While I had some nice family time, one of the kids presented me unwittingly with a not so nice gift. A full blown influenza showing any nasty symptom one might think of including the ability to do so. It seems therefore necessary to take some sick leave from the blog and to stay in bed for the rest of the year.

Please drop important news and views in the comments. Thanks for behaving.

While I will be traveling and visiting family over the next days, posting at MoA will likely be light.

May all of you have a good winter solstice time.

Richard Engel of NBC News had been kidnapped in Syria and was somehow rescued by some FSA terrorist gang. He claims about his kidnappers:

"They were talking openly about their loyalty to the government," said Engel.

"This was … the Shabiha. This is a government militia. These are people who are loyal to President Bashar Assad."

Professor As'ad AbuKhalil, the Angry Arab, has reason to not believe that story and has indications that these were not Assad loyalists but FSA insurgents playing the role of Assad loyalists for a fake media stunt.

There is now new evidence that this was indeed a fake event and that, whatever Richard Engel may believe, he and the people with him (which included one ever unnamed "British engineer" who is more likely some special operations guy) were not in the hands of Shabiha but in the hand of well known experienced video fakers.

Early this year we have looked at the roles of citizen journalists from Syria. One was Khaled Abu Salah who faked and uploaded many videos of Syrian government atrocities, one day playing nearly dead while playing very well and enraged just few days later.  The other fake journalist was one "Danny" who presented his fake videos with Anderson Cooper on CNN.

Khaled Abu Salah "seriously wounded" on February 6

Khaled Abu Salah "enraged" about an "Assad blown up pipeline" on February 16

Months after we did, the British Channel 4 and the Daily Beast picked up and reported about these fake journalists and their fake videos.

Both of these fake journalists who produced fake videos of alleged atrocities seemed to be sponsored and/or trained by Avaaz, a somewhat mysterious para-government organization (PGO). Both citizen journalists were involved with Avaaz smuggling "western" reporters into Syria. At one time Khaled Abu Salah was in a video with the "wounded" western journalist Edith Bouviers who Avaaz had smuggled into and later out of Syria.

These guys have already shown that they are willing to blow up pipelines only to explain that "the Syrian government did it". They have used explosives to make videos of how "Assad bombs the people". They put bandages on a little healthy kid to show how on AlJazeerah how "Assad wounds the children". The purpose of these fakes was to influence "western" media coverage of the war on Syria. What else are they willing to fake for that purpose?

Now here is a video, uploaded yesterday, in which the fake citizen journalist Khaled Abu Salah interviews the just freed Richard Engel the evening before Engel returns from Syria to Turkey.

How come that this known serial producer of fake videos is involved in a murky kidnapping case that looks like a propaganda set up for "western" media consumption?

Further:

• Who smuggled Richard Engel into Syria? Was it Avaaz?
• Did "Danny" and Khaled Abu Salah knew that he was coming?
• Did they prepare the kidnapping and the liberation of Richard Engel?

Some of the answers may be found if Richard Engel explains how he came to meet Khaled Abu Salah for this interview. Engel should urgently answer that question.

The Israel Lobby and the neocons are trying to make a case against Chuck Hagel as next U.S. Secretary of Defense. The case is bogus but it reveals some of the smear tactics behind such campaigns.

The New York Times has a piece about the non-controversy currently headlined Comments on Israel by Top Contender for Defense Secretary Are Scrutinized.

But that is not the original headline. The much more fitting first one is readable in the URL of the piece:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/19/us/politics/chuck-hagel-candidate-for-defense-post-criticized-by-jewish-leaders.html

Indeed the voices against Hagel in that piece are from Jewish lobbying groups. Mentioned as critical of Hagel as being a not-Israel firster are “Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish advocacy organization” and “Josh Block, the chief executive of the Israel Project, a pro-Israel educational group”.

As the piece fits well with the initial headline visible in the URL, one wonders why the editors felt a need to change it. Is it not allowed to expose “Jewish leaders” when they are trying to dictate U.S. policies?

David Ignatius, unofficial spokesperson for the CIA, has a new “scoop”:

A defector’s account of Syrian chemical weapons on the move

Reports from inside two Syrian chemical weapons facilities offer some chilling new evidence that President Bashar al-Assad’s regime developed special vehicles last year for moving and mixing the weapons — and an unconfirmed allegation that Lebanese allies of the regime, presumably in Hezbollah, may have been trained 11 months ago in the weapons’ use.

