It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the whole thing was staged. To what end? To discredit the whole Assad regime of course. I think every newspaper, on the same day, showed what looked like dead bodies shrouded in white and about 99% of those readers were instantly sickened, believed what they saw and never in a second questioned it - job done! We have never seen the reports of the gas testing. Nobody ever told us what gas was "used", what it was exactly, who exposed it - nada! All I can say is, why would Assad do it? He was winning that part of the war and the last thing he needed was to chemically bomb anybody and risk the wrath of the rest of the world. The truth is, we can't believe anything anymore - "they" are way too good at propaganda for us mere mortals to even try to comprehend, but "they" know...
Yes, but when I commented on it, you said I didn't have it right. Why stage photos if there were real images from an actual gas attack?
And now we are back full circle. Assad already looks bad. It's improbable children, and most adults for that matter, could have acted such realistic seizures. If the US was acting on Obama wanting to intervene, and/or acting on Saudi Arabia's mandate, why aren't the bombs already falling? Why not just act, rather than seeking a Congressional vote?
@GingerCoffee: You didn't get it wrong because I didn't explain. So me explaining again, by logic of things, won't make you understand this time. Read the article again, and my comments,and half the comments in this thread. It's all very clear. If not, then I'm afraid you'll have to live with not understanding. And just because YOU don't understand, it doesn't mean it didn't happen. I won't be answering the same question again.
I really didn't understand it, either, to be completely honest. Video footage may have been faked. Fake video and image footage of news events is by no means a government monopoly. Many famous newspapers and TV stations have done it before, and it has frequently come out. At the end of the day, as I think everybody can see from this discussion, the situation is murky enough so that it is not clear entirely who should be blamed. It's even less clear how the guilty could be punished, even if they were found. The evidence points to Assad and the Syrian Army, but before anybody goes much further in an armchair analysis, I would suggest reading the actual UN report. I'm looking for it now, will post a link when I find it. EDIT: Here it is: http://www.un.org/disarmament/content/slideshow/Secretary_General_Report_of_CW_Investigation.pdf Further EDIT: I'm almost through reading it, and can highly recommend it. Some things are particularly noteworthy, such as the part about the munitions, where it says that people were observed in the impact area carrying large rocket parts to and fro and that consequently there was a significant danger of evidence manipulation. The report also does not say anywhere that the Syrian Army launched the attack. It merely strongly suggests that many people were exposed to Sarin after an attack hit the area.
@Porcupine: I agree with you, nobody knows for sure yet, media can't be considered reliable one way or another. I read the UN report, Russia is calling it biased and not based on facts, but largely an unsubstantiated conjecture. So I still haven't formed an opinion on what exactly is going on, other than that the US has no business attacking anyone over the alleged use of chemical weapons, when they are the first to be selling it, and using it (historically, not to mention bombing people with uranium as we speak), all over the world. Im only anti-war, that stance won't change regardless of the outcome here.
Well, having read it, wouldn't you agree that the Russian position re the report is more or less bluster mixed with disappointment that one of the rockets discovered at the crash site had Cyrillic lettering on it (which would have been expected anyway, and does not signify anything). The report, condensed, says this: 1. Sarin was dispersed at a number of sites in a certain area in Syria with absolute certainty and there are many dead and wounded. 2. The dispersal method was probably by means of a surface-to-surface rocket, since eye witnesses report impacts of rockets at the time of the event and rocket parts were found on site. BUT we the UN inspectors also observed that the rocket parts may not all have been from such an attack, since there is a lot of activity at theses sites and rocket parts were being carried around even while we where there for no clear reason. -> Rocket parts are not fully conclusive evidence. Rocket parts were found to be contaminated with Sarin. 3. The weather conditions at the time were very well suited to a chemical attack. That's where the report more or less stops. It does not assign blame, hence the Russian attempt to discredit the report is disingenuous. What the the more aggressive "hawkish" observers in the West are saying, is this: 1. The rockets clearly carried the Sarin. 2. The rocket trajectories clearly point to positions manned by the Syrian army. 3. The Syrian army possesses rocket launchers capable of such an attack. 4. It seems like there were even such rocket launchers in firing positions roughly where you'd expect them to be at the time of the incident. 5. It must have been the Syrian army. 6. Somebody must do something like... drop bombs in retaliation! Here, I do agree that such a conclusion is a bit premature, as all of those conclusions are only implied by evidence which could be circumstantial. At the same time, the "Russian story" is worse, it's not even based on research or reports. They seem to just make it up as they go along.
