The question is not appropriate, because neither Sexmachine, nor Bismark, nor I has claimed that a chlorine attack is not a chemical attack.
What have we said? Do you know? Do you care? You should. Figure it out, respond to that, or pick your clear, ringing, utter defeat up and carry it away with you.[/quote]
So you admit that using chlorine gas, delivered in the form of a weapon is in fact a chemical attack?
[/quote]
No I do not “admit” it, because it has nothing to do with anything about my argument, it is not the least bit controversial (an attack with a chemical is a chemical attack–is this the kind of tautological position you are forced to take in order to get something correct in a debate?), and neither I, nor Sexmachine, nor Bismark has denied it a single time throughout the entire course of this thread.
Now, you want to talk about chlorine? Respond to the points that we took the time to make. Or continue to think and argue like a teenage girl. It is your choice. But why, why take the time to debate, if you won’t debate?[/quote]
So your stance is that delivering chlorine gas, in the form of a weapon is not a chemical attack? You are saying, hence, the attack with chlorine gas did not actually take place? Or are you denying chlorine gas is not a chemical? Or are you saying the attack did not take place?[/quote]
What the fuck?
Are you being thick intentionally, or do you literally not understand what’s being said to you?
The question is not appropriate, because neither Sexmachine, nor Bismark, nor I has claimed that a chlorine attack is not a chemical attack.
What have we said? Do you know? Do you care? You should. Figure it out, respond to that, or pick your clear, ringing, utter defeat up and carry it away with you.[/quote]
So you admit that using chlorine gas, delivered in the form of a weapon is in fact a chemical attack?
[/quote]
No I do not “admit” it, because it has nothing to do with anything about my argument, it is not the least bit controversial (an attack with a chemical is a chemical attack–is this the kind of tautological position you are forced to take in order to get something correct in a debate?), and neither I, nor Sexmachine, nor Bismark has denied it a single time throughout the entire course of this thread.
Now, you want to talk about chlorine? Respond to the points that we took the time to make. Or continue to think and argue like a teenage girl. It is your choice. But why, why take the time to debate, if you won’t debate?[/quote]
So your stance is that delivering chlorine gas, in the form of a weapon is not a chemical attack? You are saying, hence, the attack with chlorine gas did not actually take place? Or are you denying chlorine gas is not a chemical? Or are you saying the attack did not take place?[/quote]
What the fuck?
Are you being thick intentionally, or do you literally not understand what’s being said to you?[/quote]
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
“Explain how using Axe Body Spray to deliberately kill people is not a chemical attack? If it’s not a chemical attack, I am curious what you think it is?”
–Question relating to the failure of the Obama administration to dispossess Bashar al-Assad of his ability to hold people down and kill them by emptying cans of aerosol deodorant into their mouths; iron argument for the futility of forcing the Syrians to accede to the CWC and taking 2 million pounds of banned chemicals weapons such as Sarin and Mustard from them; stinging criticism of the CWC’s utility in the first place.
Well done, sir. You have called into question everything we know about war and diplomacy.[/quote]
You still have not answered the question. Answer the question. It’s a simple question.[/quote]
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
it is not the least bit controversial (an attack with a chemical is a chemical attack–is this the kind of tautological position you are forced to take in order to get something correct in a debate?)[/quote]
Do you know what “tautological” means? And “not the least bit controversial”? Or don’t you?[/quote]
You’re dodging.[/quote]
No, I’m not dodging in any way, shape, or form. An attack with a chemical is a chemical attack. How could this possibly be a point of controversy? No one has ever claimed otherwise, and the point has nothing to do with anybody’s argument in this debate. If you think otherwise–i.e. if you think that “chlorine is a chemical” is a counter-argument to any point made by either Sexmachine, Bismark, or I, produce that point verbatim.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
“Explain how using Axe Body Spray to deliberately kill people is not a chemical attack? If it’s not a chemical attack, I am curious what you think it is?”
–Question relating to the failure of the Obama administration to dispossess Bashar al-Assad of his ability to hold people down and kill them by emptying cans of aerosol deodorant into their mouths; iron argument for the futility of forcing the Syrians to accede to the CWC and taking 2 million pounds of banned chemicals weapons such as Sarin and Mustard from them; stinging criticism of the CWC’s utility in the first place.
