I think this deserves its own topic separate from the one of the Syrian civil war. What do you guys think? Should the U.S. intervene if Assad gasses the rebels?
I say yes.
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/03/15649556-obama-warns-syrias-assad-not-to-use-chemical-weapons?lite
QuoteBy Catherine Chomiak, NBC News and wire services
President Barack Obama warned Syrian President Bashar Assad Monday that the use of chemical weapons by the regime would be "totally unacceptable."
"The world is watching," Obama said.
"The use of chemical weapons is and would be totally unacceptable and if you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons there will be consequences and you will be held accountable," he added.
U.S. officials told NBC News that the Syrian regime had ordered Syria's military chemical corp to "be prepared." The officials stressed the directive was not an order to use chemical weapons and did not come from Assad directly, but that order and a considerable increase in activity around Syria's chemical weapons sites have raised serious concerns.
Syrian state television reported that the Syrian Foreign Ministry denied the country had any plans to use chemical weapons, no matter the circumstances.
The U.S. officials say the fear is that Syrians are at least preparing to mix the precursor chemicals for sarin nerve gas that could be used in artillery shells – but acknowledged it's not clear that process has begun.
Once the precursors are mixed, the sarin produced has a relatively short shelf life. In artillery shells, the precursors are packed separately inside the shells and "mixed" immediately before or shortly after the shells are fired.
Despite Obama's warning that if Syria uses chemical weapons, "there will be consequences," U.S. military forces have not been put on alert or given warning orders to prepare for any possible military action against Syria. According to a senior U.S. official, there are "plenty of assets in the region which could respond quickly."
Earlier, the State Department said the "use or proliferation of chemical weapons" in Syria is a red line for the United States and would result in the administration's taking "necessary steps or actions."
"We are concerned about any move that might signal that they are somehow ready to use those chemical weapons on their own people," spokesman Mark Toner said Monday, adding that the U.S. is concerned that Assad's increasingly beleaguered regime might seek to up the ante in the 20-month-old uprising.
When asked if the chemical weapon stockpiles are secure, Toner said the U.S. is monitoring them, but "it is hard to say, in Syria today, that any stockpile of weapons is secure."
The U.S. is talking to the rebels fighting against the Assad regime about how they should secure chemical weapons that may come into their possession, a senior State Department official said.
A senior U.S. defense official said Monday that U.S. and allied intelligence have detected Syrian movement of chemical weapons components in recent days.
White House press secretary Jay Carney said "the world is watching" Assad and said he'll be held accountable for his actions. Carney declined to say what U.S. contingency plans involved.
NBC's Jim Miklaszewski, Courtney Kube The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on December 03, 2012, 10:19:37 PM
Should the U.S. intervene if Assad gasses the rebels?
No.
You were against Libya as well IIRC, and that turned out ok.
Libya turning out okay means Syria will if we intervene? :huh:
Why does Obama support terrorists?
No. Factoring in the TimmyTaint that becomes Hell No.
Quote from: derspiess on December 03, 2012, 11:38:14 PM
Quote from: Neil on December 03, 2012, 10:40:29 PM
Why does Obama support terrorists?
Ask Bill Ayers.
The list of men, woman and children killed by Bill Ayers is long indeed.
kill all the civillians you want, just don't use any chemicals.
intervene or don't, don't make ultimatums because when syria gases people and you don't intervene you look like an ass.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on December 03, 2012, 10:23:57 PM
You were against Libya as well IIRC, and that turned out ok.
How exactly is that related to Syria's use of chemical weapons? :hmm:
Quote from: jimmy olsen on December 03, 2012, 10:19:37 PM
I think this deserves its own topic separate from the one of the Syrian civil war. What do you guys think?
I don't think it deserves its own topic--it could have stayed in the Syria thread.
Unfortunately we have little choice if they use chemical weapons. Obama already drew a line in the sand there. If they use chemical weapons after the President's ultimatum then has to follow through. Otherwise it weakens efforts to stop proliferation of other weapons programs ie Iran.
