It was not an issue of availability,” the former official said. “In the early days of the Syria conflict, even the smallest amount of aid to the Free Syrian Army was viewed with great concern. It was a lack of foresight by administration bureaucrats. Unfortunately, now we’re seeing the consequences.”This is a disgrace. Add this to the unbelievably long list of scandals of this administration, any one of which would have led to the impeachment and/or resignation of any other previous president.
The Syrian rebels asked for gas masks a year ago; Obama refused to give them gas masks that were readily available, already in the region. How many hundreds (thousands?) have died as a result?
Do you remember that motto Code Pink would mindlessly chant, while dragging their giant paper-mache swastika-emblazoned Cheney head down Pennsylvania Avenue? "Bush lied, people died." I kind of doubt we'll see Cindy Sheehan shrieking "Obama repudiated, children asphyxiated."
And it doesn't matter whether the Muslim Brotherhood used the gas in order to goad us into action against Assad; and it doesn't matter whether congress gives Obama the cover he apparently now seeks to back down without bruising his ego too badly. There were innocents, including children, who died horrible deaths, and this wouldn't have happened had we distributed this gear when we were asked for it.
Why deny them this protective gear?
Think about that. They didn't want it to fall into the wrong hands. Now, I could see the logic of this, if we were talking about body armor. But we're talking about gear that protects against a weapon that we and our allies will never use.A senior Obama administration official confirmed to The Daily Beast on Wednesday that the White House did review the issue last year and determined it wouldn’t provide any gas masks or other chemical-weapons protective gear to the Syria opposition because of fears the equipment could get into the wrong hands.
“The provision of protective gear for the opposition sounds like an easy idea, but we need consider the potential for misuse as well,” the official said. “Such equipment requires proper training to be effective, and we need to be careful about how and to whom we provide it.”
Oh, and it requires proper training to be effective; so it's clearly better to leave it here in this warehouse.
Please, liberals, feel free to defend President Nincompoop in the comments. I'd love to see your defense of this.
62 comments:
Why does anyone think President Nincompoop cares one whit about anyone else's life?
He gets his national security advice from Susan Rice, the distinguished lady who advised Bill Clinton to stay out of Rwanda and to NOT call the hacking to death by machete of tens of thousands of black Africans the "genocide" that it definitely was in fact.
Obama is a community communistic organizer. What do you expect?
He is surrounded by brown nosers who have no clue about anything but acquiring money for their false god.
What a clusterfuck!
President Nincompoop has a plan. He waits another 9 to 10 days, maybe a dozen days, on top of the 9 since the gassing event, then says....
What difference, at this point, does it make?!
See, its long ago now, like Benghazi, Fast & Furious, the IRS fandango, et al ad infinitum. Time to move on!
Look Over there! ...SQUIRREL!
I like your motto, Pasta.
Sounds like another blunder that can be tried to Hillary!
Apparently, Choom decided on the spur of the moment to consult Congress.
He thinks he might need their help in such matters again in the next 3 years.
And now the folly of walking away from Iraq is also seen.
Gets better all the time.
It's indefensible.
Like any poor civilian would have gotten their wretched hands on a mask.
I wouldn't have given them any either.
CNN keeps bringing up these deaths. As well they should.
So, while they are focusing on the killing, isn't it possible that they look into something that might have saved them?
Instead of looking into what the 'Syrian cyber brigade' might do to our infrastructure?
It's a kind of Trayvon blinders.
Keep all the focus on after the fact retaliation. Because if they don't, they might be forced to discover the elephants in the room. Obama's red line gaffe, Obama's failure to foresee what his own red line gaffe was predicting could happen and whatever else the late Fridays document dumps will reveal.
If this had happened under Bush, the left would be saying Bush let it happen because he wanted it to happen, so as to use it to go to war.
Make them live up to their own book of rules.
Like any poor civilian would have gotten their wretched hands on a mask.
For the sake of argument, lets say that is correct, that poor civilians would not have gotten the masks. Then, doesn't it follow that the Obama administration could declare themselves as having done all they could to prevent the catastrophe?
Gone the extra mile?
When the choice came to send masks that would save lives, Obama was silent.
When the choice came to bomb, Obama speaks.
Make them live up to their own book of rules.
How is that reset button working out?
Here's a timeline going back to Obama's red-line statement on August 20, 2012: "A red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized," Obama said. "That would change my calculus. That would change my equation."
--Then on December 3rd, U.S. officials reported Syria showed signs of creating materials for chemical weapons.
--On December 8th, U.S. satellite images showed Syrian chemical weapon factories began to combine the components necessary to create Sarin nerve gas.
--On April 18th this year, Great Britain and France informed the United Nations they were in possession of evidence confirming the Syrian government conducted chemical weapon attacks in the cities of Homs, Aleppo and possibly Damascus.
