Why? This is no surprise.

Who here hates the US? Krellin, are you sure you're reading the same forums as everyone else?

We love humanity, and want the best for it! And the US is at least some small part of humanity - so, logically, we love the US aswell.

(but honestly, arguements over military action in Syria are all based on not wanting people to die, Thucy takes the view that we can stop Syrians from dying, and others take the view that we can't let Americans die... don't you see the love all round??)

orthaic....are you in a different forum? As I can tell, there are a *great* number of people around here that blame the US for all sorts of evil in the world. The United States is a government entity...Americans are the people of the United States - there is a distinct difference. But please...give me a break if you think there aren't a great number around here that have nothing but disdain for the US..lol

To be fair, krellin, most of those people are Americans

OCt -- good lord, please. A vast majority of the Europeans / Canadian have nothing but disdain for the US. Glad to see you have all suddenly become lovers of this great country....I'd like some of what you and orath are smoking today, though, if you think these forums are full of great love for the US.

Anyway....if the US was *at all* complicit in knowing about a pending chemical attack and didn't launch a Tomahawk to take out the launch facilities, and or did not warn anyone - including the *world* - then I think that this is perhaps the *lowest* point in the history of the United States...and we have now become a nation that is *no better* than the *worst* actors throughout recorded history.

@krellin, I can think of a few worse times in which the US did stuff it shouldn't be proud of. The Spanish American War for one, but ya if that allegation ends up being true I'd say that competes for the top ten in black marks on US History. To be fair though, I can't think of anyone who doesn't have more than their fair share of rough patches in History. Not trying to justify anything here, but the US isn't the only one who does stuff like this.

So lower than Roosevelt baiting the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor to get an excuse to join WWII?

I can't tell if you are serious P E, but I don't think the US needed an excuse to join that war.

'this great country' - wow, i never said it was a great country... please don't put words in my mouth.

@Kramerkov, the irish have never invaded anyone (we never even had a chance!)

@Orthaic, true. What I was getting at though was that every country has stuff it's not proud of and shouldn't be proud of. For the Irish it is the IRA.

Not proud of the IRA? you must not be irish... (my great grandfather was an IRB man, long story)

i'm sure when kramerkov said IRA he meant a loyalist paramilitary full of shitbags, instead of a freedom promoting republican organisation ;)

I don't buy it, and I hate the U.S. The risks are too high for such a low reward to orchestrate such a thing.

I was talking about the IRA after they split and had a civil war between one another. The more extreme half started to resort to tactics which hurt innocence so while they were a good thing starting out it got a little messy for a while.

Also I am of Irish decent on my mother's side.

Yeah, the civil war sucked for all concerned. The men who killed their brothers, the death of innocents, the continued political division even to this day (two main parties in Ireland are a legacy of the pro- and anti- treaty sides - with little or no policy differences between them...)

"I don't buy it, and I hate the U.S."

Why do you hate the U.S. ??

agent orange

'a very strong case, based on solid circumstantial evidence,' - how can you build any case on circumstantial evidence?

sorry, should mention, that is from the article posted in the OP

orathaic - in a criminal case, it is possible to try and convict a person on strong circumstantial evidence. Circumstantial does not mean not real.

Fuck....the US is spying on just about every fucking citizen in the world...we have spy sat's all over the middle east...you think we had *no* fucking clue someone was about to launch a chemical attack?

*Extremely* hard to believe we had no idea.

The United States is the most successful at espionage/propaganda ever in human history.

@krellin, circumstantial is like the definition of 'correlation does not imply causation'

It's like saying "well a bunch of jews insured offices in the world trade centre the day before they were destroyed - therefore it was an inside job" - which is something that has been said (or along the lines of truther arguements)

The US is spying on the internet? i'm not sure if chemical weapons have a facebook profile...

But aside, that's not to say this didn't happen. I did post a link to an article, a several days ago, saying: Saudi Arabia had sent these weapons which the opposition accidentally detonated.

Oh, and Saudi Arabia is somewhere on the allied side of the US foreign policy.

orath - there is a *wide* range of what circumstantial evidence can be, and it can be just as powerful, if enough is gathered, as "direct" evidence - hence people get convicted on it.

