Syria and Chemical weapons

December 2024 Forums General discussion Syria and Chemical weapons

Viewing 15 posts - 16 through 30 (of 70 total)
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  • #126484
    jondwhite
    Participant

    What is the pissoir theory of history?

    #126485
    robbo203
    Participant

     http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news "Breaking: US launches airstrikes on Syria: Military fires more than 50 Tomahawks on Homs airfield just hours after Trump said 'something should happen' following gas-attack atrocity –The military fired more than 50 Tomahawk missiles at al-Shayrat military airfield –Secretary of state Rex Tillerson said earlier today that the U.S. was already exploring the enlistment of an international coalition to oust [aka an illegal coup against] Assad | 06 April 2017 | America has launched airstrikes against a Syrian air base. The US military fired more than 50 Tomahawk missiles at the al-Shayrat military airfield near Homs on Thursday. Officials confirm that no fixed wing aircraft were involved. The move comes just hours after President Trump denounced this week's horrific chemical weapons attack [due to the US-backed 'rebels' storing such chemicals] as an 'egregious crime', saying 'it shouldn’t have happened. And it shouldn't be allowed to happen.' Russia now has more than 30 helicopters operating in Syria, including a fleet of around eight Mi-28N Night Hunter and Ka-52 Alligator gunships stationed at its Shayrat airbase southeast of Homs city, according to satellite images posted online by IHS Jane's analysts" With so much Russian military stationed in Syria could someone please explain how a concerted attempt by this "international coalition" to oust or topple Assad  could not possibly run headlong into this same military with all the repercussions that that might entail?

    #126486
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Why the  Russians did not intercept the missiles ?

    #126487
    robbo203
    Participant

    I see that according to the Sun Newspaper  Following the bombings, Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said that the strike was a "proportional response to Assad's heinous act".The spokesman said that the Shayrat Airfield was used to store chemical weapons and Syrian air forces and he revealed that America intelligence believed aircraft from the base carried out the chemical weapons attack.He added: "The strike was intended to deter the regime from using chemical weapons again."(https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3275613/donald-trump-us-attacks-syria-chemical-attack-sarin-latest-news/) If the airbase was used to store chemical weapons as claimed then surely bombing the airbase poses the risk of releasing these deadly gases into the environment.  In which case….

    #126488
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Only zombies can believe that stupidity. If bombs are dropped on a storage of chemical weapons it will  spread all over the population.  Why the airbase was almost empty ?  If it was a precise attack. Why only 26 reached the area  Whe are the others missiles ?  Did they hit another area ? Why the rebels reactivated their operation after the strike ? The strike killed 4 children like it was done with the chemical weapon. The airbase did not have modern airplanes. Iraq had a cemetery of Russian Mig 

    #126489
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    They spent 94 millions dollars to destroy a yunk yard  The followers of  Trump complain because the us government spends a few dollars on poor children. Isn't that ironic ?

    #126490
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    See my reply #15 on binary weaponryIf chemicals were used, i think it is more than likely to be chlorine otherwise it calls into question the removal of chemical weapons under international supervision a few years ago. I don;t  think that would so amateurish that it could be subverted by a main airfield retaining stocks.But i think we are being diverted and bogged down on a question that is irrelevant.We don't care whether chemical weapons were used or not. Old-fashioned high-explosives is just as horrendous and heinous and does horrible damage to the human body. Let's not play the media game of the best way to die. Our real concern is the possible escalation of this civil war into a direct conflict between two super-powers. My worry is not that the Americans knew of some sort of chemical supply dump at the airport or not but whether they knew or didn't know if any Russian personnel were there. 

    #126491
    robbo203
    Participant

      Trump has now finally been exposed as a complete and utter conman – or more precisely, neo-con man.  The one thing that superficially separated him from his utterly obnoxious  warmongering Democratic rival, Killary Clinton, and that cast him in a relatively favourable light was his promise not to meddle, militarily speaking, in other countries' affairs, to become more isolationist and to put "America first". However, it was pretty obvious right from the start that this was a hoax.  Why make such a promise and at the same time also promise to beef up America's military might? Something did not ring true here.   And now some of his gullible redneck supporters on the Right are furious and feel betrayed. As if that wasn’t totally predictable. . They would do well to reflect on all those other empty promises Trump made – like his faux pretence to have the interests of the American workers at heart.  This from a billionaire who has treated his own employees with ruthless contempt and who despite his professed desire to "bring back jobs to America" has himself business interests in more than two dozen countries. Not that that really matters at the end of the day. Trump has predictably turned out to be a totally hypocrite and a lier to boot but he is just a symbol.  His personal traits are an irrelevance. What is relevant are the millions of American workers who put him in power in the deluded belief that he would make a difference. With this latest example of military adventurism in Syria, Trump has fallen completely into line with the predictable pattern of every American President – which is to do the bidding of American capitalism.  All of them have played the humanitarian card to manufacture a pretext for military intervention regardless of the disgusting hypocrisy this entails.  Trump’s crocodile tears over the children gassed in Syria cannot wipe away the bloodstained record of his and American military's war crimes in Mosul, for instance, where the inhabitants of that benighted city were leafletted by air and told to remain in their homes, only to find those same homes bombed to smithereens at the cost of literally hundreds of lives.  If Trump is such a humanitarian why does he not oppose Saudi Arabia’s brutal bombing campaign in Yemen.  If he was a humanitarian why does he forbid some of those hapless human victims of war entry to America? A humanitarianism that is selective is not humanitarianism at all but a sickening cynical ploy. Chemical weapons are horrific but what is so especially horrific about them that sets them apart from the slow and agonising death under a mountain of rubble resulting from an aerial bombardment? This particular focus on a particular kind of weapon is the liberal’s get-out card that enables them to kill other human beings in the name of humanitarianism 

