Making a Case For Cyberwar Against Syria 203
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Jason Healey writes at Defense One that if the Obama administration conducts military strikes against Syria, as now seems likely, it should use military cyber weapons at the earliest possible moment to show 'that cyber operations are not evil witchcraft but can be humanitarian.' Cyber capabilities could first disrupt Syrian air defenses directly or confuse military command and control, allowing air strikes to proceed unchallenged. A cyber strike might also disable dual-use Syrian critical infrastructure (such as electrical power) that aids the regime's military but with no long-term destruction as would be caused by traditional bombs. Last, it is possible the U.S. military has cyber capabilities to directly disrupt the operations of Syria's chemical troops. Healy writes that one cyberweapon that should not be used is covert cyber operations against Bashar Assad's finances. 'Both of his immediate predecessors declined such attacks and the world economy and financial sector are already in a perilous state.' Before the American-led strikes against Libya in 2011, the Obama administration debated whether to conduct a cyberoffensive to disrupt the Qaddafi government's air-defense system, but balked, fearing that it might set a precedent for other nations, in particular Russia or China, to carry out such offensives of their own. This time should be different in Healey's view. 'By sparing the lives of Syrian troops and nearby civilians, an opening cyber operation against Syria could demonstrate exactly how such capabilities can be compliant with international humanitarian law,' writes Healey. 'America should take this chance to demystify these weapons to show the world they, and the U.S. military in general, can be used on the battlefield in line with humanitarian principles.'"
No (Score:4, Insightful)
Those who live in glass houses, should not throw stones...
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Those who live in glass houses, should not throw stones...
Especially not at people who live in much less glassy houses and still have plenty of stones... Seriously, unless the world of SCADA systems, consumer operating systems, and assorted web infrastructure, and such is far less of a clusterfuck than is routinely reported at security conferences, do we really want to encourage any more hackery than already goes on?
(Attempting to use the 'humanitarian' bullshit is doubly foolish: 'humanitarian' is always an object of politicized cynisism, and wouldn't it argua
Re:No (Score:4, Interesting)
No kidding! This "justification" for "war" is sounding like a broken record.
Wasting money to kill others (who disagree with you) is spiritually retarded.
When are people going to demand that violence is NOT the solution -- it is precisely part of the problem in the first place!
I'm reminded of MLK Jr's speech who said it a little more eloquently:
* Full transcript & audio of the brilliant speech:
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm [americanrhetoric.com]
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
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Also, bear in mind that the majority of the rebels are made up of Al-Qaida operatives\stooges... people who have been our declared enemy since 9-11. That means aiding them is an act of treason....yet no one is paying any attention to that "little" facet of the equation.
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The bulk of the firepower is in the hands of extremists, but they aren't the majority.
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Baloney. All the real advances since the beginning of civilization have been brought about by advances in science, education and exploration. Military action (which I what I have to assume you mean by 'violence') has been nothing but a destructive force throughout history, frequently arm in arm with its sibling in ignorance, religion.
And why would Russia want to condemn the Syrian government for an action which it doesn't believe they committed? Would you have condemned the North Vietnamese governme
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" science, education and exploration"
War speeds up advances in both science and technology. For example had WW2 not happened the advances in electromagnetic field theory (radar),aviation technology, and nuclear technology would not have happened as quickly as it did. The technology advances to create ICBMs provided the technology needed to go to the moon. War or the threat of war has accelerated the advancements in satellite technology to provide things like GPS services. Even the early internet started ou
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Nup (Score:2)
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Actually you are wrong. USSR has started nuclear research way before the war, but stopped doing it due to war efforts when the scientists had to be redelegated to different fields, different jobs or became soldiers. The rocket theory was developed even before the first world war, only the material science was behind. And so on.
