Iraq & Syrian Civil Wars - Page 136

Speaking in an interview to US television network CBS, Mr Assad denied he was behind the chemical atrocity on August 21 and said the US had provided "not a single shred of evidence" that his forces were involved.

On September 09 2013 20:47 Ghanburighan wrote:
Well, the attack looks pretty unlikely atm:



Source.

On September 09 2013 21:03 Novel wrote:
At this point I actually think that China and Russia WANT U.S. to attack Syria.
There was no evidence shown. U.S. will violate international law by bypassing UN. It will unite all U.S. opposition that might have thought that Obama quit role of a world policeman, It will harm U.S. economy in the long run. Also Syrian army have pretty advanced technology, mainly from Russia, so there might be unusually high losses for U.S. This war can be the last part in Pax Americana. If this war will happen.

On September 09 2013 21:03 Novel wrote:
At this point I actually think that China and Russia WANT U.S. to attack Syria.
There was no evidence shown. U.S. will violate international law by bypassing UN. It will unite all U.S. opposition that might have thought that Obama quit role of a world policeman, It will harm U.S. economy in the long run. Also Syrian army have pretty advanced technology, mainly from Russia, so there might be unusually high losses for U.S. This war can be the last part in Pax Americana. If this war will happen.

On September 09 2013 21:21 ddrddrddrddr wrote:

From what I hear on NPR, the US military looks only at strike options that are no risk at all. Would missile bombardment from the Mediterranean and bombers stroke from tens of miles outside Syrian borders allows for any immediate retaliation? Either way it struck me that even though troops on Syrian soil is banned, it is banned only for military action. Redefining whatever is necessary will allow such conditions to be bypassed just as we did with the prisoner of war issue.

Washington doesn't merely lack the legal authority for a military intervention in Syria. It lacks the moral authority. We're talking about a government with a history of using chemical weapons against innocent people far more prolific and deadly than the mere accusations Assad faces from a trigger-happy Western military-industrial complex, bent on stifling further investigation before striking.

Here is a list of 10 chemical weapons attacks carried out by the U.S. government or its allies against civilians.

1. The U.S. Military Dumped 20 Million Gallons of Chemicals on Vietnam from 1962 - 1971


2. Israel Attacked Palestinian Civilians with White Phosphorus in 2008 - 2009


3. Washington Attacked Iraqi Civilians with White Phosphorus in 2004


4. The CIA Helped Saddam Hussein Massacre Iranians and Kurds with Chemical Weapons in 1988


5. The Army Tested Chemicals on Residents of Poor, Black St. Louis Neighborhoods in The 1950s


6. Police Fired Tear Gas at Occupy Protesters in 2011


7. The FBI Attacked Men, Women, and Children With Tear Gas in Waco in 1993


8. The U.S. Military Littered Iraq with Toxic Depleted Uranium in 2003


9. The U.S. Military Killed Hundreds of Thousands of Japanese Civilians with Napalm from 1944 - 1945


10. The U.S. Government Dropped Nuclear Bombs on Two Japanese Cities in 1945

On September 09 2013 10:19 radscorpion9 wrote:


I think there's a difference between civil war and the government killing its own people for protesting, and then leading to a "civil" war in which you can't tell how many people truly support Assad (based on his Alawite background its probably a minority, though he has the military for support plus Iran and Russia).

So probably no to the Greece situation. Similarly with human rights abuses. The US has intervened thus far in countries where dictators were brutally murdering their own people in the thousands, i.e. something more along the lines of a crime against humanity. I think the only reason they didn't intervene in Syria earlier was because America isn't really the world policeman as much as it tries to uphold its moral values, and the American public get war weary.

But I think you can see that when things get bad enough the US once again has to come to the aid of civilians. I think there are some very good questions about whether that might make things worse though, would be interesting to hear Obama's response to that.

But if they weren't war weary, and Britain turned into a dictatorship that started massacring its protesters and unleashing small quantities of chemical weapons, I honestly think that the US would do something - they're more an ally to the British people than the British government.

On September 09 2013 22:14 sekritzzz wrote:
For people who are buying into the obama-Cameron bullshit of enforcing a 100-year treaty to avoid chemical weapons being used freely.

Hypocrisy 101: http://www.policymic.com/articles/62023/10-chemical-weapons-attacks-washington-doesn-t-want-you-to-talk-about


Points 6/7 seem like the author just wants to complete a list of 10, not sure why he would include them but the rest are solid.

+ Show Spoiler +

'I created Transjordan," Winston Churchill once boasted, "with a stroke of a pen one Sunday afternoon in Cairo." Take a look at what remains of Jordan 90 years later and you can see how. Straight borders drawn with a ruler carve indifferent frontiers through a complex region with the kind of callous colonial hubris that displayed scant regard for linguistic, ethnic or religious affiliation.

Much of the contemporary turmoil in the Middle East owes its origins to foreign powers drawing lines in the sand that were both arbitrary and consequential and guided more by their imperial standing than the interests of the region. The "red line" that president Barack Obama has set out as the trigger for US military intervention in Syria is no different.

He drew it unilaterally in August 2012 in response to a question about "whether [he envisioned] using US military" in Syria. "A red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilised. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation."

Saudi Arabia has sent death-row inmates from several nations to fight against the Syrian government in exchange for commuting their sentences, the Assyrian International News Agency reports.

Citing what it calls a "top secret memo" in April from the Ministry of Interior, AINA says the Saudi offered 1,239 inmates a pardon and a monthly stipend for their families, which were were allowed to stay in the Sunni Arab kingdom. Syrian President Bashar Assad is an Alawite, a minority Shiite sect.

According to an English translation of the memo, besides Saudis, the prisoners included Afghans, Egyptians, Iraqis, Jordanians, Kuwaitis, Pakistanis, Palestinians, Somalis, Sudanese, Syrians and Yemenis. All faced "execution by sword" for murder, rape or drug smuggling.

Russia, which has backed Assad, objected to the bargain and allegedly threatened to bring the issue to the United Nations, said an unidentified former Iraqi member of Parliament who confirmed the memo's authenticity, says AINA, an independent outlet.

"Initially Saudi Arabia denied the existence of this program. But the testimony of the released prisoners forced the Saudi government to admit, in private circles, its existence," AINA writes. "The Saudis agreed to stop their clandestine activities and work towards finding a political solution on condition that knowledge of this program would not be made public."

The president is allowed to do this strike without Congressional approval. He didn't have to put this up to a vote.