Syria Weaponizes and Loads Serin Gas Into Weapons

[FaninAma]

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/05/15706380-syria-loads-chemical-weapons-into-bombs-military-awaits-assads-order?lite

Maybe the Mayans were right.

[Soonerjeepman]

wow, It really is sad the world has come to "extremist"....even us gun toting, Jesus loving, conservative freaks..guess we aren't that bad~

I honestly do pray every night the world can reclaim order. Not sure what the world can do...I wonder who the other 7 nations are that are NOT part of the Chemical ban...

as of 2010

Of the eight states that are not, two have signed but not yet ratified the treaty (Burma and Israel) and six states have not signed the treaty (Angola, North Korea, Egypt, Somalia, South Sudan and Syria).

[FaninAma]

After Ghadafi and Mubarak went down hard it is going to be difficult to convince Assad to simply give up and throw himself on the mercy of his captors.

So the question of promoting stability even if it means keeping a tyrant in power needs to be re-examined.

[diverdog]

After Ghadafi and Mubarak went down hard it is going to be difficult to convince Assad to simply give up and throw himself on the mercy of his captors.

So the question of promoting stability even if it means keeping a tyrant in power needs to be re-examined.

this is a line they do not want to cross.

[sappstuf]

After Ghadafi and Mubarak went down hard it is going to be difficult to convince Assad to simply give up and throw himself on the mercy of his captors.

So the question of promoting stability even if it means keeping a tyrant in power needs to be re-examined.

Mubarak was a good bad guy in that sense.

[FaninAma]

All of the secular dictators in the middle east are being replaced by Islamist regimes/dictators. It is obvious how this is going to end.

[KantoSooner]

Really? Not so clear in Tunisia. Still up for grabs in Libya with a strong secular component (recall the mob that burned down religious militia forts in the wake our Ambassador's murder). In Egypt you've got a legitimate majority supported Islamic Brohood gov....being challenged in the streets by secular forces (who will lose, but have made something of a point). Jordan is still standing as a more or less secular state. Lebanon has so far managed to not tip over into an overtly religious hierarchy. Turkey was drifting toward more religion in politics, but seems to have drawn back. Iraq and Syria are the only two who seem clearly headed for more religion in politics...and their old regimes were nothing to write home about. Preserve Sadam because he was less Islamic than what's followed? Not sure that would have been such a bargain. Likewise Assad.
These people have to move in the direction of greater popular democracy. It's going to be ugly at various waypoints along the road. But it's going to happen, and it would be worse the longer we waited for it.
Too bad we could not have provided a better model of strict separation of church and state.

[FaninAma]

Kanto,

I would counter that it happened in Egypt, it will happen in Syria and it is only a matter of time before the Libyan regime is taken over by the Muslim Brotherhood. Watch what haoppens in Jordan in 2013.

I hope you are right and that these countries will move torward Turkey's style of government. But the risk is that the Islamists, once in power, will cause a crisis of massive proportions before they give up power willingly.

[KantoSooner]

Fanin,
I don't deny that you're probably correct that they will cause a crisis. How massive depends on any number of variables. But, had we continued to support the previous crop of heads of state, or even the virtually perfect version seen in the House of Hussein in Jordan, the entire region was and is headed for a reckoning. No matter what we did. There's never been a re-ordering with buy-in from the local people since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. That kind of pressure is released, sooner or later. You just can't escape it.

So far, we've done okay~goodish in dealing with it.

Have we seen a smorgasbord of *******s come to power? Yes, yes we have. Not surprising considering that the common person on the famous arab street is, wait for it, an *******.

They tend to be poorly educated, deeply steeped in a religion that can best be characterized as a revisionist neolithic death cult mixed with a primitive iteration of a paternalistic tribal herder culture. Then throw on top of that intense corruption, extreme unemployment and a popular press driven myth of victimization.

No wonder we aren't seeing Mayberry, RFD.

