War With Syria: Yea Or Nay?

[Kondor3]

If sarin nerve-gas was, indeed, used in the suburbs of Damascus, on August 21st...

At first glance, it seems far more likely that the Syrian Government used it, rather than the Rebels...

1. you need access to such weaponized chemicals

2. you need handling competency for such materials

3. you need activating competency for such materials

4. you need delivery systems adequate for dispersal

5. you need a motive for such an attack

My own initial thoughts on all that includes...

1. Unless those supporting the Rebels provided sarin gas from some non-Syrian source, it seems highly unlikely that the Rebels could get their hands on the stuff in the first place, and I can't think of a single foreign 'power' foolish enough to trust Rebels with sarin gas.

2. Unless there has been some defection from amongst the Syrian Army's chemical weapons -handling technical staff, it seems highly unlikely that the Rebels would have the expertise to transport and store and prepare such materials.

3. Unless there has been some defection from amongst the Syrian Army's chemical weapons -handling technical staff, it seems highly unlikely that the Rebels would have the expertise to load, prime (activate) and fire-off such materials via rocketry, and actually hit something.

4. I was not aware that any of the various and diverse Rebel factions possessed surface to surface rocket-launchers in sufficient quantity to execute a 'barrage' of special dispersal rockets armed with sarin gas.

5. The Rebels have more to lose by bombarding their own people with sarin gas than they stand to gain through some prospective and uncertain international intervention that benefits the Rebel cause(s).

-----------------

Doesn't mean I'm right about any of that, but that's what first comes to mind, when I see folks squabbling about who fired what...

 

[MisterBeale]

UN rights council says Syria gas attack videos, photos fake: Russia. Russia says the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) has confirmed that the videos and photos purporting to show the victims of a chemical attack near the Syrian capital, Damascus, were fabricated. PressTV - UN rights council says Syria gas attack videos, photos fake: Russia

Another source that you have used many times, "the group Human Rights Watch issued a report that said evidence strongly implies that Syrian government troops' firing of rockets containing a nerve agent into a Damascus suburb on August 21 that the U.S. said killed over 1,400 people...The report does not rely on ambiguous intercepted phone calls. It cites no shadowy intelligence gathering. Instead, HRW's experts take a close look at witness statements and photographs and video of the victims and -- above all -- the remains of the weapons that appear to have been used. The report includes a map that identifies two attack sites -- the rebel-held suburbs of Zamalka and Moadimiyeh. Each was hit with at least 4 to 8 rockets.

HRW experts have identified, from multiple pictures sent by local activists, two kinds of rockets. One kind -- 170mm or about 7 inches in diameter -- appears to have been used in all strikes on Zamalka. And another kind -- a much-larger 330 mm (about 15 inches around) -- in all the strikes on Moadimiyeh. This would suggest that two separate military units were involved, each firing a barrage of rockets."

Rights group's report offers compelling evidence of Syria chemical attack - CBS News

Human Rights Watch is not a Reliable source of information. They are tied in with the CFR and the Royal Institute of International Affairs. These two organizations have an agenda that would have this nation at war with Russia, China and the rest of the world over a lie. It's not just about the information, it's about WHO tells you the information.

The human rights mafia
One of George Soros's earliest experiments in "human rights" is a group known as Charter 77 (C77), which works closely with the Helsinki Citizens Assembly (HCA)...


C77 is part of the interconnected web of the "human rights" mafia, which in turn overlaps the drug legalization lobby, as exemplified in the case of Human Rights Watch, for which Soros is a prominent financier.


Human Rights Watch (HRW), and its close ally, the British Foreign Office's Amnesty International, have established themselves as a tightly coordinated international hit squad against nations which oppose free trade and globalization; they package their attacks as campaigns against "human rights" violations.

Human Rights Watch World Report 1995 launched a violent attack on those individuals and governments who share "a vision that equate economic self-interest with the common good," and it labels that outlook a "mercantilist threat" to its concept of "human rights."


The secret financial network behind George Soros by William Engdahl
The reality behind George Soros is something other than his carefully cultivated media image.... George Soros is merely the visible face of a vast and very nasty network of private financial interests, controlled by the leading aristocratic and royal families of Europe. ...

