Daniel reads the words "MENE, MENE, TEKEL, and PARSIN" and interprets them for the king: "MENE, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; TEKEL, you have been weighed ... and found wanting;" and "PERES, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians. Then Belshazzar gave the command, and Daniel was clothed in purple, a chain of gold was put around his neck, and a proclamation was made… that he should rank third in the kingdom; [and] that very night Belshazzar the Chaldean (Babylonian) king was killed, and Darius the Mede received the kingdom."[3]
Yemen, Israel, Syria, Iran and Iraq and more
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 17 January 2018 05:51 (six years ago) link
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/22/how-the-us-is-making-the-war-in-yemen-worse
U.S. officials tried to help the Saudis improve their targeting. They eventually expanded a “no strike” list to include thirty-three thousand targets. “We broadened and broadened and broadened that list over time as the Saudis kept striking things that we would have thought they wouldn’t strike,” Konyndyk told me. The State Department sent an expert, Larry Lewis, to Saudi Arabia. When a civilian target was hit, Lewis wanted to help the Saudis implement ways of investigating the incident, to “avoid the same kind of thing happening again,” he said. Lower-ranking Saudis seemed pained by the casualties. “There was definitely a feeling that, of course we want to protect civilians, you know, we’re good Muslims,” Lewis said. The Saudi leadership was less concerned; as Lewis put it, from the rank of lieutenant colonel upward “there was less pressure for change.”
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 17 January 2018 05:55 (six years ago) link
Some 60,000 African migrants entered Israel prior to the construction of a barrier on its southern border with the Sinai in 2012. Israel, which considers them economic migrants, not refugees from persecution, until now has encouraged the Africans to leave by handing them cash — generally about $3,500 — and a plane ticket. About 20,000 have taken the offer, leaving nearly 40,000 in Israel, most living freely.
This month, Netanyahu said those who do not take the deportation offer face jail. Rwanda and Uganda reportedly are the likeliest destinations for deportees, though both governments deny it.
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/A-Jewish-philanthropist-furious-at-Israeli-treatment-of-African-refugees-534599
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-birthright-may-nix-trip-for-african-jews-after-israel-deports-kenyan-convert-1.5630444
Plans to bring a first-ever group of Ugandan Jews to Israel on a Birthright trip are in jeopardy following the recent deportation of a member of their community.
The group of 40 Ugandans had been scheduled to arrive in Israel in late May on the free 10-day trip available to young Jewish adults from around the world. But Birthright officials are now concerned the group may be turned away upon arrival, just as 31-year-old Yehudah Kimani was, because the immigration authorities do not consider them Jewish...In late December, Kimani, who hails from Kenya but lived for a year among the Abayudaya while converting, was detained upon entering Israel and deported the following morning, even though he had a valid tourist visa.
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 17 January 2018 06:02 (six years ago) link
Meanwhile in Afghanistan
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/a-new-us-air-blitz-in-afghanistan-isnt-stopping-for-winter-but-will-it-stop-the-taliban/2018/01/16/c9bb874c-f4cd-11e7-9af7-a50bc3300042_story.html?utm_term=.bd28d37da643
The huge spike in airstrikes is the product of new rules of engagement, adopted as part of a strategy that President Trump announced in August. U.S. forces can now strike Taliban targets at will, whereas under the Obama administration they were restricted to defending Afghan forces under imminent attack.
“U.S. strategy is so military-centric. Even 100,000 troops couldn’t finish the Taliban, and ever since those days, they have been zealously confident,” said Borhan Osman, senior analyst for Afghanistan at the International Crisis Group. “The U.S. is misreading Taliban psychology. Their whole fight is about saying, ‘We were a legitimate government and you toppled us and installed a puppet government.’ This new U.S. strategy will only make them more willing to fight.”
U.S. military leaders acknowledge that the Taliban controls or contests nearly half of Afghanistan’s districts — a number that has slowly crept higher through the past year,
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 18 January 2018 04:19 (six years ago) link
BBC:
Syria crisis: Why Turkey is poised to attack Kurdish enclave AfrinSyria 'ready to down Turkish jets attacking Kurds Afrin'Turkey targets Kurdish forces in Afrin: The short, medium and long story
Am I a bad person for hoping this provides a major distraction to the Trump administration from its North Korea plans?
― Sanpaku, Thursday, 18 January 2018 22:26 (six years ago) link
You're not. Also because as far as distractions go, this one actually *means* something, instead of the 'my dad has a bigger car than your dad' USA-North Korea stupidity.
Fact of the matter is Trump's not spoken out on any of this. Obv for one, he doesn't even know where the hell Syria is, let alone have a plan or idea about it. The US army has handled things on their own pretty well actually, for once showing at least a hint of loyalty to the Kurds who helped push back ISIS.
The interesting thing is: will America budge when Erdogan puts things to the test? Am I a bad person for hoping your buffoon president will stick to his guns and fend off Turkey in this one? Slim chance, but it's one of the instances I find myself hoping Trump's narcissism actually brings something good to the table.
― ♫ very clever with maracas.jpg ♫ (Le Bateau Ivre), Thursday, 18 January 2018 23:04 (six years ago) link
I guess this is not on Fox & Friends...http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-42771469
Plans for the operation were believed to have accelerated when US officials said earlier this month that it would help the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance, which is dominated by the YPG, build a new "border security force" to prevent the return of IS.
Some 25,000 pro-Turkey fighters have joined the offensive, rebel commander Maj Yasser Abdul Rahim told Reuters. It is not clear how many Turkish soldiers are on the ground.
Turkey's military said it had hit 45 targets on Sunday, as part of its campaign.
It earlier said dozens of air strikes had taken out 153 targets belonging to Kurdish militants.
― curmudgeon, Monday, 22 January 2018 20:42 (six years ago) link
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, said Turkish troops “will take no step back” and expressed frustration with US calls for restraint, accusing the US of arming Kurdish terrorist groups. Mr Erdogan also said that Russia had given its backing to the operation.
Both Rex Tillerson, the US secretary of state, and Federica Mogherini, the EU foreign policy chief, said they were concerned over the fighting.
There are a number of British and other Western volunteers fighting with Kurdish forces in northern Syria, raising the prospect that Western citizens might kill Turkish troops or be killed by them.
The involvement of Western citizens in the fighting against Turkish forces would likely add more strain to the already-fraught relationship between Turkey and the rest of Nato.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/22/us-backed-kurdish-forces-plead-washington-stop-turkish-attack/
― curmudgeon, Monday, 22 January 2018 20:45 (six years ago) link
expressed frustration with US calls for restraint
This fucking guy.
― ♫ very clever with maracas.jpg ♫ (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 22 January 2018 20:54 (six years ago) link
If Turkey keeps ignoring US calls for restraint, will Pentagon suggest more forceful action by US? Kurds may get dumped by US again.
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 23 January 2018 21:44 (six years ago) link
There's no way US will stand up against Turkey by using force. Too much 'at stake'. Of course the Kurds will get dumped again. "No friends but the mountains."
― ♫ very clever with maracas.jpg ♫ (Le Bateau Ivre), Tuesday, 23 January 2018 21:48 (six years ago) link
Seeing Pence and Netanyaho galloping hand in hand in the Knesset yesterday, while MP's protesting Pence's presence there were hauled away, made me vomit.
― ♫ very clever with maracas.jpg ♫ (Le Bateau Ivre), Tuesday, 23 January 2018 21:49 (six years ago) link
Israel and Egypt working together:
The jihadists in Egypt’s Northern Sinai had killed hundreds of soldiers and police officers, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, briefly seized a major town and begun setting up armed checkpoints to claim territory. In late 2015, they brought down a Russian passenger jet.
Egypt appeared unable to stop them, so Israel, alarmed at the threat just over the border, took action.
For more than two years, unmarked Israeli drones, helicopters and jets have carried out a covert air campaign, conducting more than 100 airstrikes inside Egypt, frequently more than once a week — and all with the approval of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
The remarkable cooperation marks a new stage in the evolution of their singularly fraught relationship. Once enemies in three wars, then antagonists in an uneasy peace, Egypt and Israel are now secret allies in a covert war against a common foe.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/03/world/middleeast/israel-airstrikes-sinai-egypt.html
― curmudgeon, Monday, 5 February 2018 16:51 (six years ago) link
This Israeli action is still in the news too. They want to send the mostly Sudanese and Eritrean men to Rwanda or Uganda:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-africa-migrants/cash-or-custody-israel-kicks-off-deportation-of-african-migrants-idUSKBN1FP214
Israel has started handing out notices to 20,000 male African migrants giving them two months to leave the country or risk being thrown in jail.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is offering the migrants, most of whom are from Sudan and Eritrea, $3,500 and a plane ticket to what it says is a safe destination in another country in sub-Saharan Africa.
The fate of some 37,000 Africans in Israel is posing a moral dilemma for a state founded as haven for Jews from persecution and a national home. The right-wing government is under pressure from its nationalist voter base to expel the migrants, while others are calling for them to be taken in.
― curmudgeon, Monday, 5 February 2018 16:56 (six years ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/S6o0EoG.png
to this, add today's news about Israel, Syria, Iran, Russia:
JERUSALEM — Israel’s military said that one of its F-16 fighter jets crashed early Saturday in northern Israel after coming under heavy Syrian antiaircraft fire and after Israel had shot down an Iranian drone that penetrated Israeli airspace from Syria.The events appeared to be Israel’s first direct engagement with Iranian forces across the increasingly volatile boundary in the Golan Heights, risking a new escalation in Syria’s multifaceted seven-year war in the area.Early assessments suggested that the Israeli F-16 had been hit by Syrian antiaircraft fire, according to a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, though he added that nothing had been officially confirmed....This appeared to be the first time in decades, probably since the early 1980s, that an Israeli jet was downed under enemy fire. In the past, Syria has claimed, falsely, that it had shot down Israeli aircraft.The jet crash represented a severe blow to Israel’s prestige and could mark a major change after years in which Israel has acted against targets in Syria with relative impunity.The Israeli military said in statement that it “sees the Iranian attack and the Syrian response as a severe and irregular violation of Israeli sovereignty,” and added that it was “fully prepared for further action.”After the initial assault on the drone launching facilities, Israel said later Saturday that it had attacked 12 additional targets, including three aerial defense batteries and four Iranian targets “that are part of Iran’s military establishment in Syria.”Iran, along with Russia — which had helped propped up the government of President Bashar al- Assad in Syria — on Saturday denied any role in shooting down the Israeli jet....Israel seized the strategic plateau from Syria in the 1967 war and fought off an invasion there in 1973. Though the area remained quiet for decades, it has become a growing flash point throughout Syria’s war.Israel has conducted hundreds of airstrikes in Syria during the war, largely targeting what it says are advanced weapons stores or convoys taking weapons to Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon, but sometimes reportedly hitting Syrian government facilities involved in weapons development.Syria’s government has always said that it would respond at a proper time and place, and it has occasionally returned fire with antiaircraft guns and missiles.
The events appeared to be Israel’s first direct engagement with Iranian forces across the increasingly volatile boundary in the Golan Heights, risking a new escalation in Syria’s multifaceted seven-year war in the area.
Early assessments suggested that the Israeli F-16 had been hit by Syrian antiaircraft fire, according to a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, though he added that nothing had been officially confirmed.
...This appeared to be the first time in decades, probably since the early 1980s, that an Israeli jet was downed under enemy fire. In the past, Syria has claimed, falsely, that it had shot down Israeli aircraft.
The jet crash represented a severe blow to Israel’s prestige and could mark a major change after years in which Israel has acted against targets in Syria with relative impunity.
The Israeli military said in statement that it “sees the Iranian attack and the Syrian response as a severe and irregular violation of Israeli sovereignty,” and added that it was “fully prepared for further action.”
After the initial assault on the drone launching facilities, Israel said later Saturday that it had attacked 12 additional targets, including three aerial defense batteries and four Iranian targets “that are part of Iran’s military establishment in Syria.”
Iran, along with Russia — which had helped propped up the government of President Bashar al- Assad in Syria — on Saturday denied any role in shooting down the Israeli jet.
...Israel seized the strategic plateau from Syria in the 1967 war and fought off an invasion there in 1973. Though the area remained quiet for decades, it has become a growing flash point throughout Syria’s war.
Israel has conducted hundreds of airstrikes in Syria during the war, largely targeting what it says are advanced weapons stores or convoys taking weapons to Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon, but sometimes reportedly hitting Syrian government facilities involved in weapons development.
Syria’s government has always said that it would respond at a proper time and place, and it has occasionally returned fire with antiaircraft guns and missiles.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/10/world/middleeast/israel-iran-syria.html
― Karl Malone, Saturday, 10 February 2018 17:42 (six years ago) link
I read that stuff before bed last night and dreamt that Israel had killed Nasrallah with a missile. Feel like one of the potential catastrophic wars that are potentially in the offing is going to start soon (well, remembering the Syrian Civil War has already been a catastrophic years long war).
― khat person (jim in vancouver), Sunday, 11 February 2018 02:41 (six years ago) link
Israel is trying as well diplomatically to get Russia to restrain Iran. Doesn't seem to be working.
― curmudgeon, Sunday, 11 February 2018 06:39 (six years ago) link
Did Israel clear its recent bombing missions in Syria with Russia?
― curmudgeon, Monday, 12 February 2018 22:17 (six years ago) link
U.S. Strikes Killed Scores of Russia Fighters in Syria, Sources Say
― Le Bateau Ivre, Tuesday, 13 February 2018 17:47 (six years ago) link
So Russia and Russian fighters have been supporting Syria and Iran, but for now Russia is being quiet about the retaliatory strikes by both Israel and the US. They must see them as one-off actions that will not impact their influence
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 13 February 2018 22:01 (six years ago) link
i was thinking that they're likely concerned about escalation as well. things are going pretty tony for them in Syria and it has cost them a significant investment. w/ the sanctions, etc, they are likely v extended and cannot start taking on more conflagration. remember when the turkey stuff went down they ended up not making a huge deal out of it either (as i remember - someone else's recollection may be different). the alternative is that israel is liaisoning about the strikes at least in aggregate and russia is giving the thumbs up.
― Mordy, Tuesday, 13 February 2018 22:10 (six years ago) link
When Israel boasted that it took out half of Syria's air defenses the other day, I saw a semi-conservative tweeter say "why didn't Obama do that when Syria used chemical weapons," although the tweeter then acknowledged that this still wouldn't have totally weakened Assad back then and necessarily changed things completely for the non-Isis (US supported) rebels then
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 13 February 2018 22:52 (six years ago) link
i hadn't heard that boast! tbh i didn't follow it v closely so i didn't realize the campaign was so extensive. i do think iran would like to establish a front with israel from syria but i don't think they can afford to press it. w/ discontent at home, slowly recovering economy, these years of investment in syria, whatever amount they' re actually spending in yemen... i do wonder how extended they are too. it's so hard to measure the stability of these closed regimes but you'd have to think they are pretty thin and can't really afford to now pick a direct fight w/ israel.
― Mordy, Tuesday, 13 February 2018 22:55 (six years ago) link
http://www.chicagotribune.com/la-fg-israel-iran-20180211-story.html#nt=featured-content
Israel estimates that it destroyed nearly half of Syria’s air defense system in a retaliatory air force sortie after one of its F-16 fighter jets was shot down by a Syrian missile, according to a military assessment provided to local news media Sunday.
The fighting broke out Saturday after an Iranian drone, launched from a site controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, flew into Israeli airspace.
Israel said it hit eight Syrian army targets and four Iranian sites in Syria, including an Iranian command trailer at the so-called T4 base, near the ancient city of Palmyra, from which the drone was launched early Saturday. Israeli Apache helicopters downed the drone, and four F-16 jets were dispatched into Syrian territory to bomb the site from which it was launched.
One Israeli F-16 was hit by Syrian fire as it returned to Israel from the mission, leading to the massive Israeli retaliation.
The deputy commander of Israel’s air force, Brig. Gen. Tomer Bar, said Saturday that Israel’s aerial reprisal was “the biggest and most significant attack the air force has conducted against Syrian air defenses” since the 1982 Lebanon War....
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 13 February 2018 23:07 (six years ago) link
Kommersant is reporting that the attempt to seize the air base was unsanctioned and that the Russian mercs were under the command of a local businessman who wanted to capture nearby oil fields.
There is apparently footage of the bombing raid and it was pretty clear they had no air support, either from Russia or Syria. The story goes that they took out a lot of US and Kurdish soldiers and the US called in air strikes to maintain hold of the base.
I wouldn’t bet against this kind of thing happening again. Russia has done something similar to the US in Iraq and pulled most of their soldiers out - with private contractors filling the void in return for a cut of oil revenue. The controls are so weak, you’re probably going to get mercenaries fighting against each other at some point.
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Wednesday, 14 February 2018 18:39 (six years ago) link
Good piece by Nataliya Valilyeva on the (officially) five Russians who were killed by the US airstrike:
https://apnews.com/410f9f2047d04460907ed08f3a9d3651
They were working for Wagner, the biggest private contractor / mercenary company - essentially Russia's answer to Blackwater.
It looks like there is pressure within the Duma to start properly regulating the contractors:
https://apnews.com/fb4bbb531e5b49df96652536afb66372
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Friday, 16 February 2018 10:10 (six years ago) link
U.N. security council report on Yemen that was released the other day is grim reading
https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/N1800513.pdf
― khat person (jim in vancouver), Friday, 16 February 2018 17:39 (six years ago) link
Ugh.
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 06:03 (six years ago) link
Why more Iranians don't use "Ultrasurf" to access the internet
China, the world’s biggest Internet censor, objects to the development of programs that can circumvent its repressive censorship. Obama administration officials admitted that State Department funding decisions in such matters are based, at least in part, on the department’s desire to keep the Chinese from “go[ing] ballistic.” Now similar concerns for Chinese sensitivities appear to be shaping the Trump administration’s response to the Iranian people’s protests for freedom.
Iranians have been using UltraSurf to circumvent the mullahs’ censors, but recently the number of Iranian users has exploded to about 2 million, with daily hits on the website numbering about 1 billion. That’s the good news. The bad news is that because of the lack of funding from State, UltraSurf’s servers are in danger of crashing for lack of capacity to meet the exploding Iranian demand. Too many Iranians have joined the people in other closed societies who are trying to use the software.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2018/01/06/one-thing-the-trump-administration-can-do-right-now-to-help-protesters-in-iran/?utm_term=.4d1a9049f0d3
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 06:09 (six years ago) link
More on Iran from a kinda neo-con, sometime moderate W. Post columnist Jackson Diehl
Iranians are still nationalists: More than 70 percent still favor developing missiles and a nuclear capacity. Only 16 percent told the pollsters that “Iran’s political system needs to undergo fundamental change.” Yet far fewer support the regime’s foreign adventures. Forty-two percent say “the government should spend less money in places like Syria and Iraq.” A plurality say Iran should negotiate with other countries rather than try to become a regional hegemon. And though 75 percent say the nuclear deal has not improved living conditions, 55 percent still favor it.
What this tells us is that one of the best ways to counter Iran’s interventions in Iraq, Yemen and Syria is to ally with the large bloc of Iranians who oppose them. In part that means helping Iranians find out what their government is up to; the news that it was planning to cut food subsidies while increasing spending on the Revolutionary Guard was one of the triggers of the protests.
Only a tiny number of Iranians — 8 percent, according to the new poll — get information from foreign radio broadcasts, but more than 60 percent depend on the Internet or apps such as Telegram. The United States could do a lot more to help people get around the regime’s attempts to block these channels. ...Rather than pursue such strategies, Trump seems intent on voiding the nuclear deal by May, basically on the grounds that it was negotiated by President Barack Obama. The pact is far from perfect, as I have argued before. For now, though, it has helped to open a rift between the regime and its public and created a potent new source of pressure on Tehran’s foreign adventures. If Trump kills it, expect some quiet celebrations in Tehran.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/the-nuclear-agreement-is-the-worst-deal-ever--for-iran/2018/02/18/b9849abe-1267-11e8-8ea1-c1d91fcec3fe_story.html?utm_term=.1ad3af041aea
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 18:18 (six years ago) link
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/one-of-the-bloodiest-attacks-of-syrias-war-kills-over-100-in-a-rebel-held-damascus-suburb/2018/02/20/966127c2-161e-11e8-942d-16a950029788_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_syriaghouta-1116am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.30af1600b0fc
Attacks by forces loyal to the Syrian government have killed more than 100 people in a rebel-held Damascus suburb, aid agencies and monitoring groups said Tuesday, calling it one of the bloodiest 24-hour periods in Syria’s seven-year war.
People cowered in their basements and doctors worked around the clock as warplanes pounded the cluster of towns and villages east of Damascus known as Ghouta, which government forces have surrounded for the past four years.
Even by the standards of Ghouta, the opposition’s isolated last bastion outside the capital, the latest assault has been brutal. Just last month, government warplanes killed at least 210 people and sent hundreds fleeing to what remained of the hospitals.
In the latest attack, hospitals appeared to be the target. More than five of them were hit on Monday, according to the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations (UOSSM). The France-based charity put the toll of the strikes on Monday at 97 dead and more than 500 injured.
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 18:55 (six years ago) link
Assad is brutal, and nothing will happen to him.
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 21 February 2018 15:03 (six years ago) link
Meanwhile, in another part of Syria--
Turkey warned on Wednesday that pro-Damascus forces would face “serious consequences” for entering Syria’s Afrin region to help Kurdish fighters repel a Turkish offensive.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-afrin/stakes-rise-in-turkeys-afrin-assault-as-pro-assad-militia-arrive-idUSKCN1G50ON
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 21 February 2018 15:08 (six years ago) link
x-post: Got forbid anything happened to him. That would mean regime change.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 21 February 2018 17:43 (six years ago) link
given that apart from ypg the opposition are all takfiri jihadists there really isn't a "good" outcome to this horrible war
― khat person (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 21 February 2018 17:48 (six years ago) link
http://www.dw.com/en/which-rebel-groups-are-fighting-in-syrias-eastern-ghouta/a-42663501
Of the 5 listed in this article, Faylaq al-Rahman: The Faylaq al-Rahman organization, or al-Rahman Legion, is also based in Eastern Ghouta, looks like the least bad
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 21 February 2018 19:40 (six years ago) link
there really isn't a "good" outcome to this horrible war
Considering the near-certainty that whoever wins on the battlefield will indulge in mass reprisal murders, even the outcome of "peace" won't bring much peace. As a practical matter, the fact that all sides understand the inevitability of reprisals means there is every motivation to fight on to complete exhaustion. The winners will rule over rubble, but at least they will be alive, and by now that's all this war is about: survival.
