[Newsbot]

Title: Syria says it accepted Russian offer to place its chemical weapons under international control
Category: Military
Posted By: Robair
Date: 2013-09-10 06:49:54

[Robair]

Well played Putin. Assuming everybody follows through.

[Jabberwalker]

The world should watch this process very carefully but if it is legit, it is a good way out for everybody.

[Guy_Fawkes]

As I have said from the start, the West should stay the fuck out of it and let the Russians work with Syria.

[ShepherdsDog]

Putin outmaneuvered Obama and the Americans are still going to claim they were the real reason for this deal. Now, what's to be done about the chemical weapons held by the rebels? Military units defected, military instillation were overrun and 'supplies' were sent in by outside agencies. They have chemical weapons and have used them in the past, will Ker-Bares Inc. bomb their pet terrorists if they use their stockpiles against Christians, Shias or government forces?

[Jabberwalker]

Obama looks like a wet noodle from every angle, right now. He painted himself into a corner with his "red line", failed to put together an international coalition (save France, Canada and Disneylandistan) and, most importantly, failed to convince and lead his people. Now I know why they refer to second term Presidents as "lame ducks".

[Thanos]

The 'red line' against chemical weapon use existed long before Barack Obama became president. It actually existed long before all of us were born, thanks almost entirely to what the warring Europeans did to each other in World War 1. Even Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan held back from using chemical weaponry because they were too damn terrified of them being used back against them in turn. Even the Communists in the Soviet Union and China held off from using them in the course of their own depravities. Syria having chemical weapons wasn't the crime. Using them against their own citizens was, and decades worth of treaties and international law back up describing it as a crime. The US Administration was being entirely consistent in opposing the use of these weapons and in trying to do something about it. This foolish "chemical weapons were A-OK before President Obama made an issue out of them" is certainly one fucking stupid meme that I'd like to see die off sooner rather than later.

[martin14]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

Obama looks like a wet noodle from every angle, right now.

Barry and Kerry look like Class C amateurs.

Hopefully, they won't be in a hurry to repeat, after the schooling Putin just gave them.

Even better, US politics should refocus on domestic issues, like the economy.

They just aren't ready for primetime.

[martin14]

Thanos Thanos:

Using them against their own citizens was,

Would you like to show me the proof of that ?


You know, the proof Kerry says he has, but won't show anyone ?

[ShepherdsDog]

Syrian rebels planning chemical attack on Israel

[ShepherdsDog]

Thanos Thanos:

The 'red line' against chemical weapon use existed long before Barack Obama became president. It actually existed long before all of us were born, thanks almost entirely to what the warring Europeans did to each other in World War 1. Even Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan held back from using chemical weaponry because they were too damn terrified of them being used back against them in turn. Even the Communists in the Soviet Union and China held off from using them in the course of their own depravities. Syria having chemical weapons wasn't the crime. Using them against their own citizens was, and decades worth of treaties and international law back up describing it as a crime. The US Administration was being entirely consistent in opposing the use of these weapons and in trying to do something about it. This foolish "chemical weapons were A-OK before President Obama made an issue out of them" is certainly one fucking stupid meme that I'd like to see die off sooner rather than later.

The US did SFA while the Iraqis gassed the Iranians.

[martin14]

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

The US did SFA while the Iraqis gassed the Iranians.

(waiting for Thanos' typical GOP rage)





For that matter, we did pretty much the same. Some moral high ground we hold.

[PluggyRug]

The US finds WMD's in many places.

Obama has one, it goes under the name of 'Inflated Ego'.

[Thanos]

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

Thanos Thanos:

The 'red line' against chemical weapon use existed long before Barack Obama became president. It actually existed long before all of us were born, thanks almost entirely to what the warring Europeans did to each other in World War 1. Even Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan held back from using chemical weaponry because they were too damn terrified of them being used back against them in turn. Even the Communists in the Soviet Union and China held off from using them in the course of their own depravities. Syria having chemical weapons wasn't the crime. Using them against their own citizens was, and decades worth of treaties and international law back up describing it as a crime. The US Administration was being entirely consistent in opposing the use of these weapons and in trying to do something about it. This foolish "chemical weapons were A-OK before President Obama made an issue out of them" is certainly one fucking stupid meme that I'd like to see die off sooner rather than later.

The US did SFA while the Iraqis gassed the Iranians.

