Syria conflict: 'Chemical attacks kill hundreds'

[Mittelwaechter]

The end of Kerry’s statement on Chemical Weapons in Syria:

"President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world's most heinous weapons against the world's most vulnerable people," Kerry said. "Nothing today is more serious, and nothing is receiving more serious scrutiny."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/wo...yria.html?_r=0


Well, what about the US forces use of CWs in Fallujah, Iraq?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falluj...idden_Massacre
(+ http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/nov/22/usa.iraq1 -- to cover the complete story of George Monbiot in The Guardian)

watch here: http://www.informationclearinghouse....ticle10907.htm
(RAI News - Italian documentary, in English)

WARNING
The video contains images that depict the reality and horror of war. It should only be viewed by a mature audience.


So, shouldn't there be accountability for the US? How long do we want to accept this double standard?
The US military used CWs - proven! - and no one is to be blamed.
But Syrian citizans are to be punished for the use of CWs - totally unproven to be used by their military but way more likely used by the terrorizing aggressors?

[Tchocky]

White phosphorus isn't a chemical weapon. It's an incendiary weapon.

This might seem like an irrelevant distinction but it's really not. Terminology and strict definition is very important.

Using incendiary weapons close to civilians is not even remotely akin to using nerve gas directly on civilians. Don't try to make it the same.

Originally Posted by Mittelwaechter

The US military used CWs - proven! - and no one is to be blamed.

No. See above.

But Syrian citizans are to be punished for the use of CWs - totally unproven to be used by their military but way more likely used by the terrorizing aggressors?

Wait wait, exactly who are the aggressors here?

[Mittelwaechter]

Originally Posted by Tchocky

White phosphorus isn't a chemical weapon. It's an incendiary weapon.

This might seem like an irrelevant distinction but it's really not. Terminology and strict definition is very important.

Using incendiary weapons close to civilians is not even remotely akin to using nerve gas directly on civilians. Don't try to make it the same.

Water is refreshing and healthy. So why bother about waterboarding?

Did you read this? http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/nov/22/usa.iraq1

Originally Posted by Tchocky

Wait wait, exactly who are the aggressors here?

Good question. Our media says it is the Syrian administration and military.
But following the Libyan sheme it is some "civil foreigner" who wants to destabilize Syria and install a puppet administration dancing to Western and Saudi interests on their way to Iran. Those foreigners are supported with weapons, intelligence, training and maybe even with some sort of false flag operations.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Mittelwaechter

Well, what about the US forces use of CWs in Fallujah, Iraq?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falluj...idden_Massacre

From the same wiki article:

Critics of the film point out that white phosphorus is not considered a "chemical weapon" under the Chemical Weapons Convention[...]

[Skybird]

Maybe it was high time that somebody reminded of these facts:

LINK: CIA files prove that they helped Saddam when he gassed Iran

(...) U.S. intelligence officials conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that Hussein's military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal nerve agent. (...) U.S. officials have long denied acquiescing to Iraqi chemical attacks, insisting that Hussein's government never announced he was going to use the weapons. But retired Air Force Col. Rick Francona, who was a military attaché in Baghdad during the 1988 strikes, paints a different picture. "The Iraqis never told us that they intended to use nerve gas. They didn't have to. We already knew," he told Foreign Policy. According to recently declassified CIA documents and interviews with former intelligence officials like Francona, the U.S. had firm evidence of Iraqi chemical attacks beginning in 1983. At the time, Iran was publicly alleging that illegal chemical attacks were carried out on its forces, and was building a case to present to the United Nations. But it lacked the evidence implicating Iraq, much of which was contained in top secret reports and memoranda sent to the most senior intelligence officials in the U.S. government.
(...)
The Reagan administration decided that it was better to let the attacks continue if they might turn the tide of the war. And even if they were discovered, the CIA wagered that international outrage and condemnation would be muted.

In the documents, the CIA said that Iran might not discover persuasive evidence of the weapons' use -- even though the agency possessed it. Also, the agency noted that the Soviet Union had previously used chemical agents in Afghanistan and suffered few repercussions.