Rather than use the direct powers of state to achieve crucial geopolitical goals, a secret cross-linked vast holding of private financial interests, tied to the old aristocratic oligarchy of Western Europe, was developed. It was in many ways modeled on the 17th-century British or Dutch East India Company models.

According to knowledgeable sources, the center of this Club of the Isles is the financial center of the old British Empire, the City of London. George Soros is a member of what were called in medieval days Hofjuden, or "Court Jews," who were and are run by this powerful, secretive network of aristocratic old families.

... Soros speculates in world financial markets through his secret offshore company, Quantum Fund N.V., a wholly private investment fond called a "hedge fund." ( Hedge funds have been identified by international police agencies as the fastest-growing outlet for illegal money laundering today.)

... Soros's Quantum Fund is registered in Curacao, Netherlands Antilles, the Caribbean tax haven - so he avoids paying taxes, and also hides the nature of his investors, and what he does with their money.

By moving his legal headquarters to Curacao, Soros was able to avoid the kind of U.S. government supervision of his financial activities, that any U.S.- based investment fund must agree to, in order to operate.

The Netherland Antilles, a possession of the Kingdom of Holland, has repeatedly been cited by the International Task Force on Money Laundering of the OECD as one of the world's most important centers for laundering the illegal proceeds of the Latin American cocaine and other drug traffic.

Soros has also taken care that none of the 99 individual investors who form his various funds, is an American national. By U.S. securities law, a hedge fund is limited to no more than 99 investors of highly wealthy individuals, so-called "sophisticated investors."

By structuring his investment company as an offshore hedge fund, Soros avoids public scrutiny. Soros himself is not even on the board of Quantum Fund. Instead, for legal reasons, he serves as official "Investment Advisor" to Quantum Fund N.V. through his company, Soros Fund Management, of 888 Seventh Avenue, New York City.

If any demand be made of Soros to reveal the details of Quantum Fund, he can claim he is "merely its investment adviser."

... According to knowledgeable U.S. and European investigators, Soros is part of a circle which includes Marc Rich of Zug, Switzerland and Tel Aviv, the indicted metals and commodity speculator and fugitive; Shaul Eisenberg, the secretive Israeli arms and commodities dealer; and "Dirty Rafi" Eytan - both linked to the financial side of the Israeli Mossad, and to the family of Jacob Lord Rothschild.

Understandably, Soros and the Rothschild interests prefer to keep their connection hidden far from public view, so as to obscure the powerful friends Soros can claim in the City of London, the British Foreign Office, Israel, and the U.S. financial establishment.

The myth has therefore been created that Soros is a lone financial investment "genius" who, through sheer personal brilliance in detecting shifts in markets, has become one of the world' s most successful speculators. According to those who know him and have done business with him, Soros never makes a major investment move, whether against the pound or the franc or gold, without sensitive, high-level insider information. On the board of directors of Soros's Quantum Fund N.V. is Richard Katz.

Katz is a Rothschild man who is also on the board of the London N.M. Rothschild & Sons merchant bank, and the head of Rothschild Italia S.p.A. of Milan. Another Rothschild family link to Soros's Quantum Fund is Quantum board member Nils O. Taube. Taube is the partner of the London investment group, St. James Place Capital, whose major partner is Lord Rothschild.

The London Times columnist, William Lord Rees-Mogg, is also on the board of Rothschild's St. James Place Capital.

Another member of the board of Soros's Quantum Fund is the head of one of the most controversial Swiss private banks, Edgar de Picciotto, who has been called "one of the cleverest bankers in Geneva,"...

De Picciotto is a long-time friend and business associate of Edmund Safra, another Lebanese-born banker who controls the Republic Bank of New York.

Safra's Republic Bank today has been identified in U.S. investigations into Russian organized crime, as the bank involved in transferring billions of U.S. Federal Reserve notes from New York to organized crime-controlled Moscow banks, on behalf of Russian organized crime.

As well, Safra is under investigation by U.S. and Swiss authorities for laundering Turkish and Colombian drug money.

