Chemical weapon used on civilians in Syria + Airstrikes

Discodog

ArchXStanton wrote: »

You really think the US gives two hoots about the Kurds?...the Kurds are the perfect example of what happens when you jump in bed with the US

You could make the same argument about jumping in bed with Russia who were fine with the US attacking Syrian sites.

Gatling

donaghs wrote: »

Why do you keep claiming Assad is committing Genocide?


If Assad really wanted to commit "genocide" of the Syrians, why doesn't he just blow up Damascus, or poison the water supply? Ask everyone to drink a specially prepared Kool-Aid?

Because that's exactly what he's been doing for the last near 8 years butchering and massacreing his own population .
I don't see ,ethics or religious beliefs .

I see Syrians Been killed on an industrial scale by the one person who could have stopped this a long time ago .but now we have two tyrannical leaders killing the Syrian population to keep one of them in power ,while the other gets a naval base

Gatling

Gatling wrote: »

Syrians on industrial scale .

Actually show me where I support radical Islam and jihadis please

Franz when you get the chance

Discodog

I posted earlier that, if you oppose Assad & Putin, you must be a Trump supporter. The same applies that if you oppose Assad & Putin you must support radical Islam.

It's as if posters can't believe that we might not support either.

Gatling

Discodog wrote: »

I posted earlier that, if you oppose Assad & Putin, you must be a Trump supporter. The same applies that if you oppose Assad & Putin you must support radical Islam.

It's as if posters can't believe that we might not support either.

See they need the personal abuse and trolling it helps threads discintergrate into walls of misinformation leaving no room for real discussion ,or the thread gets locked and job done

Elmer Blooker

Discodog wrote: »

I posted earlier that, if you oppose Assad & Putin, you must be a Trump supporter. The same applies that if you oppose Assad & Putin you must support radical Islam.

It's as if posters can't believe that we might not support either.

No. You and others have been asked many times what is the alternative to Assad and every time there is a wall of silence.
If Russia abandoned Assad and Syria fell into jihadist hands hundreds of thousands if not millions would be butchered. Can Europe take millions of refugees?

Discodog

Elmer Blooker wrote: »

No. You and others have been asked many times what is the alternative to Assad and every time there is a wall of silence.
If Russia abandoned Assad and Syria fell into jihadist hands hundreds of thousands if not millions would be butchered. Can Europe take millions of refugees?

Fair & free elections backed up by an international peace keeping force.

cnocbui

I see Lavrov's lying through his teeth again:

Russia has denied interfering with evidence at the site of a suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria which led to Saturday's military intervention by the US, the UK and France.

In an interview for BBC's Hardtalk, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said: "I can guarantee that Russia has not tampered with the site."

He spoke as the OPCW chemical weapons watchdog held an urgent meeting.

Inspectors in Syria have still not gained access to Douma, it is reported.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43783427

Non interfering Russian entering one of the gas attack buildings in Douma:

jimmycrackcorm

cnocbui wrote:

The US and Europes best solution to this dilemma would be to both get behind the creation of a Kurdish state and back it to the hilt, then they wouldn't need Incerlik and could tell Turkey to go play with Putin.

They can't do that because a Kurdish state would encompass parts of both Turkey and Iraq. It's bad enough that Israel was created this way but to duplicate the effort can only lead to worse problems

Discodog

He's become Russia's Chemical Ali. So the Russians knew of the attack but haven't been there but they say it's all fake & they know this without visiting the place.

donaghs

Gatling wrote: »

Because that's exactly what he's been doing for the last near 8 years butchering and massacreing his own population .
I don't see ,ethics or religious beliefs .

I see Syrians Been killed on an industrial scale by the one person who could have stopped this a long time ago .but now we have two tyrannical leaders killing the Syrian population to keep one of them in power ,while the other gets a naval base

Surely it’s obvious a war is being fought, with little regard for civilian casualties?

Mosul was supposed to be the bloodiest battle recently for civilians. Does that make the Americans and Iraqi govt guilty of genocide?

