Thread: U.S. just attacked a Syrian airport.

Originally Posted by Newmexican

The military would not have hit the base if they didn't have good information on the origin of the flight that dropped the chemicals. There are too many satellite assets and other ways of tracking the origin of the initial attack. According to some sources, this base was the storage area of thechemical weapons that Assad supposedly didn't have. Also, there is a big difference between a military airbase and an airport.

The videos and pictures showed physical damage to structures. They dropped explosive bombs to do that damage. Chemical weapons don't do that. Something is very wrong here with the "intel" and the videos. The videos show physical damage, dust, collapsed buildings, people walking and running around right afterwards. They wouldn't be able to do that in a gas attack. A gas attack doesn't destroy buildings, it just contaminates the air for everyone, including the "doctors" and the people running around.

I'm sorry, I'm just not buying it. It just all looked staged to me. What you see in the videos is not what happens during a poison gas attack. The video guy would have collapsed. He or she is unaffected. The workers helping the injured are unaffected. That is not how gas works. It affects everyone in the area of contamination. Everyone.

Originally Posted by Judy

The videos and pictures showed physical damage to structures. They dropped explosive bombs to do that damage. Chemical weapons don't do that. Something is very wrong here with the "intel" and the videos. The videos show physical damage, dust, collapsed buildings, people walking and running around right afterwards. They wouldn't be able to do that in a gas attack. A gas attack doesn't destroy buildings, it just contaminates the air for everyone, including the "doctors" and the people running around.

I'm sorry, I'm just not buying it. It just all looked staged to me. What you see in the videos is not what happens during a poison gas attack. The video guy would have collapsed. He or she is unaffected. The workers helping the injured are unaffected. That is not how gas works. It affects everyone in the area of contamination. Everyone.

Don't you think it is possible for Assad's military to multi-task in their bomb dropping endeavors? I haven't heard any report that limited the bombings to just one single type of bomb.

Sarin gas, if directly inhaled in a high dose, can kill in minutes, but when only absorbed through the skin it can take over 30 minutes to kill, if it kills you at all. Sarin gas is heavier than air, which means it is only effective for a limited amount of time. Of course weather conditions will also figure in to its effective time. So the time it takes sarin gas to kill or severely effect you would depend on how much you inhaled or absorbed through your skin.

Bombs kill, too, so how many of the 86 were killed by explosive bombs on their structures you see in the videos? Also, the people in the videos were saying there were blue and yellows streaks coming from the gas bombs. Sarin gas is colorless and odorless.

At least 2 civilians, 3 soldiers killed by US missile strike on Syrian airbase – Homs governor

Published time: 7 Apr, 2017 04:40
Edited time: 7 Apr, 2017 07:09

At least 2 civilians, 3 soldiers killed by US missile strike on Syrian airbase – Homs governor
© Robert S. Price / Reuters

The governor of Homs province, Talal Barazi, said the US strike on a Syrian airfield has led to civilian casualties in a village near the base, as well as the airbase itself. At least five people have been left dead and seven wounded, he told RT.

The American missile attack on Syria won’t topple its government or change the policies of Damascus, he said after a barrage of 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles targeted a Syrian airfield located there.

“The Syrian leadership and Syrian policy will not change,” Talal Barazi said in a phone interview with Syrian state television. “This targeting was not the first and I don't believe it will be the last.”

He added that Shayrat airbase will be rebuilt and continue to play a role in fighting terrorists.

Earlier, Barazi told Reuters that firefighting and rescue operations were under way at the Shayrat airfield after the US attack, but that he believed that there were not many casualties on the ground.

Barazi said Washington’s escalation of the conflict in Syria only served terrorist groups such as Islamic State.

The governor said that the base played a significant role in the recent capture of the city of Palmyra from IS.

The Syrian state TV called the attack “American aggression”.

On Friday, US warships in the eastern Mediterranean fired 59 Tomahawk missiles at the Syrian airfield, with Pentagon claiming that it was used in a chemical weapons attack against a rebel-held town in Idlib province on Tuesday.

