Can we PLEASE attack Syria now? [Archive]

Philippus Flavius Homovallumus

02-22-2012, 14:16

Germany had attacked direct allies of england...a state of war existed between the 2 countries.

The war was prosecuted for what were considered to be moral reason, not purely geopolitical ones. Fighting World War II with Nazi Germany was not in Britain's interest, Hitler was not even really interested in the UK, not to the extent he was willing to sacrifice so many men and treasure to defeat us. Britain is not part of mainland Europe, our going concerns were not in Europe - we could have made peace.

[quote]that's like.....your opinion man.

So, along with everything else he should be allowed to kill famous Western journalists for criticising his regime? I don't think so.

this is just like Libya....a civil war.....who are we to pick who is going to win? why is that our competence exactly??? not to mention what do we have to profit from sticking our collective noses in yet another mess?

We get to not look week and morally bankrupt.

Libya mah not become a great democratic nation, but precious few people criticised Tony Blair for going into Kosovo. Those few people who do deploy the same arguments as with Libya, "but we caused MORE deaths", despite Somalia and now Syria giving that the lie.

PanzerJaeger

02-22-2012, 14:29

What did Nazi's in France have to do with Churchill?

Excuse me for extending my concern for other human beings beyond my native land.

Assad must be stopped, the Syrians cannot do it without help.

It is manifestly worse that Gadaffi, and from my point of view the failure to intervene in Syria, and resulting esclation, vindicates that intervention too.

Germany was at war with Britain. I'm not sure how the two situations are comparable. It's wonderful that you're concerned about the latest media spectacle. There are many millions of human beings around the world that could benefit from a version of that concern that doesn't involve dropping bombs and picking sides in civil wars. What's going on in Syria is a power play between vying factions. By embracing the FSA, the Sunni faction has dropped the facade of a peaceful movement and engaged the state in open conflict. If they aren't prepared to win that conflict, they have no one else to blame but themselves.

The self-righteous mindset behind these interventionist movements is dangerous. We have to stop thinking of small nations as conditionally sovereign.

Ronin

02-22-2012, 14:34

The war was prosecuted for what were considered to be moral reason, not purely geopolitical ones. Fighting World War II with Nazi Germany was not in Britain's interest, Hitler was not even really interested in the UK, not to the extent he was willing to sacrifice so many men and treasure to defeat us. Britain is not part of mainland Europe, our going concerns were not in Europe - we could have made peace.

that might have make for pretty and heroic sounding press statements by Mr. Churchill but it isn´t exactly right.
if the Nazis had taken over all of Europe you guys were next....that's pretty clear.

We get to not look week and morally bankrupt.

again..that's a matter of opinion....I do not consider picking the fights we get into, based on our interest or lack thereof, to be either weak or morally bankrupt.

The Stranger

02-22-2012, 14:49

rvg

02-22-2012, 14:51

Let's not be hasty here. First of all the opposition is fragmented and exhibits signs of infiltration by al-qaeda. Those explosions in Aleppo specifically bear all the hallmarks of al-qaeda.
Second, if we do ouster Al-Assad, the minorities in Syria (alawites, christians, etc) are screwed: the sunni majority will tyrannize the far worse than Assad did.
Third, delivering Syria to a sunni majority rule might upset the balance in the region between sunnis and the shias.

So yeah, let's stay put and give Assad time to crush the rebellion. Yes, many people will die, but many more will die if we interfere.

The Stranger

02-22-2012, 14:52

[QUOTE=Ronin;2053425238]Germany had attacked direct allies of england...a state of war existed between the 2 countries.

The war was prosecuted for what were considered to be moral reason, not purely geopolitical ones. Fighting World War II with Nazi Germany was not in Britain's interest, Hitler was not even really interested in the UK, not to the extent he was willing to sacrifice so many men and treasure to defeat us. Britain is not part of mainland Europe, our going concerns were not in Europe - we could have made peace.

he only wore out his entire luftwaffe and few tons of bombs to bring england to its knees and not to mention sending his most able general to kill the brits in africa. he just had an irrational fear for the british homeguard and their coastal defense + navy. if he had just invaded the island, and lets be happy he didnt... luckily he had an even bigger and more irrational fear for russia, lets be happy for that too!

CountArach

02-22-2012, 14:58

Philippus Flavius Homovallumus

02-22-2012, 15:16

Germany was at war with Britain. I'm not sure how the two situations are comparable. It's wonderful that you're concerned about the latest media spectacle. There are many millions of human beings around the world that could benefit from a version of that concern that doesn't involve dropping bombs and picking sides in civil wars. What's going on in Syria is a power play between vying factions. By embracing the FSA, the Sunni faction has dropped the facade of a peaceful movement and engaged the state in open conflict. If they aren't prepared to win that conflict, they have no one else to blame but themselves.

The self-righteous mindset behind these interventionist movements is dangerous. We have to stop thinking of small nations as conditionally sovereign.

This isn't just a "power play", it has taken months for the number of military personnel defecting to become even a blip on the radar - the general populace has started using lethal force because the Assad-loyal forces will kill them even if they don't. I said this with Libya as well, when the doctors, students, lawyers and footballers pick up guns you know its bad because it means ordinary people have decided the choice is not live or die.... its die fighting or die on your knees.

Given that they will die if someone does not knock out Assad's heavy weapons (as in Libya) intervention is not unreasonable. All we really did in Libya was level the playing field, it then quickly became clear Gadaffi had little actual support left outside of his mercenaries and clients, and I don't think there's any doubt he was bussing in Africans to be mercs, some of them have even admitted so.

that might have make for pretty and heroic sounding press statements by Mr. Churchill but it isn´t exactly right.
if the Nazis had taken over all of Europe you guys were next....that's pretty clear.

