Exposed: The Obama Invasion of Syria

[Anomalocaris]

That being said, one (and only one) of the factors that make the use of chemical weapons more immoral is that they are impossible to target precisely.

But let's say they used chemcial weapons in such a way so as to achieve the same long term ratio of intentional to collateral casaulty as laser guided bombs targeting urban targets, does that satisfy the qualms?

The main thing that makes it "immoral" is it is something of a cheap force multiplier for the other side.

[bladevalant546]

Lets kill (tens of, hundreds of?) thousands of people with traditional weapons to prevent the use of a few chemical weapons. [...] I don't know how regular bombs somehow are a more moral option.

I'll start by saying that once one has decided to wage war, it is difficult to claim the moral high ground. It is, in my mind, about degree of immorality at that point.

That being said, one (and only one) of the factors that make the use of chemical weapons more immoral is that they are impossible to target precisely. The munition itself can be delivered with the same precision as conventional ones, but the area-of-effect is quite unpredictable, and subject to the whims of prevailing weather conditions for as long as the agent is active in enough concentration to cause harm.

The stuff can drift with the wind, and linger unseen on surfaces after the attack is concluded. Many nerve agents are colorless, odorless, and readily absorbed through the skin or via respiration - and it takes very little of it to cause injury or death.

At one of my posts in the Army, I served as our unit's Nuclear-Biological-Chemical warfare non-commissioned officer, and as such I received far more education about such weapons that any sane person would ever want to have. Honestly, nerve agent scared the living shit out of me.

(Note that that none of the above is making the argument that bombing with conventional weapons is in any way justifiable or somehow moral in any way.)

Having friends in the military I can agree with you. I know of one virus that has the ability to adapt to the medical treatments that are done to it. So effectively it stacks antiviral medications.

[Minimalist]

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert...ction-plan


Stephen Colbert puts the Congressional issue in surprisingly clear focus.

[Rayaan]

If you want to discuss the humanitarian side of things: The US doesn't give two shits that hundreds of thousands have been killed and millions displaced in Syria's civil war up to this point.

I agree, and I think that all humanitarian interventions are inherently political. There are no altruistic states; i.e. governments simply plan on how to become more rich and powerful and they care only about themselves. They are not the heroes or angels of any other country as they may like to pretend sometimes.

Furthermore, there are also examples in history which prove that the CIA or the government of a country has inflicted harm upon their own people, and then they falsely blamed it on another country only so that they can justify an invasion of that country. Then, the government creates a smokescreen by covering up all their secrets with false information that everyone else starts believing in.


Governments Routinely Conduct Fake Terror

Governments routinely admit to false flag terror - governments attacking people and then blaming others in order to create animosity towards those they wish to topple. For example:

- A major with the Nazi SS admitted at the Nuremberg trials that – under orders from the chief of the Gestapo – he and some other Nazi operatives faked attacks on their own people and resources which they blamed on the Poles, to justify the invasion of Poland. Nazi general Franz Halder also testified at the Nuremberg trials that Nazi leader Hermann Goering admitted to setting fire to the German parliament building, and then falsely blaming the communists for the arson.

- The CIA admits that it hired Iranians in the 1950′s to pose as Communists and stage bombings in Iran in order to turn the country against its democratically-elected prime minister.

- Israel admits that an Israeli terrorist cell operating in Egypt planted bombs in several buildings, including U.S. diplomatic facilities, then left behind "evidence" implicating the Arabs as the culprits (one of the bombs detonated prematurely, allowing the Egyptians to identify the bombers, and several of the Israelis later confessed).

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/07/f...syria.html


And what you said about America aiding the rebels is also true. Sometimes undercover FBI agents and intelligence groups have supplied money and weapons to certain individuals (or to their "rebels" or "enemies") and then they persuaded them to carry out an attack somewhere. There are many such stories on the internet even though mainstream media wants to suppress these kind of "top secret" information. These are the kind of dirty, manipulative tricks of today's Western ochlocracy that most people don't know anything about. You can read about some of this in the two articles below.

That is not to say that the people who give in to such plots created by the FBI are any more innocent themselves, however.


The FBI Again Thwarts Its Own Terror Plot

The FBI has received substantial criticism over the past decade -- much of it valid -- but nobody can deny its record of excellence in thwarting its own Terrorist plots. Time and again, the FBI concocts a Terrorist attack, infiltrates Muslim communities in order to find recruits, persuades them to perpetrate the attack, supplies them with the money, weapons and know-how they need to carry it out -- only to heroically jump in at the last moment, arrest the would-be perpetrators whom the FBI converted, and save a grateful nation from the plot manufactured by the FBI.

http://www.salon.com/2011/09/29/fbi_terror/


Man Is Held in a Plan to Bomb Washington

In what seems an elaborate operation, undercover F.B.I. agents who had been talking to Mr. Ferdaus for months provided him with some of the necessary components for his planned attack, including six assault rifles, three grenades, 25 pounds of C-4 plastic explosives and even an F-86 remote-controlled aircraft. The explosives and guns were provided on Wednesday just before his arrest, law enforcement officials said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/us/mas...ed=all&

[Minimalist]

The polite word that you are looking for is "entrapment," Rayaan.