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The US was also doing nuclear research just like Russia, Japan, and Germany. The US was just the first to actually create and deploy a viable weapon. Unlike today back then people were willing to take risks to achieve their goals. The fact that the US was in the middle of a war allowed the US to justify raising the risk level that would have been unacceptable in peace time. Some of the scientist at Los Alamos didn't rule out the possibility of the nuclear reaction igniting the atmosphere. It is also widely
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Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
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When the leader of a country who has claimed that Assad has to be toppled, sets up a bombing action that can take from 60 to 90 days (longer will need extra approvals) , do you think this has anything to do with punishing? It's not even likely that Assad did the bombing. It would require him to become overconfident and not minding to put his russian allies in a difficult position in order to win a minor advantage. Assad was winning. That was an unacceptable outcome for some, and that ment more dramatic meas
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
We were kind of hoping that you, Stan, would solve this problem for us. Why is this our problem? We have nothing to do with Syria. Why not let a local country deal with the problem? There are nearly 200 sovereign countries in the world at least half of which could probably kick the Syrian government's ass. Why do we always have to be the world's sole policeman? Sorry, but that is just bullshit. You want to go to war with Syria for fucking humanitarian reasons (haha!) then you go do that. I don't want my own country getting involved at this point and the last time I checked the majority of Americans agreed with me.
I'll tell you what, when the Syrians overthrow our government for us and release us from our own chains then we can return the favor. We don't owe the world or any particular country in it a damn thing. And the vast majority of them don't want our help anyway. Let's get a poll of the Syrians who want us to bomb them in order to save them. You really think the majority will be in favor of it?
Even if we succeed with our plan for regime change and manage to install a puppet leader and puppet government how long before that government gets overthrown by the people? And it's not like our govenment is really all that much better anymore even from the POV of someone who wants more freedom, which most Syrians probably don't anyway.
Maybe the best thing to do is something along the lines of what Sweden is doing. Let the few Syrians who are pro-liberty and would support a US puppet government just come here instead. And let the rest fend for themselves. They don't want to be rescued. They don't want our "help".
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I'll tell you what, when the Syrians overthrow our government for us and release us from our own chains then we can return the favor. We don't owe the world or any particular country in it a damn thing.
You were doing well towards here.
You clearly dont have any idea whats going on in Syria, or you wouldnt compare their situation to ours. When you fear to send your child to work because of government snipers who target children, then we can talk.
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So instead of fearing snipers, it is better to fear the rockets from fighter jets miles up in the sky?
Or, is it better to fear various curable diseases from killing your child instead of the snipers? I don't see the US spending trillions of dollars on these causes. Given the track record in Afghan and Iraq, it's pretty obvious that spending a few trillion on curing diseases like malaria, HIV, etc, even if unsuccessful, is probably better than spending trillions to make bad political situations worse.
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Not commenting on Syria specifically, but MLK isnt "automatically right" because hes MLK, and I think in this case he is dead wrong. There are times war is necessary for any person of conscience. I might mention, for example, the holocaust-- even though we got into the war for a number of reasons (very few of them morally based), it was a war that I think can easily be justified.
I never studies MLK in depth, but from what I know of him he was rather an idealist and may have had trouble grasping that peopl
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The trouble with that sort of thinking is that it fails to account for the fact that peace requires participation by everyone, whereas war can be started unilaterally. Hitler, for example, actively wanted war, and was frustrated
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Wasting money to kill others (who disagree with you) is spiritually retarded.
war is about spending money to kill others you are preventing you from making more money. it's never anything more or less than that. violence is most certainly the solution to keeping the 0.1% on top.
even if syria isn't strategically important, it will serve nicely as a justification for military spending and a training exercise.
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and assorted web infrastructure, and such is far less of a clusterfuck than is routinely reported at security conferences, do we really want to encourage any more hackery than already goes on?
Would this be known as Asshackery?
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Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
Forget about the houses... America has a glass neighborhood.
Let's assume for just a moment that the government has magically secured its own systems against any particular attack. The next target of convenience for any retaliation is everybody else. Remember the headaches when Anonymous lashed out at Mastercard? Now add in a military's knowledge and resources, and it won't just be credit cards that won't work. Everybody from health care to restaurants becomes a target, and the usual rules of engagement don't really apply.
The government will survive. It might take a few hits, but I suspect the American military's networks are disparate enough that no single attack will completely cripple their ability to function. The civilians, though, are far less protected and far less resilient. One bad week can mean the end for many small businesses, leading to widespread fear, and another economic crisis.