This has never been a convincing argument. The evidence points to Hitler prefering peace with Britain at least in the medium term, because Britain was the greatest Super Power at the time, a status we gave up to defeat Hitler. If you look at a lot of the correspondence, you see Hitler wasn't keen on fighting the British - our ethnic and political and cultural status (in his eyes) mitigated against it.

again..that's a matter of opinion....I do not consider picking the fights we get into, based on our interest or lack thereof, to be either weak or morally bankrupt.

Unarmed civilians have been begging for military intervention for a about eight months, now they have started fighting back on their own. they have more reason to hate the West than before, and they are now turning to the terrorists because they are the only people who will help them, train them, and supply arms.

This isn't Iraq or Afganistan, where we went and foun d a regime opponent, this is Somalia where if we don't back a faction the whole country will go up in flames. Have you SEEN was Somalia looked like in the 80's? Mogadishu was like Paris, and after twenty years the schools and hospitals are just reopening.

he only wore out his entire luftwaffe and few tons of bombs to bring england to its knees and not to mention sending his most able general to kill the brits in africa. he just had an irrational fear for the british homeguard and their coastal defense + navy. if he had just invaded the island, and lets be happy he didnt... luckily he had an even bigger and more irrational fear for russia, lets be happy for that too!

The British went to Africa to fight Hitler, consider instead the situation immidiately following Dunkirk, or before.

The Stranger

02-22-2012, 15:18

you are right.. sorry he went to africa to aid the italians. i guess what you say could be true for '39 and early '40 but not after that. but maybe he resolved after he saw that it would come to nothing and the brits would not make peace. i dont know. i do know what you say is true about the americans. however politics is politics and i think its too simple to say churchil did what he did because he was morally outraged... about what? the germans hadnt done much that was really against the moral code, they broke about all the political treaties, and you can call that immoral but its not that outrageous.

the politicians went in for politics, and they sent the soldiers and the soldiers went for ideals, money, love for their fellow human, to rise within the army, because they had no other options.

Lemur

02-22-2012, 15:36

I was worried that our Libyan playtime would give people ideas. I was right.

PanzerJaeger

02-22-2012, 16:34

This isn't just a "power play", it has taken months for the number of military personnel defecting to become even a blip on the radar - the general populace has started using lethal force because the Assad-loyal forces will kill them even if they don't. I said this with Libya as well, when the doctors, students, lawyers and footballers pick up guns you know its bad because it means ordinary people have decided the choice is not live or die.... its die fighting or die on your knees.

Given that they will die if someone does not knock out Assad's heavy weapons (as in Libya) intervention is not unreasonable. All we really did in Libya was level the playing field, it then quickly became clear Gadaffi had little actual support left outside of his mercenaries and clients, and I don't think there's any doubt he was bussing in Africans to be mercs, some of them have even admitted so.

More propaganda, and more repetition of the same lies that have been disproved over and over again in the past in regard to Libya. There are approximately one million people in the city of Homs alone. Do you honestly believe they'll all be killed if government forces restore control over the area? Of course not. As with any of these rebellions, only the ringleaders and their most ardent and open supporters are at any real risk - apart from those who become collateral damage between the two factions.

Even if one accepts that the international community is right to intervene during genuine genocidal activity, it is most definitely not the West's responsibility (or right) to play bodyguard for the Muslim Brotherhood or any other local rabble rousers. Standing up against a Middle Eastern government is brave, but comes with certain known risks. And apart from that, the actual level of popular support, and even Sunni popular support, for this movement is indefinite at best. To claim this is the government versus the people instead of the government versus a particular group of historically rebellious people is dubious indeed.

The WW2 comparison is laughable. That Britain was not willing to tolerate an expansionist Nazi Germany just across the channel and everything that would entail has absolutely no bearing on the Syrian situation.

Centurion1

02-22-2012, 18:24

you want to do it phillip? do it with your countries own bombs and treasure.

this does not concern me and i find these rebels questionable.

lars573

02-22-2012, 18:54

I echo the let Syria fight it's own civil war. Also if foreign intervention is required, let Israel do it.

rory_20_uk

02-22-2012, 19:11

Overthrowing the leaders in Syria isn't going to be a panacea. Liberating countries in Europe returned them to their previous state. Doing so in Syria is going to leave it the same mess it is now with different people with the advantage.

Europe has its own problems. Let some nice Muslim countries on this one, and waste their blood and treasure on a lost cause.

~:smoking:

Tellos Athenaios

02-22-2012, 19:32

Let's not be hasty here. First of all the opposition is fragmented and exhibits signs of infiltration by al-qaeda. Those explosions in Aleppo specifically bear all the hallmarks of al-qaeda. Am I missing something here, or didn't deserters from the Syrian army claim credit for that?

Seems not unlikely, Assad's army has a long standing issue with people realising that they might be better off without him and feeling in a position to effect some change. These are often enough career soldiers, so I don't see why they shouldn't be able to pull it off -- they have the training, the experience, and it can't be too hard to get at the equipment.

Vuk

02-22-2012, 20:45

We should stick our noses out of it. We should only go to war with someone if it is to directly protect our interests and we get an immediate and important gain out of it. No offense to anyone in Syria, but they can take care of their own problems...we got plenty of our own. Syria and Assad are not worth one drop of innocent American blood. Even if we go in there and kill Assad, someone just as bad will take his place, and we will have succeeded in is wasting tons of money and getting innocent Americans killed.

A place like Iran poses a serious threat to our interests, and letting them do what they are doing could lead to Israel being wiped out, and there being a unified anti-American Middle-east that would pose a serious threat to us. I would hate to have to go to war with Iran (another war is the last thing we need), but at least that would benefit us. How would knocking Assad off help us? We should just stick our noses out of things for once. Look at the horrible things we did and let happen in Serbia because we had to go and be the hero.

Viking

02-22-2012, 21:34

I am not totally convinced that an outside intervention is in the best interest of the Syrian people at the present time; the country is somewhat religiously heterogeneous. I have also been led to believe that the Syrian air force is potent enough to, as a minimum, cause losses on any interventionist's side.

