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The Syrian government has once again been accused of attacking a rebel-held area with chemical weapons:
A suspected Syrian government chemical attack killed scores of people, including children, in the northwestern province of Idlib on Tuesday, a monitoring group, medics and rescue workers in the rebel-held area said.
The Syrian military denied responsibility and said it would never use chemical weapons.
The head of the health authority in rebel-held Idlib said more than 50 people had been killed and 300 wounded. The Union of Medical Care Organizations, a coalition of international aid agencies that funds hospitals in Syria, said at least 100 people had died.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attack killed at least 58 people and was believed to have been carried out by Syrian government jets. It caused many people to choke, and some to foam at the mouth.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer blamed the attack on the "weakness and irresolution" of the previous U.S. administration.
Also at BBC, NYT, Fox News, the Washington Post, and The Hill.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @07:04AM (3 children)
Is this the fabled one man organization running comfortably in Coventry UK?
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday April 05 2017, @07:15AM
Come on, only the enemy uses propaganda. This is a universal truth.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @02:33PM
Yes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @02:31PM
Is this the fabled one man organization running comfortably in Coventry UK?
Do you actually have a criticism to make of the SOHR?
Or are you just trying to smear him and going with any decontextualized facts are handy?
If it were a big organization with donors and government funding you would then complain they were a puppet because of that.
So what if it is one guy? He's an actual syrian who went to prison 3 times for political activism in syria and eventually took asylum in the UK to avoid becoming a political prisoner for a 4th term. Who are you?
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday April 05 2017, @07:11AM (6 children)
This seems more a bureaucratic thing than a humanitarian one. Some weapons are banned others are OK. Some non democracies are OK some others aren't. Sorry Assad you're on the wrong side (being Trump I would gang up with Syria and Putinland against ISIS first, but I think he is not as powerful to make such a decision).
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 05 2017, @01:21PM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday April 05 2017, @02:42PM
One could argue that having your lungs and eyes get burned out is a bit more unpleasant than getting blown to smithereens, too.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @08:54AM
The thing is that you have far less control over chemical attacks than you do over smart bomb attacks via drone.
So, when a huge percentage of drone strikes kills civilians, it's a deliberate attack on civilians, aka. terrorism, where as when a gas attack kills civilians it's just bad luck.
And the US still loves terrorists.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @07:10PM (2 children)
How would this benefit Assad? Days after Trump says the US will not be perusing regime change in Syria this happens and Steve Bannon is demoted. Who had the motive and haven't we been here before? [consortiumnews.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @08:35PM (1 child)
Maybe the USA is not the centre of the Earth after all? Could be no-one getting bombed daily gives the tiniest shit who Bannon is or what Trump promises.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @01:14AM
Neither Bannon or Trump started this. They are not oligarchs and (from stated positions) they do not support slaughtering muslims en-mass in order to advance a globalist geopolitical agenda. It's not worth the western world fighting over. [wikipedia.org] Russia has a nominal GDP more or less equal to that of Italy, they are simply not a serious global threat.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @07:20AM
"The United States has also launched a spate of air strikes in Idlib this year, targeting jihadist insurgents."
(Score: 5, Informative) by butthurt on Wednesday April 05 2017, @07:34AM (14 children)
Russia is saying that Syrian government aircraft attacked a rebel factory that was making chemical weapons.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-39500319 [bbc.co.uk]
The Syrian Air Force has destroyed a warehouse in Idlib province where chemical weapons were being produced and stockpiled before being shipped to Iraq, Russia’s Defense Ministry spokesman said.
-- https://www.rt.com/news/383522-syria-idlib-warehouse-strike-chemical/ [rt.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @07:45AM (2 children)
Ah, Iraq. Where chemical weapons go to not exist.
GG, Ruskies.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by butthurt on Wednesday April 05 2017, @08:33AM (1 child)
The Russian defence minister, according to the RT story, said that the Iraqi government and international organisations had confirmed the use of chemical weapons in Iraq (the BBC didn't see fit to repeat the claim). I don't know much about the topic, but a quick search of the Web turned up a couple of related stories:
[The World Health Organisation said] 12 patients had been treated since 1 March in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region, east of Mosul, with four of them showing “severe signs associated with exposure to a blister agent”. The patients were said to have been exposed to the chemical agents in the eastern side of Mosul [...]
[...]
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Friday that five children and two women were receiving treatment for exposure to chemical agents. The ICRC statement did not say which side used the chemical agents, which caused blisters, redness in the eyes, irritation, vomiting and coughing.
-- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/04/twelve-people-treated-for-possible-chemical-weapons-exposure-in-iraq [theguardian.com]
Isis has also used mustard gas against Kurdish forces – up to 19 times in the past two years. The militants thought responsible for the group’s chemical weapons programme are believed to have all been captured, or killed, but a risk remains of further attacks.
-- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/14/last-battle-against-isis-in-iraq-forces-mass-for-mosul-assault [theguardian.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by butthurt on Wednesday April 05 2017, @08:40AM
One more:
Isis has used chemical munitions, including mustard and chlorine agents, on a number of occasions in Iraq and Syria, according to the CIA.
-- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/04/iraqi-kurdish-peshmerga-fear-isis-chemical-attack-mosul [theguardian.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by butthurt on Wednesday April 05 2017, @02:05PM (10 children)
New Scientist has a rebuttal to the Russian statement:
[...] sarin is unstable, and the Assad regime chose to stockpile its precursor chemical, which would be mixed with another chemical just before use to produce sarin. Any rebel-made agent would probably be handled similarly. Hitting a cache of this would release little sarin.
Moreover, if Syrian air strikes released the agent by accidentally hitting an enemy cache, they were improbably lucky, as they managed to do the same thing at three separate locations in the area within 24 hours [...]
-- https://www.newscientist.com/article/2126905-syria-chemical-attack-looks-like-nerve-gas-and-was-no-accident/ [newscientist.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @06:38PM (9 children)
Welcome to 2017, when the more believable version of events comes from a "conspiracy site".
https://www.infowars.com/report-soros-linked-group-behind-chemical-attack-in-syria/ [infowars.com]
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Wednesday April 05 2017, @11:51PM (8 children)
Welcome to 2017? False flag operations were a thing before any of us were born. Certainly the rebels have reason to fake such an attack. Without any evidence, it's my working assumption.
Can you tell me anything about the photo of the apparently dead children? Your link doesn't say who is supposed to have taken it, nor where it's been published. Some of the wounds to which your source is directing our attention are very obvious. I would think that, if the children were killed with the intention of taking a photo of their corpses in support of a false claim of a chemical attack, some effort would be made to avoid causing such obvious wounds and bleeding.
What would you say is the most convincing evidence that the attack was faked by the rebels--or contrariwise?
About the Russian statement, I don't think Russia would falsely say that the Syrian government had engaged in an attack. I also don't think Russia would offer an explanation for the presence of a chemical agent if there were none present and rebel fakery had taken place. For those reasons I take the Russian statement as evidence against such fakery.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @01:03AM (7 children)
Exactly, Asshat and Putin have every reason to avoid committing such atrocities.
I can tell you what I've read (since I personally would find the images too upsetting), and that is that there are images taken of children dying from a supposed nerve agent featuring attendant adults who were only wearing respirators. This is not consistent with sarin gas.
Trump declares that regime change is not an objective and days later we have this? In no way was it in Asshat's or Putin's interests to do such a thing. The only interests it serves are those of the Sunni axis and their Western allies. Russia has (mostly) played by the rules of international law, the US has no legal right to have soldiers in Syria. Tell me who is acting in bad faith here? [almasdarnews.com] What the hell is happening in the Yemen?
We have history with this. Recall the chlorine attacks when the only chlorine facility in Syria was under the control of the "rebels"? This is an obvious false flag, one so disgusting that everyone involved should be tried for war crimes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @06:09AM (6 children)
Exactly, Asshat and Putin have every reason to avoid committing such atrocities.
Yeah, autocrats with a history of brutal slaughter out in the open [haaretz.com] are really careful about that sort of thing.
that is that there are images taken of children dying from a supposed nerve agent featuring attendant adults who were only wearing respirators. This is not consistent with sarin gas.
WTF?
(a) Children are more susceptible to all poisons because their bodies are so much smaller that equivalent doses have much stronger effects.
(b) Adults tending to children after a gas attack not dying from the attack is proof of nothing more than the fact that they showed up after the attack.
We have history with this. Recall the chlorine attacks when the only chlorine facility in Syria was under the control of the "rebels"?
Bullshit: [hrw.org]
Through phone and in-person interviews with witnesses and analysis of video footage, photographs, and posts on social media, Human Rights Watch documented government helicopters dropping chlorine in residential areas on at least eight occasions between November 17 and December 13, 2016. The attacks, some of which included multiple munitions, killed at least nine civilians, including four children, and injured around 200.
