The Syrian "Revolution": A Farce from Beginning to End

For the most part, yes.

 

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This is the hardest decision Obama has to make yet. Start WWIII or not? Assad needs to do the right thing for the World, and resign.

 

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p-brane, have the occupants of this planet not "been sold that Bill of Goods" many times before? Iraq, Libya, Panama,...

May I ask you, p-brane, what is the one country that has, beyond the shadow of any doubt and in full view of the rest of the world, been factually proven to have actually used WMD's on another country's civilian population?

 

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wegs, the Posts #44 and #53 were not my personal views.

I just wanted to clear that up because in Post #45 you stated ; 'I think you (dmoe) summarized exactly how this will play out."
wegs, sorry, but that was not my summarization.

I had attempted to make it clear that I was presenting information from, and available at the links I posted.
Were my use of quotation marks not the proper way? Any help is welcomed, and always appreciated by me.

I have yet to retire my "baby shoes" in walking the halls of SciForums. As another example the little multi-colored balls/icons and leaf? you sometimes have in your (and other Posters) Posts.
I am not sure what they are for, the proper way to employ the use of, or etiquette in using them!
I do not own a cellphone and do not twitter(tweet), text or blog - so all this "icon for speech/feeling/emotion" technology is quite new and somewhat bemusing to me.

At any rate, I just wanted to clear up any misunderstandings of my apparent viewpoint(s) on the events taking place in Syria.

 

@ Bells;

Thank you for shedding some light here. Okay...I have the following questions:

1) Suppose "evidence" of Syria using chemical weaponry has been corrupted or tainted. How will we conclusively know if Syria used chemical warfare?

2) If the US strikes, do you feel this may launch a full blown war between the US and the Middle East?

3) Why doesn't anyone think this chemical attack could have come from rebels against Syria? In the article above, and other sources, it speaks to there being possible evidence that could link rebels to the attack. How to go about ruling that out as a possibility?

4) If the US does absolutely nothing in response, what might Iran do next?

I'm not pro Syria, but I just want us to have conclusive evidence before we strike Syria. This could launch us into yet another full blown war.
The mere prospect of that scares the hell out of me.

 

Bells, posting links to Wiki is no doubt to some people "...beyond the shadow of any doubt and in full view of the rest of the world, been factually proven" conclusive evidence.

The full article also states : quote - "Saddam Hussein was not charged by the Iraqi Special Tribunal for crimes against humanity relating to the events at Halabja. However, the Iraqi prosecutors had "500 documented baskets of crimes during the Hussein regime" and Hussein was condemned to death based on just one case (the 1982 Dujail Massacre)." - unquote .

If not charged, he was probably not proven guilty of those charges.

The full article also states : quote - "The U.S. State Department, in the immediate aftermath of the incident, took the official position based on examination of available evidence that Iran was partly to blame.[12] A preliminary Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) study at the time reported that it was Iran that was responsible for the attack, an assessment which was used subsequently by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for much of the early 1990s. The CIA's senior political analyst for the Iran-Iraq war, Stephen C. Pelletiere, co-authored an unclassified analysis of the war[25] which contained a brief summary of the DIA study's key points. The CIA altered its position radically in the late 1990s and cited Halabja frequently in its evidence of weapons of mass destruction before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Pelletiere claimed that a fact that has not been successfully challenged is that Iraq was not known to have possessed the cyanide-based blood agents determined to have been responsible for the condition of the bodies that were examined,[26] and that blue discolorations around the mouths of the victims and in their extremities,[27] pointed to Iranian-used gas as the culprit. Leo Casey writing in Dissent Magazine argued that "none of the authors of these documents [...] had any expertise in medical and forensic sciences, and their speculation doesn't stand up to minimal scrutiny."[28] Some[who?] opponents to the sanctions against Iraq have cited the DIA report to support their position that Iraq was not responsible for the Halabja attack."

But then again it is wikipedia...

Bells,would this not be another example of the "Smoke and Mirrors" or even "the Bill of Goods" I spoke of earlier?

I will repeat the question I posed to p-brane : What is the one country that has, beyond the shadow of any doubt and in full view of the rest of the world, been factually proven to have actually used WMD's on another country's civilian population?

I'll watch for any answers.

 

In my opinion "pro-Syria" would mean pro-rebel in some capacity. It's pretty clear that whatever their individual sympathies, an overwhelming majority of Syrians would like to send Assad packing for Russia. For those who say otherwise, explain to me why Assad has never once bothered to contest his popularity in a free vote? How does such a well-loved guy accidentally torture a bunch of children, shoot up the ensuing protesters, and subsequently lose control over half his country while Russia and Iran cram him with as many weapons as he can gulp down?

