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Syrian Rebels Claim Hundreds Killed By Poison-Gas Attack
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Haroon Siddique reports for The Guardian that opposition activists have accused forces loyal to the Assad regime of using chemical weapons in towns in the eastern Ghouta. Accounts of the death toll vary wildly. The British based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights put the number killed at 'dozens.' Others put the figure much higher. The Local Coordination Committees said 'hundreds' were killed, the majority of them civilians. Graphic videos purporting to show the victims of the attack have been posted online (WARNING: graphic) showing chaotic scenes of people, including children, having seizures, being treated, and dead bodies lined up. 'Symptoms of the patients include nausea, hallucinations, suffocation, hard coughing, high blood pressure, seizures etc,' says the Syrian Revolution General Commission (SRGC). 'There is still no clue of the chemical weapon/toxic gas that was used by the regime's forces to target the innocent civilians.' Ake Sellstrom, the Swedish scientist who heads the U.N. inspection team in Syria, told the Swedish media that he had seen only the television images of the alleged attacks. 'But the high number of wounded and dead they are speaking about sounds suspicious,' Sellström told Swedish news agency TT, via telephone from Damascus. 'It sounds like something one should take a look at.'. The official Syrian news agency called the reports 'untrue' and designed to derail a United Nations inquiry into charges of chemical weapons in the conflict."
The timing and location of the reported chemical weapons use - just three days after the team of U.N. chemical experts checked in to a Damascus hotel a few km (miles) to the east at the start of their mission - was surprising.
"It would be very peculiar if it was the government to do this at the exact moment the international inspectors come into the country," said Rolf Ekeus, a retired Swedish diplomat who headed a team of UN weapons inspectors in Iraq in the 1990s.
"At the least, it wouldn't be very clever."
The side that's winning decides to piss off everyone by using poison gas on civilians/rebels. I guess now all the bleeding hearts will be chanting for Chairman Obama to "liberate" and "freedomize" the nation of Syria from their secular ruler so we can gain a level headed theocracy in it's place.
...video linked supplied, there's no chaos, and despite the insinuation of more than one person, including children, having seizures - I saw one guy whose legs were trembling. I've seen shock victims trembling worse.
I'm not saying this didn't happen, I am just saying that the video basically shows nothing (and maybe there's something wrong with me, but I didn't think it was 'graphic' in the slightest.)
Maybe they linked the wrong video.
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US meddling in mid-east affairs is a guaranteed disaster for the US.
Help one tribe, and the opposing tribe will hate you forever. Then the tribe you help will soon hate you also. Bottom line: Muslims must hate infidels, it is a key part of their religion.
No matter who the US helps, the US involvement will be called an "invasion." The US will be accused of using the US military to steal mid-east oil. It happens every time.
Sadam, Osama, and the Muslim Brotherhood, were all the good guys, and our buddies, at one point. Now, even Kuwait hates us.
There is no way to win in a mid-east conflict. The only winning move is not to play.
Other than buying oil, the US has no business in the mid-east. Let the crazies kill each other, if that is what they want to do. It is part of their culture, I guess.
But why is this on Slashdot? This isn't a discussion on the engineering of the gas or the dispursement methods used, just a news article.
I remember when Iraqi soldiers were throwing babies out ot incubators in Kuwait, and there were mass graves of hundreds of thousands of people in Kosovo.
Track record is key at this juncture. The rebels can say anything atrocious they want about Assad's supporters/regime and it will seem plausible. I have no significant evidence one way or the other, but at this point, the rebels' claims seem more credible than the denials.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Chemistry is no longer geeky?
If you'd looked at goatse.cx as much as he had, nothing would seem graphic to you either :)
Weapons of Mass Destruction.
The Department of Public Safety deployed crowd control measures vs. The regime is brutally murdering its own people with chemical weapons. ..all the same nowadays.
In 2012 Obama pretty much said thet the US would not intervene in Syria unless they used chemical weapons. Colour me surprised with the numerous allegations of chemical warfare since then. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-issues-syria-red-line-warning-on-chemical-weapons/2012/08/20/ba5d26ec-eaf7-11e1-b811-09036bcb182b_story.html
Anonymous Coward?
Hey Putin, is that really you?
Have gnu, will travel.
After seeing the way the rebels run around cutting everyone's heads off and all that jazz I don't really blame the Assad regime for using chemical weapons. IF THIS WERE TRUE that is.
Chemical weapons are indiscriminate. Did the children in the video deserve to be gassed for the actions of rebels?
Answering this question is a basic litmus test of humanity.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Many of the "rules of war" are intended to create lots of wounded, creating lots of costs for the enemy.
I just find it funny/sad that the question about this topic seems to be "which group of psychopaths should ultimately wind up with the deadly weapons in this particular geographic area?"
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Angel of Death Dust?
of Al-Qaeda terrorists who have been videotaped eating the heart and liver of the enemy and who executed dozens of government prisoners after a battle? Who are the sworn enemy of the United States and the West? Who would kill every Christian and Shia Muslim if they got the chance?
But of course, this is the Western media, who will glorify this filth and pretend that Assad is the greatest evil, when he's the one fighting to save Syria from becoming Somalia/Afghanistan.
Possibly off-topic, but thank you to the editor for including the warning about graphic images. I for one don't want to see that kind of thing, and thanks to you, I didn't.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Well, for starters we can judge his thinking as "wrong".
