Chemical Weapons

[Red Phoenix]

Yep, no probs.

[Red Phoenix]

“This is a playoff situation in which you need both teams to lose, but at least you don’t want one to win — we’ll settle for a tie,” said Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul general in New York. “Let them both bleed, hemorrhage to death: that’s the strategic thinking here. As long as this lingers, there’s no real threat from Syria.”

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/world/middleeast/israel-backs-limited-strike-against-syria.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 

 

Of course, this has nothing to do with Israel.

[Red Phoenix]

UN chemical weapons inspectors are to return to Syria on Wednesday to continue their mission, says Russia. But Moscow is unhappy with the direction the US is steering the Russian-brokered plan to dismantle the Syrian stockpile of chemical weapons.

 

The experts were sent to investigate several cases of alleged use of chemical weapons, but their work was disrupted by the August 21 attack, which killed an estimated 1,400 people. The team was redirected to the location of the new incident to conduct a probe and produce an intermediate report on it. However, they were expected to continue their initial mission later.

 

“We are satisfied that our persistent calls for the return of the UN inspectors for an investigation of the previous episodes have finally borne fruit,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told the Russian parliament.

 

...

 

“US officials compromised on chemical weapons, but they continue talking about how ‘the Syrian regime’, as they call it, is guilty of the use of chemical weapons without providing comprehensive proof. They constantly voice reservations that the plan to punish Damascus up to a military intervention is still in power,” he said.

 

http://rt.com/news/syria-un-inspectors-russia-269/

 

Finding evidence that could point to a rebel chemical weapons attack must be a big no no for the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia, UK, France, etc, etc, etc. Wonder what's going to happen next? Big surprise that the warmongers are still pushing for a clause that will allow them to bomb too. Sickening, looks like they're just basically trying to ruin any chance of an agreement.

 

Still no proof tying the attacks to the Syrian Army, still a minority of public support, but they still don't care. I guess that's fascism for you.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

I took them out of the report myself, and I've no issue with that at all.

Firstly, thanks for replying directly to my question and answering it honestly. I personally do have an issue with it. Quite a big issue, actually. I think it's a bogus way to present information. Maybe you're right, though; maybe it wasn't deliberate. I’d have to take your word for it. Judging by the questions you’ve asked and statements you’ve made about degradation products since then, I’m actually starting to think it’s plausible that it was just a lack of understanding about the subject, and cack-handedness at reading and presenting evidence.

 

If it wasn't a deliberate act that you both ignored the findings on degradation, and failed to provide the vital piece information - the key - then you have a sorry lack of standards when it comes to providing information and building an argument. You can't talk about worldviews, truth, and 'propaganda', then not expect to be held to a basic standard, mate. Not some fancy scientific, unobtainable, PhD-level standard, but just a basic standard of accuracy and honesty. Even if you didn't mean it to be, and posted it with good intentions, surely you can see how it can deceive those who don't know much about the subject? [EDIT: You seem to have accepted this now, in your recent reply. Thanks.]

 

Despite what you may think, this isn't personal. I'm judging you on your posts and your actions, nothing more. You might be the soundest, nicest bloke around. I might love you like a brother if I met you, I might even want to impregnate you with a bastard child in your bumhole, but what you've posted here isn't up to that basic standard which you encumbered yourself with when you were throwing around talk of propaganda and truth. With that said, before answering your numbered questions, there are some things I want to address from your replies following my post.

 

1) You made the statements that ‘as far as [you] knew, the by-products could've been from other things, not just sarin’ and that you forgot to include the key because you didn’t think ‘the by-products really meant anything if there was no actual sarin found’. Well, that’s a fundamental misunderstanding on your part. IMPA (or, as the UN call it, IPMPA) only comes from sarin. It’s what it degrades into. Note the similarity between the chemical names (spaces altered by me for illustration purposes) for sarin and IMPA: Isopropyl methylphosphon ofluoridate; Isopropyl methylphosphon icacid.

 

Chemical decomposition is when a compound (a chemical compound is more than one element synthesised or bonded together) degrades and breaks down, in this case, into a simpler compound or, in some other cases, into the original constituent elements. In this case, sarin (the first one) breaks down into IMPA (the second one). All that happens is the liquid (that hasn’t already evaporated or hydrolysed - broken down because of contact with water), that was previously called sarin, changes slightly at the molecular level (has one more oxygen+hydrogen atom and one fewer fluorine atom) and that left-over liquid (or vapour, I guess) becomes IMPA. GB becomes IMPA when it decomposes. I could go into further detail, with molecular diagrams and stuff, as well as different types of decomposition, but it’s not particularly relevant. [Edit: You seem to have accepted this now, so no need to drill down too far].

 

2) You said you were ‘fucked if [you’re] taking [my] word for it that they can't be from anything else’. I wouldn’t and didn't ask to take my word for it. I provided sources for it. First was Dr Ian Sample – PhD in biomedical materials – to whom I linked in my long reply, saying IMPA is a smoking gun for sarin use. In addition, you’ll find Dr Tom Bassindale, Senior lecturer in forensic and analytical science, saying ‘IMPA is a unique marker of sarin exposure’ in Forensic Magazine. Most convincingly, though, you can buy this book, in which chapter 8.1, by Ando and Miyata, talks about ‘Sarin and its decomposition products’ on P610 (if you click ‘look inside’, you can actually read for free) which says ‘if IMPA is identified, it can be verified that sarin has been used’. Don’t take my word for it, I’m nothing but a stooge for the war machine. Don’t even take their word for it, but even the most rudimentary check will back it up.

 

3) I found it jarring that you said, ‘all you can do is defend the corrupt people pushing for war’. I’m somebody who abhors war, and I’m none-to-fond of corrupt politicians, either. Can you show me where I’ve defended corrupt people who are pushing for war? [Edit: Having just seen your newest reply, maybe this was said out of anger and off the cuff? Now you’ve had a chance to do more research, you’ve accepted much of what I’ve already written above].

 

4) You mentioned that the sections of the UN report you highlighted ‘states that people were 'allegedly' affected with a toxic chemical, but a few days later there's no traces of sarin left’? It seems like you had a problem with the use of the word allegedly, as if that was a questionable slur on their character or something. Of course it was 'allegedly'. Until the tests showed positive for IMPA, any claim was just an allegation. That's just an unbiased, professional way to do that type of work. It's not pre-judging the outcome of the tests. Furthermore, and taken from the link above from Dr Bassindale, ‘As the sarin is broken down very rapidly in the body the chance of detecting it is slim, unless samples are taken within a few hours of exposure’. Sarin breaks down quickly anyway, depending on environmental factors.