If you believe Ignatius’ story, please contact me for further information about our large bridge sale.

Do those folks really believe that the people are dumb enough to fall for this bullshit again?

Or is the a clever ploy by the Obama administration, launching obvious nonsense nobody sane will believe, to create pressure against an open U.S. intervention in Syria?

This is something we never expected to hear from the U.S. State Department. Today it denounced airstrikes against Palestinians.

Why only now? Why didn't we hear that during the two war on Gaza? Or during the Israeli attacks in Lebanon?

Well, this time there were U.S. supported terrorists who where hit by a Syrian Army airstrike while they overran a Palestinian refugee camp near Damascus.

The United States is deeply concerned by reports that dozens of civilians, including women and children, were killed or wounded in Yarmouk, an area of Damascus home to 150,000 Palestinian refugees, as a result of aerial bombardment and fighting between Syrian government forces and armed opposition on December 16. These latest attacks mark a significant and alarming escalation of the conflict in Syria.

What will the State Department say the next time Israel bombs the refugees in Gaza. Will the State Department then show some consistency and also utter some "deep concern"?

The recent second attempt of foreign terrorists and Syrian insurgents to advance on Damascus failed catastrophically just like the first one in July did. The defeat last summer was followed by big insurgency losses as the Syrian army launched a counterattack in Rif Dimash. It seems likely that the recent second battle around Damascus is now being followed up on with a similar campaign. Some "western" media now start to acknowledge this:

The picture of Syria most common believed abroad is of the rebels closing in on the capital as the Assad government faces defeat in weeks or, at most, a few months. The Secretary General of Nato, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said last week that the regime is "approaching collapse". The foreign media consensus is that the rebels are making sweeping gains on all fronts and the end may be nigh. But when one reaches Damascus, it is to discover that the best informed Syrians and foreign diplomats say, on the contrary, that the most recent rebel attacks in the capital had been thrown back by a government counteroffensive.

The recent defeat in Damascus came despite intensified training for the insurgents by British, American and Jordanian special forces and despite new weapons delivered to them from the Gulf dictatorships.

A major insurgency attack on a Syrian Arab Army infantry school in al-Meslmyeh was, according to Syrian government sources, also repelled. This sugar coated report of the NYT is skating around this fact:

In the northern city of Aleppo, rebels claimed to have taken another important military installation, the region’s infantry school, though some reports said that fighting continued on Saturday.

There was an outpouring of grief from anti government activists and fighters after [Yousef al-Jader] a commander of a rebel group, the Tawhid, or Unification, Brigade, was reported to have died in the fighting.
…
The commander was one of many fighters to die in the fighting at the infantry school, which is north of Aleppo, in Muslimiyah.

…
It is unclear whether the rebels will keep control of the base. In many cases, rebels have quickly taken ammunition from captured bases and then abandoned them, wary of government attacks.

Translation of the last sentence: "After partial success in their attack on the infantry school a counterattack launched by the government drove the insurgents away from the school."

The Syrian army is now raiding the places from which the infantry school attack was launched:

The source added that scores of terrorists were killed and several of their hideouts were destroyed in the farms near the Infantry School in al-Meslmyeh.

Leader of a terrorist group Yousef al-Jader was killed along with scores of terrorists in al-Meslmyeh in Aleppo countryside.

About the same time the leader of the Tawhid brigade was killed, Ayad Al-Tubasi, the leader of the Nusra Front, also found his end. While both will of course soon be replaced their death shows that those in such positions are not immune to countermeasures.

SANA's long list of recent successes by the Syrian Arab Army is a sign that there are currently wide ranging sweeping operations underway and that the insurgents are under increasing pressure.

Cont. reading: Syria: Insurgents On The Run?

This is a double page from some South Carolina newspaper today. It features a well placed Christmas sale advertisement.

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What is Christmas about if not marketing, buying and giving automated rifles?

The media supporters of the terrorists and insurgents in Syria have spread an immense amount of stories that were later proven to be false. Two days ago another obviously false story, based solely on opposition accounts, was reported on in the New York Times. The NYT report showed some, though not nearly enough, skepticism towards the story. But it was the Financial Times correspondent Borzou Daragahi who, in spreading the story, really exposed himself as gullible simpleton.

Two days ago the NY Times reported:

Scores of Syrian civilians belonging to President Bashar al-Assad’s minority Alawite sect were killed Tuesday in the first known Alawite massacre since the Syrian conflict began. But the killings, in the village of Aqrab, happened under circumstances that remain unclear.

Rights organizations researching the massacre said Wednesday that members of the shabiha, a pro-government Alawite militia, were the killers. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-Assad group based in Britain with a network of contacts inside Syria, said 125 to 150 civilians died.

The accusation, if confirmed, would be a shocking episode of Alawite-on-Alawite violence in a conflict punctuated by violence between sects.

That story smelled and was full of holes. There was no plausible motive for the alleged massacre in it. It solely dependent on known biased outlets like the Syrian Observatory and "activists" which spread propaganda for Syrian insurgents and acknowledged terrorist groups like the Nusra front.

So when the Financial Times Middle East correspondent Borzou Daragahi tweeted it as this:

Shabiha now massacring Allawites,. rights groups say, via @nytimes http://nyti.ms/UVgDuX

I responded:

"Rights groups" = Terrorist Propaganda > @borzou: Shabiha now massacring Allawites,. rights groups say, via @nytimes http://nyti.ms/UVgDuX

Mr. Daragahi did not like that. He accused me of being a "Shabiha supporter":

Shabiha's western supporters defame Syrian civilian rights monitors as terrorists RT @moonofa: "Rights groups" = Terrorist Propaganda

Does anyone find the line where I defame the "Syrian civilian rights monitors as terrorists"? For the record, I do not. I accuse the Syrian Observatory of spreading propaganda and lies about terrorism committed by certain anti-government groups in Syria. Even the NYT, in its very biased report, identified the Syrian Observatory as "an anti-Assad group".

Meanwhile the judgement about the truth of the story the Syrian Observatory and Borzou Daragahi spread is in. Alex Thomson of the British Channel 4 visited Aqrab, talked to and filmed various witnesses of the event. Here is what he found:

Cont. reading: Syria: FT Correspondent @Borzou – A Gullible Simpleton

Michael Gordon, famous for writing Iraq WMD scare stories together with Judith Miller, is again willingly distributing administration scare stories and to promote a new war: Syria Fires Scud Missiles at Insurgents, U.S. Says

Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have fired Scud missiles at rebel fighters in recent days, Obama administration officials said on Wednesday.

…
One American official, who asked not to be identified because he was discussing classified information, said that missiles had been fired from the Damascus area at targets in northern Syria.

“The total is number is probably north of six now,” said another American official, and that the targets were in areas controlled by the Free Syrian Army, the main armed insurgent group.

I call that bullshit. There have been no reports on Scud impacts from the terrorists fighting the Syrian government and people. Martin Chulov, who currently reports for the Guardian from northern Syria, tweeted:

No word of this in the north: US says #Syria Fires Scud Missiles at Insurgents #news http://nyti.ms/TUluvj

Are we to believe that the Syrian government uses Scuds against the terrorists without any casualties being reported and without even one rumors on the ground over such alleged shooting and their impacts?

Like with the false WMD scare over Iraq and recent false chemical weapon mixing claims in Syria the British government is joined at the hip with the U.S government and propagandist Michael Gordon in distributing this scam:

British officals said intelligence reports indicated that the regime first fired a Scud missile on Monday and the firing has continued.

This is just more nonsense from those who want to get NATO to fight a regime-change war against Syria.

Some 70 bribed and pressed nations, the "enemies of Syria", are currently meeting in Marrakesh and the U.S. wants them to recognize the sectarian Muslim Brotherhood exiles it has organized as a Syrian opposition and to pay up for the continuation of the terror operation against the Syrian people.

Also today the German parliament discusses the stationing of Patriot missiles in Turkey. The final vote will be Friday. What better way to influence that than claiming that Syria shot off some missiles.

There is also bad news for the U.S. plans that this propaganda may cover up. A huge car bomb went off in front of the Syrian interior ministry again confirming that the Syrian government is indeed fighting against terrorists. This while the U.S. created puppet exiles group demanded that the U.S. designation of Jabhat al Nusra as a terrorist group be taken back:

The leader of the National Coalition, cleric Moaz al-Khatib, also criticised a US decision to put an Islamist militia active in Syria on its list of banned terrorist organisations.

Doesn't make that demand the "National Coalition" supporter of terrorists?

