In an op-ed in the New York Times the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin warns the people of the United States against further interventions:

It is alarming that military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United States. Is it in America’s long-term interest? I doubt it. Millions around the world increasingly see America not as a model of democracy but as relying solely on brute force, cobbling coalitions together under the slogan “you’re either with us or against us.”

Putin especially mentions Libya which he describes as now "divided into tribes and clans."

Libya today is worse than that. It has moved on into lawlessness and ruin. Only yesterday, a year after a U.S. ambassador was killed in Bengazi, the foreign ministry building there was attacked with a large bomb. The biggest concern for the "west" is of course the spice from Libya, which is no longer flowing.

The Libya intervention, like those many before it, was build on lies and propaganda. A new policy brief on the Libya intervention from the Belfer Center at Harvard Kennedy School makes three points:

• The Conventional Wisdom Is Wrong. Libya's 2011 uprising was never peaceful, but instead was armed and violent from the start. Muammar al-Qaddafi did not target civilians or resort to indiscriminate force. Although inspired by humanitarian impulse, NATO's intervention did not aim mainly to protect civilians, but rather to overthrow Qaddafi's regime, even at the expense of increasing the harm to Libyans.

• The Intervention Backfired. NATO's action magnified the conflict's duration about sixfold and its death toll at least sevenfold, while also exacerbating human rights abuses, humanitarian suffering, Islamic radicalism, and weapons proliferation in Libya and its neighbors. If Libya was a "model intervention," then it was a model of failure.

• Three Lessons. First, beware rebel propaganda that seeks intervention by falsely crying genocide. Second, avoid intervening on humanitarian grounds in ways that reward rebels and thus endanger civilians, unless the state is already targeting noncombatants. Third, resist the tendency of humanitarian intervention to morph into regime change, which amplifies the risk to civilians.

Twelve years after 9/11 the U.S. is turning to a bit less interventionist policies. Obama's defeat over Syria in both houses of Congress and in the public opinion is a very welcome sign of that. But there is still this very American disease of exceptionalism which Putin is very right take on:

I would rather disagree with a case [President Obama] made on American exceptionalism, stating that United States’ policy is “what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.” It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.

This assumed exceptionalims has very bad results. It is a costly illusion not only for the Libyan or Syrian people but, in the long run, also for the U.S. people themselves.

The first propaganda wave to get U.S. citizen support for regime change in Syria was based on the usual nonsense of "democracy" and "freedom". It took too long because domestic support for the Syrian government was much bigger than anticipated and the Syrian state would not fold. After a while real news reports about the Syrian opposition leaked out and it became obvious that the Syrian government was fighting a bunch of criminals and Jihadis. The U.S. military and U.S. citizens balked against fighting on those folks' side.

A new campaign was needed and the false-flag "chemical weapon" attack in a Damascus suburb was created to launch it. That campaign failed too. First in the British parliament and then in the U.S. congress. The plan was too obvious and the claim of evidence soon tuned out to be empty. Obama had driven himself into a corner. His credibility was at stake and he would probably have launched an open war on Syria even without congressional support.

Putin came to his rescue, Obama blinked and the campaign folded.

A third campaign is now being build, this time over the Syrian-Russian offer to get rid of Syria's chemical weapons. Obama and some Senators are trying to build a new regime change base by declaring any purported delay of hick-up Syria's voluntary disarmament a casus belli.

This campaign is likely to also fail. Russia and China will not agree to any UN resolution that opens even the smallest possibility to be abused for a case against Syria.

But all that does not save Syria. The U.S. led Saudi/Turkish/Israeli support for the insurgency with weapons, ammunition and training continues. It has to be stopped or Syria will be destroyed. The main logistic paths for the insurgency are the southern Turkish border and Jordan.

What has the resistance axis done to close those routes down? Yes, Hizbullah helped to shut down the Lebanese route. But where are the incentives for Jordan and Turkey to stop their support? Where is the pressure that makes them do so? What has been done to induce the insurgent's financiers to stop the money flow?

Russia can for now hold back the United States. But the task of closing the support areas for the Jihadis and to go after their supporters falls to the regional forces.

Come on folks. You already had two years time. Now get this done.

Gregg Carlstrom summarizes Obama’s confused messaging on Syria:

We are “seriously skeptical” of an offer, which we originally and accidentally proposed just a few hours earlier, to peacefully resolve a standoff over a “red line” which we accidentally set down last year. At the very least, it will delay for several weeks our response to a “deplorable” slaughter, our “Munich moment,” which we promise will be “unbelievably small and extremely limited.”

For anyone who closely followed yesterdays events (and the longer term issues) it is clear that the Obama administration had not planned for this development to happen. It was not the result of apt U.S. diplomacy but the result of another Kerry gaffe that Russia used to turn a terse situation into a win for nearly all sides.

The Russian initiative using Kerry’s offhand remark saves Syria from an imminent attack by U.S. forces that would have shifted the battlefield balance towards the foreign supported insurgents and terrorists. It reenforces Assad’s international position as the head of the state of Syria. It also saves the Obama administration from a serious defeat in Congress and from an embarrassing unilateral and illegal strike that would have been too big to be seen justified – internationally as well as domestically – and too small to placate the Israeli warmongers and other insurgency supporters.

The United Nations Secretary General, China, Britain, France and the Arab League welcomed the Russian initiative. Syria accepted it. Predictably the Syrian insurgents are against the Russian proposal as are the Israelis. They will not matter. The Obama campaign momentum towards war is now broken and can not be repaired. Going to war now would require a complete new propaganda campaign build on a different pseudo-rational cause.

France now proposes a UN Security Council resolution to underwrite the yet to be defined proposal. The U.S., Britain and France will try to put such a resolution under UN Chapter VII which would eventually allow for the use of force against Syria. Neither Russia nor China will agree to that. There is actually no need for a UN resolution at all though Russia may prefer to have some UNSC statement on the issue if only to pull the United States back into the realm of international law.

Syria’s chemical stockpiles can be put under international control by immediately handing the keys of the warehouses over to Russian and Chinese officers. Syria could then contact the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and ask for its inspectors to work with those foreign officers to compile and verify lists of the stockpiles and to create plans for their eventual destruction. The OPCW is a legal international organization in its own rights and not a United Nations agency. Syria would join the OPCW by signing and ratifying the Chemical Weapon Convention (CWC). Syria would inform the United Nations Secretary General of these steps. There is no legal reason at all for the United Nations or the Security Council to be involved in any of these steps.

The destruction of Syria’s stockpiles will take a long time. One would want to avoid to transport those chemicals and would preferably build a special handling and incineration facility somewhere in the Syrian desert to then destroy those chemicals and munitions. This may take, like in the United States, a decade or two or even longer.

I do not see any way the U.S. and its allies can reasonably press for a Chapter VII resolution. Syria declares, like many states did earlier, that it will voluntarily take the steps towards fulfilling the CWC. Why then should it, unlike any other countries before it, be threatened with force to do so? If there is to be a UNSC resolution on chemical weapons in the Middle East Russia and China must insist for it to cover all Middle East countries including of course Israel’s chemical weapons. It is an reasonable demand and will be rejected bei the U.S. which is then a good reason to blame it for a failing resolution.

If Obama is smart he will recognize that Russia pulled him back from destroying his presidency. He should use the moment to rethink his Syria strategy, to dissociate himself from the Saudi-Israeli-Turkish alliance to destroy Syria and to finally agree on a diplomatic-political solution for the Syrian people.

Secretary of State Kerry held a pretty ridiculous press conference (see at 2.43pm BST) in Britain today which was mocked widely for some unfortunate remarks.

There are three points to discuss. First two minor ones with the big blunder that Lavrov used to checkmate Kerry and a U.S. attack on Syria at the end.

Starting at 4:20 Kerry describes the way the Obama administration wants to attack Syria:

…in a very limited, in a very targeted short term effort that degrades his capacity to deliver chemical weapons without assuming responsibility for Syria’s civil war. That is exactly what we are talking about doing. Unbelievable small limited kind of effort. Now that has been engaged in previously on many different occasions. President Reagan had a several hours or whatever effort to send a message to Ghadaffi in the wake I think of Pan Am 103 and other terrorist activities.

Aside from the laughable “unbelievable small” attacks (which will cost Republican votes in the Senate) the lesson to draw from Reagan’s attack on Libya is exactly the other way around.

Reagan did not attack Libya over the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie but the destruction of Pan Am 103 in a terrorist attack in December 1988 came after Reagan had carried out a “message sending” attack on Libya and Ghaddafi’s family in 1986.

The bombing of Pan Am 103 was the consequence of Reagan’s strikes, not their cause. If the comparison of the planed strikes on Syria to Reagan’s strikes is to hold, one would expect additional terrorist attacks on planes as a consequence of U.S. attacks on Syria. Pan An 103 is an argument not to strike Syria but Kerry has some “unbelievable small” historic knowledge and does not see that.

A second minor point is in Kerry’s remarks in which he mocks the Syrian president Assad’s credibility (at 1:25):

I personally visited him once on the instruction of the White House to confront him on his transfer of Scud missiles to Hizbullah which we knew has taken place and all kinds of facts and he set there and simply denied it to my face not withstanding the evidence I presented him and what we showed him.

While the Israelis and U.S. officials at one point claimed such, there is serious doubt that Syria did transfer Scuds to Hizbullah. Scuds are liquid fueled and therefore difficult to handle in the battle field. They need several trucks to carry the missiles and the corrosive fuels and take hours to prepare. If Syria or Iran supplied Hizbullah with missiles in the payload/range capacity of Scuds those would have been more modern solid fueled Fateh-110 which are much easier and faster to handle.

The third and biggest blunder in Kerry’s speech starts at 0:04 into the video:

Cont. reading: Syria: Lavrov Checkmates Kerry Over Offhand Remark

The Washington Post reveals the next chapter of NSA spying. It invalidates the excuse of “Bush did it”:

Obama administration had restrictions on NSA reversed in 2011

The Obama administration secretly won permission from a surveillance court in 2011 to reverse restrictions on the National Security Agency’s use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails, permitting the agency to search deliberately for Americans’ communications in its massive databases, according to interviews with government officials and recently declassified material.

…
The administration’s assurances rely on legalistic definitions of the term “target” that can be at odds with ordinary English usage.

…
[I]n 2011, to more rapidly and effectively identify relevant foreign intelligence communications, “we did ask the court” to lift the ban, ODNI general counsel Robert S. Litt said in an interview. “We wanted to be able to do it,” he said, referring to the searching of Americans’ communications without a warrant.

The Obama administration secretly amended the 4th amendment to now read:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized unless the government wants to be able to do it.

As we learned this week the NSA also broke all Internet security. If the NSA can break into “secure” connections how secure is your Internet banking? How easy is it for the government to fake “secure” transactions for whatever means?

The NSA can also spy on all smart phone data on iPhones, Android or BlackBerry phones. As we will learn later today the NSA does not only spy against “terror” targets or foreign politicians but also uses its capabilities to achieve economic gains. I suspected all along that international economic spying, not fighting “terrorism”, is the major motive for many NSA programs.

The NSA spying undermines trust which is one of the basic necessary elements for communication and economic transactions. It will take a while for this to sink in, but I expect that we will see major changes in how international networks and commerce operate. There will be a strong trend to de-globalize and re-nationalize telecommunication networks and technology. This will extinct the Internet as we know it.

The NSA has stolen the Internet. We need to take it back.

