Is that's how it's being portrayed in Europe?  In the US it seems more "What the fuck are we doing, this doesn't make any sense... none of the rebels can be trusted except the free syrian army, and we can't make sure they get in power unless we put boots on the ground, and nobody just wants this, look at Egypt."

Which is nice, because it's rare media presents stuff the way i think of it.  The whole thing makes no sense, and the US shouldn't bother with an expensive deadly bombing campaign designed specifically to just make sure the US doesn't lose it's "street cred" by backing down.

And here it goes, the thread is hopelessly derailed. Didn't really want to spur discussion about it, it was merely an example of an orchestarted plot though probably based on actual events. Do not really want to participate either, but answering Kazs...

I'm pretty sure as a forensic expert it is outside of her competence to claim was it a massacre or not, define legal status or whatever, clearly remember it was specifically mentioned in EU FET summary report. She did likely thought that way though judging by her quotes in the media. She probably though it was ok to express her personal opinion, I personally think it was unprofessional, since regardless of what she says she will be quoted as 'independent forensic expert'. If Ranta was willing to give that bone to the media, so be it. But I'm feeling the hand of W.Walker behind all this, who did all in his power to create a story out of it for the media in specifically one-sided way, after all Ranta eventually admitted she was under pressure.

What is important here is not what she said to the media, but what she and her collegues wrote in that dossier, in other words her expert opinion, which unlike her personal one should be reasoned somehow. And this is where all the problems start. What we had immediately after the expertise is short EU FET summary report, that afair points on a single fact of disagreement between multilple groups of experts, namely the gunshot residue test, that was positive for almost all bodies, while she (wasn't mentioned who exactly in the report, but after her interviews it is clear it was Ranta) disregarded diphenylamine test as being unreliable (and not being a forensic expert from what I know it is indeed unreliable, but 37 out 40?), in the very same report it was claimed they did SEM-EDX  that proofed to be negative.

After a two year silence, eventually her report was published in FSI journal, which creates more questions than it answers. First of all, it didn't mention SEM-EDX testing which makes me believe it is not a full dossier. Other things mentioned in the dossier absolutely doesn't add any basis to the multiple myths created in the media, like victims were tortured or multilated pre- or post-mortem, it absolutely excludes the chance it was an execution or that people were shot at close range etc., while some, making reference to the dossier it was a sustained fire with multiple non-lethal wounds, claim it draws a picture of firefight rather than anything else. But it still not rules out the possibility it was a mass murder of non-combatants. The final words mentions they have reached the consesus with other forensic experts (so what was that gunshot residue story is about?), which makes me even more puzzled about the whole story.

Afaik Ranta gave her testimony in the ICTY about the case, but the charges were eventually dropped, rendering the whole discussion irrelevant and likely impossible to make any final verdict, especially after yet another mysterious death of Milosevic.

That funny, I actually read that particular article just yesterday - because when I read your claim that she never gave in to any pressure, I first tried to find proof for that myself. But all I could find was one short sentence in the (surprisingly short) english Wikipedia article on the Racak incident, saying "She refused to do so." - and the article you linked to is listed as reference, so that's probably where you found that article as well... ;)

But if you've read the article yourself, you know that she never actually claims that she refused and never gave in to any pressure. That sentence in the Wikipedia article is not backed by the reference.

Sure she does, it's the last hing she says in that article.

Outside that.  The new UK intellegence more or less shows why the inspectors weren't allowed in until recently.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.544214

The truth is, it's likely BOTH sides have been using checmical weapons.... all over the place.

I mean it's a civil war.

Just sad indeed, kill the country then to lose power.

Maybe "forbidden" is slightly misleading, I really don't know. Many articles I've read during the last couple of days have clearly stated that the inspectors' mandate is limited to finding out IF chemical weapons have been used, not WHO is behind a particular chemical weapons attack. I was surprised when I first read that, because I somehow considered this to be one of, if not the most important question in an independent investigation.

So maybe it's not exactly "forbidden" - but they've been made clear that it's not their job to answer the question of responsibility, so in practice they won't comment on responsibility at all, even if they have strong presumptions. One might say that it's the professional attitude required for such a responsible job that forbids them to comment on or even investigate the question of responsibility, because they've been made clear that this question is not within the boundaries of their specific mandate.

I've tried to find more information on how the details of the UN chemical inspectors mandate was decided upon, but unfortunately I didn't find much so far. So far pretty much all I found out is that the syrian government themselves ordered the UN chemical weapons investigation back in march, shortly after a chemical weapons attack in Aleppo, where even independent sources believed the rebels rather than the government to be behind the attack.

I assume you're referring to that part:

"According to Ranta, in the winter of 1999 William Walker, the head of the OSCE Kosovo monitoring mission, broke a pencil in two and threw the pieces at her when she was not willing to use sufficiently strong language about the Serbs."

That just claims that she did not give in to some specific pressure by a specific person on a specific incident. It does not claim she never gave in to any pressure.

Sorry, ever since the ridiculous role UK intelligence played in providing proof for iraqi weapons of mass destruction, I always take UK intelligence with a grain of salt, especially since it's once again being used to justify attacking another country. Same thing goes for similar US intelligence reports. We know that both services have provided either wrong or completely misleading intelligence reports, I just don't trust them enough, I prefer to see proof from other, more independent sources. UN is fine for me.

I think so too. But I also believe that ever since Obama announced the "red line", Assad probably strictly avoided using them. In Assad's current situation, the "advantages" of using chemical weapons are absolutely neglectable to the danger of provoking an avoidable US attack.

There are rumors that the US has captured a conversation shortly after the recent chemical weapons attack, where people from the syrian government "in panick" asked the military forces for clarification on the attacks. If anything, this shows that even if the recent chemical weapons attack was indeed carried out by the syrian army, it was most probably not an order from the top, from Assad himself.

But anyway, I too believe both sides have chemical weapons and have been using them at some time. There just are no "good guys" we could support, what is the point of attacking Syria? What or whom are they even planning to attack, if neither a "regime change" nor actual chemical weapons are even targets?

p.s.: Is Ha'aretz one of your main news sources? I love that paper, especially for it's middle east coverage, but I somehow would have expected you to rather read other news media.

1) You don't know that, plus I don't see much point in using chemical weapons for SAA.

2) When it has started it could be said that way, but at this point it sounds a bit off place. Now it is just one step from being a patriotic war.

I wouldn't say that it's exactly being portrayed like this, at least not in Germany. But at least in the beginning of the conflict, the media indeed provided the image of "evil dictator, good rebel". Over time that changed and media coverage became somewhat more balanced (especially when more and more reports surfaced that made clear the rebels are responsible for horrible war crimes as well), but I'd say the syrian goverment is still somewhat more negatively portrayed in media over here.

btw Stratfor has updated the dislocation map of mobile oppression palaces carrier battle groups, add to that 5 first rank ships in the mediterranean for a full picture: