Russia dismisses US claims of Syrian chemical weapons use
Source: Guardian
Russia has dismissed US assertions that Bashar al-Assad has used chemical weapons against his own people, and said any US move to arm Syrian rebels would jeopardise efforts to convene a peace conference.
Responding to White House moves to broaden its military support for the forces lined up against Assad's regime, the Kremlin said it was not convinced by the pretext for doing so.
Yuri Ushakov, foreign policy adviser to Vladimir Putin, said US officials had briefed Russia on the allegations against Assad. "But I will say frankly that what was presented to us by the Americans does not look convincing," he said. "It would be hard even to call them facts."
>
In Damascus, Syrian officials denounced the US verdict as a "caravan of lies" and said Washington's decision to arm the rebels was a "flagrant double standard" in its dealings with terrorism.
Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/14/russia-us-syria-chemical-weapons
Syria regime denounces US chemical weapons claim.
Syria has dismissed as "a caravan of lies" claims it used chemical weapons after the US said it would give the rebels "direct military aid".
President Obama made the decision after his administration concluded Syrian forces under Bashar al-Assad were using chemical weapons, a spokesman said.
A rebel leader, Salim Idris, told the BBC it was a "very important step".
But Syria's foreign ministry said the US had used "fabricated information" on chemical weapons to justify the move.
Washington was resorting to "cheap tactics" to justify Mr Obama's decision to arm the rebels, said a statement from the ministry.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22908836
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)
atreides1
(16,093 posts)But we have the Colin Powell "white powder in a vial" trick to base the integrity of our war loving government on, don't we?
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)I also don't give a shit if Assad used chemical weapons, and think we should stay out of it.
smknz
(30 posts)Obama is feigning reluctance.
treestar
(82,383 posts)They are longing for the days of the Cold War perhaps, when they were an equal superpower. Their being on one side and us on the other is reminiscent of that!
xtraxritical
(3,576 posts)
NorthCarolina
(11,197 posts)that it was Israel who had used chemical weapons in Syria, leaving contaminated soil traces that are being pointed to as the evidence for their use.
Response to NorthCarolina (Reply #4)
geek tragedy This message was self-deleted by its author.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)has claimed that.
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)Stormfront?
NorthCarolina
(11,197 posts)leftynyc
(26,060 posts)of being responsible by someone speculating. That's some ironclad evidence you have there.
NorthCarolina
(11,197 posts)mean to imply it was "ironclad", but it is as valid a possibility as anything else that can be offered up.
John2
(2,730 posts)I've read it too, but it will be up to you if you want to take the sources credible or not. I suspect you wouldn't. The source comes from the Syrian media and Syrian military, after their operations against rebels in Aleppo and the Golan Heights. It was when they destroyed an Israeli armored vehicle operating in recently controled Syrian Territory by the Rebels.
When they took the area, they also captured prisoners and allegedly communications between the Israeli intelligence and rebels. According to the Syrian military, it confirmed collaboration between the Israeli military and rebels, on where the Israeli's could conduct their air strikes, by the rebels taking air defences out. They also allegedly captured Israeli weapons being funneled to the rebels, and showed it on Syrian TV. The Syrian Media is supposedly censored, but not entirely from other countries, such as Lebanon, Iran or Russia over the Internet. You are not going to see this information in the Western media. It is up to you, whether you want to believe it. They are also showing atrocities by the rebels and confessions after they are captured. Many of these people have shown their identifications from Foreign countries such as Libya or Tunisia. There was even a 16 year old Turkish youth, that confessed and was release to his parents in Turkey, after claiming he was brainwashed. All this information is out there if you look for it.
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)are just as bad as the Al-Assad folks and finding those who are not Syrians shouldn't be surprise when it's proclaimed by important clerics that Sunni's should join the fight against the Syrian government - and this guy is Egyptian.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22741588
I don't think Israel gives a shit who wins this fight - one will be just as bad as the other. And for the record, I don't think Americans should be involved at all.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)perhaps your confusing this with Gaza where Israel has used White Phosphorous
kickysnana
(3,908 posts)
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)
Sand Wind
(1,573 posts)Dictator are so great.