Because Iraq was a kinda, sorta, quasi-ally to the US at the time, even after Saddam launched an Exocet missile that nearly sank the USS Stark. Iran was always the greater threat so the Yanks looked the other way. The Americans did the same when the Israelis deliberately shot up the USS Liberty because Egypt at the time was the greater problem to the US. All that happens is realpolitik, which is ugly as fuck and rips up all the morals anyone adheres to. The US and Britain also press-ganged a bunch of Nazi scientists into creating their ballistic missile programs for them, even though they were 100% sure that most of those rat bastards like Werner Von Braun were neck deep in the blood of all the people they had killed as slave labourers working on weapons programs for Hitler. The justification was that they achieved ballistic supremacy before the Soviets did which kept Stalin from invading Western Europe. Maybe the justification was real. Maybe it was bullshit. Maybe the justifications the Americans used for cozying up to Saddam fell into both categories as well.

Not a clean world. Never will be. All my screeds about Syria have less to do with Assad or what he did. I just find the convoluted BS from today's conservatives about being against any more foreign interventions absolutely laughable. They abandoned this alleged core conservative principle as fast as they could back in 2003 when the evidence against Saddam was far weaker than the current evidence against Assad is today. Their "never again" nonsense in relation to all-things-Saddam was quite in vogue 2003 but ten years later it got tossed out the window ASAP and now they're back to the "not our problem" approach they've always had in relation to anything that existed outside of the millieu of the proxy struggles between the great powers. They really aren't doing this because of some non-interventionist principle that they've somehow rediscovered. Most of them don't have any principles to begin with so we can almost automatically toss out anything they say when they claim to be acting out of some moral imperative. The thing that's changed from 2003 to 2013 is that the guy in the White House at the moment isn't one of them. That's all that this comes down to. If the President had said a few months ago that the US response to anything Assad did would be a hands-off "not our problem" sort of thing, I would almost guarantee you that, except maybe for the far more consistent Ron Paul types, every single yammering conservative anti-interventionist out there would now be demanding American intervention in Syria. Instead of calling the President "pro-jihadist" they'd be calling him "pro-dictator" and "pro-genocide". And the air would be so thick with their incessant accusations of "Munich 1938" and "appeaser!" all over again it would be sickening.

There is no principle at work here, at least not among conservatives. This is politics as usual and just their usual mendacity at work against a President that they despise and regard as the Great Satan.

[Freakinoldguy]

I really hope the Syrians do this because it'll do two important things. First it'll take away Barry's excuse to bomb the shit out of Syria and inadvertently support the same fucks who blew up the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and numerous domestic flights.

$1:

The FSA is by far the largest Syrian rebel force. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Sen. John McCain have both estimated the total rebel force in Syria at around 100,000. They claim the hardcore Islamists -- defined as members of two al Qaeda-affiliated groups waging war against Assad -- account for only 10 to 15 percent of that total.

$1:

But a senior military official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, disagreed, claiming the percentage of radical Islamic fighters is “way higher than that,” when the definition is expanded beyond the membership of the al Qaeda affiliates. He said Pentagon officials estimate that extreme Islamist groups now constitute “more than 50 percent” of the rebel force, “and it’s growing by the day.”

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013 ... worry?lite



Secondly it may finally end the argument that the Bush Administration lied about WMD's that they to this day claim were shipped across the border to Syria in all those convoy's of trucks during the second Gulf War.

$1:

The earliest account of Hussein having hidden his WMDs in Syria came in January of 2004. Nizar Nayouf, an award-winning Syrian journalist who was granted political asylum in France, said in a letter to Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf not only that he knew Iraq’s WMDs were being hidden inside Syria, but that he could pinpoint precisely where they were being kept. According to Nayouf’s witness, described as a senior source inside Syrian military intelligence he had known for two years, Iraq’s WMDs were in tunnels dug under the town of al-Baida near the city of Hama in northern Syria, in the village of Tal Snan, north of the town of Salamija, and in the city of Sjinsjar on the Syrian border with the Lebanon, south of the city of Homs. Nayouf claimed that the transfer of Iraqi WMDs to Syria was organized by the commanders of Hussein’s Iraqi Republican Guard with the help of General Dhu al-Himma Shalish and Assef Shawkat, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s cousin and brother-in-law, respectively

http://www.policymic.com/articles/62103 ... end-saddam