I Spy With My Little Eye

Being of tender sensibilities, you will no doubt be shocked to learn that the United States actually spies on other countries.  

And sometimes it finds out really, really important stuff:

Exclusive: Intercepted Calls Prove Syrian Army Used Nerve Gas, U.S. Spies Say 

Last Wednesday, in the hours after a horrific chemical attack east of Damascus, an official at the Syrian Ministry of Defense exchanged panicked phone calls with a leader of a chemical weapons unit, demanding answers for a nerve agent strike that killed more than 1,000 people. Those conversations were overheard by U.S. intelligence services, The Cable has learned. And that is the major reason why American officials now say they're certain that the attacks were the work of the Bashar al-Assad regime -- and why the U.S. military is likely to attack that regime in a matter of days.

But the intercept raises questions about culpability for the chemical massacre, even as it answers others: Was the attack on Aug. 21 the work of a Syrian officer overstepping his bounds? Or was the strike explicitly directed by senior members of the Assad regime? "It's unclear where control lies," one U.S. intelligence official told The Cable. "Is there just some sort of general blessing to use these things? Or are there explicit orders for each attack?" 

Nor are U.S. analysts sure of the Syrian military's rationale for launching the strike -- if it had a rationale at all. Perhaps it was a lone general putting a long-standing battle plan in motion; perhaps it was a miscalculation by the Assad government. Whatever the reason, the attack has triggered worldwide outrage, and put the Obama administration on the brink of launching a strike of its own in Syria. "We don't know exactly why it happened," the intelligence official added. "We just know it was pretty fucking stupid."

American intelligence analysts are certain that chemical weapons were used on Aug. 21 -- the captured phone calls, combined with local doctors' accounts and video documentation of the tragedy -- are considered proof positive. That is why the U.S. government, from the president on down, has been unequivocal in its declarations that the Syrian military gassed thousands of civilians in the East Ghouta region. 

However, U.S. spy services still have not acquired the evidence traditionally considered to be the gold standard in chemical weapons cases: soil, blood, and other environmental samples that test positive for reactions with nerve agent. That's the kind of proof that America and its allies processed from earlier, small-scale attacks that the White House described in equivocal tones, and declined to muster a military response to in retaliation.
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How fortunate that in this cold, hard world, the poor, beleaguered, snooped-upon Assad regime can at least count on support from it's dear friend and staunch ally, Vladimir Putin:

Russia says Western attack on Syria would be ‘catastrophic’

MOSCOW — A Western military attack on Syria would only create more problems in the region, lead to more bloodshed and result in the same sort of “catastrophe” as previous such interventions in Iraq and Libya, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said Monday.

“Hysteria is growing, and confrontation is incited,” Lavrov said in what he portrayed as an emergency news conference. He said the United States and its European allies have condemned the regime of Bashar al-Assad without any evidence that it actually used chemical weapons in an attack in the Damascus suburbs on Wednesday.

Turkey, Britain and France indicated Monday that they would back the Obama administration if it decided to act against Syria in response to the alleged chemical weapons attack, even without a mandate from the United Nations.

Russia has been a stalwart ally of Assad, refusing to allow U.N. action to intervene in Syria’s conflict. On Monday, the Russian newspaper Izvestia published an interview with Assad in which he warned the West against military intervention and noted that Moscow continues to sell arms to Damascus under the terms of existing contracts.

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And what a stroke of darn good luck it was that just that as tensions in the region escalate exponentially and the stakes in the game of trying to tries to suss out the other players' intentions and capabilities skyrocket,  in addition to Bashar al-Assad's firm friendship to lean on, Vladimir Putin now has his very own NSA analyst-in-exile crashing right on his own futon!  An NSA analyst-in-exile who is carrying around oodles of exotic details about the sources and methods of American intelligence and who now depends entirely on the goodwill of Vladimir Putin for his continued liberty and good health.