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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsUN Report on Syria Gas Attack: All Signs Point To Syrian Military
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/17/world/europe/syria-united-nations.html?pagewanted=2&pagewanted=allThese findings, though not presented as evidence of responsibility, were likely to strengthen the argument of those who claim that the Syrian government bears the blame, because the weapons in question had not been previously documented or reported to be in possession of the insurgency.
Moreover, those weapons are fired by large, conspicuous launchers. For rebels to have carried out the attack, they would have had to organize an operation with weapons they are not known to have and of considerable scale, sophistication and secrecy moving the launchers undetected into position in areas under strong government influence or control, keeping them in place unmolested for a sustained attack that would have generated extensive light and noise, and then successfully withdrawing them all without being detected in any way.
One annex to the report also identified azimuths, or angular measurements, from where rockets had struck, back to their points of origin. When plotted and marked independently on maps by analysts from Human Rights Watch and by The New York Times, the United Nations data from two widely scattered impact sites pointed directly to a Syrian military complex.
Juan Cole on the implications:
The rocket systems identified by the UN as used in the attack truck-launched 330mm rockets with around 50 to 60 liters of Sarin, as well as 140mm Soviet-produced rockets carrying a smaller Sarin-filled warhead are both known to be in the arsenal of the Syrian armed forces. They have never been seen in rebel hands. The amount of Sarin used in the attack hundreds of kilograms, according to Human Rights Watchs calculations also indicates government responsibility for the attack, as opposition forces have never been known to be in possession of such significant amounts of Sarin.
"The various theories claiming to have 'evidence' that opposition forces were responsible for the attack lack credibility. This was not an accidental explosion caused by opposition fighters who mishandled chemical weapons, as claimed by some commentators online. The attacks took place at two sites 16 kilometres apart, and involved incoming rockets, not on-the-ground explosions. This was not a chemical attack cooked up by opposition forces in some underground kitchen. It was a sophisticated attack involving military-grade Sarin.
As I have argued on several occasions, the Syrian regime must be punished for these severe war crime (sic), and it is time for the US Treasury Department to close off the loopholes that allow Syrian banks to continue to interface with Western ones, if necessary by threatening Russian banks with third-party sanctions. This kind of pressure will be more effective than merely lobbing a couple of cruise missiles at Damascus, in any case.
So let us dispense with Assad's lies about where this attack originated. There are plenty of dirty hands on all sides of this conflict, but on August 21 Assad's military conducted a chemical gas attack on rebel positions, killing hundreds of innocents.
delrem
(9,688 posts)Please, Mr. Boffin, continue to post gems like this.
Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)Cali_Democrat
(30,439 posts)Shame on you.
delrem
(9,688 posts)However it happened. You see, I've got a memory more than two weeks long.
The USA has NO credibility. The USA is responsible for war crimes that dwarf anything being discussed here, and because the USA is "exceptional", it is never held accountable. Kerry spouted off about 70 years of US "exceptionalism" which somehow justified the last 70 years of US wars, the lies used to get the US into those wars, and the US backed coups, the lies used to manage those coups. It is, NONE OF IT, pretty.
I'm sick to death of super US patriots ginning up to bomb, using the most primitive Goldstein-2minutes of hate propaganda techniques over and over and over again, because the US citizen seemingly can't learn from experience. I'm sick to death of rightous US citizens never pausing to think, to ask why they, in particular, get to commit mass atrocities, and get to gin up hate and lies mixed with half-truths as the US destroys country after country, never looking back. Didn't even pause to savor the moment when the last Godstein surrogate, Quaddafi, was buggered with a bayonet - but moved on to Syria as if Libya never was nor will be. And none of you warmongers will admit the US role in starting and ginning up this Syria war. None of you.
I'm sure you feel righteous, Cali_Democrat, for having what you think is a politically correct opinion affirming the US right to bomb yet another country -- but I don't give a rat's ass for your "shame on you" BS - or the blitz of gearing-up-the-web-hate vids that you admire.
Cali_Democrat
(30,439 posts)You don't know me very well. I'm very anti-war.
Also, I'm not going to downplay the use of chemical weapons against people.
It's disgusting.
delrem
(9,688 posts)Have you read anything of the destruction of Falluja (an act of vengeance) and the fallout? The "collateral damage"? That was fairly recent, y'know, and the victims (the citizens who live in that shell of a city) are still paying the most gruesome, the most personal and heartbreaking, price. The US "operation" on Falluja was part of the same sequence of US ME wars of choice, in fact.
Do you think the perps who committed that ongoing atrocity (so sick it overwhelms me) have the moral standing to judge *anything* wrt wars they're "leading from behind" through "Friends of Syria"? However "statesmanlike" HRC looked/looks in her speeches promoting that cause.
Do you know how sick these "Friends of Syria" are? The House of Saud is pretty fucking sick. To study these despots is like rooting around in the roiling poisonous muck that feeds the winds of hell.
