Syrian Rebels Claim Hundreds Killed By Poison-Gas Attack 222
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Haroon Siddique reports for The Guardian that opposition activists have accused forces loyal to the Assad regime of using chemical weapons in towns in the eastern Ghouta. Accounts of the death toll vary wildly. The British based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights put the number killed at 'dozens.' Others put the figure much higher. The Local Coordination Committees said 'hundreds' were killed, the majority of them civilians. Graphic videos purporting to show the victims of the attack have been posted online (WARNING: graphic) showing chaotic scenes of people, including children, having seizures, being treated, and dead bodies lined up. 'Symptoms of the patients include nausea, hallucinations, suffocation, hard coughing, high blood pressure, seizures etc,' says the Syrian Revolution General Commission (SRGC). 'There is still no clue of the chemical weapon/toxic gas that was used by the regime's forces to target the innocent civilians.' Ake Sellstrom, the Swedish scientist who heads the U.N. inspection team in Syria, told the Swedish media that he had seen only the television images of the alleged attacks. 'But the high number of wounded and dead they are speaking about sounds suspicious,' Sellström told Swedish news agency TT, via telephone from Damascus. 'It sounds like something one should take a look at.'. The official Syrian news agency called the reports 'untrue' and designed to derail a United Nations inquiry into charges of chemical weapons in the conflict."
Because that makes sense (Score:2, Interesting)
The side that's winning decides to piss off everyone by using poison gas on civilians/rebels. I guess now all the bleeding hearts will be chanting for Chairman Obama to "liberate" and "freedomize" the nation of Syria from their secular ruler so we can gain a level headed theocracy in it's place.
Re:Perfect timing (Score:4, Interesting)
Precisely - why would Assad sign off on chemical weapon usage when that has already been declared a tripwire for foreign intervention by major countries? It sounds far too suspect, especially when both sides in the conflict have been alleged to have access to stockpiles, and we have already seen one side to have ideologically driven factions - driven enough to sacrifice civilians in a disputed territory (and thus have civilians which back both sides) in order to trigger an external intervention in their favour, much like in Libya?
Re:Because that makes sense (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Having watched the... (Score:5, Interesting)
...video linked supplied, there's no chaos, and despite the insinuation of more than one person, including children, having seizures - I saw one guy whose legs were trembling. I've seen shock victims trembling worse.
I'm not saying this didn't happen, I am just saying that the video basically shows nothing (and maybe there's something wrong with me, but I didn't think it was 'graphic' in the slightest.)
Maybe they linked the wrong video.
I'll go one step further...but first, let me give context to forestall anyone claiming I'm a fan of Assad and his pals. I most emphatically am not, and never have been. Nor do I support the purposes of Iran, which uses Syria as a fulcrum, most specifically in the Levant (Lebanon and surrounding area). This isn't about me supporting Syria, just about what I see when I look at this one video. In fact, I think that at this point both sides in this conflict have been thoroughly populated with people whose aims are not "good."
I saw a lot of people lying down. Not really indicative of one thing or another. No cyanosis or signs of skin irritation, nor signs of labored breathing or choking really. But hey, the absence of solid proof is not proof of absence and I don't think anyone said what kind of "poison gas" it was, so it's not particularly clear. But then I saw the "convulsing guy." He was twitching from the waist down...but his head was calmly, smoothly lolling from side to side? He was having a convulsion with his lower body, but not anywhere else? Hm. I don't believe that nerve agents turn people into MC Hammer. Nerve agents (cholerinterase inhibitors, specifically) make your whole body go apeshit...that's how you die. And it's not that one half of one person would be trembling and everyone else would look like they were taking a nap...anyone who was dead would look horrific and anyone who wasn't dead would not exactly look calm either. I call bullshit on this.
The rebels have made disproven claims in the past about chemical warfare attacks. They know that the Obama administration has stated that use of chemical weapons would result in direct US involvement, and they have a decided incentive to report on any that do happen, but also to fabricate evidence of one if they think they can pull it off. Furthermore, there's less of a penalty for a false claim than there is benefit from successfully pulling off a hoax. Hell, they even know how one person...one single source...lying about WMD got us to invade Iraq and demolish an entire nation.
And as stated above, UN chemical weapon inspectors had JUST shown up a few kilometers nearby. I find it incredibly difficult to believe that Assad would deploy such a weapon within easy reach of the very people who would be there to investigate.
And yes, the user name of the guy I'm quoting/responding to is "Assmasher," but that doesn't mean he's wrong. Let's stick to discussing this based the merits of what's said, guys :)
Fake (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Not a single old person. It's either children (poor babies! think of the children!) or young men of combat age. With the occasional young woman thrown in. I guess there are no elderly at all in Syrian "civilian areas"? There are real dead people mixed in with living people, that much I'll grant you. However this chemical agent is "curiously selective" of its victims, and the cause of death is unknown and debatable until someone does an autopsy.
2. No evidence of fasciculations. I see plenty of people having tonic clonic seizures that somehow permit them to still be aware of their environment and look at the camera-man (doesn't happen in a real seizure), or point their index finger in a religious sign to their God. Fasciculations however are involuntary. You can't fake them. They're a sign of lower motor neuron damage/blockade, the sort you'd expect with chemical weapons (especially organophospates and nerve agents like Sarin/Tabun and family). But since they can't be faked you won't see any.
3. The timing, as has been pointed out elsewhere, is highly suspicious.
That's my $0.02 worth. But most people will believe whatever they are fed. I mean there's video, so it has to be real, right? No one has ever faked a massacre before for the cameras, right?
Re:Having watched the... (Score:4, Interesting)
Looking at most of the clips and with a medical background I'm convinced that
1) It's not staged. Too many people demonstrably dead and too many different clips. I don't think anyone has the wherewithall to stage manage that big of a hoax.
2) Some sort of neurotoxin is involved. Despite Assmasher'''s assertion, some of the kids did seem to have tonic clonic seizure activity. The hysterical guy certainly could have been decompensating psychiatrically (ya think?) but there were too many other examples that were more classic. I did not see any pattern of symptoms that points to a particular agent but I'm hardly an expert in the field.
Most disturbing.
Re:The US should stay out of it (Score:2, Interesting)
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