Is Obama finally going to take action against Syria?

DEBKAFILE is reporting the Obama administration is ready to step-up to the plate and finally take action against Syria for the murderous crackdown on protesters. The death toll is reported to be around one thousand, but I suspect it’s quite higher than that as a mass grave has been found near Deraa. Citizens from the southern city of Deraa say hundreds of Syrians are unaccounted for since a crackdown on protests began on March 18^th and intensified when the army moved in on April 25^th. President Obama is said to be readying sanctions on Syrian dictator Assad and plans to recall the American Ambassador Robert Ford for consultations. Obama has also decided to give the IAEA authorization to report Syria to the UN Security Council in regards to Syria’s apparent violation in building a plutonium reactor for military purposes at Deir A-Zour.

President Obama has been tardy when it comes to making decisive decisions in the foreign policy realm. Obama failed twice during the Iranian election fraud protests and was seen as weak in his response. Obama’s wavering response in Egypt left the State Department scrambling in trying to stay on the same page as the White House. In the end, longtime ally President Mubarak was essentially thrown under the proverbial bus, which helped pave the way for the Muslim Brotherhood to fill the leadership vacuum. When the protests erupted in Libya, Obama was once again asleep at the wheel…or should I say asleep at the golf cart wheel on the 19^th hole. The President dithered while the world watched as the protesters were routed by Col. Gaddafi’s henchmen. At a time, there was a small window of opportunity when the protesters could have captured Tripoli, but Obama waited until that opportune time had passed.

Whether or not Obama’s Syrian strategy will be successful remains to be seen, but I think more action is required. President Obama needs to put pressure on the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for President Assad and his brother Maher Assad for murder. Strong unilateral sanctions need to be applied to Syria. If the United States will actually lead in this arena, I surmise most of the International community will follow suit. The United Nations must be avoided for the most part because China and Russia will veto any meaningful sanctions. When it comes to Iran or their Syrian ally, Obama appears to be gun-shy about making real decisions. I appreciate the fact that Iran and Syria can make trouble for our national security interests in that region if we push too hard, but the failure to act because of that fact is seen as weak and is very dangerous. The Obama White House is currently in 2012 campaign mode and I’m confident most of the decisions they make will have political calculations aimed at the election. That could be good for our foreign policy because Obama will want to look decisive instead of looking like the dithering wimp he has been for the past two and half years.

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Pakistan helped Bin Laden, Bush-era intel may have lead to hit

I think there is now no question that the Pakistani ISI helped Osama Bin Laden hide from U.S. forces. It has always been suspected Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISID) supported terrorist elements, but now the proof is in. Bin Laden was eventually tracked down and killed in a compound located just a few hundred yards from Pakistan’s prestigious military academy in Abbotabad and I don’t think that was by accident. In December 2009, the government of Tajikistanwarned the United States that efforts to catch bin Laden were being thwarted by corrupt Pakistani spies. According to a United States diplomatic dispatch, General Abdullo Sadulloevich Nazarov, a senior Tajik counterterrorism official, told the Americans that “many” inside Pakistan knew where bin Laden was. The document revealed: “In Pakistan, Osama Bin Laden wasn’t an invisible man, and many knew his whereabouts in North Waziristan, but whenever security forces attempted a raid on his hideouts, the enemy received warning of their approach from sources in the security forces.” It's time Congress takes a look at our relationship with Pakistan and withdraws all economic aid that goes to this country.

Information is now being released showing the Bush administrations use of enhanced interrogation techniques on GITMO detainees may have been the genesis behind the intel that resulted in the Bin Laden hit. U.S. officials say some of the initial strands of intelligence that eventually led to Sunday’s military operation came from terror detainees captured after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. We have heard over the years that water-boarding provided useful intel that saved lives and prevented future terrorist attacks. We know that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was water-boarded many times and now it’s being revealed he may have provided the name of the Bin Laden courier, the same courier that was tracked to Osama’s compound in Pakistan. President Obama is taking credit for the killing of Bin Laden and to some degree it’s deserved, but credit needs to be extended to the Bush administration as well. There will be those that will deny water-boarding had anything to do with the death of Osama Bin Laden, but I think history will show a different story. Ultimately, most of the credit goes to the men and women of our military and intelligence services. They are the true heroes!

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OSAMA BIN LADEN DEAD. Al Qaeda Threatens Nuclear Hellstorm if Bin Laden is caught

According to Fox News, Osama Bin Laden

has been killed by US forces. The US

has been awaiting DNA results before going

public.

Last week it was reported at the

Statesman.net WASHINGTON, 25 APRIL: Al Qaida terrorists have threatened to unleash a “nuclear hellstorm” on the West if their leader and the world's most-wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden, is nabbed.

A senior Al Qaida commander has said that the terror group has stashed away a nuclear bomb in Europe which will be detonated if bin Laden is ever caught or assassinated, according to new top secret files made public by the Internet whistleblower WikiLeaks. The documents are secret details of the background to capture each of the 780 people held at or have passed through the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba, along with their medical condition and the information they have provided during interrogations. The documents have been released to select European and US news outlets and reveal that the day 9/11 terror killings took place in the USA, the core of Al Qaida was concentrated in a single city of Karachi in Pakistan. The intellectual author of 11 September attacks watched the horrifying scenes of the planes crashing into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre beamed live on TV with key Al Qaida commanders at a safe house in Karachi. While in a nearby hospital the accused mastermind of the bombing of the USS' Cole off Yemen waters was recovering from a tonsillectomy, the alleged organiser of the 2002 Bali bombing was buying lab equipment for a biological weapons programme. Within a day much of the Al Qaida leadership disappeared back to Afghanistan to plan for a long war, the Washington Post reported quoting the fresh leaks on the whereabouts of the international Al Qaida terror brigade. The cache of classified military documents portray the planning of the 9/11 terror attacks and the whereabouts of its plotters including the world's most-wanted terrorist, Osama Bin Laden, and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri on that fateful day. The Guantanamo detainees are assessed “high or medium or low” in terms of their intelligence value and the threat they pose while in detention and the continued threat they might pose if released. The leaks say that four days after 11 September attacks, bin Laden visited a guest house in Afghanistan's Kanadhar province where he told his gathered Arab fighters to “defend Afghanistan against infidel invaders” and to “fight in the name of Allah”. The Intelligence report says after the 9/11 attacks began a peripatetic three weeks for bin Laden and his deputy as they criss-crossed Afghanistan handing out assignments to followers, meetings with top Taliban leadership and delegating control of Al Qaida to the group's 'shura' council, presumably because he feared being captured or killed as the US forces closed in. ‘ISI a terrorist organisation US authorities have described Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency as a terrorist organisation and considered it as much of a threat as Al Qaida and the Taliban. Recommendations to interrogators at Guantanamo Bay rank the ISI directorate alongside Al Qaida, Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon as threats, The Guardian reported quoting secret US files obtained by it. “Being linked to any of these groups is an indication of terrorist or insurgent activity,” the documents dated September 2007 said. “Through associations with these organisations, a detainee may have provided support to Al Qaida or the Taliban, or engaged in hostilities against USA or coalition forces (in Afghanistan),” the document said.

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