 

As for traces of sarin, I think I’ve covered that in the first two. In those sections you highlighted, both were found to have degradation products (IMPA, the primary degradation; DIMP, the thermal decomposition product). Judging by your latest post, you’ve realised the importance of those. To your credit, you’ve not backed yourself into a corner, but recognised the mistake and we can crack on from there. With that in mind, I’ve not picked up on a few of the more off-the-cuff remarks, despite them being pretty wide of the mark, and I’ll move on to questions.

 

1) Has there ever been a historical case of a sarin attack where no sarin has been found, but only by-products?

2) Do you think the mainstream media are doing a good job of reporting properly by regularly including reports from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is one guy in Coventry taking reports from his apparent team in Syria, and who also supports the opposition?

3) Do you think Human Rights Watch seem credible when they're funded by people like George Soros?

1) I think you posted these questions before doing a bit more research and reevaluating your position. However, I explained about by-products and degradation products in the first reply and then at the start of this reply, so it’s as stated above. As I said in my original reply, detection of decomposition products is the primary way to detect sarin. I linked to a corroborating source in the same post.

 

As for historical sarin attacks, you should read more on the Japanese underground attacks. I think that’ll give you a good hint at how they detected sarin. It says, ‘At that time, we had no authentic Sarin. Therefore, we measured the Sarin content in the evidence sample, by quantifying the hydrolysed Sarin product, IMPA’. As I mentioned and sources in my first reply, the primary way to detect sarin is to looked for it in the decomposed state.

 

Something different about Japan is the level of other stuff they found in with it. To put it simply, and from memory, it wasn’t primo shit. It was homebrew shit, and lots of other by-products were found, which seems consistent with it being mixed by non-experts with impure, dodgy precursors. Judging solely from the UN report, none of those markers which would point to homebrew sarin where found. Definitive proof? No, but yet another indicator.

 

2) I’ve no earthy idea who SOHR are. I’ve no idea what they’ve said, nor what the media where quoting them as saying. I’ve certainly no idea if what they said is credible. I've never quoted them, mentioned them, met them, spoke to them; they're nothing to do with me or, to my knowledge, anything I've said in this thread or any other. Using a guy sat in his bedroom is perfectly fine, just so long as it’s credible information that has been corroborated by other credible sources.

 

I do think it's a bit strange, though, that you pick the site up for being in an apartment in Coventry, but you link to exactly the same level of blog sites. They're all as questionable as the other, in my opinion. That said, the national media should be held to a much higher standard than you, or me, as we’re shooting the shit on a forum. Still, the fact remains that I’ve no clue who they are, or if they’re a credible source of information. I’m sorry I couldn’t give a better answer. They seem like a non-entity to me. Should the media be using them as their sole source of information? Absolutely not. Are they credible to be used as a source of information at all? No idea.

 

3) Why would their source of funding make them lack credibility? Are you suggesting they is some link between Soros’ £6.5m a year and their reporting of issues? If you are, what is it? Are you suggesting that Soros has purchased influence over HRW? If you are, can you give specific examples? I could go into more detail about other things Soros funds, but I’m not sure it’s particularly relevant and would probably change the debate to you and I arguing about Soros, a man I’ve never met and have no connection with. Soros’ money has done a great deal of good around the world, and it’ll allow HRW to expand their staff by a third. His foundation has donated very, very heavily in human rights, justice, health, and education around the world. If that's his agenda with HRW, I can't say I'm particularly perturbed.

 

He’s hated by the right-wingers in the States, charged with being anti-American, anti-war (he funded the report into the loss of life in Iraq, absolutely slamming the American involvement in the war), anti-Bush, pro-education, and a massive promoter of democracy and free speech in countries where there is very little, so I honestly don’t know what the angle here is with Soros. Either way, what I’d do with HRW is the same as with anybody else, judge the evidence in front of you. I think they did very good work hammering the United States over waterboarding, hammering the US on irregular rendition, hammering them over Gitmo detention. I suspect they don’t give two fucks where they get their money from, just as long as they can use that money to effect change.

 

Ok, am still researching and I can see what you mean now Numero. I listed the green boxes showing that no sarin had been found, but sarin doesn't stay around for long, it's the by-products that can be detected. I'm fine with being wrong on that.

 

So you're right to give me shit on my use of the report pages, that's cool. Hopefully you can realize that it wasn't intentional though, because I'm not interested in stuff like that, I just want the truth. I'm fine with being labeled a fucking idiot, etc, if it's clear I've made mistakes though, and I have done so that's fine.

 

If you want to say I've been blinded by my desire to try and prove that the Syrian Army didn't do the attacks, I'd say that's right too.

Well, thanks for saying that. It’s clear you’ve realised the issue I had with your post, and why it was important, but it takes character to hold your hands up, especially when you’ve had to do it already just a page or so ago. Everybody makes mistakes, so don’t worry too much, but it’s key to remember how convinced you were of it when you posted it. When soundly convinced, I find it’s the best time to think to yourself, ‘hold on, let’s just make sure’. It's the time we make most mistakes. They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but even a lot of knowledge can be dangerous if applied incorrectly. If you’re going to portray yourself as a skeptic – and I applaud your skeptical mind – then, in my opinion, you should be just as skeptical of the information you’re giving out as you are of the information you’re receiving.

 

 

1) Why did they find sarin in what they tested in the other attack when that one was done slightly earlier? If it dissipates so quickly, how did they find it?

2) Why such conflicting lab reports when it comes to Moadamiyah with the by-products?

3) How can they determine that the rocket (where they found sarin.) was likely fired from a Syrian Army base, when that would just be in the same direction? Couldn't it have been fired from a greater distance seeing as it's a bigger weapon? So basically the rocket where they found sarin is just lined up with the Syrian base, but the distance could vary a lot.

1) Which other attack? Do you mean the other location? If so, they got to it after (28th). Given the much larger weapons and the warhead availability for testing, I'd say it'd entirely like that, given the large amounts of sarin they could carry, there was still traces of raw sarin that hadn't come into contact with the environment as strongly (for example, protected from water - either in the atmosphere or from all the hoses people were spraying about - and sunlight).

