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posted by janrinok on Friday September 09 2016, @04:10PM   Printer-friendly
from the world-stands-and-watches dept.

Two people - including a thirteen year old girl - died and one hundred twenty were sickened when the rebels in Aleppo were hit with a chlorine gas attack.

Chlorine was the first gas used during the first World War. That it is largely ineffective led to the development of such treats as Mustard Gas and Lewisite.

Doctors in Aleppo Tend to Scores of Victims in Gas Attack:

Rescuers and citizen journalists who went to the scene said by text message that there had been a strong smell of bleach.

One of the victims, a 13-year-old girl named Hajer Kyali, died Wednesday afternoon. She had been in intensive care since the attack, which doctors said they believed had struck her family's house directly, delivering a deadly dose of the gas.

Medical staff members described seeing people with symptoms such as shortness of breath, coughing, sneezing, irritation of the eyes, nausea and in some cases respiratory failure. Such symptoms are consistent with attacks involving chlorine, which can kill in high concentrations.

Syria promised to give up its war gas a while back but in my understanding has surrendered only a tiny portion of its stockpile.

However, chlorine gas is quite easy to make. Possibly it was used because the aggressors had no access to the more-effective gasses such as Mustard Gas and Sarin.

Additional Reporting:


[This is by no means the first such attack. See here for Wikipedia info.]

[According to Wikipedia, earlier attacks did include Sarin. Chlorine is readily available from industrial sources]

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @07:15PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @07:15PM (#399756)

    Failed? It seems to be turning out as close to plan as could be expected from "messy real world":

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-secretly-backed-syrian-opposition-groups-cables-released-by-wikileaks-show/2011/04/14/AF1p9hwD_story.html [washingtonpost.com]
    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-syria-wikileaks-idUSTRE73H0E720110418 [reuters.com]

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/world/middleeast/cia-said-to-aid-in-steering-arms-to-syrian-rebels.html [nytimes.com]

    http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/05/newly-declassified-u-s-government-documents-the-west-supported-the-creation-of-isis.html [washingtonsblog.com]

    The USA is like a pyromaniac fireman. Supplying fuel, matches and training to various groups, then pretending to be the hero or the victim when an inferno starts.

    About the same thing happened with Libya and Iraq. And you fools keep believing the lies and propaganda. The first war vs Saddam's Iraq was justified (they attacked Kuwait), the second was "justified" by a whole load of bull.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 10 2016, @01:24AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 10 2016, @01:24AM (#399870)

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    Not all of the resulting mess is planned, but broadly speaking you are right: there is an ongoing effort by the USA and its allies to destabilize the weakest countries, so that they crash and burn all the way through the looming ecological disaster. This is good old ethnic cleansing, but on such a bigger scale, not many people see it as a crime yet, despite it being the biggest, most audacious crime plan ever brought into action. There is an expectation, or more likely an assumption, that the better countries will somehow weather the storm, while the weaker ones will be wiped out and/or absorbed, and their very territories will be divided among the winners. The US government, in particular, demonstrated beyond all possible doubt through its actions that its true intention in the middle east is to destabilize standing governments. As you point out, the USA weapons flow like a river to the places that need them the least. If the goal was to stabilize, it could trivially be achieved by shutting down all weapon trade (by all parties) with all states involved in wars of aggression. Let the dictators regain control with whatever weapon-producing capacity they have. Let the local tribal chiefs rule people with sticks and stones; it would be a milder, more humane government, and certainly better than any kind of war.

    At the same time, do not discount the sheer incompetence of the state governments. Look at Saudi Arabia, for example. There is a pretty decent chance the whole of Arabian peninsula will be uninhabitable within our lifetimes, but nothing in the actions of the resident states' governments betrays an understanding. They are either truly ignorant of the connection between burning fossil fuels and the temperature, and what it implies for their local climates, or are counting on saving their immediate families, while the rest of their people, the whole of them, turn into refugees without a state. But the latter is unlikely, since few living tyrants are planning on giving up their power, so the former is almost certainly the case. In the same vein, the US government is gravely underestimating the magnitude of the mess they are creating. The political shock waves they send through the entire world are bound to resonate sooner or later, and then even the largest players may have to face existential threats. It could be another big war, an ecological disaster, or a revolution of a new, unpredictable type, precipitated by the net and what it does to individual minds and the social consciousness.

    Getting back on topic, all the loud words about chemical weapons are just that: loud words. But it is becoming increasingly hard to hear the arguments against the use of chemical weapons because of the deafening and constant explosions produced by conventional bombs. The utter hypocricy of the leading states walks around naked every time they condemn chemical weapons, while the same governments rake up tenfold and hundredfold civilian death tolls through conventional weapon use, economic sanctions, and weapon trade.

    ~ Anonymous 0x9932FE2729B1D963
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