These reports make no such conclusion - that the Syrian government was responsible for the attack.
They do confirm that chemical weapons were used. Who used them, is not determined, and even the reports themselves state that the provenance of the chemicals is out of scope of the FFM.
It states that Sarin and chlorine-based weapons were used - but the FFM was not able to visit the site directly and relied on samples collected by third parties and provided to the FFM for the purposes of their investigation. The only conclusion is: chemical weapons were used.
It does not, in any way, state that the Syrian government were responsible for the attack.
Indeed, the Syrian government themselves requested this mission proceed to determine the use of these chemical weapons - why would they do that if they knew they'd used the chemical weapons?
>But there were many more. So please don't spread unsubstantiated falsehoods and doubt.
If you have further evidence that supports the claim that the Syrian government used these weapons, please provide it. Thus far, you have failed to apply your own demand for evidence.
> These reports make no such conclusion - that the Syrian government was responsible for the attack.
They can be used to make a conclusion. We don't need the mandate, and we can think for ourselves, no? In both cases the munitions were reportedly dropped from the air. Once from the airplane, and second time from helicopters.
Rebel groups don't have airplanes or heliopters, so Khan-Sheikoun attack was most likely made by the Assad regime. Douma can be speculated about somewhat more, but dropping the chlorine containers from the air was not excluded, and was quite likely, based on previous documented droppings of chlorine canisters from helicopters, that used the same mounting technology.
It was also not unprecedentend, dropping chlorine canisters from helicoters by Assad regime was docummneted previously on multiple occasions. The same canisters, and mounting technology for dropping from helicopters. The same goes for Sarin use. (look up other Sarin uses OPCW investigated)
I mean what's so surprising about this? Assad regime has been procuring chemical weapons for decades. They do it just for fun? It's a very expensive hobby.
> Indeed, the Syrian government themselves requested this mission proceed to determine the use of these chemical weapons - why would they do that if they knew they'd used the chemical weapons?
How would I know.
You can obviously kill people and request an inestigation at the same time. There's nothing that prevents that.
It's pointless to speculate on motives. But hey: Because they don't care? Because nothing's gonna happen anyway? Because they were scared of non-cooperation? Because Russia wanted them to? Because it's good optics in the war propaganda - it seems like they have nothing to hide? Calculated risk? (noone's gonna invade them for chlorine use, and they would have had to know that Sarin was not used in Douma, so why not?)
Even if Sarin would have been used, most likely nothing would have happened to them, like many times before. There were several other recent Sarin uses that went unpunished. US is not there for a regime change, and Assad has an upper hand, except for Idlib, and SDF areas. Chemicals are a great weapon for terrorizing civilian population. So why not use them after calculating some risks?
Just look at some WWI documentaries. People/leaders can get completely crazy under a war situation, and justify pretty much anything - even sacrificing almost 30000 soldiers in one day in pointless attacks. It's pointless to speculate on motives now.
What you're saying is impossible; until June, the OPCW didn't have the mandate to assign blame[1], and while they now do, the Duoma expedition still did not[2].
Lack of mandate doesn't make it impossible to assign blame based on facts in the report. It's just that OPCW wasn't tasked with it. Though you're right that OPCW didn't blame Assad. I was inaccurate, there.
You're downvoted, because you seem to be whitewashing a few things - from Assad, to Soviets in Afghanistan, in your quest to paint USA blacker. You tell us to take intelligence community with a grain of salt, and then speculate about Kashoggi - where most information comes from Turkey's intelligence aparatus. Also socialists are also funded and armed by USA (see SDF in Syria). Also this guy (armed by USA) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nouri_al-Maliki is a Shia.
I mean, yes, USA foreing policy is a mess. But we should still be bothered by facts.
I agree regarding “whitewashing” the Soviet presence in Afghanistan, for example. But it was skipping over that to make a point - we occupied the country and did the exact same thing as the Soviets, for longer than they did, on our own dime, and encountered the same kind of resistance that we formerly supported. Whatever the reasons for the Soviet coup in 1979, our actions post 9/11 combined with our actions then show a schitzophrenic foreign policy.
Socialists and Shiites were obviously occasionally funded and armed by the USA, and I even alluded to this - Saddam was a socialist, and the new government of Iraq was a Shiite government. However, that doesn’t negate what I said - read it carefully. Far more mainstream sources than me have pointed this out:
Most of the discussion oriented places is mostly US (or west) centered, any kind of thoughts or idea that is against it will not be favored and for sure will be discouraged as well by any means (downvoting, labeling, banning, etc...)
The right Audience for such message that can digest are minority.
I would say, don't count on having any kind of support from such places (HN, reddit, facebook, twitter, Quora etc). US has the media and already online media too.
I'm not American, and I downvoted because it's easy to conflate things which were clearly wrong (WMD) and things for which there is plenty of open source intel showing are correct (North Korea Sony hack).