A war over the Internet is the current nuclear option. We don't want it, and we can't survive it, but it is one heck of a powerful weapon.
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A war over the Internet is the current nuclear option. We don't want it, and we can't survive it, but it is one heck of a powerful weapon.
One problem with cyberwarfare is that the US is heavily dependent on the internet, whereas the dictatorships we're facing off against aren't. North Korea is a good example of this. The North Korean regime is supposed to have invested heavily in offensive cyberwarfare as a deterrent weapon. If hostilities were to break out with the U.S., North Korea could try to disrupt our civilian infrastructure and economy, but they'd be almost invulnerable to counterattack, since the country doesn't depend on the interne
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Electronically filed returns require a PIN, and I believe it has to be done through an IRS supported portal.. I dont recall the specifics of how secure it is, but its not quite as easy as "file a billion bogus returns".
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Those who live in glass houses, should not throw stones...
Shouldn't dance naked. On another note, is a warmongering Nobel peace prize recipient an oxymoron?
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^ This..
You don't win wars by levelling the playing field, you win by using advantage. When it comes to cyber-terrorism and the like, the US has no advantage, if anything, it's potentially disadvantaged over less developed nations.
Too true. One of the most gifted ASIC engineers grew up where he and others in his mountain town had to walk miles to get to
a bus that could get to "civilization".
One smart and clever man is all that might be needed to crack the cyber lock on
a nation or more.
Note well that war is not civilized yet may prove necessary when a bad guy or rogue nation go sideways.
There is nothing civilized in a developed nation waging war on an ill developed nation.
The troubling red line to not cross is when a developed nation
Nope, this is an act of war! (Score:5, Insightful)
How many times do we have to tell the Government that they must obey the law? Only Congress can declare war! If the CIA is found to be engaging in acts of war with foreign nations, they need to be held accountable. If politicians, such as Obama, defy the constitution they need to be held accountable. If corporations are found to be engaging in acts of war, they need to be held accountable. This is obviously a request for you, the people, to demand that the law be enforced.
If you start with the agents and put them on trial for treason, evidence will grow for higher ups. There is no immunity in this simply because someone was following orders. We, the people, need to stop accepting law breakers sitting in public offices.
We have let things slide for over 40 years, and if you keep ignoring the severity of the situation we won't have a USA or a world worth living in.
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The president can order an attack without congressional approval (a cold war concession made long ago - if the Reds nuke us, we can nuke em back right away), but requires approval within 90 days IIRC. So the executive could initiate a cyber-attack, just as the president could order an airstrike.
The War Powers Act Checks Presidential Power (Score:5, Informative)
What you're referring to is the War Powers Act [wikipedia.org]. This does allow the president the ability to engage in conflict on short notice and without a declaration of war, but the act was designed to check the president's warmaking powers, restricting it to specific conditions. According to the act, the president can only act by statutory authorization or "a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces." Presidents (R and D alike) have tended to focus on the details like the 60 to 90 days they have discretion, while ignoring the conditions under which such discretion is allowed. Unless we are in a national emergency (i.e. a nuking or a Pearl Harbor like event), Presidents act against the letter of the War Powers Act if they exercise such powers.
I point all this out because its so often misrepresented in the media, which rarely questions a President's authority to go to war (again, R or D president).
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Inherently to any successful war is to attack the populace at some level
Such a statement could only be made by one unfamiliar with history. As I recall the greek city-states had a habit of NOT attacking the populace during their conflicts, among other examples.
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Only if the U.S. is attacked first. Did Kennedy have the authority to "resolve" the Cuban Missile Crisis by ordering a massive nuclear strike on both Cuba and the Soviet fleet without a declaration of war? How about if Obama decides to weaken Assad's support by first bombing Iran, bombing any arms shipments
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I doubt it's an impeachable offense - the commander in chief can order the military around at his whimsy, and who's the last president who didn't order an airstrike against someone who pissed him off - Carter? But these days the only impeachable offense is to be a president of the opposite party of both the House and Senate.
