Syrian war stuff

[Ryoki]

Not sure if anyone here's interested in this, but i recently found a weekly column i'm finding quite illuminating to read, so i share: http://www.unz.com/author/the-saker/

Guy seems to be a Russian native speaker with an intimate knowledge of the inner workings of their military and a good sense of geopolitical insight - now and then he goes off the rails a bit with jingoism and occasionally i don't agree with his reasoning - but it's a very interesting perspective on the Syrian civil war.

[Captain]

Syrian civil war.

There's your first mistake. It's not a civil war when one side is a Saudi terrorist proxy group. I'm sure the western media calls them "brave rebel freedom fighters", not sure though.

[scared?]

Remember after 911 when Cheney and rumsfield said they were gonna sweep up the middle east... Terrorism related or not? That's what going on here... Obama goes right along with it... Democracy doesn't exist anymore... Oh well...

[HM-PuFFNSTuFF]

Remember after 911 when Cheney and rumsfield said they were gonna sweep up the middle east... Terrorism related or not? That's what going on here... Obama goes right along with it... Democracy doesn't exist anymore... Oh well...

good lord you're dumb.

[scared?]

Lol naive dipshits... ...

[Ryoki]

There's your first mistake. It's not a civil war when one side is a Saudi terrorist proxy group. I'm sure the western media calls them "brave rebel freedom fighters", not sure though.

What would you call it then? I find that civil war describes the conflict most accurately... there's a hundred different factions and indeed some of them are being supported by other powers, regional or super - doesn't change the fact that most of the actual fighting and dying is being done by Syrians.

Historically speaking the conflict it compares most closely to is possibly the Thirty Years War i think, but that's most often discribed in the terms of a civil was as well.

[Transient]

Syrian civil war.

There's your first mistake. It's not a civil war when one side is a Saudi terrorist proxy group. I'm sure the western media calls them "brave rebel freedom fighters", not sure though.

It kinda started as a civil war with the Arab Spring protests, then Daesh moved in to take advantage of the chaos. They have manipulated the message on the ground to appeal to locals, with more and more joining them every day. So now when we bomb "terrorists" in Syria, we are often times just bombing disillusioned or misinformed civilians who have been handed AK-47s.

On one side they have power-hungry warmongers trying to take advantage of a destabilized government, blowing shit up at random and spreading fear everywhere in an attempt to gain power in the region. On the other side they have Daesh, so they're getting fucked from both sides.

[losCHUNK]

There's your first mistake. It's not a civil war when one side is a Saudi terrorist proxy group. I'm sure the western media calls them "brave rebel freedom fighters", not sure though.

What would you call it then? I find that civil war describes the conflict most accurately... there's a hundred different factions and indeed some of them are being supported by other powers, regional or super - doesn't change the fact that most of the actual fighting and dying is being done by Syrians.

Historically speaking the conflict it compares most closely to is possibly the Thirty Years War i think, but that's most often discribed in the terms of a civil was as well.

Not more like the American war for independence ?, with France propping up the 'rebels'.

[Captain]

There's your first mistake. It's not a civil war when one side is a Saudi terrorist proxy group. I'm sure the western media calls them "brave rebel freedom fighters", not sure though.

What would you call it then?

A proxy war. US-Saudi-Israeli coalition wants the Syrian government eradicated and their personal puppet in place so they can use the country as another buffer zone in the imminent attack on Iran. It would also disrupt Russian troop and supply line capability once the western terrorists are ready to start their final holy war.

[losCHUNK]

[lvlshot]http://i.imgur.com/bIbhhCM.jpg[/lvlshot]

[seremtan]

A proxy war. US-Saudi-Israeli coalition wants the Syrian government eradicated and their personal puppet in place so they can use the country as another buffer zone in the imminent attack on Iran. It would also disrupt Russian troop and supply line capability once the western terrorists are ready to start their final holy war.

[scared?]

US-Russia proxy war...

[seremtan]

the tinfoil is strong in this thread

[Whiskey 7]

Good read Ryoki It is certainly a fragile/delicate hotspot. The read like you said, puts an interesting perspective on the Syrian civil war.

the tinfoil is strong in this thread

[Ryoki]

A proxy war. US-Saudi-Israeli coalition wants the Syrian government eradicated and their personal puppet in place so they can use the country as another buffer zone in the imminent attack on Iran. It would also disrupt Russian troop and supply line capability once the western terrorists are ready to start their final holy war.

Sorry, but err, no. That last bit is so insane i'm generously not even going to go into that, but regarding the rest;

Ten or fifteen years ago there may have been some truth in what you say, with all the neocon bluster about 'real men go to Tehran', but these days not so much. Perhaps it escaped your attention but since that time a serious rift between the members of your imagined coalition has developed (it's an ongoing process); Israel's poltical landscape has been entirely hijacked by extremists and the Saudi king died leaving his agressive but apparently not so clever family member in charge (who immediately started one screw up of a war and seems to be itching for another). Don't mistake token US support for their actions for actual support. Meanwhile the US / EU relationship with Iran has seriously thawed and 'our' interests are far more aligned with them then with the traditional regional allies.

