SYRIA thread

[Sarmatian]

So the Syrian government would never make poison gas, but the Chinese, Iraqi and Turkish governments, they all would, and then they'd sell it to terrorists?

Iraqi government would have little reason to sell the gas to terrorists, but the Iraqi government isn't in control of the whole of Iraq, or all of its military and other facilities.
Elements from Turkey which may or may not be connected to Turkish government have already proved to be capable of doing business with the terrorists, like buying and reselling their oil, providing them with supplies etc...

On the other hand, it seems the majority of attacks, the vast majority, have been directed at non-government forces.

1) majority of the attacks were against civilians
2) even if it was used against non government forces, that doesn't immediately spell that government forces did it. There are dozens of armed factions in the region, and they generally don't like each other.

There are no records of confirmed Sarin attacks by rebels since 2013 which is consistent with looting supply dumps in the initial madness of the war. Since 2013 most attacks have been with Chlorine.

Ok. No disagreements but I don't see how is that relevant for your argument.

I suspect that the identification of Sarin in this case has a lot to do the reports immediately after the attack which mention nothing of odour.

Actually, MSF doctors who treated the patients mentioned the smell of bleach. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a7669011.html.

So, chlorine was most definitely used - there's no way of confusing chlorine with sarin as sarin is odorless.

Symptoms some of the patients had were consistent with a gas like sarin, and in fact MSF is suspecting that people were exposed to at least two different agents, which may give credence to the Russian story, that a bomb hit a workshop/storage.

In any case, there's no reason to believe it's not the regime.

I wouldn't be so sure. The last, and arguably most important piece of the puzzle is qui bono, as Frags mentioned.

Assad already agreed to surrender and destroy everything Syria had, and according to the OCPW the government of Syria was always fully cooperative (their Fact Finding Teams had more issues with rebels).
He did that because he was very aware of the potential consequences. To think that he was willing to destroy everything he had in storage and all production facilities and keep a minute amount hidden somewhere so that he could drop it out of spite, and invite western outrage all over again because...

... he is just that crazy?

The west was losing interest in the conflict and the new American president actually had some nice words (in between bad words) about his regime, so he got bored and decided it was more fun when western countries were actively considering military solution? He decided it was too easy, now that he controls most of Aleppo?

I'm having troubles believing Damascus ordered or even consented to this. A rogue commander is a possibility, though.

It's also worth noting the Syrian Air Force continues to bomb the town - suggesting there's a reason they targeted it with gas, possible a high-value target has gone to ground there.

It is also perfectly consistent with the story that they were bombing the area to defeat the rebels and they continue to bomb it because they still haven't done it, like with hundreds of other areas in Syria.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Believe? Double negation and a belief? And you bomb a country?

I'm not the one making the decisions. Given that up until this point Trump was willing to consider Assad part of the solution in Syria I have to think there's some credible intelligence that it was the regime, intelligence we don't have.

My point was that there's no reason to think the regime wouldn't use gas - they have in the past.

[Fragony]

Trump won't overthrow Assad while the Russians are there. Unlike what a lot of the people are thinking, Assad's regime won't fall that easily

Good reason to put some question-marks on this gas-attack and on wbo's who here

[Husar]

Don't critisise my Spanish

I don't, just your Latin.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Don't critisise my Spanish

He was criticizing your Latin. LATIN...

You Frisii need to get your act together.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

One account I read, taken from an interview with a child refugee, was of that child running to their Grandfather -- who had been poisoned and shortly thereafter died -- but the child suffered only very limited effects despite not being treated for hours.

This suggests to me that the agent used may have been degraded.

If so, it is possible that we are dealing with negligence -- weapons stored in the wrong spot/lot and not properly recorded or noted.


Mind you, negligence on that level isn't exactly a "ringing endorsement" in any way....

[Husar]

Given that up until this point Trump was willing to consider Assad part of the solution in Syria I have to think there's some credible intelligence that it was the regime, intelligence we don't have.

I'd think if Trump has it, it must've been on FoxNews, or did he stop skipping his intelligence meetings in favor of TV/golf/Twitter?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I'd think if Trump has it, it must've been on FoxNews, or did he stop skipping his intelligence meetings in favor of TV/golf/Twitter?

