Posted on 04/23/2013 3:23:02 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Israel's top military intelligence official said Tuesday that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons repeatedly, and he criticized the international community for not taking tougher action against the Syrian leadership.
Israel and the Syrian opposition have on multiple occasions accused President Bashar Assad's government of using chemical weapons in the country's civil war, but have not offered much in the way of evidence.
Israeli Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, speaking at a security conference in Israel, gave the most definitive statement so far by an Israeli official.
"To the best of our professional understanding, the regime used lethal chemical weapons against the militants in a series of incidents over the past months," Brun said, according to an Associated Press report from Tel Aviv. "Shrunken pupils, foaming at the mouth and other signs indicate, in our view, that lethal chemical weapons were used."
Brun appeared to be referring to attacks that took place near the capital, Damascus, and the northern city of Aleppo on March 19, and an attack in the city of Homs on Dec. 23.
The Israeli military believed that sarin, a lethal nerve agent, was probably used, Brun added.
President Obama, meanwhile, has warned Syria against using chemical weapons and stressed that if they are deployed, it would cross a "red line" and could provoke a U.S. response. However, the U.S. has said only that it is monitoring the situation and has not accused Syria of using chemical weapons.
Syria is believed to have a large chemical weapons arsenal, but has denied using them and has on occasion claimed that the rebels employed them.
Some Western military analysts have argued that the Syrian military still has plenty of conventional firepower, including aircraft and artillery, and therefore would have no pressing need to use chemical weapons.
In addition, analysts note, chemical weapons attacks could increase the likelihood that countries opposed to the Assad regime might intervene more directly in the conflict, which began more than two years ago and has left tens of thousands dead.
Following requests by Britain and France, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said a month ago that the U.N. was launching an investigation into the possible use of chemical weapons in Syria. However, the Syrian government has largely blocked that effort.
Why would we get involved?
To pour billions in nation-building the neighboring state of our previous endeavor? The country couldn’t even stomach Iraq, why would Syria be better?
Then we can hand over the government to the Syrian rebels, who just announced a merger with the Islamic State of Iraq.
So tell me again why we would want to get involved.
Too bad both sides can’t lose.
Israel’s domestic politics indicate to me that they’re not even interested in protecting their OWN interests.
It’s time to write Israel off. They’ve lost their will to fight for themselves, and there’s no point in fighting battles for those who won’t do their own work.
That includes, BTW, most of the Islamic world too. They’re all too lazy to fight for liberty or freedom or whatever you want to call it.
We’ll be best served by developing our own domestic energy programs and washing our hands of the entire region ASAP.
Oh yea - attentive people have known for years about the convoy that left Iraq and went into Syria.
But that’s not going to change the narrative now. It’s too well established, too much “conventional wisdom” and the oncoming failure of Iraq will be so expensive that it’s not worth trying to debate the issue.
I’m saying “Let’s not bother going down that road again. There was nothing gained by stopping Saddam from doing whatever he was going to do... because now we’re going to see worse alternatives of Islamists get their way in elections, therefore making their loony-tunes governments legit.”
Syria is going to go into chaos and will become islamist in the worst possible way, no matter what we say or do, because we don’t have the balls to do what needs to be done: Kill islamists in large numbers. Not “nation build,” not “give them freedom” or any other such thing. What needs to be done in Syria is to kill the Baathists. Period, full stop, thanks for playing. Not negotiate, just kill them.
And then when the Shi’ites swarm into the vacuum from Iran, we’d need to kill them too.
We clearly aren’t about to do that, so why bother?
“Israel’s domestic politics indicate to me that they’re not even interested in protecting their OWN interests.”
Israel started as a communist country. But the influx of Russians has begun to change them. They are probably more entrepreneurial per capita than the US. (They have far more PhD’s per 1000 than the US and many more small companies than we do.) True, they have their version of the Lunatic Left. But once they start dying in significant numbers, suddenly their “Occupy Jerusalem” crowd will either die or get with the program.