We know a cookie was stolen
We know the mischievious child baking the cookies put tiny screws in the cookies
We know orathaic was seen with cookie crumbs on his mouth
We know orathaic was admitted to the hospital with abdominal problems and the doc removed a tiny screw from his intestine.

I think I could convict you of stealing my cookies with this circumstantial evidence.

@Krellin, the fact that you found something as specific as screws in his stomach is a little more than circumstantial, but I get where you are going with this. A point well made.

@Krellin, ok i concede your point.

Hey, krellin: I don't know about this, but you know who did help plan a chemical attack? Your friend Reagan did. Documents declassified a couple weeks ago show that 'the United States informed Baathist Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War of a planned Iranian offensive even though the U. S. knew that Saddam Hussein would respond with a chemical weapons attack', with Reagan himself writing on the margins of a report that an Iranian victory in the area was 'unacceptable'. You know what that sounds like to me? It sounds like a diplomatic and convuluted way of saying that the U. S. helped plan a chemical attack.

Jece... all I'm gonna say is this:

Really, you're going there?

bo_sox48: Why not? Substantiated claims sound more interesting to me than wild ones.

"The Spanish American War"

War over Cuba was inevitable. Spain wanted to preserve its most important overseas territory by protecting it from US economic interests while Cuba was becoming more and more important for US trade. I don't see what is particularly wrong with US actions here (or Spanish actions for that matter).

All you're doing is engaging in useless political rhetoric that says much more about YOU than it does the people you're discussing. That's why not.

JECE...so what...all you are doing is supporting the idea that the US can be a bad actor doing bad things....so in other words, yes, you think
OBAMA knew about and/or helped plan the chemical attack in Syria in order to increase the volume on the war drums...most likely to *very effectively* get the heat off him for what a lousy President he has been (economy still in shambles, OBamacare is destroying a once-great helath care system, his admin is riddled with scandals both internal to the nation and around the globe...)..

No shocker at all that Obama needs a good war to turn the attention away from his lousy job.

"economy still in shambles, OBamacare is destroying a once-great helath care system"

- you've no evidence that another president would have done a worse job with the economy, and the economy started to collapse because of previous presidents.

Also, are you not in favour of the free market sorting itself out? Why should the government be involved in the economy at all?

And the health care system in America was a total disaster for some: (see an american's point of view: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7LF5Vj2n64 )

Knowing someone one will use them and turning a blind eye is not the same as helping them plan the attack, JECE. One is accessory to the action while the other is participant. It's the difference between knowing someone is going to rob a casino and actually helping them plan Ocean's 11.

And Obama will never get his war in Syria because ills show the majority of America know this will be another Iraq and don't want their sons and daughters put in harms way.

Polls show

1) slight problem with this theory. The US isn't going to war.

2) shut up bo_sox.

Agreed dirge. Congress will never allow it. Oblamer screwed up by asking the House Armed Services Committee permission instead of (ab)using the War Powers Act to put troops in and force their hand.

Oblamer can't make a tough foreign policy decision to save his legacy.

Dirge, you really want to encourage a "who does less harm - Democrats or Republicans?" debate?

If you do, be my guest. I'll leave you to it.

suppose its been done here before aye . . .

Anyway I think JECE points out an important thing. Not just the implication that the Reagan admin was complicit (which may very well be, and not only is there circumstantial and substantiated in the Reagan-Iraq case, there is also clear motive). But more importantly, and to the point, it is an example of the fact that the US is not singly responsible for (or for stopping) every bad thing that happens on the planet.

The so called motive for the obama admin to orchestrate this is thin to absurd. Then there is the carrying out of such a plot. Unbelievable.

Looking the other way on the other hand, I'm pretty sure that's happened every day for the last 70 years.

"the United States informed Baathist Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War of a planned Iranian offensive even though the U. S. knew that Saddam Hussein would respond with a chemical weapons attack', with Reagan himself writing on the margins of a report that an Iranian victory in the area was 'unacceptable"

Both sides in the war used chemical weapons. Iran used blood agents throughout the war. Chemical weapons were used in the Afghan war in the 1980s. There wasn't any reason to believe that such usage was out of line with common practice at the time. The fact that the US government gave Iraq battlefield information about Iranian positions helped bring an end to the war.