Quote from: Razgovory on December 04, 2012, 02:46:12 AM
Unfortunately we have little choice if they use chemical weapons. Obama already drew a line in the sand there. If they use chemical weapons after the President's ultimatum then has to follow through. Otherwise it weakens efforts to stop proliferation of other weapons programs ie Iran.
He has to follow through with "grave consequences" or somesuch. That can mean anything. Or nothing.
Maybe he will adopt the European Way, ie. write a strongly worded letter, threatening to write an other one unless Assad stops.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on December 03, 2012, 10:19:37 PMShould the U.S. intervene if Assad gasses the rebels?
Yes. Nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction is a principle of US foreign policy. Bang 'em in the chops if they're used.
no intervention. Let Iran bleed, not the US
I don't get the fear over chemical weapons. I mean I get why one should be afraid of chemical weapons, they are pretty nasty, but what I don't get is why they are scarier than conventional weapons. Or a 'weapon of mass destruction'. Bombs are far more effective at killing people. If I have a choice between being blown up or being gassed I like my chances better with the gas thanks.
Besides that they are notoriously difficult to use.
It's because of their nature of warfare. Objective base warfare vs Killing soldiers warfare.
Quote from: Valmy on December 04, 2012, 11:26:34 AM
Besides that they are notoriously difficult to use.
Correct. But if used correctly they can be an effective means of eliminating a rebellious village.
Quote from: derspiess on December 04, 2012, 12:10:31 PM
Quote from: Valmy on December 04, 2012, 11:26:34 AM
Besides that they are notoriously difficult to use.
Correct. But if used correctly they can be an effective means of eliminating a rebellious village.
A bit more than villages are in rebellion this time.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on December 05, 2012, 09:13:36 AM
Quote from: derspiess on December 04, 2012, 12:10:31 PM
Quote from: Valmy on December 04, 2012, 11:26:34 AM
Besides that they are notoriously difficult to use.
Correct. But if used correctly they can be an effective means of eliminating a rebellious village.
A bit more than villages are in rebellion this time.
so they will use a bit more gas. Duh.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on December 05, 2012, 09:13:36 AM
Quote from: derspiess on December 04, 2012, 12:10:31 PM
Quote from: Valmy on December 04, 2012, 11:26:34 AM
Besides that they are notoriously difficult to use.
Correct. But if used correctly they can be an effective means of eliminating a rebellious village.
A bit more than villages are in rebellion this time.
It takes a village-- to start with anyway.
Pres Obama better be ready to intervene or take very strong measures with allies if he's going to make that threat and ultimatum type stances. The US and West is already taking some part though aren't they? Giving some supplies to the Rebels if they show a united front, which I believe has been happening. US/West probably did so because the longer this has gone on the more that radical factions have become involved, so want to blunt that.
Quote from: KRonn on December 05, 2012, 01:13:32 PM
Pres Obama better be ready to intervene or take very strong measures with allies if he's going to make that threat and ultimatum type stances.
It was reported this morning that the
USS Eisenhower group arrived in the Eastern Med and has subsequently joined the
USS Iwo Jima ARG.
He will be ready to intervene.
I bet the 173rd Airborne Brigade in NATO reserve has been told to get its shit in gear.
Syrians are locked and loaded! :o
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/05/15706380-syria-loads-chemical-weapons-into-bombs-military-awaits-assads-order?lite
QuoteSyria loads chemical weapons into bombs; military awaits Assad's order
By Jim Miklaszewski and M. Alex Johnson, NBC News
The Syrian military is prepared to use chemical weapons against its own people and is awaiting final orders from President Bashar Assad, U.S. officials told NBC News on Wednesday.
The military has loaded the precursor chemicals for sarin, a deadly nerve gas, into aerial bombs that could be dropped onto the Syrian people from dozens of fighter-bombers, the officials said.
As recently as Tuesday, officials had said there was as yet no evidence that the process of mixing the "precursor" chemicals had begun. But Wednesday, they said their worst fears had been confirmed: The nerve agents were locked and loaded inside the bombs.
Sarin is an extraordinarily lethal agent. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's forces killed 5,000 Kurds with a single sarin attack on Halabja in 1988.