--And one more thing: Back in July 2012, the Syrian regime "threatened to use its chemical and biological weapons in case of a foreign attack, in its first-ever acknowledgement that it possesses weapons of mass destruction."
The question I'm left with is why, in light of all that, Obama didn't demand inspections by the UN?
Obama doesn't seem to have a strategy. There are tactical lurches that make sense in the moment, but there's nothing smooth or coordinated about his moves.....Although I will say this on his behalf: it is very hard to formulate a viable negotiating tactic with a civilization and population that worships its own martyrdom.
He's never been responsible for anything before, he's never managed, had to make a decision or live with the consequences.
Now he's backed into a corner and he's flailing.
The Chicago Way demands people come up through the ranks and do all that, succeed at one task before moving on to the next level. He's never had to. All he had to do was show up and vote "Present". Anybody who criticized him was a racist.
That's irrelevant here.
@Edutcher: Wouldn't it be a hoot if all those Uncle Saul people converted to Rand Paul people on the road to Damascus?
Bill Katz over at Urgent Agenda sums up the situation pretty well:
Whether one agrees or disagrees with Obama's notion of a military strike, the wobbly, adolescent nature of his leadership must have foreign ministries stunned. This isn't even leadership from behind. This is leadership from under the basement table.
“Such equipment requires proper training to be effective, and we need to be careful about how and to whom we provide it.”
Think about that.
This person is saying one of the reasons we couldn't send thm a bunch of gas masks is they need proper training to be effective.
I am sure that was the big concern when someone gased the civilians.
None obviously was thought to be better than some that might be used without the proper training.
I mean -- gas masks versus arms being shipped to Syria by way of Benghazi and Turkey.
Which would you choose?
Actually, I am kind of with Sarah P on this.
Let Allah sort it out.
(But gas masks would have been a civil touch. Leveling the playing field of death and all that.)
It doesn't matter who gassed whom, it only matters that they were gassed.
Nice work, muzzies.
El Pollo Raylan said...
@Edutcher: Wouldn't it be a hoot if all those Uncle Saul people converted to Rand Paul people on the road to Damascus?
Praise the Lord!
Hillary giggles & says Bashar Assad is a reformer.
“Look, I think he should go to Congress,” he continued. “I think it is absolutely necessary. But he has done no preparation. What they should have done — I mean, this is sort of amateur hour. When there were the first attacks six months ago or if you like, when we had the current attacks, he should have immediately have called in the Congress the way the prime minister of Britain had called in the parliament, had a debate and got a resolution and then went out and told the world we are going do x or we are not going to do x.”
Krauthammer
"The question I'm left with is why, in light of all that, Obama didn't demand inspections by the UN?"
Because of the risk of acknowledging a reality that the narrative doesn't support. You see, the narrative is that Bush acted unilaterally and rushed into war with Iraq. Bush didn't, but we don't want anyone to remember this.
So the narrative today is Bush acted alone. Obama is at least asking Congress for consent, although he doesn't need to because Bush showed that Congressional or UN approval isn't necessary.
The real danger is mining zienite without a filter mask.
Next thing you know, Plasus and Kirk are duking it out and Vanna's left standing there on the sidelines to do the chick thing and call for help.
The denial of life-saving gas masks happened while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State.
She is a liberal icon, of course, so don't expect her speeches to be interrupted with protest chants of "hey hey ho ho! Hillary killed children, dontcha know!"
Liberal are totally okay with liberals who cause death, either overtly or covertly. Which is why the NYT stopped running the death total of American soldiers killed in the Middle-East as soon as Obama was inaugurated.
I wouldn't doubt at all that Cindy Sheehan is still shrieking, the only difference is that the MSM isn't covering her protests anymore because of the present occupant of the White House.
Anyway, what difference does it make?
If O and Hillary did not care about their Ambassador in Libya and three other Americans, what makes you think they give a rip about Syrian children?
Please.
The pic at Drudge right now is priceless.
From Lydia's link:
"...adolescent nature of his leadership..."
For me, this describes a great deal of this administration's leadership.
Their defense for not giving gas masks is absurd.
Anybody besides me notice how Obama puts his feet up all over furniture that doesn't belong to him? Repeatedly.
That's a "tell" ...a false nonchalance that says he doesn't care about, or respect, anyone or anything except himself.
This is a Must Read from Stephen Green.
Airidog@11:07.
BINGO! The feet on the desk was one of the VERY FIRST things I noticed when he took office. I started to think: ""Didn't his Mother teach him that one doesn't put one's feet on the furniture--especially in other people's homes?" But then I thought of who his Mother was....Emily Litella time: NEVER MIND..
PS: EVERYTHING about Obama's administration is, as we used to say in one of my old squadrons, "FUBB Control" all the time 24/7.