He's been meeting with them regularly since early on.

Though he did weed out a lot of the old admin's appointees where possible.

[Fragony]

I don't, just your Latin.

nice catch mia muca

[Elmetiacos]

The Kremlin mindfuck is working. People no longer believe in physics.

[Sarmatian]

And physics in this case being "because it suits the current narrative"?

[Crandar]

I wonder how many people realize that there are no physics here, just claims, who firstly need to get approved by the faction controlling the town, al-Qaeda.

It's actually an improvement, a few months ago, the town was controlled by Jund al-Aqsa, the proxy of daesh in W. Syria.

There are many activists in rebel-controlled areas, but if the rebels don't like your activism, you end up being treated exactly like how the captives of the coalition were treated by the Syrian torturers, to whom the US delivered them. Not nicely. T

oo early to reach conclusions and I doubt we will learn the truth before the end of the civil war. In Ghouta, we still don't know what happened and two members of the UN mission have expressed contradicting opinions.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...b058f0a02fca4d

[Fragony]

We (well we) have absolutily no idea what is going on sounds right to me

[Montmorency]

At the least, if it is the case that Assad has intermittently employed chemical weapons for terror over the past 3 years, then the timing to employ chemical weapons recently would have been perfectly reasonable,, even auspicious.

Without other information though, and unless conflicting eyewitness accounts of color/odor can be clarified, rebel provenance is also plausible.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/syria-chemical-attack-al-qaeda-played-donald-trump_us_58ea226fe4b058f0a02fca4d

Interesting quote from Obama, that use of force to demonstrate willingness to use force is a bad reason to use force.

[Husar]

We (well we) have absolutily no idea what is going on sounds right to me

Yeah, isn't it "funny" how we call it the information age and yet we seemingly can't trust anything?

[Fragony]

Yeah, isn't it "funny" how we call it the information age and yet we seemingly can't trust anything?

I would probably be even more clueless if I knew everything

[Elmetiacos]

And physics in this case being "because it suits the current narrative"?

Physics being that all the Sarin in Syria so far discovered has been binary - two chemical mixtures ("precursors") stored separately which could not combine to form Sarin because a bomb drops on a warehouse. Unless we suppose that Tahrir as-Sham has an advanced chemical research facility which found a way to purify the prescursors and incorporate a stabiliser (something only one US laboratory successfully did prior to the ban on chemical weapons) nobody would have just "tanks full of sarin" sitting around. Of course, it's possible the rebels deliberately released poison gas coinciding with a government/Russian airstrike in false flag operation, but nobody has so far been sufficiently tinfoil hatted as to suggest this.

[Fragony]

Comes from the Netherlands, guy who sold it to Iraq and Syria is in jail atm

[AE Bravo]

At the least, if it is the case that Assad has intermittently employed chemical weapons for terror over the past 3 years, then the timing to employ chemical weapons recently would have been perfectly reasonable,, even auspicious.

Why? If you are referring to the US letting off pressure recently, I don't think Assad ever looked past the possibility that they can reverse it at any time. I am not seeing any sane reason in this thread about why this pencilneck would do something so counterproductive.

Though even with the rogue commander theory, employing chemical weapons at this level must have required some sort of set military procedure and orders.

Who knows.

[Sarmatian]

Physics being that all the Sarin in Syria so far discovered has been binary - two chemical mixtures ("precursors") stored separately which could not combine to form Sarin because a bomb drops on a warehouse. Unless we suppose that Tahrir as-Sham has an advanced chemical research facility which found a way to purify the prescursors and incorporate a stabiliser (something only one US laboratory successfully did prior to the ban on chemical weapons) nobody would have just "tanks full of sarin" sitting around. Of course, it's possible the rebels deliberately released poison gas coinciding with a government/Russian airstrike in false flag operation, but nobody has so far been sufficiently tinfoil hatted as to suggest this.

1) You're again ignoring numerous testimonies that mention strong odor and yellow brownish cloud. Sarin is odorless and colorless.

2) The sarin found in Syria has been that produced by the government, a higher grade. Sarin used in 2013 (and possibly now together with chlorine) has been low grade, low quality.

3) doctors didn't say sarin specifically, they said some of the symptoms were consistent with a nerve agent "like sarin".

4) OPCW released a following statement after the attack: the OPCW is investigating the incident in southern Idlib under the on-going mandate of the Fact-Finding Mission (FFM), which is “to establish facts surrounding allegations of the use of toxic chemicals, reportedly chlorine, for hostile purposes in the Syrian Arab Republic”.

So, please come again about physics...

[Montmorency]

Why? If you are referring to the US letting off pressure recently, I don't think Assad ever looked past the possibility that they can reverse it at any time. I am not seeing any sane reason in this thread about why this pencilneck would do something so counterproductive.

Though even with the rogue commander theory, employing chemical weapons at this level must have required some sort of set military procedure and orders.

Who knows.

Because he wouldn't perceive it as a significant risk, in that chain of events where he has already been dropping gas here and there since 2013 without blowback for that particular practice.

Obviously it looks crazy if you assume he's using chemical weapons out of the blue for the first time ever, or since 2013.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Physics being that all the Sarin in Syria so far discovered has been binary - two chemical mixtures ("precursors") stored separately which could not combine to form Sarin because a bomb drops on a warehouse. Unless we suppose that Tahrir as-Sham has an advanced chemical research facility which found a way to purify the prescursors and incorporate a stabiliser (something only one US laboratory successfully did prior to the ban on chemical weapons) nobody would have just "tanks full of sarin" sitting around. Of course, it's possible the rebels deliberately released poison gas coinciding with a government/Russian airstrike in false flag operation, but nobody has so far been sufficiently tinfoil hatted as to suggest this.

Right, this leaves us two or three possibilities.

1. Government Sarin Attack

2. Rebel Sarin (relatively) recently mixed but not yet deployed.

3. Rebel Sarin where the two chemical compounds were stored next to each other, both containers were ruptured and they mixed inside a fireball.

I'm not even sure if the last is actually possible, but of the other two the government explanation is the simplest the the government is at least as likely to use Sarin as the Rebels. Application of Ockham's Razor indicates that a government bomb is the most likely explanation.

Why? If you are referring to the US letting off pressure recently, I don't think Assad ever looked past the possibility that they can reverse it at any time. I am not seeing any sane reason in this thread about why this pencilneck would do something so counterproductive.

Though even with the rogue commander theory, employing chemical weapons at this level must have required some sort of set military procedure and orders.

Who knows.

One possible explanation is that Russia funnels the Sarin back to Assad from what were his own stockpiles. It's apparent Assad places no inherent value on human life, something I believe he shares with Putin.

If that is how they think, as I believe they do, then the calculation here is how far he can push the use of Sarin etc. before Western Powers (the US) intervene. Obama has mostly let Assad do what he wanted for thee past three years and when Trump took office he seemed inclined to work with Assad. So, it may be that the Syrian Dictator simply miss-calculated.

[Brenus]

My point was that there's no reason to think the regime wouldn't use gas - they have in the past.

Agree with that, but so did the rebels and so do their counterpart in Iraq...

[Montmorency]

If that is how they think, as I believe they do, then the calculation here is how far he can push the use of Sarin etc. before Western Powers (the US) intervene. Obama has mostly let Assad do what he wanted for thee past three years and when Trump took office he seemed inclined to work with Assad. So, it may be that the Syrian Dictator simply miss-calculated.

More exactly, Obama "didn't do anything" because he hoped to secure Russian participation and cooperation (on Syrian disarmament). Hence the lack of attention to the several chemical incidents 2014-2016.

I imagine had there been a high-profile incident in the second half of 2016, in the midst of the furor about Russian influence on American politics, Obama would have been likely to employ some form of military response.

[Sarmatian]

I'm not even sure if the last is actually possible, but of the other two the government explanation is the simplest the the government is at least as likely to use Sarin as the Rebels.

Not true, according to OPCW. Rebels are suspected (primarily Al Nusra) of being responsible for 2/3 of all chemical attacks so far, and numerous makeshift chemical weapon workshops have been found in Al Nusra held area so far after liberation. There have been reports of Al Nusra manufacturing low grade sarin in Iraq and moving it to Syria (google news reports from 2014, 2015 and 2016). Chlorine is apparently much more easily available/manufactured.

