Gotta love how the country that showered Fallujah in white phosphorus is the one leading the charge against another using chemical weapons.
There is a huge difference between Sarrin and white phosphorous . While phosphorous is an incendiary while Sarin is a deadly neuro-toxin. According to wikipedia LD50 page you need about 176 times more WP to kills a person compared to Sarin and that's through Oral ingestion. WP will cause serious burns but it may not kill the victim even if they absorb higher dose than the oral ingestion .
Sarin is very nasty. It will go through the skin or the lungs. The liquid soaks cloth which would slowly release poison the poison for about half an hour .
While WP can be used for legitimate reason like smoke bombs and lamination Sarin has only one use. Sarin is a chemical weapon that kills people . 1 teaspoon can easily of Sarin can kill more than 200000 people .
This is why countries are very concerned about the use of Sarin. Vx is deadlier but it's harder to hide because it contaminates the area for months. This is why I'm not thrilled about the US getting involved in Syria. I have no interest of getting gassed.
Now is the perfect time to get Russia and China to agree on a ultimatum for a cease fire in Syria and maybe some partition of the country . Assad is weaker now so he might agree for something he didn't agree to in the past. One of my co worker claims he won't give up because it might bring massacre to his people. I think that now is the perfect time for negotiations even if both sides are considered "crazy"/
There is a huge difference between Sarrin and white phosphorous . While phosphorous is an incendiary while Sarin is a deadly neuro-toxin. According to wikipedia LD50 page you need about 176 times more WP to kills a person compared to Sarin and that's through Oral ingestion. WP will cause serious burns but it may not kill the victim even if they absorb higher dose than the oral ingestion .
Sarin is very nasty. It will go through the skin or the lungs. The liquid soaks cloth which would slowly release poison the poison for about half an hour .
While WP can be used for legitimate reason like smoke bombs and lamination Sarin has only one use. Sarin is a chemical weapon that kills people . 1 teaspoon can easily of Sarin can kill more than 200000 people .
This is why countries are very concerned about the use of Sarin. Vx is deadlier but it's harder to hide because it contaminates the area for months. This is why I'm not thrilled about the US getting involved in Syria. I have no interest of getting gassed.
Now is the perfect time to get Russia and China to agree on a ultimatum for a cease fire in Syria and maybe some partition of the country . Assad is weaker now so he might agree for something he didn't agree to in the past. One of my co worker claims he won't give up because it might bring massacre to his people. I think that now is the perfect time for negotiations even if both sides are considered "crazy"/
I'm sure that would come as great comfort to the innocent men, women and children who were murdered for oil. Well it would, if they weren't..y'know, burned alive.
What about depleted uranium munitions? Do those make the grade?
Going to congress for authorization is the right thing to do. So when Boehner and congressional republicans vote it down, they are on record for having been soft on the first widescale use of WMD since 9-11.
Dang it Paleo, you owe me a keyboard.
John Kerry invokes Hitler to push for bombing. Didn't we all know that was coming?
Yeah, he really Godwined the discussion of what to do about the genocidal dictator, there.
Bah, whatever.
Hubby and i were watching a debate last night and political analysts are all saying that the US is going to have a hard time convincing the international community. Fallout of the whole WMD debacle under Powell in the Bush era. Didn't think that was wrong, it's definitely something we all have in mind right now.
It was also interesting to hear about the other side of the coin, what they're calling "the Munich spirit" (when the international community kinda stood by and did nothing in 1938).
Not sure what the politicians are going to do, ultimately, but definitely watching it all unfold.
Double post, stupid iPad.
It was also interesting to hear about the other side of the coin, what they're calling "the Munich spirit" (when the international community kinda stood by and did nothing in 1938).
The only problem with that comparison is Assad isn't violating any international treaties and he's not invading or annexing territory that belongs to another country like Germany did. In fact, Assad doesn't even have full control over Syrian territory so he's in no position to start invading other countries.
And the international community has a long and proud tradition of standing by and doing nothing. Like Rwanda back in 1994. A million Tutsis literally hacked to death with machetes while the international community debated whether or not the slaughtering of a fifth of a country's population met the legal definition of genocide or not.
And, more recently in 2009, the international community stood by and let Sri Lanka end it's civil war with the Tamil Tigers, watching while the Sri Lankan army surrounded the rebels, forced them into a narrow strip of land along with hundreds of thousands of civilians, and just shelled the crap out anyone and anything in that area. I believe the body count on that little war was very similar to Syria's.
No argument here, I'm just repeating the expression that the media has been constantly using these past few days. The media out here is definitely geared towards the left rather than the right, and they're mostly in Hollande's camp, that we should intervene. I do know that standing idly by is not specific to 1938, I do remember the Rwanda genocide very well, even though I was pretty young at the time. I remember rather vividly Doctors Without Borders' plea, "you cannot stop a genocide with doctors". In fact, there is no shortage of examples, I'm sure we could both keep on going on that count.
What I find "interesting" is that we'll avoid getting mixed up most of the time. Until there's something like oil fields involved.
I'm sure that would come as great comfort to the innocent men, women and children who were murdered for oil. Well it would, if they weren't..y'know, burned alive.
What about depleted uranium munitions? Do those make the grade?
For this reason I'm not really thrilled about the US attacking in Syria. The Syrian killed more than 100000 people with conventional weapons and when they kill less than 2000 with chemical weapons people are screaming "bloody murder".
Btw your original comment can be classified as Ad Hominem Tu Quoque but it's no big deal. Considering the fact that the world let the people of syria get slaughtered for the past 2 years .
Depleted uranium shells are generally anti armor weapons and they are designed to kill the tank crew. The side effect can be compared to using cluster bombs which turn areas into minefields. Cluster bombs are still considered to have more deadly side effect.
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About the subject I've read in the past that Israel wanted to bomb a chem weapon supply and requested Jordan's permission to do it because it was by its border and the Jordanian refused. I think that the only way The US's attack would make sense is if they destroy either the chemical weapons or their delivery system. The only other way is maybe a full scale war to overthrow Assad and his political supporters.
The world is generally apathetic to many cases of Genocides and population displacement. The inability of the UN to do anything to intervene in cases of genocides and war have cost millions of lives. Maybe the UN is a great tool to prevent wars between nations but genocides are not wars between nations.
This is why I think that the US should step back it's military response and change to a diplomatic response. They have to convince Russia and China that the war in Syria has to end and set an Ultimatum to both sides to end the hostilities and get into some kind of ceasefire agreement and maybe partition the country. Pouring petrol on the conflict will not help . The massacre is a is a perfect opportunity to end hostilities . I heard on the news yesterday that about 1/3 of the population of Syria are refuges. Letting this conflict continue can get the death toll to rise exponentially. If the US can convince Russia to join forces and stop the conflict then it might succeed .
Eleima:
That's not really very interesting, tbh. I'm not sure how the citizenry in the respective countries see it, but I see it as just naked self-interest mixed with self-righteous and self-justifying behavior. It looks to me to be not that materially different from Manifest Destiny and White Man's Burden; at least from this side of the muzzle.
Hence the quotation marks, LarryC. I was being sarcastic.
For this reason I'm not really thrilled about the US attacking in Syria. The Syrian killed more than 100000 people with conventional weapons and when they kill less than 2000 with chemical weapons people are screaming "bloody murder".
I definitely agree with this 100%, it's something I believe I pointed out earlier in this thread.
Strange how interested the US seems to be in deposing a secular Middle Eastern president and supporting islamist rebels when they oppose Iran, isn't it?
Going to congress for authorization is the right thing to do. So when Boehner and congressional republicans vote it down, they are on record for having been soft on the first widescale use of WMD since 9-11.
The problem is, Obama's still claiming he has authority to go in regardless. So even as a responsibility-shifting move this is a failure.
The US should be banging on every door there is to assemble a coalition. I fear Russia and China will never get on board though. As long as Syria continues to write checks to Putin, they're not going to budge. China- well, I've never been able to figure them out.
There's already a coalition: the Arab League. Unfortunately, they kicked Syria out back in 2011 because of the civil war.
America is absolutely the worst nation to head up any diplomatic effort or to be seen actively driving it. Let's face reality. We're not viewed as a neutral party. We invaded Iraq and radically destabilized the entire region. We continually rattle our sword at Iran. We're far too friendly with Israel for the rest of the regions' taste. And, internationally, we have a slightly-to-not-so-slightly confrontational relationship with Russia and China.