 

2) Off hand, I don’t know the scientific reason why one lab found things that the other didn’t. I could speculate, but I don’t know for sure in those specific cases. It's certainly not something I'd worry about.

 

3) No, that’s not how it works. Have another read of the report, pages 22-23. They didn’t determine it was from a Syrian Army base, they gave objective information about the angles and direction of rockets. Given the distances those rockets can travel, and the different locations in the Ghouta area, they certainly appear to come from the same place.

[SCOUSE TAPAS]

The two versions do differ in some ways. Military grade sarin, for instance, would not contain chemical byproducts likely to be present in sarin made through other recipes. And traces of the impurities in home-brewed sarin would be detectable in soil. But different recipes for the home-brewed version will yield different byproducts, and investigators may have no way of knowing which ones to seek. Even if the byproducts were known, detectives would need to know the normal levels of those compounds in the soil to determine whether the amounts are elevated.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=who-made-the-sarin

[Red Phoenix]

Thanks for the reply Numero, and yeah, several of those problems I had were worked out once I understood that sarin isn't usually left behind, but the by-products. I rushed in without properly checking what was going on, which is clear now, so I'm to blame for that. (I edited the original report linking post too at the top, so people aren't reading through it and missing that I was wrong.) Will make sure to have several checks first when it's anything weapon related in the future too, as that's twice now were I've screwed things up with weapons. It'd clearly be sad to carry on making those types of assumptions without taking the extra time to research, so will make sure to do that.

 

As with Soros, yeah I know he's donated cash to a lot of decent things, it's just some other articles I've read about him in the past which makes me think he could be a huge wolf in sheep's clothing. But I haven't researched him enough to even make a decent argument against him either, so will leave any of that too as arguing it would just be going too far away from the aim of the thread.

 

Just waiting on the next inspections now anyway I suppose. I could go on about Israel and Saudi Arabia surely being involved and several other things, but I've already brought that up several times now and think I need at least a short break from this madness for the time being.

 

Ah, and thanks for the answers to the final 3 questions I had. Will maybe post back a bit later in response, but can't see at the moment that I have much to add, and think I could do with some sleep first before getting back into any of this.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

I could go on about Israel and Saudi Arabia being involved

Is there actually any single shred of credible evidence for it, though?

[Red Phoenix]

Is there actually any single shred of credible evidence for it, though?

 

Sorry, I meant their involvement in the conflict in general, like the UK and US governments already are in various ways, not the actual chemical weapon attack.

 

There's bits and pieces around saying Saudi Arabia and Prince Bandar supplied the rebels with the sarin, but I don't consider it strong enough to even try arguing for at this stage, and maybe not at all. I've mentioned Bandar a few times though and wouldn't be surprised if he was capable, given some of the insane shit I've read. Some of that writing would probably be better in the conspiracy theory thread though! He seems easily involved in shipping conventional weapons, organizing rebels and to be quite a nutcase, but most of the people involved in this seem to be fairly nutty so that's probably not such a surprise.

[Red Phoenix]

Looking forward to seeing how this develops :

 

 

Homemade sarin was used in attack near Damascus – Lavrov

 

Russia has evidence to assert that homemade sarin was used on August 21 in a chemical attack near Damascus, the same type but in higher concentration than in an Aleppo incident earlier this year, Russian FM Sergey Lavrov said.

 

“On the occasion of the incident in the vicinity of Aleppo on March 19, 2013 when the United Nations, under the pressure of some Security Council members, didn’t respond to the request of the Syrian government to send inspectors to investigate, Russia, at the request of the Syrian government, investigated that case, and this report, i.e. the results of this investigation are broadly available to the Security Council and publicly,” Lavrov said.

 

“The main conclusion is that the type of sarin used in that incident was homemade. We also have evidence to assert that the type of sarin used on August 21 was the same, only of higher concentration.”

 

The minister said he had recently presented his US counterpart John Kerry with the latest compilation of evidence, which was an analysis of publicly available information.

 

“The reports by the journalists who visited the sites, who talked to the combatants, combatants telling the journalists that they were given some unusual rockets and munitions by some foreign country and they didn’t know how to use them. You have also the evidence from the nuns serving in a monastery nearby who visited the site. You can read the evidence and the assessments by the chemical weapons experts who say that the images shown do not correspond to a real situation if chemical weapons were used. And we also know about an open letter sent to President Obama by former operatives of the CIA and the Pentagon saying that the assertion that it was the government that used the chemical weapons was a fake.”

 

http://rt.com/news/syria-chemical-un-resolution-356/

[Unrighteous]

Either way, this lad that I know in the US Army has been doing chemical attack training(drilling, and random attack response) since the incident, and still reckons its for a possible Syria visit...

[SpeedyG]

Either way, this lad that I know in the US Army has been doing chemical attack training(drilling, and random attack response) since the incident, and still reckons its for a possible Syria visit...

My mates a reservist (a medic) and was called up 6 months ago and spent a lot of time on chemical attack response and containment.

[Red Phoenix]

The western media machine has been quiet lately regarding Syria, is this one of the possible reasons? I've noticed that when there's reports that paint al-Assad in a negative light the media are in full swing, but when it's the turn of Russia and Syria giving claims that are opposite to what we've been told, they go almost silent. Another report that's interesting :
 
 

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an interview broadcast Wednesday that he does not discount the possibility of a U.S. military attack even though threatened action was forestalled when he agreed to give up chemical weapons.
 
Assad also said in an interview broadcast by Venezuela's state-run Telesur network that his government has confessions from rebels that they brought chemical weapons into the civil war-wracked nation.
 
According to the broadcast's Spanish dubbing, Assad said all evidence pointed to rebel responsibility for the attack.
 
He said that Syrian authorities had uncovered chemical arms caches and labs and that the evidence had been turned over to Russia, which brokered the deal that helped persuade U.S. President Barack Obama to pull back from threatened military action over an Aug. 21 gas attack that killed civilians in a Damascus suburb.
 
In a speech at the U.N. on Tuesday, Obama said he would not use military force to depose Assad. But Washington and Moscow remain at odds on how to hold Syria accountable if it does not live up to its pledge to dismantle its chemical weapons stockpile.
 
Assad predicted during the 40-minute interview that "terrorists" would try to block access of U.N. inspectors who enter Syria to secure the government's chemical arsenal.

