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maqroll

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Can get peoples opinions on this? Something tells me that there is a bit more to this than meets the eye, it just dont feel right! I am not sticking up for Assad but some of the things that have happened recently has made me think "is he really that stupid!"I dont think he is somehow.

I mean with the world watching more women and children get executed, seems strange

We have seen many missle east dictators brought down recently and I am wondering if this really is an attempt to destablise the country by al-Qaeda? I mean egypt has already got the Muslim Brotherhood in charge. I think Iraq has proved that having a dictator in power may have been easier to control than a country under cival war.

Opinion? Certainly!

My reading of things is that Assad is essentially the leader of a group of minority sects which is far smaller than the majority over which they rule. Democracy for them is therefore unthinkable, and hence the brutality.

As a non-Sunni, he has to an extent been propped up by Iran over the years, which helps explain Syria's aggressive stance towards Israel.

The reasons, as I see it, for the West not getting too involved up to now are:

a) The absence of large oil reserves in Syria and

B) The fact that the West knows what Assad knows, which is that democracy in Syria is likely to equate to Sunni (and quite possibly fundamentalist Sunni) rule, which would put huge pressures on the minorities in Syria and, in the light of developments in Egypt, mean that the Middle East is dominated by governments with Sunni Muslim power bases.

The whole business is bad news. Although there's not much to like about Assad's personality (such as it is), in his defence he has run his country along secular lines. Notwithstanding his (arguably justifiable) antaganism towards Israel, he never really put a foot wrong until he started killing huge numbers of his fellow Syrians.

The almost inevitable outcome is a Middle East with less cultural and political diversity, and this can't be good in the long run.

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Singapore's a democracy, isn't it? - democracies tend not to be so paranoid about opposition, as they accept the principle that gov'ts can be voted out - they don't need uprisings to change.

It is a democracy in name only, in reality the government acts more like a dictatorship with the same rulers in place since the 50s.

Politics of Singapore

One day the people will get fed up of having to pay chewing gum fines and rise up! :twisted:

Chewing gum (i.e. the action of chewing gum) is legal now (IIRC), it's just that only a select few store chains are allowed to sell gum which is kind of amusing, really.

I would still classify it as a democracy - it is one, in the most rudimentary sense, people sufficiently disillusioned with the govt can still vote them out. Our first PM (now still in the Cabinet as an advisor!) once said that the reason why democracy was preferable to other forms of government was that it allowed for regime change without violence, which makes a lot of sense imo.

Personal opinion, I'd agree that the government does get paranoid about losing power every now and then - quite often, actually - but it's still a democracy as it fits the definition of that word. There's plenty to complain about over here with regards to press and political freedom, but I wouldn't pretend that it was North Korea or even China - it is not, (else I wouldn't be typing this ;) )

(addendum: also, we get access to BBC news - which DO give regular coverage on Middle Eastern news - on both cable TV and radio over here.)

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Can get peoples opinions on this? Something tells me that there is a bit more to this than meets the eye, it just dont feel right! I am not sticking up for Assad but some of the things that have happened recently has made me think "is he really that stupid!"I dont think he is somehow.

I mean with the world watching more women and children get executed, seems strange

We have seen many missle east dictators brought down recently and I am wondering if this really is an attempt to destablise the country by al-Qaeda? I mean egypt has already got the Muslim Brotherhood in charge. I think Iraq has proved that having a dictator in power may have been easier to control than a country under cival war.

Opinion? Certainly!

My reading of things is that Assad is essentially the leader of a group of minority sects which is far smaller than the majority over which they rule. Democracy for them is therefore unthinkable, and hence the brutality.

As a non-Sunni, he has to an extent been propped up by Iran over the years, which helps explain Syria's aggressive stance towards Israel.

The reasons, as I see it, for the West not getting too involved up to now are:

a) The absence of large oil reserves in Syria and

B) The fact that the West knows what Assad knows, which is that democracy in Syria is likely to equate to Sunni (and quite possibly fundamentalist Sunni) rule, which would put huge pressures on the minorities in Syria and, in the light of developments in Egypt, mean that the Middle East is dominated by governments with Sunni Muslim power bases.

