Thursday, June 13, 2013

Apple iOS 7: Sleek, Elegant Software Redesign for iPhone, iPad - ABC News

Apple product lovers, your iPhone and iPad interfaces will look radically different this year.
At Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), held at the Moscone West Center in San Francisco, Apple CEO Tim Cook and other company executives unveiled new operating systems, iOS 7 for i-devices and OS X Mavericks for Macs, as well as a new version of its MacBook Air and a sneak peek at the next MacBook Pro.
Although Apple didn't announce any new iOS devices, the big redesign featuring an array of new software upgrades in the iOS 7 operating system will make existing devices seem new.
"We want to make the best product that people use more and love more than anyone else's," Cook said.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Musings On Mr. Snowden

Just a short time ago Edward Snowden orchestrated what could be the most consequential and largest security leak in United States history. Snowden approached The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald with intelligence information that indicated that the United States government, through the use of phone tapping and digital data mining by the NSA, was engaged in a massive intrusion of privacy. For his part Snowden insists he isn't a “hero” as some of the American public has labeled him but rather he’s an American who is a concerned citizen. What was revealed nearly a week ago certainly has massive implications for the United States’ intelligence, anti-terrorism, and national security operations. Effectively the American debate has turned from one of political partisanship to one of “how much is too much” when it comes to intelligence gathering. What follows in the coming weeks and months will determine the effectiveness of Snowden’s actions. In the meantime the American people would do well to take the information they have been ‘gifted’ and look beyond the surface...Snowden may not be as innocent as he seems.

Consider first who Edward Snowden is:
a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and former employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. He has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell. His history before these more recent occupations is less than ideal. He dropped out of high school and failed to graduate. After some time he went to a community college where he also dropped out but not before earning his GED. He enlisted and tried to become a member of the Armed Forces but was later discharged. In a more recent interview with The Guardian he remarked that the intentions with which he enlisted, the ideals, were not represented as he thought they would be by his fellow soldiers. Instead he found himself at odds. From there he became a security guard for the NSA at their headquarters and was shortly thereafter picked up by the CIA and placed abroad as an undercover operative. Through his career he has sat on the knowledge that the very government he defended and at times represented, was involved in a massive, potentially illegal, operation to gather citizens’ personal and private data for anti-terror purposes. What is known is that he had this information throughout the Bush administration and prior to Nov. 2008 was nearly at his breaking point to go public. That was until Barack Obama was elected. He felt that things would or could change under his administration. That the abuses of governmental power by the Bush/Cheney White House would cease and the public would not be the wiser. He was “disappointed”  by the outcome four years later.

The revelations that Snowden brought forth have done something few Americans believed still possible: unite the parties. Yes from Senator Lindsey Graham to John McCain and back to Dianne Feinstein the same tune is being sung. This was done in the interest of national security and there’s nothing illegal or illicit going on. It is a necessary operation. Edward Snowden is a criminal and perhaps guilty of treason. However what are the pundits saying? Two unlikely allies are also singing the same tune though not the same as Congress: Edward Snowden is a hero. Yes. Glenn Beck (former host of The Glenn Beck Show on Fox News and CEO of GBTV) and Michael Moore (director of Bowling For Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11 and Capitalism A Love Story) are on the same team. They believe what Snowden has done has helped, not hurt the country’s interests. Where does the truth lie though? Is Edward Snowden who he says he is? Hero or Villain?
The allusion keeps being made to the benefits and/or damage of Mr. Snowden’s revelations. What are they? We now know that the NSA has been secretly spying on the United States citizens’ phone records and digital data (emails, text messages, etc) for years. Under powers granted to the intelligence community after 9/11 with the Patriot Act an unprecedented amount of information was now easily and legally accessible by the government. What were before only whispers and rumors are now confirmed and exposed. We also know that though the government claims these are effective tools of anti-terror they have significant failures. The more recent example of such is the Boston Marathon Bombing. The bombers, the Tsarnaev brothers, were able to carry out their plans despite having used email, phone calls and text messaging to communicate and relay key information. But does one major lapse necessitate or justify throwing out the whole operation? What would be the difference to the case of the Underwear Bomber? The Times Square Bomber? As the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20.

Some questions immediately arose out of the aired interview between Greenwald and Snowden. When asked about his plans post-revelations Snowden insists that he’s not afraid of the consequences of his actions and fully intends and welcome a fight with the U.S. Government over the matter. Yet he fled the country presumably before the story was written by The Guardian. This would stand in stark contrast to what he said. He also lists his reasons for fleeing to Hong Kong of all places: “They have a spirited commitment to free speech.” Really? Hong Kong. A region under Chinese control, the same China that spends immeasurable amount of time seeking out dissenters and those who would speak ill of the regime. Something doesn't click. Why China? He mentions his intent or likelihood of going to Iceland. Why not go there first? Why go to China. Clearly, as he admits, he’s on edge because the CIA has locations nearby his hotel room in China and knows he can be ‘captured’ in short time. Why delay his escape? Something isn't right.

