Obama will unilaterally attack Syria Thursday

Don't listen to the liberal - listen to smug propaganda man because failure to understand simple, clearly articulated sentences is all in a day's work.
 
Pro-Democracy Forces Still Among Rebels Fighting Assad, Study Finds

After the first waves of savage repression, those members of the opposition who decided to fight were dependent on outside support for money and arms. That didn’t come from the West; it came from Islamist groups. Kodmani doesn’t name them, but they include the Brotherhood, the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and the private “charitable” networks that have been funding violent jihad around the world since the Afghan war against the Soviets in the 1970s and ’80s. “What we have in Syria is not an Islamist revolution,” says the report, “but a popular uprising that received funding primarily from Islamist sources.”

At the same time, the Assad regime sought to portray all its opponents as crazed terrorists. It set about systematically eliminating moderate and secular opponents. French scholar Gilles Kepel, author of numerous books on radical jihad and revolution, believes the Syrians may also have taken a page from the Russians, who encouraged radicalism to divide the opposition and set the factions against each other in Chechnya.
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Seems like a nice little trick to fool the Western liberals. Allow the crazy jihadists to make the spectacular attacks, maybe even sell them some poison gas, only speak of the rebels in terms of jihad and blame all the rebels for all those dead civilians. It's called manufactured doubt and it worked brilliantly, Fluffy bought it hook, line and sinker. I wouldn't feel too bad though, Putin is running things now and Putin knows what he's doing. He's the master manipulator, which should be no surprise as that was his job as a recruiting officer for the KGB in Eastern Europe during the cold war. He knows people, he knows their weakness and he knows how to make them do things they would never want to otherwise. Assad has allowed himself to be Putin's pawn and has proven to be one of the biggest imbeciles to inherit a nation of that importance. Hopefully the next leader of Syria will earn his position. It seems that some Syrians still think that's possible, but Western liberals probably won't allow that.
 
Glaucus said:
It's called manufactured doubt and it worked brilliantly, Fluffy bought it hook, line and sinker.
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Yup. I believe it illegal to attack a country when it is not presenting a threat to other countries. I believe that international law is important and I believe that finding out if a crime occurred is not sufficient grounds to just (illegally) punish who you want. I believe that the guilty party should be first found and then prosecuted in the International Criminal Court if at all possible - but the populations of countries should NOT be punished for what their governments are supposed to have done because that's just punishing them twice.

The fact of the matter is that I have never denied that there are locals in the fight - (but that doesn't necessarily make them righteous) but that the most effective fighters are jihadis and they are being supplied by Saudi Arabia, a country with terrible human rights. I would rather secular Syria than Wahabi Saudi Arabia. Ultimately I'd like a kinder, gentler Syrian regime, but I'd also like a kinder, gentler US regime and allowing the US to run roughshod over international law is worse than bad. The US wants to bomb Syria for violating "international norms" without sufficient proof that it has while the US drone kills civilians around the world in other people's countries and apparently doesn't think that it is violating international norms, wants to bomb countries without the UN and doesn't think it's violating international norms.

In other words - it doesn't matter if Trayvon has does bad things in the past or is acting suspiciously. Zimmerman has no right to take the law into his own hands. We have a process, problematic as it may be, but there IS law and the US has signed on to it.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
Yup. I believe it illegal to attack a country when it is not presenting a threat to other countries.
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That's a very carefully worded sentence. I say that because it's the type of language designed to protect leaders of nations and not the people of nations. Not the sort of thing I'd expect from you. I'm really not that interested in legalities or the sanctity of nations when people are being killed by the tens of thousands. But I also think you're highly hypocritical because you're hyper-critical of what the US does but are perfectly cool with what Russia and Iran are doing. You do know that Assad has not only weapons and advisers supplied to him by Russia, but also boots on the ground from Iran and Hezbollah, don't you? Certainly is true that powerful external players have played a huge role in prolonging the war and adding greatly to the body count, but the US isn't one of them. Russia and Iran get those dubious distinctions - and not a single Liberal has lashed out against them. I think that's a shameful.

I believe that international law is important and I believe that finding out if a crime occurred is not sufficient grounds to just (illegally) punish who you want. I believe that the guilty party should be first found and then prosecuted in the International Criminal Court if at all possible - but the populations of countries should NOT be punished for what their governments are supposed to have done because that's just punishing them twice.
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It's important but it doesn't trump the importance of stopping mass death. When a guy runs through a school shooting kids, should we first properly investigate who the guy is, interview friends and family, ponder his motives, etc, or should we first stop the killing with force if need be and figure it out later? Personally what I think you're suggesting is ludicrous.

The fact of the matter is that I have never denied that there are locals in the fight - (but that doesn't necessarily make them righteous)
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Perhaps not directly, but you repeatedly refer to all the rebels as al-Qaeda, often painting the conflict as Assad vs al-Qaeda. Sure, when pressed you admit there are Syrians in the mix, but that's just a last ditch attempt to preserve credibility.

