The Guardian – by Patrick Wintour
The US secretary of state has said that President Bashar al-Assad has one week to hand over his entire stock of chemical weapons to avoid a military attack. But John Kerry added that he had no expectation that the Syrian leader would comply.
Kerry also said he had no doubt that Assad was responsible for the chemical weapons attack in east Damascus on 21 August, saying that only three people are responsible for the chemical weapons inside Syria– Assad, one of his brothers and a senior general. He said the entire US intelligence community was united in believing Assad was responsible.
Kerry was speaking on Monday alongside the UK foreign secretary,William Hague, who was forced to deny that he had been pushed to the sidelines by the House of Commons decision 10 days ago to reject the use of UK force in Syria.
The US Senate is due to vote this week on whether to approve an attack and Kerry was ambivalent over whether Barack Obama would use his powers to ignore the legislative chamber, if it were to reject an attack.
The US state department stressed that Kerry was making a rhetorical argument about the one-week deadline and unlikelihood of Assad turning over Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile. In a statement, the department added: “His point was that this brutal dictator with a history of playing fast and loose with the facts cannot be trusted to turn over chemical weapons, otherwise he would have done so long ago. That’s why the world faces this moment.”
Kerry said the US had tracked the Syrian chemical weapons stock for many years, adding that it “was controlled in a very tight manner by the Assad regime … Bashar al-Assad and his brother Maher al-Assad, and a general are the three people that have the control over the movement and use of chemical weapons.
“But under any circumstances, the Assad regime is the Assad regime, and the regime issues orders, and we have regime members giving these instructions and engaging in these preparations with results going directly to President Assad.
“We are aware of that so we have no issue here about responsibility. They have a very threatening level of stocks remaining.”
Kerry said Assad might avoid an attack if he handed every bit of his chemical weapons stock, but added that the Syrian president was not going to do that. He warned that if other nations were not prepared to act on the issue of chemical weapons, “you are giving people complete licence to do whatever they want and to feel so they can do with impunity”.
Kerry said the Americans were planning an “unbelievably small” attack on Syria. “We will be able to hold Bashar al-Assad accountable without engaging in troops on the ground or any other prolonged kind of effort in a very limited, very targeted, short-term effort that degrades his capacity to deliver chemical weapons without assuming responsibility for Syria’s civil war. That is exactly what we are talking about doing – unbelievably small, limited kind of effort.”
The secretary of state repeatedly referred to genocides in eastern Europe and Rwanda in putting forward his case for taking military action. “We need to hear an appropriate outcry as we think back on those moments of history when large numbers of people have been killed because the world was silent,” he said. “The Holocaust, Rwanda, other moments, are lessons to all of us today.
“So let me be clear,” he continued. “The United States of America, President Obama, myself, others are in full agreement that the end of the conflict in Syria requires a political solution.”
But he insisted such a solution was currently impossible if “one party believes that he can rub out countless numbers of his own citizens with impunity using chemicals that have been banned for 100 years”.
Hague was forced to emphasise that the UK was engaged in the Syrian crisis through its call for greater action on humanitarian aid, as well as support for the Geneva II peace process.
He pointed out that David Cameron had convened a meeting of countries at the G20 summit in Saint Petersburg to ramp up the humanitarian effort.
Hague met members of the Syrian opposition last Friday and described its leaders as democratic and non-sectarian. On Monday, he avoided questions on why he was not providing lethal equipment to the Syrian opposition.
He said it was for the US to decide whether to attack Syria without congressional endorsement. “These are the two greatest homes of democracy and we work in slightly different ways and we each have to respect how each other’s democracies work.”
Kerry said he did not know if Obama would release further intelligence proving the culpability of Assad in the chemical weapons attack, saying the administration had already released an unprecedented amount of information.
Watch video here: http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2013/sep/09/john-kerry-military-strikes-syria-video
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/us-syria-chemical-weapons-attack-john-kerry
Oh so now we are resorting to empty threats. Man, they’re definitely following the Iraq invasion playbook all over again. Someone ought to tell them that you NEVER use the same play twice in war or battle. Especially when they are so close to each other in time frame. That’s a sign of guaranteed failure right there. That rule is written all over the “Art of War” by Sun Tzu and has been proven correct countless times. Only a complete psychopath would not take heed to that rule and warning, especially at times like this. Goes to show how desperate they are.
Another Red line in the sand??? Everything Comrade Kerry said is a flat out lie and just about all the world knows it. Doesn’t he know that there is a whole spool of hemp rope and a gallows waiting for him.
Everywhere I went this weekend people were talking. They were excited to be talking about it, and they weren’t afraid for anyone to hear it. It’s becoming very popular to be informed through the alternate media and comparing it with the propaganda that the mainstream media spews out.
We are getting close to critical mass awakening!
Yeah. Even my totally Obama-supporting (up until now), liberal father this weekend was telling me that he initially was in favor of the U.S. striking at Assad in a limited, surgical way (as if), but now he is hearing alternative reports which are sowing doubts in his mind about what is really happening over there, and he is no longer sure he trusts the government to make wise decisions about our involvement. His faith is shaken, and he is now wondering if our present leadership really knows what they are doing, or are up against. He expressed that he sees this as a “crisis” in leadership in Obama’s presidency that could spell ruin for Obama (whom he still likes very much!).
That tells me that this Syria situation alone could lead many people to start their process of awakening.
Yeah, I noticed a big change in people gradually pick up after sandy hook and them trying to go after our guns, then all of the scandals, and now this Syria thing. and them trying to force this homo-sodomite marriage crap. Not to mention the patriot whistle-blower Snowden and the NSA. It never stops!
Good News about your Dad, EE
Yep. 🙂
In this bizarro world, where things just keep getting stranger and stranger, I think at first you shake your head at it, or maybe you are a bit stunned by it, but eventually something kicks you in the gut, and you start to see that none of what’s going on really makes ANY sense, unless you are willing to lay it all out in the open and really take a look at all of it, to find out how all the pieces actually do fit together. A very ugly picture. I can see why people have defenses against seeing it.
That’s my current litmus test: does it make sense? So that’s what I say to people: “I want this to make sense, and it doesn’t.” Once they start trying to “explain” it to me, they quickly realize that what they had been thinking, doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.
Yeah, that’s what I do too. Instead of just telling them the truth, I ask them questions that get them to come to the conclusion of truth on their own.
Proverbs 6:12–15
A scoundrel and villain, who goes about with a corrupt mouth, who winks with his eye, signals with his feet and motions with his fingers, who plots evil with deceit in his heart – he always stirs up dissension. Therefore disaster will overtake him in an instant; he will suddenly be destroyed – without remedy. NIV
Kerry–real name, KOHN–you have one week to remove that hair mop from your head and turn it over to UN WMD inspectors so they can check for any signs of radioactivity!
I cannot grasp how the US government thinks its military is up to the task of taking on a professional force. The world’s sole superpower with advanced technology, yet it is quite incapable of defeating rag-tag resistance fighters who have little more than light arms and who move about mostly on foot.
I think Syria and its allies, most of whom are professional soldiers, sailors and airmen, but also guerilla units, are going to heavily defeat the United States. The best we can hope for is a US surrender under the guise of a ceasefire, because they are capable of a scorched earth policy when beaten.