The Commentariat -- Aug. 29, 2013

** NEW. Alan Cowell & Stephen Castle of the New York Times: "... United Nations inspectors headed to the outskirts of Damascus for a third day on Thursday, seeking evidence of chemical attacks, while the British authorities took the unusual step of publishing an intelligence assessment blaming the Syrian government for the deadly onslaught." ...

... ** NEW. Kimberly Dozier & Matt Apuzzo of the AP: "The intelligence linking Syrian President Bashar Assad or his inner circle to an alleged chemical weapons attack is no 'slam dunk,' with questions remaining about who actually controls some of Syria's chemical weapons stores and doubts about whether Assad himself ordered the strike, U.S. intelligence officials say.... A report by the Office of the Director for National Intelligence outlining that evidence against Syria includes a few key caveats -- including acknowledging that the U.S. intelligence community no longer has the certainty it did six months ago of where the regime's chemical weapons are stored, nor does it have proof Assad ordered chemical weapons use." ...

     ... David Atkins of Hullabaloo: "Intervention in this situation is somewhat perplexing. After watching tens of thousands of Syrians die in a brutal civil war, the United States seems determined to use bombs on a rogue faction of an oppressive regime based on murky intelligence in order not to alter the course of the civil war, but to defend the narrow principle that it's OK to kill people with bombs but not with poisonous gas. That doesn't sound like a great idea." ...

... Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "Lawmakers stepped up their call on Wednesday for President Obama to consult with Congress before ordering a military strike on Syria, with more than 100 House members signing a letter pressing the president to seek a vote before taking action. 'We strongly urge you to consult and receive authorization from Congress before ordering the use of U.S. military force in Syria,' read the letter, signed by 98 Republicans and 18 Democrats."...

... President Obama says he has "not made a decision" on how to proceed regarding Syria:

... Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "The Obama administration appeared Wednesday to be forging ahead with preparations to attack Syria. It dismissed a Syrian request to extend chemical weapons inspections there as a delaying tactic and said it saw little point in further discussion of the issue at the United Nations. President Obama said that 'there need to be international consequences' for the Aug. 21 chemical strikes he said he has concluded were carried out by the Syrian government." ...

... Kathleen Hennessey, et al., of the Los Angeles Times: "One U.S. official who has been briefed on the options on Syria said he believed the White House would seek a level of intensity 'just muscular enough not to get mocked' but not so devastating that it would prompt a response from Syrian allies Iran and Russia. 'They are looking at what is just enough to mean something, just enough to be more than symbolic,' he said." ...

... Lara Seligman of the Hill: "Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Wednesday expressed outrage over leaks related to possible air strikes on Syria, calling them 'crazy.' McCain pointed to reports that say U.S. air strikes on Syria could begin as early as Friday.... 'But all of these leaks, when strikes are going to take place, where, what's going to be used, if I were [Syrian President] Bashar Assad, I think I would declare tomorrow a snow day and keep everything from work,' McCain said on Fox News. 'This is crazy. These leaks are just crazy.'" ...

     ... CW: The "crazy leak" by "a U.S. official" to the L.A. Times which I highlighted above almost certainly comes from a top Republican Congressman. (If you can't figure out how I came to that conclusion, I'll provide a close reading. I think it's obvious.)

... Political scientist Charli Carpenter on the (il)legality of a U.S. attack on Syria. Via Eric Voeten in the Monkey Cage. ...

... New York Times Editors: "Despite the pumped-up threats and quickening military preparations, President Obama has yet to make a convincing legal or strategic case for military action against Syria. While there should be some kind of international response to the chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds of civilians last week, Mr. Obama has yet to spell out how that response would effectively deter further use of chemical weapons. For starters, where is the proof that President Bashar al-Assad of Syria carried out the attack? " ...

... Amy Davidson of the New Yorker: "There have been calls for the President to reconvene Congress and put this one before them, and such calls are right. It might even help the Administration figure out what, exactly, it hopes to accomplish by shooting missiles in the general direction of Damascus." That's just what British PM David Cameron is doing. ...