Igel
(35,356 posts)But most people don't want a scoop of habanero ice cream on their apple pie or a spoonful of jalapeno extract in their soda any more than they want bits of chopped up vanilla bean on their taco or pizza.
Chemistry are a grate psyense.
Sand Wind
(1,573 posts)Strange at the beginning, but great.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)well I'll let you do the research on that one.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)-Laelth
Sand Wind
(1,573 posts)Not competitive in face of the one's who comes from Nato.
RedstDem
(1,239 posts)he was walking around with a boner.
I believe Russia before i'll believe our war government. there's no way i would think like that 20 years ago that's how far down in the mud we are.
bonniebgood
(943 posts)the war mongers profiteers corporate usa to be honest. Fool me once.....
You limit you inquiry to 20 years? During most of which Russia's economy and military were on the edge of collapse?
As soon as Russia's economy strengthened, they attacked Georgia in 2008.
The had a lot of hostilities in Chechnya 15 years ago
In the past 50 years, during the Soviet Union times they attacked Afghanistan, Czechoslovakia, Hungary
I am not defending the likes of McCain or Wolfowitz or Chaney. But Russia is worse.
Some people are so over the top - they're going to trust Russia over us, we're so evil? 
kitt6
(516 posts)of shrinks. Big Time. Can't feed children but can go to war!
kitt6
(516 posts)but I don't think that our feet match this soil. No Honor.
KoKo
(84,711 posts)Thanks for the post!
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)
totodeinhere
(13,059 posts)a very sad commentary that we have got to the point where in my mind the Russians have more credibility than my own government does.
And after all, the Russians were right when they told Bush that there were no WMD's in Iraq. I wish Bush would have listened to them.
NickB79
(19,258 posts)http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/06/world/middleeast/france-and-britain-say-sarin-likely-used-in-syria.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
So this whole war of credibility between the US and Russia has another side to it (unless people here want to call France and Britain warmongering nations as well).
David__77
(23,496 posts)If the Syrian government were using chemical weapons they would do so to help themselves militarily, as in wiping out thousands of insurgents. Not this nonsense. That said, al Qaeda has been using them, yes.
France and Britain like the U.S. are imperial powers and war mongers. They all collude together. One has to appear reticent while the other bellicose. It's the good cop bad cop approach. Make no mistake that they are all on he same page with the same objective.
The British are not going to arm the rebels!
WE ARE
John2
(2,730 posts)on this. This is not the same French Government in the lead up to War in Iraq. The U.S. also used British Intelligence under the Blair Government to back the U.S. in the lead up to War in Iraq. So essentially, you have the same players, trying to justify a War in Syria for regime change. The difference with the British Government, you actually have conservatives in charge, instead of a phony like Tony Blair. And the French President in my opinion is a phony socialist He is more of a corporate vulture.
Ash_F
(5,861 posts)Much of it too brutal to watch(torture, beheadings ect), but it is there. Is there any of these weapons being use? I am skeptical of the claim for this reason.
Purveyor
(29,876 posts)peoli
(3,111 posts)smknz
(30 posts)Certainly the U.S. more than the Russians are positioning themselves into a box that will force Syrian regime change to maintain credibility. The reality however is that both countries are in boxes that effect their credibility. If Syrian president Assad goes down, Russia's international credibility will also take a nose dive and they're international sphere of influence will disappear.
As a result, both parties are in a very dangerous position and as a result the potential for a serious escalation in the conflict may well be inevitable. At some point both sides will have to orchestrate some form of face saving resolution or the loser will suffer an irreparable credibility gap. The bigger this gets the more intractable it will get and ultimately drag the region in at a minimum.
John2
(2,730 posts)Hezbullah of Lebanon and the Shiite militias in Iraq. The significance of hezbullah is they probaly do have the most powerful military force in Lebanon bar none. Sources claims they are up to maybe 75,000 fighters and over 50,000 rockets. That is a force more powerful than the Taliban in Afghanistan. If you ask me, they are very good in guerilla warfare.