Not sure if you read the article, but here's a clip that I think is important to understand if you want to understand Syria:

(It’s worth remembering that you can always find God in a foxhole, and it’s no different if God’s called Allah. American soldiers headed into combat in World War II, after all, singing “Praise the Lord and Pass the ammunition.”)
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The fact that jihadists are in the war doesn't really say anything about the true nature of the rebels. In times of war, people use religion as a crutch. When the Greeks fought the Turks the churches were at the heart of the resistance and not just spiritually or logistically, but on the battlefield as well. That's just how it is, so when you attempt to paint the rebels a jihadists that might make some people who don't know better that all the rebels are religious wackos, but I don't believe that the case. Religion is just another factor in the war.

Of course I recognize that al-Qaeda does exist in Syria and is responsible for spectacular attacks. And this article that I posted suggested that Assad has even allowed the extremists to take a foothold because of their corrosive nature on the rest of the resistance movement. But it also states that the core of the Syrian rebels are against them and have plans to fight them as well. The best way to fight al-Qaeda in Syria is to end the war and to allow the Sunni majority to focus their efforts on eradicating the al-Qaeda parasites. The Alawite Assad will always be a magnate for al-Qaeda and you know it. The bloodshed can not end while Assad is in power, I do not understand how anyone can think otherwise.
 
Eternally optimistic Guardian reader finally admits Obama is dreadful

10-09-13
A GUARDIAN reader who has worshipped Barack Obama for five years without interruption has finally admitted he is just awful.
​
obamawave250.jpg
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‘He’s probably not even a very nice person’​
Martin Bishop, who until last week was still insisting Obama was a mixture of Martin Luther King and John F Kennedy, has now realised that America’s first black president is basically just that.

Bishop said: “I read in the Guardian this morning that he’s now saying there would be no attack on Syria if Assad gives up his chemical weapons. I just thought – ‘he’s an arse’.​
​
“I’m not in favour of attacking Syria but couldn’t he have said that right at the start? So, yes, I admit it – he is a terrible president.” ​
Bishop said that even Obama’s achievements were ‘pretty thin’, adding: “The economy is recovering because they are printing shitloads of money. Any moron could do that.​
“And so what if he ‘got’ Bin Laden? The head of the CIA comes to him and says ‘we’ve found Bin Laden, shall we kill him?’. What was he gonna do? Say ‘no’?.​
“Well done for getting elected the first time – that was impressive – but the second time he was up against a Mormon. I mean, for {bleep}’s sake.”​
Bishop then listed Guantanamo, Bradley Manning and the NSA as other reasons why he should have realised that Obama was ‘basically a twat’.​
He added: “Anyway, I’ve learned my lesson. No more adolescent, liberal hero-worshipping for me.​
“That said, I do think George Clooney would make a fantastic president.”​
​
 
Robert said:
Eternally optimistic Guardian reader finally admits Obama is dreadful

10-09-13
A GUARDIAN reader who has worshipped Barack Obama for five years without interruption has finally admitted he is just awful.
​
obamawave250.jpg
​
‘He’s probably not even a very nice person’​
Martin Bishop, who until last week was still insisting Obama was a mixture of Martin Luther King and John F Kennedy, has now realised that America’s first black president is basically just that.

Bishop said: “I read in the Guardian this morning that he’s now saying there would be no attack on Syria if Assad gives up his chemical weapons. I just thought – ‘he’s an arse’.​
​
“I’m not in favour of attacking Syria but couldn’t he have said that right at the start? So, yes, I admit it – he is a terrible president.” ​
Bishop said that even Obama’s achievements were ‘pretty thin’, adding: “The economy is recovering because they are printing shitloads of money. Any moron could do that.​
“And so what if he ‘got’ Bin Laden? The head of the CIA comes to him and says ‘we’ve found Bin Laden, shall we kill him?’. What was he gonna do? Say ‘no’?.​
“Well done for getting elected the first time – that was impressive – but the second time he was up against a Mormon. I mean, for {bleep}’s sake.”​
Bishop then listed Guantanamo, Bradley Manning and the NSA as other reasons why he should have realised that Obama was ‘basically a twat’.​
He added: “Anyway, I’ve learned my lesson. No more adolescent, liberal hero-worshipping for me.​
“That said, I do think George Clooney would make a fantastic president.”​
​
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Who's still thinking Obama has any power? He's just a puppet to silence us.
 
