"Your job is to hold my feet to the fire. . . So, you need to be out there everyday raising these issues, telling us when we’re doing the right or wrong thing. . . My role is to be President of the United States. . . "



http://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/12/01/a-foot-in-two-worlds/

General Dempsey's warnings could go unheeded if Obama opts to strike


A multi-tour command veteran of the Iraq war, Dempsey has repeatedly highlighted the risks of US involvement in Syria
Beta

Spencer Ackerman in Washington
The Guaudian



General Martin Dempsey
'It's not about: can we do it? It's: should we do it and what are the opportunity costs,' Dempsey testified in March 2012.



There is already a casualty of Barack Obama's anticipated strike against Syria: repeated warnings about the dangers of intervention voiced by his most senior military adviser...General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and former top army officer, has highlighted the risks of US involvement in Syria's bloody civil war for over two years.

Dempsey, a multi-tour command veteran of the Iraq war, has never openly opposed a strike on Syria, something that would risk undermining civilian control of the military. But when asked for his views, in press conferences and testimony, Dempsey has tended to focus on the risks and costs of intervention. . . . Dempsey's nomination for a new term as chairman was even briefly delayed in the Senate last month after pro-war senators demanded fuller advice about Syria...In response, Dempsey listed nearly every military option mooted, from limited strikes to full-blown US intervention, and found them fraught with risk and expense. He emphasized the difficulty of staying out of the Syrian civil war once Washington launches any military action.

"Once we take action, we should be prepared for what comes next," Dempsey wrote to the committee on 19 July. "Deeper involvement is hard to avoid." . . . Even the "limited stand-off strikes" of the sort the Obama administration is now considering would require "hundreds of aircraft, ships submarines and other enablers." The impact on Assad would be felt "over time" in the form of a "significant degradation of regime capabilities," but there is a risk that "the regime could withstand limited strikes by dispersing its assets." . . .

Dempsey's reluctance to intervene in Syria is likely "the opinion of all the chiefs" of the armed services, Killebrew added, as the service chiefs are more attuned to the dangers and uncertainties of war than civilians often are....."I rather suspect that's the concern about being drawn in that he has, aside from any chairman's natural predisposition to be cautious." Thomas, Dempsey's spokesman, said the chairman simply provided his best professional advice about the available Syria military options. "The chairman provides military options to our elected leaders based on desired outcomes. He articulates the risk to both the mission and to our force, balancing our global responsibilities," Thomas said."And as the principal military adviser, he contributes to discussions about the use of the military instrument of power."


http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/29/general-martin-dempsey-obama-syria

Poll: majority of Germans oppose military intervention in Syria, against backing US-led action
Associated Press


BERLIN — A poll finds that a majority of Germans oppose Western military intervention in Syria and don't want their country to provide backing for any U.S.-led strike.

Thursday's poll for ZDF television found that 58 percent oppose intervention following last week's suspected poison gas attacks, with 33 percent in favor and 9 percent undecided.

It says 41 percent believe Germany should support financially or materially U.S.-led military action, with 55 percent opposed. The Forschungsgruppe Wahlen polling group surveyed 1,348 people Monday through Wednesday and gives a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Germans are generally wary of military action and Chancellor Angela Merkel's government is treading carefully ahead of Sept. 22 elections.


http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/221628341.html

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis and King Abdullah of Jordan agreed on Thursday that dialogue was the "only option" to end the conflict in Syria, the Vatican said, as the United States and its allies weighed plans for a military strike....Abdullah flew to Rome specifically to meet the pope to discuss the Middle East crisis. The king, Queen Rania and the pope spoke privately for 20 minutes in the Vatican's apostolic palace.

The king and the pontiff "reaffirmed that the path of dialogue and negotiations among all components of Syrian society, with the backing of the international community, is the only option to end the conflict and the violence that each day cause the loss of so many human lives, most of all among the defenseless population", the Vatican said in a statement.

Last Sunday, the pope spoke of "atrocious acts" following an apparent poison gas attack that residents in a Damascus neighborhood say killed hundreds of people....The pope and the king met a day after U.S. officials described plans for multi-national strikes on Syria that could last for days, and as Washington and its European and Middle East allies said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must face retribution for using banned weapons against his people

http://news.yahoo.com/pope-jordan-king-agree-dialogue-only-option-syria-113542890.html

August 29, 2013

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

We join you and the international community in expressing unequivocal condemnation over the news that chemical weapons were reportedly used by the government of Syria.

While we understand that as Commander in Chief you have a constitutional obligation to protect our national interests from direct attack, Congress has the constitutional obligation and power to approve military force, even if the United States or its direct interests (such as embassies) have not been attacked or threatened with an attack.

As such, we strongly urge you to seek an affirmative decision of Congress prior to committing any U.S. military engagement to this complex crisis.

While the ongoing human rights violations and continued loss of life are horrific, they should not draw us into an unwise war - especially without adhering to our own constitutional requirements.

We strongly support the work within the United Nations Security Council to build international consensus condemning the alleged use of chemical weapons and preparing an appropriate response; we should also allow the U.N. inspectors the space and time necessary to do their jobs, which are so crucial to ensuring accountability.

