Sheaf Saint

Common

Yeah I have to concur with this. I found it amazing that we used all 3 subs but somehow he managed to stay on the pitch. He was a passenger for the whole game. We really needed him to put in a commanding performance at the tip of the midfield 3 and drive our attacks forward, but he was hopeless. I like him as a player, but if he isn't even going to bother trying he can do one.

Jesus, just take Lemina off. He's been awful and now he's a red card waiting to happen.

FFS Long. You won't get a better chance than that.

It wasn't handball. Looked like it might have been from the main camera angle in realtime, but the replay showed it clearly wasn't.

There we go then. The floodgates have opened. Only question now is how many more they will score.

A Republican congressman now joins the growing list of people casting doubt on the narrative. https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/986968440979247105

Hmmm. The realist in me says it's over, but the eternal optimist in me thinks it still isn't outside the realms of possibility. Looking at their remaining fixtures, there's every chance that one or both of Huddersfield and Brighton could fail to get another point this season. Admittedly, that would still require us to get 7 points from our remaining games - wins against Bournemouth and Swansea and a draw at Everton would do it. The evidence of the season so far suggests we won't do that - but if we can just manage to keep our heads up and not capitulate every time we concede, it's not impossible. NURSE! Where's my medication!?

Is that what it boils down to for you? A simple black and white, either/or choice? Our opponents are bad so we must be good? Nothing is ever that simple, as well you know. Yes, Assad is a murdering tyrant, and yes, Putin is the authoritarian dictator of a regime that uses disinformation and assassination to keep itself in power. I have never doubted or questioned that. It doesn't, however, mean that I automatically believe everything that my own government tells me. If our leaders want to claim the moral high ground and pretend to be the good guys fighting a moral crusade of truth and justice, they need to make sure they have the strongest possible footing from which to do that. But they haven't even come close to it. They launched a missile strike against Syria, knowing full well that it was going to provoke Russia, without a UN resolution and before any investigation had been able to confirm that Assad had carried out the chemical attack in Douma. If he didn't, as many respectable people are suggesting is very possible, then our government have either been duped into doing what they thought was 'the right thing' based on the flimsiest of evidence, or they have an alternative agenda and simply used the chemical attack as an excuse to do what they had already chosen to do. Either way, it doesn't look good on us does it. Let's be clear here - May would never have chosen to take that action if she wasn't being influenced by Trump, and do any of you honestly believe that he gives the slightest sh!t about things like truth, decency and justice? Honestly? History is full of examples of political decisions and military action being taken on dubious pretexts. We owe it to ourselves, and our families, and the rest of the world at large, to try and uncover the truth, because what's happening now is likely to shape the future of our society. If you're happy to put your faith in what you're told by your government purely because you think Assad and Putin are bad men, and to do otherwise would be appearing to side with them, then that's your prerogative. I can't and won't do that.

He's disputing the certainty of the evidence, is what I meant. Yes, I get that. And it's pretty obvious that Russia are world leaders at muddying waters themselves. But should we accept what the government tells us, and flatly refuse to question the evidence, just because to do otherwise plays into Putin's hands?

He suffered from severe depression, and no details about the cause of his death have yet been released, so a lot of people are putting 2 and 2 together.

I work with a few Wednesday fans, and he was very highly rated by them in the previous two seasons when they made the playoffs. I think he's had some injury problems though.

I haven't looked at the info you are referring to Batman, but were their projections as bad as this? https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/18/each-brexit-scenario-will-leave-britain-worse-off-study-finds

The former First Sea Lord of the British Navy and Minister for Security and Counter Terrorism, appearing on the BBC to dispute the narrative that Assad carried out the Douma chemical attack. Is he just being a useful idiot for the Kremlin?

