I get that we are opposed to the spread of gas attacks, but you're not suggesting that the US Military is reluctant to kill children are you? We just killed 300 people in a hospital in Mosul. In previous hospital bombings we have admitted that the hospital was the target despite known civilian presence because ISIS fighters were thought to be there.

And lots of other like Madeline Albright saying the deaths of 500 000 children in Iraq was worth it.

It's important to remember that if Trump did want to use military action to boost his approval numbers and impact the news cycle, he could have just significantly ramped up strikes on ISIS. He didn't need a conspiracy, he had an option all along.

An alternative could be that the Syrian rebels became desperate after Trump said he could live with Assad in power. They created the event to shift opinion.
But there is no proof that they had access to this kind of weapons.

So basically we have Assad who actually had no reason to do something like that which would hurt him after Trump said he could change how the US wanted to go forward with Syria. But he had access to the weapons.
And you have the Anti-Assad troops who were forced back and needed help desperatly but for all we know they had no access to these kind of weapons.
Or it wasn't Assad who ordered it. Just some local Syrian army commander who had an alternative motive.

My read on WWII is that inaction leads to world wars. We could have accidently killed a few Russians changing nothing. Sanctioning Putin's buddies has greater potential to lead to a broader conflict.

not at all

NYT: The Grim Logic Behind Syria’s Chemical Weapons Attack

tldr: dictator Assad uses brutal force against opposition because they are opposition.

I'm just pretty surprised to see so many people full swallowing official explanations when this has been an issue for what, 3 days?

I'm old enough to remember the justifications for war in Iraq

I think the 'conspiracy theory' bashing is way off base with the condescension given how little info we really have on the other side and given the trustworthiness of those in power

Yeah, I remember Iraq, too. Whether or not Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was an open question. Are you disputing whether or not the gas attack happened at all?

Assad had the same reason dictators always hand. Keep people in line.

No I am not questioning whether the attack happened. My point is that we have been lied to countless times regarding foreign wars and other actions.

Now, we are dealing with the most untrustworthy administration of all time. The previous administration, while more trustworthy, wasn't exactly all peace and love when it came to foreign policy.

I don't see why they shouldn't be questioned, and I think we should take all possible steps to avoid more war.

As long as our strike was a one time thing that doesn't escalate, it barely matters who dropped the chemicals on the kids (unless it was actually done by us). The strike probably made it less likely for anybody to do it again.

This definitely helps with the line of thought that it was an attempt to distract from their treasonous behavior, which for the record, I do think is the most likely explanation.

ISIS is old news. Most people are probably immune to caring about ISIS at this point. I sure as hell am not scared of ISIS, they are no real threat to the United States. Trump's numbers are flailing badly at this point, he definitely needs something more jarring to cause people to rally around the flag.

Thank you.

Thank you for acknowledging #1, we're working on #2 right now, **** just happened last night.

Inaction may lead to war but eventually unilateral actions like this will definitely lead to war.


Thank you.

C'mon, no one is disputing that it happened, why go there? That's a strawman.

Is acknowledging the Syrian regime is by far the most likely candidate to have dropped the bomb, whilst not supporting Trump's airstrikes really such a hard position to stake out?

At one point, the Russians were alleging Assad bombed a rebel sarin stockpile.

WW2 is so so so much less relevant than Iraq. Germany had aspirations to invade Eastern Europe from the very beginning. Invading armies can be stopped. An outside power settling a civil war is completely different and this certainly looks like one we can't settle, at least not through the massive bombardment that you're looking for.

Glen greenwald posted this, was a good watch

Sure but the problem is it's not the administration that's telling us that Sarin gas was used. It's various entities in Syria who report it, then the administration hears it. This isn't the 50's were all information comes through the government and we're not relying on anonymous CIA reports or anything like that. Whether we should go to war is a different story.

That's still their assertion, I believe.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39529264

(Not saying I believe it is true - I still think it is too early to tell the truth.)

A Guardian reporter went to the site of the bombing and didn't find any evidence of any kind of chemical factory. You could say maybe they cleaned it up, but it'd be really hard to clean up and move all that contaminated equipment without a lot of fanfare. It's much more likely that the bombs themselves were chemical bombs.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...hemical-attack

This isn't the first time the Syrian army has used gas.

I guess it's not an impeachable offense when Republicans do it.


https://twitter.com/allegrakirkland/...08870493257728

Among the conspiracy theories, the most likely, given the present Russian probe, is that Russia orchestrated this thing and is now feigning anger. Mr Bayes need to be invoked when there is such a perfectly timed event that gives our president such an obvious opportunity to appear to go against Russia without actually hurting them in the slightest

The idea I saw floating around Reddit was this strike was to initiate a fake stand off between the US and Russia, have a quick little proxy war blowing up parts of Syria, then the two sides will come to terms on a peace deal where Russia's sanctions get lifted and Trump can walk away with a victory as a master peace negotiator.

The Gulf of Tonkin did not involve the US committing a war crime against ****ing civilians.

You can't even do conspirtarding right, you're supposed to namecheck Operation Northwoods here

"It didn't happen, it was crisis actors and disinfo" is like a million times more plausible than "The CIA planted people in the Syrian Air Force to launch chemical strikes on rebels against Assad's wishes, and then somehow blackmail Assad into not revealing that"

This.

I mean, it's pretty ****ing simple.

Welp


https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/850425431899680768