Did Susan Rice forget to tell Samantha Power about this little detail?  Is John Kerry not up-to-speed on international conventions, rules and procedures?  Is there some kind of opinion somewhere, recently written within the administration, that provides Obama with justification for going outside the UN charter?

Honestly, I just don't know what to think.  Are we sitting on the sidelines about to see a horrific multi-vehicle, chain-reaction car crash, or are we going to witness the most brilliant example of high-speed, championship driving?

I worry that these people are so enamored of whatever their plan is, and so convinced it will work, that they believe no one will care if they have to violate the UN charter to do it.  

Kerry: Arab countries offered to pay for invasion

Secretary of State John Kerry said at Wednesday's hearing that Arab counties have offered to pay for the entirety of unseating President Bashar al-Assad if the United States took the lead militarily.

"With respect to Arab countries offering to bear costs and to assess, the answer is profoundly yes," Kerry said. "They have. That offer is on the table."

Asked by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) about how much those countries would contribute, Kerry said they have offered to pay for all of a full invasion.

"In fact, some of them have said that if the United States is prepared to go do the whole thing the way we've done it previously in other places, they'll carry that cost," Kerry said.

Now why would they offer that?

Coincidentally?

Syrians In Ghouta Claim Saudi-Supplied Rebels Behind Chemical Attack

Rebels and local residents in Ghouta accuse Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan of providing chemical weapons to an al-Qaida linked rebel group.
[...snip...]
"My son came to me two weeks ago asking what I thought the weapons were that he had been asked to carry," said Abu Abdel-Moneim, the father of a rebel fighting to unseat Assad, who lives in Ghouta.

Abdel-Moneim said his son and 12 other rebels were killed inside of a tunnel used to store weapons provided by a Saudi militant, known as Abu Ayesha, who was leading a fighting battalion. The father described the weapons as having a "tube-like structure" while others were like a "huge gas bottle."

Ghouta townspeople said the rebels were using mosques and private houses to sleep while storing their weapons in tunnels.

Abdel-Moneim said his son and the others died during the chemical weapons attack. That same day, the militant group Jabhat al-Nusra, which is linked to al-Qaida, announced that it would similarly attack civilians in the Assad regime's heartland of Latakia on Syria's western coast, in purported retaliation.

"They didn't tell us what these arms were or how to use them," complained a female fighter named `K.' "We didn't know they were chemical weapons. We never imagined they were chemical weapons."

"When Saudi Prince Bandar gives such weapons to people, he must give them to those who know how to handle and use them," she warned. She, like other Syrians, do not want to use their full names for fear of retribution.

A well-known rebel leader in Ghouta named `J' agreed. "Jabhat al-Nusra militants do not cooperate with other rebels, except with fighting on the ground. They do not share secret information. They merely used some ordinary rebels to carry and operate this material," he said.

The assassination attempt on Bush 41 was more reason in itself to attack Iraq.  And no, I didn't support the second invasion of Iraq, but compared to this I did!

I know.  The gassing.  The gassing.

But as KOS would say (and it's totally thru the looking glass when I'm quoting KOS).

The U.S. has been happy to be spectators to conflicts in Darfur, Congo, Burma, Sudan, Kashmir, Somalia and dozens of other places around the globe. Unfortunately, there's no shortage of war, religious strife, ethnic cleansing, separatist insurgencies, foreign adventurism, or nationalistic fights in our planet. And yes, we're stuck being spectators to most of those situations because the alternative is unpalatable.

Some of the atrocities mentioned above are ongoing.  And we STFU.  Why, then, must we act on what is arguably, a much, much smaller case (somewhere between 300 and 1400 victims)?

No one seems engaged in the business of the hard thinking and hard work that should entail the most momentous decision any country can take - the decision to go to war.

Of course I agree with this concise and precise statement.

It is difficult it seems to me to characterize the mindset of a President who is seeking to push this resolution through, a resolution so lacking in "thinking and hard work", without resorting to verbiage that is extreme. So I am sympathetic to Dadler below in his use of language that is "over the top".