While U.S. citizens are calling their representatives to vote against AIPAC pressure and against a war on Syria and Iran the really problematic vote is more likely to happen in the Senate.

The Obama administration asked the Senate for an Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) in Syria over an alleged chemical weapons attack. That AUMF was already worded incredibly wide and would have allowed the president to wage unlimited war over all the Middle East and beyond.

But the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which was first to consult over the AUMF, partially made the already wide language of the Obama draft AUMF even wider and worse. It effectively surrenders all war powers to the office of the president.

While on first sight the body of the new AUMF (pdf) seems to limit the president’s ability to wage war, a huge “Easter egg” was put into the preambling Whereas clauses. Here are the three critical ones which have to be seen in combination:

• Whereas in the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003 (Public Law 108–175), Congress found that Syria’s acquisition of weapons of
  mass destruction threatens the security of the Middle East and the national security interests of the United States;
• Whereas Syria’s use of weapons of mass destruction and its conduct and actions constitute a grave threat to regional stability, world peace, and the national security interests of the United States and its allies and partners;
• Whereas the President has authority under the Constitution to use force in order to defend the national security interests of the United States

That last whereas clause contradicts the constitution as well as the War Powers Resolution of 1973. It gives the president unlimited power to wage war anytime he finds the wobbly defined “national interest” of the United States endangered. It is huge blank check.

Cont. reading: Senate Surrenders War Powers Over False Flag Incident

Harper writes at Pat Lang's place that the launch of the new Middle East war is imminent:

I am told by current intelligence officials that President Obama intends to bomb Syria in the coming days–with or without Congressional approval. With the whip count in the House of Representatives looking worse and worse for the war party, the White House is pressing Harry Reid to rush the Senate vote, perhaps as early as Monday evening, Sept. 9, the day that the Congress returns to Washington and the debate is scheduled to begin. If Obama can get a Senate majority, sources close to the White House say that he will order strikes before the House can get started. Perhaps this is why Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is saying that a House vote is unlikely before the week of Sept. 16, given that passions are running so high on the issue. The reality is that opposition in the House is growing and the chance of a "yes" vote from the GOP-led lower chamber is well below 50 percent.

A report in the New York Times somewhat disagrees:

Although Mr. Obama has asserted that he has the authority to order the strike on Syria even if Congress says no, White House aides consider that almost unthinkable. As a practical matter, it would leave him more isolated than ever and seemingly in defiance of the public’s will at home. As a political matter, it would almost surely set off an effort in the House to impeach him, which even if it went nowhere could be distracting and draining.

Obama's and Kerry's arguments, based on dubious intelligence, for the illegal war that they don't even dare to call such are not having the impact they hoped. Even fanatic Obama supporters reject their reasoning.

While the Senate may pass the all-out-war resolution the House seems likely to reject it. To change that a massive Israeli and AIPAC lobbying operation for war on Syria and Iran is underway:

Officials say that some 250 Jewish leaders and AIPAC activists will storm the halls on Capitol Hill beginning next week to persuade lawmakers that Congress must adopt the resolution or risk emboldening Iran’s efforts to build a nuclear weapon.

Obama has canceled further travel to press on Congress and to propagandize to the public for his war.

One reason for this war and its likely extension to Iran is the fact that sanctions against Iran are breaking down in Europe and elsewhere. That the sanctions on Iraq were receding without achieving their goals was one of the arguments that was made for the war on Iraq.

But rejection of the war within the U.S. and globally is massive. The U.S. military is not at all on board and also rejects the war on Syria and its likely regional escalation. The administration is showing no understanding that the other side of an attack also has a vote and that any escalation could well have militarily catastrophic consequences.

Cont. reading: On The Way Towards War

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.

Reuters, Sep 4, 2013: Exclusive: Former Syria defense minister breaks with Assad-Labwani

Former Syrian Defence Minister General Ali Habib, a prominent member of President Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect, has defected and is now in Turkey, a senior member of the opposition Syrian National Coalition told Reuters on Wednesday.