... Jim Fallows agrees with Davidson. "Completely apart from the procedural nicety of involving the rest of the government in authorizing the use of force, [President Obama] has a compelling political interest in spreading the responsibility for this decision." ...

... Steven Myers of the New York Times: "President Vladimir V. Putin has conspicuously avoided public comment on reports of a chemical weapons attack on civilians outside of Damascus, the Syrian capital.... Instead he has carried on, like many ordinary Russians, as if the civil war in Syria had not reached an ominous new phase.... Mr. Putin's public reticence, though, reflects a calculation that Russia can do little to stop a military intervention if the United States and other countries move ahead without the authorization of the United Nations Security Council -- and that he has little to lose at home, at least, if they do." ...

... John Judis of the New Republic has a good overview of the Syrian quagmire. Thanks to contributor P. D. Pepe for the link. ...

... CW: here's my question & one that I've not seen even contemplated. Rather than our sending in, um, "humanitarian" missiles, why not go to the Security Council for a resolution demanding the destruction of the Syrian chemical weapons arsenal? After all, if using chemical weapons violates international law -- and it does -- then there's absolutely no reason to have any. If Syria refused, then some escalation would be indicated. Responses, please. ...

... Time Staff: "On February 9, 1991, the Saturday Night Live cold open captured the press fervor before the Gulf War. As journalists search for scoops before another possible deadly conflict in Syria, it's a sketch worth remembering":

NEW. Ed Pilkington of the Guardian: 'The Obama administration is trying to dissuade federal judges from giving the New York Times reporter James Risen one last chance to avoid having to disclose his source in a criminal trial over the alleged leaking of US state secrets. The Department of Justice has filed a legal argument with the US appeals court for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Virginia, in which it strongly opposes any further consideration of Risen's petition. Risen's lawyers have asked the court to convene a full session of the 15-member court.... A three-member panel of the same court last month issued a 2-1 majority ruling in which they found that reporters had no privilege that would safeguard the confidentiality of their sources in a criminal trial."

Peter Baker & Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times: "President Obama stepped on Wednesday into the space where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once stood and summoned his iconic dream of a colorblind society in a celebration of a half-century of progress and a call to arms for the next generation." ...

A great Democracy does not make it harder to vote than to buy an assault weapon. -- President Bill Clinton

... President Jimmy Carter remembers "how it was":

... Dana Milbank: "Rising above it all was Rep. John Lewis, the 73-year-old Georgia Democrat who, as a civil rights leader, spoke at the original march, too. 'When I look out over this diverse crowd and survey the guests on this platform,' he told the audience, 'it seems to realize what Otis Redding was singing about and what Martin Luther King Jr. preached about: This moment in our history has been a long time coming, but a change has come.' It took a voice of '63 to give real meaning to '13."

... The Washington Post's page on the commemoration of the 1963 March on Washington is here. Video of the entire five-hour program is here. ...

... NEW. Remembering J. Edgar Hoover. Annie Laurie of Balloon Juice links to some excellent pieces about Martin Luther King, Jr., & about the government's opposition to him & the civil rights movement. ...

... GOP MIA. Emma Dumain of Roll Call: "Speaker John A. Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the House's two most senior Republicans, were invited to speak at the 50th anniversary of the historic March on Washington -- but declined. That wasn't a wise choice, said Julian Bond, a renowned civil rights activist, in an interview with MSNBC on Wednesday afternoon.... 'They asked a long list of Republicans to come,' Bond continued, 'and to a man and woman they said "no." And that they would turn their backs on this event was telling of them, and the fact that they seem to want to get black votes, they're not gonna get 'em this way.'" ...

... Aamer Madhani of USA Today: "Both former Presidents [Bush] were invited to participate in Wednesday's celebration, which will feature speeches from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial by President Obama as well as former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. But both Bushes are dealing with health issues and decided it best to skip the event." ...