[Elmetiacos]

1) You're again ignoring numerous testimonies that mention strong odor and yellow brownish cloud. Sarin is odorless and colorless.

2) The sarin found in Syria has been that produced by the government, a higher grade. Sarin used in 2013 (and possibly now together with chlorine) has been low grade, low quality.

3) doctors didn't say sarin specifically, they said some of the symptoms were consistent with a nerve agent "like sarin".

4) OPCW released a following statement after the attack: the OPCW is investigating the incident in southern Idlib under the on-going mandate of the Fact-Finding Mission (FFM), which is “to establish facts surrounding allegations of the use of toxic chemicals, reportedly chlorine, for hostile purposes in the Syrian Arab Republic”.

So, please come again about physics...

The brown cloud only suggests another related G-series nerve agent, Soman, but it doesn't make any difference for our purposes, because it is also a binary weapon and can't be released accidentally by bombing. That's the problem: not that the rebels might not have chemical weapons but that they couldn't have chemical weapons stored in a way that would allow them to be released according to the Russian version of events.

[Sarmatian]

The brown cloud only suggests another related G-series nerve agent, Soman, but it doesn't make any difference for our purposes, because it is also a binary weapon and can't be released accidentally by bombing. That's the problem: not that the rebels might not have chemical weapons but that they couldn't have chemical weapons stored in a way that would allow them to be released according to the Russian version of events.

And your explanation for the smell of bleach?

[AE Bravo]

One possible explanation is that Russia funnels the Sarin back to Assad from what were his own stockpiles. It's apparent Assad places no inherent value on human life,

As opposed to his enemies?

If that is how they think, as I believe they do, then the calculation here is how far he can push the use of Sarin etc. before Western Powers (the US) intervene. Obama has mostly let Assad do what he wanted for thee past three years and when Trump took office he seemed inclined to work with Assad. So, it may be that the Syrian Dictator simply miss-calculated.

Possibly placed too much faith in the American system, that the president would not engage in unilateral acts of war without congressional approval.

https://lofgren.house.gov/news/docum...umentID=398158

Strong condemnation by a House Dem there.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Agree with that, but so did the rebels and so do their counterpart in Iraq...

All sides are engaged in a race to the bottom - no denying that. It's one of the reasons I argued for intervention earlier, removing Assad's Air-Power and artillery might have has slowed that race or caused it to bottom out at a less horrific level.

That horse bolted years ago, though.

More exactly, Obama "didn't do anything" because he hoped to secure Russian participation and cooperation (on Syrian disarmament). Hence the lack of attention to the several chemical incidents 2014-2016.

I imagine had there been a high-profile incident in the second half of 2016, in the midst of the furor about Russian influence on American politics, Obama would have been likely to employ some form of military response.

I imagine you're right, but there wasn't.

Not true, according to OPCW. Rebels are suspected (primarily Al Nusra) of being responsible for 2/3 of all chemical attacks so far, and numerous makeshift chemical weapon workshops have been found in Al Nusra held area so far after liberation. There have been reports of Al Nusra manufacturing low grade sarin in Iraq and moving it to Syria (google news reports from 2014, 2015 and 2016). Chlorine is apparently much more easily available/manufactured.

Noted - but here's my problem:

Russia has a policy of lying, you might call it an official policy - except they'd lie about it. This being so I assume the first thing Russia says to be either a great twisting of the truth or a complete fabrication.

Now, against that backdrop I note that the first Russian story (oops, we hit a weapons dump and somehow managed to release a toxic gas that shouldn't have been able to be released like that" came after the US strike.

Convenient for Assad, as it makes the US look bad after the fact. If it was even remotely true why didn't the Russians protest this when the US informed them they were going to make the strike and thereby prevent it?

Answer - because they hadn't had time to invent the story yet.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

...why didn't the Russians protest this when the US informed them they were going to make the strike and thereby prevent it?

Answer - because they hadn't had time to invent the story yet.

They were not notified all that far in advance. Time enough to get personnel out of the line of fire, but little else.