Syria and Assad are not worth one drop of innocent American blood.

Launch the paedo air force.

Papewaio

02-22-2012, 22:52

Civil wars are the worst ones to get involved with. Just compare the number of casualties in the US civil war to all other US conflicts.

There is no UN mandate and unlikely to be one either as neither Russia nor China want to get involved and I'm betting that the rest of the veto holders are silently praying that this remains the case. I don't see the EU having the capacity to do this.

If local countries like Turkey choose to get involved then their might be more of a reason for countries tha are further afield to intervene.

But to get an idea how long these conflicts can last look at the one hundred year war, north vs south Korea and how well Lebanon is going.

Of course some of these are wars by proxy so last far longer then if one side loses its outside benefactor. Vietnam is probably in the long term better off once western powers capitulated and it could build as a unified nation. The one takeaway point is that Vietnam would be better off now if western investment had not been curtailed for so long.

Philippus Flavius Homovallumus

02-22-2012, 23:45

How many local journalists are dead from this conflict? The only reason we care is because she is a famous Western journalist. Her death is a tragedy, but so are the deaths of all who die in this sort of senseless violence.

Putting our own western hands into a local civil war will only exascerbate things and push one side or the other even closer to radicalised forces who can play the anti-Western card all the more easily. We should just supply what aid we can to those who are affected by this and stay out.

Can I just point out, I have been outraged for weeks? I was just hoping someone else might be outraged.

you are right.. sorry he went to africa to aid the italians. i guess what you say could be true for '39 and early '40 but not after that. but maybe he resolved after he saw that it would come to nothing and the brits would not make peace. i dont know. i do know what you say is true about the americans. however politics is politics and i think its too simple to say churchil did what he did because he was morally outraged... about what? the germans hadnt done much that was really against the moral code, they broke about all the political treaties, and you can call that immoral but its not that outrageous.

the politicians went in for politics, and they sent the soldiers and the soldiers went for ideals, money, love for their fellow human, to rise within the army, because they had no other options.

Hitler's invasion of Czechsovakia, and the fact that the western Allies allowed it, should go down as one of the great moral outrages of the mid-20th Century, a Central European democracy abandoned to its fate.

You are, of course, correct - by the time Churchill became Prime Minister the die was cast, but Hitler didn't want to fight the British, too much trouble for too little gain. As far as he was concerned Britain was welcome to its overseas Empire and mercentile interests so long as Germany could have Europe and the heavy industry and agriculture therin.

More propaganda, and more repetition of the same lies that have been disproved over and over again in the past in regard to Libya. There are approximately one million people in the city of Homs alone. Do you honestly believe they'll all be killed if government forces restore control over the area? Of course not. As with any of these rebellions, only the ringleaders and their most ardent and open supporters are at any real risk - apart from those who become collateral damage between the two factions.

Western journalists, talking to locals and regional journalists estimate Homs suffers at least 40 casualties a day, and while the only Western journalist in Homs is now dead, there are others in the surrounding towns who report indiscriminate shelling, casualties they have seen... including women and children.

Leaving aside what I consider to be your overly paranoid assessment of Libya, which does not track with the situation on the ground in so much as casulties numbers aside those things DID happen, Mercs snipers and all, those things definately ARE happening in Syria.

Even if one accepts that the international community is right to intervene during genuine genocidal activity, it is most definitely not the West's responsibility (or right) to play bodyguard for the Muslim Brotherhood or any other local rabble rousers. Standing up against a Middle Eastern government is brave, but comes with certain known risks. And apart from that, the actual level of popular support, and even Sunni popular support, for this movement is indefinite at best. To claim this is the government versus the people instead of the government versus a particular group of historically rebellious people is dubious indeed.

Ignoring these people, and playing the "not our problem" card simply plays into the Islamist narrative that we are all Crusader bastards, toppling unpopular regimes undermines it - as it did in Libya.

Let's talk about Misrata a bit, the Misratan are out for blood, this is clearly in part because they withstood and lengthy and fairly bloody siege. The same thing has happened in Syria, over time relatively peaceful protest has become more violent, the lack of international intervention has undermined the moderate dissident voices and strenghtened the hand of the radicals, just as the oppressive economic conditions in Europe have undermined moderates here.

The more the Syrians suffer, the more the peacable will be either cut down or subverted.

The WW2 comparison is laughable. That Britain was not willing to tolerate an expansionist Nazi Germany just across the channel and everything that would entail has absolutely no bearing on the Syrian situation.

Would you like to consider the Somalian comparison, then?

you want to do it phillip? do it with your countries own bombs and treasure.

this does not concern me and i find these rebels questionable.

Bombs have a sehlf life anyway, and I fully expect us to have to deal with Syria anyway at some point, rather like dry rot, it gets worse the longer you leave it.

I am not totally convinced that an outside intervention is in the best interest of the Syrian people at the present time; the country is somewhat religiously heterogeneous. I have also been led to believe that the Syrian air force is potent enough to, as a minimum, cause losses on any interventionist's side.

OK, so we have a problem of religious heterogenity, but we are also seeing increasing discontent among the Sunni majority. At this point, it is alsmost certain Assad will fall, but it could take years, the longer the conflict brews, the longer people are waiting for the aftermath, the worse it will be. Say we have another year of this where resentment between groups continues to build, how many extra years will that add to the subsequent chaos.

The Assad family retained tacit support by keeping the country stable and relatively peacable, they can no longer do either.

Philippus Flavius Homovallumus

02-23-2012, 00:38

If you have a viable exit plan and some kind of crafty social engineering plan, then you have a valid idea here. Otherwise I don't see the point in calling for this attack--we have more than enough precedent in recent years to suggest it would end badly, with many more dead after it was all done than if we had just left it alone--certainly Syria would be no closer to Demoracy and certainly, years from now, the west (or rather, America, as these things go) would be blamed for all of the violence anyway, bringing us right back to where we don't want to be.