...George Soros's relation to the secretive international Rothschild finance circle represents no ordinary or casual banking connection. It goes a long way toward explaining the extraordinary success of a mere private speculator, and Soros's uncanny ability to "gamble right" so many times in such high-risk markets.

Soros has access to the "insider track" in some of the most important government and private channels in the world.

Since the Second World War, the legendary Rothschild finance family, at the heart of the financial apparatus of the Club of the Isles, has gone to great lengths to mislead, to create for itself a public aura of insignificance, behind which stands one of the world's most powerful and murkiest financial combinations. The family has spent significant sums cultivating a public image as a family of wealthy but quiet "gentlemen," ...

Among other things, they have wished to become known, since 1948, as being devoted to the cause of the new state of Israel, playing on the world's outrage over the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews during World War II. Indeed, since British Foreign secretary Arthur Balfour wrote his famous November 1917 letter to Lord Rothschild expressing official British government backing for establishment in Palestine of a national homeland for the Jews, the Rothschilds have been intimately involved in the creation of Israel.

It is no surprise, therefore, to find that today Soros and Rothschild have ties to Israeli intelligence, as well as to British and American.

But behind their public facade as a family donating money for useful projects such as planting trees in the deserts of Israel, N.M. Rothschild of London is at the center of various intelligence operations ...

N.M. Rothschild is considered by City of London insiders to be one of the most influential components of that part of the British Intelligence establishment tied to the Thatcher "free market" wing of the Tory Party. Rothschild & Sons made huge sums managing for Thatcher the privatization of billions of dollars of British state industry holdings during the 1980s, and today, for John Major's government.

As well, Rothschilds is at the very heart of the world gold trade, being the bank at which, twice daily, the London Gold Fix is struck by a group of the five most influential gold trade banks. Gold forms a major part of the economy of drug dealings globally.

But N.M. Rothschild & Sons is also implicated in some of the filthiest drugs-for-weapons secret intelligence operations. Because it is well-connected to the highest levels of the British Intelligence establishment, Rothschilds managed to evade prominent mention of its complicity in one of the more sordid covert intelligence networks, that of BCCI (Bank of Commerce and Credit International).

Rothschilds was at the heart of the vast international web of money-laundering banks used during the 1970s and 1980s, by Britain's MI-6 and the network of Lt. Col. Oliver North and Vice President George Bush, to finance such projects as the Nicaraguan Contras.

On June 8, 1993, the chairman of the Banking Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, Henry Gonzalez of Texas, made an extraordinary speech in which he charged that the U.S. government, under the Bush and Reagan administrations, had systematically refused to prosecute BCCI, and that the Department of Justice had repeatedly refused to cooperate with Congressional investigations into the BCCI scandal, as well as what Gonzalez said was the intimately related scandal of the Atlanta, Ga. branch of Banca Nationale del Lavoro (BNL), which was alleged to have made billions of dollars in loans from the Bush administration to Saddam Hussein, just prior to the Gulf War of 1 990-91. ...

But, what has never been identified in a single major Western press investigation, was that the Rothschild group tied to George Soros was at the heart of the vast illegal web of BCCI.

... According to these reports, among Soros's silent investors are - as mentioned above - the reclusive fugitive metals and oil trader. Marc Rich, based in Zug, Switzerland, and Israeli arms merchant Shaul Eisenberg, who has been identified as a decades-long member of lsraeli Mossad intelligence, and who functions as a major arms merchant throughout Asia and the Near East.

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_rothschild06.htm

 

[Hossfly]

"Watching the propaganda effort underway in the West, especially the United States, it is Deja vu all over again.

"Following the Bush blueprint of repeating the mantra of Saddam, WMDs and 9-11 to justify going to war against Iraq, the Obama playbook is using the specter of dead children, WMDS in the hands of terrorists and Iran run amuck to try to scare the American public into doing the same stupid thing.

The Saudis and the Netanyahu crowd are pushing this desperate line and the Obama Administration is going along with the charade.

"Obama repeats this nonsense without pausing to acknowledge the absurd inconsistencies in his position. Take the WMD issue. At present, Syria’s military retains tight control over the stockpiles of Chemical weapons.

