Good grief. Is there no brutality you won't write apologia for as long as the victims are Muslims? The Syrian civil war started when Assad's army fired on protesters; only after being massacred did people organise themselves to resist the regime with weapons. Yes, poor, sweet, cuddly Bashar - who ordered his troops to fire on his own people - didn't want to hurt anyone.
Well, I disagree for the reasons we discussed in the Syria thread, but I doubt either of us can change the other's mind on this issue.
Those sweet, sweet people like to behead, crucify, and burn anyone who isn't as radical as they are? The reason for the rebellion is the boiling religious hatred the Syrian Sunnis have for all the non-Sunnis. Their leaders had long preached that Alawites were worse than Jews. Assad's father become "The Lion" because he stopped their previous campaign of brutal bombings that had all but brought Syrian life to a halt. As with Lebanon, ordinary people were deeply afraid of the violent fantasies the Sunnis always expressed. Everyone else tries to keep them in check. The Sunni fundamentalist fervor had to be suppressed, and for eighty years the Syrian regime did that as a matter of survival for the rest of the population. That's why even many more secular Sunnis side with the regime. It's that or the abyss, and the abyss looks a whole lot like ISIS. What do you do when you're living with the ugly face of genocidal Islamic fervor? You try to keep them from winning and taking power, because if they do you have to flee, submit, or die, and they don't seem to be accepting submission from anyone but Christians with money.
That's just fantastic nonsense. The protests and government response that led to Syrian civil war are well documented and agreed upon by just about everyone. You would do well to read about them rather than persist with this dishonest revisonism.
No one really cares what happens to Assad. He can go retire to the French Riviera. We're very good at offering dictators cushy packages to hang out by the pool so they don't have to worry about assassinations.
Oh, so the world is gearing up for all out war against some peaceful protesters. Got it. The regime had to stop those protests almost immediately or what has happened since was going to happen. Do you know what one of the primary functions of a police state is? To have its ear on the heartbeat of any rebels, revolutionary attitudes, resentment, and especially plans, capabilities, and connections. They'd been doing it for eighty years. They knew how badly a large segment of the population wanted the brutal, violent death of them, their families, and all the non-Sunnis. Assad failed to nip the protests in the bud, even with violent crackdowns, and that revealed the weakness of his regime and the whole place exploded.
As I said, fantastic nonsense, and dishonestly presented too. You know it's possible to take a position on the Syrian civil war, even one backing the Assad regime, without lying about it.
Sorry, but it's not a lie. Why do you think Syria had maintained a police state for all those long decades? Is it because they loved cops? Why do you think the Christians and Alawites have stayed in their mountain villages? Surely they're not afraid to live surrounded and isolated by Sunnis. If it was a simple case of a brutal dictator, Christians wouldn't be siding with Assad, nor would Shias from Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran, nor would many secular Sunnis be siding with him.
It's that irresistible combination of absurd positions, easily refuted arguments and persistence. But yes, you make a good point.
Sorry, but the basic Syrian government was set up by the French because they saw the same problem. The Sunnis were violent, motivated, and extremely fundamentalist and had to be harshly controlled to prevent a violent rebellion. So the French filled the Syrian military with Christians, Alawites, and Druze and put them in powerful positions to keep the Sunnis in check. Without that, the country is ungovernable and would quickly descend into genocide. It finally did.
Um, that's not about leftists, it's about young people. Let the record reflect that Zombie is more interested in scoring fake political points than actually addressing terrorism.
But why do you want to address terrorism when there's real violence and oppression going on in the Mizzou student center annex?
Well, I'll agree that youth & stupidity are common elements of liberal progressivism. Some, not enough, eventually grow out of it.
Inutil seems to think he's offering unique insight by pointing out there's nothing neat & clean when dealing with Middle East politics. There's no good vs. bad, there's only bad vs. worse. Assad is a brutal dictator who didn't think twice about slaughtering his own civilians to save himself. Just like Saddam. So the choice is between taking action which will end up helping Assad retain power vs. wiping out a terrorist death cult which delights in committing the most brutal of atrocities? I haven't heard anything about Assad sending squads of homicide bombers and mass murderers to France.
The TightyRighties have gotten into the slovenly habit of using "leftist" to mean "everything I don't like." Consequently as a descriptor it's become meaningless.
438 posts and Garamet finally makes her appearance. I give France credit for being willing to say the word "war," something we haven't been willing to do in an official capacity since Vietnam.
So who was the "terrorist" at Mizzou? The drunk redneck in the red truck? Or the disturbed student playing with his own poop?
Re: Teaming up with Russia While there are some decent reasons to bring Russia into the coalition, they aren't military ones. First off, the Russian military just isn't that good. Since Georgia they have started to reform (Georgia was their Grenada) but even so they've only got a deployable military of around 70k. To put that in perspective when I was in Iraq the BIAP base complex alone had 63k Americans. And while these are the best trained and equipped of their military they are only of Southern European NATO quality. Not to mention a lot of these troops have been rotating through the Ukraine so need rest/refit before going on another deployment. In other words they don't really bring much to the table militarily. But they do bring problems. STANAG exists for a reason. NATO has a unified command structure. We also have 14 years experience working together. Let me put it this way. Even if our radios were compatible (they aren't), and the US was willing to share our crypto with the Russians so we could take to each other (we wouldn't), would Russians take orders from Americans and vice versa (we wouldn't). On the battlefield someone you can't talk to and won't take orders from you is a liability. A liability that their paltry numbers and capabilities doesn't make it worthwhile. From a military standpoint. There could be arguments made that a show of solidarity is worth it. Or if we decide to work with Assad that we'd need the Russians for middlemen. I'm just saying that from a military standpoint this wouldn't be some Hollywood movie where the two baddest dudes on the block decide to team up and fight the real enemy. In reality the Italians have a more useful military force.
Uh oh Garamet, Bernie doesn't want to have to talk about Paris tonight. https://www.yahoo.com/politics/sanders-aide-pushes-back-against-cbs-switch-to-215805298.html
His main traction is on domestic policies so I do not blame him wanting to spend his time focused on that.
To be fair you make a few good points but you are selling Russia short. You are talking about 70,000 "deployable" men but the total number of men in active duty are close to 800,000, and nevertheless, 70,000 men is a significant force. I think it's around thirty times the number of Russian personnel currently present but I could of course be mistaken. You are talking about the Russian military not "being that good" but rebels who have come under Russian fire in Syria have noted the very high accuracy of their airstrikes, although to be fair they are likely comparing those to the ones of the comparatively-poorly trained Syrian Army. The concerns about communication are all valid. Nevertheless it's a bit of a moot point since the Russians absolutely will not withdraw especially considering the latest passenger plane downing. Neither will the Iranians. Establishing and expanding some forms of battlefield communication, then, I think if not vital is at least extremely important.
Yes, whatever defects the Russian air force may have in relation to western air forces, when compared to the Syrian air force (which has some precision munitions but uses them sparingly) they are very good.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_really_really_dumb OK so the third isn't a fallacy, but it's still valid I think.
I believe the 80k is their well trained professional force while the rest are just poorly trained conscripts. Also, no, just no, the Russian airstrikes have been extremely inaccurate due to a shortage of guided missiles and bombs so they mainly use dumb bombs which miss the target more often than not.
