ISIL, ISIS, Daesh discussion thread.

[Rroff]

'The reasonable position is that there is significant weight to the possibility it was a faked attack which isn't something I have denied.'

Yet all your arguments since I have been looking at this thread have been in support of the official line giving laughably implausible reasons why Assad would order such an attack. The only people you have criticised have been those exhibiting scepticism of the government position, never those supporting it.

Zero criticism of the official line at all beyond 'there are holes' without mentioning what those 'holes' are only begrudgingly conceding (after ninja edits) on balance that the whole Douma story is nonsense as it's impossible at this point to say otherwise.

Even though you concede on balance it was staged you still can't help yourself and maintain that it would make military sense for Assad to have ordered such an attack.

'Problem is to see it as such an ironclad guarantee he didn't do it is also based on a picture of the conflict that is a lie possibly coloured by Syrian state propaganda - Assad might have been winning but it was far from some kind of unstoppable rolling over the opposition'

Here's an ex-general of the SAS saying it makes **** all sense for Assad to have done it.

https://www.rt.com/uk/424589-syria-chemical-assad-jon

“Why would Assad use chemical weapons at this time? He's won the war,” Shaw said. “That's not just my opinion, it is shared by senior commanders in the US military. There is no rationale behind Assad's involvement whatsoever.

"He's convinced the rebels to leave occupied areas in buses. He's gained their territory. So, why would he be bothering gassing them?”

Shaw proceeded to point out that Assad’s enemies had much more to gain from staging an attack. “The jihadists and the various opposition groups who've been fighting against Assad have much greater motivation to launch a chemical weapons attack and make it look like Assad was responsible.

“Their motivation being that they want to keep the Americans involved in the war – following Trump saying the US was going to leave Syria for other people to sort out.”

Here's a Royal Navy admiral, Lord West, saying it makes **** all sense either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foj29LIXpy4

Clearly you know better than a British Army general and Royal Navy admiral having studied the Art of War. But alls not lost, the imbecile Robocod will still support you regardless.

I'm aware after your hasty edits last night you aren't interested in the truth aslong as it can be seen in a way to support you position you will happily post it regardless - further evidenced by how quickly you resort to ridiculing people, who are replying in a perfectly reasoned manner, when they don't just accept your narrative.

But anyhow - answer me this - why would the Syrian government forces and their supporters launch massive airstrikes followed by a huge ground assault over the 6th and 7th if the rebels had agreed to leave the area and were surrendering?

Also saying he won the war at that point was and is silly - he had turned the tide was making massive advances but it was a fragile victory and wouldn't have taken much for the momentum to have stalled - none the less he was desperate for manpower (which started to pickup again towards the end of 2018). It wouldn't have been the first time it happened - vast areas of the country were retaken and lost again in 2012 and 2014 when his forces lost momentum and opposition forces were reinforced by foreign actors.

I suspect in a couple of weeks time you'll be back commenting on how the English writing on the White Helmets uniform is somehow meaningful in identifying who is behind them despite the fact that it is perfectly normal and common all over the world including Syria (as I showed with images from other aid organisations) for English to be used on uniforms and it is only the Russian propaganda images that don't show they also mostly have both English and Arabic. And that in no ways means I disagree with who is behind their creation but the truth matters no matter what the greater story is:

Are you schizophrenic?

As above the truth matters as does staying civil and applying some reasoning to what we believe - I can quite easily agree with the likelihood that the attacks were staged while disagreeing with the validity of some of the evidence of that without being schizophrenic.

only begrudgingly conceding

Nothing begrudging at all - I said right from the start of this conversation that I could quite easily see either possibility being true. The only begrudging is in your mind because you can't accept any disagreement as anything but support for the opposite view to yours.

 

[B&W]

Assuming a logical reason to a chemical weapon attack is a mistake tbh.

Whoever done it, I don't think anyone can say for certain it was one side or the other.

Nor does it make the innocent side angels.

 

[EvilSooty]

'I'm aware after your hasty edits last night you aren't interested in the truth'

You have already agreed with me it was likely staged so what is the truth you refer to? I'm calling you schizoprehnic correctly as on the one hand you are agreeing with me it was staged and on the other you are arguing far more vociferously that Assad had every reason to launch this staged attack.

Your position is an inchorent mess. You already agree it is staged yet contine to argue? Why? Are you incapable of admitting you were wrong about anything?

'Also saying he won the war at that point was and is silly'

Everything after Aleppo was a mopping-up exercise unless you are professing to have greater military expertise than the British senior military officers I quoted who said it was nonsense for Assad to have launched such a militarily useless attack when he was winning?

'I suspect in a couple of weeks time you'll be back commenting on how the English writing on the White Helmets uniform is somehow meaningful in identifying who is behind them'

Jesus, are you being deliberately obtuse? I mentioned the English writing on their uniforms in the context of them also being a British funded and founded creation for the purposes of propaganda directed to a Western audience to justify regime change.