"The rebels fighting the Syria Government have been kept at bay, so far. And Obama’s solution? Degrade the Syrian military, which means a higher likelihood that those chemical weapons depots would fall into the hands of the Syria Islamic jihadists eager to oust Bashir Assad and create their own version Sharia rule.

"Yeah, that’s a great plan."

Are You Ready to Go to War for Bibi Netanyahu and the Saudis? : NO QUARTER USA NET

So tell us, Georgie Boy, how many times are you going to post the same article on these forums like you found gold. Instead of vomiting out the same stuff, start writing Letters to the Editors of all the local newspapers in the Los Angeles County and the surrounding counties giving your opinion and millions of people will be able to read you. Or is that effort too difficult for you and it is much easier and lazier for you to just post the same old stuff you find over and over?

"Strange bedfellows indeed. Bibi Netanyahu, with the full throated backing of the American Israeli Political Action Committee, and the Saudis have mounted an impressive, coordinated effort to push the United States into moving against Syria as a means of weakening Iran. Important to note, key Israeli intelligence and military leaders are against this."

What do you suppose Bibi and Bandar Bu$h have in common, Hossie?

Are You Ready to Go to War for Bibi Netanyahu and the Saudis? : NO QUARTER USA NET

Probably their commonality is not having to squat to pee.

 

[High_Gravity]

if the rebels have WMD why aren't they burning Damascus to the ground and using Assad as a pinata by now?

 

[MisterBeale]

if the rebels have WMD why aren't they burning Damascus to the ground and using Assad as a pinata by now?

Because they have a limited supply. They are being supplied only the amount needed to make it appear that the Syrian regime is the culprit so that the US and NATO can intervene.

How come all these chemical attacks never seem to injure the FSA? They always manage to only kill civilians? Because the Syrian army are like the Keystone cops, good at repelling the rebels with conventional weapons but terrible with so called chemical weapons?

 

[Foxfyre]

if the rebels have WMD why aren't they burning Damascus to the ground and using Assad as a pinata by now?

But then again, given Assad has a fairly well equipped Army and Air Force, what did he have to gain by using Sarin gas on people and thereby bring down the wrath of the international community upon himself? I just dont see him as being that dumb.

So I have to ask who had the most to gain by using Sarin gas? Assad? Or the rebels who could convince the international community that it was Assad?

How would the rebels get it? Who knows? The U.K. apparently furnished Syria with the raw materials and know how. Do we know who has that information? There is still considerable suspicion that Saddam Hussein sent his chemical stuff to Syria before the impending invasion in 2003 but no absolute proof of that. We are dealing with Islamic fundamentalists and it is feasible that some would infiltrate the Syrian government and might have been able to steal something. I mean, can you tell by looking which side somebody belongs to over there?

Given the lack of conclusive proof of who used what on who, it is understandable that the American people, with a growing majority, have little stomach for getting us embroiled in that conflict. Most especially when the President has made it clear that we just plan to blow something up and then declare victory when everybody knows that will change nothing and could escalate into something worse.

No easy answers on this one.

 

[Hossfly]

if the rebels have WMD why aren't they burning Damascus to the ground and using Assad as a pinata by now?

Because they have a limited supply. They are being supplied only the amount needed to make it appear that the Syrian regime is the culprit so that the US and NATO can intervene.

How come all these chemical attacks never seem to injure the FSA? They always manage to only kill civilians? Because the Syrian army are like the Keystone cops, good at repelling the rebels with conventional weapons but terrible with so called chemical weapons?

Good point! This could be tied in with the 9/11 conspiracy theories.

 

[Kondor3]

if the rebels have WMD why aren't they burning Damascus to the ground and using Assad as a pinata by now?

Because they have a limited supply. They are being supplied only the amount needed to make it appear that the Syrian regime is the culprit so that the US and NATO can intervene.

How come all these chemical attacks never seem to injure the FSA? They always manage to only kill civilians? Because the Syrian army are like the Keystone cops, good at repelling the rebels with conventional weapons but terrible with so called chemical weapons?

Too much of a stretch, I fear...

Who is supplying them?

What is the conduit through which they are passing?

