The new 'Red Line' in Syria: Barrel Bombs

It seems the 'red line' in Syria has gotten very thin.

The White House press secretary warned Syria to stop using barrel bombs against civilians, suggesting President Donald Trump may expand the criteria for U.S. action against Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
“If you gas a baby, if you put a barrel bomb into innocent people, I think you can -- you will see a response from this president,” Sean Spicer told reporters at his daily briefing on Monday. “That is unacceptable.”

Let's put some context to these unacceptable numbers.

The Syrian government dropped at least 12,958 barrel bombs in 2016, resulting in the deaths of at least 653 civilians, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights.

Now let's look at what is acceptable.

U.S.-led coalition airstrikes in Iraq and Syria may have already killed 1,484 civilians in just Iraq and Syria this month alone, more than three times the number killed in President Barack Obama’s final full month in office, according to British monitoring group Airwars. For the first time, the number of alleged civilian casualties in events carried out by the U.S.-led coalition has exceeded the death toll of attacks launched by Russia.

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It's America that is slaughtering the most civilians from the air.
So it must be how Syria is killing civilians. Their barrel bombs must be different from the barrel bombs our Iraqi ally drops on civilians.

Nevertheless, the Trump Administration appears ready to go that extra mile into complete insanity.

On the eve of a critical visit to Moscow at a time of high US-Russian tensions over Syria, the US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, appeared to go even further, saying his country would come to the defence of innocent civilians “anywhere in the world”.
...
“It’s head-spinning,” said Philip Gordon, a special assistant to the president on the Middle East in the Obama administration. “They went from vehement opposition to any kind of military intervention to executing those strikes and saying that’s what we would be doing any time chemical weapons are used.
“This is on a whole new level, if Tillerson is really saying we would defend the innocent anywhere in the world,” Gordon added. “If that’s the new standard, we are going to be doing a lot of intervening.”

Yeeehawww! It looks like this military empire is going to go down in a shooting ball of flaming glory.

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be killed by a barrel bomb or by a fancy American missile. It's a tough call.

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native

CB's picture

@native
as an American Mark 81 (500#) or Mark 82 (1,000#) filled with tritonal. (BTW, the Saudis bought 8,000 Mark 82's in 2015.) The barrel bombs don't penetrate into buildings like the American bombs which go into the basement and bring the entire building down.

If I had a choice, I'd go with the barrel bombs if I have to be bombed.

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edg's picture

@CB

If 13,000 barrel bombs only killed 650 civilians, it's clear that barrel bombs are far safer than American weapons.

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Amanda Matthews's picture

Hell I figured it was abdolutely vital to keep the Clinton Creature out of the White House because she'd want to start bombing here, there, and everywhere. We apparently were screwed every which way.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

dervish's picture

@Amanda Matthews The Deep State will have its wars, you and I be damned.

I am definitely surprised that Trump is involved in this particular war though, I guess it shows how much power the Deep State wields.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

Alligator Ed's picture

@dervish he did so because of Deep State (and the Evil Queen).

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snoopydawg's picture

@Amanda Matthews
then there wouldn't be much pushback against the wars just like there wasn't during Obama's tenure.
Not only would the democrats in congress be on board with what she did, but her supporters would be too.
Bush invaded two countries, Obama continued his Bush's wars and started two new wars and expanded the drone wars in 7-8 countries. #8 is Sudan and none of those countries qualify for him to use the AUMF because that was only supposed to be against the countries that were involved with 9/11 except for possibly Pakistan because that was where Bin Laden was rumored to be.
Congress did mollify it because he was allegedly going after Al Qaida members.
I don't know how he could get away with putting troops in 130-158 countries because they too were not involved with 9/11.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Amanda Matthews's picture

@snoopydawg @snoopydawg @snoopydawg
Is in the White House. I don't see anyone putting a halt to any of Trump's atrocities. He's just following in the footsteps of the neocon thugs who 'Shock and Awed' Iraq and the last 'New' Democrat who parked his Peace Prize winning ass in Oval Office and attacked a number of countries without 'authority' every single day he was in office and who could NOT be stopped by anyone. The orange clown now befouling the White House is simply doing the same damn thing.

