Poll: Syrian Chemical Weapon Attack

[Lysander]

That and they simply don't have the military capability.

Their missles can go, what, 500 miles at a stretch? Hardly a massive international threat.

 

[deanolfc]

BBC cannot be considered solid source biased as ****.

 

[Devlish]

Right, so Syria isn't daft enough to risk escalating matters but it would launch a chemical attack that risked escalating matters?

Yeah, we skipped over the whole decentralised command, Assads unhinged brother and his Damascus base with its artillery and chem stores, and straight into the apologists eh?

 

[shadow_boxer]

Their missles can go, what, 500 miles at a stretch? Hardly a massive international threat.

But can hit British bases in Cyprus and US bases in Jordan and Turkey and not to mention Israel.

 

[Lysander]

BBC cannot be considered solid source biased as ****.

They might be biased but they don't report something without it being true.

 

[Burnsy2023]

They might be biased but they don't report something without it being true.

Indeed. They're respected around the world for their solid journalism. That's not to say they're not biased; you could argue all news sources will inherently be biased because of the work they do.

 

[smelly_legend]

Ironic the Syrian government doesn't entertain it's peoples' grievances and neither does ours. I'm not sure about everyone else, but I'm fed up of showing humanitarian needs with bombs - surely there is a better way to connect with humans? For example, what exactly will happen after a bombing run has occurred? Tea and crumpets?

 

[Bunka]

The government have just published a statement on the legality of military intervention in Syria:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...ime-uk-government-legal-position-html-version

Looks like we're 95% there to actually carrying out these threats.

 

[Danthus]

The government have just published a statement on the legality of military intervention in Syria:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...ime-uk-government-legal-position-html-version

Looks like we're 95% there to actually carrying out these threats.

Note that they did not publish what the Attorney General said, that statement is based on his advice.

 

[KautoStar]

Yeah lets show them people who use chemical weapons its not on, and bomb them with depleted uranium.

Remember this 'solid journalism' from the BBC?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/...Iraq-photo-to-illustrate-Syrian-massacre.html

 

[Hedge]

Meh, bombing folk is bad but we do it in a more civilised manner. So all hippy folk should just shut up and be happy they live in our awesome country

 

[Devlish]

Its a shame Iraq so jaded this country we are paralysed now when WMDs are used in the Middle East, because its the Middle East.

 

[arknor]

Its a shame Iraq so jaded this country we are paralysed now when WMDs are used in the Middle East, because its the Middle East.

yea it's a shame we want to bomb a country before the UN can establish the facts

 

[Danthus]

JIC letter to the government.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...a_Reported_Chemical_Weapon_Use_with_annex.pdf

 

[Devlish]

yea it's a shame we want to bomb a country before the UN can establish the facts

This is what im talking about, people so paralysed with fear that they need the approval of an organisation that specialises in dithering before they can act, if they can act at all. What you hoping for? Proof that people died to WMDs and that the only side that has those WMDs used them? Shame.

We also have a limited but growing body of intelligence which supports the judgement that the regime was responsible for the attacks and that they were conducted to help clear the Opposition from strategic parts of Damascus. Some of this intelligence is highly sensitive but you have had access to it all.

Against that background, the JIC concluded that it is highly likely that the regime was responsible for the CW attacks on 21 August. The JIC had high confidence in all of its assessments except in relation to the regime’s precise motivation for carrying out an attack of this scale at this time – though intelligence may increase our confidence in the future.

Guess youll want to see the intelligence next.

 

[smelly_legend]

Meh, bombing folk is bad but we do it in a more civilised manner. So all hippy folk should just shut up and be happy they live in our awesome country

In what way is it "Civilized"? It is not polite or well mannered.

 

[matt_fsr]

JIC letter to the government.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...a_Reported_Chemical_Weapon_Use_with_annex.pdf

Can you spell "rubber stamp" ?

 

[ubersonic]

Wiki suggests the Syrian air forces top fighter is the MiG 29 which although still a very capable fighter, it shouldn't give a Typhoon flown by a highly trained RAF pilot too much trouble.

The newer models are quite capable and (if in good maintenance order) could easily bother F15/16/18's or Tornados but Eurofighters are quite out of their league, the is always however the issue that you don't have to survive an encounter to inflict damage, some of the missiles they could potentially carry would be a threat to any plane and so the threat would be a bight higher than the normal /lolmigs

They still use MiG 25s as interceptors which are very fast but I'd guess them to be a poor fighter and years out of date.

Yeah, they were a pretty poor fighter even when new, the 23 was a much better plane in pretty much every aspect, the main function of the 25 was it was fast as hell and would help scare the USAF out of sending SR-71's over Soviet airspace.

 

[Amp34]

We could just go round in circles about this so wiki - The Assad family comes from the minority Alawite religious group, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam that comprises an estimated 12 percent of the total Syrian population. It has maintained tight control on Syria's security services, generating resentment among some Sunni Muslims, a sect that makes up about three-quarters of Syria's population. Ethnic minority Syrian Kurds have also protested and complained over ethnic discrimination and denial of their cultural and language rights. The Syrian government allegedly has relied mostly on Alawite-dominated units of the security services to fight the uprising. Assad's younger brother Maher al-Assad commands the army's elite Fourth Armored Division, and his brother-in-law, Assef Shawkat, was the deputy minister of defense until the latter's assassination in the 18 July 2012 Damascus bombing.



Can you give figures on deaths due to WP in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict? thats certainly a factor in the difference in the response.

Or we could look at newspaper articles about surveys...


Before it got violent
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jan/17/syrians-support-assad-western-propaganda

A few months ago...

http://www.worldtribune.com/2013/05/31/nato-data-assad-winning-the-war-for-syrians-hearts-and-minds/

No, not a definitive poll but still fairly damning...

 

[Von Smallhausen]

Good info ubers.

Shame to hear the F15 is down the pecking order now as it was arguably the best air superiority fighter going for a lot of years. Time marches on but they still look great.