Surely what the NSA has done for the last twelve years, across two administrations and countless Congressional votes of approval, deserves scrutiny and trimming of the fat where necessary. Still, we mustn't forget what valuable information and protection has been gained by the goings-on within the intelligence community. As I listen to the debate about the disclosure of two government programs designed to track suspected phone and email contacts of terrorists, I do wonder if some of those who unequivocally defend this disclosure are behaving as if 9/11 never happened — that the only thing we have to fear is government intrusion in our lives, not the intrusion of those who gather in secret cells in Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan and plot how to topple our tallest buildings or bring down U.S. airliners with bombs planted inside underwear, tennis shoes or computer printers. Certainly the potential will always be there for the government to abuse its granted powers. How easily could the government abuse privacy from a program that granted it sweeping power to prevent another 9/11. But what evidence is there thus far that such abuse has occurred? Should we not all worry more about something that has already happened than that of what may happen. Most of the complaints we here today are not the extent the operations under the NSA have been taken thus far, but what they may become. I worry about something that’s already happened once — that was staggeringly costly — and that terrorists aspire to repeat. My reasoning for this is that I fear if in a week, a month, years or even decades another 9/11 occurs our open society that I cherish so much, and that is a great wonder of the world to aspire to, may be gone. If there were another 9/11 it is conceivable that an overwhelming majority of Americans would tell their members of Congress to do whatever is necessary, privacy be damned, to prevent this. David Simon, the creator of HBO’s “The Wire” wrote a very well written essay on this issue.

“You would think that the government was listening in to the secrets of 200 million Americans from the reaction and the hyperbole being tossed about,” wrote Simon. “And you would think that rather than a legal court order, which is an inevitable consequence of legislation that we drafted and passed, something illegal had been discovered to the government’s shame. Nope. ... The only thing new here, from a legal standpoint, is the scale on which the F.B.I. and N.S.A. are apparently attempting to cull anti-terrorism leads from that data. ... I know it’s big and scary that the government wants a database of all phone calls. And it’s scary that they're paying attention to the Internet. And it’s scary that your cell phones have GPS installed. ... The question is not should the resulting data exist. It does. ... The question is more fundamental: Is government accessing the data for the legitimate public safety needs of the society, or are they accessing it in ways that abuse individual liberties and violate personal privacy — and in a manner that is unsupervised. And to that, The Guardian and those who are wailing jeremiads about this pretend-discovery of U.S. big data collection are noticeably silent. We don't know of any actual abuse.”

As a reminder these are musings. Make sense of them what you will but I would finish off with a reference to what Sen. Angus King (I-MA) said recently: 


What if the headline, instead of ‘Obama searches records,’ had been, ‘Obama cancelled program which could have prevented nuclear attack on Miami?’
We would have the articles of impeachment already drawn up.

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Texas actress arrested in ricin case - CNN

(CNN) -- A Texas actress in a troubled marriage was arrested and charged Friday in connection with ricin-tainted letters that were mailed last month to President Barack Obama and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, authorities said.
Shannon Richardson, 35, also known as Shannon Rogers and Shannon Guess, initially told the FBI that her husband, Nathaniel, sent the ricin-laced letters, but a polygraph exam found her to be "deceptive" on the matter, court papers said.
Investigators found that her computer storage devices contained the text of threatening letters sent to the president, but the couple's computer records show her husband couldn't have printed them out because he was at work at the time, an FBI arrest affidavit said.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/07/justice/ricin-letters-arrest/index.html

Blast From The Past: Photo of the original Sesame Street cast

The first season of Sesame Street aired in 1969-1970 and this photo of the cast dates from then:

Original Sesame Street Cast

The giveaway is Oscar the Grouch's orange fur...it would switch to green for the second season. Here's the first 15 minutes of the first episode:

And here's part 2part 3, and part 4.


Non-invasive first trimester blood test reliably detects Down’s Syndrome - Science Blog

New research has found that routine screening using a non-invasive test that analyzes fetal DNA in a pregnant woman’s blood can accurately detect Down’s syndrome and other genetic fetal abnormalities in the first trimester. Published early online in Ultrasound in Obstetrics & Gynecology, the results suggest that the test is superior to currently available screening strategies and could reshape standards in prenatal testing.


