[skinster]

[pikachu]

Do you have your own website or do you just do stuff for Wiki?

No, just occasional maps for wiki when i'm in the mood.

[roxunreal]

Well, the huge ISIL salient terminating in east Homs is no more, apart from the rugged Homs pocket itself.


It's endgame for ISIS, the SAA will be at the gates of DeZ within weeks, after that it's only the south-east Euphrates valley left. There have been some rumors that the SDF is preparing to go south from Shaddadi, presumably to nab areas and oil fields north of the Euphrates. If they succeed, it will be their last gains of this war.

Interesting times lie ahead for sure. In all probability, ISIL will be out of Syria within the next 6 months, and with that the government and all its allies can put huge pressure on Idlib and east Damascus if they choose to do so. Daraa will probably end in agreement. I wonder what will happen to the Rastan pocket.

[skinster]

Hezbollah seizes much of Islamic State enclave on Syrian-Lebanese border

[Igor Antunov]

ISIS is getting its Anus bleached, the siege about to be lifted within days.

[roxunreal]

The SAA is actually supposedly around 3km away from Brigade 137 base. The siege will ikely be broken within hours, or tomorrow.

This morning the interwebs were full of maps of SAA having already broken the siege, upon looking tonight this seems to have been people getting way ahead of themselves again.

In any case, this is stellar news.

[Igor Antunov]

They reached out and touched it with their noodley appendage.



Siege is over:

[skinster]

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

I sincerely hope those guys who have been defending DeZ for 3 years get to go home and stand down, they really deserve it.

[mikema63]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/06/worl ... ml?mcubz=0

For whatever this is worth to people at this point in the conflict.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

I'm not sure what to make of that. Is it possible some rogue generals in the Syrian military have stockpiles of chemical weapons they were able to keep from the government when it destroyed the Syrian stockpile some years ago? Sure. However, it makes absolutely no sense for the Syrian government, much less Assad, to use any chemical weapons they might have remaining. It literally invites destruction, foreign intervention, and everything that goes along with it. While the tide of war has been turning against ISIS, the Al-Qaeda front, and each of their affiliates, using chemical weapons does absolutely nothing beneficial for the war effort, and is entirely counterproductive. There is no benefit to using chemical weapons in Syria.

No benefit for the government, that is. When the attack in Ghouta happened some three years ago, there were UN officials involved in the investigation publicly stating that the rebels were, most likely, responsible. Either they did it deliberately in order to 1) gain sympathy and make the government look bad (and the resulting funding, arms shipments, foreign training that goes along with it), or 2) they meant to attack government positions but accidentally fired at themselves. The attack happened the same day UN inspectors arrived to Syria to monitor their chemical weapons. The same day.

After four years of lies, denials, and disbelief from people here and in the rest of the world, the US government finally admitted to having used the CIA to train and fund rebel forces beginning in 2013.

I have a difficult time buying this, again. There's literally no benefit to the Syrian government to use whatever chemical weapons it never turned over against rebels where it would be discovered instantly, condemned, and used against the Syrian government as an excuse to provide more funding, training, weapons to anti-government forces, justify bombing Syrian cities and military, etc.

[mikema63]

Yeah that's more or less what I expected as a response.

[QatzelOk]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/06/world/middleeast/syria-chemical-weapons.html?mcubz=0

For whatever this is worth to people at this point in the conflict.

The panel’s findings are the first authoritative statement to pin responsibility for the attack unequivocally on the Syrian government.

Rather than proving Syria's guilt, the NY Times article seems to demonstrate that the UN is a failed agency that, rather than defending the independence of small states, promotes the lies of the highest bidder.

If the UN could stop the USA, NATO, Russia, China et al from abusing their large sizes and propaganda networks to destroy smaller nations and cultures, it would be useful.

So it isn't useful. It's just another fasces in the hands of the International Greed-Bags and their psychopathic world vandalism. Same with mainstream media.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

Yeah that's more or less what I expected as a response.

My first and last paragraph are my thoughts on the matter. What I said about UN officials investigating Ghouta 3 years ago is true. Some, like Carla Del Ponte, publicly stated that the Syrian rebels were responsible for the attack in Ghouta. The investigation did not lean in that direction, however. Additionally, the CIA has been involved in arming Syrian rebels since 2013. This comes from the US government itself.

As for my thoughts on feeling significant levels of doubt, those are thoughts. I don't know for certain who is responsible. As for my consideration of who has the most to gain, those are thoughts as well.

If you make posts laying out your thoughts without posting 4chan memes, Infowars garbage, and other conspiracy theory shit, but simply discuss how you feel incredibly doubtful about something, for good reason, you can at the very least expect me not to show you discourtesy.

[mikema63]

I just don't want to really get into it. I always get a lot of crap in these threads for not condemning the US as a foreign agressor or infiltrator or whatever. I thought the report was important so I shared it but I didn't expect anyone to change their mind about the conflict.

I'm sorry I was terse.

[Decky]

If Clinton ordered Mike to start shipping supplies to Syria for the Jihadists Mike would do it in a second.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

No, remember Decky, that's all a big conspiracy theory. The CIA never supports terrorists or rebels, and it has never been involved in the overthrow of governments a bajillion times. And the US, using the CIA, has never armed, funded, and helped train Jihadists in Afghanistan during the 1980s, Jihadists in CIA training camps in Jordan just a couple of years ago, and so on.

None of that has ever happened.

So, a chemical weapons attack on a completely unstrategic small village with Western governments, and Israel, literally chomping at the bit for any excuse to get further involved in Syria to promote Western interests, and with the attack itself having exactly 0 benefit to the Syrian government itself and only, wholly, negative consequences in the form of foreign intervention? Obviously it must be Assad!

[skinster]

I always get a lot of crap in these threads for not condemning the US as a foreign agressor or infiltrator or whatever.

And that's why you get crap in these threads, for not condemning the US as an aggressor in Syria, when it obviously is.

[mikema63]

See, I knew I'd regret posting the UN report when I did it.

It changed nothing, some quick citing that America is bad and random speculation (but why would he?) And the evidence disappears and no one cares.

I dont know the mind of Assad or his generals. And the idea that this was dangerous for him turned out to be false. Most people believe he did it and it had no effect, he's as likely to remain president today as he was before the attack.

There's this idea that America must be the 100% bad guy and Assad is just the put upon totally Democratic nice guy who did nothing wrong ever.

Maybe there is no good guy? Maybe lots of people in the US really do think we have some responsibility to intervene and make things better (though I disagree) and American intervention isn't an evil conspiracy.

Maybe, and I'm just spitballin here, this conflict is less complex conspiracies and evil and more lots of people trying to do the right thing with limited information and a lot of fuck ups.

Of course my being against intervention is irrelevant. I don't see the US as a boogeyman and Assad as an innocent and Russia as benevolent so I obviously hate poor people or syrians or whatever.

[Heisenberg]

I don't think it's necessarily an "evil conspiracy", but I think there is a mix of new Cold Warriors and (very) naive idealists at play in the US and UK establishment. One the one hand, you have people who scoff at any consideration that Russia might have any legitimate strategic interests whatsoever. This camp thinks the best approach is to antagonise Russia as much as possible, because they draw no distinction between the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation - despite the obvious differences between the two states. This camp includes Hillary Clinton and the vast majority of the US/UK foreign policy establishment. And, given the hysterical response to "Russian hacking" in the election, this camp now includes millions of liberals who formerly opposed foreign intervention when George W Bush did it, because he was a Republican.

Then, on the other hand, you have the naive idealists. These people really do seem to believe that Assad (or Gaddafi, or Saddam) is The New Hitler™, and that we need to bomb other countries for their own good. Every time this goes horribly wrong (as it did in Iraq and Libya), the solution must be more bombs, because our bombs are Good Bombs™ and Russian bombs are Bad Bombs™. This is why we raise hell over civilian casualties in Aleppo, but stay shamefully silent over civilian casualties in Mosul. Our Good Bombs™ cannot kill innocent people, and Russian Bad Bombs™ only kill innocent people. This camp includes any number of wide-eyed 20-somethings who would ever dare sign up for the armed forces themselves, but believe we have a duty to send other 20-somethings into harm's way to make them feel better about themselves. Tony Blair and David Cameron fall into this category, because they never really grew up.

The solution is a healthy dose of Realpolitik, a recognition of past mistakes, and an acceptance that "good" intentions are not the same as good outcomes.