Konflikten i Syrien

USA skärper tonen mot Syrien
VÄRLDEN USA:s president Donald Trump skärpte tonen mot Syriens regim. Samtidigt hotar USA:s FN-ambassadör med att USA kan agera på egen hand om FN misslyckas. Om och hur orden omsätts i praktisk politik är ännu oklar

It's WMD all over again. Why don't you see it?

Actually knowing something, remembering history or having experience of the world is becoming a disadvantage. How much easier it would be to join in with the flow of opinion about Syria, to listen happily to, and read contentedly, media reports on the subject.

As it is, I feel something close a physical pain as I do this.

Today’s frenzy over alleged use of poison gas in Syria is the 2017 version of Anthony Blair’s WMD in Iraq. Why can you not see it? Did you think they would do it in exactly the same way again? You are being assailed through your emotions, to act first and think long after, and far too late.

How *can* trained journalists (and experienced diplomats) be so lacking in the desire or ability to question what they are told? How come that they accept without hesitation reports which have not come from their own staff, but instead come from within terrifying war zones where gangs of fanatical murderers are the only law? One or two at least have the decency to refer to the new reports of gas attacks as ‘suspected’ or alleged, but most present them as established fact. ‘All the hallmarks’ means in such cases what? Though millions believe this has been proven, past accusations of gas use by Damascus have never been independently shown to be true.

Well, how can facts *be* independently established about such events? Not easily. Alas, that makes it appalling simple to make propaganda without ever facing serious checks .
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And then there is this simple point. Why would the Syrian government use gas at this stage in a war it has recently begun to win with conventional munitions? You don’t have to believe that the Assad state is saintly to ask this question, and I don’t believe that.
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Wicked and brutal they may well be, but they would have to be stupid and possibly mad to do such an thing, just as an important conference convenes in Brussels... to discuss the future of Syria.

The military advantages would be tiny . Chemical weapons have not been widely used since the 1914-18 war not because soldiers have been especially tender, but because, though very nasty, they are not an especially effective weapon of war.
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The political and diplomatic disadvantages would be huge. If Syria could be shown ( as it has not yet been) to have used gas to kill children, it would mean total diplomatic isolation, and renewed calls in Britain and the USA (which only a few days ago abandoned its aim of overthrowing Assad ...to intervene against Assad.