** Alex Seitz-Wald, in a Washington Post post, has an excellent summary of the Republican no-show scandal. CW: (Seitz-Wald doesn't call it a scandal, but I do.) You don't have to be president of your local MLK fan club to honor one of the most significant events in the civil rights movement, especially when you are invited to do so. The fact that Eric Cantor preferred to "honor" oil industry lobbyists & John Boehner preferred to "honor" GOP donors tells you what you need to know about the Republican party.

... Alex Halperin of Salon: Republicans may have been AWOL for the commemoration, but conservative commentators tweeted their reactions.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. -- Martin Luther King, Jr., August 28, 1963 ...

... Charles Pierce: "That's the great loophole. It is an otherwise unremarkable sentiment given the context of the entire address, but, for the people who almost certainly would have lined up on the other side of the movement in 1963, it subsequently has been used as an opening through which all manner of historically backsliding mischief has come a'wandering in...." Pierce goes on to excoriate the National Review, [which can't be done too often]. "Lincoln won a war. Dr. King led a revolution. They both fought the same enemy, a stubborn, clever enemy that is not yet vanquished." ...

... Ta-Nehisi Coates: "... whenever I see conservatives [like George Will] embracing [Daniel Patrick] Moynihan, I wonder whether they've actually read the report."

Justice Is Not Color-Blind. Nicole Flatow of Think Progress has the shocking statistics on racial discrimination in our criminal "justice" system.

One of Thousands of Examples of Why We Need a Campaign Reform Amendment. Eric Lipton of the New York Times: "Eight months ago, Congress ordered the Obama administration to eliminate a stark example of federal government waste: more than $500 million a year in excessive drug payments being sent to dialysis clinics nationwide. But ... more than 100 of the same members of Congress who voted in January to impose the cut are now trying to push the Obama administration to reverse it or water it down. The conflicting message is due in part to the lobbying muscle of an industry dominated by two companies -- DaVita Healthcare Partners of Denver and Fresenius, based in Germany -- both of which have seen their bottom lines improve since 2011, when the federal government first started making the excessive payments."

Clara Ritger of the National Journal: "Republicans have long blamed President Obama's signature health care initiative for increasing insurance costs, dubbing it the 'Unaffordable Care Act.' Turns out, they might be right. For the vast majority of Americans, premium prices will be higher in the individual exchange than what they're currently paying for employer-sponsored benefits, according to a National Journal analysis of new coverage and cost data. Adding even more out-of-pocket expenses to consumers' monthly insurance bills is a swell in deductibles under the Affordable Care Act." CW: for a number of reasons, I think this analysis may present a false picture. If some experts respond to the piece, I'll post links.

Steve Benen: "... there seems to be a pattern when it comes to the Tea Party: far-right activists are motivated by misleading claims they don't know to be false." The latest is the fake IRS "scandal," which, it turns out, was fueled by Tea Party-produced-and-paid-for complainants. ...

... Speaking of falsehoods that foment the foolish.... Texas Troopers Lie about Shit. Alex Seitz-Wald of Salon: During the Texas state senate battle over a new, restrictive antiabortion law, "the Texas Department of Public safety said that it had confiscated 'one jar suspected to contain urine [and] 18 jars suspected to contain feces.'" After pro-choice protesters denied the claim, the AP investigated: "Texas Department of Public Safety documents show troopers seized no jars of urine or feces from Capitol visitors the day of debate of controversial abortion bill. That's counter to a DPS statement issued the night of the July 12 debate and filibuster...."

Timothy Lee of the Washington Post explains how hackers took down the New York Times Website. Basically, they redirected the domain name (DNS) to another IP address. ...

... Paresh Dave of the Los Angeles Times has a less comprehensible but more specific explanation.

