More on Syria

[Zhivago]

What's the point of being liberated if you are killed in the process. You guys are not recognising the dramatic rise since Trump entered office.

[Digby]

What's the point of being liberated if you are killed in the process. You guys are not recognising the dramatic rise since Trump entered office.

The people killed aren't the only people in the world, and clearly the decision is to not accept the status quo.

[Digby]

Impacted? Why the euphemism? Innocent civilians were brutally murdered. More than 300 from just this incident.

They're also brutally impacted by other forces active in the region, and if all foreign forces pulled out they'd be brutally impacted domestically.

Without knowing much more about the circumstances of the ops I wouldn't say murdered, killed fine, but it should be a hallmark of our ops that we try to minimise civilian casualties

We do. You cant avoid all civilian casualties, but there is a legal requirement to take all reasonable steps to avoid them unless there is no other means to conduct the operation.

We're certainly supposed to, whether we do is less clear. There have been a lot of seemingly bad decisions, and the record for the armed forces being honest in these situations has too many failures for their assurances to be taken at face value.

I suspect we mostly try, and we mostly make the best decisions possible in a horrible situation

[Sandydragon]

The operational planning cycle at an air component HQ, for example, reviews all potential targets for the likelihood of civilian casualties and if the risks to non combatants outweigh the operational requirement then the strike doesn't happen. An air strike during the Libyan campaign was aborted due to unexpected civilian presence near the targets.

I'm not going to suggest that mistakes don't happen. Battlefields are confusing and non combatants aren't always visible until too late. But western forces do try and avoid non combatant casualties.

[kk67]

What's the point of being liberated if you are killed in the process. You guys are not recognising the dramatic rise since Trump entered office.

The people killed aren't the only people in the world, and clearly the decision is to not accept the status quo.

Not the only people. That'll be a massive relief to all of us.

[Digby]

What's the point of being liberated if you are killed in the process. You guys are not recognising the dramatic rise since Trump entered office.

The people killed aren't the only people in the world, and clearly the decision is to not accept the status quo.

Not the only people. That'll be a massive relief to all of us.

Which is a request to do what? Vet ops more carefully, withdraw and leave the killings just to the Syrians and Russians?

[Zhivago]

The people killed aren't the only people in the world, and clearly the decision is to not accept the status quo.

Not the only people. That'll be a massive relief to all of us.

Which is a request to do what? Vet ops more carefully, withdraw and leave the killings just to the Syrians and Russians?

How about starting by actually feeling outage instead of expressing platitudes...

[Digby]

Not the only people. That'll be a massive relief to all of us.

Which is a request to do what? Vet ops more carefully, withdraw and leave the killings just to the Syrians and Russians?

How about starting by actually feeling outage instead of expressing platitudes...

Probably accomplish a similar amount. Not that I'd care to assume that other people don't feel outrage at the loss of life, not even if they mayn't feel the need to automatically deride the establishment and send for the sackcloth and ashes

[Sandydragon]

So the truth has been revealed. It was the Assad government who was using chemical weapons on civilians. 27 confirmed instances by the UN investigation team with another 6 incidents where blame cannot be attributed.

Remember all that alt news reporting about how the fault possibly lay with the rebels, how it was just a huge disinformation campaign? Turns out that was just bollocks and the main stream media had it right.

[Digby]

So the truth has been revealed. It was the Assad government who was using chemical weapons on civilians. 27 confirmed instances by the UN investigation team with another 6 incidents where blame cannot be attributed.

Remember all that alt news reporting about how the fault possibly lay with the rebels, how it was just a huge disinformation campaign? Turns out that was just bollocks and the main stream media had it right.

I'd wish them luck with their report but they're making use of facts and expert testimony which is never going to be enough to convince the true of purpose

[Sandydragon]

So the truth has been revealed. It was the Assad government who was using chemical weapons on civilians. 27 confirmed instances by the UN investigation team with another 6 incidents where blame cannot be attributed.

