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MOSCOW — If Russia once maintained at least a semblance of distance from President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, it rushed to his defense after the American missile strike ordered by President Trump on Thursday. The attack cemented Moscow more closely than ever to the notorious Syrian autocrat.
Even as the United States condemned Mr. Assad for gassing his own citizens and held Russia partly responsible, given its 2013 promise to rid Syria of chemical weapons, the Kremlin kept denying that Syria had any such capability.
By championing Mr. Assad and condemning American "aggression," President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia seemed to be burying the idea that he could somehow cooperate with the Trump administration to end the conflict on his terms.
"I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail." Attributed to Abraham Maslow.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 10 2017, @03:06PM (17 children)
Interesting, that you seem to be the only poster who questions whether Assad gassed that town.
I lean more toward the idea that Saudi Arabia supplied the sarin to the rebels, and that Assad's strike only destroyed the containers. Couple years ago, the rebels had some gas, and they simply mishandled the containers, breaking them open.
The US bombs for any reason, and for no reason. All we need is some pretext to toss explosives around.
(Score: 4, Informative) by bob_super on Monday April 10 2017, @04:01PM (2 children)
The problem is the minor fact that the two sarin precursors are usually kept separate, and mixed at the last moment, which makes dispersal by accidental bombing pretty difficult.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @08:16AM (1 child)
Imagine that they are improperly stored, containers with one component stacked in the same room as containers with the other components. A bomb hits at breaks open the containers.
What would happen when the components mix?
Apart from that, allow me to quote your own post: "Usually". Meaning when stored by a well-trained army. Which they were not in this case, so the second explanation is that the incompetents simply didn't know or care to store them correctly.
Either way, I don't believe a word of what the US government says about who has which weapons for as long as I remember the Iraq WMD lie.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 12 2017, @12:59PM
Imagine that they are improperly stored, containers with one component stacked in the same room as containers with the other components. A bomb hits at breaks open the containers.
What would happen when the components mix?
You still have the problem of getting them into the air. But that's a reasonable explanation which would explain why there have been these intermittent chemical weapons attacks/releases for the past five or so years.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 10 2017, @04:05PM (2 children)
I lean more towards the fact that it was chlorine (possibly mixed with phosgene). Sarin is not water soluble and the western funded, oscar winning, terrorist PR agency pictured helping the victims were not wearing appropriate clothing to be dealing with a sarin attack.
Anybody who cares can and should research it for themselves -- which is more than the majority of so-called journalists have done.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Monday April 10 2017, @04:38PM
Pretty sure sarin disperses very quickly. Appropriate clothing is cargo-shorts, flip-flops, and protective mask. Cargo-shorts are for carrying atropine injectors and fig newtons.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday April 10 2017, @05:08PM
I lean more towards the fact that it was chlorine...
The doctors who were actually there disagree with you. [time.com]
(Score: 2) by tibman on Monday April 10 2017, @04:43PM (5 children)
Sarin doesn't have a long shelf-life. Typically weeks or months. It can go up to 5 years if it's very pure and uses stabilizers (read this from wikipedia). It also needs to be mixed to work correctly. Blowing up the containers might mix the contents but it probably wouldn't be very effective. Totally agree with the US bombing for stupid reasons. People at the top just flexing.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Monday April 10 2017, @04:54PM
Totally agree with the US bombing for stupid reasons.
Stupid? Hardly [cnn.com]
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 10 2017, @05:02PM (3 children)
And, you have hit on one of the reasons why we should have known that Saddam Hussein didn't have a lot of leftover stocks of NBC agents. Hussein never had high quality dehydration facilities. We knew that, because we sold him most of his stuff. Hussein couldn't get two years shelf life out of his chem and bio agents. And, we found the proof of that when we went into Iraq - all that was left were a few unreliable containers, mostly in landfills, that posed more threat to anyone handling them than to any "victims".
I wonder - how many people wish that Hussein were still around to keep the lid on his simmering kettle? Sure, he was an evil sumbitch, but he was better than what we have now . . .
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday April 10 2017, @05:13PM (2 children)
"America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud." - GW Bush
Pretending he was talking about chemical weapons in the first place is a bit revisionist.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 10 2017, @05:21PM (1 child)
At various times, he used everything. He referred to the mustard gas used against the Kurds, as well as the Iranians. Lots of vague references to nuclear arms, along with that forged yellow cake document. Bush made multiple speeches to stir public opinion, and his various talking heads made more speeches. Every possible boogeyman was trotted out in the runup to the invasion. Bush was dead set on invading, and he ignored any intelligence that may have dissuaded him, and blew every scrap of scary intelligence all out of proportion. If not Bush personally, then one talking head or another did it for him.
Then, there was the anthrax scare. And, the beltway sniper. So much crazy shit came together in a short period of time - but of course, there is no common thread between them . . .
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 10 2017, @05:33PM
Let's just use the simple truth please:
Another war crime in a long history of war crimes.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 10 2017, @06:40PM (2 children)
Interesting, that you seem to be the only poster who questions whether Assad gassed that town.
Are you joking?
In the two other stories about this on soylent the people pushing that conspiracy theory got +5 mods.
Here's the thing - Assad has been using chemical weapons on a regular basis for years now. [archive.org] One more time is not out of the ordinary.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 10 2017, @07:00PM (1 child)
assad has been *accused* of using chemical weapons multiple times, by a bunch of lying whores.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 11 2017, @04:39PM
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday April 10 2017, @10:38PM (1 child)
I agree that we don't know who gassed that town. The first casualty of war is the truth, and when it comes to atrocities what's common is for all sides to commit them to some degree and all sides to claim that only the other guys commit them.
Of course, for all intents and purposes, it doesn't matter who actually did it, because Assad attacking innocent civilians became the version of the truth being used to make policy. Just like the explosion of the Maine, or the Gulf of Tonkin incident, or the numerous other pretexts for blowing up other people's countries. About the only time it might matter is that many years from now, if a side other than the people who did this attack wins, somebody might be called to account at the International Criminal Court.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @02:20AM
You know what?
Even if this was some sort of bullshit false-flag conspiracy, there is literally no question that Assad has been bombing the shit out of civilians for years now.
That this one time Grump saw pictures of babies dying from nerve gas doesn't really matter. Assad has blown the arms and legs off 100x more babies than that. I don't think Grump's response will change anything for the better, but getting lost in this conspiracy theory about who gassed who plays right into Assad's hands since the 9999 other bombs were definitely his.