Therefore, in case you missed it the first time, Obama reminded the world in his speech on September 28, 2015 to the United Nations General Assembly of Assad's crimes against his own people:
And so Assad and his allies cannot simply pacify the broad majority of a population who have been brutalized by chemical weapons and indiscriminate bombing. [1]So Obama implies in his statesmanlike delivery from the teleprompter that the Syrian people have suffered enough from chemical weapons to support Assad. I guess he Obama is telling us that Assad attacked his own people with chemical weapons. His repeating this accusation may seem overkill, but it is necessary so us laymen can use his reassuring words as a buffer from any propaganda broadsides that may argue against our prematurely condemning Assad.
In that same forum on September 24, 2013, Obama claimed the minimum standard of critical thinking demanded we accept his information that Assad attacked his own people with sarin gas on August 21, 2013:
The evidence is overwhelming that the Assad regime used such weapons on August 21st. U.N. inspectors gave a clear accounting that advanced rockets fired large quantities of sarin gas at civilians. These rockets were fired from a regime-controlled neighborhood, and landed in opposition neighborhoods. It’s an insult to human reason -- and to the legitimacy of this institution -- to suggest that anyone other than the regime carried out this attack. [2]He definitively lectures that we forsake human reason if we believe anyone other than Assad's regime used sarin gas against his own people. But, just as some Syrians surely oppose Assad, we should oppose Obama's consigning our critical thinking skills to a programmed state similar to the masses of drones he so fondly uses.
His pathos should mute any doubts about who or what actually authorized the sarin gas attack. Right? Except, however, that Richard Lloyd a former UN Weapons Inspector and Theodore A. Postol a professor of Science, Technology, and National Security Policy at MIT performed a detailed study using laws of physics rather than pathos to cast doubt on Assad as the culprit. They argued in their study published by the MIT Science, Technology, and Global Security Working Group that:
The Range-of the rocket loaded with the sarin-does not change drastically with significant changes in the body weight or due to uncertainties in the aerodynamic drag coefficient...
and
Due to volume and fuel density constraints, out assumptions of rocket propellant carried by the munition is at the top end of what is possible.....
Consequently,
This means that our estimated maximum range of 2 km for the improvised munition is close to its upper possible range!
Therefore,
In turn, it means that the U.S. Government's interpretation (author's italics) of the technical intelligence it gathered prior to and after the August 21 attack cannot possibly be correct. [3]If the Obama administration were serious about understanding what and who caused this sarin gas attack they would review such studies referenced above. But, Obama's referencing chemical attacks in his most recent speech to the UN on September 28, 2015 shows fact-finding and using the current body of scientific inquiry to assist our understanding of such events that have critical effects on global stability is not a priority in his foreign policy.
Facts should prompt our questioning the U.S. empire's policy sequence of regime change, rinse, repeat. Putin deploying his military to assist Assad and to fight ISIS may place Syria on an even faster track into an abyss. Thus, the U.S. empire would prefer we morally support the Obama administration as it clings to its agenda of regime change in Damascus. Meanwhile, the facts on the ground in Syria once learned reveal Obama's rhetoric demonizing Putin is more propaganda in slow motion. Stay tuned, but more important, stay critical.
[1]. U.S. President Barack Obama. "President Obama's Speech to the United Nations General Assembly 2015." The New York Times. September 28, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/world/americas/president-obamas-speech-to-the-united-nations-general-assembly-2015.html?_r=0
[2]. U.S. President Barack Obama. "Remarks by President Obama in Address to the United Nations General Assembly." September 24, 2013. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/09/24/remarks-president-obama-address-united-nations-general-assembly
[3]. Richard Lloyd and Theodore A. Postol. "Possible Implications of Faulty US Technical Intelligence in the Damascus Nerve Agent Attack of August 21, 2013." MIT Science, Technology , and Global Security Working Group. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1006045-possible-implications-of-bad-intelligence.html
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