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U.S. officials stressed that as of now, the sarin bombs hadn't been loaded onto planes and that Assad hadn't issued a final order to use them. But if he does, one of the officials said, "there's little the outside world can do to stop it."
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reiterated U.S. warnings to Assad not to use chemical weapons, saying he would be crossing "a red line" if he did so.
Speaking Wednesday at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Clinton said the Syrian government was on the brink of collapse, raising the prospect that "an increasingly desperate Assad regime" might turn to chemical weapons or that the banned weapons could fall into other hands.
"Ultimately, what we should be thinking about is a political transition in Syria and one that should start as soon as possible," Clinton said. "We believe their fall is inevitable. It is just a question of how many people have to die before that occurs."
Aides told NBC News that Clinton was expected next week to officially recognize the main opposition movement, the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, with which she is scheduled to meet in Morocco. Britain, France, Turkey and some key Arab leaders have already recognized the opposition.
Fighting intensified Wednesday in the 21-month civil war, which has left 40,000 people dead. The U.N. withdrew its personnel from Damascus, saying conditions were too dangerous.
The government said this week that it wouldn't use chemical weapons on its own people after President Barack Obama warned that doing so would be "totally unacceptable."
But U.S. officials said this week that the government had ordered its Chemical Weapons Corps to "be prepared," which Washington interpreted as a directive to begin bringing together the components needed to weaponize Syria's chemical stockpiles.
That process would involve mixing "precursor" chemicals for the deadly nerve gas sarin, which could be used in artillery shells, U.S. officials told NBC News, stressing that there was no evidence that process had as yet begun.
U.S. officials had long believed that the Syrian government was stockpiling the banned chemical weapons before it acknowledged possessing them this summer.
NBC News reported in July that U.S. intelligence agencies believed that in addition to sarin, Syria had access to tabun, a chemical nerve agent, as well as traditional chemical weapons like mustard gas and hydrogen cyanide.
Officials told NBC News at the time that the Syrian government was moving the outlawed weapons around the country, leaving foreign intelligence agencies unsure where they might end up.
Syria is one of only seven nations that hasn't ratified the 1992 Chemical Weapons Convention, the arms control agreement that outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of such weapons.
Bombshells filled with chemicals can be carried by Syrian Air Force fighter-bombers, in particular Sukhoi-22/20, MiG-23 and Sukhoi-24 aircraft. In addition, some reports indicate that unguided short-range Frog-7 artillery rockets may be capable of carrying chemical payloads.
In terms of longer-range delivery systems, Syria has a few dozen SS-21 ballistic missiles with a maximum range of 72 miles; 200 Scud-Bs, with a maximum range of 180 miles; and 60 to 120 Scud-Cs, with a maximum range of 300 miles, all of which are mobile and are capable of carrying chemical weapons, according U.S. intelligence officials.
How exactly are they "locked and loaded" if they haven't been put on planes and they chemicals haven't been mixed yet?
Quote from: Razgovory on December 05, 2012, 07:33:08 PM
How exactly are they "locked and loaded" if they haven't been put on planes and they chemicals haven't been mixed yet?
It's Timmay that's locked and loaded. Don't worry about it, it's just his usual Happy Puppy Assburger's overreaction bullshit.
Probably, yes.
Shouldn't necessarily intervene to remove Assad but should intervene to hurt Syria's chemical weapon capabilities and to secure the weapons if necessary (Pentagon estimates 75 000 troops needed). Israel's worried about this too, they've apparently asked the Jordanians for permission to attack. Many of the facilities are near the Jordanian border and so far the Jordanians have told the Israelis to hold off. In their view the time isn't right and they expect retaliation.
I get the impression the Jordanians have some smart cookies running the place.
Some interesting developments.
http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/17/16549397-us-asks-turkey-jordan-to-secure-chem-weapons-if-syria-crisis-worsens?lite
QuoteBy R. Jeffrey Smith
The Center for Public Integrity
The Obama administration has quietly arranged for thousands of chemical protective suits and related items to be sent to Jordan and Turkey and is pressing the military forces there to take principal responsibility for safeguarding Syrian chemical weapons sites if the country's lethal nerve agents suddenly become vulnerable to theft and misuse, Western and Middle Eastern officials say.