Remember all that alt news reporting about how the fault possibly lay with the rebels, how it was just a huge disinformation campaign? Turns out that was just bollocks and the main stream media had it right.

I'd wish them luck with their report but they're making use of facts and expert testimony which is never going to be enough to convince the true of purpose

Well RT aka Putin is already denouncing it as fake news. To paraphrase a notorious hooker, he would say that.

Evidence isn’t important to those who know they are right.

[rowan]

Mainstream news, like the New York Times, for instance?

ISIS Used Chemical Arms at Least 52 Times in Syria and Iraq, Report Says

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/worl ... d=fb-share

You know nothing about Syria. You're an apologist for imperialism and genocidal wars.

[Stones of granite]

Mainstream news, like the New York Times, for instance?

ISIS Used Chemical Arms at Least 52 Times in Syria and Iraq, Report Says

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/worl ... d=fb-share

You know nothing about Syria. You're an apologist for imperialism and genocidal wars.

Did you miss this bit from the same article?

The Islamic State is not the only actor in Syria to carry out chemical weapons’ strikes: The Syrian government has conducted many more such attacks.

Syrian military helicopters dropped bombs containing chlorine on civilians in at least two attacks over the past two years, a special joint investigation of the United Nations and an international chemical weapons monitor said in August.

[Sandydragon]

Mainstream news, like the New York Times, for instance?

ISIS Used Chemical Arms at Least 52 Times in Syria and Iraq, Report Says

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/worl ... d=fb-share

You know nothing about Syria. You're an apologist for imperialism and genocidal wars.

An independent investigation has just blown the myth that the Assad government wasn't to blame for the use of chemical weapons out of the water. Your sources were wrong.

[rowan]

Mainstream news, like the New York Times, for instance?

ISIS Used Chemical Arms at Least 52 Times in Syria and Iraq, Report Says

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/worl ... d=fb-share

You know nothing about Syria. You're an apologist for imperialism and genocidal wars.

An independent investigation has just blown the myth that the Assad government wasn't to blame for the use of chemical weapons out of the water. Your sources were wrong.

About as independent and impartial as the WOMD claims. Of course, NATO and its allies will work hard to cover their tracks now, having reduced yet another Middle East nation to rubble, and even as they line up their next target.

[Sandydragon]

Mainstream news, like the New York Times, for instance?

ISIS Used Chemical Arms at Least 52 Times in Syria and Iraq, Report Says

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/worl ... d=fb-share

You know nothing about Syria. You're an apologist for imperialism and genocidal wars.

An independent investigation has just blown the myth that the Assad government wasn't to blame for the use of chemical weapons out of the water. Your sources were wrong.

About as independent and impartial as the WOMD claims. Of course, NATO and its allies will work hard to cover their tracks now, having reduced yet another Middle East nation to rubble, and even as they line up their next target.

Did you get that from RT or make it up yourself? Comparing this investigation with the 'dodgy dossier' is pushing the limits of anyone's intelligence.

[rowan]

An independent investigation has just blown the myth that the Assad government wasn't to blame for the use of chemical weapons out of the water. Your sources were wrong.

About as independent and impartial as the WOMD claims. Of course, NATO and its allies will work hard to cover their tracks now, having reduced yet another Middle East nation to rubble, and even as they line up their next target.

Did you get that from RT or make it up yourself? Comparing this investigation with the 'dodgy dossier' is pushing the limits of anyone's intelligence.

I don't read RT, and theindependent sources you mention are no more neutral than they are. I do, however, live in the region concerned, both read & watch the news in the local language and have even had articles published in the international press about the conflict on occasions myself. You're an old school imperialist defending yet another US invasion in the Middle East and referring to it as a civil war. That's the epitome of ignorance, I'm afraid.

[SerjeantWildgoose]

Do you feck live in the region, you whittering gas-bag. You live at the other end of Turkey and there's at least a half a million fat German package holiday-makers between you and anything like a whiff of chlorine.

