The Syrian crisis - what should be done?

[realitybites]

just learning about this crazy woman kind of cute though
as for the anonymous poster, probably just an Israeli? troll
also, gotta say, did some maneuvers with the Syrians back in 90, many years ago now I know, but you train & fight(mostly train) along side people and you develop lifelong impressions
gotta say, the Syrian Army impressed me, professional, skilled, no bullshit
this was in direct opposition to those Saudi pukes that were far better equiped than the Syrians, had us(the USA) to rely on for back up and yet still exhibited sloth in training & COWARDICE IN BATTLE
I really cannot wait for those f***ers to fall, I don't care to who, they sort of represent all that is wrong with the region
sorry, getting off tangent though, what I mean about the Syrian army is, well, (@ the time) I respected them, they taught me that not all Arab nations "field" bad armies
I began to think of the difference between them and Israel, unlike with other Arab countries, was one of the tech of their weaponry being vastly differenent
and NOT SKILL level or courage in using such
sadly, this lead me to believe, as a former soldier, that they would not engage upon "wholesale" war against their own people
because, yes, even through all I have seen and done, I still equate "Good soldiering" with being a "Good soldier"
but that is my heart speaking, the truth is that "good soldiering" means following orders, which is simply why this civil war has gone on so long
I understand this and to be honest, I don't think it would be much different in the USA, as a matter of fact, I give the odds to the U.S. armed forces versus any possible internal rebellion, unless a significant amount of American soldiers defected to the other side
so yeah, Syria and my "USA" aint so different

Clearly it is your prejudiced heart and not your educated head speaking, Robby. I am shocked by your statements. Israeli troll? Seriously. Are the Israelis all just a bunch of bullies? The Palestinians are innocent? And Iran has a good reason to want to blast Israel off the planet? I'm inferring here. Am I wrong to do so?

Better weapons accounts for Israel having a cohesive and intelligent defense force? IQ has nothing to do with it? Check out these stats when you get a chance. Perhaps having the most brilliant and strategic minds on the planet concentrated in one small nation has something to do with its superior military force?

 

[Oh my god. it's Robby!]

Clearly it is your prejudiced heart and not your educated head speaking, Robby. I am shocked by your statements. Israeli troll? Seriously. Are the Israelis all just a bunch of bullies? The Palestinians are innocent? And Iran has a good reason to want to blast Israel off the planet? I'm inferring here. Am I wrong to do so?

Better weapons accounts for Israel having a cohesive and intelligent defense force? IQ has nothing to do with it? Check out these stats when you get a chance. Perhaps having the most brilliant and strategic minds on the planet concentrated in one small nation has something to do with its superior military force?

its a real shame to find others be right about you ReBi especially me being from a partially Jewish background* and having all of my closest friends:
Zeke, Itia and Andi be Jewish, yet all of them can take a joke about Israel's warlike behavior supposedly "in their name"
one of them even had to flee said country to avoid having to serve A THIRD TOUR "fighting for his country's defense" by shooting stone throwing Arabs

of course, I know from my life in the company of these men that they too make light of the agressive behavior that their parent nations so often make simple because they can
and if anything, a certain percentage of the world either being wildy "anti-Semitic" or alternaltely doggedly "pro-Semitic" only encourages the horrible situation in that region
logic, like with many here, has little to do with such discussion
& they, and by these I mean MY JEWISH & ISRAELI LIFELONG FRIENDS, have taught me that levity is the only response to such an absurd situation
but hey, then again, I would not so constantly argue with a crazy troll** unlike others on here have been know, so indeed
"to each their own"...


*=I have a German Jewish grandmother on my father's side
**=not ReBi

 

[realitybites]

its a real shame to find others be right about you ReBi especially me being from a partially Jewish background* and having all of my closest friends:
Zeke, Itia and Andi be Jewish, yet all of them can take a joke about Israel's warlike behavior supposedly "in their name"
one of them even had to flee said country to avoid having to serve A THIRD TOUR "fighting for his country's defense" by shooting stone throwing Arabs

of course, I know from my life in the company of these men that they too make light of the agressive behavior that their parent nations so often make simple because they can
and if anything, a certain percentage of the world either being wildy "anti-Semitic" or alternaltely doggedly "pro-Semitic" only encourages the horrible situation in that region
logic, like with many here, has little to do with such discussion
& they, and by these I mean MY JEWISH & ISRAELI LIFELONG FRIENDS, have taught me that levity is the only response to such an absurd situation
but hey, then again, I would not so constantly argue with a crazy troll** unlike others on here have been know, so indeed
"to each their own"...


