I sense your pity is not exactly earnest.
You cut me deep GeoffP. How you don't know me so well.. You cut me deep..
Nice avatar by the way. How does it feel like to proudly wear the flag of the country that protects a mass killer, so much so that they even veto a UN condemnation, and of a Government that promotes violence against gays and transgender people?
Of course I am. The Americans were watching the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan for years and years, and never truly knew enough about them to beat them. In this case, the BND - and I assume you know who they are - doesn't seem to think that the Syrian rebels possess the
Type 63 rocket launcher. This, BTW, is the rocket launcher system that was used to strike Ghouta, firing 107mm rounds. It's
widely available and sources indicate that the Syrian rebels
do indeed have them, as one would expect for a standard second-world insurgency.
That the BND does
not apparently know this is curious. I would be in no doubt whatsoever that such arms are available to them - nor should anyone with a "functioning brain cell", as you say.
I believe the BND was talking about weapons grade Sarin and other forms of chemical weapons and how the rebel forces do not have the capability to launch a chemical attack of this magnitude.. But yeah, stick with discussing the rockets....
Ignore the obvious.
Okay, what is meant by this sentence? I think the Syrians certainly do outgun the rebels - but so what? Does this mean that the Syrian rebels could not have launched these attacks? Or that they would not? They certainly have the rocket arms, and sarin is relatively easy to make as your WMDs go. Even the Tokyo terrorists could manage it. Arms don't randomly go off at the opposition just because you have them.
Lets see. Assad's troops were shelling the region before, during and after the chemical attack. As for the
Tokyo attacks.. You cannot exactly compare for a variety of reasons. Unless of course the rebels have a bunch of scientists on their sides with the necessary equipment to produce that much sarin gas, then test them on those rockets prior to use? You know,
like Assad's troops had been doing last year, prior to launching the attack on the 21st of August.. I guess they got the balance just right.
I found it a curious happenstance, and I still find it curious, ass-clown. It might well be just some rich kid getting the rich kid treatment, but you'd be a fool to believe in the ethics of the international political process uncritically.
Riiiiiight.. And even as the police were in a shootout with the brother's, had identified them as the bombers, you were still going on about the Saudi kid..
It doesn't matter in any sense other than the selection of targets: the Syrians would presumably be more likely to hit rebel-controlled or rebel-supporting areas, and vice versa. Don't run with an imagined intent for my arguments just because you want it to be so. Oblique apology accepted.
*Chuckle*
Again, sure GeoffP.
This may well be true. Let us be sure it is true.
He's been using them on civilians in rebel controlled areas since April. But hey, lets be sure...
Again: they "are disposed to think" that the Syrian Army carried out the attack, based on correlated activity times and capability - which they only actually report for the Syrian Army side. They are not "sure".
‘Nous disposons [a penser]’’ (‘We are disposed to think’’) is not ‘Nous sommes presentement certaine que’’ (‘We are certain that’). Go back and read the report again ‘ there’s no hard connection between the event and the Syrians, only i) a history of Syrian CW development, ii) a short order of battle (for the Syrian Army only), iii) an account of a previous heli attack using CWs (probably sarin; and I go so far as to definitely believe this one, simply for the fact of the heli being included), iv) an account of the attack on Ghouta as experienced by those there without reference to solid evidence of culpability (included to demonstrate the use of sarin), v) a description of concurrent conventional and chemical attacks in Ghouta East and other suburbs/municipalities followed by attacks by land forces, and the ascertainment that the deployed rounds were chemical rounds. The chemical rounds are connected to the Syrians only in time; the French don’t say that they were known to be from the Syrians. I agree, the timing is highly suspect (against the Syrians, to be clear), but it’s not known if there was fighting generally before or after. Did the Syrian troops advance into the struck areas? Did they wear CW gear during their advance? To what extend did this advance overlap with CW-strike zones? And so on, and so forth. I think, again, that it’s more likely the Syrians did it, but without at least some kind of unequivocal ‘smoking gun’, I can’t commit intellectually to the suggestion of counter-attacks against Assad; or at least not specifically for events at Ghouta.
Again, if it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck and looks like a duck, it's usually a fucking duck.
And now Obama is backpedaling on his plan, defusing his own initiative with the system; all this and the above indicates to me that maybe the best and brightest are not ascending into politics after all, as everyone used to suspect. Honestly, if you wanted to prove all this stuff, it really wouldn’t be hard at all. I’ve outlined a half dozen ways in which you could build up sufficient circumstantial evidence to generate reasoned support for taking action. Why in the hell the BND fell down in their assessment I have no idea ‘ I had general respect for them, since I hadn’t heard of them fucking anything up, unlike some other organizations I could name.
