World View: U.S. Syria Military Strike Gains Momentum, Despite Confused Signals

This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• New record: Two million Syrian refugees have fled to other countries
• U.S. Syria military strike gains momentum, despite confused signals
• Russia raises alarms over U.S.-Israel missile test
• Obama to meet with gay activists in Russia

New record: Two million Syrian refugees have fled to other countries

Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan – the world’s second largest refugee camp (Reuters)

The number of registered Syrian war refugees who have fled to othercountries has now passed the two million mark, more than half of themchildren. This is nine times as many as there were a year ago. Thenumber of refugees increases by about 5,000 every day. As of the endAugust this comprised 110,000 in Egypt, 168,000 in Iraq, 515,000 inJordan, 716,000 in Lebanon and 460,000 in Turkey. A further 4.25million people are displaced inside Syria, amounting to a total ofmore than 6 million people refugees.

So we have millions of refugees fleeing Syria, we have tens ofthousands of al-Qaeda linked Sunni Muslim militants headed for Syria,we have thousands of Shia Muslim militants supplied by Iran andHezbollah headed for Syria, and we have massive amounts of advancedheavy military weaponry arriving from Russia, headed for the Syriaregime. This is a clear trend toward an explosive situation,irrespective of whether the U.S. lobs a few cruise missiles or not.United Nations refugee agency – UNHCR

U.S. Syria military strike gains momentum, despite confused signals

Republican Congressional leaders on Tuesday came out strongly insupport of President Barack Obama’s proposed military strike on Syria,giving enormous additional momentum to the proposal.

The proposal will authorize American military action in Syria for 60days, with a possible 30 day extension.

This was despite a statement by Obama that seemed to be designed tocover all the bases:

“It is something limited. It is somethingproportional. It will degrade Assad’s capabilities. At the sametime, we have a broader strategy that will allow us to upgrade thecapabilities of the opposition and allow Syria to ultimately freeitself.

This is not Iraq, this is not Afghanistan. This is a limitedproportional step that will send a message not only to the Assadregime, but to other countries that may be interested in testingsome of these international norms, that there areconsequences.”

The words “limited” and “proportional” are targeted to people who wantlittle or no military action, while the phrases “degrade Assad’scapabilities” and “upgrade the capabilities” are targeted to peoplewho want to do something more than a so-called “pin prick” strike.

Administration officials evaded answering the question of whetherObama would go ahead with a military strike anyway, even ifthe Congress votes against it.

Whatever the real intentions of the Administration, it appearsincreasingly inevitable that a military strike will occur. Time

Russia raises alarms over U.S.-Israel missile test

Early Tuesday morning, Russia’s Information Agency (RIA) raised analarm that that the Russian military ballistic missile early warningsystem had detected the launch of two “ballistic targets,” travelingeastward from the central Mediterranean region. The suggestion wasthat perhaps the United States was launching a military attack onSyria. However, later in the day, the Pentagon announced that it hadbeen a successful test of Israel’s ballistic missile defense system,and it had been planned a year ago, so had nothing to do with Syria.Ria Novosti

Obama to meet with gay activists in Russia

Russia’s president Vladimir Putin has taken one “screw you” decisionafter another against President Obama and the United States, mostrecently by giving asylum to American traitor Edward Snowden and byaggressively supporting the genocidal activities of Syria’s presidentBashar al-Assad. So president Obama has apparently decided to takerevenge, at least symbolically. The administration has alreadyannounced that Obama will snub Putin and not meet with him during theG20 conference in St. Petersburg this week. But now, Obama will takeadditional steps to publicly embarrass Putin by meeting with lesbian,gay, bisexual and transgender rights activists while inRussia. USA Today

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