For someone who has never been close to the vicious end of war, battle, terrorism or genocide you bandy about your opinions about those of us who have with flagrant disregard for accuracy, credible evidence or respect for any other point of view, regardless of how legitimately it might be held.

You are an internet warrior of so little consequence to the world that it defies logic that any of us here should bother to read a single syllable you regurgitate.

[rowan]

Do you feck live in the region, you whittering gas-bag. You live at the other end of Turkey and there's at least a half a million fat German package holiday-makers between you and anything like a whiff of chlorine.

For someone who has never been close to the vicious end of war, battle, terrorism or genocide you bandy about your opinions about those of us who have with flagrant disregard for accuracy, credible evidence or respect for any other point of view, regardless of how legitimately it might be held.

You are an internet warrior of so little consequence to the world that it defies logic that any of us here should bother to read a single syllable you regurgitate.

The arrogance - and ignorance - of the imperialist mindset

Anyway, I'm not going to waste my time going around in circles with you guys again. People here know more about this conflict than you know about Brexit. Half my neighbours are Syrians these days, in fact. But I'm sure you believe your own perception is superior to theirs...

Most of us here in the region have known about this all along. Even legendary Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who broke the stories on the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam and Abu Ghraib torture center in Iraq, has reported on it. There have been many other sources besides. Former US general Wesley Clark is seen in a widely-circulated Youtube video openly stating Syria was on a hit-list of Islamic nations the US intended to 'take out' after 9/11. Only Iran has been left alone - at this stage. Wikileaks reports CIA correspondence indicated a proxy war in Syria was being discussed fully 2 years before the Arab Spring. & anyone who thought the teachers, students, doctors and so on who participated in the anti-government protests suddenly morphed into machine gun-wielding, head-chopping terrorists is delusional. That was simply the pretext for a war long in the planning. You know about the overthrow of Mosaddegh in 53, presumably. Do you also know that just a few years earlier Kermit Roosevelt & the gang had tried the same stunt in Syria. This drove Damascus into Moscow's arms, where it remained securely until the collapse of the Soviet Union. Hence the presence of a Russian base in Tartus - one of only 3 they have outside of the former USSR. But America, emboldened by its easy victories elsewhere in the region (in as much as they have colonised all those countries militarily, gained control of the leadership and resources, and kept the military industrial complex very busy), thought it might just have a crack at Syria now, despite the Russian alliance. There is, of course, oil in the north of the country, where the US forces are operating, coincidentally enough - and in violation of international law, btw. But I'm not sure this was the main reason to send in the proxies (Saudi-backed Jihadists and mercenaries from around the region. The US and its allies continued to arm them even when they knew their tactics amounted to terrorism. Obama as much as admitted this, and "reining in" the worst elements (who the Western media has given various names such as Al Nusra, Al Sham, etc) became the pretext for direct US involvement and boots on the ground - in violation of international law. This conflict may have been more about the appeasement of regional allies than America's own interests, howeve. Qatar wanted to build a gas pipeline right through Syria to Europe, but Assad rejected this and went with an Iranian project instead. Israel has a territorial dispute with Damascus over the Golan Heights (and the UN has sided against them). Saudi wants to break up the Shia crescent that extends from Iran to the Mediterranean (thanks to the invasion of Iraq), and so on. But after the public outcry over Iraq and Libya, the US appears to have exercised a little more subtlety on this occasion and not just invaded outright. & for this reason they and their regional allies got their butts kicked by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. In fact, the main enemy of the Assad regime is the Muslim Brotherhood. Now, America sends Egypt billions in aid even though the military dictatorship is imprisoning and executing MB leaders in their droves, but Assad is demonised for cracking down on the same organisation. There is little indication of MB involved in the current conflict, however. Meanwhile, this time America has not succeeded and so their propaganda industry is going into Winston Wolfe mode to mop up the mess they made. Idiots will buy it, just as they bought the WOMDs claims and all the lies about Gaddafi. America has simply taken up where the British Empire left off after WWII.

