Syrian War

[Cynic Hero '86]

The Arab Spring Opposition ARE Islamists.

[Eric the Green]

Nope, they are young people who want freedom.

[Bob Butler 54]

I'm inclined to think both Cynic and Eric both have simplistic views.  There is a lot of tribal thinking going on in the area.  The Arab Spring movement as originally began is pretty much dead.  Islam has many flavors.  Both Enlightenment and Marxist values are thoroughly discredited in the region, which leaves Islam as the dominant system of morality.  The presence of foreign powers pushing their own agendas complicates things.

My own immediate concern is that Trump will try a similarly simplistic point of view and wade into the quagmire.  Bush 43 got bursts of popularity by killing people.  Trump is starting to flirt with the same effect.  At the same time, he was elected on 'America First' so he might loose some who don't like the 'world's policeman' gig while winning those who think force provides easy answers.

I don't see easy answers.  I'd still ask Powell's Questions, not expecting easy answers.  If one can't clearly break the quagmire, sending more soldiers and munitions into a region just makes the quagmire worse.

The following diagram gives an idea of the complexity, but is spun to push the point that nobody likes ISIS.  While I won't argue that ISIS is unpopular, I don't see them viewed by the locals as the greatest problem or threat to what passes for peace.  I'd be tempted to do a variation that puts the Syrian Government in the center, or shares the center with ISIS.  I have a feeling that the circles could be rearranged so the lines don't cross as much.  Ah, well...

Gut feel, to break the quagmire you have to take out Assad, not ISIS, but there are too many blue arrows going into the 'Syrian Government' circle for this to be likely.

[Warren Dew]

(04-11-2017, 06:25 PM)Mikebert Wrote: In the aftermath of the airstrike in Syria I read this from a poster at American Conservative who questions whether Assad was responsible for the recent chemical weapons use since last time we accused of doing this (in 2013) it turns out we were wrong. When questioned on this he responded with

I suggest you take a close look at Robert Parry’s discussion of the matter. As he points out, the NY Times recently dropped the alleged 2013 Syrian use of chemical weapons from its list of atrocities. Why? Because the factual basis for the allegation fell apart. Yet the allegation is still being made, including by people in the media who ought to know better.
See Parry’s article at https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/06/nyt-retreats-on-2013-syria-sarin-claims/ .
And then take a look at Ray McGovern’s piece at https://consortiumnews.com/2016/12/11/the-syrian-sarin-false-flag-lesson/ .
Look also at the articles linked in both pieces, especially https://consortiumnews.com/2013/12/29/nyt-backs-off-its-syria-sarin-analysis/, discussing how the NY Times backed away from its earlier claims concerning the 2013 chemical attack, and especially at
Seymour Hersh’s article at https://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line and the report both Seymour and, eventually but sotto voce, the NY Times cited:
https://www.voltairenet.org/IMG/pdf/possible-implications-of-bad-intelligence.pdf.

What do people think? Particularly Jordan and Warren.

Sorry about the  late response.

I think if the NYT is retreating on a claim, that gives the claim more credibility, not less. At the time I was skeptical about the 2013 claim, but now I may have to reconsider.

Either way, it matters little for the current claim, which is rather better substantiated.

[Warren Dew]

(04-11-2017, 06:42 PM)Mikebert Wrote: The reason I am curious is a chemical attack of this sort by the Syrian government makes no sense to me.  It appears to offer no benefit to Assad while making Putin look bad and turning a neutral Trump administration into a belligerent. On the other hand it seems to make sense for regime opponents.

Given the possibility that we jumped the gun last time (which might be why Obama never carried out any airstrikes after Russia granted him a face-saving way to back down) I am not so quick to just accept our government's word that Assad was definitely responsible.

It seems to me there is a way to test this.  If it really was a regime opponent who had the chemical munitions, we should see more of this.

It made sense for Assad because, what with regaining territory, he had a population to pacify.  Gassing Sunnis would help him rule through fear.  At best, he could keep using these attacks.  At worst, he probably thought, there would be another Russia brokered "deal", making him useful to Putin as a way of magnifying Russia's geopolitical influence.

Instead, there was an air strike.  But he still only lost a few warplanes.  It's probably enough to keep him from using nerve gas again, but it's not a big loss for him.