Or the rebels deliberate shelling, mortaring and rocketing civilian areas of Damascus?

Elmer Blooker

Discodog wrote: »

Fair & free elections backed up by an international peace keeping force.

Right , the reason why Syria is infested with jihadis in the pay of the Saudi and Gulf dictatorships is because the country can have free and fair elections.

Non interfering Russian entering one of the gas attack buildings in Douma:

Thanks Cnoc for the link to Qatar run Aljazeera!
Wiki:

Judicial corporal punishment is common in Qatar due to the Wahhabi interpretation of Sharia Law, although in Qatar it had originally been a Hanbali school of mainstream Sunnism. Flogging is employed as a punishment for alcohol consumption or illicit sexual relations.

cnocbui

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

They can't do that because a Kurdish state would encompass parts of both Turkey and Iraq. It's bad enough that Israel was created this way but to duplicate the effort can only lead to worse problems

Who would be the Kurdish equivalent of the Palestinians? They are a large part of the Israel problem. Many of the worlds messes are caused by the geographic fragmentation of shared language cultural groups by artificial borders at the behest of the interfering British in the post WW1 map carve up.

Turkey wouldn't be loosing anything other than a long standing problem.

cnocbui

Elmer Blooker wrote: »

Right , the reason why Syria is infested with jihadis in the pay of the Saudi and Gulf dictatorships is because the country can have free and fair elections.

A link please to an assessment that the last elections in Syria were free and fair. Shouldn't take you more than a month or two to find it. :cool:

http://www.france24.com/en/20180416-russian-reporter-maksim-borodin-syria-mercenaries-balcony-fall

A Russian journalist who wrote on Moscow's "shadow army" in Syria has died after falling from the balcony of his fifth-floor flat, but investigators said Monday they were not treating the death as suspicious.

TerrorFirmer

Discodog wrote: »

Fair & free elections backed up by an international peace keeping force.

And what after these fair and free elections?

Because the US is not going to commit to propping up another democracy project like it already is in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Doesn't matter what the outcome of free elections would be, within a short period of time it would descend into another civil war, or fall into a country of various armed factions and warlords.

I don't deny that civilians are dying in enormous numbers, but to lay the blame for every single death at the feet of Assad is ridiculous just because he's on one side of the war (and to be realistic, he has wide enough support too)

By that logic, the US is responsible for every single civilian death in Afghanistan and Iraq since the respective invasions, despite the fact the vast majority of said casulties are as a result of genocidal behavior by certain fundamentalist factions.

This narrative that Assad is deliberately targetting civilians for kicks and a laugh is just utterly ridiculous. The only factions that deliberately single out civilian populace based on ethnic/religiious/etc reasons are the Jihadis.

The only 'moderate' opposition force in Syria is the SDF/YPG. And they're not really directly fighting Al Assad....some action with pro-regime militia but on the whole there isn't massive confrontation between the two.

What's left is Assad on one side, and the fundamentalist groups on the other, largely speaking.

This isn't a post praising or condoning the Assad regime by the way, but there's a massive irony here of some people complaining about 'putinbots' but pushing the simplified Cowboys and Indians view as 100% infalliable.

Dohnjoe

donaghs wrote: »

Mosul was supposed to be the bloodiest battle recently for civilians. Does that make the Americans and Iraqi govt guilty of genocide?

Depends on the motive and context. For example, the coalition and Iraqi forces weren't deliberately targeting the civilians and residents in Mosul - they were attacking ISIS

In contrast Assad's forces were deliberately targeting the former, on a grand scale. Early in the conflict his forces were indiscriminately shelling cities and residential areas, using militias like the Shabiha to kill civilians and spread terror in unyielding villages and towns, engaging in mass arbitrary arrest (torture and murder) of protesters and opposition

Indeed 7 years later his forces are now fighting some pretty nasty groups who have committed equally horrendous atrocities - that doesn't validate earlier and current actions (such as repeated chemical weapon usage on enemy forces and civilians)

This is why few countries are reluctant to change views on Assad. He is a complete butcher.

cnocbui

Elmer Blooker wrote: »

Right , the reason why Syria is infested with jihadis in the pay of the Saudi and Gulf dictatorships is because the country can have free and fair elections.