*FUBB=Fucked Up Beyond Belief
Presidents with feet up on desk, so disprespectful, oy!
Oh no, not another one!
OMG! This President has his ass on the desk.
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
August 30, 2013
Syrian rebels in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta have admitted to Associated Press correspondent Dale Gavlak that they were responsible for last week’s chemical weapons incident which western powers have blamed on Bashar Al-Assad’s forces, revealing that the casualties were the result of an accident caused by rebels mishandling chemical weapons provided to them by Saudi Arabia.
Image: YouTube
“From numerous interviews with doctors, Ghouta residents, rebel fighters and their families….many believe that certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the (deadly) gas attack,” writes Gavlak. (back up version here).
Rebels told Gavlak that they were not properly trained on how to handle the chemical weapons or even told what they were. It appears as though the weapons were initially supposed to be given to the Al-Qaeda offshoot Jabhat al-Nusra.
“We were very curious about these arms. And unfortunately, some of the fighters handled the weapons improperly and set off the explosions,” one militant named ‘J’ told Gavlak.
His claims are echoed by another female fighter named ‘K’, who told Gavlak, “They didn’t tell us what these arms were or how to use them. We didn’t know they were chemical weapons. We never imagined they were chemical weapons.”
Abu Abdel-Moneim, the father of an opposition rebel, also told Gavlak, “My son came to me two weeks ago asking what I thought the weapons were that he had been asked to carry,” describing them as having a “tube-like structure” while others were like a “huge gas bottle.” The father names the Saudi militant who provided the weapons as Abu Ayesha.
According to Abdel-Moneim, the weapons exploded inside a tunnel, killing 12 rebels.
“More than a dozen rebels interviewed reported that their salaries came from the Saudi government,” writes Gavlak.
If accurate, this story could completely derail the United States’ rush to attack Syria which has been founded on the “undeniable” justification that Assad was behind the chemical weapons attack. Dale Gavlak’s credibility is very impressive. He has been a Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press for two decades and has also worked for National Public Radio (NPR) and written articles for BBC News.
http://www.infowars.com/rebels-admit-responsibility-for-chemical-weapons-attack/
Please, liberals, feel free to defend President Nincompoop in the comments. I'd love to see your defense of this.
Not a liberal here, but I'll play devil's advocate. Some places are shit holes. Somalia is so bad that Doctors Without Frontiers had to leave. I'll bet tons of kids are dying there.
Suppose that we had given them gas masks, and suppose that they fell into the hands of rebels instead of the children. Further suppose that the attack/accident occurred all the same and children still died and the rebels survived.
What then?
deborah -- about that report that it was the rebels who did it, there's this to consider:
"Dale Gavlak [the author your source quoted] assisted in the research and writing process of this article, but was not on the ground in Syria. Reporter Yahya Ababneh, whom the report was written in collaboration with, was the correspondent on the ground in Ghouta who spoke directly with the rebels, their family members, victims of the chemical weapons attacks and local residents."
Things get mighty murky over there. The person on the ground, Yahya Ababneh, could well be in the Assad camp.
Agreed, Lydia, the point is we have no idea, and never will, who made that particular attack.
"If accurate, this story could completely derail the United States’ rush to attack Syria which has been founded on the “undeniable” justification that Assad was behind the chemical weapons attack."
deborah, I think the timeline I quoted from up-thread at 12:12 AM, though, does point pretty clearly at Assad as the responsible party.
Not a liberal here, but I'll play devil's advocate. Some places are shit holes. Somalia is so bad that Doctors Without Frontiers had to leave. I'll bet tons of kids are dying there.
Suppose that we had given them gas masks, and suppose that they fell into the hands of rebels instead of the children. Further suppose that the attack/accident occurred all the same and children still died and the rebels survived.
What then?
I'd make this point, too. The Syrian rebels don't inspire a lot of confidence that they are less shitty than the resident fascists.
If we had given them gas masks, what makes you think they would have been given to civilians?
They would have gone to fighters, most of whom aren't on our side either. What do we care if they're killed in a chemical weapon attack?
There is no clear answer as to who used sarin on whom. No reliable third party has made definitive verification, and the potentially guilty parties aren't taking credit.
There is no clear answer as to why gas masks were not widely distributed, nor who withheld their distribution.
There are media outlets reporting that the wrapped-in-white-sheets dead bodies may not have been dead, but rather a photo op staged by Iran in order to stir conflict.
There is suspicion that a Saudi Arabian prince who wants Assad toppled may have supplied the sarin and provided masks only to his friends, while claiming that the generously provided masks didn't somehow get widely distributed.
There are no good guys in the Syrian civil war. None.
And until the British Parliament took a no vote, Beloved Leader was going to show Syrians that killing other Syrians is wrong...by killing some Syrians.
Jenjis Kerry is a muddled nitwit.
