Syria

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YMix
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Re: Syria

Post by YMix »

The dispatch of troops to the Syrian border town of al-Rai, which rebels recently liberated from Isis, is one of the first times the US-led coalition has sent ground forces to work with the opposition. But the special forces almost immediately withdrew, as rebels reacted with outrage to the intervention.

[...]

While the US and Turkey subsequently provided joint support for a rebel push against Isis, a video uploaded by opposition activists revealed continuing tensions. It shows rebel fighters chanting and jeering a convoy of coalition troops.

“We won’t accept any American joining us,” says the cameraman filming the row of pick-up trucks as they depart. “Hurry up and get out of here.”
“Five or six” US special forces troops had to withdraw from the town of al-Rai on Syria’s border with Turkey, after allies from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) had driven them out, calling them “infidels” and “crusaders,” several media outlets have reported.

[...]

The footage shows a group of agitated men, gathered in the town square, shouting anti-American slogans in Arabic, as a cavalcade of vehicles passes by.

The chants include: "Down with America," "Get out you dogs," and "They are coming to Syria to occupy it." Voices in the background call the US troops “pigs” and “crusaders.”

"We don't want a single American fighting in Syria alongside us," says a man in the second video. "We are Muslims, we are not infidels. Get out!"

[...]

“We’ve discovered this many times in Muslim world, where the US deploys its troops, whether it’s Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Syria, it is seen as the enemy, the occupier. Secondly, the incident highlights the problems the US has been having in identifying moderate Syrian rebels – despite spending billions of dollars 'developing' them - and the fact that this is coming from the supposed allies in the FSA isn’t actually surprising,” Max Abrahms, an associate professor of political science at Northwestern told RT.
The FSA was armed and trained by the US. I guess...

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“There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country’s so innocent? Take a look at what we’ve done, too.” - Donald J. Trump, President of the USA
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Alexis
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American volunteer alongside Kurdish YPG troops

Post by Alexis »

Here is an American volunteer alongside Kurdish YPG troops fighting the Syrian civil war.

Image

From America... but not from the USA. :) Look up the flag!

CSA not dead? :lol:
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kmich
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Re: Syria

Post by kmich »

VC-vpkbqmwg
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YMix
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Re: Syria

Post by YMix »

Rex Tillerson confirmed today that U.S. forces are staying in Syria indefinitely. The reason he gave for keeping them there makes no sense:

"American troops will remain in Syria long after their fight against the Islamic State to ensure that neither Iran nor President Bashar al-Assad of Syria take over areas that have been newly liberated with help from the United States, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson said on Wednesday."

According to Tillerson, U.S. forces will remain in Syria on an open-ended mission to ensure that the recognized government of the country does not establish control over its own territory. To call this policy deranged would be too generous. The U.S. has no business in having a military presence in another country without its government’s permission, and it has no right to maintain that presence for the explicit purpose of preventing that government from exercising control inside its own internationally recognized borders. If another state did what the U.S. is now doing in Syria, Washington would condemn it as an egregious violation of international law and would probably impose sanctions on the government in question.

U.S. forces are in Syria without authorization from Congress and they have no international mandate to be there. A continued U.S. presence in Syria is both illegal and unwarranted, and it exposes American soldiers to unnecessary risks for the sake of spiting the Iranian and Syrian governments. This obviously has nothing to do with defending the U.S. or its treaty allies, and it serves no discernible American security interest.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/ ... efinitely/
“There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country’s so innocent? Take a look at what we’ve done, too.” - Donald J. Trump, President of the USA
The Kushner sh*t is greasy - Stevie B.
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Parodite
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Re: Syria

Post by Parodite »

I agree with Molineux' worries and analysis that it is unlikely Assad's troupes who did this. (Second half he starts to hyperventilate again about the evils of taxes and governments)

ZAyeayfKnFE

Will be interesting to see if Trump can resist the temptation.. and pressure.

