It’s much smarter to personally tell them an hour beforehand! Gosh, what a genius.
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It’s like Trump is experiencing TwitterKarma … everything he tweeted in complaint about Obama, he has to experience himself.
And now China state-run media is saying that the missile strikes were an attempt to distract from Trump’s Russian problem.
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A few brief obsevations. If you interview an official of Ahrar al Sham, it would be shocking if he didn’t blame the Assad regime. If Ahrar al Sham officials know a journalist is in town, it would be extremely dangerous for local people to say anything that Ahrar al Sham dislike. Nothing in the report explained why the Syrian air force would attack the location other than to kill innocent civilians with exotic chemical weapons. Military grade sarin is apparently deadly to touch, and does not smell.
I don’t understand why the Syrian government would do this. Of course that doesn’t prove they didn’t do it.
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Well, if the purpose was to “show Assad we’re doing something” without actually doing something, notifying them ahead of time isn’t a bad idea. (By the way, the tweet is from 2014, if anyone missed it).
Anyway, notifying them through Russia to minimize actual damage is actually more competence than I’d expect Trump to show. With any luck, honor won’t demand Assad do something insanely self-destructive to show that he’s a real man followed by wash, rinse, repeat.
Sad though it is, I’d prefer Trump manage to save face with a meaningless gesture than accidentally drag the US into a real war. I want the narcissistic sociopath with his finger on the nuclear trigger (and as I learned today, with no safeguards whatsoever to stop him) to not get backed into a psychological corner.
Americans Continue to Believe the Bullshit Line That They’ve Been Using to Justify Imperialist Aggression for a Century
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I’m not convinced. I know that with cruise missiles, they are so low flying that you need an interceptor with active radar homing in the missile. From what I was able to find out, for the S-400, that’s only available on the 9M96 series that maxes out at 75 mi range (not sure about Pantsir, though). With the Russian systems at Khmeimim we’re talking about the outer edge of the intercept range. Russia likely didn’t want to risk revealing their missile defense hand, in a situation where the performance might not look so great for them.
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There is something curious going on here. I have read that less than half the missiles hit their target. One wonders if the Russians have some electronic counter measure which would cause that.
You write that as though you expect me to agree!
Read where?
I read it in the following sites, but now that I check the original source appears to be the Russian Ministry of Defense.
The first and third are fairly interesting examples of Russian propaganda websites.
The second: I don’t know who is doing this one, but it starts off straight away with a story that Khan Shaykhun was faked, and I don’t have time for that shit.
Why would you read sites like this when there’s so much real journalism available from all over the world?
Anyway, sort of back OT, maybe a reputable outlet like Janes will cover this question of military hardware and what the Russian SAMs in Syria can do. I don’t see anything on their website still.
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Silly, there is no REAL journalism, only fake news and opinions! No true reality exists, only spin and points of view! /s
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Cos the real journalists you talk about told me about wmd in Iraq, promised me that Scottish independence was a fringe position, that Britain would vote remain, and that Donald Rump couldn’t win an election.
Moreover Sy Hersch and Robert Parry are both real journalists.
Also let’s double check our sources of “propaganda”. The first is a Syrian living in Maryland. The second is published by an ex German intelligence analyst, and the third is a Bulgarian site, which definitely has good Russian connections. So i would say only one is Russian propaganda.
I would also recommend sic semper tyranis, which is run by an ex DIA analyst and Col. In the US Army.
What really soured me on using the guardian as a source was when Martin Chulov estimated there were 50k people tops in East Aleppo. Regardless of their own correspondent making that estimate, the Guardian insisted on publishing that there were 250k people under siege in East Aleppo for months. In fact when the East was retaken, 50k walked to west aleppo, and only 25k asked to be relocated to Idlib, of whom 15k were fighters.
It’s that kind of thing which fatally undermined my faith in the Guardians and the BBCs coverage.
Alright, you still want to talk.
Let’s get down to brass tacks. The Khan Shaykhun chemical weapons attack was not faked.
This town is behind the rebel lines. That means you either accept that air power delivered the weapon, in which case it has to be Syrian air force (or Russia), or you’re claiming some rebels got the idea to gas the civilians that are on their side. I’ve never been in a war before, but I’m pretty sure that’s not the kind of brilliant strategy I’d be trying to think up.
You can’t counter that without looking like a total crackpot. Don’t even try!
edited to add: I still have some respect for Sy Hersh. I thought the piece on the OBL operation was fascinating, if a little thin in places.
Ok, well a little earlier in the discussion i posted sy hersch’s piece on who was responsible for the earlier sarin attacks. It appears that general Martin Dempsey persuaded Obama that the other sarin attacks were faked by rebels.
Ahrar al Sham are a salafist group who are allied with al nusra, which is basically Al Qaeda in Syria. Why would a terrorist group have a problem killing civilians now when they have a long track record of killing civilians? It’s not clear how it benefits Assad to use chemical weapons on civilians. But it has benefited Assads enemies. Cui bono?
The speed of the video production was a little suspicious to me. But here is someone else’s analysis of the first responders video. I thought their point that all the victims of the attack were male in the videos was quite telling.
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It doesn’t actually say that. It claims that the joint chiefs were more skeptical about Assad’s culpability for Ghouta.
Will it help my case that this GIF is from a Russian website?
Ok, it’s been a conversation. That’s enough for me.
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[quote=“nemomen, post:156, topic:98477”]
I am no expert on Tomahawks,[/quote]
I’m not either, although my father and his best friend helped create them, and I wrote software that was used to test their solid booster package. I have not kept up to date with current versions; my knowledge is outdated.
This much I can tell you; those missiles pretty much hit what they are intended to hit. Within ten feet or so. And in the footage I saw (again, I do not know if that footage was real, but it looked pretty real) the runway was not hit. And since rumor has it that Russia is using that airstrip to launch bombing runs against ISIS, it would be stupid for General McMaster to target the airstrip. By all accounts, he is very much not stupid.
The Tomahawk is one of the most advanced weapons in the world. It is not specialised for taking out runways, nor should it be, and in any case it does not appear that the USA intended to take out the runway. Father William of Ockam says the USA wanted that airstrip to be unusable, it would be; so the point of the strike was not to eliminate the use of the airfield.
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Some more ‘fake news’ : The Syrian pilot who carried out the sarin nerve gas bombing run is already assassinated.
A friend of mine said that his daily routine now begins with (1) Check Twitter to see if we’re at war yet and (2) drink coffee. Sounds familiar when I wake up to this sort of schoolyard-bully BS.
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Yeah, it’s grasping-at-straws nonsense. Anyone who says, “Assad didn’t do it, think about it…” is just trying to justify what they prefer to be true.
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I’m never quite sure what to make of Gabbard. She certainly ploughs a lone furrow. Although I’m generally inclined to side with anyone that Howard Dean doesn’t like these days.
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