Lets hope that no one falls for Obama's obvious Scud propaganda.

This seems the right point in (blog) time to listen to some 12 tone music while nipping at a 12 year old cask strength Lagavulin.

Use as open thread …

My congratulations to the people of North Korea for the successful launch of a satellite into earth orbit. To do so is a great engineering achievement for any nation. Especially when under sanctions and thereby restricted in sourcing.

Including North Korea only ten nations at all so far succeeded in launching satellites.

This launch also gave a lesson in the unreliability of satellite pictures and anonymous sources. Only yesterday the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported:

SEOUL, Dec. 11 (Yonhap) — North Korea has removed a long-range rocket from the launch pad in an apparent effort to fix technical problems that forced the communist nation to extend a launch window by a week, a military source in Seoul said Tuesday.

According to analysis of the latest satellite imagery, the North has taken the three stages of the Unha-3 rocket off the launch pad and moved them into a nearby assembly line at Dongchang-ri in the country's northwest, the source said.

"It seems that North Korea has pulled down the rocket from the launch pad to fix technical problems," the source said, asking for anonymity.

One can not remove a big rocket from its launch pad, repair it and put it back within 24 hours. Indeed when South Korea's own attempt for a satellite launch, with the first rocket stage bought from Russia, was delayed in October the expected delay was much longer:

According to the Yonhap news agency, engineers will remove the two-stage rocket from the launch pad to replace a seal, delaying the launch at least three days.

The South Korean satellite rocket launch was delayed several times and, if successful, will only happen next year. The North won the local race to space.

Those satellite pictures of the North Korean launch site and/or the anonymous military source were obviously wrong.

Keep that in mind the next time someone claims to know what happens under "pink tarps" based on a satellite pictures or claims to know why people are landscaping certain areas from looking at satellite imagery.

The United States government is now officially agreeing with the Syrian government's assertion that  it is fighting terrorists:

The State Department said Monday that the Syrian rebel movement's Nusra Front is just another name for al Qaida in Iraq, an acknowledgment that the uprising to topple President Bashar Assad is led in part by foreign Islamist extremists who fought U.S. troops for years in the bloody Iraq war.

That step was taken to somehow draw a line between the "good" terrorists that the U.S. wants continue to support and the "bad" ones. But there are many "bad" ones and no really good ones and they themselves claim they are all the same:

A total of 29 opposition groups, including fighting "brigades" and civilian committees, have signed a petition calling for mass demonstrations in support of Jabhat al-Nusra, an Islamist group which the White House believes is an offshoot of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The petition is promoting the slogan "No to American intervention, for we are all Jabhat al-Nusra" and urges supporters to "raise the Jabhat al-Nusra flag" as a "thank you".

The Obama administration is also walking back its false claims about preparation of chemical weapons by the Syrian government:

The Obama administration Tuesday appeared to temper its recent assertions that the Syrian government may be preparing to use chemical weapons, with Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta telling reporters the relevant intelligence had "really kind of leveled off."

Now add this:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has canceled her trip to Morocco this week for a meeting on the future of Syria's opposition because of a stomach virus, the State Department said on Monday.

…
"Since she's still under the weather, we'll be staying put this week instead of heading to North Africa and the Middle East as originally planned," State Department spokesman Philippe Reines said in a statement.

Could it be that we are seeing a change in Obama's position towards Syria? Or is this all just a ruse to cover plans to further arm the well armed terrorists?

The United States is launching a covert operation to send weapons to Syrian rebels for the first time as it ramps up military efforts to oust President Bashar al-Assad.

The last link is to the Sunday Times which can not be trusted. The piece may be part of the campaign by the Brits and French to (again) get Obama to wage a war for them:

A plan to provide military training to the Syrian rebels fighting the Assad regime and support them with air and naval power is being drawn up by an international coalition including Britain, The Independent has learnt.
..
The head of Britain’s armed forces, General Sir David Richards, hosted a confidential meeting in London a few weeks ago attended by the military chiefs of France, Turkey, Jordan, Qatar and the UAE, and a three-star American general, in which the strategy was discussed at length. Other UK government departments and their counterparts in allied states in the mission have also been holding extensive meetings on the issue.