Glaucus said:
That's a very carefully worded sentence. I say that because it's the type of language designed to protect leaders of nations and not the people of nations. Not the sort of thing I'd expect from you.
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You don't expect me to be in favour of acting lawfully? I understand the laws were compromises and it really errs on the side of caution because a war between nations is likely to cause more death than a war within a single nation. It errs on the side of caution also to discourage nations from provoking civil wars in other countries which they can then use as an excuse to invade "humanitarianly". The US has a long history (not the only history but the because of it's power it is the major offender of the 20th and so far 21st centuries) of funding "rebels". The contras is just the most famous one because it slipped out from under the covert blanket because of some nosey journalist interested in where the cocaine was coming from.

Funding rebels to kill Syrians and fight the government and turn the place into chaos does not mean that you get the right to go in there and "fix" the problem by helping the rebels win.

I'm really not that interested in legalities or the sanctity of nations when people are being killed by the tens of thousands.
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Nope, you're more interested in going in and just killing more people so that you've killed enough that the fighting stops. While I am falling for "doubt", doubt requires some rational thinking. It is a well known psychological phenomenon that people can't think rationally when they are frightened or exposed to highly emotional stimuli. PR companies know this too. Show you something scary or horrifying and your brain shuts off - then they tell you what the answer is and you accept it. It is the foundation of war propaganda. Saddam Hussein gassed his own people. Saddam's sons put people through a shredding machine. The Nazi made soap out of Jews. Even when real nasty things are happening, rulers still feel the need to make up even nastier stuff about the enemy - preferably something in a realm of nasty outside of what the ruler does. Blowing people up with drones. Perfectly fine. Even Glaucus agrees with it. Even if there are innocent bystanders. Hey, they weren't so innocent - they shouldn't have been there. Even when the people are completely innocent - hey, it's a war, stuff happens. The only time blowing up weddings from the air was NOT OK was when it was in Iraq and Bush was doing it. Now it's fine because Obama tells it better. The newspapers sell it better. So blowing people up from drones is OK. Dropping conventional bombs on them is OK too. Shelling them is probably fine (because the rebels are shelling innocent people too) - but chemicals .. ooooooooh that's BAD - unless the rebels do it in which case it didn't really happen or it was primitive gas and didn't kill that many people or ...

But I also think you're highly hypocritical because you're hyper-critical of what the US does but are perfectly cool with what Russia and Iran are doing.
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Two bullies are picking on some grade 1 kids. That's bad. Meanwhile some enforcer from the local drug cartel is shooting up a school bus of kids to send a message to the local politicians. You go after the big things first. You act like a fully made member of the gang, you side with your guy and point at the little problems saying "what about them? They're being bad too!"

You do know that Assad has not only weapons and advisers supplied to him by Russia, but also boots on the ground from Iran and Hezbollah, don't you? Certainly is true that powerful external players have played a huge role in prolonging the war and adding greatly to the body count, but the US isn't one of them.
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Saudi Arabia is the big player - but that's just the US by other means. The US has chosen to allow Saudi Arabia to do that, just as they allowed Saudi Arabia to fund and train the mujahedin in Afghanistan. Prince Bandar bin Sultan was the man behind funding and building up the rebels in Afghanistan against the Soviets. Prince Bandar bin Sultan is again in charge of funding and building rebel forces in Syria (against the Russians). Same players, same game.

When a guy runs through a school shooting kids, should we first properly investigate who the guy is, interview friends and family, ponder his motives, etc, or should we first stop the killing with force if need be and figure it out later? Personally what I think you're suggesting is ludicrous.
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When a guy runs through the school shooting kids we can see who is shooting. That is not the situation we have here. Instead we have a situation where the self appointed sheriff tells the school principle (who is having trouble with a some students who hate him and some of them don't much like the rest of the students either) that if any shooting happens in the school he will come and shoot the principle. Not only does he tell the principle - he tells everyone, students included, that if any shootings happen in the school the faux sheriff will ride in and get rid of the principle - and choose some of the disgruntled students currently on the sheriff's payroll to take his place. The principle knows this is nuts and most of the students know it's nuts too, but the self appointed sheriff owns all the newspapers in town and the real sheriff doesn't have any guns of his own. And when the fake sheriff gets his guys running the school he's going to fire the teachers, raise tuitions, strip all the copper out of it and when student fail their final exams he'll just say that those kinds of kids are just too primitive to acquire knowledge.

Perhaps not directly, but you repeatedly refer to all the rebels as al-Qaeda, often painting the conflict as Assad vs al-Qaeda. Sure, when pressed you admit there are Syrians in the mix, but that's just a last ditch attempt to preserve credibility.
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The conflict is US vs Russia/China. Assad currently holds Syria which benefits Russia and Iran. Iran is currently benefiting China. The US (and allies) are funding the creation of chaos in Syria to render it ungovernable to deny Syria to the Russians. They are using terrorist groups that they have used before to do this. The objective is to remove Assad but they don't need to install a functioning government once they have ousted him (look at the governments they left behind in the places they've already done this). They just need a place with a power vacuum where they can build up weapons and fighters to use in destabilizing Iran unopposed by any local power. Wars are never fought to benefit people other than the financiers, kings, and business elite. The cost and investment is too high to do it without the expectation of immediate return. Just because the soldiers don't come pouring out of the palace with gold and gems stones held aloft doesn't mean that we don't fight wars for the same old thing as we used to. For the most part, the things that have great value to us are patches of ground that we need to control to extract the treasure which lies beneath them, or a patch of ground that needs to be secured for the transportation of that treasure after we dig it up. It really IS that simple.

