Hagel suggests US moving forces closer to Syria

Daniel De Luce 7 hours agoMilitaryPoliticsBarack ObamaSyriaDamascusPresidency of Barack Obama

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US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Friday strongly suggested the Pentagon was moving forces into place ahead of possible military action against Syria, even as President Barack Obama voiced caution.

Obama has said Washington must be wary of costly and difficult foreign interventions, as calls mount for action against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad over alleged chemical warfare.

US commanders have nevertheless prepared a range of "options" for Obama if he chooses to proceed with military strikes against Damascus, Hagel told reporters before landing in Kuala Lumpur.

"The Defense Department has a responsibility to provide the president with options for all contingencies," Hagel said.

"And that requires positioning our forces, positioning our assets to be able to carry out different options -- whatever the president might choose."

But Hagel declined to provide any details on the deployment of US ships, aircraft or troops, as the Obama administration reportedly contemplated cruise missile strikes against Assad's forces.

Hagel's comments came as a defence official said the US Navy would expand its presence in the Mediterranean with a fourth warship armed with cruise missiles.

The US Sixth Fleet, with responsibility in the Mediterranean, has decided to keep the USS Mahan in the region instead of letting it return to its home port in Norfolk, Virginia.

Three other destroyers are currently deployed in the area -- the USS Gravely, the USS Barry and the USS Ramage. All four warships are equipped with several dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles.

The reinforcement would allow the Pentagon to act more rapidly if Obama were to order a military strike.

"The president has asked the Defense Department for options. Like always, the Defense Department is prepared and has been prepared to provide all options for all contingencies to the president of the United States," Hagel said.

The Pentagon chief made clear that no decision had been taken on whether to employ military force as the more than two-year-old conflict rages on.

US newspapers have suggested disagreements within the administration over the risks of another American military intervention in the Middle East.

In an interview aired earlier Friday on CNN, Obama voiced caution.

He said Syrian opposition allegations that hundreds of people had been killed in a gas attack near Damascus this week were more serious than previous charges against Assad's regime.

"What we've seen indicates clearly this is a big event, of grave concern," Obama said.

One year after warning that the use of chemical arms in the vicious Syrian conflict would cross a US "red line", Obama said Americans expect him to protect their long-term national security interests -- but avoid foreign entanglements.

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Demonstrators calling for help from US President Obama for Syria, protest in front of the White Hous …

"Sometimes what we've seen is folks will call for immediate action, jumping into stuff that does not turn out well, gets us mired in very difficult situations," Obama said.

He warned that America could get "drawn into very expensive, difficult, costly interventions that actually breed more resentment in the region".

The president also said that there were questions about whether the United States would violate international law if it attacked another country without a United Nations Security Council mandate.

And, after ending the Iraq war and as he brings troops home from Afghanistan, Obama noted the cost in US lives and financial resources of foreign military action.

Obama observed that the latest attack was conducted on a much wider scale than a previous one in Syria that the United States deemed to have been the result of chemical weapons.

On that occasion, Obama decided for the first time to send direct military aid to vetted Syrian rebels, though has declined to specify exactly what help Washington is providing.

Syria has vigorously denied its forces were guilty of a chemical attack on the rebel-held area.

Hagel, who began a week-long tour of Southeast Asia, said he expected American intelligence agencies to "swiftly" assess whether Damascus was to blame.

He warned that if the Assad regime had resorted to chemical weapons, "there may be another attack coming".

The US government would not rule out unilateral action, Hagel said, but he stressed the need to work with international "partners".

"If the intelligence and facts bear out what appears to be what happened -- use of chemical weapons -- then that is not just a United States issues, it's an international issue," he said.

"It violates every standard of international behaviour."

Before the alleged chemical weapons assault, the US military's top officer, General Martin Dempsey, had expressed caution over any military action in Syria.

Dempsey had warned that imposing a no-fly zone would carry the risk of dragging the US into a protracted conflict or inadvertently aiding Islamist militants fighting Damascus.

Asked about Dempsey's statements, Hagel said he agreed with the four-star general's assessment, calling it "very accurate".

National Security Adviser Susan Rice took to Twitter to urge the Syrian government to permit UN inspectors to probe the latest chemical weapons allegations.

"What is Bashar al-Assad hiding? The world is demanding an independent investigation of Wednesday's apparent CW attack. Immediately," she wrote.

"Otherwise, we'll all conclude that Assad is guilty and lying -- again."

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David Clark Scott August 24, 2013

Transgender Americans: Bradley Manning isn’t the only one

The case of Army Pvt. Bradley Manning has brought new focus to transgender issues in the US, seen by some as the next major civil rights movement. One question in particular is how to deal with transgender children in schools.