Current screening for Down’s syndrome, or trisomy 21, and other trisomy conditions includes a combined test done between the 11th and 13th weeks of pregnancy, which involves an ultrasound screen and a hormonal analysis of the pregnant woman’s blood. Only chorionic villus sampling and amniocentesis can definitely detect or rule out fetal genetic abnormalities, but these are invasive to the pregnancy and carry a risk of miscarriage.
Several studies have shown that non-invasive prenatal diagnosis for trisomy syndromes using fetal cell free (cf) DNA from a pregnant woman’s blood is highly sensitive and specific, making it a potentially reliable alternative that can be done earlier in pregnancy.
Non invasive first trimester blood test reliably detects Downs syndromeAn Ultrasound in Obstetrics & Gynecology study by Kypros Nicolaides, MD, of the Harris Birthright Research Centre for Fetal Medicine at King’s College London in England, and his colleagues is the first to prospectively demonstrate the feasibility of routine screening for trisomies 21, 18, and 13 by cfDNA testing. Testing done in 1005 pregnancies at 10 weeks had a lower false positive rate and higher sensitivity for fetal trisomy than the combined test done at 12 weeks. Both cfDNA and combined testing detected all trisomies, but the estimated false-positive rates were 0.1% and 3.4%, respectively.
“This study has shown that the main advantage of cfDNA testing, compared with the combined test, is the substantial reduction in false positive rate. Another major advantage of cfDNA testing is the reporting of results as very high or very low risk, which makes it easier for parents to decide in favor of or against invasive testing,” the authors wrote.
A second Ultrasound in Obstetrics & Gynecology study by the group, which included pregnancies undergoing screening at three UK hospitals between March 2006 and May 2012, found that effective first-trimester screening for Down’s syndrome could be achieved by cfDNA testing contingent on the results of the combined test done at 11 to 13 weeks. The strategy detected 98% of cases, and invasive testing was needed for confirmation in less than 0.5% of cases.
“Screening for trisomy 21 by cfDNA testing contingent on the results of an expanded combined test would retain the advantages of the current method of screening, but with a simultaneous major increase in detection rate and decrease in the rate of invasive testing,” the authors concluded.

Read more at http://scienceblog.com/63688/non-invasive-first-trimester-blood-test-reliably-detects-downs-syndrome/#sue6Xv2gvV3dsH3H.99 

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Susan Rice Deserves An Apology


On Wednesday the Obama administration released 100  pages of emails that detail the process in which the Benghazi talking points were shaped. Those same talking points were the ones that U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice used on the September 16 Sunday talk shows after the attacks.

For weeks after the attack in Benghazi, Libya the Obama administration as well as State Department officials insisted that the incident was due to a anti-Muslim film posted to YouTube which had sparked outrage and violent protests across the middle east. While President Barack Obama did in fact call the attack an "act of terror" on September 12th, the day after, Press Secretary Jay Carney didn't use either "act of terror" or "terrorism" to define the Benghazi incident until late September. The emails released Wednesday highlight the strong belief by State Department officials as well as the CIA that the anti-Muslim video responsible for protests in Cairo among other locations was also to blame for the Benghazi attack that killed four Americans including the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens.

Last fall Ambassador Rice was grilled by congressional Republicans for her part in the now erroneous talking points that were released the Sunday after the Sept. 11 attacks. Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsay Graham (R-SC) pointed to her recital of those same talking points as justification for revoking her nomination to succeed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. After weeks of pushback between the White House and Congressional Republicans Rice withdrew her candidacy for the post. The position was later filled by then Senator John Kerry with support from Senate Republicans.

Contained within the emails released on Wednesday was the revelation that despite being critiqued for her part in the production of the Sept. 16 talking points, Ambassador Rice had no part. Rather the formation of them was between the State Department and the CIA, with minor involvement from the White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes. If anything the emails highlight inter-department  consternation over their public appearance and how it would be affected. However what is even more of interest is that these emails were released months ago to Congressional Republicans and, despite being in receipt of these, they insisted that Susan Rice should be held accountable. Her part in this, if anything, was merely to relay the pre-drafted talking points.

It remains to be seen if Senate Republicans, who were largely responsible for blocking her from the Secretary of State post, will issue a formal apology to Ms. Rice now that the public knows they had knowledge from the beginning of her confirmation process just how far she was involved. So the saying goes: "Don't shoot the messenger." Unfortunately for Ambassador Rice that was not the case.

