Easy.....we buy them after...maybe...if the rebels win the civil war. They be strapped for cash. Then like somene said awhile back when I mention that. Bush would get a couple apoligies and hold a BBQ on the USS Enterprise or whatever carrier is available..which should be big list to choose from with the sequester going on
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Would laugh my arse off though if half the chemical weapons were from Iraq.
There's no way we would know if that were true...right?
Depends if they were documented by the Iraqis, things like date and place of manufacture, batch no. etc. and if these match up with what intelligence agencies can confirm/corroborate
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Would laugh my arse off though if half the chemical weapons were from Iraq.
There's no way we would know if that were true...right?
Depends if they were documented by the Iraqis, things like date and place of manufacture, batch no. etc. and if these match up with what intelligence agencies can confirm/corroborate
Well... here's the thing.
The UN arm inspectors has documented existing stockpiles that were planned to be destroyed.
They were supposed to validate/confirm that they were in fact destroyed.
They never did confirm that and still hasn't found them in Iraq.
I remember talk that a lot of imagery showed trucks and stuff hauling ass towards Syria in the run up. There was a line of thinking that Saddam had all his gak shipped next door.
djones520 wrote: I remember talk that a lot of imagery showed trucks and stuff hauling ass towards Syria in the run up. There was a line of thinking that Saddam had all his gak shipped next door.
Yep, there certainly was.
I'm betting that if they had samples, or even record of chemical analysis, of Saddam's old stockpile somewhere it wouldn't be tough to figure out whether or not the Syrians were using some of it.
Even Saddam Generls confirmed the shipments.......Still though. Use of WMD agents in Syria IMO is not strong solid reason to deploy US troops there. AQ fighters are fighting along side the rebels so we're really stuck in the middle of a train wreak if we go.......Saddam did have non persistant and persistant agent in his inventory.....
Honestly the more I study the wars of the last 50 or so years I really begin to question if any were really necessary or worth the trillions of dollars and blood. When I think what we could have done with all that money, and for what? Iraq and Afghanistan, probably not, Vietnam and Korea, maybe just to show the soviets we would not go quietly. Really the only one that really may have been worth it was the cold war, and even I'm not sure about that.
Andrew1975 wrote: Honestly the more I study the wars of the last 50 or so years I really begin to question if any were really necessary or worth the trillions of dollars and blood. When I think what we could have done with all that money, and for what? Iraq and Afghanistan, probably not, Vietnam and Korea, maybe just to show the soviets we would not go quietly. Really the only one that really may have been worth it was the cold war, and even I'm not sure about that.
Andrew1975 wrote: Honestly the more I study the wars of the last 50 or so years I really begin to question if any were really necessary or worth the trillions of dollars and blood. When I think what we could have done with all that money, and for what? Iraq and Afghanistan, probably not, Vietnam and Korea, maybe just to show the soviets we would not go quietly. Really the only one that really may have been worth it was the cold war, and even I'm not sure about that.
Advocating an Isolationist Policy?
Why didn't we elect Paul then?
Not so much isolationist, just lets fight the ones that actually matter and change something or mean something. I know its hard to tell before hand though. What have we actually accomplished with the wars we fight? Korea is a mess, Vietnam is better! Iraq and Afghanistan are the same really, or are one election away from being the same. All we have done is stockpile ill will. I fully believe we should help defend our allies and protect global resources and assets. But we don't need to meddle in conflicts that don't really affect and are not really relevant to our security, especially as lopsided as our contributions always are.
Ron Paul? Because to the mass public he is unelectable.
Andrew1975 wrote: Honestly the more I study the wars of the last 50 or so years I really begin to question if any were really necessary or worth the trillions of dollars and blood. When I think what we could have done with all that money, and for what? Iraq and Afghanistan, probably not, Vietnam and Korea, maybe just to show the soviets we would not go quietly. Really the only one that really may have been worth it was the cold war, and even I'm not sure about that.
After World War 2 the United States filled the void as great power number 1 left by Britain. Its not that they chose to its that it was thrust upon them by a number of factors, particularly the need to meet the Soviets to ensure they didn't expand their territory by means of T-34 and AK-47. Now would they have done that? We still don't know, but actually the cold war was a stabilizing influence on the whole world, and while a number of small and unpleasant wars did break out in the long run it prevented World War 3 form breaking out, either nuclear or conventional.
My point is that the United States can't just circle the wagons anymore and go isolationist. In absence of a strong power that doesn't want war ensuring war doesn't break out we will get a strong power that does want war and will go the lengths to get it.
Andrew1975 wrote: Honestly the more I study the wars of the last 50 or so years I really begin to question if any were really necessary or worth the trillions of dollars and blood. When I think what we could have done with all that money, and for what? Iraq and Afghanistan, probably not, Vietnam and Korea, maybe just to show the soviets we would not go quietly. Really the only one that really may have been worth it was the cold war, and even I'm not sure about that.
After World War 2 the United States filled the void as great power number 1 left by Britain. Its not that they chose to its that it was thrust upon them by a number of factors, particularly the need to meet the Soviets to ensure they didn't expand their territory by means of T-34 and AK-47. Now would they have done that? We still don't know, but actually the cold war was a stabilizing influence on the whole world, and while a number of small and unpleasant wars did break out in the long run it prevented World War 3 form breaking out, either nuclear or conventional.
My point is that the United States can't just circle the wagons anymore and go isolationist. In absence of a strong power that doesn't want war ensuring war doesn't break out we will get a strong power that does want war and will go the lengths to get it.
No, sure I get that. Like I said the cold war, Korea and Vietnam may have been necessary. At the same time, wars like the gulf war, gulf war 2, and Afghanistan? Were we really stopping a growing power or were we creating an environment of resentment that led to the rise of AQ? Obviously we don't want to let a Hitler grow like we did pre WWII obviously, but most of these conflicts just don't really stand the test. I see North Korea and Iran as bigger threats to us than what is happening in Syria.
Andrew1975 wrote: Honestly the more I study the wars of the last 50 or so years I really begin to question if any were really necessary or worth the trillions of dollars and blood. When I think what we could have done with all that money, and for what? Iraq and Afghanistan, probably not, Vietnam and Korea, maybe just to show the soviets we would not go quietly. Really the only one that really may have been worth it was the cold war, and even I'm not sure about that.
After World War 2 the United States filled the void as great power number 1 left by Britain. Its not that they chose to its that it was thrust upon them by a number of factors, particularly the need to meet the Soviets to ensure they didn't expand their territory by means of T-34 and AK-47. Now would they have done that? We still don't know, but actually the cold war was a stabilizing influence on the whole world, and while a number of small and unpleasant wars did break out in the long run it prevented World War 3 form breaking out, either nuclear or conventional.
My point is that the United States can't just circle the wagons anymore and go isolationist. In absence of a strong power that doesn't want war ensuring war doesn't break out we will get a strong power that does want war and will go the lengths to get it.
No, sure I get that. Like I said the cold war, Korea and Vietnam may have been necessary. At the same time, wars like the gulf war, gulf war 2, and Afghanistan? Were we really stopping a growing power or were we creating an environment of resentment that led to the rise of AQ? Obviously we don't want to let a Hitler grow like we did pre WWII obviously, but most of these conflicts just don't really stand the test. I see North Korea and Iran as bigger threats to us than what is happening in Syria.
True, I wasn't particularly going after you, just happened that your post was nearer than others. I was going after the general isolationist sentiment in this thread, that "its not our fight". Well if the USA does want to continue being a superpower then unfortunately we have to make a lot of these fights our fight. Maybe not this one but there will be others.
Andrew1975 wrote: Honestly the more I study the wars of the last 50 or so years I really begin to question if any were really necessary or worth the trillions of dollars and blood. When I think what we could have done with all that money, and for what? Iraq and Afghanistan, probably not, Vietnam and Korea, maybe just to show the soviets we would not go quietly. Really the only one that really may have been worth it was the cold war, and even I'm not sure about that.
After World War 2 the United States filled the void as great power number 1 left by Britain. Its not that they chose to its that it was thrust upon them by a number of factors, particularly the need to meet the Soviets to ensure they didn't expand their territory by means of T-34 and AK-47. Now would they have done that? We still don't know, but actually the cold war was a stabilizing influence on the whole world, and while a number of small and unpleasant wars did break out in the long run it prevented World War 3 form breaking out, either nuclear or conventional.
My point is that the United States can't just circle the wagons anymore and go isolationist. In absence of a strong power that doesn't want war ensuring war doesn't break out we will get a strong power that does want war and will go the lengths to get it.
No, sure I get that. Like I said the cold war, Korea and Vietnam may have been necessary. At the same time, wars like the gulf war, gulf war 2, and Afghanistan? Were we really stopping a growing power or were we creating an environment of resentment that led to the rise of AQ? Obviously we don't want to let a Hitler grow like we did pre WWII obviously, but most of these conflicts just don't really stand the test. I see North Korea and Iran as bigger threats to us than what is happening in Syria.
-Gulf War I really was about oil, don't kid yourself. The fear was Hussein would keep going and take over Saudi Arabia, thus monopolizing the majority of oil reserves at that time.
Try it today and there would be much less impetus to do anything about it.
-Korea was the first post WWII action when we thought the world had actually changed and another ism had to be stopped.
-Vietnam, not relevant.
-Iraq II, not relevant.
-Afghanistan, only relevant in rocking back AQ, will revert to Taliban control within 24 months of our leaving.
-Kosova, not relevant
-Bosnia, not relevant
EmilCrane wrote: After World War 2 the United States filled the void as great power number 1 left by Britain. Its not that they chose to its that it was thrust upon them by a number of factors, particularly the need to meet the Soviets to ensure they didn't expand their territory by means of T-34 and AK-47. Now would they have done that? We still don't know, but actually the cold war was a stabilizing influence on the whole world, and while a number of small and unpleasant wars did break out in the long run it prevented World War 3 form breaking out, either nuclear or conventional.
People seem to forget that the last time we had multiple nations competing for resources and prestige on the world stage it ended in the trenches of Europe. Maybe the world was lucky that the worst weapons available at that time were machine guns and mustard gas. With today's arsenals it could be very different.
EmilCrane wrote: My point is that the United States can't just circle the wagons anymore and go isolationist. In absence of a strong power that doesn't want war ensuring war doesn't break out we will get a strong power that does want war and will go the lengths to get it.
Maybe that's what the US needs to do. Everyone is happy to take shots at it, but when things hit the fan the same ones shouting "Yankee go home!!" the loudest are the very first to cry for help.
Card on the table, I'm glad that the US is the foremost power on the global stage. I'd rather the most powerful nation in the world be one with a culture, political landscape, legal system etc. that is familiar to me and that I can relate to.
People seem to forget that the last time we had multiple nations competing for resources and prestige on the world stage it ended in the trenches of Europe. Maybe the world was lucky that the worst weapons available at that time were machine guns and mustard gas. With today's arsenals it could be very different.
Maybe that's what the US needs to do. Everyone is happy to take shots at it, but when things hit the fan the same ones shouting "Yankee go home!!" the loudest are the very first to cry for help.
Card on the table, I'm glad that the US is the foremost power on the global stage. I'd rather the most powerful nation in the world be one with a culture, political landscape, legal system etc. that is familiar to me and that I can relate to.
With today's arsenals major war will never happen again, no one is stupid enough to do it because the deterrent is too strong. Look at India and Pakistan, 3 major wars between 1947-75, then once nukes arrive they just skirmish a bit and that's it. Nukes, believe it or not, are a stabilizing agent.
If the US wants to go isolationist then they will surrender their position as the leader of the free world, who's going to fill that gap? We don't know, my money's on china. Do we want to see china calling the shots on a world stage? Unfortunately small unpleasant wars are just a fact of life for number 1.
EmilCrane wrote: With today's arsenals major war will never happen again, no one is stupid enough to do it because the deterrent is too strong. Look at India and Pakistan, 3 major wars between 1947-75, then once nukes arrive they just skirmish a bit and that's it. Nukes, believe it or not, are a stabilizing agent.
Yeah, and World War 1 was the war to end all wars. Sadly that was not the case. Nukes may be a stabilising agent, but that does not mean that violence still cannot be used by countries
EmilCrane wrote: If the US wants to go isolationist then they will surrender their position as the leader of the free world, who's going to fill that gap? We don't know, my money's on china. Do we want to see china calling the shots on a world stage? Unfortunately small unpleasant wars are just a fact of life for number 1.
I could see China and Russia struggling for dominance in Eastern Europe, ME, Asia and Africa, with Brazil taking a lead in South America. So I doubt that we'll see one very dominant power. Maybe having someone else take the lead will make people be nostalgic for the US and realise that you don't know what you've got until its gone. The US can take the money that it gives as aid and spend it in house, improving their own country and the lives of its citizens.
-Gulf War I really was about oil, don't kid yourself. The fear was Hussein would keep going and take over Saudi Arabia, thus monopolizing the majority of oil reserves at that time.
Try it today and there would be much less impetus to do anything about it.
Gulf War war a really strange situation that I will never really be able to wrap my head around. Basically Saddam was our guy. Iraq was the front line stopping Iran from taking the whole peninsula. In order to finance that, Iraq borrowed tons of money from its neighbors, basically to defend them. After the war his "Allies" started calling in the loans while slant drilling into Iraqi oil fields and underselling Iraqi oil, basically making it impossible for Saddam to repay the loans he took to defend them. Pretty gakky treatment. Kuwait had basically declared economic war on Iraq.
Being our guy, Saddam then basically asks permission from the US to invade Kuwait. Our response is "We don't get involved in Arab on Arab conflict." The rest is history.
The whole thing was pretty avoidable and started a disastrous chain of events.
Not saying Saddam was a good guy, but he is not this crazy power hungry conqueror he is portrayed as, well no more then the other regional dictators anyway that we now call our allies. Was he gakky to some of his people and the Kurds, absolutely, but who in that region isn't?
feth.
Now we have to do something... and, I don't wanna...
I still don't know why the US has to do anything major. Let some of our allies closer to this handle it.
djones520 wrote: Saddam tried to invade Iran, succesfully invaded Kuwait, and was primed to invade Saudi Arabia until we stepped in.
He routinely used chemical weapons on the Kurds.
He fed people to lions for his and his sons personal amusement.
Name one other "dictator" in the middle east whose done similar.
Not saying he was a good guy. Just not all that different. Turkey our NATO ally is known for harsh treatment of the Kurds. In the middle east this seams to be how uprisings are put down, violently.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE both have been found to support terrorist organizations that are anti US.
Iran had a long history of thumbing it's nose at Iraq when Iran had US support, including not paying Iraq for using it's waterways. Iran used it's military on these waterways to enforce free use. Once the revolution came in Iran, the US switched sides and Saddam ran with the ball.
