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Possible Chemical Weapons Use In Syria
Hugh Pickens writes "Mike Hoffman reports that Syria's Assad regime has accused the rebels of launching a chemical weapons attack in Aleppo that killed 25 people — an accusation the rebel fighters have strongly rebuked. A Reuters photographer said victims he had visited in Aleppo hospitals were suffering breathing problems and that people had said they could smell chlorine after the attack. The Russian foreign ministry says it has enough information to confirm the rebels launched a chemical attack while U.S. government leaders say they have not found any evidence of a chemical attack. White House spokesman Jay Carney says the accusations made by Assad could be an attempt to cover up his own potential attacks. 'We've seen reports from the Assad regime alleging that the opposition has been responsible for use. Let me just say that we have no reason to believe these allegations represent anything more than the regime's continued attempts to discredit the legitimate opposition and distract from its own atrocities committed against the Syrian people,' said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. 'We don't have any evidence to substantiate the regime's charge that the opposition even has CW (chemical weapons) capability.' President Obama has said the 'red line' to which the U.S. would send forces to Syria would be the use of chemical weapons. However, it was assumed the Assad regime would be the ones using their chemical weapons stockpile, not the rebels."
Nerds like chemistry. In any case, seems like the end game is near. Whoever used the chemical weapons, the regime will be blamed and swiftly removed. What will follow is the usual chaos, fighting between factions, terrorist attacks, etc. Why do we still think that democracy is better for these countries when dictatorships obviously work better. Or maybe we just want to bring democracy whenever some regime doesn't like us. Places like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are great.
Just because we can't fix all the problems at once, doesn't mean we shouldn't try and help with the ones we can.
I think a good place to start is the problems that exist within our own borders. Once we got those figured out, King O and start working on policing the world.
Unless you want to deploy the US military on US soil to do...something, then it is also worth noting that we can solve more then one problem at a time, and have different types of resources for different tasks.
The US is currently spending 10x the next ten countries on it's military and can intervene to stop the blunt massacre of civilians and rise of a new dictatorship in Syria. If the US defunded most of it's military and put that money into say, trying to address domestic poverty, then that would be laudable too.
We might also recognize that most problems are inter-related and can't be fixed one at a time anyway, and it takes a collective effort on many fronts to make progress on any of them.
Why would you want low oil prices? You want high oil prices, and to own the wells. And, by 'you', I mean the friends of the ruling party who get the contracts for rebuilding Iraq...
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Only 25 people. Chlorine, used for a wide variety of civilian and industry purposes, all legit and reasonable uses.
Guys trusting in allah to let their bullets find their targets are very likely to hit and puncture a lot of stuff that could leak.
That equals ho hum big deal, someone hit a tank of something, or some refrigeration unit, or whatever.
Wake me up when it's several hundred people and there's evidence it was a military deployment of some kind not just hearsay from two sides who are both obviously lying through their teeth about everything and anything.
If the US arms the rebels, they will be supplying equipment to units of the Taliban who will, as sure as day, subsequently use them against the West. It is hard not to be cynical and think this is all about arms dealers staying in business.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."