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Title: John McCain and Lindsey Graham criticise US-Russia deal on Syria
Source:
The Guardian
URL Source: http://www.theguardian.com/world/20 ... lindsey-graham-syria-statement
Published: Sep 14, 2013
Author: Martin Pengelly
Post Date: 2013-09-15 20:20:48 by X-15
Keywords: None
Views: 971
Comments: 22
The Republican senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham have criticised the deal struck by the US and Russia regarding the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile. In a statement released on Saturday, McCain and Graham said the deal would give the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, time "to delay and deceive" while the country's civil war continued. The statement said: "It requires a willful suspension of disbelief to see this agreement as anything other than the start of a diplomatic blind alley, and the Obama administration is being led into it by Bashar Assad and [Russian president] Vladimir Putin." The agreement, which is the result of three days of talks in Geneva between the US secretary of state, John Kerry, and Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, was announced on Saturday morning. It requires Syria to provide a list of its chemical weapons within a week, to allow inspectors into the country by November and to help ensure the removal and destruction of all chemical weapons by the middle of 2014. In their joint statement, however, McCain and Graham – who two weeks ago were invited to the White House, to discuss the administration's attempts to win Congressional support for military strikes in Syria – said: "What concerns us most is that our friends and enemies will take the same lessons from this agreement – they see it as an act of provocative weakness on America's part. We cannot imagine a worse signal to send to Iran as it continues its push for a nuclear weapon." They added: "Assad will use the months and months afforded to him to delay and deceive the world using every trick in Saddam Hussein's playbook." The statement concluded: "The only way this underlying conflict can be brought to a decent end is by significantly increasing our support to moderate opposition forces in Syria. We must strengthen their ability to degrade Assad's military advantage, change the momentum on the battlefield, and thereby create real conditions for a negotiated end to the conflict."
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#1. To: X-15 (#0)
Why do they publish the blatherings of a fool and a sissy?
Examples of more such blatherings here: U.S. Public-Elite Disconnect Emerges Over Syria - BlackListedNews.com
Examples of more such blatherings here: U.S. Public-Elite Disconnect Emerges Over Syria - BlackListedNews.com Definitely blathering. In a nutshell the American Public has become aware that offishul Washington lies with great regularity, and that there are no good reasons for us to become involved in the plunder of another country for someone else's benefit. Simply put - the rationales for yet another pointless war are lies to cover up the real reasons and more and more people are aware of that - even if not on an active level.
It gets even worse here: If History Is Any Measure, the Clock Is Ticking - nytimes.com excerpts When Saddam Hussein, defeated in the Persian Gulf war of 1991, had to demonstrate that he was giving up his chemical arsenal, Iraqis protected by little more than tattered cloths over their faces poured some of the agents into ditches and set them on fire — to the shock of inspectors watching in heavy “moon suits.” Weapons experts and diplomats say that if President Bashar al-Assad is serious about complying with the landmark agreement announced in Geneva on Saturday, he will have to take similarly dramatic action in the coming weeks. the destruction of chemical agents is a painstaking process that, to be done safely and securely, can easily take decades ... But if Mr. Assad does not put on “a big, demonstrable show” to prove to the Syrian military that he is “giving up the crown jewels,” [one senior administration] official said, “this isn’t going to work.” the immediate destruction of empty warheads and bombs “serves to reinforce that point.” American officials say they expect Mr. Assad to balk at the destruction of missile warheads or bombs, which can be used for conventional and unconventional arms. Mr. Hussein and Colonel Qaddafi were both deposed and ultimately executed years after giving up their weapons. the United States’ effort to get rid of its own stockpile has now taken 28 years and $35 billion — and it is not yet over. Over the years, the United States has led the world in developing special furnaces that scrub out dangerous waste products, and it has created methods to react the material with water and other chemicals to permanently undo the toxic structures. It has built seven destruction plants across the world, including at Johnston Atoll in the Pacific and the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, and it is in the process of building two more, at Richmond, Ky., and Pueblo, Colo. Mr. Obama has made it clear to his staff that no one has time for a painstakingly slow process in Syria, and the Geneva agreement reflects that urgency. The [Syria] agreement calls for the destruction of chemical agent mixing equipment by November and, perhaps most ambitious, for Syria to completely rid itself of chemical weapons and production facilities in less than a year, a timetable that would set a speed record and one that many experts doubt could be completed even with Syria’s full cooperation. At the core of the debate over how to test Mr. Assad are two conflicting strategies to getting rid of chemical arms: the slow, safe and costly, versus the quick and dirty. When the United States had to get rid of Nazi Germany’s chemical weapons, it dumped them into the Baltic Sea; Japan’s ended up in the Pacific. Iraq after the gulf war is a prime example of the quick-and-dirty approach. The chemical arsenal was destroyed, and at fire-sale prices compared with the costly American approach, said Charles A. Duelfer, a top United Nations official in the elimination of Iraq’s chemical arsenal. “We gathered stuff from all over and destroyed it for under $10 million,” he recalled in an interview. Some leaky munitions were too dangerous to move, Mr. Duelfer said. “So we’d dig a pit, put in diesel fuel, and blow the stuff up.” chemical experts would get up early to beat the desert heat, donning full-body protective suits that protected them from hazardous fumes at sites where lethal toxins were being incinerated in open pits. “They’d supervise the Iraqis,” he said of the United Nations inspectors. But the local workers themselves, he added, wore sandals and “put rags over their faces.” Libya was a different case. ... two years after Colonel Qaddafi’s death ... The United States is paying much of the bill for destroying what remains.