After all, it is our very lives Mr. Obama is toying with, as well as the lives of the Syrian people who are caught in the grip of an ongoing civil war.

Ignoring the UN is not something that is particular to this administration. GW Bush did it in grand style. I remember when they took their WMD scenario to the UN, and it became obvious that no one except the principals in that farce were particularly impressed. I think it was Rummy who said, "Well, we don't need their permission". That's the attitude that still prevails in D.C.

To further muddy the waters, and to further illustrate the lack of serious thought, or honest presentation of what Obama actually wants to get in this resolution, is the reality of the nature of the rebels in Syria.

The front page of todays Times shows a group of rebel soldiers standing over a group of prisoners who are stripped to the waist and lying face down on the ground before them.

They then proceeded to shoot them all, dead.

There is also the suspicion, admittedly unverified, that it is the rebels who have used chemical weapons. Also unverified is the use by the government because Obama has such apparent contempt for the UN that he will not wait for the report of their inspectors - who were made to flee Syria lest they be caught in a rain of American bombs.

I hope that the members of Congress will rise above partisanship and any other considerations other than the reality of what has
been presented to them by the Obama administration - its impact upon the American people and the rest of the world.

.....the President was implying, quite forthrightly, that because the UNSC system is often dysfunctional when humanitarian crises are at stake, there may be times when breaches of Article 2(4) of the Charter are legitimate or even morally compelled.....

What the President goes on to suggest, however, is that "in those circumstances"-that is, when "humanity is impacted in a profound way" but the Charter system is incapable of action-"it's important for us to get out of the habit" of the President acting unilaterally.  That is to say, such a breach of a treaty obligation is a very solemn thing, one that ought to be done only rarely and reluctantly, and-most importantly-with the concurrence of Congress, rather than by the President alone.

how are either of these a bad thing?

Regarding treaty obligations, he goes on to cite  Kosovo:

The other day, I suggested that the President does not have the constitutional power to unilaterally put the U.S. in violation of a treaty obligation, even when it might be the morally proper course of action-which is why I continue to think the Kosovo decision was so troubling from a constitutional perspective.

IANAL, and certainly no international law expert.  Nonetheless, after reading the Chemical Weapons Convention, I'm wondering if concerns about chemical weapons use in Kosovo and Syria, provide a justification for action that people making arguments for/against aren't familiar with.

This clause specifically:

Nothing in this Convention shall be interpreted as impeding the right of States Parties to request and provide assistance bilaterally and to conclude individual agreements with other States Parties concerning the emergency procurement of assistance.

Is it a treaty violation if some other treaty specifically allows the conduct?

The reasons are shifting faster than desert sands: send a message;  punishment, a shot across the bow, deter and degrade, or, Mr. Kerry's newest argument given to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: extremist groups fighting against the Syrian government will become stronger if the US did not carry out a military strike.  Of course, as Mr. Kerry added, some of our Arab friends  will provide arms and financing to the best rebel fighters, regardless of whether they are extremists, and then we will have created more extremists and a greater long term problem down the road.  

So, I guess there is some long term strategies lurking in their own confusion. It is true that many Arab nations will hold our coat while we do the fighting, but do not worry, they will stuff the pockets with cash.

This end run around the UN is the most destructive effort against its capabilities since John Bolton proposed knocking off 10 stories of the 38 story UN Secretariat building in NYC.  And, we have not even tried to bring the matter to the UN, assuming that it would be blocked by Russia and China.  Of course, Mr. Obama was in Sweden because he scotched his private meeting with Putin.

The first round at the summit went to Putin, as China, the European Union, the BRICS emerging economies and Pope Francis - in a letter - warned of the dangers of military intervention without the approval of the U.N. Security Council.

"Military action would have a negative impact on the global economy, especially on the oil price - it will cause a hike in the oil price," Chinese Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao said.

The BRICS - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - echoed that remark, and the Pope, who leads the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, urged the G20 leaders to "lay aside the futile pursuit of a military solution".