Chemical warfare hard to pin down by facts – in Douma as in Salisbury
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kmich
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Re: Syria

Post by kmich »

Assad is one nasty piece of work, but it is hard to see the strategic calculus for the Syrian government to dump chlorine on civilians at this time. They clearly had the upper hand in the situation in Douma, and the rebels evacuated the next day. So, why, if you are winning, would you take the chance on using a chemical agent which will only invite international outrage and possible intervention? The Syrians have conventional explosives that can do the job of destruction and terror and have been using them indiscriminately for the past several years, so why resort now to banned chemical agents? I guarantee that it is sublimely foolish to believe anything without extreme skepticism that comes from Putin and the Syrian government on any of this, but it is hard for me to see what they would have to gain from such an attack. I doubt we will ever know the truth.

And, why, now, all the umbrage and huffing and puffing about dead and maimed civilians? Men, women, and children were the victims of daily atrocities in Syria for the past several years. I have seen and repeatedly dealt with the consequences. Why are people suddenly now paying attention and expressing horror? Gas attacks are agreeably a nasty way for anyone to die or be injured, but so are having your arm, leg, or face blown off, survive practically being burned to death, or suffocating to death choking on dust under the rubble of your home.

Our strategic thinking here is also completely vacuous. So Trump is venting on Twitter about attacking the “Gas Killing Animal” and tells Russia to get ready for our “nice and new and ‘smart!’" missiles. OK, so we “do something,” and what happens next, Donald? If Russia and Syria attack our forces in retaliation, which they have said they would do, do we continue the escalation? To what end? Are we willing to go to war with Russia over Syria? And how is a military response supposed to help the Syrian civilians we are now belatedly shedding crocodile tears for and paying attention to? I guarantee that further expansion of violence has only served to markedly increase anxiety among the Syrian people remaining in country. And if you believe that US power is taken so seriously in the region that it would restrain Syria and the Russians, you are abysmally ignorant of how existential this situation is for the Assad and Putin regimes, and how complex, brutal, and dangerous this situation has become.
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Doc
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Re: Syria

Post by Doc »

Russian ambassador to Lebanon:

https://translate.google.com/translate? ... edit-text=

He said to the Al-Manar TV in Lebanon that if the US makes an attack, those missiles will be dropped and the source will be hit by the missiles.

so far I have not seen any US new media outlet repeat the last bit of the red highlight
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Doc
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Re: Syria

Post by Doc »

Doc wrote:Russian ambassador to Lebanon:

https://translate.google.com/translate? ... edit-text=

He said to the Al-Manar TV in Lebanon that if the US makes an attack, those missiles will be dropped and the source will be hit by the missiles.

so far I have not seen any US new media outlet repeat the last bit of the red highlight
Also there are report on Sky news that Assad's family have fled to Iran along with 22 su22 of Assad's air force, and that Assad has left his presidential palace in a Russian armored convoy

Meanwhile back to CNN and Stormy Daniels
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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Parodite
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Re: Syria

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kmich
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Re: Syria

Post by kmich »

The Russians not militarily reacting to the allied airstrikes stimulated me to rethink this situation.

First thing to be clear on is that Assad, at this point, is a Russian client and would have been pulled out of a culvert or spider hole by now without Putin's political and military backing and Assad damn well knows it. Putin and the Russians call the shots for the Syrian army at this point. Also, Putin only cares about the Syrian regime and Syrian people as far as they fit into Russia's power and influence.

The Douma chemical attack may well have been a classic, Putin set up.

You see, Putin needs to portray the West and particularly the US as perennial adversaries of Russia while proclaiming Russia's inherent innocence, maturity, and responsibility in a hostile world and his embodiment of that very spirit as Russia's Tsarist-like autocratic leader. This way, he continues and strengthens his undisputed power in Russia and his growing influence on wavering nations increasingly questioning America's leadership and reliability.

When Trump spoke about leaving Syria on April 3, that only partly played into that, by making America appear the vacillating international actor to European and Middle Eastern nations. However, it also had the potential for America eventually to take the high road by seriously coming to terms with the limits of its power and becoming a real player in the difficult work of ending the conflict, which does not play into the "responsible, innocent Russia - aggressive, irresponsible West" narrative.

