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US bombs Syria

I have no doubt about the truth of an air raid.

IF this was a chemical attack by the Syrian regime, I do agree there needs to be international action against it. Why ? Because with chemical weapons and thinking beyond it biological and radiological ones, I think we have to make a special case for delivering consequences to the perpetrator. Otherwise if we allow it to normalise, where does it end ? Although the actual casualty figures for victims of gas attacks, including those back in the day of Saddam's Iraq, are actually small compared to the slaughter caused by general war with conventional weapons, we do need to make a special case for chemical, biological and radiological weapons use. We've got to keep it under control ; keep the genie in that bottle. Same goes for nuclear proliferation - something we have unfortunately failed in doing mind.

( oh, a little side nugget ........ who gassed the Kurds before Saddam ? ............. why us, way back in the era of bi-planes ! Nothing to do with this mind, but ..... )

But if it was Assad ( or his responsibility ) then it will have been pretty stupid of him !
My god - to think, what exactly is supposed to replace the regime ? I'd agree we cannot let chemical attacks stand without sanction, but if it is them , what do we replace it with ? Also what kind of extended slaughter might there be, if western forces were to entangle on the ground and have to remain indefinitely - with the usual consequences which by now we should be aware of. It would play right into the hands of the Islamists too i.e. look, see what the Infidel does, look come to us, fight with us.

Mess.

I do hope Assad hasn't been stupid.

I don't believe he has. Its something else.
 
Thing is, this one incident has totally, utterly and completely changed the policy of the Trump administration to Syria.

To the point where we have the first ever direct US attack on Assad and now talk of regime change being inevitable.

The narrative and photos were all ready to be presented to the UN within 24 hours. No independent investigation has been conducted.

Anyone who doesn't think "gee, that looks a bit suspicious" probably still thinks the WMD were just very well hidden in Iraq.

I mean, frankly, it's all at least a bit suspicious, isn't it?
 
notaclue said:
I mean, frankly, it's all at least a bit suspicious, isn't it?
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content


https://books.google.ca/books/about...l?id=7_6nag-5rt0C&source=kp_cover&redir_esc=y


vuk.
 
Trump: “When you kill innocent children, innocent babies, babies, little babies, with a chemical gas that is so lethal – people were shocked to hear what gas it was. That crosses many, many lines, beyond a red line, many, many lines.”

And a few decades back...

http://www.prwatch.org/books/tsigfy10.html

"Every big media event needs what journalists and flacks alike refer to as "the hook." An ideal hook becomes the central element of a story that makes it newsworthy, evokes a strong emotional response, and sticks in the memory. In the case of the Gulf War, the "hook" was invented by Hill & Knowlton. In style, substance and mode of delivery, it bore an uncanny resemblance to England's World War I hearings that accused German soldiers of killing babies."
....
"In fact, the most emotionally moving testimony on October 10 came from a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, known only by her first name of Nayirah ... Nayirah said. "While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where ... babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die."83

Three months passed between Nayirah's testimony and the start of the war. During those months, the story of babies torn from their incubators was repeated over and over again. President Bush told the story. It was recited as fact in Congressional testimony, on TV and radio talk shows, and at the UN Security Council. "Of all the accusations made against the dictator," MacArthur observed, "none had more impact on American public opinion than the one about Iraqi soldiers removing 312 babies from their incubators and leaving them to die on the cold hospital floors of Kuwait City."84"
...
"Following the war, human rights investigators attempted to confirm Nayirah's story and could find no witnesses or other evidence to support it. Amnesty International, which had fallen for the story, was forced to issue an embarrassing retraction. Nayirah herself was unavailable for comment. "This is the first allegation I've had that she was the ambassador's daughter," said Human Rights Caucus co-chair John Porter. "Yes, I think people ... were entitled to know the source of her testimony." When journalists for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation asked Nasir al-Sabah for permission to question Nayirah about her story, the ambassador angrily refused."
 
Cloth-Ears said:
( oh, a little side nugget ........ who gassed the Kurds before Saddam ? ............. why us, way back in the era of bi-planes ! Nothing to do with this mind, but ..... )
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This is a fallacy. There is no doubt that it was contemplated (Churchill in particular was in favour - he muttered something about not understanding the squeamishness about using gas), but there is no evidence that poison gas was ever used. Some tear gas might have been used, and perhaps this is where the rumour started.
 
I saw a documentary about having dropped mustard on them, manually out of bi-planes. I can't remember who did the doc. If its wrong its wrong, I wouldn't know. Btw, how do you know to assert it is wrong ? I recall it being said that it was justified on the basis that the shock of it prevented further violent unrest which was estimated to result in much higher casualties if it went ahead. Again, I don't know really, its just the memory of the documentary. Maybe you can elaborate.

