Syria fires SCUDs at rebels
Yeah, I’m guessing it’s almost over for the Assad government in Syria. The Associated Press reports that the Syrians fired SCUD missiles at the rebels, that’s kind of an indication that they’re on their last nerve;
Speaking on condition of anonymity, two officials said forces of President Bashar Assad have fired the missiles from the Damascus area into northern Syria. These officials asked not to be named because they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
[…]
One official said there was no indication that chemical weapons were aboard the missiles. Officials have said over the past week that they feared rebel advances were prompting Assad to consider using chemical weapons.
It’s kind of a desperate move to start firing long range high explosives at your own people, so I have to guess we’re watching the end of the civil war, but, I’m pretty sure that there will be lots more blood.
Category: Terror War
Firing SCUD is one thing. It is a very unsound design, and not necessarily likely that the rockets delivered any payloads.
I remember the bar trick during DS/DS where we would pull out a condom, get a shot glass with water in it, drop in half an alka seltzer and then quickly slip the condom over the shot glass. It would fill with the gas and inflate, stand straight up and then fly off in some random direction….
It was called a STUD MISSILE.
{;-D
I harbor no illusions that the Assad regime will use chemical weapons. I fully expect it to.
The real worry is that he will also decide to use them against the Israelis. If he figures out that he can’t get out of the country alive, he still has enough loyal followers to use those weapons against Israel as a way of saving face with his fellow islamist leaders. He’d probably get a lot of respect from them for doing it, too.
Don’t doubt for one minute that Assad will go down fighting, doing everything and anything he can to stay in power. Attacking Israel might well be the thing he needs to rally support from other islamist countries, as well as sow discontent among those Syrians trying to oust him from power.
Who wants to bet that once Assad is gone, some islamo fascist nut job a la muslim brotherhood type will be ready to take over.
As always, be careful what you wish for.
@3 – I shudder the thought that Assad use SCUDS with Sarin aboard against Israel. Should he do so, I think that would be his undoing, in spite of what his Arab neighbors say.
no indication that chemical weapons were aboard the missiles.
THIS TIME.
Sadly, I think it’s not a question of if, but when.
Now, now, fellas. These rumors of SCUD use are surely unfounded. I have it on good authority that this Assad chap is a reformer.
If Assad reaches the point that he decides it’s necessary to use gas he just needs to take his wife and kids and get on a plane for Tehran-he is signing their death sentences. I suppose some hard liners who might not be able to get out of Syria themselves could be preventing him from running, but if he loves his family he just needs to go.
@7 teddy996 = Baghdad Bob = Aleppo Al?
😀
Not to be a Pollyanna, but the fact that it CAN carry chemical weapons is being badly overstated – just because they launched one (a horribly overpriced and inaccurate delivery of HE) doesn’t mean a chemical attack is imminent. They use Soviet-bloc weapons – seems to me I remember confirmation that pretty much anything over 100mm bore could fire gas shells. For sure 122mm and 152mm howitzers could, and they’ve been using them liberally for a while.
Assad’s military has fired at least six missiles at the Syrian rebels, per these articles:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/13/world/middleeast/syria-war-developments-assad.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/12/syria-fires-scud-missiles_n_2286752.html
I, too, believe that it is only a matter of time until more are loaded with nerve gas and launched. Anyone who thinks he would not aim them into Turkey at the displaced camps is naive. Assad is a cornered rat, much more dangerous than someone who struts around making noises. He has nothing to lose.
@9- or am I Hillary Clinton?
http://www.examiner.com/article/clinton-calls-syrian-tyrant-a-reformer-despite-assad-s-bloody-record
The Scud is a wonderful tactical weapon, studies have shown that it will hit the ground(somewhere), every time it’s fired.
Gotta agree, it’s not an issue of IF, it’s an issue of when.
@ 9 Chip–Too bad Robert Gibbs isn’t Press Secretary anymore, it would be easy to call it “Beltway Bob”.
So what do we call the current FOS spokeshole? The WH Carney? DC Jay?
@14
“Juking” Jay Carney ?
“Carney Blarney” ?
