70 percent of Americans oppose the Administration’s recently-revealed plans to send light weaponry to the Syrian rebels, according to a new poll from the Pew Center.

The poll, conducted in roughly equal parts before and after the United States government revealed that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons against the rebels, asked respondents to give their opinion on “the US and its allies giving arms to anti-government groups in Syria.” A scant 20 percent of Americans said they would favor this course of action, while nine percent had no opinion.

These results are in keeping with two previous Pew polls, in March and December of 2012, that asked the same question, suggesting American public opinion on the question of providing arms had not changed alongside the shifting contours of the Syrian conflict itself.

Other polling on intervention in Syria’s war has been more mixed. A Gallup poll conducted in late May asking whether should use military force if diplomacy fails to resolve the conflict found 68 percent opposed the idea. However, an April Pew poll found a plurality of Americans would support taking military action against the Assad regime if we could confirm it used chemical weapons.

The most recent Pew poll suggested American opposition to intervention in Syria was practical, not principled. By a significant 53-36 margin, Pew found Americans believed it was “important that the United States support people opposing authoritarian regimes.” Similarly, a plurality said that the US “had a moral obligation to do what it could to stop the violence” in Syria. However, huge majorities — 68-27 and 60-25, respectively — of those polled suggested the United States military was too burdened as is and that the rebels weren’t necessarily much better than the Assad regime itself.

Though Republicans, Democrats, and Independents opposed providing arms to the rebels at nearly-identical levels, Democrats were more likely to say the rebels were better than Assad and that the US had an obligation to stop the killing than Republicans and Independents were. Despite the public’s ambivalence, Congressional leaders from both parties and both chambers have expressed their desire for President Obama to move forward with arming Syria’s rebels.

The most recent United Nations estimate suggests 93,000 people have been killed in the brutal war, which began after the Assad regime repeatedly fired en masse on non-violent demonstrators. The bulk of those dead, according the UN, have been civilians.

The United States on Thursday confirmed that the Syrian government used chemical weapons on its own people, ending weeks of uncertainty over precisely who had unleashed the deadly agents.

Evidence that chemical agents — likely sarin nerve gas — were used in Syria has existed for months, with France, the United Kingdom, Israel, and Turkey all certain that they had been utilized under the authority of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against the opposition. The United States remained the lone hold-out in fully embracing that theory, citing a lack of certainty over the chain of custody of the evidence.

That uncertainty apparently no longer exists within the U.S. intelligence community. According to a statement from the White House, the intelligence community now with a high-degree of confidence “estimates that 100 to 150 people have died from detected chemical weapons attacks.” The White House also indicated that the United States is “going to make decisions about further action on our own timeline.”

According to the New York Times, a Central Intelligence Agency report says that the United States has obtained “blood, urine and hair samples from two Syrian rebels” who were engaged in skirmishes with the Syrian government in mid-March. These samples, according to the report, support the conclusion that the Assad government used the sarin and still maintains control of their weapons stockpile.

President Obama has long called the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime a “red-line,” one that would be met with unspecified consequences if it were to be crossed. The determination that the line has been crossed has led to the Obama administration finally deciding to provide more and greater types of support to the Syrian rebels in their attempts to overthrow Assad.

On a call with reporters, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said Obama has decided to give the rebels “military support,” but refused to directly say whether the U.S. had decided to arm Syria’s rebels, saying he was unable to detail every type of support the Syrian rebels will be receiving. Rhodes stressed, however, that this aid would be “responsive” to the requests of the Syrian Military Council and that it would be “substantively different” in “both scope and scale than what we have provided before.” The Obama administration has mulled arming the rebels for months now without pulling the trigger, instead insisting on only providing non-lethal aid.

The decision should be met with strong support from Congress, where the Senate Foreign Relations Committee recently voted to approve the transfer of arms to the rebels. More contentious, however, is a military proposal that would enact a “partial No-Fly Zone” extending into Syria from the Jordanian border. This zone, according to the Wall Street Journal, could possibly extend as far as 25 miles into Syrian territory. Rhodes made clear, however, that no decision has been made yet to launch any military operation regarding Syria.

It’s less than clear how the public will respond to this news. Recent polls have showed that while a plurality of Americans support the use of force in the face of Assad using chemical weapons, they remain uncertain if not outright opposed towards military intervention in Syria more broadly.

The United Nations on Wednesday released its annual report on children and armed conflict and the results are grim, with more than two dozen groups cited as intentionally targeting children in their fighting.

