| inbluevt | Date: Saturday, 2013/08/24, 8:28 AM | Message # 1 | DMCA |
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The evidence so far for the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian army is second-hand and comes from a biased source.
August 23, 2013 Patrick Cockburn, The Independent
Pictures showing that the Syrian army used chemical weapons against rebel-held Eastern Ghouta just east of Damascus are graphic and moving. But they are likely to be viewed sceptically because the claims so much resemble those made about Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass
destruction (WMDs) before the US and British invasion of Iraq in 2003. Nevertheless, the present claim differs from previous ones in the number of dead, variously put at between 213 and 1,360 and the quantity of YouTube evidence of the dead and dying supported by interviews with local activists.
Like the Iraqi opposition to Saddam, who provided most of the evidence of WMDs, the Syrian opposition has every incentive to show the Syrian government deploying chemical weapons in order to trigger foreign intervention. Although the US has gone cold on armed involvement in Syria, President Obama did say a year ago that President Bashar al-Assad's use of such weapons was "a red line". The implication is that the US would respond militarily, though just how has never been spelt
out.
But the obvious fact that for the Syrian government to use chemical weapons would be much against their own interests does not prove it did not happen. Governments and armies do stupid things. But it is difficult to imagine any compelling reason why they should do so since they have plenty of other means of killing people in Eastern Ghouta, such as heavy artillery or small arms, which they regularly use. Every day, Damascusresounds to the sound of outgoing artillery fire aimed at rebel
strongholds.
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Message edited by inbluevt - Saturday, 2013/08/24, 8:30 AM |
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