The man asked our permission to invade Kuwait and we basically gave it to him. That's clearly someone who understood he was on a leash, really the kind of guy we needed in the region.
djones520 wrote: Saddam tried to invade Iran, succesfully invaded Kuwait, and was primed to invade Saudi Arabia until we stepped in.
I think you could make the case that with the battle of Khafji (29 Jan -1 Feb '91) his troops did invade Saudi.
It could probably be argued. I like to look at it as the last impotent flailings of a foe we've effectively destroyed at that point.
At that point they had not been effectively destroyed... It was about 3 weeks before the ground war kicked off.
I read he had a rational for that and it actually worked. By showing how bad even his army was beat he could then get the rest of his middle east buddies to stop the US from invading Iraq. It basically worked. We did not invade and occupy Iraq until the 2nd Gulf war and Left Saddam in power because the other Arab Nations would not have western crusaders topple a middle east king and set up a foothold in the region. Saddam knew how to play politics. He would have been a useful ally, as mideast politics seams to baffle the West.
Yes he was eccentric and bloodthirsty, which again it appears you kind of need to be to rule in these regions, but he also knew which side his side his bread was buttered on.
I really don't know what you do about Syria? Neither side is worth backing. I don't think we can do anything until we figure out what is considered a win.
There is no "win" in Syria. Withinn a year if US troops going in our fragile economy will pop like a balloon. The cash that supported both OEF and OIF were borrowed from the get go. We will not get support from the UN but I wouldn't discount the "Russians" going in as Peace Keepers or an accident forcing them to expand their holding around their Naval Base there. My money on the russians and Putin. They have no care bear attitude on terrorism or stupidity on RoE (Mychrystal RoE till Patureus changed it) ANd it pretty much gaurantee their access to the Meds. I'm even willing to bet a good case of beer of your choice (notinaly) that Putin would call Bush Jr and inform him..."Hey...some of these chem weapons are from Saddam" just to get a dig on Obama. But the BBQ has to be on one of his ships in one of our naval bases....who would turn a good Texan BBQ while evidence is there to be shared by both parties.
Oh the US politicians and gneral public scream bloody murder we let the russians steam rolled in but I don't care unless your an individual who has deployed. On a side note I did not know Hagel is a two purple heart carrier and I was exstatic he shut down that stupid award to drone operators that would have ranked higher then the purple heart and bronze star. We can give bronze stars but without the Valor device.
CHemo kicking in so really medicated for your all saftey. Lucky me...I do believe I've enough documentation to support the claim to link it to Afghanistan. Which is really coming to light now that a good chunk of troops from OIF and OEF that popping up with cancer, Either non Hodgkin or Hodgkin. So Scruffy, Jake, Ensis, and few others start making a list of contacts with burn out vehicles, bodies you came in contact with, check out a russian wreck?....rack your brains along on who was with you. more from my team are down withTwo cancer. One is Non Hodgkin
“It would be very, very difficult for the opposition to fake this. Not only would they need the wherewithal to steal it or brew it up themselves. Then they’d need volunteers who would notionally agree to a possibly lethal exposure,”
...
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, issued a statement saying “It is clear that ‘red lines’ have been crossed and action must be taken to prevent larger scale use.” Feinstein appeared to mean military action to remove Assad from power: “I urge the United Nations Security Council — including Russia — to finally take strong and meaningful action to end this crisis in Syria.”
Why oh why did the administration say that "Red line" speech???
Why oh why did the administration say that "Red line" speech???
On the first page someone said that it was a bluff, and he was (hopefully) correct. That is how you leverage the most powerful military in the world.
Its Obama's second term, the GOP is free to call him weak for not holding to his statement, but there are numerous clear counterpoints to such an attack given their present platform; so there is little mileage in that (ie. it won't swing voters).
The U.S. on Thursday accused Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime of having used chemical weapons, specifically the deadly nerve agent sarin, against rebels seeking to topple him.
But top officials, citing the flawed intelligence that led to the invasion of Iraq, said Washington needs to build what one called an “airtight” case before escalating America's military role in the Syrian civil war.
“We still have some uncertainties about what was used, what kind of chemical was used, where it was used, who used it,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told reporters in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Still, he said, “it violates every convention on warfare.”
We accuse Syria of using sarin, but we don't actually know what was used, where it was used, or who used it..........
I'm surprised we don't have naval assets over there already, usually the US sends a carrier battlegroup to state sternly at whoever is making trouble these days.
EmilCrane wrote: I'm surprised we don't have naval assets over there already, usually the US sends a carrier battlegroup to state sternly at whoever is making trouble these days.
EmilCrane wrote: I'm surprised we don't have naval assets over there already, usually the US sends a carrier battlegroup to state sternly at whoever is making trouble these days.
The US 6th Fleet operates in the Mediterranean and Atlantic. They'd be the most likely to respond.
We accuse Syria of using sarin, but we don't actually know what was used, where it was used, or who used it..........
When did an official source accuse the Assad regime of using chemical weapons?
I see plenty of news articles claiming that to be the case (and even the Daily Mail qualified its headline in the first sentence), but no official sources claiming such a thing.
Plenty of official sources are claiming that evidence of such an attack exists, but no one has made a definitive claim.
We accuse Syria of using sarin, but we don't actually know what was used, where it was used, or who used it..........
When did an official source accuse the Assad regime of using chemical weapons?
I see plenty of news articles claiming that to be the case (and even the Daily Mail qualified its headline in the first sentence), but no official sources claiming such a thing.
Plenty of official sources are claiming that evidence of such an attack exists, but no one has made a definitive claim.
The US SecDef stated that the US intelligence apparatus has assessed, with varying degrees of confidence, that the Assad government has used chemical weapons on a small scale; particularly the chemical agent sarin.
I suppose that is an accusation, but not in the context of the post I initially quoted; which presumed that rightful accusation could only follow from certainty.
Whats the chances of sending in a UN team to verify it. If the location was known. If its confirmed...then its persistant agent. means we and all of them are truly screwed. Non persistant will burn themselves out within 36-48 hours. The persistant will last little over a year....longer if its in a shaded spot Have to literally burn the area out or remove everything along with 6 ft of dirt to ensure you have everything.....when in doubt you double or triple the affected area and then haul it in sealed 55 gallon containers and incenerate them. You also have to keep the area moistion to avoid spreading out even more......Or we let russia come in and do it and if you never seen what Super Tropical Bleach does when on skin its not a good site to see....but it works....and can remove like 4 layers of paint off.
dogma wrote: When did an official source accuse the Assad regime of using chemical weapons?
The last time I tried asking for some reasonable proof, I got accused of being the tin-foiled driver of the anti-Israel derpmobile conspiracy express, so good luck with this line of thought.
Hagel confirmed it, Fernstein to, McCain, and a few other. Obama wants the UN to confirmed it.
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Top-ranking lawmakers on both sides of the aisle declared Thursday that the "red line" in Syria has been crossed, calling for "strong" U.S. and international intervention after administration officials revealed the intelligence community believes chemical weapons were used.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee, were among those urging swift action.
McCain, who has long called for more involvement in Syria, voiced concern that the administration would use "caveats" to avoid acting on the new intelligence. He said America's enemies are paying "close attention" to whether the U.S. follows through, as the White House signaled it wanted to see more proof before responding to the new information.
"I worry that the president and the administration will use these caveats as an excuse not to act right away or act at all," McCain told Fox News. "The president clearly stated that it was a red line and that it couldn't be crossed without the United States taking vigorous action."
He called for the U.S. to help establish a no-fly zone and "safe zone" in Syria, as well as provide weapons to the "right people."
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel first revealed the intelligence assessment, which was detailed in a letter to select members of Congress, while speaking to reporters on a visit to Abu Dhabi. The administration then released those letters, which said U.S. intelligence determined with varying degrees of confidence that "the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria, specifically the chemical agent sarin."
Secretary of State John Kerry further confirmed that there were two documented instances of chemical weapons use.
The White House, however, stressed that this was not enough to confirm how the nerve gas was released -- though acknowledged it is "very likely" to have originated with the regime of Bashar Assad -- and pressed the United Nations for a "comprehensive" investigation. The letter from the White House director of the Office of Legislative Affairs to leading members of the Senate Armed Services Committee said the assessment was based in part on "physiological samples."
A White House official also urged caution, invoking the Iraq war as an example of why the administration should be absolutely certain before going forward.
"Given our own history with intelligence assessments, including intelligence assessments related to WMD, it's very important that we are able to establish this with certainty and that we are able to provide information that is airtight ... to underpin all of our decision-making," the official said. "That is, I think, the threshold that is demanded given how serious this issue is."
A senior U.S. defense official told Fox News the Defense Department has been preparing a wide range of contingency plans for military involvement in Syria for the past year. President Obama has seen the plans and is fully aware of those options.
The options, according to this official, range from establishing no-fly zones to creating humanitarian zones to launching strikes on chemical weapons sites, select regime leadership and other targets. The official emphasized that no decisions have been made about whether to further involve the U.S. military in Syria and that there are still many questions that need to be answered first.
A United Nations spokesman said the chemical weapon findings reinforce the need for U.N. officials to "be given the requested swift and unfettered access to Syria that it needs to determine whether chemical weapons have indeed been used."
McCain, speaking to Fox News, said in his view the red line "was crossed."
Feinstein, an important voice on matters of intelligence and security, also said it is "clear" those lines have been crossed and "action must be taken to prevent larger scale use."
She added, in a statement: "Syria has the ability to kill tens of thousands with its chemical weapons. The world must come together to prevent this by unified action which results in the secure containment of Syria's significant stockpile of chemical weapons. On the basis of this new assessment, which is matched by France and the United Kingdom, I urge the United Nations Security Council -- including Russia -- to finally take strong and meaningful action to end this crisis in Syria."
President Obama has said the use of chemical weapons would be a "game-changer" in the U.S. position on intervening in the two-year-old Syrian civil war. Obama said last August that "a red line for us" would be the movement or use of chemical weapons, adding "that would change my calculus."
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., reacting to the reports Thursday, said the "number one" goal should be to "secure the chemical weapons before they fall into the wrong hands."
"I think the red line's been crossed and the question is, now what?" Graham said on Fox News.
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., also said in a statement the assessment is "deeply troubling and, if correct, means that President Obama's red line has certainly been crossed."
But Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., argued that it is not in the United States' "best interest" to go into Syria. "We cannot be absolutely sure about the extent to which Assad's forces have used chemical weapons, although we know they have them," he said in a statement.
Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, said more information is needed.
"Precisely because the president takes this issue so seriously, we have an obligation to fully investigate any and all evidence of chemical weapons use within Syria," she said in a statement. "That is why we are currently pressing for a comprehensive United Nations investigation that can credibly evaluate the evidence and establish what took place. We are also working with our friends and allies, and the Syrian opposition, to procure, share and evaluate additional information associated with reports of the use of chemical weapons so that we can establish the facts."
Asked if this crossed a "red line" for the U.S., Hagel likewise said they are still trying to assess.
"It violates every convention of warfare," he said.
In a statement Thursday, a spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that he takes the letter to Congress "seriously," but that the UN is not in a position to comment on assessments based on national intelligence information.
"Senior advisers at UN Headquarters have been in contact with the US authorities on the latest developments," the spokesperson said. "The Secretary-General has already put together a technical expert team to conduct a fact-finding mission to look into all serious allegations of the possible use of chemical weapons in Syria."
According to the spokesperson, the fact-finding team is on stand-by and ready to deploy in 24-48 hours.
"The Secretary-General has consistently urged the Syrian authorities to provide full and unfettered access to the team. He renews this urgent call today."
We accuse Syria of using sarin, but we don't actually know what was used, where it was used, or who used it..........
When did an official source accuse the Assad regime of using chemical weapons?
I see plenty of news articles claiming that to be the case (and even the Daily Mail qualified its headline in the first sentence), but no official sources claiming such a thing.
Plenty of official sources are claiming that evidence of such an attack exists, but no one has made a definitive claim.
The US SECDEF stated it.
Am I the only person who thinks everytime they see this guy that someone dragged him out of a bar not five minutes before....
dogma wrote: When did an official source accuse the Assad regime of using chemical weapons?
The last time I tried asking for some reasonable proof, I got accused of being the tin-foiled driver of the anti-Israel derpmobile conspiracy express, so good luck with this line of thought.
Is that what you interpreted that as? How adorable. Here it is again:
I already explained to you that there's a difference between wanting better evidence, which is reasonable, and postulating that it was all made up for nefarious reasons, which is rather silly to do without any evidence to support the claim.
Easy E wrote: Maybe we can get france to do something about it.
That seems the pattern lately, right?
Not really. France rattled the sabers on Libya, the US still spent more money than our allies combined there.
Mali. France did most of the work, we just carried them in there.
Oh right, forgot about that one. To be fair though, Mali was a French colony in the past. Was anyone really interested in going there besides the French? I don't remember there being much of a call up for that one. It's also Frances backyard, they should handle the problems there without US help.
Obama first laid down his red line on chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war in August 2012. “A red line for us is (if) we see a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around, or being utilized. That would change my calculus” on whether a U.S. intervention is merited, the president said…
While the administration did not discuss specifics, outside experts interpreted the reference to movement of chemical weapons as addressing the potential removal from storage and transport of chemical weapons for firing or for proliferation to nonstate actors. However, when the Syrian military was detected in December apparently loading sarin into aerial munitions, the administration indicated that its red line was actually carrying out a chemical attack, not readying for one.
Weeee!
Will a strongly stern letter from the U.N. suffice?
Obama first laid down his red line on chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war in August 2012. “A red line for us is (if) we see a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around, or being utilized. That would change my calculus” on whether a U.S. intervention is merited, the president said…
While the administration did not discuss specifics, outside experts interpreted the reference to movement of chemical weapons as addressing the potential removal from storage and transport of chemical weapons for firing or for proliferation to nonstate actors. However, when the Syrian military was detected in December apparently loading sarin into aerial munitions, the administration indicated that its red line was actually carrying out a chemical attack, not readying for one.
Weeee!
Will a strongly stern letter from the U.N. suffice?
Maybe one from Canada, I hear they've been ready to go for a while now but somethings been holding them back.
The secretary general of the Arab League called on Monday for the international community to deploy a peacekeeping force, which observers have suggested could lead to the establishment of safe havens, similar to the UN-mandated zones set up during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
Is there not someway that NATO or even the US could provide the logistical support for the Arab league to send its forces in. I'd be all for that. If anybody should want this issue handled to provide stability in the region, shouldn't it be, oh, I don't know......the people that live there?
