Originally Posted by
satsuma
Lonewolf 50
Your choice of words is borderline inhuman given the atrocious savagery that has recently been witnessed. I am, however, sure that you sleep soundly and safely in your comfortable bed.
And I am responsible for none of that. My words are not inhuman, and your overwrought post establishes your lack of perspective. Thanks for sharing your outrage. I sleep quite well, thanks, as I'm not the one gassing people. Save your ire for those who are.
In other news:
Seems that the Alloha Snack Bar brigade forgot that cover and concealment, like harassment, must be continuous to be effective.
Eclectic:
Re chemical weapons. Syria has one of the world's largest stockpiles. Assad has been using them regularly against the rebels since 19 March this year, without the world doing anything.
Unproven assertion, but you may be right. The trouble is in confirming this line of thought. There is the chance that Assad believes that he can get Russian top cover, and thus thinks he can get away with this sort of thing. But adding to the number of parties in this mess, even if it hurts him, strikes me as a fine way of making it into a bigger mess.
I am hoping that the US and Russia can find some way to work together on this problem in Syria. That to me is the critical domino that needs to fall for the international community to be able to assist in any meaningful way beyond refugee support.
EDIT:
For those who didn't go to the Hindustan times link ...
Specialists in the impact of chemical weapons said the video evidence was not entirely convincing.
"At the moment, I am not totally convinced because the people that are
helping them are without any protective clothing and without any respirators," said Paula Vanninen, director of Verifin, the Finnish Institute for Verification of the Chemical Weapons Convention. "In a real case, they would also be contaminated and would also be having symptoms."
John Hart, head of the Chemical and Biological Security Project at Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said he had not seen the telltale evidence in the eyes of the victims that would be compelling evidence of chemical weapons use.
"Of the videos that I've seen for the last few hours, none of them show
pinpoint pupils... this would indicate exposure to organophosphorus nerve
agents," he said.
Gwyn Winfield, editor of CBRNe World magazine, which specialises in chemical weapons issues, said the evidence did not suggest that the chemicals used were of the weapons-grade that the Syrian army possesses in its stockpiles. "We're not seeing reports that doctors and nurses... are becoming fatalities, so that would suggest that the toxicity of it isn't what we would consider military sarin. It may well be that it is a lower-grade," Winfield told AFP.
Russia, which has previously said it has proof of chemical weapons use by the rebels, expressed deep scepticism about the opposition's claims. The foreign ministry said the timing of the allegations as UN inspectors
began their work "makes us think that we are once again dealing with a
premeditated provocation."
The fog or war extends beyond Syria's borders, eh?
If we look back into history, we recall reports in the early months of WW I that included
GERMANS BAYONET BELGIAN BABIES.
BELGIAN NUNS RAPED BY VICIOUS HUNS
In 1898, America went to war with Spain over Cuba, with a critical piece of rhetoric, the explosion of USS Maine in Havanna Harbor, being blamed on the Spanish. A somewhat famous Naval Officer named Hyman Rickover did an investigation that, to say the least, cast serious doubt on any external agent being the proximate cause of that explosion.