Gail Collins, Sports Sleuth: Yes, Billie Jean King really did beat Bobby Riggs in the 1973 tennis match dubbed "Battle of the Sexes." Don't believe everything you hear on ESPN. Collins notes that to realize the significance of the match, "You had to be there." I was working at ABC-TV at the time, & I watched the game with the handsome guy who played Dr. Ben Casey on a TV show of approximately the same name. I can't remember the actor's name, but I recall the match & my joy at Billie Jean's win.

News Ledes

Daily Telegraph: "Kim Jong-un's ex-girlfriend was among a dozen well-known North Korean performers who were executed by firing squad nine days ago, according to South Korean reports. Hyon Song-wol, a singer, rumoured to be a former lover of the North Korean leader, is said to have been arrested on Aug 17 with 11 others for violating laws against pornography. 'They were executed with machine guns while the key members of the Unhasu Orchestra, Wangjaesan Light Band and Moranbong Band as well as the families of the victims looked on,' said a Chinese source reported in the newspaper."

Reuters: "Fast-food workers went on strike and protested outside McDonald's, Burger King and other restaurants in 60 U.S. cities on Thursday, in the largest protest of an almost year-long campaign to raise service sector wages. Rallies were held in cities from New York to Oakland and stretched into the South, historically difficult territory for organized labor. The striking workers say they want to unionize without retaliation in order to collectively bargain for a 'living wage.'"

New York Times: "The N.F.L. agreed to pay $765 million to settle a lawsuit brought by more than 4,500 retirees with advanced dementia and other health problems as well as the families of players who have died from what they claimed were the long-terms effects of head trauma."

Guardian: "The US Department of Defense announced on Thursday it has released two men from Guantánamo Bay prison to their home nation of Algeria. A Pentagon statement said that the men, Nabil Said Hadjarab and Mutia Sadiq Ahmad Sayyab, had been approved for transfer after a review directed by President Obama.... The move brings the number of detainees in Guantánamo down to 164."

AP: "Striving to take action where Congress would not, the Obama administration announced new steps Thursday on gun control, curbing the import of military surplus weapons and proposing to close a little-known loophole that lets felons and others circumvent background checks by registering guns to corporations."

The Commentariat -- Aug. 28, 2013

The text is here.

George Condon, Jr., of the National Journal: "Fellow Democrats Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton will speak just before [President] Obama steps to the spot where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his most famous oration in 1963. Because of age and birthplace, they bring something to the occasion that the much-younger Obama cannot: personal knowledge of Jim Crow, personal memories of state-sanctioned discrimination, and personal experience in battles to fundamentally change the mindset of the American South. Carter, Clinton, and Obama, born in 1924, 1946, and 1961, respectively, roughly represent three distinct generations in the struggle for racial equality." ...

** NEW. Joe Stiglitz on how Dr. King shaped his career. ...

... Prof. William Jones in the New York Times: "The march was so successful that we often forget that it occurred in a political environment not so different from our own. Kennedy's victory over Richard M. Nixon in 1960 signaled a break from the conservatism of the 1950s. But like the election of Barack Obama in 2008, hope for a return to the liberalism of the 1930s was dampened by an administration that rejected 'old slogans' like wage increases and public works in favor of tax cuts and free trade to stimulate growth."

Noah Shachtman of Foreign Policy: "Last Wednesday, in the hours after a horrific chemical attack east of Damascus, an official at the Syrian Ministry of Defense exchanged panicked phone calls with a leader of a chemical weapons unit, demanding answers for a nerve agent strike that killed more than 1,000 people. Those conversations were overheard by U.S. intelligence services.... And that is the major reason why American officials now say they're certain that the attacks were the work of the Bashar al-Assad regime.... But the intercept raises questions about culpability..., even as it answers others: Was the attack on Aug. 21 the work of a Syrian officer overstepping his bounds? Or was the strike explicitly directed by senior members of the Assad regime? 'It's unclear where control lies,' one U.S. intelligence official [said]...." ...

