Russia ‘knew in advance’ of Syrian chemical weapons attack

[OhSusana]

Russia ‘knew in advance’ of Syrian chemical weapons attack (story from today)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 77906.html
US official makes grave allegation Russian-operated drone flew over hospital where victims were being treated which was then targeted by bombing as ‘cover up’

....A Russian-operated drone flew over a hospital building in Idlib province on April 4 as victims were rushed there for treatment, a Trump administration official said. The hospital was then bombed by either Russian or Syrian forces in what American intel believes was an attempt to cover up the alleged usage of chemical weapons.

The drone’s presence - which before Monday the US had not known was Russian-operated - “could not have been a coincidence,” an official speaking on the condition of anonymity told the Associated Press....

Putin and Assad. Revolting. I can think of no other word.

====
This also
Syria 'chemical attack': Turkey says tests confirm Sarin was used (from today also)
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39564437
...Health Minister Recep Akdag was quoted by the Anadolu news agency as saying traces of one of the decomposition products of Sarin had been detected in the blood and urine of several victims....

[OhSusana]

US officials: Russian drone may have turned camera off, right before Syrian attack
http://www.businessinsider.com/syria-ga ... sia-2017-4

"This is patterned behavior," Jennifer Cafarella, a Syria analyst for the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, said to BuzzFeed. "The Russians have consistently conducted precise airstrikes targeting civilian infrastructure and hospital in particular, for example in Aleppo."

The alleged sarin nerve agent attack was reported to have occurred at 6:50 a.m. local time on Tuesday after ordnance hit the road. As the agent began to spread, the nearest hospital began treating victims. However, as that was happening, officials say a Russian-made unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) began recording the scene of what they say was "clearly" a hospital.

Five hours after the initial attack, the UAV turned off its camera, and shortly afterwards, a Russian-made aircraft targeted the hospital....

Putin learnt his tactics with the Stasi in East Germany. Scum. Real real scumball.

[Devil]

There is no proof of who conducted the gas attack. Any one of about five parties may have done it. It is easy to blame any one of them, as the US blamed Assad, without any definitive proof. There is plenty of 'fake truth' floating around, much speculation and not a milligram of proof.

[OhSusana]

There is no proof of who conducted the gas attack. Any one of about five parties may have done it. It is easy to blame any one of them, as the US blamed Assad, without any definitive proof. There is plenty of 'fake truth' floating around, much speculation and not a milligram of proof.

????
Syria has admitted it carried out the attack. But their story is that they hit a chemical weapons depot - ha ha ha.
The pilot has already been decorated - and has history -
Pilot of sarin gas jet flew in previous chemical attack
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/pilo ... -3pn62d3xw

Syria chemical attack pilot named as General Mohammed Hasouri
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/wo ... b8291bd39b
...Syria and Russia insist that the deaths in Khan Sheikhoun from sarin gas exposure were caused by a conventional bomb hitting a rebel warehouse containing chemical weapons. That has been debunked by experts who say that any sarin stocks would be destroyed rather than released if such a strike took place. Witnesses at the site have noted that the crater from the missile is in the middle of a road,...

The Chemical Realities of Russia’s Khan Sheikhoun Chemical Warehouse Attack Claims
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/20 ... ck-claims/
...To date, all of the nerve agents used in the Syrian conflict have been binary chemical warfare agents, so-named because they are mixed from several different components within a few days of use. For example, binary Sarin is made by combining isopropyl alcohol with methylphosphonyl difluoride, usually with some kind of additive to deal with the residual acid produced. ...
...Even assuming that large quantities of both Sarin precursors were located in the same part of the same warehouse (a practice that seems odd), an air-strike is not going to cause the production of large quantities of Sarin. Dropping a bomb on the binary components does not actually provide the correct mechanism for making the nerve agent. It is an infantile argument. One of the precursors is isopropyl alcohol. It would go up in a ball of flame. A very large one. Which has not been in evidence.....

[Devil]

The pilot has already been decorated - and has history -
Pilot of sarin gas jet flew in previous chemical attack
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/pilo ... -3pn62d3xw

The pilot who is believed to have dropped sarin gas on the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun, killing at least 87 people, was General Mohammed Hasouri, an experienced commander who had carried out a previous chemical attack, The Times can reveal.