& that's where I'll sign off, because there's no penetrating the little worlds you have built for yourselves, and I know this only too well by now.

[SerjeantWildgoose]

From the Spain Thread.

Civil war? You really are clueless. It was a proxy war instigated by NATO and its regional allies, and ultimately ended in defeat at the hands of Assad with support from Russia, Iran and Hezbollah! Flagrant imperialism stopped in its tracks.

I come to this debate a little late but not too late, it seems, to offer an informed view that Rowan is talking out of his opinionated hoop as usual.

I too, shall be starting more threads after this. I had thought of going to Catalonia to join the International Brigade, but it seems they are now all in Aleppo (or was it Chepstow?).

The war was waged by NATO and their regional allies, largely with the use of Saudi-backed Jihadists and mercenaries from around the region. That's not a civil war. It's a proxy war. The internal conflict is between the regime and the Muslim Brotherhood, just as it is in Egypt - which America supports to the tune of 1.5 billion in aid each year, because the dictatorship is under its control.

So stick to discussing Spain, chaps. You seem to at least have some notion of what is going on there. Barcelona is my old stomping ground, btw.

Your view on this - and it is only your view - is as risible as your views on just about everything else and as with everything else is offered as gospel with only disdain for anyone who dares to offer an opposing opinion no matter how legitimate.

It is you, Rowan, who is clueless and yet again you display the unmistakable if deluded certainty of someone who has experienced nothing, but has absorbed an opinion, rote-like, from the ludicrous chunterings of self-important idiots who are exiled to a life on the internet because they can't hold a conversation with real people without being punched.

The civil war in Syria has been raging for generations and if you can't see the continuity between the excesses of Bashar and those of his dad, then perhaps you should move a little closer than the coffee shops of Istanbul and have a look for yourself. NATO played no part in 'instigating' an internal conflict that has been going on since the Ba'ath party came to power and determined to hold onto it no matter what the cost.

As for their later intervention you may not, but ought to be aware of international obligations under the UN-endorsed R2P (Responsibility to Protect) that have provided, since 2005 a legitimate pretext to intervene in an internal conflict when it is determined that an authority has ceased to provide adequate protection for its own citizens. Once Assad started lobbing chemicals into cities, NATO (And everyone else) had an obligation to step in. Russia, who might yet reward your unstinting efforts as one of their most obtuse apologists, while initially intervening under the same pretext has since, illegally, done all that it can to protect Assad and secure the space in which he continues to carry out his internationally criminal activities; flagrant genocide given freedom to continue.

Try sticking to ... er, no on second thoughts stick to feck all, for it is surely all you know about.

[rowan]

From the Spain Thread.

Civil war? You really are clueless. It was a proxy war instigated by NATO and its regional allies, and ultimately ended in defeat at the hands of Assad with support from Russia, Iran and Hezbollah! Flagrant imperialism stopped in its tracks.

I come to this debate a little late but not too late, it seems, to offer an informed view that Rowan is talking out of his opinionated hoop as usual.

I too, shall be starting more threads after this. I had thought of going to Catalonia to join the International Brigade, but it seems they are now all in Aleppo (or was it Chepstow?).

The war was waged by NATO and their regional allies, largely with the use of Saudi-backed Jihadists and mercenaries from around the region. That's not a civil war. It's a proxy war. The internal conflict is between the regime and the Muslim Brotherhood, just as it is in Egypt - which America supports to the tune of 1.5 billion in aid each year, because the dictatorship is under its control.

So stick to discussing Spain, chaps. You seem to at least have some notion of what is going on there. Barcelona is my old stomping ground, btw.

Your view on this - and it is only your view - is as risible as your views on just about everything else and as with everything else is offered as gospel with only disdain for anyone who dares to offer an opposing opinion no matter how legitimate.