― A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, 21 February 2018 19:58 (six years ago) link
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/02/21/opinion/syria-ghouta-russia-isis.html?emc=edit_th_180222&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=37355772&referer=
NY Times Editorial Board says Assad and Russia should be charged with war crimes for current attacks on Ghouta
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 22 February 2018 16:25 (six years ago) link
I kinda would like to see Assad out of office and facing a war crimes trial, even if Syria would just become Libya like, or requiring a UN presence to try to hold off all the other bad options. Alas, UN has messed up in Congo, and Russia, Iran and current US government would never support such an idea. A chaotic Syria without Assad using an Air Force to drop barrel bombs, might not be perfect, but it might be slightly less worse.
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 22 February 2018 17:37 (six years ago) link
There's no reason to think it wouldn't be worse. Libya is now a failed state/nightmare of a country.
― khat person (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 22 February 2018 18:04 (six years ago) link
And Syria isn't?
― Frederik B, Thursday, 22 February 2018 20:34 (six years ago) link
In Syria if the jihadists are conclusively defeated - I'm no expert on military affairs but with the help of Russia, Iran, Hezbollah they might well be - Assad's government will be able establish control over the country, with a possibility of something similar to the status quo ante prevailing.
― khat person (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 22 February 2018 20:40 (six years ago) link
So is an authoritarian state with Assad having an air force that drops barrel bombs, and has support from Russia, Iran, Hezbollah better than Libya? I dunno. Maybe less chaotic I guess, and thanks to Assad's ruthlessness, lots less people around.
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 22 February 2018 20:51 (six years ago) link
The benefits of a central authority, no matter that it is despotic, is better than total chaos and lawlessness.
― khat person (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 22 February 2018 20:56 (six years ago) link
I also believe, fairly strongly, that if somehow, magically the people rebelling against Assad could gain control over the country, it would be a hellhole.
― khat person (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 22 February 2018 20:59 (six years ago) link
Wikipedia says there's been something like 400.000 people killed in the Syrian civil war and 10.000 in the Libya Civil War. Take that with a BIG grain of salt, but still. And not getting rid of Assad means the country could explode all over again. It's not the first uprising they've defeated.
― Frederik B, Thursday, 22 February 2018 21:03 (six years ago) link
this study from 2015 had casualties at 20k for the Libyan Civil Wars (2011 and 2014-present) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211419X15000348 Although Syria is more than 3 times more populous than Libya obviously the war there has just been so much more brutal, with huge atrocities from both sides, most notably government forces deliberate targeting of civilians, and targeting of enemy forces in populated areas in ways sure to kill many civilians - war crimes.
― khat person (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 22 February 2018 21:14 (six years ago) link
What do you think Assad turned Aleppo into? What do you think he's doing now to Ghouta?
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 22 February 2018 21:38 (six years ago) link
Yeah I'm aware we're talking about the outcome from the end of the conflict. The outcome of the Civil War in Libya that ousted Gaddafi is a failed state and an ongoing war that has no signs of abating. In Syria this war may finally come to a conclusion soon.
― khat person (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 22 February 2018 22:01 (six years ago) link
only in the sense that it'll become an occupation. assad is still going to need to ongoingly pacify resistance. the war isn't coming to a true *conclusion* imo any time soon, and this is putting aside that iran may be spoiling for a new war right around the corner w/ israel.
― Mordy, Thursday, 22 February 2018 22:04 (six years ago) link
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2018/02/turkey-turks-become-obsessed-with-genealogy.html
― Mordy, Thursday, 22 February 2018 23:21 (six years ago) link
that's a very interesting and very odd article
― khat person (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 22 February 2018 23:40 (six years ago) link
As bombs continued to rain down on the Damascus suburb of eastern Ghouta on Monday, the United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, demanded that the Syria cease-fire resolution that the Security Council adopted unanimously over the weekend take effect immediately.
...President Bashar al-Assad of Syria and his Russian and Iranian allies appear to be exploiting the wording of the resolution, which did not set a firm date for the cease-fire to take effect and excluded attacks on opposition forces identified as terrorists, who make up some of the estimated 580 opposition fighters entrenched in eastern Ghouta.
...Mr. Guterres demanded that aid agencies be granted access to deliver humanitarian assistance to the nearly 400,000 people in eastern Ghouta who have been besieged for years, and to evacuate hundreds of critically ill patients whose transfer to hospitals less than an hour’s drive away has been resolutely blocked by the government.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/world/europe/syria-eastern-ghouta-cease-fire.html
― curmudgeon, Monday, 26 February 2018 15:50 (six years ago) link
Less folks trying to flee to Europe (but some still are--mostly Eritreans and Somalians).
We’re here to stop people from dying in the Mediterranean,” said Sylvie Bergier-Diallo, the deputy chief of the French mission in Niger.
But very few are actually approved, and so the French delegation is also there to send a message to other would-be migrants: Stay home, and do not risk a perilous journey for an asylum claim that would ultimately be denied in France.The French outpost is part of a new forward defense in Europe’s struggle to hold off migration from Africa; it is a small, relatively benign piece of a larger strategy that otherwise threatens to subvert Europe’s humanitarian ideals.
After years of being buffeted by uncontrolled migration, Europe is striking out. Italy is suspected of quietly cutting deals with Libyan warlords who control the migration route. The European Union has sent delegations to African capitals, waving aid and incentives for leaders to keep their people at home. Now come the French.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/25/world/africa/france-africa-migrants-asylum-niger.html?ribbon-ad-idx=4&rref=world/europe&module=Ribbon&version=context®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Europe&pgtype=article
― curmudgeon, Monday, 26 February 2018 18:44 (six years ago) link
spain have had a detention centre set up in mauritania for years
― ogmor, Tuesday, 27 February 2018 11:27 (six years ago) link
This does not appear yet to be a better situation than Libya
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) will examine attacks including one on Sunday which health authorities said killed a child and caused symptoms consistent with exposure to chlorine gas, the sources said.
Political leaders in France, the United States and United Kingdom said this month they would back targeted military action against Damascus if there were proof chemical weapons had been used by forces under President Bashar al-Assad.
The investigation by the OPCW fact-finding team comes as Syrian warplanes continued to strike eastern Ghouta on Tuesday, despite a Russian call for a five-hour daily truce to allow the 400,000 people living there under siege to leave.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-chemicalweapons/exclusive-chemical-weapons-watchdog-investigates-ghouta-attacks-sources-idUSKCN1GB12O
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 27 February 2018 18:57 (six years ago) link
Africa won't be able to support an additional 1.3 billion this century, but neither can Europe. The obvious move for Europe is to support and arm Arab nationalists in the Maghreb, who can deter migration without media coverage of sinking trawlers. Not surprised that Italy is already doing this. Lifeboat ethics is a pretty ugly subject, but given the choice between deterring mass migration, and homegrown fascism...
― It's because I'm human, isn't it?! (Sanpaku), Tuesday, 27 February 2018 21:37 (six years ago) link
If Eritrea and Somalia (where most of the recent migration has been from) had democratic governments that were responsive to the people, and did not have to contend with armed militants, and could therefore get financial and other supports from nations elsewhere in the world plus assistance from NGOs, there would be less migrants. But sadly, that's a fantasy.
Not to mention Syrian refugees and the options for government there.
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 27 February 2018 22:09 (six years ago) link
Moscow and Tehran see eye to eye in terms of preserving the existing Syrian government. They maintain a symbiotic military relationship as well, with Russia owning the skies while Iran fields around 60,000 fighters who form the spine of the regime’s ground forces.
Yet cracks are appearing, as the reconstruction era beckons somewhere on the horizon. Important sectors of the economy need to be rebuilt, particularly oil and gas exploitation, phosphates, power plants, a new harbor and a third cellphone carrier.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/world/europe/russia-syria-assad.html
Life is tough for the conquerors
― curmudgeon, Friday, 9 March 2018 05:59 (six years ago) link
http://washington.carpediem.cd/events/6178746-protest-lockheed-martins-reception-for-the-saudi-prince-at-trump-international-hotel-washington-d-c/
Lockheed Martin reception coming March 19 for Saudi Prince
― curmudgeon, Friday, 9 March 2018 20:16 (six years ago) link
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/09/middleeast/turkey-erdogan-afrin-syria-intl/index.html
Turkey continues anti-Kurd campaign in Afrin, Syria
― curmudgeon, Friday, 9 March 2018 20:20 (six years ago) link
Modern history’s saddest recurring theme: The Kurds are expendable in the Great Game. https://t.co/GNdhQGxCPu— David Ignatius (@IgnatiusPost) March 18, 2018
― Google Atheist (Le Bateau Ivre), Wednesday, 21 March 2018 10:24 (six years ago) link
more doom and gloom coming to Yemen...
In another vote of confidence in the Saudi military, the Trump administration told Congress on Thursday it planned to approve an arms sale to Saudi Arabia valued at more than $1 billion. The State Department said the package includes up to about 6,700 U.S.-made anti-tank missiles, along with servicing, maintanence and parts for helicopters and tanks already in the kingdom's arsenal.
― curmudgeon, Friday, 23 March 2018 04:39 (six years ago) link
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/palestinian-journalist-in-vest-marked-press-shot-dead-by-israeli-troops-in-gaza/2018/04/07/ac57b524-3a30-11e8-8fd2-49fe3c675a89_story.html?utm_term=.4c7612cf30df
terrible
― curmudgeon, Sunday, 8 April 2018 03:31 (five years ago) link
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/saudi-prince-mohammed-us-tour-hollywood-harvard-silicon-valley-dwayne-johnson-rupert-murdoch-oprah-a8293456.html
Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles was one of the few Americans who met with Prince Mohammed and in public stressed human rights issues. In a statement, the mayor said he “urged the Crown Prince to continue his efforts to advance women’s rights, and raised concerns about human rights and the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Yemen.”
In Los Angeles, Prince Mohammed’s visit drew a smattering of protests. “He’s coming here under the guise that he’s some great reformer and changing the country,” said Michelle Modglin, 67, a retired nurse, demonstrating outside the Beverly Hills office of the William Morris Endeavor talent agency, which recently received a $400m (£283m) investment from Saudi Arabia. “But we know that’s not true as long as he’s bombing Yemen and killing innocent people.”
― curmudgeon, Sunday, 8 April 2018 03:35 (five years ago) link
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/08/syrian-government-accused-of-chemical-attacks-on-civilians-in-eastern-ghouta
more chemical attacks
― curmudgeon, Sunday, 8 April 2018 03:37 (five years ago) link
Will just Russia, Iran, and Assad make the calls re the future of Syria (with a bit of input from Turkey) while Trump and his generals and whomever at the State Department bicker among themselves? Kurds are still hangin in there in a part of Syria despite the Turks
― curmudgeon, Sunday, 8 April 2018 16:58 (five years ago) link
But chemical attack bothers 45 so who knows what’s next. Retaliatory attack a year ago hasn’t concerned Assad
― curmudgeon, Sunday, 8 April 2018 18:35 (five years ago) link
49 killed in the attack on Douma. UN Security Council to meet today.
― curmudgeon, Monday, 9 April 2018 14:48 (five years ago) link
not meaning to be "mr tankie lion of damascus lover" over here but the people reporting the chemical attacks are "rebel" islamist activists. what they say has to be taken with a grain of salt - not that that will stop Trump from starting the great middle-eastern war over this whether or not there is independent verification.
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Monday, 9 April 2018 16:40 (five years ago) link
Assad is barring anyone from getting access and you are blaming the motives of “rebel “ activists. You never question the motives of the other players in the region though in that posting other than Trump. Assad’s history does suggest a few things. It’s a mess, yea I know many of the fighting groups are bad with their own motives , and not necessarily better than Assad, Russia or Iran. However, if Russia, Iran, and Turkey are gonna continue negotiations on the future of Syria, without the US or UN , that seems questionable motives-wise as well. Yes, I know including current US and UN leadership is also problematic.
― curmudgeon, Monday, 9 April 2018 17:04 (five years ago) link
I'm sure Assad would use chemical weapons on his people. I'm not sure that Jaysh-Al-Islam are the most trustworthy folks
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Monday, 9 April 2018 17:16 (five years ago) link
The White Helmets and rescuers have provided some photos. Do you think they photoshopped?
― curmudgeon, Monday, 9 April 2018 17:26 (five years ago) link
White Helmets are islamist affiliated. The pictures are of dead bodies. I don't know how they were killed or by who.
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Monday, 9 April 2018 17:27 (five years ago) link
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/why-trumps-threat-to-make-assad-pay-a-big-price-rings-hollow?mbid=nl_Daily%20040918&CNDID=39876153&spMailingID=13279562&spUserID=MTMzMTg0Njc0MTUzS0&spJobID=1380774260&spReportId=MTM4MDc3NDI2MAS2
New Yorker article quotes folks who say it would take lots of bombing to get stubborn Assad to stop chemical attacks. Article also suggests Russia and Iran now control much of Syria and they’re fine with Assad.
― curmudgeon, Monday, 9 April 2018 17:30 (five years ago) link
Every plant was standing upright. Every home decoration was up. Photos hanging on the wall like nothing happened. But the people in the bunkers are dead. It wasn't a bombing. It was a chemical assault.
Dismayed by the lack of interest in this story. Dismayed by the disinterest here on ilx. Can't watch the stories about this on the telly. Just can't. Sick to my stomach.
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 9 April 2018 17:41 (five years ago) link
I think people are interested. It's just that there's not really much that can be done. Assad has basically won the civil war, regime change is off the table at this stage.
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Monday, 9 April 2018 17:56 (five years ago) link
(barring a trump/bolton full on war, which i don't think many will have the stomach for and would be also catastrophically bloody)
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Monday, 9 April 2018 17:59 (five years ago) link
I'm interested, but as a typical westerner my opinion on foreign conflicts is most unwarranted.
― Van Horn Street, Monday, 9 April 2018 18:09 (five years ago) link
Also, LBI I have no idea where you gather your news but the chemical attacks are front page of lots of leading publications.
― Van Horn Street, Monday, 9 April 2018 18:35 (five years ago) link
Dismayed by the lack of interest in this story. Dismayed by the disinterest here on ilx.
I could make a strenuous denunciation of Assad here, if you like, but if such a denunciation were somehow to lead to a deeper direct engagement in the Syrian War on the part of the USA, I think that result would be more harmful than helpful at this stage. Further, I think it is doubtful that there have ever been any good options available to the USA in that war. As with Libya, just removing Assad was, and still is, an incomplete strategy and there was never a chance of a secular democracy rising in his place. There are clear limits on western power in such countries. We can't steer it.
― A is for (Aimless), Monday, 9 April 2018 18:42 (five years ago) link
The US or any western country.
― Van Horn Street, Monday, 9 April 2018 18:49 (five years ago) link
― Van Horn Street, Monday, April 9, 2018 6:35 PM (thirty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
For sure. But it's not a talking point. The atrocity is reported, and after that: total silence. A tweet by mr 45 can be a convo piece for days on end. These atrocities are reported but then just... die in silence. No-one is stepping up to the plate, no-one is doing anything. Yeah, Russia says "hmm well there's no evidence for it to be a chemical attack!". The west is eerily quiet and self-indulged.
I could make a strenuous denunciation of Assad here, if you like, but if such a denunciation were somehow to lead to a deeper direct engagement in the Syrian War on the part of the USA, I think that result would be more harmful than helpful at this stage.
Don't bother.
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 9 April 2018 19:14 (five years ago) link
Disagreed, too, the Kurds are in dire need of US' help. But Trump doesn't even know what "Kurds" are, so yeah...
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 9 April 2018 19:16 (five years ago) link
I'm sure Assad would use chemical weapons on his people.
As far as conspiracy theories go, I do think it's strange that Assad was apparently on the cusp of victory, with the support of the usual suspects and little in the way of interference by the likes of the US ... and then uses chemical weapons again.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 9 April 2018 19:20 (five years ago) link
Yeah, I don't really want to get into that territory too much because conspiracy theorizing is silly and who knows what is in Assad's head but seems weird that in long, drawn-out battles like Deir ez-Zor, while the war was in the balance, chemical weapons were not used. Now, with only pockets of rebel areas left and the end of the war imminent, Assad decided "oh I'll do some atrocities to give legitimacy to my rivals and prompt further western intervention".
Was reading a piece in Haaretz that theorized that this was might be Assad thumbing his nose at the U.S. and claiming ownership over the country, like "ha ha, I'll gas civilians if I want, you can't do anything about it, na na na na", which I think is a not completely outlandish theory.
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Monday, 9 April 2018 19:26 (five years ago) link
xps - We've been using the Kurds' troops in Syria against ISIS, but that's pissing off the Turks, so there are obvious limits there, too. otoh, the Kurds have an autonomous region within Iraq now, where the Kurdish independence referendum provoked Iraq into seizing the previously Kurdish-controlled oil fields. That's really where the US needs to exert whatever influence it has to assist the Kurds - maintaining their autonomy inside Iraq.
― A is for (Aimless), Monday, 9 April 2018 19:26 (five years ago) link
No-one is stepping up to the plate, no-one is doing anything.
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, April 9, 2018 3:14 PM (forty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
the lessons might be learned.
― Van Horn Street, Monday, 9 April 2018 19:57 (five years ago) link
Ah yes. Like humanity continues to learn lessons from past mistakes and do things better all the time, you mean?
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 9 April 2018 20:09 (five years ago) link
what would you like to see done besides more news headlines?
― Mordy, Monday, 9 April 2018 20:25 (five years ago) link
A notion of actual interest from EU/America in this sordid tragedy would be nice. The headlines will be written after that.
It's pretty obvious Trump is clueless. The US army is more or less acting on its own within this conflict, for better or for worse. I'm equally disappointed in the EU though. They're absent from the plate.
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 9 April 2018 20:27 (five years ago) link
so what are you specifically proposing? what does EU stepping up to the plate means to you? what solutions are believes are the best?
― Van Horn Street, Monday, 9 April 2018 20:31 (five years ago) link
If you contest that US/EU looking away is in some way ok, then I won't bother anymore, too tired for that shit. I don't have the answers, but both continents can apply much more pressure to the opposing parties than they are currently doing. US should be deeply ashamed for letting the Kurds fight their battle against ISIS and now leaving them to die in Syria.
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 9 April 2018 20:35 (five years ago) link
yeah and a lot of us are tired of the western savior complex.
― Van Horn Street, Monday, 9 April 2018 20:37 (five years ago) link
Tell that to the Kurds - some of mine, family - begging the US to stay in Iraqi Kurdistan and Syria, because their presence has been a life preserver.
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 9 April 2018 20:38 (five years ago) link
By applying pressure I suppose you mean military pressure. You can say it; its okay, this discussion is only theorical.
― Van Horn Street, Monday, 9 April 2018 20:39 (five years ago) link
...
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 9 April 2018 20:40 (five years ago) link
i probably agree w/ you but it's hard to tell since you're speaking very vaguely. i don't know what "A notion of actual interest from EU/America in this sordid tragedy would be nice." would mean. do you want heavier investment in kurdish military? (i'm in favor of that.) do you want direct military engagements between US or NATO forces in Syria? i don't think the West has the stomach for that post-Iraq. more investment in arming rebels? just calling out Assad in front of the UN more? there aren't a ton of options that i can see that span the gap between paying lip service (which is what i assume you're not interested in) and direct military engagement (which i'm not sure if you're interested in). if yes to military engagement - aerial engagement? boots on the ground? missile strikes?
― Mordy, Monday, 9 April 2018 21:26 (five years ago) link
I don't see how I could be interpreted as speaking "vaguely". Yes, I want heavier investment, especially in Kurdish forces, from the west. They need backing. They deserve backing, having done all the hard work in the first place, fighting ISIS.
"The west" might not have "the stomach" for post-Iraq, or for anything for that matter. But it should. That's my whole point. Very convenient to bow out at the worst possible time. "The west" shouldn't have been there in the first place, agreed. But they were, and are, so take responsibility and deal with the mess you helped create. (btw Kurds are not "rebels", but I'm pretty sure that's not what you meant, as I know you understand the situation really well).
If you, too, don't see an option in progressing this, then who does? That's my whole point. "We" don't know. "The west" is doing fuck all. Yet Assad is gassing and killing people hiding in bomb shelters. Children.
So: yes to "military engagement". To end Assad's crimes. To liberate the Kurds, the Syrian population who wanted none of this. But it won't happen, because Syria/Kurds/Middle East in general has become a chess board for USA and Russia to play a game over.
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 9 April 2018 22:20 (five years ago) link
Interesting piece on Syria from the lrb by Patrick Cockburn https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n07/patrick-cockburn/survivors-of-the-syrian-wars
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Monday, 9 April 2018 22:40 (five years ago) link
I agree with you and I think ending Assad’s regime would be just. I just don’t see a practical route to getting there. Even if Trump agreed to commit more resources and forces it would be done in such a shit thoughtless way it would almost certainly make things worse. POTUS Hillary was the only shot at a potentially valuable intervention from the US. France could intervene (they did in Mali) but they won’t with Russian involvement. Israel won’t explicitly open that front into full blown war but that border situation is volatile. Saudis are over extended and tapped out and probably standing over their own precipice. Turkey I don’t even have to mention to you.Btw it makes perfect sense to me why Assad would use chemical weapons now. When his rule was more precarious he needed to make sure direct intervention didn’t happen. Now he can probably do what he wants. And what he wants is to pacify the rebellion and he’s apparently decided to do it by brutalizing them in a gruesome and horrible way to totally break the will. This is an alternative to indefinite occupation. Xpz
― Mordy, Monday, 9 April 2018 22:48 (five years ago) link
But {military intervention} won't happen, because Syria/Kurds/Middle East in general has become a chess board for USA and Russia to play a game over.
Your idea that intervention is only off the table because the US and Russia feel like playing with their cat's paws instead of getting serious and ending the war is rather too simplistic to capture what is going on. The fighting would be happening without the participation of either the US or Russia. It is fierce because it is a civil war, and the intervention of Iran and Hezbollah is inspired by local interests, not global politics.