As part of their preparations for such an event, Western governments have started training the Jordanians and Turks to use the chemical gear and detection equipment, so they have the capability to protect the Syrian nerve agent depots if needed – at least for a short time, U.S. and Western officials say.
Washington has decided moreover that the best course of action in the aftermath of Syrian President Bashar Assad's fall would be to get the nerve agents out of the country as quickly as possible, and so it has begun discussions not only with Jordan and Turkey, but also with Iraq and Russia in an effort to chart the potential withdrawal of the arsenal and its destruction elsewhere.
Using allied forces from Syria's periphery as the most likely "first-responders" to a weapons-of-mass-destruction emergency is regarded in Washington as a way to avoid putting substantial U.S. troops into the region if the special Syrian military forces now safeguarding the weapons leave their posts. A Syrian withdrawal might otherwise render the weapons vulnerable to capture and use by Hezbollah or other anti-U.S. or anti-Israeli militant groups, U.S. officials fear.
This article is based on conversations about international planning for the disposition of the Syrian stockpile with a half dozen U.S. and foreign officials who have direct knowledge of the matter but declined to be named due to the political and security sensitivities surrounding their work.
They said the Western planning, while not yet complete, is further along than officials have publicly disclosed.
But so far, the Turkish and Jordanian governments have not promised to take up the full role that Washington has sought to give them, U.S. and foreign officials said.
Asked for comment, Jordanian embassy spokeswoman, Dana Zureikat Daoud, said the training under way is "not mission-oriented," meaning that Jordan does not have a fixed responsibility. But she added that the government is indeed concerned about the possibility of Syrian chemical armaments falling into extremist hands. "Our contingency plans ... are discussed and elaborated with like-minded, concerned countries," she said.
A spokesman at the Turkish Embassy declined comment. But James F. Jeffrey, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey from 2008-2010, said that although Ankara is eager for the United States to play a larger role in resolving the Syrian crisis, the Turks are "usually reluctant to be our foot-soldiers." He added: "When Americans come up with a plan to use country x's soldiers, the plan is often self-fulfilling inside the Beltway," but sometimes runs into trouble when it is broached in foreign capitals.
The prospect of lethal nerve agents at any Syrian sites suddenly becoming unprotected is one of many alarming developments that have been war-gamed at the Pentagon over the past year, as the conflict there deepens and president Assad's grip over his deadly arsenal comes into greater question, U.S. officials say.
Private messages to Syrian commanders
Worries about the fate of the chemicals – in a stockpile estimated at 350 to 400 metric tons -- have become so great that Washington and its allies have recently passed messages to some of the Syrian commanders that oversee their security, offering safety and a continued role under a new government if the commanders act responsibly, two knowledgeable officials said on condition they not be named.
It is unclear what the results of that effort have been. But similar messages, urging restraint and good behavior in handling the chemicals, have also been passed in recent weeks to rebel forces inside the country, according to a Western official.
One of Washington's concerns has been that Assad might order the chemicals used against his own citizens, a fear that spiked late last year when chemicals at one base were seen being loaded into artillery shells and bombs. Western and Russian officials issued stiff warnings, and those concerns abated somewhat, although Foreign Policy magazine reported Jan. 15 that some evidence exists that Syria used a generally nonlethal incapacitating gas against rebels in Homs last month.
"We found no credible evidence to corroborate or to confirm that chemical weapons were used" in that incident, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said on Tuesday.
The principal U.S. concern in a post-Assad period, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said at a press briefing on Jan. 10, is "how do we secure the CBW (chemical and biological weapons) sites?...And that is a discussion that we are having, not only with the Israelis, but with other countries in the region, to try to look at ... what steps need to be taken in order to make sure that these sites are secured."
"We're not working on options that involve (U.S.) boots on the ground," Panetta said.
At one extreme, officials said, special forces now in the region might have to intervene on short notice if it appears that weapons at one of the sites are about to fall into the wrong hands or to be employed on a large scale. They would be tasked with swiftly neutralizing both the agent and any hostile forces present and likely stay on the ground only for a few hours.