(splitting because of 10,000 character limit!!)
 
(continued)
Not sure if you read the article, but here's a clip that I think is important to understand if you want to understand Syria:
(It’s worth remembering that you can always find God in a foxhole, and it’s no different if God’s called Allah. American soldiers headed into combat in World War II, after all, singing “Praise the Lord and Pass the ammunition.”)
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It helps me understand that the article is bullshit. There ARE atheists in foxholes. There are religious people that lose their faith in war. That clip is not just wrong, it's pablum designed to make doe-eyed Christians sympathetic to the kinds of people that would shoot little girls for trying to go to school or stone women to death for letting themselves get raped. There is a dynamic that is going on here that gets worse as more time passes (and by design). There are secular and otherwise Syrians fighting against the government. There are many secular and otherwise Syrians who are fighting in voluntary units alongside the government forces trying to protect their villages from the looniest of the Saudi backed rebels. There are anti-government Syrians that will fight alongside the government because the government is a better negotiating partner than the guys we are sending in. But the longer this goes on, the more power goes to those who are most fanatical. Funding the civil war squeezes out the real reformers and favours fighters. And the fighters that it favours are the ones who are most willing to be ruthless and use the most horrific violence. The government is hobbled by the fact that it can't use the same sort of violence as the rebels because it needs to retain the legitimacy to rule - it must maintain a veneer of justice even if it's harsh justice. The rebels only need to destroy things and sow enough fear and chaos that the government can no longer provide security and services to the people. AND the kind of rebels who can do that tend to be found among the people who have a mindset that they can do anything to anyone because their god said it was good.

The fact that you seem to have had a nice cushy life and not been exposed to the kind of nastiness and duplicity out there in the world and the kind of complex intrigues that go on when smart but unempathetic and (for the most part) legally invulnerable people are fighting for things of significant value is something to be grateful for - except you just don't know how much.

In times of war, people use religion as a crutch.
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That is, the victims of war who need a way to get through the horror. On the other hand, a Madrasa takes 11 year old boys and turns them into people who believe that folks who haven't memorized the "correct" version of their religious text doesn't really deserve to live. That's a bit different. And no - I'm not talking about Islam per se - there are billions of peace loving Muslims, but there are also hundreds of thousands of brain washed religiously indoctrinated fighting machines - thanks Prince Bandar.

The best way to fight al-Qaeda in Syria is to end the war and to allow the Sunni majority to focus their efforts on eradicating the al-Qaeda parasites. The Alawite Assad will always be a magnate for al-Qaeda and you know it. The bloodshed can not end while Assad is in power, I do not understand how anyone can think otherwise.
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The best way to fight Al-Qaeda EVERYWHERE is to stop sending them money and guns all the time. The best way of fighting Al-Qaeda would be to turn their number one supporter into a secular, possibly democratic state instead of a wahabist kingdom. It wouldn't be a bad idea to turn the US into a democratic secular state too, while we're at it. It is a shame that you don't understand this. You throw this fight for the rebels Al-Nusra WILL be the last man standing because they are the most fanatical and well trained and it is in the interest of the Saudis (but probably not the Israelis) and it would help be useful to the US in terms of bringing down Iran. It would be Afghanistan/Iraq redux. A decade in Iraq since the secular government fell, three decades in Afghanistan - and still no peace. That is what you will be giving Syria.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
When a guy runs through the school shooting kids we can see who is shooting. That is not the situation we have here. Instead we have a situation where the self appointed sheriff tells the school principle (who is having trouble with a some students who hate him and some of them don't much like the rest of the students either) that if any shooting happens in the school he will come and shoot the principle. Not only does he tell the principle - he tells everyone, students included, that if any shootings happen in the school the faux sheriff will ride in and get rid of the principle - and choose some of the disgruntled students currently on the sheriff's payroll to take his place. The principle knows this is nuts and most of the students know it's nuts too, but the self appointed sheriff owns all the newspapers in town and the real sheriff doesn't have any guns of his own. And when the fake sheriff gets his guys running the school he's going to fire the teachers, raise tuitions, strip all the copper out of it and when student fail their final exams he'll just say that those kinds of kids are just too primitive to acquire knowledge.
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Best analogy of the situation I've seen. Well said, sir.
 
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