Slashdot Mirror
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."
...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.
Loading...
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.
Anyone who says "muzzies" is a fucking idiot.
. . .and considering that "Pallywood" setups of faked massacres, or at least showing much larger events than actually happened are well documented in the recent past (google "Green Helmet Guy" or "White Coat Guy". . .), the claims of a chemwar massacre just after an observer team arrives, requires special scrutiny.
Not saying it DIDN'T happen, but there's a record of activists staging sites to make things look far worse than actually happened.
The classic example is a single older Palestinian woman, claiming her house was destroyed by Israeli attacks. At three separate sites. All within the same month. . .