 
 
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/V/VENEZUELA_ASSAD_INTERVIEW?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-09-25-23-03-19
 
Is this why Kerry and co have been so quiet lately? Do they realize that the Russians have decent evidence on the rebels? The UN inspectors are back in Syria too, but it's hard to find any info at all. If it was to check out claims that the Syrian Army had launched chemical weapons instead of the rebels I bet there'd be a lot more coverage. It just seems like biased reporting basically. I guess a lot of outlets don't want to entertain the idea that they might be wrong when it comes to the chances of the rebels having chem weapons. With some luck we'll find out more one way or the other over the next few weeks, if this inspection goes well enough.

[Stu Monty]

I'd no more trust Russian evidence backing Syria than I would US evidence condemning them.

[Red Phoenix]

I'd no more trust Russian evidence backing Syria than I would US evidence condemning them.

 

Yeah it's obviously hard to believe Russia, they've clearly got several interests at work when it comes to trying to keep al-Assad in power, but I get the feeling that they at least value some type of peace more than the US and other western and middle-eastern countries seem to. Personally I just want to see the evidence they say they have, am not blindly believing anything, that's for sure.

 

And yeah, you'd think if the evidence was so good they'd just release it to the public. It could be that it's not good enough and that's why they haven't, or it could be (and I know this is a stretch.) something related to them using the evidence, if it's good enough, as a type of bargaining chip to make sure the US and others back off from bombing. It'll have to come out eventually, but the bargaining aspect could be that they won't rush to release the evidence if they back off, which gives the US and others time to come up with some stories to at least save face a little instead of looking like complete twats if it's released now.

 

I get that this is a stretch though. It's just confusing me why they've not done anything with this supposed evidence yet and am trying to work out why. Maybe it's simply that it's not good enough, but there's always the chance that it is, so I guess we wait yet again to see what's going on. The way they collectively seem to be messing around though it could be years before we find out the truth. I just feel sorry for the Syrian people that have to put up with all of this shit, it's almost like the political games are more important half the time.

 

The other aspects of the war aren't getting much coverage either, and it shouldn't be the case. This seems well written though and highlights part of the mess going on that isn't related to chemical weapons : http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-crisis-in-sacred-maaloula-where-they-speak-the-language-of-christ-war-leads-neighbours-into-betrayal-8839610.html

[Red Phoenix]

They almost have a UN agreement now :

 

UN security council agrees wording of resolution on Syria chemical weapons

 

Agreement reached on wording of United Nations resolution on Syria after foreign ministers meet with secretary general

 

 

 

The five permanent members of the UN security council reached an agreement on Thursday over the wording of "binding and enforceable" resolution to eliminate Syria's stockpiles of chemical weapons.

 

British and US officials announced the breakthrough after a fast-moving day of diplomacy on the margins of the United Nations general assembly in New York.

 

But the agreement does not authorise the use of force if Syria does not comply – the sticking point that had prevented diplomatic progress on the conflict which has lasted more than two years and killed over 100,000 people.

 

The British ambassador to the UN, Mark Lyall Grant, said in a post on Twitter that the five permanent members of the security council – Britain, France, the US, Russia and China – agreed on a "binding and enforceable draft" of a resolution.

 

He said that the text would be introduced to the 10 other members of the security council at a meeting later on Thursday night.

 

The development was announced after hastily convened talks between the US secretary of state John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov. If the resolution is adopted, it would be the first legally binding resolution on the Syrian conflict.

 

US officials said the deal was significant. The administration, in a statement attributed to a state department official, said it was "historic and unprecedented". The statement said: "This is a breakthrough arrived at through hard-fought diplomacy. Just two weeks ago, no-one thought this was in the vicinity of possible."

 

However, in order to get the agreement, the US had to concede that the wording of the resolution would not fall under Chapter 7 of the UN charter, which allow it to be enforced by military action. Neither did the resolution ascribe blame for the 21 August chemical attack that killed hundreds of people in a Damascus suburb, and which prompted the latest crisis.

As part of the deal, Russia agreed to send troops to Syria to guard sites where chemical weapons are to be destroyed.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/26/syria-chemical-weapons-un-resolution

 

Now why would the US back down so much in such a short time? It just seems like there's some other information going around behind the scenes that we don't know of yet. And of course if the rebels are now found to have used chem weapons, the US can save face too, to an extent, because this agreement is at least in place to remove a huge load of them from Syria as this war carries on. If only they'd put as much effort in to stop the war.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

Yeah, it must be that RP. It must be a secret torrent of information proving the opposition did it.

[Red Phoenix]

Yeah, it must be that RP. It must be a secret torrent of information proving the opposition did it.

 

Well Associated Press says that al-Assad had said they'd :

 

 

 

uncovered chemical arms caches and labs and that the evidence had been turned over to Russia

 

So I guess we'll just have to wait and see if this is bullshit or not. At this stage we've heard a lot from al-Assad and Lavrov about "proof" it was the rebels though, but clearly have fuck all, so maybe they are bluffing. If they're not, like I said, it's not easy to work out exactly why they haven't made this information public. If they've uncovered chemical arms caches and labs you'd really think it'd be the responsibility of the Russians to make it public though and deal with the UN charade secondly.

 

A small update on the current inspections from RT news yesterday too :

 

 

 

15:55 GMT: UN chemical arms experts have started their mission the day after returning to Syria. For security reasons, their schedule and the sites they will visit have not being disclosed. According to UN spokesman Martin Nesirky, the UN experts’ agenda will depend on the situation. Syria initially agreed to allow UN experts to visit three different locations. The teams will focus on examining 14 alleged attacks when chemical weapons or chemical agents were used.

[Red Phoenix]

OK, this is a rant, and there's a little personal stuff here, it's just that this thread has helped wake me up a bit again and I just wanted to say a few things. So if you're looking for updates on what's going on, maybe skip this thing.

 

 

 

Am actually really glad I made such an idiot of myself a couple of pages back now, it's given me a kick up the arse and got me researching more again, which is actually one of my main interests anyway. As a final bit with that mess of a post where I linked the UN "findings", I saw the by-products but didn't actually research them properly, which caused the mistake. I lazily saw a post somewhere that said those by-products could've been fertilizer, (I think one by-product can be related to that actually.) but totally failed to check that out properly and went into drama mode. (Alex Jones conditioning from when I used to watch his show sometimes? Haha.) Why I didn't mention that I don't know, it would've possibly revealed how lazy I was being? I'm not sure, have been in a slumber recently and depression hasn't really helped, but at the same time I'd loathe to use depression as an excuse for something that mostly seems like bias and laziness.