So the chemical attack that came on April 7 Putin may have planned to provoke the US into a military response so Russia could reliably take the high road, go to international bodies, and play once again the perennial, innocent victim. Putin now claims that the Western attack on Syria on Saturday was an "act of aggression" that will worsen the "humanitarian catastrophe" in Syria and have a "destructive influence on the entire system of international relations." He goes on to criticize Washington and its allies for attacking without waiting for inspectors from the international chemical weapons watchdog group to visit Douma. Its all bullshit, of course. Russian media reported on April 12 that Russian troops moved in to the Douma site to "victory" celebrations by the Syrian people, but most likely to clean up any incriminating evidence. However, effectively playing the propaganda game places Putin where he wants to be in relation to his own people and the West, as the serious, responsible statesman defending an innocent Russia from violation by Western, and particularly US, aggression, recklessness, and corruption.

Putin will easily play into the confusion, historical ignorance, and strategic vacuity in the Trump administration to play this out to his benefit. Dmitri Peskov said “We do not participate in Twitter diplomacy,” i.e. Russia is the real, responsible adult on the world stage and the US is the callow adolescent playing on social media rather than doing their homework. Russia may be militarily and economically weak compared the US, but in its ability to manipulate media, information, propaganda, and messaging, it is without peer. A hold over from the decades of propaganda experience in the Soviet era. There is a reason the great chess masters are frequently Russian.
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Nonc Hilaire
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Re: Syria

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

The only explanation that makes sense is that the US took out only the deep state crew that made the false flag gas attack video as evidenced by lack of disclosure on damage, the Syrian celebration afterwards and lack of Syrian casualties.

We are seeing a widespread awareness and suspicion of the false flag tactic by the US public at large. After the PR disasters at LV and Parkland not only do they now fail to motivate but have engendered citizen journalists prepared to document events and challenge the official narratives. Total number of US citizens who bought the gas attack by Assad story is close to zero.
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Re: Syria

Post by Doc »

1) Syria has made 30 chemical attacks in the last year
2) The MO is surround a rebel city demand they surrender. If they don't surrender use the gas to remind them about the horrors of chemical weapons, and that they have no defense against them.Thus saving many Syrian solders lives to fight in the next "Fight" by getting the city to surrender without a door to door fight.
3) This was a finely honed attack not intended to remove Assad or even particularly change teh outcome of the war but rather to send a message to Assad, and anyone that is thinking to use chemical weapons, that there is a price to pay if he uses them. Otherwise he nor any other petty dictator in the world will a price to pay for using them.
4) This was also a message to Putin. That after all of Obama's vanishing red lines that is no longer the norm. Which is always a dangerous message to send until there is an understand of where the red line actually is.
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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Re: Syria

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

Doc wrote:1) Syria has made 30 chemical attacks in the last year
2) The MO is surround a rebel city demand they surrender. If they don't surrender use the gas to remind them about the horrors of chemical weapons, and that they have no defense against them.Thus saving many Syrian solders lives to fight in the next "Fight" by getting the city to surrender without a door to door fight.
3) This was a finely honed attack not intended to remove Assad or even particularly change teh outcome of the war but rather to send a message to Assad, and anyone that is thinking to use chemical weapons, that there is a price to pay if he uses them. Otherwise he nor any other petty dictator in the world will a price to pay for using them.
4) This was also a message to Putin. That after all of Obama's vanishing red lines that is no longer the norm. Which is always a dangerous message to send until there is an understand of where the red line actually is.
Sending such "messages" is illegal under US law. Your hypothesis assumes Trump was willing to be impeached and have himself removed from office.
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Alexis
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Every day is Stalingrad

Post by Alexis »

kmich wrote:Putin where he wants to be in relation to his own people and the West, as the serious, responsible statesman defending an innocent Russia from violation by Western, and particularly US, aggression, recklessness, and corruption.
Indeed.

The Russian leadership wants the Russian people to believe the Great Patriotic War is forever and every day is Stalingrad.

Image

Personnally, I have a different opinion than Alexander Sherin, deputy head of the Russia's State Duma defense committee.