I don't follow your logic. Just because UN report didn't assign the blame, Russians questioning the validity of it must be disingenious. Must be? Why? I think it's easy from the Western perspective to belittle Russian opinion. After 50 years of intense propaganda against the Russians, most Americans still think it's a gulag mixed with Hitleresque dictatorship and massive queues for oil, flour and a permission to live. Likewise, most Russians view Americans as cultureless wild west, hillbilly, country yokels with no education or intellignece to think for themselves. With a charade of a political system where people have illusion of choice between two parties and the elite that is put forward for the elections, which is actually the same 'party' aka military-industrial complex. I subscribe to neither opinion. I have equal respect and suspicion for both Russian and American opinion - it is driven by gain. However, if I tally up acts of illegal aggression aimed at soverign countries, based on falsified evidence, America comes out on top ten times over. America's is a war economy, and I am confident that American administration is setting up many countries in the Middle East (the whole 'Arab spring'), chronically arming fundamentalists and extremists in order to detsabilise economies and appoint puppet governments. Their economy depends on the control of resources and contracts to rebuild what they just destroyed. This, and my eyes and ears, which have seen this exact scenario of 'arm the extremists-try to overtake-if no success engineer humanitarian disaster in order to circumvent the UN-never mind the legal problems because we don't extradite our citizens to war crimes tribunals anyway' scenario too many times to take what Obama's doing with anything less than a massive grain of salt. In other words, I listen to Russia more carefully than the average Westerner. I believe it is a wise thing to do.
I don't find "eye-witness" testimony any more credible than US announcements of what the government knows. I do think the US is capable of monitoring/detecting the launch sites and/or trajectories of the missiles and the other evidence supporting 1-5 above. That does not preclude the government lying about said evidence. But eye-witness testimony is just crap evidence. Watch any 'breaking news' event unfold in the 24 hour news, got to be first atmosphere of today's media. Witnesses report seeing everything under the Sun. One or more shooters, black, white, brown, in combat fatigues, in all black, hat, no hat, 13 different kinds of weapons: this is the nature of eye-witness testimony. Add in the circumstances of people who live by superstitious beliefs about the US, the chaos of the situation, confirmation bias of witnesses (on both sides), and the motive to insert propaganda into the scene, like it or not, eye-witness testimony isn't worth anything. So from my POV, I don't trust the US to tell the truth, I do trust their technical spying capabilities. I don't trust any eye-witness accounts, except perhaps some accounts like the Doctors Without Borders staff reporting how many victims they saw in the hospitals. The videos of all those people with seizures and other neurological symptoms are unlikely to have been faked. That leaves me with the conclusion the gas was used and the US knows where the rockets were launched from. So, is the Obama admin lying? I see no evidence of a motive to lie except possibly Saudi Arabia encouraging Obama to take out Assad. I don't see any bombs falling. Obama went to Congress rather than just dropping them. That is evidence I find more reliable than a news account of eye-witnesses, who while likely believe the stories they are telling, are nonetheless giving classically demonstrably unreliable testimony. What is consistent with all this evidence is that Assad's forces really did use gas on a neighborhood, and Obama was now in a position of ignoring it or not. His past excuses not to involve US troops/bombs were challenged. The US under Obama doesn't want any more outwardly visible military involvement in the world. We are involved militarily in plenty of less visible settings as the latest attack on the Kenyan mall revealed (2K troops on the ground, a drone base, etc.). If Obama wanted to bomb Assad, he wouldn't have gone to Congress. And if Russia and China are stopping him, it's not like that wasn't already a known factor. Seems to me, Assad's forces used the gas, and Putin gave Obama a face saving out for Obama's past statements about staying out of that war except by proxy unless Assad raised the stakes. And if I had to find a conspiracy theory here, it'd be the people selling arms to both sides influencing the big players to keep selling both sides arms.
