ISIL, ISIS, Daesh discussion thread.

Rroff said:
You are just as bad as the people you rail against. Lapping up things that are clearly by any metric nonsense because they support the picture you want to see, even if ultimately that picture itself is the right one, and when called out on it try to write me off as "invested in the clearly nonsensical official line" despite my posts clearly showing anything but that.

EDIT: And as if to prove my point:



It is hard to take you in any way seriously after that tripe.

EDIT: I will actually break down some of that though:



While this was true for most of Ghouta province the rebels in Douma had not agreed to a negotiated surrender by the end of the 31st March ultimatum as was announced to be so on Syrian TV and over the next few days an agreement was come to for the evacuation of non-combatants and wounded but by the 3rd or 4th of April the rebels turned down any further talks on surrendering leading to renewed air and artillery strikes from government forces on the 6th to soften them up for an offensive on the 7th - on the 7th despite making a lot of ground government forces were still facing stiff resistance and once again repulsed with heavy losses including several more tanks, something they could poorly afford to lose, when they'd already lost more than a dozen in assaults on the area. Not quite the picture you are presenting.
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Defeat was inevitable, a few days longer would make no difference but huuuurrr deeeerp gas them even though in EVERY PREVIOUS CASE in the previous weeks they reached a negotiated surrender and they were bussed to Idlib.

As long as it makes sense to you.

As I said before you are invested in this nonsense for some reason.
 
EvilSooty said:
Defeat was inevitable, a few days longer would make no difference but huuuurrr deeeerp gas them.

As long as it makes sense to you.
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Again I'm not saying they did gas them - again showing you are no better than the people you rail against.

It might have just taken a few more days but those losses were not negligible and unproportional to the scale of the bigger fight that was still going on for the country over the days, weeks even years ahead and could be far more significant in impact to the bigger picture leading to a lot of temptation to shortcut to the end result.

EDIT: To put some perspective on it - they retook "35%" of the Eastern Ghouta pocket (around 15 towns and other fortified positions held by rebels) for the same resources they'd already thrown at Douma without victory to that point.
 
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Rroff said:
Again I'm not saying they did gas them - again showing you are no better than the people you rail against.

It might have just taken a few more days but those losses were not negligible and unproportional to the scale of the bigger fight that was still going on for the country over the days, weeks even years ahead and could be far more significant in impact to the bigger picture leading to a lot of temptation to shortcut to the end result.
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Losing a few more men versus provoking a western regime change war that would inflict devastating losses?

Gas them every time.
 
EvilSooty said:
Losing a few more men versus provoking a western regime change war that would inflict devastating losses?

Gas them every time.
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As I said before they weren't and still aren't in a position where losing a "few more men" could be taken lightly:

https://www.theatlantic.com/interna...a-assad-conscription-refugees-lebanon/560282/

https://warisboring.com/whats-left-of-the-syrian-arab-army/

While Assad might be winning his situation is still very precarious and trying to hold vast areas of the country that have been retaken as well as keeping the offensive supplied has his forces stretched thin and reliant highly on the support of Iran and Russia, etc. he simply can't afford losses or getting bogged down in fighting in any one area.
 
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Rroff said:
As I said before they weren't and still aren't in a position where losing a "few more men" could be taken lightly:

https://www.theatlantic.com/interna...a-assad-conscription-refugees-lebanon/560282/

https://warisboring.com/whats-left-of-the-syrian-arab-army/

While Assad might be winning his situation is still very precarious and trying to hold vast areas of the country that have been retaken as well as keeping the offensive supplied has his forces stretched thin and reliant highly on the support of Iran and Russia, etc. he simply can't afford losses or getting bogged down in fighting in any one area.
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Absolutely. Dropping those completely militarily ineffective chlorine cannisters with a 100% civilian casualty rate on an area in control of foreign jihadis was instrumental in ensuring their surrender in a short campaign where the jihadi defence was in a state of collapse.

douma_gas_attack.jpg


I love the way you are still arguing this rubbish as if the entire story hadn't fallen to pieces over the last year.
 
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EvilSooty said:
Nevermind that they had taken the much larger city of Aleppo meeting far greater resistance and suffering far higher casualties without gassing people. Douma was different for some reason.
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wikipedia said:
Various claims of war crimes emerged during the battle, including the use of chemical weapons by both Syrian government forces and rebel forces,[103][104] the use of barrel bombs by the Syrian Air Force,[105][106][107][108] the dropping of cluster munitions on populated areas by Russian and Syrian forces,[109][110] the carrying out of "double tap" airstrikes to target rescue workers responding to previous strikes,[111] summary executions of civilians and captured soldiers by both sides,[112] indiscriminate shelling and use of highly inaccurate improvised artillery by rebel forces.[113][114] During the 2016 Syrian government offensive, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights warned that "crimes of historic proportions" were being committed in Aleppo.[115]
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From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Aleppo_(2012–2016)

You were saying?

Lets break it down a bit more - Aleppo was a far more strategically important target so proportionally higher casualties and expenditure could be expected but a victory would help to replenish their manpower (via both conscription and volunteers) and be a source of resources and manufacturing in the longer run to help support the army - both of which the effects are starting to be seen now as it takes time to train men and construct industry, etc. but was one of the reasons their manpower was struggling around 2016-18 as those losses would take time to replace.

That Douma pocket strategically was relatively insignificant but it was proving costly to take with very little to gain in snuffing out that one last pocket versus how much it was costing them militarily while trying to control ~50K square miles with a vastly depleted army and many more battles to come even with the support of Russia, etc.
 
Rroff said:
What story?

Oh nice ninja edit when you realised you'd showed how full of **** you were.
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Not really. I'm conscious I'm repeating myself which happens when talking to a brick wall.

You are immune to reason so I have gone down the taking the **** route instead. Why bother making proper arguments when you just ignore it all and talk complete drivel instead?
 
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So still nothing in our press besides the Hitchens' article since the release of the suppressed OPCW report on the 13th May.

It was clearly staged so it seems silence is their only way of dealing with it. Into the memory hole.

The corporate press and BBC are in league with the government.
 
Rroff said:
Something I strongly disagree with that it has significant weight as to whether it was or wasn't an act by or on behalf of the Syrian regime - which doesn't change the truth or otherwise of anything else. Like the surprise at the use of English in the depth of the Middle East it is the perspective of naivety not insight. That Assad and supporting forces had turned the tide does make it less likely they would use weapons banned or of a controversial nature at an international level but it is far far from a guarantee, as some are insistent is the case, that they didn't.
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An open mind is good. But Assad is far from stupid. Using chemical weapons - internationally condemned and the favoured pretext of his enemies to boot - to attack a small group of rebels would be a hugely counter-productive move and he would know that. The US administration was on the verge of withdrawing troops and then almost immediately it is firing missiles into Syria. In fact, it's firing missiles directly into one of the spots the chemical attack is supposed to take place obliterating the site. The USA also moves to stop OPCW investigators travelling to the alleged attack site. The USA also claimed Sarin gas (something hard to make) and now turns out to be alleged chlorine gas (something a garage terrorist could obtain the materials for and make). Now we have the OPCW investigators - world experts - stating with confidence that these canisters were placed. To believe that Assad carried out a chemical attack you have to believe he knowingly made a hugely clumsy political blunder for next to no military advantage. You have to ignore the testimony of world experts giving facts contrary to the USA's claims about how Assad did this. And to give equal credence to the US version (your 'it could be either' attitude) you have to ignore that the USA repeatedly made assertions to the public about specific details that have turned out to be false, you have to ignore that this event is greatly to the benefit of hawks in Washington, you have to ignore that the USA has repeatedly engaged in lies and deception just like this to justify military aggression in Iraq and Libya and that the person leading the pressure for this (John Bolton) literally threatened the children of the former OPCW if he didn't go along with their WMD narrative in Iraq. When one party has such terrible form and the details of the current case are largely reflective of the same being done again. And the alternate version being hugely and predictably counter-productive for the alleged perpetrator, then "it could be either" is no longer the reasonable position. The reasonable position is "it's by far the likeliest that this is a false flag / false claim".

The USA is like the boy who cried wolf. And not only does it cry wolf, but they claim that this time the wolf came crashing into the sheep pen shouting "I'm a wolf, I'm a wolf! Everybody hunt me."

It just doesn't add up. And likely, the same as Iraq's 45 minute WMD arsenal, the same as Gaddafi's peacenik crushing tanks and viagra-supplied rape squads and so on, we'll look back at this as fake. But by then we'll be having the exact same conversation at the latest allegations whatever they are. Iran, probably. And if the USA does go to war with Iran, that's it - we'll see decades of regional warfare that will make Iraq look like a slap on the cheeks. We're in that much danger.
 
RoboCod said:
I'm not sure why you wasted so much time replying in the first place. :D

Harmony usually offers a good objective discussion though.
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I'm not sure any one is really able to be fully objective on a subject they care about - and everybody should care about being dragged into another Middle Eastern war. But one can try to argue only based on evidence and avoid logical fallacies which I try to do. If you stick to that then mainly you only have to worry about being selective with which evidence you choose.
 
h4rm0ny said:
An open mind is good. But Assad is far from stupid...
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Exactly. With everything we know feigning neutrality between the two positions when one is so riddled with holes to be akin to Swiss cheese is not neutrality. It is propping up the ******** official line.

