Originally Posted by TonySinclair ," I assume that the people planning the removal will be at least as intelligent and informed as Adaher, and will take special precautions to prevent a hijacking. For example, I would expect active air cover, which your typical convoy doesn’t have. I suppose it’s possible that al Qaeda could cause some damage even then, but I find it inconceivable that they would be able to actually come away with intact CWs."
To which Magiver replied, “That’s interesting. So we only needed to hire these people to avoid being ambushed in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
This is a perfect illustration of Magiver’s failure to reconcile his arguments with any kind of reasoning or logic.
First of all those experts in Syria are not attempting to protect 150,000 US ground troops’ year after year of supply and personnel movement convoys. They are protecting one convoy at a time for a few days.
Second, if there were enough attack helicopters and mine clearing equipment available to protect every troop or supply movement in Iraq or Afghanistan they could protect every convoy from being successfully attacked.
There aren’t that many helicopters in the entire world that could protect every supply convoy traveling through Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan over the past decade.
And what is wrong with calling out Syria for foot dragging? It appears the great Putin is the one stumbling here. Putin signs agreements he can’t deliver? Obama kept his end of the deal. Why rag on him?
Like I said, why would the foot dragging by Putin’s murderous thug in Syria be a bad reflection on Obama. That is not a great reputation for a leader of a great nation such as the Russian Federation to be confirmed by an inability to live up to a significant international deal as what Kerry and Lavrov worked out in Geneva. And the was followed up with approval by the UNSC.
Putin can gain no influence in that part of the world if he cannot control the minster he helped to create and nurture all these years.
Putin was a fool to sign a deal that he can’t back up.
So look for some security concerns to get resolved over the transport of WMD in the weeks ahead.
Yup. VP doesn’t work with your rules or mine. He gives a million negative fucks about the deal.
He loses absolutely no sleep about Syria’s having CW or not. As I see it, his deal has given Assad 4 months and counting where he has contrinued to do whatever he wants and nobody cares. Vlad threw Obama a bone by pretending that CW were important and now the US has done and will do nothing becasue Kerry signed a paper.
If a US soldier so much a spits on a body of water near Syria, Vald will claim “present conditions of imminent aggresion by the US make the transport of CW impossible, a new timetable will have to be worked out”.
Assad could now be simultaneously raping 100 blind orphan kids and setting them on fire and putting it on youtube, but now he has the CW bargaining chip and that makes Assad untouchable. Vlad has made a US invasion of Syria all but impossible.
BTW, let’s say that in a year’s time all the CW that Assad said he had have been taken out of hs hands. So what? A genocide has again happened and a bloody tyrant os still in power, but he simply has fewer CW. It’s like losing the superbowl 147-3 and chanting “you didn’t blank us”,
Influence? OMG that’s funny. Putin owns that part of the world. And as I pointed out months ago he has no vested interested in whether the CW’s move or stay. He could give a fuck. All he cared about was getting an agreement not to interfere should the project fail.
Read this. The US is providing containers and the Russiand have already air lifted the trucks to carry them:
!!"Russia Airlifts Trucks to Syria as Part of Chemical Weapon Destruction Plan. 20 December 2013 | Issue 5281. The Moscow Times
Russia has begun airlifting armored trucks to Syria to transport its chemical weapons for destruction at sea, the Russian ambassador to the country said.
Russian transport planes have completed 10 flights to the Syrian port of Latakia and more deliveries are planned before the end of the year, Ambassador Azamat Kulmukhametov said, Itar-Tass reported on Wednesday."!!
You appear to think Putin has some interest in upholding morality. The evidence is that he doesn’t give a damn about morality. He’s just interested in power.
And this deal has increased Putin’s power at the expense of America’s. Obama was threatening Assad but Assad found that if he placed himself under Putin’s protection he didn’t have to worry about the United States. Lots of other dictators will see this and want to place themselves under Putin’s protection if we threaten them.
Where did Putin get an agreement not to interfere should the project to remove Sytia’s Chemical wespons fail?
The chemical weapons have been turned over to the international community so we are now dealing with the possibility that transporting them to the port city is what could possibly fail. So iit is quite wrong to be claiming total failure and premature to declare failure to transport as a sure thing. The Russians have invested a lot already to get the transport phase done. It is silly to suggest that Putin cared to get an agreement that he didnt get and does not care about transporting the CW out of Syria to be destroyed.
He cares domestically because Russians are attacked by terrorists too. He wants these CW kept out of the terrorists hands just like every other world leader woulda
After all he is responsible for helping Assad amass the stockpile.