It is you, Rowan, who is clueless and yet again you display the unmistakable if deluded certainty of someone who has experienced nothing, but has absorbed an opinion, rote-like, from the ludicrous chunterings of self-important idiots who are exiled to a life on the internet because they can't hold a conversation with real people without being punched.

The civil war in Syria has been raging for generations and if you can't see the continuity between the excesses of Bashar and those of his dad, then perhaps you should move a little closer than the coffee shops of Istanbul and have a look for yourself. NATO played no part in 'instigating' an internal conflict that has been going on since the Ba'ath party came to power and determined to hold onto it no matter what the cost.

As for their later intervention you may not, but ought to be aware of international obligations under the UN-endorsed R2P (Responsibility to Protect) that have provided, since 2005 a legitimate pretext to intervene in an internal conflict when it is determined that an authority has ceased to provide adequate protection for its own citizens. Once Assad started lobbing chemicals into cities, NATO (And everyone else) had an obligation to step in. Russia, who might yet reward your unstinting efforts as one of their most obtuse apologists, while initially intervening under the same pretext has since, illegally, done all that it can to protect Assad and secure the space in which he continues to carry out his internationally criminal activities; flagrant genocide given freedom to continue.

Try sticking to ... er, no on second thoughts stick to feck all, for it is surely all you know about.

That's about the most delusional load of imperialist propaganda I've ever read, Sarge. As stated, you know absolutely nothing about this conflict.

[morepork]

Ewe no nuffink.

[Sandydragon]

From the Spain Thread.

Civil war? You really are clueless. It was a proxy war instigated by NATO and its regional allies, and ultimately ended in defeat at the hands of Assad with support from Russia, Iran and Hezbollah! Flagrant imperialism stopped in its tracks.

I come to this debate a little late but not too late, it seems, to offer an informed view that Rowan is talking out of his opinionated hoop as usual.

I too, shall be starting more threads after this. I had thought of going to Catalonia to join the International Brigade, but it seems they are now all in Aleppo (or was it Chepstow?).

The war was waged by NATO and their regional allies, largely with the use of Saudi-backed Jihadists and mercenaries from around the region. That's not a civil war. It's a proxy war. The internal conflict is between the regime and the Muslim Brotherhood, just as it is in Egypt - which America supports to the tune of 1.5 billion in aid each year, because the dictatorship is under its control.

So stick to discussing Spain, chaps. You seem to at least have some notion of what is going on there. Barcelona is my old stomping ground, btw.

Your view on this - and it is only your view - is as risible as your views on just about everything else and as with everything else is offered as gospel with only disdain for anyone who dares to offer an opposing opinion no matter how legitimate.

It is you, Rowan, who is clueless and yet again you display the unmistakable if deluded certainty of someone who has experienced nothing, but has absorbed an opinion, rote-like, from the ludicrous chunterings of self-important idiots who are exiled to a life on the internet because they can't hold a conversation with real people without being punched.

The civil war in Syria has been raging for generations and if you can't see the continuity between the excesses of Bashar and those of his dad, then perhaps you should move a little closer than the coffee shops of Istanbul and have a look for yourself. NATO played no part in 'instigating' an internal conflict that has been going on since the Ba'ath party came to power and determined to hold onto it no matter what the cost.

As for their later intervention you may not, but ought to be aware of international obligations under the UN-endorsed R2P (Responsibility to Protect) that have provided, since 2005 a legitimate pretext to intervene in an internal conflict when it is determined that an authority has ceased to provide adequate protection for its own citizens. Once Assad started lobbing chemicals into cities, NATO (And everyone else) had an obligation to step in. Russia, who might yet reward your unstinting efforts as one of their most obtuse apologists, while initially intervening under the same pretext has since, illegally, done all that it can to protect Assad and secure the space in which he continues to carry out his internationally criminal activities; flagrant genocide given freedom to continue.

Try sticking to ... er, no on second thoughts stick to feck all, for it is surely all you know about.

And thats before any environmental issues such as a famine are taken into account.

