Damascus gas attack - who did it and how will the west spin it ?

[Resurrection Man]

Ho, ho, ho.

So you have no evidence then. Thought as much. Assad apologist.

[Sydney Grew]

. . . simply after passing the buck for inaction onto a broader set of elected representatives.

No, actually the brutal mulatto is going to start WW3.

[Resurrection Man]

It wasn't a "cop-out" reply and I have no interest in speculating on your expectations in any case; if you did indeed have such a bet, you'd therefore have lost it. One cannot continue to do something that one is not doing in the first place and I am certainly far from copmfortable abouot any of this. The only part of your post that you have correct is the sitting bit but then I imaine that most of us sit when typing.

Oh, it most certainly was a 'cop-out' reply. You can pontificate ad nauseam with overly verbose responses on every single thread and topic that gets brought up but faced with a real-world scenario ?

BTW...your spelling checker seems to be on the blink.

[ahinton]

Oh, it most certainly was a 'cop-out' reply. You can pontificate ad nauseam with overly verbose responses on every single thread and topic that gets brought up but faced with a real-world scenario?

It might be a "cop-out" reply to you but that doesn't make it one. I contribute to very few threads on this forum - not to "every single" one - and you are not in any case obliged to read what I do write. Let's revisit the scenario which, I remind you, was an uninvited one of your creation and consider the answer to it that you would appear to have wanted - or at least considerd to be the only satisfactory one. Suppose I fought back. Suppose that, in so doing, I contrived only to aggravate the aggressor and exacerbate the situation. The result would be that both sides were injured, possibly seriously and nothing would have been achieved to stop further aggression occurring. Then I get arrested by the police for causing an affray in a public place and for GBH. Good idea, then, was it?

But you write of a "real-world scenario". What you conveniently forget is that all that I can do and all that I am doing is to express an opinion on the pointlessness of meeting violence with more violence, especially when it is not clear who is committing it in the first place; I cannot and do not seek to dictate to anyone what they should do and I do not even claim that what I am saying is correct, but it is nevertheless my opinion. What is surely clear to everyone, irrespective of opinions, is that the current Syrian scenario is a very dangerous one in which acts of genocide are being committed and in which a number of Syrian factions and other international interests and agendas are involved. So, faced with such a situation, I would not know what to do, any more, it seems, than the UK, US and other governments know what to do. In such a situation, doing something can make matters worse. It could likewise be argued that doing nothing could also make matters worse. So there's your choice - Hobson's.

But what do you think should happen? Presumably that a government or governments send in military forces to - er - to do what? They can intervene on the pretext of attempting to stop what's happening, but unless the entire situation in Syria is permanently stabilised as a consequence, that will fail and all that will happen as a result is exacerbation. Since there's no way that sending in the troops can stop what's happening and at the same time placate all interested and agenda-driven parties both inside and outside Syria, the purpose of sending them in seems not to exist.

I am most certainly no apologist for the Assad régime, but then it remains there and will do unless it's removed by some means or other - and no government has yet resolved to try to topple it.

You appear to support a "when in doubt, fight" "solution". I don't. Simples.

[Mr Pee]

No they haven't. Read their reports and press releases.

I have, and I also watched Sky News' live coverage of yesterday's briefing to congress by John Kerry and the Chiefs of Staff.

If you saw that you would agree that there can be no doubt that the Assad regime is responsible, whatever the conspiracy theorists, appeasers, and Assad apologists say.

[ahinton]

I have, and I also watched Sky News' live coverage of yesterday's briefing to congress by John Kerry and the Chiefs of Staff.

If you saw that you would agree that there can be no doubt that the Assad regime is responsible, whatever the conspiracy theorists, appeasers, and Assad apologists say.

Leaving aside the questions of whether (a) you've also watched any other news broadcaster's coverage of that briefing and (b) how reliable the contents of that briefing might be, whilst I personally do not "doubt" that the régime might well be responsible for committing the gas attack and other atrocities in Syria - indeed, it seems rather more likely than any other possibility - one does not have to be a "conspiracy theorist", "appeaser" or "Assad apologist" in order to continue to question either whether others might be responsible instead or whether in fact there's more than just one culprit, at least until the identity of the guilty party/ies is proved beyond all reasonable doubt. If it can indeed be proved that the régime alone is responsible, I will accept that as a fact - I have no problem with doing that - but this alone will not help to simplify either the situation in Syria or the question of what can best be done to try to resolve it. My principal concern, therefore, is not so much who's responsible for what we do at least do know has happened but the risk that those with the power to intervene militarily (if so they choose) adopt an over-simplistic attitude to the situation in general and act accordingly, which could and almost certainly would make an already grave situation much worse still.

[Mr Pee]

Leaving aside the questions of whether (a) you've also watched any other news broadcaster's coverage of that briefing and (b) how reliable the contents of that briefing might be, whilst I personally do not "doubt" that the régime might well be responsible for committing the gas attack and other atrocities in Syria - indeed, it seems rather more likely than any other possibility - one does not have to be a "conspiracy theorist", "appeaser" or "Assad apologist" in order to continue to question either whether others might be responsible instead or whether in fact there's more than just one culprit, at least until the identity of the guilty party/ies is proved beyond all reasonable doubt. If it can indeed be proved that the régime alone is responsible, I will accept that as a fact - I have no problem with doing that - but this alone will not help to simplify either the situation in Syria or the question of what can best be done to try to resolve it. My principal concern, therefore, is not so much who's responsible for what we do at least do know has happened but the risk that those with the power to intervene militarily (if so they choose) adopt an over-simplistic attitude to the situation in general and act accordingly, which could and almost certainly would make an already grave situation much worse still.

a) What difference would that make? There was no comment or opinion, just live coverage of the briefing.

b) Whatever spin you might suspect the US of putting on the facts, those facts are pretty damning, unless they are making the whole thing up, which after the Iraq/WMD fiasco is highly unlikely.