Friday, May 10, 2013

ISS: Space station's cooling system leaking ammonia


FROM BBC NEWS: 
NASA


Astronauts on the International Space Station are dealing with a leak in the orbiting platform's cooling system.
The crew spotted particles of ammonia drifting away from the laboratory on Thursday.
Liquid ammonia is used to extract the heat that builds up in electronic systems, dumping that excess energy to space through an array of radiators.
Nasa says the crew is in no danger, but that a spacewalk may be needed to inspect the site of the leak.
The seepage is coming from the station's port side, at the far end of the backbone, or truss, structure that holds one of the laboratory's huge sets of solar arrays.
Commander Chris Hadfield reported seeing "a very steady stream of flakes".
"They were coming out cleanly and repeatedly enough that it looked like it was a point source they were coming from," he added.
Cameras were trained on the location so that engineers on the ground could get a better idea of what was happening.
Hadfield later tweeted: "It is a serious situation, but between crew and experts on the ground, it appears to have been stabilized."
Nasa believes the problem is associated with the 2B power channel, one of eight fed by the station's solar arrays.
It is not the first time that the station's cooling systems have caused problems.
A very small leak was identified in 2007, and in 2010 a complete failure of an ammonia pump led to three spacewalks to replace it.
In 2012, a spacewalk was organised to reconfigure coolant lines and isolate the problem of leaks.
Nasa said in a statement that the rate of loss of ammonia on Thursday meant the cooling loop would very likely have to be shutdown, although it stressed this would not cause the station or its occupants any difficulty.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22478364

The ACN Morning Report -- Friday May 10, 2013

ASSAD SEEKS HEZBOLLAH SUPPORT -- BANGLADESH BUILDING COLLAPSE DEATH TOLL RISES -- NORTH KOREA LAYS OUT CASE AGAINST JAILED AMERICAN -- U.S. NOT SEEKING PERMANENT BASES IN AFGHANISTAN -- OHIO SUSPECT'S RELATIVES SAY HE BEAT THEM -- 7 YEAR OLD BOSTON BOMBING VICTIM HAS 11TH SURGERY -- RAND PAUL, JEB BUSH, MARCO RUBIO AND PAUL RYAN -- GAY MARRIAGE BILL HEADS TO MINN. SENATE -- 3D PRINTED LIBERATOR GUN ATTRACTS TENS OF THOUSANDS

AFTER SYRIA, ASSAD SEEKS HEZBOLLAH SUPPORT

Screenshot Photo
Israel’s alleged attack against Syria seems to have led President Bashar Assad to hunker down and more fully align his regime with the Iran-Hezbollah axis. As he fights for his regime’s survival, holding on to what some analysts say could become an Alawite ministate, he is publicly moving to a more hostile position vis-à-vis Israel and the West.
Assad told a local Lebanese paper that Syria was becoming a resistance state similar to the one Hezbollah has created in Lebanon.

DEATH TOLL FROM BANGLADESH BUILDING COLLAPSE TOPS 1,000

CNN
Dhaka, Bangladesh (CNN) -- More than two weeks after a building in Bangladesh housing factories full of garment workers caved in, the death toll from the South Asian nation's deadliest industrial disaster has surpassed 1,000, authorities said Friday.
For the 17th day, rescue and recovery workers are searching through the nine-story building's tangled wreckage in Savar, a suburb of the capital, Dhaka. During the first several days of dangerous and painstaking work, they got more than 2,400 people out of the rubble alive.

NORTH KOREA DETAILS CHARGES AGAINST JAILED AMERICAN

Reuters
North Korea provided more detail on the alleged activities of jailed American Kenneth Bae early Friday, accusing him of a multiyear effort to foment opposition to the regime that appears to darken prospects for his release.
One thing that wasn’t a surprise was apparent confirmation of his involvement in missionary work, something that has seen other Korean-Americans detained in North Korea in recent years.

SPOKESMAN: U.S. NOT SEEKING PERMANENT BASES IN AFGHANISTAN

WASHINGTON, May 9 (Xinhua) -- The United States is not seeking permanent military bases in Afghanistan, and any future American presence in the country will be possible only at the invitation of the Afghan government, White House spokesman Jay Carney said here on Thursday.
The spokesman echoed what U.S. President Barack Obama said in response to a statement made by Afghan President Hamid Karzai earlier in the day about Washington's intention to set up nine military bases across the Asian nation after the exit of most U.S. and NATO combat troops by the end of 2014.

OHIO MAN'S EX-RELATIVES SAY HE BEAT THEM, KEPT MANNEQUIN IN HOME

AP
The man accused of holding three women captive for a decade in his Cleveland home terrorized the mother of his children, frequently beating her, playing twisted psychological games and locking her indoors in the years before their relationship disintegrated, her relatives say.

Several relatives of Grimilda Figueroa, who left Ariel Castro years ago and died after a long illness last year, painted a nightmarish portrait of Castro's family life as authorities made public horrifying details of the abuse endured by the imprisoned women.

 SISTER OF BOSTON BOY KILLED IN BOMBING HAS 11TH SURGERY

AP
Jane Richard, the wounded 7-year-old sister of the boy killed in the Boston Marathon bombings, had a crucial 11th surgery Wednesday night but faces more operations to prepare her for an artificial leg, the family said Thursday.
Doctors at Boston Children's Hospital finally closed the wound where one bomb tore off her left leg below the knee April 15, the Richard family wrote on its Tumblr page. She will eventually be fitted with a prosthetic device.