I don't think that Trump is Adolf Hitler No. 2 of our time :D
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Parodite
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Re: Syria

Post by Parodite »

Since we don't have enough information to know beyond reasonable doubt who committed, staged, faked the gas attack... all bets are off. The MSM don't see it as their professional duty anymore to thoroughly fact find truth. All they do is fart, burb and contextualize according their political and economic affiliations and so do we :P

For the sake of chess I would respect Russia+Assad who can restore a modicum of order but not for free; Iran should be sidelined by Russia and told to mind their own Iranian business. Iran is the toxic dog here making agreements between the main players impossible.
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Re: Syria

Post by noddy »

its absolutely a mistake and once again we are involved in a no-win situation in the middle east that only the terrorists will benefit from.
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kmich
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Re: Every day is Stalingrad

Post by kmich »

Alexis wrote:
kmich wrote:Putin where he wants to be in relation to his own people and the West, as the serious, responsible statesman defending an innocent Russia from violation by Western, and particularly US, aggression, recklessness, and corruption.
Indeed.

The Russian leadership wants the Russian people to believe the Great Patriotic War is forever and every day is Stalingrad.

Image

Personnally, I have a different opinion than Alexander Sherin, deputy head of the Russia's State Duma defense committee.

I don't think that Trump is Adolf Hitler No. 2 of our time :D
Yes, pretty typical of Russian attempts to manage the narrative through outrageous claims and conspiracy mongering to portray the West as evil, aggressive, and corrupt, and Russia as the perennial, innocent victim of Western hypocrisy and aggression. Russians are taught that there are always enemies at the gates and a strong leader to embody and protect the Russian soul is an existential requirement.

The Douma chemical attack episode and Russian responses are consistent with long standing patterns for anyone who has been paying attention to Russia particularly since Putin came to power in 1999. Russian officials said last Friday that their government can prove “beyond a shadow of a doubt” that the suspected chemical attack on a rebel-held enclave in Syria last week was a hoax staged by British spies. Of course, as usual, they provided no evidence. The Russians also made the same claim about the poisoning of Sergei Skripal as a UK plot, also providing no evidence. And on and on it goes for years now. Create or support an ugly situation, deny the facts, sow conspiracy theories and confusion, and, by doing so, feed mistrust in target populations to make them more passive and resigned in order to make then more susceptible to authoritarian leadership. It worked in Russia to discredit any possibility of a Western style, legal, democratic system there, why not use it on others to expand your stature and influence on the world stage? Putin understands that what happens next will be based upon what people believe or refuse to believe, and being in control of events is all about managing and controlling the narrative. Russia and the former Soviet Union have many years of strategically cultivating this exercise in spite or relative economic and political weakness.
noddy wrote:its absolutely a mistake and once again we are involved in a no-win situation in the middle east that only the terrorists will benefit from.
Yes, of course. I have not witnessed our ability to competently plan any strategy in our ongoing wars beyond self-righteous reflexive reactions to events we do not control, reckless crusades based upon projections of the inflated images we have of ourselves, or for our leaders’ or domestic “wag the dog” political theater. We have a long record of demonstrating our incompetence in crafting and implementing coherent strategies for our national interests in the Middle East. The recent retaliation for the Douma attack likely falls into the category of “knee jerk reactions” for “wag the dog” domestic political advantage. After all, the US retaliation to the 2017 Khan Shaykhun was one of the only times Trump’s approval actually went up since he took office. Our recent action will likely do nothing for the people of Syria other than adding more violence to an already devastated nation and doing nothing to deter Assad or Russia. Assad is not going anywhere, in spite of our ongoing hysteria about forcing him to leave through sanctions on Russia and other exercises in political theater.
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Re: Syria

Post by Miss_Faucie_Fishtits »

There seems to be two meta-narratives that run through the Russian and American strains of crisis management:

1) It's somebody else's fault. Someone duped us or somebody cheated. Conspiracy mitigates personal responsibility......

