The triumph of the maternalists | Books & Essays | Politics | spiked

The triumph of the maternalists | Books & Essays | Politics | spiked

Seymour Hersh: Obama Lied About Syrian Poison Gas

sa://www.lrb.co.uk/2013/12/08/seymour-m-hersh/whose-sarin

The White House’s misrepresentation of what it knew about the attack, and when, was matched by its readiness to ignore intelligence that could undermine the narrative. That information concerned al-Nusra, the Islamist rebel group designated by the US and the UN as a terrorist organisation. Al-Nusra is known to have carried out scores of suicide bombings against Christians and other non-Sunni Muslim sects inside Syria, and to have attacked its nominal ally in the civil war, the secular Free Syrian Army (FSA). Its stated goal is to overthrow the Assad regime and establish sharia law. (On 25 September al-Nusra joined several other Islamist rebel groups in repudiating the FSA and another secular faction, the Syrian National Coalition.)

The flurry of American interest in al-Nusra and sarin stemmed from a series of small-scale chemical weapons attacks in March and April; at the time, the Syrian government and the rebels each insisted the other was responsible. The UN eventually concluded that four chemical attacks had been carried out, but did not assign responsibility. A White House official told the press in late April that the intelligence community had assessed ‘with varying degrees of confidence’ that the Syrian government was responsible for the attacks. Assad had crossed Obama’s ‘red line’. The April assessment made headlines, but some significant caveats were lost in translation. The unnamed official conducting the briefing acknowledged that intelligence community assessments ‘are not alone sufficient’. ‘We want,’ he said, ‘to investigate above and beyond those intelligence assessments to gather facts so that we can establish a credible and corroborated set of information that can then inform our decision-making.’ In other words, the White House had no direct evidence of Syrian army or government involvement, a fact that was only occasionally noted in the press coverage. Obama’s tough talk played well with the public and Congress, who view Assad as a ruthless murderer.

Two months later, a White House statement announced a change in the assessment of Syrian culpability and declared that the intelligence community now had ‘high confidence’ that the Assad government was responsible for as many as 150 deaths from attacks with sarin. More headlines were generated and the press was told that Obama, in response to the new intelligence, had ordered an increase in non-lethal aid to the Syrian opposition. But once again there were significant caveats. The new intelligence included a report that Syrian officials had planned and executed the attacks. No specifics were provided, nor were those who provided the reports identified. The White House statement said that laboratory analysis had confirmed the use of sarin, but also that a positive finding of the nerve agent ‘does not tell us how or where the individuals were exposed or who was responsible for the dissemination’. The White House further declared: ‘We have no reliable corroborated reporting to indicate that the opposition in Syria has acquired or used chemical weapons.’ The statement contradicted evidence that at the time was streaming into US intelligence agencies.

Already by late May, the senior intelligence consultant told me, the CIA had briefed the Obama administration on al-Nusra and its work with sarin, and had sent alarming reports that another Sunni fundamentalist group active in Syria, al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI), also understood the science of producing sarin. At the time, al-Nusra was operating in areas close to Damascus, including Eastern Ghouta. An intelligence document issued in mid-summer dealt extensively with Ziyaad Tariq Ahmed, a chemical weapons expert formerly of the Iraqi military, who was said to have moved into Syria and to be operating in Eastern Ghouta. The consultant told me that Tariq had been identified ‘as an al-Nusra guy with a track record of making mustard gas in Iraq and someone who is implicated in making and using sarin’. He is regarded as a high-profile target by the American military.

On 20 June a four-page top secret cable summarising what had been learned about al-Nusra’s nerve gas capabilities was forwarded to David R. Shedd, deputy director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. ‘What Shedd was briefed on was extensive and comprehensive,’ the consultant said. ‘It was not a bunch of “we believes”.’ He told me that the cable made no assessment as to whether the rebels or the Syrian army had initiated the attacks in March and April, but it did confirm previous reports that al-Nusra had the ability to acquire and use sarin. A sample of the sarin that had been used was also recovered – with the help of an Israeli agent – but, according to the consultant, no further reporting about the sample showed up in cable traffic.