We tend to do things our way. Think of it like a MMORPG: we're the support healer; the US is the meat shield & damage-over-time dealer
Yeah, you go first this time. It's only a small skirmish, I think you can handle it with out support.
We tend to do things our way. Think of it like a MMORPG: we're the support healer; the US is the meat shield & damage-over-time dealer
Yeah, you go first this time. It's only a small skirmish, I think you can handle it with out support.
That sounds like fear. You rolled a Warrior; we rolled a Cleric. You can always reroll, but then you'd have to respec all your points from military strength into social programs and health care.
We tend to do things our way. Think of it like a MMORPG: we're the support healer; the US is the meat shield & damage-over-time dealer
Yeah, you go first this time. It's only a small skirmish, I think you can handle it with out support.
That sounds like fear. You rolled a Warrior; we rolled a Cleric. You can always reroll, but then you'd have to respec all your points from military strength into social programs and health care.
Sounds great. You go fight the good fight, will invest in our infrastructure and get us some free health care, like most of our allies already have. What sounds like fear is "Canada was ready to intervene months ago when something could have been done, but we couldn't because the US wouldn't do the actual fighting for us".
You act like Canada is better at giving aid than the US is. I'd really like to see where you are getting that from.
Kowtowing to people that form opinions based upon their initial impression of a statement, rather than the actual content of it.
I mean, just go back to the article you last cited. You claimed that the administration is backpedaling from its "red line" comment, and it is. But it shouldn't have to as the initial comment did not imply action given the Syrian use of chemical weapons, merely that it would alter the "calculus". The backpedaling is only occurring because so many news outlets, people, and "experts" (read: pundits) have latched onto the notion that crossing the "red line" meant military action.
dogma wrote: The backpedaling is only occurring because so many news outlets, people, and "experts" (read: pundits) have latched onto the notion that crossing the "red line" meant military action.
In all fairness, that's a pretty safe bet considering the US track record in the last few decades with totalitarian regimes supposedly wielding WMDs.
And as far as backing the Arab League, it's perfectly possible for the US and NATO to do that, except that Israel is (likely) going to tell us it's a no-sell due to the fact they have this strange aversion to large Arab League armies squatting on their doorstep without the big bad US standing there watching them.
The President should have said "From this point forward, if Syria uses chemical weapons they are agreeing publicly to the statement that NK's Little Kim is fat poopy head. I'm out."
Jihadin wrote: We blinked...if Assad really did order the chem attack...then we "Blinked"
I don't think so. He said it was a red line. He never spelled out what the response would be. Basically just saying you will attract my attention. Just like parents saying "Don't make me pull this car over." its vague. It could result in a whipping, having to walk the rest of the way, or a stern talking to. "Don't make me pull this car over or I'm going to come back there and whip you" is not vague.
Even so there is no concrete proof who set off the bomb. I could see AQ setting it off just to cause trouble and blame it on Assad. Most likely it's Assad, but you never know.
'
He knew exactly what he meant, and that was military action. Just because he didn't clearly lay it out doesn't mean that's not what he meant. But Obama was bluffing and the Syrians called him on it. Either Assad called him on it, or the rebels used it to try to get Obama to come over. So now Obama is trying to move the goalpost to save face.
Assad knew Obama didn't have the balls to start another war in the ME, and the rebels were probably hoping he did.
Grey Templar wrote: He knew exactly what he meant, and that was military action. Just because he didn't clearly lay it out doesn't mean that's not what he meant. But Obama was bluffing and the Syrians called him on it. Either Assad called him on it, or the rebels used it to try to get Obama to come over. So now Obama is trying to move the goalpost to save face.
Assad knew Obama didn't have the balls to start another war in the ME, and the rebels were probably hoping he did.
I think most people think they know what the intent of the threat was, but it would just be conjecture, you can't hold him to it because it was not explicit. Even so nobody can still prove where the gas came from, you can guess and you may be 70/30, but it would be wise to find out before doing anything rash. I don't think he is moving goalposts, goalposts were never really set up.
Look how much crap bush gets for WMD! You don't think Obama would get the same treatment if we went to war with Assad and help AQ, only to find out that AQ set off the gas.
Look how much crap bush gets for WMD! You don't think Obama would get the same treatment if we went to war with Assad and help AQ, only to find out that AQ set off the gas.
Sarin isn't something that most people can just whip up in their basements. Aum Shinrikyo had a frankly fairly large and technically sophisticated setup with their own highly skilled specialists (and a Hind gunship). While underestimating is bad, I don't think that AQ would run a believable false flag operation using sarin. It has too much potential to backfire on them if anyone caught wind of it.
Seems like that would be a better use of the gas if they had it, from their perspective anyway.
Sarin takes facilities and has a relatively short shelf life compared to a lot of other agents (anthrax...brrr..). Advertising you have it is a good way to get people looking for them and blowing them up.
Seems like that would be a better use of the gas if they had it, from their perspective anyway.
Sarin takes facilities and has a relatively short shelf life compared to a lot of other agents (anthrax...brrr..). Advertising you have it is a good way to get people looking for them and blowing them up.
Well it's possible they could have gotten it from all those chem weapons that disappeared Iraq. If it's got a short shelf life, maybe even more of a reason, use it while its still good.
I don't know using it to get the US to attack Assad's regime is a pretty good use. I think its a bigger score than using it for classic terrorist work. Basically Advertising that someone else have it is a good way to get people looking for them and blowing them up.
Advertising you have it is a good way to get people looking for them and blowing them up.
Which is why to me it makes very little sense for Assad to be using it, and makes lots of sense for AQ to use it and blame him for it. When you look at it Iraq and Afghanistan hurt America much more than the twin towers. If AQ could get us into another crusade, that's a win for them.
If its a non persistant agent then looking at east a min of 8 hours before he chemical wear off. If its persistat then that sucker going to be around for a awhile and the delivery shells can be removed from the ground....depending on delivery.. If some general over there really knows his stuff then he be screwing the system totaly up and luanch a blood agents into the area just to drag it out and intensify the blame game
Well it's possible they could have gotten it from all those chem weapons that disappeared Iraq. If it's got a short shelf life, maybe even more of a reason, use it while its still good.
According to what I've read, the sarin that the US recovered in Iraq was so low grade it decayed past usability in two to three weeks. Typically it's good for a few months if stored correctly, away from water, which quickly breaks it down. Typically to get around this, it's stored in a binary munition, which mixes the chemicals in flight, allowing much longer shelf life.
Iraqi mustard gas was much more stable and higher grade, and could be stored for long periods. The other missing Iraqi agent that worries me is Cyclosarin, a sarin derived persistent agent with a much longer shelf life and lower lethal doze (about 1/5th sarin's).
Which is why to me it makes very little sense for Assad to be using it, and makes lots of sense for AQ to use it and blame him for it. When you look at it Iraq and Afghanistan hurt America much more than the twin towers. If AQ could get us into another crusade, that's a win for them.
The problem is that if it comes out that AQ used it rather than Assad, they would find themselves unwelcome pretty much everywhere. It's hard to claim to be the 'hero' when you're using nerve gas on civilians even in the middle east. The situation has far too much potential to backfire on them for them to contemplate it. Particularly when they're already making out like bandits supporting the rebels. All that good will and gains with the potential for long term support would be pissed away instantly.
Assad however can use it as he already has a reputation as a butcher of his own people, if you get down to it. Sarin really won't make him that much more horrid in their eyes.
Frazzled wrote: Wait, are you saying AQ is welcome everywhere now?
Not everywhere, no, but there are many places they're still quite welcome. A large number of those would dry up if it came out that AQ was practicing mass murder of their fellow Muslims via nerve gas. Further, it would be counter productive to their goals in Syria. The longer they're the only one's in town supporting the rebels, the better they look and the more like hypocrites the US looks.
That and it's easy to spin IEDs as a unfortunate weapon of necessity. It's not like they have tanks and artillery and bombers. Hell, the IRA has been doing it in the US for years.
The problem is that if it comes out that AQ used it rather than Assad, they would find themselves unwelcome pretty much everywhere. It's hard to claim to be the 'hero' when you're using nerve gas on civilians even in the middle east. The situation has far too much potential to backfire on them for them to contemplate it. Particularly when they're already making out like bandits supporting the rebels. All that good will and gains with the potential for long term support would be pissed away instantly.
Assad however can use it as he already has a reputation as a butcher of his own people, if you get down to it. Sarin really won't make him that much more horrid in their eyes.
AQ could just say it is an American plot to discredit them, the people that support them would easily buy into that.
AQ could just say it is an American plot to discredit them, the people that support them would easily buy into that.
The important people who do wouldn't. You seem to think that it's just the uneducated and ignorant who support AQ (a misconception that the media is mostly to blame for) . In reality, quite a few middle eastern politicians and even entire governments have ties to AQ, providing support or merely a blind eye, and while some are simply more overt about it than others, this support is very important to the continued existence of AQ, and they seek to expand that support base. They're gunning very hard for Syria to be the next nation to support them, and the level of risk involved with using chemical weapons on Syrian civilians is simply too great. First of all the 'the Americans are trying to discredit us' angle doesn't really work. Too many people would know. Sarin takes a dedicated supply chain to manufacture, it's not something that just falls off a truck, and make no mistake, this stuff most likely not the missing Iraqi stockpiles, simply because those would have long since become useless. Further, it requires large amounts of chemicals and people who know how to correctly manufacture them to work.
And they're doing this in the middle of a war zone? I doubt it.
VEVAK is about the only one's I could see carrying out a false flag operation like this, if it were one, and even then the risk of being caught is too high compared to the payout.
Andrew1975 wrote: The big wigs that support the terrorists only care what the people will buy, the people will buy that it is a US conspiracy.
Well, it's true, I suppose, that there is a sucker born every minute. After all, Americans have bought, not once, not twice, but three times, that death camps are in the national interest, but at the same time decrying it when other nations do it.
However, no, what the big wigs are concerned about is their various rivals finding out that they supported AQ in butchering civilians and exploiting that involvement to their own ends. With the sudden outburst of democracy all over the place, the 'big wigs' are much more concerned with the actions of their rivals than previously.
Andrew1975 wrote: The big wigs that support the terrorists only care what the people will buy, the people will buy that it is a US conspiracy.
Well, it's true, I suppose, that there is a sucker born every minute. After all, Americans have bought, not once, not twice, but three times, that death camps are in the national interest, but at the same time decrying it when other nations do it.
However, no, what the big wigs are concerned about is their various rivals finding out that they supported AQ in butchering civilians and exploiting that involvement to their own ends. With the sudden outburst of democracy all over the place, the 'big wigs' are much more concerned with the actions of their rivals than previously.
Supposing that you could ever prove that AQ did anything. There is almost no way to pin something on AQ unless they admit to it. They pretty much have carte blanche to do whatever they want. AQ and the people that support them know that AQ is to slippery to be able to be pinned down with evidence, and even if they did they can just deny it and all the people who follow them will believe that, in fact it strengthens the cause. That strength means the people that support AQ don't really care.
Supposing that you could ever prove that AQ did anything. There is almost no way to pin something on AQ unless they admit to it. They pretty much have carte blanche to do whatever they want. AQ and the people that support them know that AQ is to slippery to be able to be pinned down with evidence, and even if they did they can just deny it and all the people who follow them will believe that, in fact it strengthens the cause. That strength means the people that support AQ don't really care.
I'm guessing you have never had any direct dealings with terrorists and the men who back them. You seem to assume that none of them are intelligent, educated, men and women.
Supposing that you could ever prove that AQ did anything. There is almost no way to pin something on AQ unless they admit to it. They pretty much have carte blanche to do whatever they want. AQ and the people that support them know that AQ is to slippery to be able to be pinned down with evidence, and even if they did they can just deny it and all the people who follow them will believe that, in fact it strengthens the cause. That strength means the people that support AQ don't really care.
I'm guessing you have never had any direct dealings with terrorists and the men who back them. You seem to assume that none of them are intelligent, educated, men and women.
So you fraternize with terrorists >_>
The black vans are on their way.
And for the most part I don't believe Andrew1975 is stating that terrorists aren't intelligent, but simply that their followers might believe the words that they say. You know how people keep saying, "because 'MURICA" for justification of owning large guns, etc... here in the OT? Why couldn't terrorists get away with something like that? "This is a plot to discredit us and to make us seem like the bad guy. Why you ask? because 'MURICA! ALIENS! and TERRORISTS!"
Supposing that you could ever prove that AQ did anything. There is almost no way to pin something on AQ unless they admit to it. They pretty much have carte blanche to do whatever they want. AQ and the people that support them know that AQ is to slippery to be able to be pinned down with evidence, and even if they did they can just deny it and all the people who follow them will believe that, in fact it strengthens the cause. That strength means the people that support AQ don't really care.
I'm guessing you have never had any direct dealings with terrorists and the men who back them. You seem to assume that none of them are intelligent, educated, men and women.
You would be correct, I have never directly had any dealing with terrorists. Have you?
I don't believe they are stupid, in fact I believe they are pretty smart, which is why I can see them doing this. I believe that most of the people you see burning US flags would more than happily believe that the US was setting up AQ or other terrorist groups, we have enough tin hat looneys here that believe that 911 was a US operation.
Aye, and even have downed a pint with them and the his honor, the mayor of Pittsburgh at the same time, so...
Andrew1975 wrote:
You would be correct, I have never directly had any dealing with terrorists. Have you?
Yes, yes I have. Gerry Adams being the most famous of them.
Andrew1975 wrote:
I don't believe they are stupid, in fact I believe they are pretty smart, which is why I can see them doing this. I believe that most of the people you see burning US flags would more than happily believe that the US was setting up AQ or other terrorist groups, we have enough tin hat looneys here that believe that 911 was a US operation.
Well, yes, there is always the idiot fringe. But they're not the most important supporters of a given terrorist group, just the most useful as meat for the grinder. Let me turn that around on you: how many people who matter believe that bit about 9/11 being an inside government job?
Syria crisis: UN's Del Ponte says evidence rebels 'used sarin'
Testimony from victims of the conflict in Syria suggests rebels have used the nerve gas agent, sarin, according to a leading United Nations investigator.
Carla Del Ponte told Swiss TV that there were "strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof".
Ms Del Ponte did not rule out the possibility that government forces might also have used chemical weapons, but said she had not seen evidence.
The US and UK have said their inquiries suggest the government has used them.
British Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said the evidence was quite compelling last week, but that it would need to be incontrovertible before the case for an international response could be made at the UN.
On Monday, Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said it was "deeply concerned by signs that world public opinion is being prepared for possible military intervention" in Syria.
On the question of whether chemical weapons had been used, he called for an "end to the politicisation of this issue" and to the "whipping up of an anti-Syrian atmosphere".