GOP'S RAND PAUL STEPS TOWARD 2016 RUN, JOINS GROWING FIELD

AP
DES MOINES, Iowa — Sen. Rand Paul says he’s only “considering” running for president. But he’s doing much more than mull it over.
The Kentucky Republican is unabashedly clearing a path to seek the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, with a series of early voting state visits, a beefed-up political operation and a deliberate plan to appeal to mainstream voters and raise his national profile.

MINNESOTA SENATE NEXT STOP FOR GAY MARRIAGE BILL

Photo: Jim Mone
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Gay marriage supporters in Minnesota are already in celebration mode after the state House's passage of the bill to legalize it, but there are a few more steps before it gets to the desk of Gov. Mark Dayton.

"It's not time to uncork the champagne yet. But it's chilling," said Rep. Steve Simon, DFL-Hopkins, at a spirited rally in the Capitol rotunda a few minutes after the House voted 75-59 to let same-sex couples start getting married in Minnesota come Aug. 1.


DOWNLOADS FOR 3D PRINTED LIBERATOR GUN REACHES 100,000

The blueprint used to produce a 3D-printed plastic gun has been downloaded about 100,000 times since going online earlier this week, according to Forbes.
Defense Distributed told the news site it was surprised by the amount of interest its Liberator gun had generated.
Earlier in the week, the company demonstrated the firearm being fired
But even before any more guns come off the DIY printing presses, there are moves afoot to ban it.

WSJ: NORTH KOREA DETAILS CHARGES AGAINST JAILED AMERICAN


Mr. Bae was detained in November and sentenced late last month to 15 years of hard labor for unspecified “hostile acts.” North Korea has denied he is being used as a bargaining chip to extract concessions from the U.S. or a visit from a public figure to secure his release.
In a report from the state media agency attributed to a spokesman for its supreme court, North Korea said Mr. Bae was dispatched to China in 2006 by a missionary group, where he supposedly set up “plot-breeding bases” over the following six years.
North Korea claimed Mr. Bae gave lectures against the Pyongyang leadership and visited churches in the U.S. and South Korea to spread an anti-regime message. The apparent next phase of his plan, according to North Korea, was to set up a base in Rason City, inside the North.
It was at Rason that Mr. Bae was first held late last year, where North Korea says he was caught with anti-regime literature. North Korea also accused him of having produced videos aimed to encourage people to oppose the government, the report said.
Verification of most of the North’s claims wasn’t possible, although website nknews.org reported earlier this week on Mr. Bae’s missionary links  and his dispatch to China in 2006.
While the exact nature and extent of Mr. Bae’s alleged activities are unclear, North Korea’s characterization of them and its repetition of a message that it isn’t using him as a negotiating tool make near-term prospects for release uncertain.
North Korea has in recent years detained and released other Americans who have entered the country to do missionary work, which is viewed as a threat to the regime.
North Korea’s account of Mr. Bae’s activities appears more serious than previous cases, however. In its account, the North said Mr. Bae had be liable for the death penalty or life imprisonment but received a reduced penalty for confessing to the allegations against him.

Monday, May 6, 2013

U.N. has testimony that Syrian rebels used sarin gas: investigator

WIRED Image

(Reuters) - U.N. human rights investigators have gathered testimony from casualties of Syria's civil war and medical staff indicating that rebel forces have used the nerve agent sarin, one of the lead investigators said on Sunday.
The United Nations independent commission of inquiry on Syria has not yet seen evidence of government forces having used chemical weapons, which are banned under international law, said commission member Carla Del Ponte.
"Our investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report of last week which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated," Del Ponte said in an interview with Swiss-Italian television.
"This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities," she added, speaking in Italian.
Del Ponte, a former Swiss attorney-general who also served as prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, gave no details as to when or where sarin may have been used.
The Geneva-based inquiry into war crimes and other human rights violations is separate from an investigation of the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria instigated by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, which has since stalled.
President Bashar al-Assad's government and the rebels accuse each another of carrying out three chemical weapon attacks, one near Aleppo and another near Damascus, both in March, and another in Homs in December.
The civil war began with anti-government protests in March 2011. The conflict has now claimed an estimated 70,000 lives and forced 1.2 million Syrian refugees to flee.
The United States has said it has "varying degrees of confidence" that sarin has been used by Syria's government on its people.
President Barack Obama last year declared that the use or deployment of chemical weapons by Assad would cross a "red line".
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Tom Pfeiffer)

Saturday, May 4, 2013

Assad "to delcare war" on Israel -- Explosion Rocks Damascus; Israeli Jet Shot Down


BREAKING: Eye witnesses in capital city of say military has dropped nuclear-type bomb.