“Ali Habib has managed to escape from the grip of the regime and he is now in Turkey, but this does not mean that he has joined the opposition. I was told this by a Western diplomatic official,” Kamal al-Labwani said from Paris.

…
A Gulf source told Reuters that Habib had defected on Tuesday evening, arriving at the Turkish frontier before midnight with two or three other people. He was then taken across the border in a convoy of vehicles.

Born in 1939, Habib was defense minister from June 2009 to August 2011 and has also served as Chief of the General Staff of the Syrian Army. He is from the port city of Tartus.

YnetNews, Sep 8, 2011: Syrian opposition: Ousted defense minister dead

Websites affiliated with Syrian opposition groups reported on Tuesday that General Ali Habib was found dead in his home a day after he was dismissed as defense minister. On Monday, Syrian President Bashar Assad appointed army chief Dawood Rajha to replace Habib.

The SANA news agency reported Monday that Habib had been suffering from a deterioration in his health.

…
Opposition websites also quoted Syria TV reports allegedly suggesting that Habib had died a natural death.

So who dug him up?

News & views (not Syria) …

The United States, France and Britain have made claims that they have evidence of chemical weapon use by the Syrian government against the Al-Qaeda affiliated insurgents.

But those were just claims. None of the claimed evidence has actually been produced. There are claims of satellite pictures showing the launch of rockets, there are claims about interdicted telephone calls between parts of the Syrian military, there are claims of "signatures of sarin" in bio-samples. None of these claimed evidences has been published and opened to public and expert scrutiny. The Russian government as well as the Syrian government allege that these claims of evidence are false. That no evidence exists because the alleged strike from the Syrian government never happened.

One would expect that the media, legislators and the public would demand that real evidence be produced. There is no sound reason to hold it back. The capabilities to get such evidence, should it exist, are well known. There is no need to protect "sources and methods". Still McClatchy, who were also excellent on the false claims about Iraq's WMDs, is the only media outlet asking questions.

That none of the claimed evidence has at all actually been produced tells me that, as I have maintained all along, there is none and that the incident was a false flag one.

The Syrian opposition is today in the process of presenting a "defector", a "medical examiner" with allegedly some knowledge about the incident. His codename is curveball.

Whatever – the truth does not matter anymore:

“The debate is shifting away from ‘Did he use chemical weapons?’ to ‘What should be done about it?’ ” said Representative Adam B. Schiff, a California Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, in an interview after the Monday conference call.

Obama has played the reluctant warrior who would only make a "punitive" strike on Syria that would not change the powers in the battlefield. But he then requested an Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) that has holes big enough to drive an army through and into Tehran. Why would he do so if he really would want to limit himself to a few strikes? Why would he press Congress to pass it? Obama is now also arguing that Iran, Hezbollah and the security of Israel are the real reasons why it is necessary to bomb the Syrian people. Already 16 month ago the President of the Russian Federation Putin had expected such bombing to happen:

At the time, Mr. Obama had no plans for military involvement in the civil war raging in the heart of the Middle East, but Mr. Putin did not believe that. In Mr. Putin’s view, the United States wanted only to meddle in places where it had no business, fomenting revolutions to install governments friendly to Washington.

Well, the plans to attack Syria are indeed quite old and Putin surely knew about them.

The AUMF will be rewritten by the House and the Senate and will then be a bit more restricted than the Obama draft. It will likely still be wide and vague enough for the Obama administration and its successor to justify any and all bombing in the Middle East they would ever like to do. It will likely, like Obama's draft, allow for a war on Iran. From the perspective of the Israel lobby and many in Congress that would not be a bug in the AUMF, but a feature.