As elected officials, we have a duty to represent the will and priorities of our constituents, consistent with the Constitution we all swore to uphold and defend. Before weighing the use of military force, Congress must fully debate and consider the facts and every alternative, as well as determine how best to end the violence and protect civilians. We stand ready to work with you.


http://lee.house.gov/sites/lee.house.gov/files/Lee%20Letter%20to%20President%20Obama_Syria.pdf

"Your job is to hold my feet to the fire. . . So, you need to be out there everyday raising these issues, telling us when we’re doing the right or wrong thing. . . My role is to be President of the United States. . . "

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/12/01/a-foot-in-two-worlds/









“The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”

Senator Barack Obama, 12-20-2007
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/specials/CandidateQA/ObamaQA/



"The reason that you have this principle is not to be soft on terrorism. It's because that's who we are. That's what we're protecting. . . Don't mock the Constitution. Don't make fun of it. Don't suggest that it's not American to abide by what the founding fathers set up. It's worked pretty well for over 200 years."

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/09/obama-to-palin-dont-mock-the-c.html

“The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”

---Senator Barack Obama, 12-20-2007

The Bombing of Nagasaki August 9, 1945: The Untold Story

by Gary G. Kohls, M.D.



. . . It had been only three (3) days since the first bomb, a uranium bomb, had decimated Hiroshima on August 6, with chaos and confusion in Tokyo, where the fascist military government and the Emperor had been searching for months for a way to an honorable end of the war which had exhausted the Japanese to virtually moribund status. (The only obstacle to surrender had been the Truman administration's insistence on unconditional surrender, which meant that the Emperor Hirohito, whom the Japanese regarded as a deity, would be removed from his figurehead position in Japan — an intolerable demand for the Japanese.)

The Russian army was advancing across Manchuria with the stated aim of entering the war against Japan on August 8, so there was an extra incentive to end the war quickly: the US military command did not want to divide any spoils or share power after Japan sued for peace.

The US bomber command had spared Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Kokura from the conventional bombing that had burned to the ground 60+ other major Japanese cities during the first half of 1945. One of the reasons for targeting relatively undamaged cities with these new weapons of mass destruction was scientific: to see what would happen to intact buildings — and their living inhabitants — when atomic weapons were exploded overhead. . . .





. . . With instructions to drop the bomb only on visual sighting, Bock's Car arrived at Kokura, which was clouded over. So after circling three times, looking for a break in the clouds, and using up a tremendous amount of valuable fuel in the process, it headed for its secondary target, Nagasaki.

Nagasaki is famous in the history of Japanese Christianity. Not only was it the site of the largest Christian church in the Orient, St. Mary's Cathedral, but it also had the largest concentration of baptized Christians in all of Japan. It was the city where the legendary Jesuit missionary, Francis Xavier, established a mission church in 1549, a Christian community which survived and prospered for several generations. However, soon after Xavier's planting of Christianity in Japan, Portuguese and Spanish commercial interests began to be accurately perceived by the Japanese rulers as exploitive, and therefore the religion of the Europeans (Christianity) and their new Japanese converts became the target of brutal persecutions.

Within 60 years of the start of Xavier's mission church, it was a capital crime to be a Christian. The Japanese Christians who refused to recant of their beliefs suffered ostracism, torture and even crucifixions similar to the Roman persecutions in the first three centuries of Christianity. After the reign of terror was over, it appeared to all observers that Japanese Christianity had been stamped out.

However, 250 years later, in the 1850s, after the coercive gunboat diplomacy of Commodore Perry forced open an offshore island for American trade purposes, it was discovered that there were thousands of baptized Christians in Nagasaki, living their faith in a catacomb existence, completely unknown to the government - which immediately started another purge. But because of international pressure, the persecutions were soon stopped, and Nagasaki Christianity came up from the underground. And by 1917, with no help from the government, the Japanese Christian community built the massive St. Mary's Cathedral, in the Urakami River district of Nagasaki.

Now it turned out, in the mystery of good and evil, that St. Mary's Cathedral was one of the landmarks that the Bock's Car bombardier had been briefed on, and looking through his bomb site over Nagasaki that day, he identified the cathedral and ordered the drop.

At 11:02 am, Nagasaki Christianity was boiled, evaporated and carbonized in a scorching, radioactive fireball. The persecuted, vibrant, faithful, surviving center of Japanese Christianity had become ground zero.

And what the Japanese Imperial government could not do in over 200 years of persecution, American Christians did in 9 seconds. The entire worshipping community of Nagasaki was wiped out. . . .



http://medicolegal.tripod.com/kohlsnagasaki-untold-story.htm







Dr. Kohls is the Mid-West coordinator of Every Church A Peace Church (ECAPC), a national, interdenominational movement of Christian peacemakers that are urging their mainline and fundamentalist church brothers and sisters to become more prophetic in their peace and justice ministries. He was instrumental in organizing the movement's April 2001 inaugural conference in Duluth, MN.

DWIGHT EISENHOWER, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe

"...in 1945... Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. ...the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.

"During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude..."

- Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, pg. 380

In a Newsweek interview, Eisenhower again recalled the meeting with Stimson:

"...the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."

- Ike on Ike, Newsweek, 11/11/63











ADMIRAL WILLIAM D. LEAHY
(Chief of Staff to Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman)

"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.

"The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."

- William Leahy, I Was There, pg. 441.





http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm