Tuesday, April 18, 2017

The 'No Evidence Assad's Syrian Government Carried Out Chemical Attacks' Meme is Incorrect

There is indeed evidence that Assad was responsible as is demonstrated below, but evidence does not necessarily constitute proof.  It would seem that the rebels and not Assad are the beneficiaries of the chemical attack, but perceived strategic motivations and not hard evidence. Cui bono, as good a method as it is, is surely not foolproof. The claim that sarin gas was used seems very questionable by how the first responders apprently handled the situation, but reportedly is contradicted by hard evidence in the form of chemical analysis and certainly some type of chemical(s) did kill people. No matter what, I do not support US involvement in Syria. But as I've stated, I'm personally not absoving any side of anything completely as it pertains to chemical weapons, including the US. We should stay out of this mess.

Responsibility
 
Many governments, such as the United States and some European countries[51][15] and the Gulf Cooperation Council[52] have attributed the attack to the Syrian government.[48][53][54][55] According to investigation by Human Rights Watch,[56] the attack was conducted by Syrian government forces from the air using Soviet-made KhAB-250 aerial bombs designed to deliver sarin. Syria has denied any involvement.[48] Russia claimed the deaths were a result of gas released when a government airstrike hit a rebel-operated chemical weapons factory.[57][58] The UN Security Council session unanimously declared the need for an investigation of the chemical attack.[59] According to OPCW, its investigation into the attack is ongoing, but it has verified the use of sarin gas, or a similar substance.[60][61][11]


More:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_Shaykhun_chemical_attack f

Is this proof Assad DID launch chemical weapon attacks from the base Trump bombed? Photos of wreckage show barrels 'identical to those that store WMDs'

  • The US launched 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Shayrat Airbase in Syria 
  • Among the wreckage at the base was a pile of olive-coloured twin containers 
  • Social media users compared the containers to those used to house WMDs
  • US officals claimed this week's chemical strike originated at Shayrat Airbase

An collage on social media suggested some of the containers damaged in last night's strike, left, looked similar to Russian chemical weapons stores from the mid 1990s 
An collage on social media suggested some of the containers damaged in last night's strike, left, looked similar to Russian chemical weapons stores from the mid 1990s 
Images released following last night's attack showed these distinctive-looking containers 
Images released following last night's attack showed these distinctive-looking containers 
Commentators on social media claimed they looked similar to these chemical weapons, left
Commentators on social media claimed they looked similar to these chemical weapons, left

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4392138/Is-proof-Assad-DID-launch-chemical-weapon-attacks.html#ixzz4ecr6tHlY
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US releases flight path of plane used in Syria chemical attack

...Officials decided to declassify the photo to prove that Syria's Shayrat air base was linked to the chemical attack, Capt. Jeff Davis, a Defense Department spokesperson said Thursday night.

DoD
PHOTO: A Pentagon spokesperson says that this graphic shows the flight track of an aircraft that took off from Shayrat airbase to the location of an alleged chemical weapons airstrike in Khan Shaykhun, Syria on April 4, 2017.more +

The flight path appears to have taken a northerly track from the Shayrat airbase near Homs towards Khan Shaykhun in the Idlib province. According to the graphic released by the Pentagon, the plane appears to have circled the area around Khan Shaykhun and the area between the two cities multiple times.
U.S. officials said earlier that radar systems had tracked two aircraft taking off from the base, and that one dropped munitions containing Sarin gas that targeted an underground hospital run by the al Qaeda-affiliated rebel group formerly known as the al-Nusra Front.
More:

http://abcnews.go.com/International/us-releases-flight-path-plane-syria-chemical-attack/story?id=46651125
White House Lays Out Evidence That Syria Was Behind Deadly Chemical Attack

A senior administration official laid out evidence that the Syrian regime was behind the chemical attack in the country that killed at least 80 people last week.
The official said intelligence gathered from social media accounts, open source videos, reporting, imagery, and geospatial intelligence showed that the chemical attack was a regime attack.
“I don’t think there’s evidence to the contrary at all,” an official who briefed reporters on background Tuesday said...
The official added that there were physiological samples from victims of the attack, and that their symptoms — frothing at the nose and mouth, twitching — were “very consistent with nerve agent and sarin exposure” and not consistent with chlorine poisoning...
“Moscow said chemicals were caused by a regime airstrike on a terrorist ammunition depot in the eastern suburbs of Khan Shaykhun. However, a Syrian military source told Russian state media on April 4 that regime forces had not carried out any airstrike in Khan Shaykhun, contradicting Russia’s claim. An open source video also shows where we believe the chemical munition landed — not on a military base filled with weapons, but in the middle of a street in the northern section of Khan Shaykhun.”
To explain why the regime would launch a chemical attack against its citizens when it did, the senior administration official said, “In the middle of March, opposition forces launched an offensive towards major city of Hama, which is a strategic city in Syria, where a strategic airbase lies. At that point, the regime — we think — calculated that with its manpower spread quite thin, we believe the regime probably calculated at that point that chemical weapons were necessary to make up for manpower deficiency.”