Weapons Of Mass Repetition

by Ben Crystal / Personal Liberty Digest

UPI

Syrian rebels claim hundreds of people were killed in a toxic gas attack by pro-government forces.

In 2003, then-Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency James Clapper told reporters that Saddam Hussein moved his stockpiles of chemical weapons to Syria in advance of the second Gulf war, calling it the “the obvious conclusion one draws.” Clapper’s assessment was echoed by a general with the Iraqi Air Force, Georges Sada, who noted as many as 56 flights and multiple truck convoys carted the weapons of mass destruction across the border. The pre-invasion WMD pipeline is further touted by Israeli intelligence, Syrian dissident accounts and even American satellite imagery.

Though there was no doubt Saddam had possessed and used chemical weapons (a fact to which the victims of Iraqi chemical attacks in both Kurdistan and Iran would doubtless testify were they not dead from chemical-weapons exposure), they had vanished from Iraq. Putting aside the hotly debated veracity of President George W. Bush’s infamous rationale as well as the eyewitness accounts of those few people who survived the aforementioned war crimes in Iraq and Iran, the question requires an answer: Where did Saddam’s stockpile of chemical weapons go?

Last week, the Syrian government of Bashar Assad decided to cross whatever line comes after the “red line” that President Barack Hussein Obama declared uncrossable more than a year ago. In a move that seemed only slightly less desperate than would one by the Comcast flack assigned to make MSNBC palatable to the viewers who avoid it like it causes brain cancer, Assad deployed chemical weapons — which he likely borrowed from his fellow Ba’athist wacko, who used to live next door — against his own people.

The body count from Assad’s chemical attack remains unclear, but the reaction was spectacular. By Sunday afternoon, sources were indicating the Obama Administration was preparing a naval strike package against Syrian government targets. By the time you read this, there may well be neighborhoods in Damascus that are even more depressingly miserable than they were before.

But how did the United States of Barack Obama find itself in such a predicament? I was under the impression that the election of Obama in 2008 permanently ended war, oppression and religious intolerance. I mean, they gave the guy the Nobel Peace Prize without a shred of collateral. I’m willing to admit that dealing with the Mideast at a diplomatic level would test the mettle of even a marginally competent statesman — something to which Obama can only aspire.

The Democrats spent most of the 2000s shrieking to the rafters about the warmongering failures of President George W. Bush. Some of their criticisms, although issued for the wrong reasons, were correct. Once it became apparent the WMDs were gone, the whole endeavor became a replay of Vietnam — only with much cooler action scenes and a lower number of wasted American lives. In Iraq, we whacked a homicidal islamofascist and replaced him with a group of homicidal islamofascists because the former was becoming increasingly troublesome and because he had used WMDs before.

Then, Obama got elected in no small way as a result of being one of the few candidates who could say they said “no” to the war. Well, Dennis Kucinich could say that, but he talks to space aliens. And I think Hillary Clinton still says it, but Clinton has always had kind of a weird relationship with reality. Darn it all, Bush had lied to America about WMDs; and any candidate who wasn’t either Obama or the spaceman from Ohio with the semi-hot wife was clearly in on the sham with Bush. We were done with war and done with using phantom WMDs to justify it.

Though he ended direct combat operations in Iraq, Obama replaced them with indirect and somewhat indiscriminate targeting of civilians in Yemen. And despite an apparent media blackout on the topic, combat operations in Afghanistan are still very much a going concern. We certainly remember the recent unpleasantness in Libya — although everyone in the Obama Administration short of the postmaster general lied about it, some of them under oath. I don’t know about the rest of you, but Obama’s idea of hope, change, peace and improving America’s standing in the eyes of the world seems oddly similar to Bush’s. The only real difference appears to be that Bush was more discerning about spying on his own people and was whole let less “droney” — at least over domestic soil.

Look, we can all have a big discussion about the merits of America’s self-assigned role as policeman to the world’s crappiest precincts. I happen to believe there is logic to neutralizing those who seek to do us harm before they can board Air Jihadistan for their flight to Allah’s secret grotto via Cairo; Tel Aviv, Israel; Berlin; Paris; Oslo, Norway; London; New York; Shanksville, Pa.; and wherever else all the hippest suicide bombers are pressing the “send” button on the hotline to the afterlife. I also happen to believe that not everyone who disagrees with me is necessarily enabling islamofascism like Al-Jazeera. But it’s worth noting that we spent nearly 10 years stomping on islamofascists in Iraq — and are still doing so in Afghanistan — over WMDs we knew existed and thought might have been moved to Syria. The guy who won the White House in 2008 and again in 2012 swore up and down that not only was he was going to deliver peace in our time, but he was going to make the world unite in harmony. (Calls to mind that old, cloying Coke jingle.)