Assad could promise the Kenyan his first and last born child and to disarm all of his countrymen but that wouldn't be enough. Just like nothing Saddam could do was enough for that warmonger Bush. www.theguardian.com/world/2003/feb/25/usa.iraq Ignoring the fact that George Bush declined Saddam Hussein's challenge to a televised debate, Tim Dowling exclusively reveals what could have happened had they met Tony Blair, moderator: Welcome to the first televised debate between George W Bush and Saddam Hussein, live from United Nations headquarters in New York. We will begin with a brief opening statement from each of you. Bush: First of all I would just like to welcome my evil friend to the UN, one of the great American institutions for the propulsion of freedom throughout the world. Saddam: Thank you, Great Satan. I hope that in today's debate we may find some common ground between the Iraqi people's commitment to peace and human progress and America's desire to destroy the Middle East. Bush: Do I answer that? Blair: No. The first question is quite simply this: do you have any links with al-Qaida? Bush: I do not. Blair: The question is for President Saddam. Saddam: As I told Mr Tony Benn clearly and simply, if I had links with al-Qaida and I enjoyed those links then I would not be ashamed to tell the world, but since I am ashamed to tell the world of this, it follows that I have no such links. Bush: Neither do I. Blair: The second question is for Mr Bush. Mr Bush, if America and Iraq were to go to war tomorrow, who would win? Bush: That's easy. America, right? Saddam: Even I knew that one. Bush: That's because the great United American States of America are on the side of rightliness and Americanity, against an evil Axis of Evil made up of Iraq, North Korea and... how many are in an axis? Three? Blair: I think you're allowed as many as you like. Bush: OK, Iraq, North Korea and France. Saddam: I will tell you frankly and directly that Iraq is not part of any Axis of Evil. Bush: Who am I thinking of then? Irania? Blair: Let's move on. Saddam, are you willing to destroy your stockpile of Samoud 2 missiles in accordance with UN weapons inspectors' orders? Saddam: I explain to you now that if Iraq possessed these so-called weapons, we would never destroy them, but since we do not have any such weapons, we are happy to comply, even though these non-existent weapons certainly do not exceed the proscribed range of 150 kms. I've tested them myself, and we don't have any. Blair: The final question is for George Bush. Mr President, is there any way that Saddam Hussein can avoid war, and what steps must he now take in order to reach a negotiated solution? Bush: Listen to me. It's very simple. First Saddam must compile 200% with the UN inspectorers, and I mean activated compilation, not passivist compilation. Second, he must disarm fully, in keeping with UN revelation 1441 and the next one coming, 1441B, which will require him to disarm even more fully that. Then he must destroy all Samoud missiles and any other weapons of mass destruction he is found, or not found, to be possessive of, without being asked. Finally, there is one more task he must perform, which I am not at liberty to revulge. And even that will not be enough. Blair: The translator would like to take your answer home with him and work on it over the weekend. Bush: Fine, but we require nothing less than total disarmature. Saddam: OK. Blair: Sorry, but I'm not sure that "disarmature" is a word. I defer to the UN Keeper of the Dictionary, Mr Richard Stilgoe. Stilgoe: Yes, you can have disarmature. It means, "the action of disarming" according to the OED. Bush: Exactly. He must cut his own arms off. Saddam: If it means peace, I will do it. Bush: Too late. Stilgoe: Did you know that Saddam Hussein is an anagram of 'Demands a Sushi'? Saddam: Yes, I've heard them all. Bush: I don't eat sushi. Is there a fish option? Blair: I'd like to remind everyone at home that the Monica Lewinsky-Tonya Harding fight follows after the break.
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#6. To: Lod (#1)
Why do they publish the blatherings of a fool and a sissy?
#8. To: GreyLmist, Lod (#6)
Why do they publish the blatherings of a fool and a sissy?
#9. To: Original_Intent, 4 (#8)
Definitely blathering.
When Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi had to convince the world 10 years ago that he was serious about giving up his chemical weapons, he dragged warheads and bombs into the desert and flattened them with bulldozers.
#11. To: GreyLmist (#9)
(Edited)
#13. To: James Deffenbach (#11)
Replies to Comment # 13.