(... Driftglass: "And what a stroke of darn good luck it was that just that as tensions in the region escalate exponentially and the stakes in the game of trying to tries to suss out the other players' intentions and capabilities skyrocket, in addition to Bashar al-Assad's firm friendship to lean on, Vladimir Putin now has his very own NSA analyst-in-exile crashing right on his own futon! An NSA analyst-in-exile who is carrying around oodles of exotic details about the sources and methods of American intelligence and who now depends entirely on the goodwill of Vladimir Putin for his continued liberty and good health." ...)

... Rebecca Shabad of the Hill: "Nearly two dozen House members have signed onto a letter demanding President Obama consult Congress -- and wait for its authorization -- before launching military strikes against Syria.... As of Tuesday afternoon, 22 House members had co-signed Rigell's letter, including one Democrat, Rep. Beto O'Rourke (Texas)." ...

... Scott Lemieux in Lawyers, Guns & Money: "'Experts' who are always wrong about everything want to bomb Syria. The Weekly Standard has an open letter explaining that blowing up lots of stuff in Syria is a great idea." The "experts" include Joe Lieberman, Karl Rove, Bill Kristol, Elliott Abrams & Max Boot. And more! "I'm not 100% sure that military intervention in Syria is wrong. But it is true that 1. al-Assad is terrible 2. ????? 3. Bomb lots of stuff! is a terrible argument, and the arguments -- really assumptions -- in the [Weekly Standard] letter have scarcely more meat on them. There should be a very strong presumption against military action, but instead it's the one form of government action that doesn't seem to face any kind of cost-benefit analysis in our political discourse at all." ...

... Charles Pierce: "If these guys were a bowling team, they'd be rolling 'em into the snack bar." ...

... Julian Pecquet of the Hill: "Airstrikes on Syria would turn the U.S. military into 'al Qaeda's air force,' former Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) told The Hill. The outspoken anti-war activist said any such action would plunge the United States into another war in the Middle East and embolden Islamist militants fighting Bashar Assad's regime."

... Paul Waldman of the American Prospect: "Why do we have this international consensus saying that while it's bad for someone like Assad to bomb a neighborhood full of civilians and kill all the men, women, and children therein, it's worse for him to kill that same number of civilians by means of poison gas than by means of "conventional" munitions that merely tear their bodies to pieces? Indeed, we act as though killing, say, a hundred people with poison gas is worse than killing a thousand or ten thousand people with conventional weapons. After all, the Obama administration (not to mention the rest of the world) reacted to Assad murdering 100,000 people by expressing its deep consternation and trying to figure out how to help without getting involved."

Josh Lederman of the AP: "President Barack Obama on Tuesday named the members of a new intelligence review panel aimed at boosting public confidence in U.S. surveillance programs, tapping a group of former White House officials and academics with close current and past ties to his administration. Michael Morrell, Obama's former CIA deputy director, will serve on the panel.... The White House unveiled the new members Tuesday with little fanfare in a statement announcing that Obama had held a meeting with the group. The meeting was not included on Obama's public schedule.... Also on the panel is Cass Sunstein, a former Obama administration official who is married to Obama's new U.N. ambassador, Samantha Power. Richard Clarke, a former White House cybersecurity adviser during the Clinton administration who campaigned for Obama, is another member. Peter Swire, a professor who worked on privacy issues in the Clinton administration and economic issues early in the Obama administration, will also serve on the panel. The fifth member is Geoffrey Stone, who taught law with Obama at the University of Chicago."

Aamer Madhani of USA Today: "President Obama won't bargain with GOP lawmakers over increasing the debt limit, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said Tuesday. The warning from Lew came one day after he formally notified House Speaker John Boehner in a letter that the federal government will hit the $16.7 trillion debt limit in mid-October."

Eric Lach of TPM: "What good is a conservative fever dream if no one can make a buck off it, right? The people behind WND, perhaps the pre-eminent online purveyor of conservative fever dreams, on Sunday created an 'Impeachment Store' section for their website's online retail 'superstore.' ... Joseph Farah, the founder, editor, and CEO of WND..., said he was a bit surprised that impeachment was becoming such a hot topic, in part because even he admits that impeaching Obama is a long shot."