In this late age of Obama, countries upon which we could generally count to not completely devolve into an ululating rendition of the Hatfields and McCoys have devolved into open warfare. The Egyptians — evidently not content with behaving like medieval Christians — are now targeting 21st century Christians. And now, we’re gearing up for war in Syria because some lunatic islamofascist used WMDs against a bunch of lunatic islamofascists. Scroll past the endless speeches about hope and change. Ignore the pronouncements by every Democrat from Central Park West to Malibu that Obama would be the most awesome thing short of the second coming, if not even cooler than that.

The Navy is preparing to engage in direct action against the homicidal islamofascist running Syria, presumably to replace him with a group of homicidal islamofascists, and all because he used WMDs, which Administration official Clapper says he got from Iraq. “It’s déjà vu all over again.”

Fort Hood jihad murderer's glowing evaluations before attack may be used now to prevent him from getting death penalty

From Jihad Watch / Posted by Robert Spencer

"He has a keen interest in Islamic culture and faith and has shown capacity to contribute to our psychological understanding of Islamic nationalism and how it may relate to events of national security and Army interest in the Middle East and Asia." He did indeed contribute to "our psychological understanding of Islamic nationalism and how it may relate to events of national security and Army interest in the Middle East and Asia," but not in a way that the U.S. Army is prepared to appreciate and use.

"Ft. Hood shooter received glowing evaluations before attack," by Molly Hennessy-Fiske for the Los Angeles Times, August 24:

Months before the Ft. Hood shooting in November 2009, the Army psychiatrist convicted Friday of killing 13 and wounding more than 30 was completing a fellowship at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where military supervisors praised his unique interest in Islam's impact on soldiers, according to documents provided to The Times. 

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's supervisors had also repeatedly recommended him for promotion, according to documents.

"He has a keen interest in Islamic culture and faith and has shown capacity to contribute to our psychological understanding of Islamic nationalism and how it may relate to events of national security and Army interest in the Middle East and Asia," supervisors wrote in an evaluation report July 1, 2009.

Among Hasan's "unique skills," the report listed "Islamic studies" and "traumatic stress spectrum psychiatric disorders," concluding that "Maj. Hasan has great potential as an Army officer."

The officer evaluation report, and another from earlier that year, were provided to The Times by Hasan's civil lawyer, John Galligan, who says he believes they are relevant to Hasan's sentencing, which is set to begin Monday. He is eligible for the death penalty.

Hasan, 42, has been convicted of 13 charges of premeditated murder in the Nov. 5, 2009, shooting in Texas. The same jury of 13 officers that convicted him will determine his sentence. For a death sentence to be imposed, the decision must be unanimous.

Galligan, a former military judge, said the reports could be used at Hasan's sentencing to argue against a death sentence. But Hasan, who will be representing himself at sentencing as he did at trial, has yet to submit them as mitigating evidence. Galligan says he is concerned the jury will have an incomplete account of Hasan's service record and the role superiors played in promoting him.

If these evaluations prevent Hasan from getting a death sentence, it will be an egregious travesty of justice. These evaluations are evidence of how warped and politicized the culture of the Army has become. They are evidence not that Hasan is a man of good character -- he has already proven that he isn't. They are evidence of how willfully ignorant and cowed by political correctness his Army supervisors were. That is all they are evidence of.

The evaluation reports were filed while Hasan, an American-born Muslim, was earning a master's degree in public health through a two-year fellowship in disaster and preventive psychiatry. A colleague of Hasan's at Walter Reed testified that he pursued the fellowship in order to avoid deployment. 

The other report, completed March 13, 2009, said Hasan had "outstanding moral integrity" and that he had selected a "challenging topic" for his master's of public health project: "the impact of beliefs and culture on views regarding military service during the Global War on Terror."

Supervisors recommended Hasan for a position "that allows others to learn from his perspectives," noting his "unique insights into the dimensions of Islam" including "moral reasoning" were "of great potential interest and strategic importance to the U.S. Army."

That is actually true, but once again, not in the way the supervisors meant, and not in a way that the U.S. Army is willing to heed.