European Union leaders described the August 21 attack near Damascus, which killed up to 1,400 people, as "abhorrent" but said: "There is no military solution to the Syrian conflict."

[...]

Putin says rebel forces may have carried out the poison gas attack and that any military strike without Security Council approval would violate international law, a view now being supported increasingly openly by others - including countries that have usually disagreed with Moscow on Syria.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi are also in St. Petersburg to push for diplomacy rather than military options, and support efforts to organize an international peace conference on Syria.

Putin's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, portrayed the "camp of supporters of a strike on Syria" as divided, and said: "It is impossible to say that very many states support the idea of a military operation."

"Don't worry -- this war won't be another Syria."
-- Whoever's president in 2023

You are talking irrational and illogical and plain ol' stupid that you can't get at the five and dime. Takes a special kind of incompetent mind.

But quite honestly, I remain totally unconvinced regarding the presumed effectiveness of the Obama administration's proposed punitive military attack against Damascus, the ostensive purpose of which is to degrade the Syrian government's capacity to deploy and use chemical weapons in the future.

Pursuing a course of coercive military action simply for its own sake, without first identifying a clear and rationale objective for said undertaking, is the sort of classic bullheaded policy which can only increase one's risk of quagmire. I think most of us out here in America's political hinterlands can both see and sense that, regardless of whatever side of the aisle our political orientations and preferences may lay.

And while I'll give the Obama administration some credit for taking the case to Congress, the American people's past collective experience with the 2003 Iraq AUMF resolution is probably the primary reason why the prospects for congressional authorization of the currently proposed Syria AUMF are perhaps marginal at best.

Granted, this is a gnarly political and diplomatic situation in which most all available choices fall into the categories of "Bad" and "Worse," and I really don't envy the president right now. But that said, I bet I could make an eminently logical case for resurrecting a modern-day Ottoman Empire by ceding the entire phuquin' region back to Turkey, and get more public buy-in for that crackpot proposal than what's presently being offered for public consumption by the Obama administration.

If the ultimate -- but heretofore unspoken -- goal of this proposed undertaking is to seek and secure regime change in Damascus, then let's please be forthright with the American people and just say so upfront, and then be prepared to offer a compelling reason why that might ultimately prove better for everyone involved than the presently deteriorating status quo.

And if that's the decision, then let's be wide-eyed and fully cognizant of the fact that imposing regime change is often an inherently messy business, and that we should further be prepared to stay the course and try to craft at least a palatable outcome.

But regardless of what ultimately plays out in Washington over the next week or so, I believe that per their own actions and decisions, the Assad family has probably chosen the same path once trod by the Bourbons, Romanovs and the Ceausescus.

If Congress's forthcoming decision in this matter is to deny the administration's request, with the result being that the West sits on the sidelines while the ongoing tragedy in Syria is allowed to play out in full, then I see three things happening, in this order:

• The Assad regime's eroding position can only become more desperate;
  
• The opposition will only become more radicalized with every escalating attempt by the Syrian government to forestall the inevitable; and
  
• Whatever emerges from the carnage in Syria will probably not be to our liking.

I think the Chinese official just pis*ed on faces of people who think that the Chinese, Russians and other countries are not supporting the United States in enforcing internationl law against war crimes because the USA is in the wrong or has burned bridges with other countries by bypassing the UN in the past. No stooopid, many countries do not care about UN agreements they signed because they are more worried about oil prices. Yes, this is also oil politics and not the kind you think!
-------
"A senior Chinese official, backing Russia in opposing a U.S.-led military strike in Syria, warned that such action would hurt the global economy.

It "will definitely have a negative impact on the world economy," said Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao, speaking ahead of the Group of 20 summit here.

Add to that that news networks ask Donald Rumsfeld to weigh in and he claims this is a crisis of leadership on Obamas part and nobody puts up the photos of Rumsfeld with Saddam during Saddams war with Iran when he was using chemical weapons on Iranians.