The US should keep far, far away from the Syrian conflict
And now comes this report which alleges that Britain sold to Syria the chemical agents to make nerve gas.
Never mind, Jake, it's Syriatown.
Lydia, from your USCAnnenberg, Neon Tommy, Annenberg Digital News source:
"December 8, 2012: U.S. satellite images showed Syrian chemical weapon factories began to combine the components necessary to create Sarin nerve gas. British Foreign Secretary William Hague confirms he has seen the same evidence." [my bolding]
The linked article does not bear out the claim.
Your article has many links, and I don't have time to read them all. Will you please point me to a specific point in your article that proves Assad used gas?
Revenant, are you arguing that we shouldn't have supplied the masks because there was only a small chance that some of them would end up in the hands of civilians?
Isn't a small chance better than none? All we'd be out are some surplus masks, that would have cost more to ship back here than they're worth.
And if you're saying there was literally zero chance of civililians getting a single mask (which would make the Syrian rebels godlike and infallible, but let's say such a zero probability is possible here for argument's sake), then why wouldn't we offer the masks only on the condition that we see confirmation that each shipment is shared with the civilian population?
I've got nothing to prove Assad's the culprit, deborah, it's just that all the stuff listed in that timeline seems to point fairly clearly to his regime.
I think what really does it for me was his foreign ministry spokesman threatening in 2012 to use chemical and biological weapons in case of a foreign attack. And the fact that this was the regime's "first-ever acknowledgement that it possesses weapons of mass destruction".
Lydia, what if it's a false flag operation to make it look like Assad used gas? That would clearly benefit the other side, which is supported by Russia and Iran, both of which want to humiliate the US.
Lydia, I just don't see Assad using gas at a point he had the upper hand with the rebels. Haz's false flag theory makes a lot more sense, especially considering Colin Powell's testimony at the UN, pre-Iraq War.
For the life of me, I can't understand why Assad would use gas. He's reportedly done quite well killing 100,000 without the use of gas.
The White House can't let kids go on tour of the place because there is no money for it, but POTUS Shitforbrains is ready to shoot some missiles at a cost of about a million dollars apiece.
Then what? Does Secretary of State Numbnuts think that peace will come to Syria after we blow a bunch of them up?
Let's say Choomster wants to do something. What's he going to do? He won't want to actually hurt anyone, so he'll have cruise missiles dropped onto the runways of military bases.
Whoopdeedoo. Syrian missiles aimed at Israel don't take off from runways. Hello World War Three.
So, why would Assad use the gas? Good question. A screw-up or a miscalculation by Assad's people? From last week at the The Cable/Foreign Policy website:
"Last Wednesday, in the hours after a horrific chemical attack east of Damascus, an official at the Syrian Ministry of Defense exchanged panicked phone calls with a leader of a chemical weapons unit, demanding answers for a nerve agent strike that killed more than 1,000 people. Those conversations were overheard by U.S. intelligence services, The Cable has learned. And that is the major reason why American officials now say they're certain that the attacks were the work of the Bashar al-Assad regime -- and why the U.S. military is likely to attack that regime in a matter of days.
But the intercept raises questions about culpability for the chemical massacre, even as it answers others: Was the attack on Aug. 21 the work of a Syrian officer overstepping his bounds? Or was the strike explicitly directed by senior members of the Assad regime? 'It's unclear where control lies,' one U.S. intelligence official told The Cable. 'Is there just some sort of general blessing to use these things? Or are there explicit orders for each attack?'
Nor are U.S. analysts sure of the Syrian military's rationale for launching the strike -- if it had a rationale at all. Perhaps it was a lone general putting a long-standing battle plan in motion; perhaps it was a miscalculation by the Assad government. Whatever the reason, the attack has triggered worldwide outrage, and put the Obama administration on the brink of launching a strike of its own in Syria. 'We don't know exactly why it happened,' the intelligence official added. 'We just know it was pretty fucking stupid'."
Those conversations were overheard by U.S. intelligence services
The article you listed would be far better if it included excerpts of those conversations. It doesn't; it offers only speculation.
Understand: I don't have a dog in this fight. I just want to see some incontrovertible truth regarding who did what.
And I'm inclined to disbelieve anything John Kerry says.
See this? Kerry may have used a photo of dead bodies taken in 2003 and said it was Syrian gas victims.
Aridog said...
Why does anyone think President Nincompoop cares one whit about anyone else's life?
He gets his national security advice from Susan Rice, the distinguished lady who advised Bill Clinton to stay out of Rwanda and to NOT call the hacking to death by machete of tens of thousands of black Africans the "genocide" that it definitely was in fact.
Death of children in a foreign land, no problem. Death of children and getting accolades by the very genocidal eugenics corporation asking for tax payer dollars to carry out the multi-decade, multi-generational holocaust of American children while calling you a hero at the same time, no problem.
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