 

I actually had a site going last year which was for news and research basically, and it made me research almost daily. The site didn't really get anywhere because I wasn't focused enough, but shit, the amount of things you find out if you do research why things are screwed up on a near-daily basis? I think I ended up depressed back then too just from what I ended up finding! And don't forget how Israel attacked Palestine again last year either. Researching into that was a huge wake up call.

 

Am thinking of getting a site sorted out again anyway, the good thing with that is that in a situation where you have a site connected to research/news you drive yourself to be careful with any views you have, because you then have a responsibility to the people who find their way to your pages. Yes you make mistakes at first, stupid ones if you rush to post about something, or have a bias that limits awareness, but with experience it seems to happen a lot less. That's something that I found centrally important too, which is another reason that it was sad to see how far I'd slipped when I was getting the UN report wrong and adding images with big red crosses on the end. (I value truth above everything else when researching, even if my methods do take me to some messed up places. There's various bits of truth in some really strange places if you actually have the time to look, the task is to separate what's wrong, then follow up the decent bits with more research. It's hit and miss, but it seems like you can learn quickly when it works.) I never did that shit when I had my site going anyway and it kind of highlighted how far away from what I used to do I'd ended up.

 

Anyway, it's been worth it in the end, beause I now remember after getting back into researching things that this whole thing is such a fucking joke anyway. (When I was really into researching in the latter part of last year, Syria was one of the main things I was trying to understand, and that's why I took it almost personally to see the usual western fucking suspects trying to stir up shit again, and which also made me start posting in here.) The UN could "prove" the rebels did some of the attacks and I still wouldn't trust them, because the UN has to be, almost without any doubt, corrupt to fuck in the first place, and if we're going to collectively allow them to be the final body that decides so much of what happens without looking at what a total mess it is, then it's our own fault. It needs massive reform to work properly. If most of the governments of the world represent a type of international crime-ring, and they clearly do to anyone who's spent long enough researching the shit they do regularly, then why the hell would we trust the UN that they set up themselves decades ago and have been basically obstructing justice with regularly ever since?

 

A 5 permanent member "security council" where one country can veto whatever the fuck they want, which often silences even UN criticism of some of the sick crimes going on around the world, never mind even doing anything about them, can basically fuck itself. I think every country should be a permanent member to the security council and each country should have an equal say on matters like Syria, and that no veto should exist either. It'd make us a lot more responsible for the planet and the life on it than we are now, surely. Mainly though, the people of each country should usually be the determining factor that decides how the UN suits vote. It's their people that voted their parties in to being able to have people sit there, so they should be the ones deciding these votes. But that ain't how international criminality works, is it!

 

Haha, I guess this post seems angry at something that's gone wrong, maybe I seem angry because the "rebels" haven't been found out for what they are very much, despite all the sick shit they've already done, (one of the main things you'll probably have issues with eventually, if looking for truth about how the world works, even to a degree, is how such a small amount of people even seem to give a shit, or care about looking for the truth.) but mainly it's just that I allowed myself to drift back to sleep over recent months and got really rusty at researching again. Will post back later hopefully on why I think this is a sham, and then hopefully chill out with posting so much.

 

I'll try to keep the next post short(ish) though and just go through some of the things that I think are messed up about all of this, and yes I'll be going back through some things I've already brought up too, then will hopefully fuck off out of the thread unless something significant happens. That's maybe doubtful though seeing as the inspectors said their findings will be ready in late october at best, so this thread might sink for a while anyway, unless the corrupt twats all over the place decide to cause more chaos inside the country and blame it on the Syrian Army.

 

Anyway, to paraphrase Numero from earlier in the thread : I'm just some cunt on the internet at the end of the day. I realize that. I do actually love researching to try and find truth though, and I'm really sure that we only know the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the utter corrupt shit that's been helping to cause, or causing most of, the problems in Syria. We'll almost definitely start finding out the truth eventually, but that's no good for the people in Syria at the moment, and it's those people that clearly need the truth now. All we can hope for I guess is that people can get together and start revealing it, or making the corruption more widely known, so we do collectively understand how several countries have played a huge part in creating this mess in the first place, and can help prevent it in the future.

 

Have often read about how much of an amazing country Syria was before all of this, with so much intact history, but so much of that is destroyed now, along with so many lives, clearly, and these cunts that have perpetuated this (and I'm not saying al-Assad is an angel at all, or that he hasn't screwed things up quite a bit at the same time.) should be held accountable. If not and they can get away with this, just like they got away with destroying Libya, Iraq, and so many other countries down the years, then what's the point? The aim should be that eventually, all these wars should start truly waking people up, and I think that's happening already. The problem is that it's a slow process, and the corrupt media are almost like an arm of the military industrial complex on regular occasions, so things are made even more difficult.

 

There has to be hope though.

[dennis tooth]

AMY GOODMAN: That was President Obama addressing the nation last night. Professor Noam Chomsky, your response to his description of those who oppose military strike against Syria for a chemical weapons attack?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, once again, what’s particularly interesting is what he didn’t say. So, yes, a good idea to look at the videos of the gas attack in Syria. But then we could also look at the photos of deformed fetuses in Saigon hospitals still appearing decades after John F. Kennedy launched a major chemical warfare attack against South Vietnam, 1961, dousing the country with poisonous dioxin-laced Agent Orange. Dioxin is one of the major carcinogens. The attack was aimed at food crops, in an effort—and at ground cover, part of a general assault against the country—a huge number of atrocities, millions of people killed. The chemical—the effects of chemical warfare are felt until today, partially by American soldiers, too. Or we could look at the photos of other deformed fetuses coming regularly in Fallujah, attacked by U.S. Marines in November 2004, killing several thousand people, destroying much of the town, using weapons which—of unknown character, but which left radiation levels that epidemiologists have estimated are comparable to Hiroshima. And the effects of that on high cancer rates, on deformed fetuses, on children devastated by horrifying deformities, that we could look at, too. Now, those are the ways in which the U.S. has brought—has been the anchor for global security for seven decades. Can run through the record, if there were time, but everyone should know it. These, of course—that’s not said.

