Syria: a Defining Moment For Chemical Weapons? 454
Lasrick writes "Oliver Meier describes the long-term significance (even beyond the incredible human suffering) of Syria's alleged use of chemical weapons on August 21, and outlines six major steps for response. Quoting: 'The attack in August is a historic event with wider implications. Its impact on the role of chemical weapons in international security in general will depend primarily on the responses. Looking beyond the current crisis, failure to respond to the attacks could undermine the taboo against chemical weapons. ... First, a unified response by the international community is essential. The strength of international norms depends primarily on great-power support. So far, such a unified response is sorely lacking. Judgments about how to react to the use of chemical weapons appear to be tainted by preferences about the shape of a post-war Syria. This has already damaged the international chemical weapons legal regime.'"
I never understood the principle. (Score:5, Insightful)
weapons that deliver a chemical reaction causing eye, skin and lung damage are bad.
weapons that deliver a chemical reaction causing bits of metal flying through your eye, skin and lung are good.
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Re:I never understood the principle. (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought depleted uranium was used for its mass, not specifically for its long-term toxic effects. Lead is toxic also, after all. And white phosphorus just burns you up faster than conventional incendiaries, what’s the problem there? It’s preferable for people to burn more slowly?
Re:I never understood the principle. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure that the victims are comforted by the fact that their exposure to deadly chemicals was purely incidental..
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I thought depleted uranium was used for its mass, not specifically for its long-term toxic effects. Lead is toxic also, after all. And white phosphorus just burns you up faster than conventional incendiaries, what’s the problem there? It’s preferable for people to burn more slowly?
What's your point, Ludwig?
Re:I never understood the principle. (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with white phosphorus is that it doesn't kill people, it maims them. The overall gist of the rules of war is that it's OK to kill people but not to leave them suffering. It's tantamount to torture or terrorism, using fear and pain rather than force to achieve your goals. Ostensibly killing soldiers is part of a just war (making them stop doing whatever it is that justifies your war), while simply scaring people isn't, even though it leaves them alive.
It took me a long time to write that in as neutral a fashion as I could. I'm sure that a great many people would find it a silly distinction. But it really is a key underlying principle for why we have rules of war at all. I personally find the concept kind of odd.
Re:I never understood the principle. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm going to guess that you've never been in the military.
Think about a conscript. His country is at war because of his politicians. His personal beliefs don't matter. He either fights or he, at best, is in jail. Remember the kids who went to Canada instead of being drafted to fight in Vietnam?
So the least that the professional soldiers and responsible politicians can do is to make basic rules so that that kid can get back to his pre-war life with as much of his body still intact as possible.
Chemical weapons are a problem because they usually do not kill. It takes a LOT of chemicals and the right environment to kill. But they do tear up lungs and eyes and nervous systems. So the casualties may be able to move themselves but they cannot pick up their old lives again.
Now imagine the impact that has on a country AFTER the war. Thousands and thousands of disabled citizens that have trouble working.
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Nuclear weapons also just "burn" people. They are not used specifically for their fallout either. What's the problem?
The problem is that nuclear weapons cause too much "collateral damage". As in, not only did the military base cease to exist, but the hospital and schools around it are gone, too. Don't forget the orphanage, the retirement home, and the church/synagogue/mosque/etc.
Re:I never understood the principle. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I never understood the principle. (Score:4, Informative)
Of course, he also said, "I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell."
Re:I never understood the principle. (Score:4, Insightful)
Rich people make you peasants fight, having first convinced you that you have a dog in the race.
They get richer, while you get deader - and the longer it drags, the more they make.
So? Climb down off that "society" nonsense. DO you actually believe that you are a part of the same society as David Rockefeller or Mikhail Khordokovsky?
Rockefeller is closer to the same society as Bashar Al-Assad, than any of us. It takes billions of dollars of media coverage and public education, to convince us otherwise.
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Sherman understood this which is why he and his army burned, raped and looted through Georgia. He intended to drive home the message that "war is hell" to the people who supported and provided the opposing army with supplies. To hear people whine today about the unintentional collateral damage occurring is perplexing. War is hell and the end result is death and devastation. It is best to avoid war if at all possible and if not then do whatever it takes to win. After all, the winners get to write the hi
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Unless you're eating the depleted uranium, you probably aren't going to be affected by it. Skin is pretty good at stopping alpha and relatively good at stopping beta radiation (like that stuff you get from the sun). Stomach linings and lungs are not.