Every year, the Secretary-General of the United Nations is mandated to provide an update to the body’s General Assembly and Security Council on the countries and groups that still utilize child soldiers when waging war. The report also has to include information on how children are affected by armed conflict more broadly, and detail instances if and when their human rights are violated in conflicts around the world. Unfortunately, Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s report for 2013 seems to indicate that this was a banner year in each category.

Fifty-five groups made the United Nations’ “List of Shame” this year, contained in an annex at the end of the report, naming those who either actively recruit child soldiers to their ranks or intentionally target children for harm. These range from rebel groups like the M23 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to terrorist groups such as Ansar Dine in Mali, to government security forces including the Afghan National Police. Twenty-nine of those groups have been listed in every report for the last five years, earning them the title of “persistent perpetrators.”

“The absence of clear front lines and identifiable opponents, the increasing use of terror tactics by some armed groups and certain methods used by security forces have made children more vulnerable,” the report laments, describing instances of schools under attack, children arrested and tortured, and sexual violence committed against youth. Details of abuses against children in twenty-four countries around the world are made harrowingly clear throughout. Secretary-General Ban in particular called attention to the situation in Syria, calling the toll on children “unacceptable and unbearable.”

The report also worries about the introduction of armed drones into warfare. Citing not only reports of children being killed in drone strikes, including reports of at least 50 children dying in strikes in Yemen, it also examines the psychological effect that their use has on youth. “Reports further indicate that the use of drones has a wider impact on children, especially their access to education,” the report warns, adding that “in some situations, both boys and girls have ceased attending school owing to the fear of drone strikes.”

Not everything contained in the report is negative, however, as several groups have been removed from the List of Shame this year. Myanmar, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo all signed action plans with the United Nations in 2012, pledging to remove children from within the ranks of their armies. This is outweighed though by the addition of 14 new groups and governments to the list this year.

The deadline for House members to submit their proposed amendments to the Lower Chamber’s version of the Fiscal Year 2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passed on Tuesday, leaving an avalanche of offered changes in its wake. While the House NDAA will still need to be merged with its eventual Senate counterpart in conference committee, many of its provisions will likely find themselves in the final bill.

A total of 291 amendments were sent to the House Rules Committee, which will decide on Wednesday how the floor debate will proceed and how many of these amendments will be discussed. ThinkProgress read through them all so you don’t have to, pulling out some of the amendments that would do the most to improve the bill that moves forward:

1. Repeal the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF).

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) frequently touts the fact that she was the only member of Congress to vote against the AUMF when first written in 2001. Now, twelve years later, Lee is still fighting to repeal it, but now she has President Obama’s backing — in principle. Obama has expressed an interest in revising the AUMF before it’s eventual repeal, but Lee’s amendment jumps straight to the end. If passed, it would have the AUMF repealed on Jan. 1, 2015 or when the war ends in Afghanistan, whichever comes first.

2. Set up a framework to close Gitmo.

Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) serves as the Ranking Member on the House Armed Services Committee, a position from which he has long advocated the closure of the military prision at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This year, he and several of his colleagues are attempting to insert language into the NDAA doing just that. While it’s a long shot, if it passed Smith’s amendment would add into the NDAA the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility Closure Act of 2013, which would lift the ban on transferring detainees into the U.S. for imprisonment or trial and cutting off all funding to the prison after 2014.

3. Add more oversight to the administration’s targeted killing program.

House Armed Services Committee Vice-Chair Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX) won passage in committee of his provision to have the Secretary of Defense brief his committee and its Senate counterpart every time the administration conducted a kill or capture operation outside of Afghanistan. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wants to expand that oversight even further. Under Engel’s amendment, Foreign Affairs as well as the House’s Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence would also have to receive the same briefing, increasing the members of Congress in the know.
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As the international community continues to struggle with how to respond to the ongoing violence in Syria, the Pentagon has developed a new doctrine on how to use military force in preventing and ending mass atrocities.

In August 2012, the Department of Defense updated its doctrine on “Peace Operations,” dictating the recommended procedures for participating in multilateral peacekeeping or peace-enforcing efforts. While the doctrine’s update was completed last year, it remained completely hidden from the public, until the Federation of American Scientists obtained it through a Freedom of Information Act request. In revising Joint Publication 3-07.3, the Pentagon opted to create a new appendix on what they refer to as “Mass Atrocity Response Operations” (MARO).

