what happened to the großrossiya thread

[Proteus_MST]

The gassing in 2013 occurred just as an international team of human rights investigators landed in Syria. This gassing occurred the day after the US Secretary of State offered the suggestion that we accept Assad as a political necessity.

It is btw. interesting that many of the republicans who opposedd Obamas plan to attack Syria after the gassing in 2013
now applaud Trump for doing the very thing that they opposed under Obama

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/07/politics/kfile-top-republicans-syria-trump/index.html

Many of the normal Trump supporters/voters seem to be less amused that Trump so easily forgets his campaign promises to keep out of the syrian war

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/07/politics/donald-trump-syria-populist-support/index.html

[Geronimo]

I hate how no matter who we assign responsibility to for this chemical attack the assumptions required to assign the blame seem suspect.

scenario 1: Blame Assad - AFAIK this is certainly the default assumption in largest number of mainstream private and public news outlets in countries with overtly anti-Assad governments and/or public sentiments.

scenario 1 problem 1. Use of chemical weapons obviously brings negative diplomatic fallout. If Assad was willing to risk such fallout wouldn't doing so have made more sense when his situation was more desperate? why now?
scenario 1 problem 1. retort - Assad may have been more willing to disregard diplomatic fallout in light of statements by trump admin last week that it saw Assad as a possible partner vs IS
scenario 1 problem 1. counter-retort - Even so, using chemical weapons would embarrass Russia whose support was far more critical to Assad than any blind eye or even politically tenable support Trump might have offered could ever be. which brings us to 2....

scenario 1 problem 2. Since Russia put it's diplomatic capital on the line for United Nations Security Council Resolution 2118 Assad would know he would be embarrassing Russia by using chemical weapons.
scenario 1 problem 2. retort: Assad may have perceived that Russia had little choice but to support him and may have wish to act independently to assert himself or make some sort of point to the Russians.

scenario 2: Blame the Idlib rebels (who are really the same as IS or Al Qaeda...that is why bombing them is just peachy.) - This seems to be the default Russian and Syrian government explanation, It assumes that the chemical weapons were in the possession of the legitimate military targets of the air raid and that the "chemical attack" was a case of these weapons being released by the .conventional air strikes.

scenario 2 problem 1. Since when do terrorists ever hang onto chemical weapons? IS in particular relishes negative international attention and like any good terrorist they would certainly use chemical weapons the first chance they'd get. Even if we make the ludicrous claim that they were holding them in reserve for desperate times desperate times for them began months ago. IT seems obvious that IS has never had chemical weapons on this scale.

scenario 3: Blame the Idlib rebels: (who are not in fact the same as IS or Al Qaeda) - this doesn't seem to be the default assumption of anybody. Assad and Russia both claim that everybody they attack in Syria are terrorists in league with either IS or Al Qaeda, but included here for completeness.

scenario 3 problem 1: Hard enough for the largest terrorist organization in history - IS - to acquire chemical weapons, so how much harder for a small faction? Even if they intercept them from the Syrian government,- perhaps during the attempted implementation of UNSCR 2118 - they would be motivated to use the immediately if possible or surrender them to their foreign sponsors if not. They would have no incentive to leave them stockpiled with their ammo and other contraband.
scenario 3 problem 1. retort - perhaps lacking the means to deliver captured Syrian government chemical weapons they would hold on to them in hopes of framing a conventional attack as a chemical attack in a desperate attempt to win international sympathy in the event that a large air strike would take out a strategic asset such as a depot they stored the chemical weapons with.
scenario 3 problem 1. counter-retort - not very easy to sell this plan to those who would need to hang out near said chemical weapons one would imagine...

scenario 4: Blame Trump or Trump/Russia - This assumes that Trumps attack on the Syrian airbase would be expected by the Trump administration to end or greatly diminish political pressure to investigate embarrassing trump links to Russia because attacking a Russian ally shows Trump is no friend of Russia.
Scenario 4 problem 1: Trump has done too much publicly to undermine the agencies who would need to carry the plan out for him to trust them with such a devastating secret as his being responsible for a chemical attack on civilians for political reasons. His administration is simply too young and poorly connected with the resources such an operation would require to pull it off, let alone pull it off reasonably assured of no leaks or whistle blowers blowing the ops cover. Russia would certainly have the means at its disposal to pull off such an operation but how could a reduction in US political impetus to explore Trumps ties to them possibly offset the damage to their relationship with Assad (who could in no way be expected to accept such a plan) or to their reputation with respect to UNSCR 2118? I personally dismiss this one completely.

I personally suspect scenario 1 or 3. A forensic investigation should reveal which of these is closest to the truth. Does anybody know if such an investigation is already underway?

