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[Paphitis]

Without falling foul of Goodwin...

Can we say Trump is worst than Hitler? Well let’s see! Never invaded anyone and started no wars.

Can we compare Joe Biden to Hitler?

Well he’s off to a good start there - air strikes in Syria.

Still got a way to go but heck, it seems to be more valid for sleepy Joe.

[Get Real!]

WTF… are you still ranting over Trump?

Hasn’t anyone told you it’s over and he’s moved to Miami where he’s probably having a blast, while you’re wasting your time flogging a dead horse?

[Paphitis]

:shock: WTF… are you still ranting over Trump?

Hasn’t anyone told you it’s over and he’s moved to Miami where he’s probably having a blast, while you’re wasting your time flogging a dead horse?

It ain’t over as your poster boy sleepy Biden has ordered and already conducted air strikes.

But you also wanted to hush people from their voices on YouTube.

[erolz66]

You do not have to be a fan of 'business as usual' US foreign policy (broadly same for last 500 years) to be able to that see that whilst Trump has some veneer degree of being different, it was not the right kind of different. Just because there are issues with on going status quo that does not mean that ANY alternative is preferable. Trump has shown that to not be the case. Nor do you have to be student of human psychology to suspect that Trump has no ideological problems with bombing the shit out of foreign countries or assassinating their leaders and the like. That his choice on if to do so or not is motivated by how he perceives such a choice will personally benefit him politically. If he thought aggressive foreign policy actions would benefit him he would be their biggest champion.

[Kikapu]

Without falling foul of Goodwin...

Can we say Trump is worst than Hitler? Well let’s see! Never invaded anyone and started no wars.

Can we compare Joe Biden to Hitler?

Well he’s off to a good start there - air strikes in Syria.

Still got a way to go but heck, it seems to be more valid for sleepy Joe.

My my, how memories run short sometimes with some!

April 14, 2018, 3:12 AM CEST / Updated April 14, 2018, 2:56 PM CEST
By Daniel Arkin, F. Brinley Bruton and Phil McCausland

Trump announces strikes on Syria following suspected chemical weapons attack by Assad forces

President Donald Trump on Friday ordered the United States military — in conjunction with France and the United Kingdom — to launch strikes on Syria in retaliation for a suspected chemical weapons attack by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad on a Damascus suburb last week.

The president said the U.S. would aim to hit sites "associated with the chemical weapons capabilities" of Assad's regime.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/trum ... ad-n865966

[Paphitis]

Without falling foul of Goodwin...

Can we say Trump is worst than Hitler? Well let’s see! Never invaded anyone and started no wars.

Can we compare Joe Biden to Hitler?

Well he’s off to a good start there - air strikes in Syria.

Still got a way to go but heck, it seems to be more valid for sleepy Joe.

My my, how memories run short sometimes with some!

April 14, 2018, 3:12 AM CEST / Updated April 14, 2018, 2:56 PM CEST
By Daniel Arkin, F. Brinley Bruton and Phil McCausland

Trump announces strikes on Syria following suspected chemical weapons attack by Assad forces

President Donald Trump on Friday ordered the United States military — in conjunction with France and the United Kingdom — to launch strikes on Syria in retaliation for a suspected chemical weapons attack by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad on a Damascus suburb last week.

The president said the U.S. would aim to hit sites "associated with the chemical weapons capabilities" of Assad's regime.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/trum ... ad-n865966

Yes he had to remember because the Syrians used Sarin Gas against civilian populations in Syria and that was a clear red line to Trump.

And he did come out and say there would be more of chemical warfare was used against any opposition held territories, suburbs and towns.

One was a clear response to war crimes whilst the other is to re-ignite the Syrian crisis so that the US can re-engage it’s for Ed and settle some scores and finish some unfinished business against Assad.

Has Assad used any chemical weapons lately?

[Londonrake]

No, no, no! You've got it all wrong Paphitis.

At the time it was proven beyond doubt (from Russian sources) that the rebels used chemical weapons on themselves. In fact, they did it several times. It was all false-flag stuff though. Murdering their own in order to make the - actually much loved by his people - democrat Bashir Assad look bad in the world's eyes.

Do try to keep up.

[Kikapu]

No, no, no! You've got it all wrong Paphitis.

At the time it was proven beyond doubt (from Russian sources) that the rebels used chemical weapons on themselves. In fact, they did it several times. It was all false-flag stuff though. Murdering their own in order to make the - actually much loved by his people - democrat Bashir Assad look bad in the world's eyes.

Do try to keep up.

Well, we can all ponder who the real culprits were in the use of chemical weapons in Syria, no?

Turkey tried very hard to get Obama to bomb Syria shitless because of the use of chemical weapons as Obama promised he would if Assad did use such weapon, but Obama did not bomb Syria after the use of CWs because he was never convinced that Assad did it, but more likely Turkey did it (false flag) to let US do Erdogan’s dirty work. Obama/Biden and Erdogan has never saw anything eye to eye again. Erdogan is throwing temper tantrums for the past month because Biden won’t return his calls for a chit-chat like he had done with shameless Trump whenever he wished to since Trump left the YPG to be mercilessly slaughtered at the hands of the Turkish military. What other reasons Obama would have not to bomb Syria if Assad did in fact us CWs?

[Londonrake]

No, no, no! You've got it all wrong Paphitis.