'Stupefied'
On Monday, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria issued a statement saying it wished to clarify that it had "not reached conclusive findings as to the use of chemical weapons in Syria by any parties to the conflict".
"As a result, the commission is not in a position to further comment on the allegations at this time," it added.
The statement came a day after Ms Del Ponte, one of its commissioners, told Swiss-Italian TV: "Our investigators have been in neighbouring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals.
"According to their report of last week, which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated."
Sarin, a colourless, odourless gas which can cause respiratory arrest and death, is classed as a weapon of mass destruction and is banned under international law.
Ms Del Ponte, a former Swiss attorney-general and prosecutor with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), did not rule out the possibility that troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad might also have used chemical weapons, but said further investigation was needed.
"I was a little bit stupefied by the first indications we got... they were about the use of nerve gas by the opposition," she said.
Ms Del Ponte gave no details of when or where sarin may have been used.
The UN Commission of Inquiry was established in August 2011 to examine alleged violations of human rights in the Syrian conflict since March 2011. It is due to issue its latest report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva next month.
Ms Del Ponte's comments might also complicate matters for the US Secretary of State John Kerry ahead of his visit to Moscow this week, says BBC diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall.
If Mr Kerry was hoping to cite fears that the Assad regime was now using chemical warfare as a reason why the Russians should shift their position, that argument will not be so easy to make, our correspondent adds.
Mutual accusations
A separate United Nations team was established to look specifically into the issue of chemical weapons.
It is ready to go to Syria but wants unconditional access with the right to inquire into all credible allegations.
Both the Syrian government and the rebels have in the past accused each other using chemical weapons.
The US and the UK have said there is emerging evidence of Syrian government forces having used sarin, with Washington saying it had "varying degrees of confidence" that chemical weapons had been deployed.
President Barack Obama called in April for a "vigorous investigation", saying the use of such weapons would be a "game changer" if verified.
President Assad's government says the claims do not have any credibility, denouncing them as "lies".
Israeli raids
Ms Del Ponte's allegations concerning the use of sarin by rebels came after Israel carried out a series of air strikes on Syrian military targets early on Sunday.
The Israeli government made no official comment, but security sources said the strikes were aimed at preventing the transfer of advanced Iranian-made missiles to Lebanon's Shia Islamist movement, Hezbollah.
The Syrian government said the Jamraya military research centre, north-west of Damascus, was hit.
A later statement gave more details, saying military positions in the Jamraya area were struck along with other facilities at Maysaloun, near the Lebanese border, and a military airport at Dimass.
The statement said there was massive damage at those locations and nearby civilian areas with many people killed or injured. It also denied that the targets had included missiles for Hezbollah.
Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Miqdad said the Israeli air strikes amounted to a "declaration of war" and threatened retaliation.
The New York Times quotes an unnamed senior Syrian official as saying dozens of elite troops stationed near the presidential palace had been killed. The AFP news agency quoted the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based activist group, as saying 42 soldiers had died and another 100 were unaccounted for.
Images on state TV showed large areas of rubble with many buildings destroyed or badly damaged
The Arab League condemned the raids and UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon expressed concern.
He said all sides should "exercise maximum calm and restraint" and "act with a sense of responsibility to prevent an escalation of what is already a devastating and highly dangerous conflict".
Russia's foreign ministry warned that the "further whipping-up of armed confrontation" sharply increased the risk of "pockets of tension" in Syria and Lebanon, and along their shared border.
It's probably better to wait until the entire thing calms down then try to help the country rebuild...
Meanwhile helping refugees is probably the best thing we can do...
Dreadclaw69 wrote: By all means send food, medical supplies, temporary shelters etc. But sending in the troops could be like trying to put out a fire using a gas pump.
Wait... I thought we wanted more fire... Also the problem with sending food, medical supplies, etc... is that the people with the force and power to take them, are not the people we want to be helping. Which means we either send humanitarians, who likely become involved in this conflict in a way that they don't want to (i.e. hostages), or we send people to protect the humanitarians/food/medical supplies/etc...
The refugees need to get out of the country and in to one we can help them from, sadly this doesn't seem likely.
Alfndrate wrote: Wait... I thought we wanted more fire... Also the problem with sending food, medical supplies, etc... is that the people with the force and power to take them, are not the people we want to be helping. Which means we either send humanitarians, who likely become involved in this conflict in a way that they don't want to (i.e. hostages), or we send people to protect the humanitarians/food/medical supplies/etc...
The refugees need to get out of the country and in to one we can help them from, sadly this doesn't seem likely.
This is what I get for posting before coffee and I'm not awake enough to make myself clear When I said send in food etc. I should have added that we send those supplies to friendly neighbouring countries that are dealing with the refugees from the conflict.
Alfndrate wrote: Wait... I thought we wanted more fire... Also the problem with sending food, medical supplies, etc... is that the people with the force and power to take them, are not the people we want to be helping. Which means we either send humanitarians, who likely become involved in this conflict in a way that they don't want to (i.e. hostages), or we send people to protect the humanitarians/food/medical supplies/etc...
The refugees need to get out of the country and in to one we can help them from, sadly this doesn't seem likely.
This is what I get for posting before coffee and I'm not awake enough to make myself clear When I said send in food etc. I should have added that we send those supplies to friendly neighbouring countries that are dealing with the refugees from the conflict.
Lol, that's okay man! The problem we would face though is finding a country that likes us well enough to let us in with a little food and supplies that aren't going towards their people (because let's face it, who couldn't use more of those things?)
Alfndrate wrote: Lol, that's okay man! The problem we would face though is finding a country that likes us well enough to let us in with a little food and supplies that aren't going towards their people (because let's face it, who couldn't use more of those things?)
Yeah I found out that I need my coffee or else I get crippling headaches and no energy, lucky me
As far as which country to send aid too I think that the best bet is Turkey. Its a NATO ally and is dealing with the refugees from the Syrian civil war already, and it does have a reasonable standard of living so its less likely that the aid would be misappropriated.
As far as which country to send aid too I think that the best bet is Turkey. Its a NATO ally and is dealing with the refugees from the Syrian civil war already, and it does have a reasonable standard of living so its less likely that the aid would be misappropriated.
Mr. Burning wrote: So, do we commit to airstrikes and or military action against the Syrian rebels for using WMD's? I'm confused?
Potentially, as the Syrians would be fighting an insurrectionist force that has deployed WMDs.
Frankly I don't like either side at this point so I'd be in favor of containment to let them beat each other up. Just commit air force to ensure the violence and the WMDs don't spill over to other regions.
Mr. Burning wrote: So, do we commit to airstrikes and or military action against the Syrian rebels for using WMD's? I'm confused?
Maybe some of our more interventionist posters could clear this up for us. After all there were some here who were very strongly in favour of intervening when Assad was alleged to have used them.
Arming the rebels would be political suicide for anyone advocating it. Its effectively advocating arming AQ aligned forces, forces that there is evidence for them not only having but actually having deployed a WMD.
O'boy are their political opponents going to have a field day come election season. More so if we get complete confirmation the rebels were the users of the gas.
Grey Templar wrote: O'boy are their political opponents going to have a field day come election season. More so if we get complete confirmation the rebels were the users of the gas.
It's genius isn't it.
'Praise the rebels fighting for freedom, we must help them'
'AQ and jhadist groups are part of the rebel make up'
'But rebels! freedom fighters! free world!'
'Rebels may also have used a WMD'
'No, it's just Sarin, Freedom!'
'.........'
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Jihadin wrote: Talk now of arming the rebels....isn;t AQ fighting with the rebels?
Oh no, just make sure the support doesn't end up going to 'those' groups. Simple...................
Frazzled wrote: You need serious proof of that bucko. How did we hand anyone over?
In spring of 1944, 23 members of the FTP-MOI were executed, having been betrayed to the Nazis by parties unnamed. They were one of the most effective communist resistance groups operating in France. After the war, allegations of being betrayed by either their fellow communists, the Gaulleists, or OSS began to surface, with the surviving members of the organization accusing the Gaulleists, the Gaulleists blaming the communists, and elements of both sides blaming the OSS.
The current 'official' French stance is that they were apprehended by the French police using old fashioned leg work.
Unfortunately,all the police involved seem to have died immediately after the war as 'collaborators', and much of the documentation was lost, so 'proof' is something I admit to being short on. Like so many operations by insurgents during WW2, little proof remains of anything at all.
Frazzled wrote: You need serious proof of that bucko. How did we hand anyone over?
In spring of 1944, 23 members of the FTP-MOI were executed, having been betrayed to the Nazis by parties unnamed. They were one of the most effective communist resistance groups operating in France. After the war, allegations of being betrayed by either their fellow communists, the Gaulleists, or OSS began to surface, with the surviving members of the organization accusing the Gaulleists, the Gaulleists blaming the communists, and elements of both sides blaming the OSS.
The current 'official' French stance is that they were apprehended by the French police using old fashioned leg work.
Unfortunately,all the police involved seem to have died immediately after the war as 'collaborators', and much of the documentation was lost, so 'proof' is something I admit to being short on. Like so many operations by insurgents during WW2, little proof remains of anything at all.
Other than dead Nazis. Which is a nice thing.
allegations from communists. Thats sweet. Proof have you not. I've heard it was the communists that killed Mother Theresa. Much of the documentation has been lost, so 'proof' is something I admit to being short on.
allegations from communists. Thats sweet. Proof have you not. I've heard it was the communists that killed Mother Theresa. Much of the documentation has been lost, so 'proof' is something I admit to being short on.
Actually the published allegations were from the Gaulleists who blamed the communists and the US. So, that should read 'allegations from Frenchmen about communists'.
I CAN however prove that the US deliberately and with forethought smuggled out war criminals of the first order, gave them new identities in the United States and did their level best to make the problem go away as long as said Nazis were useful to the US.
You still haven't answered the charges that the commies killed Lincoln.
*sigh*
No, I alleged that the allies had communist members of the French Resistance killed. However, the only proof is the testimony of the people involved. Which boils down to a 'he said, she said'.
It would not surprise me if it was true, however, considering later that year, English and Greek forces (with US allied support) would take a direct hand and decimate former anti-Nazi communist partisans in Greece and lead directly to the Greek Civil War.
NuggzTheNinja wrote: There are no good guys on either side of this civil war. How about "let them figure it out for themselves"?
There never is.
The side ostensibly in favor of freedom and democracy is supported by AQ... while the other is a tyrannical regime that supports torture etc.
It's a moral and ethical quagmire for the US.
Only if we assume that "spreading freedom" is a moral and ethical obligation of the US. Otherwise it's just a bunch of idiots knocking each other off, and a source of fantastic videos on Liveleak.
Same issue with the Muslim Brotherhood taking control over Egypt. "We" assume that freedom is always a good thing. It's not, if those free people hate us. Sometimes you need a dictator to keep scumbags in check.
And a military quagmire
And a financial quagmire
And a geopolitical quagmire
Best to stay out of it then
As far as freedom and democracy goes, I'm not exactly holding out hope that a regime change courtesy of the AQ affiliated FSA will bring about a democracy with individual freedoms and rights.
NuggzTheNinja wrote:"We" assume that freedom is always a good thing. It's not, if those free people hate us. Sometimes you need a dictator to keep scumbags in check.
Three questions:
1. Can you clarify this? Because that sounds kinda fethed up, and I'd like you to expand on just what you mean so I'm not misinterpreting it.
2. You assume everyone who hates you to be a scumbag?
3. Assuming people do hate you, don't you think helping a dictator to keep them in check could be the cause of that animosity towards you?
Same issue with the Muslim Brotherhood taking control over Egypt. "We" assume that freedom is always a good thing. It's not, if those free people hate us. Sometimes you need a dictator to keep scumbags in check.
Frazz, this is the sort of mindset that makes me knock America where possible. We back dictators, tyrants, and other assorted scum, even though we know it's wrong, and then complain that people shouldn't have democracy because they don't like us for having supported the regime that tortured and imprisoned them for all those years.
If the US doesn't want to be hated, they really need to rethink their foreign policies.
Same issue with the Muslim Brotherhood taking control over Egypt. "We" assume that freedom is always a good thing. It's not, if those free people hate us. Sometimes you need a dictator to keep scumbags in check.
Frazz, this is the sort of mindset that makes me knock America where possible. We back dictators, tyrants, and other assorted scum, even though we know it's wrong, and then complain that people shouldn't have democracy because they don't like us for having supported the regime that tortured and imprisoned them for all those years.
If the US doesn't want to be hated, they really need to rethink their foreign policies.
Supporting people overthrowing tyranny = good.
Supporting tyranny and oppression = bad.
Um... so what?
America willtry to do what it's best for the American people... just like any other nation.
If you're going to keep sprouting this... I have to ask... do you own any Apple or Nike products?
BaronIveagh wrote: Frazz, this is the sort of mindset that makes me knock America where possible. We back dictators, tyrants, and other assorted scum, even though we know it's wrong, and then complain that people shouldn't have democracy because they don't like us for having supported the regime that tortured and imprisoned them for all those years.
If the US doesn't want to be hated, they really need to rethink their foreign policies.
Supporting people overthrowing tyranny = good.
Supporting tyranny and oppression = bad.
Seems like a pretty black and white world view.
So what happens when those people overthrowing tyranny have strong connections with a known terrorist group, that also happens to have committed mass murder on US soil? Are they still good, or are they bad? Or are they "assorted scum", in which case how would supporting them help matters?
How about we supply both sides with weapons. Ensuring that if they don't use chemical weapons we kep supplying them with arms. That way we don't show favoritism to either side. Drive the Russian Federation/Putin nuts figuring out WTF we're doing. That way he pours more money and arms to Assad. That way Isreal can keep nailing suspected arms shipment to Hezballah. That way HazabalIAMANUT keep focus on Isreal and not throw support for Assaad so that way they can in turn buy weapons from North Korea so we....the US Navy can confiscate these shipments...think we've done it twice now...So Iran can step in in support of Assad and we supply the new bunkerbuster to Isreal with a hint to hit some "sites" so we can...Isreal and the US can see how effective it is......or we send in the Night Lords to kill them all....wait......Turkey looking to expand.....wait....Russian Federation wants access to the Meds......China can't get to the Med nor project military power there..so they are OUT.....I say offer Greece Syria so they can get their financial house in order to stay in the the EU instead of having a domino effect of the EU crashing......or we can..as some say put "Boots on the ground".......with Obamacare kicking off...and the US goes down the financial flush........flushing twice to make sure....so the EU collapse..the Med either chem or nuke itself into the stick age...EU has the 2nd Plague hit them.....UK can become the world power again....follow by Spain...France....Ireland.....why Ireland...why the Hell not...US then can afford to invade Mexico for cheap labor....also invest in Canada.....China goes to war with Russa....NK collapse when they try to luanch a nuke at South Korea but explodes on launch...The Emperor arrives and finds all of us "Heretics" besides those that embrace Paganism......damn...these drugs are gggooooooooddddddd after chemo
AQ is definitely NOT interested in democracy and freedom.