Where are they getting the technical expertise to handle and target and fire those munitions?

Is there any substantive evidence to support such speculation?

 

[MisterBeale]

Chemical attack was Syria rebel provocation, former hostages say
http://rt.com/news/chemical-weapons-rebels-captives-632/
Published time: September 10, 2013 03:24
Edited time: September 11, 2013 09:36
Although it's a circumstantial article, it's still nearly as interesting as the Dale Gavlak and Yahya Ababneh piece. Certainly a lot more reliable than such foolishness as "Human Rights Watch" & "Doctors Without Borders" nonsense.

In a number of interviews to European news outlets, the former hostages - Belgian teacher Pierre Piccinin and Italian journalist Domenico Quiric - said they overheard an English-language Skype conversation between their captors and other men which suggested it was rebel forces, not the government, that used chemical weapons on Syria’s civilian population in an August 21 attack near Damascus.

“It is a moral duty to say this. The government of Bashar al-Assad did not use sarin gas or other types of gas in the outskirts of Damascus,” Piccinin said during an interview with Belgium's RTL radio station.

Piccinin stressed that while being held captive, he and fellow prisoner Quirico were secluded from the outside world and had no idea that chemical weapons were deployed. But the conversation which both men overheard suggested that the use of the weapons was a strategic move by the opposition, aimed at getting the West to intervene.

"In this conversation, they said that the gas attack on two neighborhoods of Damascus was launched by the rebels as a provocation to lead the West to intervene militarily,” Quirico told Italy’s La Stampa. "We were unaware of everything that was going on during our detention in Syria, and therefore also with the gas attack in Damascus."

While stating that the rebels most likely exaggerated the accident’s death toll, the Italian journalist stressed that he could not vouch whether “the conversation was based on real facts." However, he said that one of the three people in the alleged conversation identified himself as a Free Syrian Army general, La Stampa reported.

Based on what both men have learned, Peccinin told RTL that it would be “insane and suicidal for the West to support these people.”

“It pains me to say it because I've been a fierce supporter of the Free Syrian Army in its rightful fight for democracy since 2012," Piccinin added.

Syria: Assad not Responsible for Ghouta Gas Attack, Says Freed Hostage Pierre Piccinin
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/504735/20130909/syria-chemical-attack-assad-rebels-blame-hostage.htm

A Belgian writer held hostage for five months in Syria has said that his own rebel captors denied that President Bashar al-Assad was responsible for the Ghouta massacre.

Pierre Piccinin said that he and fellow hostage Domenico Quirico, an Italian war reporter, heard their jailers talking about the chemical weapon attack and saying that Assad was not to blame.

Quirico confirmed to La Stampa newspaper that they had eavesdropped such a conversation through a closed door but added that he had no evidence to substantiate what he heard.

Piccinin said the captives became desperate when they heard that the US was planning to launch a punitive attack against the regime over the gas attack in the Damascus suburb.

"It wasn't the government of Bashar al-Assad that used sarin gas or any other gas in Ghouta," Piccinin told Belgian RTL radio after he was released.

"We are sure about this because we overheard a conversation between rebels. It pains me to say it because I've been a fierce supporter of the Free Syrian Army in its rightful fight for democracy since 2012," Piccinin added.

 

[High_Gravity]

if the rebels have WMD why aren't they burning Damascus to the ground and using Assad as a pinata by now?

But then again, given Assad has a fairly well equipped Army and Air Force, what did he have to gain by using Sarin gas on people and thereby bring down the wrath of the international community upon himself? I just dont see him as being that dumb.

So I have to ask who had the most to gain by using Sarin gas? Assad? Or the rebels who could convince the international community that it was Assad?

How would the rebels get it? Who knows? The U.K. apparently furnished Syria with the raw materials and know how. Do we know who has that information? There is still considerable suspicion that Saddam Hussein sent his chemical stuff to Syria before the impending invasion in 2003 but no absolute proof of that. We are dealing with Islamic fundamentalists and it is feasible that some would infiltrate the Syrian government and might have been able to steal something. I mean, can you tell by looking which side somebody belongs to over there?

