How chemical weapons have helped bring Assad close to victory.

That's very clever of Assad, seeing as he didn't have any chemical weapons because they were all removed from Syria 6 effing years ago? Maybe someone should point that out to the BBC, which becomes more like a dumbed-down populist tabloid newspaper by the day??

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-45586903

 

We only have his and the Russians' word that the chemical weapons were removed. I'm disinclined to take murderous dictators at their word and would rather have some kind of independent verification.

The body which is supposed to police chemical weapons globally reckons that Assad still has chemical weapons and is has been using them.

It's not conclusive but I would tend to believe an international body like that over a pair of dictators who have good reason to lie.

 

....and a legion of Putin & Assad apologists online who will say literally anything to cover for their guys. There is zero doubt Assad has used chemical weapons. The only quibble is over when & where.

 

It's the word of our own leaders and our own press that I have a problem believing. And we don't only have the Russians' word because they were removed and disposed of by the US, probably under the auspices of the UN.

"Veolia, the US firm contracted by the OPCW to dispose of part of the Syrian chemical weapons stockpile, has completed disposal of 75 cylinders of hydrogen fluoride at its facility in Texas."

https://www.opcw.org/media-centre/n...on-declared-syrian-chemical-weapons-completed

There's a need for dictators in the ME region, and thankfully Assad is a benevolent one . . . and we owe him (and the Russians); I believe if it wasn't for Assad and them, global Jihad would be well under way by now - even into the US.

 

Oh no doubt that some chemical weapons were removed and destroyed but there's no guarantee that they were all of his chemical weapons and/or that he hasn't managed to replenish his supplies since.

I guess Assad is a benevolent dictator if you have a very particular definition of benevolent which includes the wholesale slaughter of those who don't want to live under a dictatorship.

As to whether we should be grateful, the mess in Syria has done little or nothing to check the global actions of Jihadists IMO.

 

Can you give me a link where I can read about it please? I don't recall Assad carrying out any massacres on a grand scale? Oh, and I don't think he'd be relieved of only a part of an arsenal; nor that the west, having removed it, wouldn't ensure a method of monitoring that he didn't acquire any more? And he didn't 'make the mess of Syria' why the **** would he do that? I'm not really sure where you're coming from to be honest. You seem to have a personal vendetta against him, and making it up as you go along. And seeing that he and Russia have been killing jihadists for the past 7 years, if they hadn't, those jihadists would be all over the planet by now don't you agree?

 

Someone used Sarin.
Probably but not necessarily the Assad regime.

They then handed it all over to the Russians to escape US bombing.

Since then Chlorine gas has been used at least twice.
Anyone could have used this, again, strategically, the most likely is the Assad regime as they were involved in clearing out heavily entrenched positions at this time.

However if you are making a fuss about Chlorine gas and describing it as a chemical weapon to associate with WMD like Sarin, you are either a sensationalist trying to sell news papers, a snowflake or a factional opportunist.

It's bleach and acid. Commonly found in all swimming pools. An irritant considerably less deadly and unpleasant than Tear Gas.
A non lethal weapon.

 

Chemical weapons reporting are the "bogeyman" that the west use in order to promote their own arms sells worldwide. The west hate the fact that chemical weapons are cheap to produce hence for their insistence that they are banned. The world would be a better world if legal WMD's that the west sells were banned

To say that chemical weapons were removed 6 years ago is just as pointless as they can be made overnight

 

This is typical of his "benevolent dictatorship"

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...0-secretly-hanged-in-syrian-jail-says-amnesty

The West cannot monitor him, because he won't allow it. The Russians would be in an excellent position to help him hide and/or replenish his stockpile.

He's made a mess out of Syria because he is a despot and a dictator who will do anything to stay in power.

I have a "vendetta" against despots and dictators everywhere, not just Assad.

His actions, and those of the Russians are also creating Jihadists. Whatever they are doing is having no effect on reducing the number of Jihadists elsewhere in the world.

 

If that's so, then it was futile confiscating them in the first place? Oh, and Amnesty International has an agenda - a big one!

 

So how would you suggest that we the west should counter the Jihad?

 

That's something of a non-sequitor but personally I'd say that having despotic dictators in power in countries where Jihadists can be formed in response to those despotic dictators (like in Syria and in the Chechnya region of Russia), is not an effective way.

Regarding countering the Jihad, it's difficult. The Jihad requires a large supply of angry, ignorant young people, a means of radicalising and organising them and money, arms and organisation. Any solution which only addresses one part (for example attempting to exterminate Jihadists in a single geographical area) without addressing the others is IMO doomed to failure. Indeed the slaughter of Jihadists in Syria may even act as a rallying and recruiting call in the rest of the world by demonstrating that Islam really is under attack from the unbelievers. You cannot bomb an idea into extinction, you may be able to educate it into irrelevance, but it's very difficult.

 

Absolutely, they're against human rights abuses.

 

You might be a mathematician, but you have zero insight into world affairs and real politik I'm afraid. 'it's difficult' doesn't cut it??

 

Alright then, a hidden agenda - a big hidden agenda!

 

I've never claimed to be a mathematician.

I think I do have some insight into world affairs and real politik and understand that tacking Jihadists is a difficult thing because the "route 1" approach of bombing them into oblivion seems to be counterproductive - because it provides a narrative to support jihad elsewhere in the world.

 

What is Amnesty International's hidden agenda ?

 

So just leave them alone to get on with their jihad then? Right. 'bombing them into oblivion' is precisely what needs to be done. If you don't kill a mad dog it'll bite you.

 

Um, think 'empire-building', and 'funding, or baubles for the higher echelons, from western governments for advancing the narrative'?

 

That is one view, but Jihad seems remarkably resilient against "bombing them into oblivion". Russia had a jolly good go in Afghanistan and has been trying for decades in Chechnya. Israel has been struggling pretty much since day 1.

Just tackling the situation with military action creates martyrs who act as recruiting messages both in the region and throughout the world. So many of the UK's Jihadis were radicalised by a message of the Crusaders trying to destroy Islam. Pictures of dead Jihadis, and civilian collateral damage simply reinforces their misconception that the West is out to destroy Islam.

As I said earlier, IMO you cannot bomb an idea into oblivion.

 

Western governments are just as unhappy with Amnesty as other governments because they too come under criticism.

 

But what you didn't say earlier was what to do instead? Try and look on it with an open mind, rather just sating your irrational hatred of Putin, the world's only statesman? Oh, and the West is out to destroy Islam . . . before Islam destroys the West? We didn't pick this fight y'know.

 

I think there is a very huge stockpile somewhere in Russia and those are being tested regularly for efficiency and efficacy.

 

Regarding the highlighted, I dispute that on two points. I don't think Putin is a statesman, instead he's a despot and a dictator. If we expand the definition of statesman wide enough to include him then there's no shortage of statesmen and "statesmen".

I did start to outline how to tackle Jihad, but you didn't seem to read or understand what I said.

In short, it's complicated. The things that motivate a young asian growing up in comparative comfort in the UK are very different to those motivating someone growing up in the middle of a civil war in Yemen. The common threads seem to be an alienation from the society in which they are living, a lack of hope for the future and a longing for a sense of belonging that being a member of a tight-knit group gives. It's largely the same kind of motivation that drives white youths into extremist right-wing organisations.

That's only part of the story because the same longing can equally well encourage people to join non-violent organisations so the other side of the coin is how to minimise the effectiveness of people trying to radicalise.

It's very difficult, possibly impossible, but that doesn't mean we should not try. One first step would be to not to try and convince someone that their religion is under attack, by continually and indiscriminately attacking their religion - it's counterproductive IMO.