/we should have a contest! {:-D
Sparky, we could call him LT. Fuzz, he bears a remarkable resemblance to Beetle Baily’s LT. http://www.tsscontent.ca/var/news_site/storage/images/media/images/print_content__1/comics/characters/beetle_bailey_lt_fuzz/3118-1-eng-US/beetle_bailey_lt_fuzz.gif
SCUD is a very unsound design = high probability that it will break apart in flight. Assad doesn’t want a sarin-carrying SCUD to break apart over one of his loyalist enclaves.
To deliver gas and bugs, one goes with artillery shells and airplanes.
…and reports say the Syrians mixed the components a couple of weeks ago, and staged them near air bases. I’m no NBC guru, but I recall hearing those components break down and are rendered useless over a period of time. He’ll probably use them, but the world (including the UN and U.S.) will only condemn the act without doing anything about it.
If Assad uses sarin on his own people on or near his exit he will surly get a visit by SEAL Team SIX. No country will give him safe harbor. He needs to be caught in a “Libyan crossfire”.
You remember the Libyan crossfire, Charles Krauthammer coined the term after Gadaffi was killed. Basically a .357 is placed against one temple and a bullet crosses through to the other temple and exits the skull.
Because it’s soooo much better for the Al Qaeda-led “rebels” to have chemical weapons instead.
Roger, and I know this is going to sound callous, but the only time the left MIGHT be outraged is if they actually use those weapons, simply because of the nature of them.
I remember the old films of the release from Dugway/Skull Valley in the late 60’s which killed a shitload of sheep. Seeing people die like that would be horrific, to be sure, but consider this–Assad has killed more people thus far than he would likely kill in a chemical attack (and far more than Saddam gassed in the 1980’s.)
At some point, the mind simply shuts down when it can’t comprehend the sheer numbers. To quote Stalin, “A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths–merely a statistic.”
The current administration is big on statistics.
It’s just terrorist fighting other terrorists and neither being really good at it. This shit is going to go on for a long time especially is both sides are being supported by foreigners too stupid to realize those same weapons and aid will be used against them later after the initial threat was taken care of.
The US isn’t supplying weapons to the rebels. We are letting our “allies” like Saudi Arabia and Qatar do it. Because letting Pakistan control the flow of arms into Afghanistan during the 80s worked out so well.
Apparently, there are various SCUD versions with different capabilities and limitations. Here’s a good summary for those who wonder or doubt whether the Syrians can deliver chem using their SCUDs.
http://defense-update.com/products/s/scud_040509.html
NHSparky, It is not callous to say that nerve gas used against helpless civilians might just push the Libtards over the edge, it is not even near the truth. Saddam used Sarin aginst the Kurds in Iraq and against the Iranian troops, mostly teenage cannon fodder, during the Iran-Iraq war. Oh, there was outrage, there were impassioned speeches, the UN wrung its hands and condemned it’s use. But nothing was done to dissuade the Butcher of Baghdad. The only reason Saddam did not use it against coalition troops during the first gulf war was that President George Bush Sr. made it plain that we would nuke him if he used it. No Assad can do anything he wants because there is no act that will cross the line because there IS NO LINE. It has been erased buy the so called men that have taken over our country. Posers, wimps, and castrated girly men.
Roger: The administration says there is a Red Line. I have no idea what that is and guessed it might be a railway. I agree that the red line is no line at all.
If Assad uses chem weapons, it will set off a press conference by The Won. Followed by a sternly-worded public statement. Then, a promise to take it to the U.N., which will issue a sternly-worded public statement.
That’ll show him.
@26 — The red line is the one you follow into the theater when you’re going to make a sternly worded public statement.
#25 Roger
You forgot metrosexual.
Oh, here we go. Two Patriot batteries and 400 people to operate them, are going to Turkey.
Gee, I thought 15,000 troops or something were going there.
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/14/15901356-us-to-send-missiles-troops-to-turkey-in-bid-to-deter-syria?lite
Let them goat screwing SOB’s kill each other for the next 100 years if that’s what takes, we need to keep ourselves out of it unless there is a Clear and Present Threat to the US or one of our true allies (screw Saudi and Turkey). The Syrian bastards provided Aid and Comfort to the scum that killed our Soldiers in Iraq, they allowed IED’s, EFP’s and weapons to flow across the border into Iraq, these weapons cost us dearly I lost several Brothers to them so I am jaded. If we do anything it should be at a mininum to carpet bomb the whole damn country with Daisy Cutters or just have mercy and turn into the world’s largest sheet of glass, send them all to meet their 72 Virgin Sheep!