Thanks Cnoc for the link to Qatar run Aljazeera!
Wiki:

You're welcome.

Have you ever noticed that if you drink a good Penfolds Grange Hermitage from a cracked ceramic mug it tastes the same as if from an expensive hand-blown wine glass? Amazingly, the quality of the contents are not determined by the container.

The troops are still Russians entering a building destined for a OPCW visit, which of course is being held-up and is not proceeding.

Singapore also has judicially proscribed corporal punishment. I would say Singapore is one of the more admirable and well behaved countries. In the case of both Qatar and Singapore I abhor the practice.

Elmer Blooker

cnocbui wrote: »

A link please to an assessment that the last elections in Syria were free and fair. Shouldn't take you more than a month or two to find it. :cool:

No doubt the "rebels" were under instructions from their paymasters. No one would have voted for them anyway, the vast majority of Syrians are pro Assad.

On 7 May 2012, Syria held its first elections in which parties outside the ruling coalition could take part. Seven new political parties took part in the elections, of which Popular Front for Change and Liberation was the largest opposition party. The armed anti-government rebels, however, chose not to field candidates and called on their supporters to boycott the elections.

Dohnjoe

Discodog wrote: »

Fair & free elections backed up by an international peace keeping force.

I would have to disagree, I think we are far, far beyond that point

Few will do business with Assad, but if he could hand power to a deputy, then some sort of "peace" could possibly be brokered (after serious war exhaustion sets in and the economy is shattered)

The rest of Syria - I don't know.

Dohnjoe

Elmer Blooker wrote: »

the vast majority of Syrians are pro Assad.

We have no idea of knowing - Syria has never had free or fair elections under Assad or his father

The mass protests in 2011 contradict this view also

mcmoustache

Discodog wrote: »

He's become Russia's Chemical Ali. So the Russians knew of the attack but haven't been there but they say it's all fake & they know this without visiting the place.

By the way, what's the current Russian line on this. I wasn't paying that much attention over the last few days so I've forgotten where we are now.

Are they saying that the attack happened now but that it was British intelligence and no, the OPCW isn't allowed to check it out?

ohnonotgmail

mcmoustache wrote: »

By the way, what's the current Russian line on this. I wasn't paying that much attention over the last few days so I've forgotten where we are now.

Are they saying that the attack happened now but that it was British intelligence and no, the OPCW isn't allowed to check it out?

the OPCW have not been allowed in but the russians have already been in. Presumably to secure any evidence that might be there.

Dohnjoe

mcmoustache wrote: »

Are they saying that the attack happened now but that it was British intelligence and no, the OPCW isn't allowed to check it out?

They are still claiming it's staged. The investigation team is being blocked, the Russians are claiming it's "too dangerous" (despite the rebels leaving) and that the OPCW team needs a particular UN permit to check the site .. not joking

gandalf

Deleted User wrote: »

http://www.france24.com/en/20180416-russian-reporter-maksim-borodin-syria-mercenaries-balcony-fall

Apparently he reported armed masked men around his apartment the day before he was found......interesting!

Shurimgreat

gandalf wrote: »

Apparently he reported armed masked men around his apartment the day before he was found......interesting!

Coincidence?
Unlikely.

Shurimgreat

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

the OPCW have not been allowed in but the russians have already been in. Presumably to secure any evidence that might be there.

Probably washing the place down as we speak while delaying the inspectors.

So much for being in a rush to prove to the international community it was a false flag attack.

TerrorFirmer

Shurimgreat wrote: »

Coincidence?
Probably not.