John Harwood of CNBC: "A source from Team Obama told CNBC that Larry Summers will likely be named chairman of the Federal Reserve in a few weeks though he is 'still being vetted' so it might take a little longer." ...

... CW: today President Obama will give what I expect to be a moving speech about equal rights. Don't let him fool you. Assuming Harwood source is correct, Obama's continued reliance on the good ole boys of Wall Street is all the evidence you need that racial, gender & economic equality is not of real concern to him.

Jessica Silver-Greenberg & Ben Protess of the New York Times: "Two federal regulators are preparing a series of enforcement actions and fines against JPMorgan Chase stemming from its dealings with consumers during the recession in the latest legal woes facing the nation's biggest bank. The regulators, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, plan to announce the actions as soon as next month.... Under the terms of the civil orders, the bank will have to acknowledge internal flaws and dole out at least $80 million in fines.... The most costly cases for JPMorgan center on concerns that the bank duped its credit card customers into buying products pitched as a way to shield them from identity theft."

The Contenders

Maureen Dowd: "... while [New Jersey Gov. Chris] Christie has taken dramatic moves to solve his weight problem, he has not yet solved his temperament problem."

Zack Beauchamp of Think Progress: Rand Paul, "... an influential Senator, a much-ballyhooed candidate for his party's nomination for the presidency, has been consistently espousing a worldview, reflected in his budget, that logically implies virtually all major government programs are slavery." CW: this is what you get when a kinda stupid, selfish, insensitive person tries to develop a philosophical rationale for not paying taxes.

Local News

What First Amendment? Adam Goldman & Mark Apuzzo of the AP: "The New York Police Department has secretly labeled entire mosques as terrorism organizations, a designation that allows police to use informants to record sermons and spy on imams, often without specific evidence of criminal wrongdoing. Designating an entire mosque as a terrorism enterprise means that anyone who attends prayer services there is a potential subject of an investigation and fair game for surveillance.... In its hunt for terrorists, the NYPD investigated countless innocent New York Muslims and put information about them in secret police files. As a tactic, opening an enterprise investigation on a mosque is so potentially invasive that while the NYPD conducted at least a dozen, the FBI never did one, according to interviews with federal law enforcement officials."

Kathleen Gray of the Detroit Free Press: "It took two votes and eight hours of mostly closed-door politicking and vote wrangling, but the state Senate approved a plan late Tuesday to expand Medicaid health care coverage to 470,000 low-income Michiganders. The historic 20-18 vote makes Michigan the 25th state in the nation to go ahead with the Medicaid expansion as part of the federal Affordable Care Act...." Monica Davey has the report for the New York Times.

Nicole Flatow of Think Progress: Florida Gov. Rick Scott's latest voter purge plan is just as flawed as his old voter purge plans, according to Pinellas County Elections Supervisor Deborah Clark (R). Asked how many cases of voter fraud had been uncovered in Pinellas County since she became elections supervisor in 2000, Clark said none. "By Clark's account, nothing has changed since last year's botched effort, except that Gov. Scott no longer has Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act to restrain him." ...

... Yeah, but still, Gov. Lex Luthor there did not say President Obama hates white people. Nor did he express a wish to blow up a local newspaper. Which brings us to Maine ...

Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling: Democrat "Mike Michaud is the new leader in the Maine Governor's race, benefiting from the continued unpopularity of incumbent Paul LePage and declining support for independent Eliot Cutler over the last seven months. Michaud is at 39% to 35% for LePage and 18% for Cutler."

David Dayen in the American Prospect: Colorado AG John Suthers (R) has sued the two foreclosure mills that operate in the state. Dayen provides a peak into what these crooks do.

Senate Race

Jason Horowitz of the Washington Post profiles Cory Booker. The piece is mildly interesting, but not so interesting I remembered to post a link to it after I read it yesterday.