I'm fully understanding of your concerns regarding Syrian opinion, and I believe Obama shares these exact same concerns. If we're to use Iraq as a comparison, I'd like to point out that Saddam's opposition wanted US assistance but only on a limited scale, with the opposition playing the leading role on the ground. The US simply needed to act in such a way as to balance the fight against all the heavy weaponry Saddam had accumulated from his ties to other foreign players. How many tanks and jets did Saddam's own people design and construct? Those weapons were all purchased with oil money stolen from the people who wanted him overthrown (unfortunately, much of that weaponry was also accumulated with the help of the same neocons who ultimately overthrew him). The US simply had to strike at the heavy weapons, troop concentrations, command & control facilities, logistics centers etc. and the Iraqi rebels would have easily accomplished the rest simply through overwhelming popular support. Even after the US sent its troops in to do the job itself against the wishes of just about the entire world, Iraqis celebrated the initial US victory for a good 4 days or so before US troops overstayed their welcome and things turned ugly.

I don't think any Syrians are interested in having US troops occupy their lands, and Obama has explicitly stated that he wouldn't be using US troops in any Syrian action (aside from protecting their regional assets as usual). This would all be pounding from the air, possibly entirely outside Syrian airspace, and any retaliation would hit America's regional allies rather than the US itself, who are ready and willing to absorb the fallout. As in Libya and the first Iraq war, the US would have a pretty healthy coalition of Western and Middle-Eastern allies supporting the action, whereas their opponents have some pretty incredibly f'n shoddy justifications for maintaining the current oppression. Without broad-based support for the rebels on the ground from the Syrian people themselves, Assad (or at least his regime) will not be forced from power, the war will continue. Regardless of the ultimate outcome, at minimum Assad will be de-fanged of his chemical arsenals, his ability to threaten his neighbours will be severely degraded, and a message will be sent. If a wider regional war is going to break out, I'm happy to see Israel and other pro-Western nations dealing with it now rather than just sitting back watching Iran's rottweilers snarling and sharpening their teeth year after year, an alliance of anti-westerners and Islamofascist brainwashed fools supporting a tyrant who gases his own people.

And if this could lead Assad and his allies to escalate the war and attack their neighbours, the same neighbours who want to see action taken, isn't it better to get this over with now when Assad's side is in a particularly weak position, rather than waiting for them to massacre the remainder of their opposition and then accumulate more weapons of every sort in preparation for an even larger regional confrontation? If Russia is willing to fire upon US and allied forces, would it not say something about the need to confront them too? What kind of message does it send to these people if you simply back down because they hit back when you confront them? Closing our eyes won't make this conflict go away or keep it contained in Syria.

I believe there is a strong secular democratic faction within the Syrian opposition we should support with supplies and training. If we'd showed them stronger support from the beginning, I don't think they would have been supplanted in the fighting by the radicalist Saudi and Qatari-backed factions, and prospects for a stable, democratic government in Syria with gratitude for US assistance would have been much more likely. In my opinion it's still not too late, and if some of these rumours are true then the US has been indirectly more involved than it's admitted to in public with rebel training, intelligence and supplies.

Well a large proportion of Assad's backers, if not the majority, both domestically and abroad, are of the view that Israeli media sources are part of a global propaganda scheme to control the world and manipulate it into attacking Israel's enemies, hence they disregard whatever claims its media makes unless they find it self-serving. Then again, their view is that any western media organization which publishes something that even partially agrees with Israel's side of the story is also party to this same conspiracy, so it's hard to get anything through to them. And when I speak of Assad's backers, I refer not only to Iranians, Shia, Syrian minorities afraid of Sunni extremists etc., but also self-hating westerners who act out their grudges against their native society by lapping up and encouraging anti-western propaganda, white supremacists happy to see anything which endangers Jews, etc.

100,000 deaths, countless wounded and millions displaced wasn't enough to get the US to act, so I very much doubt that on their own, a series of Youtube videos of a chemical massacre would make any difference. I'm sure as has been the case for centuries, the US and its allies' armed forces and leaders are aware of many facts and details we do not see, as well as accompanying evidence. Some things can't be revealed to the public, because I think it's obvious what the negative repercussions for the west would be if Bashar Assad were to find out that his nephew's wife was passing secrets to the CIA, or that the head falafel chef in the main Presidential Palace cafeteria is secretly an undercover Mossad agent planting bugs (and if need be, poisons). It's not even just the risk of revealing spies- everything your enemy doesn't know about your capabilities to watch them is a huge advantage for you- as soon as the enemy finds out, they'll attempt to develop countermeasures.