And China is easy to figure out when it comes to things like this. They will *never* vote for any UN sanction that allows the international community to meddle with the internal disputes of another nation. That's because they have far too many potential internal disputes on a low boil in their own country and never want the UN Security Council to come knocking at their door should one of them heat up.
The problem with the Arab League is that they themselves can't agree on what to handle the situation. Not to mention that they don't have the military power to do anything decisive.
If not the US (and I agree on that, OG), who though? The UK? France? Who? None truly have the chops to step up. In a perfect world, the UN could spearhead an operation, but yeah... Russia and China are definitely not helpful..,
Why don't you start us off, JC? Tell us what you think the major successes of the UN over the last 60 years are, since you think they are in short supply. Gotta start somewhere, and it would be good to know what you've Googled up about it. (If you insist on "complete consensus", though, then explain why "complete consensus" is a necessary precursor for success in any organization...)
The problem with the Arab League is that they themselves can't agree on what to handle the situation. Not to mention that they don't have the military power to do anything decisive.
If not the US (and I agree on that, OG), who though? The UK? France? Who? None truly have the chops to step up. In a perfect world, the UN could spearhead an operation, but yeah... Russia and China are definitely not helpful..,
I guess I don't agree that there's a situation going on in Syria that the international community should get involved with, especially militarily, or that there's a single, correct solution. It's a civil war. They're terrible and deadly, but they happen. A lot. I think you'd be hard pressed to look through history and find a nation or empire that didn't have a civil war.
We're not the Syrians. We don't know what they want, short of some of them don't want Assad to be in power anymore. It's simply not our place (or the international community's) to pick a side and help them win. The Syrians need to figure it out on their own. And that's going to involve bloodshed.
It sounds terrible, but when a society reaches the point where differing ideas of how to run things can't be solved politically then violence--civil war--is the only option.
Just look at us. 625,000 died before we finally put to bed the question of slavery and state's rights. Could you imagine what our country would look like today if the international community at the time had meddled with our civil war and either imposed a cease-fire or backed the South?
Oh and one additional comment/question: Does anyone out there believe in the UN anymore? I've never really seen them solve any issue in my lifetime, or even spearhead a solution. It just seems like a bunch of people talking and constantly disagreeing. Has there ever been a time where there has been complete consensus and action from the UN that resulted in actual progress?
We could also make very similar claims about our own government...
The UN does a lot. It just mostly does things that aren't as flashy as dropping a smart bomb on a supposed bad guy.
Check your left shoulder. If you were born before the mid-70s you should have a distinctive little scar there from the World Health Organization's successful efforts to eradicate smallpox. The WHO is a UN agency.
The WHO and the United Nations Children's Fund are currently leading the effort to eradicate polio. Right now two out of the three types of polio have been wiped out and annual infections have dropped from hundreds of thousands down to about 200.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) played an important role in the green revolution that has saved millions from starvation. The FAO also helped create CGIAR, an agricultural research group, which has developed hybrid varieties of every major staple crops, allowing farmers everywhere to benefit from higher yields. In 2011, the FAO eradicated rinderpest, a highly lethal disease affecting livestock.
As the child of a (retired) member of the Canadian Military, I would have to tip my hat to UN Peacekeepers as something the UN has done that is good.
Thanks OG- I wouldn't argue against claims that our government is ineffectual. That's almost a cold hard fact at this point.
So it sounds like the UN is quite involved and effectual when it comes to humanitarian efforts that don't involve combat or things that would fall into the live warfare category. As soon as you tread into the area of nations exerting what they think is right onto other nations via force. There doesn't seem to be any sort of use to the UN other than to bring it up in discussion. Blanket statement I know...
So... is your suggestion that the UN use force to stop other nations from using force to stop other nations from... now my brain hurts trying to figure out how many loops to put in there. They could certainly take action if there was the will, but I suspect they think it's automatically contradictory to be doing what another nation is doing to stop that nation from doing what they are doing. They debate, sometimes they fight it through other means... but let's face it, a voluntary multinational body with very little authority over each country's actions... what are they going to do about a nation they think is out of line. Inevitably, other nations will see themselves in the target and get angry about it, stymieing efforts.
To elaborate and focus the question...The UN seems ineffectual to me whenever it comes to international conflicts. There's the 5 main nations with veto control (US, UK, Russia, China, and France) but even if they vote against something and the nation does it anyway, there doesn't seem to be any repercussion.