These rebels, who may or may not be interested in democracy and freedom, have accepted the help of AQ.
We could give them an ultimatum. If you want help, kill every one of those AQ fethers you find and deliver their heads. Then and only then will we give you aid. And if you are found to still be consorting with AQ we will turn our guns upon you.
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Jihadin wrote: How about we supply both sides with weapons. Ensuring that if they don't use chemical weapons we kep supplying them with arms. That way we don't show favoritism to either side. Drive the Russian Federation/Putin nuts figuring out WTF we're doing. That way he pours more money and arms to Assad. That way Isreal can keep nailing suspected arms shipment to Hezballah. That way HazabalIAMANUT keep focus on Isreal and not throw support for Assaad so that way they can in turn buy weapons from North Korea so we....the US Navy can confiscate these shipments...think we've done it twice now...So Iran can step in in support of Assad and we supply the new bunkerbuster to Isreal with a hint to hit some "sites" so we can...Isreal and the US can see how effective it is......or we send in the Night Lords to kill them all....wait......Turkey looking to expand.....wait....Russian Federation wants access to the Meds......China can't get to the Med nor project military power there..so they are OUT.....I say offer Greece Syria so they can get their financial house in order to stay in the the EU instead of having a domino effect of the EU crashing......or we can..as some say put "Boots on the ground".......with Obamacare kicking off...and the US goes down the financial flush........flushing twice to make sure....so the EU collapse..the Med either chem or nuke itself into the stick age...EU has the 2nd Plague hit them.....UK can become the world power again....follow by Spain...France....Ireland.....why Ireland...why the Hell not...US then can afford to invade Mexico for cheap labor....also invest in Canada.....China goes to war with Russa....NK collapse when they try to luanch a nuke at South Korea but explodes on launch...The Emperor arrives and finds all of us "Heretics" besides those that embrace Paganism......damn...these drugs are gggooooooooddddddd after chemo
We should also throw in lots of DVDs of various american TV shows. And fast food, lots of fast food. Get them addicted to consumerism. The first couple generations will put on lots of weight and be unable to fight.
If you're going to keep sprouting this... I have to ask... do you own any Apple or Nike products?
Not a one. I also make a point to (where possible) avoid products from Dow Chemical, Chevron, and Coca Cola (the last has actually had a truly surprising number of people killed for an outfit that advertises with a smiling Santa Claus. You'd think they'd be on the 'Naughty' list.)
If you're going to keep sprouting this... I have to ask... do you own any Apple or Nike products?
Not a one. I also make a point to (where possible) avoid products from Dow Chemical, Chevron, and Coca Cola (the last has actually had a truly surprising number of people killed for an outfit that advertises with a smiling Santa Claus.)
At least you're consistent then... 'cuz, with that premise, you've condemned just about everyone. Just about every major country, group, or company as done shady/bad things.
Yes, Whembly, but it's been established that the world is full of varying degrees of good and bad; morality isn't so black and white. Not all crimes are equal.
azazel the cat wrote: Yes, Whembly, but it's been established that the world is full of varying degrees of good and bad; morality isn't so black and white. Not all crimes are equal.
Same issue with the Muslim Brotherhood taking control over Egypt. "We" assume that freedom is always a good thing. It's not, if those free people hate us. Sometimes you need a dictator to keep scumbags in check.
Frazz, this is the sort of mindset that makes me knock America where possible. We back dictators, tyrants, and other assorted scum, even though we know it's wrong, and then complain that people shouldn't have democracy because they don't like us for having supported the regime that tortured and imprisoned them for all those years.
If the US doesn't want to be hated, they really need to rethink their foreign policies.
Supporting people overthrowing tyranny = good.
Supporting tyranny and oppression = bad.
1. Thats not my post. 2. Works for me though. The US interest should be its interest. Time to go back to good old fashioned commercial interests and quit trying to be the messiah of the world. All we get are body bags. Best leave the rest of the world alone.
Jihadin wrote: How about we supply both sides with weapons. Ensuring that if they don't use chemical weapons we kep supplying them with arms. That way we don't show favoritism to either side. Drive the Russian Federation/Putin nuts figuring out WTF we're doing. That way he pours more money and arms to Assad. That way Isreal can keep nailing suspected arms shipment to Hezballah. That way HazabalIAMANUT keep focus on Isreal and not throw support for Assaad so that way they can in turn buy weapons from North Korea so we....the US Navy can confiscate these shipments...think we've done it twice now...So Iran can step in in support of Assad and we supply the new bunkerbuster to Isreal with a hint to hit some "sites" so we can...Isreal and the US can see how effective it is......or we send in the Night Lords to kill them all....wait......Turkey looking to expand.....wait....Russian Federation wants access to the Meds......China can't get to the Med nor project military power there..so they are OUT.....I say offer Greece Syria so they can get their financial house in order to stay in the the EU instead of having a domino effect of the EU crashing......or we can..as some say put "Boots on the ground".......with Obamacare kicking off...and the US goes down the financial flush........flushing twice to make sure....so the EU collapse..the Med either chem or nuke itself into the stick age...EU has the 2nd Plague hit them.....UK can become the world power again....follow by Spain...France....Ireland.....why Ireland...why the Hell not...US then can afford to invade Mexico for cheap labor....also invest in Canada.....China goes to war with Russa....NK collapse when they try to luanch a nuke at South Korea but explodes on launch...The Emperor arrives and finds all of us "Heretics" besides those that embrace Paganism......damn...these drugs are gggooooooooddddddd after chemo
If you're going to keep sprouting this... I have to ask... do you own any Apple or Nike products?
Not a one. I also make a point to (where possible) avoid products from Dow Chemical, Chevron, and Coca Cola (the last has actually had a truly surprising number of people killed for an outfit that advertises with a smiling Santa Claus. You'd think they'd be on the 'Naughty' list.)
I'd bet good money you're typing on something made by those evil capitalists or their fellow travellers...
Yep. Vampire commies messin with Da Lincoln. Time for everytrue red blooded American to get an axe, a slice of Apple Pie, a Colt .45 Peacemaker, and take care of business.
NuggzTheNinja wrote:"We" assume that freedom is always a good thing. It's not, if those free people hate us. Sometimes you need a dictator to keep scumbags in check.
Three questions:
1. Can you clarify this? Because that sounds kinda fethed up, and I'd like you to expand on just what you mean so I'm not misinterpreting it.
2. You assume everyone who hates you to be a scumbag?
3. Assuming people do hate you, don't you think helping a dictator to keep them in check could be the cause of that animosity towards you?
Sure.
1. Arab nationalism (i.e., rule by secular Arab leaders that were, more often than not, dictators) kept Islamist terrorists in check. If you look at these revolutions that the US idiotically supported, even if only ideologically, the revolting party is almost always Islamic fundamentalists, i.e. enemies of the United States and Western civilization.
2. Sure? I don't know...I traveled thousands of miles across the Atlantic ocean to join a foreign military just to fight them, so to say that I dislike them is probably an understatement.
3. Only if helping that dictator is why they hate me. When they hate me because I'm not a Muslim, then they get no sympathy from me. We are dealing with psychopathic death cultists who will gladly throw their own children into a hail of bullets just to parade the body in front of cameras. I'd rather someone else put that sick dog down than have to do it myself. Have you seen ammunition prices lately?
BaronIveagh wrote: You'd lose your bet. I built this machine myself, carefully selecting each part based on a background check of the companies and their suppliers.
Any chance of sharing the components and their manufacturers, it may be beneficial for those looking to build a computer who have similar concerns as yours.
Palestinian group says Syria OKs attacks on Israel
BEIRUT (AP) — President Bashar Assad's regime has given a Palestinian militant group the go-ahead to set up missiles to attack Israel in the wake of recent Israeli airstrikes on the Syrian capital, a spokesman for the group said Tuesday.
Syria has hinted at possible retribution against Israel since the Jewish state carried out the airstrikes over the weekend, although official government statements have been relatively mild. In that light, the Assad regime's decision to allow a minor Syria-based Palestinian group to prepare for attacks is largely seen as a face-saving gesture unlikely to escalate the confrontation with Israel.
"Syria has given the green light to set up missile batteries to directly attack Israeli targets," Anwar Raja of the Damascus-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command told The Associated Press.
He said authorities also told the PFLP-GC that the group could carry out attacks independently without consulting Syrian authorities.
"Practically, the Syrian stand has always been supportive of the Palestinian resistance and Syria provides the Palestinian resistance with all capabilities including all kinds of weapons," Raja said.
When the revolt against Assad's rule began in March 2011, the half-million-strong Palestinian community in Syria largely stayed on the sidelines. But as the uprising shifted into a civil war, many Palestinians backed the rebels, while some groups have been fighting on the government side.
Those include the PFLP-GC, a small Damascus-based Palestinian militant faction that the U.S has designated a terrorist organization.
In the 1960s through 1980s, PFLP-GC militants hijacked an Israeli airliner, machine-gunned another at Zurich's airport, and blew up a Tel Aviv-bound Swissair plane, killing all 47 aboard. In 1987, a PFLP-GC guerrilla flew from Lebanon into Israel on a hang-glider and killed six soldiers before being shot dead.
While the group earned notoriety for its past attacks on Israel, it has been eclipsed in the past 20 years by the other Islamic militant groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Israel's government has not formally confirmed involvement in the strikes on Syria. However, Israeli officials have said the attacks were meant to prevent advanced Iranian weapons from reaching Lebanon's Hezbollah militia, an ally of Syria and foe of Israel.
The airstrikes raised the possibility of a wider regional conflict with Syria, which is already engulfed in a civil war that has killed more than 70,000 people, as its focal point.
Iran, a close ally of the Assad regime, has condemned the Israeli attacks and warned of possible retaliation.
But on Tuesday, Iran's foreign minister said it is Syria's Arab neighbors — not Tehran — who should respond to the Israeli strikes.
Speaking to reporters in Amman, Jordan, Ali Akbar Salehi said Arab nations "must stand by their brethren in Damascus."
The Israeli strikes were met with condemnation from Arab nations, even those who oppose Assad and support the rebellion against him, but the protests stopped there.
Iran is deeply concerned with the fate of the Assad regime, which has allowed Syrian territory to serve as a conduit for Iranian weapons and other support to reach their proxy, Hezbollah. Tehran has supplied cash and weapons to help the Syrian government in its efforts to crush the anti-Assad revolt.
Salehi warned of the possible repercussions if the government in Damascus was to fall.
"The fallout from a vacuum in Syria will have adverse effects on its neighbors and the whole region," he said. "There will be serious repercussions from a vacuum. It will be grave and nobody can predict the results."
Israel asks Russia not to sell Syria advanced S-300 air shield: officials
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel has asked Russia not to sell Syria an advanced air defense system which would help President Bashar al-Assad fend off foreign military intervention as he battles a more than two-year-old rebellion, Israeli officials said on Thursday.
Citing U.S. officials, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Israel had told Washington that Syria had already began payments for a $900 million purchase of the S-300 and an initial delivery was due within three months.
The S-300 is designed to shoot down planes and missiles at 125-mile (200-km) ranges. It would enhance Syria's current Russian-supplied defenses, which did not deter Israel from launching devastating air strikes around Damascus last weekend.
"We have raised objections to this (sale) with the Russians, and the Americans have too," an Israeli official told Reuters.
There was no immediate comment from Moscow or Damascus.
In 2010, Russia backed out of a tentative S-300 sale to Iran that had been in the works for years. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev cited U.N. sanctions imposed that year over Iran's defiance of international demands to curb its nuclear program.
Israel and the United States, which threaten military attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities if diplomatic alternatives fail, had lobbied Moscow to drop the deal with Tehran.
ISRAEL ATTACKS
Israel bombed sites near the Syrian capital on Friday and Sunday which intelligence sources said held Iranian-supplied missiles destined for Hezbollah guerrillas in neighboring Lebanon. The heavy presence of Israeli warplanes in Lebanese airspace suggested they may have eluded Syrian defenses by launching long-range missiles across the border at the targets.
Assad accused his Israeli foe of attacking Syria in order to support the insurgency there - an allegation denied by Israel, though, like Western powers, it has urged his ouster.
Russia, however, has balked at such calls. It voiced "particular alarm" at Israel's air strikes, seeing a possible precursor for Western military intervention against Assad.
Robert Hewson, an IHS Jane's air power analyst, said that were Syria to receive the S-300 it would probably take several months to deploy and operate the system. But he suggested it would not pose a big challenge for Israel's hi-tech air force.
"It's a fairly well-established, fairly well-understood system, so there is a corpus of knowledge, particularly among Israel's friends, about how to deal with this system," he said.
Once activated, the S-300 could easily be spotted thanks to its distinctive radar signal, Hewson said, "and from there it's a fairly short step to taking it out. It's not a wonder-weapon."
Cyprus bought the S-300 and eventually positioned it on the Greek island of Crete. Israel, which has close ties with Nicosia and Athens, may have tested its jets against that S-300's capabilities during Mediterranean overflights, Hewson said.
I'd bet good money you're typing on something made by those evil capitalists or their fellow travellers...
You'd lose your bet. I built this machine myself, carefully selecting each part based on a background check of the companies and their suppliers.
WHERE DO YOU THINK THE PLASTIC CAME FROM FLUFFY OR DID YOU DRILL THE HOLE, PULL THE OIL AND CRACK THE OIL YOURSELF THERE CHUMSTER???
Do you even know what Dow and Chevron make?
His keyboard is made of wood.
Frazzled wrote:BARONIVEAGH KILLS TREES! WHY DO YOU HATE MOTHER NATURE SO???
Actually it's made of 100% recycled materials, mostly aluminum and typewriter parts, but also a wireless keyboard that had been discarded as 'broken' due to the keys being worn. In addition, you do know that Dow and Chevron are not the only sources of those goods, right?
Further, trees are a renewable resource, particularly native hardwoods, which my parents own a tree farm of.
Given those press releases, you may start needing a diagram to keep track of who's supporting who now. Interestingly enough, that does put AQ and Israel on the same side. Politics and strange bedfellows indeed.
BaronIveagh wrote: Actually it's made of 100% recycled materials, mostly aluminum and typewriter parts, but also a wireless keyboard that had been discarded as 'broken' due to the keys being worn. In addition, you do know that Dow and Chevron are not the only sources of those goods, right?
Further, trees are a renewable resource, particularly native hardwoods, which my parents own a tree farm of.
