When you look at all the events, Assad has been trying his hardest to avoid drawing any other nations into this conflict. And why would he want anyone else involved? He's been given modern weapons and supplies by the Russians and has recently been making progress, and left with the status quo and former Russian promises to supply Syria with "weapons that have never been seen before in the Middle East", the LAST thing Assad would want to do is use chemical weapons for a paltry victory. He knows that Obama issued his "Red Line" statement, and the last thing he'd want is US involvement.
As Danivon has graciously pointed out, there is no public proof that Assad was the one using the sarin gas. There simply isn't any actual tie between Assad and the use of these weapons, whereas back in May UN investigators had "strong, concrete suspicions" that the rebels had actually used chemical weapons, albeit quite ineffectively ( I believe the death tally was in the 10s or 20s?). Wouldn't it make more sense for the Rebels to frame Assad to draw in international support for their cause?
Or, maybe the rebels were given chemical weapons that they weren't properly qualified to use and accidentally set them off prematurely:
http://www.mintpressnews.com/witnesses-of-gas-attack-say-saudis-supplied-rebels-with-chemical-weapons/168135/“We were very curious about these arms. And unfortunately, some of the fighters handled the weapons improperly and set off the explosions,”
And this isn't some "Russian" source. They're based in Minneapolis. As in, the one in the USA. Although what's most alarming about this report isn't the fact that rebels have been claiming responsibility for the "attack" (if accidental) and no one seems to know this, but that interviewers have been warned not to question people too much over who caused the chemical attack. Censorship is happening here, and despite this article existing for over a week, strangely no one seems to have heard about this. I keep reading in the papers Western politicians claiming that there isn't any doubt that Assad did it, that we have to punish Assad for doing it, that we can't let Assad get away with doing it, and yet there hasn't been a single article suggesting any sort of proof that Assad did it.
Should the US launch an attack? Regardless of the answer, we have to acknowledge that if they do then they certainly won't be doing so to punish Assad for a chemical attack that hasn't been tied to him except through sources that (quite conveniently!) can't be revealed.
I'm from Canada and have been repeatedly reading and hearing my Member of Parliament (who happens to be Minister of Foreign Affairs) repeat his support for whatever the US does. Naturally, Canada has no drones or long-range missiles. So we don't have any military contribution to make and thus no troubling decision. And we can't
not MORALLY support the USA, so that's already settled. Canadian funds have instead been going to providing rebels with communication devices like radio equipment and information storage devices to record any evidence of human rights violations. It sounds very unexciting, but really what everyone needs is more sources of information from the region.
I've read comparions to Hitler
(!) here, but really all Assad has in common is that he is without any sort of argument a dictator. And it is incredibly unfortunate that despite his liberalization program he hadn't been willing to yield government control, and stood by his policy of banning any sort of official opposition. But we know that Assad is a rational man who managed to keep the country free of sectarian violence while gradually releasing restrictions. If you look at pre-war Syria you'll see that under Assad Syria was actually flourishing in the 2000s, with high economic growth, a developing credit system (with bank machines making their first appearance towards the end), over 90% access to markets and primary schools, even in poor rural areas, and an increasingly large program of "Village Funds" to develop the poor rural regions that actually demanded equality of the sexes so that nearly 45% of shareholders in these funds were actually women. The socialized hospital systems were a bit of a joke due to the truly qualified doctors leaving for more lucrative jobs in other countries, but urban areas had 95% access and even in poor rural areas it was above 65%.
Assad was a dictator who refused and continues to refuse to give up control of his country, but comparing him to Hitler or calling him evil is giving in to baseless propaganda without actually looking into the data. Assad is fighting to reestablish control of the country, because if Assad is deposed, there is the very real probability of the successor government actually persecuting minorities. Assad punished any sort of dissent, but otherwise his government was incredibly tolerant. That sounds like a big "but", although this really is a matter of choosing the best of several questionable options. Having visited Syria twice, family that lived there for 2 years, and done my final economics paper on the country since the 90s, I'm quite certain that Assad is the best option Syria (and the rest of the world) has here.
05 Sep 2013, 3:38 pm 