Going beyond the normal scale of fighting seen in civil wars and other conflicts, mass atrocities according to DOD consist of “widespread and often systematic acts of violence against civilians by state or non-state armed groups, including killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, or deliberately inflicting conditions of life that cause serious bodily or mental harm.”

The document stresses that the military can and should incorporate MARO considerations into its planning and operations whenever appropriate. To facilitate this, the doctrine lists a variety of considerations military planners and strategists should keep in mind when developing operations, including the requirement for a high degree of situational understanding — knowing precisely who the actors are in the conflict, how they interact, and what other forces are at play — and designing a strategic communications plan to both explain the situation and influence the perpetrators.

It also determines five phases that MARO goes through and provides planners with seven approaches that can be mixed and matched in ending atrocities:

1. Area Security — secure a large area with sufficient force deployed in unit sectors.

2. Shape-Clear-Hold-Build — systematically secure limited areas and expand when able.

3. Separation — establish a DMZ or similar buffer zone between perpetrators and victims.

4. Safe Areas — secure concentrations of vulnerable populations such as IDP camps.

5. Partner Enabling — provide advisors, equipment, or specialized support such as deployment or airpower to coalition partners, host nation, or victim groups.

6. Containment — influence perpetrator behavior with strikes, blockades, or no-fly zones.

7. Defeat Perpetrators — attack and defeat perpetrator leadership and/or capabilities.

Joint Publication 3-07.3 makes clear that the decision on whether a situation should be categorized as “an actual or potential” mass atrocity is one that should be left up to national level leadership. It also includes several warnings about the ways in which any military intervention, even when conducted for the best of reasons, can have unpredictable second- and third-order effects.

“MARO may create moral dilemmas for the PO [Peace Operations] force, including whether potential courses of action to halt a mass atrocity that might assist a perpetrator’s long-term aims,” it warns. Even something as basic as protecting civilians could prove to be detrimental, as if “seen to be defending civilians who are linked to only one of the parties, without adjusting to ensure protection for all civilians, both victims and perpetrators will perceive the PO force as anything but impartial.”

The timing of the release means it comes just as the international community prepares to meet once again in Geneva to determine a course of action in ending the civil war in Syria. So far, the conflict has cost the lives of at least 80,000 Syrians, with the vast majority dead at the hands of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s security forces.
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The top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations committee sent a letter to President Obama on Monday urging him to send arms to moderate Syrian rebels quickly, fearing that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces are beginning to turn the tide of the war.

According to Yahoo News, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) — a co-sponsor of a recent bill passed out of his committee calling on the U.S. to arm the rebels — told Obama that “[a]cting now and offering lethal aid directly to our allies in the opposition will shift momentum away from radical Islamist groups, the Assad regime and its militias toward more moderate elements and could help alter the balance of power on the ground at a time when negotiations over a political settlement have stalled.”

Syrian rebels made urgent pleas over the weekend to the U.S. to send arms after losing control of a city near the Lebanese border to Hezbollah militants allied with Assad’s forces. A State Department official said the Obama administration is “taking a closer look” at what the U.S. can do to help the opposition. But experts say the U.S. may be running out of time.

“I think the rebels are in trouble,” Jeffrey White, a former Middle East analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency who is now a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told the New York Times. “Speed is of the essence. The regime’s momentum needs to be brought to a halt.”

At 2:14 AM on Thursday, the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) passed the National Defense Authorization Act of 2014 (NDAA), a massive $638 billion bill designed to fund all military spending and chart military policy for the for the coming fiscal year. An avalanche of amendments greatly changed the original make-up Chairman Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) presented earlier this week, eventually passing the committee with a vote of 59-2. Here are some of the provisions in the bill that you should know about before it reaches the House floor:

What’s Good

1. Addresses The Military’s Sexual Assault Crisis

In the light of the multitude of scandals and damning reports of sexual assault within the ranks of the military, the HASC added several provisions to the NDAA that reforms the current military justice system. Under the new language, military commanders will be stripped of their ability to dismiss the findings of courts-martial’s juries, something that the military’s leadership has opposed. Commanders will also be unable to reduce sentences imposed on those found guilty of sexual crimes, as one general did in the case that first launched the renewed interest in the issue in February.

In addition, new minimum sentencing guidelines for sexual assault in the military were included, while also adding rape, sexual assault, or other sexual misconduct to the protected communications of service members with a Member of Congress or an Inspector General, essentially bringing protections for those who report military sexual assault in line with those for government whistleblowers.
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