Crisis Begets Opportunity

U.S. transport ship with hundreds of Marines deployed to the Mediterranean

"The US Navy has deployed an amphibious transport ship to the Mediterranean, where five destroyers are already in place for possible missile strikes on Syria, a defense official said on Sunday. The USS San Antonio, with several helicopters and hundreds of Marines on board, is 'on station in the Eastern Mediterranean' but 'has received no specific tasking,' said the defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Unlike the destroyers deployed to the area, the San Antonio carries no Tomahawk cruise missiles but can ferry up to four helicopters and is designed to bring Marines ashore by chopper or landing craft." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingU.S. transport ship with hundreds of Marines deployed to the Mediterranean

White House sends resolution to Congress asking for approval on Syria strikes

"The White House formally asked Congress Saturday for authorization to conduct military strikes in Syria in a draft resolution framing a narrow set of operations, in a bid to ease fears of another open-ended war. The document says support from Congress, requested by President Barack Obama in a stunning development on Saturday, would 'send a clear signal of American resolve.' 'The objective of the United States use of military force in connection with this authorization should be to deter, disrupt, prevent and degrade the potential for future uses of chemical weapons or other weapons of mass destruction,' the draft resolution reads." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWhite House sends resolution to Congress asking for approval on Syria strikes

I Am Curious About Why Vital Information Was Not Publicized

"The government’s intelligence statement says that they had information three days before the gas event. I am curious. Did Obama privately warn the Syrian government not to make a gas attack? Did he reveal to them that he had intelligence of their activities so as to stop them? Why didn’t Obama make this intelligence fully public prior to the attack? Wouldn’t that publicity have made it very difficult for an attack to have been ordered? Even if the intelligence was not 100% able to nail down an impending attack, why was it not made public? How can we be sure that this intelligence is meaningful if, prior to the event, the U.S. government didn’t consider it reliable enough so as to issue a warning?" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingI Am Curious About Why Vital Information Was Not Publicized

The U.S. Will Regret Intervention in Syria

"One argument for U.S. intervention in Syria is as a message to Iran to take seriously U.S. threats toward its nuclear program—on which Obama has also painted himself into a corner by saying he will not allow Iran to get nuclear weapons. Yet military options to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons or a nuclear capability have never been very credible—bombing likely will not get all of Iran’s nuclear facilities and will likely only spur Iran to accelerate the program to deter further attacks. In fact, limited U.S. intervention in Syria may not only fail to intimidate Iran, but act as a similar nuclear accelerant." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe U.S. Will Regret Intervention in Syria

Paul Craig Roberts: America Totally Discredited

"Tthe United States government has lost its credibility throughout the world and will never regain it, unless the Bush and Obama regimes are arrested and put on trial for their war crimes. Obama’s destruction of US credibility goes far beyond diplomacy. It is likely that this autumn or winter, and almost certainly in 2014, the US will face severe economic crisis. When the proverbial hits the fan, the incompetent and corrupt Federal Reserve and the incompetent and corrupt US Treasury will have no more credibility than Obama and John Kerry. How long will it be before American citizens are shot down in their streets by 'their' government as occurs frequently in Washington’s close allies in Egypt, Turkey, Bahrain?" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPaul Craig Roberts: America Totally Discredited

Will Boehner Stop Our Rogue President?

"Why this rush to war? Why the hysteria? Why the panic? Syria and Assad will still be there two weeks from now or a month from now, and we will know far more then about what happened last week. Understandably, Obama wants to get the egg off his face from having foolishly drawn his 'red line' against chemical weapons, and then watching Syria, allegedly, defy His Majesty. But saving Obama’s face does not justify plunging his country into another Mideast war. Does Obama realize what a fool history will make of him if he is stampeded into a new war by propaganda that turns out to be yet another stew of ideological zealotry and mendacity?" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWill Boehner Stop Our Rogue President?

Bombshell: Kerry Caught Using Iraq Photos to Fuel Syrian War

"Secretary of State John Kerry opened his speech Friday by describing the horrors victims of the chemical weapon attack suffered, including twitching, spasms and difficulty breathing. Attempting to drive the point home, Kerry referenced a photograph used by the BBC illustrating a child jumping over hundreds of dead bodies covered in white shrouds. The photo was meant to depict victims who allegedly succumbed to the effects of chemical weapons via Assad’s regime. However, it was later exposed the photograph used had been taken in 2003 in Iraq. It was not related to Syrian deaths whatsoever and was later retracted." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBombshell: Kerry Caught Using Iraq Photos to Fuel Syrian War

Gangs Remain Key Unaddressed Problem in Gun Debate

"Gun homicides are overwhelmingly tied to gang violence. In fact, a staggering 80% of gun homicides are gang-related. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), gang homicides accounted for roughly 8,900 of 11,100 gun murders in both 2010 and 2011. That means that there were just 2,200 non gang-related firearm murders in both years in a country of over 300 million people and 250 million guns. Cities such as Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Cleveland, and New Orleans all have very high per-capita murder rates. Individual police estimates usually find at least 65% and often more than 80% of all murders in those cities are gang-related." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingGangs Remain Key Unaddressed Problem in Gun Debate

And the Winner of Bush’s Iraq War Is . . . Iran!

"Why did they vote for the resolution in 2003? 'They had weapons of mass destruction.' Well, no, they didn’t. Then why continue to vote to fund it? 'Support our troops!' Right. Get them killed. Get their limbs shot off. Once a President sucks in Congress on backing an invasion — which is 100% of the time — Congress keeps funding the carnage until the next President quietly pulls them out. Always. Support our troops! Today, the USA has zero influence in Iraq. Iran runs the show from the shadows." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingAnd the Winner of Bush’s Iraq War Is . . . Iran!

U.S. spying still under shadow of Iraq intelligence failures

"In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq 10 years ago, the CIA and other intelligence services confidently asserted that Saddam Hussein’s regime had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. But it turned out the intelligence community was 'dead wrong in almost all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction,' according to an official inquiry, the Silberman-Robb report. The spy services failed to collect solid information, botched their analysis and reached conclusions based on flawed assumptions instead of evidence, making it 'one of the most public — and most damaging — intelligence failures in recent American history,' the 2005 report said." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingU.S. spying still under shadow of Iraq intelligence failures