Truth can be stranger than fiction/conspiracy but it would be one hell of a remarkable coincidence and entirely in line with the nature of the high level of coincidental crime victims in Russia that happen to be dissenting journalists/activists.

mcmoustache

Dohnjoe wrote: »

They are still claiming it's staged. The investigation team is being blocked, the Russians are claiming it's "too dangerous" (despite the rebels leaving) and that the OPCW team needs a particular UN permit to check the site .. not joking

This is still very confusing. By "staged", are they saying that there was:

No Attack. Just actors and doctored pictures/video.

or

Yes there was an attack but it was done by ISIS.

or

Yes there was an attack but it was done by British Intelligence.

I've heard all of these over the past week but they obviously can't all be true. I was just wondering which of these the Russians were running with at the moment.

Dohnjoe

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

This narrative that Assad is deliberately targetting civilians for kicks and a laugh is just utterly ridiculous. The only factions that deliberately single out civilian populace based on ethnic/religiious/etc reasons are the Jihadis.

Would agree with most of your post but just to highlight that people can be targeted along political lines, which has happened on a large scale in Syria.

Dohnjoe

mcmoustache wrote: »

This is still very confusing. By "staged", are they saying that there was:

No Attack. Just actors and doctored pictures/video.

or

Yes there was an attack but it was done by ISIS.

or

Yes there was an attack but it was done by British Intelligence.

I've heard all of these over the past week but they obviously can't all be true. I was just wondering which of these the Russians were running with at the moment.

They don't seem to backing a specific particular theory - just using the usual "staged" label to plant doubt and try to discredit the "official story"

TerrorFirmer

Dohnjoe wrote: »

Would agree with most of your post but just to highlight that people can be targeted along political lines, which has happened on a large scale in Syria.

This is true and obviously Assad would have a dismal record on tolerance for dissent generally though a lot of the actual 'battlefield terror' in Syria is actually down to pro-regime militia.

To which I'm sure given the circumstances Assad turns somewhat of a blind eye, but I think it's a bit blinkered to paint a narrative in which he's deliberately targeting his own civilians for no good reason. (not saying you were, but many are)

The same problem existed/exists in Iraq and the fight against ISIS there, US-backed pro-Government forces were pretty heinous on many occassions in reprisal/looting/arbitrary violence in liberation.

TerrorFirmer

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Truth can be stranger than fiction/conspiracy but it would be one hell of a remarkable coincidence and entirely in line with the nature of the high level of coincidental crime victims in Russia that happen to be dissenting journalists/activists.

It does have a striking similarity to the death of Scott Young though

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/scot-young-death-wasnt-suicide-4793928

Discodog

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

This is true and obviously Assad would have a dismal record on tolerance for dissent generally though a lot of the actual 'battlefield terror' in Syria is actually down to pro-regime militia.

To which I'm sure given the circumstances Assad turns somewhat of a blind eye, but I think it's a bit blinkered to paint a narrative in which he's deliberately targeting his own civilians for no good reason. (not saying you were, but many are)

The same problem existed/exists in Iraq and the fight against ISIS there, US-backed pro-Government forces were pretty heinous on many occassions in reprisal/looting/arbitrary violence in liberation.

I think that he & the Russians know exactly what's going on. If civilians are in the wrong place then they are considered terrorists.

mcmoustache

Dohnjoe wrote: »

They don't seem to backing a specific particular theory - just using the usual "staged" label to plant doubt and try to discredit the "official story"

Yeah, that's what I noticed myself. On April 10th, UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said:

It contains some unacceptable elements which make it even worse. You heard our statement today where we said that our military, radiological, biological, chemical unit was on site of the alleged chemical accident and it confirmed that there were no chemical substances found on the ground, no dead bodies found, no poisoned people in the hospitals. The doctors in Douma deny that there were people who came to the hospital claiming that they were under the chemical attack. The Syrian Red Crescent that it was said to be treating people who were poisoned denied that was ever doing it. What we are saying, we are requesting the OPCW whose Director-General said they were ready to go to Douma to do it immediately and see themselves what happens to the ground.