You sound like a 911 truther, randomly spouting shit that doesn't stand up to a second's worth of critical thought.
Stop spreading your stupid around here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @09:40AM (5 children)
They are when they know it'll result in international condemnation and intervention in a war they already won.
WHAT?
Two words: Saudi Arabia!
I recall reading an interview with the guy who toppled Saddams statue in Iraq, lamenting the stability of the old regime. Can you tell me why we invaded Iraq under false pretences instead of sanctioning Saudi Arabia?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @02:38PM (4 children)
They are when they know it'll result in international condemnation and intervention in a war they already won.
WTF do they care about 'international condemnation?' And haven't you been paying attention? Just 5 days before the attack Trump said he didn't care what Assad does anymore.
Sarin in clothes
And those photographs have timestamps on them?
Furthermore that line from the wikipedia article cites a non-existent page at the CDC.
The actual page does not say anything about 30 minutes nor about clothing contacting sarin gas, only sarin liquid. [cdc.gov]
Two words: Saudi Arabia!
Ah, so you are a 911 truther. Nailed it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @07:17PM (3 children)
That is not what he said.
If inhaling Sarin will kill you within 10 minutes and it remains a serious risk for 30 minutes, how can the photos show what they claim to? I've since read it wasn't sarin [lrb.co.uk] but chlorine -- the rebels held (and possibly still do) the only chlorine facility in Syria.
Glad you agree that the 911 terrorists were predominately from and funded from within Saudi Arabia, [factcheck.org] and that the head of their organisation had close ties to the Saudi Royals. [wikipedia.org] It would, afterall, be foolish to deny such a thing. [reuters.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @08:30PM (2 children)
> I've since read it wasn't sarin but chlorine -- the rebels held (and possibly still do) the only chlorine facility in Syria.
You just linked to an article from 2013.
How nucking futs do you have to be to think a 3 year old article applies to something that happened less than a week ago?
Don't bother replying, you've already answered that question.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @11:42PM
Still [twimg.com] in [twimg.com] denial? [twimg.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @11:49PM
Here's some Oscar winning actors for you! [twimg.com] If you have any further questions, please address them to the closest mental health facility because Assad (disgusting as his regime is) had nothing to gain from using chemical weapons under the gaze of the international community. There are no "moderate rebels", only Wahhabist, child killing lunatics and their saudi-western backers.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Wednesday April 05 2017, @09:38AM (10 children)
When all sides are known to tell blatant lies, when all sides are more than willing to terrorize civilians, when all sides are perfectly capable of imagining a "false flag" operation - who do you believe?
The Russians are perfectly capable of dropping a chemical weapon. So are the Syrians. The Americans love dropping all sort of ordnance via drone. We needn't even ask about ISIS or the rebels, since they regularly use and abuse civilians for their goals.
Whichever story wins in the MSM, one thing is certain: no one should believe it.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 05 2017, @02:49PM (3 children)
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Wednesday April 05 2017, @05:37PM
Actual evidence? Given the chaos, good luck with that.
I don't put it past any of the parties to run a "false flag" operation, which would include making the evidence point conveniently to someone else.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 1) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday April 06 2017, @07:56PM (1 child)
Sounds like it's time to look at actual evidence then.
What, exactly, do you expect that to prove? Are you expecting to find a bomb fragment stamped, "Assad dropped this!?"
This sig for rent.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 06 2017, @10:49PM
What, exactly, do you expect that to prove? Are you expecting to find a bomb fragment stamped, "Assad dropped this!?"
That would be evidence. But I don't have expectations on what the evidence looks like. Here, several victims have been autopsied [cnn.com] by Turkey and is alleged to have symptoms of nerve gas poisoning. In addition, the attack is alleged to have been done by airplane which if true, severely limits who could carry it out.
We aren't completely helpless here.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday April 05 2017, @04:32PM (2 children)
Only one of those groups has actually done it, recently.
Maybe you should start there...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @06:52PM
exactly! [almasdarnews.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @12:13AM
Why would he?
brad's nihilism is the narrative of fascism and he prefers it that way.
When everybody is equally terrible there is no point in having standards.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday April 05 2017, @11:00PM (2 children)
"In war, truth is always the first casualty." - Aeschylus
And this is no different. Including the nonsense of Obama being "weak": That guy launched more drone strikes than anybody ever had before.
