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Obama’s (In-)Credibility Campaign
Remarks by the President to the White House Press Corps, Aug 20 2012
We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation.
Obama says he didn’t draw the red line on Syria, world did, Sept 5 2013
Speaking at a press conference in Stockholm ahead of an economic summit in Russia, where he will seek support for a U.S. military strike against Syria, Obama said the “red line” he talked about a year ago against Syria’s use of chemical weapons wasn’t his but an international standard.
“I didn’t set a red line, the world set a red line,” Obama said.
“My credibility is not on the line. The international community’s credibility is on the line. And America and Congress’ credibility is on the line because we give lip service to the notion that these international norms are important.”
Obama is going into wild territory here. It IS his credibility that is on the line. Despite all Israeli fed propaganda against Syria I can not find one internet forum where his case for War On Syria has even slight support.
The President of Russian Federation Putin just called U.S. Secretary of State Kerry a liar. This because Kerry insisted, in contradiction to U.S. intelligence and recent news reports, that the al-Qaeda affiliated fighters in Syria are only a shrinking minority of the Syrian opposition.
Kerry asserted that the armed opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “has increasingly become more defined by its moderation, more defined by the breadth of its membership, and more defined by its adherence to some, you know, democratic process and to an all-inclusive, minority-protecting constitution.
“And the opposition is getting stronger by the day,” Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday.”
To this Putin responded:
Mr Putin said: “This was very unpleasant and surprising for me. We talk to them (the Americans) and we assume they are decent people, but he is lying and he knows that he is lying. This is sad.”
That is in diplomatic settings an extremely strong, though surely calculated wording. It is also correct.
Should Obama and Kerry continue with their ridiculously, amateurish, it’s all secret campaign they will lose any and all
credibility not only on Syria but on any political issue they will in future touch on.
Perhaps a better, because more complete, source for what Putin said in his interview: “They lie, plainly. I watched the Congressional debate. A congressman asked Kerry: “Is there any AQ? There are reports they have been growing stronger.” He replied: “No. I say with all responsibility: there is no AQ there.” (RT.com) Posted by: Dubhaltach | Sep 5, 2013 9:12:11 AM | 21
I don’t think that’s better, I think it’s worse. Kerry is not so stupid as to have said there were no undesirable Islamists fighting Assad. What he said was that they are a diminishing rather than an increasing fraction of those who are fighting Assad, which if it were true he would be entitled to regard as a hopeful trend. But it isn’t true, it is the very opposite of the truth, as he knows, and this was the essence of his lie, as presumably Putin also knows and indeed said. But unfortunately, all reporters are morons. Let us go direct to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and see what the question and answer were. A convenient transcript is here. We have the main rekevant passage as follows (you will doubtless be as impressed as we are by the new President-In-Waiting of Free Syria, Jabba the Hutt):
SENATOR JOHNSON: What do we know about the opposition? I mean, have we been tracking them for the last two years? I mean, this is more of an impression I have as opposed to any exact knowledge, but it seems like initially, the opposition was maybe more Western-leaning, more moderate, more democratic, and as time has gone by, it’s degraded, become more infiltrated by al-Qaida. Is that basically true? Has that happened?
JACKASS KERRY: No, that is actually basically not true. It’s basically incorrect. The opposition has increasingly become more defined by its moderation, more defined by the breadth of its membership and more defined by its adherence to some, you know, democratic process and to an all-inclusive, minority-protecting constitution, which will be broad-based and secular with respect to the future of Syria. And that’s very critical. One other point about the opposition. It’s my understanding, because I talked to the president to the opposition yesterday. He’s in Germany now; he’s meeting with the German parliament. He is coming to Great Britain. He will be meeting with the Parliament in Great Britain. And he is prepared to come here as soon as those meetings are over in order to meet with you, and you can have an opportunity to talk to President Jarba and meet with the opposition, have a much better sense of who they are.
JOHNSON: We appreciate that. Do you have a feel for the number of members of the opposition? I mean, how large is their force? I’m kind of a numbers guy. And do you also have a pretty good feel for how many really would be considered moderate versus elements of al-Qaida?
JACKASS: I think we need to talk about that in our classified session. But let me just say to you that in terms of the opposition numbers, you see ranges up to eighty, ninety, a hundred thousand in total opposition. You see ranges in the tens of thousands in terms of operative, active combatants. I’ve seen some recent data on the numbers of the extremists in al-Nusra. They’re actually lower than former expectations. I would also say to you, Syria historically has been secular, and the vast majority of Syrians, I believe, want to remain secular. It’s our judgment and the judgment of our good friends who actually know a lot of this in many ways better than we do, because it’s their region, their neighborhood. I’m talking about the Saudis, the Emirates, the Qataris, the Turks, the Jordanians. They all believe that if you could have a fairly rapid transition, the secular component of Syria will re-emerge and you will isolate —
JOHNSON: OK. Very good. That tends to argue for a more robust response.
I have simplified the above to make it readable, but go the transcript if you want to spend ten minutes just finding things. Now this, Jackass & Walnuts:
WALNUTS MCCAIN: John, over the weekend, the WSJ ran an important op-ed by Dr Elizabeth O’Bagy, I hope you saw it, a Syria analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, spent a great deal of time inside Syria, including just this month. And I want to read her assessment of the situation on the ground. And I quote the story. “The conventional wisdom holds that the extremist elements are completely mixed in with the more moderate rebel groups. This isn’t the case. Moderates and extremists wield control over distinct territory. Contrary to many media accounts, the war in Syria is not being waged entirely or even predominately by dangerous Islamists and al-Qaida diehards. The Jihadis pouring into Syria from countries like Iraq and Lebanon are not flocking to the front lines. Instead, they are concentrating their efforts on consolidating control in the northern rebel-held areas of the country. Moderate opposition forces, a collection of groups known as the Free Syrian Army, continue to lead the fight against the Syrian regime. While traveling with some of these Free Syrian Army battalions, I’ve watched them defend Alawi and Christian villages from government forces and extremist groups. They’ve demonstrated a willingness to submit to civilian authority, working closely with local administrative councils, and they’ve struggled to ensure that their fight against Assad will pave the way for a flourishing civil society.” John, do you agree with Dr O’Bagy’s assessment of the opposition?
JACKASS: I agree with most of that. They have changed significantly. They have improved, and as I said earlier, the fundamentals of Syria are secular, and I believe, will stay that way.
WALNUTS: And I think it’s very important to point out, again, as you just said, it’s a secular state. They would reject radical Islamists, and they, in some cases, in the areas in which they have control, the people are demonstrating against them, is the information I have. So when we see these commentators say, well, we don’t know which side will win; we don’t know, you know, who the bad guys are, if you agree with this assessment, we certainly know who the bad guys are. Is that correct?
JACKASS: I believe we do, for the most part. There are some worse than al-Nusra, and they tend to be, most of them, in the northern area and the east.
WALNUTS: I thank you.
So you see, anybody who imagines that an intelligent trained observer like Putin could have watched these hearings and come away with the impression that Jackass Kerry said there were no AQ in Syria, is deluding themselves.
Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Sep 5 2013 15:42 utc | 38
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