And I fear the last part of your post is correct. When the next false flag nonsense occurs in Venezuela or Iran Douma and all that happened in Iraq and Libya will be forgotten.

It takes time for the false flags to be debunked, but by the time they are the news cycle has moved on to another manufactured crisis.

Hence the lack of interest from the press on this even though it dominated headlines last April.

Oh well, onto Iran or Venezuela next. They are itching for some freedom I hear.
 
h4rm0ny said:
But Assad is far from stupid. Using chemical weapons - internationally condemned and the favoured pretext of his enemies to boot - to attack a small group of rebels would be a hugely counter-productive move and he would know that.
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Problem is to see it as such an ironclad guarantee he didn't do it is also based on a picture of the conflict that is a lie possibly coloured by Syrian state propaganda - Assad might have been winning but it was far from some kind of unstoppable rolling over the opposition - relying heavily on Russian air power and Iranian backed manpower for continued success (both of which were/are under huge pressure from Israel and the US to force them away) while Assad at the time was facing a manpower and resource crisis and constant threat that foreign actors could resupply a resurgence from rebels that could be just as grave for Assad in outcome. (Don't forget also Turkey was also building up massive forces on their border with uncertainty as to intentions with a lot of talk of them invading Syria). That Assad was winning might seem a convincing argument that such an attack wasn't an act by government forces sanctioned or unsanctioned when the conflict is viewed from a distance but it doesn't have as much surety when taking into account the true situation on the ground.

h4rm0ny said:
The USA also moves to stop OPCW investigators travelling to the alleged attack site.
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Was it ever established who denied them? I've only ever seen conflicting reports on that.

h4rm0ny said:
And to give equal credence to the US version (your 'it could be either' attitude) you have to ignore that the USA repeatedly made assertions to the public about specific details that have turned out to be false, you have to ignore that this event is greatly to the benefit of hawks in Washington, you have to ignore that the USA has repeatedly engaged in lies and deception just like this to justify military aggression in Iraq and Libya and that the person leading the pressure for this (John Bolton) literally threatened the children of the former OPCW if he didn't go along with their WMD narrative in Iraq. When one party has such terrible form and the details of the current case are largely reflective of the same being done again. And the alternate version being hugely and predictably counter-productive for the alleged perpetrator, then "it could be either" is no longer the reasonable position. The reasonable position is "it's by far the likeliest that this is a false flag / false claim".
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Convenience isn't evidence however - everything you are presenting here is circumstantial evidence and must be treated as such - the reasonable position is that there is significant weight to the possibility it was a faked attack which isn't something I have denied.
 
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'The reasonable position is that there is significant weight to the possibility it was a faked attack which isn't something I have denied.'

Yet all your arguments since I have been looking at this thread have been in support of the official line giving laughably implausible reasons why Assad would order such an attack. The only people you have criticised have been those exhibiting scepticism of the government position, never those supporting it.

Zero criticism of the official line at all beyond 'there are holes' without mentioning what those 'holes' are only begrudgingly conceding (after ninja edits) on balance that the whole Douma story is nonsense as it's impossible at this point to say otherwise.

Even though you concede on balance it was staged you still can't help yourself and maintain that it would make military sense for Assad to have ordered such an attack.

Are you schizophrenic?

'Problem is to see it as such an ironclad guarantee he didn't do it is also based on a picture of the conflict that is a lie possibly coloured by Syrian state propaganda - Assad might have been winning but it was far from some kind of unstoppable rolling over the opposition'

Here's an ex-general of the SAS saying it makes **** all sense for Assad to have done it.

https://www.rt.com/uk/424589-syria-chemical-assad-jon

“Why would Assad use chemical weapons at this time? He's won the war,” Shaw said. “That's not just my opinion, it is shared by senior commanders in the US military. There is no rationale behind Assad's involvement whatsoever.

"He's convinced the rebels to leave occupied areas in buses. He's gained their territory. So, why would he be bothering gassing them?”

Shaw proceeded to point out that Assad’s enemies had much more to gain from staging an attack. “The jihadists and the various opposition groups who've been fighting against Assad have much greater motivation to launch a chemical weapons attack and make it look like Assad was responsible.

“Their motivation being that they want to keep the Americans involved in the war – following Trump saying the US was going to leave Syria for other people to sort out.”

Here's a Royal Navy admiral, Lord West, saying it makes **** all sense either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foj29LIXpy4

Clearly you know better than a British Army general and Royal Navy admiral having studied the Art of War. But all's not lost, the imbecile Robocod will still support you regardless.

DaSThwkXUAAlhpd.jpg:large
 
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