MENA, MENA, Tekel, Parsin (Middle East, North Africa & other Geopolitical Hotspots) 2018

Sorry, Fred, you are taking this too far, you really have to stop this.

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 Army
Spyer, Jonathan
World 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, Steven
Middle 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 within
Bitari, Nidal
Journal 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 relatives
to 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 Idealism
Zuhur, Sherifa
Contemporary 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 War
Anzalone, Christopher
Insight 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.

this C+Ping took me ten minutes of looking at articles on my university libraries website

Sorry, Fred, you are taking this too far, you really have to stop this.

― 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?

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?

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.

Fred, I give up with you, you're your own worst enemy.

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)

we need to be on guard.

OK, but please allow someone else to be the guard dog.

By the way, I would hardly describe this garbled hysterical breast-beating shite you're pouring out, 'discussing Islamophobia'.

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.

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.

And then attacking them for it in terms that are verging on the libellous.

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.

Good job no-one cares what some leftist guy in Aarhus has to say about anything.

Any statement about hundreds of millions of people that begins "they all" is bound to be nonsense.

I'm feeling conflated with some leftist guy in Aarhus.

Are you from Aarhus yourself?

Or perhaps you're some leftist guy from somewhere other than Aarhus?

I'm just a dude disagreeing with Frederik B. about the middle east.

This is me entering 'Islamophobia' to this discussion:

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, 12. april 2018 16:39 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

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.

This is Jims response:

you fucking imbecile

― 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.

I know, policing the way people think and act is usually your job.

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?

ime, mentions of "tone police" usually are made by people you wish would just... stop.

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?

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).

Especially the UK.

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.

Also you didn't have Tony Blair. Only we had Tony Blair.

(also, how am I reliably politically correct? I supported Hilary, and still really, really dislike Bernie. Not that it matters, but still)

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.

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?

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.

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.

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?

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?

obama didn't intervene because he was trying to get a deal done w/ iran

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 family
2 suggest that the recent chemical weapons attack was possibly a false flag?
3 call the civil defense al nusra
4 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 three
3 continuing to attempt to factually record war crimes on all sides of the conflict
4 support for refugees & displaced peoples
5 food & medical support for those still under siege
6 food & medical support for those not under siege
7 economic & financial pressure/sanctions
8 stop bombing syria alongside SADF & Russian forces
9 having clear objectives for what an end to the war would look like
10 listening to Syrians on all sides of the conflict
11 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 Russia
2 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

i'll reply to you sometime when you write anything substantive and not just a lot of wailing bullshit

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

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.

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, 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.

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

???
http://time.com/5237922/mike-pompeo-russia-confirmation/

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.

Huge news in Libya. Haftar has apparently died. Significantly weakens Russia’s position there.

Though the Libyan National Army has denied it and says he’s fine.

Coalition striking Damascus, no statement from the U.S. gov yet but May says targeted strikes that won't escalate things.

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.

Yeah, what are they even aiming for?

Probably government buildings of some sort. I'd hate to be the janitor or security guard.