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Intervention in Syria

 
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scot47



Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 15343

PostPosted: Tue Nov 13, 2012 10:13 am    Post subject: Intervention in Syria Reply with quote

How long before NATO send in troops ?

Last edited by scot47 on Thu Nov 15, 2012 5:15 pm; edited 1 time in total
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tttompatz



Joined: 06 Mar 2010
Posts: 1951
Location: Talibon, Bohol, Philippines

PostPosted: Tue Nov 13, 2012 10:24 am    Post subject: Re: Interventioin in Syria Reply with quote

scot47 wrote:
How long before NATO send in troops ?


Won't happen until Russia stops backing the regime.

Uncle Sam is not going to take on the Russian bloc over Syria with Israel sitting in the line of fire and Iran ready to get into the mix.

The rest of the NATO block is not financially able to do much either. I would suggest that the rebels are on their own (sounds like Lebanon of the 1980s).

.
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scot47



Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 15343

PostPosted: Tue Nov 13, 2012 4:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

"On their own" ???????????? Hardly. Bankrolled by Qatar, KSA and Bahrain. Possibly UAE too.
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tttompatz



Joined: 06 Mar 2010
Posts: 1951
Location: Talibon, Bohol, Philippines

PostPosted: Tue Nov 13, 2012 9:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

scot47 wrote:
"On their own" ???????????? Hardly. Bankrolled by Qatar, KSA and Bahrain. Possibly UAE too.


Sounds very much like Lebanon in the mid '80s and look what happened there.

.
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Qaaolchoura



Joined: 10 Oct 2008
Posts: 539
Location: 21 miles from the Syrian border

PostPosted: Wed Nov 14, 2012 10:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I live right near the border in Turkey and we've got a ton of Syrians flowing in (100,000 last count). Turks here blame them for driving up housing prices (which are shockingly expensive for this part of Turkey), which they claim have roughly doubled since the war started.

Turks here also claim that 1. Erdogan is obviously going to invade any day now and 2. nobody here wants him to. Personally I don't think that's likely. Syria shot down a Turkish plane and shelled a Turkish border town, but Turkey has apparently learned a lesson from Israel and has been inflicting disproportionate damage from across the border in retaliation, without getting sucked in.

It seems to me, based on what I've been reading, that the government has been slowing losing ground, but nothing resembling an organized opposition is taking its place. I've met many Syrian refugees myself, and none of them seem to have a clue what the situation was in Aleppo when they left it, let alone now or in the rest of the country.

Oh, and the PKK has been getting a whole lot bolder, apparently sponsored by Assad's regime, and it's fairly clear that if Turkey does intervene, it will be not to punish Assad, but to crush the forces of secular Kurdish nationalism. (Much as Israel tried to do with the PLO in the 1980s.) So yeah, Lebanon writ large is looking rather likely right now.

~Q
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wangdaning



Joined: 22 Jan 2008
Posts: 3154

PostPosted: Fri Nov 23, 2012 3:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

They already have troops on the ground there. As much as it is suppressed, the Syrian government have publicly shown captured foreign nationals.

The lines are Russia, China, and Iran v. people who want Syria to have a private central bank for them to lend to.

One side of this seems to be involved in every conflict.
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Qaaolchoura



Joined: 10 Oct 2008
Posts: 539
Location: 21 miles from the Syrian border

PostPosted: Fri Nov 23, 2012 4:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

wangdaning wrote:
They already have troops on the ground there. As much as it is suppressed, the Syrian government have publicly shown captured foreign nationals.

Really? Just like Russia displaying an American passport they found during their invasion of Georgia, as "proof" of some sort of American conspiracy.

wangdaning wrote:
The lines are Russia, China, and Iran v. people who want Syria to have a private central bank for them to lend to.

One side of this seems to be involved in every conflict.

Yes, Russia and especially, but Iran and China too, they do seem to have a lovely habit of supporting nasty foreign dictators around the globe.

~Q
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wangdaning



Joined: 22 Jan 2008
Posts: 3154

PostPosted: Sat Nov 24, 2012 2:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Qaaolchoura wrote:
wangdaning wrote:
They already have troops on the ground there. As much as it is suppressed, the Syrian government have publicly shown captured foreign nationals.

Really? Just like Russia displaying an American passport they found during their invasion of Georgia, as "proof" of some sort of American conspiracy.

wangdaning wrote:
The lines are Russia, China, and Iran v. people who want Syria to have a private central bank for them to lend to.

One side of this seems to be involved in every conflict.

