Syria

[gotbeer]

/sigh.  Ceasefire.

Syria, Russia: Coalition airstrike kills regime forces

[gotbeer]

I found this quite interesting.

A ferocious assault on Aleppo suggests the U.S. may be wrong on Syria

About halfway down, there was this blurb in a picture.

Quote

The latest cease-fire in Syria lasted only six days before the warplanes returned to the skies above Aleppo. Eyewitness accounts claim that white phosphorus munitions were dropped on the city on September 20. The incendiary weapon burns at extreme temperatures. (TWP)

Then there is this article.

The US military is using controversial white phosphorous in Iraq — again

Just seems like an odd coincidence.  

[gotbeer]

Syrian Military Calls on Aleppo Rebels to Surrender

An odd part of the article.

Quote

A spokesman for the Nour el-Din el-Zinki rebel faction told The Associated Press that foreign fighters were actively participating in the government's ground campaign. He said rebels could identify Lebanese and Iraqi militias by their flags.

So we are supporting the Iraqi's, and against Assad.  But the Iraqi's are supporting Assad?

[Lhalo]

More like we are supporting the Iraqis against ISIS but we are supporting ISIS against Assad. Either way the defense contractors win. 

[arch stanton]

There are no united fronts there. The Iraqis aren't supporting Assad. The Shia militias in Iraq and the Hezbollah from Lebanon are supporting Assad. Nationalism is not their thing. It's ours.

[mrwicked]

syria is a sh*t show - very sad.

but it's also a cesspool of propaganda videos faking attacks. 

gnarly.

[ten ocho recon scout]

On 10/2/2016 at 9:40 PM, arch stanton said:

There are no united fronts there. The Iraqis aren't supporting Assad. The Shia militias in Iraq and the Hezbollah from Lebanon are supporting Assad. Nationalism is not their thing. It's ours.

This, times 10. Its one of those things that culturally doesnt make sense to us. And a big reason we dont understand the region.

Get rid of the borders (to understand) because they dont exist. Its sunni arabs, shia persians. Everyone else is a minority proxy, who they themself think counts, but the major players (tehran and the saudis) see as cannon fodder.

Sadly there is no real answer. They hate us...they hate each other...and the slight deviation from exact makes them hate themselves....

[ten ocho recon scout]

It would never happen, but a true ceasefire and gentlemans agreement between tehran and tel aviv could do wonders for the region...

[Lhalo]

And Riyadh. 

[Adam]

7 hours ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

It would never happen, but a true ceasefire and gentlemans agreement between tehran and tel aviv could do wonders for the region...

Broker that and you've got the nobel peace prize wrapped up for decades

[ten ocho recon scout]

4 hours ago, Lawrence said:

And Riyadh. 

True. But i feel like Iran is the one whos been the frontliner against israel all these years (at least via proxy). The arabs have been in the shadows, at least as far as we can tell from here.

If the iranians would stop their dpeeches, tell hezbollah to chill unless attacked, etc, israel i think would lose some support from the west in terms of their expansion. So lets say they stop the expansion and the west began at least publically taking a more neutral stance on the israeli/palestinian problem, things could actually begin to change...

But again, as long as iran keeps threatening israel (in speeches) and hezbollah keeps up its campaign, not gonna happen.

[arch stanton]

From an internal political standpoint, it would be a pretty bad move for and Arab or Iranian leader to publicly make nice with Israel. It would be cannon fodder for the imams and agitators to use against them in the never ending manipulation of the small-minded and woefully uninformed public.

The best you can really hope for is that they ignore them and deflect the hatred and aggression in other directions. That's really what the Sauds have done. I've actually been told by Saudi military personnel that , sure, they hate Israel, but their real enemies are in Iran.

[ten ocho recon scout]

3 hours ago, calscuf said:

If we could manipulate genes through a clandestine way and increase middle eastern penis size and remove body hair by 50%, within a generation all this shit would be forgotten.

Yeah, but what about the men?

[ten ocho recon scout]

7 hours ago, arch stanton said:

From an internal political standpoint, it would be a pretty bad move for and Arab or Iranian leader to publicly make nice with Israel. It would be cannon fodder for the imams and agitators to use against them in the never ending manipulation of the small-minded and woefully uninformed public.

The best you can really hope for is that they ignore them and deflect the hatred and aggression in other directions. That's really what the Sauds have done. I've actually been told by Saudi military personnel that , sure, they hate Israel, but their real enemies are in Iran.

Yeah, after saddat i dont see anyone making nice with israel (though i think the jordanians are kind of on ok terms.) But being rhat israel has been the boogeyman for so long (both real and imagined), it would mean doom for anyone to make it cool with them.

If even the iranians and israelis would just sign a "fuck that guy, but hes over there, we'll stay over here", it would be huge.

But the arab/persian thing isnt going away. It would at least simplify if though.

How are the paks and iranians? The paks are with the saudis, right? And ehat about the indians/iranians, enemies or just whatever?

[arch stanton]

The Pakistanis are pretty solidly Sunni and on top of that they export a shit ton of labor to the GCC. Same with the Indians.

[Blarg]

9 hours ago, calscuf said:

If we could manipulate genes through a clandestine way and increase middle eastern penis size and remove body hair by 50%, within a generation all this shit would be forgotten.

But then their black on black crime rate would skyrocket. 

[Adam]

5 hours ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

Yeah, after saddat i dont see anyone making nice with israel (though i think the jordanians are kind of on ok terms.) But being rhat israel has been the boogeyman for so long (both real and imagined), it would mean doom for anyone to make it cool with them.

If even the iranians and israelis would just sign a "fuck that guy, but hes over there, we'll stay over here", it would be huge.

But the arab/persian thing isnt going away. It would at least simplify if though.

How are the paks and iranians? The paks are with the saudis, right? And ehat about the indians/iranians, enemies or just whatever?

Its isn't possible. Iranian leadership are apocalyptic shias hellbent on bringing about the Mahdi. They can't do that and make nice with Israel at the same time.

[Blarg]

Best not to meddle and let natural selection take place where their de-evolution takes them to the point they have no penis and can't procreate. 

1 minute ago, calscuf said:

You're right.  And then their annoying, misdirected protests levels would skyrocket.

I guess they're f'd either way.

 

[mrwicked]

7 hours ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

Yeah, but what about the men?

haha.

[ten ocho recon scout]

I was reading some sites the other day (no idea how accurate) that the average iranian is actually kind of pro west. That they hate our govt, but "like" the people (and the constitution).

I have a friend whos persian, and a few other guys at work married a persian chick, so ive asked them. They tend to agree, and say that the mullahs and religious police go way overboard, but undercover the general public wants religion seperate from their daily life, and want capitalism. Again, not sure how much of the population feels that way.

But i read (out of the few websites i browsed) an article on the atlantic where the guy travelled throughout and said that was the absolute norm of every encounter. Everyone kept telling him they like america.

Arch, how much do you get the feeling where youre at? My experience (not iran) says different...

Would be great if some country there had a new revolution where more moderate, modern ideas became the norm. Thought maybe libya would be it but alas.

[arch stanton]

I know a few Iranians who say they have a killer underground scene and the general population just wants to live their lives. The majority of the Iranian population wasn't even alive when the Islamic Revolution took place. They just want to take selfies and go to amusement parks like everybody else.

The thing to remember about this entire region is that the populations are very young and very idle. The governments are doing their best to train the locals into skilled jobs so they don't have to depend so much on foreign labor but it's still not culturally encouraged to work your way up. So with 70% of the population under 35 and 30% or more unemployment in that group there's a pretty big pool of boredom and bitterness to choose from. Combine that with a complete lack of discipline and very little education that isn't just memorizing something from a math book or the Quran and you have a giant mess that gets fueled by our love of oil.

[Lou]

On September 16, 2013 at 8:37 AM, Adam said:

It is hard to imagine a worse duo than Bush and Obama going back to back. At least Bush owned it though. Obama is a big pussy

 

On September 16, 2013 at 8:51 AM, Catwhoshatinthehat said:

Bush was a horrible president and yet Obama has found a way to underperform even him.

 

On September 16, 2013 at 10:36 AM, HaloMagic said:

Just wait for the duo of Obama and whatever douchebag follows him. It's practically impossible to imagine it could somehow get worse. So it probably will.

 

On September 16, 2013 at 11:44 AM, Thomas said:

 

Trump 2016!!!!

more than 3 years ago, folks.

well done, Nostrathomas 

[Thomas]

36 minutes ago, Lou said:

more than 3 years ago, folks.

well done, Nostrathomas 

Um..wow. I really hate being right so often.

Never doubt the predictive value of pessimism. 

[the dude abides]

Martin Shkreli 2024!!!!

 

[Jay]

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2017/apr/05/revisiting-obama-track-record-syrias-chemical-weap/

Revisiting the Obama track record on Syria’s chemical weapons

The [Syria] outcry leads us to revisit a 2014 claim from former Secretary of State John Kerry. Kerry said in a television interview that in Syria, "we got 100 percent of the chemical weapons out."

Syria had agreed in 2013 to an ambitious program to destroy its chemical stockpiles under international supervision, as part of a deal brokered by Russia. When Kerry spoke in July 2014, the process seemed far along. Based on reports from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons -- which later won the Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts -- we rated that claim Mostly True. There were caveats about incomplete information, but at the time, international experts said the claim largely held up.

Given recent events, we have pulled that fact-check (you can read an archived version here) because we now have many unanswered questions.

In the days and weeks to come, we will learn more about the recent attacks, but in the interest of providing clear information, we have replaced the original fact-check with this update.