US and allies launch strikes on Syria chemical weapons sites
bbc.com
bbc.com
On the other hand who would benefit from a gas attack? Obviously, the "rebels" (read islamists). They have been losing ground for the past two years and if the US pulled out (which was planned) and a peace settlement is reached then they would lose.
Now consider that the exact same sequence of events happened almost exactly the same time last year -- the US announced that "regime change is no longer a priority" and a few days later we saw reports of a gas attack. See http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/04/timelines-of-gas-attack...
For the game theory see: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2018/04/from_game_theor....
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/world/middleeast/syria-do...
The parent is pretty much 9/11 inside job conspiracy level stuff. I just stated a few facts about what happened, and how that contradicts the parent's speculation.
Anyway, whatever. Evidently HN is not a forum for reasonable discussion around this topic, because people don't follow what's happening wrt Syria closely.
EDIT: Let's just say, that this reaction is pretty typical. Almost universally, whenever a chemical attack happens and is reported, we're told that rebels are doing it to themselves as a false flag, to inspire western intervention.
After 40th case of rebels successfully throwing canisters with chlorine upon themselves from helicopters they don't have, to inspire intervention that never happened in the last 7 years or didn't bring anything good,... it gets ridiculous...
The problem is that anyone who doesn't watch closely, only sees this one medialized case in MSM, and thinks that false flag somehow may make sense. And "why would Assad use chlorine?" pops up, when it's docummented he uses it regularly.
My opinion is not as fringe as you make it to be. It's true that there are consensus from politicians and the media about what happened but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the truth. In fact, respectable academics are looking at this from scientific point-of-view and coming to the same conclusion.
Here is a UK professor applying probablity theory to understand the weight of the evidence for the alternative explanation in the alleged gas attacks in 2017 and 2013: https://timhayward.wordpress.com/2017/08/31/who-is-responsib...
You are also ignoring the IO that russia is been running which is essentially a carbon copy what they used to run during the cold war, only considerably more amplified and effective these days.
I'm actually frightened by the fact that there are now links here to what is an unquestionably a new breed of academic UIC's now I thought the last of these died shortly after the wall fell.
The other half of this thread is a conspiracy.
http://www.dw.com/en/syria-rebels-evacuate-douma-under-new-a...
On your point in Douma, the deal to evacuate was reached two weeks ago (about 10 days befoe the alleged attacks) https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/...
So it's more likely that the attack is false flag last ditch effort one. We all know that the civilians that the "rebels" hold are hostages. Even the article you cite says this much.
Considering Russia went on a conspiracy theory blitz from the get go which started about 3 weeks prior to the recent attack it follows the same pattern as 2 previous attack with high confidence of attribution to Syrian government or what is left of it since Russia and Iran are running the show now.
It’s quire scary just how efficient their information warfare has become.
Shouting "consipracy" as loud as you can doesn't make you sound smart and it's not an argument. Try reasoning about this and bring something substantial to the discussion instead of this shoddy attempt at mccarthysim.
Russian run IO social media accounts have started spreading news about an "eminent false flag" attack in Syria 3 weeks ago this is exactly the same pattern that we've seen on several of the attacks before specifically to all attacks that were eventually attributed to the Syrian government.
And while you may say that "shouting conspiracy" isn't fruitful neither does spreading it without anything that could be considered even remotely as a shred of any proof.
Think about who is most invested in keeping the west involved. That would be the rebels/al queda/Isis who have been armed and supported by the Saudis and the US to fight Russia and Assad.
It was even tweeted that insurgents were going to stage a chemical attack false flag before it happened:
https://twitter.com/mod_russia/status/973535840646434816?s=1...
If Assad did do it, then we are simply responding to what he did. If Assad didn't do it, well, it's not the first time our government has lied to us. Either way, this military action will not have much effect on the outcome of the conflict so it's not as if we're messing anything up too bad.
What the government says is only tiny portion of the information we have on any situation.
We also have what 200 other governments say, what academics say, what thousands of different journalists say, what historical precedent says, and what your own logic and intuition says.
Your obedience to the government narrative makes you the perfect tool of those in power.
Chemical weapons inspectors are supposed to be starting their work on the 14th.
And we start bombing with confidence the day of?
Nothing is adding up. LET ALONE THE LEGALITY OF IT.
Sorry, I'm mad.
That's my point. Russia was wrong. And so are we.
Should we have waited for the rule of law there too?
I agree we should disengage from the nation building nonsense Bush and Obama got into, but when Pol Pot copy cats come along, root them out.
Probably not the best example. The "free countries" did nothing about the Khmer Rouge and it was left to post-unification Vietnam to invade Cambodia and clean up the mess.
Vietnam was then sanctioned for its aggressive invasion of a sovereign nation..
We have a rule of law. It's called the Geneva Protocol and Assad violated it!
It happened, and Assad did it, whether or not you believe it.
Russia invaded and bombed Ukraine. Still meddling there, btw.
Good grief, how much of a goldfish can you be?
I gotta say, I was skeptical of a Trump presidency at first, but when I look at in retrospect so far, things aren’t really all that bad, if you ignore all the media circus around Trump’s character flaws and the stupid election conspiracies, which in the grand scheme don’t matter.
Trump is a random chaotic president, and when his presidency is done the effects of his presidency will linger and new precedents will have been set, some good and some bad, but I think the good will outweigh the bad in more important ways. He is the mutation in the status quo’s DNA.