Yes, Russia and especially, but Iran and China too, they do seem to have a lovely habit of supporting nasty foreign dictators around the globe.

~Q


The dictators removed recently in the Middle East and Northern Africa all just happened to be put into power by the US. One day a friend next day an enemy, why? Did their relationships with the people of their countries change, or was it something else?

The Syrian press released video of captured foreign soldiers. It was on youtube for awhile, but for some reason Syrian media is not being allowed to get outside of Syria. You are hearing one side of an argument without even considering other possibilities.
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johnslat



Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

PostPosted: Sat Nov 24, 2012 5:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dear wangdaning,

I certainly won't dispute the fact that the USA has supported (if not always put into power - or, at least, helped put into power) far too many dictators. However, I think this claim:

"The dictators removed recently in the Middle East and Northern Africa all just happened to be put into power by the US."

may not be totally accurate. Qaddafi was backed by the Russians:

"It stayed a kingdom until 1969 when a 27 year old army captain Muammar Gaddafi led a military coup d'�tat, installed himself as dictator and promoted himself to colonel. Military power put Gaddafi in control and he has always shown a keen interest in increasing it plus he has the petrol dollars to buy lots. This has long made him a most favored customer of the international arms industry.

In the beginning Colonel Muammar Gaddafi had gotten much of his weaponry from Russia and the Soviet Bloc. His reputation as a terrorist, his so-called socialism, his pursuit of WMD and the mistaken belief that he really was the "revolutionary" that he pretended to be all made him off limits to western arms merchants. But Gaddafi has shown a tremendous desire for all kinds of expensive violent instruments, and now we can see why, and he had billions in oil money to pay for it, so this was not a status that could be allowed to stand."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/24/949030/-Arming-Gaddafi#

Here's the List of Shame:

Abacha, General Sani ----------------------------Nigeria
Amin, Idi ------------------------------------------Uganda
Banzer, Colonel Hugo ---------------------------Bolivia
Batista, Fulgencio --------------------------------Cuba
Bolkiah, Sir Hassanal ----------------------------Brunei
Botha, P.W. ---------------------------------------South Africa
Branco, General Humberto ---------------------Brazil
Cedras, Raoul -------------------------------------Haiti
Cerezo, Vinicio -----------------------------------Guatemala
Chiang Kai-Shek ---------------------------------Taiwan
Cordova, Roberto Suazo ------------------------Honduras
Christiani, Alfredo -------------------------------El Salvador
Diem, Ngo Dihn ---------------------------------Vietnam
Doe, General Samuel ----------------------------Liberia
Duvalier, Francois --------------------------------Haiti
Duvalier, Jean Claude-----------------------------Haiti
Fahd bin'Abdul-'Aziz, King ---------------------Saudi Arabia
Franco, General Francisco -----------------------Spain
Hitler, Adolf ---------------------------------------Germany
Hassan II-------------------------------------------Morocco
Marcos, Ferdinand -------------------------------Philippines
Martinez, General Maximiliano Hernandez ---El Salvador
Mobutu Sese Seko -------------------------------Zaire
Noriega, General Manuel ------------------------Panama
Ozal, Turgut --------------------------------------Turkey
Pahlevi, Shah Mohammed Reza ---------------Iran
Papadopoulos, George --------------------------Greece
Park Chung Hee ---------------------------------South Korea
Pinochet, General Augusto ---------------------Chile
Pol Pot---------------------------------------------Cambodia
Rabuka, General Sitiveni ------------------------Fiji
Montt, General Efrain Rios ---------------------Guatemala
Salassie, Halie ------------------------------------Ethiopia
Salazar, Antonio de Oliveira --------------------Portugal
Somoza, Anastasio Jr. --------------------------Nicaragua
Somoza, Anastasio, Sr. -------------------------Nicaragua
Smith, Ian ----------------------------------------Rhodesia
Stroessner, Alfredo -----------------------------Paraguay
Suharto, General ---------------------------------Indonesia
Trujillo, Rafael Leonidas -----------------------Dominican Republic
Videla, General Jorge Rafael ------------------Argentina
Zia Ul-Haq, Mohammed ----------------------Pakistan


http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html
Regards,
John
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Qaaolchoura



Joined: 10 Oct 2008
Posts: 539
Location: 21 miles from the Syrian border

PostPosted: Sat Nov 24, 2012 9:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

wangdaning wrote:

The dictators removed recently in the Middle East and Northern Africa all just happened to be put into power by the US. One day a friend next day an enemy, why? Did their relationships with the people of their countries change, or was it something else?

