well as new sites in the east, officials said.
more at-

Elite Syrian Unit Scatters Chemical Arms Stockpile - WSJ.com

 

[Ava]

Has anyone noticed John Kerry's new face? It looks like he had a stroke or botched cosmetic surgery.

Yes,I have. He DID have a chin clip some time ago but lately his right eye looks like someone else's.....He is looking weary.