Do you have a list of what you used for internal components? Like I said, it may be of interest to others trying to ethically source computer components
Automatically Appended Next Post:
BaronIveagh wrote: Given those press releases, you may start needing a diagram to keep track of who's supporting who now. Interestingly enough, that does put AQ and Israel on the same side. Politics and strange bedfellows indeed.
Complex enough to show that just because someone is overthrowing tyranny it does not make them de facto good.
I think its a bit of a stretch to say that Israel and AQ are "on the same side"
Frazzled wrote: If there is any plastic - and all that "recyclable materials" is plastic it was made by one of your hated companies. You lose Bondo.
Bond: I guess you expect me to beg for my life.
Bad Guy: No Mr. Bond I expect you to die!
According to the circuit board, the plastic came from Nagase Plastics Co, who's supplier is JX Nippon Oil. The recycled material is aluminum. and old typewriter keys.
It's a very old logitech. I couldn't say off hand where their current stuff comes from.
I have a Soyo flatscreen monitor, Teac speakers, Hitachi hard drives, an IBM DVD drive (sadly, this area has a lot of questionable manufacturers, IBM was about the best) nvidia video cards (scored surprisingly high), took a gamble on an Asus MB (the information on their suppliers was incomplete but the ones listed scored well). RAM was sadly Kingston (some of their suppliers are questionable, particularly for solder) case is Apevia, power supply is a 1k watt Apevia that came with case
For off the shelf units, VeryPC is generally rated the highest for ethics, but they're UK based.
BaronIveagh wrote: According to the circuit board, the plastic came from Nagase Plastics Co, who's supplier is JX Nippon Oil. The recycled material is aluminum. and old typewriter keys.
The construction of the Yetagun pipeline in Myanmar has been linked to 'severe human rights abuses' by Burmese troops. The company stated it 'was not aware of such abuses.' However critics claim that such foreign investment by Nippon Oil and other multinationals: 'provides a crucial source of support to the junta, allowing it to ignore demands that it return Burma to civilian rule and end human rights abuses.
I didn't buy the thing, someone else did and then threw it out. Or would you have had me let them throw it out and contributed to toxic non-biodegradable pollution?
BaronIveagh wrote: I have a Soyo flatscreen monitor, Teac speakers, Hitachi hard drives, an IBM DVD drive (sadly, this area has a lot of questionable manufacturers, IBM was about the best) nvidia video cards (scored surprisingly high), took a gamble on an Asus MB (the information on their suppliers was incomplete but the ones listed scored well). RAM was sadly Kingston (some of their suppliers are questionable, particularly for solder) case is Apevia, power supply is a 1k watt Apevia that came with case
For off the shelf units, VeryPC is generally rated the highest for ethics, but they're UK based.
Hitachi, save your face, drop the case!
directly sign the letter >
Japanese electronics company Hitachi is failing to uphold human rights throughout its supply chain – while migrant workers are mistreated and Malaysian human rights defenders exposing this behaviour are facing aggressive legal action, Hitachi keeps refusing to use the means at its disposal to make its supplier Asahi Kosei drop the legal case and respect workers' rights.
Update 27 june 2011: Electronics company sues human rights defender for $3.3 million
Take action today and write to Hitachi
At the Asahi Kosei operated plant in Malaysia migrant workers from a number of Asian countries are set to work, including workers from Burma. These workers are generally treated abominably, having to put up with disproportional wage deductions, lack of sick leave, withholding of their passports, retaliatory confiscation of their belongings if they protest, etc. In January 2011, a group of 31 Burmese workers protested about their labour and employment conditions. Despite having valid work permits and contracts subsequently two of them were taken under false pretence to the airport to be deported - but managed to escape at the very last moment. At the time of writing, Thiha Soe and Aung San are in hiding.
Malaysian human rights defender Charles Hector and fellow labour rights activists concerned themselves about the treatment of the Burmese workers deployed at Asahi Kosei’s Selangor plant. In February 2011, Charles Hector wrote a letter to Asahi Kosei. When the company failed to respond, Hector posted information received from the affected workers on his weblog.
In retaliation, Asahi Kosei has taken aggressive legal action against Charles Hector, accusing him of libel, and demanding an outrageous sum for compensation ($ 3.3 million). Several hearings have taken place - the dates for the full trial are expected to be fixed shortly.
In support of migrant workers and human rights defenders, tens of labour rights groups from all over the world have expressed their concerns over Asahi Kosei’s treatment of the Burmese workers and the aggressive legal action against Charles Hector. Click here for the public statement that was signed by more than 80 organisations.
Until this date, Asahi Kosei, Hitachi, as well as other buyers, refuse any dialogue with the labour groups and migrant advocacy groups concerned. There has been no improvement of the treatment of the Burmese workers after Asahi Kosei Malaysia filed the lawsuit against Charles Hector.
GoodElectronics, makeITfair as well as other labour rights groups have written to brands known to be sourcing or to have sourced from Asahi Kosei Malaysia. To see this letter, click here. So far, Philips, Seagate and Toshiba responded, with –unsubstantiated- claims that they are no longer sourcing from Asahi Kosei Malaysia. Their companies’ names are, however, still listed on Asahi Kosei’s website. Other buyers did not respond.
At its 65th Annual General Meeting, held on 12 March 2011 in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian Bar unanimously carried a motion in support of human rights defender Charles Hector referring to the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. To read more click here.
For more information on case against Charles Hector click here.
GoodElectronics is now specifically addressing Hitachi as a major and well-known buyer of Asahi Kosei. On its website Hitachi emphatically presents its corporate social responsibility vision, speaking of “the building of a prosperous and vibrant society”, of “disclosing information openly and transparently in order to maintain and develop a relationship of trust with its various stakeholders, and acting responsibly towards them through various means of communication”, and about “undertaking business based on the principles of fairness and sincerity, acting with the utmost respect for human rights and pursuing a high sense of corporate ethics in the global business market which encompasses diverse cultures, morals, ethics, and legal systems”. Moreover, Hitachi is member of the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC) and has a responsibility to live up to the EICC code of conduct.
Take action today; write to Hitachi to say you expect Hitachi to:
use its leverage as customer of Asahi Kosei to immediately and unconditionally drop the legal case against Charles Hector
ensure that labour rights and standards are upheld throughout the Hitachi supply chain
migrant workers ‘s rights are upheld and respected in Hitachi’s supply chain
ensure justice is done to Thiha Soe and Aung San and the other affected workers
respect human rights defenders.
Please sign the protest letter. This letter will go out to the Hitachi for its refusal to take sufficient action on this issue, thereby causing harm to migrant workers set to work at Asahi Kosei in Malaysia, as well as to human rights defender Charles Hector.
The ATNC Monitoring Network and a group of labour activists in Hong Kong will protest against Hitachi for its connivance in labour abuses at its supplier, Asahi Kosei in Malaysia. Mr. Charles Hector, a Malaysian human rights defender, lawyer and blogger was sued by the Japanese-owned electronics company Asahi Kosei for alleged defamation after Hector posted messages of rights violations against Burmese migrant workers at the company. Asahi Kosei demanded a compensation of USD 3.3 million (about HKD 25.7 million) for reputation damage. Despite protests from labour rights groups, Hitachi has not responded to the public. The full trial of the case is scheduled on 24-26 August. Asian Transnational Corporation Monitoring Network calls on Hitachi to use its influence to demand Asahi Kosei to drop the case.
In February 2011, Mr. Hector published a series of blog posts in which he faulted the company for unfair treatment of a group of 31 Burmese migrant workers. These workers had to put up with not getting sick leave, non-payment of their wages, threats of deportation, removal of their possession such as electrical equipments and cooking utensils, and being cut off of electricity in their lodgings. A few daring workers lodged complaints against their employer at the Malaysian National Human Rights Institution (SUHAKAM) and the Labour Department. Mr. Hector documented and commented upon this situation on his blog.Asahi Kosei argued that those workers are supplied by an outsourcing agent and not on their direct payroll, and thus the company is not responsible for what happened to them.
In retaliation, it also sued Charles Hector for alleged reputation damage.
Defamation claim should not be abused to restrict freedom of expression. It is a matter of public interest to ensure the grievances of any persons whose human rights have been violated can be heard. Without it, there is no access to justice. If any person or organisation which brings legitimate grievances of migrant workers to the attention of the public risks lawsuit, the already precarious state of the migrant workers will most certainly deteriorate even further. Employing scared tactics of retaliation and litigation would not help any enterprise’s reputation; rather it laid bare the company’s lack of tolerance and inability to deal with criticism. By showing a complete lack of sincerity in tackling the violations exposed and only focusing on silencing the whistleblower, Asahi Kosei is hurting its own image much more than whatever Charles Hector could have done.
Although the lawsuit was filed by Asahi Kosei, it is incumbent on Hitachi to rectify the problems at its supplier. Last June, the United Nations Human Rights Council endorsed a set of global guiding principles for business, the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, designed to ensure that companies do not violate human rights in the course of their transactions and provide redress when infringements occur, including the protection of human rights defenders. The UN Guiding Principles request companies to mitigate adverse human rights impacts that are directly linked to their operations by their business relationships, including relationships with business partners and entities in their supply chain.1
As a world leading company in the electronics business, Hitachi should take the lead in ensuring compliance to human rights and respect of freedom of expression throughout its supply chain Regrettably, Hitachi has so far shown no commitment to rectify the rights violations at its supplier. We hereby demand Hitachi to:
1.Request Asahi Kosei to withdraw the lawsuit against Mr. Hector immediately and unconditionally, who has brought legitimate concerns regarding violations to the attention of the company and the public.
2.Engage in a serious dialogue with workers, their representatives, the media and human rights defenders to ensure adequate identification and remediation of any violations of labor rights and basic human rights that have occurred at Asahi Kosei.
3.Ensure the immediate reinstatement, with full rights and benefits, of the Burmese workers, especially those currently in hiding and not yet allowed to go back to work in Asahi Kosei’s factory.
4.Request that in order to avoid future concerns of labor and human rights violations, Asahi Kosei cease using these labor supply agents, and instead employ the 31 Burmese workers directly under Asahi Kosei.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia
In December 2006, Nvidia, along with its main rival in the graphics industry AMD (which had acquired ATI), received subpoenas from the U.S. Department of Justice regarding possible antitrust violations in the graphics card industry.[15]
Forbes magazine named Nvidia its Company of the Year for 2007, citing the accomplishments it made during the said period as well as during the previous 5 years.[16]
On January 5, 2007, Nvidia announced that it had completed the acquisition of PortalPlayer, Inc.[17]
In February 2008, Nvidia acquired Ageia Technologies for an undisclosed sum. "The purchase reflects both companies' shared goal of creating the most amazing and captivating game experiences," said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of Nvidia. "By combining the teams that created the world's most pervasive GPU and physics engine brands, we can now bring GeForce-accelerated PhysX to twelve million gamers around the world."[18]
In April 2009, a court consolidated multiple class action suits into one case, titled The NVIDIA GPU Litigation.[19] NVIDIA agreed to replace faulty chips in or reimburse purchasers who already spent to get their laptop repaired. Nvidia also gave replacement laptops to many users in lieu of making a repair. The replacements and payments were not made until the settlement was finalized in 2011. Users were required to show proof of purchase and mail in their original faulty laptop. The chips were present in a number of Dell and HP laptops, as well as two Apple MacBook Pro models. Although the settlement cost Nvidia millions of dollars, many of the individuals were unhappy with the settlement, and multiple websites and blogs reflected this. The website entitled Fair Nvidia Settlement[20] was one such site.
Nvidia’s Kepler/GK104 chip has an interesting secret, a claimed Ageia PhysX hardware block that really isn’t. If you were wondering why Nvidia has been beating the dead horse called PhysX for so long, now you know, but it only gets more interesting from there.
Sources tell SemiAccurate that the ‘big secret’ lurking in the Kepler chips are optimisations for physics calculations. Some are calling this PhysX block a dedicated chunk of hardware, but more sources have been saying that it is simply shaders, optimisations, and likely a dedicated few new ops. In short, marketing may say it is, but under the heat spreader, it is simply shaders and optimisations.
The market has treated hardware PhysX like an unexplained sore that shows up a week after a night you can’t remember through a tequila induced haze. Numbers vary about the absolute magnitude of PhysX’s overwhelming success, but counts of 2011 game releases supporting hardware acceleration range from a low of two to a high of six. The snowball has pretty much stopped rolling, or to be more accurate, it never started, all the developers SemiAccurate spoke with indicate that their use of PhysX hardware acceleration was a cash flow positive experience, but we didn’t talk to all six listed.
With this new bit of information, one big question is answered, but specific hardware implementations details are a bit murky. Is the ‘hardware block’ dedicated to physics calculations when there are some being issued, or is it a AMD/GCN like multiple instruction issue? Is it just shaders with an added op or two that speed up math routines heavily used by physics simulations? How much die area is spent on this functionality? This isn’t very clear, and given the marketing materials Semiaccurate has seen, explanations will only serve to impede the impending hype.
That said, SemiAccurate is told Kepler/GK104 will be marketed as having a dedicated block, and this will undoubtedly be repeated everywhere, truth not withstanding. Luckily, since most of the target audience isn’t technically literate, it may “become fact” through the VIECOOCDF (Vast Internet Echo Chamber Of Often Repeated Dubious Facts). Lowering the collective intelligence can be profitable if not ethical. Luckily, the story doesn’t end here, it gets much worse.
This part ties in to the story SemiAccurate published a few weeks ago saying that Nvidia would win this generation. A lot of people have been asking about Kepler/GK104 performance and if it is really that good. The short story is yes and no, depending on your views on some very creative ‘optimisations’ around physics.
We stated earlier, Kepler wins in most ways vs the current AMD video cards. How does Nvidia do it with a $299 card? Is it raw performance? Massive die size? Performance per metric? The PhysX ‘hardware block’? Cheating? The easy answer is yes, but lets go in to a lot more detail.
GK104 is the mid-range GPU in Nvidia’s Kepler family, has a very small die, and the power consumption is far lower than the reported 225W. How low depends on what is released and what clock bins are supported by the final silicon. A1 stepping cards seen by SemiAccurate had much larger heatsinks than the A2 versions, and recent rumours suggest there may be an A3 to fix persistent PCIe3 headaches.
To date, an A3 spin has not been confirmed, but if it is necessary, it will likely push out the late March/early April release date by at least a month. One other possibility is for Nvidia to pull an Intel and release cards without the official PCI SIG stamp, adding it when A3 silicon is available. In any case, the number of PCIe3 supporting computers on the market is minimal, so functionally speaking, it doesn’t matter. You may loose a small bit of theoretical performance, but for a mid-range part, it is unlikely to be noticeable. Marketing is a completely different story though, one not closely tied to the reality most of us live in.
