Well, according to the notoriously pro-America web site AlJazeera, SAMS as well as Turkey have done autopsies and sent samples out to multiple other governments to also test, and the UN is also investigating as well (note this is not an exhaustive list…just the first few that popped up on a Google search you could have done yourself). What’s your buddy Putin say? I think the Russians sent some fighter bombers to the clinic where survivors were taken to investigate it with an air strike shortly after the gas attack…I believe because Putin is convinced that the best way to gather samples of Sarin is via high explosives. How’s their investigation going so far?
He’s far from the only one. Just wander back through this thread and you’ll see a whole range of CTs on this ranging through the whole rainbow of the SDMB political spectrum.
If anyone is interested in why we are suddenly hearing a lot more about the supposed parallel between the US’s claims in 2003 about Iraqi WMD and the recent Syrian claims, look no further than this:
That Putin…he’s an evil genius. If you don’t think about it, it’s totally plausible. The US, for its own nefarious reasons, trumped up (heh) evidence indicating that the Syrians used chemical weapons last week in the exact same way as Bush et al did in the run up to 2003! It all…fits…together!!! :eek:
Except it doesn’t, really. For one thing, it’s not just the US saying this…hell, we weren’t even the main focus of who was saying it, since initially our idiotic leaders didn’t want to even believe it. Many other nations and groups are saying it. In fact, the only nations not saying this are basically Russian, Syria and Iran…and those who buy into Putin’s line (I also figured out where the recent meme is coming from about how easy it is to make sarin in your bathtub…sure enough, that one comes from Putin as well :p).
So, you got a Qatar financed news organisation, a claim by an opposition group and Turkey, of all places. Note that the UN is still investigating. The UN is the only one I trust in the slightest.
Oh, and only the opposition group makes the claim that it was Syrian aircraft, the others just say that there was a chemical attack, not by whom.
SAMs isn’t an opposition group, and both links showed they at least took samples and actually looked at the people affected. Tell me again, what do the Syrians and Russians have? Some speculation (that’s laughable) about ISIS sarin warehouses struck by accident or a convoluted false flag operation to supposedly bring the US into the fight against Assad? Also, as I noted, this isn’t an exhaustive list. The US has advisers in the region who also looked at the evidence, as do other countries…I didn’t link to those knowing that while you seem willing to swallow some ridiculously evidence lacking stuff from Putin that you are extremely critical of everything the US says. Me, I’m taking some evidence over zero evidence and speculation that doesn’t even make sense, if you actually bother thinking about it. Sarin is a binary agent (it’s also not something that some terrorists in a wartorn country can just whip up in large batches in their bathtubs, despite Putin’s assurance that you can), so the odds of hitting it in a warehouse and it combining in such a way as to become deadly is about the odds of dropping a bomb on a watch factory and having the parts combine into working watches. It’s possible, but not very probable. As to the false flag, you’d have to think that president Carrot Top, despite many statements to the contrary in the past would THIS time take the attack seriously enough to change policy and go after Assad. :dubious:
Occam’s Razor and all that…
Gen. Mattis clarifies his math:
“We thought it was, I thought it was about 20 percent. I think it’s around 20 aircraft were taken out which probably equates to about that, although I probably shouldn’t have used the 20 percent.”
Yeah, I think that is exactly what happened. I mean, for this administration, maths are hard…20 is 20 after all (that 20 aircraft isn’t 20% of 500+ is just mathy and stuff). Hell, this isn’t even that big a flub…it certainly doesn’t rise to the level of, to paraphrase ‘Hitler never used chemical weapons but Assad did!’ or some of the other monumental gaffes this administration does every week.
It does suggest an eagerness to inflate the significance. But, seems to me, I recall them talking like NOT hitting airplanes was an important plus, that they were only targeting support facilities and those cruise missiles are so totally accurate, yadda blah, yadda blah. Then they turn around and, yeah, we hit some airplanes, and we totally meant to do that! Lots of them, really hit 'em hard.
