Syria- Is it time we re-assessed who we support?

johntheexpat

It may not make sense.  But when the source of information that is held up for scrutiny also contains the stuff that smacks of anti-Semitism, the whole source is then corrupted and justifiably deemed unreliable and biased.

AlJazeera reported the use of chemical weapons in fairly unequivocal terms. Are they actually a biased, pro Western, anti-Assad outfit as well?

Mshulla

I'm saying forget the pro Assad regime websites and look at the facts as they are known.
A chemical attack was known as a possible trigger for western intervention.
Assad's forces were gaining ground against the opposition.
UN inspectors are on their way.
Why choose the worst possible time to launch a chemical attack?
To date there hasn't been any clear evidence the chemical attack was carried out by Assad's forces.

Al Jazeera is owned by the Qatar government. Qatar is one of the main supporters of the Syrian rebels, supplying both arms and money. They may not be pro western but they are anti Assad.

johntheexpat

I didn't know (care?) that AlJazeera was Qatari and thus anti-Assad, so thanks for that.

As for the why would they do it argument, well why does anyone do anything in war?  Why did the serbs massacre muslims by the thousand in the almost full glare of the tv cameras and under the direct scrutiny of NATO?  They must have known it would come home to roost.
Why did they massacre people by the hundreds of thousands in Rwanda?
Why do western troops still take trophy photographs knowing the offence they will cause and the crap that will arrive when/if they get published?

I can only assume that the commander on the ground didn't believe that Obama would react, didn't believe that anyone would care or possibly thought that they may as well use the weapons before they get confiscated.  Perhaps the commander just plain hated the enemy so much that he wanted to inflict an awful suffering on them, no matter what the consequences.  Possibly all those reasons and more.

Its the fog of war.  Even though we now see much more clearly what is going on, it still takes ages for the truth to come out and by then things have moved on.  I assume that that logic allows even the most outrageous decisions to seem logical or reasonable at the time.

If you have evidence that it was the rebels, or Turkey or anyone other than Assad that used chemical weapons, then lets have it.  We are all pretty open minded and fair here.  We will review the evidence and won't be guided by others.  But so long as your source is reasonable and doesn't have hidden agendas (unlike friends of Syria, who didn't bother to hide their agenda), we will look and decide for ourselves.

IronGiant

There are two questions here:
1) Were Chemical Weapons used?
2) If the answer to 1)  is yes, who deployed them?

Sonic67

U.N. Report on Chemical Attack in Syria

In transmitting simultaneously to the Security Council and the General Assembly the report on the incident which took place on 21 August 2013 in the Ghouta area of Damascus (see annex), the Secretary-General expresses his profound shock and regret at the conclusion that chemical weapons were used on a relatively large scale, resulting innumerous casualties, particularly among civilians and including many children.

IronGiant

Thanks Sonic, so the answer to 1) is an unequivocal yes?   

Because much of the media would still have us believe the BBC made it all up...

johntheexpat

It doesn't seem to state categorically who fired them, but on page 25 it gives some data on which direction the missiles seemed to come from.  Which isn't a lot of help from this distance.
But seeing how the UN has only confiscated chemicals from one side............

alan280170

Not backing one side or the other but, if the rebels had stolen the chemicals (quite plausible), you think they'd be telling the UN?

Cliff

The UN is removing Assad's chemical weapons.
Lets move on from that and look at the situation on the ground today.
First lets say there are no good guys , so no need to mud sling who did what!
It really doesn't matter unless you are going to put thing right- which we can't.

So we have a country with many insurgents supported by mainly Mid East money. These are a disparate groups, very radical and very dangerous. And after their battle on behalf of Allah they will return back to a country or county near you.

The Syrians hated Assad, but they hate these latest groups of foreign fighters even more.

It looks like Assad will probably re establish rule and locals are slowly coming back to their destroyed cities.
Do we still go on supporting these Jihadists?

robel

I wouldnt trust the UN with my washing, they are corrupt and evil.