I am stupefied that people say intervention by the West- limited, no troops on the ground, targeted strikes to disrupt the regime's chemical weapons capability- would somehow make the situation much worse. Try telling that to the families and loved ones of the 1500 men, women, and children who died an agonising death from Sarin gas a couple of weeks ago.

[zoomy]

I have, and I also watched Sky News' live coverage of yesterday's briefing to congress by John Kerry and the Chiefs of Staff.

If you saw that you would agree that there can be no doubt that the Assad regime is responsible, whatever the conspiracy theorists, appeasers, and Assad apologists say.

You are not been listening carefully enough to what they are saying.

[zoomy]

Intervention by the west would mean more than just missile attacks - it would lead to much more overt attacks on the regime and baking for rebel groups. The united states is already training and equiping rebel fighters and dispatching them to fight on the ground. If the us attacks, they will not be able to contemplate assad staying power and winning the war in the long so they will feel compelled to do more.

[ahinton]

a) What difference would that make? There was no comment or opinion, just live coverage of the briefing.

What difference? I could not say and in fact am not even suggesting that there would necessarily be one, but listening to / watching/ reading different journalistic coverage of the same thing might reveal differences in approach to and appraisal of the reported issues and I only asked if you had done that, not accused you of failing to do it! AS I also observed, however, unbiased reportage of the briefing does not lend credence to every aspect of the content of that briefing and, let's face it, when the President has decided to put matters to Congress rather than proceed without first having taken that step, it seems clear that his view is the military intervention should proceed and his agenda is therefore to persuade Congress that his stance is the correct one.

b) Whatever spin you might suspect the US of putting on the facts, those facts are pretty damning, unless they are making the whole thing up, which after the Iraq/WMD fiasco is highly unlikely.

I am stupefied that people say intervention by the West- limited, no troops on the ground, targeted strikes to disrupt the regime's chemical weapons capability- would somehow make the situation much worse. Try telling that to the families and loved ones of the 1500 men, women, and children who died an agonising death from Sarin gas a couple of weeks ago.

Of course they are not "making up" the atrocities themselves - I don't think that anyone is suggesting such a thing - but the prospect that the kind of intervention that you write of here - i.e. "limited, no troops on the ground, targeted strikes to disrupt the regime's chemical weapons capability" would lead to a permanent and sustainable solution to the problem seems to be about as unlikely as the more worrying one that it would not end with that but escalate into full-scale military intervention.

I've already said that strictly humanitarian intervention is one thing but intervention that encompasses military threat or actuality is quite another. I would not dream of insulting the survivors of the sarin attack by telling them anything that would be unhelpful to them but, at the same time, it might be disingenuous to assume that they all feel that the only possible hope for their future will come in the shape of the universal US military saviour; I'm sure that you have no evidence to back up the existence of such a majority view among the injured, bereaved and dispossessed victims in Syria and it would not be unreasonable, I think, to assume that at least some of them harbour just as much if not more fear of the possible consequence of external military intervention as they do of those who've already attacked them.

[zoomy]

As soon as the us attacks (if it does) they will be entering a regime change situation.

[Serial_Apologist]

As soon as the us attacks (if it does) they will be entering a regime change situation.

Entering? As in "competition"?

[zoomy]

Entering? As in "competition"?

ho, ho entering as in making sure that assad is defeated.

[Sydney Grew]

What I find quite amazing in this thread is the specification "chemical." Why harp on about the "chemicality" when surely the method of a murder is beside the point! How could it possibly occur to the child, the woman, the teacher, the dandy, the homo-sexualist, the musical composer or the respectable married couple who are in the process of being murdered, to reflect upon the particular method being used, and to express their preference for being "deaded" in some other way? Put yourself in their position!

In brief, I find that the people who draw this distinction between chemical murder on the one hand, and bullet murder or explosive murder on the other, have an agenda that is very nasty indeed, and no imagination or sense of reality. Any and every killing of another should be prevented and, if and when it does take place, regarded as a reversion to savagery and suitably punished. Why should the particular method of killing matter?

[ahinton]

What I find quite amazing in this thread is the specification "chemical." Why harp on about the "chemicality" when surely the method of a murder is beside the point! How could it possibly occur to the child, the woman, the teacher, the dandy, the homo-sexualist, the musical composer or the respectable married couple who are in the process of being murdered, to reflect upon the particular method being used, and to express their preference for being "deaded" in some other way? Put yourself in their position!

In brief, I find that the people who draw this distinction between chemical murder on the one hand, and bullet murder or explosive murder on the other, have an agenda that is very nasty indeed, and no imagination or sense of reality. Any and every killing of another should be prevented and, if and when it does take place, regarded as a reversion to savagery and suitably punished. Why should the particular method of killing matter?

You have a valid point here, of course but, since there is already international condemnation of the use of chemical (and, I think, also biological) weaponry and it is strongly suspected that the former has recently been used in Syria against Syrians, "harping on about the "chemicality"" can hardly be avoided when discussion this particular incident and the threat of similar ones in the future.