AcademicSaucer
Member
The kurds are no saints tho, there have been ethnic cleansing of arabs in areas they have captured, either way they are not interested in areas outside Rojava. The kurds are not going to liberate Idlib from Al-Nusra
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CNN anchor tears up talking about shellshocked Syrian boy pulled out of rubble
- Thread starter RustyNails
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The kurds are no saints tho, there have been ethnic cleansing of arabs in areas they have captured, either way they are not interested in areas outside Rojava. The kurds are not going to liberate Idlib from Al-Nusra
I wish there was a way to directly help him, people like him. Are his family alive? Can 'we' get them out of there? I just want to scoop him up and get him away from that.
The SDF has stated its ultimate aim is to take Damascus.
Led_Zeppelin
Member
I agree with the sentiment but I think that is precisely what got people supporting this interventions in the first place that ended up causing more and more problems in the first place.
People think that you have to stand up against this "evil dictators" because of moral grounds but then fail to see that could ended up being completely worse in the short and long run. How did take down Saddam worked for Iraq? What about Gaddafi in Lybia? How it is working trying to take down Assad by arming "moderate guerrillas" or bombing civilians as well?
There is no moral high ground to were to judge anyone, Assad is a dictator, yes. The US is also basically using horrible tactics to basically take him down and put a puppet government like they have always done in the past. The US has made deals with terrible dictators in the past as long as they serve to their needs, so lets not try to make a case against Assad based on Human rights because the people that push for foreign policies can't care less about that and just use this type of discussion as political coverage.
Actually no, The problem wasn't what other people feel but rather what other people vote. If you support hawks politicians, they will continue their hawks policies in the middle east and create more and more jihadist. This has nothing to do with how you "feel" about them but how your vote changes the policies in foreign policies of the US.
Led_Zeppelin
Member
So now is a matter of numbers? because WE killed a smaller number of civilians then it doesn't matter but when the evil russians and their allies do it then we must cry over the report of said events?
Oriel, I don't know what information you've consumed on Syria, but it's evident the SDF do not have that capability, even if they really did want to. Either way, their actual self-interest is Rojava, like AcademicSaucer said. This has been pretty clear.
VendettaRed07
Member
That would require us actually doing something.
But somehow GAF insists all the bloodshed is our fault and Assad and Russia would instantly stop barrel bombing and killing people if we pulled out and just let shit fall apart.
The amount of war in the world has significantly decreased of the past half-century. If anything the world is getting better in terms of conflict. Human rights and rules of engagement are better than they've ever been.
Can we invade North Korea next and see how that goes?
How many more countries does the US need to invade before people get it through their thick heads that violent intervention doesn't work. If you want someone to intervene go ask the UN.
Dubbedinenglish
Banned
When it's hundreds vs hundreds of thousands, yes numbers matter. That and the intentions, NATO civilian deaths are done in error with a goal to reduce them as much as possible. Assad and Russia are actively targeting aid stations, hospitals, markets, mosques and barrel bombing randomly in populated areas. If you cannot see the difference between the two then I don't know what to say.
Led_Zeppelin
Member
HAHAHA, nobody is saying that but sometimes doing nothing is better than actively trying to make it worse. And lets not try to spin this as the US and their allies being the "good" guys here. There are no good guys, the US has been backing rebels that ended up decapitating a child. The US has also bombed civilians, hospitals and school in the region and the US allies had done so the same.
There is no moral high ground here, either you fight to expand your sphere of influence or let the sphere of influence of others to expand, this isn't a "human rights" war but rather a proxy war build on confronted interest.
Intent is not a saving grace, it doesn't make a small of a difference for the people affected. They don't give a crap if you bombed out of error or willingly. Why try to paint yourself and your government as the good guys goes beyond me when you can't see that your intervention in the first place is what caused all this mess.