The U.S.—the idea that the U.S. has introduced and imposed principles of international law, that’s hardly even a joke. The United States has even gone so far as to veto Security Council resolutions calling on all states to observe international law. That was in the 1980s under Reagan. No state was mentioned, but it was evident that the intention was to request the United States to observe international law, after it had rejected a World Court judgment condemning it for what was called unlawful use of force—it means international terrorism—against Nicaragua. In fact, the U.S. has been a rogue state, the leading rogue state, radically violating international law, refusing to accept international conventions. There’s hardly any international conventions that the U.S. has accepted, and those few that it has accepted are conditioned so as to be inapplicable to the United States. That’s true even of the genocide convention. The United States is self-authorized to commit genocide. In fact, that was accepted by the International Court of Justice. In the case of Yugoslavia v. NATO, one of the charges was genocide. The U.S. appealed to the court, saying that, by law, the United States is immune to the charge of genocide, self-immunized, and the court accepted that, so the case proceeded against the other NATO powers but not against the United States. In fact, the United States, when it joined the World Court—it helped introduce the modern World Court in 1946, and joined the World Court, but with a reservation. The reservation is that international agreements, laws, do not apply to the United States. So the U.N. Charter, the charter of the Organization of American States, the U.S. is immune to their—self-immunized to their requirements against the threat and use of force, intervention and so on.

It’s kind of astonishing. I mean, by now it’s hard to be astonished, but it should be astonishing that a president of the United States, who is furthermore a constitutional lawyer or a graduate of Harvard Law School, can say things like this, in the full knowledge that the facts are exactly the opposite, radically the opposite. And there are millions and millions of victims who can testify to that. Right today is—happens to be an important date, the 40th anniversary of the overthrow of the parliamentary democracy of Chile, with substantial U.S. aid, because we insisted on having a vicious dictatorship, which became a major international terror center with our support, rather than allowing a Democratic Socialist government. Well, that’s—these are some of the realities of the world. Now, the picture that the president presented is—it doesn’t even merit the name fairy tale.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Professor Noam Chomsky, why do you think that the U.S. so quickly started to push for military strikes? And what do you think the U.S. or the international community should do to deal with this alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria? What do you think the appropriate response would be?

NOAM CHOMSKY: The appropriate response would be to call for imposing the chemical weapons convention in the Middle East—in fact beyond, but we’ll keep to the Middle East—which would mean that any country that is in violation of that convention, whether it has accepted it or not, would be compelled to eliminate its chemical weapons stores. Just maintaining those stores, producing chemical weapons, all of that’s in violation of the convention, and now is a perfect opportunity to do that. Of course, that would require that U.S. ally Israel give up its chemical weapons and permit international inspections. Incidentally, this should extend to nuclear weapons, as well. The further step would be to move towards the kinds of negotiations, Geneva negotiations, that the U.N. negotiator, Lakhdar Brahimi, has been calling for, with Russian support and with the United States kind of dragging its feet. Obama misstated that, too, last night. That’s the one thin hope, and it’s pretty thin, for some way to allow Syria to escape what is in fact a plunged, virtual suicide.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And why do you think the U.S. started to push for military action so swiftly?

NOAM CHOMSKY: As it always does. The United States is a violent military state. It’s been involved in military action all over the place. It invaded South Vietnam, practically destroyed Indochina, invaded Iraq, elicited a Sunni-Shia conflict, which is now tearing the region to shreds. I don’t have to run through the rest of the record. But the United States moves very quickly to military action, unilaterally. It can—sometimes can get some allies to go along. In this case, it can’t even do that. And it’s just a routine. The United States is self-immunized from international law, which bans the threat or use of force. And this is taken for granted here. So, for example, when President Obama repeatedly says all options are open with regard to Iran, that’s a violation of fundamental international law. It says we are using the threat of force, in violation of international law, to which we are self-immunized. There’s nothing new about this. Can you think of any other country that’s used military force internationally on anything remotely like the scale of the United States during these seven decades when, according to Obama, we’ve been the anchor of global security?

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Noam Chomsky, supporters of the U.S. plan say that the only reason that Assad agreed to hand over, relinquish control over chemical weapons was because of the threat of military force, of U.S. military force. And what interest does the U.S. have in striking Syria militarily?

NOAM CHOMSKY: The first comment is correct. The threat and use of force can be effective. So, for example, Russia was able to control Eastern Europe for 50 years with the threat and occasional use of force. Hitler was able to take over Czechoslovakia with the threat of force. Yes, it often works, no doubt. That’s one of the reasons it’s banned under international—under international law.

The reason—the pretexts for imposing—for carrying out a forceful act have generally declined, to the point that even the British government hasn’t accepted them, and the Congress was apparently going to reject them, and the United States, the government, resorted to the—what is usually the last—the last resort, when everything else fails, saying our credibility is at stake. That’s correct. U.S. credibility is at stake. Obama issued an edict, and it has to be enforced. That’s a familiar doctrine. It’s one of the leading doctrines of world affairs. Credibility of powerful, violent states must be maintained. It’s—occasionally called it the Mafia doctrine. It’s essentially the doctrine by which the godfather rules his domains within the Mafia system. That’s one of the leading principles of world order: Credibility has to be maintained.

But that has many variants. Sometimes it’s called the domino theory. If we don’t impose our will here, the dominos will start to fall, others will begin to be disobedient. In the case of Chile 40 years ago, to go back to that, what Latin Americans called the first 9/11, Henry Kissinger explained that Chile, under Allende, he said, is a virus that might spread contagion elsewhere, all the way to southern Europe. And he wasn’t saying that Chilean troops were going to land in Rome. He was concerned, rightly, that the model of peaceful, parliamentary democracy might spread, in which case the contagion would spread beyond, and the U.S. system of domination would erode.