The retaliation came before the UN or the OPCW, the chemical weapons watchdog, could investigate the incident. Washington sided with the rebel-linked activists, which accused Damascus of killing civilians with toxic gas.

https://www.rt.com/news/383807-homs-governor-us-attack/

Originally Posted by Judy

The videos and pictures showed physical damage to structures. They dropped explosive bombs to do that damage. Chemical weapons don't do that. Something is very wrong here with the "intel" and the videos. The videos show physical damage, dust, collapsed buildings, people walking and running around right afterwards. They wouldn't be able to do that in a gas attack. A gas attack doesn't destroy buildings, it just contaminates the air for everyone, including the "doctors" and the people running around.

I'm sorry, I'm just not buying it. It just all looked staged to me. What you see in the videos is not what happens during a poison gas attack. The video guy would have collapsed. He or she is unaffected. The workers helping the injured are unaffected. That is not how gas works. It affects everyone in the area of contamination. Everyone.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

Bombs do structural damage and when they are paired with chemical weapons, they increase the collateral damage to the surviving population and are fatal to the most vulnerable. It is possible that these particular bombs were laced with more than one chemical.

I don't believe for a moment that Trump was duped into launching an attack based on fake videos.

Breathing the nerve gas reportedly used in Syria feels like 'a knife made of fire' in your lungs

• Dave Mosher

A man carries the body of a dead child, after what rescue workers described as a suspected gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in rebel-held IdlibThomson Reuters

On April 4, airstrikes pounded the small Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun, wounding hundreds and killing more than 80 people, including at least 20 women and 30 children.

Shortly after the attack, photos, videos, and written reports of the carnage began pouring onto the internet — and it quickly became clear to experts that something other than conventional weapons was used in the bombing.

Victims described running from toxic gases, with those who could not escape allegedly choking and foaming at the mouth. Footage taken after the attack showed infants shaking uncontrollably.

These and other pieces of evidence suggested at the use of chemical weapons, and on Thursday, anonymous US officials told the Associated Press that early "assessments showed the use of chlorine gas and traces of the nerve agent sarin in the attack".

Chlorine gas is a powerful irritant that can wreak havoc on the human body, but isn't known for being extremely lethal. A small amount of sarin gas, however, mirrors the effects of VX nerve agent — the world's most deadly poison.

Blame for the internationally condemned strikes has fallen on ruler Bashar Assad and his regime in Syria, while Russian officials have "fancifully" blamed a rebel chemical weapons stockpile for causing the massacre.

Here's what sarin gas is and what it does to the body, according to information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Reuters, and other sources.

Where the toxin comes from and what it is

​REUTERS

Sarin is a nerve agent that:

• Was developed in Germany in 1938 as a pesticide.
• Is a human-made substance that's similar to insecticides called organophosphates, yet is far more powerful.
• Is clear, colorless, tasteless, and odorless liquid in pure form, and dissolves easily in water.
• Rapidly evaporates into a dense gas that sinks to low-lying areas, and is the most volatile of all nerve agents.
• In a bomb, mixes as two chemicals to weaponize the nerve agent.
• Can affect people through their skin, eyes, and lungs, and through contaminated food and clothes.
• Was used in attacks on Japan in 1994 and 1994.
• Was used by Bashar Assad's regime during an attack in Syria in 2013.

Why sarin gas is deadly

This Reuters illustration explains how sarin gas works on the body's nervous system:
How sarin nerve gas works.K. Pong, S. Scarr/Reuters
What the symptoms of exposure are

Moderate exposure

• REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah
• Head: confusion, drowsiness, and headache.
• Eyes: watery eyes, eye, pain, blurry vision, small/pinpoint pupils.
• Mouth, nose, and lungs: cough, drooling, runny nose, rapid breathing, chest tightness; victims have described breathing sarin gas as "a knife made of fire" tearing up their lungs.
• Skin: excessive sweating, muscle twitching at the site of contact.
• Digestion: nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, increased urination, diarrhea.
• Cardiovascular: abnormal blood pressure and heart rate, weakness.

Lethal exposure

• Convulsions
• Loss of consciousness
• Paralysis
• Breathing failure

How sarin nerve agent is treated

While there's an antidote, to be effective it must be used quickly — so the CDC recommends leaving the area where gas may be present and seeking fresh air. They also recommend getting to higher ground, since sarin gas sinks downward.