As above. How easy is it to find the smoking gun leading back to Assad after Assad's troops shelled the region for days after the attack and prevented the UN from from gaining access to the site? And then we have the Hezbollah saying that it was Assad. But hey, none of that counts as proof that he did it, does it? I'm sure the Hezbollah, who are fighting with Assad in Syria, can't know if he did it... I am fairly certain, lets say 100% sure, that the BND have not stuffed this up and this is just you wringing your hands again, because heaven forbid you actually support something that means protecting innocent Muslim civilians who are being gassed in their homes. As I had stated at the start of this discussion with you, that had those victims been Christian or Jewish, you'd have been over intervention like a rash. But you are 'wringin' dem hands' because they are not. Because the rebel forces contain Islamist elements.. So what do you do? Do you support the gassing of innocent civilians in their fucking homes because to support otherwise could mean helping the Islamists? Considering that new avatar of yours and your pontificating about this, I'd say the answer is a big fat yes.
And that was the point I was making above. The question is whether rebel forces might strike their own areas in order to generate international outcry. That’s a strange prospect, but war is deceit as they say and
it’s been done before, though not on this scale. You have to understand: the Nazis faked Polish atrocities to start their invasion of Poland; how much more would a religious fascist who
really believes in a sky-god that will punish him for not being enough of an asshole be willing to do? Wars are begun and outrages staged often enough that I’m suspicious of a case like this.
There is a reason why Israel has been pushing for something to be done about Assad's gassing of his civilians. Because they will be next. Self interest? Sure. But at least they know it wasn't faked. And again, you have no proof that the rebels have access to that much Sarin. And seeing Assad's track record of shelling rebel held areas with mortars containing just enough chemical weapons to give him an edge, and considering even his helpers in this war have clearly told Iran that he did use chemical weapons against those civilians, then it's a sure bet that the rebels were not gassing their own people.
Nice site by the way. Are you suggesting we take a pro-Serbian view of the Bosnian war seriously?
So I, a Canadian of English and Welsh descent living in Pennsylvania, am such a radical supporter of Assad, an Alawite dentist-dictator over Syria and war criminal on various other counts whether culpable in the chemical attack on Ghouta, that I am willing to make excuses for him.
Take a second and think about that, tovarisch.
(Actually, since the breakup of the USSR, tovarisch wouldn’t exactly be the right word, but I think you take my meaning.)
Assad is actually an eye surgeon. And I think your current avatar speaks for itself,
comrade.
:yawn: Well, conspiracies certainly occur. Fool me once, cain’t git fooled agin. Oil, blood, etc. We can't claim on the one hand that my Supreme Overlor- I mean,
the Russians!
- are getting involved to protect their arms sales and not consider that the Americans and French might be doing exactly the same thing. (The Russians recently forgave the Syrians a huge weapons trade deficit, so I don't actually know how well their business is doing. Don't ask me how I know - in-house secret.
)
Aside from the fact that Syria gives Putin and Russia the port in the Mediterranean that they so desperately desire, that Russia has a naval base in Syria.. And they admit to helping Assad.. Soooo.. do I need to do the duck analogy again?
And the only sources to claim it was Assad do not presently definitively connect his forces to the attack. There is no direct evidence, only coincidence and some supposition. Hell, the BND didn’t even know the rebels had 107mm rockets. After a while, coincidence does indeed become overwhelming, but we aren’t there yet and I don’t know why. Surely it would be easy enough to them to find out even using some of my suggestions above. What I want is a critical, complete and rounded report.
Oh My Fucking God! How many more excuses can you come up with?
They said that the rebels do not have the capability and capacity to launch such a chemical attack. And that the Hezbollah, who have been fighting alongside Assad's troops have told Iran that Assad did it. But hey, keep making more excuses. After all, as you said at the start, you are wary because the victims are Muslims and the rebels are Islamists in your opinion.
Well then I congratulate you, ass-hat. I think it’s genuinely commendable and more than I have been able to do. My kids moan and whine when I speak to them in French. I think they’ve inherited their non-existent language talents from her, the French one. Anyway ‘ check the document again and you’ll see what I mean: they are disposed to think that blah blah. No authors’ names on the report either. That might be innocuous, and it might not. If the Russians were run out of Syria (via the installation of a US/French-friendly regime of secularist/Islamicist rebels, shortly thereafter to be Islamicist rebels only), how many Exocets do you think the French could sell them? Trust no one, Mr. Bells. Or at least not until you have seen the whites of their eyes.
Glad to see I grew a penis and some balls since my last post, Ms GeoffP.
And again, more conspiracy theories from you. Does it ever stop?
Don't be silly. That's way out of my clearance level with the SVR.
It suits you. It suits your personality and your belief system.
