White House: Irrefutable Assad link to gas attack lacking, but passes ‘common-sense test’

[morningfog]

Last edited Sun Sep 8, 2013, 04:14 PM - Edit history (1)

WASHINGTON — The White House asserted Sunday that a “common-sense test” dictates the Syrian government is responsible for a chemical weapons attack that President Barack Obama says demands a U.S. military response. But Obama’s top aide says the administration lacks “irrefutable, beyond-a-reasonable-doubt evidence” that skeptical Americans, including lawmakers who will start voting on military action this week, are seeking.

“This is not a court of law. And intelligence does not work that way,” White House chief of staff Denis McDonough said, part of his five-network public relations blitz Sunday to build support for limited strikes against Syrian President Bashar Assad.

“The common-sense test says he is responsible for this. He should be held to account,” McDonough said of the Syrian leader who for two years has resisted calls from inside and outside his country to step down.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-working-to-rally-lawmakers-american-public-behind-obamas-push-for-syrian-strike/2013/09/08/66cfb932-1868-11e3-80ac-96205cacb45a_story.html

Updated to add correct link.

[bowens43]

1. IMO sense isn't common in this administration......

[janlyn]

2. This administration is good!!

They aren't going to lie and say they have proof, like the Bush administration. They just want you to trust their judgment !

well played!

[Warren Stupidity]

3. WTF? Common sense test says last thing the Assad regime wanted was this situation.

[Dems to Win]

14. +1

[morningfog]

28. Now you're just using too much common sense.

[JackRiddler]

77. Heh.

[VanillaRhapsody]

29. Occam's Razor is common sense...

and Occams razor says that one the guy known to have those weapons in the vicinity did it...

[Warren Stupidity]

47. Actually Occam's razor and common sense need not be the same thing at all.

And while it certainly is true that the Assad regime would have the easiest time accessing and deploying chemical weapons, that leaves motivation unexplained. I'm not sure you have a good case that access alone is sufficiently explanatory. If motivation is used to fix blame, clearly the "rebels" stand to gain the most from the attack, they need only be amoral enough to sacrifice a few hundred people in order to shift the balance of power from Assad to their side. Are they sufficiently immoral? I can make the case that based on documented behavior, they may very well be.

[VanillaRhapsody]

59. easy peasy another run by Occam's Razor

because he has been low level sarin gassing all along...just to scare them. So few die of that...the world doesn't notice....that is until one of your numbskulls misreads "tablespoonfuls as teaspoons" as human numbskulls are want to do....and OOOPS Bob's your uncle...and you have International Attention on your hands.

That's why...

[VanillaRhapsody]

69. actually

it may be that since Assad's Sarin is likely deteriorating and so the formula was being changed to compensate....an estimate was made by how much....and the estimate was off.

[Yo_Mama]

54. My opinion exactly

I don't see how it helped him.

[Rex]

4. Was is 'common sense' to believe Saddam had drones

capable of crossing the ocean and hitting us with nerve gas? Before some of you start laughing...that was pushed by the WH right after the WMD fiasco with the UN weapons inspectors. Many pundits and politicians pretended it was 'common sense' Iraq was an immediate threat to the United States. Sadly many Congress Dems went right along with the WH. Sans evidence of drones or gases or WMDs.

[VanillaRhapsody]

30. did we have gassed people to see with our own eyes

as we have now?

[markpkessinger]

49. Saddam had gassed his own people duriing the Iran/Iraq war . ..

. . . and we were well aware of it and looked the other way. Our 'moral outrage' was apparently on vacation, however.

[VanillaRhapsody]

51. and was Obama President then? The Republicans were and we know how they feel about

banning any kind of weapons However I was outraged....weren't you?

[markpkessinger]

55. Sure, I was. That didn't mean I thought it was advisable to invade Iraq n/t

[Taitertots]

5. "Common-sense"... Would seem to be that rebels stole chemical weapons and used them to drum up

international support for their deteriorating forces.

[Junkdrawer]

7. Indeed. "Common-sense" says that the DAY the UN CW inspectors arrive is not the DAY...

you launch your first verifiable CW attack 15 minutes down the road.

But I'm a "Trufer", so what do I know?

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Let me get this straight

We have gone from irrefutable to this...m'kay

[markpkessinger]

56. Yeah, that's about the size of it . . .

. . . unfuckingbelievable.

[nadinbrzezinski]

62. I am definitely in the wrong business

But at least I sleep

[Catherina]

74. It's horrifying n/t

[FarCenter]

8. "The White House is lying again" also passes the "common-sense test"

[reformist2]

13. It's surreal they would even advance this a valid line of reasoning.

[morningfog]

15. Damn, yeah. I did not mean to link to a reply post page.

It is an AP story, I think I copied it from LA Times, but am not finding right away. I will update when I do find it.