But all this seems to depend on Washington which probably hasn't made up its mind:

However, they said the UK would act only if the US did so and made it clear that British chiefs of staffs are seriously worried about the consequences of intervening in the Syrian crisis.
…
Options have been sent by defence chiefs to No 10, sources told the Guardian on Monday night. However, one source added: "We are a long way from doing anything." An official said: "The US is leading the way. We are not there yet."

The British military as well as likely the Pentagon are against waging war on Syria. The White House may have learned a lesson from Libya where, after pressure from London and Paris, it waged a war to then only find that those people it helped later killed the U.S. ambassador.

These tealeaves are difficult to read. Is Washington changing its approach towards Syria or will it continue to support the terrorists' war against the Syrian people?

Just to cover some news items on Egypt:

The very democratic minded president Morsi, who was unable to move the referendum on a new constitution and allow for more time for discussion because that would be "illegal", just issued a decree to change the election law:

Voters will no longer be able to vote outside of their electoral districts in the upcoming constitution referendum, after President Mohamed Morsy amended an electoral law.

Morsy issued an amendment to Law 73 for the year 1956 canceling the stipulation allowing voters tocast their ballots in referendums outside of their electoral districts, a presidential statement on Tuesday morning said.

…
The president's office justified the amendment by alleging that while allowing voters to cast their ballots outside their electoral districts may be convenient for people, the process can produce many appeals and cast a lot of doubts about the extent to which the referendum is a free and clean process.

Yeah, sure. Many who migrated to the big cities of Egypt to find work are still registered in their original hometowns. Those people, likely millions of them, learn now, four days before the referendum, that they will have no chance to vote. Living in the cities might have made them too liberal to allow for that.

Cont. reading: Egypt: Further Down The Highway

Under pressure to secure a $4.8 billion IMF loan the Egyptian president yesterday legislated, by decree, massive tax hikes on steel, cement, soft drinks, beer and cigarettes and some services like mobile-phone services, air-conditioned transportation, cleaning and security.

He immediately came under fire even from his own Freedom and Justice Party:

The FJP reiterated its permanent position, rejecting any economic policies that increase the burden on low-income citizens.

The party certainly feared that the tax hikes, issued shortly before a referendum on the new constitution, would turn voters to vote no.

Today, at 2 am local time, the tax hike decree was annulled through another one issued via Morsi's Facebook account.

Cont. reading: Egypt: Political Ineptness Lets Downward Spiral Continue

Terrorists of the Khaled Ibn al-Walid brigade in Syria are teaching children how to behead men.

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The video is here and, yes, that head and others do come off in it.

Some of the perpetrators are said to have been in Saudi prisons for capital crimes. Instead of being beheaded themselves they were let go to behead Syrians.

Why is "the west" supporting these people?

The U.S. continues to use the weapon of mass deception:

Once more, weapons of mass destruction could become weapons of mass deception at screaming high volume these past few days. From the western media who, in the heated atmosphere pre-Iraq and under pressure from Bush and Blair, brought us the Baghdad WMD story, now we have the “Damascus chemical weapons threat”.

…
Readers and viewers, meanwhile, should question why, and why now, there is suddenly a supposed chemical weapons “threat”? Where’s the proof? What is the evidence? The past should be a lesson to us all.

While blasting propaganda the U.S. is working through its proxies on revamping the sectarian Sunni terrorist army for Syria:

Cont. reading: Syria: More Arms To The Insurgents

The Angry Arab, As'ad AbuKhalil, agrees with David Ignatius (and me) that the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is cahoots with Washington DC.

Ignatius:

[L]et’s be honest: The Obama administration has been Morsi’s main enabler.

AbuKhalil:

[T]here is clear evidence that the two governments have been working closely together.

Antother enabler of the Brotherhood are the editors of the Guardian. Their editorial today is so lopsided pro-Morsi that it is laughable.

In pre-empting a decision by the constitutional court to derail his constitution, his decree was cast too wide. The final draft of the constitution has many faults, although none are set in stone. The opposition on the other hand has never accepted the results of freely held elections, parliamentary or presidential, and is doing everything to stop new ones being held.

The editrial and especially its last sentence are simply wrong. Even the Guardian's own correspondent in Cairo denounced it:

Jack Shenker ‏@hackneylad
Let me say once again, I totally disassociate myself from this @Guardian editorial on #Egypt – it's offensive & wrong

The argument why Morsi's side is wrong is simple.
The referendum in March 2011 won 77% approval with majority of eligible voters voting.
That referendum set out the process to get to a new government and to a new constitution. It also included the modified old constitution. There were checks and balances in there and those included the judiciary being able challenge the legislative or executive when it saw them breaking the law.