Do you think their infinite $$, used to supply armaments, mercenary jihadists, etc., is being used for enlightened purposes, to spread "goodness"? Do you you honestly believe that al Qaeda, by far the strongest group of "rebel freedom fighters" operating in Syria, aren't largely sponsored by the House of Saud and their launderers, and that they don't have a well-oiled laundering machine? Do you really think that al Qaeda isn't disgusting, that those who've created this situation in the first place aren't disgusting?
So, you're against any US attack on Syria -- until Kerry/Obama/MIC order one. Because whatever they say about the wartime enemy is by definition true. Meantime, you like to keep the war propaganda being pumped out by the US MIC on stream, with all it's onesided lies.
DevonRex
(22,541 posts)You're a broken record: US hiring, training, arming, funding al Qaeda through Saudi Arabia to fight Assad in Syria. You've said this many times in many ways. It all boils down to that one sentence and it is bullshit every time. Just my opinion, but my opinion happens to align with reality.
Yours, that President Obama hires (etc ad nauseum) Al Qaeda, does not.
I agree, yes, it all boils right down to that.
morningfog
(18,115 posts)is disarmament rather than war.
delrem
(9,688 posts)morningfog
(18,115 posts)he ordered the most recent use or not.
delrem
(9,688 posts)oberliner
(58,724 posts)delrem
(9,688 posts)It still has a large stockpile of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
What was it that fried so many into burnt out crisps in Falluja? That didn't burn their fucking clothes?
I remember that people couldn't make sense of it at the time. They couldn't make sense of the condition of the bodies that they had to clean up. That's mostly classified info, I suppose. Whatever was done such a short time ago is only now showing the full horror of its consequences. Deformed babies and cancers. It must've been quite a mixture that was used on Falluja.
The Magistrate
(95,237 posts)Now people who continue to press that line only reveal themselves to be in the grip of obsessive delusion, lacking any capacity for sound judgement.
delrem
(9,688 posts)Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)False Flag attacks, especially ones done to start a Major military adventure, are not small-budget affairs.
Let Alan Grayson examine all the evidence.
delrem
(9,688 posts)If you've got a self-described "exceptional" only world superpower on one side and some small despot in the ME on the other, false flag operations can be done several times every day if needed, or wanted. No problem.
I don't think the US would conduct any false flag operation on the cheap. The US has nothing if not a professional military.
Sand Wind
(1,573 posts)Sand Wind
(1,573 posts)uponit7771
(90,225 posts)...and without it then fuck them and the horse they rode in on.
Common sense and common knowledge aren't enough to kill someone in the US and isn't enough to kill someone over there either.
It's a good thing Assad is disarming
Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)No, of course you haven't. You wouldn't be talking bullshit about conjecture if you had.
uponit7771
(90,225 posts)...again Adley Stevenson level proof.... that Assads troops fired them
Fired from that direction and they have them too isn't enough for me
Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)it's a much more dangerous situation and argues for boots on the ground to secure the weapons?
No, you don't, or you and your fellow advocates would not be so quick to grasp the "Assad didn't order it" straw here.
Uncle Joe
(58,112 posts)tampered with."
Furthermore the attacks were far less expansive than the U.S. and its' corporate media mouthpieces projected them to be.
Not to mention the primary rocket delivering the Sarin to the worst effect was a crude device.
Then you have to take in to question motive, Assad had little or no reason to launch such an attack after inviting and days after the arrival of the U.N. inspectors in to Syria to investigate previous attacks which he blamed on the rebels. The last thing Assad would need is for the U.S. to bomb his resources while he's engaged in a civil war.
However the rebels particularly the Al Qaeda contingent had great motivation in committing such an atrocity to draw its' primary enemies, the U.S. and Russia in to a greater war over Syria.
Obama had already publicly drawn the line as to what would provoke a U.S. response and Al Qaeda knew/knows that Russia supports Syria.
Janes has estimated that there are approximately 10,000 Al Qaeda fighters in Syria.
The rebels have taken over great parts of Syria including cities and airfields, there is no reason to believe rockets couldn't have been captured during a panicky retreat or defeat, not to mention the possibility of import or rough manufacture.
People that label this as a "conspiracy theory" haven't been paying attention to history particularly in regards to Al Qaeda as every successful attack they committed against the U.S. other than on the battlefield ie; embassy bombings in Africa, attack against the U.S.S. Stark or 9/11 involved some form of conspiracy. This fits their M.O.
The irony is, we supposedly put far more deliberation into determining capital guilt against an individual but when it comes to questions of war with the potential to kill vastly greater numbers of people, then evidence to the contrary is quickly disgarded or ignored.
delrem
(9,688 posts)But I hear, from people who claim the prerogative of judges, that people who think such thoughts are "in the grip of obsessive delusion, lacking any capacity for sound judgement."