[Minimalist]

The long and short of it is the US's core interest had always been to secure the survival of Assad regime in Syria, and the Mubrarak regime in Egypt. Both the short term and the long term interests of US relied on it. Hilary royally fucked up both.

A difficult situation, though. Yes, Mubarak was our boy for a long time but to yoke us to an 80 year old cancer victim seems like a losing hand. Then there was the whole problem of running our fucking mouths about how wonderful "democracy" is to a bunch of people who think "majority rules" means they can slaughter their opposition. We should be thankful they didn't think they could eat them, too.

Assad was a touchier problem but when you have senile old fools like McCain and Graham running around thinking that the rebels were the good guys...like in Star Wars...it again gets difficult. Add in that Assad's real allies are Russia and fucking Iran and it would have been far better for Obama to keep his mouth shut instead of talking about "red lines."

I agree with your political assertion for 2016. The republicunts are most liable to nominate the most disgusting piece of tea-bagging shit they can find.

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[Rayaan]

The polite word that you are looking for is "entrapment," Rayaan.

I didn't know what that word meant, but now I learned something.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrapment

[Creed of Heresy]

Lets kill (tens of, hundreds of?) thousands of people with traditional weapons to prevent the use of a few chemical weapons. That makes so much sense. The U.S. military has killed more Iraqis than Saddam Hussein ever did and more Afghans than the Taliban ever did. I don't know how regular bombs somehow are a more moral option. This is an insane foreign policy. We will literally be aiding Al Queda for no reason at all. It's like we've gone full circle. I think impeachment would be a great precident to start when the president abuses his power to go to war. It would make the next fucker think twice about killing people in the middle east. Do people in support of this think it's just some magic coincidence that all this is happening in the Middle East. Sure it's a fucked up region but there are a half dozen conflicts in Africa that are more fucked up and we do jack all about that.

Just wanted to point out that over the course of the Afghanistan war, the maximum estimate for Afghani civilian deaths is around 19,000.

Over the course of the Taliban's rule, it is estimated that they were directly responsible [shooting, executing, etc] somewhere to the tune of about 50,000+. If we take into account their more "passive" means of killing people [denying them international humanitarian aid, displacement, burning crops and leaving them to starve to death, etc] they can be considered responsible for well over 200,000 deaths. Most of 19,000 deaths in Afghanistan have been the result of executions, suicide bombings, car bombings, IEDs, and many other forms, to the point it's considered that it might only be around 3,000 at most that were killed by NATO forces.

One death alone by our hands is bad enough but to state that we are bigger murderers than the Taliban in Afghanistan is foolishness and outright bullshit.

[Creed of Heresy]

Also for anyone curious about where I got my numbers from: I couldn't find any hard estimates for the amount of deaths the Taliban caused, so basically, go to Wikipedia and also look up some of the various atrocities they committed that the wikipedia article doesn't really get into. The counts for the deaths are around 50k, and the stuff about the indirect deaths are fairly easy to take a swing at from the wikipedia article.

Plus consider that the Taliban wasn't exactly letting reporters have free reign around the country and there's a bunch of shit they likely did not feel the need to really talk about... Hell, they aren't even known for giving accurate estimates of the amount of their insurgents that get killed in firefights. "one was killed, three were wounded" type shit. Several of the engagements my brother's been in, they've downplayed their casualties constantly, according to him, and I'm sure anyone else who has served in Afghanistan and been in firefights can attest to that as well.

[Jackalope]

That being said, one (and only one) of the factors that make the use of chemical weapons more immoral is that they are impossible to target precisely.

But let's say they used chemcial weapons in such a way so as to achieve the same long term ratio of intentional to collateral casaulty as laser guided bombs targeting urban targets, does that satisfy the qualms?

I suppose it might, however, you're proposing a hypothetical to which I see no practical solution. Chemical weapons are by their very nature unpredictable.

The main thing that makes it "immoral" is it is something of a cheap force multiplier for the other side.

That may be a factor. Any weapon acts as a force multiplier - that is the very purpose of weapons. Chemical weapons are certainly "cheaper" (in terms of attainability) than nuclear. However, I believe that much of the attitude towards such weapons came from the experience of using them (by both sides) in WWI, and we certainly weren't dealing with asymmetric forces in that conflict. I don't necessarily disagree that it's a factor for some, however.