An Army doctor testified that a month before the attack, Hasan told her that if the military forced him to deploy to the Middle East "they will pay." He was later ordered to deploy to Afghanistan, and began plotting his attack. 

Prosecutors argued during his trial that Hasan was motivated by a "jihad duty" to kill soldiers. Hasan rarely challenged them, admitted to the shooting in his opening statement and argued that his religious beliefs led him to switch sides and attack fellow soldiers. He declined to cross-examine prosecution witnesses, call his own witnesses, testify or submit much evidence — in contrast to the prosecution, which called nearly 90 witnesses and submitted more than 700 pieces of evidence.

Op-ed:

Obama says Assad did it... Putin says the rebels did it...I believe Putin

By: Diane Sori

The infamous ‘red line’…Obama now squawks, for the cameras of course, that the ‘red line’ has been crossed in Syria, saying there is “very little doubt that Assad used chemical weapons against Syrian civilians”.

But Putin says the rebels were the ones who used said chemical weapons against their fellow countrymen NOT Assad.

I believe Putin.

And now that the Pentagon has sent four warships armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles (up to 90 per ship) to the region, and with US aircraft flying just outside Syrian airspace that could also be used to fire airborne rockets against known chemical storage facilities, two key foreign affairs officials, speaking anonymously (cowards always do that) have said they expect the US to strike Syria if the reports of chemical weapons attacks prove true.

The problem is NO independent or official UN look-see has yet to confirm without a shadow of a doubt the authenticity of any of the videos shown by either the government or the rebels as to who attacked who…yet neither side denies such an attack took place.

And just because Barack HUSSEIN Obama insists it's Assad using chemical weapons to be the truth is all the more reason to believe it’s NOT.

And so the conundrum that is Syria continues…and according to all the latest reports out of DC, Obama wants to get us involved in yet another Middle East war…a war we have NO business being involved in for America is NOT supposed to take sides or intervene in an independent country’s ‘civil war’…especially in a war with a country that we are NOT at war with nor who is at war with us.

Syria poses NO threat to our national security…NONE at all…yet the rebels are ‘the brethren’ and that means for Barack HUSSEIN Obama all rules…including those laid down in our Constitution... are off the table as he once again has America siding with the enemy.

And so the ‘Obama said / Putin said‘ blame game goes on…with the Obama (and al-Qaeda) supported rebels claiming Assad’s attack on their stronghold last week was of the chemical weapons variety kind, while Syrian state-run television, loyal to Assad, accuses the rebel forces (as in the al-Qaeda-linked Free Syrian Army) of being the source of the gas contamination that government forces came into contact with in the Damascus suburb of Jobar.

Tit for tat…but with an oh so dangerous game being played by Obama who wants to put us in the middle…risking the Syrian conflict turning into a US vs. Russia conflict…and that is NOT a game ‘We the People’ want to play.

And to that affect, Russia issued statements that US involvement in Syria would be a ‘tragic mistake’ and could lead to a repeat of the diplomatic showdowns that preceded military action in Iraq and Kosovo. Warning the US that repeating these past mistakes would undermine efforts for peace and have a “devastating impact” on the security situation in the Middle East, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (John ‘Swiftboat Kerry’s Russian counterpart) is "more than a little concerned" with Kerry’s Obama sanctioned latest words that try to ‘up’ the support in the West for a US response against Assad’s government.

Accountability Kerry called it in response to Lavrov’s comments. Accountability…for almost immediately after he said he watched video footage of the aftermath of last week’s attack…footage that still has NOT been authenticated by any means…he called the attack’s aftermath on the civilian population “human suffering that we can never ignore or forget”.

I guess that means we should NEVER ignore or forget his lies about what he did or didn’t do in Viet Nam or his close ties to ‘Hanoi’ Jane Fonda…or are we supposed to have ‘selective memory’ in regards to this but NOT to the events in Syria…but I digress…

And adding into this Syrian mix is Iran warning Obama against any intervention in Syria. “America knows the limitation of the red line of the Syrian front and any crossing of Syria’s red line will have severe consequences for the White House,” said Massoud Jazayeri, deputy chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces.

Sounds like a threat if you ask me…albeit a baited phony one to force Obama to fire those missiles so he can set (according to plan) the entire Middle East on a dangerous course towards Israel’s destruction.