If you think the US and EU could simply walk in, "win" the war and impose a peace, perhaps you may have noticed the sterling results we've obtained somewhat recently through western military intervention in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan. Moreover, you may have noticed that bombing the shit out of a country, or pouring in troops and heavy armaments, or both, is not only expensive in terms of money and lives, but has repercussions far outside the borders of the country being destroyed. And more than a few civilians get killed in the process, in ways just as deadly and dreadful as chemical weapons or barrel bombs.
― A is for (Aimless), Monday, 9 April 2018 23:07 (five years ago) link
Agreed w/ everything Mordy said.
If you think the US and EU could simply walk in, "win" the war and impose a peace, perhaps you may have noticed the sterling results we've obtained somewhat recently through western military intervention
This isn't what I think, nor have I said it was simple.
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Tuesday, 10 April 2018 09:35 (five years ago) link
Nothing is simple. But if we want to learn from the past, we must also admit that Syria has gone about as bad as it possibly could.
― Frederik B, Tuesday, 10 April 2018 11:49 (five years ago) link
I mean, read that Cockburn-piece jiv just posted. It should quite clear that the US has made decisions that has been disastrous, and not all of them are on Trump and Tillerson.
― Frederik B, Tuesday, 10 April 2018 12:14 (five years ago) link
there's def going to be some sort of bombing campaign with the U.S., U.K., France, GCC maybe in the next couple days it feels like.
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, 10 April 2018 16:24 (five years ago) link
some sort of bombing campaign
performative acts of war are not very effective at anything but blowing up some things and killing some people who might not have otherwise died. to the degree such a bombing campaign is not performative, it would be an escalation of the violence, so that even more things are destroyed and still more people are killed, but with what end in view?
in the context of a raging civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions, this bombing campaign is likely to be the wartime equivalent of hitting a dog on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper. Assad will not desist from atrocities, because they serve his war aims. It will not matter if our goal is noble, if we lack the means to achieve anything but a surge of meaningless violence.
― A is for (Aimless), Tuesday, 10 April 2018 19:06 (five years ago) link
oh yeah i agree it is not going to be a good thing, but it seems it will be a thing. would be incredibly surprised if it doesn't go ahead.
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, 10 April 2018 19:08 (five years ago) link
Does Iraq provide a good model for what wd happen in Syria as a result of a western intervention? Some differences are striking, like Saddam sitting on all the sects (factions?) then with him gone they erupt into civil war, meaning more violence overall in the country ... whereas in Syria the sects are already in a civil war
― Never changed username before (cardamon), Tuesday, 10 April 2018 19:56 (five years ago) link
Not really the same though, because of demographics. Syria is a majority Sunni country, ran by an Alawite dynasty that, due to the small number of Alawites in the country, does not act in a sectarian manner.
In Iraq the majority are Shia and Saddam's regime was primarily Sunni-led and engaged in sectarian oppression of the Shia majority.
The only really sectarian element to the Syrian Civil War is the fact that the rebels are extremely sectarian Sunni islamists
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, 10 April 2018 20:16 (five years ago) link
In the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War, there were uprisings in Iraq, both Kurds in the north and Iraqi Shiites in the south. Saddam squashed them quickly and violently and iirc, only after that was a no-fly zone imposed over much of Iraq.
My memory tells me a similar no-fly zone was contemplated at the early stages of the Syrian Civil War, but was not instituted, in part because of political pushback in the USA. My assessment is that Assad's early survival and present ascendancy has mainly been due to air power, now supplemented greatly by Russian warplanes.
But the short answer is probably 'no', viewing Iraq as a model for Syria is not especially helpful. For one thing, there's no sizeable US army presence on the ground there.
― A is for (Aimless), Tuesday, 10 April 2018 20:20 (five years ago) link
To maintain a no fly zone a large amount of ground force would have to be committed. Would require really ratcheting up involvement, which nobody (well not nobody, Clinton was all for it) was too interested in at the time.
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, 10 April 2018 20:24 (five years ago) link
Trump was pretending he was an "America first non-interventionist" at the time under the influence of Bannon
How many airfields does Assad have?
Hillary also suggested in 2017
I really believe that we should have and still should take out his airfields
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 18:04 (five years ago) link
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Syrian_Air_Force_bases
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 18:33 (five years ago) link
some 'expert' on NPR this morning said we should absolutely bomb Syria but then continued to stress we need an actual plan there going forward. wtf man? just indiscriminately bomb them to show our dick size but for what else exactly? its also not lost on me that we're all mad that civilians are getting killed in syria in this one specific way but generally are ok with them getting slaughtered by conventional weapons.
― officer sonny bonds, lytton pd (mayor jingleberries), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 18:40 (five years ago) link
putting aside whether it's a good idea maybe we'd bomb them as deterrence against using chemical weapons and not to "show our dick size"
― Mordy, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 18:52 (five years ago) link
Yup. And for fucks sake, the left needs better foreign policy ideas than 'what's wrong with chemical weapons anyway?'
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 18:59 (five years ago) link
maybe we'd bomb them as deterrence against using chemical weapons
But effective deterrence requires Assad knowing he will pay a price much heavier than the benefits he would expect from the use of chemical weapons. That requires among other things, the certainty provided by a clear and consistent policy spelled out in advance. It also requires that the price he expects to pay is one that deprives him of a thing he values far more highly than the benefits he believes chemical weapons will provide him. Neither of those elements seem to exist and therefore the bombing cannot be expected to deter him.
― A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 18:59 (five years ago) link
― Frederik B, Wednesday, April 11, 2018 11:59 AM (twenty-six seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
should just go along with thoughtless saber-rattling which on balance of probabilities - considering our interventions in the Arab world in the 21st century - will likely only do more harm instead? this would be a foreign policy i suppose, exactly identical to that of the republicans but sure, it would be "doing something"
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 19:01 (five years ago) link
I'm so tired of this fucking strawman bullshit, but even considering that, why would we only consider interventions in the 21st century as the basis of a foreign policy?
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 19:06 (five years ago) link
well we could consider all the really super successful ones from the 20th century all the way back to sykes-picot if you'd like but i don't think that would really help you much
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 19:08 (five years ago) link
International agreements that impose prior restraint on the creation or stockpiling of weapons, or which establish universally accepted norms ahead of wartime, seem to be about effective a tool as exists so far. The Geneva Convention held up for many, many decades. So have the conventions on nuclear proliferation and chemical weapons.
But warfare by its nature defies limits because the stakes are often escalated to survival itself, at which point external and conventional restraints tend to fail and only self-imposed internalized restraints apply.
― A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 19:24 (five years ago) link
I don't think it's unfair to suggest that things could get much much worse with yet another western intervention.
― Van Horn Street, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 19:28 (five years ago) link
Plus, the fact that it's Trump and May in power... If that can't pause you then I don't know what can.
― Van Horn Street, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 19:33 (five years ago) link
x-posts: Yeah, looking at the 20th century, the involvement of Russia or Turkey has clearly worked so much better.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 19:34 (five years ago) link
Trump and May (and Putin) are responsible for Syria now to a large extent because Obama refused to take that responsibility upon himself. And it's also not unfair to suggest that the civil war in Syria has gone about as horrible as it possibly could. Again, the left needs to have a better response to the gassing of children than 'eh, could be worse'.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 19:38 (five years ago) link
That's the thing. As long as western nations claim responsibility onto foreign nations then entire regions will be destabilized and civilians lives lost.
― Van Horn Street, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 19:47 (five years ago) link
Okay. Let's take a moment and ponder the stupidity of that claim. On the one hand, it's obviously true. Sure. But on the other, it's absolutely, 100% meaningless. Will civilian lives stop being lost if western nations stop claiming responsibility? Fuck no! Then what's the fucking difference, unless the point is just to avoid feeling responsible for bad things?
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 19:53 (five years ago) link
the left needs to have a better response to the gassing of children than 'eh, could be worse'
First, I do not see this statement made by anyone I know or by any 'representatives' of the left, so if you attribute this as the left's response, I don't what that is based upon. However, responses are not confined to statements, but may be actions as well.
The problem I see is that, especially in the USA, the left has no effective control over the apparatus of national policy. As such, the avenues of action available to the left, at least here in the USA, are mainly symbolic actions, which are the equivalent of verbal statements, but coupled with some symbolic activity. I'd really like to hear what your ideas might be for a 'better response' than the moral condemnations being made by leaders and ordinary people across the globe.
Enlighten me.
― A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 19:58 (five years ago) link
You don't think Obama had control over national policy, or you don't consider him part of the left?
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 20:00 (five years ago) link
― Frederik B, Wednesday, April 11, 2018 3:53 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
I think the last 60 years of american and european interventions point out the difference you are asking about.
The US felt responsible for South Viet Nam too you know.
― Van Horn Street, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 20:02 (five years ago) link
The latter, duh.
― Buff Jeckley (Tom D.), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 20:03 (five years ago) link
Sigh
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 20:10 (five years ago) link
Therein lies your problem.
― Buff Jeckley (Tom D.), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 20:12 (five years ago) link
Must be nice to shit this thread up with the most nonsense but still feel like you can just post sigh as a rejoinder to other posters
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 20:13 (five years ago) link
Would be so much nicer if everyone who thought the very idea of leftists influencing foreign policy was impossible would draw the logical conclusion from that and shut the fuck up.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 20:16 (five years ago) link
I'm so tired of this fucking straw man bullshit...
― Frederik B, Wednesday, April 11, 2018 12:06 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Frederik B, Wednesday, April 11, 2018 1:16 PM (twelve seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 20:17 (five years ago) link
ffs, Fred. When did Obama ever say the equivalent of "gassing kids? eh. could be worse." He didn't. So citing him does not make your case. And as for actions, exactly which of Obama's options would you have chosen?
I'm so tired of this fucking strawman bullshit
Then why build your own strawman about the responses coming from the left?
― A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 20:18 (five years ago) link
― Van Horn Street, 11. april 2018 21:28 (fifty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Again, the left needs to have a better response to the gassing of children than 'eh, could be worse'.
― Frederik B, 11. april 2018 21:38 (forty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 20:24 (five years ago) link
Are you suggesting that a western intervention could not make things worse?
― A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 20:25 (five years ago) link
Otherwise, I've asked you several times for your own ideas about what sorts of actions would be effective to stop or mitigate the situation?
― A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 20:26 (five years ago) link
As to what Obama should have done differently, it should be pretty clear by now that his handling of the first Syrian chemical has been pretty disastrous, in that it not only didn't stop further chemical attacks, it also didn't stop the US from bombing. While of course also leading to more Russian involvement. Instead, he should have retaliated militarily. That's not only a fair suggestion, it should be absolutely obvious that in all likelihood things would be better today if he had. The outraged response this utterly banal statement will result in is nothing but bullshit purity posturing.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 20:30 (five years ago) link
he should have retaliated militarily
define this
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 20:31 (five years ago) link
Things that should be part of leftist foreign policy: First and foremost financial reform aimed at limiting the ability of dictators and kleptocrats to move assets out of their own country. With regard to Syria, among things that should be on the table is putting pressure on Turkey and Russia to limit their involvement, and support to the Kurds in their fight for autonomy.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 20:34 (five years ago) link
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), 11. april 2018 22:31 (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Why? In all honesty, it doesn't even matter, the disastrous consequence came just from refusing to act and letting Russia handle it. This led to more bombs over Syria, not less.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 20:37 (five years ago) link
Why?
Because it's an extremely vague term
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 20:39 (five years ago) link
like do you mean symbolic bombing runs that would have killed as many or more Syrian civilians than the chemical attacks? Or troops on the ground, enforced no fly zone, regime change/regional war probably involving Iran and Israel? Or surgical strike of chemical weapons facilities (no expert on this but I'm not sure how good an idea this would be, blowing up chemical weapons may have some bad effects for those living in the vicinity of those facilities).
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 20:41 (five years ago) link
like do you mean symbolic bombing runs that would have killed as many or more Syrian civilians than the chemical attacks?
The main point I'm getting at is that even this type of symbolic and murderous bullshit would in all likelihood have been better than letting Russia handle it.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 20:44 (five years ago) link
At this point, all of fred's comments and responses have added up to nothing positive. He's upset. He is certain things could be better. It doesn't matter that he can't say how. he just wants what he wants and doesn't know what that is other than 'something better'. Very helpful insights, there, fred.
― A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 20:45 (five years ago) link
Plus giving "the Left", whoever they might be, their usual kicking.
― Buff Jeckley (Tom D.), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 20:46 (five years ago) link
Or surgical strike of chemical weapons facilities (no expert on this but I'm not sure how good an idea this would be, blowing up chemical weapons may have some bad effects for those living in the vicinity of those facilities).
just remembered israel doing this quite effectively and with no civilian casualties last year
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 20:48 (five years ago) link
At some point the left needs to halt it with awful statements like 'regime change/regional war probably involving Iran and Israel' as if those two things are inherently connected. And just in general using 'regime change' as an obviously bad thing. Regimes change, it's a fact of history. It's inherently neutral. Hafez al-Assad himself participated in overthrowing three regimes in seven years, and somehow managed to build a strong and stable central government. The neoconservative drive for regime change basically everywhere was insane, and not just in hindsight, at the time itself it was pretty clearly insane, but regime change is inevitable, and sooner or later, the Assad regime will tumble, no matter what anyone does.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 20:54 (five years ago) link
I've asked you several times for your own ideas about what sorts of actions would be effective to stop or mitigate the situation?
― A is for (Aimless), 11. april 2018 22:26 (twenty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Frederik B, 11. april 2018 22:30 (twenty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Frederik B, 11. april 2018 22:34 (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― A is for (Aimless), 11. april 2018 22:45 (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 20:56 (five years ago) link
Ok, suggest to me how "the west" intervenes in a way in Syria which would precipitate the end of the baathist regime and in which Syria's allies Iran and Hezbollah would not intervene in some manner?
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 20:57 (five years ago) link
This is a rhetorical question obviously
I can add to it though: given that the opposition - other than the Kurds who only operate in a small area of the country - are ISIS and Al-Qaeda affiliates what would a post Assad Syria look like and would it be an improvement of pre-civil war baathist rule?
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 20:58 (five years ago) link
sadly pre-civil war baathist rule isn't on the table
― Mordy, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 21:00 (five years ago) link
Not to sound like a real solipsistic foreign policy "realist" here but i don't want any outcome that strengthens Al Qaeda or ISIS, because they actually directly encourage attacks against civilians in the countries i spend my time in
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 21:03 (five years ago) link
i don't disagree w/ you and i'm also skeptical of what a sunni ruling coalition would look like but it's a bit reductive to describe the entire rebellion as Al-Q or ISIS. especially earlier in the war we had other options if we wanted to promote them. the war didn't start because of religious protests, it started bc of secular protests demanding democratic reforms.
― Mordy, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 21:05 (five years ago) link
I know its a proxy war and everything but it boggles my mind how anyone is left standing in Syria to fight each other - on either side.
― officer sonny bonds, lytton pd (mayor jingleberries), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 21:05 (five years ago) link
why is islamophobia so acceptable on ilx
― bamcquern, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 21:15 (five years ago) link
― Mordy, Wednesday, April 11, 2018 2:05 PM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Oh yes I take your point, but it seems like it quickly evolved into something that was dominated by Sunni Islamists. You read reports of the FSA - which was the putative moderate rebel force in western imagination - having sharia law police in areas they control, and, such as in that Cockburn piece I posted upthread, calling (Sunni) Kurds "infidels" because they're not radical islamists
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 21:20 (five years ago) link
I think you might have read the wrong things, jiv. And that Cockburn piece described things that happened this January.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 21:26 (five years ago) link
I think you might have read the wrong things, jiv.
Helpful !
And that Cockburn piece described things that happened this January.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, April 11, 2018 2:26 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Yes, I am using it as a possible example of the FSA as it currently operates.
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 21:31 (five years ago) link
I don't know what you've read. But I have a cousin who worked with Syrian refugees, and what you're saying doesn't fit the stories I've heard. You're saying that article shows how the FSA currently operates, sure, but that doesn't mean it 'quickly evolved' into that, nor that it was inevitable that it would turn out that way. Except that with the West refusing to help anyone while support flowed in from Saudi Arabia and Iran, it should be no surprise that religious fanatics came to dominate both sides. I'm not certain that's a compelling argument against western involvement, though.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 22:17 (five years ago) link
Me: I've asked you several times for your own ideas about what sorts of actions would be effective to stop or mitigate the situation?
Fred's first idea of what to do:As to what Obama should have done differently...he should have retaliated militarily.
So, your first step would be to alter the past?
Fred's second idea of what to do:Things that should be part of leftist foreign policy: First and foremost financial reform aimed at limiting the ability of dictators and kleptocrats to move assets out of their own country.
This would be nice. It has very little to do with the Syrian War under discussion, and it would never have prevented Assad from using chemical weapons, but it is a nice thought.
Fred's next suggestion: With regard to Syria, among things that should be on the table is putting pressure on Turkey and Russia to limit their involvement, and support to the Kurds in their fight for autonomy.
Ah! Putting pressure on Russia! Why has no one thought of that? And on Turkey, too! And, I might point out that "limiting their involvement" is a great goal. Seeing how any limit would qualify, I think we've already attained that end. Victory is ours.
Oh, and 'supporting Kurdish independence' gets a nod. In Iraq? In Iraq and Syria? In Iraq, Syria and Turkey? Or some other combination? And I guess you're fine with Turkey leaving NATO and cultivating closer ties to the Putin, too. Or perhaps we should intervene militarily to prevent that, too?
All in all, as fine a set of irrelevant solutions to the Syrian Civil War as I've seen anywhere. Because the chances are damn good that none of these would make a dent on that war aside from massive military intervention on the scale of Iraq, or even greater, since under 200,000 boots on the ground were insufficient to pacify the country.
― A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 23:06 (five years ago) link
Well, at least I guess I should be thankful for your bullshit response instead of just straight up lying about me having written anything.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 23:11 (five years ago) link
― Frederik B, Wednesday, April 11, 2018 3:17 PM (forty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
I've read widely, mainly academic journals, broadsheets and magazines. And eschewing the RT, Max Blumenthal, Rania Khalek side of things. The islamicization of the opposition is at least several years old by now as far as I can tell. But I'm glad you have heard some things.
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 23:20 (five years ago) link
x-post: It's mostly sophistry and facile objections, but yeah, at least not straight up lies. Except for the 'supporting Kurdish independence' in quotes, as if I wrote that. No, I said support the fight for autonomy, obviously I meant in Syria. What, you think we should throw them under the bus and let them be massacred because of different fights in other countries? And yeah, if Turkey leaves NATO, that's probably for the best in the long run. The musketeer oath doesn't really work with autocratic regimes with a tendency to invade neighboring countries and oppress ethnic minorities. The reason we're not doing that, throwing Turkey out of NATO, probably has a lot more to do with the fact that Turkey helps with keeping refugees out of Europe in nefarious ways, not really a noble nor leftist goal anyway.
And yeah, the Islamization is several years old, but the war began in 2011, jim. You're not really making a case for me trusting you over people who work with Syrians.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 23:24 (five years ago) link
I'm not asking you to trust me, I'm asking you to maybe do some reading.
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 23:27 (five years ago) link
sadlol. I assure you, neither widely reading, watching documentaries about Syria for work, nor talking to family members who work with Syrians, has led to any at all credible suggestions that there was 'sharia law' in places like Aleppo.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 23:36 (five years ago) link
You'll be telling us next you are Syrian.
― Buff Jeckley (Tom D.), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 23:38 (five years ago) link
Except if with 'sharia law' you mean stuff like islamic inspired divorce courts, which, yeah, sure, I guess that could have been happening.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 23:39 (five years ago) link
BREAKING Greek fighter jet crashed in Greece on its way to airbase after dog fight with Turkish aircraft https://t.co/sk3WeN5u1J— AIRLIVE (@airlivenet) April 12, 2018
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Thursday, 12 April 2018 12:49 (five years ago) link
Hellas Kipris! *dons armour, books flight to Larnaca*
― imago, Thursday, 12 April 2018 13:18 (five years ago) link
― Frederik B, Wednesday, April 11, 2018 4:36 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/islamic-law-comes-to-rebel-held-syria/2013/03/19/b310532e-90af-11e2-bdea-e32ad90da239_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8e05265c316d
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 12 April 2018 14:05 (five years ago) link
Introduction of Islamic courts common in areas taken over jointly by FSA and Nusra, since 2012.
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 12 April 2018 14:06 (five years ago) link
The fact that you use 'sharia law' to describe what that article says mostly just makes me think you're a bit islamophobic, honestly.
― Frederik B, Thursday, 12 April 2018 14:39 (five years ago) link
Simply put, 'sharia' is half of Islam ('sufi' being the other part) and just relates to rules on how to live your life. It's absolutely unsurprising that an oppressed Sunni majority would turn to religious principles to help govern once secular law breaks down. The uproar over it was really, really islamophobic.
As I said:
― Frederik B, 12. april 2018 01:39 (fourteen hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Frederik B, Thursday, 12 April 2018 14:46 (five years ago) link
Juan Cole's take-- here's part of it
https://www.juancole.com/2018/04/reverse-syrian-gloating.html
The Trump administration and the May government in the UK seem poised to launch missile strikes on Syria in the near future. It probably won’t matter.
The Syrian regime figures it can take the punishment, which is likely to consist of another set of one-off missile strikes similar to those launched on the Shuayrat Base in spring of 2017 after a chemical weapons attack by the regime in Khan Sheykhoun. Syrian and Iranian troops are said to be quietly deserting major air force bases, temporarily relocating outside them, in anticipation of the strikes.
The Syrian regime has all but won the civil war. It has all the major cities–Damascus, Aleppo, Latakia, Homs, and even Hama. It controls what the French colonialists used to call “useful Syria,” the band of fertile land stretching from Damascus to the north in the west of the country. While it has lost the ten percent of the population that is Kurds in the northeast, the Syrian Kurds are not regime enemies and likely will be forced into an alliance with Damascus over time in the face of attacks by Turkey and by fundamentalist Arab militias backed by Turkey.
ISIL has been largely defeated as a territorial force, though it holds out in some small pockets in the east.
