re: #6 Destro

Destro,
I’m disappointed that you appear disappointed by the deadly results of a chemical weapon attack. I suppose after newton, anything less than 20 dead 6 year olds just isn’t worth mentioning? But the fact remains, if it was a single air strike this is about what I’d expect to happen at the most. What I did not see in the report was how many non-lethal casualties were involved.

But on the battlefield you do not count victory or effectiveness by body count. If the rebels had been advancing and the Syrian army stopped 1000 of them from advancing by killing 7 with chemicals and scaring the rest into taking cover, the weapon was effective.

Chemicals may be listed as WMD, but they do no where the same kind of damage a nuke does. Modern armies (and rebels) do not concentrate all their forces in nice neat squares like they did back in the US Civil war. If you read the literature the thinking is that Assad will NOT use chemicals because they just are not very effective in the terrain and enemy he is facing.

Again, body count is NOT an effective way to determine if this was a real chemical attack.