White House Reveals New "Red Lines": Assad's Use Of Barrell Bombs Could Lead To More Strikes - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14795911
In the latest apparent shift of the White House's official stated position on what could draw a U.S. military response in the Syrian conflict, on Monday afternoon press secretary Sean Spicer warned that the use of either chemical weapons or the use of barrel bombs on civilians could draw fire, literally, from the Trump administration.

Trump seems to be rapidly capitulating to the Saudi lobby led by John McCain and Lyndsey Graham. At this rate, thousands of US troops may end up fighting in Syria.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-1 ... ew-strikes
#14796480
:roll: As if we haven't already had enough trouble in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US should consider Assad's actions an internal Syrian affair and lay off. Does the US launch Tomahawks at Israel when it kills Palestinian civilians? The administration should bear in mid that, with many Russians in Syria, further attacks risk something much worse than another quagmire.
#14796509
This gets said every now and then, I'm not sure if chemical weapons are necessarily worse (perhaps depending on the chemicals involved) than conventional weapons.

A Wikipedia article on barrel bombs says they are less accurate (how much less accurate I wonder, aren't they both just dropped from the sky?) and carry more munitions (I didn't believe that for a second) and that they get used in civilian areas, as if regular bombs can't be used in civilian areas.

The conclusion I came to is that we are outraged about chemical weapons and barrel bombs because we are programmed to be outraged about them, not because they're necessarily fundamentally worse than other kinds of conventional weapons. Assad's regime is well known to be strapped for cash so I can see why they would be making bombs out of barrels or other generic containers instead of pre-fabbed casings, telling him he can't use them is either to try and pinch him financially or to set up a context in which Trump can basically justify attacking him any time he wants.

I would like to extend Obama some credit for not attacking Assad previously but I don't buy into his repeated "accidental" attacks on Assad's forces, so yeah.
#14796552
Hong Wu wrote:It is kind of interesting that the "Bush started Iraq" line can now be reframed as the "Obama started Syria" line

... yea, I remember that time when the Obama admin made that PowerPoint presentation of magical lies to the UN and stressed the atomic bombs about to fall to get Congress to declare war.
#14796575
Zagadka wrote:... yea, I remember that time when the Obama admin made that PowerPoint presentation of magical lies to the UN and stressed the atomic bombs about to fall to get Congress to declare war.

According to Trump, I don't know if he's updated on that :lol:, Obama founded ISIS. I wonder if it's true since the first move of ISIS was to overthrow the Iraqi government Obama just left alone to start off. It was a Shia-dominated government, but Obama gets on well with the Shia except for Assad.

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