People get upset when you put their children's life at risk, so putting troops on the ground is a heavily political action, and so I'd be amazed if any president didn't seek political c
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I wish I shared your optimism about people getting smarter. But still it's a good point: eventually, people may gey annoyed if we launch 100 $10 million cruise missiles at someone on a whim, or lose 100 expensive drones.
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Most of my optimism comes from teaching people and seeing results. I also see groups gaining membership, such as the "Young Libertarians". In the last month, I have had the pleasure of convincing 3 people to start reading Plato's "The Republic" and start to have dialogue with me. In that same month, I have convinced 9 to start reading Gary Allen's "None Dare Call it Conspiracy" and again begin dialogue. Other people I previously worked on have begun to open doors of their own.
At times, it's frustrating
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. This is a pity because the War Powers Resolution was designed to....
IF "the Presidents" are right that it is their constitutional right to make war, it is irrelevant why the War Powers resolution was designed. No act of congress save an amendment can overrule a provision of the constitution.
James Madison reported that in the Federal Convention of 1787, the phrase "make war" was changed to "declare war" in order to leave to the Executive the power to repel sudden attacks but not to commence war without the explicit approval of Congress.[3] Debate continues as to the legal
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Acts of war are not necessary for the President to direct the troops to engage in combat. A declaration of war DOES, as I recall, grant several new powers to the President, which is why Congress tends not to issue them. Even for Iraq / Afghanistan, Congress simply granted AUMFs. Of course, Congress controls the budget, so without them on board things can get a little difficult.
Obama is seeking an AUMF for Syria, so its sort of moot anyways. I dont think anyone is concerned with whether Obama can legally
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Actually there is a legal question since Obama claimed he did not need the approval of Congress to attack Syria. It is that statement that now has 14 members of congress demanding that he follow the law or face impeachment in addition to several members of the Senate expressing similar statements and voicing concerns.
The War Powers Act of 1973 limits the President's ability declarations to responding to an attack against the USA (sovereign territory, attack on the military, and a few other cases). It can
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we won't have a USA or a world worth living in
It's hardly worth living in now. I couldn't be bothered paying attention to these idiots and what they do with their military industrial complex, borrowed money and world terror campaign. The USA is done, gone, finished .. no longer the place in which you were born.
.. quit making their computer systems, quit paying for the destruction being done in your nam
I hear Ecuador is a fine democracy, move there.
If you want a world worth living in, stop supporting the people destroying it. Get out of the USA
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Treaties do not have the power to overrule acts of Congress, much less provisions of the Constitution. AFAIK, if you sign a treaty that requires a change, Congress would have to pass legislation to comply with that treaty-- the treaty doesnt change US law on its own.
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Nope, no (Score:2)
Well then, I guess no war, "cyber" or otherwise.
Re:Nope, no (Score:5, Insightful)
US is actually in war with everyone, specially in the cyber realm. They have (or think their have) the upper hand and then is happily going against all the world, not just spying, but infiltrating, planting backdoors, sabotaging, and other activities that in their own opinion deserves decades in jail if is done by civilians. They aren't doing this for preserving the peace, protecting their citizens or attack terrorists, they are doing it because they want war, they profit from it, and they think they can win it, no matter the cost in lives.
They are trying to legalize the war in Syria (that probably they or their associates are instingating [mintpressnews.com]) , so they can define hacking as something similar to weapon of mass destruction, and justify intervention in even more countries.
Syria's seen it before (Score:4, Informative)
!Seems likely (Score:2)
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the funny thing about this "war", is that the "facts" come from the same people that the Democrats discredited during the Iraq war. Now that Obama wants a war to distract everyone from his other disastrous wars (like Egypt, Benghazi, ...), the press is willing to forget their claims against these sources. Anything for Obama, and the Democrats.
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Hardly. The media is as pro war in 2013 as they were in 2003, or 1963. Or did we all forget that the "liberal" MSNBC canned their highest rated show when the host, Phil Donahue, questioned the invasion of Iraq?
The only difference now is the chunk of the Democratic party that would be having a hissy fit if it were Romney providing the same crap intelligence and claiming he could go to war without approv
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the funny thing about this "war", is that the "facts" come from the same people that the Democrats discredited during the Iraq war. Now that Obama wants a war to distract everyone from his other disastrous wars (like Egypt, Benghazi, ...), the press is willing to forget their claims against these sources. Anything for Obama, and the Democrats.
