Use of Chemical Weapons in Syria

[red_elk]

Perhaps Assad is a little too confident that the US will not get involved.

Or perhaps there is someone who may have benefit from this, useless from the military point of view, action.

 

[Defiant47]

Update

U.S. naval forces are moving closer to Syria as President Barack Obama considers military options for responding to the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime. The president emphasized that a quick intervention in the Syrian civil war was problematic, given the international considerations that should precede a military strike.

After Obama met with his national security team Saturday, the White House said U.S. intelligence officials are still trying to determine whether Syrian President Bashar Assad unleashed a deadly chemical weapons attack against his people earlier this week. Officials save said once the facts are clear, Obama will make a decision about how to proceed.

Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel declined to discuss any specific force movements while saying that Obama had asked the Pentagon to prepare military options for Syria. U.S. defence officials told The Associated Press that the Navy had sent a fourth warship armed with ballistic missiles into the eastern Mediterranean Sea but without immediate orders for any missile launch into Syria.

U.S. Navy ships are capable of a variety of military action, including launching Tomahawk cruise missiles, as they did against Libya in 2011 as part of an international action that led to the overthrow of the Libyan government.

“The Defence Department has a responsibility to provide the president with options for contingencies, and that requires positioning our forces, positioning our assets, to be able to carry out different options — whatever options the president might choose,” Hagel told reporters travelling with him to Asia.

Hagel said the U.S. is co-ordinating with the international community to determine “what exactly did happen” near Damascus earlier this week. According to reports, a chemical attack in a suburb of the capital killed at least 100 people. It would be the most heinous use of chemical weapons since Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of Kurds in the town of Halabja in 1988.

Assad’s regime has denied allegations that it was behind that attack, calling them “absolutely baseless” and suggesting they are an attempt to discredit the government.

Obama remained cautious about getting involved in a war that has killed more than 100,000 people and now includes Hezbollah and al-Qaida. He made no mention of the “red line” of chemical weapons use that he marked out for Assad a year ago and that U.S. intelligence says has been breached at least on a small scale several times since.

“If the U.S. goes in and attacks another country without a U.N. mandate and without clear evidence that can be presented, then there are questions in terms of whether international law supports it — do we have the coalition to make it work?” Obama said Friday. “Those are considerations that we have to take into account.”

Obama conceded in an interview on CNN’s “New Day” program that the episode is a “big event of grave concern” that requires American attention. He said any large-scale chemical weapons usage would affect “core national interests” of the United States and its allies. But nothing he said signalled a shift toward U.S. action.

U.S. defence officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss ship movements publicly. But if the U.S. wants to send a message to Assad, the most likely military action would be a Tomahawk missile strike, launched from a ship in the Mediterranean.

For a year now, Obama has threatened to punish Assad’s regime if it resorted to its chemical weapons arsenal, among the world’s vastest, saying use or even deployment of such weapons of mass destruction constituted a “red line” for him. A U.S. intelligence assessment concluded in June chemical weapons have been used in Syria’s civil war, but Washington has taken no military action against Assad’s forces.

U.S. officials have instead focused on trying to organize a peace conference between the government and opposition. Obama has authorized weapons deliveries to rebel groups, but none are believed to have been sent so far.

In his first comments on Syria since the alleged chemical attack, Obama said the U.S. is still trying to find out what happened. Hagel said Friday that a determination on the chemical attack should be made swiftly because “there may be another attack coming,” although he added that “we don’t know” whether that will happen.

After rebels similarly reported chemical attacks in February, U.S. confirmation took more than four months. In this instance, a U.N. chemical weapons team is already on the ground in Syria.

Obama also cited the need for the U.S. to be part of a coalition in dealing with Syria. America’s ability by itself to solve the Arab country’s sectarian fighting is “overstated,” he said.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...-us-naval-forces-move-closer/article13943524/

Well, some components of the U.S. Military are mobilizing it seems. Is this standard operations? Is this a show of threat or bluff? Is this a precursor to an invasion?

 

[Antilogic]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...-us-naval-forces-move-closer/article13943524/

Well, some components of the U.S. Military are mobilizing it seems. Is this standard operations? Is this a show of threat or bluff? Is this a precursor to an invasion?

Could be any of what you listed, except for maybe the invasion part (there would be much more significant movements if that were the case, and more than likely it would be kept secret from the press). It's very possible Obama and the relevant decision-making team hasn't come to a conclusion yet and they are keeping options open.

