Phi Beta Iota: All our sources call into question all claims that CW has been used by anyone. The highest probability is that the rebels are faking it hoping to lure the USA into Syria the way the USA lured Russia into Afghanistan. We tend not to believe that the USA is behind the effort, or it would have come off much more credibly (witness the Boston false flag endeavor). Truth is a casualty across all fronts on the matter of Syria.
Phi Beta Iota: Below the line is a comprehensive index to posts on Syria by 4th Media, Berto Jongman, Chuck Spinney, David Swanson, DefDog, Franklin Lamp, Gordon Duff, Graphics, John Maguire, Kevin Barrett, Marcus Aurelius, Mini-Me, Neal Rauhauser, NIGHTWATCH, Owl, Paul Craig Roberts, Review, Stuart Littlewood, and Vladimir Putin.
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The press stories that follow a document release like this often do not bother to do this. They look, instead, for a key—or the key—fact, around which the news story then develops. In this case, unsurprisingly, the key fact is that the NSA gathered tens of thousands of email communication by Americans before the FISA Court declared its actions unconstitutional. As the Washington Post puts it in its lead:
For several years, the National Security Agency unlawfully gathered tens of thousands of e-mails and other electronic communications between Americans as part of a now-revised collection method, according to a 2011 secret court opinion.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, was in Amman this week to inaugurate the Centcom’s Forward Command in Jordan manned by 273 US officers. US media correspondents were permitted to visit the new war room for the first time on condition of non-disclosure of its location and secret facilities. debkafile’s military sources report that the installation is bomb- and missile-proof against a possible Syrian attack. The US Air Force command section is in direct communication with the US, Israeli, Jordanian and Saudi Air Force headquarters ready for an order by President Barack Obama to impose a partial no-fly zone over Syrian air space.
Another section is designed to coordinate operations between US and Jordanian special forces, as well as the units trained in commando combat by US instructors in Jordan. A closed section houses CIA personnel who control the work of US agents going in and out of Syria and also a communications center.
Since the revelations of confirmed National Security Agency spying in June, three different “investigations” have been announced. One by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), another by the Director of National Intelligence, Gen. James Clapper, and the third by the Senate Intelligence Committee, formally called the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI).
All three investigations are insufficient, because they are unable to find out the full details needed to stop the government's abuse of Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act and Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The PCLOB can only request—not require—documents from the NSA and must rely on its goodwill, while the investigation led by Gen. Clapper is led by a man who not only lied to Congress, but also oversees the spying. And the Senate Intelligence Committee—which was originally designed to effectively oversee the intelligence community—has failed time and time again. What's needed is a new, independent, Congressional committee to fully delve into the spying.
The PCLOB: Powerless to Obtain Documents
The PCLOB was created after a recommendation from the 9/11 Commission to ensure civil liberties and privacy were included in the government's surveillance and spying policies and practices.
But it languished. From 2008 until May of this year, the board was without a Chair and unable to hire staff or perform any work. It was only after the June revelations that the President asked the board to begin an investigation into the unconstituional NSA spying. Yet even with the full board constituted, it is unable to fulfill its mission as it has no choice but to base its analysis on a steady diet of carefully crafted statements from the intelligence community.
As we explained, the board must rely on the goodwill of the NSA's director, Gen. Keith Alexander, and Gen. Clapper—two men who have repeatedly said the NSA doesn't collect information on Americans.
Lawmakers who opposed arming FSA militants “reconsider intervention”
Paul Joseph Watson, Infowars.com, August 23, 2013
300 handpicked rebel militants trained by the US, Israel and Jordan entered Syria and began advancing towards Damascus in the days before an alleged chemical weapons attack, the French newspaper Le Figaro is reporting.
“The rebels were trained for several months in a training camp on the Jordanian-Syrian border by CIA operatives, as well as Jordanian and Israeli commandos,” reports the Jerusalem Post.
Description: In this exclusive clip from the forthcoming edition of the Jack Blood Podcast, James Corbett and Jack Blood dissect the latest reports of a chemical weapons attack in Syria, occurring just two days after a UN chemical weapons team arrived in the country. James goes over the history of false flag chemical provocations in the country and the reasons why we should doubt the quickly-forming official narrative that this attack was perpetrated by Assad's military. Listen to the Jack Blood podcast at DeadlineLive.info.