It's night and day. You can go on Youtube and see the victims of the chemical weapons yourself- children suffering seizures, row after row of men, women and children laid out on concrete floors without any signs of physical injury. Medecins sans Frontiers came out and said that the doctors treating the wounded described symptoms consistent with nerve gas. Some of the people treating the victims got enough exposure that they fell ill and some of them died. Tissue samples taken by doctors have tested positive
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That was a very nice summary of the situation.
Thanks.
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It probably was a sarin attack. But it was also very likely a rebel attack. Your claim that the rebels don't have rockets is based on hearsay. What's more it ignores how easy it is to make basic rockets in Gaza. There was another attack 19 march : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_al-Assal_chemical_attack [wikipedia.org] . The russians filed a very detailed report on that in july but it was ignored. So they returned to the issue a few days back since nobody else wants to do it. So this is not the first attempt. There have
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So... (Score:5, Interesting)
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The more bank accounts that get screwed with, the more people will seek out alternatives for wealth storage, like bitcoin.
I'm not sure that electronic attacks will have people flocking to a notably-dogged-by-electronic-theft cryptographic currency... Yeah, after every attack, it is carefully explained that the person attacked was a noob who had it coming because they skipped some implementation detail; but that's rarely very helpful.
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The other view is to call the top staff in Syria and offer them a way out.
Have problems at a critical time and a new life 'anywhere' is offered when the freedom fighters surround your city.
Spin up the Russian tech and the fog of war gets very messy - no deal, no papers, no new life, no banking.
Just swarms of foreign 'freedom fighters' and their drone linked h
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Apparently we should use 'cyber' weapons; but not against the finances of the guy we accuse of killing ~100k people; because the poor, poor, banks might get weepy or something. What kind of bullshit is this? Sure, target the Syrian electrical grid (it's "dual use"!) but don't touch the financial markets, they have feelings too(and apparently financial markets aren't "dual use" much to the confusion of money launderers, mercenaries, and plundering kleptocrats worldwide?)
As tempting as it would be to attack the finances of the Assad regime, it would be a really, really bad idea. Let's say we hack into his bank accounts and where it says "$37 billion" we change a few decimal places and all of a sudden, it's 37 cents, or maybe we write a $37 billion dollar check to that charity that buys cows for people in Africa. Then the regime collapses because he can't pay for supplies or buy the loyalty of his cronies. This might be effective, but it creates a nasty precedent. During the
Rebels released the chemical weapons. (Score:5, Informative)
There appears to be much evidence that it was in fact the rebels that used the chemical weapons which were supplied by the Saudis,
1) Video evidence of Chemical weapons being launched.
2) Photographic evidence of the weapons being Saudi.
3) Testimony from Syrian rebels from the faction that had the weapons and admitted they didn't know what they were doing with them.
http://www.wnd.com/2013/08/video-shows-rebels-launching-gas-attack-in-syria/ [wnd.com]
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-30/dont-show-obama-report-about-who-really-behind-syrian-chemical-attacks [zerohedge.com]
http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2013/08/rebels-admit-responsibility-for-chemical-weapons-attack-chemical-weapons-supplied-by-saudi-arabia-not-syria-forwarded-by-erasmus-of-america-august-31-2013-905-am-2751942.html [beforeitsnews.com]
And anyway, what is American Military going to do, team up with Al Qaeda and Hezbollah to attack Syria and kill hundreds of thousands more people in the middle east?
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Are you seriously taking WND seriously? Lol, they make up 10 times more "facts" than Fox News and CNN put together.
Re:Rebels released the chemical weapons. (Score:4, Informative)
And anyway, what is American Military going to do, team up with Al Qaeda and Hezbollah to attack Syria and kill hundreds of thousands more people in the middle east?
Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah are not on the same side.
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oops, you are of course right, Hezbolla being on the Syrian govts side.
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Damnit. How dare you pollute this debate with FACTS?!?
