WMD

April 4: More than 70 dead in Khan Sheikhoun, of an apparent gas attack. [nyt]  Syrian government says it wasn’t them.

March 24: More than 200 dead in Mosul, of a US air strike. US government says it might not have been entirely US bombs that did it because ISIS sometimes keeps explosives in houses.[nyt]

Investigations are being called for in both cases. The Syrian regime says it would only submit to an investigation if it can be sure it’s international and multilateral. The US regime says it’ll investigate itself, thank you very much.

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Syrian Quagmire

I keep loose tabs on what’s going on regarding the US’ “no boots on the ground” deployment in Syria. And, frankly, it’s really hard to tell: the US media is suspiciously quiet about it (I assume they have been told to shut up)  – when I go to outside sources, it gets confusing, fast. The overall impression I come away with is that Turkey is shooting at everyone, the US Air Force has a terrorist organization (the PKK – Kurdistan Worker’s Party, a leftist revolutionary group listed as a terrorist organization by NATO and the US) directing air strikes, and ISIS is cropping up in places that the media hasn’t been talking about.

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