Just earlier on the program, you had an interview with Saul Landau, the late Saul Landau, with regard to [Cuba], and exactly the same doctrine applies there. The U.S. carried out—invaded Cuba, Bay of Pigs invasion. When that failed, Kennedy launched an enormous terrorist campaign, murderous terrorist campaign. The goal was to bring "the terrors of the earth" to Cuba, as Arthur Schlesinger described it, Kennedy’s adviser, Latin American adviser. It was in the hands of Robert Kennedy, and it was no joke. It was very serious. Now, that’s been followed by 50 years of economic warfare, very harsh economic warfare, all unilateral. The world was overwhelmingly opposed to it. But it doesn’t matter: We, as a rogue state, we do what we like. And the reasons are explicit in the internal record. The reasons, you go back to the early '60s, the internal government record explains that Castro is guilty of what they called "successful defiance" of the U.S. principles going back to the Monroe Doctrine, 1823—no Russians, just the Monroe Doctrine, which established, in principle, our right to dominate the hemisphere. The U.S. wasn't powerful enough to do it then, but that was the principle, and Castro is carrying out "successful defiance" of that principle, therefore he must—Cuba must be subjected to massive terrorism, economic warfare and strangulation. That’s been going on for 50 years. Same principle, the Mafia principle.

The same was true in Vietnam. The primary motive for the Indochina wars, going back to the early 1950s, was presented here as the domino theory. But what that meant was, if you read the internal records, that there was a fear, a justified fear, that successful independent development in Vietnam might spread through the region, might spread contagion through the region. Others would attempt the same path, that itself was of no great significance, but it might spread as far as Indonesia, which has rich resources, and there, too, there might be a move towards independent development, independent of U.S. domination. And it was even feared that that might bring in Japan. John Dower, the famous Asia historian, described Japan as the "superdomino." The U.S. was concerned, deeply concerned, that if Southeast Asia moved toward independent development, Japan would "accommodate," the word that was used, to East and Southeastern Asia, becoming its technological industrial center and creating a system, an Asian system, from which the U.S. would maybe not be excluded, but at least which it wouldn’t control. Now, the U.S. had fought the Second World War to prevent that. That’s Japan’s new order, and it was in danger of being reconstituted if Indochina gained independence. That’s the domino theory. And that was understood. McGeorge Bundy, Kennedy-Johnson national security adviser, in retrospect, observed that the Vietnam War—the United States should have called off the Vietnam War in 1965. Why 1965? Well, because in 1965 a U.S.-backed military coup took place in Indonesia, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of people, wiping out the only mass-based political party and instituting a regime of torture and terror, but opening the country up to Western exploitation, with its rich resources, and that meant that the Vietnam War was essentially over. The U.S. had won its main objectives. It was pointless to continue it.

Now, this policy is—these are major principles of world affairs, and they’re understandable, and they’re understood. So, go back to Cuba again. When Kennedy came into office, he was concerned with changing Latin American policy. He developed the—set up a Latin American research commission. It was headed by Arthur Schlesinger, his historian who was his adviser, and they came out with a report. It was presented by Schlesinger to the president. And in it, Schlesinger described the problem of Cuba. He said the problem of Cuba is the Castro idea of taking matters into your own hands, an idea which may have resonance in other parts of Latin America, where the mass of the population is subjected to the same kind of harsh repression that they are in Cuba. And if this idea spreads, the U.S. system of control erodes. Well, going back to the Middle East, it’s the same.

[Red Phoenix]

That was a great read Tooth, thanks.

 

Have decided to focus on the chances of Al-Qaeda having sarin, because to bring up all the other confusion connected to these attacks, it could go on for ages.

 

To go back to the Al-Nusra arrests in May, in Turkey. Apparently what was found with some of their members was later said to be "anti-freeze", but do you remember seeing this next bit in much of the biased western media?

 

A public prosecutor completed his indictment as part of the probe into the chemicals seized in the southern province of Hatay on Sept. 12, claiming that jihadist Syrian rebel groups were seeking to buy materials that could be used to produce highly toxic sarin gas.

 

The indictment, which included transcripts of several phone conversations between the suspects involved, said that a 35-year-old Syrian citizen, identified as Hytham Qassap, established a connection with a network in Turkey in order to procure chemical materials for the al-Nusra Front and jihadist Ahrar al-Sham Brigades.

 

The indictment rejected the legitimacy of the suspects’ claim that they were unaware the chemicals they tried to obtain could be used to produce sarin gas.

 

“The suspects have pleaded not guilty saying that they had not been aware the materials they had tried to obtain could have been used to make sarin gas. Suspects have been consistenly providing conflicting and incoherent facts on this matter,” the indictment said.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/syrian-rebel-groups-sought-to-buy-materials-for-chemical-weapons-prosecutors-say.aspx?pageID=238&nID=54365&NewsCatID=341

 

 

Then there's Al-Qaeda in Iraq, this is from almost exactly the same time that the group in Turkey were found :

 

 

The Iraqi military announced today that it arrested five members of an al Qaeda cell that was seeking to manufacture chemical weapons, including sarin nerve gas, and plotting to conduct attacks within Iraq, Europe, and North America.

 

The Defense Ministry announced that it arrested the five members of the al Qaeda in Iraq cell and raided two factories in Baghdad that were used to research and manufacture the deadly chemical agents. The arrests were made with the help of undisclosed foreign intelligence services.

 

The chemical weapons cell was seeking to produce sarin as well as mustard blistering agents. The group had acquired some of the precursor chemicals as well as the formulas needed to manufacture the agents.

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2013/06/iraq_breaks_up_al_qa.php#ixzz2gARO0sYW

 

 

So from late May, early June of this year it's known that they knew how to make sarin and already had some of the ingredients. This is just from the Al-Qaeda members they caught.

 

 

In Somalia they've been at it too :

 

 

(CBS News) A new document filed in a still-developing terrorism case in New York seems to confirm the long-held fear that al Qaeda is working to develop chemical weapons.

 

On Wednesday, CBS News obtained a document filed by the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York indicating that three men charged with being members of the al-Shabab terrorist group in Somalia had "substantial knowledge regarding an al-Shabaab research and development department that was developing chemical weapons."

 

CBS News senior correspondent John Miller told "CBS This Morning" the lead defendant in the case, Mahdi Hashi, and two others were arrested in August, 2012, by African authorities while allegedly on their way to Yemen. They are charged with participating in a weapons and training program with al-Shabab over a four-year period beginning in 2008.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57603620/court-document-references-al-qaeda-linked-chemical-weapons-program-in-somalia/

 

 

This is from July 14th inside Syria, and more possible evidence that Al-Qaeda were developing chemical weapons. :

 

 

The Syrian army has discovered a storehouse belonging to rebels in the Damascus area of Jobar, where toxic chemical substances - including chlorine - have been produced and kept, State TV reported.

 

Military sources reported that the militants "were preparing to fire mortars in the suburbs of the capital and were going to pack missiles with chemical warheads."