White Phosphorus is actually not specifically banned in any treaty except for use against civilian targets. It is used extensively in signaling (i.e. flares), tracer rounds, and to produce large amounts of smoke.
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Or breathing it.
"In military conflicts involving DU munitions, the major concern is inhalation of DU particles in aerosols arising from the impacts of DU-enhanced projectiles with their targets. When depleted uranium munitions penetrate armor or burn, they create depleted uranium oxides in the form of dust that can be inhaled or contaminate wounds. The Institute of Nuclear Technology-Radiation Protection of Attiki,
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Are you being deliberately obtuse or are you just that ignorant? Depleted Uranium is by no stretch of the imagination a chemical weapon and the use of white phosphorus against a human target is a war crime in its own right.
The problem with chemical weapons (Lets call them "War Gasses" to avoid confusion,) is that they are not really effective against a military target. (They can degrade a military unit's effectiveness, but both sides get degraded.) They are, however, wonderfully effective against civili
Re:I never understood the principle. (Score:5, Informative)
White phosphorous is not illegal, and it is not a chemical weapon.
White phosphorous (WP) is a chemical that burns very hot, very bright, and produces a lot of smoke. This gives WP a number of military uses including incendiary, illumination, and creating smoke screens.
There is nothing illegal about using WP for illumination or smoke screens. In fact it is quite common. In fact it is not even illegal to use it as an incendiary. What is illegal is to use any incendiary on a civilian centre.
It is illegal to use incendiary (fire causing) weapons in urban areas, so no napalm, WP, petroleum jelly, or equivalents. This is because incendiary weapons start fires which kill indiscriminately and can easily create fires too large for firefighting efforts to control. The firebombing of Tokyo (100,000 dead) and Hamburg (42,000 dead) are examples of using incendiary weapons in an urban area on a large scale.
The problem is that the media dumbs everything down to WP == incendiary == war crime. Which is like claiming laser guided bombs = lasers = blinding = war crime. Next time you see someone in the media talking about WP war crimes take a look at the evidence. If the WP didn't start a fire it wasn't being used an an incendiary.
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Re:I never understood the principle. (Score:5, Insightful)
You're missing the point; the US uses these weapons for good, Syria uses it on their own people.
Normally, I can spot the implied /irony tag. Tell me that you're being ironic.
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For good is a very subjective way to say that. I'm sure the fellow humans that are affected with such things would disagree with you, regardless if they hold US citizenship or not. I guess this is how the British justified the atrocities done by the "empire" while its educated citizens thought it was completely alright.
And for what it's worth, some of the UN research team members are starting to say there is a clear indication that it was the rebels, not the government who did it. In any case, there would b
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Re:I never understood the principle. (Score:5, Insightful)
12-fold increase in child cancers, lots of other symptoms remarkably similar to those in Hiroshima
Any population would exhibit similar effects just from the increased medical scrutiny. Ie, if you start with a population for which no one is looking for such ailments, and then you start looking in great detail, you will find greatly increased numbers of those ailments. Observation bias is a powerful thing.
ASSAD USED THE SAME CHEMICAL WEAPONS (Score:4, Interesting)
That Colin Powell discovered that Saddam stored in Iraq.
The kind that exist in "intelligence assessments" that are long on pronouncement and void of evidence.
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Well, maybe you ought to learn something first before posting?
Sir? SIR! Step away from the keyboard, and we will need your slashdot card. NOW! Ignorant posting is a requirement in here.
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To actually make it burn you have to grind it into very fine dust. Just like iron or aluminium.
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People that lead others simply because they are born into a family that has control.
People that kill others just because they don't believe the same crazy shit.
People that think they are better than others because of money or political power.
With so much better things to do why is the world is still fucken nuts !
Re: I never understood the principle. (Score:2)
It's because chemical weapons are only effective against civilian populations. Any well trained military unit will be trained and equipped to deal with them. But it's a horrific way for dictators like assad and hussein to punish unruly subjects.
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It is the scale.
Chemical weapons can be taken by the wind and dispersed miles and miles away in any random direction. Killing and maiming everything in their path. And can get into water supplies, and poison stuff for generations.
tactical missiles and grenades will kill indiscriminately for a few meter radius, and as soon as they explode they are not not any more dangerous or bad for the environment than a few plastic cups strewn around.
