Here it comes: Syria
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white knight to black bishop
If I were Putin, having Assad agree in principle to putting CW into International supervision, I would have my guys in on the ground yesterday as a Russian element of the international monitoring team.
With one stroke that would inhibit any US strike anywhere in Syria.
check mate in 2.
If I were Putin, having Assad agree in principle to putting CW into International supervision, I would have my guys in on the ground yesterday as a Russian element of the international monitoring team.
With one stroke that would inhibit any US strike anywhere in Syria.
check mate in 2.
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PN
A very good point. That would stump Obama for good.
And by doing so it also gives him a strong say in the leadership
of any group.
A very good point. That would stump Obama for good.
And by doing so it also gives him a strong say in the leadership
of any group.
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Obama says he doesn't want to change the balance of power on the ground.
Putin is changing the balance on the ground by delivering lots of shiny new kit.
Qatar will respond with a few hundred tons more of ATGMs.
Soon all the world's T-72s will be smoking hulks.
There will be a good scrap metal business to be had after Assad loses and the subsequent civil war is over.
This is a numbers game. There are few Alawites and lots of Sunnis.
Already Assad is using lots of foreign fighters. He would be finished already if it wasn't for Hezbollah and the Iranians.
Ironically his propaganda always goes on about the rebels being foreigners when he uses many times the number.
Putin is changing the balance on the ground by delivering lots of shiny new kit.
Qatar will respond with a few hundred tons more of ATGMs.
Soon all the world's T-72s will be smoking hulks.
There will be a good scrap metal business to be had after Assad loses and the subsequent civil war is over.
This is a numbers game. There are few Alawites and lots of Sunnis.
Already Assad is using lots of foreign fighters. He would be finished already if it wasn't for Hezbollah and the Iranians.
Ironically his propaganda always goes on about the rebels being foreigners when he uses many times the number.
Ah yes, WMD....
The remainder of his presidency will see the ascendency of the powers for harm in the world. Russia, Iran, North Korea.
How many countries have been invaded by them?
How many people have been killed by them?
We might not like them for their Statements/positions and whom they support but when looking at the boring facts, it is not so easy to prove that they are the worst aggressors and the true evil out there.
Unfortunately in the last 10 years other Nations have been much more agressive in using Military force upon other Nations (even if we assume good intentions).
And if we look at who supports really dangerous/evil (by our standards) groups, we unfortunately can't deny that 'friendly' middle eastern countries belong to the worst offenders in that regard.
Your picture of the World appears to be enviably simplistic.
Last edited by henra; 10th Sep 2013 at 20:51.
You should go to a psychiatrist.
Or become politician...
Last edited by henra; 10th Sep 2013 at 20:59.
Sure, but you need to inhale the net amount you mentioned.
To achive the necessary ppm in a given volume of air you need much much more when you dispense it.
So you can't do the simple Maths you did if you want to know realistically how many people you will kill with a certain arsenal of warheads filled with Sarin.
In the instance where the 500-1000 People in Syria were killed you can assume they (whoever it was) used a collective amount of dozens or rather hundreds of kg.
According to your calc, 100 mg would have been enough for that.
There is a factor of >10^6 (or 1 Million, to make it more appreciable) between the two.
And that is what I wanted to point out.
Henra, please stop confusing him with science.
He also may not be aware that to win a firefight, one may need to equip one's soldiers with more than one bullet per enemy combatant, particularly in MOUT/Urban Combat.
He also may not be aware that to win a firefight, one may need to equip one's soldiers with more than one bullet per enemy combatant, particularly in MOUT/Urban Combat.
Last edited by Lonewolf_50; 11th Sep 2013 at 12:12.
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The point I was trying to make is that Assad's chemical arsenal is very substantial. If loaded into his 2,000 ballistic missiles and fired at a few cities the casualties would be horrendous.
The point I was trying to make is that Assad's chemical arsenal is very substantial. If loaded into his 2,000 ballistic missiles and fired at a few
cities the casualties would be horrendous.
cities the casualties would be horrendous.
Here is another obvious statement:
The Israeli nuclear arsenal is potentially lethal.
If they fired their warheads on missiles to seventy or eighty cities, the carnage would be terrible.