[Proteus_MST]

I for my part think scenario 2/3 is closests.
I have to admit that it doesn't make much sense for Asssad to use chemical weapons now, that he is actually has gained military superiority over th rebels, thanks to the russsians.

On the contrary it makes more sense for the rebels to either
a) use deliberately poison gas and blame the Assad (in hopes that the USA will interfere in the war)
or
b) at least have poison gas stored in their bases for desperate measures, which then got released when the bombs hit the storage

[ZEE]

Just peeking into this thrade looking for any new Serb-Poastsâ„¢.

Sad I don't see any.

[Ellestar]

You have to be easily swayed to think Trump is strong because of this bombing ... regardless of what Putin thinks of it. It was an attack with no real impact on even the airfield itself, let alone Assad's regime.

I don't think anyone who ordered an attack could have expected that 59 Tomahawks will be so inefficent. So don't think conspiracy theories make any sense.

And what happened to Tomahawks, anyway? Were they hit by SAMs or by ECM? For example, runway should be hit with something like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-r...netration_bomb
And Tomahawk has a similiar warhead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLU-97...d_Effects_Bomb
What's the point to hit runway with one HE (that's 4 concrete slabs maximum) if you can damage a large portion of it with a smaller submunitions? Yet we see nothing like it.

[Proteus_MST]

My guess would be, some ECM measures
Maybe even some supplied by russia (as answer to the syrian-turkey conflict)

[Kidlicious]

You have to be easily swayed to think Trump is strong because of this bombing ... regardless of what Putin thinks of it. It was an attack with no real impact on even the airfield itself, let alone Assad's regime. Yet that hasn't stopped even much of the mainstream media from congratulating him on being so forceful in response to the chemical weapons attack and standing up to Putin.

You and the rest of the Trumptards are even claiming this somehow put China and NK in their places. Which is silly. NK isn't going to stop missile development because of this, and it's even less meaningful to China.

I don't buy the line that Putin must have disliked it, because there are just as plausible scenarios with dramatically different outcomes in that regard. I gave one of the many that no one had mentioned here. Which is actually true we don't know.

You of course have no idea, yet are perfectly sure your conjecture is the truth.

Of course Putin didn't like it. We attacked his ally you dolt. We even told him to move his **** if he wants to keep it.

[Dr Strangelove]

I've seen two different images purported to be physical evidence of gas bombing. One was a picture of a small shallow crater in a street that as suggested in the captions resembled craters found at the scene of the 2013 gas bombing. The problem with that picture is that the rocket motors found at the time belonged to surface to surface munitions that had a range less than 20 miles but the gassing occurred this time in a town more than 20 miles from Syrian government positions. The other image showed a destroyed room with white powder blasted onto its wall and a series of neat holes penetrating several floors above. Presumably the bomb penetrated several floors before detonating. That's not likely to be a gas bomb, gas/chemical bombs aren't meant for penetration, they have a light casing easily burst by a light low temperature charge. I'd like to know who produced the image and if it was published before or after the Russians announced that they thought they may have accidently bombed a rebel chemical weapons dump.

Why would ISIS, al-Nusara or other rebels hang on to chemical weapons and not use them? What happened in 2013? Did the attack provoke NATO to attack Assad? No, it didn't. All they got was having his CBW weapons removed. Had they used the weapons on government territory it would have been a dead giveaway. This time however The US administration went from embracing Assad, the rebel's enemy, to bombing him. Remember, if this is ISIS or al-Nusara they haven't the slightest hesitation against killing their own people.

[Ellestar]

Best actors of the second plan - terrorist edition
https://translate.yandex.com/transla...ir=&lang=ru-en

No Sarin sympoms either on that photo.

"More specifically, the lack of the 5 primary clinical signs of organophosphate poisoning -- hyper-salivation, hyper-lacrimation, uncontrolled micturation, uncontrolled defecation, violent vomiting -- presents more than a reasonable doubt that sarin was in anyway responsible for these patients' problems."

from here http://logophere.com/Topics2017/17-0...hajulIslam.htm

[Ellestar]

So, videos are fake, and munition photo proves that it wasn't air-dropped (it was flattened from outside from above, and air-dropped munition should blow up from inside) https://www.rt.com/usa/384520-postol...t-sarin-syria/

As usual, all western press ("reliable sources" (c) wikipedia) blamed Assad when even terrorist-supplied evidence proves that it wasn't an air-dropped munition.

[Ellestar]

For comparision, how sarin handlers really look like, even if munitions are all rusty and sarin is long past it's expiration date.

http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-122mm-rocket-destruction-sealing-for-destruction-handling-of-leaking-131250934.html