It is still difficult to estimate how the votes in Congress will go. There will silent but full force pressure from AIPAC, “the 800-pound gorilla in the room," to vote for war on Syria. One might expect the Senate to vote yes and the House to vote no. Unless the result is a very loud "No!" from both houses Obama will be ready, just as Kerry has announced, to ignore it. I for now expect that strikes will happen and that the situation will escalate from there.

Like the Syrian President Assad I see no way that any outright military strike by the United States against Syria would not escalate into some bigger and probably huge conflagration. While many would get killed and maimed there is one aspect to this that might be positive. President Carter's National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski thinks that such a widening war would be the end of Israel as the Zionist entity:

It will simply do to Israel what some of the wars have done to us on a smaller scale. Attrite it, tire it, fatigue it, demoralize it, cause emigration of the best and the first, and then some sort of cataclysm at the end which cannot be predicted at this stage because we don’t know who will have what by when. And after all, Iran is next door. It might have some nuclear capability. Suppose the Israelis knock it off. What about Pakistan and others? The notion that one can control a region from a very strong and motivated country, but of only six million people, is simply a wild dream.

As the United States decides wheather to bomb Syria with hundreds or with thousands of cruise missiles its media are doing their very best to explain the situation to the somewhat uninformed public.

Consider, for example, the premier program Hardball with Chris Matthews on MSNBC. Its webpage helpfully provides an overview piece on Syria headlined: In Syria debate, little mention of rebels. The story highlights the, much exaggerated, sectarian difference between the Syrian president Assad and his supporters versus the groups driving the insurgency. An excerpt:

In Syria, the religious dynamic is particularly acute as Assad –a secular Sunni — is under attack mostly from religious Shia groups with varied interests and outside support. It is unknown which groups, if any, may be affiliated politically with elements in Shia-ruled Iran, Saudi Arabia or even Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Okay, Assad is a Sunni and that is obviously why AlQaeda, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are fighting him. It must also be the reason why Iran and Hizbullah are supporting some groups against him. That was really important to learn.

As MSNBC will likely correct that bummer without noting the correction, just a the New York Times is striking AIPAC pressure to hit Syria and Iran out of its stories, here is a screenshot taken about 10 minutes ago.

bigger

Anyway, it is good to see that the thoughtful and knowledgeable U.S. media at least try to get the U.S. citizens reasonable informed and thereby equipped to make thoughtful decisions about global war and peace.

Several newspapers claim that U.S. Secretary of State Kerry said that there is proof of sarin gas used in the recent Syrian incident. These claims are false.

• McClatchy headlines: Kerry says it was sarin gas in Syria; Congress questions US stake
• The Washington Post: Sarin gas used in Syria attack, Kerry says
• The BBC: John Kerry: US ‘has evidence of Syrian sarin use’

All these headline claims are false. From the McClatchy report this is what Kerry said:

“We have learned through samples that were provided to the United States and that have now been tested from first responders in east Damascus (that) hair samples and blood samples have tested positive for signatures of sarin,” Kerry said on NBC’s Meet the Press.

It is important to differentiate between sarin and mere “signatures of sarin”. (UPDATE) The “signature” does not say much about what chemical exposure happened. The U.S. Army book Medical Aspects of Chemical Warfare explicitly says that concluding on a chemical agent exposure from “signatures” in bio-samples is false (Chapter 22 (pdf)):

Assay of Parent Compounds

analyzing for parent nerve agents from biomedical matrices, such as blood or urine, is not a viable diagnostic technique for retrospective detection of exposure.

(/update) Sarin, a fluid at room temperature, evaporates and decomposes rapidly. A few hours after sarin exposure it is nearly impossible to find pure sarin samples on or within a human body. Sarin molecules react with other molecules and fall apart. What might be found in a biological sample of someone who was exposed to sarin are therefore only decomposition products of sarin. But the same decomposition products can also occur from exposition to other chemical substances. Especially exposure to typical farming insecticides, chemically organophosphates, is likely to create the same decomposition products that sarin exposure does.