True, but so what?
The Israeli nuclear arsenal is potentially lethal.
If they fired their warheads on missiles to seventy or eighty cities, the carnage would be terrible.
True, but so what?
If they fired their warheads on missiles to seventy or eighty cities, the carnage would be terrible.
True, but so what?
Exactly. We can all use suppositions based on 'what ifs'.
Last edited by Toadstool; 10th Sep 2013 at 22:20.
Lonewolfe
Come on you know its just a computer game you can turn off and go to bed or perhaps that is how some people see it.
Interesting Sky showing a Syrian Christian family funeral and what they saying.......mostly they have been ignored. Winds of change occurring.
Come on you know its just a computer game you can turn off and go to bed or perhaps that is how some people see it.
Interesting Sky showing a Syrian Christian family funeral and what they saying.......mostly they have been ignored. Winds of change occurring.
The irony of the situation now is that one of the main reasons there has been such vociferous disagreement with action against Syria, is that any action may have involved, at some time, boots on the ground. Obama has said time and time again that this would not happen once limited action had taken place.
How do you imagine we will gain access to and secure these CWs if this is now the solution that everyone wants? With boots on the ground of course. IMHO if this is the case, so as to appease the West and Russia, perhaps we should encourage the Arab League, less Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to provide these boots if needed.
How do you imagine we will gain access to and secure these CWs if this is now the solution that everyone wants? With boots on the ground of course. IMHO if this is the case, so as to appease the West and Russia, perhaps we should encourage the Arab League, less Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to provide these boots if needed.
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Interesting headline in our newspapers here re Assad's interview.
"Assad warns US to 'expect everything'
US bases could face 'every action' including chemical warfare if it attacks Syria, warns President Bashar al-Assad in an interview with CBS television."
Would he say that without meaning it ?
Would he have run it past Putin first ?
"Assad warns US to 'expect everything'
US bases could face 'every action' including chemical warfare if it attacks Syria, warns President Bashar al-Assad in an interview with CBS television."
Would he say that without meaning it ?
Would he have run it past Putin first ?
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Would that be a good idea? One would have thought having the Arab League overseeing the removal and storage of such weapons is perhaps the last people you would want involved.
At least the West has a proven record of destroying their stockpiles, all be it a tad slow in some cases.
I somehow think that if Syria did use chemical weapons against US bases, there wouldn't be a whole lot left standing in Syria.
I thought Obama's speech tonight came across well
"The US military do not do pinpricks" lol.
At least the West has a proven record of destroying their stockpiles, all be it a tad slow in some cases.
I somehow think that if Syria did use chemical weapons against US bases, there wouldn't be a whole lot left standing in Syria.
I thought Obama's speech tonight came across well
"The US military do not do pinpricks" lol.
Last edited by NutLoose; 11th Sep 2013 at 01:16.
Yes - that was a great line.
This whole `we'll hand over the sarin' thing is just b^llsh1t.
Sure they will... how long will it take?
And all of it?
They couldn't even leave a couple of UN inspectors alone - yet they're going to:
a) allow some kind of third party in to drive around and collect it or destroy it?
b) bring it all to a border somewhere and hand it over?
And all in the middle of a vicious civil war.
What's the plan here?
Deny, divert, delay... the best negotiating strategy of all.
This whole `we'll hand over the sarin' thing is just b^llsh1t.
Sure they will... how long will it take?
And all of it?
They couldn't even leave a couple of UN inspectors alone - yet they're going to:
a) allow some kind of third party in to drive around and collect it or destroy it?
b) bring it all to a border somewhere and hand it over?
And all in the middle of a vicious civil war.
What's the plan here?
Deny, divert, delay... the best negotiating strategy of all.
Last edited by tartare; 11th Sep 2013 at 05:20.
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
I read a very interesting novel, a novel it is true, but it centred on a Dubai policeman who was a native of Dubai. He was an exception as most Dubai police were imports from many countries including Syria.
I believe that most of the Gulf States use imported labour so would they have enough boots they really want to put on the ground?
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Nasty stutter there PN.
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Obama’s Next Foreign-Policy Team
............It was the most predictable speech of Barack Obama’s presidency. He spent 15 minutes pretending that he was master and commander driving Syria policy. The truth is the Oval Office has been dragged into the middle of war it desperately wanted to avoid.