The architecture itself is very different from Fermi, SemiAccurate’s sources point to a near 3TF card with a 256-bit memory bus. Kepler is said to have a very different shader architecture from Fermi, going to much more AMD-like units, caches optimised for physics/computation, and clocks said to be close to the Cayman/Tahiti chips. The initial target floating among the informed is in the 900-1000MHz range. Rumours have it running anywhere from about 800MHz in early silicon to 1.1+GHz later on, with early stepping being not far off later ones. Contrary to some floating rumours, yields are not a problem for either GK104 or TSMC’s 28nm process in general.
Performance is likewise said to be a tiny bit under 3TF from a much larger shader count than previous architectures. This is comparable to the 3.79TF and 2048 shaders on AMD’s Tahiti, GK104 isn’t far off either number. With the loss of the so called “Hot Clocked” shaders, this leaves two main paths to go down, two CUs plus hardware PhysX unit or three. Since there is no dedicated hardware physics block, the math says each shader unit will probably do two SP FLOPs per clock or one DP FLOP.
This would be in line with the company’s earlier claims of a large jump in compute capabilities, but also leads to questions of how those shaders will be fed with only a 256-bit memory path. Given the small die sizes floating around, it is unlikely to be Itanium-esque brute forcing through large caches. The net result is that shader utilisation is likely to fall dramatically, with a commensurate loss of real world performance compared to theoretical peak.
In the same way that AMD’s Fusion chips count GPU FLOPS the same way they do CPU FLOPS in some marketing materials, Kepler’s 3TF won’t measure up close to AMD’s 3TF parts. Benchmarks for GK104 shown to SemiAccurate have the card running about 10-20% slower than Tahiti. On games that both heavily use physics related number crunching and have the code paths to do so on Kepler hardware, performance should seem to be well above what is expected from a generic 3TF card. That brings up the fundamental question of whether the card is really performing to that level?
This is where the plot gets interesting. How applicable is the “PhysX block”/shader optimisations to the general case? If physics code is the bottleneck in your app, A goal Nvidia appears to actively code for, then uncorking that artificial impediment should make an app positively fly. On applications that are written correctly without artificial performance limits, Kepler’s performance should be much more marginal. Since Nvidia is pricing GK104 against AMD’s mid-range Pitcairn ASIC, you can reasonably conclude that the performance will line up against that card, possibly a bit higher. If it could reasonably defeat everything on the market in a non-stacked deck comparison, it would be priced accordingly, at least until the high end part is released.
All of the benchmark numbers shown by Nvidia, and later to SemiAccurate, were overwhelmingly positive. How overwhelmingly positive? Far faster than an AMD HD7970/Tahiti for a chip with far less die area and power use, and it blew an overclocked 580GTX out of the water by unbelievable margins. That is why we wrote this article. Before you take that as a backpedal, we still think those numbers are real, the card will achieve that level of performance in the real world on some programs.
The problem for Nvidia is that once you venture outside of that narrow list of tailored programs, performance is likely to fall off a cliff, with peaky performance the likes of which haven’t been seen in a long time. On some games, GK104 will handily trounce a 7970, on others, it will probably lose to a Pitcairn. Does this mean it won’t actually do what is promised? No, it will. Is this a problem? Depends on how far review sites dare to step outside of the ‘recommenced’ list of games to benchmark in the reviewers guide.
Ethically, this could go either way, and in a vacuum, we would be more than willing to say that the cards are capable of very high performance. The problem is that the numbers that Nvidia will likely show off at the launch are not in a vacuum, nor are they very real, even considering the above caveats. Nvidia is going out of their way to have patches coded for games that tend to be used as benchmarks by popular sites.
Once again, this is nothing new, and has been done many times before. One example that is often mentioned is Starcraft II’s use of stencil buffers. People with inside knowledge of that game’s development have said that Nvidia gave Blizzard help in coding some parts of the game during the final ‘crunch’ period. The code is said to heavily use stencil buffers to fix some issues and patch over minor glitches. Again nothing unusual, AMD, Intel, and almost everyone else does this on a case by case basis, especially for AAA titles released in conjunction with new hardware.
Since Nvidia’s Fermi generation GPUs are very good at handling stencil buffers, they perform very well on this code. Again, this is normal practice, Nvidia put in the effort and now reaps the benefits, good for them. What is odd about this case, is that several knowledgeable sources have said that the code actually net decreases performance on both cards. The above tale may be anecdotal, but Starcraft 2′s release code sure seemed to use stencil buffers a lot more than you would expect, unreasonably so according to many coders. This however doesn’t constitute proof in any way, but it fits what SemiAccurate has seen Nvidia do in prior cases.
More to the point is antialiasing (AA) in Batman: Arkham Asylum. If you recall, AMD stated complaining about that game’s AA routines upon release. They directly stated that if AMD cards were detected, the game would disable AA for non-technical reasons. (Note: The original post that TechPowerUp refers to has the pertinent sections in the comments, not on the front page. It takes a little searching to find the post that also talks about several other games having similar ‘bugs’.) It goes on to state that if the card IDs were changed, the AA in the game functioned correctly on ATI hardware.
Short story, this turned in to the proverbial “epic pissing match”, with Nvidia claiming that it was Eidos that owned the code, and they were free to do with it as they feel fit. This is technically true. Unfortunately, emails seen by SemiAccurate directly contradict this. Those emails state unequivocally that Eidos should not change code written by Nvidia and provided to Eidos as a part of Batman: Arkham Asylum. At the point they were questioned on why, Eidos says they could not do anything due to advice of their attorneys.
Since it was the attorneys objecting, not the coders, we can only speculate that this was due to Nvidia’s financial sponsorship of the game, not any technical reason. Since sources tell SemiAccurate that Batman: Arkham Asylum only uses standard DirectX calls to implement AA, and it appears to function if the graphics card IDs are changed, this seems to be nothing other than Nvidia directly sabotaging their competition and not allowing AMD remove the lockout. Go and re-read the statements from AMD/ATI, Nvidia, and Eidos, then draw your own conclusions.
Why do we bring these two cases up in a Kepler article? Well, we hear that it is happening again. Both AMD and Nvidia have developers that they can and do ‘embed’ at game companies. This is an old and quite legitimate practice for GPU and non-GPU hardware companies. Everyone does it. It can be done ethically or not, with net performance gains for the end user or not, and with the intent to hurt or harm. In general, the more marketing money involved, the more most developers are willing to go out on a shaky ethical limbs.
One last really good example, tesselation. High end Fermi cards, GF100/110/GTX480/GTX580 are heavily biased toward geometry performance. Since most modern GPUs can compute multiple triangles per displayable pixel on any currently available monitor, usually multiple monitors, doubling that performance is a rather dubious win. Doubling it again makes you wonder why so die area was wasted.
Since Nvidia did waste that die area, helping games show that prowess off is a good thing for users, right? Look at Crysis 2, a AAA title that is heavily promoted by Nvidia, it positively flies on Fermi based cards, but performance on AMD GPUs is far less impressive. Why? The amazing detail in things like the concrete blocks, brick walls, and vast expanses of realistically modelled water. Breathtaking isn’t it? All thanks to Nvidia’s efforts to make the game experience better on their hardware. How could this be interpreted as anything but a win for users by a reasonable observer?
Nvidia is said to have around 15 developers they can embed at companies to help ‘optimise’ their code, ‘fix bugs’, and work out ‘performance problems’, even if those problems are not on Nvidia hardware. The count for other companies is less clear, but unlikely to be much different. Sources tell SemiAccurate that about half of them are currently working at Eidos on, wait for it, a patch for the recently released Batman: Arkham City game. Since Both the original and and the new Batman games are flag bearers for Nvidia’s hardware/GPU PhysX acceleration, it doesn’t take a genius to connect the dots. Since neither the patch or Kepler based video cards are out yet, we can only wait to see what the end result is.
If the purported patch does change performance radically on specific cards, is this legitimate GPU performance? Yes. How about if it raises performance on Kepler cards while decreasing performance on non-Kepler cards to a point lower than pre-patch levels? How about if it raises performance on Kepler cards while decreasing performance only on non-Nvidia cards? Which scenario will it be? Time will tell.
How many other games have had this level of attention and optimisation gifted upon them is another open question. One thing we can say is that the list of benchmarks shown off by Nvidia where Kepler has an overwhelming advantage all support PhysX. This is not to say that they are all hardware/GPU PhysX accelerated, they are not, most use the software API.
This is important because it strongly suggests that Nvidia is accelerating their own software APIs on Kepler without pointing it out explicitly. Since Kepler is a new card with new drivers, there is no foul play here, and it is a quite legitimate use of the available hardware. Then again, they have been proven to degrade the performance of the competition through either passive or active methods. Since Nvidia controls the APIs and middleware used, the competition can not ‘fix’ these ‘problems with the performance of their hardware’.
Going back to Kepler, we see that this happy and completely ethical game is going to be starting round 3, or round 17, depending on how you count. Nvidia appears to be stacking the playing field to both cripple the competition and raise their own performance. Is the performance of Kepler cards legitimate? Yes. Is it the general case? No. If you look at the most comprehensive list of supported titles we can find, it is long, but the number of titles released per year isn’t all that impressive, and anecdotally speaking, appears to be slowing.
When Kepler is released, you can reasonably expect extremely peaky performance. For some games, specifically those running Nvidia middleware, it should fly. For the rest, performance is likely to fall off the proverbial cliff. Hard. So hard that it will likely be hard pressed to beat AMD’s mid-range card.
What does this mean in the end? Is it cheating? Is it ethical? Is Kepler/GK104 going to be worth the money? Will it beat AMD’s 7970? These are all subjective decisions for you to make. What software will Nvidia show off as benchmarks to promote Kepler’s performance? That list is a little narrower. What will happen to sites that dare to test software that is not ‘legitimately accelerated’? No idea, but history offers some clues. One thing you can say for sure is that the information released prior to and with the card is unlikely to be the whole story. Legitimacy, performance, honesty, and ethics are unlikely to resemble the official talking points, and the whole truth is likely to be hidden from prying eyes for very partisan reasons. Big grains of salt around this one people, be very skeptical of everything you hear, and take nothing at face value
ASUS scraped the bottom of the barrel in a Tweet yesterday showing an Asian model turning her back to the camera while opening a Transformer AIO. "The rear looks pretty nice. So does the new Transformer," ASUS tweeted. HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA....except not.
The Tweet was promptly deleted (and hopefully the13 year old social media coordinator who tweeted it has crawled back into whatever he cave he came from), but it's still left bad vibes with lots of potential customers. "Women aren't decorations," tweeted one user. "It's just stupid to alienate potential laptop buyers with this kind of idiotic grade school kind of joke," said a commenter on Gizmodo.
Now, compliments are always nice, but I'd say this tweet goes too far in objectifying this woman's behind. I'm not going to stop loving ASUS products just because of a little goof up, but I expect better jokes next time on the Twitterscape. Kapeesh?
So sexism, objectification of women, human rights abuses, labour abuses, causing harm to a competitor's product and anti-trust practices are all examples of "carefully selecting each part based on a background check of the companies and their suppliers"?
I didn't buy the thing, someone else did and then threw it out. Or would you have had me let them throw it out and contributed to toxic non-biodegradable pollution?
So its ok to re-use or recycle something that has a dubious history, despite you naming Western companies that you try and avoid because of this, as well as saying that you were "carefully selecting each part based on a background check of the companies and their suppliers"? So is it ok to by products from less reputable manufacturers second hand because you are not directly financing them?
Frazzled wrote: If there is any plastic - and all that "recyclable materials" is plastic it was made by one of your hated companies. You lose Bondo.
Bond: I guess you expect me to beg for my life.
Bad Guy: No Mr. Bond I expect you to die!
According to the circuit board, the plastic came from Nagase Plastics Co, who's supplier is JX Nippon Oil. The recycled material is aluminum. and old typewriter keys.
It's a very old logitech. I couldn't say off hand where their current stuff comes from.
I have a Soyo flatscreen monitor, Teac speakers, Hitachi hard drives, an IBM DVD drive (sadly, this area has a lot of questionable manufacturers, IBM was about the best) nvidia video cards (scored surprisingly high), took a gamble on an Asus MB (the information on their suppliers was incomplete but the ones listed scored well). RAM was sadly Kingston (some of their suppliers are questionable, particularly for solder) case is Apevia, power supply is a 1k watt Apevia that came with case
For off the shelf units, VeryPC is generally rated the highest for ethics, but they're UK based.
Any plastic you have comes from evil chemical and petroleum companies. You can't escape us. We're everywhere, in everything. We're hydrocarbons, building better worlds.
Frazzled wrote: Any plastic you have comes from evil chemical and petroleum companies. You can't escape us. We're everywhere, in everything. We're hydrocarbons, building better worlds.
Hitachi was named among the Most Ethical by Ethisphere 2 years in a row for 2011 and 2012.
I might also point out that I purchased my hard drives in 2010. I don't list 'psychic' on my employment history. I do grant that the supplier, in this case, should have investigated it's own subcontractors better.
In December 2006, Nvidia, along with its main rival in the graphics industry AMD (which had acquired ATI), received subpoenas from the U.S. Department of Justice regarding possible antitrust violations in the graphics card industry.
And if you click on that 15..
Analysts were puzzled about the nature of the investigation. Unlike the memory industry--the subject of recent DOJ investigations into anticompetitive practices--there are only two main players in the market for add-in graphics technology. Nvidia and ATI, now part of AMD, have always been thought of as fierce competitors not inclined to work together outside of industry standards associations, said Dean McCarron, an analyst with Mercury Research.
Jon Peddie, a longtime graphics industry watcher with Jon Peddie Research, said he hasn't heard any complaints from customers of Nvidia or ATI about anticompetitive practices such as price-fixing. He noted that the graphics cards from each company that offer similar performance often cost roughly the same. This could potentially come off as price-fixing, but really reflects the nature of a two-supplier business, he said.
It turned out to be nothing at all.
Although the settlement cost Nvidia millions of dollars, many of the individuals were unhappy with the settlement, and multiple websites and blogs reflected this. The website entitled Fair Nvidia Settlement[20] was one such site.
NVIDIA offered to replace the affected laptops with models of a similar make or reimburse the affected people, which was agreed to in the settlement. The class, in this case demanded extensive fines and reparations above and beyond that. The Court then ruled that NVIDIA's offer to replace or reimburse was fair. Several members of the class then filed an objection that the computer that they were offered was not equal to the one faulty. The judge then ruled against them:
"Presently before the Court are individual class members’ Objections to the Settlement.1 The individual class members object to the Settlement on the ground that the CQ-56 replacement computer designated in the Settlement is not of “like or similar kind” to several class computers. (Memorandum at 8-13.) The Court conducted a hearing on March 28, 2011.
