Middle East and N.Africa v.21- WorldWarSyria

[DireWolfSpirit]

Cont.-

Free Northman Reborn quote-

Why is Assad being blamed for the refugee crisis? Few people were fleeing Syria during the decades that he ruled the entire country. Only now that civil war broke out and the rebels and ISIS started taking over large parts of Syria did the refugee floodgates open. And none of that was Assad's goal.

I simply think it is ridiculous to think that a Sunni led Syria will be a better place to live than the one in which Assad ruled. Things would undoubtedly be better with Assad in power than if the extremists took over. This moderate opposition myth is getting worn out now.

^^^ ^^^

Agreed on all counts!

[DireWolfSpirit]

I feel a tinge of regret subtitleing the thread "WorldWarSyria". In the interests of plurality (discussion wise) for an area the size of the M.E. and N.Africa, I'm including a Nat. Geo. video on Gobekli Tepe just to remind us that we aren't limited to discussing war.

 

[Gears of the Beast]

2 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Why is Assad being blamed for the refugee crisis? Few people were fleeing Syria during the decades that he ruled the entire country. Only now that civil war broke out and the rebels and ISIS started taking over large parts of Syria did the refugee floodgates open. And none of that was Assad's goal.

I simply think it is ridiculous to think that a Sunni led Syria will be a better place to live than the one in which Assad ruled. Things would undoubtedly be better with Assad in power than if the extremists took over. This moderate opposition myth is getting worn out now.

^^^ ^^^

Agreed on all counts!

have I been missing out on a bunch of deluded Assad sympathisers by not reading the MENA thread this whole time!?

[DireWolfSpirit]

I couldn't really guess on what you may or may not be missing out on. But I'm certain that you'll be waiting decades to find your so called moderate rebels. It's Chalabi worthy fiction.

[Free Northman Reborn]

Assad is not a nice guy. He probably fits the description of a dictator - although there seems to be a substantial portion of the country that supports him. But that doesn't mean that the alternative to Assad is better. In fact, the alternative is almost certainly worse.

 

[Altherion]

Here's an article about the dangers of supporting too many groups at once:

Quote

 

"Totally bizarre seeing US-vetted & supported [rebel groups] Jabhat al-Shamiya & Faylaq al-Sham being attacked by US vetted & supported SDF" in northern Syria, said Syria expert Charles Lister, a resident fellow at the Middle East Institute, on Twitter.

He added:

It really cannot be said enough how catastrophic the policy disconnect between (1) CIA (2) CENTCOM & (3) Obama Admin has been on Syria. The CIA & CENTCOM have each empowered armed groups that directly oppose the other's reasons for being on the ground.

The CIA has quietly been working with Saudi Arabia to vet and supply "moderate" rebel groups battling government forces in Syria — including Jabhat al-Shamiya and Faylaq al-Sham — with TOW antitank missiles. The Pentagon, meanwhile, was tasked with empowering the SDF after its first attempt at building a rebel force to combat ISIS in Syria failed.

 

The US strategy in Syria would totally make sense if our goal was to sow chaos or if at least the various sides were paying us big money for the weapons we're supplying them... but I don't see how chaos in Syria is beneficial to us and I'm pretty sure we're not even getting market rates for those TOW missiles. Say what you will about Russia's campaign, but at least they have goals that can be summarized in a few simple statements: arm the Assad regime, arm the Kurds (to get back at Turkey), make sure the two don't fight each other and bomb every other armed group in Syria.

[Paladin of Ice]

6 hours ago, Gears of the Beast said:

have I been missing out on a bunch of deluded Assad sympathisers by not reading the MENA thread this whole time!?

That and Putin fellaters, yes.

[Kalbear]

I will say that the US response in Syria has been both feckless and useless. It's basically attempting to look busy but not wanting to commit to anything, and that's the result. Which is probably fair, as the US is kind of stuck in a really shitty place for policy goals here. The US can't be seen as supporting assad directly. It has to try and fight isis somewhat. But the rebels aren't going to win without major support either. And the US doesn't want to fight a proxy war with russia.

Probably the best thing to have done is to attempt to support the refugees while containing isis and nothing else. But even that isn't particularly toothy.

[DireWolfSpirit]

How many failed civil war interventions does it take a thick headed, bumbling world power , to fail at before it learns to keep it's nose out of every ass it's presented with? The foreign policy of the reactionarist is almost always a loser course and Syria will be just another in a long line of kneejerk, loser moves by a bumbling power that cannot resist trying to play the worlds policeman even more than 30 years past when it could reasonably afford to do so.

The reason you cannot easily describe the policy is because it's built on supporting such fleeting minuscule and marginal groups you can barely find or talk about them with a straight face. Its an exercise in hoop jumping.

It's Assad or ISIS, the so called moderates are either not viable or extremist in sheeps covering. The best thing to do in Syria is keep your nose out and most especially do not tip the scales towards the extremist which has been the present failed course of the gullible.

US spends $500 million in Syria, trains '4 or 5' fighters | MSNBC

▶ 3:43

www.msnbc.com/.../4-or-5-in-syria-trained-by-us---50...

Sep 16, 2015

Rachel Maddow reports on the Senate testimony of Centcom ... NOTObama, who has been in ...

 

 

[The Fallen]

This is the burden that the U.S. carries. It will be looked at to interfere throughout the world. 

Syria is just a no-win situation for us. The U.S. doesn't really have interests in Syria the way that Russia does. Hence why Obama is just going through the motions; he has no good options. 

[Mr Fixit]

Yes, the white man's burden is heavy indeed.