Given the lack of conclusive proof of who used what on who, it is understandable that the American people, with a growing majority, have little stomach for getting us embroiled in that conflict. Most especially when the President has made it clear that we just plan to blow something up and then declare victory when everybody knows that will change nothing and could escalate into something worse.

No easy answers on this one.

Its hard to say, chemical weapons are way better at clearing an area than regular bombs, mortars, bunker busters etc etc Saddam used them against the Kurds in the 80s when he also had a superior force, and there are reports of the Russians using them against Chechnya which has no standing Army to speak of.

 

[Foxfyre]

if the rebels have WMD why aren't they burning Damascus to the ground and using Assad as a pinata by now?

But then again, given Assad has a fairly well equipped Army and Air Force, what did he have to gain by using Sarin gas on people and thereby bring down the wrath of the international community upon himself? I just dont see him as being that dumb.

So I have to ask who had the most to gain by using Sarin gas? Assad? Or the rebels who could convince the international community that it was Assad?

How would the rebels get it? Who knows? The U.K. apparently furnished Syria with the raw materials and know how. Do we know who has that information? There is still considerable suspicion that Saddam Hussein sent his chemical stuff to Syria before the impending invasion in 2003 but no absolute proof of that. We are dealing with Islamic fundamentalists and it is feasible that some would infiltrate the Syrian government and might have been able to steal something. I mean, can you tell by looking which side somebody belongs to over there?

Given the lack of conclusive proof of who used what on who, it is understandable that the American people, with a growing majority, have little stomach for getting us embroiled in that conflict. Most especially when the President has made it clear that we just plan to blow something up and then declare victory when everybody knows that will change nothing and could escalate into something worse.

No easy answers on this one.

Its hard to say, chemical weapons are way better at clearing an area than regular bombs, mortars, bunker busters etc etc Saddam used them against the Kurds in the 80s when he also had a superior force, and there are reports of the Russians using them against Chechnya which has no standing Army to speak of.

Agreed. But because we don't know with any high confidence WHO used the stuff, if there was no other good reason, that is sufficient reason for me to not want us firing cruise missiles into Syria and escalating things. Both sides are no doubt guilty of things we consider atrocities. But I have this weird concept that no matter what else somebody might be guilty of, they still should be hung for a crime they actually committed.

 

[High_Gravity]

If I were a rebel leader and had chemicals I would have Assad in a box by now and Damascus a toxic wasteland, just saying.

 

[Kondor3]

"...Chemical attack was Syria rebel provocation, former hostages say..."

A couple of frightened former captives overheard a Skype conversation, that that is considered prima facie evidence of Rebel use of sarin gas rather than the government?

And from "RT", no less; a Russian news source, under circumstances wherein the Russians have been fighting a losing battle to attempt to portray their Syrian Regime client as the wronged innocent, as a tactic for deflecting attack?

I have two words for that...

Puh-leeze !

Now... if you had told us (a) the captives had and served-up a copy of the Skype conversation, and (b) the conversation involved authoritative sources, and (c) it was reported by a more neutral source, then, maybe the case would have been stronger.

At this juncture, though... not-so-much.

 

[MisterBeale]

if the rebels have WMD why aren't they burning Damascus to the ground and using Assad as a pinata by now?

Because they have a limited supply. They are being supplied only the amount needed to make it appear that the Syrian regime is the culprit so that the US and NATO can intervene.

How come all these chemical attacks never seem to injure the FSA? They always manage to only kill civilians? Because the Syrian army are like the Keystone cops, good at repelling the rebels with conventional weapons but terrible with so called chemical weapons?

Too much of a stretch, I fear...

Who is supplying them?

What is the conduit through which they are passing?

Where are they getting the technical expertise to handle and target and fire those munitions?

Is there any substantive evidence to support such speculation?

Too much of a stretch to believe that Assad would use them when he is already winning, knowing that would give NATO and the US an excuse to intervene? Yeah, I agree, that is WAY out there. I don't believe that either.

Who is supplying the Chemical weapons?

