Nancy Smash is in an awkward position.
Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House minority leader, said she supported the president and sent a letter to fellow Democrats urging that they fall into line. But she conceded, “In my district, I don’t think people are convinced that military action is necessary.”
Ms. Pelosi’s comments reflected her dilemma as a leader of the president’s party, which still has a strong liberal antiwar wing. “The American people need to hear more about the intelligence,” she said.
She can feel the pulse of the progressive caucus, but she’s supporting the president.
Did that last sentence make you cringe? Cause a little cognitive dissonance?
It should, because the progressive caucus, as opposed to the predominately white progressive blogosphere, has been the strongest supporter of the president. But progressives of all stripes are scratching their heads over the presentation of the evidence and the logic behind the strategy.
Nancy’s right. Progressives need to see more.
If ever there were a politician who has demonstrated a solid understanding of doing the work and following through it would be her. May that be her default again.
After the Bush years, the hope for Obama was a Dem foreign policy that would demonstrate that strength comes from due diligence, a large table of allies and exhaustive, logical timelines and CSI like facts. The more complicated the situation, the more deliberative the process. Doubling down is reframed to exclude a rush to strike but a Steve Jobs approach of ‘good job, good information, now get me more’
Perhaps Pelosi’s role will remind the WH of this.
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Belgian expert Jean-Pascal Zanders finds the French intelligence report not convincing. He is a leading expert on verification of WMD arms control. In a VRT television interview yesterday. Obama and Kerry are not getting NATO allies on board for an air strike on Syria to put the Islamists in power and be part of a new genocide crisis.
The so-called “sarin signature” can be found in any agricutural/rural setting in pesticides. For what reason did John Kerry attempt to halt the UN Inspectors in Damascus by putting pressure on Ban Ki-moon? I’ll await the UN report on the exact composition of chemical agents used in the gas attack in Ghouta.
Zanders Didn’t Change His Mind
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Read the article in The Guardian carefully and comprehend what is said. On one doubts a lethal toxic agent (neurotoxin) was released in Ghouta and caused deaths and suffering of thousands. No expert can tell from the videos who is responsible nor the exact cocktail of chemical agents involved. On these points, Zanders is still not convinced, after studying the French intelligence report, that sarin nerve agent was used. From the linked Guardian article:
Sarin, developed in 1938, is the most toxic of the three G-agents made by Germany. Its name is derived from the names of the chemists involved in its creation: Schrader, Ambrose, Rüdigerand van der Linde. NATO adopted it as a standard chemical warfare agent in the early 1950s. Iraq used sarin in the 1980-88 war with Iran and had large stocks available in the 1990-91 Gulf War.
BBC News report on the earliest video’s of civilians suffering from the lethal toxic poison.
The strike on Syria is doing Israel’s bidding in the Middle-East – Juan Cole @Informed Comment | Richard Silverstein @Tikun Olam | Mondoweiss.
○ Gloves Come Off: Israel Lobby Goes All-In for Syrian Intervention, While New York Times Self-Censors
○ AIPAC comes out for strike on Syria- and mentions Iran more often than Syria
Interesting article.
But having seen 3 publicly available accounts that seem to contradict the highlighted quote, I’m inclined to think that Zander’s comment reflects more on his lack of searching for material than the lack of material.
I happened to look at 5 videos yesterday, picked at random. Among those 5, 2 were of live patients convulsing with the other 3 being of dead victims. (I assume we’re all adults and understand those 2 sentences):
http://samersniper.wordpress.com/2013/08/22/final-report-of-the-chemical_massacre-in-eastern-and-wes
tern-ghoutas-towns-syria/
Also we have info from hospitals in the area supported by MSF. Convulsions are the first symptom listed on their account:
– See more at: http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/press/release.cfm?id=7029&cat=press-release#sthash.zaHA5DFb
.dpuf
Kenner at FP also writes about early responding videographers dying after they filmed the dead and dying.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/08/29/youtube_syria
I’m not trying to say I know sarin was used. In fact I’m probably one of the least interested in knowing what precise agent was used. This just didn’t pass the smell test for me.
The citation is from a The Guardian article dated August 21, 2013. The TV interview was yesterday after studying the French Intelligence report with more intel than the US and UK reports. Zanders is a WMD expert and says he hasn’t seen sufficient proof based on scientific evidence. The UN Inspection team can provide an analysis of the neurotoxin substance sarin or a cocktail of chemical agents used in the attack. Nothing more and nothing less. There are too many holes in the official political statements and it’s not void of pure propaganda. That doesn’t swing the case for me. The case hasn’t been made and hopefully the US will supply the proof for the public to see. Why rush to war?
