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House could delay vote on Syria intervention by a week

Russell Berman
The Hill
Fri, 06 Sep 2013 09:58 UTC
The House could push back a vote on a resolution authorizing military strikes on Syria by as long as a week, according to a memo Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) sent to Republican lawmakers Friday.

"Understanding that there are differing opinions on both sides of the aisle, it is up to President Obama to make the case to Congress and to the American people that this is the right course of action," Cantor wrote in a memo outlining the House GOP's fall agenda. "Members should expect a robust debate and vote on an authorization of use of military force pertaining to Syria in the next two weeks."

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Eye 1

New report reveals how the NSA has been able to crack online encryption

Denver Nicks
TIME/New York Times
Sat, 07 Sep 2013 09:47 UTC
National Security Agency
© NSA / ReutersThe National Security Agency headquarters building in Fort Meade, Md.
A new round of disclosures from the former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden has revealed the intelligence agency's ultimate goal: undo Internet privacy as we know it. According to some 50,000 leaked documents provided to the Guardian, ProPublica, and The New York Times, the NSA has circumvented or cracked some of the most widely used encryption software in its effort to monitor global communications. Still, documents reveal, some encryption systems continue to stymie the agency, and the NSA, according to the Times, is working toward a future in which it can "decode, in real time, all of the information flying over the world's fiber optic cables and through its Internet hubs."

The document dump unveils some of the U.S. and its allies' most closely guarded state secrets - whereas highly classified information is often disseminated on a "need to know" basis, "there will be NO 'need to know,'" with respect to the highly-classied program known as Bullrun, according to one document quoted by the Times.

"This is the golden age of spying," one former NSA analyst told the Times. Here are five things you need to know about Snowden's latest leak.
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Bad Guys

The US-Al Qaeda Alliance in Syria and the Fraud of the War on Terror

Bill Van Auken
WSWS
Sat, 07 Sep 2013 04:04 UTC
Al Ciada
© Unknown
Twice during testimony this week before congressional committees on the Obama administration's request for an Authorization for the Use of Military Force resolution backing US aggression against Syria, Secretary of State John Kerry brushed aside questions about the predominant role played by Al Qaeda and its affiliates in the US-instigated civil war in Syria, insisting that the "opposition has increasingly become more defined by its moderation."

For the second time in a decade, US imperialism is preparing to launch a war based on lies about weapons of mass destruction and Al Qaeda. In 2003, Washington invaded Iraq to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein based on the claim that it possessed weapons of mass destruction and was prepared to turn them over to Al Qaeda. No such weapons existed and the Iraqi regime was an enemy of Al Qaeda.
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Sherlock

U.S. Military and Intelligence Officials to Obama: "Assad NOT Responsible for Chemical Attack"


Global Research/Consortium News
Sat, 07 Sep 2013 03:31 UTC
CIA
© Unknown
Despite the Obama administration's supposedly "high confidence" regarding Syrian government guilt over the Aug. 21 chemical attack near Damascus, a dozen former U.S. military and intelligence officials are telling President Obama that they are picking up information that undercuts the Official Story.

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: Is Syria a Trap?

Precedence: IMMEDIATE

We regret to inform you that some of our former co-workers are telling us, categorically, that contrary to the claims of your administration, the most reliable intelligence shows that Bashar al-Assad was NOT responsible for the chemical incident that killed and injured Syrian civilians on August 21, and that British intelligence officials also know this. In writing this brief report, we choose to assume that you have not been fully informed because your advisers decided to afford you the opportunity for what is commonly known as "plausible denial."

We have been down this road before - with President George W. Bush, to whom we addressed our first VIPS memorandumimmediately after Colin Powell's Feb. 5, 2003 U.N. speech, in which he peddled fraudulent "intelligence" to support attacking Iraq. Then, also, we chose to give President Bush the benefit of the doubt, thinking he was being misled - or, at the least, very poorly advised.
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Vader

Senator John McCain, Foreign Relations "Adviser" to Al Qaeda Death Squads in Syria

Julie Lévesque
Global Research
Sat, 07 Sep 2013 02:36 UTC
John McCain
© Unknown
While the mainstream media admonishes John McCain for playing a poker game on his iPhone during the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearings on Syria last Wednesday, no one seems to have noticed that the Republican Senator has, for several years, been supporting and mingling with Al Qaeda commanders in the field in blatant violation of international law as well as in breach of US anti-terrorism legislation.

In April 2011, Senator John McCain described the Al Qaeda affiliated rebels in Libya as follows:

"I have met with these brave fighters, and they are not Al-Qaeda. To the contrary: They are Libyan patriots who want to liberate their nation. We should help them do it." - Senator John McCain in Benghazi, Libya April 22, 2011.
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Info

The Holy See: Pope tells Vladimir Putin world leaders have allowed 'senseless massacre'

Tom Kington
telegraph.co.uk
Thu, 05 Sep 2013 13:15 UTC
Pope Francis has written to Vladimir Putin criticising world leaders for standing by while a "senseless massacre" unfolded in Syria.

Image
© GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP/Getty ImagesPope Francis' push for a peaceful solution in Syria includes a four hour vigil to be held in St Peter's Square on Saturday evening
In a letter sent on Sept 4 to Mr Putin in his role of host of the G20 conference, and published on Thursday, Francis wrote: "It is regrettable that, from the very beginning of the conflict in Syria, one-sided interests have prevailed and in fact hindered the search for a solution that would have avoided the senseless massacre now unfolding."

Through Mr Putin, Francis appealed to the G20 leaders gathering in Russia: "The leaders of the G20 cannot remain indifferent to the dramatic situation of the beloved Syrian people which has lasted far too long, and even risks bringing greater suffering to a region bitterly tested by strife and needful of peace.

"To the leaders present, to each and every one, I make a heartfelt appeal for them to help find ways to overcome the conflicting positions and to lay aside the futile pursuit of a military solution."

He added: "Rather, let there be a renewed commitment to seek, with courage and determination, a peaceful solution through dialogue and negotiation of the parties, unanimously supported by the international community. Moreover, all governments have the moral duty to do everything possible to ensure humanitarian assistance to those suffering because of the conflict, both within and beyond the country's borders."

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi denied claims made on Thursday by Argentinian newspaper Clarin that Francis had contacted President Assad of Syria urging him to halt attacks in Syria. He also denied reports made by the paper that Francis had personally contacted the US White House to urge the calling off of any planned attack on Syria.
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Bad Guys

U.S., Israel make final preparations for wider war, evacuate U.S. Embassy in Lebanon

Patrick Henningsen
Global Research
Fri, 06 Sep 2013 16:38 UTC
US Embassy
© Global ResearchNewly fortified US Embassy “compound” located in the hills above Beirut.
As President Obama charges ahead with US war plans in Syria, a list of potential targets is currently being passed around the US Department of Defense, as war planners in Washington DC and Tel Aviv coordinate how best to capitalise on the coming military attack on Syria.

Earlier this month, Washington had ordered the shut down of some two dozen American posts throughout the Middle East and Africa due to an unspecified "terrorist threat"

Considering Israel's joint operating status with US military assets in the region and its horrible record of violating its neighbors' air space and bombing its neighbors - including Lebanon in 2006, it's no surprise that the US State Department has suddenly ordered all "non-emergency personnel" and their family members to leave the U.S. Embassy in Beirut today, and has warned all Americans to avoid travel to Lebanon due to an undisclosed "threat" to the diplomatic mission in that country.

A similar operation is also underway regarding U.S. citizens in Turkey including a draw-down of staff at the U.S. Consulate General in Adana, Turkey.
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Bad Guys

Berlusconi 'paid Mafia bosses millions of euros in pact lasting decades'

Michael Day
The Independent, UK
Fri, 06 Sep 2013 16:22 UTC
Silvio Berlusconi
© The Independent, UK
Disgraced ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi made a 20-year pact with Mafia bosses to whom he paid millions of euros in exchange for protection and help with his business empire, according to a judicial report.

The tycoon's deal with the mob was described by judges of the Palermo Appeals Court as part of their 476-page reasoning, released on Thursday, behind the jail sentence for his Mafia association given to Berlusconi's close friend Marcello Dell'Utri.

The judges say that Dell'Utri, a Palermo-born former senator in Berlusconi's PDL (People of Freedom) Party, was the mogul's go-between with the Cosa Nostra for 20 years, up until 1992, the year in which the Mafia assassinated two prosecutors in bomb attacks.

The report follows a dreadful summer for the three-time prime minister. In June he was found guilty of paying for sex with an under-age girl and abuse of office in the "Rubygate" affair. In August, he was definitively convicted of tax fraud, for which he is due to serve a year of house arrest or community service, and is also likely to be expelled from parliament.

Political pundit James Walston, of the American University of Rome, described the report as "another nail in the coffin of Silvio Berlusconi".
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Bulb

Verify chemical weapons use before unleashing the dogs of war

Kenneth Timmerman
The Daily Caller
Thu, 29 Aug 2013 13:51 UTC
The Obama administration has selectively used intelligence to justify military strikes on Syria, former military officers with access to the original intelligence reports say, in a manner that goes far beyond what critics charged the Bush administration of doing in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war.

According to these officers, who served in top positions in the United States, Britain, France, Israel, and Jordan, a Syrian military communication intercepted by Israel's famed Unit 8200 electronic intelligence outfit has been doctored so that it leads a reader to just the opposite conclusion reached by the original report.

The doctored report was leaked to a private Internet-based newsletter that boasts of close ties to the Israeli intelligence community, and led to news reports that the United States now had firm evidence showing that the Syrian government had ordered the chemical weapons attack on August 21 against a rebel-controlled suburb of Damascus.

Comment: Exactly! The Troodos conundrum: Israel fabricated 'intercept' of Syrian government planning chemical attack

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Arrow Down

Government wants to sequence DNA of all infants born in U.S.

Susanne Posel
Occupy Corporatism
Fri, 06 Sep 2013 07:57 UTC
Infant
© Occupy Corporatism
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has begun an initiative to discover the viability of sequencing American infant's DNA through the "heel stick" blood drawn screening conducted on newborns in hospitals to determine the propensity toward life-threatening diseases.

This scheme will cost $25 million over 5 years to understand each individual genetic code in lieu of having DNA routinely mapped and stored in a medical record.

Whether this study would have value has not been established. Experts warn that there are ethical questions surrounding such an endeavor.

Using genetic information to direct infant healthcare is a major concern.

The National Institute of Child health and Human Development (NICHHD) and the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) are collaborating to fund this initiative.
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