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There appears to be much evidence that it was in fact the rebels that used the chemical weapons which were supplied by the Saudis
Your "source" is a bunch of TV broadcasts by Syrian TV, which is controlled by the Syrian government. That's not actually a news outlet, it's just the propaganda wing of the Assad regime. They're going to say whatever they need to say to keep Assad in power.
The thing to keep in mind here is the scale of these attacks. You could see the rebels launching an attack on a small scale, maybe. But the attacks were actually launched against three different areas near Damascus, and used rockets and chemical weapons,
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"and killed something like 1400 people"
Pot Kettle black eh, who are you quoting - the guy who is trying to make more money for his countries war machine industry.
"He'd killed 100,000 people."
Really showing your bias here, that figure is the number of people thought to be dead from the conflict, killed by both rebels and gov't troops.
Both sides are bad, joining with one side would not be helping the civilians, quite the opposite - 10,000s more civilians would die.
You choose to believe your gov't versions of
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Yeah, Your "sources" take all their facts from either the Russians or the Syrian regime. I'm a bit inclined to not believe them.
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And what do the US govt have? Just an insistance that chemical weapons were used, but no evidence of who used them. And given the USAs recent actions I think Russia is on an equal footing with regards to trustworthiness.
Re:Rebels released the chemical weapons. (Score:4, Insightful)
Sarin is extremely deadly and not really a substance for haphazard manufacture or haphazard loading into munitions.
You are saying that the entire filthy rich state of Saudi Arabia cannot do what some small, underground sect in Japan was able to do a couple decades ago?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarin_gas_attack_on_the_Tokyo_subway [wikipedia.org]
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Before directly answering your question I will point out that the allegations of Saudi involvement for Sarin based on the presented "evidence" is nonsense. As to your question....
Yes, pretty much - the Saudis couldn't "do" what Aum Shinrikyo did. They are two different types of events. The attack in Tokyo was a terrorist attack with hand-carried home-brew sarin (made by a group with over $1,000,000,000 in assets) used to attack people in a highly enclosed space (about the best possible environment for the
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Lol at the links source, did you look at the article - an Indian student. And the other article is also pure conjecture. If there was any real evidence that Syrian military launched the chemical weapons, it would have been all over the news, the only thing the news is saying with certainty is that someone launched chemical weapons.
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..Looks like you posted the wrong link.
The US should stay the hell out of Syria (Score:5, Insightful)
The US should stay the hell out of Syria's civil war. Both sides are vicious, dictatorship-prone fanatics. There is no "good" side to support. It's either the existing brutal dictatorship or an Al-Queda inspired bunch of Sharia nutbars.
I feel sorry for the people of Syria caught in the middle of it, but bombing the shit out of the country isn't going to make a decent democracy emerge.
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bombing the shit out of the country isn't going to make a decent democracy emerge.
Quite, and certainly not in Syria.
What is most perplexing is why the US is so bent on arming the Syrian rebels. In the past the US has been absolutely terrified of political Islam.
It now seems willing to embrace and fund it, even if one or more of the parties of rebels are linked to terrorist groups. Deposed dictators like Mubarak, Saddam Hussein, the Shah of Iran and so on have been used in the past to stop the forming of an Islamic government.
Perhaps it's because they'll get a better deal out of the new r
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Once the real universities start, woman get educated, trade deals are looked at and internal nation building understands the reality of the petrodollar - classic freedom fighter/new colour time.
The same brand/database of "freedom fighters" seems to pop up at the perfect time, with new weapons, papers and funding. Some years as 'good' some years
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It struck me as rather odd that we seem to be quite willing to get mixed up in Syria Circus.
It's starting to sound like some crazy plot in a second or third rate book/movie.
"The shady gov't. in country X has developed a plan to recover it's ailing economy by way of contractors/mercenaries and the lucrative arms industry by ass-raping their citizens with taxes and regulatory fees, in order to plunge into yet another war. Can they keep running down the cliff-face and still survive the bottom? Thrills! Chill
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No, but it would definitely help the case for war if a positive outcome, at least a temporary one, were possible.
