Meanwhile in Iraq & Syria

[de officiis]

This is not "America First", so there's one of his biggest campaign promises already broken.

And the progressive propaganda is already being pushed that Trump orchestrated the false flag chemical attack. This changes nothing about the "Russia narrative" that will continue to be pushed.

Presumably, nothing sort of a nuclear strike on Moscow would change that mindset. Yeesh.

[Dand]

Now there's a great example of partisan bullshit.

Needless to say, won't go anywhere.

It's depressing that journalists meant to cover international relations, can't work out why it makes sense to inform Russia first of attacks that may hurt or kill Russians.

It is downright pathetic and incompetence on their part. I find it more infuriating than depressing that such people whose job it is to understand don't understand.

They could just be lying or saying what they're told to say.

[DBTrek]

It's depressing that journalists meant to cover international relations, can't work out why it makes sense to inform Russia first of attacks that may hurt or kill Russians.

Hey, Smitty can't either.
As they say, we have to remember that half the population is below average, right?

[Fife]

Median. On days when present company posts in this particular population, pretty much the entire population is below average. :goteam: Bienvenue.

[Speaker to Animals]

Can we back this up to the part where we don't have any substantive confirmation that there was a chemical strike in the first place, or if there was one, who was responsible?

Assad gave up his chemical weapons a few years ago. He is winning the civil war. He has no need to launch chemical weapons at people. The rebels on the other hand actually have been manufacturing them, especially chlorine gas, and it's entirely possible that what the Syrian government claims is true: they hit a rebel ammunition dump not knowing there was a stockpile of chemical weapons there.

It's really strange to me that that the various rebel factions have been launching chemical weapons on people for years and nobody gave a shit, but now this..

[BjornP]

It's depressing that journalists meant to cover international relations, can't work out why it makes sense to inform Russia first of attacks that may hurt or kill Russians.

It is downright pathetic and incompetence on their part. I find it more infuriating than depressing that such people whose job it is to understand don't understand.

They could just be lying or saying what they're told to say.

I don't think most of them are outright lying, as in creating "fake news". It's more that their editors may believe that a certain narrative on a news event is more.... sellable to what the editors considers their core audience and thus asks them to spin in a certain way or report guesswork as facts to up the drama.

I don't doubt for a second they will spin a story to discredit the sitting president out of some sense of loyalty, even to the level where they spin it so far that a positive story will look like a negative one. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. There was a good story by a journalist about the major issues surrounding journalism maybe a couple years ago and one of the troubles on the long list was that because of massive spending cuts across the media landscape in the wake of the transition from hard print to online news, "field time" and how many hours journalists can spend researching was more limited. Another reason was the need to be first with the news. What you're hinting at, the collusion between people in power (both politics and business) and media was another of the points the journalist in that article had on his list of major grievances.

[Montegriffo]

Can we back this up to the part where we don't have any substantive confirmation that there was a chemical strike in the first place, or if there was one, who was responsible?

Assad gave up his chemical weapons a few years ago. He is winning the civil war. He has no need to launch chemical weapons at people.

Chemical weapons aren't about military capabilities, they are about terrorising the opposition into giving up. When you are at the front fighting Assad and he attacks your family back at home with chemical weapons you are supposed to stop fighting to run home and check on your loved ones.

[Fife]

Can we back this up to the part where we don't have any substantive confirmation that there was a chemical strike in the first place, or if there was one, who was responsible?

Assad gave up his chemical weapons a few years ago. He is winning the civil war. He has no need to launch chemical weapons at people. The rebels on the other hand actually have been manufacturing them, especially chlorine gas, and it's entirely possible that what the Syrian government claims is true: they hit a rebel ammunition dump not knowing there was a stockpile of chemical weapons there.

It's really strange to me that that the various rebel factions have been launching chemical weapons on people for years and nobody gave a shit, but now this..

Assad launching the attack on Tuesday makes less and less sense the more I think about it.

[kybkh]

It's depressing that journalists meant to cover international relations, can't work out why it makes sense to inform Russia first of attacks that may hurt or kill Russians.

It is downright pathetic and incompetence on their part. I find it more infuriating than depressing that such people whose job it is to understand don't understand.[/quote]

I LITERALLY started screaming at the television last night over the coverage from CNN. (((Not Sarcastically))) I screamed because they do understand why you would notify the Russians ahead of time but choose to act like they don't for political purposes only. No concern with honesty or national interest.

[Speaker to Animals]

I mean.. has the irony completely escaped people around here that the people our government armed and funded have been launching chemical weapons attacks on civilians for years now?

Our government is actually guilty of what they are accusing the Russian government of supporting based on a flimsy youtube video.