• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Syria and UN Security Council Decision

Status
Not open for further replies.
Captain.Sassy said:
I see CLE still carrying the torch and doing a bang-up job documenting all the hypocrisy in this story.

Fun to see how the Syrian rebels are bad guys now. Well, at least when they're in Iraq.

Western Media: "ISIS is bad!"
Syria: "Stop the presses!" [/sarcasm]
Click to expand...

Seconded
 
This Arab Spring thing sure is going swimmingly.

Anyone want to go back a few dozen pages and consider the matter of natural gas pipelines from the Persian/Arabian Gulf northwards? Is that econo-political issue still at hand in this sanguine free-for-all in the Levant?

(Sanguine used in its older sense ... )
 
Interesting news: Rebels in northern Syria say U.S. has stopped paying them

McClatchy said:
REYHANLI, Turkey — The United States has stopped paying most of the pro-western rebels fighting in northern Syria and has suspended the delivery of arms to them, rebel commanders told McClatchy Tuesday.

A top civilian coordinator for rebel forces estimated that the cutoff affects 8,000 of the estimated 10,000 fighters in Idlib and Hama provinces, where the so-called moderate rebels face a severe challenge from the Nusra Front, al Qaida’s affiliate in Syria.

Commanders said CIA operatives told them the cutoff was the U.S. response to the Nusra gains, which have included the seizure of U.S.-supplied weapons from moderate rebel forces in recent weeks.

The commanders predicted the cutoff will only strengthen Nusra as fighters desperate to feed their families join Nusra or the Islamic State.

Individual fighters were receiving $150 a month, the commander said. [...]

Those cut off include a larger group of Hazm fighters whom Nusra ousted from their bases in the Zawyah mountains in Idlib province in October, as well as the Syrian Revolutionaries Front, led by Jamal Marouf, a civilian who’d led a successful offensive against the Islamic State in January but whose base was also overrun by Nusra, and the Haqq front, led by Malek Khalil. Both Marouf and Khalil have been accused of corruption, and Khalil earned notoriety by attacking Christian and Alawite villages with Grad missiles.
Click to expand...


That's "non-lethal aid" since 2011, maintaining a mercenary army of poor rural folks while "our allies" provide the guns and logistics. As mentioned, shortly before this "news" broke, the groups in question were raided by Nusra. This while a new effort to form a unified military control failed in infant steps because of the dominance of Islamists in the invited club. But as the other McClatchy article (I) cited there tells us, "there are at least two other projects underway, albeit at a nascent stage, to create a credible, unified military opposition that could be supported by foreign states.", so not all hope is lost. ;):rolleyes:
 
Just as an additional remark given the astonishing numbness of "discourse" also in the light of the "torture report": Any actions of "foreign states" aiding and/or arming militants in a sovereign country are and have ever been, at least since the Geneva conventions and likely since before the Treaty of Westphalia: war crimes.
 
Last edited:
Darth Rotor said:
This Arab Spring thing sure is going swimmingly.

Anyone want to go back a few dozen pages and consider the matter of natural gas pipelines from the Persian/Arabian Gulf northwards? Is that econo-political issue still at hand in this sanguine free-for-all in the Levant?

(Sanguine used in its older sense ... )
Click to expand...

The Arab Spring is going straight to the Reign Of Terror phase skipping the "Attempt At Democracy That Fails" phase the French and Russian Revolution had.
 
I can name at least two prominent philosophers who told us that it is much better to have an affective dictator than civil war and constant strife:

-Niccolo Machiavelli
-Thomas Hobbes

Looks lie they were right.

Assad, Saddam, Guadifffym (sp?) were all were better than the chaos that followed their fall. And I don't see it as a transitional phase yet. There is no end in sight to this crap.

It would have happened anyway though. I think that even without the West helping things a long, revolution was in the cards.

All these countries have a minority hogging power, sham institutions, bad economies, growing Islamist sentiments, and crazy population growth.
 
Eddie Dane said:
Assad, Saddam, Guadifffym (sp?) were all were better than the chaos that followed their fall. And I don't see it as a transitional phase yet. There is no end in sight to this crap.

It would have happened anyway though. I think that even without the West helping things a long, revolution was in the cards.

All these countries have a minority hogging power, sham institutions, bad economies, growing Islamist sentiments, and crazy population growth.
Click to expand...

I notice you didn't mention Mubarak. Was Egypt better off with him?
 
trustbutverify said:
I notice you didn't mention Mubarak. Was Egypt better off with him?
Click to expand...

The Egyptian revolution seemed to work. They got to vote.

I think it is hard to call this one, as I believe the Army sabotaged the Morsi government. They weren't overly competent, but it looked like they were taking Egypt to hell in a handbasket.

Egyptians now seem to choose an autocratic government over a democracy.

Hard to tell though.

Is Egypt better of without Mubarak? Well he was just the figurehead of the army, and the army is back. Not much change, I'd say.
 
Somebody once said 'if you think inflation is bad, try deflation'. The same goes for freedom and order. It is obvious without the need for any personal experience that order is to be prized before freedom because without it life is not liveable. Ask the millions in the refugee camps whether they would rather have:

A free and fair elections, or
B their normal lives back

Ask yourself while you're about it. Saddam may well have been a ruthless dictator but Iraq was not the basket case we turned it into. Ditto Assad and Syria. Ditto maybe Ghaddafi and Libya, for all I know.
 
anglolawyer said:
Somebody once said 'if you think inflation is bad, try deflation'. The same goes for freedom and order. It is obvious without the need for any personal experience that order is to be prized before freedom because without it life is not liveable. Ask the millions in the refugee camps whether they would rather have:

A free and fair elections, or
B their normal lives back

Ask yourself while you're about it. Saddam may well have been a ruthless dictator but Iraq was not the basket case we turned it into. Ditto Assad and Syria. Ditto maybe Ghaddafi and Libya, for all I know.
Click to expand...

Libya seemed to do remarkably well, as long as you didn't end up in one of Ghadaffi's prisons and got your fingernails pulled out.

Still people rose up. Tribalism maybe?

Then the west caught the wave and went for regime change. The lure of never having to sit through Crackdaffi's four-hour UN speeches again, must have been too strong to resist.
 
Eddie Dane said:
Libya seemed to do remarkably well, as long as you didn't end up in one of Ghadaffi's prisons and got your fingernails pulled out.

Still people rose up. Tribalism maybe?

Then the west caught the wave and went for regime change. The lure of never having to sit through Crackdaffi's four-hour UN speeches again, must have been too strong to resist.
Click to expand...

I would (probably) rather be in a refugee camp than a Syrian/Iraqi/Libyan prison but ahead of both I would prefer to be living a normal life even if in circumstances in which certain freedoms (of expression, association and suchlike) were not available to me. We aren't talking about part of the world with a long (or any) liberal tradition.
 
anglolawyer said:
I would (probably) rather be in a refugee camp than a Syrian/Iraqi/Libyan prison but ahead of both I would prefer to be living a normal life even if in circumstances in which certain freedoms (of expression, association and suchlike) were not available to me. We aren't talking about part of the world with a long (or any) liberal tradition.
Click to expand...

Ditto.

I knew a guy who lived in Libya during the eighties.
It was quite pleasant apparently.
 
Eddie Dane said:
The Egyptian revolution seemed to work. They got to vote.
Click to expand...

I though your point was that order and security were more important than voting rights. There was clearly more order and security under Mubarak... and less gang rapes as well. And a better economy.

And since you think that nothing much has changed in Egypt after all of the rebellion, wouldn't that mean she was much better off under Mubarak, since all of the chaos and riots and killings and revenge killings and gang rapes and economic disintegration would have been avoided, just to arrive at exactly the same place?

Not to mention the other ME countries you mentioned also have had free elections. (excluding Assad, obviously) Did those revolutions seem to work as well? Seems to me, under your criteria, Egypt was far, far better off under Mubarak's iron fist; why do you say that one's "hard to call?
 
anglolawyer said:
I would (probably) rather be in a refugee camp than a Syrian/Iraqi/Libyan prison but ahead of both I would prefer to be living a normal life even if in circumstances in which certain freedoms (of expression, association and suchlike) were not available to me. We aren't talking about part of the world with a long (or any) liberal tradition.
Click to expand...

Yes, because the police can be trusted to take care of the troublemakers. Sometimes they get shot and killed, or thrown in jail on trumped up charges. They probably deserved it, troublemakers. As long as most of society is better off.

Oh wait, you are talking about Egypt and Libya? I'm sorry, I thought you were talking about Staten Island and St. Louis.
 
trustbutverify said:
I though your point was that order and security were more important than voting rights. There was clearly more order and security under Mubarak... and less gang rapes as well. And a better economy.

And since you think that nothing much has changed in Egypt after all of the rebellion, wouldn't that mean she was much better off under Mubarak, since all of the chaos and riots and killings and revenge killings and gang rapes and economic disintegration would have been avoided, just to arrive at exactly the same place?

Not to mention the other ME countries you mentioned also have had free elections. (excluding Assad, obviously) Did those revolutions seem to work as well? Seems to me, under your criteria, Egypt was far, far better off under Mubarak's iron fist; why do you say that one's "hard to call?
Click to expand...

Maybe I should have underlined 'seemed'.

Egypt just dipped into chaos and came running back to the army for security.
 
Eddie Dane said:
Maybe I should have underlined 'seemed'.

Egypt just dipped into chaos and came running back to the army for security.
Click to expand...

That's one way of looking at it. And it's very likely right. The thing is, in many countries, the army is the only institution with the cohesion and muscle capable of seizing and keeping control. Democracy is all very well but it requires acceptance of minority status, politics that is not highly polarised, respect for the rule of law and probably other stuff. In Iraq, it is my understanding that the prospect of democratic control has been seen as an opportunity to use state power to settle scores by brutal means. It is simplistic to imagine, as the neo-cons claimed to believe (I don't think they actually believed any such thing FWIW) that the introduction of democracy will itself usher in the things it needs to be sustainable.

If I recall, 50 diplomats wrote to the Times before the 03 invasion saying as much. They were ignored with the results we see.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom