Assad gasses his own after Obama had stopped him

The New York Times wrote:Worst Chemical Attack in Years in Syria; U.S. Blames Assad

By ANNE BARNARD and MICHAEL R. GORDON
APRIL 4, 2017

BEIRUT, Lebanon — One of the worst chemical bombings in Syria turned a northern rebel-held area into a toxic kill zone on Tuesday, inciting international outrage over the ever-increasing government impunity shown in the country’s six-year war.

Western leaders including President Trump blamed the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad and called on its patrons, Russia and Iran, to prevent a recurrence of what many described as a war crime.

Dozens of people, including children, died — some writhing, choking, gasping or foaming at the mouth — after breathing in poison that possibly contained a nerve agent or other banned chemicals, according to witnesses, doctors and rescue workers. They said the toxic substance spread after warplanes dropped bombs in the early morning hours. Some rescue workers grew ill and collapsed from proximity to the dead.

The opposition-run Health Department in Idlib Province, where the attack took place, said 69 people had died, providing a list of their names. The dead were still being identified, and some humanitarian groups said as many as 100 had died.

The government of Mr. Assad, who renounced chemical weapons nearly four years ago after a large chemical attack that American intelligence agencies concluded was carried out by his forces, denied that his military had been responsible, as he has done every time chemical munitions have been used in Syria.

A statement from the Syrian military accused insurgents of responsibility and said they had accused the army of using toxic weapons “every time they fail to achieve the goals of their sponsors.”

But only the Syrian military had the ability and the motive to carry out an aerial attack like the one that struck the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun.

Russia offered another explanation. A spokesman for its Defense Ministry, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, said Syrian warplanes had struck an insurgent storehouse containing toxic substances to be used in chemical weapons.

Witnesses to the attack said it began before 7 a.m. Numerous photographs and graphic videos posted online by activists and residents showed children and older adults gasping and struggling to breathe, or lying motionless in the mud as rescue workers ripped off victims’ clothes and hosed them down. The bodies of at least 10 children lay lined up on the ground or under a quilt.

A few hours later, according to several witnesses, another airstrike hit one of the clinics treating victims, who had been sent to smaller hospitals and maternity wards because the area’s largest hospital was severely damaged by an airstrike two days earlier.

The scale and brazenness of the assault threatened to further subvert a nominal and often violated cease-fire that had taken hold in parts of the country since Mr. Assad’s forces retook the northern city of Aleppo in December with Russian help, emboldening the Syrian leader to think he could win the war.

The attack also seemed likely to dampen peace talks that have been overseen by the United Nations in Geneva and by Russia and Turkey in Astana, Kazakhstan.

Incredulous over the chemical assault, humanitarian groups demanded action from the United Nations Security Council, where partisan divides over who is to blame for the Syrian war have paralyzed its members almost since the conflict began in 2011.

On Tuesday night, Britain, France and the United States were pushing the Security Council to adopt a resolution that condemns the attack and orders the Syrian government to provide all flight logs, flight plans and names of commanders in charge of air operations, including those for Tuesday, to international investigators.

The draft resolution, negotiated among diplomats from the three countries on Tuesday, was later circulated to all 15 members of the Council. It could come up for a vote as early as Wednesday.

For Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly blamed what he has called President Barack Obama’s failures for the Syria crisis, the chemical weapons assault posed a potential policy dilemma and exposed some glaring contradictions in his own evolving positions on Syria.

The White House called the attack a “reprehensible” act against innocent people “that cannot be ignored by the civilized world.”

At the same time, Mr. Trump’s spokesman, Sean Spicer, denounced Mr. Obama for having failed to make good on his famous “red line” statement in 2012, suggesting he would intervene militarily in Syria if Mr. Assad used chemical weapons.

But in August 2013, Mr. Trump exhorted Mr. Obama not to intervene after a chemical weapons attack near Damascus that American intelligence attributed to the Syrian military killed more than 1,400 civilians, including hundreds of children, according to United States government estimates at the time. “President Obama, do not attack Syria,” Mr. Trump said on Twitter. “There is no upside and tremendous downside.”