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It is indeed a very complex issue to which there is no easy one line answers. But there is a sort of logic behind why some weapon systems are banned, and others not, or how even legal weapons can be used in an illegal way.
It is not about some weapons being good or bad, or even the amount of suffering they cause at the individuals affected by them. It is all about keeping military actions under control causing the least amount of suffering among soldiers and civilians in relation to the objectives of the mil
Re:I never understood the principle. (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to mention, we don't seem to have any problem shedding the taboos against torture and killing first responders (Guantanamo and US drone double tap strikes).
Both are war crimes and both are carried out knowingly and intentionally. At this point it would make more sense for Russia to be the human rights watch dog of the world.
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weapons that you can make a snarky comment on the internet are good.
Higher casualties among civilians (Score:2)
When an explosive detonates, those civilians who aren't supporting the rebels have some protection from the shrapnel because they're hiding indoors.
When a chemical is released, it can spread for blocks, seeping into the buildings through existing cracks or new holes made by shrapnel made by conventional ordnance and incr
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Indeed, what was it that made those 1400 deaths so much worse than the 100 000 previous ones?
It's not a clear cut principle... (Score:2)
weapons that deliver a chemical reaction causing bits of metal flying through your eye, skin and lung are good.
It's only in American you'll hear someone say that weapons are good.
Also conventional weapons are not allowed to kill indiscriminately either... They are not allowed to be dangerous generations later, i.e. mines forbidden.
You'll also find that most responsible countries are taking steps towards forbidding cluster munition:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Cluster_Munitions
The phrase "most responsible countries" obviously excludes the U.S.
The point is, it's not always easy to see when a weapon is i
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Any use of war weapons is a terrible thing; usually the people that demand the weapons' use or make light of it are those who have never been on a battlefield.
That having been said: There are different types and degrees of injury potentially caused by weapons of war (or any weapon); these injuries may be classified by type and degree of acute trauma as well as by long-term, chronic sequelae. Whereas in my opinion the horror of a -fatal- injury from weapons of war cannot really be differentiated or mitigate
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Benghazi outrage is not happening GOP, it's never gonna happen.
This. Talk about clutching at straws! Hey, GOP, your desperation is showing.
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Re:I never understood the principle. (Score:5, Insightful)
The sad thing is that there's so much to criticize in this administration's foreign policy (e.g. illegal wars in Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, parts of Africa and the destabilization these wars cause, scandalous spying on our allies, etc.). The problem is that, with exceedingly few exceptions, prominent Republicans have no credibility to criticize the President on these issues. If anything, the old Republican establishment's complaint tends to be that the President was not aggressive enough in involving us in illegal wars. Because of this, they like their former presidential nominee have to inflate or even fabricate scandals (see the so-called apology tour in Egypt or the return of the Churchill bust).
I say this as a lifelong Republican: the GOP is currently dominated by short-sighted fools who are completely out of touch with the people, with what it means to govern, and with the real costs of violence. They've forgotten what it means to defend the Constitution, the country, and the people. They recall well, however, the support they receive as faithful supporters of the Military-Congressional-Industrial Complex. Therefore, when the same complaints can be made against Obama (and they can--he was a real coup for the MCI Complex, whether or not the administration sees it in their interests to define a coup), there's no opposition with the credibility to make them.
Re:I never understood the principle. (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, the most similar of the Bush-era attacks involved five gunmen breaking into the consulate [theguardian.com] at Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and were quickly counterattacked by Saudi "security forces". The Benghazi consulate attacks reported involved hundreds of attackers with no support for US staff from local authorities for about seven hours. And that outcome turned out as uneventful as it did, because someone in Tripoli apparently decided on their own initiative to commandeer an airplane and fly into Benghazi and organize a rescue effort.
Afterward, the Obama administration took it upon itself to blame the Benghazi attacks on a rather offensive YouTube video, but one nobody had heard of before. That was probably because the attacks occurred before the upcoming November elections in the US.
So what makes Benghazi special is the weak tactical situation, the large scale of the attack, and most importantly, the tepid and politically self-serving response of the Obama administration to the attack.