I'd ask for some deity to help me here, but since I don't think any absolute deity exists I'll have to bow to reason.
Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)any rebel group's capabilities to deal with. The missiles are of types documented to have been used by the Syrian military (and never documented in the hands of any rebel group) and the azimuths of two missiles NOT "moved and tampered with" showed that those weapons were fired from Syrian military-controlled areas.
The idea that this is a false flag attack from any rebel military is a rank conspiracy theory now. The evidence cited by the UN is beyond compelling in that regard. Now it's down to Syrian military operating without Assad or Assad approving the attack. I invite you to discuss any further "rebels did it" theory in Creative Speculation where it belongs.
uponit7771
(90,225 posts)...is the AREA!!!!
Really, that's it...the "area" could be fuckin 1234123o4 square miles of shit controlled by the Syrian troops...
Buncha fuckin sophistry, someone going to talk about mushroom clouds next?!!?!
Adley Stevenson level proof is not full of sophistry, conjecture or conclusions with half the facts or other possibilities.
Show us the money .... ie Syrian troops firing the shit under Assad orders...
That's what I'd need to support this country sending someone else's baby to die for now days...
Bunch bullshit....
The "area" as if the "area" is someones house or some shit
Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)delrem
(9,688 posts)I don't think any of the USA's "secret evidence" is worth anything -- except as an expression of desperation.
I don't think the US threat of unilateral force has legal standing. I don't think "secret evidence" substitutes for such legal standing, though I can understand why certain corrupt operators would.
Uncle Joe
(58,112 posts)(no pun intended) to know that trying to determine which arms and munitions changed hands in an autocratic society such as Syria during a civil war would be near impossible when the rebels have taken over large parts of the nation.
Furthermore if Al Qaeda as I believe was behind the atrocity, it wouldn't even be a classic "false flag" attack, many if not most Al Qaeda aren't from Syria but having come from other nations. The "moderate" rebels and Al Qaeda have been battling each other along the borders of Iraq and Turkey.
Now the "moderate" rebels hate Assad and want to get rid of him and yet they don't want Al Qaeda in Syria as allies, because their primary goals don't mesh. The rebels just want to get rid of Assad and Al Qaeda wants a wider "holy war."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/20/syrian-national-coalition_n_3960796.html
BEIRUT Al-Qaida militants fought heavy street battles against Kurdish gunmen in northern Syria on Friday but reached a cease-fire with mainstream Western-backed rebels after fierce fighting near the border with Turkey.
The infighting, which ended with al-Qaida's takeover of a border town, was some of the worst in recent months between forces seeking to bring down President Bashar Assad and threatened to further fragment an opposition movement outgunned by the regime.
Syria's main Western-backed opposition group, the Free Syrian Army, condemned the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, the al-Qaida offshoot that overran the town of Azaz. It said the jihadis' push to establish an Islamic state undermines the rebels' struggle for a free Syria.
In a strongly worded statement, it accused ISIL of going against the principles of the Syrian revolution.
"ISIL no longer fights the Assad regime. Rather, it is strengthening its positions in liberated areas at the expense of the safety of civilians," the statement said. "ISIS is inflicting on the people the same suppression of the Baath party and the Assad regime."
There is much more on the link.
Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,112 posts)I'm not saying it's an absolute that the Syrian Military didn't carry out the attack but I believe the evidence which I posted on my two previous posts make it far more likely that Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda type factions of the rebels committed the atrocity.
Facts
1. The evidence was moved and tampered with per the U.N. report page 18 under the heading "Limitations." The U.N. Report did not assign blame.
2. The actual area of attack was far more narrow than first touted and/or reported, with only one rocket doing the overwhelming chemical weapons damage, that was the crude rocket, Sarin tests on the other location had conflicting results per the U.N. Report.
3. Motive (motivation) Al Qaeda had/has far greater motivation than any other potential suspect (s), in bringing its' two primary enemies the U.S. and Russia in to conflict against each other over Syria.
Bad blood between the "moderate" rebels and Al Qaeda resulting in open combat. The Syrian Rebels didn't/don't want Al Qaeda in Syria. Al Qaeda has taken over some border towns, no doubt to bring in more fighters from other nations, resupply and import more weapons.
4. Opportunity, much of Syria had been overrun by the rebels, it would take the height of naivete to believe they didn't capture arms and munitions as well, including rockets. There has already been reports that the rebels have chemical weapons as well.
5. M.O. (Modus Operandi) A "false flag" attack meshes with Al Qaeda's conspiratorial style of attack as I posted above, the embassy bombings in Africa, the attack on the U.S.S. Stark and 9/11, in each case they pretended to be benevolent until the attacks happened. The only difference is this time, they didn't claim responsibility which they couldn't do if they wished to have the blame placed on Assad's government.
Having said that it's possible the other rebels have found out or came to the conclusion that Al Qaeda was behind the Sarin Attack and this has led to some of the battles between them.