Has Obama Already Ordered Military Intervention in Syria?

The events in Syria have gotten little attention apart from reporting on the numbers of opposition forces dying, but there’s a lot to consider. Blogger Roger Freeman posted a great summary of events in Syria, and some speculation as to whether there’s evidence of covert American forces having been active there for a long time [emphasis added]:

On Wednesday August 1st, Anderson Cooper CNN announced Breaking News: President Obama had authorized Covert Support for rebels in Syria. The whole truth is that it was only Breaking News here in the United States. For the last two weeks there have been reports in the U.K., France, Russia, and all across the Middle East detailing NATO, U.S., and U.K. involvement. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov even went as far as to say the U.S. policy in Syria was “directly justifying terrorism”. On July 26, CBS reported that Hillary Clinton said the administration might step up its assistance to the rebels, which had been limited to humanitarian aid and non lethal equipment such as medical supplies and communications gear, however this received very little notice.

The Syrian rebellion began about 16 months ago. The official Assad government forces have been dealing with it quite effectively, so it hasn’t been making much progress. Allegedly that’s when the Obama administration began “stepping up” it efforts in Syria. It was the next step after Obama, under the guise of NATO, helped the rebellions in Egypt and Libya. On July 22, Marco Giannangeli reported that a British Army source revealed that former SAS soldiers are training Syrian rebels in Iraq in military tactics, weapons handling and communications. The source said more than 300 have passed through a base just inside the Iraq border, while a command course is run in Saudi Arabia.

On July 18, I believe we saw an example of the military tactics “assistance”, that’s when the rebellion became a real force. On July 18, a bomb went off at a meeting of Syrian ministers and President Assad’s top security and military officials. It was reported that the Syrian Defense Minister Daoud Rajha and Assad’s brother-in-law Assef Shawkat were killed. Reports have varied on whether it was a suicide bomber or remote controlled bomb. Cities and towns all across Syria were reporting attacks by the rebels, including the capital Damascus. On twitter, the rebels began reporting the border crossings they were controlling. The attacks on the capital were so severe that Assad went into self protection mode. Reports began coming in that all the Syrian tanks and heavy armor were being ordered to Damascus. As the Assad forces began contracting towards the capital, the rebel forces began taking more towns, border crossings and sections of the larger cities. Large groups of armed men were then reported passing through the rebel controlled border crossings.

Stop for a second and consider the events of that one Wednesday. Consider the logistics and planning necessary to bomb a high level government meeting and carry out an invasion across an entire country. Sleeper cells were to attack interior cities. The border assaults were from several different countries. Does this sound like possible for the rebels without the help of Obama and NATO?

This is very similar to the coup d’etat in Libya, where the poorly trained and poorly armed opposition forces were flailing against the might of Qaddafi’s mercenary army, and then suddenly started making very quick advancements and finally overthrew the government.

Two days later, on July 20, it was reported that NATO PsyOps signals mimicking the Syrian television signals were being transmitted from Australia. The report also said the signals were probably from the U.S. National Security base. Whether or not this is true is irrelevant. By July 22, the Syrian television stations were reported to be running crawls telling viewers that false programming might show up on the stations. The same reporter who broke the NATO PsyOps story was then kidnapped along with another reporter. Rumors began circulating on twitter that they were kidnapped by the U.S. in order to fake the fall of Damascus. It was even reported that Hollywood movie people were hired by Qatar to make elaborate sets to fake the news. These reports were widely circulated on twitter for days. The reports clearly made the Syrian public mistrust their own state run news.

The Obama administration and their lapdog media have been portraying this conflict as an internal rebellion of Syrians to rid themselves of the dictator Assad. Now there are multiple reports of foreign fighters including jihadist among the rebels… Obama has admitted to helping the overthrow of the Syrian government. Finally, Obama has decided to tell the American people.

There are reports that Obama had already committed to helping opposition forces, but it has not been disclosed when he signed the secret order, only that no arming of the rebels was incuded.

We will be dealing with this foreign affairs disaster for decades.

Roger continues on to tie this into biblical eschatology, which is outside the scope of my blog, but I recommend it heartily if you find that study interesting.

More to consider – the UN has pretty much admitted being an abject failure with the resignation of Kofi Annan as the Arab League envoy, and the collapse of his inept 6-point peace plan.

The comparisons to Libya might be Obama’s undoing. His decision to join the kinetic military action against Libya was greatly influenced by advisor Samantha Powers. Powers’ main concern is America’s moral obligation to intercede any time a genocide is possible:

“My prescription would be that the level of American and international engagement would ratchet up commensurate with the abuse on the ground.“

With the relatively painless success of the war in Libya, the Obama administration may be emboldened to try the same action in Syria, where the conditions are completely different, and may lead to terrible consequences.

Among the many differences is that Qaddafi was fighting with a mercenary army, the loyalty of which only extends as far as they’re paid. The presence of chemical and biological weapons in Syria, and their threat to use them should foreign powers intercede exceedingly complicate any possible action. Throw in that Russia is vehemently against any foreign intervention, with China joining them to veto condemnations from the UN, and Obama may find himself in a very difficult situation should he choose to enact Powers’ naive and dangerous equation.

For further information, listen to this great podcast by the Foreign Policy Research Center.