Mr. Trump’s administration, which would like to shift the focus in Syria entirely to fighting the Islamic State, has in recent days described Mr. Assad’s hold on his office as a political reality — an assertion that has drawn strong condemnation from influential Republicans who say Mr. Assad must leave power.

Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, who had said that Mr. Assad’s fate “will be decided by the Syrian people,” struck a sharply different tone on Tuesday, urging Mr. Assad’s allies Russia and Iran “to exercise their influence over the Syrian regime and to guarantee that this sort of horrific attack never happens again.”

Mr. Tillerson added that “Russia and Iran also bear great moral responsibility for these deaths.”

Russia has insisted that it had no military role in the strike. But a State Department official who briefed reporters in Washington said Russian officials were trying to evade their responsibility because Russia and Iran were guarantors of the Assad government’s commitment to adhere to a cease-fire in the peace talks that the Kremlin had helped organize in Astana.

Rescue workers from the White Helmets civil defense organization said that many children were among the dead and wounded. Radi Saad, who writes incident reports for the group, said that volunteers had reached the site not knowing a chemical was present and that five of them had suffered from exposure to the substance.

While chlorine gas attacks have become almost routine in northern Syria, this one was different, medical workers and witnesses said. Chlorine attacks usually kill just a few people, often those trapped in an enclosed space, and the gas dissipates quickly.

This time, people collapsed outdoors, and in much larger numbers. The symptoms were different: They included the pinpoint pupils of victims that characterize nerve agents and other banned poisons. One doctor posted a video of a patient’s eye, showing the pupil reduced to a dot. Several people were sickened simply by coming into contact with victims.

The opposition minister of health, Mohamad Firas al-Jundi, said in a video that he had been in a field hospital at 7:30 a.m. when more than 100 people arrived wounded or sickened.

“The patients are in the corridors and on the floors of the operation rooms, the E.R.s and in the patient rooms,” he said. “I saw more than 10 deaths due to this attack.”

Symptoms included suffocation; fluid in the lungs, with foam coming from the mouth; unconsciousness; spasms; and paralysis, he said.

“It’s a shocking act,” he said. “The world knows and is aware of what’s happening in Syria, and we are ready to submit evidence to criminal laboratories to prove the use of these gases.”

A 14-year-old resident of the attacked town, Mariam Abu Khalil, said she had left home for her examination on the Quran — scheduled for early morning because fewer bombings were expected then — when the attack took place. On the way, she saw an aircraft drop a bomb on a one-story building a few dozen yards away. In a telephone interview Tuesday night, she described an explosion like a yellow mushroom cloud that stung her eyes. “It was like a winter fog,” she said.

Sheltering in her home nearby, she saw several residents arrive by car to help the wounded. “When they got out, they inhaled the gas and died,” she said.

The attack appeared to be the deadliest chemical attack in Syria since the August 2013 assault. Under threat of United States retaliation, Mr. Assad agreed to a Russian-American deal to eliminate his country’s chemical weapons program, which until that time it had denied having, and to join an international treaty banning chemical weapons.

But the operation took far longer than expected and raised questions about whether all the materials were accounted for. The head of the international monitoring body, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, complained in an internal report about misleading statements from Damascus and expressed concern about possible undeclared chemical weapons.

Since then, the organization, working with the United Nations, has found that the Syrian government used chlorine gas as a weapon three times in 2014 and 2015, violating the treaty. Rebel fighters, doctors and antigovernment activists say there have been numerous other chlorine attacks, including at least two in the past week, in one case killing a doctor as he worked.


The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has also accused the Islamic State of using banned mustard gas in Iraq and Syria. The area around Khan Sheikhoun is not held by the Islamic State, but by other insurgents: Qaeda-linked militants and a variety of other rebel groups.

A chemical weapons attack, if carried out by the government, would be a brazen statement of impunity, coming during a major international meeting in Brussels where officials are debating whether the European Union and other countries will contribute billions of dollars for reconstructing Syria if it is presided over by a government run by Mr. Assad.

