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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:
- http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37291182
- http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-aleppo-idUKKCN11C1S5
[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]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @04:19PM
We have already failed in Syria time and again. Just toss this report on the pile.
Short sighted, gloved approach really didn't work and didn't do any good. Nothing would work in Syria short of breaking the country up into 3 parts (wow coincidentally only thing that would work in Iraq). Every other approach is a clusterfuck.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @04:30PM
When you have to pick and choose different shades of rebel groups to half-assedly pit against the central government, you have failed. On purpose.
The best thing the U.S. could do is to whip out the secret technology... locating Assad, and using a hypersonic missile. The same could be done in North Korea, wiping out all military positions. But then the world would know about the capability.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Friday September 09 2016, @04:43PM
How would killing Assad solve the problem, exactly?
I'd like to point out the very similar country next door where we removed the strongman, and how peaceful it's been since...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @04:48PM
You use your ties to rebel groups to prop up a pro-US strongman.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday September 09 2016, @04:54PM
Who absentmindedly trips a hypersonic Russian missile...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Friday September 09 2016, @05:42PM
Because that worked so well in Iran
"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 Friday September 09 2016, @05:02PM
Perhaps there is a certain sense to the Yinon Plan [informationclearinghouse.info].
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @07:15PM
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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 10 2016, @01:24AM
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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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(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday September 09 2016, @08:30PM
I think it's relevant that if things continue as they have, we're going to be talking about breaking Iraq up into 2 parts rather than 3: ISIS holds 3 major areas, and 2 of them are completely surrounded by Iraqi Army and Kurdish forces.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Friday September 09 2016, @05:21PM
At least, out-of-doors, in unenclosed areas.
This is bullshit propaganda, like the US DoS funded "White Helmets" who use Jihadi supply and logistics to operate.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Saturday September 10 2016, @12:06AM
are you claiming that the rebels performed these attacks? if not, who performed the attacks? or perhaps are you saying that reporting on the attacks in propaganda?
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Saturday September 10 2016, @05:23AM
"The Rebels" is already either a lie, or a position demonstrating completely propagandized viewpoint.
These are foreign jihadis and mercenaries, entirely funded by the US, KSA and proxies.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @05:23PM
Hard to do considering Al Nusra has been occupying the chemical plant that makes chlorine gas for the past year or so and Assad has given up all his chemical weapons. But carry on, propaganda machine. Has Assad been spotted eating babies yet?
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Friday September 09 2016, @05:33PM
Chlorine gas is really easy to make, so easy that people do it accidentally and end up dying from it enough that they put warning on bleach and ammonia bottles telling you not to mix them. You don't need a giant factory to make some, just household cleaners that are common as dirt. I suspect you could probably also find people making Drano (or what ever the Syrian equivalent product is) bombs over there too. It isn't like making those things is hard and the materials difficult to find.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @05:50PM
So if it's so easy to make, just about anyone could make it. Why blame the "government"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @06:09PM
Who else has got the helicopters to drop the weapons? ISIS haven't. The Kurds haven't. So, it's Syria, Russia or the US?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Unixnut on Friday September 09 2016, @07:23PM
You don't need helicopters to drop the weapons. Quite simple to be done via rockets, the warheads which can be produced to fit on the rockets is in the factory held by Al-Nusra.
Plus I am sure there are alternative delivery methods available. Humans are the best at finding ever more ways of being brutal to other humans, so where there is a will, there is a way.
(Score: 2) by Username on Friday September 09 2016, @07:53PM
Well, how do they know it fell from a helicopter and not a neighboring rooftop?
Only one barrel is telling me this was clandestine. Pretty sure a helicopter can hold more than one barrel. If a military was going to gas bomb a city I’d think there would be a heli dropping 4 barrels every 5 minutes or so. A large steam of them dropping barrel after barrel. If I was the military and considering atrocities, I wouldn’t even gas bomb them. I’d be dropping barrels of flaming oil.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 10 2016, @10:34AM
The last widely reported "gas attack" occurred when the "rebels" were getting beaten. Why would the Syrian government drop chlorine gas on civilians at a time when they have the upper hand?
Let's see what Occam's Razor can slice out...
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday September 11 2016, @02:03AM
He agreed to yes but only handed over a token quantity of actual gas.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @05:32PM
On the bright side, officials said her white clothes were whiter.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Friday September 09 2016, @05:40PM
Well. if her skin also got whiter, and she died while holding a cross-shaped piece of her roof, then suddenly the West would realize actual humans are dying.
/grumpy
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Unixnut on Friday September 09 2016, @07:25PM
I doubt it, Christians have been dying for years in the middle east, and nobody gave two tits in the west. They even pleaded to the west, asking why "Christian countries " did not help them.
Jokes on them, the west has not been Christian for about 50 years now.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by meustrus on Friday September 09 2016, @08:08PM
50? I'm guessing you're dating the fall of community Christianity in the west tied to civil rights and social issues fragmenting moral interest, moving into the theological simplification of evangelism to try and win back the new generations. But it goes back farther. Here's a few other major events that Ruined Western Christianity FOREVER [tfwiki.net]:
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday September 09 2016, @08:50PM
Where is the DAFUQ?? mod again?