The problem the Obama administration had in Syria is that Hillary Clinton decided it was a good idea to arm the rebellion against Assad without sufficiently understanding (a) whether the people actually supported said rebellion, (b) whether the people they were arming were reasonably the good guys, or (c) what the unintended consequences of destabilizing a nation might be (in this case, allowing Daesh to thrive). In other words, trying to be too tough and too violent.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @05:51AM
You have that completely backwards.
The arming of Syrian revolutionaries by the west wasn't even close to sufficient to make a difference. The dangling of possible support was.
That's why the revolutionaries were constantly begging for support that never came.
Eventually that lack of support drove them into the arms of ISIS who were glad to support them for their own ends. The revolutionaries were desperate and so any port in a storm. The price for cooperating with ISIS was (a) changing the conflict from a broad-based secular revolt into a sectarian sunni vs alawite fight and (b) loss of public support by all the people who abhor ISIS not the least of which were normal sunnis.
The question of whether arming the revolutionaries would have been sufficient for them to prevail must go unanswered. But claiming clinton caused the problem by arming them is just cherry-picking ignorance fueled by bias.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 06 2017, @11:01PM
And this is no different. Including the nonsense of Obama being "weak": That guy launched more drone strikes than anybody ever had before.
Why do you think that launching drone attacks make someone strong?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @02:12PM (9 children)
Why is the word "scores" in quotes in the article title? Is this meant to imply that this didn't happen?
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday April 05 2017, @02:39PM (8 children)
"Allegedly" and the scare quotes are redundant...and "score" is 20 so 50 would be 2.5 scores. I think the headline is just wrong.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday April 05 2017, @05:24PM (7 children)
It's not wrong. "Scores" is a direct quote from the Reuters headline. The early death count was 58, so 2.9 "scores". "Allegedly" because we aren't 100% sure who did it. My headline is absolutely correct.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday April 05 2017, @06:54PM (2 children)
Why not just go all the way and say
(Allegedly Syrian Government) (Allegedly Kills) (Alleged Scores) with (Alleged Chemical Attack)
I'm reading the "allegedly" as applying to the entire event, which would make additional protestations of unsuredness redundant.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @08:23PM
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday April 05 2017, @10:17PM
Only one 'allegedly' is needed.
Syrian Government Allegedly Kills "Scores" with Chemical Attack
Syrian Government (Does|Does Not) Kill "Scores" with Chemical Attack
Either way, it's correct.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @08:26PM (3 children)
I'm not questioning having the word "scores" in your title, I'm asking why you put the word in quotes to begin with? The Reuters article title says that scores were killed, but you say "scores" were killed. Why?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday April 05 2017, @10:16PM (1 child)
Another article said something like 100+ killed, and I believe another article put it around 15.
Let's not read too much into it.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @12:16AM
As time passes, more bodies are found and more survivors succumb to their injuries, the death count increases.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @09:03AM
Yeah, why would anyone put a quote in quotes? Especially when quoting an old word he would probably never use himself...
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday April 05 2017, @04:23PM
Trump's response?
Blame Obama! [nytimes.com]
SAD
(Score: 4, Insightful) by meustrus on Wednesday April 05 2017, @06:04PM (3 children)
How are we as a country supposed to combat terrorists and dictators when our leaders' first response is not against them, but against fellow Americans? No administration in recent memory has ever done this. Not even the Bush administration blamed the opposition.
But thinking of 9/11 and Clinton recalls a similar situation. There were voices like these that sought to divide and attack Americans before confronting our true enemies. It was just the far-right fringe that until recently was generally dismissed as raving lunatics.
This response finally proves that Trump and his administration have absolutely no respect and no patriotism. They will let Assad and ISIS and Russia invade America before they stop attacking Democrats. For all their bluster about America First, it's clear that they are more interested in fighting other Americans than anything else.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @07:00PM
Are you calling John Kerry a liar? [twitter.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @08:54PM
Weakness and irresolution. Then tha answer is to send thousands of Americans to die in Syria to protect.... This will prove that Trump^W Americans is a Strong Leader.
(Score: 2) by digitalaudiorock on Wednesday April 05 2017, @10:41PM
Not to mention that the administration's recent position that "Assad's fate is up to Syrians" and that ending the civil war there is not our priority, and whatever this love fest is they have with Russia and Putin. That reads like a green light to everyone involved if you ask me, and the fact that they pretend to "condemn" this action rings more as an insult than anything.