Chemical Weapon used in Syria, Western military response likely

[mikey_the_redneck]

Originally Posted by blankall

I'm not convinced that a chemical attack actually happened.

However, if one did occur, it wouldn't surprise me to see either of Assad or a rebel group having used them.

The problem with the assertions you're making is that they are logical. Middle Eastern dictators do not have a track record of logical action. They often do things we would find totally baffling for no other purpose than to assert themselves. You're correct that tactically speaking, it doesn't make much sense for Assad to use chemical weapons. However, he could have done it to prove a point. Saddam Hussein did the exact same thing after the Gulf war with Nato, a time when the US was threatening to back rebels and topple him.

You're making the mistake of conflating Bashar Al Assad with guys like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi. He is nothing like them.

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by PIMking

Israel = Pre WWI Austria
USA = Pre WWI Germany

Israel pumps out it's chest knowing that the US will back every move and this will bring on another great war like WWI.

Scares me to even think about it, if Israel does something to bring conflict on themselves they should accept the fight alone and the US should stay out of it.

You mean by existing? Because that's the standard by a lot of ME countries for Israel bring conflict onto themselves. Not really a fair comparison to WWI

They really didn't do anything to provoke an attack in the current situation.

[mikey_the_redneck]

Originally Posted by PIMking

Israel = Pre WWI Austria
USA = Pre WWI Germany

Israel pumps out it's chest knowing that the US will back every move and this will bring on another great war like WWI.

Scares me to even think about it, if Israel does something to bring conflict on themselves they should accept the fight alone and the US should stay out of it.

Surely you're aware that Israel has a high degree of control over US foreign policy....they use the American military to smash their foes.

[Nage Waza]

Originally Posted by mikey_the_redneck

Surely you're aware that Israel has a high degree of control over US foreign policy....they use the American military to smash their foes.

They are really going about that slowly.

[BigNumbers]

Originally Posted by mikey_the_redneck

Surely you're aware that Israel has a high degree of control over US foreign policy....they use the American military to smash their foes.

[T@T]

Originally Posted by mikey_the_redneck

You're making the mistake of conflating Bashar Al Assad with guys like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi. He is nothing like them.

Your right, Assad has killed more innocents

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by mikey_the_redneck

You're making the mistake of conflating Bashar Al Assad with guys like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi. He is nothing like them.

Wow

[Shnabdabber]

Regardless of who, what, when, why...

The US pulls another fast one and sidesteps the UN to get involved in yet another conflict, turds are gonna hit the propeller. The likes of which very few still walking the earth have seen.

I know, tin foil hat and so on and so forth... Look at the posturing, the military deployment (not just in the ME but in the Asia Pacific as well) that has been going on for months, and most of all history. This is not going to end well.

[PIMking]

Originally Posted by Shnabdabber

Regardless of who, what, when, why...

The US pulls another fast one and sidesteps the UN to get involved in yet another conflict, turds are gonna hit the propeller. The likes of which very few still walking the earth have seen.

I know, tin foil hat and so on and so forth... Look at the posturing, the military deployment (not just in the ME but in the Asia Pacific as well) that has been going on for months, and most of all history. This is not going to end well.

Cant be true, Obama said we wouldn't go to wars, he pulled us out of Iraq, and he killed OBL all by himself! he's not a war monger, that was bush

[T@T]

Originally Posted by Shnabdabber

Regardless of who, what, when, why...

The US pulls another fast one and sidesteps the UN to get involved in yet another conflict, turds are gonna hit the propeller. The likes of which very few still walking the earth have seen.

I know, tin foil hat and so on and so forth... Look at the posturing, the military deployment (not just in the ME but in the Asia Pacific as well) that has been going on for months, and most of all history. This is not going to end well.

Like what? The Russians or Chinese? If you think either of these would try to strike back because of Syria your mistaken, they wouldn't dare expose themselves as the lightweights they really are.

[Fusebox]

Regardless of who, what, when, why...