The reason to think the regime was the perpetrator rather than their opponents is because the effective dispersion of the nerve gas required weaponization which is available to the Assad regime but not to the other suspects.

[Warren Dew]

(04-15-2017, 10:40 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Now we have a new group in charge in the USA. Trump was not keen on starting a US war against Syria. But he did like to show that he was tough where Obama had been weak.

Yes.  And, with respect to Syria, there's little risk of starting a war.  The message to Assad was just to cut out use of "WMD" - chemical weapons - not to stop his conventional attacks.

But Syria was not the primary audience for the attacks.  North Korea and China were.  The primary message of our retaliation on the air base was for nuclear proliferators, in particular Kim Jong Un, to cut it out.

We'll see how that goes.  The US is positioning for possible selective strikes on North Korea, and China seems to be positioned for "protective" invasion if necessary.  Kim Jong Un does not seem the type to back down easily, though.

[David Horn]

(04-13-2017, 05:47 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(04-13-2017, 10:40 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Not certain. I do believe Assad is behind these attacks, but I could be wrong. About the latest one, they said they had satellite coverage of it.

They said that in 2013 too. I don't know what to believe anymore.

Isn't that the point of every counter claim?  I think we can all agree that there are no fully honest parties in the region, Israel included.  Every party has an agenda.  One thing that's not disputable though.  Assad has been killing Syrians in large numbers for years.  Adding additional charges to the many known atrocities may be intellectually lazy, but easy to do.

At this point, it's all about swinging the US toward regime change or not.  Judging by Libya, that's not a good idea, even if the sarin gas charges are true.  We seem incapable of whatever comes next, and the regional players wouldn't allow a calm transfer in any case.

[Bob Butler 54]

(04-17-2017, 05:49 AM)David Horn Wrote: At this point, it's all about swinging the US toward regime change or not.  Judging by Libya, that's not a good idea, even if the sarin gas charges are true.  We seem incapable of whatever comes next, and the regional players wouldn't allow a calm transfer in any case.

Yep.  Keep asking Powell's Questions.  If you haven't got good answers -- and you won't as long as other external powers are propping up Assad -- don't escalate the quagmire.

It seems like we're getting an awful lot of saber rattling going on now that Trump is settling in.  I for one am not happy with it.

[Eric the Green]

(04-15-2017, 05:57 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I'm inclined to think both Cynic and Eric both have simplistic views.  There is a lot of tribal thinking going on in the area.  The Arab Spring movement as originally began is pretty much dead.  Islam has many flavors.  Both Enlightenment and Marxist values are thoroughly discredited in the region, which leaves Islam as the dominant system of morality.  The presence of foreign powers pushing their own agendas complicates things.

My own immediate concern is that Trump will try a similarly simplistic point of view and wade into the quagmire.  Bush 43 got bursts of popularity by killing people.  Trump is starting to flirt with the same effect.  At the same time, he was elected on 'America First' so he might loose some who don't like the 'world's policeman' gig while winning those who think force provides easy answers.

I don't see easy answers.  I'd still ask Powell's Questions, not expecting easy answers.  If one can't clearly break the quagmire, sending more soldiers and munitions into a region just makes the quagmire worse.

The following diagram gives an idea of the complexity, but is spun to push the point that nobody likes ISIS.  While I won't argue that ISIS is unpopular, I don't see them viewed by the locals as the greatest problem or threat to what passes for peace.  I'd be tempted to do a variation that puts the Syrian Government in the center, or shares the center with ISIS.  I have a feeling that the circles could be rearranged so the lines don't cross as much.  Ah, well...

Gut feel, to break the quagmire you have to take out Assad, not ISIS, but there are too many blue arrows going into the 'Syrian Government' circle for this to be likely.

Bob tends to simplify Eric's views.

The chart is good at showing all the actors and what they're doing, except the Syrian Democratic Forces and the Free Syrian Army are the same, and are not fighting each other. Otherwise, I agree the IS is in the Center, because everybody is against them. But yes Assad is the greatest problem in the region rather than the IS. The chart shows that by it having the most (valid) arrows directed to it (7), except the IS (9). No other group has more than 6.

The "supporters and allies" of the IS are the young folks who are recruited by their on-line propaganda and within radical groups.