The whole business is bad news. Although there's not much to like about Assad's personality (such as it is), in his defence he has run his country along secular lines. Notwithstanding his (arguably justifiable) antaganism towards Israel, he never really put a foot wrong until he started killing huge numbers of his fellow Syrians.

The almost inevitable outcome is a Middle East with less cultural and political diversity, and this can't be good in the long run.

Good summation. Jews and Christians in Syria are probably shitting it right about now.

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  • 2 months later...
The Syrian and Turkish armies are now trading mortar fire :shock:

Click

The Turks have said they won't invoke Article 5 of the NATO Treaty over this, yet, but even if they do Cameron has cunningly ensured the UK can't fulfil its NATO obligations by sacking half of the armed forces in advance. Genius.

More seriously a conflict between Syria and Turkey has the potential to escalate into something huge and totally uncontrollable, but in a US election year its hard to imagine Washington allowing things to go that far.

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One can't really imagine where will this go. In Israel most of us thought everything would be over by now, but Assad is still there.

If there's one thing I've realized from all the "Arab Springs" going around here - is that no one can predict what's going on or what will happen the day after tomorrow. Egypt is the best example, where a dictatorship was overthrown, only to be replaced with a Muslim-religious government and an too many border incidents, bringing suggestions that a conflict between Israel and Egypt is to happen sooner rather than later. The same fear applies with Syria. True, Assad is far from being a friend, but who knows who'll take his place?

The Syrian and Turkish armies are now trading mortar fire :shock:

Click

The Turks have said they won't invoke Article 5 of the NATO Treaty over this, yet, but even if they do Cameron has cunningly ensured the UK can't fulfil its NATO obligations by sacking half of the armed forces in advance. Genius.

More seriously a conflict between Syria and Turkey has the potential to escalate into something huge and totally uncontrollable, but in a US election year its hard to imagine Washington allowing things to go that far.

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  • 6 months later...

Well, they can't support Assad. Not after all thousands of innocent people have been slaughtered in his name. No chance.

 

It's a bastard of a situation, because the conflict could spill over into Iraq and cause a civil war there.

 

But what do you do? It is easy to say GTFO (and if you ignore the rather tricky ethics of sitting aside while innocents get killed en masse) but it can't be wise to let things spiral out of control in a region deeply, deeply divided along an age old sectarian line.

 

IMO we need to stop arming people (ha), negotiate a ceasefire, get all parties to sit around a table and thrash out a deal then GTFO.

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  • 1 month later...

Things getting a bit dodgy now with Russia delivering a huge arms shipment to Assad just days after John McCain met with rebel leaders and Europe has pledged support too...Israel fighter jets on bombing runs, Iran supporting Assad ...are you ready for WW3?

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Things getting a bit dodgy now with Russia delivering a huge arms shipment to Assad....

If they get there.... Neither Israel nor the west can allow Assad (and whoever follows him) to acquire S300 SAMs because they could reach every acre of Israeli, Turkish and Cypriot airspace (think RAF Akrotiri), not to mention the missiles can also be fitted with different warheads - which is handy seeing as Syria has massive stocks of seriously nasty chemical weapons.  As MV says above, the most powerful rebel factions are serious Jihadis (on youtube eating the hearts of their enemies) so the thought of them taking control is equally grim, and of course there is the small matter of a Russian naval base at Tartus to consider. 

 

There are no 'good guys', only varying degrees of bad men and if this ends without a broader conflict it will be miraculous.

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Things getting a bit dodgy now with Russia delivering a huge arms shipment to Assad....

If they get there.... Neither Israel nor the west can allow Assad (and whoever follows him) to acquire S300 SAMs because they could reach every acre of Israeli, Turkish and Cypriot airspace (think RAF Akrotiri), not to mention the missiles can also be fitted with different warheads - which is handy seeing as Syria has massive stocks of seriously nasty chemical weapons.  As MV says above, the most powerful rebel factions are serious Jihadis (on youtube eating the hearts of their enemies) so the thought of them taking control is equally grim, and of course there is the small matter of a Russian naval base at Tartus to consider. 

 

There are no 'good guys', only varying degrees of bad men and if this ends without a broader conflict it will be miraculous.

 

 

It is in no respect a matter for Israel to decide unilaterally whether Syria may purchase arms, any more than it is for Saudi Arabia or Chad to decide if Israel may purchase arms.