I too looked at samersniper to ascertain reliability. I couldn’t make up my mind. Many of the video sources are part of propaganda … counts for both sides.
I actually read the whole Guardian article but I missed the date. The date is critical. He clearly didn’t have much info to go on then. He may have looked at the same videos as samersniper but we don’t know much about what Zanders is actually looking at. The youtube videos at samersniper have a youtube timestamp of 9/20, so they got those up within something like 6 hours of the attack’s occurrence.
And I guess you don’t find the MSF and Kenner pieces credible?
Does any one else find it bothersome that she supports the strikes despite her district being against them? Representative of the people my butt!!
Setting aside the issue of strikes against Syria (for the record, I’m opposed), a member of Congress isn’t supposed to just blindly follow the opinion of their constituents. Do you find it admirable that Michele Bachmann opposes closing the gunshow loophole because that’s what the majority of her constituents want?
Also, Nancy Pelosi is not merely the representative of a particular district in California but also the leader of the House Democrats. In a sense, her constituency is not just her district but also the Democratic party.
Also, Nancy Pelosi is not merely the representative of a particular district in California but also the leader of the House Democrats.
Yet she just said the other day that she doesn’t want to be Speaker again, if the GOP loses the majority come November 2014. Is she planning on retiring soon? And she’s supporting the strikes despite all of what you pointed out below.
GOP splits majority leader and speaker regularly. Dems never do (which I think is a mistake, but whatev.) but maybe they’d switch.
Not that the Dems will be taking the House in 2014.
Bothersome? More like furious – what a sell out.
I’m not a fan of the whole wheels-within-wheels theory of politics, as I think that politicians as a rule are less Machiavelli more Elmer Fudd, but I keep wondering what the rest of the story is. This seems so transparently wrong-footed. What’s the real goal, here?
The final text of the resolution will demonstrate the real goal.
Yesterday’s “hearing” was another installment of Imperial satire, with every absurd argument possible being made, from Hitler junior to North Korea deterrence–by Dems, no less. Everything but actual facts and questions about the question at hand, the bombing of Syria (or invasion?) by the good ol’ US of A and what exactly it is supposed to accomplish (or fail to accomplish).
Oh yes, deterrence. How the deterrence works exactly is unstated. The parable of horribles (Loss of allies! Munich moment! Korea!) was so unpersuasive it’s hard to believe that any informed leader would agree to mouth them. But Kerry was apparently delighted, as were others.
To read the questions (or lack thereof) and “testimony” is to think you are dealing with cardboard imbeciles, not national leaders of a superpower. Now our national elite is posing as so concerned over chemical weapons use we simply must militarily intervene in a civil war (in the ME no less) to “enforce” long established “international standards” (that apparently no nation on earth but the US thinks need enforcing in this instance). Poll the UN? Even the regional gub’mints? Don’t ask, it’s “complicated”.
With not even a snarky observation from some senator about why we not only weren’t opposed to Saddam’s use of chemical weapon against Iran, we welcomed them. Perhaps we provided them, I can’t remember (mercifully). Quite the long established international standard, which it would be inhumane not to bomb over. But then, the side we favored used CW in that not-so-long-ago war, so obviously the long established international standard was irrelevant then. Or something–sometimes called gross hypocrisy. Which apparently only we Muricans can fail to see.
As for the Murican public, so far the great unwashed remains completely uninterested in the latest War in the Name of Goodness and Honor and CW, with less than one third on board with bombing Syria. It’s very hard to see how that is going to measurably change after the nauseating spectacle of the senate whitewash, er “hearing”. So yes, some cognitive dissonance for the progressives and their rock solid support of Obama. He is really asking kind of a lot here.
Just how in the world this saga can possibly help Dems politically is as mysterious as how this will help end the war in Syria. I guess one needs faith.
Pelosi hasn’t been a rubber stamp for Pres. Obama in the past and I don’t think she is now. I think it’s possible she has the experience to know when she is getting BS and when she’s not. I think it’s possible that she knows how to assess information. I think it’s possible that everything that is known cannot be released to protect sources or to not reveal our hand to hostile countries.
I’m reading all kinds of assessments by different groups and countries.
I don’t know what facts you want. Blood samples have been taken and we should be getting results about them. The WH released the intel about intercepting phone calls.
What do you want Booman?
What would be enough evidence for some people? I have a feeling many are over-correcting for being duped by Bush back in 2003.
I don’t need to see more. I’m against intervention. I don’t care if Assad is a cannibal and eats the babies of Syrian al-Qaeda. Not. Our. Problem.
I think the evidence presented that Assad gassed his own people with Sarin has been compelling. To me that has been proven. I don’t know if a strike is the right course of action. To me that is where the debate should lie.