Fair enough, I thought. Denying that it happened at all is a somewhat rational strategy to take. Sure it's not really credible but it's at least somewhat sane.

Where it got confusing was all the rest of the firehose. In this thread we've had a heap of conspiracy theories - for example that ISIS did it themselves but this obviously contradicts the official position. This obviously muddied a discussion which is actually about 2 simple opposing points:

1 - Syria used chemical weapons in Douma

2 - There was no chemical attack in Duoma


These two positions are the only ones that should be discussed. The west says something happened, Russia says it didn't, anything else is just nonsense intended to confuse what is a rather simple issue.

It either happened or it didn't and evidence will show one way or the other.

All the conspiratorial nonsense that starts out on Russian media, then laundered through alt-right and conspiracy websites and presented here as a genuinely held opinion has only one goal - confusion and muddying what is, as I said, a simple topic.

Gatling

Discodog wrote: »

I think that he & the Russians know exactly what's going on. If civilians are in the wrong place then they are considered terrorists.

Lavrov as much said so several years ago ,
When asked about civilian casualties at the hands of Russian Airstrikes he replied with if it walks like and talks like a terrorist then it is ,
Then came the multiple strikes on hospitals and schools and bakery's .

It's essentially the same scorched earth policy employed in Afghanistan ,then Grozny and other towns and cities in the Chechen wars

Attack and kill everything in sight until they submit to your power

Shurimgreat

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

And what after these fair and free elections?

Because the US is not going to commit to propping up another democracy project like it already is in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Doesn't matter what the outcome of free elections would be, within a short period of time it would descend into another civil war, or fall into a country of various armed factions and warlords.

I don't deny that civilians are dying in enormous numbers, but to lay the blame for every single death at the feet of Assad is ridiculous just because he's on one side of the war (and to be realistic, he has wide enough support too)

By that logic, the US is responsible for every single civilian death in Afghanistan and Iraq since the respective invasions, despite the fact the vast majority of said casulties are as a result of genocidal behavior by certain fundamentalist factions.

This narrative that Assad is deliberately targetting civilians for kicks and a laugh is just utterly ridiculous. The only factions that deliberately single out civilian populace based on ethnic/religiious/etc reasons are the Jihadis.

The only 'moderate' opposition force in Syria is the SDF/YPG. And they're not really directly fighting Al Assad....some action with pro-regime militia but on the whole there isn't massive confrontation between the two.

What's left is Assad on one side, and the fundamentalist groups on the other, largely speaking.

This isn't a post praising or condoning the Assad regime by the way, but there's a massive irony here of some people complaining about 'putinbots' but pushing the simplified Cowboys and Indians view as 100% infalliable.

Syria is/was an artificial construct of colonial times. There are huge divisions in the country and it could be argued the country should have been split up years ago to prevent the kind of sectarian violence we see today. Assad has ruthlessly exploited these divisions, turning it into a fight to the death.

However, the West, Russia, Iran, Arab League, UN, etc have not covered themselves in glory.
I don't think the Russians were ever too tied to Assad, all they care about is keeping their warm water ports and some influence in Syrian affairs.
A deal should have been hammered out between the West and Russia early on to help avoid all the bloodshed. Instead both sides dug their heels in and the people of Syria suffered. We are badly lacking in great diplomats on the world stage.

Shurimgreat

Gatling wrote: »

Lavrov as much said so several years ago ,
When asked about civilian casualties at the hands of Russian Airstrikes he replied with if it walks like and talks like a terrorist then it is ,
Then came the multiple strikes on hospitals and schools and bakery's .

It's essentially the same scorched earth policy employed in Afghanistan ,then Grozny and other towns and cities in the Chechen wars

Attack and kill everything in sight until they submit to your power

The one thing Russia will never have to worry about is its own Stop the War movement. When Boris Nemtsov tried to organise such a rally in 2015 he was shot dead.

cnocbui

Aegir wrote: »

It does have a striking similarity to the death of Scott Young though

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/scot-young-death-wasnt-suicide-4793928

And ...