So either somebody is fudging, or just doesn’t know. Or both. At any rate, I find neither very reassuring. And I worry that this suggests that they are trying to get Mattis to take a walk down Colin Powell Boulevard. (Wonder if Mattis talked to Powell?)
Cite for “But, seems to me, I recall them talking like NOT hitting airplanes was an important plus”?
I remember them not wanting to hit people, but I’m pretty confident they wanted to destroy some jets.
[QUOTE=elucidator]
But, seems to me, I recall them talking like NOT hitting airplanes was an important plus, that they were only targeting support facilities and those cruise missiles are so totally accurate, yadda blah, yadda blah.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t recall seeing anything like that. Be kind of hard to hit an airbase with 50-60 tomahawk missiles and not hit an airplane though. 
What I do recall is they were seriously worried about hitting a Russian and maybe even hitting Russian equipment/planes. I also don’t think they really wanted a huge body count, either, even of non-Russians.
Christ, it took them less time to make the base operational again and we’re still debating what the meaning of 20 is.
It seems to me that it’s time for another round of bombing because we’ve officially run out of “It seems to me” facts to speculate wildly about without a shred of evidence.
Do you not count the pictures of the damage as even a ‘shred of evidence’, or were you just being hyperbolic?
I seriously doubt we are going to strike Syria again unless Assad decides to play chicken and drop a few more sarin bombs on hapless civilians sometime soon. If we were going to hit them again just based on the incident in question we’d have done so already, not screwed around for an additional week…IMHO. YMMV of course.
So, no evidence that Assad did this. Just evidence that there was a gas attack.
Well ladidah.
The rest is just speculation that Al Qaeda (not ISIS, they are not evn near the place) could not have Sarin (it’s not even confirmed it was sarin) because they are just a ragtag band of sanddwellers.
If the Qataris and the Turks say so it must be true.
This is literally what forums poster XT believes.
‘ragtag band of sanddwellers’, huh? Did you want to call me a Nazi and maybe make allusions to my Hitler like qualities as well? Or just wanted to try and paint me as a plain racist? What exactly were you going for, here?
As the cites I linked to earlier indicated (and…what were your cites, again? Oh, that’s right…‘Putin sez!’), it’s more difficult than people think to make in large quantities. The only known non-governmental group who has managed it, that group in Japan, did it with a huge amount of capital, completely undisturbed and unimpeded, and managed to make a huge…1-5 gallons. The attack in question would have taken tons.
What do you gots? Anything except trying to paint me as a racists, or a fascist or whatever? Feel free to cite some counter arguments…hell, if you want to cite ‘Putin sez’, I’ve already done that, but go for it.
I was talking about hitting the planes when we weren’t (allegedly) aiming for them.
Nevermind the fog of war. This is the fog of one air strike.
If Al Qaeda was the source of the gas attacks, wouldn’t they have taken credit for it? (Maybe they have and I missed it.)
Exactly. It’s not like there was a previous UN investigation into alleged chemical weapon attacks in Syria that confirmed that Sarin had been used and the trajectory of the projectiles used in the separate attacks showed them to originate from Assad-controlled areas. Just because Assad committed a chemical weapons attack a few years ago doesn’t mean he did this time. Let’s give the mass murdering dictator who already indiscriminately bombs civilians (and publicly denies using barrel bombs despite their widespread reported use by his air force) the benefit of the doubt, guys.
Why do you say we weren’t allegedly aiming for planes?
Well, you know, it’s a few more countries and people who believe this than just ‘the Qataris and the Turks’ and me. And while you could call my, I guess, belief, faith based (despite the fact I’ve at least provided something like evidence…as opposed to basically Putin says), I’m in pretty good company. How about you? You in the ‘I’m with Putin, Assad and Rouhani camp!’?
I have to say, this thread has been very entertaining, if nothing else.