But lets keep blaming others and pretend the US and NATO really care about civilians and human rights and all that mambo jumbo. Oh wait the US sold to Saudi Arabia over 1.2B dollars in weapons, weapons that the Saudi government is using to tight its control over their people in a theocratic state and bombing the shit out of civilians in Yemen.
Yeah the US are the good guys, all they have ever done is for the human rights of people and have never supported evil dictators or government in the past.
LegendofJoe
Member
Most people in the US are against military intervention in the Middle East. That doesn't mean a damn thing though to the folks in office making decisions.
Hillary lost the nomination in 2008 for her Iraq vote and the Democratic party dominated the 2006 election for the same reason, so it's not as if people aren't voting their disapproval. But guess what we're still there. It's going to take more than just voting to finally get our military industrial complex under control.
The hero worship rheroic surrounding the military needs to end if that is ever going to happen. We wrongly conflate our soldiers, who are heroes in many cases, with the industrial machine that sells weapons to corrupt murderers all over the world. I would be overjoyed if my country no longer had death and destruction as one of its chief exports.
What would you propose we do? What's something you think that would effectively end it without escalating the conflict and causing more people to die, short and long term?
VendettaRed07
Member
Kinda hard to make this argument when we are witnessing the worst human displacement crisis the world has seen since WWII.
But sure everything is great.
And who said anything about invading?
We can enforce a no fly zone and use that as political leverage to force a controlled regime change.
By the UN's own standard Assad is a war criminal and should not be allowed to be in control of Syria. He used Chemical weapons on his own people and should have been forced out the second that came out.
Mr. Giggles
Member
*sigh*
That kids look, fuck. How can Syrians support this fuck Assad
Edit:
By syrians I mean the ones not opposing him
That kids look, fuck. How can Syrians support this fuck Assad
Edit:
By syrians I mean the ones not opposing him
I'm not saying that you can't cry over both. But, if you can't tell the difference between a few hundred and hundreds of thousands then there's a problem.
Like, let me turn this around. There are kids starving to death in the U.S. why don't we look at them as much as we look at kids starving to death in africa?
TheRealTalker
Banned
Currently the US has given Russia more and more reign and has become truly soft on Assad
before the intervention, Assad was massacring his people, shelling them, imprisoning them, torturing them, etc...
Assad opens curroriodrs so that he can ambush civilians
Assad also tosses in propaganda day in and day out lying about his atrocitieis while some people gobble it up
regardless of intervention and no intervention this lunatic Bashar has wiped out 400,000 lives
he isn't here to make amends and discussion he is here to wipe out all opposition and disagreement
his army is made of foreign fighters and prisoners he has no care for his people
he was a minority ruling over a majority, and so he wouldn't even blink of wiping them all away out of existence
These civilians, while sitting in the destroyed homes get psychologically hammered
they see the rest of the world doing nothing
they see reports of the so called West now doing discussion with their killers and the UN abiding by Russian laws
of course these people would have mental issues, of course they would be in the mental pits, far beyond anything that you and I will experience.
Getting rid of Assad isn't even a question. It is a means to an end. Instead of fearing a vacuum from occurring which would of course happen to those who literally can't trust anyone as they've been in a siege for 5 bloody years with no help or hope. What should be done after is giving them mental aid, re schooling for their youth, safety and stability.
The problem with most wars is that we bomb shit and then leave it alone expecting the people who are at their lowest in their lives to independently bring themselves up again
that is indeed foolish.
Never said everything is great, just better. There are fewer international conflicts ongoing now then there have been for a long time.
Because forcing out dictators has gone so well for the US.
..You can no longer enforce a no-fly-zone without escalating this to a dangerous level, and even then, the conflict will still continue for a while longer. That also doesn't solve the inevitable problems that will face Syria in the future, like Nusra. That kind of political leverage is no longer attainable.
There are a lot of moving parts in relation to Syria and the region that, frankly, you're completely ignoring.
