Readers may want to periodically check the link list below for new articles on developments related to the Syria crisis.
The Pentagon has expanded the list of potential targets for a U.S. military strike on Syria, based on intelligence indicating that the Assad regime has moved around equipment used to deploy chemical weapons in anticipation of a potential attack.
A Pentagon official insisted to CBS News correspondent David Martin that the scope of the operation has not changed, which President Obama has described as limited and tailored. The military began adding new targets to the list as Syrian troops started moving equipment "they think might be targeted and hiding some of it so the U.S. cannot find it again," Martin reports.
The widening list of targets is part of an effort to guarantee that the U.S. can do enough damage to make this strike worthwhile and to truly disincentivize the Syrian regime from using chemical weapons in the future.
"They have to keep adding targets so they have a sufficient target list to accomplish two missions," Martin said, "One is to damage Syria's ability to use chemical weapons again and two, is to discourage the Syrian military from thinking that whatever advantage they get out of using chemical weapons is worth the damage they're going to suffer from a retaliatory strike from the U.S."Keep reading
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Broadening the target list increases the likelihood of collateral damage--Syrian civilians killed, maimed, or injured by US bombs and missiles. It also increases the likelihood of "mission creep"--what is supposed to be a "limited" strike against Assad's chemical warfare assets becoming something else.
While the Senate resolution says "no boots on the ground," the Pentagon is taking over the training of rebel fighters from the CIA. This requires the use of military advisers in Syria--"boots on the ground." Special forces must also be deployed in Syria to guide bombs and missiles to their targets.
Ironically Barack Obama as a US Senator would not have supported the military action which he as US President is proposing that the United States take against the Assad regime. He would have characterized it as "stupid."
Kerry's claim that not taking military action against the Assad regime will make the Islamic extremists in the Syrian rebels resort to more brutal tactics is both specious and spurious. Military action against the Assad regime is certainly not going to make them less brutal. Indeed it can be expected to embolden them. Brutality toward their opponents as the actions of Islamic extremists in Syria and elsewhere has shown is characteristic of Islamic extremists.
If the United States arms one faction of the Syrian rebels as some propose, what is to prevent arms shipments falling into the hands of the other factions of the Syrian rebels, particularly the Islamic extremists. The United States has a poor record of arming insurgents who subsequently turned against the United States.
Will Barack Obama and Joe Biden step down as US President and US Vice-President if an Islamic extremist regime comes to power in Syria and ramps up Islamic extremist persecution of the Syrian Christian community? I sincerely doubt it!
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