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 12 April 2018 15:35 (five years ago) link
And it reveals Syrian, Russian and Iranian thinking. The war aim has been achieved and the lives of Syrian special operations forces (who are limited in number) were preserved. The little kids with white foam around their mouths, eyes staring lifelessly, were collateral damage.
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 12 April 2018 15:37 (five years ago) link
it's not collateral damage when they are the intended target. the point of chemical weapons is to break the resistance. collateral damage is when you're targeting soldiers and hit civilians. the "little kids with white foam around their mouths, eyes staring lifelessly" is the intent.
― Mordy, Thursday, 12 April 2018 15:48 (five years ago) link
i guess i'm not surprised juan cole is confused on this point. he never really seemed to understand the difference between incidental/regrettable civilian loss of life and intentional targeting of civilians (or if he did he never really seemed to think it constituted a real distinction).
― Frederik B, Thursday, April 12, 2018 7:39 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
sha·ri·aSHəˈrēə/SubmitnounIslamic canonical law based on the teachings of the Koran and the traditions of the Prophet (Hadith and Sunna), prescribing both religious and secular duties and sometimes retributive penalties for lawbreaking. It has generally been supplemented by legislation adapted to the conditions of the day, though the manner in which it should be applied in modern states is a subject of dispute between Islamic fundamentalists and modernists.
you fucking imbecile
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 12 April 2018 15:51 (five years ago) link
i used the word sharia to refer to something which is referred to by the people who run it as Hayaa al-Sharia. what an islamophobe i am. fuck me
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 12 April 2018 15:56 (five years ago) link
Lol. You're trying to prove your not an Islamophobe by proving you use an English definition of an Arabic word. Good on you.
― Frederik B, Thursday, 12 April 2018 16:03 (five years ago) link
And the islamophobic part was you using the term in all it's negative connotations.
― Frederik B, Thursday, 12 April 2018 16:04 (five years ago) link
you are beneath contempt
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 12 April 2018 16:14 (five years ago) link
And oh yeah, only listening to what extremist Muslims say Islamic terms are is often a sign of islamophobia as well. There is nothing inherently negative in 'sharia'. It's like saying talmudic law or something.
― Frederik B, Thursday, 12 April 2018 16:16 (five years ago) link
I know what sharia is, you clod. I'd suggest that maybe the version of sharia meted out by a literal Al-Qaeda affiliate may be extreme, but that's just a crazy hunch
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 12 April 2018 16:18 (five years ago) link
there are also some elements that are present in all version of islamic law which are inherently negative tbh.
i think calling ppl islamophobic is kinda shit arguing and i do think that pointing out that religious law is indicative of general trends is not irrelevant when weighing the fundamentalism of a movement against potential secularism (and i'd say the same about a militant jewish movement that established beis din courts) but fred has a[n important] point in that using muslim legal code does not in itself make a group synonymous with Al-Q or ISIS. they could use elements of Sharia Law and not be fundamentalist terrorists (and really expecting a total repudiation of religion is a bit of a reach for any group, even if you'd hope - as i would - that with early Western intervention secular proponents could've spearheaded the resistance). it's relevant but it's not dispositive.
― Mordy, Thursday, 12 April 2018 16:20 (five years ago) link
jim you were the guy flirting with the idea that chemical attacks were false flags by the civil defense. you also seemed to take some bullshit realpolitik stance because you don't want your family bombed by islamist terrorists? and you're smearing the entire opposition movement as bloodthirsty dangerous islamists when the regime forces have killed two orders of magnitude more people Syria. I'm comfortable calling you an islamophobe.
but please post more patrick cockburn & give us more of your reasonablist analysis
― bamcquern, Thursday, 12 April 2018 16:59 (five years ago) link
go fuck yourself
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 12 April 2018 17:00 (five years ago) link
jim you were the guy flirting with the idea that chemical attacks were false flags by the civil defense.
Assad has chemical weapons, he likely used them on civilians the other day, as he has in the past. I would prefer some sort of independent verification, if possible, before escalating western military activities in response to this, especially given that the evidence for these attacks having happened was at first purely videos created by groups that operate under the aegis of Nusra.
you also seemed to take some bullshit realpolitik stance because you don't want your family bombed by islamist terrorists?
umm, not being sure that we should actively aid groups that want to kill us is, i dunno, a really defensible stance imo?
Smearing the entire opposition movement by referring to the fact that islamist groups have been an integral part of the opposition since at least 2012 and that the FSA - a protean group made up of many rival factions with no effective central command and which has collaborated with Nusra since the latter's inception - has islamist components? These things are just true.
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 12 April 2018 17:08 (five years ago) link
Also: im an islamophobe for, in your eyes, being unfair to the syrian opposition. the other side in this war are also muslims, including large numbers of Shia islamists
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 12 April 2018 17:10 (five years ago) link
is Obama an islamophobe? As it's likely that he didn't directly intervene in the conflict, or do more to arm the opposition, largely based on these same considerations
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 12 April 2018 17:13 (five years ago) link
bamcquern obviously otmimo. But jim's freudian slip was when he wrote this: The islamicization of the opposition is at least several years old by now as far as I can tell. Islam in and of itself is scary.
― Frederik B, Thursday, 12 April 2018 18:43 (five years ago) link
fuck up, frederik. isn't there an american politics thread for you to lecture the americans on? or give the viewpoint of women and POC? worst fucking wank on here since Gabbneb was banned.
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 12 April 2018 18:46 (five years ago) link
I think accusing other ILXors of Islamophobia, or disabilism, or whatever, is really nagl.
― Buff Jeckley (Tom D.), Thursday, 12 April 2018 18:47 (five years ago) link
It also really couldn't be further from the mark.
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 12 April 2018 18:48 (five years ago) link
But yes jumping on my use of "Islamicization", rather than "Islamization" - which I've seen pro-opposition writers from Syria use - is a real gotcha. Well done.
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 12 April 2018 18:50 (five years ago) link
ah yes, the dreaded Freudian slip, where one's inmost secret opinions are suddenly revealed by substituting an entirely different word from what one intended. except that's not what jim did. he used a word and fred interpreted it in the most prejudicial way possible and used this interpretation to attribute motives and opinions to jim that it is in no way clear jim holds. good work there.
― A is for (Aimless), Thursday, 12 April 2018 18:51 (five years ago) link
A Fredian Slip.
― Buff Jeckley (Tom D.), Thursday, 12 April 2018 18:52 (five years ago) link
Resorting to, I should have said.
― Buff Jeckley (Tom D.), Thursday, 12 April 2018 18:56 (five years ago) link
you fuck yourself, JIM IN VANCOUVER. you've made yourself clear you're more worried about islamic terrorists than you are about the hundreds of thousands killed by regime forces and the millions displaced by the war. Are you worried about refugees, too? Are you worried that among the quarter of the total Syrian population who are displaced outside its borders that there will be a terrorist who kills your family members?
We know who is killing whom from tabulations by the VDC, the syrian network for human rights, HRW, et al. We also have a pretty good idea who is fighting ISIS, and by percentages of engagements the regime seems to lag significantly behind both the kurds and the opposition forces.
B-b-but terrorists. B-b-but Sharia law.
who cares if there are "islamist" components of fuckall? I'm more worried about war crimes, genocide, murderous sieges than I am about "islamism." Do civilians not matter? Do the disappeared? Do the tortured? Do you only recognize military forces and their compromises, their (completely disproportionate) crimes, their ideological impurity, their jockying for position?
anyway, yes, you are an islamophobe and your weird ass sectarian appeals don't change that. you're making bizarro neocon arguments, but from the left. because you argue non-interventionism, you think you've put forth a rational position that stakes out some panglossian nightmare future for Syria, like, welp, what can you do, a few million refugees, a few hundred thousand killed, what better outcome could we have expected?
― bamcquern, Thursday, 12 April 2018 19:12 (five years ago) link
suggesting that the civil defense fakes evidence is NAGL
― bamcquern, Thursday, 12 April 2018 19:13 (five years ago) link
or that they're basically al nusra? or whatever the fuck jim believes?
you're a fucking idiot
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 12 April 2018 19:15 (five years ago) link
i grew up in a refugee household, my dad was a torture victim, and some of his friends were murdered by the dictatorship in his country. i more than empathize with people who are victims of the Assad regime - which is far worse than than the regime my dad fled.
I haven't written one single line which has said that the Assad regime isn't really fucking awful, or that they aren't responsible for the majority of the deaths in Syria. I have only written the most basic fucking obvious things that one should think about when talking about intervention: what is the outcome going to be? What is the end-game? Your emotional screeds aren't going to change that, you sack
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 12 April 2018 19:20 (five years ago) link
Can we stop calling jim in vancouver an islamophobe plz
― Never changed username before (cardamon), Thursday, 12 April 2018 19:21 (five years ago) link
dubious of the merits of supporting Al Qaeda is apparently islamophobic. word fail
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 12 April 2018 19:23 (five years ago) link
Have we heard what bamcquern recommends in the way of action by western powers in Syria and how he thinks that would improve the problems he finds so emotionally rending? Because just vomiting out your emotions about the horrors of that war has a place, but it really does make a mess at the same time.
― A is for (Aimless), Thursday, 12 April 2018 19:48 (five years ago) link
As a hypothetical, if Assad were removed from power, and one of the other factions took over, what are the possible outcomes? Like what kind of place could Syria end up being?
This feels like a useful question to think about. I personally don't have a clue. I look at the current situation - Assad in charge - with the same disgust we all do; I look at the alternatives, can't see them clearly, and only get a not very useful sense of foreboding. I wonder if this quite a common reaction. Maybe if someone who knows Syria better could outline some of the possibilities?
― Never changed username before (cardamon), Thursday, 12 April 2018 20:08 (five years ago) link
There are no clear answers. One of the options is that Assad goes but the structure behind him remains. The new government would probably have enough backing from Iran and Russia to maintain the territory they would inherit but would be unlikely to achieve full control of Syria or any kind of lasting peace.
If one or more of the rebel groups were in a position to claim to be the de facto government, and rule as such, they’d be equally unlikely to take 100% of the territory held by the previous government.
The logical remaining options would probably be some form of federalism or a coalition, similar to that in Lebanon, between a bunch of people who massively dislike each other but can agree to share power. That had essentially been what a lot of the peace talks in Astana and elsewhere were scoping out.
If that came about, it’s hard to see it not being set up as a secular state. Some of the rebel groups have introduced a kind of ‘moderate’ sharia law/ Islamic jurisprudence in the areas they control, either for its own sake or as a bulwark against hardline groups like Al Nusra, but it’s not easy to see that washing with the whole country. The best case scenario is probably Lebanon, the worst case, endless civil war with nobody ever able to win.
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Thursday, 12 April 2018 20:32 (five years ago) link
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Thursday, April 12, 2018 4:32 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Is there a possibility of the dissolution of the Syrian state and the creation of several smaller states like in Yugoslavia?
― Van Horn Street, Thursday, 12 April 2018 20:42 (five years ago) link
Smaller states that have never existed at any time in history?
― Buff Jeckley (Tom D.), Thursday, 12 April 2018 20:46 (five years ago) link
Yeah that's what I'm inquiring about, might be really stupid.
― Van Horn Street, Thursday, 12 April 2018 20:46 (five years ago) link
Did the Kurds ever have their own state
― Never changed username before (cardamon), Thursday, 12 April 2018 20:52 (five years ago) link
I am not an expert by any means but I think that scenario is seen as difficult for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there is not a clear national / ethnic demarcation between regions, as there was, at least to some extent, in the Balkans. Different minorities and religious groups basically live on top of each other - and have always done.
Another factor is Damascus has a lot of infrastructure and the west coast has the ports but the oil is mostly through the centre and in the east so there would be a massive bunfight over who gets to control it.
Additionally, the group that most wants to break away - the Kurds - are constrained by the international community’s need to keep Turkey onside. A separate Kurdish state as part of a Balkan-style settlement would be seen as a huge threat in Ankara.
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Thursday, 12 April 2018 20:53 (five years ago) link
They're never going to get one if Turkey has anything to do with it. (xp)
― Buff Jeckley (Tom D.), Thursday, 12 April 2018 20:53 (five years ago) link
back in the days of the French mandate there was an Alewite State in the west and a Druze in the south but for the reasons ShariVari gives this is seen as not very practical.
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 12 April 2018 21:00 (five years ago) link
In all respect, calling jim an 'islamophobe' is not enough, it's more complex than that. I mean, what type of bullshit even is this?
Syria is a majority Sunni country, ran by an Alawite dynasty that, due to the small number of Alawites in the country, does not act in a sectarian manner.
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), 10. april 2018 22:16 (three days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Is he afraid of Sunni Muslims in particular? Or only afraid of larger groups of muslims, that it's okay if a subset of muslims is small and elitist enough? I suspect it's the latter, that's the stereotype that's almost the essence of Islamophobia, the mindless horde of fanatics, the streets teeming with arabs burning Danish cartoons, being indoctrinated into inhuman killing machines. And that's the stereotype that fits with the rest of what he writes: Constantly conflating as large a part of the rebels with ISIS, Al-Queda, calling everyone Jihadists, Islamists, thinking everyone is contaminated by 'sharia law' and 'islamization'. And of course, then they're all dangerous and wants to kill us all, and in the end it's a pity that Assad is gassing children to death, but what are you going to do, and their parents probably talked to an Imam once, so there really was no hope for them anyway.
It's worse than NAGL, and if it was any other group than Muslims, so many more would speak out. Imagine using those kind of stereotypes, then saying that it's really only ashkenazi Jews that are zionist scum, or that we're just using the Rothchilds as an example of rootless cosmopolitan capitalists, and what, you don't think those people are harmful, whatever.
― Frederik B, Thursday, 12 April 2018 23:17 (five years ago) link
you're a real piece of shit
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 12 April 2018 23:21 (five years ago) link
Sorry, Fred, you are taking this too far, you really have to stop this.
― Buff Jeckley (Tom D.), Thursday, 12 April 2018 23:22 (five years ago) link
I'm going to quickly search pretty much at random for some material regarding the syrian opposition and post some quotes here to show that the idea that there is islamist involvement in the opposition is not something I've just made up due to my hatred of Sunnis (apologies for C+P problems, I don't want to waste any more of my time justifying myself to scandinavias biggest dickhead than i need to:
DEFYING A DICTATOR: Meet the Free Syrian ArmySpyer, JonathanWorld Affairs, 1 May 2012, Vol.175(1), pp.45-52
Given what has been seen in other revolutions in the region, the question of sectarianism in the struggle to overthrow Assad is an important one as well. Sunni Arab Syrians constitute around sixty percent of the Syrian population and, reportedly, seventy-five to eighty percent of the FSA. The remaining twenty to twentyfivepercent are Sunni Kurds, whose attitude toward the uprising has been more cautious...
Idlib Province is a deeply conservative Sunni area. There is also a con-siderable presence of Salafi Islamist fighters in the FSA in both Binnish and Sarmin. Although these fighters appeared to be local men, not foreign jihadis, the Salafi presence, and the prominent role a number of these indi-viduals have taken in recent fighting against Assad’s forces, should not be ignored. In conversation with FSA fighters and activists, the sec-tarian issue, and the differing loyalties of the various Syr-ian communities, surfaced regularly. Inevitably, I heard a somewhat sanitized version of this from FSA command-ers, while rank-and-file fight-ers and civilian activists were more likely to express openly sectarian views. Captain Ayham al-Kurdi echoed others when he observed that the fight represented a struggle primarily between Sunni Arabs and Alawi Arabs. “Ninety percent of Ala-wis,” he said, are with the regime. “Christians are neutral, the Druze are split, and the Sunnis who benefitted from the regime support it, while the others are opposed.” A civilian activist speaking to me in Binnish was more blunt: “This is civil war between the clans,” he said, then hurriedly reminding me that Sunnis nevertheless rejected the possibility of sectar-ian warfare as a matter of principle.
CRISIS IN SYRIA: WHAT ARE THE U.S. OPTIONS?Ziadeh, Radwan ; Hadar, Leon ; Katz, Mark ; Heydemann, StevenMiddle East Policy, Fall 2012, Vol.19(3), pp.1-24
(this guy Leon Hadar is a libertarian dipshit so please use that against me)
I think that, in the face of the pressure on the Obama administration to do something in Syria as soon as possible, a certain skepticism, at a minimum, is demanded and appropriate. Under the best‐case scenario, we would probably replace the secular Alawite regime in Damascus, which is allied with Iran and the Hezbollah, with an Islamist Sunni government allied with Saudi Arabia and Turkey. The fact that the Saudis and the Turks are indeed allies of the United States, and Iran and Hezbollah are adversaries of the United States, lends this scenario a certain appeal. One could argue that, from a geopolitical perspective, the balance of power in the Persian Gulf and the Levant that was tilting in favor of Iran and its allies, thanks to the U.S. intervention in Iraq and the ousting of Saddam Hussein, would now tilt more in the direction of the United States and its allies. This is basically good news.
Under the worst‐case scenario, the coming to power of a more radical Islamist Sunni regime in Damascus, which may or may not be allied with al‐Qaeda or some groups within it, would unleash, I think, a bloodbath against the Alawites and other religious minorities. It would also spill over into Lebanon and Iraq, invite outside intervention by regional and global powers and eventually ignite some sort of Middle East war.
Yarmuk refugee camp and the Syrian uprising: a view from withinBitari, NidalJournal of Palestine studies, Oct 2013, Vol.43(1), pp.61-78
The FSA, by that time joined by the extremist Jabhat al-Nusra, had long set their sights on Yarmuk camp...
FSA brigades and their Jabhat al-Nusraallies entered the camp. A stiff battle took place as the PFLP-GC tried to stop them...During this same period, when people were still fleeing the camp and few had returned, the rebels became more and more abusive toward those who remained. Some brought in friends and relativesto squat in empty houses; looting and robberies became common. Jabhat al-Nusra set up Islamic courts, and Palestinian activists were arrested and tried.
The Syrian Opposition: Salafi and Nationalist Jihadism and Populist IdealismZuhur, SherifaContemporary Review of the Middle East, 2015, Vol.2(1-2), pp.143-163
Many elements of the FSA are Islamists and declare their engagement as jihad. Not all are linked to al-Qaida (Lister 2013). Each group was loyal to its own com-mander and numerous splits have resulted in new groupings. Earlier, the Syria
Islamic Liberation Front contained 19 groups including the Kata’ib al-Farouq Islami (Islamic Farouq Battalions, established in Homs/Hama) and the Kata’ib al-Faruq (al-Faruq Battalions, established in Homs), Liwa al-Islam (Islam Brigade, established in Damascus), Suqour al-Sham (in Idlib and Aleppo), Liwa al-Tawhid (Tawhid Brigade, mainly in Aleppo), Fath Brigade (also in Aleppo), and the Deir al-Zour Revolutionaries’ Council.9The groups varied ideologically; the Suqour al-Sham under the leadership of Shaykh Ahmad Abu Issa was more hard-line than the Kata’ib al-Faruq. The Farouq Battalion (est. 2011) defended the Baba Amr neighborhood in Homs against the Syrian military until February 2012 and then fought in Qusayr against the Syrian forces and Hezbollah in April/May 2013. After its leader, Abu Razzaq Tlas was discredited in August of 2012 (al-Abdeh 2012), two other leaders (Amjad Bitar and Bilal al-Jurayhi) were expelled who formed the Farouq Islamic Battalion.10 Abu Sakkar (Khalid al-Hammad) shocked many when he bit the inter-nal organ of a dead soldier on video and promised to eat the military’s hearts and livers (Brown Moses Blog 2013b; BBC 2013).
The Multiple Faces of Jabhat al-Nusra/Jabhat Fath al-Sham in Syria's Civil WarAnzalone, ChristopherInsight Turkey, March 2016, Vol.18(2), pp.41-50
The main Syrian political opposition groups, including the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, the Syrian Na- tional Council, and the Syrian Mus- lim Brotherhood, together with many rebel groups on the ground vocifer- ously opposed and condemned the U.S. government’s decision to blacklist Jabhat al-Nusra, which cost them dearly politically and in the realm of public relations, particularly in the U.S. where it raised signi cant doubt amongst many government officials and politicians about the Syrian op- position and rebels as a whole. Apart from the o cial condemnations by the Syrian political opposition and other rebel groups, including the Free Syrian Army (FSA) umbrella, popular protests on the ground inside the country following the U.S. gov- ernment’s designation also showed support for Jabhat al-Nusra, further in aming the political and public relations hits...
On the one hand, Jabhat al-Nusra is a powerful and capable military force against the regime and has been in- volved in handing al-Assad’s forces with a number of its most signi cant defeats and losses since 2012. Howev- er, on the other hand, the group’s af- liation with al-Qaeda and the more puritanical creedal impulses of at least some of its leadership and ideo- logues is concerning to some seg- ments of the Syrian opposition and Jabhat al-Nusra’s attempts to imple- ment its own interpretation of Islam- ic law in areas under its control have led to tensions between it and other Syrian rebels, particularly FSA mili- tias, and some locals...
The presence of Jabhat al-Nusra has also negatively impacted the Syrian opposition and rebels as a whole be- cause it has resulted in the hesitancy of international powers such as the United States from more actively aiding Syrian rebels, even so-called “vetted” groups, out of fear that any weapons given will be captured or otherwise fall into the hands of al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate. The desertion of fighters from these vetted groups with some of their weapons has done nothing to ward off this concern.
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 12 April 2018 23:33 (five years ago) link
this C+Ping took me ten minutes of looking at articles on my university libraries website
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 12 April 2018 23:34 (five years ago) link
― Buff Jeckley (Tom D.), 13. april 2018 01:22 (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Yeah, sure, Assad is getting away with gassing kids to a significant extent because a fear of Islam kept the West away from supporting even the most secular of the Sunni rebels, but hey, God forbid we discussed Islamophobia on this board. I mean, what would the consequences be, we have to keep on condemning neoliberalism in all forms, right?
― Frederik B, Thursday, 12 April 2018 23:52 (five years ago) link
acc to yr take surely if anything is to blame it's knee-jerk anti-neoliberalism or anti-imperialism and not islamophobia. why make a bad faith argument? there aren't enough political principles that support non-intervention that you need to explain it w/ bigotry?