[Eric the Green]

I think the Islamic State has gotten plenty of money to buy war equipment by expropriating the wealth of the conquered territory, including the oil fields, and stealing weapons from those it conquered (chiefly those of the retreating Iraqi army in 2014, originally supplied by the USA). I don't know of any anti-western power directly supporting them, but there may be rumors of wealthy non-state powers within states like Saudi Arabia who are helping the IS; there are plenty of Muslim extremists there. They are called Wahhabis, and their religious schools are called Madrassas.

from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-yousaf-...01916.html

More recently, the Saudi role in promoting extremism has come under renewed scrutiny. Calls for declassifying the redacted 28 pages of the 9/11 congressional commission have been getting stronger. And statements from the lead author of the report, former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, suggest they are being hidden because they “point a very strong finger at Saudi Arabia as the principal financier” of the 9/11 hijackers. He has been unusually explicit, “Saudi Arabia has not stopped its interest in spreading extreme Wahhabism. ISIS...is a product of Saudi ideals, Saudi money and Saudi organizational support, although now they are making a pretense of being very anti-ISIS.”

In fact, Saudi blogger Raif Badawi’s wife, Ensaf Haidar, made a similar observation about her husband’s flogging: “the Saudi government is behaving like Daesh [a derogatory Arabic term for ISIS].” About 2,500 Saudis are thought to be in ISIS’ ranks.

Ensaf Haidar’s quip exposes a deeper truth. One could reasonably argue that the House of Saud is simply a more established and diplomatic version of ISIS. It shares the extremist Wahhabi theo-fascism, the lack of human rights, intolerance, violent beheadings etc. — but with nicer buildings and roads. If ISIS were ever to become an established state, after a few decades one imagines it might resemble Saudi Arabia.

[Mikebert]

(04-17-2017, 05:49 AM)David Horn Wrote: One thing that's not disputable though.  Assad has been killing Syrians in large numbers for years. 

And Lincoln killed Americans in large numbers.  That's what happens in a civil war.

[Eric the Green]

The difference is that Lincoln did not start a war by killing non-violent protesters in the tens of thousands who were citizens of his own country. He killed armed soldiers in a war that he and his government declared after the South seceded and then fired on his military base. And Assad has continued to bomb civilian hospitals, schools and houses, which Lincoln never did.

At least 620,000 soldiers died in the American civil war on both sides. This amounted to 2 percent of the USA/CSA population at the time. More than half of these died of wounds and disease off the battlefield.

http://www.civilwar.org/education/civil-...lties.html

Assad's killing has reached about 450,000, consisting of both civilians and insurgents as well as pro-government soldiers. In 2011, the Syrian population was estimated at roughly 23 million permanent inhabitants. That's also about 2% of the population killed. Of this 23 million, half a million have been killed, 5 million escaped Syria (with some dying on the journey), and 6.5 million are displaced within Syria. That's over half the population.

from http://freebeacon.com/national-security/...civil-war/

JERUSALEM—More than half of Syria’s population has been swept up by the country’s civil war in the past five years—either killed, wounded or displaced, according to a report by the Syrian Center for Policy Research.

Some 400,000 Syrians, soldiers and civilians, have been killed as a direct result of military action, the report said, and another 70,000 died as a result of poor health care in the ravaged country, shortage of medicine and food and lack of access to clean water. In addition, 1.9 million persons have been wounded. Together, these casualties make up 11.5 percent of Syria’s pre-war population of some 22 million.

[David Horn]

(04-17-2017, 11:25 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(04-17-2017, 05:49 AM)David Horn Wrote: At this point, it's all about swinging the US toward regime change or not.  Judging by Libya, that's not a good idea, even if the sarin gas charges are true.  We seem incapable of whatever comes next, and the regional players wouldn't allow a calm transfer in any case.

Yep.  Keep asking Powell's Questions.  If you haven't got good answers -- and you won't as long as other external powers are propping up Assad -- don't escalate the quagmire.

It seems like we're getting an awful lot of saber rattling going on now that Trump is settling in.  I for one am not happy with it.

As far as I can tell, Trump is only interested in his own popularity.  War is popular until it isn't.  I'm not sure Trump looks farther than first effects, so yes, war may be in the offing. 

Is this what his supporters expect or will even accept?  I haven't the foggiest.  His approval numbers are well below 50%, and he may try something to get them moving again.

