Nonfiction Post

The overall main idea of the passage "U.S. Says It Suspects Assad Used Chemical Weapons," is that our country thinks (like it says in the title) that Bashar al- Assad may have used chemical weapons. To back this up, the author includes a variety of evidence. Apparantly, the American intelligence agencies are sure, according to congressional leaders, "with varying degrees of confidence," that he had used these weapons. Supposedly he used "the chemical agent sarin on a small scale."  Thinks Dianne Feinstein, Californian democratic senator, who's the "chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee," the government is actually pretty sure Assad used chemical weapons. Syria was known to have a stockpile before any of these concerns, and the tests to check were based on using soil samples and blood drawn from the wounded, which seems believable.The samples drawn were from where they suspected the attack (which has not been 100% connected to Assad) was, which is a village "near Aleppo and in the outskirts of Damascus. However, the juicy issue is: are we going to go into Syria because of this? As you surely know (or do not, Idon't know who's reading this) the use of chemical weapons like this is against International Law.   But on the topic, it was said by the White House that "Only credible and corrobated facts that provide us with some degree of certainty will guide our decision-making. Apparantly Obama's red line as for going into Syria is when "we start seeing a whole bunch of weapons moved around or being utilized."

The author wants me to think 100% that Syria has used these weapons, even though the evidence is not perfect, and no one is certain. He does this by quoting people who think chemical weapons have been used, like Dianne Feinstein. He gives some evidence that he marks as not proven, but he makes everything seem like we're certain, mostly by supporting the idea that there were chemical weapons used, but not as much by supporting the idea that Assad did it. It, hypothetically may have been someone else. They're not sure it was him who attcked the town. However, there are limited supplies of chemical weapons for someone else to get. The author wants me to feel sad, mad, and self- righeous. Sad that people are being hurt, angry that these are being used, and self- righteous in the way of wanting to be an activist and feeling like Assad is morally wrong.

I will take away the ideas the Assad is putting his toes over the line. I really hope nothing happens too bad, but if Assad is mass- murdering his citizens with chemical weapons, maybe we should go in. I think that chemical weapons and Assad are horrible. Chemical weapons are disgusting, as we learned after World War I, and I will never like the use of those weapons, unless there's a zombie apocalypse and they are surprisingly sensitive to chemical weapons but nothing else. I really want to learn more about if the United States will go in-- I hope this doesn't create another war like Iraq.