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Originally Posted by belsarius
And Assad has been doing that pretty well without using chemical weapons for years. Why now? What is there to gain? Just because he is a dictator doesn't make him irrational.
The benefit of a rebel group killing a few dozen people is the US airstriking the Syrian government. It gets the world's eyes back on Syrian and condemning their enemy. Just because they oppose Assad doesn't make them saints. Al-Qaeda is strong in that region too and they would love to see the US blow the crap out of Assad.
Just seems to me that there are a lot of other parties that gain way more than Assad did from these deaths. He may be a ruthless dictator but that doesn't make him dumb.
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He's used chemical weapons in the past and those attacks were rarely for strategic intent, he's dropped against populated area, so there's a pattern to him using chemical weapons whether he was doing well or not.
There are logical reasons for the non use of chemical weapons over the last 3 or 4 years. Maybe he was advised by the Russians to stop because of UN attention. Maybe he shot off his bolt in terms of his stockpile. Maybe Russia told him to lay off when they promised to disarm.
I don't know, but to sit here and try to classify this as part of some rational thought process by a third world despot who has been more then willing to kill civilians using chemical weapons and say that it makes no sense because he's doing well.
this could all be that he used these weapons because at this point he's doing well and maybe he believes or has been assured that the Russians will protect him so he's looking at a end game of a cowed and terrified population that will never rise up against him again.
I doubt that this is some kind of American Russian conspiracy to throw heat off of Trump.
What I would make an assumption on is that America had an awacs in the air or one of their advanced listening posts on the ground and they should be able to show the tracks of the attacks and where they came from.