Brad Knickerbocker 4 hours agoSocietyCaliforniaBradley Manning

For many Americans, US Army Pvt. Bradley Manning – the young man who now wishes to be known as a transgender woman called “Chelsea Manning” – brought the issue of gender identity to mind for the first time.

Pvt. Manning, court martialed and sentenced this week to 35 years in a military prison for leaking some 700,000 classified items to the controversial whistleblower organizationWikiLeaks, may be unusual in this regard, but he is far from unique. Nor is his particular circumstance – how to fit into a culture and society marked by historical, political, and religious norms about gender – necessarily unusual, even given its military aspect.

The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law estimates that there are nearly 700,000 transgender individuals in the US today – males who feel and think of themselves as female and vice versa. That’s less than 0.3 percent of the population.

But the figure may be understated as it becomes more acceptable for such individuals to reveal their self-perceived gender identity to what may be a critical world around them.

Among psychologists and psychiatrists, the trend has been to shift from labeling such inclinations as “gender identity disorder” to “Gender Dysphoria” (as the latest version of the American Psychiatric Association’sDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders does), which carries less of a stigma. (The American Psychiatric Association declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1973.)

Advances in transgender rights – which are included in many gay rights laws – have followed.

According to the ACLU, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts,Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia all have laws clearly prohibiting discrimination against transgender people.

In federal prisons, inmates have a right to receive an evaluation of their gender status, and where applicable, a treatment plan for Gender Dysphoria (including hormone therapy), reports the ACLU. (This will not be true – at least initially – for Pvt. Manning incarcerated in the Fort Leavenworth maximum security prison inKansas.)

In any case, the issue is becoming increasingly political – focused most recently on communities faced with decisions involving children.

Colorado officials recently ruled that a suburban Colorado Springs school district discriminated against a transgender 6-year-old (anatomically a boy, although she thought of herself as a girl) by preventing her from using the girls' bathroom, in what advocates described as the first such ruling in what Vice President Joe Biden has been quoted as calling “the civil rights issue of our time."

And in California earlier this month, Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation requiring public schools to allow transgender students access to whichever restroom and locker room they want.

The law, which takes effect Jan. 1, also will allow transgender kindergarten-through-12th grade students to choose whether they want to play boys' or girls' sports. The new law gives students the right to participate in sex-segregated programs, activities, and facilities based on their self-perception and regardless of their birth gender.

The issue became federal last month when the US Justice and Education Departments told the Arcadia school district near Los Angeles that it must accommodate a ninth-grade transgender boy (who is anatomically female) who wishes to use school bathrooms, locker rooms, and other facilities designed for boys.

“The Education and Justice departments have forced districts to change policies and practices to better protect students who are transgender, including in Minnesota and elsewhere in California,” reportsPolitico.com. “But those protections, primarily intended to prevent bullying and harassment, have been part of agreements to protect all students who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender."

For the public – and especially for the press – transgender individuals in the news raise a pointed question, writes Amanda Marcotte in Slate: “How do you refer to … gender in a way that balances respect for the right of individuals to determine their own gender identity with the need for clarity in your reporting?”

In other words, at what point does “Bradley” become “Chelsea” in referring to Pvt. Manning? And doesn’t the he/she, him/her choice become problematic on subsequent references?

For some individuals, the gender-identity issue is more than a matter of rhetoric or grammar.

In New York City, the beating death of a transgender woman by a group of men this week is being investigated as a hate crime.

Acceptance of transgender people is likely to keep growing, just as approval for same-sex marriage is.

But for some religious leaders, the issue is more profound than political.

“Ultimately, the transgender question is about more than just sex. It’s about what it means to be human,” Russell D. Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, wrote in the Washington Post last week. “Are we created, as both the Hebrew Scriptures and Jesus put it, ‘male and female,’ from the beginning or are these categories arbitrary and self-willed?”

“Laws such as those in California will quickly test the boundaries of society’s tolerance for a psychological and individualistic definition of gender,” Mr. Moore writes. “When gender identity is severed from biological sex, where does one’s self-designation end, and who will be harmed in the process?”

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Syrian state TV says soldiers find poison gas in tunnels used by rebels

Oliver Holmes 1 hour agoPolitics & GovernmentBarack ObamaDamascusChemical weaponSyria

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Free Syrian Army fighters walk past damaged buildings and debris in Deir al-Zor August 20, 2013. Picture taken August 20, 2013. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi

By Oliver Holmes

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian state television said soldiers found chemical weapons on Saturday in tunnels that had been used by rebels, deflecting blame for a nerve gas attack that killed hundreds this week and heightened Western calls for foreign intervention.

The United States said it was realigning naval forces in the Mediterranean to give President Barack Obama the option of attacking Syria, and a senior U.N. official arrived in Damascus to seek access for inspectors to the gas attack site.