Lawyer for family of Russian whistleblower falls from fourth floor

Nikolai Gorokhov, who represents family of Sergei Magnitsky, in intensive care after falling from apartment block.

Cheaper than $10 M worth of Pollonium.

Gatling

Shurimgreat wrote: »

The one thing Russia will never have to worry about is its own stop the war movement. Protests like that would never be allowed in Russia.

When Boris Nemtsov tried to organise such a rally in 2015 he was shot dead.

Sure wouldn't there be mass suicide's with people flying off balconies across Moscow left right and centre

Discodog

More Russian lies.

Brian G. Williams, the author of the book “Counter Jihad. The American Military Experience in Afghanistan Iraq and Syria” told Polygraph.info the “claims that 71 percent of US French and British missiles were intercepted are in the realm of fantasy.”

“Not even the advanced Israeli Iron Dome anti-missile system or U.S. Patriot anti-missile systems could achieve such a success rate,” Williams said.

The expert argues that if Russia’s claims were true, there would have been “deaths on the ground.”

“Tomahawks are massive missiles. If 71 were intercepted there would have been many cases of shrapnel and lethal debris falling on civilian inhabited areas and footage of Tomahawk debris and wreckage. There have not been,” he added.

In the hours after the attack, videos and photos emerged allegedly showing evidence of interceptions and supporting Russia’s claims. However, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) detailed that the instances it found were “in fact recycled from other conflicts.”


https://www.polygraph.info/a/syria-russia-71-missiles-claim-fact-cheched/29169608.html

Elmer Blooker

I never heard of polygraph.info before but I have now!

Polygraph.info is a fact-checking website produced by Voice of America (VOA)​ and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

In other words, a CIA mouthpiece.
Would you laugh if I posted a sputniknews link DD?

https://www.polygraph.info/p/5981.html

Discodog

Elmer Blooker wrote: »

I never heard of polygraph.info before but I have now!

In other words, a CIA mouthpiece.
Would you laugh if I posted a sputniknews link DD?

https://www.polygraph.info/p/5981.html

So what part do you disagree with ?

By the way Russia & Syria are now denying access to the OPCW.

Gatling

Discodog wrote: »

So what part do you disagree with ?

By the way Russia & Syria are now denying access to the OPCW.

But ,but ,but

russia demanded this investigation and now they are blocking it ,

As predicted

babybuilder

http://podcasts.spiritradio.ie/robert-fisk-from-douma-syria/

Gatling

Has anyone produced any evidence of missles being actually shotdown over Syria at all ,
Surely if between 70-100+ various weapons were shotdown by antique russian missles there would be evidence like video of something .

Elmer Blooker

Discodog wrote: »

So what part do you disagree with ?

By the way Russia & Syria are now denying access to the OPCW.

O come on please! Voice of America/Radio Free Europe is a reds-under-the-bed dinosaur that belongs in the 1950s.

Why would Russia deny the OPCW access to a site where no "chemical attack" took place?

Surely if between 70-100+ various weapons were shotdown by antique russian missles there would be evidence

They (71) must have been shot down. There seems to be little damage caused by 103 missiles - a few demolished buildings and that's about it.

Discodog

Elmer Blooker wrote: »

O come on please! Voice of America/Radio Free Europe is a reds-under-the-bed dinosaur that belongs in the 1950s.

Why would Russia deny the OPCW access to a site where no "chemical attack" took place?

Every news outlet is saying it. Apparently the OPCW aren't happy

Gatling

Elmer Blooker wrote: »

They (71) must have been shot down. There seems to be little damage caused by 103 missiles - a few demolished buildings and that's about it.

So nothing found no unexploded ordnance , missles ,bombs ....
No video or photograpic evidence what's so ever.

Odd no ?

Discodog

Gatling wrote: »

So nothing found no unexploded ordnance , missles ,bombs ....
No video or photograpic evidence what's so ever.

Odd no ?

You didn't look at the photos I linked to. Three sites were flattened