The CDC also says potential victims should:

• Rapidly remove clothing, tearing it off if necessary.
• To protect from further exposure, place the contaminated clothes in a bag, then seal within another bag, as soon as possible.
• Wash the entire body with excessive soap and water.
• Flush the eyes for 10-15 minutes if vision is blurred.
• If swallowed, don't induce vomiting or drink fluids.
• Seek medical attention immediately.
• http://www.businessinsider.com/sarin...an-body-2017-4

It's my understanding from people familiar with the area of Syria that about 50% of the people of Syria support Assad. The other 50% is divided and split into 5 different groups, Al Nusra, ISIS, Kurds and two groups that are pro-democracy who want the right to protest and an end to "emergency rule".

This is not a situation we can resolve militarily or by removing Assad politically.

Assad as villainized as he is, rightly or wrongly, is the recognized leader of Syria. The areas of Syria where the 50% live who support their government are doing fine and are legally entitled to their government. It is the rebel areas trying to over-throw the government that are not doing well because they're trying to over-throw their government. There is no unity among them, there is no leadership for Syria from that group, there is no other leader in the pro-Assad group who wants to take on this mess.

We've made our statement on the use of chemical weapons whether they were used or not and we need to leave it there and return to our mission of fixing our country.

It appears that there are some slow learners in Syria.

KHAN SHEIKHOUN, TOWN WHERE CHEMICAL ATTACK KILLED 86, HIT IN ANOTHER AIRSTRIKE

BY JACK MOORE
ON 4/7/17 AT 8:09 AM

WORLDSYRIA

A military jet on Friday conducted an airstrike on the rebel-held Syrian town where a suspected chemical attack left dozens dead earlier this week and pushed the U.S. into its first direct military action in the country, according to a war monitor.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a U.K.-based monitoring group with extensive contacts in Syria, confirmed to Newsweek that at least one strike hit Khan Sheikhoun, located in the northwestern province of Idlib, on Friday.

The monitor said the aircraft belonged to either the military of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad or the Russian air force, operating in the country in support of the internationally-maligned dictator.
It said the strike took place before noon on the outskirts of the town. The number of casualties caused by the strike remains unknown.

After Tuesday’s attack, in which a suspected chemical agent dropped into the town killed 86 people and left civilians and rebels convulsing, foaming at the mouth and unable to breathe, the monitor reported further Syrian or Russian strikes on Wednesday.

A picture taken on April 6, 2017 shows 40-year-old Hassan Youssef, a victim of the April 4, 2017 suspected toxic gas attack in Khan Sheikhun, receiving medical care in a hospital in the nearby northwestern Syrian city of Idlib. The Syrian regime carried out further airstrikes in Khan Sheikhoun on Friday, according to a war monitor.OMAR HAJ KADOUR/AFP/GETTY

Russia admitted that the Syrian military had conducted the strike on Tuesday, but said it hit a weapons depot holding “toxic” weapons. International powers, such as the U.S., Israel, Turkey, France and Britain, accused the Syrian regime of targeting civilians with chemical weapons.

Syria denies possessing chemical weapons or that it has ever used them in the six-year-long civil war. Before Tuesday’s incident, U.N. investigators held Assad’s regime responsible for at least three chemical attacks in 2014 and 2015.

Ahead of a planned U.N. Security Council vote on a resolution against the Syrian regime, U.S. President Donald Trump cancelled the vote, instead opting to order strikes against a Syrian military airfield near the central city of Homs late Thursday. It was the first direct U.S. military action against forces loyal to the Assad regime.

The attack, which consisted of 59 Tomahawk missiles, killed six Syrian soldiers, according to the Syrian military, and destroyed nine jets, Russian media reported. The Syrian government called the attack an act of “blatant aggression,” one that was aimed at undermining what Damascus said was its fight against extremists in the country.

The U.S.-led coalition is also operating in the country in a bid to defeat the Islamic State militant group (ISIS), which retains control of the eastern Syrian city of Raqqa.
http://www.newsweek.com/khan-sheikho...strikes-580483

RUSSIAN WARSHIP APPROACHES: Heads to area where 2 US Navy destroyers launched missile

I don't believe for a moment that Trump was duped into launching an attack based on fake videos.

I don't believe he was duped either. I think he knows the difference between a fake video and false statements by those in the videos. We know he knows you can't trust any of these people because he's said that many times for years, you don't know who they are or what they're about. No credibility. So my question is why exploit the hoax to make strikes like this unless it's part of some larger strategy which I haven't figured out yet?

Syria was a civil war with a refugee problem. Now it's an international hornet's nest. Maybe it was to send a message and set a new tone. Whatever it is, I hope it works.