The US pulls another fast one and sidesteps the UN to get involved in yet another conflict, turds are gonna hit the propeller. The likes of which very few still walking the earth have seen.

I know, tin foil hat and so on and so forth... Look at the posturing, the military deployment (not just in the ME but in the Asia Pacific as well) that has been going on for months, and most of all history. This is not going to end well.

I don't know about that one. The vast majority of the US population regards the UN as a joke and I would tend to agree with them. Clinton wouldn't have been able to save close to a million people ethnic Albanians from genocide at the hands of Milosevic if he had done the "right thing" and waited for the Russia to veto a request.

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by Shnabdabber

Regardless of who, what, when, why...

The US pulls another fast one and sidesteps the UN to get involved in yet another conflict, turds are gonna hit the propeller. The likes of which very few still walking the earth have seen.

I know, tin foil hat and so on and so forth... Look at the posturing, the military deployment (not just in the ME but in the Asia Pacific as well) that has been going on for months, and most of all history. This is not going to end well.

I dunno why people keep saying this. The US seems like it really doesn't want to have to get involved. There is little to no public support, Obama doesn't seem like he really wants to. Not sure about congress, haven't heard them say much. Who else is there? Without going all 'shadow government' on my ass.

I think they realize the last two wars cost way too much. Mostly economically, but in lives as well.

The US simply isn't in the economic situation they were before Afghanistan. They can't afford it. Which is kinda sad, because I feel there is much more reason to be in Syria than there was for Iraq.

Saying that though, I'm not sure any international force could do enough. :/ It's a bad situation for sure. I feel like the world should help somehow, but it might be unrealistic to think it would do any good.

Oh, and Putin can go suck a dick. That is all. The security council is completely pointless.

[Knut]

News and viewpoints.

Failed assassination attempt on Assad the motive ?

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_n...ns-strike?lite

US strike could trigger more chemical attacks and Cyber attacks

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/id...e=RSS&irpc=932

Rumsfeld things there is not even evidence to point to a US attack. He would know

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefi...d-syria-attack

[NBC]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Wow

My sentiment exactly. While al-Assad is more polished than either Hussein or Gaddaffi, he is nonetheless cut from the same proverbial cloth. You have to be. History has shown us that the only way to consolidate and hang on to power in this most volatile of regions is through fear, terror, murder and suppression of public opinion/thought. Basic western democratic principles have no grounding in the Middle East, they never have. Imposing such rigidity of thought and process upon a heavily tribal society is not going to work. The only way these guys can make it work is by using a system of fear, intimidation, death and reward to maintain some semblance of order.

How the (Baathist) al-Assad regime can be any different to others we have seen is unlikely.

[NBC]

Originally Posted by mikey_the_redneck

Surely you're aware that Israel has a high degree of control over US foreign policy....they use the American military to smash their foes.

I thought it was because of the Jewish-controlled media in the US?

[NBC]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

Then in modern times (WW1), I believe it was the allies (France) who first started to use gas against the Germans, although the Germans tend to be the ones that get most of the blame (although they did run with it and used them more effectively). The British also used poison gas while taking over Palestine.

Fritz Haber is frequently referred to as the "Father of Gas Warfare" for his work on chlorine gas during the First World War. Incidentally he won the Nobel Peace Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his synthesis of ammonia for fertilizers. At the time Germany has the world's most expansive chemical dye industry, producing roughly 80% of the world's dyes in 1914. Chlorine is a natural by-product of the chemical process they used and were therefore miles ahead the Allies when it came to the process of "weaponizing" it. France and the UK were caught completely unaware and were always behind Germany when it came to the development and production of chemical weapons at the time. The great British contribution to CW in the First World War was Phosgene - a terribly toxic lung irritant in the same vein as Chlorine.

I'm not for using chemical weapons, but there is a certain amount of hypocrisy when it comes to these things. Much of Europe and the Middle East in the 20th century was carved up by victors by nations that used chemical weapons, and then those same nations outlawed them once they achieved the balance of power they wanted.

