The lies continue to fly fast and furious. See for yourself the two (at least) faces of John McCain as he stumbles, bumbles and lies his way through press conferences and interviews. All in all, another typical day in U.S. politics.

If this was from a spoof of the U.S. election it would be hilarious. Unfortunately, this is frighteningly real. This is the U.S. election. The "real" one, in a manner of speaking. However, the U.S. hasn't had a real election in some time. So in a way, this is a spoof of the U.S. election.

In all the tales of wartime courage peppering John McCain's presidential campaign trail, perhaps the most outstanding example of selfless heroism involves not the candidate but a humble Vietnamese peasant.


On October 26, 1967, Mai Van On ran from the safety of a bomb shelter at the height of an air raid and swam out into the lake where Lieutenant Commander McCain was drowning, tangled in his parachute cord after ejecting when his Skyhawk bomber was hit by a missile.

In an extraordinary act of compassion at a time when Vietnamese citizens were being killed by US aerial bombardments, he pulled a barely conscious McCain to the lake surface and, with the help of a neighbour, dragged him towards the shore.

And when a furious mob at the water's edge began to beat and stab the captured pilot, Mr On drove them back.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State John Kerry testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs over possible military action against Syria. As he testified, members of the antiwar group Code Pink held up their hands, which had been painted red to signify bloody hands. They also wore signs reading "US Out of Syria."

Kerry's history as an antiwar protester during the Vietnam War propelled him to political office originally. After supposedly throwing away his war medals - an account he went back and forth regarding during his 2004 presidential run - and slandering American troops as war criminals in Vietnam during the infamous Winter Soldier hearings, Kerry has now become the hawkish proponent of military action against the Assad regime.

Secretary of State John Kerry said at Wednesday's hearing that Arab counties have offered to pay for the entirety of unseating President Bashar al-Assad if the United States took the lead militarily.

"With respect to Arab countries offering to bear costs and to assess, the answer is profoundly yes," Kerry said. "They have. That offer is on the table."

President Obama's liberal activist base is adamantly opposed to military strikes in Syria, according to a new survey the Progressive Change Campaign Committee released Wednesday.

PCCC says more than 57,000 of its activists weighed in, and 73 percent of them opposed the U.S. taking action in Syria. Just 18 percent supported strikes, and just 14 percent said the U.S. should go ahead unilaterally if it can't find any allies.

Indeed, a majority of the activists don't believe Mr. Obama and Secretary of State John F. Kerry are being honest when they lay out their justifications for taking military action.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday the U.S. Congress had no right to approve the use of force against Syria without a decision from the U.N. Security Council, and that doing so would be an "act of aggression".

He said "anything that is outside the U.N. Security Council is aggression, except self-defense. Now what Congress and the U.S. Senate are doing in essence is legitimizing aggression. This is inadmissible in principle."

In remarks that could raise tension further before he hosts President Barack Obama and other G20 leaders on Thursday, Putin also said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry lied to Congress about the militant group al Qaeda's role in the Syrian conflict.

President Obama took his case for intervention in Syria to the foreign stage on Wednesday, telling a Swedish audience - and a broader European community that has largely resisted American calls for support - that the "international community's credibility is on the line" as it decides how to respond to evidence that the Syrian government, under President Bashar al Assad, used chemical weapons to kill over 1,400 civilians.

Where the use of such weapons is concerned, Mr. Obama said, "I didn't set a red line. The world set a red line."

And the question the world faces, Mr. Obama said, is "Are we going to find a reason not to act? And if that's the case, I think the world community should admit it."

The president repeatedly stressed that the American intelligence community has "high confidence" that the chemical weapons attack on August 21 in a suburb of Damascus was perpetrated by the regime, reiterating much of the evidence his administration has presented to Congress and the American people.

As he has before domestic audiences, the president sought to demarcate the debate over Syrian engagement from the prior debate over the war in Iraq, which was attended by faulty claims of weapons of mass destruction.

Russian president says it is too early to say what Russia will do but does not exclude supporting a UN resolution

Vladimir Putin has warned the US against launching military action in Syria, stating that Russia has "plans" on how it would react if such a scenario unfolded.

The Russian president's comments came as Barack Obama for the first time portrayed his plans for US military action as part of a broader strategy to topple Bashar al-Assad, as the White House's campaign to win over sceptics in Congress gained momentum.

In an interview with Associated Press and Russia's state Channel 1 television, Putin said it was too early to talk about what Russia would do if the US attacked Syria but added: "We have our ideas about what we will do and how we will do it in case the situation develops toward the use of force or otherwise. We have our plans."

At the same time he said Russia did not exclude supporting a UN resolution on punitive military strikes if it were proved that Damascus used poison gas on its own people. But he described the idea that Syrian government forces would use chemical weapons at a time when he said they were in the ascendancy and knowing the potential repercussions as absurd. Given his comments, and the fact that Russia has protected Syria from punitive action at the UN security council before, his suggestion that Russia might support a resolution on strikes is unlikely to be given much credence in the US.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto says reported surveillance by the U.S. National Security Agency would constitute an illegal act.

Pena Nieto demanded the United States investigate the allegations aired in a report Sunday night on Brazil's Globo TV.

The report cites 2012 documents from NSA leaker Edward Snowden indicating the U.S. monitored Pena Nieto's communications before he was elected in July 2012.

Pena Nieto spoke to reporters Monday at Canada's Gander International Airport in Newfoundland on a stopover during his trip to Russia for a G-20 summit.

Pena Nieto said that "if proved ... it is an act outside the law." He said he may discuss the issue with President Barack Obama at the summit.

Ahmad Nemah, a midlevel Syrian rebel commander, is certain there's sound military logic behind President Barack Obama's decision to delay U.S. missile strikes against the Syrian regime, but he's having a hard time persuading his subordinates. "I know that this is not a postponement but a strategic pause to . . . set up for a surprise attack," insisted Nemah, a former colonel in Syrian air force intelligence. "Of course, people are depressed, and I'm having trouble convincing everyone that there will be a strike."

There's a good reason why Nemah is having difficulty selling his argument to his fighters of the Free Syrian Army, the loose tangle of disparate guerrilla bands nominally backed by the United States and its European and Arab allies. Obama's abrupt decision on Saturday to delay the strikes that seemed just hours away is being seen in the region as the latest confirmation of an incoherent U.S. approach of mixed messages and unfulfilled threats that have driven America's standing to a new low.

"Washington doesn't understand the Middle East. His (Obama's) image here is of someone who is afraid of getting enmeshed in the machinations of the Middle East," said Maher Abu-Teyr, a political columnist with Ad-Dustour, a semi-official Jordanian daily newspaper. "There is no trust in Washington in the area because (people) think Obama is weak."

He cited a "constant change in rhetoric and hesitation" by the United States since the brutal conflict erupted in Syria in mid-2011. Among other missteps, he said, was the U.S. reluctance to take action early in the conflict that might have bolstered moderate rebel factions before the rise of al Qaida-linked groups, which now dominate the opposition.

"Obama should have moved in the first six months of the Syria crisis, not now," said Abu-Teyr. "Now, all of his choices are very difficult because he took all of this time."

Obama has shifted several times since the August 2012 "red line" he first set against Syrian President Bashar Assad's use of chemical weapons. After cautioning Assad against even moving a "whole bunch of chemical weapons around," he didn't enforce the warning when the regime allegedly was detected in December mixing components for the nerve gas sarin, or when in March the United States followed Britain and France in accusing Assad of having used chemical weapons "on a small scale."