Doctors Without Borders Said 355 Dead, Kerry Says 1,429. ● As everyone else in the world collectively catches a little bit of sanity with respect to the US notion of attacking Syria, the Obama Administration is still going full steam ahead toward the strikes, even though at this point the attacks will be coming without much of anything in the way of international support, and with polls still showing solid American opposition to the war. Secretary of State John Kerry, leading the charge for war in Syria for months, is continuing to take the helm in pushing the case in speeches, not so much providing evidence for their allegations but reiterating the claims and insisting that the evidence is “clear.”

Bill van Auken: US on brink of launching war against Syria based on lies ■ While both Obama and Kerry indicated that no decision has yet been taken in relation to military action against Syria, this, like everything else put out by the administration, is patently false. The US Navy has positioned a fifth warship in the Mediterranean, while Air Force units are being beefed up at the US base in Qatar for a military assault that is planned and imminent. A possible target date is September 5, with a New Moon—the same conditions chosen for launching “shock and awe” against Iraq more than a decade ago. The entire operation is being prepared in contempt of international law, democratic processes and American public opinion. This was made abundantly clear in the presentation Kerry delivered from the State Department Friday afternoon.

Haaretz: Former Bush administration official: Israel may be behind use of chemical arms in Syria
Russia Today: Putin: US should present Syria evidence to Security Council - VIDEO (Putin speaking)
SANA: Foreign Ministry: Kerry's presentation is based on old stories published by terrorists
PressTV: Claims of chemical weapons use by Syria utter nonsense: Putin - Video
PressTV: Unilateral US strike on Syria against international law: Russia - Video
Eric Draitser: Debunking the U.S. Government's "Assessment"

US President Barack Obama says he is to seek Congressional authorisation for military operations against Syria. ● Mr Obama said the US should take action in Syria, but it was important to have a debate and vote in Congress, which reconvenes on 9 September. The US says its intelligence reports indicate the Syrian government carried out chemical weapons attacks on 21 August in which 1,429 people died. The Syrian government denies it was behind the attacks and blames rebels. UN inspectors have now left Syria with samples from site visits, which will go to laboratories in Europe for testing. Mr Obama said the operation would be limited in duration and strong to deter future chemical attacks. He said the military operation could happen tomorrow, next week or in the near future.

Finian Cunningham: US revealed as enemy of the world - The United States of America stands exposed in the eyes of the entire world as the number-one terrorist threat to the future of humanity. Many have known this fact already, but now it is universally clear. ■ As the US prepares to launch an overt war on Syria (the covert war has been raging for 30 months), the vast majority of humanity can finally see through all its decades of pretense and conceit as the world’s model of democracy and international law. And what they see is the ugly opposite. The US is a terrorist state that holds international law, democracy and human rights in utter contempt. It is ready, as it always has been, to kill countless civilians for its selfish political ambitions. That is the conventional definition of “terrorism”. Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad made a profound point recently when he said that his country has faced aggression for more than two years, but only now is the real enemy revealing itself - the US and its minions. But the US terrorist state is not just being called out over Syria. It is being revealed as the enemy to the entire world.

The Guardian: Obama to seek authorisation from Congress before Syria air strikes
USA Today: Obama seeks military action in Syria
CNN: Obama: US should take military action against Syria
RIA Novosti: Forces Preparing for Possible Strike on Syria - MAP

Officials Irked as Pentagon Faults Lack of Planning ● Secretary of State John Kerry, and then Obama not long after he finished, publicly hyped their “common sense” case for attacking Syria, insisting they have an unassailable case for attack that no one (except virtually the whole rest of the world) could disagree with. But what’s the strategy? That’s where it gets tricky, as the administration lays out a plan of attack that seems incredibly vague at best and in many ways absurdly naive. Officials are content to start lobbing missiles into Syria seemingly just for the heck of it, underscoring that they aren’t planning to accomplish anything on the ground with their strikes except for some sort of explosive-based rebuke of President Assad.

Jason Ditz: US Attack on Syria Expected This Weekend

● They lied about foreknowledge at Pearl Harbor.
● They lied about Bay of Pigs and JFK’s assassination.
● They lied about the Gulf of Tonkin and Vietnam.
● They lied about the Iran–Contra affair.
● They lied about the Gulf War.
● They lied about Waco.
● They lied about the Oklahoma City Bombing.
● They lied about 9/11 and the war in Iraq.
● They lied about Fast and Furious.
● They lied about Libya.
● They are lying about Syria.
● They will lie about Iran.

Marlene Khalifeh Translated from As-Safir (Lebanon) ■ Perhaps this week’s “star announcement” was the statement by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday, Aug. 26, when he said that Russia will not react militarily to a US military intervention in Syria. In Beirut, Zasypkin supported Lavrov’s position and was surprised that some thought that Russia was willing to go to war with the United States and destabilize the world for many years, as happened during the Cold War. He reiterated his country’s positions, which reject bypassing the UN Security Council. He expects that the new US “adventure” will expand the conflict in the region, as the United States did in Iraq and Libya. Zasypkin seemed certain about the Syrian army’s superiority relative to the opposition and, alluding to Iran, he warned about how the Syrian regime’s allies will react to a US strike. Zasypkin accused the “Syrian opposition’s gunmen” of using poison gas against civilians, and he advised the Lebanese people, under these circumstances, to form a government that groups all sides and that doesn’t exclude any party that is represented in the Lebanese parliament.