The Obama administration's preference is to have other nations' forces undertake such an intervention, and so the United States and Britain have been conducting joint planning and training operations with Jordanian and Turkish commandos for more than a year, to prepare for their possible emergency insertion into Syria, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the plans.
The protective suits, along with detection equipment and decontamination gear, began arriving in the late fall amid concern that the Syrian government might be considering using the weapons to halt rebel advances. Syria's arsenal – which was developed for a potential conflict with Israel -- includes mustard gas, which burns and blisters the skin and lungs, More problematically, it also includes sarin and VX, liquids that interfere with the nervous system and produce swift death by paralysis after minute, drop-size exposures, U.S. officials say.
Syria devised its nerve weapons as binary agents, in which two less toxic chemicals are routinely stored in large, separated canisters and then loaded into separate compartments inside a bomb. For example, sarin uses a formulation of alcohol, plus another chemical. The agents combine to pose their most lethal threat only when launched or during flight, making them relatively easy to handle or transport before then – by the Syrian military or by terrorists and militant groups.
But the separation of the basic components also opens the door to at least a partial elimination of the threat onsite, since the alcohol used in sarin could simply be drained onto the ground and allowed to evaporate.
Jordan and Turkey initially agreed to undertake Western training in dealing with chemical weapons because they might have to deal with panicked refugees and victims if Assad's forces use such arms against the rebels; some risk also exists in that circumstance of clouds of dangerous gas wafting onto their own territory from Syrian cities near their border. Even medical workers would be at grave risk in dealing with those who became contaminated; as a result, they are being trained now by Western powers, according to foreign officials.
"Their primary concern is a spillover of these things into their territory," one U.S. official said. The salience of this worry was demonstrated when a Syrian mortar round crashed into a Turkish field near a refugee camp on Jan. 14. As Daoud, the Jordanian spokeswoman, said, "Naturally, we will do everything that needs to be done to defend our people and our borders."
Seeking Assad exit strategy
Partly because of worries about the stockpile's security, Washington and its allies still hope that Assad might be persuaded to leave in exchange for a guarantee of his personal security elsewhere. In such a negotiated transition, Western powers would seek to keep the existing Syrian military units responsible for safeguarding the chemical weapons sites in place, officials said.
"The people in Assad's regime responsible for security at the chemical sites are among the very best soldiers," a U.S. official said. "If one could keep those forces in place ... that would be the best and probably the cheapest and most efficient outcome."
But Assad, in a defiant address on Jan. 6, said he had no intention of stepping aside or negotiating with the rebels engaged in a bitter struggle for national control that so far has claimed at least 60,000 lives.
"We're engaged in planning to develop options against alternative futures ... (including) collaboration or cooperation, permissiveness, non-permissive, hostile, all of which would have different requirements," Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said at the Jan. 10 briefing.
"The options are not good in any scenario," said another senior official, adding that Washington is as worried about the chemicals falling into the hands of rebel forces that may seize power, either locally or nationally, as it is about their misuse by terrorists or by rogue Syrian military units and commanders. At least one of the major Syrian rebel groups, Jabhat al-Nasra, has been designated by the United States as a terrorist organization.
Also, U.S. intelligence agencies have warned policymakers that once Assad is gone, the country's turmoil will increase, with rival groups potentially seeking to brandish possession of the chemical weapons as symbols of their power. Officials said that as a result, they have pressed the Syrian National Coalition, a rebel group recognized by Western countries, to appoint a coordinator now for all chemical weapons-related policymaking and negotiations.
Simply blowing up the chemicals inside Syria with bombs or other weapons is not an option, as Panetta made clear in a briefing for reporters during a December visit to Turkey: He said the plumes from such explosions would cause "exactly the kind of damage" that would result from the weapons' deliberate use.
Incinerating the chemicals inside Syria would be logistically challenging and pose high security risks, since Western countries have only a few portable destruction kits for chemical weapons, developed primarily to deal with single, leaking shells, not large stocks.
As a result, U.S. officials said they would likely seek to transport the chemicals out of Syria as quickly as possible once a new government can be formed, preferably under the supervision of the United Nations-affiliated Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, with the new government's formal approval.
