One step closer to war with Russia?

FutileBreadMachine said:
I think the West really made a mistake here. This was a chance to team up with Russia and wipe out ISIS with overwhelming force. Just look what has happened to Libya and Iraq - without a strong leader the country disintegrates into chaos. Who are they supposing will lead Syria if Assad is defeated? He's fighting a bunch of different groups with no one candidate to take over the reins. If he is gone, the remaining forces will just turn on each other as they fight for power.

I think Assad's forces have done some terrible things, but "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" was never more apt.

I thought the invasion of Iraq was mental at the time, and I strongly felt they would not find any WMDs there, and I was against the invasion of Afghanistan as I believed that would be a waste of money and life like all campaigns there, so I have pretty good track record on these things :p
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It just seems so obvious doesn't it! Yet some people would claim we are all just paid shills supporting the Russian Federation!
 
Werewolf said:
I think one of the key things you're forgetting about the Assad regime, is that it was very brutal before the uprising.

It isn't Assad responding to an armed uprising, but an armed uprising that came about in large part to the history of Assad and co in responding to even peaceful protest or simply calls for basic human rights to be observed.
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That may be true but looking forward the only real chance for peace in Syria is for Assad to win the war. No other option is viable.
 
Werewolf said:
I think one of the key things you're forgetting about the Assad regime, is that it was very brutal before the uprising.
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Assad isn't some crackpot Gadaffi style dictator like the faily dail says, he's a London eye doctor who got drafted into becoming the heir to Syria in the mid 90's after the proper heir died. Before all this kicked off he was actually considered a reformist and was getting complaints in Syria that he was too moderate and nothing like his father lol. The fact that the majority of Syrians were happy with him has been one of the big reasons the US backed rebels have been unable to overthrow him.

If the US hadn't supported the rebels they would have been put down before ISIS entered the scene and then ISIS would have been crushed beneath the Syrian army too. The problem is now that's not an option due to all the issues the US support for the rebels has caused. The only outcomes now are either ISIS win, the rebels win or Assad wins. Assad is the best of those three options by a large margin, especially if he keeps his promise of holding elections once this is all over.

Secular leader > "moderate" Islamic fundamentalists > "extreme" Islamic fundamentalists
 
Moses said:
Yay, he was an eye doctor. Cool story bro. And he basically inherited his position, but he didn't have to. He could have said no and stayed in London :o. Instead he went back and embraced his role fully...



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bashar_al-Assad#Human_rights



https://www.hrw.org/report/2010/07/...-during-bashar-al-asads-first-ten-years-power



http://www.refworld.org/cgi-bin/tex...r=&type=&coi=SYR&rid=&docid=4da56d83a2&skip=0
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No one is saying he is a saint. In fact no one is even saying he is particularly nice. The only alternatives though are far far worse.
 
Moses said:
It applies to you, too, given your claims in post #68, where you claimed he was very popular with the Syrian population... I notice you haven't responded to queries about your source for that. I won't hold my breath.
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OK:

http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/syria-why-assad-still-power-544952547

http://www.globalresearch.ca/why-syrians-support-bashar-al-assad/5405208

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jan/17/syrians-support-assad-western-propaganda

http://news.sky.com/story/1090047/syria-assad-still-popular-in-parts-of-country

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/0...-support-for-assad-even-among-sunni-majority/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...-of-Damascus-rally-round-Bashar-al-Assad.html

http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2013/04/15/How-popular-is-Bashar-Assad.aspx
 
Moses said:
Within those links there are things like,



Which, y'know, paints the picture of him being popular in the areas in which he's popular. Breaking news right there :o. No one's denying that. You've failed to show he's popular overall, though. If he's popular, why did he need to oppress any political opposition before all this started, etc?

Then the poll claim in the Guardian comment piece, and reported widely elsewhere, is junk to say the least...



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17155349

If you're basing your argument on that, it's frankly embarrassing...
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What about the other articles?

What about this:


or this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17391353
 
Moses said:
Did you miss the bit where I said he's popular in areas he's popular. That doesn't mean he's popular overall. That's quite a simple concept.
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It also doesn't mean he is not!

Well I've shown you my evidence for his popularity. Perhaps you might like to back your claims up?
 
Moses said:
Did you miss the bit where I said he's popular in areas he's popular? That doesn't mean he's popular overall. That's quite a simple concept.

The independence campaign managed to win in Dundee, Glasgow, North Lanarkshire, and West Dunbartonshire... but that doesn't mean they won overall, y'know, because they lost in the other twenty eight areas...
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But he's prime minister so doesn't that mean he got most of the vote? :confused:
 
Werewolf said:
It would be like the UK having had enough of the Ira and carpet bombing NI in response, or every time the IRA etc killed a British police/army officer shelling the areas where the Ira had it's supporters.
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Never heard of the black and tans then?

