How can peace in Syria be achieved?

[trustbutverify]

Not that you don't maybe have a point, but is it possible you're over-making it?

Not in my opinion. I feel the point is correctly made. Others can disagree, obviously.

 

[Toontown]

As I said it was my presumption: the Israeli tail wags the British and American dog who then mobilize their client monarchies in the gulf.

Feel free to have your own opinion. I have no particular interest in convincing you or anyone.

So why did you voice your presumption? Did you think we would be entertained?

In other news, I presume it is convenient for you that you have no particular interest in convincing anyone, and hope that convenience will soon extend to us, when you stop informing us of your many presumptions.

 

[Her Grey Eminence]

Yes, I've read your "tails and doggies" drivel. The same racist poison I've read in The Protocols, every other article from the Alex Jones sewer and the collected ranting of the Iranian theocracy.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

Slight difference old chum, the Elders of Zion didn't exist, Israel does. It took you a while to stop creating strawmen - what does this suggest to us regarding your real views?

As for being ashamed - at least no kids are dying screaming in agony in pursuit of my agenda.

 

[trustbutverify]

Slight difference old chum, the Elders of Zion didn't exist, Israel does. It took you a while to stop creating strawmen - what does this suggest to us regarding your real views?

As for being ashamed - at least no kids are dying screaming in agony in pursuit of my agenda.

The Israel of your fantasies doesn't exist either.

There were no strawmen created. Aside from sarcasm, my "real views" are displayed in my comments.

The highlighted section is nonsense.

 

[HoverBoarder]

What part of HYPOTHETICAL is so hard to get?

It's not serious, and it directly avoids the main reason why there is a civil war in the first place.

That's the problem.

 

[Toontown]

The ways in which peace can be achieved in Syria are sharply attenuated by both the greatness of God and the Syrians' attitude toward said greatness, which they fervently proclaim each time they are able to carry out a successful military operation.

The difficulty of ending the conflict lies in the fact that the opposing forces view only their own victories as requiring an acknowledgement of His power. This may be inconsistent. Since everything happens according to His will, it may follow that enemy victories should also be acknowledged as a demonstration of His greatness.

At any rate, as long as the current viewpoint broadly persists among Syrians, no lasting resolution of conflict is possible. Each opposition victory will be seen as requiring a corresponding opposition defeat to reaffirm His greatness. The resultant cycle of defeat-victory-defeat-victory... will go on indefinitely, or until God sees fit to demonstrate His greatness in another region.

It should be remembered that eternal bliss awaits all those who serve faithfully as His cannon fodder. From this perspective, it is perhaps most consistent to view the conflict as a blessing upon all Syrians - an opportunity to earn eternal bliss in His earthly service.

 

[bigjelmapro]

I know how much Hezbollah upsets you, but really Virus, how many dead Syrians would you be happy to see in order to have Hezbollah lose Syrian backing?

No, don't answer that question. The very depths of Israeli rage and hatred disturbs even me sometimes.

I'm curious as to what this actually means. Apart from obvious baiting, where does Virus state that he would be happy to see Syrians dead?

Ask someone like me, who currently resides in Israel, would mean instead of painting all Israelis as some sort of war mongerers when actual evidence, polls/etc., says otherwise.

 

[bigjelmapro]

I could of course, but I would hate if the sources, my Iranian nuclear physicist friends, ended up being gunned down as a result.

Why would Iranian nuclear physicists have this evidence in their possession in the first place?

 

[Caustic Logic]

The ways in which peace can be achieved in Syria are sharply attenuated by both the greatness of God and the Syrians' attitude toward said greatness, which they fervently proclaim each time they are able to carry out a successful military operation.

The difficulty of ending the conflict lies in the fact that the opposing forces view only their own victories as requiring an acknowledgement of His power. This may be inconsistent. Since everything happens according to His will, it may follow that enemy victories should also be acknowledged as a demonstration of His greatness.

I like that passage.

It was a lot easier for the Libyans where from almost day one they could count on the NATO Sky Gods to stand in. Man, did those cats wind up yelling Allahu Akbar in the happy sense in that conflict. In Syria it's all so much more grim ... more like an Arab Nuclear Winter than Arab Spring.

 

[Robrob]

Out of curiosity, how can a people's democratic revolt against dictatorship be considered "terrorism?"

 

[Caustic Logic]

Out of curiosity, how can a people's democratic revolt against dictatorship be considered "terrorism?"

Well... bringing foreign Jihadists into it. Tricking captive soldiers into beicoming unwitting suicide bombers. Being suicide bombers. Raiding army depots, decapitating, and stealing weapons. Taking hostages, demanding money or weapons as ransom, executing the captives and blaming the government. Shelling neighborhoods with mortars and blaming the government. Doing something like the Houla massacre and blaming...

Those are all just possible ways I'd say the shift would be justified. Not necessarily all done, but most alleged with some decent evidence, in Syria.

 

[JihadJane]

This story though is even more reason why it is more trustworthy to have sources like the Guardian that perform serious fact checking and are accountable for posting retractions if they find errors.

The Guardian's reporting on Syria has been appallingly shoddy and propagandistic. Until very recently their "fact checking" consisted almost exclusively of "Activists say...".

Out of curiosity, how can a people's democratic revolt against dictatorship be considered "terrorism?"

God I love the smell of straw before breakfast!

 

[McHrozni]

Well... bringing foreign Jihadists into it.

By itself, not terrorism.

Tricking captive soldiers into beicoming unwitting suicide bombers.

Definitely a war crime and possibly terrorism, but in both cases only if it actually happened.

Being suicide bombers.

Unless you're targeting civilians, not terrorism.

Raiding army depots, decapitating, and stealing weapons.

Not terrorism.

Taking hostages, demanding money or weapons as ransom,

Not terrorism, unless hostages are civilians.

executing the captives and blaming the government.

A war crime, but not terrorism.

Shelling neighborhoods with mortars and blaming the government.

See above.

Doing something like the Houla massacre and blaming...

Possible terrorism, but obviously only if it happened as described.

Quite severe fail, even for you.

McHrozni

 

[bigjelmapro]

Shelling and intentionally targeting civilian/protected sites devoid of any military objective is in itself, terrorism. The issue of taking responsibility or blaming others for these actions does not take away from the terrorism label.

 

[Caustic Logic]

By itself, not terrorism.



Definitely a war crime and possibly terrorism, but in both cases only if it actually happened.

Wasn't it in this very thread we saw the video? Somehow it didn't blow up, but apparently not for any lack of trying.

Not terrorism, unless hostages are civilians.

Yes. Here's one old Syrian man - just an Alawite, mind you, but an innocent - whose dying wish the West violates every day it supports these 'freedom fighters' in Syria. (for one example)

“Marwan,” an Alawite resident of Karam el Zeytoun, Homs, told Human Rights Watch that on January 23 armed gangs entered his neighborhood and kidnapped his elderly parents from their home:

When the armed gang went into the house my father called me on the phone, but they grabbed the phone from him. I tried to call back and couldn’t reach him, so I called a neighbor, who told me they took my father and mother, put them in a car, and went south. The head of the gang, known as Abees, called me the next day. He told me they had my parents and asked for money and weapons as ransom. He told me my father was okay and was with them. I said I would give him what he wanted, but that he had to let me hear my father’s voice.

I spoke with him, and he noticed I was crying. He said: “Don’t cry. Don’t be afraid. I am not afraid. This is what God has written.” My father had the Quran as his weapon. He said, “Don’t worry and don’t listen to them.” After that they cut the line. I tried calling back a number of times but the phone was closed.

The next day I kept trying; Abees answered and was swearing. He said to stop calling, and that they had killed my parents. After that we saw a video on YouTube showing their dead bodies. We have not received the bodies back despite numerous pleas. They took them because they want money. Myself, I am a supporter of the government, but this is a sectarian crime, and it has to do with money. My father has nothing to do with the government.

http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/03/20/syria-armed-opposition-groups-committing-abuses

Quite severe fail, even for you.

McHrozni

Oh, and by the way, in case you're not from a military family - every soldier is just a uniform, a weapon, and some training away from being civilian (ie, a Human being), with a family of civilians that rely on them and are injured by their deaths. Just my own observation, crime or not.

 

[McHrozni]

Oh, and by the way, in case you're not from a military family - every soldier is just a uniform, a weapon, and some training away from being civilian (ie, a Human being), with a family of civilians that rely on them and are injured by their deaths. Just my own observation, crime or not.

Yep. And the uniform, the training and the weapon most of all make all the difference in targeting a human being in an armed conflict.

McHrozni

 

[McHrozni]

Shelling and intentionally targeting civilian/protected sites devoid of any military objective is in itself, terrorism.

This is arguable - not every war crime is necessarily terrorism - but CL didn't specify it was a civilian/protected site devoid of any military objective, but only said "neighborhood". It's quite conceivable that government forces were in the area, but were largely unharmed by the shelling, and the rebels would then attempt to avoid the fallout by blaming the government. Dirty tricks, certainly, but hardly even a war crime, let alone terrorism.

McHrozni

 

[HoverBoarder]

At least someone is talking about how to end the conflict, even if both sides are dug in.

Quest for peace: Russia continues contacts with Syrian opposition

Russia, if they seriously wanted, could stop this entire conflict in one month.

Maybe they will be serious about helping rather than fanning the flames this time.

Moscow said on Tuesday that it is willing to continue contacts with influential figures in the Syrian opposition in an effort to quell violence in the Arab Republic.

*The Russian president's special representative on the Middle East, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, met in Moscow on Tuesday with a delegation from the Coalition of Forces for Peaceful Change, a Syrian opposition group.

The two sides discussed the crisis situation in Syria and the prospects for its normalization...

 

[HoverBoarder]

In the meantime, they Syrian regime continues it's reign of terror:

By bombing bread lines:
Syria: Government Attacking Bread Lines

Civilian Deaths at Bakeries Are War Crimes

Syrian government forces have dropped bombs and fired artillery at or near at least 10 bakeries in Aleppo province over the past three weeks, killing and maiming scores of civilians who were waiting for bread.

The attacks are at least recklessly indiscriminate and the pattern and number of attacks suggest that government forces have been targeting civilians, Human Rights Watch said. Both reckless indiscriminate attacks and deliberately targeting civilians are war crimes.

One attack in the city of Aleppo on August 16, 2012, killed up to 60 people and wounded more than 70. Another attack in the city on August 21 killed at least 23 people and wounded 30.

“Day after day, Aleppo residents line up to get bread for their families, and instead get shrapnel piercing their bodies from government bombs and shells,” said Ole Solvang, emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch who has just returned from Aleppo. “Ten bakery attacks is not random – they show no care for civilians and strongly indicate an attempt to target them.”

Droping bombs on houses. Including being Filming dropping bombs on cities and houses.


And they have also continued destroying houses and shops of residents who have been acused of opposing the actions of the Syrian government.

Syria army destroys houses in "collective punishment"

(Reuters) - Syrian army bulldozers razed houses in western Damascus on Monday, pursuing what activists called the first campaign of collective punishment targeting people's property in areas of the capital hostile to President Bashar al-Assad.

In northern Syria, 18 bodies were found in the rubble of a house bombed by a Syrian warplane in the rebel-held town of al-Bab and 13 more are missing, an opposition watchdog group said.

Bulldozers backed by combat troops demolished buildings in the poor Tawahin district, near the Damascus-Beirut highway, activists and residents said.

"They started three hours ago. The bulldozers are bringing down shops and houses. The inhabitants are in the streets," said a woman who lives in a high-rise building overlooking the area.

...
"This is an unprovoked act of collective punishment. The rebels had left, there are no longer even demonstrations in the area," said Mouaz al-Shami, a campaigner collecting video documentation of the demolitions.

"The regime can't stop itself from repeating the brutality of the 1980s,"

 

[HoverBoarder]

Lets leave aside that there are allegations that the Syrian army committed war crimes, just as there are allegations the FSA committed war crimes.

The US army committed war crimes in Vietnam, Iraq and Libya - are you saying that the US army is not the legitimate army and the US government is not the legitimate government. Of course you could use the get out clause that the US is not a member of the ICC, then again neither is Syria.

In practice war crimes are the fetish of the ignorant and immature - war crimes will always happen in war. The biggest crime of all is war - aggressive war or aggressive proxy war - all other crimes flow from this initial crime.

You were the one who brought up how you disapproved of little children having their throats slit.

That is a war crime.


You can either care about war crimes or not. Most people do.



Many people around the world have decided that it is not OK for a leader to kill tens of thousands of their own people including innocent men, women, and children. That is why we have International laws against war crimes in the first place.




For the case that you brought up, all of the hundreds of witnesses in that case besides the handful of government supplied witnesses, identified Shabiha and regime forces as being responsible for the killings, and the only major investigation found the government supplied story to be "unlikely" due to inconsistencies and errors in their story.

It is one of many, many cases of regime force being identified as having carried out mass killing of innocent men, women, and children in an attempt to terrorize the Syrian people into submission.


I get that you are on the Iranian regimes side, and you want to cheer on the Assad team despite what happens to the Syrian people because it is better that way for Iran's foreign policy/proxy war goals. However, eventually this conflict will end, and those parties like Russia and Iran who could have stopped this conflict in the first week but chose not to do so in favor of pursuing their own foreign policy goals, will have to ask themselves if it was worth it.

Beyond all of the tens of thousands of people who have needlesly died in this conflict, the real important question that has driven those countries actions will be if it helped or hurt their foreign policy goals.

It would clearly be better for both Iran and Russia if Assad ruled Syria with the same iron grip and control that he did so before the conflict, but that is no longer a reasonable possiblity post the current Syrian civil war crisis. Even if Assad succeded in this conflict, he would require an enormous amount of financial and military aid to reatain control which would not be sustainable or desirable for either Iran, or Russia.

For both countries, the sooner they realize that a negotiated settelment that they are apart of in negotiations is the best way for them to achieve their foreign policy goals, the better it would be for them, and the better it would be for the Syrian people (if that matters to them).

Eventually there will be some sollution to this conflict, and the sooner that people get serious about honest analysis of the situation rather than just cheerleading for dicators, the better it will be for everyone.