Dan Kaszeta, a former Chemical Officer in the United States Army, is one of the foremost experts in chemical and biological weapons. As he explains in an interview:

A number of reports have claimed to have proven the use of sarin through tests on hair, clothing, blood, tissue, and urine samples.

At least one study shows that the presence of a nerve agent could be deduced by examining post-mortem blood samples for presence or lack of acetylcholinesterase, up to a week after death. A person who has died from Sarin exposure would have little or no acetylcholinesterase present. It should be noted that this would only indicate the presence of a nerve agent and would not specifically indicate Sarin versus any other nerve agent (or even organophosphate pesticide intoxication) nor would it conclusively indicate nerve agent as a cause of death, as other factors may have killed the victim, such as conventional trauma.
…
One of the decomposition products of Sarin in the human body is methylphosphonic acid. A study shows that this substance is detectable in urine by use of mass spectrometry. This particular substance is not specific to Sarin.
…
Is it possible other substances could produce false positives for sarin?

Yes. Generally, the more sophisticated and expensive the detection technique, the less scope for false positives. The false positives depend entirely on the detection method. IMS is often fooled by chemicals of the same molecular weight as Sarin. Organophosphate-based pesticides are very similar chemicals to nerve agent chemical weapons, so they may pose a false positive.

The hair and blood samples the U.S. tested came from the insurgents in Syria through an insecure custody chain of evidence. They did not test positive for sarin but showed decomposition products that may have come from exposure to sarin or may have come from exposure to insecticides or some other class of chemical substances.

It is also very important to keep in mind that even proven evidence of exposure to sarin, or any insecticide, does not say anything at all about how such an exposure might have happened and who might have been responsible for it. The indications that the insurgents in Syria might have been responsible are at least as strong as the indications of government use. The insurgents, who do want the U.S. to intervene on their side, also have a very strong motive to create such an incident.

It is irresponsible that headline writers and journalists fail to explain these contexts and claim “sarin usage” while the evidence thereof is inconclusive and while not even the U.S. government made such a indefensible claim at all.

Any war resolution Congress would pass would likely be interpreted by the administration as a license for all out war on Syria and beyond.

But the first draft the executive is putting to Congress is even worse:

The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in connection with the use of chemical weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in the conflict in Syria in order to –

1. prevent or deter the use or proliferation (including the transfer to terrorist groups or other state or non-state actors), within, to or from Syria, of any weapon of mass destruction, including chemical or biological weapons or components of or materials used in such weapons; or
2. protect the United States or its allies and partners against the threats posed by such weapons.

This draft is nearly as wide as the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists that Congress passed on September 14 2001 and which has been (ab-)used by the Bush and Obama administrations as an undiscriminating, unlimited license to incarcerate, torture or kill anyone at the free discretion of the executive.

The key words in Obama's draft and their meaning are:

• "as he determines to be necessary and appropriate" ==> no limits apply
• "in connection with" ==> as everything is connected …
• "or deter the use or proliferation" ==> by whatever means
• "to .. other state .. actors" ==> target Iran
• "or components of or materials used" ==> from corrugated steel to petroleum products
• "protect … or its allies and partners" ==> the Zionists
• "against the threats posed" ==> includes non-use but assumed existence of such weapons

It is clear from this wording that such a resolution would allow nearly everything far beyond the "punitive" few cruise missile strikes against Syrian forces the administration marketed so far. It could easily be used for an outright blockade of Iran or even a "preemptive" strike against Iran's industries in the name of "deterrence" and "protecting" Israel.

It is all or nothing, peace or unlimited war. Anyone with peace on her mind should hope and work to prevent any war resolution from passing Congress. The abuse of any war resolution by this and the next executive is practically guaranteed. And even with a Congress approved war resolution any attack by the United States against Syria would still be a illegal war of aggression under international law.

Cont. reading: Obama’s Carte Blanche War Resolution