Throwing fingers over chemical attack in Syria
Andy sends us a link to an article from Reuters in regards to a suspected chemical attack launched by one side or the other. Casualty counts are 25 dead and 86 wounded but change with the time of day. Each side is blaming the other for the attack;
Information Minister Omran al-Zoabi said rebels fired a rocket with chemical weapons at the town of Khan al-Assal, southwest of Aleppo, in what he called a “dangerous escalation”.
He said the rocket had been launched from Aleppo’s southeastern district of Nairab, part of which is rebel-held.
But a senior rebel commander, Qassim Saadeddine, who is also a spokesman for the Higher Military Council in Aleppo, denied this, blaming Assad’s forces for the alleged chemical strike.
I guess this should be important because of the reports a few months back when the Obama Administration said that they were ready to send in 100,000 US troops in the event that it looks like one side or the other is willing to employ weapons of mass destruction, since it’s widely believed that Hussein’s stockpile ended up in Syria. The US troops would be employed to secure any WMDs, I guess. An operation similar to closing the barn door after the horses are out. Killer horses.
But the article points to a strong odor of chlorine in the air following the attack.
Category: Terror War
I know from experience that chlorine sucks. The camel fuckers in Iraq started using it in their IEDs.
Wow… I wonder if Obama will apologize for Bush not being able to find the weapons in time… since he originally said there were no weapons there is the third place… or was it the second.
(From the linked Reuters article) “U.S. President Barack Obama, who has resisted overt military intervention in Syria’s two-year-old civil war, has warned Assad that any use of chemical weapons would be a ‘”red line”’.”
He has RESISTED? Cute word choice. He has WARNED? Shiver me timbers! Red line? What red line? Pass the Crayolas, please.
Chlorine, nah hydrazine,a fuel/propellent basically chlorine with thats at higher concentration then chlorine. Not a mustard gas, but close. Bt yoou do find it used in modern rocketry, as an oxidizer fuel to burn kerosene’s and other multifuel applications where you expect lower oxygen concetrations.
I’d suggest waiting until they kill a bunch more (which side doesn’t matter) then form a committee to talk about what to do next…but wait at least 5 years before actually responding.
The UN won’t do shit. Just watch, wait and see.
…and neither will we. The empty chair in the White House will just “condemn” the action.
There is no “Red Line”. That’s just saber rattling.
#8
Barry will send them a “sternly wordeed” letter.
A third party throwing the missles in a false flag operation to stir the pot even harder.
I agree with #6: No one is going to do anything and Obumbles won’t be held to his word, because he said it thinking that it would never happen. Now that it has, he and the media are going to conveniently ignore what he had stated prior to this.
Anyone remember Kdhaffy Dumbass and his “line of death”? How many times did he move that? Reminds me of the spineless one living at 1600 Penn Ave.
Reporter: “Jay, the President previously said that if chemical weaposn were employed, that would be Red Line. They apparently have been employed. What now?”
Carney: “First, we are awaiting independent confirmation that the deaths were caused by chemical weapons. Second,this is a fluid situation. At this point, we recognize that if the reports are accurate, the deaths could be accidental, such as an exploding washing machine with too much Chlorox in it. But the President is a man of his word and I can assure the American People that if chemical weapons were intentionally used by the regime, the President will not rest until he has drawn a red line.”
“…the President will not rest until he has drawn a red line.” Well someone get him his big red crayola then so he can draw one dammit!
I can see 8’s point. Or I’ve read a few accounts recently that all of the anti Shia violence in Iraq before the 05 election was carried out by Shiites to bolster their positions. This could be Syrian Government trying to get support on world stage or the rebels.
Jim: hydrazine contains no chlorine. It’s chemical formula is N2H4 (or H2N-NH2 if you want to display structural information in the formula). It’s chemically akin to ammonia, and reportedly smells much the same (never messed with the stuff personally, so I can’t verify that last from personal experience).
Like chlorine, hydrazine in pure form is toxic and nasty. But its alkali toxic vice acid toxic like chlorine.
@11 – “…exploding washing machine…”
That’s a good one.