Is there anyone on the horizon that you see capable of derailing his war program? I don't see that happening, in fact he just might be as crazy as the last two presidents we had guiding us on the path of never ending war and exactly like the Clinton Creature who he defeated. Or he could be worse given the fact that Trump and reality have absolutely NOTHING in common. The only thing real to that guy is his ego and bank balance and he's going to manipulate this whole country to enhance both. It would take an act by Congress to take back their authority to declare 'war' but then that would make them responsible for our foreign entanglements, and they're all too chickenshit to accept that responsibility and do their jobs according to the Constitution..

Yes, one of the reasons the Clinton Creature was dangerous was because she would be unstoppable in her warmongering and lies. Well don't look now but I think we've got the same situation on our hands with Trump.

EDIT: got rid of word 'left' that didn't make sense.

BIG EDIT: what pushback btw? The Clinton Creature had just called for an attack on Assad. The Dems were screeching for justice for the victims of the gas attack - which means taking out Assad. So I'm curious as to where all this resistance is coming from. Not being snarky, but asking a serious question.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

@Amanda Matthews
It makes perfect sense.

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edg's picture

@gjohnsit

My neighbor's dog crapped in my yard. I want Trump to call in an airstrike on my neighbor's house.

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CB's picture

@edg
I've called in a strike on YOUR house.

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Amanda Matthews's picture

@edg
beating the airwaves and intertubes calling for an attack on Syria. Maybe Trump and the Clinton Creature could team up. You know, a political equivalent of a geriatric Bonnie and Clyde.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

Thaumlord-Exelbirth's picture

@Amanda Matthews And that's why I'd rather it had been Trump doing it over Hillary. Trump is making nearly everybody pissed off with his actions. Hillary would have kept both sides fairly complacent about it (the Dems because you support the empress no matter what, and the Reps because it was expected she would do it).

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@Thaumlord-Exelbirth I am confident nothing really is going to change (I don't even buy the "but we're reaching Armageddon faster" line) but maybe people would finally start paying attention to the bad stuff our government is doing. Unfortunately, the Dems and TPTB have made things more about Trump as a person than what he's actually doing, and that it's been done before, rarely comes up.

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

Thaumlord-Exelbirth's picture

@Dr. John Carpenter But it certainly seems like we're reaching it more noisily.

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CB's picture

You can hide in the basement and survive. The US 500# Mark 82 penetrates and will explode deep inside the building, bringing the entire structure down like the one in Mosul which killed 200 civilians, most women and children.

Here is a US bombing hit on a school. You can see before and after pictures on the following site. These people had been taking shelter after being told to leave Raqqa before the bombing there. The US then bombed where they had fled for safety.

More than 30 dead after US-led coalition air strike hits school sheltering families near Raqqa
22 March 2017 • 10:13am

A suspected US air strike on a school being used as a shelter by families displaced from the Isil-held Syrian city of Raqqa killed at least 33 people on Tuesday, in the latest high civilian casualty raid by the coalition.

A school being used by some 50 families in Mansoura, 15 miles from the capital of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil)’s so-called caliphate, was levelled by airstrikes on Tuesday morning.

The death toll is expected to rise, according to local activists, who said bodies were still being pulled from the rubble and many families were unaccounted for.
...
The nearest Isil installation to the site of the air strike was a religious school two miles away, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

“All remaining hospitals in the countryside have been rendered inoperable,” said one activist from the anti-Isil group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently.

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snoopydawg's picture

to go after Saudi Arabia too since they are dropping cluster bombs on civilians in Yemen. And Israel for using white phosphorus on the civilians in Gaza.
Or they can prosecute Bush and Obama for using white phosphorus and depleted uranium on Fallujah.
Hey, Carter and Kissinger are still alive so let's prosecute them for using millions of gallons of Agent Orange on the Vietnam civilians.
Gawd, I am so disgusted with the double standards of people in our government and anyone else who turns a blind eye to what this country has done for over two centuries.

David Nir has written another diary on DK about how Tulsi Gabbard has firmly established herself as a stooge Assad just because she said that no one has determined who used the chemical weapons in Syria.

Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard firmly established herself as a stooge for murderous Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad when she secretly visited his regime in January and came back spouting pro-Assad nonsense that blamed Syrian's brutal civil war on the U.S. Now she's descended fully into the land of lunatic conspiracy theories to try to take the heat off her favorite dictator, claiming she's "skeptical" that Assad was responsible for using poison gas against his citizens. Whatever you think about how the U.S. should respond to this attack, this is an insane thing to say.