But events have landed the president in a bad place. It is clear he doesn’t have the confidence of the Congress. He probably couldn’t even get a resolution through the Senate, a chamber controlled by his own party. Asking Congress to postpone the vote was a transparent, face-saving measure. If failing to command Congress wasn’t bad enough, the president also knows he got played by the Russians, who will spin their unworkable “diplomatic” solution into an opportunity to amp up their military support for the Assad regime.
Spin aside, Mr. Obama knows he had a bad night — and he knows whom to blame.
The president’s second-term foreign policy team is very different from those in place during his first four years in the Oval Office. John Kerry, in particular, has muscularly poked his nose in places the president would have rather left alone. Kerry was the chief cheerleader for humanitarian intervention in Syria. When Britain bailed and Obama sent his envoys to the Hill to make the case for military intervention, Kerry and crew arguably made things worse. After days of briefing Congress, the administration found it had less support than when it started.
Kerry also wound up being the source of the Kremlin’s biggest foreign-policy coup since Napoleon gave up on taking Moscow.
When all is said and done, it is hard to not see Kerry as Obama’s Al Haig. It is also difficult to see how Kerry makes it to the end of the term. Obama doesn’t like making foreign policy on any terms other than his own. Kerry put him off his game, and Kerry is most likely to pay the price for the Syria fiasco.
Don’t be surprised if sometime in the near future the secretary decides he wants to spend more time on his yacht.
............It was the most predictable speech of Barack Obama’s presidency. He spent 15 minutes pretending that he was master and commander driving Syria policy. The truth is the Oval Office has been dragged into the middle of war it desperately wanted to avoid.
But events have landed the president in a bad place. It is clear he doesn’t have the confidence of the Congress. He probably couldn’t even get a resolution through the Senate, a chamber controlled by his own party. Asking Congress to postpone the vote was a transparent, face-saving measure. If failing to command Congress wasn’t bad enough, the president also knows he got played by the Russians, who will spin their unworkable “diplomatic” solution into an opportunity to amp up their military support for the Assad regime.
Spin aside, Mr. Obama knows he had a bad night — and he knows whom to blame.
The president’s second-term foreign policy team is very different from those in place during his first four years in the Oval Office. John Kerry, in particular, has muscularly poked his nose in places the president would have rather left alone. Kerry was the chief cheerleader for humanitarian intervention in Syria. When Britain bailed and Obama sent his envoys to the Hill to make the case for military intervention, Kerry and crew arguably made things worse. After days of briefing Congress, the administration found it had less support than when it started.
Kerry also wound up being the source of the Kremlin’s biggest foreign-policy coup since Napoleon gave up on taking Moscow.
When all is said and done, it is hard to not see Kerry as Obama’s Al Haig. It is also difficult to see how Kerry makes it to the end of the term. Obama doesn’t like making foreign policy on any terms other than his own. Kerry put him off his game, and Kerry is most likely to pay the price for the Syria fiasco.
Don’t be surprised if sometime in the near future the secretary decides he wants to spend more time on his yacht.
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ORAC
Two interesting, if slightly biased articles on Obama / Putin / Syria
in the Daily Mail.
None very complimentary to Obama but they do sum it up well.
MAX HASTINGS: The humiliation of Obama as Putin swaggers on his Moscow dunghill | Mail Online
Obama sides with accidental diplomacy over military threats on Syria in critical speech that will determine his credibility and America's global standing | Mail Online
Obama's military plan falls apart as Syria accepts Russian proposal to give up chemical weapons -- an idea the administration floated by ACCIDENT | Mail Online
Two interesting, if slightly biased articles on Obama / Putin / Syria
in the Daily Mail.
None very complimentary to Obama but they do sum it up well.
MAX HASTINGS: The humiliation of Obama as Putin swaggers on his Moscow dunghill | Mail Online
Obama sides with accidental diplomacy over military threats on Syria in critical speech that will determine his credibility and America's global standing | Mail Online
Obama's military plan falls apart as Syria accepts Russian proposal to give up chemical weapons -- an idea the administration floated by ACCIDENT | Mail Online