― Mordy, Friday, 13 April 2018 00:00 (five years ago) link
it's not that growing up during the ruinous iraq war that cost millions of ppl their lives and directly contributed to the syria situation made ppl wary of getting involved in foreign countries w/ actors who may not even share our ideals. it's really that they hate muslims.
― Mordy, Friday, 13 April 2018 00:01 (five years ago) link
Fred, I give up with you, you're your own worst enemy.
― Buff Jeckley (Tom D.), Friday, 13 April 2018 00:10 (five years ago) link
It's both, and exactly because the left can use other principles as cover for Islamophobia, we need to be on guard. I mean, this is kinda not wrong so much as besides the point: there aren't enough political principles that support non-intervention that you need to explain it w/ bigotry? If there's signs of bigotry, then it doesn't really matter if we can squint and have it covered by something else. Just the other day I had a good discussion of the stupidity of the Iraq war, and the leftist guy I'm talking with says 'And they all hate each other down there, so what can we do anyways?' I feel this is constant, the idea that Muslim peoples just can't handle governing themselves anyways, so a despotic regime is probably as good as it gets.
(and btw, I'm not talking about 'hate' as much as harmful stereotypes, it's not quite the same thing)
― Frederik B, Friday, 13 April 2018 00:17 (five years ago) link
we need to be on guard.
OK, but please allow someone else to be the guard dog.
― A is for (Aimless), Friday, 13 April 2018 00:18 (five years ago) link
By the way, I would hardly describe this garbled hysterical breast-beating shite you're pouring out, 'discussing Islamophobia'.
― Buff Jeckley (Tom D.), Friday, 13 April 2018 00:19 (five years ago) link
There’s a lot of good and useful information on this thread when you guys aren’t hurling abuse at each other, I really appreciate it.
― JoeStork, Friday, 13 April 2018 00:20 (five years ago) link
Fred I think there’s a difference between being on guard and assuming the absolute worst of everyone who disagrees with you about how to resolve a horrific, years-long, many-sided conflict.
― JoeStork, Friday, 13 April 2018 00:22 (five years ago) link
And then attacking them for it in terms that are verging on the libellous.
― Buff Jeckley (Tom D.), Friday, 13 April 2018 00:24 (five years ago) link
Just the other day I had a good discussion of the stupidity of the Iraq war, and the leftist guy I'm talking with says 'And they all hate each other down there, so what can we do anyways?' I feel this is constant, the idea that Muslim peoples just can't handle governing themselves anyways, so a despotic regime is probably as good as it gets.
No one on this thread has said something remotely close to that. I'm certain we will agree that what the leftist guy said was nonsense.
― Van Horn Street, Friday, 13 April 2018 00:25 (five years ago) link
Good job no-one cares what some leftist guy in Aarhus has to say about anything.
― Buff Jeckley (Tom D.), Friday, 13 April 2018 00:27 (five years ago) link
Any statement about hundreds of millions of people that begins "they all" is bound to be nonsense.
― A is for (Aimless), Friday, 13 April 2018 00:29 (five years ago) link
I'm feeling conflated with some leftist guy in Aarhus.
― Van Horn Street, Friday, 13 April 2018 00:30 (five years ago) link
Are you from Aarhus yourself?
― Buff Jeckley (Tom D.), Friday, 13 April 2018 00:31 (five years ago) link
Or perhaps you're some leftist guy from somewhere other than Aarhus?
― Buff Jeckley (Tom D.), Friday, 13 April 2018 00:33 (five years ago) link
I'm just a dude disagreeing with Frederik B. about the middle east.
― Van Horn Street, Friday, 13 April 2018 00:33 (five years ago) link
This is me entering 'Islamophobia' to this discussion:
― Frederik B, 12. april 2018 16:39 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
This is Jims response:
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), 12. april 2018 17:51 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
But yeah, staying calm, being careful and non-hysteric, that would definitely have made a big difference, so glad the tone-police is out in force to say exactly how we discuss Islamophobia.
― Frederik B, Friday, 13 April 2018 00:34 (five years ago) link
I know, policing the way people think and act is usually your job.
― Buff Jeckley (Tom D.), Friday, 13 April 2018 00:35 (five years ago) link
it's interesting to me that lbi + fred - two normally reliable right-on politically correct dudes - are not taking a hardline anti-interventionist approach tbh and i wonder what i should make of it. is it bc of different country context (anglo vs other maybe? US + UK most deeply implicated recently in Iraq) or just that the left is not as unison on fp as maybe it sometimes seems from range of left-wing opinion on fp which seems to me to be regularly reflexively anti-US intervention in anything anywhere?
― Mordy, Friday, 13 April 2018 00:36 (five years ago) link
ime, mentions of "tone police" usually are made by people you wish would just... stop.
― A is for (Aimless), Friday, 13 April 2018 00:43 (five years ago) link
Is Fred reliably right on and politically correct? Or does he just make more of a song and dance about it than pretty much anyone else in the world?
― Buff Jeckley (Tom D.), Friday, 13 April 2018 00:45 (five years ago) link
If that can help Mordy, my experience is that a good chunk of my french media really wanted an intervention when Obama declared his red line back in 2013 (or was it 2012? 2014? I don't remember), Hollande was ready to go. I felt there was a gap between countries that participated in the Irak fiasco and the rest (except for Canada).
― Van Horn Street, Friday, 13 April 2018 00:45 (five years ago) link
Especially the UK.
― Buff Jeckley (Tom D.), Friday, 13 April 2018 00:47 (five years ago) link
I can't say why exactly, and to some extent people just disagree about stuff, but the Yugoslav civil war is a much more important influence in Continental Europe in general, and probably Denmark in particular. We did participate in Iraq, though. And everyone I know was on the street protesting.
― Frederik B, Friday, 13 April 2018 00:48 (five years ago) link
Also you didn't have Tony Blair. Only we had Tony Blair.
― Buff Jeckley (Tom D.), Friday, 13 April 2018 00:50 (five years ago) link
(also, how am I reliably politically correct? I supported Hilary, and still really, really dislike Bernie. Not that it matters, but still)
― Frederik B, Friday, 13 April 2018 00:51 (five years ago) link
Blair also helps explain Corbyn's insistence on some level of proof of culpability in the wake of the poisoning of the Skripals, which caused Fred to barge into the UK Politics thread shouting the odds. We're a bit hung up on following due process in the UK these days.
― Buff Jeckley (Tom D.), Friday, 13 April 2018 00:56 (five years ago) link
Genuine question for the people supporting an intervention: doesn't it change something that it is Donald Trump who's in charge of the american military?
― Van Horn Street, Friday, 13 April 2018 00:56 (five years ago) link
not taking a hardline anti-interventionist approach tbh and i wonder what i should make of it.
I think that 75 years of the USA global military presence and dozens of wars, invasions and military interventions, plus creating a web of mutual defense treaties that obligate the USA to defend about half the nations of the world, and our spending more on our military than the next nine nations combined, has deeply affected global consciousness. We project ourselves as the first among equals, the undoubted political, economic and military leader, the final arbiter, and the country whose will drives the world.
Consequently, when we interfere we are responsible for the outcome, but when we don't interfere we are also responsible. Like it or not, the history of the world since WWII ended makes us responsible for Assad, and our plea of not knowing what to do to fix Syria rings hollow no matter how true it is. We are the ones who did this to ourselves.
But I still say Syria is no place to wade deeper into militarily. We haven't enough money, enough troops, enough will, or enough reason to treat this war as an all-in fight. If we did, the number of deaths we're seeing today would rapidly expand to levels none of the interventionists seem to grasp even slightly. Or even try to address.
― A is for (Aimless), Friday, 13 April 2018 01:06 (five years ago) link
I don't support this intervention that seems to be planned, and yeah, Trump being in charge is kinda the final dealbreaker even if I thought an intervention at this point would do any good. And I don't think anyone on here supports the intervention? But it's also partly the fact that an intervention will now happen lead by Trump that makes me say Obama should have been more assertive in trying to handle the crisis while he had the chance. Isolationism and passivism is morally bunk precisely because it just leads to worse actors taking over once power changes hands.
― Frederik B, Friday, 13 April 2018 01:09 (five years ago) link
100% i said as much above i no longer have any optimism about a positive US intervention in the region. i'm also influenced by the lessons of the iraq war but i'm probably a tad more reliably pro-intervention than most ilxors i'd think. in general atm i don't see any reliable route outside of assad uneasily maintaining rule for many years to come (tho we'll see maybe you can shock a population into submission by visiting enough horrors on them - i think prob chechnya is a test case for this sort of idea). it seems like in general saudi strategy has been really poor and if they wanted to challenge iran in syria they kinda half-assed it and yemen has been totally ill-advised. and the US is not going to intervene bc it's too soon after iraq. and no one else will bc no one else will challenge russia in the region (except like turkey and israel; these local regional actors who have been getting tacit latitude to operate in syria). israel's self-interest is probably in ongoing civil war or sunni rule to disrupt iranian supplies to hezbollah (which is why you see them treating soldiers), and keep iranians off their border, but they will not directly open up a hot front to sufficiently support the war effort (and arguably such a level of cooperation is literally impossible no matter how much self-interest in this area lines up). turkey mostly wants to keep the kurds from having their own country. meanwhile climate change suggests volatility in the region to increase. where is there room for optimism?
― Mordy, Friday, 13 April 2018 01:18 (five years ago) link
obama didn't intervene because he was trying to get a deal done w/ iran
― Mordy, Friday, 13 April 2018 01:19 (five years ago) link
jim's response to a humanitarian crisis (a humanitarian crisis with one overwhelming root cause which, surprise, isn't islamofascism) itt so far:
1 worry that terrorists would kill his family2 suggest that the recent chemical weapons attack was possibly a false flag?3 call the civil defense al nusra4 conflate all opposition forces as islamofascists bc [copy-pasted shit]5 invoke islamism a dozen times
what is the x factor here? why are y'all so squeamish about what I call him? what conclusions, jim, did you expect readers to draw from these statements, whatever equivocations you've made trying to dilute them?
this kind of rhetoric is not what I'd call solidarity and it's not even particularly factual in spite of the c+p spam that we're apparently taking for reasoned analysis or... some gesture of throwing your hands up because surely any and every option on the table would lead to an islamofascist takeover and even more civilian deaths and, of course, the decimation of jim's family in a terrorist attack.
less interventionist policies for the US or England or the UN or really anyone that would be better than slaughter:1 diplomacy! with Russia! & Syria! & various opposition forces!2 negotiating an honest to god cease fire or two or three3 continuing to attempt to factually record war crimes on all sides of the conflict4 support for refugees & displaced peoples5 food & medical support for those still under siege6 food & medical support for those not under siege7 economic & financial pressure/sanctions8 stop bombing syria alongside SADF & Russian forces9 having clear objectives for what an end to the war would look like10 listening to Syrians on all sides of the conflict11 coordinating with as many nations & groups & international organizations as possible in the direction of an end to the war
more interventionist policies that would not necessarily be terrible (& would not have been terrible) considering we know who has been killing the lion's share of civilians and how:1 no fly zones, esp if negotiated with Russia2 striking specific SAA/SADF targets
things that probably don't work (u sac)invoking conspiracy theories that you don't really believe but maybe kinda sorta do but, y'know, you're just asking questions, fatalism, realpolitik rationalism, wringing your hands over islamists when it's the SAA & SADF & Russia killing literally hundreds of thousands more people than anyone else
― bamcquern, Friday, 13 April 2018 07:41 (five years ago) link
i'll reply to you sometime when you write anything substantive and not just a lot of wailing bullshit
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Friday, 13 April 2018 16:27 (five years ago) link
one thing i would note: i do support western countries taking in an unlimited number of Syrian refugees, which basically none of the pro-intervention politicians in the US and UK are in favour, because they're mainly total arseholes
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Friday, 13 April 2018 16:30 (five years ago) link
also you do realize that the uk and us governments both have sanctions against syria?
Jim, I can only applaud you for taking the time to reply to the, quite frankly, insane accusations hurled at you here. Bamcquern idgafa but Fred (I care about him a little, I suppose) incessant "islamophobe!" Nelson-finger-pointing is fucking nagl.
― Mordy, Friday, April 13, 2018 12:36 AM (fifteen hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Don't know why you lumped me in with Fred while I had no part in the recent discussion, but to answer your question for me personally: of course it's because of a different context. I protested the west's intervention in Iraq in 2003 (for all the obvious reasons). And boy did the west mess up. Some years down the line I got a Kurdish gf. I knew *nothing* about the Kurds until that time. They celebrated the intervention, which lead to an autonomous region for them. It didn't make me turn around 180 degrees but context? Def. I don't know why you'd pigeonhole me as "reliable right-on politically correct dude": it's different per situation. I think both the west *cannot* let Assad's crimes go unpunished *and* at the same time, it will only end in more misery. The ME more than ever - or rather, once again - is a battlefield the west and Russia are playing a chess game over.
I don't know which of the two wrongs to choose. Though I will say, Mordy, I haven't agreed with you as much as I have on this thread probably since I started posting here.
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Friday, 13 April 2018 16:38 (five years ago) link
Meanwhile another depressing crisis with plenty of blame to go around continues nearby:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/1000s-of-palestinians-demonstrate-at-gaza-border-for-a-3rd-week-hundreds-injured/2018/04/13/04bfa6d8-3db3-11e8-955b-7d2e19b79966_story.html?utm_term=.7b900d9ef220
― curmudgeon, Friday, 13 April 2018 16:52 (five years ago) link
???http://time.com/5237922/mike-pompeo-russia-confirmation/
― Mordy, Friday, 13 April 2018 20:33 (five years ago) link
The upper estimates at the time were around 200 iirc but it’s not clear. Most estimates were around 80-120.
They were working for Wagner, Russia’s answer to Blackwater.
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Friday, 13 April 2018 20:36 (five years ago) link
Huge news in Libya. Haftar has apparently died. Significantly weakens Russia’s position there.
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Friday, 13 April 2018 21:06 (five years ago) link
Though the Libyan National Army has denied it and says he’s fine.
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Friday, 13 April 2018 21:07 (five years ago) link
Coalition striking Damascus, no statement from the U.S. gov yet but May says targeted strikes that won't escalate things.
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Saturday, 14 April 2018 01:29 (five years ago) link
Cruise missiles again, no doubt. When a president wants to make a demonstration of power that changes nothing of importance, they order up a few dozen cruise missiles and let fly, because they blow things up real good. It will be reported as an awesome piece of pinpoint accuracy and the mission as a complete success. But unless they blow up Assad, by next week it will be forgotten.
― A is for (Aimless), Saturday, 14 April 2018 01:36 (five years ago) link
Yeah, what are they even aiming for?
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 14 April 2018 01:40 (five years ago) link
Probably government buildings of some sort. I'd hate to be the janitor or security guard.
― A is for (Aimless), Saturday, 14 April 2018 01:44 (five years ago) link
i don't know if our military or commander in chief are capable of using retaliatory strikes effectively but there are military targets that would be legit [but not existentially] painful for assad to bear. if you can change the calculus so that if he knows that if he uses chemical weapons he won't be able to escape some kind of targeted strike (like what you'd imagine if the israelis launched - actual weapon depots, factories, nuclear sites, compounds packed w/ iranian military advisors), and he knows that we'll basically tolerate anything else, it could get him to hold back on using chemical weapons or at least think twice.
― Mordy, Saturday, 14 April 2018 01:52 (five years ago) link
Seems to just be chemical weapons facilities, a "one time shot" according to Mattis, strikes are over. Rumblings that Bolton was pushing for more but Mattis won the day. Only retaliation was some Syrian anti aircraft fire. Seems to have gone as well as it could've, not that I'd imagine it'll have much positive effect, but who knows?
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Saturday, 14 April 2018 02:11 (five years ago) link
Lebanese #Hezbollah HQ has been hit by several cruise missiles in the town of Qusayr in northern #Homs. -Local sourcesضرب مقر حزب الله اللبناني عدة صواريخ كروز في بلدة القصير في شمال #حمص. مصادر محلية #سورية— Hadi Albahra (@hadialbahra) April 14, 2018
― Zhoug speaks to you, his chosen ones (Sanpaku), Saturday, 14 April 2018 02:53 (five years ago) link
Sanpaku’s RT makes the point. Now we get to hear about all the collateral, intended or not, real or not, from “sources” - any action becomes another tool for info psyops grayspace bla bla current-term-of-art bullshit
― El Tomboto, Saturday, 14 April 2018 03:06 (five years ago) link
Joint Chiefs Chairman Joseph Dunford said the Syrian targets struck were selected, in part, to minimize risks that any Russians would be killed in the attacks. -NY Post
The French missile frigate Aquitaine was also believed to have fired cruise missiles at Syria from off the coast of Lebanon. -- tweet
https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/13/politics/trump-us-syria/index.html
The targets included a scientific research center located in the greater Damascus area.Mattis said, "This military facility was a Syrian center for the research, development, production, and testing of chemical and biological warfare technology."
The second target was a chemical weapons storage facility west of Homs, which Mattis said "was the primary location of Syrian Sarin and precursor production equipment."Mattis said the third target "was in the vicinity of the second target" and "contained both a chemical weapons equipment storage facility and an important command post."
― curmudgeon, Saturday, 14 April 2018 03:19 (five years ago) link
US has admitted only 11 refugees this year. US spent approximately 225 million on the Tomahawk Cruise missles used in the attacks on chemical weapons related facilities in Syria last night
― curmudgeon, Saturday, 14 April 2018 15:03 (five years ago) link
i've seen a lot of those kinds of comparisons and it's prob worth mentioning that the taboo against chemical weapons is unrelated to empathy for civilian victims
― Mordy, Saturday, 14 April 2018 15:11 (five years ago) link
Is that because the taboo is there to protect each taboo-following country's military from chemical weapons in case of war against each other?
― Never changed username before (cardamon), Saturday, 14 April 2018 23:42 (five years ago) link
yes i think so
― Mordy, Saturday, 14 April 2018 23:50 (five years ago) link
Based on the past few decades, using chemical weapons against your own citizens is the only relatively safe choice of opponent to use them against.
― A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 15 April 2018 01:26 (five years ago) link
This was posted in the British politics thread, but belong here as well: https://leilashami.wordpress.com/2018/04/14/the-anti-imperialism-of-idiots/
― Frederik B, Sunday, 15 April 2018 14:07 (five years ago) link
Yet in opposing foreign intervention, one needs to come up with an alternative to protect Syrians from slaughter. It’s morally objectionable to say the least to expect Syrians to just shut up and die to protect the higher principle of ‘anti-imperialism’. Many alternatives to foreign military intervention have been proposed by Syrians time and again and have been ignored. And so the question remains, when diplomatic options have failed, when a genocidal regime is protected from censure by powerful international backers, when no progress is made in stopping daily bombing, ending starvation sieges or releasing prisoners who are being tortured on an industrial scale, what can be done.I no longer have an answer.
I no longer have an answer.
So it continues..
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 15 April 2018 14:49 (five years ago) link
There are reports from Douma of a number of doctors (ie fewer than 10) who are being held by Russian troops demanding they publically deny that the chemical attack took place.
― Matt DC, Sunday, 15 April 2018 15:27 (five years ago) link
i see this 400k deaths in syria number around a lot but without important context that the NYT devoted an article to this weekend:
Even the United Nations, which released regular reports on the death toll during the first years of the war, gave its last estimate in 2016 — when it relied on 2014 data, in part — and said that it was virtually impossible to verify how many had died.At that time, a United Nations official said 400,000 people had been killed.
At that time, a United Nations official said 400,000 people had been killed.
― Mordy, Sunday, 15 April 2018 19:52 (five years ago) link
So it's probably a lot more?
― Frederik B, Sunday, 15 April 2018 19:57 (five years ago) link
i don't have any special insider information but the number has been the same for two years so unless you think no one has died over the last two years
― Mordy, Sunday, 15 April 2018 20:17 (five years ago) link
Despite war losses and emigration, the already unsustainable Syrian population has increased since 2011.
Stalin was right about "tragedies" and "statistics". Only a few who aren't there particularly care about the statistics. Still unknown actors make chemical attacks, but the numbers of victims don't matter, only pictures of victims do.
The most recent cruise missile attack benefited all political parties. Trump can claim humanitarian and anti-Russian motives. Assad and Putin can claim victimhood. It accomplished nothing on the ground.
This calls attention to the weakness in U.S. approaches to the ex-Israel Mideast. The sacrifice of Americans to support an outsized military gives them the ability to destroy grid coordinates throughout the world, but no ability to change minds.
I think the proper approach post-2011 should have been a consistent Wilsonian one, towards self-determination of all peoples. Colonial Europe made huge mistakes in the early 20th century, in creating nations with no consideration of nationality. There's no reason why Euphrates valley Kurds should owe allegiance to Damascus. As Americans, we should advocate that the dominant nationalities of regions throughout the world have their own polities, whether they be Kurds or Tibetans. This argument hasn't been made, for the obvious reason that it offends nominal U.S. allies like Turkey. So long as Israel, and its associations with the Holocaust; and Turkey, with its role in NATO, dominate U.S. thinking on the Mideast, the U.S. will choose to perpetuate historical injustices.
Personally, I'd love to see a plebecite throughout the region as to what polity (either existing or proposed) the Levant and old "Fertile Crecent" wants for themselves. Some may be tiny, but given that there are 14 UN members with less than 30k, that's okay. Let the Alawites and their allies have a nation where they don't have existential fears. Let desert Sunnis have a nation where they can do whatever desert Sunnis do. So much blood could have been saved in Iraq had the occupying powers been willing to draw new borders.
― Zhoug speaks to you, his chosen ones (Sanpaku), Monday, 16 April 2018 01:35 (five years ago) link
So much blood could have been saved in Iraq had the occupying powers been willing to draw new borders.
Possibly. But post-Versailles-Treaty in 1919, international treaties tend to emphasize the inviolability of national borders. The occupying powers are signatories of these treaties. These treaties also form the basis for UN resolutions condemning Israel for de facto expanding its own territory after the 1967 War.
Aside from these legalistic reasons, there are several practical reasons not to endorse the ability of whoever has the largest military from redrawing borders to suit itself.