The Hawaiian democrats are tired of her and they want someone to primary her.
And of course most of the people are agreeing with him and anyone who says otherwise is being told that they are just as bad as she is.

Look at how this was turned against her.
Tulsi is not promoting peace, she is promoting an Assad victory. She parrots his talking points.

"(The Syrians) asked me, 'Why are the United States and its allies supporting these terror groups which are destroying Syria, when it was al Qaeda that attacked the United States on 9/11, not Syria.' I didn't have an answer to them."
"Let the Syrian people themselves determine their future, not the United States, not some foreign country," Gabbard said.

Listen to the code...Assad’s opponents are terror groups, she says nothing similar about Assad. Then that wonderful coded language of letting the Syrians decide. They did decide, they started a civil war against Assad.
Your better angels, the ones wishing for peace, are getting played by Tulsi Gabbard. She is not advocating for peace, she is advocating for Assad’s victory, and denying his authoritarianism and use of chemical weapons.
I oppose any US involvement in Syria. But Gabbard is not, and never will be, my ally.
She should get primaried.

I don't understand how this person can get what she said so wrong.

And of course anyone who disagrees with David's opinion are getting slammed.

With due respect I think the criticism of Tulsi is unfair.
Tulsi isn't supporting Assad as much as she's skeptical of the intelligence pointing to him. Just like the Bush admin lied about WMDs in Iraq, Trump could easily be doing the same here.
Tulsi's point, which I fully support, is that we shouldn't be sending our loved ones off to war based on a) attacks that didn't hit Americans and b) fake intelligence. I'll also add that Tulsi as a valiant combat veteran has the utmost credibility to debate issues relating to the warfare state.

One response to this

And apparently liking being in the spotlight, often by preferring to reign in hell than serve in heaven. If she hadn’t been one of the relatively few Dem House members to support Bernie, would anyone have heard of her? I suspect her support for him had far more to do with her own profile than any ideological outlook, if she even has one.

I am having fun reading the comments about Tulsi questioning Trump bombing the Syrian airport and asking the questions that any real progressive would ask, not applauding Trump's actions.
Heh, it's turned into a huge pie fight Smile

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

CB's picture

@snoopydawg

US warplanes launch white phosphorus airstrikes on ISIS militants near Raqqa
DAMASCUS, SYRIA (5:45 P.M.) – New pictures reveal that US airplanes operating in northern Syria are using White phosphorus munitions in sorties on Islamic State insurgents across the embattled Raqqa governorate.

The fiery substance was also recently deployed by American jets to combat ISIS militants across the border in Mosul, a video released by Amaq Agency suggests.

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dervish's picture

@snoopydawg and a war-pig.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

dance you monster's picture

@dervish

,,,because he didn't know any better. David Nir is not an idiot. He knows better. He chooses to spout crap, which is considerably more reprehensible. He has chosen a side, and he's learned from Limbaugh what nonsense you will say for your side.

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@snoopydawg

has a bad case of R2P fever. Responsibility to Protect. It's a nasty bug that's been going around for years, and is particularly prevalent within the continental USA. It is a persistent malady, difficult to shake off once a person is infected. Symptoms include a passionate sense of American righteousness, a burning desire to right all the wrongs in the world, and a compulsion to bomb or invade foreign countries that are not sufficiently democratic. In more advanced stages of the disease, an extreme intolerance of all non-democratic governance may develop, causing the victim to hallucinate and lash out violently against imaginary enemies.

When interacting with people who suffer from R2P fever, it is advisable to avoid all discussion of subjects that may inflame or exacerbate their symptoms.

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native

Big Al's picture

@snoopydawg I've got an essay partly about Tulsi that presents her in a different light. I'm actually hesitant to post it here. Reminds me of the earlier days of Bernie.

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Amanda Matthews's picture

@Big Al @Big Al @Big Al
politicians in the House or Senate today. The only one with any human compassion that's for damn certain. She is taking up where Sanders courage and famous 'ethics' failed and he joined up with the neos (neoliberals, neo-cons = same damn thing).

EDIT: nei/neo and changed - to =

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

Big Al's picture

@Amanda Matthews their course.

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Amanda Matthews's picture

@Big Al
able to continue speaking her conscience as opposed to turning tail and supporting the bunch of scammers who had to make up stories about Russian hackers to cover for their own dishonesty.

