61–70 of 78 posts
I want to be clear that I don’t know if chemical weapons are being used in Syria, although the evidence for the use of Chlorine in barrel bombs is strong. I’ll be honest and say that I haven’t seen good evidence of organophosphate poisonings, but I’m just some guy so who knows. What I do know for sure however, is that this blog is utter bunk. The Belgian customs found that without having requested the appropriate exp…
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A voice of reason can quickly be overshadowed by a wave of ignorance. The comments sections on most of the news articles I've seen, when they're up, are usually divisive noisy trolls.
Negligible price to pay.
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"The White Helmets" -- there's your problem. > There is a reason Assad’s government blocked inspectors from examining the latest claimed attack. That did not happen.
> That did not happen. Is the Washington Post & OPCW lying? https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/chemical-weapons-coveru... I assume you believe that since you also apparently believe Russian and Syrian claims that a volunteer search and rescue organization that's helped thousands of people is really made up of terrorists generating false flag stories. And by the downvotes you aren't the only one. Though I also see y…
No. They say "On Thursday, the United States said it had credible information to suggest that Syria and Russia were working to delay the OPCW mission..."
No one is lying and nevertheless this article is no more than those photos with people with masks (possibly oxygen masks). All that was said that US claims that it have some evidence to suggest. There are nothing was said that OPCW claims the same and WP itself doesn't claim anything about Syria.
There was nothing said that those "credible information" is not the one that we do not have, maybe it is just a common sense: if Syria claims control over the area, that any delays for OPCW are from government?
All the article is just random informational noise saying nothing. All the US claims was predictable a priory, article adds nothing to those predictions. It means zero information.
To find truth you should read carefully even when you read scientific article which is written in a way to be plain. But when you read media-news, you need to be very careful and to read every word.
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It is not just a solvent. You can use ethanol in hand sanitizer, but isopropanol is what you need for sarin. That's why it's on the precursor lists, but at a low level in recognition of its industrial uses.
It’s one thing you can use, especially if you’re a fan of Dexter , but back in the real world we already control the actual precursor Methylphosphonyl difluoride. If you take sodium cyanide and drop it into H2SO4 and water, you get poison gas. If you want to stop that, control the production and export of cyanide, not the water or sulphuric acid! Isopropyl alcohol is not a chemical weapon precursor, just like water i…
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Your claim about fluorine being essential for organophosphate nerve agents is incorrect. The original nerve agent, tabun, contains no fluorine at all for example. Neither do VX, parathion, or paraoxon. The mechanism behind organophosphate poisoning lies entirely in the phosphate part of the molecule. Among the enzymes present in the human body are a large class known as serine hydrolases. These enzymes hydrolyze chem…
Just for your information, the mechanism of organophosphate nerve agent toxicity does not involve serine hydrolyases. It involves acetylcholinesterase. https://chemm.nlm.nih.gov/nerveagents.htm
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Not really. If you work in the NGO space closely you'll know that Bellingcats funders are pretty much run of the mill ones. Also, I'm a big Seymour Hersh fan but unfortunately he got made to look foolish with that article. Lots of what he said was implausible from the start and his major thesis have been globally dubunked. I suspect he was for once fed some bad sources.
Happen to have any links on Seymour Hersh being "made to look foolish" with his article? Robert Fisk, also a highly respected journalist, was the first Western journalist to visit Douma after the recent bombing. His report casts doubt on the claims about what happened in Syria that led to the UK, US, and France to bomb without waiting for evidence. See https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syria-chemical-attack-g...
I've read reports that doctors who spoke to the press had been intimidated and threatened if they verified the attack story[2]. The people in the video don't look intimidated to me, but I'm no expert.
I'm personally on the fence on this one, and haven't read in-depth either. But it's mighty strange to me seeing Fisk and a conservative cable news network on the same page on a mid-East controversy!
1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9w8j-avq_0
2: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/17/syria-crisis-m...
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Negligible price to pay.
But it outweighs the benefits if the noise level is so high that the one or two sane comments don't even get seen.
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According to the United Nations, Syria imported 1,916,504 kilograms of "Propyl alcohol and isopropyl alcohol" in 2010, 1,705,420 kilograms in 2009, 926,139 kilograms in 2008, and so on... ...To quote another here. Isopropyl alcohol is not an organophosphate precursor. https://cyber.sci-hub.hk/MTAuMTAwMi9zbGN0LjIwMTcwMjc2Mw==/qu... Precursors of CW agents are chemicals which have relatively small molecules, that may b…
Your claim about fluorine being essential for organophosphate nerve agents is incorrect. The original nerve agent, tabun, contains no fluorine at all for example. Neither do VX, parathion, or paraoxon. The mechanism behind organophosphate poisoning lies entirely in the phosphate part of the molecule. Among the enzymes present in the human body are a large class known as serine hydrolases. These enzymes hydrolyze chem…
Sarin does, and the article is talking about sarin. Either way I’m sure you’d agree that isopropanol isn’t a precursor to sarin, yes? You’d also probably admit that you’re not getting methylphosphonyldifluoride from fucking toothpaste. Lecture about the mechanisms of organophosphates on AChE aside.
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No, it's not "very clear" as the "intelligence" is 100% Twitter-based and zero actual autopsy has taken place, as no one actually died that day. Or so say the hospital staff.
The OPCW reports on Syria's chemical weapon efforts can be found at the link below. Syria has been making and deploying chemical weapons for quite a while. https://www.opcw.org/special-sections/syria/
That was also quite a while ago, they've been cooperating with OPCW on destroying all their stocks and production facilities for these last years, as evident by the OPCW progress reports.
I just can't see any scenario where using these kinda of weapons would be advantageous for the Syrian government, at least in the current situation. At this point, the war in Syria is pretty much decided, what's happening right now is mostly clean-up.
The US just declared to get out of there, Trump set up another "red line" and then the Syrian government just decides "Hey, let's do this thing that gives them justification to keep intervening and cross that red line before the paint dries!", it just doesn't add up, they gain nothing from this.
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"The White Helmets" -- there's your problem. > There is a reason Assad’s government blocked inspectors from examining the latest claimed attack. That did not happen.
> That did not happen. Is the Washington Post & OPCW lying? https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/chemical-weapons-coveru... I assume you believe that since you also apparently believe Russian and Syrian claims that a volunteer search and rescue organization that's helped thousands of people is really made up of terrorists generating false flag stories. And by the downvotes you aren't the only one. Though I also see y…
"The United Nations Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS) has made the necessary arrangements with the Syrian authorities to escort the team to a certain point and then for the escort to be taken over by the Russian Military Police. However, the UNDSS preferred to first conduct a reconnaissance visit to the sites, which took place yesterday. FFM team members did not participate in this visit.
On arrival at Site 1, a large crowd gathered and the advice provided by the UNDSS was that the reconnaissance team should withdraw.
At Site 2, the team came under small arms fire and an explosive was detonated. The reconnaissance team returned to Damascus."
The decision to delay the FFM team's visit wasn't made by Syrian or Russian authorities, but by the UN personnel tasked with protecting said FFM team. On Saturday they did finally conduct their FFM and took samples, so there's that.