Still, there was no way forward to potential modernity for these people without going through the current phase. And, believing in human equality, I've got to believe that, once they ditch major chunks of their religion and culture (as we in the European world did during the Enlightenment and as most of East Asia did in the period between 1870 and 1950), they've got as good a shot as anyone at having decent lives.

Meantime, hold onto your hat and be very careful investing in anything with exposure to that part of the world.

[yermom]

damned if you do, damned if you don't here. i mean do we favor democracy or not?

as we see in this country, sometimes the mob makes dumb decisions.

it sure would be nice if we didn't send so many weapons and so much money over there though.

[Midtowner]

Democracy? No. Basically, you have a mob with no centralized authority wanting to slaughter the ethnic minority who just happens to have all of the guns and has been a very poor steward of power in the past in that they resemble more of a criminal cartel than an actual government. Whoever wins here is going to be no friend of ours. The only thing we should care about is whether this boils over into Turkey, and if it does, I think we have an obligation to act with the rest of NATO to nip that isht in the bud.

[KantoSooner]

I assume, Mid, that you refer to the Allawites? They're a religious minority, not ethnic, but that's not important. Your primary point is well taken, but it gets worse, because the ethnic minority who are going to make their move are the Kurds.
Churchill tried to do something for them after WWI, but no go on that, so you've now got an ethnic minority spreading across Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran. Milions of people and they are educated (relatively speaking), culturally and linguistically distinct from the rest of the MidEast,armed and trained (from the Peshmerga to the PPK to various groups in Iran) and now they've got their chance and WHOA JOHNNY! that could turn into a nifty little death carnival.
Stay tuned, it's about to get real interesting.

[KantoSooner]

Oh, and democracy has always involved a heavy dollop of mob rule. The MidEast just hasn't worked out the systemic niceties.

[soonercruiser]

Are we trusting our "intelligence community" too soon again???

Just sayin'. Maybe they are mixing some "Soda Stream" for the Israelis.

[diverdog]

Are we trusting our "intelligence community" too soon again???

Just sayin'. Maybe they are mixing some "Soda Stream" for the Israelis.

Holy crap. I actually agree with you. We should wait and see if they use the stuff. If they do then we should destroy the regime.

[soonercruiser]

...and Obama feigns outrage on the potential use of WMDs????
(He must be believeing his own "intelligence"! Bad move!)

[pphilfran]

Holy crap. I actually agree with you. We should wait and see if they use the stuff. If they do then we should destroy the regime.

Why should we lead the charge and spend the vast majority of the money to control a situation in the European sphere of influence?

Would France, Germany, or GB lead the charge and pay the vast majority of expenses if Mexico or Venezuela attempted the same thing?

[FaninAma]

Pphil, I agree. Europe needs to man up and insure their own supply of oil.

[KantoSooner]

Are we trusting our "intelligence community" too soon again???

Just sayin'. Maybe they are mixing some "Soda Stream" for the Israelis.

Are you talking about trusting the professional agents, case officers and analysts? Or their political appointee bosses who massage the reports that go to other politicians?

[SoonerProphet]

I'll admit it, we should have supported the opthamologist and allowed him to let loose a Hama style massacre on the Sunni's. Then we should have turned around and radiated the House of Saud.

[Midtowner]

Pphil, I agree. Europe needs to man up and insure their own supply of oil.

Why would they do that when the U.S. is willing to pay for a standing army larger than all of the armies of Europe combined? NATO is gonna be what it's gonna be--the U.S. spending the lion's share of the money with a few token contributions from other NATO countries.

Heck.. you think Turkey would be doing something at this point. If Assad uses WMD, there's a pretty good chance some will be aimed at Turkish refugee camps.

That said, I don't really care who wins in Syria. Both of them despise the United States, both will likely result in repressive regimes. Should the rebels win, we're probably looking at genocide. Should they lose, it will likely be on account of genocide.