President Obama: World set a red line against the use chemical weapons; US Secretary of State John Kerry makes the case on strike on Syria; Kerry: Sarin gas used in Syria chemical attacks; United States Congressman discuss Syria strike; President Barack O
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    • According to reports, US President Barack Obama said on September 4 that the world set a red line against chemical weapons use that he now seeks to apply to Syria, while a Senate committee approved a resolution authorizing the U.S. military attack that he is planning. By a 10-7 vote, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed the resolution that authorizes a limited military response, giving Obama an initial victory in his push to win congressional approval. The measure now goes to the full Senate for debate next week. "The world set a red line when governments representing 98 percent of the world's population said the use of chemical weapons are abhorrent and passed a treaty forbidding their use, even when countries are engaged in war," President Obama said at a joint news conference with Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt on the first day of a four-day trip that includes the G-20 summit in Russia. 1

    In another development, according to reports, maintaining that the United States is "more than mindful of the Iraq experience," US Secretary of State John Kerry made a compelling case for President Barack Obama's ordering a military strike against Syria, saying the cost of doing nothing in the face of the regime's use of chemical weapons would bring greater trouble in the future in other parts of the world. While laying out evidence of the Bashar Assad regime's use chemical weapons on August 21 against a rebel stronghold in a Damascus suburb, Kerry also gave a staggering death count -1, 429 Syrians were killed in the attack, including at least 426 children, he said. There was no doubt that the Syrian government used chemical weapons on opposition controlled areas it had long been unable to tame, he said. ''We know what the doctors and the nurses who treated them didn't report, not a scratch, not a shrapnel wound, not a cut, not a gunshot wound. We saw rows of dead lined up in burial shrouds, the white linen unstained by a single drop of blood. Instead of being tucked safely in their beds at home, we saw rows of children lying side by side sprawled on a hospital floor, all of them dead from Assad's gas and surrounded by parents and grandparents who had suffered the same fate,'' Kerry said, in a graphic description of what transpired in nearly a dozen rebel-held areas outside Damascus on August 21.''2 Further Kerry noted that blood samples provided to the United States from the scene of last month's Damascus attacks "have tested positive for signatures of Sarin." Kerry said that the "case is building" for military action, adding that he was confident Congress "will do what is right" in an upcoming vote on US intervention. 3

    Meanwhile, reports noted that US lawmakers on September 5, appeared divided over a possible military strike on Syria as debate over the issue entered a Congressional committee of the US House of Representatives. "We're all troubled by the unfortunate lack of international support. Although the proposed action aims to uphold an international norm, there is no United Nations resolution of support, nor NATO backing," Congressman Ed Royce, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said during a Congressional hearing on Syria. "As we'll hear today, the President views striking the Syrian regime as a way to strengthen deterrence against the future use of chemical weapons by Assad and by others. That is an important consideration," he said adding that there are too many bad actors out there. "Even worse, those we sacrificed for are not grateful. Getting involved in Syria would be even worse because it would indicate we haven't learned our lesson. America should not retreat from the world, nor can we police the world. Our military should not be engaged in any way in the Syrian conflict," Rohrabacher said. Chairman emeritus of the Foreign Relations Committee, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said the US has been aware of Assad's chemical weapons stockpile for years, yet the US has failed to hold him accountable. 4

    According to reports, President Barack Obama appealed to an undecided American public to back his bid to use military force in Syria while supporters scrambled to persuade lawmakers to authorize the move on September 7 during his weekly radio address. Obama said that America needs to use force to deter future chemical weapons attacks there. "This would not be another Iraq or Afghanistan," Obama declared, previewing arguments he will make in a nationally televised address on Tuesday. "I know that the American people are weary after a decade of war, even as the war in Iraq has ended, and the war in Afghanistan is winding down. That's why we're not putting our troops in the middle of somebody else's war," Obama said. President Obama had said last week that he would seek congressional approval for a strike, but early vote counts in do not look encouraging for the president, with scores of lawmakers still undecided. 5

    In other developments, reports noted that the Presidents of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and the United States of America signed a joint political declaration at the White House, reaffirming the commitment of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and the United States to strengthen their strategic cooperation on defence as well as on energy, cyber and economic security. The statement also highlights the achievements of the Baltic States and recognizes their growing role in addressing critical global security and economic issues. "It is an important political document which proclaims the continuity of strategic cooperation between the Baltic countries and the United States on the basis of values endorsed in the Baltic Charter. It recognizes the contribution made by the Baltic States to global security and the well-being of people. It brings the United States and the Baltic countries together in fighting new military, energy and cyber security threats," the President Obama said. 6

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