What God Told Pat Robertson

Beware of Gays Wearing Rings. Brian Tashman of Right Wing Watch: "Today on the 700 Club, Pat Robertson told co-host Terry Meeuwsen that gay men in cities like San Francisco attempt to spread HIV/AIDS to others by cutting them with a special ring when shaking hands. However, one could not hear Robertson make the remarks on the episode his Christian Broadcasting Network posted online, as the company once again appears to have edited Robertson's comments after they aired."

Since Akhilleus has questioned Patrick's veracity, I guess I'll settle the argument (though oddly enough, the Senate leader is wearing Rand Paul's toupee):

News Ledes

New York Times: "Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist who admitted shooting to kill in a Fort Hood building here packed with unarmed soldiers nearly four years ago, once said he wished he had died in the attack so he could become a Muslim martyr. On Wednesday, after deliberating a little more than two hours, a jury of Army combat veterans and senior officers sentenced him to death by lethal injection for killing or wounding more than 40 soldiers on Nov. 5, 2009." Washington Post story here.

New York Times: "The prospect of an imminent Western military strike on Syrian government targets appeared to encounter a delay on Wednesday when Britain signaled it would first await the findings of a United Nations inquiry into the suspected use of chemical weapons in an attack that killed hundreds near Damascus last week, and then hold a separate parliamentary vote, which could be days away." ...

... New York Times: "The leaders of the Arab world on Tuesday blamed the Syrian government for a chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds of people last week, but declined to back a retaliatory military strike, leaving President Obama without the broad regional support he had for his last military intervention in the Middle East, in Libya in 2011. While the Obama administration has robust European backing and more muted Arab support for a strike on Syria, the position of the Arab League and the unlikelihood of securing authorization from the United Nations Security Council complicate the legal and diplomatic case for the White House."

Washington Post: "The Obama administration believes that U.S. intelligence has established how Syrian government forces stored, assembled and launched the chemical weapons allegedly used in last week's attack outside Damascus, according to U.S. officials. The administration is planning to release evidence, possibly as soon as Thursday, that it will say proves that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad bears responsibility for what U.S. officials have called an 'undeniable' chemical attack that killed hundreds on the outskirts of the Syrian capital."

Washington Post: "U.N. inspectors attempting to visit the site of an alleged chemical weapons attack in eastern Damascus were forced to turn back on Monday after their convoy came under what the United Nations described as intentional fire. The team plans to try again to access the area within a few hours, the statement said. In the meantime, three key U.S. allies, [Britain, France & Turkey,] indicated on Monday that they would back the Obama administration if it decides to take action against Syria without a United Nations mandate." ...

New York Times: "The New York Times Web site was unavailable to readers on Tuesday afternoon after an online attack on the company's domain name registrar. The attack also forced employees of The Times to take care in sending e-mails. The hacking was just the latest of a major media organization, with The Financial Times and The Washington Post also having their operations disrupted within the last few months. It was also the second time this month that the Web site of The New York Times was unavailable for several hours.... Marc Frons, chief information officer for The New York Times Company..., said the attack was carried out by a group known as 'the Syrian Electronic Army, or someone trying very hard to be them.'" ...

... Reuters: "Media companies, including the New York Times, Twitter and the Huffington Post, lost control of some of their websites Tuesday after hackers supporting the Syrian government breached the Australian Internet company that manages many major site addresses. The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), a hacker group that has attacked media organizations it considers hostile to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, claimed credit for the Twitter and Huffington Post hacks in a series of Twitter messages."

Forewarned Is Forearmed

I posted this in yesterday's Commentariat:

Laura Poitras,et al., in Der Spiegel: "President Obama promised that NSA surveillance activities were aimed exclusively at preventing terrorist attacks. But secret documents from the intelligence agency show that the Americans spy on Europe, the UN and other countries." The documents come from Edward Snowden. CW: First, Obama did not "promise" that the NSA wouldn't spy on other countries. He was talking about specific NSA programs that target terrorists in the cited remark. No one in the world thinks that the U.S. limits its spying to Al Qaeda & Friends. Second and more important, exactly how is Patriot Snowden (not to mention Poitras, who is a U.S. citizen, too) helping the U.S. public by revealing E.U. building floor plans obtained from the NSA? Are Americans shocked, shocked, that their government wants to know what other governments are saying? This whole article is infuriating crap.