Well now, if you were really interested, I suppose you would read all the posts that were on these forums, I have posted it, and so have other members already. It's pretty common knowledge. It's suspected that both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have supplied them to the rebels via Georgia, Turkey or Jordan. They have not given them adequate training, and as such, many of the rebels have themselves fallen victim to their own inept handling of the weapons. Why do you think the Russians KNOW it was a false flag? Why do you think they aren't on board with the US pounding Assad for doing such an allegedly criminal act? Because since the very beginning this was a nasty business that has been carried on by the covert intelligence agencies by Israel, Britain, and the U.S.

The conduit through which they are passing?

Already answered. However, Syria is beset on all sides by ways in which the US and it's allies could supply the FSA and terrorist networks with chemical weapons. Northern Iraq is controlled by US allies the PKK, Turkey, Jordan. Really, is that honestly a question?

Where are they getting the technical expertise to handle and target and fire those munitions?

Again, if you had bothered to read the Dale Gavlak and Yahya Ababneh piece which was the first, and to date, the only real journalist breaking story on this event, with journalists ON THE GROUND, actually interviewing and covering the story, you would see, THEY DID NOT HAVE ANY "expertise" it was a learn as you go type of operation. They got just the minimal training, field manuals, that type of stuff.

Is there any substantive evidence to support such speculation?

Nope. Is there any in the paradigm we are presented from the idiot box or through MSM. Nope.

So what is the difference?

One paradigm seeks our belief which will lead our country to WAR. The other, leads us to logically conclude the leader of the other nation would not provoke the most militarily powerful nation on earth to destroy him.

Which makes more sense to you?

 

[MisterBeale]

If I were a rebel leader and had chemicals I would have Assad in a box by now and Damascus a toxic wasteland, just saying.

The puppet masters that are funding you wouldn't give you enough chemical weapons to clean your bathroom.

 

[Foxfyre]

If I were a rebel leader and had chemicals I would have Assad in a box by now and Damascus a toxic wasteland, just saying.

Would you? And thereby tip your hand that it was you who used banned substances and destroy any chance to gain the sympathy and support of the international community? To bring wrath down upon yourself? If Assad is no fool, then probably neither are the rebel leaders.

No, I think if it was indeed the rebels who used such weapons, they would do it in a way--against their own--so as to frame Assad and generate sympathy and support for themselves.

 

[Kondor3]

"...Which makes more sense to you?"

Of the two choices that you serve-up, your choice, of course.

Trouble is, those are not the only two choices.

But you already knew that, in advance of asking the question, most likely.

 

[High_Gravity]

If I were a rebel leader and had chemicals I would have Assad in a box by now and Damascus a toxic wasteland, just saying.

The puppet masters that are funding you wouldn't give you enough chemical weapons to clean your bathroom.

How the fuck would you know?

 

[High_Gravity]

If I were a rebel leader and had chemicals I would have Assad in a box by now and Damascus a toxic wasteland, just saying.

Would you? And thereby tip your hand that it was you who used banned substances and destroy any chance to gain the sympathy and support of the international community? To bring wrath down upon yourself? If Assad is no fool, then probably neither are the rebel leaders.

No, I think if it was indeed the rebels who used such weapons, they would do it in a way--against their own--so as to frame Assad and generate sympathy and support for themselves.

That is a possibility but launching chemical weapons is not easy, if the rebels have these capabilities thats not a good sign for Assad either way.

 

[Foxfyre]

If I were a rebel leader and had chemicals I would have Assad in a box by now and Damascus a toxic wasteland, just saying.

Would you? And thereby tip your hand that it was you who used banned substances and destroy any chance to gain the sympathy and support of the international community? To bring wrath down upon yourself? If Assad is no fool, then probably neither are the rebel leaders.

No, I think if it was indeed the rebels who used such weapons, they would do it in a way--against their own--so as to frame Assad and generate sympathy and support for themselves.

That is a possibility but launching chemical weapons is not easy, if the rebels have these capabilities thats not a good sign for Assad either way.

They didn't have to have much capability. Just maybe one canister smuggled out of a stockpile. All they had to do was use it once or twice in a limited manner and point to Assad as the culprit. And voila!!! The international community sides with the rebels and gives them all manner of support while condemning Assad.

If one is crafty enough, he may not even have to win a single battle in order to win a war.