By issuing his decrees and giving himself immunity Morsi did away with that.

So a 77% approval was overruled by someone who barely won 50% of the votes in a run off election with even less voters participating. This after receiving only some 25% in the first round of the election.

By issuing his decrees, likely in coordination with Washington, Morsi broke the rules a wide majority had voted for. That is what the protest are mainly about. (For other reasons the protesters have see this excellent overview of the various Egyptian interest groups.)

One argument against the protest is that the alternative to Morsi is the renewed rule of the military. But the military has never left the stage:

Accusations that, by stalling the political process, the opposition is courting a coup misread the military’s role in the current crisis. The army is equally invested in the existing draft constitution, which keeps their core prerogatives intact: a secretive budget, officers’ control over the Defense Ministry, a strong say in national security decisions and the right to try civilians in military courts. The generals are relieved to have found a civilian partner who can manage day-to-day political affairs, while ensuring that the military has the autonomy to pursue its own interests outside the purview of democratic oversight. These concessions are consistent with the Muslim Brothers’ pattern of refusing to stand up to the generals whenever their own path to power has been at stake.

The military, paid largely by Washington, is so in bed with Morsi that he can call on it to suppress further protests:

President Mohamed Morsy will soon issue a law that will give judicial and protective powers to the military, according to the state-run Al-Ahram website.

Drafted with the participation of army leaders, the law will task the armed forces with maintaining security and protecting vital installations in the state, until a new constitution takes effect and legitimate parliamentary elections are held.

This is martial law. What is Morsi now but a dictator backed by the military and under Washington's political control?

Whoever hopes that such an alliance will somehow evolve into democratically legitimated, independent foreign and domestic policies that reflect the values of the Egyptians is wrong. Very wrong.

But that is what the Egyptians had hoped for. That is why the struggle will continue.

While U.S. "officials" continue to spread rumors of Syrian preparations of chemical weapons the reliable center-left German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung reports (in German) on U.S. attempts to get NATO to fight a war against Syria. The report is by Martin Winter, the resident Süddeutsche correspondent in Brussels. As similar reporting has yet to occur in the English media I offer my (rough) translation of his important piece.

During a diner for NATO foreign ministers on Tuesday evening NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen talked about the situation in Syria and about the conflict with Iran over the street of Hormuz in a way that one participant characterized as "beating the drums of war".

As multiple sources confirmed to the Süddeutsche Zeitung Rassmussen said with regards to the situation in Syria and the western dependency on the oil supply through the street of Hormuz that NATO must not "bury its head in the sand".

As was clear to everyone at the table what he meant: NATO should prepare for a military intervention in Syria. Politically this would be a radical change of NATO's current course which excluded any intervention in Syria. Rassmussen was supported by the foreign minister from Turkey and Great Britain as well as the American Hillary Clinton.
[…]

Cont. reading: German Paper: U.S. Pressing For NATO War On Syria

A video showing the killing of two rabbits by some gas was just posted on Youtube. It may show the preparation of a false flag operation that would be intended to draw the U.S. into the war on Syria.

Colonel Pat Lang just asked: Has Obama decided on war in Syria?

Today's Washington Post […] contains "above the line" a feature story that continues the propaganda campaign in the media apparently designed to create public belief in the imminent collapse of the Syrian government and/or the imminent employment of Sarin or some other noxious substance by the Syrian government.

He says that:

• the propaganda campaign is based solely on insurgent accounts
• Obama and Clinton have threatened to intervene should chemical weapons be used by the Syrian government
• the U.S. seems ready to recognize an external Syrian government
• the U.S. has a policy of regime change in Syria.

Lang concludes:

It appears that the Obama Administration has taken upon itself the right to determine the outcome of the civil war in Syria. The ongoing and emerging disaster in Egypt is evidently not a deterrent to "king making" in Syria.

With that in mind let lets take a look at this video which was posted some two hours ago on Youtube. (There is an alternative slightly lower quality copy which was uploaded to a different account one hour earlier than at the first link.) The video shows the preparation of some chemicals and their use in killing two rabbits. The background music in the video seems to some repetitive Jihadi chorus.

Cont. reading: The Jihadist Chemical Weapon Capability Demonstration Video