I have an idea (Score:3)
Bullshit (Score:2)
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assads troops might very well use the chems just to fuck with the rebels.
remember, if all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail and the chem troops have just chems. also, assad hasn't been winning that well... and they didn't know what kind of effect the chems would even have.
it never really was a secret that assad has the chems. that much is agreed by everyone, by every neighbor - why he was allowed to keep making them and stockpiling them nobody seems to know. from that point of view it's ridi
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What a tool (Score:2)
"'By sparing the lives of Syrian troops and nearby civilians, an opening cyber operation against Syria could demonstrate exactly how such capabilities can be compliant with international humanitarian law,' writes Healey."
Yes, indeed. Let us demonstrate our moral rightness by launching an illegal war, to enforce international law. Oh, wait, they know that is nonsense so they are saying 'international norm' instead.
Even if it were an actual violation of international law, responding with an assault that itsel
The air that we breathe is a dual use commodity (Score:2)
From what I have heard you can't destroy chemical weapons with cruise missile strikes or LOL "cyber attacks". To even try would be dangerous and counterproductive.
As for this insane talk about weakening capacity what kind of degredation is needed to prevent someone from walking over to a chemical weapons supply room and walking out with chemicals? I am unable to comphrend the bredth of stupidity and insanity embedded in TFAs or the US administrations line of thought.
Cute Idea But... (Score:2)
Healy should shut his hole (Score:2)
And never open it again.
How about this case: no war, at all. (Score:2)
Christ I am one American who has had it with war.
Post 9/11 Afghanistan was one thing. Took 10 years but we got the fucker. Time to go home. Why haven't we?
Iraq... I won't comment about that goatfuck except to say thank god it is over (for us at least... the place seems to be in shambles).
Why are we the world police? Nobody else on Earth wants us in that role. So let's acknowledge that and take a break from that. I am an advocate for a strong *defense.* The offense part... well to hell with that.
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True. But this is not surprising really. Hawks (presenting themselves as humanitarians) have been talking about establishing a no-fly zone as a less aggressive alternative to direct war with the Syrian army for more than a year. People talk about a establishing a no-fly zone as though it only involves ordering the Syrian military to cease flying planes and occasionally flying our own jets over the area to make sure they do as we say. In fact, establishing a no-fly zone means beginning with a bombing campaig
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Completely irrelevant, Syria has not signed that treaty so are not bound by it. Irael, a US ally, has not ratified it either.
We are not at war with Syria, and have no reason whatsoever to engage them in war. History shows intervention by the USA in a civil war is a guarentee to quadruple the body count, we don't help we kill and destroy for defense contractor oppotunity.
Syrians will continue to kill each other regardless of what the USA does, and it doesn't matter what weapons they use. dead is dead.
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You might note that Syria has not signed nor ratified it, so they have no obligations to follow it. Nor have they ever pretended to follow it. It's no secret they have the weapons.
Gases are ugly but as 'weapons of mass destruction' they are fairly overblown. Nothing like the wimpy little A-bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is why the major powers will agree to chemical weapons treaties for moral high ground while at the same time loudly proclaiming that they hold the option 'on the tab
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That happens and moderately peaceful Americans like me become former peace loving Americans... and middle east ceases to exist, along with anyone's nation who makes the mistake of uttering a single peep of opposition.
So, you've now had you little moment of fantasy, tempered with a dose of reality.
It must suck to be a warmonger such as yourself, but live in a nation that doesn't have a powerful military to satisfy your sadistic desires.
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because thus far we haven't avenged anything including 9/11 attacks. We just scattered Al Qaeda to the four corners of the islamic world, and made Iraq, where they weren't, into an Al Qaeda recruiting center. right now we're negotiating with the Taliban in Afghanistan, because we suck so very very badly at avenging. Let's imagine a superhero who looks like Uncle Sam, called "The Failed Avenger". He'll be so quick on the draw he shoots his foot off, and when he swings his Mace of Justice at an enemy he'l
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hilarious. iran already IS living in the dark ages, following fake prophets for a fake god. i bet there's a thousand hog farmers in america willing to donate pigs for us to drop atop iranian mosques.
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by some standards, HIROSHIMA was a merciful act, preventing WWII from going on as long as it might have.
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