SYRIA thread

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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