And probably even knowing that, Israeli President Shimon Peres issued a statement calling for an “international attempt to take out all the chemical weapons in Syria” for he wants them taken out on both sides, thus strengthening Israel’s chances for survival as a nation...a nation surrounded by those wishing to wipe her off the map.

But when all the saber-rattling is put aside, all this rhetoric coming from the White House means, at least for now, is that Barack HUSSEIN Obama might very well give the ‘green light’ to targeted cruise missile strikes against Assad’s key military and command facilities…and give it soon. And while Obama would like to do this with U(seless) N(ations) support, he could instead partner with NATO or with his brethren in the Arab League. And he most likely would give the ‘green light’ without the most important thing of all…going through the
Constitutionally required ‘War Powers’ clause as he did in Libya…and look how that turned out.

And while currently there is NO talk…at least publicly…of ‘boots on the ground’ or the enforcing of a ‘no-fly zone’ over Syria those options remain on the table…options that will cost American lives…American blood…American limbs…in Obama’s efforts to ‘aid and abet the enemy’ yet again.

And that can NO longer be allowed..hear that Congress...NO longer allowed.


A newly released must see video...what say Obama now...
http://www.wnd.com/2013/08/video-shows-rebels-launching-gas-attack-in-syria/

Why is Crushing the Muslim Brotherhood a Bad Thing?

Kurt Schlichter/ Townhall Columnist

 

 

Here’s a wacky, outside-the-envelope idea that we just might want to give a shot – let’s try defeating our enemies. It’s bound to work out better than protecting and empowering them. 

The Egyptian Army is taking tough stand against the Muslim Brotherhood. It is backed up by an Egyptian people who rapidly tired of the Islamofascist freak show a minority of them elected. The Army, while losing many of their own, killed a lot of the insurgent Brothers. For some reason we’re supposed to be upset.

I just can’t work up a lot of caring because a pack of murderous subversives whose declared goal is returning the globe to a permanent state of Seventh Century Bedouin theocracy tried to fight it out with a tough, well-armed and patriotic Egyptian military and got their teeth kicked in.

Let me stake out what, inexplicably, seems to be a minority position here in the United States: I want to see the Muslim Brotherhood decisively and permanently defeated. I don’t care if they surrender or die, as long as they lose.

Maybe I’m just not as attuned to the nuance and subtlety of the situation as our political elite. Maybe I don’t care deeply about freedom like they do, with my two deployments actually defending freedom hardly comparable to their above and beyond the call of duty posturing on talk shows.

Maybe I’m just too simplistic. After all, in my years in the infantry I was taught that you find the enemy, fix him in place and destroy him. As a lawyer, no client ever came to me and asked me to ensure the creep who launched the frivolous lawsuit against him walked out of court happy. I never got into a fight on the playground that ended with a hug.

As unpopular as it is in the rarified circles of our squeamish elitists, defeating our enemies still seems like a pretty good plan. But then I’m not burdened with the doubts so many elitists share about the essential legitimacy of pursuing America’s national interests.

At some level, many of these people feel that we Americans – we Westerners in general – deserve to lose. I don’t share those doubts. Our enemy is evil, plain and simple, and it needs to be beaten.

The Muslim Brotherhood plus the jihadi sociopaths associated with it are most certainly our enemy.

How do we know? Because they tell us so.

As Townhall’s Hugh Hewitt consistently observes, if you want to know what the Muslim Brotherhood is all about you must read Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower. The tower is, of course, a reference to 9/11. Al Qaeda, the butcher of thousands of Americans here and abroad, is a direct off-shoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. The difference between these two sets of creeps is their strategy, not their goal.

Their goal is neither hidden nor hard to understand, unless you consciously choose to overlook or misunderstand it. They seek to rule the world under a theocracy that enshrines their own twisted version of Islam. They consider us pigs and apes who may be butchered at will, and who will be butchered when they gain enough power to do so after our spirit is so broken that we, like the ancient Romans, can no longer find the heart to defend ourselves against the barbarian onslaught.

Jews? They want them dead. Gays? Dead. Christians? Well, just ask a local Copt. You’ll be able to find one soon enough – they are all trying to immigrate to America to escape the jihadi pogroms.

Women? Well, they don’t want you dead. That’s the good news. The bad news is that after they mutilate your genitals you get to live in something like slavery at the mercy of your wild-eyed salafist husband. Lucky you.