Perfect example is Syria... The UN is most likely going to vote against any action in Syria and the US is going to say, that's nice, we're going to bomb them anyway.
From that aspect it seems like the UN is a failure and all they do is report the news: aka the global town crier.
I guess the question I'd ask you is what do you expect the UN to be able to do when it comes to international conflicts?
The UN is never going to be the global asskicker and nametaker. It doesn't have a standing army. It doesn't have a navy or an air force. It relies on troops and equipment from member states for any operation and it relies on payments from member states to fund those operations (payments which are often skipped or held up to score political points domestically).
What the UN does do is apply political and diplomatic pressure. The UN can't airdrop a battalion, but it can cut off a country's economic balls and levy other sanctions on its government. The UN also provides a much needed public process for managing disagreements between nations and preventing them from becoming shooting wars.
And I disagree with your assertion that there's no repercussions if a member state goes against a UN vote. In fact, I'm not even sure if there's even an example a nation still going ahead with an attack after the UN Security Council voted against military intervention.
There's certainly examples of when we've simply bombed (or cruise missiled) a country, but we've never openly flaunted the UN. Those cases were presented as limited US retaliation for something that directly harmed US citizens. We don't even have that excuse for an attack on Syria.
To elaborate and focus the question...The UN seems ineffectual to me whenever it comes to international conflicts. There's the 5 main nations with veto control (US, UK, Russia, China, and France) but even if they vote against something and the nation does it anyway, there doesn't seem to be any repercussion.
Perfect example is Syria... The UN is most likely going to vote against any action in Syria and the US is going to say, that's nice, we're going to bomb them anyway.
From that aspect it seems like the UN is a failure and all they do is report the news: aka the global town crier.
The implicit assumption here is that the UN should be a world government. It's not. It's a place for open diplomacy even between enemies, for humanitarian and peace-making efforts, and to give a voice to nations in a public forum that they might not otherwise have.
I think everyone would agree (regardless of what nation) that chemical weapons are bad and should be destroyed and not used. The problem becomes what happens if a nation uses chemical weapons? What kind of response should occur and what level of "deterrent" is acceptable? I definitely don't think the US should be playing high and mighty moral compass of the world with Syria but we seem focused on doing so.
There's a treaty that prevents the use of chemical weapons. Who should enforce it, though, if it's broken? The UN is not equipped to enforce it; it's equipped to talk about things, and send out food and disaster relief and peacekeepers, draft international rules and the like. So it falls to the nations that are powerful enough to enforce the rules outside their borders; essentially, the countries that can still project power in a significant way.
Now, some of them will have an interest in doing that. Others might object that the violator is a good ally of theirs, and maybe they *didn't* really do it. As far as Russia is concerned, Assad could have loaded and fired the rockets himself on live CNN, and they'd say there is too much doubt to justify action. This stuff is diplomatic reality.
The question is, do we want the use of chemical weapons to become normal in internal and external conflicts? If we do, then we go hands off (like Reagan did) when countries, especially our client states, use them. This creates a more permissive environment, and assists in the proliferation of these weapons between repressive states. As we saw in Iraq, once a leader uses them without getting a damaging response, he's likely to use them again. We've *done* that experiment, in Iraq, when we aided Hussein in developing his weapons and delivery systems and let him get away with it. If you want to see the future in Syria if we sit on our hands, look at Iraq. And remember, they used chemical weapons against their external enemies, not just internal ones, and they used it for punishment as well as meeting military goals.
If we don't want that to start happening again, then we have to figure out a way to make the use of chemical weapons more painful than beneficial. That's got it's own problems. But it should be clear that if the powerful states don't uphold international norms, the weaker states *can't*, and the agreements made will become that much weaker. The question everyone is asking, is are we still capable of imposing the stated will of the countries that sign international agreements to make life better, or are we about to withdraw from the world stage and let the world revert to a situation where the standards the UN was created to set up are gradually eroded by dictators.
Congress is going to send a very, very important message to the world in the next few weeks. Pray that it's the right one. Ask yourself, without the UN, how *would* countries communicate quickly and easily, and how would they convene to agree on international norms? Just the fact that there is a place and a process to do that is something we don't want to lose, even if it's not a world government that can stop conflicts through threats and the use of force.
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