Catherina
(35,568 posts)To the point!
I had to google to find more:
“It would be hard even to call them facts,” Mr Ushakov said referring to the information provided to Russia by the U.S. “What was presented to us by the Americans does not look convincing.”
...
At the same time, he said Russia was not “competing” with the U.S. in arms supplies to the warring sides in the Syrian conflict and was not planning “yet” to unfreeze the contract for the delivery of S-300 air defence missiles to the Syrian government forces.
...
A senior Russian lawmaker accused the U.S. of spreading lies about chemical weapons in Syria.
“Information about the use by [President Bashar] Assad of chemical weapons has been fabricated in the same place as the lies about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction,” said Alexei Pushkov, head of the foreign affairs in the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliament. “Obama is taking the same path as George Bush.”
...
http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/us-claims-on-syria-unconvincing-says-russia/article4814682.ece
President Obama, STOP before it's too late!! Stop NOW!
Catherina
(35,568 posts)Edit: Pushkov made the statement about Obama walking down the same path as Bush on his twitter feed. I guess that's transparency lol.
Данные о применении Ассадом химоружия сфабрикованы там же, где и ложь об оружии массового поражения у Хуссейна. Обама идет по пути Дж.Буша.
“Information about the use by Assad of chemical weapons has been fabricated in the same wayas the lies about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. Obama is taking the same path as George Bush.”
https://twitter.com/Alexey_Pushkov/status/345415651558584320
In the previous tweet he linked to an article about a UN finding by Carla del Ponte that it was the Syrian REBELS who used chemical weapons
"Based on the evidence that we have gathered, the insurgents have used chemical weapons, using sarin gas", - said Del Ponte. She clarified that sets out the content of a report prepared last week, members of the commission, who visited Syria's neighboring countries and interviewed there "victims, doctors and staff of field hospitals," ITAR-TASS.
Here is a BBC article about that in case anyone didn't catch it at the time:
UN's Del Ponte says evidence Syria rebels 'used sarin'
Testimony from victims of the conflict in Syria suggests rebels have used the nerve agent, sarin, a leading member of a UN commission of inquiry has said.
VIDEO AT LINK
Carla Del Ponte: "I was a little bit stupefied by the first indication of the use of nerve gas by the opposition"
...
In an interview with Swiss-Italian TV on Sunday, Ms Del Ponte, who serves as a commissioner on the panel, said: "Our investigators have been in neighbouring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals.
"According to their report of last week, which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated."
...
"I was a little bit stupefied by the first indications we got... they were about the use of nerve gas by the opposition," she said.
...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22424188
Catherina
(35,568 posts)Posted By Noah Shachtman, John Hudson
Friday, June 14, 2013 - 8:39 PM
When the White House first publicly announced in late April its belief that the Assad regime in Syria had used chemical weapons on its own people, it stressed that this was only a strong suspicion -- not a certainty. Yes, they had blood samples that indicated exposure to deadly sarin gas. But they couldn't say for sure who handled those samples in the two weeks it took to get the blood into Western hands. "The physiological examples are compelling but without being able to determine the chain of custody, that's the key to confirming the use," one unnamed U.S. official told the New York Times earlier this week.
That chain of custody still hasn't been nailed down, an American intelligence source tells The Cable. But U.S. spy agencies nonetheless now feel confident that chemical weapons were used in Syria. And that, in turn, prompted the White House to make its more sure-footed announcement Thursday that Assad had, conclusively, gassed his opponents in Syria's civil war.
...
Yet the White House's decision to announce the chemical weapons findings -- and the decision to provide "direct military support" to the rebels -- came rather quickly. "We had less than a week to prepare," the source says. "Nothing indicated a decision before this week."
...
Regardless, the U.S game plan in Syria has yet to be explained in full by U.S. officials on record. That reveals a conundrum of American security policy in 2013. Our wars are technically fought in secret. Yet they're announced to the world.
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/06/14/us_can_t_nail_down_chemical_weapon_chain_of_custody_but_declared_war_on_assad_anywa