*=I have a German Jewish grandmother on my father's side
**=not ReBi

Robby? Wow. I was just poking you in the ribs. Getting you to defend your statements. Or rethink them. Did not mean to personally attack you. My apologies.

Thanks for elaborating. Others are right about me? Wow. How quickly your loyalties shift. What's to do? I am pro-Israel and all of a sudden I am a monster?

 

[Oh my god. it's Robby!]

Robby? Wow. I was just poking you in the ribs. Getting you to defend your statements. Or rethink them. Did not mean to personally attack you. My apologies.

Thanks for elaborating. Others are right about me? Wow. How quickly your loyalties shift. What's to do? I am pro-Israel and all of a sudden I am a monster?

no, no, no, but sorry but if just as my relationships with Jewish/Israeli people has taken me to a particular place regarding that whole nightmare
the truth is that, to a certain degree, your constant sparring with a clearly mentally impaired person has caused me to think less of anything you might post
sorry, hard to read someone "right" when they don't simply ignore "crazies'
anyways, 2 - 9 hour days ahead of me, so, bye!

 

[realitybites]

no, no, no, but sorry but if just as my relationships with Jewish/Israeli people has taken me to a particular place regarding that whole nightmare
the truth is that, to a certain degree, your constant sparring with a clearly mentally impaired person has caused me to think less of anything you might post
sorry, hard to read someone "right" when they don't simply ignore "crazies'
anyways, 2 - 9 hour days ahead of me, so, bye!

Geezer is not mentally impaired. It is an act. She planted that thread/post where she claims to be schitzophrenic in order to be excused from behaving badly. She is NOT some fragile person in need of special treatment. She is sly as a fox. Make no mistake about it.

 

[BrummieBoy]

Hello ' the_kaz'

There's not a day goes by when I don't pinch myself to remind myself of my Privilege in not living in a war-zone like Syria. With regard to you poll and questions, I'd offer the following perspective, having discussed the issues with military friends here in the UK:

A coherent response to reports of chemical weapons use needed to be based on firm evidential materials.

Cameron and Obama were opportunistic in trying to press-gang the world into a military response prior to the UN having time/access to the crime scene.

We do not definitively know if Assad ordered chemical weapons use, or a rogue general in his ranks did so without the endorsement of the regime.

We do not definitively know if the 'rebels' used these weapons, or a rogue element within the rebel alliance.

Whilst it may be frustrating to some Syrians, it's important that British people reassert their Sovereignty and independence from Caesar Obama and the doomed Empire project of successive American regimes.

It seems inplausible, in the age of Snowden and Manning, that the technologies of PRISM type surveillance cannot have been aware of any deployment of chemical weapons. It also is unlikely that Mossad are not fully up to speed with events on the ground.

After Blair and the sexed-up Iraqi dossier, it is a great relief to me that public opinion in the UK has forced career politicians to understand that we are no longer a colonial power, that we created may of the territorial boundary problems in MENA, and that we will punish any military action that is to support American adventurism at the expense of British Sovereignty.

I hope you kith and kin remain safe.

Regards.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks. It means a lot to me that there are people as far away as America who care about what's going on.



I'd forgotten about that! Here I was hoping for a witty and intelligent insight... I'm a republican too, but that was just an idiotic statement.



Asma al-Assad is a deluded idiot. All evidence (from your link and elsewhere) shows that she actually believes that everything really is fine, and has completely lost her grasp on reality. Part of the reason why the West initially so excited when Bashar al-Assad took over from his father was because of her, as she's an intelligent progressive, completely secular, British woman from a well respected family, but it didn't take too long for everyone to realise that she's living in her own little world. She's a disgusting creature.



