In the no s**t Sherlock category we have this news:
The intelligence linking Syrian President Bashar Assad or his inner circle to an alleged chemical weapons attack is no “slam dunk,” with questions remaining about who actually controls some of Syria’s chemical weapons stores and doubts about whether Assad himself ordered the strike, U.S. intelligence officials say.
President Barack Obama declared unequivocally Wednesday that the Syrian government was responsible, while laying the groundwork for an expected U.S. military strike.
“We have concluded that the Syrian government in fact carried these out,” Obama said in an interview with “NewsHour” on PBS. “And if that’s so, then there need to be international consequences.”
However, multiple U.S. officials used the phrase “not a slam dunk” to describe the intelligence picture.
…U.S. satellites have captured images of Syrian troops moving trucks into weapons storage areas and removing materials, but U.S. analysts have not been able to track what was moved or, in some cases, where it was relocated. They are also not certain that when they saw what looked like Assad’s forces moving chemical supplies, those forces were able to remove everything before rebels took over an area where weapons had been stored.
In addition, an intercept of Syrian military officials discussing the strike was among low-level staff, with no direct evidence tying the attack back to an Assad insider or even a senior Syrian commander, the officials said.
…Some have even talked about the possibility that rebels could have carried out the attack in a callous and calculated attempt to draw the West into the war. That suspicion was not included in the official intelligence report
But still, even with all the uncertainty, we get the same liberals who cried and wailed over Iraq, a country that WAS a clear and present danger to the US, a country that was proven to have used WMD’s against his own people, telling us “it’s all different” now:
What can America do? It’s not unreasonable to ask whether even a well-intentioned American effort to save Syrians might fail, or whether such an effort might pull America into a terrible quagmire. In the piece about Obama and Syria I wrote for the magazine in May, I detailed just how daunting those challenges are. But how much longer are we going to allow those questions to prevent us from trying?
History says don’t do it. Most Americans say don’t do it. But President Obama has to punish Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s homicidal regime with a military strike — and hope that history and the people are wrong.
I strongly opposed the Iraq war and the Afghan “surge.” But in conjunction with diplomacy, military force can save lives….
Are we making too much of chemical weapons? Probably less than 1 percent of those killed in Syria have died of nerve gas attacks. In Syria, a principal weapon of mass destruction has been the AK—47.
Yet there is value in bolstering international norms against egregious behavior like genocide or the use of chemical weapons.
Baloney. The only thing that has changed is their guy is in the White House. That’s it. Syria is in no way shape or form a danger to the United States. There is no national security reason to go to war with that country and back a group that we have been at war with for 15+years, al-Qaeda. Because make no mistake about it, we back the rebels, we back al-Qaeda.
And what the hell is lobbing a few missiles going to do? Nada, zip….nothing. Will it show Syria that we are willing to put boots on the ground under this President? Give me a break.
There are no good guys in this conflict and the best option is to stay the hell out of it.
Sidenote: When we did go to war with Iraq we sought and received Congressional and United Nations approval. Has Obama?
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