Just an observation.
Last week the news media reported that chemical weapons were used in Syria.
I have heard no response from the White House, Pentagon or State Dept.
I definitely don't want to see boots on the ground in Syria...not even Special Ops Raids. But. What happens if a nation state is allowed to use chemical weapons without consequence? If there is no consequence then does our attempts at nuclear containment make sense? Chemical weapons (as the accident in India many years ago) can be just as deadly as nuclear weapons.
I think we just saw any attempt at the appearance of common sense in our foreign policy (if we ever had any) just evaporate.
Redlines are purely rhetorical flourishes in Presidential speeches.
ReplyDeleteYou haven't forgotten the redline about not letting the Norks develop nuclear weapons way back in the Bush Administration and reiterated by Obama? Well not only do they have them, they also have rockets with ICBM range able to deliver them.
What about the red line with Iran's nuke program? Iran has been an active participant with the Nork program. Iran doesn't have to detonate a nuke since the Nork's are doing that.
So many Red Lines and so little credibility.
unfortunately true. but a moment of truth is coming for the US. if we follow conventional wisdom and cut back on the number of nukes we have then you might see nuclear proliferation happen not only in the middle east but in asia too. the world is gonna be a very dangerous place real soon....i mean more dangerous than it already is.
DeleteNot going to comment on the nuclear aspects of this, but I think having watched US officials in the aftermath and news footage from rebel and government forces, I believe that it is unlikely a chemical attack took place.
ReplyDeleteI think this is likely because 1) the US will more than likely have a lot of ISR focused on the Syrian weapons sites, along with who knows what else in terms of HUMINT etc. And 2) If they'd used any of the Mustard Gas, VX or Sarin, that the arsenal is made up of, those attacks would have killed and injured a lot more people. As far as I know it seemed to be largely people simply suffering breathing difficulties that led to the chemical weapon theory, not even sure if it caused fatalities. But that could have been caused by anything, from CS gas upwards. So if anything did happen, it certainly wasn't caused by one of the chemical weapons that'd get pushed into the WMD category.
Just my opinion of course, but I think the media ran away with it and assumed chemical weapons MUST be involved simply because each side tried to use it for propaganda and claimed the other had done it.
you do know this is the SECOND reported instance of chemical weapons being used in Syria.
DeleteFirst attack saw Doctors with contaminated patients while wearing nothing but street clothes and any chemical would still be hot enough to kill or sicken them also. I never once saw an active DECON of any of the victims.
DeleteSecond attack could have been hysteria, during Desert Storm Iraqi's were feared to use Chemical SCUDS to attack Tel Aviv yet did not but Israeli's died from heart attacks and hysteria that the SUDS were Sarin, VX or Mustard.
I recall my first trip in the gas chamber it was much more effective than the second which was almost funny for the boots. Fear and hysteria can cause symptoms of choking and suffocation. A few words spent warning of such horror makes it all come true.
A hypothesis, perhaps a pool supply company or water treatment facility was hit and Chlorine was leaked without malice but by chance, does Syria have water treatment that uses chlorine? I don't floggin' know.
I see their hate and blood lust on videos, running over a line of men with a tank, beheading s, it's just a matter of time before Gas is used maybe it will show the muslim world the folly of using WMDs. Either way while I feel sorrow at any chemical induced fatalities by the good men and women and their children I believe this is their own Syrian/Islamic problem and I do not want to interfere and especially send US forces to aid either side which by all accounts are equally guilty of many other war crimes, and equally in the right, both sides are enemies and neither side is our friend.
If they were not killing each other they would be killing the Jews or Us.
It ain't our fight, let them kill each other any way they wish, good luck to both and all participants.
As for Obama, What I'm supposed to believe everything and anything he says?
Grim
ReplyDeleteThe previous possible use was more tear gas than nerve gas, but its still illegal.....
The usage is likely highly planned.
A few Battalion officers are given a small stock pile of Riot Gas.
They can deploy it as needed and either disrupt an attack or augment their own.
If the world cries foul, Assad can plausibly claim that it was a rogue colonel using none lethal gas without permission.
If the world is silent, Assad can roll out the same weapons on a larger scale.
Next we will see a Brigade level attack by the FSA run into a wall of gas, and the attackers annihilated in a counter attack, again, Assad can claim is was a defensive use if the world kicks up a fuss.
Perhaps small scale use of lethal gas will follow more silence, again, Assad can reasonably claim it was an isolated, unauthorised incident.
If that gets ignored, well, a car bomb goes off in an Assad marketplace, and an FSA village is gassed in response.
US interests arent affected one way of the other, and as you yourself have pointed out, the Obama regime has packed its plate with legislative plate with wars it cant hope to settle before election time, an actual war would be hugely damaging to that.
The reality is the Alawites rightly fear extermination at the hands of the FSA far more than they fear invasion by the US
The Assad's and company saw Gaddaffy go down, they fear more than extermination and genocide. These are fellow Syrian's and the Alawites fear Rape, Robbery, torture, mutilations, murder and enslavement.
DeleteAll captured on some Muslim with a cell phone camera or video and while the Allewites scream in pain and fear the ally ackbars will be screaming along with them.
Death is nothing compared with the evil delight these folks take in the misery of their fellow man.
If I were Assad I'd have used gas already, if I were the FSA I'd use it the minute I captured it.
It's the only way to be really sure the other tribe won't come back later.
Stalin said, One man's death is a tragedy, a million a statistic. Once the threshold of Gas attack has been crossed in a Major Mass casualty event then the horse has left the barn and a whole lotta people are gonna die.
ReplyDeleteWhat is Obama's threshold and the actual red line?
That's the question.