"Center of terrorism"? I'm sorry, but you're clearly ignorant on this subject. Before all of this chaos kicked off, Syria was a liberal and secular country, where religious and sectarian violence was unheard of. Not only did Sunnis and Shiites get along, go to school together, and often make friends with one another regardless of religion, but so did Muslims and Jews (yes, Jews lived in Syria before this madness started, and possibly still do), Christians and Druze, etc. There was probably a 50/50 split in women who chose to wear a veil and those who didn't, while covered young Muslim women would ususally wear colourful headscarves to match their fashionable clothes, talk to men in public, and get good jobs. Education was excellent for the region, there was little stigma against atheists and even gays were tolerated, young people were westernised and dreamed of living in the US and Britain, and terrorism was something you only heard of from other countries. Your confusion might come from the fact that Bashar al-Assad allowed terrorists from other countries to go through Syria to help destabalise Iraq (a policy which has since come back to bite him on the arse, because it made it easy for outside extremists to enter Syria and destabalise it from within after the uprisings started), but Syrian terrorism has always been a marginal and localised issue, purely directed towards the Syrian government (for example, Muslim Brotherhood offshoots who were violently suppressed in the 1980s).

Well, I beg to differ and Bush was right about Syria being the axis of evil and was proved right.

I get called a troll by Robby who to my surprise claims to have been a soldier so I was wondering what he did in the army, ate all the food and tied shoelaces or just took a world tour paid for by the state?

Some people join their forces to fight but most do to make some kind of living that they are not able to back home in the "greatest country on earth".

 

[the_kaz]

Thanks for the replies and the different insights! This thread is making for interesting reading!

Well, I beg to differ and Bush was right about Syria being the axis of evil and was proved right.

Bush didn't say Syria was a member of the so-called "Axis of Evil", it was some other Republican who said it was part of another category he called "Beyond the Axis of Evil". This may sound pedantic, but it isn't. During the "War on Terror", Syria was an ally of the US, helping them to fight their mutual enemy, Al-Qaeda, and allowing the US and Britain to send suspected terrorists to their country to get tortured. As you can see now, with members of Al-Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist organisations flooding into Syria from elsewhere to fight against the government, the al-Assad regime is, and always has been, a fierce opponent of terrorism in the Middle East. This isn't for any honourable or benign reasons, but because Islamic terrorism presents an enormous threat against their secular-Alawite government. If anyone has been "proved right" in this whole fiasco, it's the al-Assad government, which has long made itself out to be a bulwark against terrorism in the region, and claimed since the very beginning of the uprising against it that strict Sunni regimes, such as Saudi Arabia's, were taking advantage of the destabalisation by spreading the terrorism they've long been fighting against.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the replies and the different insights! This thread is making for interesting reading!



Bush didn't say Syria was a member of the so-called "Axis of Evil", it was some other Republican who said it was part of another category he called "Beyond the Axis of Evil". This may sound pedantic, but it isn't. During the "War on Terror", Syria was an ally of the US, helping them to fight their mutual enemy, Al-Qaeda, and allowing the US and Britain to send suspected terrorists to their country to get tortured. As you can see now, with members of Al-Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist organisations flooding into Syria from elsewhere to fight against the government, the al-Assad regime is, and always has been, a fierce opponent of terrorism in the Middle East. This isn't for any honourable or benign reasons, but because Islamic terrorism presents an enormous threat against their secular-Alawite government. If anyone has been "proved right" in this whole fiasco, it's the al-Assad government, which has long made itself out to be a bulwark against terrorism in the region, and claimed since the very beginning of the uprising against it that strict Sunni regimes, such as Saudi Arabia's, were taking advantage of the destabalisation by spreading the terrorism they've long been fighting against.

You know what, watching Syria being turned into a swiss cheeze sort of made me feel that karma really is a bitch and that what we do to others always comes back to haunt us. Many syrians acted as if they were the leaders of the world, getting to dictate who lives and who dies. I have seen this myself and dealt with these people and I now see them and they do not lift their eyes from the ground now.

In regards to Syria aren't we just talking about one side that wants sharia laws and extremism and one that wants to remain muslim without having to change clothes and turn back to medieval ways?