In my opinion. To keep these religious nut jobs at bay you need a nut job in charge.
Since the EU\UK\Israel\Saudis have killed the bad guys off in the name of oil.
They are now spreading their terror all over the world.
 
deuse said:
Never heard of the black and tans then?

In my opinion. To keep these religious nut jobs at bay you need a nut job in charge.
Since the EU\UK\Israel\Saudis have killed the bad guys off in the name of oil.
They are now spreading their terror all over the world.
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It sure is ugly but it is the only thing that works.
 
I note since Putin started successfully bombing the proxies in Syria loads of NATO special forces guys are being reported to have died in Afghanistan or similar acknowledged postings.
 
thep02 said:
I note since Putin started successfully bombing the proxies in Syria loads of NATO special forces guys are being reported to have died in Afghanistan or similar acknowledged postings.
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Have the number of "deaths during overseas training exercises" increased markedly?

That's the traditional MoD way of trying to hide that UKSF people have been killed somewhere that UK PLC won't admit to having UKSF on the ground.
 
thep02 said:
I note since Putin started successfully bombing the proxies in Syria loads of NATO special forces guys are being reported to have died in Afghanistan or similar acknowledged postings.
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Not mention the US almost immediately announced it would stop funding 'rebel' training camps, most likely because Russia have bombed all of the ISIS training camps.

After the Iraq war WMD lie and the Libya 'no fly zone' which involved helping rebels by bombing the Libran regime you'd have to be pretty gullible these days to believe that we're actually fighting against ISIS, they're just a bunch of paid mercenaries. I'd bet my car that our main priority is overthrowing Assad and his forces.
 
Even if Assad is guilty in some way, why are we trying to remove him, whilst at the same time doing absolutely nothing about all the other oppressive regimes around the world?

Let's see, off the top of my head: we've got China, we've got Saudi Arabia (& Qatar, UAE, etc). Any number of African countries. India (security forces in India apparently can rape, pillage, kill with impunity, does the BBC ever report this? Here you go: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/n...human-rights-violations-in-jammu-and-kashmir/).

What about North Korea... No talk of removing Kim Jong Un by force. I guess because he won't go without a fight, and we basically only take on nations we know can't fight back.
 
FoxEye said:
Even if Assad is guilty in some way, why are we trying to remove him, whilst at the same time doing absolutely nothing about all the other oppressive regimes around the world?

Let's see, off the top of my head: we've got China, we've got Saudi Arabia (& Qatar, UAE, etc). Any number of African countries. India (security forces in India apparently can rape, pillage, kill with impunity, does the BBC ever report this? Here you go: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/n...human-rights-violations-in-jammu-and-kashmir/).

What about North Korea... No talk of removing Kim Jong Un by force. I guess because he won't go without a fight, and we basically only take on nations we know can't fight back.
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Yes. The UK is the **** who stands behind the bully repeating everything he says.
 
It IS a worrying mess of a situation. Of course Russia/US/UK don't want to start anything, but the chances of some incident or misunderstanding is extremely high. Everybody and their dog seems to be in Syria right now, and the countries bordering it are also having to deal with the mess. We've already had Russia and Turkey (a NATO member, obviously) trading weapons locks. It's certainly possible the whole area could collapse into chaos if level heads don't prevail.

As for Russian involvement, I don't really have an issue with it. The Obama administration has shown its foreign policy is weak and inept, to be honest. If I was Russia, I would probably decide now was a good time to secure some strategic real estate
 
FoxEye said:
It's really not as black and white as you imagine.

http://theconversation.com/the-malignant-consensus-on-syria-9565

Some claims there that the Saudis have been responsible for anti-Assad uprisings, arming groups within Syria that reject secular states. Not just Assad - but all secular government. You don't think that's something the Saudis would do? It seems very much in line with their MO. We know that ISIS is receiving funding from the Saudis, etc, to the tune of millions of dollars.

And if you think there is such a thing as a secular opposition in the FSA, that has been debunked many times by multiple commentators.

This is the reality of the region. A constant battle between fundamentalist islam and whatever governments don't fit their islamic ideal.
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Sorry but I'm not the one with a black and white outlook on Syria. Firstly it's Putin and his fan bois who have said publicly that they regard anyone who isn't Assad as a terrorist.

Secondly you're claiming that anything that isn't secular is bad. Given that Assad has murdered and tortured thousands of Syrian people I'm not sure that can be objectively considered the case. You also imply that anything that isn't secular is Islamic fundamentalist - that's a very black and white view and not one I share.

Lastly the biggest friend to Islamic State, who I'm sure we all agree we don't want to see around for much longer, has been Assad - he's helped to make them strong by releasing all the jihadis in Syrian prisons at the start of the conflict, he's been buying oil off them and if reports of Islamic State using chemical weapons are true - where the hell do you think they got them from?
 
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