― A is for (Aimless), Monday, 16 April 2018 04:57 (five years ago) link
https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-official-confirms-attack-in-syria-first-strike-on-live-iranian-targets/
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Monday, 16 April 2018 22:50 (five years ago) link
new (possible Israeli) missile strikes on Homs and Damascus
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/947044/Syria-airstrike-Damascus-Homs-attack-anti-aircraft-Israel-Assad-Putin-USA-UK-France
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Monday, 16 April 2018 23:07 (five years ago) link
uh oh
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 17 April 2018 04:17 (five years ago) link
ynetnews.com: Israeli intelligence: Objectives of Western strike in Syria not achieved
The fact there were no reports of chemicals leaking following the strikes only serves to bolster assessments that the major stockpiles haven't been hit.Israeli officials believe the United States has been intentionally underplaying its ability to operate against Syria, so it doesn't have to do so. On several occasions, Israeli officials have pointed to their American counterparts that the United States has the ability to do more for the Syrian people and were met with shrugs and bizarre assertions that this was not possible operationally.
Israeli officials believe the United States has been intentionally underplaying its ability to operate against Syria, so it doesn't have to do so. On several occasions, Israeli officials have pointed to their American counterparts that the United States has the ability to do more for the Syrian people and were met with shrugs and bizarre assertions that this was not possible operationally.
― Zhoug speaks to you, his chosen ones (Sanpaku), Tuesday, 17 April 2018 18:08 (five years ago) link
They blame operational deficiency because it is more diplomatic than blaming Trump and his political appointees.
― A is for (Aimless), Tuesday, 17 April 2018 18:12 (five years ago) link
Obama did the same, though. Right?
― Frederik B, Tuesday, 17 April 2018 20:27 (five years ago) link
https://www.mintpressnews.com/famed-war-reporter-robert-fisk-reaches-syrian-chemical-attack-site-concludes-not-gassed/
― Never changed username before (cardamon), Wednesday, 18 April 2018 22:05 (five years ago) link
God, is he still around?
― (Henry) Green container bin with face (Tom D.), Wednesday, 18 April 2018 22:08 (five years ago) link
it sounds believable to me. if it's true it's a horrible illustration of the west's mixed reactions to the horrors of war vs particularly chemical horrors. bombings kick up a duststorm that suffocates civilians hiding in their shelters. welll at least he didn't use chemical weapons.
― Mordy, Wednesday, 18 April 2018 22:11 (five years ago) link
"This is the story of a town called Douma, a ravaged, stinking place of smashed apartment blocks–and of an underground clinic whose images of suffering allowed three of the Western world’s most powerful nations to bomb Syria last week. There’s even a friendly doctor in a green coat who, when I track him down in the very same clinic, cheerfully tells me that the “gas” videotape which horrified the world– despite all the doubters–is perfectly genuine.War stories, however, have a habit of growing darker. For the same 58-year old senior Syrian doctor then adds something profoundly uncomfortable: the patients, he says, were overcome not by gas but by oxygen starvation in the rubbish-filled tunnels and basements in which they lived, on a night of wind and heavy shelling that stirred up a dust storm."Fisk goes on to identify the doctor by name – Dr. Assim Rahaibani – which is notable given the fact that all early reporting from Douma typically relied on “unnamed doctors” and anonymous opposition sources for early claims of a chlorine gas attack (lately morphed into an unverified “mixed” chlorine-and-sarin attack).The doctor’s testimony is consistent with that of the well-known Syrian opposition group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which initially reported based on its own pro-rebel sourcing that heavy government bombardment of Douma city resulted in the collapse of homes and underground shelters, causing civilians in hiding to suffocate.
War stories, however, have a habit of growing darker. For the same 58-year old senior Syrian doctor then adds something profoundly uncomfortable: the patients, he says, were overcome not by gas but by oxygen starvation in the rubbish-filled tunnels and basements in which they lived, on a night of wind and heavy shelling that stirred up a dust storm."
Fisk goes on to identify the doctor by name – Dr. Assim Rahaibani – which is notable given the fact that all early reporting from Douma typically relied on “unnamed doctors” and anonymous opposition sources for early claims of a chlorine gas attack (lately morphed into an unverified “mixed” chlorine-and-sarin attack).
The doctor’s testimony is consistent with that of the well-known Syrian opposition group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which initially reported based on its own pro-rebel sourcing that heavy government bombardment of Douma city resulted in the collapse of homes and underground shelters, causing civilians in hiding to suffocate.
This looks interesting to me. But in the video (which I haven't watched) don't the victims have a white froth coming out of their mouths? Could that just be from dust?
― Never changed username before (cardamon), Wednesday, 18 April 2018 22:14 (five years ago) link
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk-saudi-arabia-war-crimes-yemen-trade-un-inquiry-united-nations-arms-weapons-a7971516.html
― Never changed username before (cardamon), Wednesday, 18 April 2018 22:38 (five years ago) link
(N.B. am posting these links to see what you lot make of it. Am trying to work out if the narrative of 'why does Britain bomb Syria but let Saudi Arabia get away with things just as bad' is accurate at the moment)
― Never changed username before (cardamon), Wednesday, 18 April 2018 22:40 (five years ago) link
The Douma video I've seen is of a couple dozen bodies scattered over a floor, in poses of sleep under blankets or in sleeping bags. The rescue personnel are not wearing much in the way of protective gear.
― Zhoug speaks to you, his chosen ones (Sanpaku), Thursday, 19 April 2018 00:51 (five years ago) link
while Fisk writes some decent yarns he's a bit of a partial observer at the best of times - also doesn't speak Arabic despite having lived in the arab world for about half a century, which always gives me pause
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 19 April 2018 23:23 (five years ago) link
I've assumed for the 2 and a half years I've been aware of his Beirut-based coverage, and multiple sources online attest, to Fisk's fluency in at least Lebanese, classical or broadcast Arabic.
In college, I took a class in Arab cultural history from a American immigrant from Yemen. The understanding she imparted is that classical and some extent broadcast Arabic is as far removed from the local dialects, and the local dialects further removed from each other, than Old English is from our language. So I wouldn't take the presence of local translators as evidence of non-fluency in "Arabic".
Personally, I've grown to trust Fisk, due to his coverage being so much better than that other Western journalists (from say, the NYT) during the years of the Iraq intervention. He seems far less compromised by ambition or craving for high-level access.
― Zhoug speaks to you, his chosen ones (Sanpaku), Thursday, 19 April 2018 23:51 (five years ago) link
In 'The Great War for Civilisation' he falls out with everyone which inclines me to trust him
― Never changed username before (cardamon), Friday, 20 April 2018 00:32 (five years ago) link
JustSecurity: How Jihadist Groups See Western Aggression Toward Iran
Fiqh al-waqia is the name of a 1992 treatise authored by a Sahwa enthusiast, Nasir al-Umar. In it, al-Umar outlined just how current political policy is to be derived from an understanding of scripture by utilizing a series of verses from the 30th chapter of the Quran, Al-Rum, or the Romans. For al-Umar, the Roman-Persian war of 613 AD, which withered each superpower and paved the way for the Islamic conquest of parts of North Africa, Europe and Asia, was akin to the Cold War struggle between America and the Soviet Union. This idea that Islamists could benefit and take advantage of the two superpowers fighting each other laid a basis for the eschatological narrative the Salafi jihadi movement has adopted and advanced.
― Zhoug speaks to you, his chosen ones (Sanpaku), Friday, 20 April 2018 20:53 (five years ago) link
I don't know, I've read Al-Rum and that's a very, very vague interpretation.
― Frederik B, Friday, 20 April 2018 22:09 (five years ago) link
Tried to read the whole thing, but it's cherry-picking to the point of it all becoming nonsense. I don't get anything out of it.
― Frederik B, Friday, 20 April 2018 22:24 (five years ago) link
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-yazidis-isis-islam-conversion-afrin-persecution-kurdish-a8310696.html
more patrick cockburn content for the "jim in vancouver is an islamophobe" file
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Friday, 20 April 2018 22:45 (five years ago) link
11 days later, investigators finally allowed in
http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syria-duma-chemical-20180421-story.html
― curmudgeon, Saturday, 21 April 2018 18:13 (five years ago) link
SANA, Yemen — An airstrike on a wedding party, carried out by the Saudi-led coalition waging war in Yemen, killed more than 20 people and wounded dozens of others, including the groom, Yemeni officials said Monday.
The strike hit an isolated village in northwestern Yemen, where families had gathered to celebrate, late Sunday. After the attack, people posted online what they said were survivors collecting mangled and charred bodies
Tragic. Nothing changing in Yemen.
― curmudgeon, Monday, 23 April 2018 19:05 (five years ago) link
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/23/world/middleeast/yemen-wedding-bombing.html?action=click&module=Latest&pgtype=Homepage&action=click&module=In%20Other%20News&pgtype=Homepage
― curmudgeon, Monday, 23 April 2018 19:26 (five years ago) link
This sort of explains what my Urdu-speaking parent volunteer was telling me, that the "formal" version of Urdu used by city agencies and schools to try to communicate with parents is so far from the commonly spoken version that's it's illegible/unintelligible. She said it's actually easier to ask for materials in English and puzzle through it, than get them in the wrong form of Urdu.
― Conic section rebellion 44 (in orbit), Monday, 23 April 2018 20:37 (five years ago) link
She said they used word choices that were so formal and archaic, they wouldn't be understood by most people.
― Conic section rebellion 44 (in orbit), Monday, 23 April 2018 20:38 (five years ago) link
https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/04/20/critics-slam-viral-stories-claiming-douma-chemical-attack-victims-died-dust/
― Never changed username before (cardamon), Wednesday, 25 April 2018 04:02 (five years ago) link
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/trump-offering-saudi-arabia-bad-deal-syria-180425053232930.html
No surprise re likely response to 45 proposal that Saudi and other nations provide troops and money in Syria .
Meanwhile Human Rights Watch is unhappy with both Saudis and Houthis in Yemen
https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/04/02/saudi-arabia/yemen-houthi-missile-attacks-unlawful
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 25 April 2018 15:16 (five years ago) link
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/04/iran-nuclear-deal-bolton-trump-regime-change/558785/
Canceling the nuclear deal and increasing economic pressure on Iran would further marginalize the moderates and pragmatists who favor engagement with the West, while empowering the Revolutionary Guards and their hardline allies. But before that happened (if it happened at all) the instability Washington would hope to sow in Iran could instead surface in countries where it craves stability, most immediately in Iraq. This is because the nuclear deal has provided the United States and Iran with the tacit context to cooperate in Iraq in the fight against the Islamic State. Without the deal, Iraq could once again become a battleground for U.S.- and Iran-backed forces.
Another unwelcome development that would precede a hypothetical regime change: Iran would likely quickly return to enriching uranium, this time at levels higher than the 20 percent that once so worried the international community. Admiral Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, has raised the stakes further, threatening that if the United States quits the nuclear deal, Iran could even leave the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which could mean openly pursuing nuclear weapons.
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 25 April 2018 15:39 (five years ago) link
Turkey sentences over dozen journalists to decades in jail
― sleeve, Wednesday, 25 April 2018 21:07 (five years ago) link
^ Taking the "chilling effect" and dialing it up to "fatal hypothermia".
― A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, 25 April 2018 21:20 (five years ago) link
Rankings:
Harsh rulings against the country’s prominent journalists came on the same day Reporters Without Borders (RSF) labeled Turkey as “the world’s biggest prison for professional journalists.”
Western-allied nation Turkey ranked 157th in a ranking of press freedom, worse than Russia which came 148th.
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 26 April 2018 18:19 (five years ago) link
Huge news in Libya. Haftar has apparently died. Significantly weakens Russia’s position there.― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Friday, April 13, 2018 11:06 PM (one week ago)
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Friday, April 13, 2018 11:06 PM (one week ago)
Not quite as dead as initially claimed.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-libya-security/east-libya-commander-haftar-returning-after-treatment-in-paris-idUSKBN1HW2EN
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Thursday, 26 April 2018 19:27 (five years ago) link
you haftar hand it to him
― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 26 April 2018 22:59 (five years ago) link
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/27/libyan-general-khalifa-haftar-returns-to-benghazi-after-death-rumours
A political strategy to identify his foes
― curmudgeon, Friday, 27 April 2018 19:34 (five years ago) link
Israel says Iran breaking nuclear deal
It's almost as if Netanyahu wants to divert from the many scandals surrounding himself and brazenly take advantage of the White House being inhabited by a monkey.
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 30 April 2018 17:29 (five years ago) link
https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-to-announce-significant-new-info-on-irans-nuclear-program/
The imminent Netanyahu announcement also comes after an airstrike in Syria early Monday, attributed by some to Israel. The strike destroyed some 200 surface-to-surface missiles and killed 16 people, including 11 Iranians, according to a New York Times report.
Iran denied that any of its soldiers were killed or that its bases had been targeted in the raids, although Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei later warned the Islamic Republic’s foes they will be “hit multiple times” if they attack Iran.
That attack came after an earlier airstrike this month on an Iranian military facility in Syria that was blamed on Israel, in which Iran acknowledged seven of its soldiers were killed and vowed to respond to the attack.
If the US pulls out of the Iran deal, and Iran doesn't agree to renegotiate (and the EU doesn't re-impose tough sanctions but only US does) then won't Iran just resume (or proceed quicker) in developing nuclear weapons? Not sure how Israel and Trump/Pompeo think what they're doing will be tougher on Iran?
― curmudgeon, Monday, 30 April 2018 17:55 (five years ago) link
They want war
― Frederik B, Monday, 30 April 2018 18:03 (five years ago) link
I think its slightly more involved than that. Bolton and neo-cons like him believe, against all evidence, that the US military is so potent that the threat of war will either bring your opponent to heel, or else the delivery of US military might will bring them to destruction.
Trump is not a neo-con, but a con man. He believes in the power of threats and promises all on their own, and that if one set of threats and promises fails to deliver the outcome he seeks, he'll just come up with new ones until something works. I think he will be extremely squeamish about starting a war, because he knows in his heart he'd be an abject failure as a war president. I expect he'll rely on cruise missiles and bluster, reinforced by more bluster. But he will be timid about starting a full-sized war he'd have to own and manage. War would be too much work and too much risk.
― A is for (Aimless), Monday, 30 April 2018 18:18 (five years ago) link
P.S. I think most of the world has figured this out, but his obvious and erratic zig-zagging and instability still makes all of them very nervous.
― A is for (Aimless), Monday, 30 April 2018 18:29 (five years ago) link
Green Berets have been helping the Saudis.
― ... (Eazy), Thursday, 3 May 2018 15:33 (five years ago) link
The Green Berets, the Army’s Special Forces, deployed to the border in December, weeks after a ballistic missile fired from Yemen sailed close to Riyadh, the Saudi capital. The Saudi military said it intercepted the missile over the city’s international airport — a claim that was cast in doubt by an analysis of photos and videos of the strike. But it was enough for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to renew a longstanding request that the United States send troops to help the kingdom combat the Houthi threat.A half-dozen officials — from the United States military, the Trump administration, and European and Arab nations — said the American commandos are training Saudi ground troops to secure their border. They also are working closely with American intelligence analysts in Najran, a city in southern Saudi Arabia that has been repeatedly attacked with rockets, to help locate Houthi missile sites within Yemen.
A half-dozen officials — from the United States military, the Trump administration, and European and Arab nations — said the American commandos are training Saudi ground troops to secure their border. They also are working closely with American intelligence analysts in Najran, a city in southern Saudi Arabia that has been repeatedly attacked with rockets, to help locate Houthi missile sites within Yemen.
― ... (Eazy), Thursday, 3 May 2018 15:36 (five years ago) link
https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/hezbollah-allies-slated-for-major-gains-in-lebanon-elections-1.6061125
hezbollah and allies did well in lebanese elections yesterday. their involvement in syria hasn't hurt them electorally
― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Monday, 7 May 2018 16:42 (five years ago) link
Interesting.
But the group and its allies are not on course to win the two-thirds majority that would allow them to pass big decisions alone such as changing the constitution.
― curmudgeon, Monday, 7 May 2018 17:09 (five years ago) link
https://www.timesofisrael.com/sirens-sound-in-golan-heights-residents-urged-to-enter-shelters/
Syria apparently bombing Israeli settlements in the Golan heights in response to SAA positions near the border coming under Israeli artillery fire :/
― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 9 May 2018 22:11 (five years ago) link
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/iranian-forces-in-syria-fire-20-rockets-at-israeli-army-outposts-on-golan-heights-1.6073938
israel says it was IRGC Quds force that launched missiles
― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 9 May 2018 23:08 (five years ago) link
if i were to turn on some liberal news network i rn i would be faced with stormy daniels or something obv lol
― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 9 May 2018 23:19 (five years ago) link
I don't think Iran or Israel want a bigger conflict, so these little skirmishes will keep happening and then calm down. Although Israel says Iran had never before attacked in the Golan Heights like this.
Iran's economy is still bad, but they remain determined to maintain their international military presence (no matter the economic cost).
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 10 May 2018 15:40 (five years ago) link
yeah they're just flexing their muscles.
seems like Iran might be susceptible to similar economic pressures that undermined the USSR, in the event of an expensive arms race. over-extended, with an internally crippled economy etc.
but who knows, really.
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 10 May 2018 15:51 (five years ago) link
Yes, susceptible to a bunch of hardline nutcases taking over.
― Kanye O'er Frae France? (Tom D.), Thursday, 10 May 2018 15:53 (five years ago) link
More than 20 killed and 900 injured as Palestinians make major move at Gaza-Israel fence ahead of US Embassy ceremony in Jerusalem, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health https://t.co/fY9ILqY3BP https://t.co/F2ZFgBjtO4— Breaking News (@BreakingNews) May 14, 2018
Thanks Trump!
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 14 May 2018 12:04 (five years ago) link
At least 28 killed by snipers now.
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Monday, 14 May 2018 12:08 (five years ago) link
Madness.
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 14 May 2018 12:11 (five years ago) link
Up to 37, including one paramedic treating the wounded.
Not sure the censure from European politicians is going to be any less ambiguous than last month but shooting eight journalists probably won’t go down well with sections of the press.
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Monday, 14 May 2018 12:47 (five years ago) link
Also note the very passive "die" in the headline. Palestinians haven't died en masse, they've been shot and killed pic.twitter.com/PwHJrliSQ7— Josie Ensor (@Josiensor) May 14, 2018
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 14 May 2018 12:54 (five years ago) link
What a bonehead move from the US, because if and when the embassy is attacked, who are we going to war with? So short sighted. They should have opened up the Israeli embassy in Iran or something.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 14 May 2018 13:37 (five years ago) link
Trumpies are convinced it will be short-term anger and then blow over, and a long-term win for the right-wing. Ugh.
― curmudgeon, Monday, 14 May 2018 14:32 (five years ago) link
Thoughts on this? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/14/cleric-moqtadr-al-sadr-who-fought-us-takes-surprise-lead-in-iraq-elections
― Frederik B, Monday, 14 May 2018 15:05 (five years ago) link
Huh. Had not been following Iraqi politics, this was news to me:
He portrays himself as an Iraqi nationalist and last year met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, who is staunchly opposed to Iran.
So is he actually getting Saudi support? "Met" is an ambiguous word there.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Monday, 14 May 2018 15:14 (five years ago) link
Candace Owens and Charlie Kirk are at the embassy opening for some fucking reason
― officer sonny bonds, lytton pd (mayor jingleberries), Monday, 14 May 2018 15:22 (five years ago) link
Plus:
Romney criticised the choice of a man who has said all Jews will go to hell to deliver a blessing in Israel. Jeffress is the leader of a Dallas-area Baptist church and a spiritual adviser to Trump. He has been criticised for calling Islam and Mormonism “heresy from the pit of hell” and saying Jews “can’t be saved”. As reported by dallasnews.com, he also said Islam is “a religion that promotes paedophilia”.
Romney, a Mormon, wrote on Twitter on Sunday: “Robert Jeffress says ‘you can’t be saved by being a Jew’ and ‘Mormonism is a heresy from the pit of hell’. He has said the same about Islam. Such a religious bigot should not be giving the prayer that opens the United States embassy in Jerusalem.”
from the Guardian
― curmudgeon, Monday, 14 May 2018 15:50 (five years ago) link
x-post, for what it's worth , Juan Cole on Al-Sadr back in 2017
Inasmuch as he is a hard line Shiite and heads his own hard line militia, the “Peace Brigades,” he might not have come first to mind if you were thinking about Iraqis that the militantly fundamentalist Wahhabi monarchy in Saudi Arabia might invite to the kingdom.
In fact, despite his Shiite fundamentalism, al-Sadr is politically even-handed in ways that might appeal to Riyadh. Although Western analysts have repeatedly pegged him wrongly as a cat’s paw of Iran, in fact al-Sadr is an Iraqi nativist whose movement resents the influence of Iran on Iraqi Shiism.
Al-Sadr has all right relations with Iran and did flee there for studies in 2007 when Gen. David Petraeus tried to have him arrested as a sectarian religious leader responsible for deaths of Sunnis. But he has tended to maintain his independence from Tehran’s ayatollahs.
Al-Sadr opposes the tendency to see the Shiite militias in Iraq as a stand alone force, sort of a National Guard (a line pushed by Iran) and rather wants them absorbed into the regular army.
Al-Sadr opposes Iranian intervention in Syria (and, indeed, all foreign intervention in Syria, including that of Russia).
Last March, al-Sadr called for formal peace talks between Saudi Arabia and Iran, since those two countries are on all but a war footing. Al-Sadr argues that some face to face summits among leaders of the two countries could tamp down sectarian tensions and lead to a new era of good feeling in the Middle East.
Saudi Arabia has lost its struggle with Iran over the past 15 years. Iraq went from a Saudi asset under Saddam Hussein to an Iranian asset after the Shiites won the parliamentary elections in 2005 and after.
https://www.juancole.com/2017/07/saudis-looking-channel.html
― curmudgeon, Monday, 14 May 2018 15:54 (five years ago) link
52 dead, 2400 wounded. A great day.
― Kanye O'er Frae France? (Tom D.), Monday, 14 May 2018 18:00 (five years ago) link
Maybe they'll get a memorial plaque.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 14 May 2018 18:01 (five years ago) link
made even more awful by how normalised it is. BDS seems somewhat dubious to me but I get the sense of helplessness that partly fuels it
― ogmor, Monday, 14 May 2018 18:05 (five years ago) link
― Kanye O'er Frae France? (Tom D.), Monday, May 14, 2018 11:00 AM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
and it's nakba day tomorrow and we can probably expect more of the same
― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Monday, 14 May 2018 18:08 (five years ago) link
To be fair though, they'll just be killing them tomorrow, not actually humiliating them first.