[HardTimes99]

18. Please. This is a devastating story and needs to be disseminated far and wide. Completely

demolishes the warmonger case.

[VanillaRhapsody]

32. sure it does....those gassed humans mean nothing...

nothing to see here go back to sleep!

[HardTimes99]

34. Hey sport, how many more humans are you willing to kill based merely based on 'common sense'? You're

a fucking baby-killer.

[morningfog]

17. Fixed. Thanks.

It was WaPo:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-working-to-rally-lawmakers-american-public-behind-obamas-push-for-syrian-strike/2013/09/08/66cfb932-1868-11e3-80ac-96205cacb45a_story.html

[HardTimes99]

19. Bless you! Peace! - nt

[LittleBlue]

10. The White House has lost their minds

War pimp losers

[leveymg]

41. The entire regime change policy toward Syria has been fucking stupid.

Conceived in deepest neoconland. Planned by true-believing second-raters. Incompetently and reluctantly executed by those who should have known better.

A devastating blow to Obama's Presidency and legacy. A shame - we had such high expectations for him as a peacemaker,and he ended up a hostage/accomplice to this fucked up conspiracy pushed by Hillary Clinton, David Petraeus and a cell of neocon leave-behinds.

Deeply fucked up.

[JVS]

11. That's an extremely euphemistic way of saying that it is plausible.

[reformist2]

12. "And jurors, during your deliberations ignore the evidence you've heard, and just go with your gut!"

[Bjorn Against]

16. This administration has become a total joke

Going to war based on "common sense" is not common sense.

[hobbit709]

20. If common sense was really all that common, it wouldn't be remarked upon when it happens.

[HardTimes99]

21. Before I was merely sad. Now I am really mad. Those sociopathic lying warmongering,

babykilling fucks.

We really need to keep this thread kicked to the top to force all those who have been defending Obama to defend this shit.

[VanillaRhapsody]

33. you mean the babykillers that used chemical weapons to do it?

are you doubting that?

[sabrina 1]

22. Does the 'common sense' theory apply to OUR OWN War Criminals then? Can we just arrest them and

send them straight to jail, without messing with the trials etc?

I'll go with that.

[Junkdrawer]

23. Hunch: The UN inspectors are starting to get results...

And the "Bug the World" Administration is hearing it's just not good.

[NightWatcher]

24. Obama's Magic 8 Ball said "Most signs point to probably"

Shit, why haven't we started bombing them yet?

[L0oniX]

68. He has not consulted the mighty Carnac the Great! Miss Cleo should have some input too...

-or-

[HardTimes99]

25. Kick for the goddamned motherfucking outrage - nt

[morningfog]

26. McDonough's exact quote on "uh,...what we know."

MCDONOUGH: Here's, uh, here's what we know. Here's the common sense test. I'm not going to talk to you about intelligence. Here's the common sense test. The material was used in the eastern suburbs of Damascus that had been controlled by the opposition for some time. It was delivered by rockets, rockets which we know the Assad regime has, and we have no indications that the opposition has.

And you've now seen -- uh, CNN, in fact, ran these videos yesterday. You've seen the, uh, video proof of the outcome of those attacks.

All of that leads to, as I say, a quite strong common sense test, irrespective of the intelligence, that suggests that, uh, the regime carried this out.

That's it, folks.

That is an incredibly weak case to join a civil war, kill innocents over and tip a chaos of dominoes.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1309/08/sotu.01.html

[whatchamacallit]

27. Dear White House

Fuck You.

[HardTimes99]

31. +Infinity x Infinity! - nt

[woo me with science]

36. What?

What?

[rug]

37. Common sense is sorely lacking in this entire clusterfuck.

[woo me with science]

38. What?

[leveymg]

39. Common sense test says that going to war requires evidence beyond a reasonable doubt

The Obama Administration has officially announced that it has jumped the shark is eligible for disability benefits having lost its f-cking mind in one bite above the neck.

This is a reversal to the Dubya days of brainless foreign policy and bombing without real proof.

NO THANK YOU, MR PRESIDENT.

[woo me with science]

40. What the HELL?

[woo me with science]

42. Kick

[markpkessinger]

43. Even IF they had 'irrefutable evidence' linking the attacks to Assad . . .

. .. what the Administration fails to grasp is that the uncertainty surrounding who carried out the attacks is only ONE of the reasons many of us object, and arguably not even the most significant aspect of our objection. The far more significant issues center around the unintended consequences of intervening on a civil war which, if the U.S. is drawn into it, would become in effect a sectarian proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran (read Sunni and Shia) for geopolitical dominance in the region, not to mention intervening in such a way as to give Al Qaeda a leg up.