Russia Today: Washington’s threats to attack Syria unacceptable – Russia

U.S. intelligence services carried out 231 offensive cyber-operations in 2011, the leading edge of a clandestine campaign that embraces the Internet as a theater of spying, sabotage and war, according to top-secret documents obtained by The Washington Post. That disclosure, in a classified intelligence budget provided by NSA leaker Edward Snowden, provides new evidence that the Obama administration's growing ranks of cyberwarriors infiltrate and disrupt foreign computer networks. Additionally, under an extensive effort code-named GENIE, U.S. computer specialists break into foreign networks so that they can be put under surreptitious U.S. control. Budget documents say the $652 million project has placed "covert implants," sophisticated malware transmitted from far away, in computers, routers and firewalls on tens of thousands of machines every year, with plans to expand those numbers into the millions.

● Two days after the world learned the National Security Agency logs practically every American phone call, the agency had started cracking down on entrepreneurs who made fun of it.
● That's according to Dan McCall, founder of politically themed T-shirt company Liberty Maniacs.
● On June 5, the Guardian posted the first of many documents, leaked by former contractor Edward Snowden, that detail NSA's spy practices. Two days later, McCall put up a handful of T-shirts and bumper stickers for sale on the custom goods marketplace Zazzle, which distributes most of Liberty Maniacs' goods. Each of those items had the NSA logo, plus a common joke as a slogan: "The only part of the government that actually listens."
● "Within an hour or two," as McCall told the Daily Dot, Zazzle emailed him to say the shirt had been removed from the Zazzle site.

LibertyBlitzKrieg: Meet the Black Budget: The NSA’s Surveillance Business Model
LibertyBlitzKrieg: A Blockbuster Article on the Dangers of the NSA…From March 27, 1983
Opinion: NSA's surveillance programs are the "most serious attacks on free speech we’ve ever seen."

RT.com has been banned on Reddit’s /r/news section, with moderators accusing it of spamming. Puzzled with absurd allegations, RT views the sanctions as an act of censorship with many redditors expressing the same concern. ● The announcement of the ban appeared on Reddit at around 12:30 GMT Thursday, with the forum's leading moderator posting: "RT.com has been banned for spam and vote manipulation." It was soon followed by another message, saying that “brigading the thread, downvoting, and crying aren't going to change it, sorry.” RT immediately contacted the moderators of the /r/news section, as well as Reddit's press office, to request an explanation. But in more than 24 hours no details that could clarify what may have led to the ban have been provided to RT by Reddit.

The Daily Dot: Reddit's r/news bans RT.com for alleged spamming

Would American direct intervention in Syria be about justice? Can its purpose be clearly defined? Is this a way to send a message to Iran? And has President Obama backed himself into a corner this time? CrossTalking with Pepe Escobar and Stephen Schlesinger.

Dear Mr. Foxman, [...] You are right in saying that I have attacked The Israeli Governments’ policies in Gaza, the West Bank, and in Israel itself. You are wrong in your conclusion that my criticism of the policies of the Government of Israel requires the A.D.L. to “reexamine your attitude towards Jews”. I have no attitude towards Jews. I do not group or categorise human beings in that way. I know many people who are Jewish, I have many very close friends who are Jewish, my two Grandsons are Jewish. I also have many friends who are not Jewish, who are Christian, Moslem, Buddhist, Agnostic, whatever, they are my friends, and I love them, their faith or lack of it is irrelevant to me. I do however have an antipathy to racism and bigotry, I have no time for racists or bigots[...]. Yours sincerely, Roger Waters

The Jewish Times of Israel editor, veteran Zionist Supremacist and agent David Horovitz, has shown the world the true nature of Zionist Supremacism in a hatred-filled editorial attacking “perfidious Albion” for daring not to believe Jewish propaganda about Syria. ● In an editorial titled “Perfidious Albion hands murderous Assad a spectacular victory,” Horovitz asserted that “ a perfect storm of British ineptitude and gutlessness sent the wrong message to the butcher of Damascus, and left Israel more certain than ever that it can only rely on itself.” Horovitz’s hatred of the country he was born in, and its native people, drips from the wording in his editorial. He says that the British decision not to immediately attack Syria just because the Zionists said they should, was the result of “political ineptitude, short-sighted expediency, and gutlessness.” Hortovitz’s own newspaper earlier confirmed that “Israeli intelligence” was the single source for the “evidence” about the claimed chemical attack. The outpouring of hatred against Britain by Horovitz accurately reflects Jewish Supremacist attitudes towards non-Jews: as long as the latter do Jewish bidding, they are “righteous Gentiles,” but as soon as they dare question their Master’s Voice, they are “perfidious” and “unreliable.”

PressTV: Israel main beneficiary of US attack on Syria: Analyst - VIDEO
Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya: Yinon’s Revenge? A Panorama of Chaos in the Arab World