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Bullets are relatively expensive for the damage they do. One bullet might cost $1 and kill one person. Bombs aren't cost effective at all unless you're counting the damage to structures as a plus, but often it is not.
Chemical weapons, on the other hand, are relatively cheap for their killing capability, and do not harm important infrastructure. $1 worth of Sarin gas will kill thousands. Chemical weapons make war too easy. That's why we're outraged when governments use them.
(Could be worse; they could be using bioweapons. $1 of weaponized smallpox could eradicate a small country all by itself. Can't wait until that's the red line someone crosses...)
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
Israel doesn't have a dog in this fight.
You need to look up a little place called the Golan Heights and its history and tell me again that Israel has no security interests in Syria. They've actually traded shots a few times over this neutral territory since the war began, after Syria sent in a few tanks last November.
That's even without Hezbollah and Iran's involvement with Syria. Remember that both got involved in the Lebanese Civil War on opposite sides, and Israel basically kicked Syria's ass. As neighbors of Israel, Syria is a huge issue and one that has a choice between bad (Assad as a proxy of Iran) and worse (a country run by Sunni militants).
The US should do what even the Israelis are doing, and stay out of it.
You mean like the air and missile strikes they've launched on Syrian government forces aimed at preventing supplies being sent to Hezbollah in Lebanon in January, May, and July of this year?
For the most part Israel isn't taking sides per se, but they aren't staying out of it at all.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
This isn't a discussion on the engineering of the gas or the dispursement methods used, just a news article.
Because nerds aren't all clinical sociopaths more interested in the method of killing than the fact of it.
Plus, being a nerd is all about caring about some important, intellectual topic that the mainstream doesn't see the point in compared to who the latest pop star is sleeping with. Few things are nerdier than international policy, even though most of it is carried about by non-nerds. (Kind of like baseball.)
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
1. Not a single old person. It's either children (poor babies! think of the children!) or young men of combat age. With the occasional young woman thrown in. I guess there are no elderly at all in Syrian "civilian areas"? There are real dead people mixed in with living people, that much I'll grant you. However this chemical agent is "curiously selective" of its victims, and the cause of death is unknown and debatable until someone does an autopsy.
2. No evidence of fasciculations. I see plenty of people having tonic clonic seizures that somehow permit them to still be aware of their environment and look at the camera-man (doesn't happen in a real seizure), or point their index finger in a religious sign to their God. Fasciculations however are involuntary. You can't fake them. They're a sign of lower motor neuron damage/blockade, the sort you'd expect with chemical weapons (especially organophospates and nerve agents like Sarin/Tabun and family). But since they can't be faked you won't see any.
3. The timing, as has been pointed out elsewhere, is highly suspicious.
That's my $0.02 worth. But most people will believe whatever they are fed. I mean there's video, so it has to be real, right? No one has ever faked a massacre before for the cameras, right?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
because you do realize there are other options for the middle east than theocracy and autocracy
like democracy
you think that's funny? then you're part of the problem
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Perhaps you missed the "Stuff that matters" part?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The US tried this false flag a few months ago, and the UN found out it was the US supplying the poison gas to the "rebels".... now that's calmed down and they are trying again.
As for the US staying out of the Middle East, we can't do that, because it would cause the fall of the Petrodollar, and we'd all be at least 50% poorer, overnight, if not worse off. (Hopefully avoiding the fate of the Weimar republic).
Oh come on! How is pointing out accurate, truthful history of chemical weapon use in the Middle East, as believed by all regional parties "flamebait"?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The "tech" of using chemical weapons is very complex and makes for interesting reading as to when/how used and who supplied the materials.
Historical deals, past leaders, regional groups with the same weapons, who is sending cash/arms/support and the resulting vision of faith/trade outsiders have for Syria.
Fighting foreign supported groups with stated an ethnic and faith based vision for a new pure Syria makes the diverse local gov troops very aware of what the result will be if they lose for them and the wider civilian population.
The basic question is WHY if you have near total air cover, usable tanks, APC and a functional army with diverse civilian support would you risk the bad optics of been caught using banned weapons.....is a great tech question.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
How about you counter GP's claim by actually naming the dog? [...] If you can not name the dog, just admit Israel has no dog in the fight.
I don't think you understand what the phrase means. It doesn't mean to have a favored side. It just means that you "have a stake in the outcome of the problem at hand" or if you have no dog in a fight, then "you are not concerned and will not be affected either way by the outcome of something." Here, have a few more citations.
The "dog" doesn't have to be a favored side that they're betting on. Neither side may be appealing to them, but they most certainly care about the progress of the civil war and whether or not it turns into a greater regional conflict that will suck them in.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
1) I do not believe in Christianity, or Judaism either.
2) Even if the bible is evil, it changes nothing about what is in the Qur'an. I was challenged to prove that the Qur'an is filled with hatred, violence, bigotry, and intolerance. I did just that.
It always has been. The Qur'an makes this very clear, over, and over again. When the verses are put in context, it is even more obvious.
All this stuff about Islam being a religion of peace is only to fool gullible non-Muslims (that is also mandated in the Qur'an, it call taqiyya ). Listen to Muslim clerics preaching in Islamic countries. You will no "peace and love" messages for infidels. Quite the opposite.
Or, just look at the history of Islam. Both ancient, and recent.
Islamic nations certainly do that - to this day.
How about death by stoning for adulterers?
How about death for apostasy? Blasphemy? Being the victim of a rape?
How about fatwas against anybody who criticizes their religion?