Idlib hospital NICU hit with CW
It appears that RuAF and SyAF have launched air strikes on Idleeb yesterday. It is generally believed (based on the tone of statements on RU and Assad friendly fora) that these attacks are part of a reciprocity for the downing of the Su25.Based on reports from the ground, the SyAF has used chlorine gas in these strikes and at least one of these strikes has hit a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in a hospital there. I have reviewed the images such as these[1 -WARNING!!! EXTREMELY NSFL+NSFW] from this site. Based on the information presented from these ground reports, I believe I am looking at something beyond the usual war crime that I have become numb to in the Syrian Civil War context.
I do not know if Putin was aware of Assad's intention to use Chlorine gas on a NICU but that question will be asked by everyone including people inside Russia. If Putin was aware then that makes him a participant in this war crime, if he didn't know then it looks like he can't even control a shitty captive asset like Assad.
I do not believe that the usual "the White Helmets did it to their own hospital" story will carry weight as no one actually believes anything the Kremlin says. Statements of the usual "what about Mai Lai in Vietnam" etc... will not move the needle with anyone that matters.
As long as there was no temporal overlap between RU reciprocity operations in Syria and Assad's fetish for mass murder, the notional distance between Assad's Nazi antics and Putin's personal responsibility could be maintained.
Now with such a close temporal overlap between RUAF reciprocal strikes and Assad's genocidal freakshow - the distance is gone.
As awareness of this crime spreads it will be exceedingly difficult for Trump to resist the pressure to do something about this. If Trump does not act against Assad for these attacks - the calls for his removal and imprisonment as a Russian agent will get immensely strong. His much advertised tax cut has just caused his poll numbers to rise, GOPers are slowly coming back over to Trump's side because he finally did something he actually promised, that support will ebb if he looks like a holster for Putin's cock. A rise in the stories about the Trump Russia scandal will tank Trump's numbers again.
Trump loves launching cruise missiles, it makes his poll numbers go up as GOPers get a hard on every time he does that. So - the question really is - when Trump launches his cruise missiles, will he be able to put some kind of magical spell on them to make sure they only hit Assad's guys and kill absolutely no Russians?
And how will that look for Putin's re-election prospects? Will the powers-that-be* in the Grand Duchy of Moscow tolerate someone who can't seem to manage his assets properly?
* An easy way to think about Russia is the oil/coal/gas is in the east and the food is in the west. In order for oil to go west and food to go east, it must cross the Moscow railway station. Everything is decided by a handful of people in Moscow. The rest just sit and wait for the food or oil/coal/gas to come in on the next train.
posted by maverick @ 6:34 AM
2 Comments:
boss putin hasn't yet given trumpy bear his marching orders......so trumpy bear awaits his excellency's next instructions on syria.....when he finds them out, russian charity workers will be outta the way and safely bunkered down.....then trumpy bear can safely blaze away w/o hurting russian charity critters.
Let us see what happens, you are probably right that Trump will try to use cruise missiles in a way that doesn't hit Russia directly, but an Assad who feels victimized is a powerful enemy in a land where RU supply chains are 2X longer than their supply chains to Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation.
The usual RU mouthpieces are ominously quiet on the NICU attack. Wonder if they are trying to figure out which is better for Putin's public image.
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