Thorin wrote:

Lord Foul wrote:

Thorin wrote:


Glad to see you were in error and badly so.

So your warning was based off you not liking me telling you that you were being silly

At least you have the humility to admit you were wrong

Your warning however was punching above your weight

"HOWEVER

that does NOT entirely preclude the posession of the substances by Isis, nor does it render what I have said untrue...

the POINT i was making, was that merely explofding a bomb in proximity to a store of these chemicals could quite possibly result in the events described earlier.....That blowing up a dump of this stuff is NO guarantee, unless its done properly, that the sarin will be destroyed.....

NOTHING was mentioned in anything I said as to who was to blame, that was NOT the intent of my post..

so lord know nothing   go figure who looks an ass...."

would you like to explain.......how does what i have said makes me wrong

I assigned NO blame....to anyone initially

and what I said is still true and accurate....

Simple equation for you

Show me the levels of sarin you claim were stored and how then after an explosion it could effect people miles away and not be mostly destroyed?

You made some big claims not even researching the radius of injured.

So over to you

Raggamuffin wrote:

Thorin wrote:


No, that is incorrect, a bomb hit the hospital and only after this had they signs of a sarin symptoms

twat

Can you link to an article which says that? Idiot.

Lord Foul wrote:

Thorin wrote:


Simple equation for you

Show me the levels of sarin you claim were stored and how then after an explosion it could effect people miles away and not be mostly destroyed?

You made some big claims not even researching the radius of injured.

So over to you

since i made NO claims as to the actuality on the ground, and merely pointed out that your definitive statement that the bomb WOULD have destroyed any stored sarin was wrong, AND given I have no details (or hope of getting them) of the radius of the affected area., wind speed and direction  or supposed ammounts stored.....(though only relatively small amounts need be involved IF the circumstances were right ...remember this stuff is about 86 times as deadly as cyanide....)

See you are STILL batting on as if I'm trying to make a defence for Assad.....and yet again you are WRONG   you make bizzare assumptions, based on your inability to see beyond your own POV, then jump down folks throats as if they have personally shoved an ice cold vibrator up your ass.......

WHAT I am arguing is that...YOUR ASSUMPTION that a  bomb strike (even a direct hit) WOULD ensure destruction of sarin contained in any given place...is in error....

Its just NOT that clear cut.....A direct hit on a small amount would possibly...and I say possibly, destroy that small amount from the heat of the explosion, since the center of a HE explosion is VERY hot
however that same amount stored say 50-100m away from even a large explosion would NOT be destroyed, since the heat flash dissipates quite rapidly, the shockwave generated goes much further and would thus vapourise the components, mix them and spread them out and up into the air.  How far this "mist" would travel is dependant on many factors, wind speed, direction etc..and how small the droplets resulting from that mixing were (and THAT depends on how strong the shockwave was)

Its NOT a clear cut thing....the answer as best I can say is...It depends........

Thorin wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:I said this:

If you bombed a building and there was sarin being stored in there, you wouldn't necessarily blow it all up.

Didge replied:

Well how did children in a hospital have signs of a sarin attack?

They had signs of a sarin attack because they were taken there after the first building was hit.

No, that is incorrect, a bomb hit the hospital and only after this had they signs of a sarin symptoms

twat

Lord Foul wrote:

Thorin wrote:


No, that is incorrect, a bomb hit the hospital and only after this had they signs of a sarin symptoms

twat

pack it in...no need for it

Thorin wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

Can you link to an article which says that? Idiot.

Sure 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/turkish-autopsies-confirm-chemical-weapons-used-in-syria-attack-that-killed-scores/2017/04/06/4d660ac4-1aa7-11e7-8003-f55b4c1cfae2_story.html?utm_term=.738681d7ed0c

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/04/syria-chemical-attack-idlib-province

Raggamuffin wrote:

Thorin wrote:


Sure 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/turkish-autopsies-confirm-chemical-weapons-used-in-syria-attack-that-killed-scores/2017/04/06/4d660ac4-1aa7-11e7-8003-f55b4c1cfae2_story.html?utm_term=.738681d7ed0c

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/04/syria-chemical-attack-idlib-province

Where does it say that people at the hospital only had signs of sarin poisoning after the hospital was hit?