"We maintain regular communication with States Parties as well as the United Nations on developments in Syria and continue our efforts to prepare for various scenarios which could potentially involve the OPCW in that situation," said OPCW spokesman Michael Luhan.
Under one scenario now under discussion between Washington and its allies, the chemicals would be moved to secure military bases in Jordan, Turkey or Iraq, where the United States and others would erect chemical incinerators over a six- to 12-month period that could destroy the bulk agent in a year or so after that. Using similar incinerators to destroy a small stockpile of chemical weapons in Albania more than five years ago cost $48 million.
But even this task would be logistically awkward, not to mention politically controversial in those states. Undertaking it would first require further consolidation of the stocks inside Syria and then their transport outside the country in hundreds of truckloads.
Russia said to offer help
Another option, which officials said has tentatively been explored with senior Russian officials, is to truck the chemical agents to the Syrian port of Tartus, where the Russian Navy keeps a small presence, so that the arsenal could be placed on a ship for transport to Russia, where multiple chemical weapons destruction plants have been constructed with Western help.
By the accounts of several officials, Russia has expressed some desire to help. And Western officials emphasized that in their view, the country has a special responsibility to do so, because of reports that the head of its chemical weapons program helped Syria obtain key VX components in the early 1990s.
No final policy choice has been made about these options, senior officials said. And bringing a large weapons stockpile into Turkey or Russia – which are signatories of an international treaty barring use or possession of chemical arms – might require a waiver of the treaty's rules against importing even the components of such weapons.
Some consolidation of the Syrian arsenal has already occurred on Assad's orders, and the bulk of it is now at fewer than a dozen sites, according to a U.S. official familiar with intelligence estimates.
But U.S. military planners are unsure precisely how many sites might hold deadly chemicals at the point that a foreign intervention would be necessary or feasible. If Assad disperses the arsenal beforehand to the 40 or so military bases with aircraft or missiles that can drop or launch the weapons, as many as 75,000 foreign troops could be needed to contain the threat (several thousand troops at each base, according to this worst-case estimate). A smaller number would be needed if the intervention preceded such a dispersal.
The shipment of protective gear to Syria's periphery from U.S. and British stockpiles was an acknowledgement of the enormity of the problem, several officials said. They described thousands of pieces of chemical-protection gear -- from masks and suits to detectors and decontamination kits -- being pre-positioned in Jordan alone.
Asked for comment, Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman Scott McIlnay responded that "we have always said that contingency planning is the responsible thing to do, and we are actively consulting with friends, allies and the opposition. But I am not going to get into the specifics of our contingency plans." Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said he could only say that "we are working with our partners in the region and the broader international community to monitor the situation and discussing contingencies."
The Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit independent investigative news outlet. To read more of its stories on this topic go to publicintegrity.org
QuoteJordan and Turkey and is pressing the military forces there to take principal responsibility for safeguarding Syrian chemical weapons sites if the country's lethal nerve agents suddenly become vulnerable to theft and misuse, Western and Middle Eastern officials say.
That would be a mistake.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on January 17, 2013, 01:55:33 PM
QuoteJordan and Turkey and is pressing the military forces there to take principal responsibility for safeguarding Syrian chemical weapons sites if the country's lethal nerve agents suddenly become vulnerable to theft and misuse, Western and Middle Eastern officials say.
That would be a mistake.
Can't believe you have such little faith in our allies. They love us, don't they? <checks recent map> Oh, yeah. Never mind.
Btw I like how you could not bear to include "Obama administration" in the quote. The thought of criticizing them directly must've been too painful!
Don't be a douchebag. You know damned well they're operationally incompetent.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on January 17, 2013, 02:11:43 PM
Don't be a douchebag. You know damned well they're operationally incompetent.
Surely Obama and his team can't be that bad?
:pinch: :lol:
Sigh...
Quote from: Neil on January 17, 2013, 02:15:12 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on January 17, 2013, 02:11:43 PM
Don't be a douchebag. You know damned well they're operationally incompetent.
Surely Obama and his team can't be that bad?
:lmfao:
^_^
I hate all of you.
WE LOVE YOU SEEDY
Group hug!
Except the fags. I hate it when they gay up manly friendship.