Obama Had Knowledge of Syria’s Intent to Use Chemical Weapons

Wow.

American intelligence agencies had indications three days beforehand that the Syrian regime was poised to launch a lethal chemical attack that killed more than a thousand people and has set the stage for a possible U.S. military strike on Syria.

The disclosure — part of a larger U.S. intelligence briefing on Syria’s chemical attacks — raises all sorts of uncomfortable questions for the American government. First and foremost: What, if anything, did it do to notify the Syrian opposition of the pending attack?

In a call with reporters Friday afternoon, senior administration officials did not address whether this information was shared with rebel groups in advance of the attack. A White House spokeswoman declined to comment on whether the information had been shared.

But at least some members of the Syrian opposition are already lashing out at the U.S. government for not acting ahead of time to prevent the worst chemical attack in a quarter-century. “If you knew, why did you take no action?” asked Dlshad Othman, a Syrian activist and secure-communications expert who has recently relocated to the United States. He added that none of his contacts had any sort of prior warning about the nerve gas assault — although such an attack was always a constant fear.

Razan Zaitouneh, an opposition activist in the town of Douma, one of the towns hit in the Aug. 21 attack, said she had no early indication of a major chemical attack. “Even the moment [the attack hit], we thought it was as usual, limited and not strong,” she told The Cable in an instant message. That only changed when “we started to hear about the number of injuries.”

“It’s unbelievable that they did nothing to warn people or try to stop the regime before the crime,” Zaitouneh added.

……”In the three days prior to the attack, we collected streams of human, signals and geospatial intelligence that reveal regime activities that we assess were associated with preparations for a chemical weapons attack,” said a U.S. intelligence report the Obama administration released Friday.

“Multiple streams of intelligence indicate that the regime executed a rocket and artillery attack against the Damascus suburbs in the early hours of August 21,” the report added. Satellites detected that the weapons were launched from territories held by the regime. They landed in rebel-controlled or contested neighborhoods.

The intelligence assessment is based on “a substantial body of information,” including satellite imagery, intercepted communications, and social media reports from the scene of the attack.

This brings up all kinds of speculation. What was Obama’s motivation for not picking up the phone and telling Assad we knew? I know that you can’t reveal certain things without giving away the methods used to collect that information, but you don’t have to get that far into the weeds.

So, on 18 August, Obama was briefed on information that Assad was prepping for a chem strike. On 21 August, the chemical weapons were launched. On 28 August, Obama announced his plans to engage in ‘three days of missile strikes’ on specific targets; including air bases where Syria’s Russian-made attack helicopters are deployed.

Nothing like leading from behind, B. Hussein.

The whole episode is another sordid display of Obama’s pathetic, dicked-up foreign policies.

George W. Bush was way too restrained and Obama is a total pussy.

On a side note, the problem of Islamofascist terrorism should have been solved on 12 September, 2001. Any president worth their salt would have closed every American embassy in the Middle East, yanked out each and every American DOD civilian, and proceeded to methodically bomb the shit out of every last vestige of Islamofascism in the region. That would require initially hitting all of the capitals; Kabul, Damascus, Riyadh, Amman, Beirut, Cairo, Tripoli, Sanaa, all the ‘stan capitals: Baku, Ashgabat, Dushanbe, Bishtek, Tashkent, Astana, Islamabad, and any other cesspool of Islam that crawls with muzzie vermin.

As long as they kill each other, I couldn’t care less. When they kill Americans and target the West, then I have a problem with that. Obama has a knack for doing nothing when it’s imperative something be done, and acting like he’s going to do something when he should keep his nose out of it.

This will not end well.

http://sfcmac.wordpress.com/2013/08/27/obama-couldnt-send-help-to-benghazi-but-hell-send-warships-to-syria/