You liked the Gulf of Tonkin incident and the Vietnam War, the Kuwaiti incubators crimes and the first Gulf War, the Racak massacre and the war in Kosovo, Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and the second Gulf War and Benghazi and the Libyan war? You will just love Obama’s cynical spin of gassing civilians in Ghouta and his red line. The gruesome images are clear. There’s little doubt Syrians suffered a chemical attack last month.  But the YouTube videos to influence Congress — do nothing to show who was responsible. President Barack Obama says he has “high confidence” that the regime is to blame — the strongest position short of confirmation.  Even his intelligence community and administration admit now that they have not released hard evidence and talk recently about common sense after the whole world asked after the emotional US presentations for the facts.  Now USA is talking about ‘common sense’ approach; gone is the ‘irrefutable proof’ stance. White House Chief of Staff Dennis McDonough told CNN, speaking of multiple YouTube clips which show victims of the suspected sarin attack in a Damascus suburb on August 21: “All of that leads to a quite strong common-sense test irrespective of the intelligence that suggests that the regime carried this out. Now do we have a picture or do we have irrefutable beyond-a-reasonable-doubt evidence? This is not a court of law and intelligence does not work that way.”

That is common sense

Vladimir Putin, Russian president coldly asked a week ago, if you have proof show the UN:
«The allegations about the Syrian government using chemical weapons against civilians are a provocation. I am sure this was no more than a provocation by those looking to drag other countries into the conflict and obtain support of powerful international player, particularly the United States. If they say that the Syrian governmental forces used weapons of mass destruction…and that they have proof of it, let them present it to the UN inspectors and the UN Security Council. Claims that the proof exists, but is classified and cannot be presented to anybody are below criticism. This is plain disrespect for their partners. I reject communications intercepts as evidence. They cannot be used to take fundamental decisions like using military force on Syria. Common sense speaks for itself. Syrian government troops are on the offensive and have surrounded the opposition in several regions. In these conditions, to give a trump card to those who are calling for a military intervention is utter nonsense. Regarding the position of our American colleagues, friends, who affirm that government troops used weapons of mass destruction, in this case chemical weapons, and say that they have proof, well, let them show it to the United Nations inspectors and the Security Council. It’s outward disrespect toward partners and world actors. If there is evidence, it must be presented. If they don’t show it, that means there is none. Talk that these are once again some kind of intercepts of some kind of communications that don’t prove anything cannot be used as a basis for such fundamental decisions like using force against a sovereign state.»

Today even the CNN stated, President Barack Obama’s answer to Putin has been a No Show. Why al-Assad should have ordered the attack?  “Al Assad has no credible motivation to use these weapons at this stage, and in this phase of the conflict. He is not losing,” writes Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations in a CNN Opinion column. He pointed out that some suggest the al Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front or other opposition elements may have carried out the attack to bait America into the conflict.  Furthermore analyst say: ‘No way in hell’ U.S. can back up death toll. Questions about the three times inflated death toll in comparison to UK and French numbers also raises questions about the solidity of the information the U.S. is using.

So why Obama wants to go to war in Syria?

The answer is a loss of US credibility would undermine (even more) the Petro Dollar. With every crisis in the Middle East will lose credibility and influence in the United States. The vacuum enables new alliances. The role of the dollar as oil and currency is at stake. Obviously the Obama administration’s lacks a strategic vision for the Middle East. The American policy is reactive, a coherent strategy for the prevention of individual regional crises is not recognizable. The development in Egypt makes this clear. First, the United States supported the so-called Arab spring and thus the fall of Hosni Mubarak and the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood – to the dismay of the Saudis. Two years later  supported President gave tacit consent to the military coup against the Muslim Brotherhood.

The escalation in the Syrian civil war is also a direct consequence of lacking American leadership. Meanwhile, both Syria and Iraq became a combat zone for Sunni and Shia sects with the participation of the Jihadists. The Sunni-Shia conflict may at any time extend a full fledged war in the Arab world.
In Iraq turns the spiral of violence among Sunnis and Shiites almost like during the civil war 2006 and 2007. If Bashar al-Assad remains in power, the United States risk to loose Shi’ite Iran and Iraq. That would be a shock for the Sunni dominated Saudi Arabia. The huge oil fields are located in the east of the country, where the population of Shiites is also high. Also the security guarantee of the United States for the Saudi ruling family would be undermined.