By you conceding it was likely staged you also concede the White Helmets are a propaganda outfit as that's where the OPCW evidence in the official report comes from that the suppressed report rubbished.

You are arguing with yourself at this point.

I only resort to mockery when I encounter people who are arguing for the sake of it.

 

[Rroff]

Assuming a logical reason to a chemical weapon attack is a mistake tbh.

Whoever done it, I don't think anyone can say for certain it was one side or the other.

Nor does it make the innocent side angels.

Sometimes the logical reasoning of other parts of the world doesn't neatly tie up with how we see things in the West. Assad has a number of times showed he doesn't intend to be cowed by foreign threats and his thinking could be quite different to what people are trying to insist here.

on the other you are arguing far more vociferously that Assad had every reason to launch this staged attack.

No I'm not - I'm saying certain things that are being presented as being strong reasoning as to why he wouldn't don't actually have as much weight to them as people are trying to make out - that doesn't mean I support the polar opposite position that because he might have a reason means he did it.

Jesus, are you being deliberately obtuse? I mentioned the English writing on their uniforms in the context of them also being a British funded and founded creation for the purposes of propaganda directed to a Western audience to justify regime change.

You were claiming that it was highly unusual and a strong indicator of nationality and I showed you it isn't.

Anyhow I ask again - why did they launch a massive assault on the rebels over the 6th and 7th if they were surrendering and had agreed to leave the area?

Everything after Aleppo was a mopping-up exercise unless you are professing to have greater military expertise than the British senior military officers I quoted who said it was nonsense for Assad to have launched such a militarily useless attack when he was winning?

A mopping-up exercise... right... there was a very long road from Aleppo even to Douma never mind from there - even right now FSA with Turkish backing is firmly entrenched in Northern Syria with massive amounts of fighting going on around Idlib and a very complicated situation on the ground there and radical rebel groups have been making a resurgence lately in the South East reinforced by rebels who have been pushed out of more populated areas under agreements with government forces which will likely mean more big battles go come. But hey don't let the truth get in the way.

 

[EvilSooty]

Schizophrenic.

"Assad had every reason to launch this attack that I agree was likely staged".

 

[B&W]

Sometimes the logical reasoning of other parts of the world doesn't neatly tie up with how we see things in the West. Assad has a number of times showed he doesn't intend to be cowed by foreign threats and his thinking could be quite different to what people are trying to insist here.

Yes, the biggest mistake you can ever make is to expect your enemy to think along certain lines of logic or common sense.

No one expected Hitler's Ardennes offensive as militarily it wasn't feasible (as proven by the outcome) and at that stage they should have kept there best forces in defense instead of a crazy gamble but yet he did it.

 

[EvilSooty]

Assuming a logical reason to a chemical weapon attack is a mistake tbh.

Whoever done it, I don't think anyone can say for certain it was one side or the other.

Nor does it make the innocent side angels.

It's a long thread full of people arguing with each other so you will have easily missed the important points.

The chemical weapons attack allegation was based on the Syrian army dropping two cannisters full of chrlorine from helicopters, but a leaked report from the OPCW (the body in charge of investigating these attacks) has rubbished this and has said that they were likely planted instead. So in other words the whole attack was staged.

https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2019/05/strange-news-from-the-opcw-in-the-hague-.html

The evidence for the alleged attack comes from the White Helmets who are a British-founded (by ex-British army officer James Le Mesurier) and funded propaganda outfit. The area was controlled by Saudi-backed jiahdis...at this point it's on the same level as believing that Iraq was about WMDs.

P.S. Rroff also agrees it was likely staged, but is still arguing for some bizarre reason that Assad had every reason to launch a CW attack that he thinks was staged. Yep, makes no sense to me either.

 

[B&W]

Perhaps it wasn't helicopters then but still doesn't rule out Assad 100%.

Are you saying the thing never took place itself or was staged to make it look like Assad did it?

 

[Rroff]

Schizophrenic.

"Assad had every reason to launch this attack that I agree was likely staged".

Come on answer me - if the rebels were surrendering and leaving the area as you say then why was massive attacks launched against them on the 6th and 7th?

You are twisting what I said above which really isn't hard to understand - again resorting to ridicule because you don't like what I'm saying.

Perhaps it wasn't helicopters then but still doesn't rule out Assad 100%.

Are you saying the thing never took place itself or was staged to make it look like Assad did it?

Amongst other things the report raises scepticism that it was possible for the tanks to have penetrated the roof in the manner they did while coming to a stop where they did and with as little apparent damage to where they came to rest as they did - whether dropped by helicopter or other means.

The studies however are incomplete, potentially due to the impossibility of acquiring the necessary data, in terms of substantiating the conclusion with respect to things like a baseline for the standard of construction and likely integrity of the materials of the structure (generic values were used instead) or a more indepth analysis of the objects they impacted, etc. which is possibly a reason why they weren't released, potentially the intention was to do further studies before releasing them or it is possible they were suppressed due to political reasons or both might be true.

(And to be clear they do present a convincing argument for the official story to be incorrect which leads to the likelihood the attack was staged).