 

[Defiant47]

Could be any of what you listed, except for maybe the invasion part (there would be much more significant movements if that were the case, and more than likely it would be kept secret from the press). It's very possible Obama and the relevant decision-making team hasn't come to a conclusion yet and they are keeping options open.

That's most likely. The thing is, if Obama had actual proof of Syrian government wrongdoing and was prepping for an invasion, the press releases and news would be pretty much the same.

 

[DemonicAppleGuY]

Could be any of what you listed, except for maybe the invasion part (there would be much more significant movements if that were the case, and more than likely it would be kept secret from the press). It's very possible Obama and the relevant decision-making team hasn't come to a conclusion yet and they are keeping options open.

^This.

Likely the first thing we will see is a no-fly zone, if we see anything. Will make for some interesting talk this week!

Update:

Spoiler :

Looks like Syria got the message. They're letting the inspectors get to work.

This could make things interesting.

 

[dutchfire]

Or perhaps there is someone who may have benefit from this, useless from the military point of view, action.

And just in time to catch the news cycles after the Egyptian situation finished.

 

[Formaldehyde]

So what'll they do to baddies? Invade them with an army that doesn't exist? Impose economic sanctions they cannot enforce? Annoy them with empty moralistic moaning that doesn't mean anything in real-life? Okay, that might just be possible.

Don't you think determining the facts without bias is a worthwhile goal in and of itself, just like they did in Iraq prior to the US government deliberately lying about the situation?

Shouldn't you actually be faulting the member nations for deliberately making it so that the UN has no real power by not providing top notch military units from their own countries? That it is all-too easy easy for permanent members to veto Security Council resolutions so they can't bring sanctions against countries like the US and Israel for violating international law?

 

[DemonicAppleGuY]

Shouldn't you actually be faulting the member nations for deliberately making it so that the UN has no real power by not providing top notch military units from their own countries? That it is all-too easy easy for permanent members to veto Security Council resolutions so they can't bring sanctions against countries like the US and Israel for violating international law?

As an American, I sort of can't fault the UN. It only helps us pretty much

 

[kramerfan86]

How much evidence really still exists weeks and weeks after the supposed attack occurred in a war zone? If they go to the one that supposedly just happened I can see the value, but I dont really see how much evidence yea or nay they will find for the alledged earlier attacks at this point.

 

[Defiant47]

Unfortunately my satire became reality. Truly disgusting.

Americans strongly oppose U.S. intervention in Syria's civil war and believe Washington should stay out of the conflict even if reports that Syria's government used deadly chemicals to attack civilians are confirmed, a Reuters/Ipsos poll says.

About 60 percent of Americans surveyed said the United States should not intervene in Syria's civil war, while just 9 percent thought President Barack Obama should act.

More Americans would back intervention if it is established that chemical weapons have been used, but even that support has dipped in recent days - just as Syria's civil war has escalated and the images of hundreds of civilians allegedly killed by chemicals appeared on television screens and the Internet.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll, taken August 19-23, found that 25 percent of Americans would support U.S. intervention if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces used chemicals to attack civilians, while 46 percent would oppose it. That represented a decline in backing for U.S. action since August 13, when Reuters/Ipsos tracking polls found that 30.2 percent of Americans supported intervention in Syria if chemicals had been used, while 41.6 percent did not.

Taken together, the polls suggest that so far, the growing crisis in Syria, and the emotionally wrenching pictures from an alleged chemical attack in a Damascus suburb this week, may actually be hardening many Americans' resolve not to get involved in another conflict in the Middle East.

The results - and Reuters/Ipsos polling on the use-of-chemicals question since early June - suggest that if Obama decides to undertake military action against Assad's regime, he will do so in the face of steady opposition from an American public wary after more than a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013...urce=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&dlvrit=992637

 

[Kyriakos]

^I doubt Obama cares one bit about the polls or the actual views of Americans. He is just interested in making it seem like he cares, which is an entirely different reason for him to not order non-covert attacks already.

Besides, it seems many americans think that the syrian "rebels" are merely branches of al-qaeda and the like, so war is harder to sell currently anyway. So even mentioning Goldstein so much can have its downturn for US/puppets, given that now people care more about Goldstein than the rest of the propaganda.