The Petro-Dollar game

Most im important the role of the dollar as accounting unit for crude oil supplies. Little is known, that it the Iran uses Euro for its oil accounting, which may be one more reason the US sees them as evil. The United States could then make the experiences of great Britain. Until the 1950s the British were the protecting power in the Middle East. The diplomatic defeat of the British in the Suez crisis in 1956 was the final end of the pound sterling as accounting unit for crude oil supplies. The British economy has not yet recovered from this former descent.The replacement of the British Pound as accounting unit for crude oil supplies was agreed at a meeting of the American President Franklin D. Roosevelt with the Saudi king Abd al-Aziz Ibn Saud on the USS Quincy in the Red Sea 1945. The United States guaranteed the Saudis military protection, while the Saudis promised from now on to sell oil to only against the dollar. The increasing demand for oil thus ensuring a continually rising demand for dollars. More and more international trade and international financial operations have been handled in dollars. The demand for dollar investments, such as US government bonds, lowered interest rates in the United States and thus facilitated the US-government borrowing. conveniently with engineering the Euro crisis by G&S tricking Greece in the EU and selling toxic debt to dimwitted European market and banks helped.

Loose the United States is now control of the Middle East, this will accelerate the decline of the US dollar. The numerous partnerships and arrangements between the Gulf States as well as with China and Russia have been reduced the importance of OPEC as a support in the enforcement of the Petro-Dollar been greatly. China has been working for years on the replacement of the dollar as a reference currency by bilateral trade agreements concluded in Yuan. The high level of debt also makes the United States vulnerable to currency crises. Taking into account all future commitments on the debts of US owes 86.8 trillion dollars.

The cold war is back

But not about ideologies, this time about resources and (again indirectly) influence over Europe. The power vacuum in the Middle East creates room for new opportunities for Russia. Through the support of Assad Russia controls the planned oil and gas pipelines from the Gulf States on Syrian soil to Europe. This asset the Russian President Vladimir Putin will not give to the Americans not without a fight. After the fruitless G20 meeting in Saint Petersburg a direct confrontation between US and Russia, like in Cuban missile crisis cannot be ruled out. Whenever someone says ‘maybe they can’t show it’, that’s laughable. In the Cuban Missile crisis of1963, when JFK was making his case before the American public, he had the U2 surveillance photos that proved what was going in Cuba behind him during the newscast. he wasn’t afraid to show the best evidence they had at the time.

Strategic geopolitical conflict

Russia is protecting the Assad regime because Assad is blocking the flow of natural gas out of the Persian Gulf into Europe, thus ensuring higher profits for Gazprom, a Russian government-owned natural gas company providing Europe with lots of energy. US is hired by the Saudis and is successful in removing Assad, the Saudis and Qatar benefits greatly since the Syrian obstacle for their pipeline would be eliminated; it will be really bad for Russia and Gazprom.

This is a strategic geopolitical conflict about natural resources, religion and money, and it really has little to do with chemical weapons at all, now you know.There is an´good article in the guardian 2013/Aug/30/ .  2009 Assad refused to sign a proposed agreement with Qatar that would run a pipeline from through Saudi Arabia, Jordan,Syria and on to Turkey, with a view to supply European markets – bypassing Russia. Instead, Assad pursued negotiations for an alternative $10 billion pipeline plan with Iran, across Iraq to Syria, that would also potentially allow Iran to supply gas to Europe from its South Pars field shared with Qatar. If the US loose face (with the (Sunni) Saudis” the “Petro Dollar” might be in danger – disastrous effects to the US economy.

Islamist and terrorism

Putin had demonstrated an uncompromising attitude in a secret meeting with the Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan secret service end of July. Bandar bin Sultan, an important shady eminence pulling strings background  in the Syrian civil war, wanted to buy Putin out with large defense procurements and joint control of energy prices on the world market. Saudi Arabia and Russia control a quarter of the world’s oil production. According to the reports of the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir ” and the British “Telegraph” but Putin had politely declined the offer, whereupon the prince threatened him with terrorist attacks at the Olympic Winter Games in Russia 2014 by Saudi Arabia funded Chechen groups. One has to note that the Boston Marathon on 15. April of this year has been come from Chechnya terrorists and 15 of the 19 hijackers in the terrorist attacks of 11. September 2001 were Saudis.  Besides that, the Al Qaeda is now the most powerful anti Assad force in Syria, which prompted on US senator to balk at being Saudis mercenary and Al Qaeda’s Air Force. Al Qaeda’s terrorists are among the rebels and commit crimes such as killing civilians including christians and soldiers formerly loyal to Assad.