 

[EvilSooty]

Perhaps it wasn't helicopters then but still doesn't rule out Assad 100%.

Are you saying the thing never took place itself or was staged to make it look like Assad did it?

All of the jihadi rebels' claims of a CW attack rest on two yellow cylinders having been dropped from a helicopter that crashed through reinforced concrete ceilings and that's what the official OPCW report said. However, someone from the OPCW in the last week leaked an internal engineering report that contradicted this saying they had tested the theory extensively dropping similar cylinders from the heights claimed onto the same kind of concrete and they couldn't reproduce it therefore it was staged.

They even said they were likely placed manually and the only people who could have done that were the rebels in control of the area at the time.

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/...chemical-weapon-incident-was-staged.html#more

So yes it was staged to make it look like Assad did it to encourage a Western military response for the benefit of the militarily defeated rebels who were actually Saudi-backed jihadis, the Army of Islam.

This rules out Assad completely. Who would benefit from such an alleged attack? Assad who was winning hands down or the defeated jihadis? The US, UK & France had already indicated in the weeks leading up to the alleged attack that they would attack Syria if there was a convenient CW incident so why would Assad do it? The Russians even warned of a staged CW attack in the days before it happened.

 

[EvilSooty]

Come on answer me - if the rebels were surrendering and leaving the area as you say then why was massive attacks launched against them on the 6th and 7th?

You are twisting what I said above which really isn't hard to understand - again resorting to ridicule because you don't like what I'm saying.

Why are you still arguing when you already agree it was likely staged?

 

[Rroff]

This rules out Assad completely

This is what you seem to have a problem with - even if evidence comes out tomorrow that conclusively and undeniably rules out Assad as having done it - that doesn't change the fact that Assad having the military upper-hand and less reason to resort to controversial means is wholly a reliable indicator that he didn't do it.

Why are you still arguing when you already agree it was likely staged?

Why are you still dodging answering my point that shows you aren't interested in the truth?

 

[EvilSooty]

Amongst other things the report raises scepticism that it was possible for the tanks to have penetrated the roof in the manner they did while coming to a stop where they did and with as little apparent damage to where they came to rest as they did - whether dropped by helicopter or other means.

The studies however are incomplete, potentially due to the impossibility of acquiring the necessary data, in terms of substantiating the conclusion with respect to things like a baseline for the standard of construction and likely integrity of the materials of the structure (generic values were used instead) or a more indepth analysis of the objects they impacted, etc. which is possibly a reason why they weren't released, potentially the intention was to do further studies before releasing them or it is possible they were suppressed due to political reasons or both might be true.

(And to be clear they do present a convincing argument for the official story to be incorrect which leads to the likelihood the attack was staged).

Clutching at straws hence my comments that you are invested in this narrative for some reason.

 

[EvilSooty]

This is what you seem to have a problem with - even if evidence comes out tomorrow that conclusively and undeniably rules out Assad as having done it - that doesn't change the fact that Assad having the military upper-hand and less reason to resort to controversial means is wholly a reliable indicator that he didn't do it.

Well, I'm no military expert so I'll defer to the opinions of the British general and admiral I quoted earlier who think that's complete nonsense.

Again, you are arguing with yourself at this point. You have already agreed repeatedly that it's a likely staged attack. Why are you continuing this?

 

[Rroff]

Clutching at straws hence my comments that you are invested in this narrative for some reason.

You are as bad as these people who think it is fine to invent damaging smears or distort the truth against Trump justified in their eyes because he is a bad person - and I bet from that your take is that I'm a Trump supporter LOL.

Well, I'm no military expert so I'll defer to the opinions of the British general and admiral I quoted earlier who think that's complete nonsense.

Again, you are arguing with yourself at this point.

But the basis of your argument is that the rebels were surrendering and had agreed to leave the area - while the facts don't agree with that. That is your take not what the British general or whoever is talking about.

 

[EvilSooty]

For the third time you agree it was likely staged so what are you even arguing about?

 

[Rroff]

For the third time you agree it was likely staged so what are you even arguing about?

Can't wriggle out of it like that - even if it was likely staged that doesn't change that some things are more or less reliable as indicators and it is important to be discerning when it comes to them or injustices are done.

So again if the rebels had agreed to surrender and leave as you claim why was a massive assault launched against them?

 

[EvilSooty]

Can't wriggle out of it like that - even if it was likely staged that doesn't change that some things are more or less reliable as indicators and it is important to be discerning when it comes to them or injustices are done.

So you are arguing for the sake of arguing. Gotcha.

 

[Rroff]

So you are arguing for the sake of arguing. Gotcha.

You wish it was that...

Anyhow gave you fair chance to come up with a reasoned reply and still you dodge answering - further confirming you are just full of it.

 

[EvilSooty]

You wish it was that...

Anyhow gave you fair chance to come up with a reasoned reply and still you dodge answering - further confirming you are just full of it.

Reasoned reply to what? You agree with me it was staged.

What is the point of this? You are arguing with yourself. Nuts.