Massive use of chemical weapons in Syria, 1,429 killed including 426 children

[Ed Anger]

To be serious, I'd bet 6quatloos that a small cruise missile strike, followed by John McCain having an erection lasting more than 4 hours.

Deal

Okay. 

[derspiess]

Tamas is just doing the usual Eastern European conspiracy thing, that's all.  What he doesn't understand is that guys like Assad will do anything to win, doesn't care how it's done and is totally insulated to the concept of criticism or international condemnation.

Would the rebels do anything to win? 

[CountDeMoney]

Don't be That Guy.

[Razgovory]

I'd hope for nothing more than a relatively surgical strike.

Dropping thousands of scalpels from 30,000 ft would be kind of cool.

[mongers]

How was he gaining the upper hand? From what I've read it was brutal, bloody stalemate. He wasn't going to be toppled, but he wasn't winning control.

Also there's no evidence it was the rebels. Except for what Russia and Assad are suggesting, which is implausible.

There's an oddity in our attitude here though - see Tim's savagery comment. The regime's so far killed around 100 000 people. HRW and AI have collected reports of systematic rape, torture and murder of children as a way of terrorising families and communities. But if that happens through conventional means, with a low-ish daily fatality rate it's not worth intervening on moral grounds. But suddenly it is? It's strange and I'm not sure it's a good way of thinking about it.

I'm not especially taking issue with what you've said, but I'm quoting as you raise a few interesting issues. 

Yes lots have been killed by the regime, but I think by now all sides are getting expert at fighting a bloody civil war, which in part inevitably involves 'atrocities' against civilians and ethnic cleansing or more accurately causing people to flee for their lives.

A good example being the mass flight of Syrian Kurds over the border into Kurdistan over the last week, the authors of that were the Al-Nursa front and assort AQ affiliates.

Well the chemical weapons is someone's red-line and it feeds into the investment people have put into WMD over the last dozen years. Other than that I guess it's the alleged scale of this 'atrocity' against civilians, that is causing governments to act or is giving them the excuse to act against Assad.

As seem fairly certain the Syrian government has been using chemical weapons on a limited scale against rebel fighters for some months now. 

What I'm not clear about is, whether it's actually 'illegal' to use them in a civil war, given Syrian government isn't a signatory of the chemical weapons convention.  Which might in some part explain the 'West' reluctance to get involved.

Now that a large number of civilians have been killed in an in discriminate way, I think that invokes international humanitarian law and some see it as a game changer.


My prediction is the US/'coalition of the willing' act within the next 7-10days by quite extensively bombing of CBW assets and other government structures, whilst imposing limited no-fly zone along Jordanian and Turkish borders, which whilst designated to help civilians and refugees, will be of most use in giving rebels secure safe havens. 

I think that'll be the extent of US intervention, which will be more than most of you expect.

[Neil]

I'd hope for nothing more than a relatively surgical strike.

Dropping thousands of scalpels from 30,000 ft would be kind of cool.

They'd likely fall handle-down.

[Razgovory]

We could drop a bunch of surgeons instead.  See which way they fall.  Or do you guys write "chirurgeon" instead?

[Syt]

All political parties in Germany have come out to say they wouldn't support military actions in Syria. "The West shouldn't think that the problem of the Middle East can be solved by military force" is the general line. The conservatives have suggested taking in more Syrian Christian refugees.

There's federal elections in a few weeks, and military action is always highly unpopular in Germany, so everyone's playing it safe to not piss off voters.

[CountDeMoney]

All political parties in Germany have come out to say they wouldn't support military actions in Syria.

Imagine that.

There's federal elections in a few weeks, and military action is always highly unpopular in Germany, so everyone's playing it safe to not piss off voters.

And that's different from years without elections how, exactly?

[Syt]

There's federal elections in a few weeks, and military action is always highly unpopular in Germany, so everyone's playing it safe to not piss off voters.

And that's different from years without elections how, exactly?

Otherwise they might send a couple of planes (Kosovo) or a bunch of soldiers doing "reconstruction" and security training (Afghanistan).

[CountDeMoney]

You pussies.  You fucking people never do anything in moderation.  Please see:  20th century, entire goddamned history of

[Razgovory]

All political parties in Germany have come out to say they wouldn't support military actions in Syria.

Imagine that.

There's federal elections in a few weeks, and military action is always highly unpopular in Germany, so everyone's playing it safe to not piss off voters.

And that's different from years without elections how, exactly?

Sometimes I wonder if the Federal Republic would have supported military action in Germany had the balloon gone up in the cold war.

[CountDeMoney]

Sure, it would've given them an excuse to go after the last 3 or 4 Jews left.

[sbr]

I'd hope for nothing more than a relatively surgical strike.

Dropping thousands of scalpels from 30,000 ft would be kind of cool.

Scalpelnado. 

[Tamas]

Yeah this grand outrage of the press, taken over by Tim feels dishonest. Assad has been artyllering his own people for who knows how many months and nobody cared to act. It seemed like the western powers feel they missd the mark an now using this gas excuse to pretend they haven't and are actually intervening at JUST THE RIGHT TIME.