A General flying a hazardous mission? Yeah, sure, with knobs on! In no army, do staff officers put themselves in danger. Please read the small print before making unsubstantiated accusations copied from newspapers.

[OhSusana]

Fares Shehabi, the MP for Aleppo and a high-ranking member of the Assad regime, posted an image on social media of Hasouri shaking hands with General Ali Abdullah Ayoub, the chief of general staff of the Syrian Arab Army.

Fares Shehabi, the MP for Aleppo, posted an image on Twitter of General Mohammed Hasouri (left) at Shayrat airbase being congratulated for a raid on Khan Sheikhoun

Twitter capture itself at
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -bomb.html

The source is from the Assad regime itself.
There are photos of him. He flies planes. The Assad regime are NOT denying that he took part in the raid.

As for the general bit -
In the picture Ali Abdullah Ayyoub, Chief of the General Staff of the Syrian Arab Army, congratulates him for, according to pro-regime media, destroying a militant chemical weapons depot in Khan Sheikhun. He is often referred to as Colonel but seen wearing Brig. Gen. insignia in the video, so maybe he was promoted too.

[Dominic]

We used similar logic in Iraq and look how that worked out.

[OhSusana]

We used similar logic in Iraq and look how that worked out.

You are having a laugh. How many dead children do you want?
Just look at the list of Sarin attacks during the Syrian civil war -
Use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Civil War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_ch ... _Civil_War

Ok. Saddam did use chemical weapons against iran and the Kurds.
In Syria - Assad has serious history of using Sarin against his "own people".
And generally early morning attacks - when the air is still - for obvious reasons.

My question is serious. How many dead children would you need before you did anything? 500? 5000? 25000?

I remember doing Jury service one time, and somebody said they "couldn't be 100% sure" that some guy mugged somebody else.
This was despite Video evidence!! A video of this poor guy getting mugged by a druggie. She said that maybe the police - who were also at the scene - were lying. I suppose she is right. Maybe it was all a conspiracy. ... so... the guy got let off. He already had 58 convictions.

This opinion piece in The Guardian today, by Boris Johnson and the French FM.
How long can the UN endure the shame of chemical attacks on Syrian citizens?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... moral-duty
....The use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime also has a long history. The UN’s joint investigation mechanism, in its reports of August and October 2016, has documented several cases of use of chemical substances against civilians after the chemical attack in Ghouta in 2013, three of which are ascribed to the Syrian regime on the basis of “sufficient” evidence, and one to Isis.

Regime denials should impress no one. Assad said it was the terrorists. But then Assad claims not to have barrel bombs, not to bomb civilians, not to torture, “because it would be illogical”. No barrel bombs? Their images are everywhere. No attacks on civilians? Refugee camps in Turkey are replete with their victims. No torture? Amnesty International found that in the Saydnaya prison alone, 13,000 were slaughtered....

[Dominic]

Nobody is saying that Assad is anything other than an evil warmonger. But according to that Wikipedia article, a lot of sides were using chemical weapons. If you get rid of Assad, what is the next step? What is the end game? What is the future?

So far, all that has happened when the west has joined in, is that they have made bad situations worse. There is no good way out of this situation. There is only a least bad one.

[OhSusana]

Nobody is saying ...

Agree with your first paragraph; although Assad is the only one with the capability to use Sarin, and drop his bombs from planes.

As for your second paragraph, well... when should "good people" react? Do you wait until a thousand children have been gassed to death? Or ten thousand? And the evidence - I notice now British scientists have confirmed the use of sarin. How long do you wait? As for the UN, they might never agree, as Russia will use its veto whatever Assad does.

Personally, i think Trump - probably unwittingly - has been very clever. Nobody expected him to react, especially after all his pro-Putin overtures prior to his election. Putin now doesn't really know what to do. Get Assad to launch another chemical attack - and if so - will Trump wipe out more of his planes?
Is a few even hundred children have been saved from being gassed to death - and what a horrendous way to die - then, by me the end justifies the means.
As somebody else on this thread wrote, The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. (Original, Burke, I believe).
The problem, of course, is when to act. The UN will clearly do nothing.

