My grandfather on my mother’s side would have let you know that it was clearly both.
"we’re being asked by these people to believe that Bashar al-Assad launched a “mass casualty chemical attack”, the thing which would provoke the wrath of the US war machine, just as Trump was seeking a withdrawal from Syria and just as Assad was approaching victory in Douma. We are being asked to ignore the fact that the area is crawling with actual, literal terrorists, to ignore the western empire’s extensive history of using lies, propaganda and false flags to manufacture support for military aggression, to ignore the extremely suspicious western funding and terrorist ties of the White Helmets who are circulating these photos and information, and to ignore the fact that Syria has been a target of imperialist regime change for many years. We are being asked to ignore all that and believe instead that Assad spontaneously began acting against his own self-interest so that he could kill children for no discernible reason.
It says so much about the power of western media psyops that this has a strong chance of being believed."
And sure enough, it has been. Why did we bomb Syria a year ago? Oh yeah, another gas attack on children - an attack that came just days after Trump said he’d stop funding the rebels and no longer make it a goal to have Assad removed from power.
2 Likes
23 March 2018 OPCW report (section 11):
the second round of inspections at the Barzah and Jamrayah facilities of the SSRC was concluded on 22 November 2017. …The analysis of samples taken during the inspections did not indicate the presence of scheduled chemicals in the samples, and the inspection team did not observe any activities inconsistent with obligations under the Convention during the second round of inspections at the Barzah and Jamrayah facilities.
This is the bombed Barzah scientific research centre .
2 Likes
It’s projection. It’s all projection. He criticizes the actions of others for doing exactly what he would do, for the reasons he would do them (even if that’s not why the other person is doing them). Once that become clear, it can’t be funny, in part because it’s so damn predictable.
Another thing that’s not even funny, it’s so transparent…
5 Likes
Because we’ve at least nominally signed on to taking measures to prevent chemical weapons from being the weapon of choice in conflicts, especially internal ones.
The real question we should be asking ourselves is whether chemical weapons deserve their own category of awfulness or whether we should stop even nominally objecting to their use as weapons.
Personally, I think there’s a case to made that even sporadic enforcement keeps chemical weapon usage down. The question I ask myself is why aren’t hundreds of thousands of people dying annually to chemical weapons. Why aren’t they available on the open market on a mass scale in the same way as munitions? Especially when they’re a convenient and cheap means of attacking civilian populaces.
And my suspicion is that it is because we’ve arbitrarily decided to treat them as something especially evil, changing the cost-benefit in government’s heads towards using them, and more importantly, selling them on the munitions market.
Is it logical to single these deaths out? No - dead is dead. But could treating these differently be saving a lot of lives in the long term (even over the toll of sporadic enforcement)? Quite possibly.
-
Retaliatory air strikes for uses of chemical weapons isn’t uncommon. It is seen as a measure to try to discourage the worst of the worst from using these worst of the worst weapons, especially when they target civilians. It is hard to say, “Don’t bomb chemical weapons plants and depots.”
-
It wasn’t just a US strike, but various allies as well. This isn’t like it was just Trump cowboying it up, as the other governments saw this as a measured strike as well.
-
I think another president such as Obama would have done the same thing.
-
That doesn’t mean the way he handled it with the bravado and tweets was right. That was the unprofessional bit.
-
Overall Syria is a mess and I don’t see an easy solution. 2 out of 3 of the main factions would probably make Syria a worse place than it was. But I hope we learned that direct interaction probably won’t fix much of anything. It is going to have to be worked out by the factions living there.
1 Like
US interest in Syria? The red route is the current one for Saudi oil to the US.
The green one is the one the US would like. Coincidence?
1 Like
Well, except that he didn’t given the opportunity, did he? And he get all kinds of shit about it.
1 Like
Is there a reason they don’t use the Suez? It’s not like the Saudis and Egyptians aren’t allies.
1 Like
Too small for modern tankers.
1 Like
Ah! makes more sense. Am I wrong in remembering a recent attempt by the Egyptians to widen the canal? It was built, what, 150 or so years ago? I seem to recall hearing that there was a plan to widen it.
It seems like the most effective way to get that shorter route would be a normalization treaty with Israel.
4 Likes
Opened on 1869-11-17.
(Earlier, smaller projects go back as far as the 2nd millennium BC, and apparently Venice considered digging a canal for their trade ships in the 15th century.)
An expansion of a section of the canal, dubbed “New Suez Canal” opened on 6 August 2015-08-06. This allows for more ships to use the canal as it reduces travel time.
But in order for much bigger ships being able to use the canal, you’d have to expand the whole channel, rebuild all the locks, and expand/rebuild the ports and terminals.
The idea is floated every couple of years, but no concrete plans so far.
It would cost a lot, obviously. And it seems like the profit margins on military hardware are considerably higher than on building useful infrastructure dirt digging.
I am calling BS that the “one they would like” in green is any reason for actions in Syria.
-
Already have a way to move oil via the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal and its already a route.
-
Mediterranean can only take so much traffic, probably one reason a lot of it does take the Cape Horn route as well.
-
If one were to build a pipe line, they would have to get permission from Syria and Jordon - or possibly just Egypt if they could go through that little gulf there. But at any rate, a) the Saudis wouldn’t have needed our help to set up a pipe line if that is what they wanted. b) us spending trillions to take over Syria to save billions in shipping makes no sense. Even Trump isn’t that bad at business.
-
Oil is at a low, extra cost in travel is no biggie. We also have access to Venezuelan oil, which they would be more than happy to sell us if it cost that much to ship it here.
1 Like
They still moved 3.2 million barrels of oil a day through the Suez. I am sure some tankers are too big, but it is still moving a lot of oil.
Obama ordered air strikes in 2014. But ok, Obama, Bush, Hillary, whomever. My point being is that targeting chemical weapons plant after an attack isn’t an outrageous action. I am not even saying it is necessarily a “good action”, just that one that I wouldn’t be surprised if anyone else would have ordered.
The Tweets and shit are still crazy, but this action I’d say could be considered reasonable, at the least.
So when should we expect the US airstrike on Turkey?
And, again: there is absolutely zero evidence that Assad was responsible for the attack. Investigators were heading to Syria, but the missile attack was launched the day before they were due to arrive. Any supposed evidence is now buried in rubble.
Yup. Western imperialism is a transnational effort.
Syria is a mess because the West made it so. If not for outside interference, the Syrian civil war would have ended years ago.
It appears that the majority of the Syrian population support Assad. Despite his many flaws, he is still vastly superior to the head-chopping bastards of Jaysh al-Islam and the Al-Nusra Front.
2 Likes
The Saudis weren’t even particularly useful in Gulf War I. We had to bail them out at Kafji. They have proven themselves useful at massacring civilians in Yemen and little else.
Israel always considered Saudi’s main threat to be their checkbook. They used to be the sugar daddies to the PLO/Fatah and still fund Suuni terrorism worldwide.
1 Like
Things have changed in recent years. The Saudis are now the #3 military spender in the world, after the USA and China.
The Saudi military has F-16s and Abrams tanks. The Iranians have a motley collection of thirty year old equipment, held together with string and tape. The tech difference is comparable to that between the US and Iraq in the first Gulf War.
3 Likes
I said:
When was the last time
Again, as I said, they don’t mind that in their Shia majority neighbors.
1 Like
If they were in the middle of a civil war and weren’t technically our ally, then maybe.
What are the other prevailing theories?
If they are going to be blamed for Imperialism, I’d wish they would at least get some decent loot.
Syria was a mess before the war, though it was fairly stable via authoritarianism (the thing we are all supposed to be rallying against Trump for, right?) Assad failing his people miserably during one of the worst droughts in their history is the catalyst to were people couldn’t put up with it anymore.
As I understand it, while the West is supporting some factions, the Russians are supporting others (is that considered the East, or is it just “Russia”) and then you have various other states in the Middle East supporting either factions of the loosely affiliated FSA, or the Islamic Statists, or the SDF and probably a lost Boy Scout troop or two. So… even if the US wasn’t directly involved, not sure it would be over by now or not. WWI was supposed to be over before Christmas the first year. Vietnam was never supposed to last as long as it did. Not sure I would make any definitive statements about something like that. 
Yeah but they suuuuucccckkkkk at war. Being a monarchy, they don’t trust putting anyone but family in command. They don’t give battle field commanders the freedom to make strategic decisions on the fly, it all comes from the top down. And thus this is why they aren’t walking all over Yemen despite better equipment.
1 Like
