Syrian Civil War
 

I notice we are talking about Syrian Civil War a lot in thread about Paris Attack, so I wanted to create a specific thread about it. I consider people here smart and ready for a normal discussion. This will be my perspective on current situation and how it effects us, some things of course will be facts. Tell me your opinions and views on this, I'm really interested.

Let's start:

I think it's important to say that president Bashar al-Assad and his family belong to Alawite branch of Shiite. Presidents wife is of Sunni religion, I find this important because he's presented as a tyrant when it comes to religious rights. Syria was a communist state during Cold War, so they didn't care about religion, later on Syria kept its freedom when it comes to religion. I'll repeat myself again but I think it's really important for this part, in capital of Syria it was normal thing to eat pig or drink alcohol, you could buy it normally, like me or you. Girls had tattoos, piercings, didn't need to wear traditional Islamic clothes, women have same rights etc. So I think we can say with safety that there was no religious discrimination from government in Syria.

Moving on to start of demonstrations:

Whenever something like this happens two things are used "peaceful demonstrators being killed" and "chemical weapons". Both of those were used already, in Libya for example, everyone was claiming it was rebels who wanted democracy but Gadaffi was pointing out from the start it was Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, he ended up being right as every "rebel" group went on to free prisoners captured for terrorism. And do we even need to talk about that nonsense about Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction? How are those country's doing today? Libya is a bloodbath, any tribe that captures an airport claims the rule. Iraq is destroyed as well. Let's return back to Syria, same things are being used over and over again, chemical weapons for example, the chemicals that were used (really can't remember the name, I'll look it up for later) can be found at any factory, even at homes, so it's not a military weapon, its a basic chemical that can be turned into weapon by anyone. As Assad pointed out, if he was killing his own people, how did he manage to remain in power for 5 years already? Don't you think he would fall long time ago? About "peaceful" demonstrations, same thing as in Libya. Many police officers have been killed during those "peaceful" demonstrations, I don't deny some soldiers shot, but can you really blame them for shooting back? At peek of demonstrations there were around 200.000 demonstrators, Syria has 22.85 million people. You know how they say "10.000 people protested in Russia!" and then you remember how many people live in Russia. What would Assad's regime in all honesty gain from killing civilians? To point out a big difference, attack is planned only if approved by Assad or his generals, if a soldier goes insane and kills civilians that's a sad side of war. Isn't it also very laughable how Assad's regime is attack by Western Allies for being "dictatorial" and Assad being a "tyrant". Then at the same time they support S.Arabia that is a Kingdom!!! Women can't even drive and I can only imagine what would happen if girl there made a tattoo or wore a mini-skirt... I can't say as a fact that USA supplied ISIS as they did Al Qaeda (witch is also fighting in Syria by the way) but they for sure didn't stop their allies from doing so.

About "moderate" rebels:

They are also religious, they cut heads and kill all other religions as much as ISIS, they are just not in the spotlight so much. Who can say on the ground if someone is "moderate"? They shoot moderate bullets and throw moderate bombs? Isn't it a right of EVERY country to fight against people who raise arms against it? So called "Free Syrian Army" is a traitorous organization, no, not because they are fighting Assad, but by military law, high treason is punishable by death, so if any of their soldier get's captured he by law can be shot. If someone is destroying buildings, government institutions, killing civilians and raising arms against his country, how is he not a terrorist? How is that different from ISIS? One more important thing, Rebels are alliance of lots of different ideas and movements, after Assad is removed they would all fight for power but they are not powerful enough to defeat Assad (especially with help of Iran and Russia), supplying them is just a nonsense and lost time.

Russian interest and airstrikes:

I'll be realistic, of course Russia has its interest in all of this, their last warm ports and only ports on Mediterranean sea are there, they started bombing only when ISIS came to 40km to their port. But Russia has one important thing on its side, by law a country can get involved in someones affairs (military) only when two things happen: UN approves it or a country officials call for it. Assad called for Russians so they have their involvement is legit. Many are arguing how Russia bombs "moderate rebels" as well but we already talked about them, no need to do it again but guided with a simple logic, they rebel against legit government, government calls for Russia, Russia can bomb rebels and be protected by law. Not that anyone cares about law these days... One more interesting thing is that NATO threw more bombs on Yugoslavia in few days then USA did on ISIS in a year. Pentagon even had a report about destroying a guy with bazooka on a bike, a real military target...

Here is the current situation in Syria:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._civil_war.png

As you can see most of ISIS controlled territory is just a desert, government controls all important cities and most populated regions.

Solution:

Let's remove few things first, Assad already said he will not talk with rebels because to him they are same as terrorists and they just don't have enough power to form a government, plus they are not untied. Kurds would want an independent country so that's a different topic. ISIS, Al Qaeda and other are out of question of course. So who to support? I don't see a lot of options besides Assad. Syria will now more than ever need a strong leader. It's not that complex really, defeat terrorists (and rebels) and there you go, peace. Kurds want independence or at least autonomy but that is a really long topic.

I know I probably didn't mention a lot of stuff, its kinda late here so yea, you guys can add more, I'm really interested in what you think will happen, that do you think about situation in general and so on. Correct me if you think I made any mistakes.

And to make it clear, I'm not some big fan of Assad or Russia, I'm just trying to be objective and see what is the best option.

Re: Syrian Civil War
 

As I said on the "Paris Attack" thread, I think the U.S. should forget about Assad for the moment. Now that Russia is in Syria, Assad is really just a small piece on the chessboard. We should be open to an alliance with anyone willing to destroy ISIS (quickly and decisively.) Ideally, a coalition led by Arab nations would be nice, but we can already see that's not going to happen.

We know Russia has ulterior motives - they always have. I also mentioned before how we allied with them in WWII. We knew who we were allying with since Stalin had already signed a non-aggression pact with the Nazis, had invaded Poland (our ally) and split the country with Hitler. So Stalin was already a war criminal by the time we welcomed him into the Allied forces. Our allying with enemies or utilizing enemies to fight other enemies is nothing new (Iraq vs. Iran anyone?)

And the "60 plus country" coalition we've been told about apparently doesn't exist since the administration cannot name all 60 countries, nor say what their roles are, nor explain what "plus" is supposed to mean. With those numbers, Obama's alleged coalition would include all of NATO, all of the Arab League and a quarter of the United Nations. With such a coalition working together, we'd have destroyed ISIS months ago. This "coalition" was apparently another fabrication for the sake of political opportunism by the Obama administration.

(I think the "60-plus-country coalition" was really part of an "offensive Internet video" that caused Benghazi!)

Nobody would go to war for a third country without any interest. I think USA shouldn't threat Russia as Soviet Union, those days are long gone, Russia now is a normal country, like any other. USA never stopped thinking of them as enemy's ,even after Soviets broke apart and one question comes to mind, dose Russia feel the same? They never had any war on the global level, this is their first (not counting Ukraine because it was not official war and it was on the borders, same goes for Georgia).

I totally agree on this, Assad said that USA bombing dose not have any impact at all, imagine then how much effort other country's have putt in. It's sad how much deaths could be avoided if everyone reacted faster, without looking at interests but that is how politics work.

Russia has ulterior motives? Of course they do, so does the US and UK and France, Turkey, everyone does. Not sure why Russias motives are any worse than ours, unless i'm missing something. The only difference i see is that Russia is propping up a regime (Assad) that is actively fighting against ISIS. As awful as his regime is we have a terrible track record of taking out dictators that leaves said country worse off.

They are not worse than any others and I dare say it, their motives would even cause less bloodshed as they want to keep the government and fight ISIS.

Re: Syrian Civil War
 

There had always been guerilla warfare, even the U.S.A.'s revolution was fought that way, but from Korea, on ... America hasn't been able to win, the way it fights. This country's hands are tied by International Laws and stipulations, which must be obeyed, while rebels and terrorists fight on their own terms. The United States can only function as the world's policeman - a role which our government and people resent, but it's the extent of our effectiveness. And we owe it to the world, actually, because of our constant and heavy borrowing. Britain is the only country we can really bully into doing what we want.

When we bombed Iraq the first time, almost entirely from the air, and seemingly won our objective so quickly ... it seemed like America had found the solution to these mini-wars. But, that of course, was a one shot and can't happen again, for a lot of reasons. It's very frustrating seeing situations like what's going on in Syria becoming prolonged, as our rival nations step up to the plate, posturing, in hopes of securing a future stronghold in the region. America's also very timid, when it comes to offering up aid and resources that could, potentially, be used against us, or our allies, if things go wrong. Demonstrations of strength is what these people respect and what is required. When Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq, it was horrible the crimes against Humanity he used on his own people. But, and I really hate to say it, the Marshall Law he'd imposed, otherwise, had kept the peace, for the most part.

USA is known for not obeying the International Law, together with NATO (a defensive alliance). Yugoslavia was attacked without UN approval and Yugoslavia was not attacking any of NATO members so a "defensive" alliance was an attacker of independent state. Then Hussein, there were no profs for weapons of mass destruction, USA still went in. In Libya UN approved only a no-fly zone, that means nothing can fly over Libya or it will be shot down, but USA and NATO went on to bomb Libyan army, navy, military bases and even Gaddafi's houses, do these things fly? Now in Syria they are supplying terrorist branches and "moderate rebels" against a legitimate government, Russia has a reason to get involved, it was called by Assad and that is one of two reason when a country can get involved in someones war.

Originally Posted by Rhett Butler (Post 1414791)

The United States can only function as the world's policeman - a role which our government and people resent, but it's the extent of our effectiveness. And we owe it to the world, actually, because of our constant and heavy borrowing. Britain is the only country we can really bully into doing what we want.

No single country should be a world policeman, because it forces its own politics and interests, not a general good. UN should be only body to decide what is going to happen, not one country should bully a government into a submission by bombs. You are bullying Western Europe and some Asian country's. Germany is prime example, why would Germany give sanctions to Russia when they earn biggest amount of money from Russia? And are dependent on their gas.




But do we have a real evidence for "killing his own people"? Anything besides biased reports that later on get proven wrong? Hussein maybe did and maybe didn't use chemical weapons, Assad for sure didn't and it was even proven but propaganda machine still goes on and people in general believe everything they read.

Re: Syrian Civil War
 

Yeah, i'd like a source for that Sadaam killing his own people claim too?

That question seems to kind of answer itself.

Re: Syrian Civil War
 

What the middle east requires is secular tyrants who are pro west. They can do the dirty job of keeping the animal passions that threaten to run amok in that region under some kind of control.

In a country of 22 million people? Sorry but no. If anything he is gaining support by FRA soldiers coming back.

Why no secular country's that are pro-East?

the west is democratic . the east ( except india ) is not .

Where do you draw your border of what is West and what is East? In Ukraine? In Poland? In Austria? In Turkey? In Balkans?

Isn't it a bit biased that you mentioned only India as a democracy?

Japan
Russia
S.Korea
Turkey
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Cyprus
Georgia
India
Israel
Indonesia
Lebanon
Nepal
Philippines
Singapore

Those are all democratic states and depending on how you see democracy and is democracy the same for every state we could add a lot more. Also depending where your East starts and West ends, we could add more country's.

And if those country's are already going to have a tyrant for a ruler, why dose it matter if he's going to be pro-East or pro-West? If he becomes democratic he's not a tyrant anymore.

Re: Syrian Civil War
 

A plane shot down on Syria-Turkey border:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle...ource=facebook

For now it is unknown was airplane Russian or Syrian (maybe even French?) but gossip is going around that it is Russian and that it never even entered Turkish air-space.

Turkey is officially fighting ISIS, but they are actually killing Kurds, in their own country and in Syria. They don't want to allow Kurdistan to be formed. Kurds are strongest force on the ground fighting ISIS (not counting Syrian Army), and they have been really serious about it.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/69...rdistan?anid=2

the tyrant will keep the violence in check the way democracies like USA cannot , because he is not supposed to be nice the way democracies are . So he can use extremely tough methods democrats cannot use . so we need a tyrant to control the middle east .

Re: Syrian Civil War
 

I understand that, but if you are going to have a tyrant why do you want him to be pro-West for sake of democracy?

Re: Syrian Civil War
 

What a cluster Syria is.
At this point, I'd almost advise the admin. to step away from Syria and focus only on Iraq (anyone who wants to help there? Fine.)

So now, Turkey is at war with ISIS, the Kurds, Syrian Gov. Forces, and Russia (and by proxy; China & Iran).

Russia is now at war with Syrian Rebel Forces, ISIS and Turkey (and the Ukraine, and maybe NATO in the near future).

Russia is allied with Iran & China - who want the Assad Regime to retake power in Syria, destroy the rebels and maybe kill some ISIS members in their spare time.

Iran wants nuclear weapons so it can blast Israel into the sea and bring "Death to America." And the U.S. has insured that Iran will get these weapons. Meanwhile Iran is allied with Russia to combat ISIS in Syria which is the enemy of both America and Israel.

Palestine shares Iran's and ISIS' goal to destroy Israel (& all infidels) and is currently conducting a reign of terror to kill innocent Israelis in the streets. (The U.S. responds by telling Israel - their ally - to be nice to the Palestinian terrorists, while we say ISIS should be "destroyed" because they are a threat to the U.S.)

The Kurds are at war with ISIS, sometimes with Turkey and with various Iraqi factions that hate them.

Syrian Rebel Forces include Al Qaida among their ranks and Al Qaida spawned ISIS, yet they are sometimes at war with ISIS unless ISIS is attacking Syrian Gov. Forces.

ISIS is at war with everybody (except for a few Islamic Terrorist groups that support them).

ISIS is in competition with Al Qaida (their origin group) for becoming the top terrorist group in the world, while Al Qaida is part of the Syrian Rebel Forces who are fighting the Assad Regime which is also one of ISIS many enemies, but ISIS is also fighting the Syrian Rebel Forces at times (whew!)

Iraqi Forces (what few still exist) are at war with the Kurds (U.S. allies) and with ISIS (who the Kurds are also fighting), but say if they saw U.S. troops on the ground to help them combat ISIS, then they and ISIS would combat any U.S. troops together before resuming their fight with each other, because U.S. troops would not only be "invaders" like ISIS, but "Infidel Invaders".

Obama is saying there is now a "65" country coalition that's been actively combating ISIL for two years in Iraq & Syria (and France has been a member since the beginning), while France is saying there should be some kind of coalition to combat ISIS in Syria.

(Let me know if I got any of this wrong.)

How is Turkey at war with ISIS when they are selling and smuggling their oil? They are not at war (well they are officially) but it's known that they smuggle their oil and in doing so give them the economical power to buy weapons. UN embargoed buying from ISIS. And Turkey is not at war with Russia, this will not start a major war, who would lose thousands over two people?

For Russia Syrian Rebels and ISIS are one and the same, again Turkey and Russia are not at war. Russia is also not at war with Ukraine, they have never been. Again I strongly doubt any major war would happen in the name of a third country.

China is not involved in Syrian conflict and Iran only supplies and organizes some groups so they don't have their men on the ground. Russia is besides Syria and Kurds biggest enemy of ISIS, they destroyed more military targets in few weeks than USA and allies did in a year, they also stopped ISIS progress and gave time for Syrian Army to push back (they did and they captured some territory). Russia daily destroy's training camps, operation bases, military weapons and so on.

Not really, where did you hear this? These are serious country's, not cartoon villains.


No third party would give Iran a nuclear weapons, dose not make any sense.

Where did you hear Iran wants to destroy Israel and "all infidels"?



That is why I think putting them in power is idiotic, plus they are not united and couldn't even form a government and they don't have any chances of defeating either ISIS or Syrian Army.

You would be surprised at how many country's support them, S.Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Turkey...


That's just a propaganda nonsense, you think ISIS would spread if 65 country's were bombing it?

Re: Syrian Civil War
 

Thanks for clearing up some of my errors, KhaN.

One thing I'll respond to - where did I get the idea that Iran wants to blast Israel into the sea?
From Iran's former President and the Ayatollahs. They've publicly stated many times that they live to see Israel destroyed, they want to wipe Israel off the map and push Israel into the sea. They want Jews exterminated, they call Israel the "Little Satan" and America the "Great Satan" and their leaders chant "Death to America" at every opportunity.

And - where did I hear Iran wants to destroy Israel and "all infidels"?
Again, from Iran's leaders and Ayatollahs. Iran is an Islamic Theocracy run by fundamental extremists. The goal of Islam is the subjugation, forced conversion or destruction of all infidels. In pursuit of this goal, Iran has become the largest state sponsor of Islamic Terrorism in the world.