Unless you've got some kind of plan? No? Just rightous outrage without considering the lessons everyone should have been learning from our Iraqi and Afghani adventures? Or even the recent Lybia outrages? These things don't end well, stop supporting them. The situation in Syria is regrettable, but it is something perpetrated by a Syrian against other Syrians. They need to fix it themselves, if they ever want to break the cycle of dictatorship and foreign intervention.

Plan, plan.....

.........
..............

Hmmm.........

An attack of overwhleming force on a Syrian Airbase, followed by an attack on Syrian armoured regiment, long range.

Tell Assad that if he doesn't bow out and hand over to his deputy we'll crush his armed forces and let the rebels have his body, send him the clip of Gadaffi.

An insurrection needs the tacit support of a segment of the non-combatant population to function, at least 10%. You need to choke off that support , the key here is to rob the militias of legitimacy by enforcing a truce. What we did in Libya was back the rebels because the grey technocrats looked like they could found a functioning state. Here there's nothing like that yet, so what we need to do is enforce the sort of result they got in Egypt or Yemen.

At the same time, I would reach out to the Syrian army and tell them they should stop attacking civilians, or we will be forced to stop them ourselves. I honestly think that if we can, at the least, draw down the level of the violence Syria can be salvanged, instead of becoming another failed state - which is where we are currently headed.

Strike For The South

02-23-2012, 02:17

I eagerly await the upcomming Islamic theorcarcy.

Until someone can show me a state with a viable resistance group that can match the theorcrats in orgazation I remain dour on prospects on any sort of progress in the ME

a completely inoffensive name

02-23-2012, 02:20

Can't our soldiers attack some place a bit cooler this time around?

Philippus Flavius Homovallumus

02-23-2012, 02:21

So... "topple the dictator and see what happens?"

I appreciate your righteous indignation because I feel the same way, but what you just typed here could have been taken straight out of a staunch "stay the course" type's mouth in the early years of the Iraq war. You're outraged at the treatment of the Syrian people, and feel something should be done, but in spite of all evidence pointing to this being a situation that will be incredibly difficult to resolve without escalating the bloodshed considerably (whether immediately or over time with some dumb protracted war--Syria shares a border with Iraq, after all) you don't actually offer any contingencies of any kind in that plan, which means its a bad plan.

And, speaking of lessons we should have learned in the last ten years, you shouldn't go to war with a bad plan.

And, even more importantly than all of that, even with a very limited engagement we still put our 'stamp' on a cause without knowing a whole lot about it. Every time we do this it backfires--even something as simple as supplying arms. Al Qaeda should be a case in point here, but I guess a lot of people are still refusing to acknowledge that we truly enabled the Jihad in the first place, back when the Sovs were invading Afghanistan.

We need to stop creating problems. Especially when times are hard at home.

No, cut the head off the snake, leave the regime in place. Assad can't move, he'll lose face and his generals will kill him. If he flees his generals can come to the table. Hardly perfect, but it has a good chance of stopping the violence.

PanzerJaeger

02-23-2012, 08:19

Western journalists, talking to locals and regional journalists estimate Homs suffers at least 40 casualties a day, and while the only Western journalist in Homs is now dead, there are others in the surrounding towns who report indiscriminate shelling, casualties they have seen... including women and children.

Your unwavering faith in Western journalism is misguided and giving you a serious case of selective outrage. You should be much more critical in assessing such claims. How did the journalists determine that casualties were at least forty per day? Did they wander around the war zone counting bodies, or are they repeating information from 'local sources'? What is the proportion of women and children killed to fighters? What were the circumstances surrounding those deaths? Were they drug out of their homes and shot in the head or were they caught in the crossfire between the rebels and the government? These are all important questions that journalists on the ground cannot hope to answer with any certainty, which highlights the dubious nature of such claims. They outrage, but do they inform?

At this point, Homs and a portion of the Sunni community have not only broken away from Syria but also embraced the FSA and their violent activities across the country. Theirs is no longer a peaceful protest movement, but a rebellion. By upping the ante in that way, that militarization has legitimized an equally militarized government response. It is not unreasonable to expect the Syrian government to reassert control over a city waging war against it, if only to stop the terrorism in the rest of the nation. The question is how that campaign is being waged. Are atrocities being committed, or are the casualties a natural result of intense urban fighting? At this point, there is absolutely no proof or even any anecdotal evidence that what is going on is anything other than a government fighting a rebellion.

Leaving aside what I consider to be your overly paranoid assessment of Libya, which does not track with the situation on the ground in so much as casulties numbers aside those things DID happen, Mercs snipers and all, those things definately ARE happening in Syria.

I've provided ample evidence that those things did not happen in Libya. If you refuse to accept fact based analysis in favor of disproven early media claims, there is little I can do about it.

And I am very sure that the Syrian government is using military means against the rebels at this point. Just as in Libya, when a peaceful protest movement transitions into an armed rebellion, it is unrealistic to expect a government to allow itself to be attacked without a response. It wouldn't happen in Europe, it didn't happen in the United States, and it is not happening in Syria.

Ignoring these people, and playing the "not our problem" card simply plays into the Islamist narrative that we are all Crusader bastards, toppling unpopular regimes undermines it - as it did in Libya.

Let's talk about Misrata a bit, the Misratan are out for blood, this is clearly in part because they withstood and lengthy and fairly bloody siege. The same thing has happened in Syria, over time relatively peaceful protest has become more violent, the lack of international intervention has undermined the moderate dissident voices and strenghtened the hand of the radicals, just as the oppressive economic conditions in Europe have undermined moderates here.

The more the Syrians suffer, the more the peacable will be either cut down or subverted.

Apart from the fact that the Libyan rebellion was militant from the start, Misrata is an excellent example of what I was discussing earlier in relation to Homs.