Thorin wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

Where does it say that people at the hospital only had signs of sarin poisoning after the hospital was hit?

Read them

Tommy Monk wrote:If the rebels/isis had some containers stored locally to the weapons store that was targeted... then the force of explosion could have easily ruptured one or more of the containers and caused a leak of the toxic gas...


Isis use local civilians as human Shields... and I wouldn't be at all  surprised if they let off some gas on local civilians after the successful airstrike just to make a propaganda point...

Raggamuffin wrote:

Thorin wrote:


Read them

I have read them. Where does it say that?

Thorin wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

I have read them. Where does it say that?

Have you fuck

Raggamuffin wrote:

Thorin wrote:


Have you fuck

It doesn't say that.

Tommy Monk wrote:If the rebels/isis had some containers stored locally to the weapons store that was targeted... then the force of explosion could have easily ruptured one or more of the containers and caused a leak of the toxic gas...


Isis use local civilians as human Shields... and I wouldn't be at all  surprised if they let off some gas on local civilians after the successful airstrike just to make a propaganda point...

Thorin wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

It doesn't say that.

You claimed to have read both in 60 seconds?

Raggamuffin wrote:

Thorin wrote:


You claimed to have read both in 60 seconds?

If you think that the articles say that people who were already in the hospital were affected by sarin, please quote where it says that.

Thorin wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

If you think that the articles say that people who were already in the hospital were affected by sarin, please quote where it says that.

Read them then

I am not your slave

Thorin wrote:

Lord Foul wrote:

Thorin wrote:


Simple equation for you

Show me the levels of sarin you claim were stored and how then after an explosion it could effect people miles away and not be mostly destroyed?

You made some big claims not even researching the radius of injured.

So over to you

since i made NO claims as to the actuality on the ground, and merely pointed out that your definitive statement that the bomb WOULD have destroyed any stored sarin was wrong, AND given I have no details (or hope of getting them) of the radius of the affected area., wind speed and direction  or supposed ammounts stored.....(though only relatively small amounts need be involved IF the circumstances were right ...remember this stuff is about 86 times as deadly as cyanide....)

See you are STILL batting on as if I'm trying to make a defence for Assad.....and yet again you are WRONG   you make bizzare assumptions, based on your inability to see beyond your own POV, then jump down folks throats as if they have personally shoved an ice cold vibrator up your ass.......

WHAT I am arguing is that...YOUR ASSUMPTION that a  bomb strike (even a direct hit) WOULD ensure destruction of sarin contained in any given place...is in error....

Its just NOT that clear cut.....A direct hit on a small amount would possibly...and I say possibly, destroy that small amount from the heat of the explosion, since the center of a HE explosion is VERY hot
however that same amount stored say 50-100m away from even a large explosion would NOT be destroyed, since the heat flash dissipates quite rapidly, the shockwave generated goes much further and would thus vapourise the components, mix them and spread them out and up into the air.  How far this "mist" would travel is dependant on many factors, wind speed, direction etc..and how small the droplets resulting from that mixing were (and THAT depends on how strong the shockwave was)

Its NOT a clear cut thing....the answer as best I can say is...It depends........

How is it in error to claim the sarin would be destroyed?

because the statement "would be destroyed" is factually wrong and depends upon whether it would be a direct hit on a small amount or a near miss


Its your assumption here and you offering zero facts

an assumption based on reasonable deduction, good physics and chemistry

a Direct hit...possibly destroyed...depending on ammount stored AND size of bomb AND how its stored
near miss...almost certainly little destruction (of the components) and a high risk of mixing AND vapourisation from the shockwave
greater miss, certainly no destruction of the chemicals and severe danger of breakage of storage containers and mixing with consequent formation of a fairly localised but concentrated gas cloud, whos dispesal and hence contaminatiuon would depend on wind speed and direction. sarin is quite volatile and vapourises easily It would break down in te atmosphere eventually, or more rapidly if subject to water......