Upon review of the Objections and the expert reports submitted by the parties, the Court finds that the Objections are without merit."
Big grains of salt around this one people, be very skeptical of everything you hear, and take nothing at face value
Including this article from SemiAccurate. I have not been able to find any corroborating reports on this anonymous source.
So sexism, objectification of women, human rights abuses, labour abuses, causing harm to a competitor's product and anti-trust practices are all examples of "carefully selecting each part based on a background check of the companies and their suppliers"?
Yes, because I looked into the companies responses to those allegations and if any of them went to court and what the finding was. I might point out that the lawsuit that was filed against the Hitachi subcontractor supposedly on behalf of the Workers was dismissed. This is why they were able to file suit on the grounds of libel as his assertions had been found groundless in a court of law. Eventually both parties agreed to settle in the defamation case, IIRC.
So its ok to re-use or recycle something that has a dubious history, despite you naming Western companies that you try and avoid because of this, as well as saying that you were "carefully selecting each part based on a background check of the companies and their suppliers"? So is it ok to by products from less reputable manufacturers second hand because you are not directly financing them?
Didn't buy a thing to make the keyboard. Please wrap your brain around that concept. Further, to throw it away would have compounded the problem, not resolve it.
How did this become an ethically sourced computer discussion?
And if you are really worried about where your computer parts came from, you will probably be better off just leaving society completely and living out in the woods using nothing but the bare essentials.
Using only recycled parts is about the best you can do. The parts already exist, you might as well use them. its the same logic behind still wearing century old fur coats, while it may not have been harvested humanely it would stupid to just throw it away.
Hitachi was named among the Most Ethical by Ethisphere 2 years in a row for 2011 and 2012.
Regardless whether they fixed it or not they were still engaged in unethical practices and human rights abuses in early 2011, and likely in 2010 also judging from the dates of correspondence.
BaronIveagh wrote: I might also point out that I purchased my hard drives in 2010. I don't list 'psychic' on my employment history. I do grant that the supplier, in this case, should have investigated it's own subcontractors better.
Nor am I. So if you don't give the date before hand expecting me to know it is an onerous burden.
In December 2006, Nvidia, along with its main rival in the graphics industry AMD (which had acquired ATI), received subpoenas from the U.S. Department of Justice regarding possible antitrust violations in the graphics card industry.
In light of the class action lawsuit that accused hardware makers Nvidia and ATI of fixing prices to keep video card prices artificially high, Nvidia proposed a $1.7M settlement.
The settlement, which is pending court approval and would resolve all claims against Nvidia, would see that $1.7 million sum split amongst those that bought hardware directly from ATI or Nvidia websites between December 4, 2002 and November 7, 2007.
Of the $1.7 million, Nvidia has offered to pay $850,000 of the figure. It is assumed that ATI would pay the remaining sum, thought the company has yet to confirm this. After that payment, Nvidia will not need to provide any other compensation, such as legal fees.
Nvidia also announced that it has settled a related price fixing case filed by individuals who bought Nvidia hardware from non-direct vendors. Under the agreement, those individuals will receive a total of $112,500 in exchange for dropping all charges.
However, that $112,500 will only go out to those who filed suit on their own, as the court denied a request classify the indirect purchase case as a class-action lawsuit, which would have encompassed anyone who purchased hardware from a non-direct vendor during the allotted time frame.
Class actions charged against NVIDIA and ATI (now AMD) reveal that the two companies may have staged a competition over the past half-a-decade or so. A judge read out an email which suggested price fixing was rife in the graphics card market. That follows a class action of 51 different plaintiffs, now combined into one, and across different legal jurisdictions, alleging cartel behaviour not only in graphics chips, but flat panels and CRTs too.
In other words, NVIDIA and ATI may have been fixing prices of their products for a while now, it is believed that they held secret meetings to discuss staged competition, chart out prices, timings of product launches among other things. These pseudo-competitions staged provided improved sales among other things. A PDF File available to us at this point shows that the two indulged in conspiracy to mutually benefit from staged competition, so as to:
Fix, stabilize, and maintain prices of products in the US Market.
Artificial inflation of product prices.
Provided, are charts that show price-spread between NVIDIA and ATI products. Three major time-scales: Before the 'conspiracy period', during and after a federal grand jury launched an investigation and issued subpoenas to both companies:
Although the settlement cost Nvidia millions of dollars, many of the individuals were unhappy with the settlement, and multiple websites and blogs reflected this. The website entitled Fair Nvidia Settlement[20] was one such site.
Yeah, I was focusing on the anti-trust issue rather than the customer service issue while printing wedding invites so that should not have been included.
https://twitter.com/ASUS/status/209717010706333696
BaronIveagh wrote: The employee in question was likely fired. And a single tweet by an idiot does not make a company a haven of sexism and the objectification of women.
The fact that someone like that was at a trade show and felt it was appropriate to make such a comment on social media is pretty damning about the attitude and culture of the company behind closed doors, given that they only responded after there was outrage. Especially in an industry that has a very public image problem concerning sexism.
BaronIveagh wrote: Yes, because I looked into the companies responses to those allegations and if any of them went to court and what the finding was. I might point out that the lawsuit that was filed against the Hitachi subcontractor supposedly on behalf of the Workers was dismissed. This is why they were able to file suit on the grounds of libel as his assertions had been found groundless in a court of law. Eventually both parties agreed to settle in the defamation case, IIRC.
Under the agreements, the companies will pay up to $37 million just to compensate government and other public entities for damages.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced a $553 million multistate settlement with seven major technology corporations alleged to have illegally conspired to artificially inflate prices for liquid crystal display (LCD) screens used in televisions, computer monitors and laptops. New York state taxpayers may receive upward of $11 million, in addition to restitution to compensate consumers affected by the scheme, the attorney general's office said.
The corporations-which include Chi Mei Innolux, Chunghwa Picture Tubes, Epson Imaging Devices, HannStar Display, Hitachi Displays, Samsung Electronics and Sharp, and certain affiliated entities of each corporation-agreed to pay over $538 million to settle antitrust claims brought on behalf of consumers, government entities and other public entities by a multistate group of eight attorneys general and private class-action attorneys.
Separately, five of the companies agreed to pay over $14 million to settle civil fine and penalty law claims brought by the states in their law enforcement capacities. The corporations also agreed to engage in antitrust compliance programs and to cooperate with the states' ongoing prosecution of other industry participants.
So its ok to re-use or recycle something that has a dubious history, despite you naming Western companies that you try and avoid because of this, as well as saying that you were "carefully selecting each part based on a background check of the companies and their suppliers"? So is it ok to by products from less reputable manufacturers second hand because you are not directly financing them?
Didn't buy a thing to make the keyboard. Please wrap your brain around that concept.
I never claimed that you had bought the keyboard, that is why I asked if "its ok to re-use or recycle something that has a dubious history". Avoiding that question and them attempting to deflect isn't a very honest way to conduct a debate.
Grey Templar wrote: How did this become an ethically sourced computer discussion?
Dread and Frazz were trying to show me to be a hypocrite and were frustrated by me not being one, and so are nit picking. I'm waiting to see how far they get down the line. I'm figuring they'll work their way down to 'Hitler's fourth cousin twice removed worked sweeping floors at an IBM subcontractor 20 years after they made the typewriter keys I used, therefore I support Nazis and am unethical.
Grey Templar wrote: How did this become an ethically sourced computer discussion?
Dread and Frazz were trying to show me to be a hypocrite and were frustrated by me not being one, and so are nit picking. I'm waiting to see how far they get down the line. I'm figuring they'll work their way down to 'Hitler's fourth cousin twice removed worked sweeping floors at an IBM subcontractor 20 years after they made the typewriter keys I used, therefore I support Nazis and am unethical.
Personally I find your efforts to use parts produced by the “least bad” companies you can find or recycled parts quite commendable.
BaronIveagh wrote: Dread and Frazz were trying to show me to be a hypocrite and were frustrated by me not being one, and so are nit picking. I'm waiting to see how far they get down the line. I'm figuring they'll work their way down to 'Hitler's fourth cousin twice removed worked sweeping floors at an IBM subcontractor 20 years after they made the typewriter keys I used, therefore I support Nazis and am unethical.
Or its just simply a case that you made some pretty bold claims that may have been inaccurate. Some (including by your own admission) is less than ethical based on what can be easily seen without nit-picking. Everyone that reads it they can determine whether the evidence stacks up against your claims or not because I feel that we are straying too far off-topic.
Grey Templar wrote: How did this become an ethically sourced computer discussion?
Dread and Frazz were trying to show me to be a hypocrite and were frustrated by me not being one, and so are nit picking. I'm waiting to see how far they get down the line. I'm figuring they'll work their way down to 'Hitler's fourth cousin twice removed worked sweeping floors at an IBM subcontractor 20 years after they made the typewriter keys I used, therefore I support Nazis and am unethical.
No I think its been pretty well shown at this point. You use plastic made by an eviol chemical company, drilled by en evil oil company, and powered by an evil power company which also uses dead plants and bugs from the Devonian Age.
Palestinian group says Syria OKs attacks on Israel
BEIRUT (AP) — President Bashar Assad's regime has given a Palestinian militant group the go-ahead to set up missiles to attack Israel in the wake of recent Israeli airstrikes on the Syrian capital, a spokesman for the group said Tuesday.
Syria has hinted at possible retribution against Israel since the Jewish state carried out the airstrikes over the weekend, although official government statements have been relatively mild. In that light, the Assad regime's decision to allow a minor Syria-based Palestinian group to prepare for attacks is largely seen as a face-saving gesture unlikely to escalate the confrontation with Israel.
"Syria has given the green light to set up missile batteries to directly attack Israeli targets," Anwar Raja of the Damascus-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command told The Associated Press.
He said authorities also told the PFLP-GC that the group could carry out attacks independently without consulting Syrian authorities.
"Practically, the Syrian stand has always been supportive of the Palestinian resistance and Syria provides the Palestinian resistance with all capabilities including all kinds of weapons," Raja said.
When the revolt against Assad's rule began in March 2011, the half-million-strong Palestinian community in Syria largely stayed on the sidelines. But as the uprising shifted into a civil war, many Palestinians backed the rebels, while some groups have been fighting on the government side.
Those include the PFLP-GC, a small Damascus-based Palestinian militant faction that the U.S has designated a terrorist organization.
In the 1960s through 1980s, PFLP-GC militants hijacked an Israeli airliner, machine-gunned another at Zurich's airport, and blew up a Tel Aviv-bound Swissair plane, killing all 47 aboard. In 1987, a PFLP-GC guerrilla flew from Lebanon into Israel on a hang-glider and killed six soldiers before being shot dead.
While the group earned notoriety for its past attacks on Israel, it has been eclipsed in the past 20 years by the other Islamic militant groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Israel's government has not formally confirmed involvement in the strikes on Syria. However, Israeli officials have said the attacks were meant to prevent advanced Iranian weapons from reaching Lebanon's Hezbollah militia, an ally of Syria and foe of Israel.
The airstrikes raised the possibility of a wider regional conflict with Syria, which is already engulfed in a civil war that has killed more than 70,000 people, as its focal point.
Iran, a close ally of the Assad regime, has condemned the Israeli attacks and warned of possible retaliation.
But on Tuesday, Iran's foreign minister said it is Syria's Arab neighbors — not Tehran — who should respond to the Israeli strikes.
Speaking to reporters in Amman, Jordan, Ali Akbar Salehi said Arab nations "must stand by their brethren in Damascus."
The Israeli strikes were met with condemnation from Arab nations, even those who oppose Assad and support the rebellion against him, but the protests stopped there.
Iran is deeply concerned with the fate of the Assad regime, which has allowed Syrian territory to serve as a conduit for Iranian weapons and other support to reach their proxy, Hezbollah. Tehran has supplied cash and weapons to help the Syrian government in its efforts to crush the anti-Assad revolt.
Salehi warned of the possible repercussions if the government in Damascus was to fall.
"The fallout from a vacuum in Syria will have adverse effects on its neighbors and the whole region," he said. "There will be serious repercussions from a vacuum. It will be grave and nobody can predict the results."
Israel asks Russia not to sell Syria advanced S-300 air shield: officials
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel has asked Russia not to sell Syria an advanced air defense system which would help President Bashar al-Assad fend off foreign military intervention as he battles a more than two-year-old rebellion, Israeli officials said on Thursday.
Citing U.S. officials, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Israel had told Washington that Syria had already began payments for a $900 million purchase of the S-300 and an initial delivery was due within three months.
The S-300 is designed to shoot down planes and missiles at 125-mile (200-km) ranges. It would enhance Syria's current Russian-supplied defenses, which did not deter Israel from launching devastating air strikes around Damascus last weekend.
"We have raised objections to this (sale) with the Russians, and the Americans have too," an Israeli official told Reuters.
There was no immediate comment from Moscow or Damascus.
In 2010, Russia backed out of a tentative S-300 sale to Iran that had been in the works for years. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev cited U.N. sanctions imposed that year over Iran's defiance of international demands to curb its nuclear program.
Israel and the United States, which threaten military attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities if diplomatic alternatives fail, had lobbied Moscow to drop the deal with Tehran.
ISRAEL ATTACKS
Israel bombed sites near the Syrian capital on Friday and Sunday which intelligence sources said held Iranian-supplied missiles destined for Hezbollah guerrillas in neighboring Lebanon. The heavy presence of Israeli warplanes in Lebanese airspace suggested they may have eluded Syrian defenses by launching long-range missiles across the border at the targets.
Assad accused his Israeli foe of attacking Syria in order to support the insurgency there - an allegation denied by Israel, though, like Western powers, it has urged his ouster.
Russia, however, has balked at such calls. It voiced "particular alarm" at Israel's air strikes, seeing a possible precursor for Western military intervention against Assad.
Robert Hewson, an IHS Jane's air power analyst, said that were Syria to receive the S-300 it would probably take several months to deploy and operate the system. But he suggested it would not pose a big challenge for Israel's hi-tech air force.
"It's a fairly well-established, fairly well-understood system, so there is a corpus of knowledge, particularly among Israel's friends, about how to deal with this system," he said.
Once activated, the S-300 could easily be spotted thanks to its distinctive radar signal, Hewson said, "and from there it's a fairly short step to taking it out. It's not a wonder-weapon."
Cyprus bought the S-300 and eventually positioned it on the Greek island of Crete. Israel, which has close ties with Nicosia and Athens, may have tested its jets against that S-300's capabilities during Mediterranean overflights, Hewson said.
When I said send in food etc. I should have added that we send those supplies to friendly neighbouring countries that are dealing with the refugees from the conflict.