Well done, sir. You have called into question everything we know about war and diplomacy.[/quote]
You still have not answered the question. Answer the question. It’s a simple question.[/quote]
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
it is not the least bit controversial (an attack with a chemical is a chemical attack–is this the kind of tautological position you are forced to take in order to get something correct in a debate?)[/quote]
Do you know what “tautological” means? And “not the least bit controversial”? Or don’t you?[/quote]
You’re dodging.[/quote]
No, I’m not dodging in any way, shape, or form. An attack with a chemical is a chemical attack. How could this possibly be a point of controversy? No one has ever claimed otherwise, and the point has nothing to do with anybody’s argument in this debate. If you think otherwise–i.e. if you think that “chlorine is a chemical” is a counter-argument to any point made by either Sexmachine, Bismark, or I, produce that point verbatim.[/quote]
So you do admit that delivering chlorine gas in the form of a weapon is a chemical attack?
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
“Explain how using Axe Body Spray to deliberately kill people is not a chemical attack? If it’s not a chemical attack, I am curious what you think it is?”
–Question relating to the failure of the Obama administration to dispossess Bashar al-Assad of his ability to hold people down and kill them by emptying cans of aerosol deodorant into their mouths; iron argument for the futility of forcing the Syrians to accede to the CWC and taking 2 million pounds of banned chemicals weapons such as Sarin and Mustard from them; stinging criticism of the CWC’s utility in the first place.
Well done, sir. You have called into question everything we know about war and diplomacy.[/quote]
You still have not answered the question. Answer the question. It’s a simple question.[/quote]
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
it is not the least bit controversial (an attack with a chemical is a chemical attack–is this the kind of tautological position you are forced to take in order to get something correct in a debate?)[/quote]
Do you know what “tautological” means? And “not the least bit controversial”? Or don’t you?[/quote]
You’re dodging.[/quote]
No, I’m not dodging in any way, shape, or form. An attack with a chemical is a chemical attack. How could this possibly be a point of controversy? No one has ever claimed otherwise, and the point has nothing to do with anybody’s argument in this debate. If you think otherwise–i.e. if you think that “chlorine is a chemical” is a counter-argument to any point made by either Sexmachine, Bismark, or I, produce that point verbatim.[/quote]
So you do admit that delivering chlorine gas in the form of a weapon is a chemical attack?[/quote]
I don’t “admit” it, I claim it, because it is the truth. What is your point? Do you know that the arguments put to you by Sexmachine, Bis, and I did not rely on the claim that to kill someone with a chemical is not to kill someone with a chemical?
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
“Explain how using Axe Body Spray to deliberately kill people is not a chemical attack? If it’s not a chemical attack, I am curious what you think it is?”
–Question relating to the failure of the Obama administration to dispossess Bashar al-Assad of his ability to hold people down and kill them by emptying cans of aerosol deodorant into their mouths; iron argument for the futility of forcing the Syrians to accede to the CWC and taking 2 million pounds of banned chemicals weapons such as Sarin and Mustard from them; stinging criticism of the CWC’s utility in the first place.
Well done, sir. You have called into question everything we know about war and diplomacy.[/quote]
You still have not answered the question. Answer the question. It’s a simple question.[/quote]
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
it is not the least bit controversial (an attack with a chemical is a chemical attack–is this the kind of tautological position you are forced to take in order to get something correct in a debate?)[/quote]
Do you know what “tautological” means? And “not the least bit controversial”? Or don’t you?[/quote]
You’re dodging.[/quote]
No, I’m not dodging in any way, shape, or form. An attack with a chemical is a chemical attack. How could this possibly be a point of controversy? No one has ever claimed otherwise, and the point has nothing to do with anybody’s argument in this debate. If you think otherwise–i.e. if you think that “chlorine is a chemical” is a counter-argument to any point made by either Sexmachine, Bismark, or I, produce that point verbatim.[/quote]
So you do admit that delivering chlorine gas in the form of a weapon is a chemical attack?[/quote]
I don’t “admit” it, I claim it, because it is the truth. What is your point? Do you know that the arguments put to you by Sexmachine, Bis, and I did not rely on the claim that to kill someone with a chemical is not to kill someone with a chemical?[/quote]
Okay good, then we can agree that:
Assad used chemical weapons in violation of the ‘red line’
Russia negotiated a proposal for Syria to give up it’s chemical weapons and the U.S. capitulated to the Russian proposal.
The Assad regime provided a list of weapons and locations of them.
There is no way to verify the list is truly comprehensive.
The purpose of removing chemical weapons is so that chemicals are not used as weapons.
The Assad regime used chlorine gas as a chemical weapon while they are being disarmed of their listed chemical weapons.
Is there anything in the above list you disagree with as a matter of fact?
[quote]pat wrote:
Okay good, then we can agree that:
Assad used chemical weapons in violation of the ‘red line’[/quote]
Yes.
[quote]
Russia negotiated a proposal for Syria to give up it’s chemical weapons and the U.S. capitulated to the Russian proposal.[/quote]
Either you don’t know the meaning of “capitulate,” or you’re being dishonest.
[quote]
The Assad regime provided a list of weapons and locations of them.[/quote]
Which had to accord with our intelligence community’s estimations of Assad’s arsenal’s size.
[quote]
There is no way to verify the list is truly comprehensive.[/quote]
Addressed with points to which you did not respond. See above. And remember when I told you that the uncertainty inherent to literally every act of diplomacy does not render diplomacy useless? Remember when I told you that your uninformed speculation carries less weight than the CIA’s estimates and OPCW’s confirmations, until you have evidence?
[quote]
The purpose of removing chemical weapons is so that chemicals are not used as weapons.[/quote]
No. The purpose of forcing Syria to accede to the CWC and thereby removing 2,000,000 pounds of nerve and blister agents from within its borders is not to bar Assad from strapping a household chemical to a package of explosives and using it to kill a few people. The purpose is to force Syria to accede to the CWC and to remove 2,000,000 pounds of nerve and blister agents from a war-torn deteriorating jihadist clusterfuck.
[quote]
The Assad regime used chlorine gas as a chemical weapon while they are being disarmed of their listed chemical weapons.[/quote]
And this has been addressed by multiple posters with specific arguments which you have neither acknowledged nor responded to. Respond to their actual arguments if you would like to continue this conversation.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Edit: I have responded to many of your points in separate posts. But this one is the big one. If you’re going to ignore a bunch of material as you have been doing throughout this thread, ignore everything else, and respond to this. Good luck.
[quote]pat wrote:
I could have jumped on your errors such as your thinking that Ghouta be the only incidence of chemical attack[/quote]
Produce the exact post of mine wherein I claimed that Ghouta “be the only incidence of chemical attack.” Post my words verbatim.
[/quote]
It’s the only attack you mentioned, several times as these two examples demonstrate. If you knew that Ghouta wasn’t the only region attacked you gave no acknowledgement of that fact.
And…
and…
What I can do here is say you don’t know a fuckwit what you are talking about because you never acknowledged prior it being pointed out to you, that Ghouta was not the only chemical attack.
What you would then say, after a litany of name calling, is “What I meant was…”
To which I can retort, bullshit and your ignorance on the matter is on full display.
We can dosey-doe with personal attacks about how little each other know about the situation, but I am not interested in that.
Here is what I am interested in, what do you think I mean when I say ‘it’ was a failure?
I am curious to know if you understand my point at all, or even know what it is?
Why do you think, I think it was a failure?
I think a little clarity could go along way…
[/quote]
As I expected.
You didn’t evidence your claim. But first, let me tell you a little about about how bad you are at all of this:
Ghouta is in those quotes because those quotes are descriptions of the chain of events revolving around the September 2013 Russo-Syrian-American chemical weapons and Ghouta is the attack which led to that deal. It is in the timeline because [b]it is the timeline[/b]. When I say that “Obama was in fact preparing to launch punitive strikes against Assad’s regime in retaliation for its having used chemical weapons at Ghouta,” I mean exactly that, because that’s exactly what was happening. Evidence here:
…and here…
Re-posted ^ to make sure it doesn’t slip through the cracks, no matter how much you’d like it to.[/quote]
This needs to be addressed. You make a claim, you evidence it, or you retract it.
[quote]pat wrote:
Okay good, then we can agree that:
Assad used chemical weapons in violation of the ‘red line’[/quote]
Yes.
[quote]
Russia negotiated a proposal for Syria to give up it’s chemical weapons and the U.S. capitulated to the Russian proposal.[/quote]
Either you don’t know the meaning of “capitulate,” or you’re being dishonest.
[quote]
The Assad regime provided a list of weapons and locations of them.[/quote]
Which had to accord with our intelligence community’s estimations of Assad’s arsenal’s size.
Are these exact figures? Or the numbers merely correlate with what we think he has? This is supposed to prove he didn’t withhold any? I am supposed to believe that closely related estimates are concrete proof of the destruction of every single molecule of the agents in possession have been declared? He could not possibly have more than we thought he has?