Evidence, not babble please?

So at best you claim it depends

PMSL

Raggamuffin wrote:

Thorin wrote:


Read them then

I am not your slave

So you can't back up your claim. There's no evidence that there was a separate sarin attack on the hospital, so that gets rid of some of your argument.

Thorin wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

So you can't back up your claim. There's no evidence that there was a separate sarin attack on the hospital, so that gets rid of some of your argument.

I already posted one of the links on this page to Lord foul

Shows you cannot read can you or bother to read links

Gotcha

Lord Foul wrote:

Thorin wrote:


How is it in error to claim the sarin would be destroyed?

because the statement "would be destroyed" is factually wrong and depends upon whether it would be a direct hit on a small amount or a near miss


Its your assumption here and you offering zero facts

an assumption based on reasonable deduction, good physics and chemistry

a Direct hit...possibly destroyed...depending on ammount stored AND size of bomb AND how its stored
near miss...almost certainly little destruction (of the components) and a high risk of mixing AND vapourisation from the shockwave
greater miss, certainly no destruction of the chemicals and severe danger of breakage of storage containers and mixing with consequent formation of a fairly localised but concentrated gas cloud, whos dispesal and hence contaminatiuon would depend on wind speed and direction. sarin is quite volatile and vapourises easily  It would break down in te atmosphere eventually, or more rapidly if subject to water......

Evidence, not babble please?

So at best you claim it depends

PMSL

personally I dont think its a matter for you to wet your panties about ....

you have the word of an admitted expert.....BUT....experts have been know to be 2ecomomical with the truth when it suits...

YES...you CAN "blow sarin up" in a guaranteed manner...IF its under controlled circumstances AND you use sufficient explosive to sarin ratio. (so you generate sufficient heat....)  

hint for you ...It doesnt die of fright if you shout bang at it

Tommy Monk wrote:Govt forces are doing air strikes all the time on the islamist militants...

It's much more likely that they hit a rebel store of chemicals on this one strike... than it is that they used a tiny bit on this one particular strike...!!!


It's common sense man!!!

Thorin wrote:

Lord Foul wrote:

Thorin wrote:


How is it in error to claim the sarin would be destroyed?

because the statement "would be destroyed" is factually wrong and depends upon whether it would be a direct hit on a small amount or a near miss


Its your assumption here and you offering zero facts

an assumption based on reasonable deduction, good physics and chemistry

a Direct hit...possibly destroyed...depending on ammount stored AND size of bomb AND how its stored
near miss...almost certainly little destruction (of the components) and a high risk of mixing AND vapourisation from the shockwave
greater miss, certainly no destruction of the chemicals and severe danger of breakage of storage containers and mixing with consequent formation of a fairly localised but concentrated gas cloud, whos dispesal and hence contaminatiuon would depend on wind speed and direction. sarin is quite volatile and vapourises easily  It would break down in te atmosphere eventually, or more rapidly if subject to water......

Evidence, not babble please?

So at best you claim it depends

PMSL

personally I dont think its a matter for you to wet your panties about ....

you have the word of an admitted expert.....BUT....experts have been know to be 2ecomomical with the truth when it suits...

YES...you CAN "blow sarin up" in a guaranteed manner...IF its under controlled circumstances AND you use sufficient explosive to sarin ratio. (so you generate sufficient heat....)  

hint for you ...It doesnt die of fright if you shout bang at it

Wet my panties?

well YOU reckoned you were PMSL....so clearly your underwear is now wet

Wow, where did you learn that insult from?

The sexist book of men?

You have shown no degree of understanding here, other than you poor unsubstantiated claims

You then admit, it can be blown up sarin and have yet to theorise how and how much sarin you believe was in the warehouse and how much survived.

You see, I can tie your dumb views up in knots all day long mate

Now, as far as I am concerned after you warned me from something trivial. And have sent you a PM to prove your bias

ANNNND...didge plays "the victim card"

Jog on

Night