Independently of these assessments, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, assuming that US troops might be ordered into Syria to seize the government’s stockpile of chemical agents, called for an all-source analysis of the potential threat. ‘The Op Order provides the basis of execution of a military mission, if so ordered,’ the former senior intelligence official explained. ‘This includes the possible need to send American soldiers to a Syrian chemical site to defend it against rebel seizure. If the jihadist rebels were going to overrun the site, the assumption is that Assad would not fight us because we were protecting the chemical from the rebels. All Op Orders contain an intelligence threat component. We had technical analysts from the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, weapons people, and I & W [indications and warnings] people working on the problem … They concluded that the rebel forces were capable of attacking an American force with sarin because they were able to produce the lethal gas. The examination relied on signals and human intelligence, as well as the expressed intention and technical capability of the rebels.’

The Perfect Christmas Gift: David O. Strickland's "The FIrst Man Off The Plane"

http://www.amazon.com/The-First-Man-Off-Plane-ebook/dp/B008JHQ3FM

The Guardian: How Margaret Thatcher Freed Nelson Mandela

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/apr/10/margaret-thatcher-apartheid-mandela

I was briefed off-the-record by her foreign affairs adviser on several occasions, but when he told me that she had called on the then president, PW Botha, to release Nelson Mandela, I found it difficult to believe. I did not report it as I could not source it. But it was true. In a letter to Botha in October 1985 she wrote: "I continue to believe, as I have said to you before, that the release of Nelson Mandela would have more impact than almost any single action you could undertake."

When Botha stepped down after a stroke in 1989, he was replaced by FW de Klerk, who met Thatcher at Downing Street in June. I was among a group of journalists waiting outside No 10 with the promise that he would give a press conference straight after. We watched him leave then ran up Whitehall to the South African embassy where he had promised to speak. He did not turn up. We were told later that he had been too shocked by Thatcher's vehemence.

Mandela was released on 11 February 1990 (I was at the gates of the jail but to my eternal chagrin I failed to spot him). That evening he made a speech from the balcony of the town hall in Cape Town which was televised, live, world wide. The speech was written by the hard-liners and communists in the ANC and was full of Marxist jargon. "Our resort to the armed struggle in 1960… was a purely defensive action against the violence of apartheid. The factors which necessitated the armed struggle still exist today. We have no option but to continue." Thatcher was appalled. She picked up the telephone to Robin Renwick, the British ambassador in South Africa, and demanded to know why she had ever bothered to battle for Mandela's release if this was the result.

Angelo Codevilla on the Senkaku Islands Crisis

When the Prince Flunks Diplomacy 101

The Diplomad: The Legacy of Nelson Mandela

http://thediplomad.blogspot.com/2013/12/nelson-mandela.html

As it turns out, I was right and wrong. The ANC was a lost cause; they did not believe in democracy, and had a large element of thuggery in their ranks. Many were terrorists who had received training in Libya, and were out for revenge and blood. Mandela, however, was more complicated than I had thought. He had had his violent phase, but only after trying peaceful opposition to apartheid. Both in and after coming out of prison, he proved an extremely intelligent negotiator and compromiser, reaching understandings with Botha and De Klerk, and turning down the volume of the anti-white message of the ANC. He seemed to have an understanding that whites and other non-blacks were essential for a peaceful and prosperous South Africa. He also, surprise, did not go full Mugabe. He won election--although the vote counting was suspicious--served his term, trying to unite blacks, whites, Asians, and others into accepting the new post-apartheid South Africa. He did not try to drive the whites out, and did not go around confiscating farms and businesses. He did not encourage revenge against whites and sought a reconciliation of the races. A practical politician, he turned a blind eye to the rampant corruption among the ANC, finding it better to let the party members expend their revolutionary fervor making money. At the end of his term, he stepped down. Yes, he stepped down. That is an amazing thing in Africa; he stepped down on completing his term of office. It does not happen much on that continent. He, however, never got over his deep mistrust of the USA, and despite his credentials as a victim of human rights abuse, refused to criticize Qaddafy, never gave up his fervent admiration for Castro--who, ironically, runs a racist regime in Cuba--and remained very anti-Israel.