[The Fallen]

Not so much the white man's burden. It's just that the U.S. is seen as the only country powerful enough and rich enough to intervene in this kinds of situation, like Rwanda (we didn't get involved, shame on us) or of Bosnia.

Anyway, I think this was a no-win situation for Obama, who didn't want to involve the U.S. in another M.E. war. If it wasn't for us having to support Saudi Arabia, we probably would not have been involved at all. Hence why Obama states that Assad has to go, but doesn't actually do much to make that happen. Had it been a president interested in warring then he could have had better results. Although, judging by Iraq, that's debatable.

Russia, on the other hand, had interests in Syria that they want to preserve and that's why they've been more involved. And of course, they're not held to the same standards as the U.S. military when it comes to how they decide to wage war, as evidenced by their alleged indiscriminate bombing.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Basically yes.

But it's not like the US airstrikes always hit their intended target.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/world/asia/afghanistan-bombing-hospital-doctors-without-borders-kunduz.html?_r=0

And didn't he US also manage to accidently bomb their own allies?

Anyway, I am always in favor to apply the highest possible standards, when it comes to pass judgements of acts of war. So I am rather happy, that western troops are held to a higher standard. 

[Free Northman Reborn]

Fundamentally I just don't see why the US clings to this paradigm of seeing Russia as the enemy. What threat does Russia present to America?

They are not about to invade Alaska, or deploy nuclear missiles to Cuba or something. Neither are they going to invade Germany or France. Most importantly, they are not trying to spread communism across the world anymore.

The US and Russia should be working together on many of the world's challenges. Not clinging to past differences.

What threat does events in the Ukraine or Crimea present to America? Nil.

Russia is not threatening America in any way. If anything, America and Nato are threatening Russia. And for utterly pointless reasons.

[The Fallen]

This Russia-as-a-enemy view point had died out in the U.S. after the U.S.S.R. ended.

But then a certain president appointed a certain Russian-historian as Sec. of State, and that Sec of State placed Russia at the top of enemies list.

There's also the fact that your boy Putin has decided to turn back the clock and start annexing his neighbors, and if you don't see anything wrong with that then I sentence you to go live in one of those countries since I have to assume you'd be cool with that.

 

[Free Northman Reborn]

53 minutes ago, The Fallen said:

This Russia-as-a-enemy view point had died out in the U.S. after the U.S.S.R. ended.

But then a certain president appointed a certain Russian-historian as Sec. of State, and that Sec of State placed Russia at the top of enemies list.

There's also the fact that your boy Putin has decided to turn back the clock and start annexing his neighbors, and if you don't see anything wrong with that then I sentence you to go live in one of those countries since I have to assume you'd be cool with that.

 

No, you miss the point.

The Soviet Union was not a threat to the West because they tried to rule their neighbourhood in Eastern Europe. They were a threat because they wanted to spread their Communist ideology through the entire world. Russia no longer espouses that ideology, so that threat has died.

Like Russia, China also tries to dominate independent territories that it considers part of its sphere of rule - such as Tibet for example. But the US does not slap sanctions on them in response. Why then do so in the case of Russia?

My position is that the West should not interfere with what happens in Eastern Europe anymore than it should interfere with what happens in the Chinese sphere of influence. Not unless those events directly threaten the national security of countries in the West.

It seems to me that the US was happy with Russia as long as it was a failed state ruled by a Western lapdog drunkard. But as soon as Russia started getting its shit together and reasserting its power around its own borders, the West suddenly found that unacceptable for some reason.

I highly doubt that if the USA invaded Mexico for some reason, that Russia would interfere in the way that the US has tried to interfere in Ukraine.

What does a worst case scenario look like if Russia is left completely unchecked? Maybe they dominate Eastern Europe again. Big deal. How does that threaten the West?

And in that is a far fetched situation in any case, as I think what Russia really wants is a partnership with the US, and acknowledgment that it is an equal partner, one of the great powers in the world, rather than some kind of "regional pariah state", as Obama tries to depict them.

 

 

[The Fallen]

I was tying Putin's behavior and our response to the point I made earlier about the U.S. being looked upon to intervene and keep the boogie man away.

We also view the larger world differently, as I feel that no one country, including us, has the right to bully or intimidate it's neighbors. And all of that "real world" or "might makes right" talk is antiquated. Basically, it's conservatism. And nothing good has ever come out of the conservative movement.

[Free Northman Reborn]

Just now, The Fallen said:

I was tying Putin's behavior and our response to the point I made earlier about the U.S. being looked upon to intervene and keep the boogie man away.

We also view the larger world differently, as I feel that no one country, including us, has the right to bully or intimidate it's neighbors. And all of that "real world" or "might makes right" talk is antiquated. Basically, it's conservatism. And nothing good has ever come out of the conservative movement.

Ah, well that's where we differ then.

[ElizabethB.]

2 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

 

What does a worst case scenario look like if Russia is left completely unchecked? Maybe they dominate Eastern Europe again. Big deal. How does that threaten the West?

To clarify, if, say, the Baltics or Finland  face a war with Russia you don't think it is a big deal because it doesn't threaten the West? 

[Mladen]

4 hours ago, The Fallen said:

There's also the fact that your boy Putin has decided to turn back the clock and start annexing his neighbors, and if you don't see anything wrong with that then I sentence you to go live in one of those countries since I have to assume you'd be cool with that.

Well, let we not forget that West started first with ignoring the International Law with Kosovo so criticism of Russia is very rich coming from West.

I personally don't think Putin is a commendable individual, but I am not so convinced in the benevolent Western leaders. Especially since the chaos they made in Libya and the situation in Syria. Not to mention of making Kosovo the fertile land for ISIS soldiers thus possibly destabilizing entire Balkans and Europe.