@GingerCoffee: The UN report as well as US government opinion is also based on 'survivors and eyewitness reports'. The rest is simply collecting evidence that the gas was indeed used. Which is not in question. What is in question is who used it. Back to square one. I really don't understand this need to form opinions prematurely. What's wrong with critically observing information coming from all sides and waiting until there's robust and unequivocal proof one way or another?
Possibly. I wouldn't count on it too much, though. If there were good, up to date satellite images of the launching sites, they could already have been published to good effect, but haven't been. Since the launch systems were most likely multiple rocket tube launchers, which could be towed or self-propelled but are relatively small, these launches would not be detected and would probably not be monitored. These are not ICBMs or even Scuds, where early warning systems exist. These are much smaller rocket artillery projectiles. Of course if somebody were watching the launch site closely with the correct equipment (even from space) it might be possible to detect an MLRS launcher firing, but it's much more difficult than detecting a major rocket launch. And nobody knew in advance whether such an attack would be launched. The Syrian army probably fires multiple MLRS systems off each day. Because the Russians are discrediting it based on the implication that it accuses the Syrian government of using the gas. Which it doesn't. The UN report doesn't say more than you say yourself: Sarin was used. It's not clear who did it. Yet the Russians immediately attack and discredit the report. Does that not strike you as odd? Perhaps. But it would be naive to believe Russia to be a bright and pure bringer of peace. Your skepticism of both sides is sensible and well-founded. Anyway, what are we discussing here? We don't seem to be progressing beyond the points that Sarin was used, Assad is more likely to be responsible than anybody else but there is no rock-solid evidence, nobody has intervened directly yet, and everything is generally a mess.
We call that passing the buck. Lame duck president couldn't pass a stool in Congress. He knows he can't win so Congress is his way out. Simples...
JJ, I agree with you entirely. This is not a political issue. The second an innocent person is killed, it becomes a fight for human rights.
I don't think so. It was a political risk, Congress voting no would have made Obama look bad and we have just the wacky Congress right now that was likely to have done that. It's Putin that got Obama off the hook. Seriously, Erebh, whatever you think about this government, they aren't super keen on taking out Assad. At least not while there are radicals waiting the wings there.
Not sure what you mean? What does that have to do with Syrians on both sides killing each other? What do you propose people who care about the killing (and I do) should do?
Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were referring to the U. S. taking a part in it. Misunderstanding cleared. Well, that's a hard question, because it is one of those situations where there is no "black and white". I suppose we could all start a neutral organization similar to that of the Red Cross
The sad part is that innocent people are going to suffer (and probably even die) no matter who wins. Another issue to consider is that a lot of revolutions fail to achieve their goal(s) (see Hannah Arendt's On Revolution for an interesting take on why the American revolution succeeded but the French Revolution failed), so even if the rebels succeed in toppling the Assad regime, the fighting and violence could go on for years.
country off You're joking right? A week ago they were champing on the bit to blow the whole country to smithereens and what they didn't manage themselves, they were arming Al Qaeda to finish the country off. Obama, Kerry and McCain (Rep I know) mad for a Saudi financed war!
McCain yes, and some other old hawks. There are plenty of them still milling about. Kerry maybe, but more than likely he was just enthusiastically doing his job and 'voicing support for what one believes is their boss' position' fits that evidence. But again, other than sticking his neck out earlier with the 'red line' statements, Obama has little to nothing to gain from bombing Syria.