Led_Zeppelin
Member
Again not disagreeing with Assad being a problem, but people that have no knowledge of the region shouldn't try to come out with solutions for it. Not while not understanding how that region works. Look at what happen to Irak, the US had the "best intentions" (Arguably, there were several moves that make me question even that). Maybe the Syrian problems should be lead to the Syrian people to resolve, maybe not try to actively take down someone you don't like because is friends with your current "enemy" isn't a tactic that people should defend. Maybe doing nothing is better than involving in a problem you have no idea how to solve or have no urgency to solve at all because despite all the talk about "human rights" or whatever nobody seems to really care about those and just care about their own political goals.
Spoiled Milk
Banned
You're a liar, RustyNails. The opposition deaths are actually probably less than the number of government forces killed and both sides are responsible for a large amount of civilian casualties.
Also, this guy is the worst tyrant the Middle East has seen:
Saddam did not literally destroy his country in response to peaceful protests. Not that he didn't do his fair share of slaughtering protesters.
BriareosGAF
Member
There was this little thing called the Iran-Iraq war, too.
I know, but that didn't destroy his own country. There's also the whole attempted Kurd genocide if you want to keep count. It's definitely a close race, but destroying the country that you're ruling over peaceful protests definitely takes the gold.
TheRealTalker
Banned
Indeed a bunch of conflicts around the world is proxy battles between global super powers and indeed no pure intention is ever made.
The UN that should be there to protect sovereign nations but is instead bribed or is useless due to the Security Council and it's lackeys.
If the world wants to evolve it needs to reform the UN and also abolish the Security Council and it's veto powers that prevent progress, aid, and recognition time and time again.
What is the point of having 200+ countries vote on something when the security council can shut it down with one veto.
Silly it what it is.
The only thing it does is make countries choose sides and eventually turn a blind eye to things in order to gain protection and veto power from it's Security council boss. It is like a Mafia program of security or threats.
Led_Zeppelin
Member
Again what difference does it make to the kids that already died or the families of those that died? Crying over the syrian kid being a casualty at war when bombed by the "other side" and not doing the same (or even reporting it on the same scale) when your side do it is basically manipulation of the story to suit your interest, those being having more people supporting a hawkish foreign policy in the region to "stop from this happening again" despite its is going to lead to more death and chaos. This is just a smoke screen to create political coverage to support a foreign policies that not only failed but had made the world a much more dangerous place and actively seeks conflict in several regions of the world.
People shouldn't talk about human rights if they aren't willing to see that there no good guys and everyone is playing a political game and are basically shitting on people in the middle east and using the "good intentions" of people as a tool to basically do whatever they feel like it.
You can say the same about the US and allies though. Happily bombing civilians doesn't help either.
The regime has killed 98 percent of the civilians in this civil war. That's not majority. That uber majority. And the regime has 200k people in its dungeons where virgin women are raped and kids aborted on a massive industrial scale.
If you want to know what assad is capable of in his dungeons read on this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Hamza_Ali_Al-Khateeb
google his corpse. I am telling you right now. saddam has not done 1% of what assad has done to syrians. Assad has taken syria back to the stone age. I said it before. Those mongols who ransacked baghadad have nothing on this guy
Oh god. Just saw the video. Want to cry.
On a brighter note, he's reported to be out of hospital and with his family, who all survived. http://time.com/4457335/syrian-ambulance-boy-omran-daqneesh-fine/
However, that he's simply back in a crisis situation ...
On a brighter note, he's reported to be out of hospital and with his family, who all survived. http://time.com/4457335/syrian-ambulance-boy-omran-daqneesh-fine/
However, that he's simply back in a crisis situation ...
ClosingADoor
Member
When "the other side" is clearly even less interested in human rights and preventing casualties, isn't it rather clear which side to support?
Again, you're not seeing a difference in magnitude. And you're also pretending that we don't get reports when the U.S. kills kids, when we do, but they happen far less often.
Saying "all sides do bad things" without looking at the scale is horribly naive.
Oh god. Just saw the video. Want to cry.