[Dominic]

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

In Iraq, good men did something, and it made it worse.

[OhSusana]

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

In Iraq, good men did something, and it made it worse.

I agree with you.
But - people do make mistakes. And that was a big big mistake based on a lot of lies. Good men were not involved in that; it was other people with a different agenda.
I don't think that should be used to justify doing nothing when children are gassed to death by Assad; for which the evidence is substantial; and nobody is talking about taking over the country.

According to your version, Britain should not have declared war on Germany in 1939. We should have just stood by, like Ireland, and do nothing.
That wasn't good for my family. Direct hit on grandparents' house, several great uncles killed... but I believe the decision was right.

===
Interesting article - brief - by an American (doctor)?
Why the US Should Intervene in Syria
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/helen-ouy ... 69698.html
....Yet, here we are again - at the crossroads of another human tragedy, this time in Syria. And yet again, Syria is tainted by failures in Iraq, just as Rwanda was shadowed by missteps in Somalia.

The country is different, the context is not exact, but the end results are still the same: the mass destruction of a large group of innocent people. This is why to me, the issue in question is not necessarily whether chemical weapons were used - though this is certainly significant - but what the intentions of Assad’s regime is, what has happened thus far to the innocent, and what is likely to happen in the future....

[Dominic]

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

In Iraq, good men did something, and it made it worse.

I agree with you.
But - people do make mistakes. And that was a big big mistake based on a lot of lies. Good men were not involved in that; it was other people with a different agenda.
I don't think that should be used to justify doing nothing when children are gassed to death by Assad; for which the evidence is substantial; and nobody is talking about taking over the country.

According to your version, Britain should not have declared war on Germany in 1939. We should have just stood by, like Ireland, and do nothing.
That wasn't good for my family. Direct hit on grandparents' house, several great uncles killed... but I believe the decision was right.

===
Interesting article - brief - by an American (doctor)?
Why the US Should Intervene in Syria
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/helen-ouy ... 69698.html
....Yet, here we are again - at the crossroads of another human tragedy, this time in Syria. And yet again, Syria is tainted by failures in Iraq, just as Rwanda was shadowed by missteps in Somalia.

The country is different, the context is not exact, but the end results are still the same: the mass destruction of a large group of innocent people. This is why to me, the issue in question is not necessarily whether chemical weapons were used - though this is certainly significant - but what the intentions of Assad’s regime is, what has happened thus far to the innocent, and what is likely to happen in the future....

People made mistakes in Iraq. What evidence is there that they aren't making mistakes here?

I see no plan.

[Dominic]

"Syria war: 'At least 68 children among 126 killed' in bus bombing"

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39613313

This is what some of the people Assad is fighting did, from what I can make out.

What is the plan to deal with them?

[Firefly]

Lloyd

In what manner should Assad be taught that short, sharp lesson ? I would be interested to learn your ideas.

Jackie

[Devil]

Lloyd

In what manner should Assad be taught that short, sharp lesson ? I would be interested to learn your ideas.

Jackie

How about a nuclear bomb that destroys everything from the E. Med coastline 1000 km westwards and 1500 km southwards, but leaves us intact?

[ApusApus]

Tongue in cheek Devil ............... tongue in cheek!


Shane

[Firefly]

LLoyd

Maybe he was, we shall have to wait and see what reaction there will be.

Jackie

[Devil]

Tongue in cheek Devil ............... tongue in cheek!


Shane

Just doing my job as the Devil

[Varky]

Who knows what is going on in Syria and who is responsible for what. The first casualty of war is the truth. Too much finger pointing and not enough action towards a peace settlement. All sides need there heads banging together so they can forget their own hidden agendas. One fact is certain, too many innocent people are being killed needlessly whilst the powers that be fiddle.
Some sort of conference needs to be convened with parties attending, without setting conditions for their attendance
and they should be told that if they do not attend they will not participate in the country's future.
Once again the politicians are letting civilisation down.