Syrian war thread - Page 155 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14905803
layman wrote:There is no coherent strategy and no point in hiding it.

You cannot of course believe both this and that it’s about a pipeline or whatever.

I just think these people feel they need to do something and default to a cold thinking because it’s all they know.

Sometimes nothing is better than something. I’m with Corbyn on this one.

There is no coherent strategy - agreed. But when it comes to your second sentence, I'm not so sure.

This desire for intervention comes from a fundamental desire to please Saudi Arabia on the part of western governments. What else can explain how we came to have a moral stake in a war between the Syrian government and groups like Jaysh al-Islam and the Nusra Front? People that, if they turned up on the streets of Birmingham, we'd send MI5 after?

Macron, the guy we're all supposed to think is the new "leader of the free world" has been sucking up to the Saudis relentlessly in recent months. I really don't think it's a coincidence that his public desire to intervene comes days after he hosted a private dinner at the Louvre with the Crown Prince. He is even alleged to have said that Mohammed bin Salman is the "embodiment of the French revolution" at this dinner, which is so shamelessly pathetic that it's actually comical. Similarly, the UK's long record of grovelling to the Saudis hardly needs to be expanded upon here; neither does the long US-Saudi alliance (forget the UK - that is the USA's real "Special Relationship").

On your last point, I agree entirely. Nothing good can come from western intervention, and the potential for it to explode into WWIII is much greater than anyone seems to realise. After all, no one expected WWI to happen as it did in 1914, and Britain never expected to have a major continental land army. Starting wars is the easiest thing in the world, but it's incredibly difficult to roll them back once they pick up momentum.
By Patrickov
#14905820
Heisenberg wrote:Starting wars is the easiest thing in the world, but it's incredibly difficult to roll them back once they pick up momentum.


If there are people who will definitely die if they don't fight, I don't expect them to just sit there and accept death.

While your statement is factually correct, it doesn't serve justice for whoever oppressed by Assad (or whoever wish to wage war against Kim Jong-un, Putin, Xi, ... , or May, Macron, Trump in that regard) so much that they chose to side with some real terrorists.
User avatar
By Rancid
#14906230
The who "WW3" is going to start is such garbage. Get off it people, seriously.

Again, the US precisely warned of the strikes to avoid escalation with Russia. The truth is, Russians do not want to kill Americans, and Americans do not want to kill Russians. However, both parties are PEEEEERRFECTLY find with brown people dying. They'd rather keep this going.
User avatar
By Zamuel
#14906312
Rancid wrote:The truth is, Russians do not want to kill Americans, and Americans do not want to kill Russians. However, both parties are PEEEEERRFECTLY find with brown people dying. They'd rather keep this going.

There are plenty on both sides who want to kill each other, brown blood does not slake their thirst. And yet the dogs have not been loosed ... perhaps people do change?

Zam 8)
By skinster
#14906913


OAN Investigation Finds No Evidence of Chemical Weapon Attack in Syria
One America's Pearson Sharp visited the war-torn town of Douma outside the capital of Damascus, looking for evidence of a chemical attack. However, residents there deny the claims of an attack, and say it was staged to help the rebels escape.
Video here:

By Atlantis
#14907563
Suspected 9/11 recruiter Mohammed Haydar Zammar captured in Syria

Suspected 9/11 recruiter Mohammed Haydar Zammar captured in Syria: report
The 9/11 Commission Report describes him as an "outspoken, flamboyant Islamist" who "relished any opportunity to extol the virtues of violent jihad."


by F. Brinley Bruton / Apr.19.2018 / 11:13 AM ET / Updated 12:01 PM ET

A German extremist with links to Sept. 11 mastermind Mohamed Atta and other al Qaeda attackers has been detained in Syria, the AFP news agency reported late Wednesday.

“Mohammed Haydar Zammar has been arrested by Kurdish security forces in northern Syria and is now being interrogated,” AFP quoted a Kurdish military commander as saying. NBC News was not immediately able to independently confirm the report.

Germany's Bild newspaper reported that Zammar had been captured by the Kurdish People's Defense Forces, which is among the militias allied with the U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS in northern Syria.

According to the official Congressional report into the 9/11 attacks, Zammar is a Syrian-born German national who lived in Hamburg. It described him as an "outspoken, flamboyant Islamist" and a "possible recruiter" of some 9/11 attackers.

The 9/11 Commission Report said Zammar was "a well-known figure in the Muslim community (and to German and U.S. intelligence agencies by the late 1990s)," adding that he had fought in Afghanistan and "relished any opportunity to extol the virtues of violent jihad.”

Atta was born in Egypt and studied in Hamburg. Atta, who is considered 9/11's ringleader, was the head of the so-called Hamburg cell, which was central to the attacks on the United States.

After 9/11, “Zammar reportedly took credit for influencing Ramzi Binalshibh,” as well as to “the rest of the Hamburg group,” the Congressional report added. Binalshibh was later sent to Guantanamo Bay for his alleged role in planning and providing logistical support for the Sept. 11 attacks.

The Congressional report said that “owing to Zammar’s persuasion or some other source of inspiration,” by the late 1990s Binalshibh, Atta and fellow attackers Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah “eventually prepared themselves to translate their extremists beliefs into action.”

Binalshibh, Atta, al-Shehhi and Jarrah are considered part of the Hamburg cell, which “shared the anti-U.S. fervor” of other extremists, according to the Congressional report, with the “added enormous advantages of fluency in English and familiarity with life in the West.”

Zammar was detained by the CIA in Morocco in late 2001 and was later handed over to the Syrian government, Germany's Der Spiegel reported in 2005. At the time, the magazine said Zammar was being held in the notorious Far-Filastin prison in Damascus.

In 2007, a Syrian court sentenced Zammar to 12 years in prison for being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, but he got out in 2013 after that country's civil war broke out, AFP reported.

According to German newspaper reports, he was released as part of a prisoner exchange between Islamist rebels and the government of President Bashar al-Assad. Zammar is believed to be aged in his 50s.

German officials did not respond immediately to requests for information on the AFP report. American officials were not available for comment.


Do I understand this correctly? He first fought the Soviets in Afghanistan on the side of the Americans, then conspired for 9/11, and finally he fought again for the Americans against Assad?

Now that the jihadist rats are being smoked out off East Ghouta, are they going to decommission him this time round, or does he have enough mettle for another proxy war? Professional jihadists like him could still be useful in Yemen, or why not Iran ... :knife:
By layman
#14907572
@Heisenberg the problem I have with this theory is how half hearted the effort is. As a token move it can’t pleasee either Saudi or Israel too much.

This is my whole proble with the western false flag and escalation narrative. It’s just too much effort for too little reward and too much risk to self serving politicians.

This brings me to a key point in all this. Can we quantify the foreign support given to each side and by who and can we quantify the support each side has
Locally?

Each side claims Assad either has majority support or none at all. Each side claims the other is made up mostly of foreigners. although I am pro Assad, I cannot believe there is not a very significant Syrian local force against him and it’s obvious Russian, Iranian and hezbolah support is big. Gulf and Turkish aid. Combined with international jihadists seems to dwarf the western support. Not to mention that western support and allies has in part been directed against Isis. A strange third party that adds more mystery to the dynamic.

Anyone who thinks they have a clear picture of these numbers is probably blinded by ideology.
By Rich
#14907691
The majority, probably the large majority of Syria's Muslims oppose Assad. The large majority, probably an overwhelming majority of the opposition fighters are Syrians. The far left who oppose intervention have created a pathetic little fantasy world where all the evil done by these Syrian Muslims is the work of Saudi Arabia and Mossad.

The false flag attacks are done by Syrian Sunni Muslim opposition groups. It was not in Israel's interest to admit this even when Israel didn't want to the West to attack Syria, because Assad was too weak.
User avatar
By Zamuel
#14907701
Atlantis wrote:Suspected 9/11 recruiter Mohammed Haydar Zammar captured in Syria

Do I understand this correctly? He first fought the Soviets in Afghanistan on the side of the Americans, then conspired for 9/11, and finally he fought again for the Americans against Assad?

The article is confusing ... I gather he is suspected of having known the "Hamburg conspirators" in the 9/11 attack ... evidently having spoken with them is grounds to suspect him as complicit, but not to take any action against him.

He wasn't hiding, or wanted for anything when the Kurds detained him, probably the local CIA wanted to "interview" him.

This looks like a "non-story" to me.

Zam
User avatar
By Seeker8
#14907708
Rich wrote:The majority, probably the large majority of Syria's Muslims oppose Assad. The large majority, probably an overwhelming majority of the opposition fighters are Syrians. The far left who oppose intervention have created a pathetic little fantasy world where all the evil done by these Syrian Muslims is the work of Saudi Arabia and Mossad.

How do you know this Rich? Just curious.

I would have thought that the majority wouldn't want to be ruled by Islamist fanatics.
By Rich
#14907745
Seeker8 wrote:How do you know this Rich? Just curious.

I would have thought that the majority wouldn't want to be ruled by Islamist fanatics.

Oh very simple. When a revolution (I use the term neutrally) breaks out in a hardened dictatorship, the deck is heavily stacked in favour of the regime. The rebels could only have achieved the success they did, because Assad retained the loyalty of small minority of the population. I am neither Syrian nor Muslim and somewhat idiosyncratic in my views, but I think it is indicative that I sat on the fence in the early days of the revolution / civil war. I'm happy to admit to being wrong, in that early neutrality and that Rei and Far Right sage were correct in their early support of Assad.

When the allies arrived in Germany in 1945, they discovered the strangest thing, there were no Nazis to be found. Its the same when areas are liberated from the Islamic State. No supporters to be found. Islamic state only survives because it has substantial support from the Syrian Sunni Arabs. Now in the abstract, you may well be correct the majority don't want to be ruled by Islamist fanatics. But I I'd wager this there's more Syrians willing to risk their lives to bring down Assad than to defend the regime.

However the majority of Syrian Infidels now support Assad, although even that wasn't certain in the early days of the revolution, and that's good enough for me.
By Atlantis
#14907771
layman wrote:@Heisenberg the problem I have with this theory is how half hearted the effort is. As a token move it can’t pleasee either Saudi or Israel too much.

This is my whole proble with the western false flag and escalation narrative. It’s just too much effort for too little reward and too much risk to self serving politicians.

This brings me to a key point in all this. Can we quantify the foreign support given to each side and by who and can we quantify the support each side has
Locally?

Each side claims Assad either has majority support or none at all. Each side claims the other is made up mostly of foreigners. although I am pro Assad, I cannot believe there is not a very significant Syrian local force against him and it’s obvious Russian, Iranian and hezbolah support is big. Gulf and Turkish aid. Combined with international jihadists seems to dwarf the western support. Not to mention that western support and allies has in part been directed against Isis. A strange third party that adds more mystery to the dynamic.

Anyone who thinks they have a clear picture of these numbers is probably blinded by ideology.


If quantum mechanics teaches anything, it is that the truth is never clear. As you narrow down to a certain point of view, you lose sight of the whole. If you determine the speed of a particle you cannot determine its location and vice versa.

Thus, the truth needs to be intuited based on wisdom grown from experience and insight. If you narrow down to one fact, like the percentage of people supporting Assad versus the percentage of people opposing him, you have already gone wrong. You may use a random statistic to underpin your particular bias, but you will never understand the truth.

You need to step back and look at the bigger picture. First, you need to consider that people are fickle. They support one thing today and support another thing tomorrow. They can be influenced by the media, the national narrative, or by propaganda. Do they really believe the propaganda or do they just pretend to, you don't know. So many factors to make your statistic meaningless.

What's the purpose of government? It is to provide peace and stability. There is no example of a traditional tribal society in the ME in which a Western multiparty democracy has been successfully imposed from the outside. Even Turkey is backsliding after experimenting with a secular democracy since Ataturk. You either get total chaos as in Libya, civil war as in Syria, an ultra-corrupt regime as in Afghanistan where the leading elite is trying to get asylum in the West before the Taliban takes the country back, or a dysfunctional regime as in Iraq, which is a bit of all the above. Zero! Not a single successful regime change.

There is discontent in the most perfect of society's. That is just the nature of humans. Since it is demonstrably impossible to impose a Western democracy on such countries. Syria, like other countries in the region must not be forced to follow a model that cannot work. Traditional tribal societies have other means for arriving at stable government. They negotiate a power balance between the different tribes that brings about a leader capable of imposing the "peace". There will invariably be some tribal leaders who are unhappy with the outcome who will take up arms or go into exile. The West has used these failed exiled leaders to topple national leaders like Assad. That upsets the internal balance of power to bring a weak and corrupt leader to the top, who happens to be bankrolled by the West. It's a recipe for failure.

Compared to other countries in the region, Syrians tend to be well educated, secular, tolerant and have a modern outlook. That is testimony to Assad's leadership. Assad's secular rule is also the sole guarantor for Christians and other minorities in Syria. Finally, the Assad regime has shown backbone in standing up to USUK imperialism.

The alternative to Assad is continued civil war between different groups of armed Islamist militias and/or the division of Syria into a region held by forces loyal to Assad, a Sunni-controlled rebel held region, an independent Kurdistan, and parts annexed by Turkey. All of the separate regions will continue fighting each other indefinitely.

In view of the above, Assad's regime is the best option for Syria. Western leaders who have tried to topple Assad for over 10 years are criminally insane. They have blood on their hands.
User avatar
By Zamuel
#14907809
Atlantis wrote:Assad's regime is the best option for Syria.

Beg to differ, Assad has no future as a leader. He, and his henchmen can hope for nothing more than "puppet status." On his own he is weak and ineffective.

Right now, Syria is a multisided Mexican standoff ... Kurds, Islamists, Russians, Iranians, Turks, and of course the USA (+ France and GB. in minor supporting roles.) They're all waiting and watching. No one want's to commit to the vulnerability it imposes as the others shift to advantageous positions. The poor Sunni residents are caught in the middle, any which way they turn they are screwed. Watch for Trump to try wheeling and dealing in this environment.

Zam
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