Again, call me crazy, but I really, really want the people who favor these things crushed. Frankly, I am wondering why we, as a country, aren’t flying C-17s brimming with ammunition and weapons over to our friends – by which I mean anyone actively in combat against our enemies.

This isn’t a game. This isn’t a joke. We saw what happened in 1979 when the feckless Jimmy Carter decided his own smug sense of morality trumped common sense realism and allowed the mullahs to take over Iran. Weakness and indecisiveness didn’t win us any friends. They never will. The mullahs hate us. They, unlike us, are serious. They want us defeated. And for 34 years they have done things consistent with defeating us, right up to and including building nuclear weapons while we do nothing.

The Muslim Brotherhood fanatics are the same even if their theology is superficially different. They want to win. They are doing the things they need to do to win. Yet we refuse to fight back while we undercut those who will.

The destruction of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and everywhere should be the centerpiece of American Mideast strategy, not hassling the Israelis to compromise with terrorists. Indeed, it is hard to imagine how we would act differently if our goal was to help the Muslim Brotherhood.

March on Washington 2013 Brings Liberal Distortion

Star Parker/ Townhall Columnist

Looking over the program for the festivities commemorating the 50th anniversary of the civil rights March on Washington, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream" speech, it's hard to not feel sober about the whole thing.

I say sober because there is good news and bad news.

What's the good news?

There has been monumental progress in the quality of life, on average, that black Americans lead today.

The bad news?

Fifty years is a long time, and the progress is not nearly what it should be or could have been.

Unfortunately, the program for the "50th Anniversary March on Washington," posted on the website of that name, shows that liberals who control the event have little interest in serious thought about why there have been failures. Needless to say, the event is devoid of a single black conservative spokesperson.

Few would have dreamed in 1963 that within 50 years a black man would be president of the United States -- let alone twice elected.

We've got black millionaires, even a couple black billionaires.

The inherent stigma of race has changed dramatically.

According to a recent Gallup poll, 87 percent of Americans approve of marriage between blacks and whites, compared to only 4 percent who approved in 1959. Among white Americans, 84 percent approve of black-white marriage today, compared to just 17 percent in 1969.

Institutional racism is no longer legal in America, and acceptance of black Americans as every bit as human and normal as white Americans is in much better shape today than 50 years ago. But the overall picture of black America is not good.

According to the Census Bureau, the median net worth of black households in 2010 was $4,955 compared to a median white household net worth of $110,000.

Median black household income in 2011 was $32,229 compared to median white household income of $52, 214.

Comparing median household income by ethnicity -- white, Hispanic, Asian, black -- it's lowest for blacks.

Black liberals want us to believe that huge economic disparities persist today between black Americans and the rest of the nation because of racism and continuing civil rights injustices.

Fifty years ago, blacks faced major institutional barriers to living in America as free, normal citizens. As result of the civil rights movement and passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, barriers that allowed differential treatment under the law and permitted institutional racism were dismantled.

Of course, there are still individuals with us who carry racial prejudice in their hearts.

But to suggest, as liberals do, that institutionalized racial injustice explains today's disparities in educational and economic achievement between black and white America is to assure that disparities will continue and that the real problems will never be addressed.

The "50th Anniversary March on Washington" does our nation a disservice by going beyond just commemorating a great achievement and suggesting that disappointing progress is because that achievement was incomplete. Organizers suggest that blacks lag behind today because many "continue to suffer civil and economic injustices."

Not true. Black Americans are today free.

It may be fun to come to Washington to remember and celebrate.

But the answers for blacks today are not in Washington. They are in black homes, black schools, black hearts and black minds.

We need today a Personal Responsibility Movement. If it had gotten started in 1964 with the Civil Rights Act's passage, blacks would be in far better shape today. Instead, too many turned to government for programs.

It's why increasing numbers of black Americans are now looking to a conservative agenda that honesty examines and looks to fix what is broken in black communities and correctly identifies these as mostly moral rather than political challenges.

EGYPT: Muslim Brotherhood waging ‘history jihad’ on ancient artifacts and manuscripts in an effort to wipe out all of Egypt’s pre-Islamic history

From: Bare Naked Islam

As the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters continue waging jihad on Egypt, with support from the Obama Regime, their hate and disregard for their own non-Islamic heritage most recently gave vent to an attack on the Malawi National Museum in al-Minya in Upper Egypt.

 

Raymond Ibrahim While some ancient artifacts were stolen, others were intentionally damaged and defaced, demonstrating the intrinsic hostility to Egypt’s glorious past and its attempts to reclaim it by ridding itself of the Brotherhood and their allies.