@rb325th, I remember that, it happened during my Senior year in high school. The big difference is that then, we had a POTUS with integrity, and he didn’t put up with or placate tinpots like khadafy. He shut the hell up after our F-11’s swooped in and taught him who the real boss was, and after we invaded Iraq, he quickly coughed up his Chemical Weapons! Liberals like B. Hussein 0bama & Co. think that talk solves everything, when in reality, it’s cheaper than life in the Third World!
With all of this retrospective talk about the Iraq invasion and whether it was worth all of it to remove Saddam, one only has to look at Syria to see what would it have looked like if we let the Iraqi people try to take him out on his own. 70,000 dead civilians is not even half the civilian death toll from Iraq, but Syria is only now starting to see the worst of it.
Hey the pool overflowed into the crowded street. What’s the BFD?
Obama’s got this. Just sit back and relax.
I’m sure it sounds heartless, but I really don’t give a shit about what the Syrians do to each other. Nor did I care much about what the Bosnians, Serbs and Croats did to each other back in the 1990s.
Even after Clinton made it my business when I got mobilized and sent over there, I didn’t much care and really, I still don’t.
For that matter, I’ve never quite understood the mentality behind saying that if you kill civilians with bombs, bullets or rockets, we’ll just tut-tut and wag our fingers but if you kill them with gas, somehow you’ve gone beyond the pale. I don’t think the dead really care, to be honest.
It’s worth remembering that the reason we got exercised over Saddam’s WMD was because of his threats to use them outside his country, which I think was a legitimate concern, given the indiscriminate nature of such weapons.
I think it was pretty apparent to everyone that Obama’s “threat” to send in US troops was empty and meaningless. Obama is about as likely to send US troops into Syria as he is to convert to Scientology and appoint Tom Cruise as the next secretary of state.
@11, 2/17 Air Cav
Maybe Carney is right and it is an Al-Qaeda suicide bomber who martyred himself for the death of his brother at the hands of U.S. Troops in the video below:
Wonder which units have a poor record of CBRNE training?
Mali or Syria? How about both! It’s a twofer!
Does anyone here really care how the Syrians kill one another? The fact is they are incapable of self governance and must be under the boot of one dictator or another. They are not a nation in the common sense of the word. They are divided by tribe and religious sectarianism. Shiites fight other Shiites over doctrinal differences. They fight Sunnis just because. Tribes fight their neighbors along tribal and religious lines. They are all jockeying for power based on membership in whatever group they were born into. This is why Syria has never been a free united national organism. It has always been part of a stronger empire. If it wiped itself out there would be no great loss to the world. With no more Syrians there might be some peace to the place for awhile.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/03/20/syrian-opposition-demands-probe-of-chemical-attack/2002075/
U.S. ambassador disputes Syria chemical weapons claim
‘WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. ambassador to Syria said Wednesday the Obama administration has no evidence to support President Bashar Assad’s claims that U.S.-backed rebels used chemical weapons in northern Syria, but is looking carefully at the conflicting reports.
“So far we have no evidence to substantiate the reports that chemical weapons were used yesterday,” Robert Ford told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.’
@23: Makes perfect sense that the state dept would take that position.
The president made an empty threat and the use of chem weapons would expose him for the phony he is. The ambassadors work for the state dept, who works for the prez. Their first duty is to protect him politically.
My question would be, if the use of Chem weapons is such a big deal, it ought to be the UN making these vague and meaningless threats. At least that way when they candy-ass out and do nothing, nobody will be surprised.
@22–Does anyone here really care how the Syrians kill one another?
The money question, and provided that the killing doesn’t expand beyond their borders, that answer will pretty much remain nobody.
Expand it to other ME countries, or Europe…
@22 – I’m no bleeding heart, but that part of the world has been killing one another for eons. It’s in their fuggin’ DNA and I honestly think they like it that way. The world today, just as it did 6,000 years ago, won’t do anything, and honestly, I don’t think the world cares – so I don’t really give a rats ass what they do to each other, so long as their bullshit doesn’t creep over here.
“We” can “strongly condemn” the actions of others all day long. We all know that doesn’t mean shit either.