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Stop re-writing history. That YouTube video was well known before the attacks, and was the cause of the riots which the attackers used as cover. It wasn't that long ago. Do you really think we've all forgotten?
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What's your point - war should be wage only using very expensive and difficult weaponry? Who does that benefit?
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What's your point - war should be wage only using very expensive and difficult weaponry? Who does that benefit?
The people who make money from selling "expensive and difficult weaponry", maybe?
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Second: Bombs that unleash pieces of metal are usually used for specific targets not large populations.
Dresden? Tokyo?
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Dresden? Tokyo?
; Note he said "usually". And note you give examples that are almost 70 years old. Who's been carpet bombing population centers since? Only example, I know of was during the Vietnam war (technically the Second Indochina War), but that turned out less effective than guided bombs.
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With due respect, I think the reason why there hasn't been a carpet bombed city is mainly because the advanced industrial nations have avoided direct confrontations between each other, and that the weapon of choice in such a situation is currently a thermonuclear bomb. Guided bombs are useful if you want to keep the wars "limited" and going after weak nations that thumb their nose at the larger countries.
If a major wars erupts between major military powers, I would say all bets are off. The interesting th
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Dresden and Tokyo are an example of "don't start nothing, wont be nothing". The Blitz, the attacks on Warsaw and Rotterdam, the Rape of Nanking.
Germany and Japan both committed such horrendous war crimes that the rapid destruction of the control those nation states had over their military forces took priority over some of the usual niceties of war.
Atrocity is Counter-Productive (Score:5, Interesting)
It matters little who started what. Dresden remains an example of moral and practical failure. The moral failure came in the form of the massive civilian casualties knowingly inflicted. (That military men are guilty of atrocities does not mean unarmed non-combatants deserve punishment for those atrocities.)
The practical failure is often ignored, however, and the British should have been well aware of it. The Germans bombed London for months, operating under the belief that attacking the city would break the civilian will to fight. It turned out that attacking civilian populations only increases their will to fight, increases enlistment of willing soldiers beyond anything conscription can do, and makes any suggestion of acquiescence a political impossibility for those attacked. If you defeat an enemy military in the field, civilian support for the war effort will wane. Yet you cannot easily secure a surrender once you've committed atrocities against civilians.
This is directly comparable to the treatment of POWs. Some Germans were told by their fathers who'd fought in WWI to fight bravely even to the death against Russians but surrender to the first Americans you find. They said this because American had a policy of treating POWs humanely in WWI. Thus, American units in the European front could sometimes welcome a reduction in the fighting strength of the Germans due to surrender--an option which is always preferable because those who surrender do not shoot back. Contrast this with Americans after the Bataan Death March or, better still, Soviet defectors early in the war. Many Ukranians welcomed the Nazis, thinking them liberators from the evils of Stalin. They soon learned that the racist bastards could be even worse than Stalin. Consequently, Soviet soldiers fought for the state more fervently and many would refuse to surrender, knowing that death in battle would be preferable to being a Slavic POW in Nazi hands.
Atrocity can seem to give the one who commits it a brief surge of power, partly because of the fear it inflicts. But in the long run, atrocity and the killing of civilians is always counter-productive to a war effort. For more information, see Section V of this monograph [amazon.com].
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Coventry, London, Berlin, most German industrial cities, virtually EVERY city in Japan other than the five set aside as potential A-Bomb targets (yeah, we put Hiroshima and Nagasaki, among others, on a NO-BOMB list, so we could evaluate the effects of the a-bomb without having to account for the effects of previous bombings).
How about no. (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets just stay out of this fight. For once. Just once. let the rest of the world deal with it.
We have nothing to gain. And trillions to lose. again. and too many dead soldiers already.
No matter how it turns out this country will continue to hate our guts. Rightfully so maybe.
Lets just stay out of it. Time to watch a war on CNN we don't have a stake in at all.
Sometimes the only winning move is not to play.
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Why not?
Re:How about no. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you get in the fight you lose to Russia, China, Iran, Syria itself, Palestine....