THIS IS A BREAKING STORY. STAY TUNED FOR UPDATES.




Following evidence of chemical warfare and an increasingly reticent US position, Israel has in recent days taken widely reported steps to neutralise threats emanating from within civil war-torn Syria.

While strikes from Lebanese airspace this weekend are not thought to have been on chemical weapons caches, the recent Israeli intelligence regarding the use of such weaponry is thought to have spurred on a round of strikes, including the latest just hours ago.

Syrian state television has reported that a major strike on an ammunition depot in Qassiyoun mountains shook Damascus, while Hezbollah's Al-Manar station claimed the explosion may have been a downed Israeli jet.

Rumours are surfacing online that following the latest volley of attacks on the Syrian regime, President Bashar al-Assad will soon officially declare war on Israel, with speculators pointing to 5am local time for official confirmation. This information continues to persist despite the technical state of war that currently exists between the two states.

Many however, have been quick to dismiss these reports as strictly rumour, with various commentators claiming that such a move would be sure to end Assad's reign of terror in Syria "within a week".

The news of an Israeli intervention in Syria has caught the Obama administration on the back foot, with the US president refusing to comment at length about the strike. Obama said, "The Israelis, justifiably, have to guard against the transfer of advanced weaponry to terrorist organizations like Hezbollah."

The US president made no mention of supposed "red lines" being crossed, despite evidence of Syria's used of chemical weapons against rebel forces. Critics have hit out at Barack Obama in recent days for failing to put forward any coherent strategy to bring the violence in Syria to an end.

The inaction, according to some, is another example of Obama's "lead from behind" strategy, the same tactic he employed during the intervention in Libya.

This has been an updated report on the original article below. 





Syrian state television has reported that a series of heavy explosions in the capital were caused by Israeli rocket strikes.


An Israeli warplane was shot down by Syrian air-defense unit during a raid near Damascus early Sunday, Hezbollah's Manar television station reported, citing security sources in the Syrian capital.
There was no independent confirmation of the claim.

State television said the blasts early Sunday morning targeted a military research centre on the outskirts of the capital. The research centre in Jamraya was the target of an earlier Israeli strike in January.

"The new Israeli attack is an attempt to raise the morale of the terrorist groups which have been reeling from strikes by our noble army," Syrian television said, referring to recent offensives by the forces of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, against the armed opposition.

A Damascus resident described the blasts to Al Jazeera, saying they felt like "an earthquake" and "unprecedented".

There was no immediate comment from Israeli officials on Sunday's explosions.
"We don't respond to this kind of report," an Israeli military spokeswoman told the Reuters news agency.

The US State Department had no immediate comment and the Israeli Embassy in Washington declined comment.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based watchdog group, has also reported several explosions in the capital and its surrounding countryside.

The Syrian state media claims, reported by the Reuters news agency, come after Israel confirmed that its air force hit a shipment of missiles in Syria bound for Hezbollah.

Friday, May 3, 2013

Syria and Chemical Weapons: The United States and Israel Don't Have A Leg To Stand On

Red lines are all the rage -- whether it's Obama's "red line" for Syrian chemical weapons, of Israel's Netanyahu, here, for Iran's non-existent nuclear weapons. With war threatened in both cases without a shred of evidence.