Back in the summer of 2012, when Muhammad Morsi became president of Egypt, congratulatory calls to demolish the Great Pyramids—the ultimate in idol effrontery to Islamist sensibilities—began.  The idea was, whereas earlier Islamic leaders did not have the necessary technology to destroy the pyramids, now that an Islamist has taken office in the modern era, which is capable of destroying the lofty monuments, he should do so and rid Egypt of the pagan aura that had long plagued it.

 

When I reported this, and documented the long paper-trail of Muslims, beginning with their prophet, destroying the antiquities of their non-Muslim ancestors, the apologists, including at Huffington Post and New York Times cried “hoax,” to lull the world back to sleep. It did not even seem to matter then that smaller pharonic antiquities were being targeted and destroyed.

 

A worker displays pages from the ancient document 
“Le Description de L’Egypt” salvaged from the ruins

RT  As Egypt plunges deeper into the political turmoil, pro-Morsi looters take advantage of the situation – and the latest robbery of the Malawi Museum in the city of Minya, 300km from Cairo, has been the biggest of its kind in the Egyptians’ living memory.

 

Looters got away with more than 1,000 objects, including a prized 3,500-year-old limestone statue, ancient beaded jewelry, gold and bronze Greco-Roman coins, pottery and bronze-detailed sculptures of animals sacred to Thoth, one of the ancient Egyptian deities represented with the head of an ibis. 

 

The building was initially vandalized last Wednesday, with looting and burning going on for almost a week now. Local teenagers burned and destroyed mummies and other objects of art which were too heavy for robbers to carry. 

 

The museum’s ticket agent was killed as the theft took place, AP reported.  There were no police or troops nearby to prevent thieves from helping themselves. 

 

Archaeologist Monica Hanna, as well as a security official, threatened by sniper fire, managed to save about 40 artifacts, including five ancient Egyptian sarcophagi, two mummies and several dozen other items left behind in the street by the thieves. 

 

“I told them that this is the property of the Egyptian people and you are destroying it,” the archaeologist related. “They were apparently upset with me because I am not veiled.” 

Two statues were returned on Monday, according to the head of museums for the Antiquities Ministry, Ahmed Sharaf. The official also stressed that no charges would be pressed against those who will come forward with the looted objects. Moreover, a small reward will even be given for the returned artifacts. 

 

Meanwhile, UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova has condemned recent attacks against museums and monuments in Egypt. 

 

“Egypt’s exceptional cultural heritage is not only an inheritance of the past, reflecting its rich and diverse history, it is also a legacy for future generations and its destruction seriously weakens the foundations of Egyptian society,” Bokova stressed. 

 

Of course this isn’t the first major looting to have happened on Egyptian soil since the 2011 uprising: during the 18-day revolution, looting took place all over the country. In particular, over 50 items were stolen from the Cairo museum. However, the head of museums Sharaf said that about half of the items were recovered at that time. 

 

In December 2011, up to 200,000 rare books were destroyed by the blaze in the building of the Egyptian Scientific Institute in Cairo.

US, UK planning to launch military action to aid al-Qaeda in Syria within days

From Jihad Watch / Posted by Robert Spencer

The fools will unleash catastrophe of a proportion that neither they nor anyone else can imagine.

"Nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of" -- New York Times, April 28, 2013

Syrian rebels pledge loyalty to al-Qaeda -- USA Today, April 11, 2013
"Navy ready to launch first strike on Syria," by Tim Ross and Ben Farmer in the Telegraph, August 25:

Britain is planning to join forces with America and launch military action against Syria within days in response to the gas attack believed to have been carried out by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces against his own people. 

Royal Navy vessels are being readied to take part in a possible series of cruise missile strikes, alongside the United States, as military commanders finalise a list of potential targets.

Government sources said talks between the Prime Minister and international leaders, including Barack Obama, would continue, but that any military action that was agreed could begin within the next week.

As the preparations gathered pace, William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, warned that the world could not stand by and allow the Assad regime to use chemical weapons against the Syrian people “with impunity”.

Britain, the US and their allies must show Mr Assad that to perpetrate such an atrocity “is to cross a line and that the world will respond when that line is crossed”, he said.

British forces now look likely to be drawn into an intervention in the Syrian crisis after months of deliberation and international disagreement over how to respond to the bloody two-year civil war....