Get involved but on a limited scale. (Score:2)
Don't have boots on the ground. Don't have long term commitment. Go in hard and fast with airstrikes, missiles and other things aimed squarely at Assad's military forces. Tanks. Aircraft. Military bases. Military communications. Command centers. Artillery pieces and missile batteries. Anything that is a military target and can be taken out without civilian casualties. (with the precision strike capability the US has these days from drones etc, taking out even something as small as a tank without civilian ca
Re:Get involved but on a limited scale. (Score:5, Interesting)
And what if the Syrian rebels were using those chemical weapons? The US government seems unwilling to investigate that option, even unwilling to let the UN investigate this. They have only one prefered outcome. Judging from Kerry's speech they don't even to bother to produce fake evidence like in Iraq.
Re:How about no. (Score:5, Insightful)
You're NOT supposed to be the worlds police force. Especially not when there seems to be no proof Assad used those weapons. Kerry's speach was even worse than that of Colin Powell about WMD in Iraq, at least Powell tried to show the falsified "evidence".
Everyone outside the US, and some Americans too, understand that attacking Syria has much to do with oil, pipelines, Israel and scoring orders for American companies who donate to election campaigns. It has nothing to do with moral standards.
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Oh, please!
This whole Syria business is about Obama not looking like an ineffectual idiot. He drew his "Red Line in the Sand" last year, now Syria steps across and says "okay, whatcha gonna do now?"
Note that Obama wanted to quietly ignore it at first, till people started quoting that speech back at him. Then,
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If we stay out, then all the other nations will be pissed at us because the U.S. is expected to be the police force of the world and we are expected to spend our money, troops and resources to fix everybody else's problems.
They won't (well, except for rebels in Syria).
Just look at the polls. The majority of people in UK and France are against participating in any military action against Syria. UK Parliament has just voted to not participate. Heck, even Syria's immediate neighbors are not all too happy about any potential strikes.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:War should Suck (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:War should Suck (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:War should Suck (Score:4, Informative)
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um, you do know the USA and USSR just moved the violence and destruction to other countries right?
Yes. But it still qualifies as "such little violence". The original poster isn't ignorant of the big wars of this period.
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Mutually Assured Destruction worked... once. Working one time out of the only time it's been deliberately tried isn't exactly a proven track record.
Re:War should Suck (Score:5, Informative)
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If we make war clean and tidy then where is the motivation to avoid it?
Let's take this the other way. We could make wars deliberately ugly and high cost. But why would we think that would provide enough incentive to keep people from fighting them?
My view is that the only genuine way to prevent most war (between identifiable foes, that is) is to have a military force that will clobber anyone who starts such a fight. Change the strategic outcome of starting a war to always lose, and you end the incentive to engage in war.
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When war is excused, for any reason, it is a sign that civilization is failing.
One of the more concrete ways war is "not excused" is by militarily defeating those who do initiate wars. As the previous poster noted, the Rwanda genocide was excused by the outside world for a considerable time until at least half a million people had died. It was only stopped when the concurrent Rwandan civil war ended with defeat of the side engaged in genocide.
War Precedent (Score:4, Insightful)
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#Legal_justification [wikipedia.org]
I for one do not trust our governments to tell me the truth, or engage in wars unless necessary anymore.
Check out the new Slashdot iPad app [apple.com]
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Hey! Where's your patriotism? Remember the Maine [wikipedia.org]! Remember the Lusitania [wikipedia.org]! Remember the Maddox [wikipedia.org]! Remember that Saddam was an evil man who had used WMDs [wikipedia.org] and since al Qaeda was led by an evil man it clearly follows that Saddam had ties to al Qaeda [newyorker.com]. Why would you ever doubt an administration's casus belli?
bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
There has never been a treaty, or International Law, that says there must be a military response by otherwise uninvolved nations whenever there is a chemical weapons attack. This should be handled just like any other war crime. Someday we will get you, and we will put you on trial. We're not going to launch a weak-ass cruise missile campaign that will last for a measly two days and accomplish nothing but unnecessary civilian casualties.
People aren't dumb. What's going on in Syria sucks. Our involvement will not make things better.
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Someday we will get you, and we will put you on trial.
Unless, you know, that doesn't happen. Such threats matter only if you have the capability to carry them out.
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And then what? The US will be called "invaders" it happens every time. The US will be accused of invading Syria to steal mid-east oil, just like when the US pushed Iraq out of Kuwait.
Muslims, all over the world, will blame the US for everything. Terrorist attack against US interests will follow.
And for what? The crazies will go right back to killing one another, just like they have for over 1000 years.
Neither side, in this conflict, will ever be friends with the US. Neither side are the good guys.
