My prior post supports the Russian suggestion that bombs hit a rebel-held warehouse that contained chemicals. That’s why I posted it, not to suggest that the event was a false flag itself.
Do some rebel groups harbor chemicals and have they used them in the past? Definitely. (1) Sept. 28, 2016: “Rebels gas the Syrian Army in northern Hama“. (2) November 8, 2016: “Islamist militants in Syria’s Aleppo have, again, attacked government forces with poisonous gas to halt the latter’s advance in the southwestern parts of the embattled city.” (3) October 23, 2015: “It supports Seymour Hersh’s reporting that the notorious sarin gas attack at Ghouta was a false flag orchestrated by Turkish intelligence in order to cross President Obama’s chemical weapons “red line” and draw the United States into the Syria war to topple Assad.” (4) “Chlorine bombings in Iraq began as early as October 2004 , when insurgents in Al Anbar province started using chlorine gas in conjunction with conventional vehicle-borne explosive devices.” This Wiki source lists attacks and has this quote: “In February 2007, a U.S. military spokesman said that ‘al Qaeda propaganda material’ had been found at a factory for chlorine chemical weapons in Karma, east of Fallujah, which led press agency Reuters to the conclusion that that “chlorine bomb factory was al Qaeda’s”.
Further research will discover more sources that document the rebel capabilities to use chemical weapons in Iraq and its neighbor Syria.
The political authorities everywhere who blame the Syrian government for the Idlib attack are far, far too hasty in reaching this conclusion. There are a number of viable possibilities. The U.S. government should certainly reject entering the Syrian war on many grounds, and certainly not because of unproven allegations.
Is it some sort of false argumentation for me to mention that the U.S.-supported Saudis continue to hammer at Yemen, producing one large scale slaughter of innocents after another? On Sept. 29, 2015, the AP reported that they killed 131 people in a wedding party. On October 11, 2016, we read this: “U.S.-Backed Saudi Forces Bomb Yemeni Funeral, Killing 140, Injuring 500 in Possible War Crime” Recently, in Mosul, we read “Nearly 300 died in Mosul airstrike, making it one of the deadliest attacks on civilians in recent memory.”
The reaction against Assad in some foreign capitols is highly selective, given the enormity of past incidents elsewhere that provoke no such responses. Governments have their own axes to grind. Trump’s verbal reaction is way, way overboard. He should definitely not follow this up by U.S. attacks on Syria, like Cruise missile attacks, or by a notable shift toward even more U.S. escalation. There is no end game to such military moves other than committing a huge number of forces to control and occupy the entire country or a substantial portion of it. That makes no sense whatsoever. It brings the U.S. into direct conflict with both Iran and Russia for no conceivable gain. Thus, when Trump talks about going beyond red lines, we can only hope that he’s expressing regret over the loss of life by any means, chemical or otherwise; and not expressing a proclivity to be a social justice warrior on the battlefields of Syria.
5:37 pm on April 6, 2017