2) A grand heroic 'stand' counters all liabilities and remedies complicated and ambivalent situations. It's always Stalingrad..... or it's the Alamo. Square your jaw and show your naked manhood (err.... maybe not) and the threat will fall and the enemy defeated.....'>.........
She irons her jeans, she's evil.........
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Re: Syria

Post by kmich »

Miss_Faucie_Fishtits wrote:There seems to be two meta-narratives that run through the Russian and American strains of crisis management:

1) It's somebody else's fault. Someone duped us or somebody cheated. Conspiracy mitigates personal responsibility......

2) A grand heroic 'stand' counters all liabilities and remedies complicated and ambivalent situations. It's always Stalingrad..... or it's the Alamo. Square your jaw and show your naked manhood (err.... maybe not) and the threat will fall and the enemy defeated.....'>.........
When our political, economic, and civil institutions repeatedly fail to address challenges, a full accounting of our failures, errors, misjudgments, and crimes is necessary before those challenges can be capably addressed. This requires a measure of humility and repentance, and a sober wisdom of the sinfulness and mixed-up-ness of us human creatures and our collective constructions.

But since we modern, "liberated," individuals style ourselves as autonomous agents with no need for any spiritual depth or accountability, we are unable to accomplish such a reckoning, As Alasdair MacIntyre put it in After Virtue, our moral life has become the use of “a rhetoric which serves to conceal behind the masks of morality what are in fact the preferences of arbitrary will and desire...”

So faith and ethical depth are supplanted by our personal narcissism and, ultimately, collective idolatry. This leads us to annihilate factual history by creating shared meta-narratives - satisfying myths and fictions to cling to that provide us with the comforting illusions of our power, righteousness, and innocence in our insecure and confusing world born of our own failures.

Our illusions are fragile though, so we need to defend them vigorously against anyone or any situation that may challenge them. Our insecurities also compel us to seek allies and validation for our conceits. This makes us vulnerable to authoritarians and tyrants who ascend to power by embodying our own collective fictions of power, understanding, and innocence. They cater to our vanities, they tell us that we are winners, not losers, that we know the real deal not like those "other" people, and that our troubles come from the transgression of others rather than our own.

America still has a long way to go, but is becoming more like Russia as time goes on. If this continues, and l don’t see what will stop it, we will be playing a negative sum game with Russia and the rest of the world. Whoever loses the least, wins. Nations with less to lose than us, like Russia, have the advantage.
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Miss_Faucie_Fishtits
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Re: Syria

Post by Miss_Faucie_Fishtits »

Beautifully said, though bleak it is.........

To roughly paraphrase J.B. Peterson from one of his lectures, reality, in any way worth understanding, is possibility and potential. This has been superseded by the calamitous notion that reality is merely objects..... things, material; and from Peterson's POV, that is truly the road to Hell...........
She irons her jeans, she's evil.........
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Miss_Faucie_Fishtits
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Re: Syria

Post by Miss_Faucie_Fishtits »

Image

This is so hilarious and I can't get over it.......XD.......

Hint: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/yaoi-hands
She irons her jeans, she's evil.........
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Re: Syria

Post by Miss_Faucie_Fishtits »

M.K. Bhadrakumar sets off an incendiary device that would make The Goldman proud. You can check his blog and you would see he knows what he's talking about. It's littered with gems like these:
Therefore, isn’t it the smart thing to do to let “others” do the job, as Trump put it? However unpalatable the thought might be, a tragedy like the attack on the US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut in 1983 is waiting to happen in Syria once the Turkish military crushes and scatters the Kurdish militia, leaving the 2,000 US troops stranded like sitting ducks in 12 bases in the middle of nowhere spread over a vast territory about one-third the size of all Syria.
http://www.atimes.com/article/trump-mad ... -conflict/
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Re: Syria

Post by kmich »

noddy
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Re: Syria

Post by noddy »

watching many of the anti war leftists spin the need for permanent war has been fascinating.
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Re: Syria

Post by Simple Minded »

noddy wrote:watching many of the anti war leftists spin the need for permanent war has been fascinating.
yep. consistency is not the strong suit of either side/party over here. half a generation (10 years?) on one side of any issue is about as long as either can stand.
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