Latest Claims Made Against Assad Regime : Thu Aug 22, 2013 9:20 am  

If chemical weapons have been used in Damascus why do knobs like William Hague always assume the Assad regime is responsible? What's the most likely scenario, a dictator who is clearly winning a civil war using chemical weapons in his capital or some Al-Qaida nut detonating a dirty bomb hoping Assad gets blamed and giving western war mongers like Hague the chance to get us involved in the conflict?

Re: Latest Claims Made Against Assad Regime : Thu Aug 22, 2013 9:55 am  

OTOH it's a great tactic to terrorise and kill, while at the same time shifting the blame on other factions. Win-win, and all too common, along with the widespread gullibility of so many people that by default want to believe the most bizarre alternative explanations. So if this happened in the US there would soon be a huge conspiracy group adamant the government did it, if it happens abroad similarly a group adamant the government didn't do it.

Personally I can only make a provisional judgment on the basis of reading all manner of varying opinions and explanations from people who know lots about chemical weapons, as I don't claim to know anything about them, and at the moment it seems pretty clear to me that it's highly unlikely to the experts that some terrorist organisation would have the capacity or the technology to deliver such a chemical weapon attack. Whereas the Syrian government very clearly and undoubtedly does. And it is its perceived foes that have been attacked.

Another odd thing requiring an explanation is why, given we have UN chemical weapons experts literally around the corner, did not teh Assad regime immediately send them to the spot to investigate, and publish their findings? Odd, that.

We will never definitively know, but I'm firmly with Occam on this one.

Re: Latest Claims Made Against Assad Regime : Thu Aug 22, 2013 10:10 am  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

...We will never definitively know, but I'm firmly with Occam on this one.

Quite.
There can be bluff, double bluff and treble bluff ... but it still comes down to who had the technology/motive/opportunity.

The reason Hague acts like a knob is because knobs act like knobs.
He doesn't even have a sabre to rattle, which is fortunate.

Re: Latest Claims Made Against Assad Regime : Thu Aug 22, 2013 11:56 am  

LeighGionaire wrote:

If chemical weapons have been used in Damascus why do knobs like William Hague always assume the Assad regime is responsible? What's the most likely scenario, a dictator who is clearly winning a civil war using chemical weapons in his capital or some Al-Qaida nut detonating a dirty bomb hoping Assad gets blamed and giving western war mongers like Hague the chance to get us involved in the conflict?

I doubt that the rebels have chemical weapons but Assad is mad enough to do it to his own people like Saddam Hussein did to the Kurds. If there is an attack on Syria because it is proved that Assad did it then so be it.

Re: Latest Claims Made Against Assad Regime : Thu Aug 22, 2013 12:37 pm  

Dead Man Walking wrote:

... If there is an attack on Syria because it is proved that Assad did it then so be it.

I think that would be madness.
There are so many factions involved now that the current bloodbath will look tiny as a Russia v The West war unfolds by proxy and hundreds of thousands of innocent Syrian civilian lives will pay the price of our interference.

Re: Latest Claims Made Against Assad Regime : Thu Aug 22, 2013 2:03 pm  

El Barbudo wrote:

I think that would be madness.
There are so many factions involved now that the current bloodbath will look tiny as a Russia v The West war unfolds by proxy and hundreds of thousands of innocent Syrian civilian lives will pay the price of our interference.

You're correct on that as it will be the Syrian public who will face the brunt of it all. I'll change it to if the West went after Assad to get rid of him then that wouldn't bother me.

Re: Latest Claims Made Against Assad Regime : Thu Aug 22, 2013 3:38 pm  

Dead Man Walking wrote: You're correct on that as it will be the Syrian public who will face the brunt of it all. I'll change it to if the West went after Assad to get rid of him then that wouldn't bother me. Tempting though that might be ... I'm always wondering what will rush to fill the vacuum when a leader is deposed. France and Britain (and the USA, come to that) have too much previous in terms of devious acts, reneged agreements and plain bad judgement right across the whole of the Levant, from the point when they tried to divide it between them after the Ottomans had picked the wrong side in WWI, right up to allowing Jewish immigration into Palestine. I thoroughly recommend a book ... "A line in the sand" by James Barr. This review gives a precis ... http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-enter ... 55278.html

Dead Man Walking wrote: You're correct on that as it will be the Syrian public who will face the brunt of it all. I'll change it to if the West went after Assad to get rid of him then that wouldn't bother me. Tempting though that might be ... I'm always wondering what will rush to fill the vacuum when a leader is deposed. France and Britain (and the USA, come to that) have too much previous in terms of devious acts, reneged agreements and plain bad judgement right across the whole of the Levant, from the point when they tried to divide it between them after the Ottomans had picked the wrong side in WWI, right up to allowing Jewish immigration into Palestine. I thoroughly recommend a book ... "A line in the sand" by James Barr. This review gives a precis ... http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-enter ... 55278.html

