Weren't the chemical weapons from Syria taken away by Russia?

[Le Gaucher]

I remember this being a deal that averted military action.

So assad/ Russians were hiding them?

[AngryAmish]

1. We were taken as fools

Mostly because the US are fools.

[Cha]

2. Who are you calling a "fool" specifically"? trump admin?

[AngryAmish]

8. Trump administration and the entire US foreign policy apparatus.

They are in thrall to a belief system that only works in North America and Europe. They are ignorant, for philosophical reasons due to the inadaquacy of the US educational system, that other groups of humans may have different motivations than a rich city dweller in the US or Western Europe. TL, DR...Everyone in positions of power thinks TED Talks are a good idea and are too insular to realize that they are just swallowing another religious cant.

[whathehell]

15. Can't defend the Trump administration, but

I think the foreign policy apparatus is more aware than you give it credit for. The Obama administration took a different approach to Iraq, Tunisia, Yemen, and Libya. None of these worked particularly well, so Syria was mostly left alone.

When the regime used poison gas, Obama went to congress to authorize major military action and they did not want the irresponsibility. So a deal was worked out with the Russians to remove the poison gas weapons instead. When you separate out the Republican BS, that seems pretty reasonable. Now it appears they did not get all of the weapons - or the Regime bought some more for North Korea. That should not be a surprise. Somebody willing to use these awful weapons will use them again if he can. We have to keep on top of the situation.

Getting past that tired "America sucks" attitude might allow you a clearer and more objective view.

[AngryAmish]

16. Maybe setting the Arab world on fire was a terrible idea.

The US decided that "color revolutions" were a good thing. This was a bipartisan foreign policy goal. Actually, calling it bipartisan is a misnomer. The CIA/State Dept/NGO types are doing this since the Clinton Administration. No one voted for this.

It worked well in the Warsaw Pact. Mostly nonviolent and turned a lot of nations into the US sphere of influence.

It was a train wreck in the Arab world since the Arab world is different. And no one in out government could see it coming because the US educational system teaches that everyone is basically the same. Guess what? This is a quasi religious belief without a basis in fact. We never thought formenting revolution could go wrong. Oops.

[whathehell]

10. ----

He's denigrating the entire ountry...Lovely, I know.

[whathehell]

7. "The US are fools"?

Maybe in your area.

[AngryAmish]

17. The US policy in the Middle East has sucked for generations

Yes we are fools in this area.

[whathehell]

19. Along with that of Brits and the rest of the West...Why just single out the U.S.?

"Yes we are fools in this area"...The last three words constituting a rather important qualifier you neglected to include earlier.

.

[AngryAmish]

20. I am not the Brits, that's why.

[whathehell]

21. You don't need to be..

Other nations critique our policies, we can do the same.

Try again.

[FBaggins]

3. That was the claim a couple months ago

"by virtue of the diplomacy that we did with Russia and with the Security Council. We were able to get the Syrian government to voluntarily and verifiably give up its chemical weapons stockpile."

[onenote]

4. The removal and-or destruction was supervised by the UN and OPCW

OPCW =ORGANISATION FOR THEPROHIBITION OF CHEMICAL WEAPONS

So, no -- it wasn't the Russians that were responsible for overseeing the removal and destruction of the weapons.

[Cha]

5. Good question.. Found this..

Obama Was Right to Abandon ‘Red Line’ on Syria’s Chemical Weapons

snip//

PARIS—Nobody should be surprised that Donald Trump is blaming his predecessor, Barack Obama, for the ghastly chemical-weapons attack in Syria on Tuesday.

snip//

As former Secretary of State John Kerry told The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg last year, “This notion about the red line being crossed and [Obama’s] not doing anything gained a life of its own.”

And now that the Syrian regime appears to be using sophisticated chemical weapons again, Obama’s refusal to enforce that red line is construed as opening the door to the disaster that is Syria today.

As Goldberg wrote after long conversations with Obama and his closest advisers, the pivotal moment came on Aug. 30, 2013. Several days earlier, some 1,400 Syrians were killed with sarin gas on the outskirts of Damascus. The entire administration looked like it was on a war footing. But on that sunny Friday in Washington, Obama decided to pull back from the brink, and walk away from his red line.

Shortly thereafter, in a surprise deal between Obama and Putin, who was Assad’s key sponsor but who had not yet intervened directly in the war, Assad was forced to acknowledge the chemical arsenal he had never admitted to having before. He allowed inspectors into the country to inventory and remove all that he declared that he had, and all that they could find. Some doubts lingered, as Noah Shachtman and I reported in 2014. But there is no question the bulk of his stockpiles were taken away and destroyed.

Would military action in August and September 2013 have accomplished the same goal?

Goldberg’s conclusion was equivocal: “History may record Aug. 30, 2013, as the day Obama prevented the U.S. from entering yet another disastrous Muslim civil war, and the day he removed the threat of a chemical attack on Israel, Turkey, or Jordan. Or it could be remembered as the day he let the Middle East slip from America’s grasp, into the hands of Russia, Iran, and ISIS.”

More..

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/05/obama-was-right-to-abandon-red-line-on-syria-s-chemical-weapons.html

This, too..

Putin stands by Assad as firm evidence of chemical attack mounts

snip//

Vladimir Putin has doubled down on his support for the Syrian government despite the release of postmortem results by Turkey that confirmed chemical weapons were used in an attack that killed at least 72 people in north Syria.

The Russian president attacked “groundless accusations” that Damascus was responsible for the assault, and called for a “detailed and unbiased investigation” into the deaths, a Kremlin statement said.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/06/postmortems-confirm-syria-chemical-attack-turkey-says

[jmg257]

9. So they missed a few? Or Putin saying recent 'chem attack' disnt happen?

Or was not Assad?

[Cha]

13. Evidently not all his "stockpile" who knows what they

had hidden away?

putin called them "groundless accusations" so that's easy for him to say.

At this point who know what really happened with trump/putin/assad in the mix?

[DetlefK]

6. Russia has been Syria's military ally for decades.

Syria has the only ports where they can dock military ships in the Mediterranean Sea.

Does anyone really think that Russia can afford to be tough on Syria???

[FBaggins]

11. "Ally" is the wrong word in this case

Russia is their patron and can afford to do anything they want. Assad had no leverage on them at all.

[annabanana]

18. good point..

"Listen, Assad, You're going to take a hit (a little one) that will make that idiot orange american look tough and not like another one of my assets... Got it?, Good."

[Cha]

12. Ah, thanks for the reasoning on why putin is doubling down

on protecting Assad and not caring about the evidence.

Doesn't seem like Syria would have much of a choice against Russia, tho.

[sarah FAILIN]

14. the planes that bombed the people came from there..and

The Russians were stationed there..with saran...drip drip.

Doesn't take a reasonably smart person long to connect those dots.