[quote]
So you’re assertion here is that removing certain chemical weapons was the goal, not the prevention and use of chemical agents as weapons? Even though the OPCW agrees it should have been on the list? Even though chlorine gas has been considered a chemical weapon as well as an industrial agent since WW1. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/22/us-syria-crisis-chlorine-idUSBREA3L11I20140422
Cyanide is a widely used industrial agent, I suppose that’s cool too?
So let me get this straight, you are seriously trying to assert that depriving Syria of it’s chemical weapons is not about preventing the use of chemical weapons?
[quote]
What’s to address? It’s a simple yes or no. There’s no justification for it. There is no qualification for it. You cannot spin it.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Edit: I have responded to many of your points in separate posts. But this one is the big one. If you’re going to ignore a bunch of material as you have been doing throughout this thread, ignore everything else, and respond to this. Good luck.
[quote]pat wrote:
I could have jumped on your errors such as your thinking that Ghouta be the only incidence of chemical attack[/quote]
Produce the exact post of mine wherein I claimed that Ghouta “be the only incidence of chemical attack.” Post my words verbatim.
[/quote]
It’s the only attack you mentioned, several times as these two examples demonstrate. If you knew that Ghouta wasn’t the only region attacked you gave no acknowledgement of that fact.
And…
and…
What I can do here is say you don’t know a fuckwit what you are talking about because you never acknowledged prior it being pointed out to you, that Ghouta was not the only chemical attack.
What you would then say, after a litany of name calling, is “What I meant was…”
To which I can retort, bullshit and your ignorance on the matter is on full display.
We can dosey-doe with personal attacks about how little each other know about the situation, but I am not interested in that.
Here is what I am interested in, what do you think I mean when I say ‘it’ was a failure?
I am curious to know if you understand my point at all, or even know what it is?
Why do you think, I think it was a failure?
I think a little clarity could go along way…
[/quote]
As I expected.
You didn’t evidence your claim. But first, let me tell you a little about about how bad you are at all of this:
Ghouta is in those quotes because those quotes are descriptions of the chain of events revolving around the September 2013 Russo-Syrian-American chemical weapons and Ghouta is the attack which led to that deal. It is in the timeline because [b]it is the timeline[/b]. When I say that “Obama was in fact preparing to launch punitive strikes against Assad’s regime in retaliation for its having used chemical weapons at Ghouta,” I mean exactly that, because that’s exactly what was happening. Evidence here:
…and here…
Re-posted ^ to make sure it doesn’t slip through the cracks, no matter how much you’d like it to.[/quote]
This needs to be addressed. You make a claim, you evidence it, or you retract it.[/quote]
I never saw you refer to any other chemical attack by the Assad regime. I have no way of knowing whether you knew they were used in other instances or not until I told you. Maybe I missed it in these walls of text you post, but I didn’t see any other references referred to.
You may have known, but I don’t know you knew.
I have no interest in thumbing through 16 pages of text in order to disparage you.
Again, I was making a point which again you missed.
The important part of that post was the question at the bottom of it. One you did not answer, I am still waiting on the answer.
The important part of that post was the question at the bottom of it. One you did not answer, I am still waiting on the answer. [/quote]
What question. Why you think it was a failure? Because you decided it was a failure before you understood the facts, when you had only a facile half-narrative, and now you are not considering the arguments of people who do have the facts and do understand the general principles of the matter at hand.
I never saw you refer to any other chemical attack by the Assad regime. I have no way of knowing whether you knew they were used in other instances or not until I told you. Maybe I missed it in these walls of text you post, but I didn’t see any other references referred to.
[/quote]
“I have no way of knowing whether you knew…”
Exactly. And thus you should not have made this claim:
[quote]pat wrote:
I could have jumped on your errors such as your thinking that Ghouta be the only incidence of chemical attack[/quote]
…Because it was a claim that you could not evidence by simply posting something I’d said.
Furthermore I have explained and evidenced (with reputable sources) that those other allegations of attack were not a part of this discussion and had nothing to do with the chemical weapons diplomacy that we have been discussing since the beginning of this thread. I wrote about Ghouta because Ghouta is exactly what we are talking about, and was the solitary catalyst which occasioned the series of events under present discussion. That I did not also mention, in our discussion of the “red line” timeline, the fact that George Washington ran a distillery is not evidence of my ignorance of George Washington’s distillery.