Conclusion

Putin may not be a nice guy, but he rightfully called Obama’s policy in the Middle East “insane” and Kerry’s tearful claims against Assad “utter nonsense”. He protects Russian (oligarch) interests, whereas the US appears to be hired mercenary by the Saudi’s. The US may be doing this out of pure desperation in regards to their completely diminished international standing. The US not only alienated all its former allies with NSA and alike – more anybody in the world,  but also have chosen strange bed fellows in the Middle East – who needs enemies if you have the Saudis and Al Qaeda as friends.

If the administration rolls out gruesome images for the people and their congressional representatives, to convince them of Assad’s evil, perhaps as a counter-balance those that oppose US involvement in Syria should roll out those pictures of a Syrian Opposition militia member removing the beating heart from a living Syrian soldier, and eating it? Mother Agnes Mariam, founder of monastery in Qara in Syria and witnessed what the people went through when the first sparks of trouble ignited the war.  This catholic nun in Syria claims those videos are a fraud. Or maybe the Obama administration should show the foreign Al Qaeda terrorist, who are the real winners of any US airstrikes on Syria, beheading all the Syrian soldier POW’s they captured at Manakh Airbase a few weeks ago?

This is a very dangerous road the Democrats would have the US go down. There is virtually no upside to unilaterally attacking Syria, and the potential downsides are frightening. If Syria or Iran attack Israel, we are obligated by treaty to defend them, thus getting mired in a huge Mideast war that would no longer be backed by Arab neighbors. The potential of chemical, biological, and even limited nuclear weapons being used and proliferated to the Jihadists become a real possibility under this scenario. I hope lawmakers don’t fall into the trap of supporting this President today, they will have abandoned some US most core principles in doing so. Making a deal with the Devil as it were, the after effects will be solely theirs to bear for decades to come.

Appendix – Update.

A 38-page UN report is now out since 9/17, which was compiled by a UN expert team, which inspected Damascus at the end of last month, and collected over 30 samples from victims and the environment. Its authors state that it found “clear and convincing evidence that surface-to-surface rockets containing the nerve agent sarin” were released on “a relatively large scale” during the August attack. The report doesn’t blame either of the sides and is inclusive who has done it. The incident is  awar crime”,  but the Russian suggestions the attack was a rebel provocation “cannot be shrugged off”. 

The UN investigators spoke to more than 50 survivors, medical personnel and first responders. Local medical staff documented many patients’ symptoms consistent with nerve agent exposure. A number were “were diagnosed with intoxification” and “clearly showed symptoms associated with sarin, including loss of consciousness, shortness of breath, blurred vision, eye inflammation, vomiting and seizures,” the report said. It has been revealed that 85 percent of the blood samples tested positive for sarin. The UN team said that almost all of the 36 patients who showed signs of poisoning tested positive for sarin. Environmental samples also revealed the use of sarin, the UN scientists said. “A majority of the rockets or rocket fragments recovered were found to be carrying sarin.”   The inspection team concluded that the munitions linked to one of the impact sites, called Site 1 in the report, matched types of the Soviet-made M14 artillery rocket, “with either an original or improvised warhead.”

The UN experts suggested that based on the “orientation and impact craters” and other damage in the area, the rockets were fired from an unspecified area to the northwest. At the same time, the report does not say who those surface-to-surface rockets belonged to – rebels or government forces.  There are eyes in the sky. America has, so does Russia. With this war, I’m sure that these two superpowers have been watching very closely movements on the ground. And when push comes to shove, All they have to do is dig out the satellite images. Regardle ss of interpretation of the un inspectors report, acts can be produced, like rebel movement in vicinity of the attack. No doubt this is a bargaining chip that Putin might have.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has labeled the incident indeed a “war crime”, but Russia also told journalists “not to jump to conclusions” when questioned about whether Cyrillic alphabet markings, which were found on fragments of rockets reportedly used in the attack, proved that they were in possession of government forces”. UK and US assertions that rebels do not have the capacity to execute a large scale gas attack were “not grounded in reality”. Furthermore, it could very well be a false flag operation of some secret service directly or indirectly by spoofing and/or use internal hardliners. The US might know that it was a false flag operation. The nerve gas hit civilians, not the rebels. What would Assad’s army have gained killing civilians, not rebels? If the rebels fired the rockets from Assad controlled territory, they had cause to hit civilians in order not to kill the rebel fighters fighting Assad. The lack of scores of rebel victims of the gas points to the rebels as the perpetrators.