British and French opinions were very similar toward the usage of CW in the First World War - they didn't like it. It was done strictly as a retaliatory measure and they believed it was important for troop morale to be seen to be "doing something." German opinions were more pragmatic. They saw a place for CW in helping them to win the war, which is why they put so much effort into developing new and novel agents and dissemination techniques, such as sulfur mustard (Yellow Cross) and diphosgene (Green Cross).

The use of chemicals in war is long standing as you correctly point out, though historically such usages have been viewed as abhorrent and indiscriminate. The promulgation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol to which I referred to earlier was unanimously accepted, though the US chose not to ratify it for 50 years. Blasted Americans!

[Itse]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Motive - While it sounds illogical, I don't think you can apply the rational leader tag as we understanding leaders to a lot of the middle eastern regimes

So basicly what you're saying is that you have no idea what the motive might be, but because he's a dictator then you'll just skip this part.

They are not students of modern day sociology.

Many of them propably are. Assad was long considered a rather reasonable leader, and made some pretty decent political decisions in the past. Not a nice guy necessarily, but reasonable, and more like a conservative reformist than a ruthless dictator.

The idea is future prevention of up rising and destroying the more radical rebel elements and stuffing their ability to easily recruit.

How exactly are these chemical weapons doing it in a way that other parts of his succesful war machine are not?

So far there appears to be evidence of one attack. You know, just enough to get a reaction, but not enough to have an actual effect on the war?

He has pretty much demonstrated that he can kill thousands without lifting a finger and there is literally no place to hide from chemical weapons unless your well trained and equipped.

He has demonstrated that ability long before this. The Syrian civil war has had an estimated 80,000-100,000 casualties. This strike does nothing.

Are you going to be willing to rebel if your whole town or neighborhood or family can be snuffed out like a injured dog?

If the point was to terrorize the civilians into obedience, why do just one strike and then deny ever doing it? Seems counterproductive to me.

Means - We know that Syria has both the weapons in terms of VX and Sarin, as well as choking agents like mustard gas in fairly large quantities.

So, if he has a lot of this stuff, he has used it already, he wants to use them to destroy the rebels or to scare them, why would he not want to be seen doing it?

The argument that the rebels did it is shaky at best.

First of all, your starting assumption that there are only two groups fighting this war is btw false.

List of Armed Groups in the Syrian Civil War


As to the motive, let me quote USA today, June 14th:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/w...tates/2424193/

"As he said, the chemical weapons are a red line, and chemical weapons are now in use," said Hozan Ibrahim a Syrian activist based in Berlin. "They use it first of all in small areas just scattered, just to see if the international community will react. If they get no reactions, they start using it extensively.

<snip>
FSA leaders in Aleppo said they welcomed the U.S. vow of military support, though they wish it had come sooner. "I think it is a good move, if it really is an honest move. It is what we have been asking for from the beginning," said Abdul Jabar al-Akidi, chief of the Aleppo Military Council of the FSA. "If they had made this decision earlier, we wouldn't facing this [situation] now. We hope the next move will be bigger and more extensive."

So we have established the following:

1. The US is already backing the rebels
2. The rebels like this and have publicly asked for more
3. US has stated that if X happens, they will do more
4. The rebels have been claiming that X has happened before and have tried to use it as a way to get more from the US
5. X has now happened
6. US is preparing to do more.

Doesn't exactly take a tinfoil hat to see a narrative there.

As to US motivations, let me quote the Washington Post for a while:

"Syrian Rebels Say They Need Big Guns, not Small Arms from U.S."
The fact that the United States is now committing itself militarily to the rebels at a time when Russia, Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement are escalating their support for Assad draws the United States inexorably into what is rapidly becoming a global proxy war for control of Syria, analysts said.

I think it's obvious that you're trying to convince yourself that the nasty dictator did it, because you would prefer that scenario to the others.

This has become a proxy war between superpowers. We already know that the US doctrine generally requires some kind of an international coalition or support for military actions. They are not going to get a UN resolution for obvious political reasons, but also rather solid rational reasons at this point. The time for military invention is long past.

So why would the US say that Assad did it without real evidence? Because it suits their purposes.

He can easily kill them in a highly efficient manner with the push of the botton. He doesn't have to weaken his troop strength with drawn out city block battles.

He has plenty of other weapons for this purpose too. Dead is dead, and he has artillery and the money to keep it going.

And again, if this is his motivation, why isn't he doing in a scale that matters?

He can also use what can be classed as the ultimate terror weapon to intimidate and deny the rebel group its future members.

So why is he not making threats and being all intimidating?

Denying that he did it seems very counterproductive, if he means to terrorize the rebels. Who btw don't seem to be much terrorized in those interviews.

So the question is. Why haven't the American's disclosed their full evidence. America values its intelligence gathering above anything else. By disclosing the evidence it might give up methods and possible sources which will not only let America's enemies find a way to protect their information. But would allow Syria to create intelligence counter measures.

Pure speculation. Generally speaking, intelligence gathering methods are not big secrets and the US is more in the habit of showing off it's capabilities than hiding them. Remember them revealing they've been wiretappin Syrian government?

Btw, where is that phonecall? The US says they have one that proves stuff, so let's hear it. News organizations would love it, and if it actually proved something, it would put the whole debate to rest. No reason to hide that, since they already told everybody they have it.

So why is it not released?
I can think of two good reasons.
1) It doesn't actually prove anything.
2) It doesn't exist.

These seem the most likely options to me.

I'm not saying that the chemical strike was necessarily done by the rebels, it could have been Assad. He just doesn't seem like the logical choice.

So let's look at the cases.

a) Assad did it, even though he didn't need to use them, he doesn't seem to have benefited, he isn't making threats to use them again and is in fact denying ever using them, it has no demonstrable benefit but has created a significant international blowback and propably given the rebels a moral boost with the promise of potential future support by the US. The only really solid thing pointing to the possibility of Assad doing this is the fact that we know that Syria has chemical weapons.

Possible, but doesn't strike me as the first suspect.

b) Someone else did it, and the US is just saying Assad did it because it happens to suit them. This to me is by far the most likely option. Because really in the big picture, it doesn't matter who actually did it from the US point of view, what matters is who gets the blame.

It would also be a major international embarrassement if it was known that the side that the US is backing did it, and would immediately raise suspicions of US involvement, justified or not. It would also be a major political defeat if the side that the Russians are backing are the lesser of evil.

I would also like to point out that the US was very quick to react to news of this attack and quick to point a finger. Compare that to the reaction time and consideration taken with the US embassy attacks. It doesn't mean that they knew this was going to happen, just that they didn't really use evidence to take a stand on this.

If this was an actual police case, the key to solving 95% of actual crimes is asking who profited. It's clear that the rebel side got a boost from this, and Assad did not.

The only question here is really where did this someone get their hands on chemical weapons. Which of course brings us to...

c) The US helped someone else do it, so they could get local and international support for their actions in Syria. I have no idea how likely this is, but I still think it's more likely than Assad doing it because it's much easier to come up with solid motivations.

I wouldn't think twice of it necessarily, if it wasn't all just so perfectly convenient to create a reason for US military action.

And if the US didn't alreadly have a track record of approving of the use of chemical weapons against civilians in war.

Oh, and then there's stuff like this. (The article is careful not to say that the US provided Saddam with means to build WMD's, but really, Rumsfeld was an envoy from the president when he did this.

[Itse]

Actually, scenario

d) Assad or a group supporting him did it to put the blame on the rebels so the US would be forced to remove their support.

Possible. Means and motive are certainly solid, there are again several groups that could have done it and the means are certainly there (Russia, Syria, China, some other country, all are options). The only thing missing is the propaganda machine finger pointing.