That you Googled a few things about Syria and found something that I hadn’t mentioned does not logically imply that I did not know about that thing. It is instead the case that the thing you found was not pertinent to the discussion we were having. It should be clear to you that I follow these matters closely. This is why I have been able to respond to your initial narrative with a great amount of correct factual detail.
But anyway, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that your “I could have jumped on your errors” statement is clearly nonsense, and you have admitted such by clarifying that you have no idea whether or not I made any error. I consider the claim retracted.
Found this great old video featuring the ancestors of SMH and Pat.[/quote]
Actually, my ancestors were recorded under different circumstances*:
*This joke should not lead anyone to believe that I consider myself to be making any “no you didn’t/yes you did” arguments. I stand by the points I’ve made.
The important part of that post was the question at the bottom of it. One you did not answer, I am still waiting on the answer. [/quote]
What question. Why you think it was a failure? Because you decided it was a failure before you understood the facts, when you had only a facile half-narrative, and now you are not considering the arguments of people who do have the facts and do understand the general principles of the matter at hand.[/quote]
Well, you clearly didn’t ever read anything I wrote or said. I bullet pointed exact reasons. You chose to ignore them and drone on and on about where and who has possession of the chemical arsonal. Things that are not pertinent.
[quote]pat wrote:
You chose to ignore them and drone on and on about where and who has possession of the chemical arsonal. Things that are not pertinent. [/quote]
So: That we took 2,000,000 pounds of schedule 1 banned chemical weapons out of a deteriorating jihadist clusterfuck is “not pertinent” to an evaluation of the chain of diplomatic events which led to the taking of the 2,000,000 pounds of schedule 1 banned chemical weapons out of the deteriorating jihadist clusterfuck.
That the rational and correct decision was made in each instance–this is not that pertinent.
That it is a direct good to have won Syrian accession to the CWC regardless of the simple and inevitable fact that there will still be dual-use chemicals like chlorine which can be strapped to bombs in order to kill a few people–this is not pertinent.
That Obama promised a “red line” beyond which his “calculus” would change–that he hinted at a nonspecific punishment–and then changed his calculation and punished Assad once the “red line” was crossed: This is not pertinent.
So: That we took 2,000,000 pounds of schedule 1 banned chemical weapons out of a deteriorating jihadist clusterfuck is “not pertinent” to an evaluation of the chain of diplomatic events which led to the taking of the 2,000,000 pounds of schedule 1 banned chemical weapons out of the deteriorating jihadist clusterfuck.
[/quote]
I still can’t get over the undervaluing of this result.
[quote]pat wrote:
You chose to ignore them and drone on and on about where and who has possession of the chemical arsonal. Things that are not pertinent. [/quote]
So: That we took 2,000,000 pounds of schedule 1 banned chemical weapons out of a deteriorating jihadist clusterfuck is “not pertinent” to an evaluation of the chain of diplomatic events which led to the taking of the 2,000,000 pounds of schedule 1 banned chemical weapons out of the deteriorating jihadist clusterfuck.
That the rational and correct decision was made in each instance–this is not that pertinent.
That it is a direct good to have won Syrian accession to the CWC regardless of the simple and inevitable fact that there will still be dual-use chemicals like chlorine which can be strapped to bombs in order to kill a few people–this is not pertinent.
That Obama promised a “red line” beyond which his “calculus” would change–that he hinted at a nonspecific punishment–and then changed his calculation and punished Assad once the “red line” was crossed: This is not pertinent.
Got it.[/quote]
Which then he denied saying and that it was the international community’s ‘red line’.
Which he drew another line in the sand rather than take a definitive stance.
Which allowed Syria to rearm conventionally with more sophisticated and powerful Russian weapons than the ones he had.
Which allowed the opposition to be overrun with terrorists.
Which allowed a terrorist stronghold to take root.
Which took over a 3rd of Syria and now Iraq.
Which threatens the security of the entire region.
Which allowed him, in the end, to use chemical weapons anyway.
Sounds like a winner to me.
You measure success on the basis of the removal of chemical weapons. I measure failure by the horrible, threatening chaos that ensued. While everybody slaps each other’s ass over the chemical weapons, the world became a far more dangerous place. The windows of opportunity for stabilizing the region in the mean time have now all closed. Assad was the winner here, not U.S. diplomacy. He got badly needed time and arms and he is in it for the long haul now.
On top of that, he still uses chemicals to kill people. Where you find success in that, I have no idea. Assad came out better armed and the lesser of the prospective evils. It could not have worked out better for him…