Quote Originally Posted by oladub View Post
aj, You've been snorting McCain again haven't you?
Ah, there's the type of fact-based rebuttal I've come to expect from you.

Timeline of the situation in Douma:

March 2018: A Syrian Army offensive splits East Ghouta into three rebel-held pockets.

March 21-23: Rebel groups Ahrar al-Sham and Faylaq al-Rahman cut evacuation deals with the government. Rebel fighters and their families are evacuated by the government to rebel-held Idlib in Northern Syria and the Syrian government rolls into two of the three rebel-held pockets unopposed. This leaves Douma as the sole remaining rebel pocket.

March 28 - April 1: The Jaish al-Islam rebel group, which controls the Douma pocket, negotiates with the Russians for an evacuation deal. The Syrian Army makes preparations to storm Douma by force if negotiations fail.

April 1-4: A few hundred people are evacuated from Douma as part of the negotiations. Internal disagreement within Jaish al-Islam results in the collapse of the negotiations and the end of the evacuation from Douma.

April 3: Donald Trump tells military leaders to begin planning the "immediate withdrawal" of U.S. troops from Syria.

April 6: Russia and Syria resume bombardment of rebel-held Douma as the SAA prepares for a brutal full-scale ground invasion and urban warfare.

April 7: An alleged chemical attack on Douma kills 70 people and sickens 500.

April 8 [[one day after the chemical attack): Jaish al-Islam surrenders Douma to the Russians in exchange for evacuation. Russian military police roll into Douma unopposed, the entire pocket is seized without so much as a single government or Russian casualty.


Now oladub, if you examine the events of April 6-8, you tell me who might have had a motivation to use chemical weapons, why they would do so, why they would choose that particularly time and place, and whether or not the use of chemical weapons achieved their intended strategic purpose. On April 6, the SAA and the Russians were faced with the potential of weeks of brutal street-to-street fighting to seize that pocket. It likely would have come at the cost of hundreds of government soldiers killed and wounded. Then, the next day, an airstrike allegedly rains down chlorine gas mixed with nerve agent, killing dozens. Then, faced with the threat of further chemical assault, the rebels decide they don't want to fight anymore. Russia and Assad take the whole pocket without a shot being fired.

But yeah, I guess it's totally unreasonable to suspect that maybe Assad did it, right? And of course, if Assad in the days prior got some kind of signal from the international community [[or one country in particular) that made him think they'd be less inclined to intervene if he did use chemical weapons, would that make him MORE likely or LESS likely to want to use them in a very advantageous situation that just presented itself?

Now, having said that, I'm not advocating a unilateral impulsive military response. But that doesn't mean I don't think Assad did it. He is, by far, the most likely culprit. And of course, Trump telling the world "we're leaving Syria" would be at the forefront of his mind as he weighed the pros and cons of using chemical weapons again.