― Kanye O'er Frae France? (Tom D.), Monday, 14 May 2018 18:21 (five years ago) link
seems quiet today?
https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/gaza-funerals-protests-intl/index.html
also, bump
― sleeve, Tuesday, 15 May 2018 14:15 (five years ago) link
Picking up from the other thread, what makes this situation particularly rife is essentially a state of mutual suicide. On one hand you've got a culture of martyrdom, both in terms of fundamentalism and righteous desperation, depending; obviously "suicide" has been weaponized in this region for a long time. On the other you've got Israel, whose very existence is sort of suicidal, given it exists in the midst of so many who want it gone. Which is ironic, of course, since people who wanted Jews gone is what lead to the creation of Israel. But that's what makes the situation so intractable: two sides in essence embracing different forms of catch-22 suicide/martyrdom predicated on their very existence. Israel's desire/right to exist is intrinsically suicidal. The other side's willingness to die (by suicide, murder, murder by cop, whatever) to achieve its goal is of course also self-defeating. It's so tragic and sad I can see why fundamentalist Christians put their faith in armageddon, which seems at least as plausible as peace.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 15 May 2018 14:17 (five years ago) link
But if the protest is against the existence of a nation, I'm not sure how you are supposed to respond.That is a _hell_ of a way to sweep aside Palestinians' concerns and justify killing a bunch of them in just a few words― Simon H., Tuesday, May 15, 2018 2:15 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalinksorry, MENA thread, etc― Simon H., Tuesday, May 15, 2018 2:18 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post PermalinkNot at all. Most Palestinians have totally reasonable, justifiable concerns ... as do most Israelis. I just mean it's (the existence of Israel) without question a big part of the calculation on both sides (including external proxy forces like the US and Iran, et al.).
That is a _hell_ of a way to sweep aside Palestinians' concerns and justify killing a bunch of them in just a few words
― Simon H., Tuesday, May 15, 2018 2:15 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
sorry, MENA thread, etc
― Simon H., Tuesday, May 15, 2018 2:18 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Not at all. Most Palestinians have totally reasonable, justifiable concerns ... as do most Israelis. I just mean it's (the existence of Israel) without question a big part of the calculation on both sides (including external proxy forces like the US and Iran, et al.).
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 15 May 2018 14:19 (five years ago) link
Dr. C, I think the shooting of the protesters is/was disgusting and unnecessary. But that type of shit has been going on for so long and is so unsurprising at this point in the broader micro/macro conflict that I can't see it as uniquely beyond the pale. Rockets, bus bombings, invasions, uprisings, murders, kidnappings, war, calls for peace, calls for violence, weapons from the west, weapons from the rest, tunnels, walls, fundamentalists ... it's a big cynical self-destructive pile of zero-sum/no-sum shit.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 15 May 2018 14:40 (five years ago) link
it's a big cynical self-destructive pile of zero-sum/no-sum shit.
this is not a zero-sum game
― obviously DLC (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 15 May 2018 14:43 (five years ago) link
What does victory on either side look like? Two-state solution? Who in the world thinks that is feasible in practice? At best there'd be a neutral sort of shared state with armed oversight, and yeah, that's about as likely as armageddon at this point as well.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 15 May 2018 14:46 (five years ago) link
If someone "wins," everyone loses. If no one "wins," everyone loses.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 15 May 2018 14:47 (five years ago) link
JiC I can understand feeling from a distant enough zoom that it's all so exhausting and just washes together as an equal and opposite cycle of violence situation. i think the value of taking individual incidents seriously as case studies is to cut through that, to permit views of the actual mechanisms by which violence is perpetuated and viable paths forward are refused, and by which actors and in what ways. maybe that's why your post in the other thread rankled me - it felt like it wasn't really based in the circumstances of the embassy move which is what the protesters were protesting, and that (combined w maybe some other values/assumptions) led you to what struck me as a shocking declaration that if a protester can be interpreted as refusing the legitimacy of a state (btw: as regards the occupied territories, the majority of the planet agrees that israel is not the legitimate sovereign there) then what can the state really do but shoot to kill? but I've been reading/typing all of my shit today on a phone with a hangover so my sincere apologies if I've misread you or committed the kind of rhetorical simplification i myself am griping about.
― noel gallaghah's high flying burbbhrbhbbhbburbbb (Doctor Casino), Tuesday, 15 May 2018 14:49 (five years ago) link
I certainly don't see Israel's desire/right to exist as suicidal. For a start, as sleepingbag so charmingly put it, they're always winning.
― Kanye O'er Frae France? (Tom D.), Tuesday, 15 May 2018 14:51 (five years ago) link
xpost No, I get that. Shooting protestors is absolutely inexcusable, but it's a state of constant violence, to degrees, that will always tip one way or the other, eventually.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 15 May 2018 14:54 (five years ago) link
xpost That's what makes it such a catch-22. They're always "winning" because they can't lose. To lose means the end of Israel, which would be suicidal.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 15 May 2018 14:55 (five years ago) link
that's how it looks to the israeli right wing, but there are other definitions of israel and other definitions of "winning" and "losing," yes?
― noel gallaghah's high flying burbbhrbhbbhbburbbb (Doctor Casino), Tuesday, 15 May 2018 15:00 (five years ago) link
I'd love to hear them. I mean, I think there should be two states, but the idea that that would be a solution I think is naive.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 15 May 2018 15:05 (five years ago) link
I think the shooting of the protesters is/was disgusting and unnecessary. But
The first part is correct. the "But" wasn't needed here. To the extent that "both sides do it", that's a misleading dynamic you should be familiar with from the thread this conversation migrated from. The violence, human costs, and income discrepancy in this conflict have been completely lopsided.
the reason that people here react strongly against the "both sides" argument, yesterday and today, is that in the context of 50+ Palestinians getting murdered by the Israeli military, it comes across as a defense of Israel's massacre of protesters.
i do share your frustrations with the prospects of a peaceful solution in the near-future, but it wasn't that long ago that there were summits and cease fires and nobel peace prizes. it all fell apart, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. and i don't like the ramifications of believing that peace is impossible.
― obviously DLC (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 15 May 2018 15:06 (five years ago) link
When the conflict has been going on for literally thousands of years I am less hopeful than you are. And of course it is all tied into the Jewish identity of Israel itself, which I am usually pretty ambivalent about until, say, Iran's guy says a few days ago that the Jews brought the Holocaust on themselves, or just a few months ago Putin blames all sorts of problems on the Jews. It's all tied together in a muddle of history, anti-Semitism, religious fundamentalism, the whole shebang.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 15 May 2018 15:11 (five years ago) link
The conflict hasn't been going on for literally thousands of years.
― Kanye O'er Frae France? (Tom D.), Tuesday, 15 May 2018 15:19 (five years ago) link
Conflict and war there in general.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 15 May 2018 15:21 (five years ago) link
but... "the conflict has been going on for literally thousands of years" is a complete fabrication. as a trope it has had a shockingly long life but this has been debunked a billion times. the conflict has been going on since 1948. it entered a new phase in 1967. people are alive today who were alive when the conflict began going on. many still have the deeds to theirs or their parents' homes expropriated from them in 1948. this is not some ancient intractable force in the soil or in the blood, it's a political problem, perpetuated by political actions in the present. like moving the embassy for example - nothing eternal or thousands-of-years-y about that.
― noel gallaghah's high flying burbbhrbhbbhbburbbb (Doctor Casino), Tuesday, 15 May 2018 15:22 (five years ago) link
There's somewhere there hasn't there been war and conflict for thousands of years?
― Kanye O'er Frae France? (Tom D.), Tuesday, 15 May 2018 15:23 (five years ago) link
^ Yeah, was gonna say, that's everywhere!
― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 15 May 2018 15:24 (five years ago) link
exactly!xpoat No, i know. Obviously there was no israeli-palestinian conflict before there was an Israel. But forget for the moment the implication that the only way to end the conflict is to have no Israel again, that whole region has been a muddle of shifting occupation for centuries.Anyway, not going to solve anything here, I'm going to Costco.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 15 May 2018 15:24 (five years ago) link
LOL. If only it was as simple as going to Costco.
― Kanye O'er Frae France? (Tom D.), Tuesday, 15 May 2018 15:25 (five years ago) link
Have you ever been to Costco!?
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 15 May 2018 15:29 (five years ago) link
the other thing is that the "thousands of years" trope, and/or the "it's always been shifting around, over there in that region" trope, implicitly adopts the zionist framework, where what's at stake is an ethnic-religious right to an ancient, immutable homeland, and that homeland's boundaries are exactly coterminous with the recognized boundaries of israel plus the territories occupied since 1967. what a coincidence! again, that's the metanarrative favored by a certain ideology and certain forces which have been dominant for a long time in israeli political culture and essentially since day one in israeli military culture (but certainly since ariel sharon's rise through the ranks).
but for palestinians displaced from their homes or living under occupation, the issue isn't necessarily a religious one at all (though certainly for many it can and has come to seem that way) and certainly not a thousands-of-years one. this is something that started happening to their parents or grandparents and continues to happen to them in the present day. for non-zionist jewish israeli citizens, it can also be something other than thousands-of-years: they, personally, were born there, this is the only home they've known, etc. these are difficult things to reconcile. it's implausible that a solution would leave every person completely satisfied. but we can confront that without throwing our hands up and declaring it's impossible to reconcile and that no solution is possible because man, they've always been fighting over there. the only actors who really need that to be true are extremist factions in israel and in palestine. when those extremists are in power it would be really helpful for the american government, as israel's most crucial supporter, to recognize these distinctions, but it all tends to get washed together and the U.S. media effectively cover for this by falling back on the thousand-year framework.
― noel gallaghah's high flying burbbhrbhbbhbburbbb (Doctor Casino), Tuesday, 15 May 2018 15:36 (five years ago) link
fuck
WATCH: "This is me being a moralist" - @esglaude, on Gaza #MTPDaily pic.twitter.com/VwYvY3fZVb— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) May 14, 2018
― Simon H., Tuesday, 15 May 2018 15:51 (five years ago) link
the shocked silence after he said that - that was gripping. i guess he felt the need to fill the space with something, but he didn't need to apologize for what he said.
― obviously DLC (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 15 May 2018 15:59 (five years ago) link
Nikki Haley just did her theatrical walk out when the Palestinian envoy to the UN started to speak.
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Tuesday, 15 May 2018 17:33 (five years ago) link
god she blows
― obviously DLC (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 15 May 2018 17:35 (five years ago) link
Hamas can turn anything into a weapon of terror. pic.twitter.com/7v8RmGfN4o— IDF (@IDFSpokesperson) May 15, 2018
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 15 May 2018 17:41 (five years ago) link
ROPE TIED TO FENCE
Just allow them to have the same weapons you have and they wouldn't need to be this 'inventive'. Level playing field an' all.
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Tuesday, 15 May 2018 18:29 (five years ago) link
worst game of Clue ever
― the bhagwanadook (symsymsym), Wednesday, 16 May 2018 06:54 (five years ago) link
A Canadian doctor in Gaza who was recently shot is active on Reddit and talking about the protests, the occupation, treating bullet wounds, and a lot more
https://www.reddit.com/user/_tarek_/comments/
― Simon H., Wednesday, 16 May 2018 13:50 (five years ago) link
https://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Russia-Israel-agree-to-keep-Iran-and-Hezbollah-from-border-558580
this seems like good news
― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, 29 May 2018 18:14 (five years ago) link
in terms of preventing regional conflagration
― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, 29 May 2018 18:15 (five years ago) link
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-44358039
IMF encouraged austerity measures result in poor and middle class protests in Jordan and the Prime Minister resigning
Mr Mulki had refused to scrap the bill, saying it was up to parliament to decide whether to pass it or not.
His government said it needed the money to fund public services and said the new tax bill would mean higher earners pay more.
But protesters feared it would further worsen living standards. In recent years, Jordanians have seen prices rise with salaries failing to keep up.
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 5 June 2018 13:51 (five years ago) link
Jordan's economy has struggled to grow in the past few years in the face of chronic deficits, as private foreign investment and aid has declined.
In 2016, Jordan secured a $723m, three-year credit line from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Since then, austerity measures agreed with the IMF have caused the price of basic goods and services to rise steadily.
Last Wednesday, demonstrations began when thousands held strike action against proposed income tax rises at a time when ordinary Jordanians were already struggling with inflation.
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/all-you-need-know-about-protests-jordan-1605243591
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 5 June 2018 13:53 (five years ago) link
Meanwhile in Yemen:
sources have said that the Trump administration is considering giving direct support to seize the country’s main port for humanitarian aid.
First reported by the Wall Street Journal, the move would expand U.S. involvement in the brutal civil war that has been raging since 2014.
The United Arab Emirates has asked the U.S. to assist the Saudi-led coalition to retake Hodeidah.
U.S. officials told the Journal that the coalition will not act without U.S. support. But a high-ranking official told the newspaper that the administration has a “lot of concerns about a Hodeidah operation.”
“We are not 100 percent comfortable that, even if the coalition did launch an attack, that they would be able to do it cleanly and avoid a catastrophic incident,” the official said.
Administration officials are expected to meet today to discuss next steps, according to the Journal.
Experts have called the ongoing war the world’s “largest humanitarian crisis,” with millions facing starvation, lack of access to clean water and a cholera outbreak that likely involves more than 1 million people.
https://www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/2018/06/04/report-trump-mulling-direct-us-military-action-to-take-yemen-port/
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 5 June 2018 14:02 (five years ago) link
IMF tax plan being contemplated by Jordan legislature protests continue in Jordan despite Prime Minister resigning. King Abdullah weighs in:
Education minister and former World Bank economist Omar al-Razzaz has replaced former Prime Minister Hani Mulki, who resigned on Monday.
The protests in Jordan, a key Western ally, are the biggest in years.
Demonstrators say a new tax bill backed by the International Monetary Fund will hurt the poor and middle class.
The former PM had refused to scrap the proposals, which include higher taxes and more austerity measures.
In the letter appointing Mr Razzaz to form a new government on Tuesday, King Abdullah said that the cabinet "must carry out a comprehensive review of the tax system" to avoid "unjust taxes that do not achieve justice and balance between the incomes of the poor and the rich".
The previous evening, the monarch warned that Jordan risked entering "the unknown" if it failed to find a way out of the current crisis, Jordan's Petra news agency reported.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-44375827
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 7 June 2018 17:02 (five years ago) link
IMF clearly being shown the blowback to austerity is the rise of right wing populist fascists and they keep going about their business
― officer sonny bonds, lytton pd (mayor jingleberries), Thursday, 7 June 2018 18:45 (five years ago) link
Fela once said a long time ago that IMF stands for International Mother F’ers and nothing seems to have changed since
― curmudgeon, Friday, 8 June 2018 18:13 (five years ago) link
Long New Yorker article on Israel/US relationship and how it has changed over the years from President 44 to 45(plus lots of details re Abbas, Bibi, and more) looks like an interesting read (just skimmed it) even if it will most likely just confirm bottom lines we already know
― curmudgeon, Monday, 11 June 2018 14:58 (five years ago) link
Turkish election tomorrow!
Genuinely in the balance for the first time in ages.
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Saturday, 23 June 2018 09:33 (five years ago) link
I can't imagine Erdogan being allowed to lose.
― womp womp that sucker (Tom D.), Saturday, 23 June 2018 11:19 (five years ago) link
the leader of the center-left opposition is called (most likely not going to be nicknamed The Guv'nor by colleagues) Muharrem Ince.
― calzino, Saturday, 23 June 2018 11:31 (five years ago) link
It’s not officially a Turkish election until this happens:
https://s15.postimg.cc/liohskcob/C7942_ADD-2_C01-4751-_AC15-86_E506_F048_CB.jpg
Not sure Erdogan is going to get the 50% he needs to avoid a run-off with Ince. There will be a huge mobilisation against him if it’s head-to-head.
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Sunday, 24 June 2018 09:22 (five years ago) link
Nusret Gökçe, globally known as “Salt Bae” for his meat-cutting and salt-drizzling skills..
you can see by how he votes that he's erm ... got some skills.
Turkey’s Supreme Election Council (YSK) has announced that it will look into complaints regarding election safety issues in the Suruç district of the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa following claims of vote-rigging. The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) earlier on June 24 appealed to the YSK, asking the election body to take action following allegations regarding voting irregularities and other allegations that some election observers were not allowed to do their jobs and they were even attacked at balloting stations in Suruç and some other districts of Şanlıurfa, daily Cumhuriyet has reported.
The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) earlier on June 24 appealed to the YSK, asking the election body to take action following allegations regarding voting irregularities and other allegations that some election observers were not allowed to do their jobs and they were even attacked at balloting stations in Suruç and some other districts of Şanlıurfa, daily Cumhuriyet has reported.
― calzino, Sunday, 24 June 2018 11:00 (five years ago) link
Anadolu News Agency says that Erdogan has 53% with 89%of votes counted. Has been ticking down closer to 50 the more votes are counted.
Ince reckons they’ve actually only counted 40% so don’t expect him to concede.
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Sunday, 24 June 2018 18:32 (five years ago) link
The map tells the story.
Latest results in presidential vote in #TurkeyElections as of 9.30 pm:Boxes opened: 89%Erdogan: 53.4%Ince: 30.3%Demirtas: 7.6%Aksener: 7.4%Karamollaoglu: 0.9%Perincek: 0.2%Find more at https://t.co/EcC7DcnkdK and https://t.co/pCgJ7oPKXj#Secim2018 pic.twitter.com/32YJo1Wbpn— ANADOLU AGENCY (ENG) (@anadoluagency) June 24, 2018
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Sunday, 24 June 2018 18:40 (five years ago) link
Has been ticking down closer to 50 the more votes are counted.
It is said that where there's a will, there's a way. I am sure Erdogan will find a way to win. Or else appear to. Either way works for his purposes.
― A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 24 June 2018 18:41 (five years ago) link
It has been glitchy all night, but it looks like the opposition's own vote tally is going to show an Erdoğan first round victory. pic.twitter.com/HnshQVRJGz— Ankaralı Jan (@06JAnk) June 24, 2018
Looks more or less a done deal on a first round victory.
The good news is that the Kurdish party got over the 10% required for parliamentary representation in the other ballot.
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Sunday, 24 June 2018 21:00 (five years ago) link
Why did anyone ever think it could turn out any different?
― womp womp that sucker (Tom D.), Sunday, 24 June 2018 21:12 (five years ago) link
I trebled it with Putin's election victory and Celtic winning the title and made a penny!
― calzino, Sunday, 24 June 2018 21:16 (five years ago) link
The election may have some irregularities but isn’t exactly 100% rigged and there was a sense of urgency, at least in Istanbul and Ankara, that went along with the idea that this could end up being the most important election in Turkey’s history (or if you’re more pessimistic, the last election in Turkey’s history) to drive turnout.
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Sunday, 24 June 2018 21:17 (five years ago) link
Celtic far less of a surefire bet than Putin or Erdogan tbh.
― womp womp that sucker (Tom D.), Sunday, 24 June 2018 21:19 (five years ago) link
What is that red dot to the east?
― Frederik B, Sunday, 24 June 2018 21:58 (five years ago) link
Tunceli, where Erdogan got 18%
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Sunday, 24 June 2018 22:07 (five years ago) link
Interesting. Will check up on the story of that.
― Frederik B, Sunday, 24 June 2018 23:23 (five years ago) link
Kurds.
― womp womp that sucker (Tom D.), Sunday, 24 June 2018 23:32 (five years ago) link
But not Kurds who voted for the main Kurdish party - there’s a subset called the Alevi I don’t know much about who live there.
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Monday, 25 June 2018 05:11 (five years ago) link
Will Assad really agree not to have Iran or other militias in areas near Israel he is currently recapturing (via his usual brutality)? See article below
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-assad-to-retake-southwest-syria-israel-to-decide-whether-to-intervene-1.6217834
The Syrian civil war is apparently entering a new phase. After having scored numerous military successes over the last two years, the Assad regime, with Russian air support, is preparing to retake the country’s southwest. This is an area with symbolic importance (the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad began in Daraa in 2011), but also practical importance, since it abuts both Jordan and Israel.
...Israel wants stability on its border. It has also frequently denounced the Assad regime for slaughtering its own citizens and using chemical weapons. But would it necessarily oppose the Syrian Army’s return to its border in the Golan Heights, if the Iranians were removed from the area at the same time?
In recent years, Israel has given food, clothing and medicine to residents of Sunni Syrian villages near its border. Thousands of Syrians have also entered Israel for medical treatment. Western media reports say Israel has also given rebel militias in those areas arms and ammunition as well. Israel denies this, but recently those denials have sounded less forceful than in the past.
Along with fighting the rebels, the Assad regime has mercilessly slaughtered residents of towns under their control. In many cases, it battered besieged towns with air strikes and artillery until they surrendered.
Thus Israel’s leadership will soon face a dilemma. In internal discussions, some defense officials, including officers in the army’s Northern Command, have said Israel has a humanitarian obligation to residents of these border villages.
Nevertheless, it’s hard to imagine that the public would support risking Israeli soldiers’ lives to save Arab citizens of an enemy country. It’s more likely that Israel won’t intervene directly in the fighting, but will try to make the regime’s return to the border region contingent on an agreement to remove Iranian forces and the Shi’ite militias from it.
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 28 June 2018 14:06 (five years ago) link
Deraa has been completely burnt to the ground," Jihad al-Ali, a 26-year-old paramedic in Deraa told Al Jazeera as he described the effect of the ongoing attacks since Wednesday evening.
Syrian government forces launched the military push on June 19 in an attempt to retake the southern provinces of Deraa, Quneitra and parts of Sweida, mostly held by opposition fighters.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/06/syria-war-deraa-burnt-ground-180628095132419.html
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 28 June 2018 14:08 (five years ago) link
The whole 'thousands of years of conflict' thing re Israel and Palestine is something I've probably screeched myself on here at some point but also a framework we really need to work against no
― Never changed username before (cardamon), Saturday, 30 June 2018 22:21 (five years ago) link
It nicely absolves the British, Ottoman and Russian empires for their behaviour in the 20th century for one thing and sticks all the blame on those inherently-violent Jews and Arabs
― Never changed username before (cardamon), Saturday, 30 June 2018 22:23 (five years ago) link
Müslüm Gündüz, the head sheikh of the hardline Aczmendi sect, told the Islamist TV channel Akit TV that those inspired by the founder of the Turkish republic should be forced out of the country, left-wing news site Gazete Tamam said .