 

Of course the international community as a whole should be stopping all of them buying arms, and enforcing UN resolutions, but I suppose the first step in doing that would be to disarm the World's Policeman, the USA, which doesn't seem like it's going to happen quickly.

 

Yes, there are no good guys.  And bottom of the list of prospective good guys come the US and Israel, the most insanely aggressive, dangerous and pathological states to be involved in any of this. 

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The thing that just truly depresses me, is our bizarre dabbling in all this.

 

If I was Foreign Secretary and this whole shebang was kicking off, I'd like to think I'd scan through a bit of recent history for the region. I'd look at how recent wars since the 1950's have panned out. I'd consider our most recent adventures in similar countries. I'd consider who might gain power if the current twut loses power.

 

At no point do I see any of that basic wikipedia research leading me to the conclusion that feeding more guns to one side is a way to make it end well.

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Things getting a bit dodgy now with Russia delivering a huge arms shipment to Assad....

If they get there.... Neither Israel nor the west can allow Assad (and whoever follows him) to acquire S300 SAMs because they could reach every acre of Israeli, Turkish and Cypriot airspace (think RAF Akrotiri), not to mention the missiles can also be fitted with different warheads - which is handy seeing as Syria has massive stocks of seriously nasty chemical weapons.  As MV says above, the most powerful rebel factions are serious Jihadis (on youtube eating the hearts of their enemies) so the thought of them taking control is equally grim, and of course there is the small matter of a Russian naval base at Tartus to consider. 

 

There are no 'good guys', only varying degrees of bad men and if this ends without a broader conflict it will be miraculous.

 

 

It is in no respect a matter for Israel to decide unilaterally whether Syria may purchase arms, any more than it is for Saudi Arabia or Chad to decide if Israel may purchase arms.

 

Of course the international community as a whole should be stopping all of them buying arms, and enforcing UN resolutions, but I suppose the first step in doing that would be to disarm the World's Policeman, the USA, which doesn't seem like it's going to happen quickly.

 

Yes, there are no good guys.  And bottom of the list of prospective good guys come the US and Israel, the most insanely aggressive, dangerous and pathological states to be involved in any of this. 

 

Mate, change the record, tu quoque is getting a little repetitive. 

 

1) The situation in Syria is not the fault of the USA.

2) It is the Russians (and the Iranians), not the USA which is feeding high capability weapons into the Syrian theatre.

3) It is the Russians and the Chinese not the USA who are vetoing all multilateral attempts through the UNSC to calm the situation in Syria.

4) Any remotely responsible Israeli government cannot allow weapons that can threaten the country so directly to be supplied to a regime next door that could either: implode and leave those weapons to whoever takes control, or use them against Israeli planes that are trying to prevent the transfer of all sorts of nasties from Assad to Hezbollah in Lebanon - where there sole purpose is to further threaten Israel. All nation states reserve the right to defend themselves and whatever their other crimes may be Israel is no different in that respect.  Israel hasn't been launching raids in Syrian territory just for the hell of it.

5) Those missiles could also cover the airfields in Cyprus, Greece and Turkey that would be used to implement any no fly zone that may eventually be imposed by the international community (or parts thereof) to try and limit the slaughter currently taking place.  Obviously that's not something the west can or should accept from the perspective of their own security.

 

I'm not going to get into a big argument with you because no amount of discussion will dissuade you that the Americans/Zionists aren't always in the wrong, but in this case they really are not.

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Mate, change the record, tu quoque is getting a little repetitive.

Fascinating, a phrase I didn't know before. Thanks for that. But it's not a "tu quoque" argument. As you should know.

 

1) to 6)

This is utter nonsense. The US and Israel are feeding the opposition because they think it weakens Iran, which is the bigger aim in this game. In doing so they heighten tensions, not reduce them. They arm the closest thing to Al-Quaeda which exists on the ground, thinking they can control them later. They prolong the Israeli aggression which can only end badly, instead of trying to negotiate a lasting peace.

 

I'm not going to get into a big argument with you because no amount of discussion will dissuade you that the Americans/Zionists aren't always in the wrong, but in this case they really are not.

Is that a "tu quoque" argument? It's certainly ad hominem, and sadly deficient in either truth or logic.
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