The city rebelled against the government, attacking public buildings, government installations, and killing police officers, black immigrants, and anyone seen as loyal to the regime. The government subsequently surrounded the city and patiently waited while the regime tried to negotiate with the rebellion. When it became clear that the rebellion was not going to negotiate and rebel forces began to use Misrata as a staging ground for military attacks against government forces outside of the city, the government set about taking it back.

The media reports from inside the city were as outrageous as they were bogus. The tales of slaughter in the streets and tens of thousands of casualties were only later undermined when actual casualty reports showed no such thing. The numbers were comparatively miniscule, and disproportionately skewed toward fighting aged males. It turned out that the government had been fairly conservative in its use of force and focused on rebel fighters as opposed to the general populace in attempting to regain control of the city.

Misrata is an excellent example of how biased journalism can completely distort a situation and gin up misguided outrage. Don't succumb to such nonsense.

Would you like to consider the Somalian comparison, then?

You mean the veiled threat that if we don't intervene in these civil wars, the nations could descend into chaos that could be detrimental to our security? I don't buy it. In Iraq and Libya we replaced strong, authoritarian anti-islamist regimes with the power and reach to keep those nations from becoming the kind of government-less radical safe havens that Somalia has become with weak, disorganized governments with little or no control over large swathes of their territory. Hussein, Mubarak, Gaddafi, and Assad all fought against the radicalized Islam that now threatens our security. Whether those who are replacing them have the power or even the will to do the same is questionable at best.

Somehow I fail to see Somalia as strong argument in favor of Western intervention. It's more of a cautionary tale. For some reason, the thought of naked, beaten, and killed American soldiers being dragged through the streets (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbSuBZLlSr8&feature=related) of some third world backwater as the local zombie horde we were trying to help spits on them in glee just doesn't engender much excitement.

Hax

02-23-2012, 08:36

Two comments:

1) Vuk: About Iran; right. You know Bashar al-Assad has really good ties with Iran. This is because Islam isn't a homogenous entity, there's actually different sects! One of them is Shi‘ism, to which both the Iranian government and the Syrian government adhere! There's a very large chance that if Assad gets toppled by the FSA, Shi‘ites are gonna get killed; most of them are related one way or another.

You don't honestly believe that any new government who suffered under mukhabarat trained by the VEVAK are going to have good relationships with Iran, just for the sake of pissing of Israel? Do you?

And about Israel, what's this nonsense that Iran has the capability to wipe out Israel? Even if they somehow magically managed to convince the Arab states to co-operate (as if that's ever going to happen), they have no chance of even getting close to Tel Aviv. Come on now, what have you been watching, PressTV?

Secondly, concerning al-Qa'ida; people, you have to specify what you're talking about here. I get the idea that we're kinda using the idea of "al-qa'ida" to desribe any kind of militant Islamist movement; while there have certainly been anti-Shi‘ite and anti-Christian trends in elements of the FSA, you can't just label them as militant Islamists.

Philippus Flavius Homovallumus

02-23-2012, 12:12

Your unwavering faith in Western journalism is misguided and giving you a serious case of selective outrage. You should be much more critical in assessing such claims. How did the journalists determine that casualties were at least forty per day? Did they wander around the war zone counting bodies, or are they repeating information from 'local sources'? What is the proportion of women and children killed to fighters? What were the circumstances surrounding those deaths? Were they drug out of their homes and shot in the head or were they caught in the crossfire between the rebels and the government? These are all important questions that journalists on the ground cannot hope to answer with any certainty, which highlights the dubious nature of such claims. They outrage, but do they inform?

At this point, Homs and a portion of the Sunni community have not only broken away from Syria but also embraced the FSA and their violent activities across the country. Theirs is no longer a peaceful protest movement, but a rebellion. By upping the ante in that way, that militarization has legitimized an equally militarized government response. It is not unreasonable to expect the Syrian government to reassert control over a city waging war against it, if only to stop the terrorism in the rest of the nation. The question is how that campaign is being waged. Are atrocities being committed, or are the casualties a natural result of intense urban fighting? At this point, there is absolutely no proof or even any anecdotal evidence that what is going on is anything other than a government fighting a rebellion.

The FSA didn't exist a year ago! Come on PJ, Assad created the FSA through supressing peaceful demonstrations. When you ask soldiers to kill their own people they get a bit narky. It's how the American Revolution got started.

I've provided ample evidence that those things did not happen in Libya. If you refuse to accept fact based analysis in favor of disproven early media claims, there is little I can do about it.

And I am very sure that the Syrian government is using military means against the rebels at this point. Just as in Libya, when a peaceful protest movement transitions into an armed rebellion, it is unrealistic to expect a government to allow itself to be attacked without a response. It wouldn't happen in Europe, it didn't happen in the United States, and it is not happening in Syria.

It is happening, get over it. We know the situation in Libya was exagerated, but we also know Gadaffi was killing people in Misrata without any real discrimination, and Assad is doing the same.

Apart from the fact that the Libyan rebellion was militant from the start, Misrata is an excellent example of what I was discussing earlier in relation to Homs.

The city rebelled against the government, attacking public buildings, government installations, and killing police officers, black immigrants, and anyone seen as loyal to the regime. The government subsequently surrounded the city and patiently waited while the regime tried to negotiate with the rebellion. When it became clear that the rebellion was not going to negotiate and rebel forces began to use Misrata as a staging ground for military attacks against government forces outside of the city, the government set about taking it back.

The media reports from inside the city were as outrageous as they were bogus. The tales of slaughter in the streets and tens of thousands of casualties were only later undermined when actual casualty reports showed no such thing. The numbers were comparatively miniscule, and disproportionately skewed toward fighting aged males. It turned out that the government had been fairly conservative in its use of force and focused on rebel fighters as opposed to the general populace in attempting to regain control of the city.

Misrata is an excellent example of how biased journalism can completely distort a situation and gin up misguided outrage. Don't succumb to such nonsense.