It would be nice not having to listen to liars for a change, and I include Sanders in that statement. He either lied to us PRIOR to his capitulation or he's been lying since. Millions of people didn't support him and give him their hard earned money only to watch him get down on his knees to the Clinton Creature and the DNC after he and we had been cheated out of the right to a fair and honest election. I don't even listen to the old goat anymore. I do not see Gabbard as being that weak and needy.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

@Big Al

The appearance of any self-suggested quelling of prospectively posted input civilly presented is... unfortunate - and not what I'd expected from this site... darned scary, actually.

If information potentially contradicting what we'd like to believe cannot be posted here, where does free expression live, or will it live at all, anywhere?

I have to admit that I'd rather see it, as long as it isn't scurrilous. If we'd known more about Obama prior to the election, in example, at least some of us suckers would have been somewhat braced and more watchful and less inclined to give him the benefit of myriad doubts. And we keep saying that we won't be fooled again, but when we avoid what might be unwanted fact, we walk blindly.

Aren't we typically able to disagree amicably here?

And how is anyone to research claims against her in order to explode anything which can be provably mistaken/propaganda if we don't even know what they are?

Either way, I'd personally rather know, and I kinda thought that this was for this site was for, to try to work out the best route forward based on the free exchange of information?

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

link

The Pentagon has struggled in recent weeks to effectively explain what lies behind a surge in reported civilian casualties in its air campaign against the Islamic State, fueling speculation that the new Trump administration is pursuing policies resulting in a greater loss of life....
“It does have a negative impact on our image at least throughout the region and the world, and it’s probably detrimental to the strength of our coalition. And that’s exactly what ISIS is trying to target right now,” Col. Joseph Scrocca, a military spokesman, said in a recent media briefing. ISIS is a common acronym for the Islamic State.
The military’s difficulty in accounting for the civilian casualties — exacerbated by classified regulations and a complex process for airstrikes — has allowed the Islamic State to advance its own version of the events. The group has accused the United States of killing hundreds of residents of Mosul and decried what it has said are “continuous ­American-Iraqi massacres” in that city and elsewhere.

“We’re ceding space to the adversary who wants to create the perception of disregard for civilian life,” said David Deptula, a retired Air Force general who heads the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

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@gjohnsit

you're gonna inflict civilian casualties. There is no way around it. It's as true for the USA, as it is for Assad or for Russia or for ISIS. All wars, whether they are justified or necessary or not, kill untold numbers of innocent civilians. That is in the very nature of the beast.

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native

CB's picture

@native

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native

@gjohnsit

Right, the civilian 'collateral damage' doesn't matter in actual loss of life, terrorizing and suffering. Only the 'optics' matter. To psychopaths.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

CB's picture

@Big Al

More from the site - “The Barrel Bomb Conundrum

If a bomb were to drop near me, I would much prefer it to be a barrel bomb as it would be less likely to kill me than the UK and US manufactured professional variety. If however my guts were to be eviscerated by flying hunks of white hot metal, I would not particularly care what kind of bomb it was. The blanket media use of “barrel bomb” as though it represents something uniquely inhumane is a fascinating example of propaganda, especially set beside the repeated ludicrous claims that British bombs do not kill civilians.

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CB's picture

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@CB

Freedom being the state where civilians have nothing left to lose - no country, home, job, family or life.

And democracy involving the legitimate government being impeded in fighting the terrorists brought in to destabilize yet another 'someone else's country', some of which you're funding, because there's good money in tossing out that government to put in a puppet government to run the country for you - or, rather, for-profit for your corporate/billionaire paymasters. And the more bombs you use, the more MIC profit for The Right People. Win, Win, for them, until the oxygen runs out on the world they've wasted.

Dear gawd, The Psychopathic Parasite Class are slimeballs... but we knew that.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Amanda Matthews's picture

Wash, rinse, repeat...

Obama’s Ludicrous ‘Barrel Bomb’ Theme

Exclusive: In addressing the United Nations, President Obama singled out for condemnation Syria’s President Assad and his alleged use of “barrel bombs,” but Obama was silent on his own use of far more powerful ordnance or the civilian tolls from Saudi/Israeli attacks with highly lethal U.S. bombs, writes Robert Parry.

https://consortiumnews.com/2015/09/30/obamas-ludicrous-barrel-bomb-theme/

That 'red line' might be the blood from innocents that we murder daily.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

@Amanda Matthews

I'll bet you're right. I know I'm seeing red myself.

up
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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.