As far as I know, they mostly put themselves in power, though Mubarak, and Mubarak alone, was later considered a vital ally of the US. The same can't be said for Ben Ali, Saleh, nor as johnslat pointed out, the nutjob with the bad hair and unspellable name.

I will freely admit that the lamentedly all-too-present regimes of the Saudis and Al Khalifas�who both put themselves in power with limited British help�have stayed in power at least in part thanks to US support. While I'd really like to see us withdraw from those countries and test just how much that support matters, I'd also love to see the Russians do the same with Assad (and their little separatist buddies in northern Georgia), China with North Korea, and so on.

wangdaning wrote:
The Syrian press released video of captured foreign soldiers. It was on youtube for awhile, but for some reason Syrian media is not being allowed to get outside of Syria. You are hearing one side of an argument without even considering other possibilities.

Oh, I've heard the other possibilities I'm sure. It's the battle cry of dictators everywhere.

It usually amounts to some variation on "don't put yo' nose all up in our bidniz!," where said "business" usually involves some combination of rigging elections, jailing and whaling on journalists, mass-murdering minorities, assassinating opponents and critics, and of course supporting separatist and terrorist groups in neighboring countries. These autocrats also tend to be quite paranoid about intervention in their own countries (see also: psychological projection), and see foreign conspiracies as the only possible reason that 110% of their devoted subjects don't worship the ground they walk on.

When Western powers do intervene in other countries, we're rarely subtle about it. Even when we try to be subtle about it (like that time we tried arming the mujahideen to deal with the Soviets), we're not very subtle about it. Even when we briefly manage to be subtle about it (Iran-Contra), things tend to come out in a free press.

Regards,
~Q
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scot47



Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 15343

PostPosted: Sat Nov 24, 2012 9:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

In whose interests are these interventions ? Certainly not for your average Joe and Jane in the USofA !
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Qaaolchoura



Joined: 10 Oct 2008
Posts: 539
Location: 21 miles from the Syrian border

PostPosted: Sat Nov 24, 2012 9:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

johnslat wrote:


Here's the List of Shame:

<snip>
Hitler, Adolf ---------------------------------------Germany


And Goodwin's Law strikes, though quite unintentionally on John's part I'm sure.

It's interested that Hitler makes the list, because, according to the explanation, a handful of US companies sold stuff to him prior to WWII. Meanwhile, Papa Joe doesn't make the list, despite having been directly supplied by the US government during our fight against the man in the funny mustache.

Based on the source, and looking at its main page I suspect odd omission and the even odder inclusion stem from the mild Russophilia and strong anti-Americanism displayed by so many supporters of "third worldism" and the "Non-Aligned" Movement.

It's also worth noting that this list includes Raoul Cedras. Based on my admittedly rudimentary knowledge of Haitian history, the US opposed his regime from the get-go. The list itself seems to acknowledge it, in the entry, evidence of US "support" is that it took us three years to restore democracy, and when we finally did we let him escape.

Regards,
~Q
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Qaaolchoura



Joined: 10 Oct 2008
Posts: 539
Location: 21 miles from the Syrian border

PostPosted: Sat Nov 24, 2012 10:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

scot47 wrote:
In whose interests are these interventions ? Certainly not for your average Joe and Jane in the USofA !

That depends on your perspective, and on the intervention. To my mind, Libya, Afghanistan 2001, and Bosnia are clearly justified, while Iraq and Afghanistan 1980's, and Iran-Contra are clearly not. (I'm of two minds regarding Kosovo and Kuwait.)

Bosnia was a case off attempting to end a civil war and force a ceasefire, thereby restoring stability to a troubled part of Europe. Is that directly in America's interests? Well, it also means that Bosnian Muslims didn't have the chance to become radicalized, as has happened with previously moderate Muslims involved in long-running wars (such as Chechnya and Somalia). After 9-11, any limit to the spread of Salafism is a good thing.

Afghanistan 2001 was justified by the fact that the Taliban were not merely an exceptionally murderous misogynistic band of Islamic thugs, but were a murderous, mysogynistic band of thugs who were harboring terrorists, and who moreover we were partially responsible for (Pakistan and Saudi Arabia bear a far larger share of the blame, but since we consider them close allies we share part of that portion as well).

Libya was a chance to rid the world of an insane terroristic dictator (who was currently behaving himself in return for bribes, but who knows how long that would last) without significant cost to American lives. (Yes, Islamist militants then used the chaos to kill some of our diplomats, but they've pulled off worse in more stable countries.)

Regards,
~Q
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