[rowan]

The arrogance - and ignorance - of the imperialist mindset

Anyway, I'm not going to waste my time going around in circles with you guys again. People here know more about this conflict than you know about Brexit. Half my neighbours are Syrians these days, in fact. But I'm sure you believe your own perception is superior to theirs...

Most of us here in the region have known about this all along. Even legendary Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who broke the stories on the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam and Abu Ghraib torture center in Iraq, has reported on it. There have been many other sources besides. Former US general Wesley Clark is seen in a widely-circulated Youtube video openly stating Syria was on a hit-list of Islamic nations the US intended to 'take out' after 9/11. Only Iran has been left alone - at this stage. Wikileaks reports CIA correspondence indicated a proxy war in Syria was being discussed fully 2 years before the Arab Spring. & anyone who thought the teachers, students, doctors and so on who participated in the anti-government protests suddenly morphed into machine gun-wielding, head-chopping terrorists is delusional. That was simply the pretext for a war long in the planning. You know about the overthrow of Mosaddegh in 53, presumably. Do you also know that just a few years earlier Kermit Roosevelt & the gang had tried the same stunt in Syria. This drove Damascus into Moscow's arms, where it remained securely until the collapse of the Soviet Union. Hence the presence of a Russian base in Tartus - one of only 3 they have outside of the former USSR. But America, emboldened by its easy victories elsewhere in the region (in as much as they have colonised all those countries militarily, gained control of the leadership and resources, and kept the military industrial complex very busy), thought it might just have a crack at Syria now, despite the Russian alliance. There is, of course, oil in the north of the country, where the US forces are operating, coincidentally enough - and in violation of international law, btw. But I'm not sure this was the main reason to send in the proxies (Saudi-backed Jihadists and mercenaries from around the region. The US and its allies continued to arm them even when they knew their tactics amounted to terrorism. Obama as much as admitted this, and "reining in" the worst elements (who the Western media has given various names such as Al Nusra, Al Sham, etc) became the pretext for direct US involvement and boots on the ground - in violation of international law. This conflict may have been more about the appeasement of regional allies than America's own interests, howeve. Qatar wanted to build a gas pipeline right through Syria to Europe, but Assad rejected this and went with an Iranian project instead. Israel has a territorial dispute with Damascus over the Golan Heights (and the UN has sided against them). Saudi wants to break up the Shia crescent that extends from Iran to the Mediterranean (thanks to the invasion of Iraq), and so on. But after the public outcry over Iraq and Libya, the US appears to have exercised a little more subtlety on this occasion and not just invaded outright. & for this reason they and their regional allies got their butts kicked by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. In fact, the main enemy of the Assad regime is the Muslim Brotherhood. Now, America sends Egypt billions in aid even though the military dictatorship is imprisoning and executing MB leaders in their droves, but Assad is demonised for cracking down on the same organisation. There is little indication of MB involved in the current conflict, however. Meanwhile, this time America has not succeeded and so their propaganda industry is going into Winston Wolfe mode to mop up the mess they made. Idiots will buy it, just as they bought the WOMDs claims and all the lies about Gaddafi. America has simply taken up where the British Empire left off after WWII.

& that's where I'll sign off, because there's no penetrating the little worlds you have built for yourselves, and I know this only too well by now.

Hurts, don't it

[SerjeantWildgoose]

That's about the most delusional load of imperialist propaganda I've ever read, Sarge. As stated, you know absolutely nothing about this conflict.

Your view on this - and it is only your view - is as risible as your views on just about everything else and as with everything else is offered as gospel with only disdain for anyone who dares to offer an opposing opinion no matter how legitimate.

It is you, Rowan, who is clueless and yet again you display the unmistakable if deluded certainty of someone who has experienced nothing, but has absorbed an opinion, rote-like, from the ludicrous chunterings of self-important idiots who are exiled to a life on the internet because they can't hold a conversation with real people without being punched.

Wow this is useful.I might keep it.