Tens of thousands was always overblown, but "fighting aged males" does not mean "fighters" and the fact is that Misrata was shelled, and shelling a city is always horrific, because buildings are closely packed and civilians die. In the same way, a siege is always horrific because children starve.

So don't brush it off, the deprivation and suffering in Misrata were real and hence so is the hatred.

You mean the veiled threat that if we don't intervene in these civil wars, the nations could descend into chaos that could be detrimental to our security? I don't buy it. In Iraq and Libya we replaced strong, authoritarian anti-islamist regimes with the power and reach to keep those nations from becoming the kind of government-less radical safe havens that Somalia has become with weak, disorganized governments with little or no control over large swathes of their territory. Hussein, Mubarak, Gaddafi, and Assad all fought against the radicalized Islam that now threatens our security. Whether those who are replacing them have the power or even the will to do the same is questionable at best.

Somehow I fail to see Somalia as strong argument in favor of Western intervention. It's more of a cautionary tale. For some reason, the thought of naked, beaten, and killed American soldiers being dragged through the streets (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbSuBZLlSr8&feature=related) of some third world backwater as the local zombie horde we were trying to help spits on them in glee just doesn't engender much excitement.

The American army punched out of Somalia, they cut and ran. What if the Americans had stayed, or handed off the to the Africans instead of leaving a power vacume.

Also, as far a realistic grasp of events goes, Black Hawk Down is not one. The lack of backbone shown by American forces in Somalia was a contributory factor for the upswing in Islamic violence, anyway.

rory_20_uk

02-23-2012, 13:36

The FSA didn't exist a year ago! Come on PJ, Assad created the FSA through supressing peaceful demonstrations. When you ask soldiers to kill their own people they get a bit narky. It's how the American Revolution got started.

And is also the reason for the design of Paris - to enable Napoleon to deploy cannon in the city. Uprisings have occurred in all countries of Europe and have in the past been put down by whatever force is required. The aftermath of Bonnie Prince Charlie was particularly... thorough.

If countries are to support the underdog in every conflict where the government is suppressing its own people, the defence budget is going to have to go up by a large amount to support this.

And why is Syria so important? There are many other countries where a lot more people have been killed for a lot longer. Do we only gang up on weaker countries that are easy to get to, and turn a blind eye to those where things might be more difficult? (Gaza strip, anyone?)

I for one am not prepared to pay for either the financial or the as yet unknown "blowback" from undertaking this.

~:smoking:

Kagemusha

02-23-2012, 14:39

Lets stay out from that can of worms. Why by default West is supposed to intervene in each and every conflict that is going on, internal or external? Also we are near bankrupt, so we really cant afford yet another money hole right now.

The Stranger

02-23-2012, 14:52

let china do it... XD

sif thats not happening already

Greyblades

02-23-2012, 15:37

Why by default West is supposed to intervene in each and every conflict that is going on, internal or external?

Because noone else will? I think it's probably colonial guilt in Europe and a feeling of being the good guys in America. "We caused the mess that resulted this so were're responsable for the atrocities" and "we're the good guys so we cant stand by and let such horrible things happen" are the driving thoughts behind ideas of western intervention I believe. Don't quote me on this, though.

rory_20_uk

02-23-2012, 16:16

I do wonder when Colonial guilt will end. The Turks owned the area for vastly longer that Europe did and seem to have no desperate desire to get involved. Europe gave countries the independence they wanted - but it seems they want to do what they want and Europe to sort out the nastier bits that they can't or won't do themselves.

~:smoking:

The Stranger

02-23-2012, 16:23

guilt over the past is bs imo anyway. besides the fact that for me guilt is a poor reason to do moral actions... it somehow doesnt really seem sincere. same as with duty, to do moral actions because it is your duty...

on the other hand many countries are not given a fair chance to develop and are still exploited. if you do not wish to send help, also do not exploit it for your own benefit then imo. just pull away completely and let it go to rot or blosom accordingly. what is going on now is massive exploit (not that china does anything less) and a little bit of help to compensate. these countries are kept dependent on the west by the west...

and such an intervention as proposed will only increase this dependence tho, not lessen it.

PanzerJaeger

02-23-2012, 16:38

The FSA didn't exist a year ago! Come on PJ, Assad created the FSA through supressing peaceful demonstrations. When you ask soldiers to kill their own people they get a bit narky. It's how the American Revolution got started.

The siege of Homs did not exist a year ago either. These people have continually turned up the heat on the regime and it has responded proportionately. Keep in mind that the initial protests were exploitive - an effort to use the Arab Spring to revive the same Sunni insurgency that Assad senior crushed - not an actual reaction to any new action by the Assad regime. The rebels knew very well the social lines they were crossing. They may well have had good reasons for crossing them, but it was their choice and their choice alone. Quite frankly, it is a bit disingenuous for these people to go out into the streets each day calling for the death of Assad and his clan and then feign shock when Bashar's boys visit death upon them.

It is happening, get over it. We know the situation in Libya was exagerated, but we also know Gadaffi was killing people in Misrata without any real discrimination, and Assad is doing the same.

We do not know that. You have to stop confusing assumption with fact. The actual evidence on the ground suggests that the Gaddafi regime did demonstrate restraint in its actions against Misrata. And compared to his father's crackdown on Hama, it is clear that Assad has not unleashed his full force on Homs. That doesn't mean civilians are not being killed in the crossfire, but civilians always die in war zones, especially when they are intermingled with fighters. There is no evidence that the regime is deliberately targeting civilians as opposed to fighting armed rebels.

Tens of thousands was always overblown, but "fighting aged males" does not mean "fighters" and the fact is that Misrata was shelled, and shelling a city is always horrific, because buildings are closely packed and civilians die. In the same way, a siege is always horrific because children starve.

So don't brush it off, the deprivation and suffering in Misrata were real and hence so is the hatred.