If, as alleged, the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons, it would indeed be a serious development, constituting a breach of the Geneva Protocol of 1925, one of the world’s most important disarmament treaties, which banned the use of chemical weapons.
In 1993, the international community came together to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention, a binding international treaty that would also prohibit the development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention, and transfer or use of chemical weapons. Syria is one of only eight of the world’s 193 countries not party to the convention.
However, US policy regarding chemical weapons has been so inconsistent and politicized that the United States is in no position to take leadership in response to any use of such weaponry by Syria.
The controversy over Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles is not new. Both the Bush administration and Congress, in the 2003 Syria Accountability Act, raised the issue of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles, specifically Syria's refusal to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention. The failure of Syria to end its chemical weapons program was deemed sufficient grounds by a large bipartisan majority of Congress to impose strict sanctions on that country.
Syria rejected such calls for unilateral disarmament on the grounds that it was not the only country in the region that had failed to sign the CWC—nor was it the first country in the region to develop chemical weapons, nor did it have the largest chemical weapons arsenal in the region.
Indeed, neither Israel nor Egypt, the world’s two largest recipients of US military aid, is a party to the convention either. Never has Congress or any administration of either party called on Israel or Egypt to disarm their chemical weapons arsenals, much less threatened sanctions for having failed to do so. US policy, therefore, appears to be that while it is legitimate for its allies Israel and Egypt to refuse to ratify this important arms control convention, Syria needed to be singled out for punishment for its refusal.
The first country in the Middle East to obtain and use chemical weapons was Egypt, which used phosgene and mustard gas in the mid-1960s during its intervention in Yemen’s civil war. There is no indication Egypt has ever destroyed any of its chemical agents or weapons. The US-backed Mubarak regime continued its chemical weapons research and development program until its ouster in a popular uprising two years ago, and the program is believed to have continued subsequently.
Israel is widely believed to have produced and stockpiled an extensive range of chemical weapons and is engaged in ongoing research and development of additional chemical weaponry. (Israel is also believed to maintain a sophisticated biological weapons program, which is widely thought to include anthrax and more advanced weaponized agents and other toxins, as well as a sizable nuclear weapons arsenal with sophisticated delivery systems.)
For more than 45 years, the Syrians have witnessed successive US administration provide massive amounts of armaments to a neighboring country with a vastly superior military capability which has invaded, occupied, and colonized Syria's Golan province in the southwest. In 2007, the United States successfully pressured Israel to reject peace overtures from the Syrian government in which the Syrians offered to recognize Israel and agree to strict security guarantees in return for a complete Israeli withdrawal from occupied Syrian territory.
The US position that Syria must unilaterally give up its chemical weapons and missiles while allowing a powerful and hostile neighbor to maintain and expand its sizable arsenal of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons is simply unreasonable. No country, whether autocratic or democratic, could be expected to accept such conditions.
This is part of a longstanding pattern of hostility by the United States towards international efforts to eliminate chemical weapons through a universal disarmament regime. Instead, Washington uses the alleged threat from chemical weapons as an excuse to target specific countries whose governments are seen as hostile to US political and economic interests.
One of the most effective instruments for international arms control in recent years has been the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which enforces the Chemical Weapons Convention by inspecting laboratories, factories, and arsenals, and oversees the destruction of chemical weapons. The organization’s most successful director general, first elected in 1997, was the Brazilian diplomat Jose Bustani, praised by the Guardian newspaper as a “workaholic” who has “done more in the past five years to promote world peace than anyone.”
Under his strong leadership, the number of signatories of the treaty grew from 87 to 145 nations, the fastest growth rate of any international organization in recent decades, and – during this same period – his inspectors oversaw the destruction of 2 million chemical weapons and two-thirds of the world’s chemical weapons facilities. Bustani was re-elected unanimously in May 2000 for a five-year term and was complimented by Secretary of State Colin Powell for his “very impressive” work.
However, by 2002, the United States began raising objections to Bustani’s insistence that the OPCW inspect US chemical weapons facilities with the same vigor it does for other signatories. More critically, the United States was concerned about Bustani’s efforts to get Iraq to sign the convention and open their facilities to surprise inspections as is done with other signatories. If Iraq did so, and the OPCW failed to locate evidence of chemical weapons that Washington claimed Saddam Hussein’s regime possessed, it would severely weaken American claims that Iraq was developing chemical weapons.
US efforts to remove Bustani by forcing a recall by the Brazilian government failed, as did a US-sponsored vote of no confidence at the United Nations in March. That April, the United States began putting enormous pressure on some of the UN’s weaker countries to support its campaign to oust Bustani and threatened to withhold the United States’ financial contribution to the OPCW, which constituted more than 20 percent of its entire budget. Figuring it was better to get rid of its leader than risk the viability of the whole organization, a majority of nations, brought together in an unprecedented special session called by the United States, voted to remove Bustani.
The Case of Iraq
The first country to allegedly use chemical weapons in the Middle East was Great Britain in 1920, as part of its efforts to put down a rebellion by Iraqi tribesmen when British forces seized the country following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. According to Winston Churchill, who then held the position of Britain’s Secretary of State for War and Air, "I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes.”
