In which one of my posts have I claimed Assad is a saint.
The problem is that you either fail to understand the reports presented from the OPCW or fall into media lies because you fail to read around the topic.
Visit the OPCW website, check out their bulletins from Khan Shakoun last year and show me where they states that the SYrian government has carried out a chemical attack?
I'll be waiting forever because no such statement exists. The OPCW does not have the ability or mission to identify who carried out any chemical weapon attack. They can simply assess whether or not a chemical attack has taken place.
YES in this case, following the Khan Shakoun attack (if any took place), the OPCW did state that chemical weapons had been used, HOWEVER, they themselves state that they had never sent any personnel into Khan Shakoun, or any other part of Syria for that matter and were relying or corpses that were brought to them across the border into Lebanon (if I remember the country correctly).
As a scientist, that raises several questions for me, the primary being, how does the OPCW know for sure that these bodies are from Khan Shakoun and nowhere else?
Matters are made worse with the recent "attack", where reports have once again come from bordering nations that corpses have arrived from Douma, showing the hallmarks of chemical attacks YET doctors AND civilians in Douma have states that no chemical attack has taken place. That leads to a dilemma does it now? This is a yes or no issue, either a chemical attack took place in Douma, or it did not. There can be no in between. So either the head doctor at the clinic where the "attack" was filmed is lying, and the citizens are in on it or those that state they have seen corpses from Douma are lying.
The lies do not stop there. I was watching Sky News one afternoon, where they had a journalist on the ground in Easter Ghouta, where for weeks we had been told Assad was slaughtering innocent people and that the people were crying out for Western intervention. Do you know what the journalist ended up showing? The citizens he interviewed not only supported Assad, they wanted them to bomb their own city and take out the areas that had been taken over by extremist groups. Suffice to say, that bit of video was never, ever repeated on Sky ever again.
So, rather than imposing your own ideas on what you THINK I'm saying, actually research what I HAVE said.
I was referring more generally to those on the anti-war left who seek to whitewash the conduct of Assad's forces, not you specifically, but there are some inaccuracies with your argument.
1) No, the OPCW's job is not to pinpoint the perpetrators of chemical attacks but in their analysis they can deduce who is most likely to have conducted them.
You say you've read the OPCW report on Khan Sheikoun. In that case, you must have seen that they concluded the crater formed could only have occurred as a result of a high velocity aerial bomb by an Sukhoi-22 fighter jet which is only operated by Assad's forces.
The biggest giveaway is they found sarin samples that MATCHED those the Syrian Govt handed in as part of their chemical weapons disarmament agreement. The photographs of remnants of the bomb used also matches those of a type used in the former USSR. There are still ways to obtain evidence without having physical presence of inspectors like logs of aircraft movements, analysis of satellite and eyewitness interviews.
But let's not quibble over one attack or another when the UN themselves found Khan Sheikhoun was only of at least 20 chemical weapons attacks carried out by Assad from March 2013 to March 2017 !
2) I don't watch Sky News but you are smart enough to know that you are not going to get people demanding regime change on television living in a warzone ruled by a military dictatorship that has used detention, torture and murder to silence opponents as confirmed by UN reports.
Why don't you equally regard the views of the Syrian refugees in Germany whom 70% according to opinion polls blame Assad for the loss of their homes ? Why don't you equally regard the UN report that Assad is responsible for the majority of civilian deaths ? Do you think the civilians in Madaya are thanking Assad for starving and beseiging them ?
Are you not making the same mistake as the western press when you hold the views of one individual on a pedestal and overlook the views of others because it doesn''t fit your narrative ?
3) Again, nobody can verify what happened in Douma. I've said Trump and May were foolish to announce air strikes without allowing the inspectors in.
4) Does this mean I want Assad overthrown or I believe the Western media/government narrative about Assad being the only evil and the opposition are democracy loving freedom fighters ? FGS NO ! I can't make it clear enough - I'm the biggest critic of the shameless liar that is Pres Trump on this forum and don't believe a word from his mouth.
Look, all I'm saying is regardless of how the facts are interpreted by certain parties to further their agenda - the facts don't change.
The fact I OPPOSE western military force in Syria doesn't blind me from Assad's war crimes. Surely we can agree there is no good party in this hideous war; this war is dominated by evil men committing evil deeds with propaganda on ALL sides. I hope for the sake of Syrians they return to peace.