[woo me with science]

44. Thank you.

[L0oniX]

65. ^^^^this^^^^

[Catherina]

73. +1000000 n/t

[Jefferson23]

45. Shameful and embarassing, stop it, just stop it. n/t

[City Lights]

46. ...

[ocpagu]

48. So... the US went from "irrefutable evidence" to "common sense"...

Good to see that, at least, they are not insinting in the lie that responsability over the attacks has been established. It has never been, world leaders continue to be skeptical, and I do not understand how so many people in DU fell for the government's account based solely on faith.

[markpkessinger]

50. Sorry, Mr. President -- I don't want my country engaging in acts of war . . .

. . . based on someone's idea of "common sense." An appeal to common sense is the argument of someone who doesn't really have a valid argument. And as someone once said, " 'Common sense' is all too common and rarely makes sense."

[madville]

52. And that sound you hear

Is Democratic support slipping away for 2014. Pissing the liberal base off a year before an election will have an effect.

[durablend]

81. Yet O's cheerleaders will say

"Those are unserious people anyway! Who needs em!"

[SomethingFishy]

53. So after being told yesterday that I was

a hater, without any facts, who just can't accept that 10 nations say the intelligence is irrefutable, that I am just in denial, that I am happily humiliating Obama, blah blah blah blah.. I wonder what the new excuse is going to be. And I wonder just how little evidence people are going to be willing to accept when it comes to American Military Intervention in the future. At what point is s "gut feeling" going to be used to justify a war?

[nadinbrzezinski]

75. That was...2003. I wish I were kidding

[markpkessinger]

57. Seems to me . . .

. . . that appeals to 'common sense' are rather like appeals to 'patriotism' -- and we all know what Samuel Johnson had to say about patriotism.

[brisas2k]

58. Common sense is the least common of the senses. :-p

,,

[brisas2k]

61. Syrian Chemical Weapons Attack Carried Out by Rebels, Says UN (UPDATE)

http://guardianlv.com/2013/08/syrian-chemical-weapons-attack-carried-out-by-rebels-says-un/

Syrian Chemical Weapons Attack Carried Out by Rebels, Says UN (UPDATE)
Added by Graham Noble on August 27, 2013.
Saved under Graham Noble, Op-ed, Syria, World

UN in Syria
As the Syrian revolt continues to tear the country apart, the international community has been eager to condemn Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, even as it became clear that the rebels do not, in fact, represent a popular uprising against the oppression of the Assad regime. According to UN diplomat Carla del Ponte, however, it appears that the recent chemical weapons attack, in April, was carried out by the Syrian rebels and not the regime, as it had been widely assumed. Speaking to a Swiss television channel, del Ponte said that there were “strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof,” that rebels had carried out the attack. She also said UN investigators had seen no evidence of the Syrian army using chemical weapons, but that further investigation was needed.

A spokesman for the rebels denied responsibility for the most recent attack, which allegedly involved the deployment of sarin nerve gas. He pointed out that the Free Syrian Army does not possess the missiles or shells necessary to deliver the chemical agent. Sarin gas, however, can be delivered in a number of ways. Additionally, while the rebels claim that the chemical agent was delivered by missiles or artilery, there is no evidence of a missile strike or shelling in any of the many videos that have been uploaded to the internet in the wake of the alleged attack.

After swift initial progress in the more than two-year-old conflict, the rebel advance was stalled as Lebanese terror group Hezbollah sent fighters to the regime’s aid. Whilst a number of towns have been taken and then retaken by each side, Assad’s forces have gradually gained the upper hand. With his army making gains and the eyes of the world upon him, it seems unlikely that the Syrian President would risk carrying out a chemical attack – particularly against an urban area. The Syrian government has flatly denied responsibility for this latest alleged chemical weapons attack and although not widely reported in the western media, there is broad suspicion that it was, indeed, carried out by the rebels. Ultimately, it may prove impossible for UN inspectors to determine who was responsible for the incident. Further, their investigation may be curtailed by the seemingly imminent military action – possibly in the form of cruise missile strikes – by the United States and the United Kingdom.

US President Obama has sent out mixed messages, regarding his intentions towards Syria; whilst he has stated that the US would not take military action against Syria without a UN mandate, it appears that preparations for an attack are already well underway, with American and British naval forces massing in the region. There is widespread speculation that strikes could be carried out within a week, despite strong and repeated warnings from both Russia and Iran, as well as the Syrian regime itself.