Re: Latest Claims Made Against Assad Regime : Thu Aug 22, 2013 8:02 pm  

Whats happening in Syria is very murky, who knows who is actually perpetrating this stuff. You have to beware though of the vested interests of governments to support "their" champions. The west is eager to get rid of Assad and put a Western eg US puppet in control of the nation. Russia on the other hand sees Syria as coming under its sphere of influence and is seeking to protect it. Hence our news reports already appear to have pinned the blame on Assads regime even though as of yet there is little to no proof that they did it. Some earlier comments on this site appear to be under the impression that the rebels don't possess nerve agents. Yet the UN have been reporting that they have been using Sarin gas. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... s-use.html http://www.todayonline.com/syria-rebels ... ons-russia http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/mi ... tack-.html http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ar ... kcmgxzYO4Q This Israeli report says rebels captured what appeared to be chemical weapons missile launchers. If they have captured the missiles then its fair to say they have the capability to launch chemical weapons attacks http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/ ... hZoIHdwa70 This report in Yahoo makes interesting reading as it comments on documents that indicate that the USA was organising via a British security company for rebels to launch a gas attack on Syria so that it could be blamed on the Assad regime. http://in.news.yahoo.com/us-backed-plan ... 48224.html A lot more detail is provided on this link http://www.infowars.com/syrian-chemical ... n-advance/ AS the old adage goes "the first casualty of war is THE TRUTH." Everything we read about regardless of its source, has to be treated as Propaganda, until proven otherwise.

Whats happening in Syria is very murky, who knows who is actually perpetrating this stuff. You have to beware though of the vested interests of governments to support "their" champions. The west is eager to get rid of Assad and put a Western eg US puppet in control of the nation. Russia on the other hand sees Syria as coming under its sphere of influence and is seeking to protect it. Hence our news reports already appear to have pinned the blame on Assads regime even though as of yet there is little to no proof that they did it. Some earlier comments on this site appear to be under the impression that the rebels don't possess nerve agents. Yet the UN have been reporting that they have been using Sarin gas. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... s-use.html http://www.todayonline.com/syria-rebels ... ons-russia http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/mi ... tack-.html http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ar ... kcmgxzYO4Q This Israeli report says rebels captured what appeared to be chemical weapons missile launchers. If they have captured the missiles then its fair to say they have the capability to launch chemical weapons attacks http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/ ... hZoIHdwa70 This report in Yahoo makes interesting reading as it comments on documents that indicate that the USA was organising via a British security company for rebels to launch a gas attack on Syria so that it could be blamed on the Assad regime. http://in.news.yahoo.com/us-backed-plan ... 48224.html A lot more detail is provided on this link http://www.infowars.com/syrian-chemical ... n-advance/ AS the old adage goes "the first casualty of war is THE TRUTH." Everything we read about regardless of its source, has to be treated as Propaganda, until proven otherwise.

Re: Latest Claims Made Against Assad Regime : Thu Aug 22, 2013 11:59 pm  

The Chair Maker wrote:

...

Everything we read about regardless of its source, has to be treated as Propaganda, until proven otherwise.

Kind of makes your posting of seven links to extensive reading material a bit pointless, then.

Personally I'm happy enough to make up my own mind from the information I've seen, which is not to claim certainty, but then I recognise that we will never, ever have certainty, ever, at all, ever. So treating everything as propaganda until "proven otherwise" will mean you had to sit on so many fences, permanently, your arrse would be made of splinters.

I would say that we just need to be aware that anything MAY be propaganda, and that of course MOST stuff is written to some extent with some agenda even if not propaganda as such. But waiting for "proof" of every single thing? Utterly pointless.

Even if you ignore the fact that the biggest, most blatant "proof" for one man is just bollox for another. Just one for instance, I remember watching with my own eyes a passenger jet fly into the Twin Towers. Plenty still say there is no "proof" it ever happened.

Re: Latest Claims Made Against Assad Regime : Tue Aug 27, 2013 8:42 am  

So, we lob a couple of cruise missiles into Syria to show our abhorrence at this latest example of Arab genocide. Then what? We fire off a few more from HMS Tireless, which is already on station in the med, and everyone has a warm glow of a job well done? Perhaps we should take a moment to ponder on the consequences of sticking our noses into what is a particularly vicious regional Muslim dispute is in order.

Arabs per se, are arguably the cruellest race on Earth. Do we hear of any outraged protests, or the call to arms from any of the neighbours? I think not.

Personally, I'd let them get on with it. After all, it is surely a simple demonstration of Allah's Will. We can salve our consciences with massive aid shipments once they get tired of killing each other.