It was the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein, during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, that used chemical weapons on a scale far greater than any country had dared since the weapons were banned nearly 90 years ago. The Iraqis inflicted close to 100,000 casualties among Iranian soldiers using banned chemical agents, resulting in 20,000 deaths and tens of thousands of long-term injuries.
They were unable to do this alone, however. Despite ongoing Iraqi support for Abu Nidal and other terrorist groups during the 1980s, the Reagan administration removed Iraq from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism in order to provide the regime with thiodiglycol, a key component in the manufacture of mustard gas, and other chemical precursors for their weapons program.
Walter Lang, a senior official with the US Defense Intelligence Agency, noted how "the use of gas on the battlefield by the Iraqis was not a matter of deep strategic concern" to President Reagan and other administration officials since they "were desperate to make sure that Iraq did not lose." Lang noted that the DIA believed Iraq’s use of chemical was “seen as inevitable in the Iraqi struggle for survival.” In fact, DIA personnel were dispatched to Baghdad during the war to provide Saddam Hussein’s regime with US satellite data on the location of Iranian troop concentrations in the full knowledge that the Iraqis were using chemical weapons against them.
Even the Iraqi regime’s use of chemical weapons against civilians was not seen as particularly problematic. The March 1988 massacre in the northern Iraqi city of Halabja, where Saddam's forces murdered up to 5,000 Kurdish civilians with chemical weapons, was downplayed by the Reagan administration, with some officials even falsely claiming that Iran was actually responsible. The United States continued sending aid to Iraq even after the regime’s use of poison gas was confirmed. 
When a 1988 Senate Foreign Relations committee staff report brought to light Saddam's policy of widespread extermination in Iraqi Kurdistan, Senator Claiborne Pell introduced the Prevention of Genocide Act to put pressure on the Iraqi regime, but the Bush administration successfully moved to have the measure killed. This came despite evidence emerging from UN reports in 1986 and 1987, prior to the Halabja tragedy, documenting Iraq's use of chemical weapons against Kurdish civilians—allegations that were confirmed both by investigations from the CIA and from US embassy staff who had visited Iraqi Kurdish refugees in Turkey. However, not only was the United States not particularly concerned about Iraq’s use of chemical weapons, the Reagan administration continued supporting the Iraqi government's procurement effort of materials necessary for their development.
Given the US culpability in the deaths of tens of thousands of people by Iraqi chemical weapons less than 25 years ago, the growing calls for the United States to go to war with Syria in response to that regime’s alleged use of chemical weapons that killed a few dozen people leads even many of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s fiercest opponents to question US motivations.
This is not the only reason US credibility on the issue of chemical weapons is questionable, however.
After denying and covering up Iraq’s use of chemical weapons in the late 1980s, the US government—first under President Bill Clinton and then under President George W. Bush—began insisting that Iraq’s alleged chemical weapons stockpile was a dire threat, even though the country had completely destroyed its stockpile by 1993 and completely dismantled its chemical weapons program.
Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry, and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel—when they served in the US Senate in 2002—all voted to authorize the US invasion of Iraq, insisting that Iraq still had a chemical weapons arsenal that was so extensive it constituted a serious threaten to the national security of the United States, despite the fact that Iraq had rid itself of all such weapons nearly a decade earlier. As a result, it is not unreasonable to question the accuracy of any claims they might make today in regard to Syria’s alleged use of chemical weapons.
It should also be noted that many of today’s most outspoken congressional advocates for US military intervention in Syria in response to the Damascus regime’s alleged use of chemical weapons were among the most strident advocates in 2002-2003 for invading Iraq. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), whom the Democrats have chosen to be their ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was among the right-wing minority of House Democrats who voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq on the grounds that the country possessed weapons of mass destruction. When no such weapons were found, Engel came up with the bizarre allegation that “it would not surprise me if those weapons of mass destruction that we cannot find in Iraq wound up and are today in Syria.”
Engel is currently the chief sponsor of the Free Syria Act of 2013 (H.R. 1327), which would authorize the United States to provide arms to Syrian rebels.
UN resolutions
Unlike the case of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, there are no UN Security Council resolutions specifically demanding that Syria unilaterally disarm its chemical weapons or dismantle its chemical weapons program. Syria is believed to have developed its chemical weapons program only after Israel first developed its chemical, biological, and nuclear programs, all of which still exist today and by which the Syrians still feel threatened.
However, UN Security Council Resolution 687, the resolution passed at the end of the 1991 Gulf War demanding the destruction of Iraq’s chemical weapons arsenal, also called on member states “to work towards the establishment in the Middle East of a zone free of such weapons.”
Syria has joined virtually all other Arab states in calling for such a “weapons of mass destruction-free zone” for the entire Middle East. In December 2003, Syria introduced a UN Security Council resolution reiterating this clause from 12 years earlier, but the resolution was tabled as a result of a threatened US veto. As I wrote at time, in reference to the Syrian Accountability Act, “By imposing strict sanctions on Syria for failing to disarm unilaterally, the administration and Congress has roundly rejected the concept of a WMD-free zone or any kind of regional arms control regime. Instead, the United States government is asserting that it has the authority to say which country can have what kind of weapons systems, thereby enforcing a kind of WMD apartheid, which will more likely encourage, rather than discourage, the proliferation of such dangerous weapons.”
A case can be made, then, that had the United States pursued a policy that addressed the proliferation of non-conventional weapons through region-wide disarmament rather than trying to single out Syria, the Syrian regime would have rid itself of its chemical weapons some years earlier along with Israel and Egypt, and the government’s alleged use of such ordnance—which is now propelling the United States to increase its involvement in that country’s civil war—would have never become an issue.