Interesting to talk about this though, to think that such misconceptions can arise with all that time to consider what happened and with the research that went / could have went into it and still get it wrong. Now we have with this latest gas attack and here be such certainty as to what happened, so quickly, despite the motives of other concerned parties being factors, despite past behaviour, past misunderstandings and mistakes to rush to blame, etc. So much so, the US is prepared to launch cruise missiles against a country fighting against the supposed enemy, the Islamists. A country who are allied with and militarily involved with Russia, the power which to find yourself shooting at would involve the most serious risk of any other power on the planet. To be so sure so quickly as to risk this. Its madness. Even with warnings given prior to the attack, if the attacks carry on, how long before we see US-Russian clashes even if mistaken ?
 
The argument that this was not done by Assad only seems compelling if you think of Syria in terms of a conventional war between state actors. Less so when you think in terms of a brutal dictatorship attempting to terrorise and demoralise the majority population into submission and defeat. See this NYT piece for example: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/06/world/middleeast/syria-bashar-al-assad-russia-sarin-attack.html

Additionally, Assad's concern is not really military victory which has been more or less assured since the Russians fully committed and the war turned in his favour. But rather what happens in the long run and how a Russian / US detente may end with him being some kind of sacrificial pawn. http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/04/why_did_assad_use_nerve_gas.html
 
Many of the people promoting the story of the aerial bombing "accidentally" detonating chemical munitions stored by the rebels, or something, are the same people who assured us confidently that MH17 was downed by a Ukrainian jet fighter. Then that it had been destroyed by a Buk missile, but fired by the Ukrainian army. "Why would the Ukrainian rebels do something as stupid as shoot down a civilian airliner?" Etc.
 
Cloth-Ears said:
I saw a documentary about having dropped mustard on them, manually out of bi-planes. I can't remember who did the doc. If its wrong its wrong, I wouldn't know. Btw, how do you know to assert it is wrong ? I recall it being said that it was justified one the basis that the shock of it prevented further violent unrest which was estimated to result in much higher casualties if it went ahead. Again, I don't know really, its just the memory of the documentary. Maybe you can elaborate.
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The subject has been dealt with in a number of books on the creation of the Middle East post-WW1 and the end of the Turkish Empire and the creation of Iraq. There's no doubt that Churchill (very much the midwife of Iraq) was very much in favour, and that is ovten taken as proof that it happened, but in fact wiser heads prevailed. Besides, the British had no supplies of mustard gas to hand and its effectiveness when dropped from the small bombs that current aircraft could carry rendered the whole exercise pointless. (Winston wasn't big on detail).

This is as good a summation as any:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleged_British_use_of_chemical_weapons_in_Mesopotamia_in_1920
 
PsB said:
Many of the people promoting the story of the aerial bombing "accidentally" detonating chemical munitions stored by the rebels, or something, are the same people who assured us confidently that MH17 was downed by a Ukrainian jet fighter. Then that it had been destroyed by a Buk missile, but fired by the Ukrainian army. "Why would the Ukrainian rebels do something as stupid as shoot down a civilian airliner?" Etc.
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Speculators can be wrong about one thing and right about another. And how do you know they "are the same people" ? Do you keep records / tabs on them ?

I'd still refer you and remind you about the previous gas incident which Kerry was using to trigger an assault and later turned out to be wrong.

We just do not know yet, about this. So many different possibilities but in the meantime, we can consider the logic of motivations. Beyond that I have no special knowledge, just a healthy suspicion about behaviours based on past history ( which we never seem to learn from )
 
It's "the same people" in the sense that the argument seems to come from similar credulous sources who could do with arming themselves with an occam's razor.
 
I think people expressing caution with this are right. Once more, I will remind you of last time with gas in Syria. And comment on how quickly conclusions were come to here, despite the obvious existing reasons for caution - and that was enough to trigger a cruise missile barrage. I don't KNOW what happened. We shall / may see. Or maybe it will all be lost and also moot if the US goes and attacks full on. And yet, we're supposed to be against the Islamists. Hmmm And what will the Russians do ? Quietly step aside ?
 
Consider this piece by Jimmy Dore.

I will caution that it is two days old and specific things he picks holes in may be wrong in the light of updated information. I do not know. He also perhaps makes too much of those specific things as evidence it was false, I will concede. But the greater point of the video is the analysis of the situation and the logic involved among the players.

I like Jimmy Dore. I know him from the Young Turks show. I find him too progressive on many things and he can annoy me. But, I do like him for his honesty and his passion. I read the other day, a lot of right wing or libertarian types enjoy watching Jimmy Dore. I myself find myself going directly to his own channel, shown here.

I/we cannot know yet, if ever, he's right about the specific problems he brings out with the official story, but I agree with his way of thinking about it.


 
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Cloth-Ears said:
Speculators can be wrong about one thing and right about another. And how do you know they "are the same people" ? Do you keep records / tabs on them ?
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Well, for instance, the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry, RT and similar. Easy to follow.
 
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