I didn't think I needed to explain more, but this comment from contributor cowichan suggests I do:

UN spokesman Farhan Haq commenting on disclosure of US hacking "The inviolability of diplomatic missions, including the UN and other international organizations, whose functions are protected by the relevant international conventions like the Vienna Convention has been well-established international law."

Vienna Convention: 'A host country cannot search diplomatic premises or seize its documents or property. Host government must permit and protect free communication between diplomats of the mission and their home country'

Deutsche Welle: 'The alleged spying activities are illegal. The US has a long standing agreement with the UN stipulating that the US refrain from covert operations with regards to the UN's activities.' Obama, August 9: "And to others around the world, I want to make clear once again that America is not interested in spying on ordinary people. Our intelligence is focused on finding the information that's necessary to protect our people and, in many cases, protect our allies."

To be honest I would think most people would not consider diplomats to be 'ordinary people' like mechanics or house wives but does Obama really agree with Bolton that the UN and its black helicopters are a legitimate threat to the US? I would expect that the EU mission to the UN qualifies for the same theoretical guarantees of freedom from spying given to the UN itself.

Let's take those one at a time:

UN spokesman Farhan Haq commenting on disclosure of US hacking "The inviolability of diplomatic missions, including the UN and other international organizations, whose functions are protected by the relevant international conventions like the Vienna Convention has been well-established international law."

Peter Grier of the Christian Science Monitor: “'We’ve always assumed that this kind of thing goes on,' IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky told the Post in 2004. 'We wish it were otherwise, but we know the reality.'” … Of course, one reason the US might be interested in spying on the UN is because other nations have used it as a place to assign spies with diplomatic cover.” Grier goes on to list some examples of cases in which Soviet or Russian spies used the U.N. as a base of operations. Feel assured that Europeans are doing the same. I recall reading years ago that at least some of the Concorde “flight attendants” were French spies. The “outrage” you heard from various E.U. spokespeople yesterday was pro forma.

Vienna Convention: 'A host country cannot search diplomatic premises or seize its documents or property. Host government must permit and protect free communication between diplomats of the mission and their home country'

This is apparently a reference to the 1961 Vienna Convention. AP: “... wiretapping and eavesdropping have been rampant for decades, most dramatically between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.”

CBS/AP: “In Washington, a statement from the national intelligence director's office said U.S. officials planned to respond to the concerns with their EU counterparts and through diplomatic channels with specific nations. However, 'as a matter of policy, we have made clear that the United States gathers foreign intelligence of the type gathered by all nations,' the statement concluded.”

Deutsche Welle: 'The alleged spying activities are illegal. The US has a long standing agreement with the UN stipulating that the US refrain from covert operations with regards to the UN's activities.'

See AP reports above.

Obama, August 9: "And to others around the world, I want to make clear once again that America is not interested in spying on ordinary people. Our intelligence is focused on finding the information that's necessary to protect our people and, in many cases, protect our allies."

No, diplomat-spies whom we are “hosting” at the U.N. are not “ordinary people.”

… does Obama really agree with Bolton that the UN and its black helicopters are a legitimate threat to the US?

See, the U.N. is made up of many, many countries. It is not really “united.” And every single one of those other countries has unique interests – interests that differ and often are at odds with ours. So we like to watch. And, yes, many of those countries – including our erstwhile friends – do pose threats to the U.S., if not existential threats.

If I can do one good & true thing this week, it will be to explain to a few starry-eyed idealists that spying on our friends & enemies alike is a legitimate and necessary function of the federal government. Rather than being “shocked, shocked that there's spying going on here,” we should damned well hope so.