On a brighter note, he's reported to be out of hospital and with his family, who all survived. http://time.com/4457335/syrian-ambulance-boy-omran-daqneesh-fine/
However, that he's simply back in a crisis situation ...
There are hundreds of omrans in aleppo. Some are maimed for life. Others die under the rubble.
FaintDeftone
Junior Member
As a father of a 20 month old son, that picture fucking wrecks me.
The only good news about this (trying to find some glitter of hope).
1) The boy is "ok" and his family too. For now.
2) The world is shocked. That's better than indifference in my book.
3) BEIRUT (AP) -- The Russian military said Thursday it was ready to back a U.N. call for weekly cease-fires for Syria's contested city of Aleppo, as haunting footage of a young boy's rescue from the aftermath of an airstrike shook global media.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-08-18-16-06-40
1) The boy is "ok" and his family too. For now.
2) The world is shocked. That's better than indifference in my book.
3) BEIRUT (AP) -- The Russian military said Thursday it was ready to back a U.N. call for weekly cease-fires for Syria's contested city of Aleppo, as haunting footage of a young boy's rescue from the aftermath of an airstrike shook global media.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-08-18-16-06-40
Led_Zeppelin
Member
No, because you are just supporting a cynical side that is basically selling smoke and mirrors to basically gain support. You are just willingly lying to yourself to support someone that while saying something has done as does a lot of actions that completely contradicts what he is saying.
But be my guess, keep believing in the lie that the US is in Syria to set it free and democracy, rainbows and puppies, meanwhile supporting regimes that bomb hospitals and schools because those regimes fulfill their part of the bargain in the political sphere of influence of the US. Why complain about the violence done by someone when you are completely oblivious to your own violence or the violence of your allies?
Either don't sell a lie and basically accept that you can't care less about human rights and just do whatever the hell you want to push your own interest regardless of who is hurt (The fact that you are taking down a dangerous dictator being a side effect of your true intentions) or keep trying to sell and embrace the lies. Just don't expect people to not see beyond it and call it bullshit.
Yeah and why are people reactions over it? Start a twitter campaign? Ask for reasons of why a civilian zone was bombed? Or just say "well the Russians are worse!"?
I am not being naive, I am being critical of a society that is willingly to accept their role in this mess and don't question it for even a second because they think they have a moral high ground.
NyMartin90
Member
The issue is what's the realistic endgame. There's so many questions with this situation due to its complexity.
The FSA has had some successes in the past few months like Manbij, but so have Assad's forces in retaking places like Palmyra.
With all the support Assad is getting and the size of the FSA, can the FSA realistically take all of Syria?
If one side doesn't decisively win/ take the country the war will continue, or possibly be a partition.
Turko-Russian rapprochement is leaning towards support against ISIS again but may also keep Assad in power.
Then what can be done about Al Nusra? Do we just support them since they're a part of the rebels against Assad? There was a video a few weeks ago of FSA Al-Nusra soldiers beheading a child.
What about regime soldiers claiming to be on the "right" side since they're defending minorities from Al-Nusra and ISIS?
There are Christians, Alawites, and Druze in Assad's ranks as well as those foreign fighters.
What happens if Assad beats ISIS and retakes Raqqa before the Rebels do? What if the Rebels do first?
Does the world thank Assad for defeating/ pushing the Islamic State out of its safe havens?
If the FSA does win can they reign in Al-Nusra?
There are so many questions in this conflict. I'm not choosing either side, just trying to discuss what is the possible endgame here.
Also here's a new documentary from RT (I know this is a Russian source so be wary of bias) on Amnesty being given to some FSA by Assad to defeat ISIS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ35GDoZ7bE
Another Documentary on Assad's Syria from last October by Frontline:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/inside-assads-syria/
The FSA has had some successes in the past few months like Manbij, but so have Assad's forces in retaking places like Palmyra.
With all the support Assad is getting and the size of the FSA, can the FSA realistically take all of Syria?