Leave the
Re:bullshit (Score:5, Interesting)
No it's not, the US sees itself as the world police. Most other nations wished you didn't and minded your own buisiness.
failure to respond... (Score:5, Insightful)
... against whom? the rebels or the saudis?
Noone with half a brain believes Assad is behind the chemical attack because
1) He has nothing to gain by doing so
2) He has everything to lose by doing so
3) He is not a retard
Not to mention that the past 6 months have shown that Assad isn't exactly cornered, on the contrary, he has been pushing further and further back against the rebels.
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Then why has he blocked inspectors?
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Then why has he blocked inspectors?
Because he sees his country as sovereign.
Because the UN inspectors may lie, or have their report influenced by countries that want him out for other reasons.
Because the UN inspectors are only there to determine if weapons were used. If weapons were used by the rebels, the inspectors will report that. If they guess that he is responsible, he gets blamed.
If you were in his place, would you allow inspections?
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Then why has he blocked inspectors?
Because not using chemical weapons does not necessarily mean he's not a power-craving asshole (like most other politicians, admittedly) who is paranoid about the Western conquistadors of modern times.
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And Russia and China both oppose any military intervention, Russia to the point of sending military support for Assad such as anti-air missile systems [upi.com] which aren't any good against rebel forces, but would be of some use against air strikes by the US.
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Of course Russia and China oppose, that's where the real war is.
We really have proof now (Score:3, Funny)
We lied about our reasons for war every time, but trust is, this time we have proof. Think of the children.
Hypocritical much (Score:3)
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Not that I completely disagree with the sentiment expressed in the article but all the wide-eyed outrage coming from the government of the US of A is a tad laughable seeing how it's the only country in the history of humankind that's pounded other countries with both nuclear (see Hiroshima, Nagasaki) and chemical (see Agent Orange, Vietnam) weapons.
It's the only country to use nukes. But it certainly isn't the only to use gas. France, Germany and the UK all used it during the first world war. While Agent Orange was a gas, it was not believed to be toxic to humans At the time it was used in Vietnam. It was a defoliant used so the North Vietnamese troops couldn't hide under the forest canopy. Unfortunately Monsanto tainted it in production.
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Why is it up to US to police world? (Score:4, Insightful)
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There was an interesting op-ed in the Washington Post by Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro ("Attack without UN approval illegal"). I read a re-post of it in Stars & Stripes (Digital Edition, Main Edition, August 30, page 12). I cannot find a direct link to the Post and S&S uses flash, so you will have to dig it out yourself. It is worth reading.
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'Unified response' (Score:4, Insightful)
A unified response is necessary, according to the analyst. Funny how that sounds like "too bad the House of Commons refused to be an American lapdog for a change".
Deja vu (Score:2)
Iraq: A defining moment for weapons of mass destruction
How many times people will buy remakes of The empire strikes back?
And, btw, is good to have backup of what newspapers said before media control, like when was disclosed that U.S. backed plan to launch chemical weapon attack on Syria and blame it on Assad's regime [archive.org].
This is not about caring about Syrian people, at least, not the big majority of them, just about the friendly ones that will be put in control. Remember how much US cared about iraquis? Seem
This is not a defining moment (Score:2)
War is hell. Someday if your country is in a brutal fight to the death, you may also insist that your country use them. Honestly, if you want to stop Assad, then stop Assad, but don't try to pretend it's some moral imperative based on chemical weapons.
The real contention while formulating a response. (Score:3)
what the fuck? (Score:4, Insightful)
what the fuck is this bullshit?
We don't even know that Assad did it. Given that we know that the rebels have sarin (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXzyS9eUVgs), this could be a false flag. And yet the post reads like it's a foregone conclusion that Assad did it.
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Re:Stagerring hypocrisy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Staggering hypocrisy (Score:2)
As a student of military history i think you're being overly kind and optimistic ; ).
http://www.internationalist.org/chemwarhoax0503a.html [internationalist.org]
http://www.internationalist.org/chemwarhoax0503b.html [internationalist.org]
(Ignore the ideological ranting, the facts are pretty solid).
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We'd never have gone in there if we had reason to believe he actually had, or was about to have a nuke.
That was probably the driver for the invasion. The sanctions were going to end at some point. Then Iraq would have been free to pursue nuclear weapon development again.