I have no clue who is wrong or who is right in regards to the two alternatives in Syria but I would like those two sides to fight it out in an honest battle to prove who is the strongest without any other country dealing with that through direct action. The truth is that Syria was turned into a giant ego trip by becoming the superpowers little landing strip out in nowhere and now they have been given all the weapons they need for a final little battle to amuse the world.

Bring it on and bring me the popcorn, lets have it!

 

[CrystalGeezer]

http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-syria-strikes-20130908,0,6708714.story

Pentagon adjusts plans for more intense attacks on Syria
U.S. war planners are preparing for three days of attacks on Syria, a longer bombardment than originally envisioned.

 

[realitybites]

Snippet: Charlie Rose interviews Syrian President Bashar Assad

Full interview will air on Charlie Rose tomorrow.

 

[Roy Keane]

I voted for very limited strikes for the purposes of targeting chemical weapons sites, manufacturing plants, delivery systems, and so on. Assuming of course that it is proven that Assad or someone with sufficient rank was culpable for the CW attack. I believe in upholding the international treaty against chemical weapons. We should progress, not regress.

Kaz, that really is quite the dilemma in Syria. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Best wishes to you, yours and your countrymen.

 

[kosovirkka]

Hi Kaz,

I don't know what to vote; I would like to have a better insight to what is going on in syria. What do your family and syrian friends think of assad? Who do they believe are these rebels? It is really hard to find online pristine syrian media who'd portray what is really happening. Western media tend to generalize and reduce complex questions to stereotypes therefore I don't trust them. It would really calm my inquisitiveness if you'd reply to the questions I posed.thanks.

I wish this conflict comes to an end as soon as possible, safely and wisely.

 

[CrystalGeezer]

This is a positive step...

Syria backs Russian proposal for regime to hand over chemical weapons

http://www.latimes.com/world/worldn...sia-chemical-weapons-20130909,0,3744754.story

 

[Johnny Barleycorn]

http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-syria-strikes-20130908,0,6708714.story

Pentagon adjusts plans for more intense attacks on Syria
U.S. war planners are preparing for three days of attacks on Syria, a longer bombardment than originally envisioned.

Hands up who's surprised by that news.

- - - Updated - - -

This is a positive step...

Syria backs Russian proposal for regime to hand over chemical weapons

http://www.latimes.com/world/worldn...sia-chemical-weapons-20130909,0,3744754.story

The Russians seem to have been ahead of the Obama administration every step of the way.

Oh, and Kaz, I'm sure all of us here, regardless of our opinion, send our best wishes to your family, and indeed to all of those caught up in this madness.

 

[CrystalGeezer]

Oh, and Kaz, I'm sure all of us here, regardless of our opinion, send our best wishes to your family, and indeed to all of those caught up in this madness.

Absolutely. And not in a preachy baptist way but in a spiritual mindfulness way, I am praying for your family and friends in Syria.

 

[Oh my god. it's Robby!]

OK, not trusting the Russians is deeply ingrained me however, the fact is my living in "their" part of the world, for a year, has only heightened this
Putin is the same kind of scum as Asad, only with more power, I trust either of them as much as I would trust my ex-mother in law
so yeah, I want a bombing, a big one, one that takes out C&C for Asad, its about time we did THE RIGHT THING, even when 0 oil was to be had

 

[Anonymous]

I am still trying to understand what Obama said in his speech to the nation and maybe he himself is trying to understand it. Anyway, we finally laid rest to the myth that USA is some kind of world leader as the power of Putin shows that is simply not the case anymore. I like Putin in that he is there to show the world that those crazy liberated animals will not have it their way entirely.

 

[CrystalGeezer]

Sort of interesting that Syria is bringing Iran and the US into talks. Little tea time with potus and the shah is in the works.

 

[MozAngeles818]

I feel terrible for the children, women, and the men who have no part of either sides.
At the same time, I do believe it would be great to help those in need, but at what cost?
When you look deeply between the lines, the U.S. should be nowhere near that turmoil.

If there's sign where we are potentially a vulnerable target...ok...