One of the most ominous repercussions of US intervention against the Syrian government is the possibility that Iran and it’s surrogate in Lebanon, Hezbollah, will launch strikes against Israel, in retaliation. This, in turn, could lead to a regional war, with Russia and the US lined up on opposing sides.

The United States government has been quick to condemn the Syrian government for the latest chemical weapons attack. Now that much of the evidence suggests it may have been carried out by the al-Qaeda-affiliated rebels, President Obama should remember that he, along with his supporters and political allies, devoted much time to condemning his predecessor for leading the US into war based on questionable intelligence.



UPDATE: This article was updated to clarify one or two points that some of our readers found misleading: The chemical attack earlier this year was widely blamed on the Syrian regime. It is this attack that the UN now concludes was carried out by Syrian rebels. It appears unlikely – for a number of reasons – that the most recent August 21st attack was carried out by government forces – despite the rush to judgement within the international community – although this has yet to be fully determined. It is clear that both sides in the Syrian conflict have the means to use chemical weapons and it would be misguided to assume that either side has a moral objection to such attacks.

As Jean Pascal Zanders, formerly of the European Union Institute for Security Studies, has pointed out ”In fact, we – the public – know very little beyond the observation of outward symptoms of asphyxiation and possible exposure to neurotoxicants, despite the mass of images and film footage. For the West’s credibility, I think that governments should await the results of the U.N. investigation.”

An Editorial by Graham J Noble

Source

[treestar]

60. Trying to evade the tough question by claiming Assad did not do it

is just unworthy of DU. It happened and Assad is guilty. The evidence is quite clear.

[brisas2k]

63. And the proof is?... in the folds of someone's pants. :-p

[ocpagu]

66. "the evidence is quite clear"

Last edited Sun Sep 8, 2013, 10:30 PM - Edit history (2)

Which evidence? There's none. As the US government itself admitted, all they have is "common sense"...

[treestar]

70. There is evidence

Are you serious?

Doctors without Borders physicians. Studies of blood of victims.

Good grief.

[deutsey]

71. Response to Government References to MSF Syria Statement

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/press/release.cfm?id=7033&cat=press-release

August 28, 2013—Over the last two days, the American, British, and other governments have referred to reports from several groups, including Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), while stating that the use of chemical weapons in Syria was “undeniable” and designating the perpetrators.

MSF today warned that its medical information could not be used as evidence to certify the precise origin of the exposure to a neurotoxic agent or to attribute responsibility.

On August 24, MSF announced that three hospitals it supplies in Syria’s Damascus governorate had reportedly received 3,600 patients displaying neurotoxic symptoms, of which 355 died. Although our information indicates mass exposure to a neurotoxic agent, MSF clearly stated that scientific confirmation of the toxic agent was required, and therefore called for an independent investigation to shed light on what would constitute, if confirmed, a massive and unacceptable violation of international humanitarian law.

MSF also stated that in its role as an independent medical humanitarian organization, it was not in a position to determine responsibility for the event. Now that an investigation is underway by United Nations inspectors, MSF rejects that our statement be used as a substitute for the investigation or as a justification for military action. MSF's sole purpose is to save lives, alleviate the suffering of populations torn by Syrian conflict, and bear witness when confronted with a critical event, in strict compliance with the principles of neutrality and impartiality.

The latest massive influx of patients displaying neurotoxic symptoms in Damascus governorate comes on top of an already catastrophic humanitarian situation facing the Syrian people, one characterized by extreme violence, displacement, the destruction of medical facilities, and severely limited or blocked humanitarian action.

[Laelth]

79. Excellent post. Thanks. n/t

-Laelth

[ocpagu]

72. There you have your answer.

They only conffirmed that CW were used. They said nothing about who used them.

[L0oniX]

64. Yeah ...well ...the only place this is "common sense" is in the fucking DC bubble. FFS!

[Eleanors38]

67. "Common sense:" Hear a lotta 'bout that in Gungeon.

[Common Sense Party]

76. Joe Biden said this day would come, and we'd have to stand with the President.

He said it would happen in the first 6 months--he meant first 6 years.

Gird up your loins.
A generated, international crisis to test Obama's mettle.
He's gonna need us.
Need our help.
To stand with him.
Initially, it won't be apparent that we're right.
Obama will clean the Augean stables.
We'll be asking 'why is this thing so tough?
Why are they down in the polls?'
They'll have to make the tough decisions.
"Remember the faith you had at this point because you’re going to have to reinforce us."

Remember?

Prophetic?

Pathetic?

You decide.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2008/10/biden-to-suppor/

[Laelth]

78. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[99Forever]

80. I'll pretend to be surprised.

Not.