“We know the Kemalists well and they know us well. Either they will leave this country or we will. While we are around, the Kemalists cannot be at ease,” Gündüz said.
“Kemalism is against human nature. It is against human morality. It is a system to force Anatolian people to be immoral.”
Kemalism, an ideology named after founding president of Turkey Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, has been a major secular force in Turkish politics since that time.
But the ideology made people into anarchists and terrorists, Gündüz said.
The Kemalist opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) was a “religious movement” trying to compete with Islam, he added.
― ogmor, Thursday, 5 July 2018 13:26 (five years ago) link
Basically calling for a purge of secularists?
― officer sonny bonds, lytton pd (mayor jingleberries), Thursday, 5 July 2018 13:49 (five years ago) link
He has been saying the same thing since 1996.
I wouldn't bet he has more followers than the average Turkish high school has pictures of Ataturk, tbh.
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Thursday, 5 July 2018 15:24 (five years ago) link
let's hope so. I've not heard much good news coming out of turkey
― ogmor, Thursday, 5 July 2018 18:44 (five years ago) link
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/israeli-saudi-and-emirati-officials-privately-pushed-for-trump-to-strike-a-grand-bargain-with-putin
During a private meeting shortly before the November, 2016, election, Mohammed bin Zayed, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, floated to a longtime American interlocutor what sounded, at the time, like an unlikely grand bargain. The Emirati leader told the American that Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, might be interested in resolving the conflict in Syria in exchange for the lifting of sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
Current and former U.S. officials said that bin Zayed, known as M.B.Z., was not the only leader in the region who favored rapprochement between the former Cold War adversaries. While America’s closest allies in Europe viewed with a sense of dread Trump’s interest in partnering with Putin, three countries that enjoyed unparallelled influence with the incoming Administration—Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the U.A.E.—privately embraced the goal. Officials from the three countries have repeatedly encouraged their American counterparts to consider ending the Ukraine-related sanctions in return for Putin’s help in removing Iranian forces from Syria.
Experts say that such a deal would be unworkable, even if Trump were interested. They say Putin has neither the interest nor the ability to pressure Iranian forces to leave Syria. Administration officials have said that Syria and Ukraine will be among the topics that Trump and Putin will discuss at their summit in Helsinki on July 16th. White House officials did not respond to a request for comment.
― curmudgeon, Friday, 13 July 2018 04:33 (five years ago) link
This looks very plausible to me - both sides exploring back-channels, encouraged by shared allies, to see whether they could reach a mutually-beneficial foreign policy arrangement and both coming to the conclusion that they couldn't. I doubt the Trump side has given up hope completely, given how central Iran is to a lot of their thinking, but i can't really envisage Russia changing position.
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Friday, 13 July 2018 12:12 (five years ago) link
Meanwhile, Assad's brutal campaign marches on through Daraa where the revolution first began...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/syrian-rebels-agree-to-give-up-daraa-cradle-of-2011-revolt/2018/07/12/ae882330-85bf-11e8-9e06-4db52ac42e05_story.html?utm_term=.4dd05a33dedc
For the first time in more than seven years, the Syrian government raised its flag Thursday over Daraa, the first city to revolt against President Bashar Assad in 2011 and plunge the country into its calamitous civil war.
The display is laden with symbolism as the government moves to stamp out the last of the uprising against the 52-year-old Assad who has ruled with an iron fist over Syria for 18 years. His father Hafez Assad was president for three decades before him.
Officials accompanied by state media crews hoisted the two-star flag over the rubble of the city’s main square, allowing it to wave in sight of the shell of the Omari Mosque where protesters first gathered in demonstrations demanding reforms then Assad’s ouster in the spring of 2011.
The mosque has since been destroyed in the government’s brutal crackdown against the city, which ranged from alleged torturing of dissidents to shelling the city with tanks and planes.
― curmudgeon, Saturday, 14 July 2018 00:33 (five years ago) link
A (recently turned right-wing) friend of mine posted an article saying that Syria was welcoming back the people who had fled, so why should we give them asylum. The worst.
― Leaghaidh am brón an t-anam bochd (dowd), Saturday, 14 July 2018 01:11 (five years ago) link
Welcome back! We kill you now.
― A is for (Aimless), Saturday, 14 July 2018 03:42 (five years ago) link
Thought this was really interesting: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/27/sunday-review/obama-egypt-coup-trump.html
― Frederik B, Friday, 27 July 2018 16:04 (five years ago) link
Yes, a good article.
And talking of fault lines within an administration...
https://www.dailysabah.com/diplomacy/2018/07/27/turkey-blames-pence-as-brunson-drama-reveals-fault-lines-inside-trump-administration
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Friday, 27 July 2018 16:15 (five years ago) link
"Together we can rebuild it... Afrin". #WhiteHelmets are set and ready to go in the city of #Afrin for their latest community work campaigns to restore the city to its former beauty and utility. #Syria pic.twitter.com/wEwR7X3xC2— The White Helmets (@SyriaCivilDef) August 1, 2018
kind of a gross tweet considering the turks and islamists just ethnically cleansed Afrin
― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 1 August 2018 21:42 (five years ago) link
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/saudi-arabia-ruptures-ties-with-canada-serving-notice-to-would-be-critics/2018/08/06/5ad193f6-99a7-11e8-b55e-5002300ef004_story.html?utm_term=.69f28676839a
It was hardly the first time the kingdom, an absolute monarchy, had been chided for human rights abuses, or even the first time Canada had criticized the Saudi government since it started arresting the female activists in May. But under Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s young crown prince, a kingdom once known for its go-slow approach to foreign affairs has frequently reacted to perceived challenges from abroad with haste, spit and fire, analysts said.
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 7 August 2018 02:58 (five years ago) link
"In These Times" re US support of Saudi Arabia in Yemen--
Yemenis require much more than vague assurances and promises. What Yemenis need is for the United States to end all its support to the Saudi-led coalition, which includes pulling out troops from the Saudi-Yemen border, ending all refueling missions and targeting assistance, ending all military contracts involving the training of Saudi military personnel and the maintenance of military vehicles and aircraft, and ending all sales of weapons to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
http://inthesetimes.com/article/21361/yemen-war-national-defense-authorization-act-bombing-civilians-saudi-arabia
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 7 August 2018 03:17 (five years ago) link
How much oil does Yemen have?
(That was rhetorical. It's not much, Nexen Canada operated the main field in Yemen, was bought out by Chinese CNOOC in 2012, who are abandoning it).
― Roomba with an attitude (Sanpaku), Tuesday, 7 August 2018 04:50 (five years ago) link
Yep.
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 7 August 2018 18:05 (five years ago) link
Saudis, Al Queda, and the US
The deals uncovered by the AP investigation reflect the contradictory interests of the two wars being waged simultaneously in the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula.
In one conflict, the US is working with its Arab allies - particularly the UAE - with the aim of eliminating al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). But the larger mission is to win the civil war against the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels.
And in that fight, al-Qaeda fighters are effectively on the same side as the Saudi-led coalition and, by extension, the US.
"Elements of the US military are clearly aware that much of what the US is doing in Yemen is aiding AQAP and there is much angst about that," said Michael Horton, a fellow at the Jamestown Foundation.
"However, supporting the UAE and Saudi Arabia against what the US views as Iranian expansionism takes priority over battling AQAP and even stabilising Yemen," Horton said.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/08/report-saudi-uae-coalition-cut-deals-al-qaeda-yemen-180806074659521.html
the [Saudi] coalition cut secret deals with al-Qaida fighters, paying some to leave key cities and towns and letting others retreat with weapons, equipment and wads of looted cash, an investigation by The Associated Press has found. Hundreds more were recruited to join the coalition itself.
https://apnews.com/f38788a561d74ca78c77cb43612d50da/Yemen:-US-allies-don't-defeat-al-Qaida-but-pay-it-to-go-away
― curmudgeon, Friday, 10 August 2018 03:25 (five years ago) link
I'm sure that'll all be fine
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Friday, 10 August 2018 03:44 (five years ago) link
Pretty much the story of the Sunni Awakening during the Iraq war. Thousands who had been bombing convoys the prior year were put on the payroll. Cheaper to pay them to do nothing than to patch up after IEDs.
― Roomba with an attitude (Sanpaku), Friday, 10 August 2018 04:21 (five years ago) link
Meanwhile, Saudi coalition air attacks that kill children continue:
An airstrike from the Saudi-led coalition struck a school bus in northern Yemen on Thursday and killed dozens of people, many of them children, local medical officials and international aid groups said.
The attack sent a flood of victims to overwhelmed hospitals struggling to cope in what the United Nations considers one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
The coalition said it had hit missile launchers and called the attack a “legitimate military operation,” but the attack and the justification for it were condemned and drew new attention to the tremendous human toll of the war in Yemen, especially on children.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/09/world/middleeast/yemen-airstrike-school-bus-children.html
― curmudgeon, Friday, 10 August 2018 12:50 (five years ago) link
Astonishing graphic from @CNN, identifying civilian massacres in Yemen with the bomb makers - Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics. This should be standard in war reporting. Searing images. https://t.co/EZqkSsAri6 pic.twitter.com/NWJvPuN7ct— Tim Shorrock (@TimothyS) August 18, 2018
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Monday, 20 August 2018 19:30 (five years ago) link
For the sort of people who would invest in Raytheon, that's just getting good notices in the press.
― A is for (Aimless), Monday, 20 August 2018 19:40 (five years ago) link
The weak crumble, are slaughtered and are erased from history while the strong, for good or for ill, survive. The strong are respected, and alliances are made with the strong, and in the end peace is made with the strong.— PM of Israel (@IsraeliPM) August 29, 2018
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Thursday, 30 August 2018 21:08 (five years ago) link
not creepy at all
― Karl Malone, Thursday, 30 August 2018 21:08 (five years ago) link
what in almighty fuck
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 30 August 2018 21:44 (five years ago) link
not creepy nazi at all
― difficult listening hour, Thursday, 30 August 2018 21:47 (five years ago) link
How much do you bench— Scott (@firescotch) August 30, 2018
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 30 August 2018 22:05 (five years ago) link
Air raids have pounded areas in Syria's last rebel-held province of Idlib, killing several civilians and raising further concerns that an all-out government offensive is only a matter of time.The strikes on Tuesday came as the United Nations urged Russia, a Syrian government ally, and Turkey, which backs certain rebel groups in Idlib, to help avert a "bloodbath".A full-scale military offensive would be devastating for the nearly three million people living in the province, including many rebels and civilians who were bussed out of other areas as they came back under government control.
The strikes on Tuesday came as the United Nations urged Russia, a Syrian government ally, and Turkey, which backs certain rebel groups in Idlib, to help avert a "bloodbath".
A full-scale military offensive would be devastating for the nearly three million people living in the province, including many rebels and civilians who were bussed out of other areas as they came back under government control.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/09/syria-war-warplanes-hit-idlib-targets-fears-battle-mount-180904095502071.html
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 5 September 2018 04:50 (five years ago) link
No stopping dictator Assad.
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 5 September 2018 14:09 (five years ago) link
This is what Assad anticipated when he began driving refugees into Idlib.
As a strategy, it was exceptionally effective. He got a modest bit of credit by appearing lenient. The areas the refugees left became much easier to reassert control over and less costly to feed. Idlib was burdened by hundreds of thousands of people where there was no infrastructure to support them. Now they are fish in a barrel and he can finish them off.
― A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, 5 September 2018 17:44 (five years ago) link
this is worth a read, from a journalist who's been allowed in
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-close-up-look-at-the-forgotten-war-in-yemen-a-1228775-amp.html
― ogmor, Tuesday, 25 September 2018 16:31 (five years ago) link
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/turkey-concludes-saudi-journalist-khashoggi-killed-by-murder-team-sources-say/2018/10/06/31ee4f86-c8d9-11e8-9c0f-2ffaf6d422aa_story.html
― Zach Same (Tom D.), Monday, 8 October 2018 10:03 (five years ago) link
last year May said she would and could talk about human rights issues with our good friends and trading partners The Saudis. I bet she's got bugger all to say about this.
― calzino, Monday, 8 October 2018 10:29 (five years ago) link
I would love to be proven wrong, but the reactions that this will be a big crisis for the Saudi/US relationship seems a bit naive? Why would Trump think anything was wrong with killing journalists...
― Frederik B, Monday, 8 October 2018 13:35 (five years ago) link
Not just a bit. I’m still hoping they don’t start killing journalists here too!
― Mordy, Monday, 8 October 2018 15:23 (five years ago) link
A friend of mine wrote this: https://fpif.org/syrias-long-war-will-be-decided-in-these-three-theaters/
Seems like a pretty good update on what is going on in Syria.
― DJI, Wednesday, 10 October 2018 21:30 (five years ago) link
The issue for Trump is that the Senate call for an investigation of Kashoggi's disappearance was made to invoke Magnitsky_Act provisions. They're will of course be foot dragging (I'm not sure if the 2017 sanctions on Russia have been enforced yet).
― godless hippie skank (Sanpaku), Tuesday, 16 October 2018 16:44 (five years ago) link
Lots of foot dragging
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 17 October 2018 20:21 (five years ago) link
Was reading crazy right-wing nut tweets about their view that Kashoggi was associated with Bin Laden, and even if he wasn't -- the real enemy is Iran not Saudi Arabia...
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 18 October 2018 04:23 (five years ago) link
Did the Saudis not realize that Turkey would probably have the consulate bugged? Or did they think Erdogan wouldn’t seize the opportunity to drive a wedge into the Jared-MBS bromance? Seems like total amateur hour. The Russians would never be this clumsy.
― o. nate, Thursday, 18 October 2018 15:17 (five years ago) link
https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/national-international/Afghan-Security-Meeting-Shooting-US-Troops-Hurt-497914931.html
Three top officials in the Afghan province of Kandahar were killed by their own guards in an attack at a security meeting that also wounded two U.S. troops, Afghan officials said Thursday.
A Taliban spokesman who claimed responsibility for the attack tells The Associated Press that U.S. Gen. Scott Miller, commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, was the target. NATO officials say Miller escaped unharmed.
Kandahar's deputy provincial governor Agha Lala Dastageri said powerful provincial police chief Abdul Razik and the province's intelligence chief Abdul Mohmin died immediately in the attack and provincial governor Zalmay Wesa died of his injuries at a hospital.
― omar little, Thursday, 18 October 2018 16:55 (five years ago) link
Abdul Raziq, the head of the Kandahar police, had been accused of systematic human rights violations. He was killed by the Taliban who are pretty brutal themselves. Afghanistan, what a mess.
― curmudgeon, Friday, 19 October 2018 04:09 (five years ago) link
I'm not sure much of the world would object to a Wall surrounding the Graveyard of Empires.
― godless hippie skank (Sanpaku), Friday, 19 October 2018 16:49 (five years ago) link
what fresh hell would have been unleashed if a goddamn US general was killed in that op? when your 17 year old war is going great!
― officer sonny bonds, lytton pd (mayor jingleberries), Friday, 19 October 2018 18:58 (five years ago) link
The Russians would never be this clumsy.
The Skripal debacle suggests otherwise.
― Alma Kirby (Tom D.), Friday, 19 October 2018 19:08 (five years ago) link
... not to mention Litvinenko's assassins leaving a trail of radiocative polonium throughout London from their hotel room to the place they poisoned him and the two clowns who were recently thrown out of the Netherlands for trying to hack into the lab that was carrying out analysis on Novichok samples left behind by the two geniuses who went after the Skripals
― Alma Kirby (Tom D.), Friday, 19 October 2018 19:15 (five years ago) link
I think that the Litvinenko case and maybe the Skripal case as well were intended to be obviously Russian handiwork. I mean you don't poison someone with a rare radioactive isotope that only a government could get a hold of if you don't intend to leave a calling card. I think Putin got about the level of deniability that he intended to get in that case. And if it weren't for some lucky breaks in the Skripal case, it's likely there never would have been an identification of the suspects, and even then it took months. I don't think these cases are really comparable to the total shitshow that the Khashoggi case has been for the Saudis.
― o. nate, Monday, 22 October 2018 00:55 (five years ago) link
The Skripal case was a shitshow as well. The targets survived, and two other people died. That is not how assassinations are supposed to go.
― Frederik B, Monday, 22 October 2018 07:17 (five years ago) link
Fair point. The attempted cover up with the tv interview of those 2 guys was pretty amateurish as well.
― o. nate, Monday, 22 October 2018 15:06 (five years ago) link
What do you do after the young prince you helped install has a Washington-based journalist murdered and dismembered? You throw a dinner party for the chair of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace https://t.co/LvDJD2MOFq— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) October 23, 2018
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 23 October 2018 17:14 (five years ago) link
Oh Saudi Arabia...
― curmudgeon, Saturday, 17 November 2018 01:53 (five years ago) link
Oh United Arab Emirates Kingdom...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-46300609
― Monica Kindle (Tom D.), Thursday, 22 November 2018 17:06 (five years ago) link
How is our glorious country sown?
― Frederik B, Thursday, 22 November 2018 21:13 (five years ago) link
No good news here it seems
― curmudgeon, Monday, 10 December 2018 15:30 (five years ago) link
Yemeni prisoner exchange seems like good news, even if it only helps out the prisoners and leads no further.
― A is for (Aimless), Monday, 10 December 2018 19:11 (five years ago) link
Re: the Friday call between Trump and Ergodan that lead to 1) Trump's decision to evacuate US troops from Syria in 60-100 days, 2) US go-ahead for Turkish military to move into areas held by US Kurdish allies (YPG, etc), 3) a $3.5 B order for Patriot missiles, and 4) consideration to extradite opposition cleric Gulen from US to Turkey, Ragıp Soylu's twitter is a pretty interesting source.
― Sanpaku, Wednesday, 19 December 2018 18:53 (five years ago) link
But money can't buy love or happiness. But, it can buy US foreign policy.
― A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, 19 December 2018 20:39 (five years ago) link
this is obviously not good for the kurd proxies, but I'm not entirely sure what the end game was going to be here after the "defeat of isis" in terms of US support for irregular forces who are enemies of a NATO ally (no matter how poor a NATO ally Turkey is)
― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 19 December 2018 20:44 (five years ago) link
there will be countries providing aid (covert + overt) to the kurds; they have a real opportunity imo tho the risks are also enormous. i can't help but think about 1948. obv the world is much more different today but building a state is a treacherous enterprise.
― Mordy, Wednesday, 19 December 2018 21:49 (five years ago) link
can't someone just assassinate Erdogan already
talking to my Turkish friends about the country's political situation is depressing
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 19 December 2018 21:54 (five years ago) link
psyched for the coming genocide.
― Leaghaidh am brón an t-anam bochd (dowd), Thursday, 20 December 2018 00:19 (five years ago) link
As Syria’s government consolidates control after years of civil war, President Bashar al-Assad’s army is doubling down on executions of political prisoners, with military judges accelerating the pace they issue death sentences, according to survivors of the country’s most notorious prison.
In interviews, more than two dozen Syrians recently released from the Sednaya military prison in Damascus described a government campaign to clear the decks of political detainees. The former inmates said prisoners are being transferred from jails across Syria to join death-row detainees in Sednaya’s basement and then be executed in pre-dawn hangings.
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 27 December 2018 16:07 (five years ago) link
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/world/syria-bodies/
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 27 December 2018 16:08 (five years ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/HMQuKOW.png
― Mordy, Tuesday, 8 January 2019 01:30 (five years ago) link
Erdogan called the Kurds "terrorists" too.
So should we do a 2019 thread?
― curmudgeon, Sunday, 13 January 2019 01:18 (five years ago) link
psyched, I tell you.
― Leaghaidh am brón an t-anam bochd (dowd), Sunday, 13 January 2019 02:11 (five years ago) link
There was a time decades ago when Kurdish nationalists followed a path that included sporadic acts of political violence against Turkish civilians. They have long since abandoned that strategy as unproductive, but the Turkish authorities will never abandon their insistence on calling them terrorists for as long as they can gain any political advantage by doing so. Don't expect that to change.
― A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 13 January 2019 02:18 (five years ago) link
Hey, at least once Assad and Erdogan have finished going door to door wiping out their 'enemies' I can point to these posts and say that i knew it was coming. sigh.
― Leaghaidh am brón an t-anam bochd (dowd), Sunday, 13 January 2019 02:25 (five years ago) link
There has been some co-operation between SAA and YPG wrt Turkey as of late
― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Sunday, 13 January 2019 04:25 (five years ago) link
SAA going into Manbij after YPG asked them to.
― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Sunday, 13 January 2019 04:27 (five years ago) link
― A is for (Aimless), Saturday, January 12, 2019 6:18 PM(two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
There's been civilian deaths in pkk attacks in Turkey in the 2010s
― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Sunday, 13 January 2019 04:32 (five years ago) link
Isis not decimated yet
― curmudgeon, Friday, 18 January 2019 05:04 (five years ago) link
Not extinguished, yet, by any means. But decimated literally means 'reduced by 10%' and that seems well within plausibility.
― A is for (Aimless), Friday, 18 January 2019 05:11 (five years ago) link
that's the historic definition which has evolved into "remove a large percentage or part of."
― curmudgeon, Friday, 18 January 2019 05:19 (five years ago) link
Not sure removing ISIS from Syria would really amount to eliminating them.
What I find really amazing is their distributed network of propagandists and recruiters throughout Europe persists. Surely the intelligence agencies have identified major nodes in this network, but we've yet to see major co-ordinated arrests, and Dabiq/Rumiyah is still being published. I've wondered whether intel agencies are working at cross-purposes to foreign policy agencies in this, as useful fools may have future uses.
― Sanpaku, Friday, 18 January 2019 15:09 (five years ago) link
New thread time:
What Do You MENA (Middle East, North Africa and other nearby Political Hotspots) 2019
― curmudgeon, Saturday, 26 January 2019 05:13 (five years ago) link