Yes, and so was the deprivation and suffering in Vicksburg and Atlanta. Rebellion is a tough, bloody affair, and comes with significant risk. It should not be undertaken without a high probability of success. Appealing for international intervention when things go South is always a dicey proposition.

The American army punched out of Somalia, they cut and ran. What if the Americans had stayed, or handed off the to the Africans instead of leaving a power vacume.

Not exactly - the world left Somalia, not the US alone. The UN/United States accomplished the primary goal of the mission - preventing the mass starvation of the Somali people. The battle in Mogadishu made it clear that the US forces were not welcome to stick around and solve the political situation. Why would the United States continue to occupy a nation with a populace that was hostile to the occupation?

What if, indeed? You are very generous with the lives of US soldiers. With respect, thanks but no thanks. You are welcome to advocate sending your own troops to do these political interventions in the Middle East, but if their history in Basra is any guide, it may be best for them to just stay home.

Also, as far a realistic grasp of events goes, Black Hawk Down is not one. The lack of backbone shown by American forces in Somalia was a contributory factor for the upswing in Islamic violence, anyway.

I never cited Black Hawk Down. And do you know what was an even bigger factor in the growth of Islamic violence? Western intervention in the Middle East.

Fragony

02-23-2012, 18:47

GC and PJ are both +1

Couldn't agree more.

Internal affairs, horrible as they may be

drone

02-23-2012, 18:54

Not enough oil, sorry. ~;)

Hax

02-23-2012, 20:59

@rory: if you knew anything about the organisation of the Ottoman Empire (also, saying "Turks" makes no real sense in this case, as the Turkish state was only formed after the loss of the territories of Syria, Iraq and Egypt) you'd see how little sense your comment makes. The Ottomans (I'm just going to assume you meant them) were very effective in dealing with religious and ethnic minorities.

Hint: try looking up "millet". See what it means.

Fragony

02-23-2012, 21:41

That didn't make sense what do Ottomans have to do with it

The Stranger

02-23-2012, 21:47

rory brought it up :P it has to make sense!

Hax

02-23-2012, 22:07

Fragony

02-23-2012, 22:32

rory_20_uk

02-23-2012, 22:55

He was talking about how the Turks (= Ottomans, in this case) controlled the area for a longer time and apparently, have more responsibility in helping. I was merely refuting the idea that Ottoman (mis)management is somehow responsible for the...yeah, what actually? Islamist violence?

Right.

The Ottomans clearly did nothing to help sort out problems, even though they had ownership for hundreds of years. If this doesn't give them more responsibility than almost every one else on the planet, what does?

The violence is a flare up of the internecine mess that is endemic in territories that the Ottoman left. Look at the Balkans.

~:smoking:

The Stranger

02-23-2012, 23:18

the region was not very unstable back then untill the 19th century and early 20th.

Hosakawa Tito

02-24-2012, 00:41

Not enough oil, sorry. ~;)

Oil, have they. Yes, hmmm.
With Libya yet finished. Yeesss.
With all the Bush tendencies, what is. Yes, hmmm.

tibilicus

02-24-2012, 02:01

No matter what you think the units of international relations are sovereign nation states and any undermining of state sovereignty by another is nothing short of war. I guess human rights is a novel idea but again,it's a western one. I think we should stop projecting our values onto the world, the rest of the world might even like us better..

a completely inoffensive name

02-24-2012, 03:57

Hax

02-24-2012, 09:07

It's ironic that you're talking about reading posts properly, Fragony. But sure, yeah. Whatever.

The Ottomans clearly did nothing to help sort out problems, even though they had ownership for hundreds of years. If this doesn't give them more responsibility than almost every one else on the planet, what does?

Alright, I can kind of see where you're going at; the obvious disadvantage of the millet-system (although this was not relevant for hundreds of years, basically), is that organising religious minorities in their own autonomous communities can actually increase tensions between religious communities. However, there are hardly any historical precedents where this was really the case. In fact, most of the time, it worked the other way around; because there was hardly any long-term contact between Muslims and the non-Muslim minorities, tricky situations and tensions between religious communities were largely avoided.

I do not pretend to be an expert on the field of Ottoman administration and bureaucracy; Turkish history wasn't my strong suit, I much prefer to focus on the history of the Islamic world in the Levant, Egypt, Iran and the Arabic peninsula. In the same field, I admit that I hardly know anything about the Balkans. It was only after I met an Iraqi-Slovenian guy this year that I managed to keep Serbs and Bosnians out of eachother (I know, this is pretty bad)

However, what I can tell you is that the problem wasn't Ottoman mismanagement; they were successful in their administration of religious minorities for over centuries; it was so successful that in 1492 (and then later in 1499, but okay), when the Jews were expelled from Spain that a lot of them wound up in Anatolia. For the simple reason that Ottoman policy was about leaving religious communities alone.

Now the real problem started with the period of stagnation (starting roughly after the rule of Selim II) when the ‘ulama (Muslim clergy) got a stronger grip on the country and the harem intrigues started. Now this didn't immediately spell doom for non-Muslim minorities, but the real trouble started when in the 18th and 19th century, the European-influenced elite started a period of reforms called tanzimat. Concepts such as nationalism spread into the Ottoman empire, which had the inevatible result that at some point, religious communities started creating their own cultural works (such as poetry, paintings, music, etc.) that were identified with ethnic or ethno-religious groups, such as the Kurds, the Armenians, the Arabs too (partially because of English influence). Tanzimat also led to an increase of nationalism (first expressed as Ottomanism, later as Turkish nationalism) within the Ottoman empire, increasing tensions between ethnic and religious groups. The Young Ottoman movement aimed at equal rights for all Ottoman citizens (regardless of religion or ethnicity); it was the Young Turk movement that went a step further and aimed at creating a state for the Turks.