[David Horn]

(04-17-2017, 05:46 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(04-17-2017, 05:49 AM)David Horn Wrote: One thing that's not disputable though.  Assad has been killing Syrians in large numbers for years. 

And Lincoln killed Americans in large numbers.  That's what happens in a civil war.

True enough.  Assad is following the lead of his father, but it may not work this time.  I can't see Syria continuing as a nation under Assad, but I can't see it continuing in any case.  Then there is the issue of Turkey under Erdogan, which only adds to the mess in place.  Bob's graphic of everyone fighting everyone else is a prescription for chaos, and it may not resolve in our lifetimes.

Let's assume Assad keeps the western half of his country, with the Russian's help.  Are they willing to stay engaged for the long term just to get a warm water port for their fleet?  I don't see them getting anything else but grief.

[Mikebert]

(04-18-2017, 09:13 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-17-2017, 05:46 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(04-17-2017, 05:49 AM)David Horn Wrote: One thing that's not disputable though.  Assad has been killing Syrians in large numbers for years. 

And Lincoln killed Americans in large numbers.  That's what happens in a civil war.

True enough.  Assad is following the lead of his father, but it may not work this time.  I can't see Syria continuing as a nation under Assad, but I can't see it continuing in any case.  Then there is the issue of Turkey under Erdogan, which only adds to the mess in place.  Bob's graphic of everyone fighting everyone else is a prescription for chaos, and it may not resolve in our lifetimes.

Let's assume Assad keeps the western half of his country, with the Russian's help.  Are they willing to stay engaged for the long term just to get a warm water port for their fleet?  I don't see them getting anything else but grief.

I don't really care if is works out or not for him.  I'd like for us to not be involved, but I never get what I want.

[Eric the Green]

Yes indeed, and that was Trump's theme song!

"You Can't Always Get What You Want" by the Rolling Stones (1969)
https://youtu.be/cH8-YlQespY
https://youtu.be/XRL9f2flPro
https://youtu.be/4XuSp1uptVw

"Practiced at the art of deception, you can tell by the blood-stained hand...."

[Eric the Green]

(04-18-2017, 09:05 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-17-2017, 11:25 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(04-17-2017, 05:49 AM)David Horn Wrote: At this point, it's all about swinging the US toward regime change or not.  Judging by Libya, that's not a good idea, even if the sarin gas charges are true.  We seem incapable of whatever comes next, and the regional players wouldn't allow a calm transfer in any case.

Yep.  Keep asking Powell's Questions.  If you haven't got good answers -- and you won't as long as other external powers are propping up Assad -- don't escalate the quagmire.

It seems like we're getting an awful lot of saber rattling going on now that Trump is settling in.  I for one am not happy with it.

As far as I can tell, Trump is only interested in his own popularity.  War is popular until it isn't.  I'm not sure Trump looks farther than first effects, so yes, war may be in the offing. 

Is this what his supporters expect or will even accept?  I haven't the foggiest.  His approval numbers are well below 50%, and he may try something to get them moving again.

Well, my bias prevented me from predicting Trump would win, as my indicators said he would. Now I am sticking by my prediction that there will be no new war for the USA in Trump's term.

That doesn't preclude a "strike" or two.

The cycle predicted here:
https://youtu.be/WAoeW5fXJYU

Wish me and all of us luck!

[David Horn]

(04-18-2017, 01:29 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(04-18-2017, 09:13 AM)David Horn Wrote: Assad is following the lead of his father, but it may not work this time.  I can't see Syria continuing as a nation under Assad, but I can't see it continuing in any case.  Then there is the issue of Turkey under Erdogan, which only adds to the mess in place.  Bob's graphic of everyone fighting everyone else is a prescription for chaos, and it may not resolve in our lifetimes.

Let's assume Assad keeps the western half of his country, with the Russian's help.  Are they willing to stay engaged for the long term just to get a warm water port for their fleet?  I don't see them getting anything else but grief.

I don't really care if is works out or not for him.  I'd like for us to not be involved, but I never get what I want.

Unfortunately, neither of us gets to decide.  We've seen enough evidence that the ME is a quagmire of epic proportions.  Getting in deeper is just compounded stupidity, but that doesn't make it any less likely.

[Eric the Green]

I knew his hats and ties might serve some purpose. lol