At the time it was proven beyond doubt (from Russian sources) that the rebels used chemical weapons on themselves. In fact, they did it several times. It was all false-flag stuff though. Murdering their own in order to make the - actually much loved by his people - democrat Bashir Assad look bad in the world's eyes.

Do try to keep up.

Well, we can all ponder who the real culprits were in the use of chemical weapons in Syria, no?

Turkey tried very hard to get Obama to bomb Syria shitless because of the use of chemical weapons as Obama promised he would if Assad did use such weapon, but Obama did not bomb Syria after the use of CWs because he was never convinced that Assad did it, but more likely Turkey did it (false flag) to let US do Erdogan’s dirty work. Obama/Biden and Erdogan has never saw anything eye to eye again. Erdogan is throwing temper tantrums for the past month because Biden won’t return his calls for a chit-chat like he had done with shameless Trump whenever he wished to since Trump left the YPG to be mercilessly slaughtered at the hands of the Turkish military. What other reasons Obama would have not to bomb Syria if Assad did in fact us CWs?

Ohh dear. I was having a bit of a rib poking session with Paphitis there. Serves me right!

It’s been a long time but my clearest recollection all the way back then was of the usual pitter-patter of useful idiot feet, as they rushed in to the defence of Assad. As predictable as the sunrise. I don’t TBH recall any mention at all then of a potential Turkish role. Not a single one, by any side. Nor since, until you just conjoured it up. At least you don’t knee-jerk “Israe-hell!” though. I know Sarin was used, a pretty nasty substance and that well over 1000 people, as usual mostly civilians, died in agony.

Earlier I think, Obama, his advisers sat head in hands, had ad-lib briefed that the use of such weapons would precipitate a military response. It didn’t though and instead a deal was struck with Russia to remove 100s of tons of Sarin from Syria. Something the useful idiots had earlier adamantly insisted didn’t exist. Followed, as usual, by silence from them on the matter (being wrong was unthinkable you see).

That Obama made a threat he didn’t carry out doesn’t surprise me at all. I’m sure to your good self he ranks among the greatest. To a distant, dispassionate observer like me though he came across as the great ditherer. His lack of resolution probably saved US military lives and possible involvement in a campaign with an uncertain direction but it seemed to me it marked his being a man of great, Churchillian, rhetoric that ultimately could be effectively ignored by less sympathetic world leaders. His credibility was shredded and I suspect that a great many paid a heavy price for that. Not least in places like Crimea. Give Barack his credit though. He did significantly ramp up drone ops.

Sorry, as much as I’m sure we agree on Erdogan (To me, another fucking dictator. Just what the world needs) I don’t believe he actually comes into this tragedy at all. At the time Syria’s considerable store of chemical weapons were distributed regionally. Effectively under the command of local military setups. One of them decided to unleash Sarin on “the enemy”. What happened afterwards was a victory for Russia. Both in the disinformation and diplomatic spheres. Like Erdo, Trump and the Kurds didn’t feature.

This must be nearly a decade back now. And - I can’t really be assed to look into it once again. So, it’s all from my fading (but now vaccinated!) memory.

[Kikapu]

No, I am no supporter of Assad or any other dictator.

Here is a good long version read on what I wrote above, which I’m sure you will find it very interesting, especially when it is written by Pulitzer Prize Journalist Seymour Hersh, who had uncovered the massacres in My Lai, Vietnam and tortures in Abu Ghraib, Iraq

Vol. 36 No. 8 · 17 April 2014
The Red Line and the Rat Line

Seymour M. Hersh on Obama, Erdoğan and the Syrian rebels.
5776 words

In 2011​ Barack Obama led an allied military intervention in Libya without consulting the US Congress. Last August, after the sarin attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, he was ready to launch an allied air strike, this time to punish the Syrian government for allegedly crossing the ‘red line’ he had set in 2012 on the use of chemical weapons.* Then with less than two days to go before the planned strike, he announced that he would seek congressional approval for the intervention. The strike was postponed as Congress prepared for hearings, and subsequently cancelled when Obama accepted Assad’s offer to relinquish his chemical arsenal in a deal brokered by Russia. Why did Obama delay and then relent on Syria when he was not shy about rushing into Libya? The answer lies in a clash between those in the administration who were committed to enforcing the red line, and military leaders who thought that going to war was both unjustified and potentially disastrous.

Obama’s change of mind had its origins at Porton Down, the defence laboratory in Wiltshire. British intelligence had obtained a sample of the sarin used in the 21 August attack and analysis demonstrated that the gas used didn’t match the batches known to exist in the Syrian army’s chemical weapons arsenal. The message that the case against Syria wouldn’t hold up was quickly relayed to the US joint chiefs of staff. The British report heightened doubts inside the Pentagon; the joint chiefs were already preparing to warn Obama that his plans for a far-reaching bomb and missile attack on Syria’s infrastructure could lead to a wider war in the Middle East. As a consequence the American officers delivered a last-minute caution to the president, which, in their view, eventually led to his cancelling the attack.

For months there had been acute concern among senior military leaders and the intelligence community about the role in the war of Syria’s neighbours, especially Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan was known to be supporting the al-Nusra Front, a jihadist faction among the rebel opposition, as well as other Islamist rebel groups. ‘We knew there were some in the Turkish government,’ a former senior US intelligence official, who has access to current intelligence, told me, ‘who believed they could get Assad’s nuts in a vice by dabbling with a sarin attack inside Syria – and forcing Obama to make good on his red line threat.’

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v36/n08 ... e-rat-line