So when the 20th century came around and people started thinking about their own nations, yeah, stuff went wrong. But this had nothing to do with Ottoman mismanagement; rather, the influence of western philosophy and the support of the British and French for anti-Ottoman movements, and not just those, the Russians actively supported Armenian armed resistance (resulting in the disproportionate retribution that led to the expulsion and massacre of Armenians in what we know as the Armenian Genocide) led to social tensions, nationalist movements and self-identification of (semi-)autonomous groups in the Ottoman Empire with invented traditions which finally laid the foundation for the unrest in the Middle-East right now.

rvg

03-02-2012, 21:50

The more I look at what's going on in Syria the more I think that we should leave Assad alone. If the Sunnies overthrow the current regime, they are very likely to turn onto minorities. "Christians to Beirut; Alawites to the coffin" seems to be the mantra for many of them so imho, screw them. Let Assad kill as many as he needs to stay in power and preserve the balance. Why should we sacrifice the lives of Christians just so that a bunch of Sunni clerics can establish yet another islamist theocracy under the guise of liberation? Assad is the lesser evil and we should not lift a finger to help the other side.

Vladimir

03-02-2012, 22:00

I'm not entirely opposed to having a Shiite vassal state turn into a Sunni state. More bad news for the Mullahs.

rvg

03-02-2012, 22:02

I'm not entirely opposed to having a Shiite vassal state turn into a Sunni state. More bad news for the Mullahs.

And even worse news for the Christians.

Pannonian

03-02-2012, 23:37

Do we have any Commonwealth cemetaries in Syria that the liberated Syrians can then desecrate as a rite of passage?

Brenus

03-02-2012, 23:46

Just go on cwgc.org, I believe, but they still working on it.

Brenus

03-04-2012, 01:33

Rory, Napoleon the III. Haussmann is the architect of the II Empire, not the first one. What is true is Napoleon, when only Bonaparte, used canon on a Monarchist coup…
Hax: The Ottomans were efficient in dealing with minorities: When they were not happy, they killed them. And the Millet was just a perpetual slavery of the populations (paying each year the price to stay alive) and the Janissary system… And the Pagans were just all killed…
The Ottoman Empire ignored the Ethnic Minorities, as the only standard was Religions (of the Book) and discrimination due to the prominence of the Koran.

Hax

03-04-2012, 22:25

I think that's a very linear view of ethnic and religious minorities in Ottoman history. From the primary book we (Leiden University) are using for history of the Middle East post-1500:

Each of the three major non-Muslim religions -- Greek Orthodox Christianity, Judaism and Armenian Christianity -- was granted millet status and placed under the direct authority of the leading church official. The three officials -- the Greek Orthodox patriarch, the Armenian patriarch and the Jewish Rabbi --were selected with the approval of the sultan and resided in Istanbul, where the Ottoman state kept track of their activities. Recent scholarship has determined that the Ottomans did not attempt to create an empire-wide millet structure until the nineteenth century and that up to that point the millet system lacked uniformity, differing from region to region and group to group
[...]
They were directly administred by their own communal officials, who exercised both civil and religious responsiblitilies. These officials were in charge of t ax collection, education, justice, and religious affairs within their religious communities. By permitting non-Muslim subjects to retain their religious laws, educational systems and communal leadership, the Ottomans were able to administer their diverse peoples with a minimum of resistance
[...]
Yet no matter how prosperous or prominent non-Muslims might become, they were not regarded as equal to Muslims. They were tolerated, but they were also subject to social discrimination that barred them from service in the Ottoman armed forces and prevented them from becoming members of the Ottoman ruling elite

So while you definitely have a point that they were not equal to Muslims, this idea that they were constantly living in fear of repression, quite the contrary.

And the Millet was just a perpetual slavery of the populations (paying each year the price to stay alive)

You mean "taxes"? I have it on good account that still happens nowadays.

And the Pagans were just all killed…

What Pagans, where?

The Ottoman Empire ignored the Ethnic Minorities

Yes, welcome to the 15th century. Come on, that's a bad argument; it's like saying Voltaire's works are bad because he was a racist. As a final note, on the point of the janissaries: the devshirme system did certainly not target everyone. The fact that they took Christian boys forcibly from their parents is of course inexcusable form a modern point of view, but we have to look at the situation fairly: the treatment of (for example) Jews in the Ottoman Empire was much better than the way they were treated in Europe.

I have a problem with the anti-Islamic appropriation of history. When bad stuff happens in Europe, it's just a part of history and we should see it "in its own time", but when it comes to the history of the Middle-East, Islam is suddenly responsible for all the bad stuff that has been happening since the 7th century onwards. I have no idea why this is, although I have my suspicions it's just a knee-jerk reaction to current political events and the (I have to be honest here), the previous pro-Islamic appropriation of history.

Brenus

03-05-2012, 21:53

Oh, no! I don’t have a linear view on the Ottoman Empire… :no:
In fact, I was sharing your point of view, of the Good Ottoman Empire compared to the Bad Holly Roman Empire, or Austro-Hungarian Empire… I even tried to share this point with my Serbian Translator and her answer was: I don’t know for the rest of the Ottoman Empire, but you can go to see the wall of skulls (cele kula) the Turks build with the rebellious Serbs in Nis in 1809.
So, like others empires the Turks were slaughtering and having shock and owe tactic to subjugate their populations.
About the Religious Tolerance, I give you that they were relatively more advance than Western and Eastern Europe. But it was still under the Koranic dictatorship. A non-Muslim couldn’t bear weapons, couldn’t witness against a Muslim, and was a slave, part of the “Rayah”, the herd if my translation is correct.
And the Millet system showed rapidly its limits after Suleiman’s rule so the tolerance toward others religious groups when the area of conquest was over, especially when the lands grabbing was done on mostly Christian lands…
What I am saying is the Ottoman Empire was not worse than the others, but not betters either.
Pagans: The Bogomiles (Bosnia- from Bog –God- and mili- nice) were adept of a religion close (not by territory) to the Cathares in France... Both ended the same way. The Cathares in the hands of the French King, the Bogomiles from the Turks as they were not part of the religions from the Book.