Opposition accounts that between 500 and well over 1,000 civilians were killed by gas fired by pro-government forces, and video footage of victims' bodies, have stoked demands abroad for a robust, U.S.-led response after 2-1/2 years of international inaction on a conflict that has killed 100,000.

International medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Saturday that three hospitals it supports in Damascus reported receiving 3,600 people displaying neurotoxic symptoms within less than three hours on Wednesday.

Of those patients, 355 died, and it had sent 7,000 vials of atropine, a nerve agent toxicity antidote, to the area, it said.

In an attempt to strengthen government denials, state news agency SANA said soldiers "suffered from cases of suffocation" when rebels used chemical weapons against them in the Damascus suburb of Jobar.

It said clashes were still raging in the area but that the army had advanced and found "chemical agents" in rebel tunnels.

State television said rebels used poison gas "as a last resort" after government forces made "big gains" in Jobar.

But footage did not appear to show evidence of chemical weapons. It showed five blue and green plastic drums, normally used to transport oil, lined against a wall in a room, as well as several rusty mortar bombs and grenades.

Next to them were several rolls of tape, rope and some gas canisters, normally used for domestic ovens. Gas masks were seen near some vials labeled "atropine".

The presenter said that these images were proof that the rebels had used chemical weapons but did not say which of the items contained them.

Activists say President Bashar al-Assad's forces fired nerve gas projectiles into Jobar and other suburbs before dawn on Wednesday. Later in the week, activists crossed front lines around Damascus to smuggle out tissue samples from victims.

Leader of the opposition Syrian National Coalition Ahmad al-Jarba and the head of the rebel Free Syrian Army General Salim Idriss denied on Saturday that rebels had used chemical weapons.

At a press conference in Istanbul Idriss said the rebels would respond to the attack but would not commit "similar crimes", referring to chemical weapons.

Jabra said the "most important cause" of the attack was the lack of action by the international community, the West in particular, and its silence.

INTELLIGENCE EVIDENCE

Obama has long been hesitant to intervene in Syria, wary of its position straddling fault lines of wider sectarian conflict in the Middle East, and he reiterated such reluctance on Friday.

But, in a development that could raise pressure on Obama to act, American and European security sources said U.S. and allied intelligence agencies had made a preliminary assessment that chemical weapons were used by pro-Assad forces this week.

Major world powers - including Russia, Assad's main ally which has long blocked U.N.-sponsored intervention against him - have urged the Syrian leader to cooperate with a U.N. inspection team that arrived on Sunday to pursue earlier allegations of chemical weapons assaults in the civil war.

U.N. High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Angela Kane arrived to Damascus on Saturday to press for access to areas of Damascus suburbs said to have been targeted on Wednesday.

"The solution is obvious. There is a United Nations team on the ground, just a few kilometers away. It must very quickly be allowed to go to the site to carry out the necessary tests without hindrance," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Saturday during a visit to the Palestinian territories.

Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle of Germany said it expected Russia to "raise the pressure on Damascus so that the inspectors can independently investigate".

President Hassan Rouhani of Iran, Assad's most powerful Middle East ally, acknowledged on Saturday for the first time chemical weapons had killed people in Syria and called for the international community to prevent their use.

CONFLICTING VIEWS

Among the military options under consideration are targeted missile strikes on Syrian units believed responsible for chemical attacks or on Assad's air force and ballistic missile sites, U.S. officials said. Such strikes could be launched from U.S. ships or combat aircraft capable of firing missiles from outside Syrian airspace, thereby avoiding Syrian air defenses.

Obama's caution contrasted with calls for action from NATO allies, including France, Britain and Turkey, where leaders saw little doubt Assad's forces were behind the chemical attack.

While the West accused Assad of a cover-up by preventing the U.N. team from heading out to Damascus suburbs, Russia said the rebels were impeding an inquiry and that Assad would have no interest in using poison gas for fear of foreign intervention.

Igor Morozov, another senior pro-Kremlin lawmaker, told Interfax news agency, "Assad does not look suicidal. He well understands that in this (chemical attack) case, allies would turn away from him and ... opponents would rise. All moral constraints would be discarded regarding outside interference."

Alexei Pushkov, pro-Kremlin chairman of the international affairs committee in Russia's lower house of parliament, said, "In London they are 'convinced' that Assad used chemical weapons, and earlier they were 'convinced' that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It's the same old story."

Russia said last month that its analysis indicated a projectile that hit the city of Aleppo on March 19 contained the nerve agent sarin and was most likely fired by rebels.

(Additional reporting by Megan Davies in Moscow, John Irish in Paris, Madeline Chambers in Berlin, Yeganeh Torbati in Dubai, Asli Kandemir and Dasha Afanasieva in Istanbul and Washington bureau; Writing by Mark Heinrich; Editing by Louise Ireland)