And you forget to mention Turkey's very important role in this entirely (oh and the Kurds).

[Ryoki]

Not more like the American war for independence ?, with France propping up the 'rebels'.

Naww, too simple; not enough factions, not enough evil shit. The 30 years war comes much closer; it's called a war but technically it was just a series of unspeakable atrocities by different factions that lasted 30 years - and like the Syrian war it boils down to basically being a religious conflict. Also it was quite an international thing, everyone wanted a piece of the action, even the Ottomans got involved at one point.

Here, have a look at how ludicrously complex it was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War

[Captain]

Meanwhile the US / EU relationship with Iran has seriously thawed and 'our' interests are far more aligned with them then with the traditional regional allies.

Haha are you basing this on a White House presser? Iran and Russia are the only ones actively combating ISIS while the US and their NATO buddies are supplying them. The right-wing extremists are beating their war drums louder than ever, they just can't figure out a way to engage in a full-out global war without getting blown up in the process. Hence, they stick to the terrorist proxies for the time being.

And you forget to mention Turkey's very important role in this entirely (oh and the Kurds).

Turks don't act alone, their job is to prop up more ISIS fundies like the good little drones they are.

your imagined coalition

Tsk, so naive

[Eraser]

On what do you base these "facts", Mazda? And what would the end be to their means?

[seremtan]

something tells me a RT link is in your future

[Captain]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... dogan-isis

[seremtan]

so let me get this straight: in your view, this isn't just Erdogan trying to use ISIS as a proxy to suppress the Kurds, whose nationalist tendencies (such as they exist) he fears. According to you, Erdogan is himself the proxy for a grand US design in the Middle East - have i got that right?

(p.s. the Guardian article you linked doesn't say that, but i'm assuming that's your angle on this given your previous posts)

[Captain]

It's cute how you try to be condescending, but you just come off as a cranky senile conservative

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/03/isis-oil/

Stunningly Ceyhan Port is a few hours drive from the Incirlik Air Base, from where the US jets have been hitting targets in Syria. It is literally under the noses of the US planes that the ISIS oil has been transported. For the fourteen months that the US has been hitting ISIS targets, it has avoided striking at the oil tankers. US officials say that they did not strike ISIS oil tankers for fear of “collateral damage.” In fact, when the US did hit the oil tankers last month, they did so after warning the drivers by leaflets. This was a very noble gesture, but also out of character. The US generally does not warn its targets. It only began to hit the oil tankers after Russian jets struck them. Did the US begin its strike on the tankers so as not to be shown up by the Russians? When I put this question to a US state department official, she demurred. She said that the US was merely building up intelligence on the tanker routes and it was now prepared to hit the convoys. That it came after the Russian bombings of the tankers, she said, is mere coincidence.

A mere coincidence

[Ryoki]

I'd find it interesting if you'd be so kind as to answer seremtan's question.

As for the fuel tankers, this has been pretty well documented i think - the US started bombing them only after Russian pressure to do so. But to see this as evidence the US is in cahoots with ISIS is to ignore a host of other, much more likely explanations (you know, the usual ones: corruption, crime, attempts to gain influence on the battlefield by one faction or another, the wish not to offend a NATO ally).

Oh and i seriously honestly don't know how to respond to your ultraweird comment regarding Iran - are you saying there you perceive no thaw in relations and alignment of interests? You think it's all a cunning plot, we make them think we lifted the sanctions and then BOOM, surprise attack motherfuckers? Something like that?

[seremtan]

basically Mazda believes that ISIS are actually being supported by the US government as an act of conscious policy (rather than accidentally as fallout from bad policy and incompetence), for reasons that are unclear, but he doesn't want to come out and say so because it sounds mental

my view is this: if, when trying to explain an event, you have to choose between conspiracy and incompetence (born of ideological conviction or not), it's most likely the latter

[Ryoki]

A point i would agree with.

It would seem Mazda thinks all of this IS stuff is merely a dastardly plot by Israel-US-SA that serves as a grand preparation for an attack on Iran. Here, i’ll explain:

First step of attacking Iran is that you invade and occupy Iraq and force elections that make sure there’s an Iran friendly government, see? Then you wait until that government alienates the minority that used to opress them, leading to a violent civil war from which, years later, IS seems to arise. Except it didn’t really arise, you had all these guys trained by clandestine operators and secretly whisk them into Iraq, waiting for the green light like an army of sleeper agents. Then you tell them ‘go!’ and by god they do, with help of sattelite and drone coverage this secret army of savages quickly marches on Baghdad, the whole country erupts in termoil! Stage one succes!

Then you wait some more and do nothing, letting the conflict eventually escalate into Syria, which is also Iran friendly. Because Syria as we all know is west of Iran and therefore a perfect staging area for future attacks. Final step is to mess with the Persian mind, lure them in a sense of calm before you unleash the … oh god i give up