But really, I think it's clear that who ever did this had no interest in taking the blame for it or in any way being open about it. This effectively rules out military motivations and makes any terror motivations somewhat questionable, or at least would make it seem more like the terror tactics of a radical minority group than either of the two main fighting forces, FSA or Syrian military.

[NBC]

Originally Posted by Itse

c) The US helped someone else do it, so they could get local and international support for their actions in Syria. I have no idea how likely this is, but I still think it's more likely than Assad doing it because it's much easier to come up with solid motivations.

Not likely at all. The destruction of CW stockpiles in the US and Russia are closely monitored by the OPCW and have been for years. There is little chance that either, a) bulk agent or, b) chemical munitions, have gone missing as these facilities (at least in the US) are highly secure facilities, regardless of what the film The Rock would have us believe.

Originally Posted by Itse

And if the US didn't alreadly have a track record of approving of the use of chemical weapons against civilians in war.

Oh, and then there's stuff like this. (The article is careful not to say that the US provided Saddam with means to build WMD's, but really, Rumsfeld was an envoy from the president when he did this.

I have real problems with both of these articles. The Foreign Policy article makes it seem like the US Government was the only entity outside Iraq that had any idea of their chemical attacks against Iranian troops. Everyone knew it. The Iranians were very vocal in this. Pugwash was aware and so was the ICRC. It was common knowledge within the field that Iraq was up to no good. Every western government knew as did the Soviets. What did it was the evidence of scores of young Iranian Pasdaran and Basij volunteer troops treated either in the West or by western physicians. It was too hard to ignore at this point. I see no reason in singling out the US for any of this when most knew what was happening.

The Daily Mail article is full of journalistic creativity. First of all, the author has confused chemical and biological weapons. Last time I checked Bacillus anthracis (anthrax) and Yersinia pestis (bubonic plague) were bacteria. The regime did indeed purchase freeze-dried samples of various biological pathogens from the American Type Culture Collection, which was supplied to Baghdad University. What the article fails to acknowledge is the complicity of French and German (especially German) companies in supplying the regime with chemical precursors such as thiodiglycol (necessary for mustard production) and isopropyl alcohol (necessary for GB or Sarin production) as well as tons of growth medium (BW production).

This is what happens when journalists write about things they know nothing of.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by NBC

Fritz Haber is frequently referred to as the "Father of Gas Warfare" for his work on chlorine gas during the First World War. Incidentally he won the Nobel Peace Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his synthesis of ammonia for fertilizers. At the time Germany has the world's most expansive chemical dye industry, producing roughly 80% of the world's dyes in 1914. Chlorine is a natural by-product of the chemical process they used and were therefore miles ahead the Allies when it came to the process of "weaponizing" it. France and the UK were caught completely unaware and were always behind Germany when it came to the development and production of chemical weapons at the time. The great British contribution to CW in the First World War was Phosgene - a terribly toxic lung irritant in the same vein as Chlorine.

The Germans may have used them more effectively, but it was the French who openned the can of worms in WWI. They broke the Hague Treaty of 1899 by deploying tear gas against the Germans. Once they did that, it was basically a free for all. The British condemned it, but gave in to the pressue and tried using gas as well.. but quite honestly, they sucked at it.

This is a big lesson that needs to be heeded now though. Just as the French pushed the line in WWI by being the first to break convention, which in turn pushed Germany to push it further and the British to give in as well; if Syria did in fact use chemical weapons, it has to be dealt with before some other country takes it to another level.

British and French opinions were very similar toward the usage of CW in the First World War - they didn't like it. It was done strictly as a retaliatory measure and they believed it was important for troop morale to be seen to be "doing something."

Maybe so, but the British used gas on their own accord at the Battle of Gaza against the Ottomans (albeit, unsuccessfully). The genie was already out the bottle at that point though.

The promulgation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol to which I referred to earlier was unanimously accepted, though the US chose not to ratify it for 50 years. Blasted Americans!

Not a surprise. They used chemical weapons extensively in Vietnam. I still don't think they signed the landmine treat yet either.