I expect that at the moment, the US and its allies are downplaying the evidence about the strike and who conducted it, because there's no point in tipping Assad off that some form of action is inevitable, and there's probably a desire to proceed with extreme caution. If proof exists for what the Syrian rebels are claiming, there is no doubt that someone needs to take action so that Assad and his allies feel a distinctively negative outcome from the affair. There are probably last-minute negotiations occurring between Russia and the US to try and settle the issue diplomatically, which I doubt would work, and indeed I think it's entirely possible (though purely speculative on my part) that Russia knew about the attacks in advance and promised Assad diplomatic cover for any fallout, which they've since provided at the UN security council. Furthermore, there's a serious risk of releasing toxic chemicals into the local atmosphere by bombing Assad's weapons storage and manufacturing sites, so precautions must be prepared in advance, although I don't think there's ever going to be a "safe" way of disarming him.

There's a major conference of US allies occurring in Jordan right now to discuss the repercussions from this massacre and the actions they will take in retaliation. I presume they won't want to rush into things until everyone's coordinated what the evidence against Assad is, what form the retaliation will take, what kind of targets will be struck, how and by whom, and what all the regional players will need to do in order to prepare themselves for the repercussions. Wouldn't be a good idea to start bombing overnight, but it looks like the assets are moving into place and the tension is building on all sides.

 

I should also point out that the 100,000+ death tally from the conflict is only the official UN estimate, and that some estimates place the true casualty figure at over 200,000. Maybe just meaningless numbers to some, I'm sure.

 

The US said from the start that the bulk of the chemical evidence would decompose within a few days of the attack, therefore urgent and immediate access was demanded and required by the US, its allies, and UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. For 5 days UN chemical inspectors sat in their hotels only a few miles from the attack sites, awaiting Syrian government permission to make the trip. Russia blocked a UN security council resolution which would have forced the issue. If this isn't a clear sign of attempts to cover something up, then it's the worst example of publicity management to date in the 21st century. Regardless, evidence was smuggled from the attack sites and is probably in US, French and allied possession at this point.

 

The last part of your paragraph I had thought about, thus my question about what might the damage be should we attack. Bells' answer as to the potential strategy, might be the 'safest' form of warfare if we did strike. (not sure if you read his reply) The concern over toxic chemicals erupting into the environment from any attack on our part, is indeed very scary.

But I isolated this paragraph, because overall, this is a very refreshing view. I hadn't thought at all about the US 'downplaying' the evidence about the attack to not cause Assad to react any further. That makes a lot of sense.

Should evidence support conclusively that Syria was responsible for the chemical attack, then yes a definitive 'message' needs to be sent to Syria. In turn, that message will find its way to Iran. Your speculation that Russia might have known about these attacks seems to be what movies are made of, yes?

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Imagine if you are right.

I've read your entire post; thanks so much for taking the time to respond to my questions/concerns. We shall see what happens...

 

No. It would just be the same old backstabbing, xenophobic, homophobic Russia we've all grown used to, still acting out their inferiority complex from losing the Cold War.

 

So you won't fight your corner?
Just run away like a little scared mouse.

I don't support Assad, but I don't want intervention either.
Another excuse to waste Billions of Dollars killing mainly innocent men women and children.
Assad's greatest crime in American military eyes is his friendship with the Iranian regime.
If it was tyranny the US hated, they would be flying drones over Riyadh, wouldn't they?
Obama and his cronies are murderous hypocrites.

Now, instead of running off,
why don't you come back, drop the swearing, and say your piece?

Added later
I heard on the news that Obama is opposed to using military force.
Perhaps I have been hasty in calling him a murderous hypocrite.

 

Haha true dat!

Dear Russia;
Don't enter a war where your own citizens don't back you and you don't have enough money.

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An update on this for anyone interested;
Looks like the thought is that due to the delay in Syria granting the UN access to investigate, the "evidence" is probably corrupted and won't serve as credible. :/ We kinda knew that.

Obama is still assessing the situation to make an "informed decision."

We shall see...

 

[QUOTE

This and situations like this is when intervention is meant to happen. The West keeps making this same mistake over and over again. In times when there needs to be intervention to protect the lives of innocent civilians, we are too busy counting our dollars. We saw the same thing in Rwanda, Sudan and everywhere else inbetween those two instances and the current situation in Syria.[/QUOTE]

Go and send your Australian boys to intervene ,

 

American foreign policy is committed to preserving American interests.
Anyone who thinks they are going round the world doing good deeds is naive.
They leave chaos in their wake, while fortunes go into the pockets of arms manufacturers.