Was he a great man? I think the answer is yes. He had great flaws, but great courage, drive, and commitment to his cause. He showed that a determined person can make a difference. He also showed that an African president can play by the rules and try to be president for all the people of his country. For that he deserves kudos and respect. He, nevertheless, did not establish a viable democratic political system in South Africa, and proved unable to stop the escalating criminal violence that has turned Johannesburg into one of the world's rape and murder capitals. His successors have proven notably less "great" than Mandela, and ANC corruption has gone into the stratosphere--including by Mandela's gangster ex-wife, Winnie. The white and other middle class flight he wanted to avoid proceeded and has grown. I think the jury remains out on whether South Africa can avoid the fate of Zimbabwe in the medium to long run. If I had to place a bet it would be that South Africa will not avoid that fate. Mandela's time in office, unfortunately, likely will prove a brief glorious moment of "what could have been but was not."

Nelson Mandela, RIP.

F.W. de Klerk: a hero of our time » The Spectator

F.W. de Klerk: a hero of our time » The Spectator

Reagan Freed South Africa

Reagan Freed South Africa

Peter Van Buren: Down the Memory Hole...

http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175779/

Scott Jaschik: Will MLA Boycott Israel Next?

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/12/05/council-american-studies-association-backs-boycott-israeli-universities

Hypocrite American Studies Association leadership recommends academic boycott of Israel

American Studies Association leadership recommends academic boycott of Israel

End Academic Prejudice Against Israel!

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/12/an_end_to_academic_prejudice_against_israel.html

American Studies Association Calls for Boycotting Israel Academia for Academic Freedom | FrontPage Magazine

American Studies Association Calls for Boycotting Israel Academia for Academic Freedom | FrontPage Magazine

UPDATE: IMHO, the organization should change its name to the American Nazi Studies Association, as it objectively employs Nazi anti-Semitic tactics like the Jewish Boycott in order to make regions Judenrein, based on a Big Lie.

Fascist American Studies Association Calls For Nazi-Like Israel Boycott

http://asa.press.jhu.edu/council_resolution_statement.html

Ann Coulter - November 27, 2013 - IS IT TOO SOON TO SAY "I TOLD YOU SO"?

Ann Coulter - November 27, 2013 - IS IT TOO SOON TO SAY "I TOLD YOU SO"?

Banned in Britain.

http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/01/documents-reveal-british-banned-geller-and-spencer-because-of-their-pro-israeli-views/

NYRB Published Blueprint for US-Iran Agreement in August 2013

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/aug/15/new-approach-iran/?pagination=false

The DiploMad 2.0: Obama, Kerry & Iran: Having A Kellogg-Briand Momen...

The DiploMad 2.0: Obama, Kerry & Iran: Having A Kellogg-Briand Momen...: "Obama: "If you like a nuke-free Iran, you can keep a nuke-free Iran." Time to invest in fall-out shelters.  Diplomad twee...

The DiploMad 2.0: Venezuela: Bozo as Al Capone, or is it Vice-Versa?...

The DiploMad 2.0: Venezuela: Bozo as Al Capone, or is it Vice-Versa?...: One of the world's biggest clowns-cum-thugs/thugs-cum-clowns is Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro. He has filled that high office...

Daniel Pipes on the JFK Assassination's Legacy

http://www.danielpipes.org/13678/jfk-assassination

...Second, Kennedy's assassination profoundly impaired American liberalism. James Piereson's 2007 book Camelot and the Cultural Revolution (Encounter) establishes how liberals could not cope with the fact that Lee Harvey Oswald, a communist, murdered Kennedy to protect Fidel Castro's control of Cuba. Kennedy died for his anti-communism; but this wildly contradicted the liberals' narrative, so they denied this fact and insisted on presenting Kennedy as a victim of the radical Right, reading Oswald out of the picture.

Piereson ascribes much of American liberalism's turn toward anti-American pessimism to this "denial or disregard" of Oswald's obvious role in the assassination. "The reformist emphasis of American liberalism, which had been pragmatic and forward-looking, was overtaken by a spirit of national self-condemnation." Blaming American culture writ large for Kennedy's demise changed liberalism's focus from economics to cultural equity (racism, feminism, sexual freedom, gay rights) and that led them to identify with the countercultural movement of the late 1960s. The result was what Piereson calls a "residue of ambivalence" toward the worth of traditional American values. 

Liberals remain trapped by this distortion, as manifested by, for example, Michelle Obama's 2008 remark that with her husband's ascent, "For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country," or by a New York Times article this week that blamed Dallas conservatives, rather than a hard-Left drifter, for the JFK assassination.