If one side doesn't decisively win/ take the country the war will continue, or possibly be a partition.
Turko-Russian rapprochement is leaning towards support against ISIS again but may also keep Assad in power.
Then what can be done about Al Nusra? Do we just support them since they're a part of the rebels against Assad? There was a video a few weeks ago of FSA Al-Nusra soldiers beheading a child.
What about regime soldiers claiming to be on the "right" side since they're defending minorities from Al-Nusra and ISIS?
There are Christians, Alawites, and Druze in Assad's ranks as well as those foreign fighters.
What happens if Assad beats ISIS and retakes Raqqa before the Rebels do? What if the Rebels do first?
Does the world thank Assad for defeating/ pushing the Islamic State out of its safe havens?
If the FSA does win can they reign in Al-Nusra?
There are so many questions in this conflict. I'm not choosing either side, just trying to discuss what is the possible endgame here.
Also here's a new documentary from RT (I know this is a Russian source so be wary of bias) on Amnesty being given to some FSA by Assad to defeat ISIS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ35GDoZ7bE
Another Documentary on Assad's Syria from last October by Frontline:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/inside-assads-syria/
Have you looked at what the opposition has been doing?
They have brand new spanking HD videos of them blowing people's heads off with shotguns.
What a mess.
There are protests, there are twitter campaigns. But why is it not at the scale you want it to be? Because people damn well know they weren't trying to kill civilians like the Russians and Assad are and kill nowhere near the same amount.
It's not just "the Russians are worse" it's "the Russians are hundreds of times worse".
^^^While Assad is a disgusting human being who doesn't deserve another breath, supporting the Syrian government is currently the best option to ending the conflict. There are very few "moderate" rebels left, and even if there wasn't the opposition cannot provide the stability to allow Syria to recover. The alternative is a Syria ruled by warlord and Islamists. After this war is over my hopes are Assad is replaced by a secular alternative. The intervention by the US and Turkey have just prolonged the conflict costing more lives.
THis is something everybody needs to watch
ClosingADoor
Member
Damn, dude. Nobody is saying that shit. Nobody wants the US to go in guns blazing and think it is going to fix everything overnight. I don't even know what anyone there is supposed to do and what the right thing is anymore.
But this cynical view of all sides are the same and just as bad is just flat out wrong. In the real world no side is perfect, so you go with the least worse option. That doesn't seem to be Russia / Assad in this conflict.
Spoiled Milk
Banned
...no, we shouldn't support al Qaeda.
I have come to this sad conclusion a few months ago.
Led_Zeppelin
Member
And what does that change? If the Russians are even worse? What type of morality is that? So if your enemy assassinates millions you are OK with assassinate a few? Then don't try to paint this issue as a morality one because at the end of things you actually don't care about morality and just used it to mascaraed your true intentions, political gains.
So either accept the reality that this has never been a human rights problem for neither party or keep believing in the lie that there are good guys and bad guys here and that the US is the champion of freedom, democracy and human rights.
NyMartin90
Member
exactly my point. The question is then what is realistically a side that can provide stability or end the war?
Republic of Ezo
Member
The difference with Saddam is that he wasn't actively committing atrocities when we invaded. We literally made up a pretext. Assad, however, is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths because of his intransigence.
Led_Zeppelin
Member
Again there is a difference in how the US sell their intentions and how is people see the intentions of their government truly are. The US is the leaser of 2 evils? Yes and? How does that make the actions of the US any better than the Russians when the result is the same? How do you claim the US has moral high ground when they are currently allies with a theocratic state that beheads people? How are you claiming the US has moral high ground to judge the actions of any nation at all when the Saudis are bombing schools and hospitals?
Maybe just maybe, the US should fuck off from regions nobody asked to be in and where they are only there because of political gains, because they sure as shit don't give a crap about human rights being violated.
Moderate Rebels™
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You're on some strange ideological purity trip with this logic. It's like saying that someone who steals paper-clips is morally the same as someone who robs a bank.
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