(04-07-2017, 11:58 PM)Thryleon link Wrote:Agreed.
Ask yourself this question. Why would Assad choose now to attack his own people like this when he's been regaining control. What's the strategic advantage of doing so?
The answer is none. This episode reeks of false flag to me.
Why wouldn't he? He did it in 2013, didn't he? And he's a brutal dictator. Have a look at the fable concerning the scorpion and the frog. It's his nature.
The problem is that Trump has never accepted that his words matter. He feels he's free to say one thing one day and then another the next. He sees this uncertainty as a positive in international relations, the "hothead" principle applied to global politics.
In this case, might Assad have believed that Trump's recent and not so recent comments meant he had room to move? Trump went ballistic on Twitter in 2013 warning Obama that reacting militarily to a bigger chemical weapons attack would be a horrible mistake. He declared that it would have no benefit for the US. All through the election campaign, he ran on an America First policy, saying the US shouldn't be involved unless its own interests are affected. He said that he would go after ISIS as his priority and he was open to joining with Russia and Assad in Syria to defeat ISIS. Only last week, Secretary of State Tillerson declared that Trump has reversed Obama's demand that there should be regime change and that he believed that the long-term status of Assad would be determined by the Syrian people.
Assad has been using chemical weapons regularly as a tactical military weapon and a weapon of terror. Why would he have discontinued their use when the wind from the US seemed to be blowing favourably?
He has been concentrating on suppressing opposition forces rather than ISIS. Have a look at this article from the NY Times countering the argument that Assad wouldn't be this crazy:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/06/world....html?_r=0.
Fair enough, query the evidence. But don't expect us to accept that there is no such thing as evidence anymore - that as long as you can think up a conspiracy theory, then that theory can be used as contrary evidence that either ensures a nil-all draw or as proof in and of itself.
Ask yourself this - if Assad's forces really were going to go after a chemical weapons depot, wouldn't he want to ensure that the international community saw that the opposition was as evil as he is? If bombing such a storage facility would likely lead to the escape of chemicals that would kill civilians, don't you think that Assad would want to forewarn the international community of this possibility to ensure that his regime wasn't unfairly blamed for any deaths? Instead, the first anyone heard of this possibility was when Assad raised it after the event in his defence.
Then we have an intriguing allegation from the Americans. After the chemical weapons event, a Russian drone overflew the site of the bombing and later a single bomber overflew the area and dropped conventional bombs. Why would this occur? The US military believes it was a cover-up. As the hospital at which victims were to be treated or autopsied was bombed in this secondary attack, one possibility is that this was an attempt to destroy evidence of the use of chemical weapons. Autopsies have subsequently confirmed they killed civilians.
And remember that the Russians are on Assad's side. They provide support for Assad's Air Force. That means that they no doubt performed pre-bombing aerial reconnaissance by satellite, drones, or their own aircraft. Remember, this was a very sensitive operation - bombing an alleged chemical weapons storage facility in a residential area. To do it right, close surveillance had to precede the raid to ensure that weapons were not moved out of the storage facility. Any that were would need to be tracked and targeted separately. The Syrians would of course lean on the Russians who were on the airbase. You'd think the Russians would have been ecstatic to show the world the reconnaissance material that proved the Americans made an unprovoked attack on a sovereign country. But no! Just bald assertions. They never bothered to present such evidence before the UN and haven't published any since. Why are they so shy? I'm sure there's a conspiracy theory to explain this ...
Experts also think that chemical weapons would be destroyed by conventional bombs that were supposed to annihilate a storage facility/factory. In addition, they doubt that sarin gas would be stored in its active form and it would need to be mixed before use, something that wouldn't happen randomly during an explosion.
![[Image: blueline.jpg]](http://www.carltonblues.net/images/blueline.jpg)