Time

I'm just trying to keep an open mind to all possibilities. Just because I posted about that Fisk report doesn't mean I 100% believe that's what happened. I was actually just expanding the discussion by responding to Oldnick's post with something that appeared to be more substantial. The claim that chlorine was found in blood samples of the victims comes from NBC with the quote "The officials said they were "confident" in the intelligence, though not 100 percent sure." Not exactly cast iron that, is it. Certainly not strong enough to be deciding to kick the hornets nest and **** off the Russians even more. Yes I accept that the video does not show people covered in dust. But they all appear to have been hosed down, so it does not prove there was no dust either. As for Fisk's report - he has been embedded in the middle east for decades and has an excellent reputation for neutrality and objectivity, and as such it is not beyond the realms of possibility that he actually has some friends and contacts in Syria. He certainly isn't pro-Putin or pro-Assad, so it seems a little odd to me that he would not mention in his report if he was being escorted by Assad's men and that the doctor's testimony was made under duress. I really am just trying to understand what happened by reading and absorbing news from all angles. So far, it seems that our entire case for the chemical attack is based on the White Helmets' video, and they're not exactly the most trustworthy source of information are they? They're intrinsically linked to ISIS and Al-Nusra who, last time I checked, were supposed to be our enemies. There may or may not have been a chemical attack in Douma last week. It may or may not have been carried out by the Assad regime. There is clearly a lot of misinformation being spread and it is difficult to separate what's true from what's not, but I am far from convinced by the 'evidence' our government has claimed so far. Why would they decide to go in and attack a facility that has already been declared free of chemical weapons by the OPCW, the very day before the OPCW were due to go in and carry out an actual investigation? May claims that it was crucial to act quickly to give the element of surprise, but Trump had already given them pre-warning via Twitter FFS. None of it adds up. IF Assad launched the attack, you have to ask yourself what possible strategic advantage he would gain from it (a point that the former chief of our armed forces in Iraq was making on Sky news the other day). He may be a murderous tyrant, but he isn't stupid. His forces had all but won against what remained of the rebel forces in the region, so why would he then go and do the one thing that was guaranteed to turn the rest of the world against him? Just days after Trump had announced that he was pulling troops out because they were no longer needed? Again, it just doesn't add up.

It's a pretty shocking account of government abuse, granted, but how does a 6-year old report prove your claim that there were soldiers present when Fisk interviewed this doctor?

Did you not read this bit of Fisk's report? "I walked across this town quite freely yesterday without soldier, policeman or minder to haunt my footsteps, just two Syrian friends, a camera and a notebook.... I first drove into Douma as part of an escorted convoy of journalists. But once a boring general had announced outside a wrecked council house “I have no information” – that most helpful rubbish-dump of Arab officialdom – I just walked away. Several other reporters, mostly Syrian, did the same. Even a group of Russian journalists – all in military attire – drifted off... It was a short walk to Dr Rahaibani."

I assume this is what you are alluding to... https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syria-chemical-attack-gas-douma-robert-fisk-ghouta-damascus-a8307726.html “I was with my family in the basement of my home three hundred metres from here on the night but all the doctors know what happened. There was a lot of shelling [by government forces] and aircraft were always over Douma at night – but on this night, there was wind and huge dust clouds began to come into the basements and cellars where people lived. People began to arrive here suffering from hypoxia, oxygen loss. Then someone at the door, a “White Helmet”, shouted “Gas!”, and a panic began. People started throwing water over each other. Yes, the video was filmed here, it is genuine, but what you see are people suffering from hypoxia – not gas poisoning.”

Wow. I always thought you were a bit of a kn0bhead. Now I know for sure, you're a total pr!ck

If press releases aren't acceptable then I'll just jump on a flight to Yemen and take some pictures shall I? ? I see exactly what you are trying to do here Batman, and you're only making yourself look foolish. I obviously can't give you 'concrete' evidence, and then no doubt you will throw that back at me for wanting it before supporting our government's actions. But the situations are quite obviously not the same, and you know that full well. Are you going to answer my previous question about where JC has said he would go into action if Russia gave the nod?

Maybe you missed all the headlines last month when the Saudi prince visited the UK to do a massive arms deal with our government. Arms which are being used in what UNICEF is calling a humanitarian crisis. Theresa May cannot pretend to care about the lives of Arab civilians while remaining completely silent about that.

But it's the double standards that's the issue, which foreign powers can and will quite rightly point to. Our government is currently 'propping up a brutal regime' carrying out mass genocide on civilians in Yemen, but apparently that's OK because they aren't using chemical weapons, so May's conscience is apparently clear.

Has he? Where are you getting that from?

I'm not for a second suggesting we are just as bad as people who would use chemical weapons against their own people. Merely pointing out that it's pretty hypocritical for our PM to be moralising about the use of such weapons when it was her own predecessor's government that authorised the export of them. May jumped because Trump told her to and she is too weak to stand up to him. Ask yourself this - Was Donnie's decision to attack Syria borne out of some altruistic sense of protecting the Syrian people from chemical attack? Was it f*ck!