1. True.
2. Not our problem.
3. We’re broke. So see #2 above.
It’s time to write Israel off. They’ve lost their will to fight for themselves, and there’s no point in fighting battles for those who won’t do their own work.
Afraid I have to agree, The Muslim Brotherhood will certainly reward them for protecting the Syrian rebels, but they won't be thrilled with the reward.
obama was seen running to his quarters with hands over both jug-ears and screaming “lalalalalalalalalala”.
LLS
I hear ya, but Alawites aren’t considered muslims, and aren’t really. Their faith is syncretic, which makes them natural allies of the Christians in the country. Assad SR. and Jr. are despicable excuses for human beings, but we shouldn’t want the AQ-backed Nusra front to “win”.
Yes, and bears have been cr*pping in the woods.
The million-dollar question is, Where did Syria get those chemical weapons?
And the answer is:
Wait for it...
Saddam!
Bing-bing-bing-bing!
You remember that guy - the one all the Liberal rags decided Bush didn’t have any right to pursue way back in the day, since he ‘didn’t really have WMDs.’
Well... yes, he did.
Thanks SeekAndFind.
Absolutely, I wont loose a moments sleep over it.
>>>Could these be the very same Chemical Weapons ( AKA WMDs) the inspectors COULD NOT FIND in Iraq when Saddam was deposed?
Did he send the WMDs to Syria? ( After all, both are Baathist parties ).
The curious thing is Saddam used these Chemical weapons on the Kurds ( slaughtering over 5,000 of them ), but they suddenly disappeared from the face of the earth when the inspectors were looking for them.
Inquiring minds want to know...<<<
The reality is every idiot can make chemical weapon. It is so stupid to seek for Saddam’s roots there.
Syria has a military which was designed along the same lines of the 70’s USSR military. As Syria is the last remaining military style regime from the Cold War, they are the last remaining Chemical Warfare dependent military, which was also a major part of the Soviet’s military inventory. As for the rebels or who ever else is fighting Assad, they have found the stores of Chemical Warfare materiel that was convoyed by the Russian’s out of Iraq for three weeks just prior to the US invasion. It is so sad that the Democrat party knowingly bashed Bush/Republicans for WMD in Iraq when they were privy to the negotiations that allowed the Russians to remove this very WMD into Syria....
Could these be the very same Chemical Weapons ( AKA WMDs) the inspectors COULD NOT FIND in Iraq when Saddam was deposed? >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You betcha. And Russian Army trucks were used to transport them. The French also had some of this done .Neither Russia nor France wanted the world to know they were trading WMD for oil with Saddam Hussein. So they trucked most of this WMD ordnance to Syria, where it was either destroyed or stored, depending on the shelf life of the various WMD.
Israel has known this for years.
Now Obama and his liberal fascists who concluded for theire own political reasons that tere were NO WMDs in Iraq, NOW have to face the fact that they are being used.BUahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Obama will likely NEVER acknowledge that WMD are being used in Syria, unless he needs an excuse for Israel to be invaded by his Muslim friends in Gaza, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria....because Israel would be allegedly using WMDs NOT Syria.
“The million-dollar question is, Where did Syria get those chemical weapons?”
They made them. If people would do even a tiny bit of homework on the Syrian chemical weapons programs they would understand that Syria has their own weapons and NEVER needed Saddam’s. We need to stop repeating idle assumptions that these are Saddam’s weapons and take 5 minutes to learn something. Crack a book. Use the internet...something!
Idle assumptions?
Pretty safe bet, as far as I’m concerned.
Why make anything when you can get it for free from the neighbors.
“Why make anything when you can get it for free from the neighbors.”
Syria had chemical weapons LONG before Saddam moved his in. The point is that they didn’t/don’t need them.
If I had a million bucks and some guy offered me fifty thousand, I wouldn’t say no.
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