And so on and on.

Damn that hypocrisy and hysteria today. Its all double standards. Some of you are angry again at me for seeing things coldblooded, and realistically, and calling things by their real names. But history already has proven my cool and calculated approach right. That may not be nice, nor sentimental. But it is as real as it gets. Those nations who today moralize about chemicals used in Syria (the US, Russia) - in no way are morally qualified to cast any moral verdicts here. The Russians have used chemicals themselves, the US assisted others to use them, and have dropped the second a-bomb on a civilian city (which is evidence that they still would have dropped the first even if they would have known what it meant). So, where is the moral authenticity here regarding WMDs?

I also remind of the war 1991, when the US-led alliance was victorious all over the battlefield after four days of ground combat, and the road to Baghdad ti displace Saddam was wide open, and American, British and Arab forces where in full forward movement, and then by political order were brought to a sudden, suprising, unexpected, abrupt full halt and freezing-in-place, to protect Saddam. Later, we read reports about Us soldiers feeling ashamed and kind of betrayed for being ordered to sit on the fencelines and just watch when Saddam cracked down on the US-initiated Shia uprise and killed them by the tens of thousands: fighters, civilians, women, children, without discrimination. Bush senior later said the city fighting would have been costly to US forces. But the thunderrun 2003 , under much less ideal conditions, worked nice and there was a Bagdhad that on paper was much better defended in 2003. And quite some city fighting errupted later in several cities. Militarily, the US won these ground confrontations. And still, the US managed to turn it all into a major strategic defeat.

The simple truth is neither America nor Russia have any problem with chemical weapons being used, as long as the right guy uses them. And both also have no problem with assisting and committing massacres against civilian populations. Both nations have no moral authority whatever to lecture others about the morality of this or that kind of warfare, weapon usage, or mass murder, because both nations are hidden under a big heap of guilt themselves.

Sense of reality, guys. Sense of reality.

Considering how well-informed the US were about the Iraqi chemical weapons, they surely knew, as has been claimed by independent researchers so often and by Iraq itself as well, that these stockpiled weapons and their production means have been dismantled in the mid- to end-90s, after the sanction rules that followed the not-too-seriously-meant war 1991. Still Bush claimed that they all were vthere, and that one knew were they were. We know by now how it all ended.

And that raises some questions on the vaölidity of the evidence for Syria's guilt in today's chemical strikes. Is that evidence and knowledge as solid and profound than the evidence they claimed to have 2003? Yesterday, Cameron suffered his biggest political defeat. On TV they showed a comparison of proceedings and steps that were tried by the British in producing evidence and forming a (questionable) legal basis for intervention in preparation of the war 2003, and by Cameron's government today.

It was a 1:1 copy of steps, an almost identical reproduction.

That is no evidence for it all being faked, I know. But it is a legitimit reminder of why to not blindly believe mere claims this time.

Maybe it gets proven for sure that it was all done by Assad's order. Okay. Is this a reason to help the opposition, then? The often hailed FSA by manpower currently has a small advantage over Islamic groups of more radical kind, AQ, and foreign jihadists. But the latter have more finanjcial support, they have better and more weapons, and we observe sine a longer time now a personnel drain at the FSA, a moving of fighters from them to the more radical groups. The FSA'S once dominant position, is close to end. On weapons and money, the radicals already are superior.

But history already has proven my cool and calculated approach right.

Really ?
I thought the last two major nations that took your approach and rejected silly inconveniences like the laws of war because they got in the way of victory suffered complete and total defeat.
I think most of their leadership which shared your views got strung up like the scum they were too.

Insanity isn't cool and calculated, its just insanity.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Insanity isn't cool and calculated, its just insanity.

Not necessarily.

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

Not necessarily.

How so?
If the calculations are off by reason of insanity they are not calculated.
He described breiviks manifesto as rational and calculated, it was all just insanity though despite the lengthy calculations the nut had put into it.

[BossMark]

In light of the UK parliament deciding to take no action against Syria the French have decided on their best course of action and have immediately surrendered to the Syrian Regime.