 

[Antilogic]

So, one of the columnists at Slate is convinced the United States is about to attack Syria:

It seems likely that President Obama will bomb Syria sometime in the coming weeks.

His top civilian and military advisers are meeting in the White House on Saturday to discuss options. American warships are heading toward the area; those already there, at least one of which had been scheduled for a port call, are standing by. Most telling perhaps is a story in the New York Times, noting that Obama’s national-security aides are studying the 1999 air war in Kosovo as a possible blueprint for action in Syria.

...

Been seeing a few more of these type articles showing up.

 

[Silurian]

^This.

Likely the first thing we will see is a no-fly zone, if we see anything. Will make for some interesting talk this week!

Update:

Spoiler :

Looks like Syria got the message. They're letting the inspectors get to work.

This could make things interesting.

There could be problems down the road with a no fly zone depending how it is enforced.

Would the Israeli Air Force be prevented from flying over Syria.
Want happens when Israel wants to bomb another arms shipment to Hezbollah.

Assad would like the opportunity to imply that he is fighting an Israeli backed force and maybe get reduce support to the rebels from the Gulf states.

 

[woody60707]

Why is this one Americas problem. Can't the EU pick this one up. You guys across the pond need to picking up your own weight.

 

[Winner]

You all are convinced it was Assad then? I thought that wasn't so certain yet. Assad mainly lacks motive.

Exactly. This might just as well have been any one of the myriad of rebel groups operating in Syria.

I say we STAY THE HELL OUT of the mess.

Why is this one Americas problem. Can't the EU pick this one up. You guys across the pond need to picking up your own weight.

Why? What's our interest there? Even if we depose Assad, what then? Saudi-funded Arab Sunni regime which will promptly implement genocidal revenge against the Alewites and Shias in general, Christians, Druze, Kurds and others? Or a failed, sectarian state akin to Somalia, ruled by local militias? No thanks. But if we're in the business of advice-giving here, I'd suggest the US turn Saudi Arabia into a glass desert. You'd be surprised how many other problems in the Middle East would go away if there were no Saudi money stirring up trouble.

 

[asbestos]

You'd be surprised how many other problems in the Middle East would go away if there were no Saudi money stirring up trouble.

For once, I agree.

 

[Silurian]

Why is this one Americas problem. Can't the EU pick this one up. You guys across the pond need to picking up your own weight.

American grabbed the ball off us back in the fifties.

 

[Camikaze]

I think it'd be a mistake to regard the only explanations here as being the rebels deliberately using chemical weapons and Assad deliberately using chemical weapons. Do we know how much control Assad actually has over his forces? Isn't it possible that someone on the government side used a chemical weapon contrary to Assad's wishes? It's probably important to entertain these possibilities before taking drastic actions that could make things worse. If it is indeed the case that Assad deliberately used chemical weapons, I think there's no real option for Obama but to take some form of military action (remembering there's a lot of territory between strong condemnation and full-scale invasion), however limited that may be. But jumping to seemingly obvious conclusions is probably not advisable.

 

[Winner]

Limited intervention is even worse than a full-scale invasion. Having boots on the ground at least means you can try and enforce some kind of order and set up a government at least partially to your liking*. Bombing Syrian military from above only ensures that the country completely disintegrates when the regime goes belly up and the rebels overrun the capital.

I wonder how the "humanitarians" here will justify doing nothing then when Sunni fanatics start slaughtering Alawite and Christian and Shiite and Druze men, women and children. Or is that okay if its done using AK-47s and machetes instead of poison gas?

Like it or not, Assad and his cronies are the LESSER EVIL. The alternatives are much worse. Whatever happens in Syria, it will be bad, but the West has an unique opportunity not to get blood on its hands this time by getting itself involved in what are essentially region-wide power struggles between Iran and Saudi Arabia.


( *-Oh, BTW, I am sure that if Western troops were actually deployed in Syria, Iran would be very happy to get another proxy battleground where Iranian-trained insurgents could score some infidel kills. )

 

[Lord Baal]

So, one of the columnists at Slate is convinced the United States is about to attack Syria:



Been seeing a few more of these type articles showing up.

The 1999 Kosovo War sure did work out well for all sides. Truly it is a war the US should study. Hell, it should be a requirement at West Point

Sarcasm aside, have the Americans been involved in a single conflict since the original Gulf War that they didn't cock up? I was just thinking while writing that comment about the NATO bombings of Kosovo, and I can't for the life of me think of one.