    #126492
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    Robbo, the WSM should be resting on its laurels, gloating over the fact that once again we have been proven right and should be rubbing it in with we told you so staementsNot much self-satisfied smugness since being right cost many innocent lives…

    #126493
    ALB
    Keymaster

    Apparently, according to the media, the US gave the Russian military one hour's notice of the attack, time for them to move their personnell and to tell the Syrian government to move theirs. Hence, the low number of casualties, mainly civilians living near the base, including childrem. So maybe it was just a one-off, token, shot across the bows. Let's hope so.As a Tomahawk missile is said to cost $1.5 million dollars each, times 59 that makes the cost nearly $90 milliom. The money for destruction is always when the State needs it.Trump in his speech justified it on the grounds of defending the US's "vital national interest'. That would have been inserted by his lawyers to get round the 'ban' on war in that scrap of paper the UN Charter except where 'vital' national interest is involved.

    #126494
    robbo203
    Participant
    alanjjohnstone wrote:
    Robbo, the WSM should be resting on its laurels, gloating over the fact that once again we have been proven right and should be rubbing it in with we told you so staementsNot much self-satisfied smugness since being right cost many innocent lives…

     Agreed Alan.  Have you seen this BTW which seems to rule out the possibility that it was a stash of chemicals weapons that was bombedhttp://www.counterpunch.org/2017/04/06/on-that-gas-attack-we-dont-need-conspiracies-to-oppose-us-war-in-syria/

    #126495
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    Counterpunch is on my daily reading list for the blog. I am not sure that this ex-career army officer, Hamish de Britton, can be unbiased but on the other hand,  i've not come across anything that questions his independence.  

    #126496
    jondwhite wrote:
    What is the pissoir theory of history?

    It involves Trump in a Moscow hotel room…

    #126497
    Dave B
    Participant

    the reason for the attack may have been a bit more 'mundane'.  Russia says only 23 out of 59 cruise missiles hit the base. The others were shot down by air defense or diverted by Electronic Counter Measures. The Pentagon insists that all 59 hit. But the pictures and video from the base only show damage to 11 aircraft shelters. Additionally one radar, one missile launcher and a fuel depot were hit. That effect is too small for 59 impacts. The base was in use again 12 hours after the strike.  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46822.htmie checking each others military hardware out to see just how 'good' the new untested Russian anti missile systems were.

    #126498
    Anonymous
    Inactive
    Dave B wrote:
    the reason for the attack may have been a bit more 'mundane'.  Russia says only 23 out of 59 cruise missiles hit the base. The others were shot down by air defense or diverted by Electronic Counter Measures. The Pentagon insists that all 59 hit. But the pictures and video from the base only show damage to 11 aircraft shelters. Additionally one radar, one missile launcher and a fuel depot were hit. That effect is too small for 59 impacts. The base was in use again 12 hours after the strike.  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46822.htmie checking each others military hardware out to see just how 'good' the new untested Russian anti missile systems were.

    That was one of my first questions, Why the Russian did not intercept the missiles ? . I think the Russian, or the Syrian  used one of their new electronic system that is able to disarm missiles and warships, or they used one of their new anti-missiles system proven to be very effective. . If only 23 missiles hit the target, where are the others one ? They can not be recalled like  the intelligent Ronald Reagan one time said in public. The damages made to the airfield are very small and most of the hangars were not destroyed by the explosion.The Russians are not going to claim that they destroyed the rest of the Tomahawks because that might create a war between the USA and Russia. The Russians millitary hardware stationed in Syria are protected with their new anit-missiles systemProbably, the USA goverment spent 95 millions dollars to impress the Chinese president with their millitary forces, but It  did not work out too well either, and in the meeting it looks like China was in a stronger position, they have something that is as strong as millitary hardware, which is capital, China is going to increase their capital investment in the USA which is over 51  billions. The USA does not want to recognize that within a few years China is going  to become the number one world economic power.The Chinese  are planning to buy the atomic section of the Westinghouse, and they are going to make heavy investment in real estate, and energy, they already have large investment in the film industry, and General Electric appliances production,  probably it is going to be Make China Great Again. Capitalism is not controlled by bullshiter, it is controlled by the market and capitalhttp://www.voltairenet.org/article185860.html

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