 

A video shot by RT’s sister channel Russia Al Youm shows an old, partly ruined building which was set up as a laboratory. After entering the building, Syrian Army officers found scores of canisters and bags laid on the floor and tables. According to a warning sign on the bags, the “corrosive” substance was made in Saudi Arabia.

 

On July 7, the Syrian army confiscated “281 barrels filled with dangerous, hazardous chemical materials” that they found at a cache belonging to rebels in the city of Banias. The chemicals included monoethylene glycol and polyethylene glycol.

 

Syrian UN Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari said that the chemicals were “capable of destroying a whole city, if not the whole country."

http://rt.com/news/damascus-syria-chemical-weapons-082/

 

 

On the story that was given by Michael Maloof, that's been linked/quoted several times already here :

 

 

Former Defense Department official F. Michael Maloof wrote on Sept. 11 for the right-wing World Net Daily’s web site that WND had obtained a classified U.S. document in which “the U.S. military confirms that sarin was confiscated earlier this year from members of the Jabhat al-Nusra Front, the most influential of the rebel Islamists fighting in Syria.”

 

Though Maloof has a checkered reputation for accuracy – having been part of President George W. Bush’s propaganda campaign for invading Iraq – he cites specific information from what he describes as a document classified “Secret/Noforn” produced by the U.S. intelligence community’s National Ground Intelligence Center, or NGIC.

 

According to Maloof, “The document says sarin from al-Qaida in Iraq made its way into Turkey and that while some was seized, more could have been used in an attack last March on civilians and Syrian military soldiers in Aleppo. … It revealed that AQI had produced a ‘bench-scale’ form of sarin in Iraq and then transferred it to Turkey.”

 

Quoting from the NGIC’s report, Maloof wrote that it “depicts our assessment of the status of effort at its peak – primarily research and procurement activities – when disrupted in late May 2013 with the arrest of several key individuals in Iraq and Turkey. … Future reporting of indicators not previously observed would suggest that the effort continues to advance despite the arrests.”

 

Maloof further reported that a 100-page report sent by the Russian government to the UN claims that rebel sarin gas was “manufactured in a Sunni-controlled region of Iraq and then transported to Turkey for use by the Syrian opposition, whose ranks have swelled with members of al-Qaida and affiliated groups.”

The article was written by Robert Parry, who also added this, which is one of the Bandar stories that I saw but never brought up as there's a lot of confusion surrounding it. But as a summary :

 

Other on-scene reports have raised doubts about the certainty of the U.S. “Government Assessment” blaming the Syrian government. For instance, an article by MintPress News – based on interviews with people in Damascus and Ghouta – presented evidence that “the U.S. and its allies may be targeting the wrong culprit. …

 

“[F]rom numerous interviews with doctors, Ghouta residents, rebel fighters and their families, … many believe that certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the … gas attack.”

 

The article also cited comments by rebel-connected Ghouta residents indicating that the release of the poison gas may have resulted from a conventional artillery strike by government forces accidentally hitting a rebel storage site for chemical weapons or from careless rebel handling of the dangerous material.

 

One intelligence source following the Syrian conflict told me that some U.S. analysts believe that the Syrian rebels do possess chemical weapons, possibly obtained with the help of Saudi intelligence which has been providing much of the military equipment and money for the rebels, including some of the most radical Islamist elements.

The rest of the article is here : http://consortiumnews.com/2013/09/15/do-syrian-rebels-have-sarin/

 

 

 

I guess it's fitting to leave it here, seeing as we're back at Bandar and Saudi Arabia. Mainly because of their promotion of Wahhabism. Described on wikipedia as an ultra-conservative form of Islam, which is also Sunni Islam and so opposed to the Shia crescent, they definitely seem to have the funding to make sure that something like sarin could be worked on by Al-Qaeda if need be :

 

In the US, a comprehensive investigation drawing on government sources, including the CIA’s Illicit Transactions Group, estimated that two-thirds of the $70 billion spent by the Saudis between 1979 and 2003 on “international aid” was used to infiltrate institutions and promote Wahhabism and anti-Western and anti-Israeli propaganda. (12) Another estimate–by a former CIA director–indicates that by 2005 the Saudis had spent some $90 billion to export Wahhabism globally. (13)

http://globalmbreport.com/?p=320

 

So yeah, I think it's easily possible that Al-Qaeda could've got sarin for the recent attacks. If Aum Shinrikyo reached the point where they made sarin for the Japan attacks, I think Al-Qaeda are also easily capable of managing the same, given the numbers they have and the type of funding and resources they probably have access to.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

I do actually love researching to try and find truth though

You talk a lot about 'truth', RP. I don't know your level of formal education (or informal education, for that matter), but I'd say that's a good place for you to start researching. Actually, I'd start with philosophy in general: logic, reasoning, empiricism, epistemology, and so on. Philosophy is the butt of many jokes, but it does give you a good foundation on how to look at and judge information. If you're going to research subjects, it's best if you have a good base knowledge about how to judge the products of that research. Autodidacts will likely tell you the same thing. The only reason I say this is because it will give you the mental tools you need to work your own way through these subjects, and your research will be much more beneficial to you.

[RedKnight]

Red Phoenix needs a job and no more access to tin foil.

[Red Phoenix]

You talk a lot about 'truth', RP. I don't know your level of formal education (or informal education, for that matter), but I'd say that's a good place for you to start researching. Actually, I'd start with philosophy in general: logic, reasoning, empiricism, epistemology, and so on. Philosophy is the butt of many jokes, but it does give you a good foundation on how to look at and judge information. If you're going to research subjects, it's best if you have a good base knowledge about how to judge the products of that research. Autodidacts will likely tell you the same thing. The only reason I say this is because it will give you the mental tools you need to work your own way through these subjects, and your research will be much more beneficial to you.

 

Am into eastern philosophy and have been for around a decade or so actually, but at the same time I've kind of shunned the western versions, so yeah maybe I should have a read up more at some point, so thanks.

 

And thanks RedKnight, I do have a habit of wearing the tin foil from time to time, but am trying to cut back on it. Will hopefully be trying to get a job shortly too.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

Eastern spirituality and stuff?

[zigackly]

Certain Eastern ideas are quite pertinent to this discussion, for instance:

 

“As soon as you have made a thought, laugh at it.” - Laozi.