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Poison gas missile strike in Syria

So some folks are turning this into a massive partisanship pissing match.

That's great, please continue your idiocy.

On the actual story, an extremely dangerous situation.

I honestly don't know which side to believe, as much as I hate Assad and hope he gets Gaddafi'd I also don't trust these rebels either.

Who's to say they didn't get a hold of a chemical weapon and use it, blaming the authorities in order to get the US or EU countries to intervene like they did in Libya.

A real ****ty situation.

Think we've gotta wait for more info.
 

Having seen the video of his execution, I'm pretty sure Saddam wasn't the one laughing - but he certainly played many for fools when he was in charge.
 
No other News orginization has confirmed the story yet.

If this story is just a rumor or faked, then someone is desperately trying to get us involved.

However if the story is true, then Assad really is hellbent on staying in power. Let us pray that it is just a rumour or at the very least that neither turkey or any other NATO member retaliates.
 

This may be the first time I ever agreed with you.
 

There's probably people who could, but it's unlikely that they'll be very forthcoming with it. They're likely to be on one side or the other, and I don't think either side would want to disclose what they have.

Perhaps when the war is over...but not now.
 

Or it could be just as likely that some outside source delivered it to incriminate both sides. Im not sure who Syria's enemies are though.
Why would they be stupid enough to do that to themselves when it would be such an easy excuse for big dogs to invade their airspace?
 

Russia, which has military and intel on the ground, says it was the rebels (presuming it happened). I think they've the capability to determine such and I do not think they would lie for Assad on something like this.

The 'experts' (see my CBS link above) say it was not chem.

Those two things line up, as Russia presumably does not have such insider info to rebel actions and was simply saying "nope, not Assad".
 
sawyerloggingon said:
What makes you think rebels have WMD? seems obvious to me that Syria did this until there is some intelligence that the rebels who are now largely Alquiada have gotten their hands on chemical weapons. God help us if that's true.
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So many of the rebels there are defectors. If any of them had access to the weapons....

I'm not sure that they're al-Qaeda, but realistically we know that the Assad regime supported Hamas. Assuming that some of the rebels have terrorist connections, there is no good side for us to be on right now. Jumping in without taking sides is a fools errand.
 
That makes a bit of sense if they were watching the Syrian Government closely.
 

If it is, in fact the Assad regime that is responsible, it could mean that they're getting desperate.
 

Let us not forget that Russia is Syrias biggest supplier of military hardware, so it has a stake in ensuring Assad stays in power, or if we are being cynical, prolonging the civil war in order to rake in the profits from weapon sales
 
CanadaJohn said:
the war part was a walk in the park, the peace is what the US bungled
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Tell that to the thousands of people who got caught in the cross fire. The thousands of Iraqi police that instantly became jobless and broke the moment the US invaded, even though they begged commanders on the ground to let them help. Tell that to the hospitals, water treatment plants and ministries that were looted and destroyed because no one thought to secure them. Tell that to the tons of explosives that are still unaccounted for and the nuclear facility that was looted, because no one was guarding it.

The peace process was so bungled, because we executed the invasion so poorly. It was effective from a military standpoint, but the damage done as a result, still resinates in that country. It scares me when I see the history of that invasion, so wildly miss represented in a single sentences. The rest of your statement is legitimate, I just wanted to point that one thing out. Hope you don't mind.
 

When you decide to fight (use force) to obtain a goal you do not wait for the other side to give in on their own. If we choose to interfere in this situation, one would hope that forcing these people to be forthcoming with the disclosure of information needed prior to the use of ground forces is being planned at this moment. I personally would not want the end of the use of chemical and biological weapons to be predicated upon the war being over.
 
dirtpoorchris said:
That makes a bit of sense if they were watching the Syrian Government closely.
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I think Russia has a pretty good 'in' with Assad's people (being their only supporter, aside Iran). Do you think Russia would lie, for Assad or anyone, about chem use?


Unitedwestand13 said:
Let us not forget that Russia is Syrias biggest supplier of military hardware, so it has a stake in ensuring Assad stays in power, or if we are being cynical, prolonging the civil war in order to rake in the profits from weapon sales
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As above.
 
rocket88 said:
If it is, in fact the Assad regime that is responsible, it could mean that they're getting desperate.
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It really doesn't matter how desperate you are seeing as chemical weapons = signing your own death warrant. Seems the use of chem weapons would be to "create chaos" not "stay in power".
 

We applied the same mistakes we learned from Afghanistan to Iraq with even worse consequences.
 

I would not like that either. Frankly, I don't like any of what's happening.

Rushing our troops in, on a third side...that sounds like extremely bad news if you ask me.
 
rocket88 said:
I would not like that either. Frankly, I don't like any of what's happening.

Rushing our troops in, on a third side...that sounds like extremely bad news if you ask me.
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What if it was not us leading the charge? What if turkey gets involved first?
 
rocket88 said:
Rushing our troops in, on a third side...that sounds like extremely bad news if you ask me.
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I wouldn't expect that, even in the event of a more serious chem use. I would expect the US to kill everything Assad that's not standing next to a Russian. Then the Russians can clean it up.
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
We applied the same mistakes we learned from Afghanistan to Iraq with even worse consequences.
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I don't really think we applied anything. I really think the people making the decisions thought that the Iraqi people would greet us as liberators, and all we had to do will kill Saddam and protect their oil fields to win. The impression I get from what I've read, is that no one even thought to look at the possibility that that might not work the way they envision it would, and didn't have a plan b. The focus was more on making the case to invade Iraq, then actually executing it successfuly.

Those are totally assertions, based on my own perspective and bias, but It's what I think happened. I just can't believe that 10 years later, with all of the information we have now about what happened, people can still say that doing it, was the right thing to do. I just can't see that.
 

Iraqi cops were allowed to help.

Iraqi police in the cross hairs of anti-US forces / The Christian Science Monitor - CSMonitor.com
 
ecofarm said:
I wouldn't expect that, even in the event of a more serious chem use. I would expect the US to kill everything Assad that's not standing next to a Russian. Then the Russians can clean it up.
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Again I ask, what if NATO gets involved first and asks for help? Turkey shares a border with Syria and is directly affected by the chaos.
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
Again I ask, what if NATO gets involved first and asks for help? Turkey shares a border with Syria and is directly affected by the chaos.
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I don't see Syria requiring ground troops. I'm a bigtime hawk, I want to nation build Iran. Boots on the ground in Syria does not strengthen our position regarding the Iranian regime. Further, solving Iran solves Syria so it would kinda be walking backwards. Assad could be eliminated from the air, we just gotta be careful not to hit too many Russians.
 
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