Here we go again USA vs Syria

The "incident" involving chemical weapons mirrors a pattern of earlier atrocities alegedly committed by "Syrian forces" which I speculate were manufactured by the rebels (possibly under external guidance) for Western media consumption.

I've detailed my thoughts on some of the previous atrocities in a Soapbox post - see here - http://www.aulro.com/afvb/cantina/15...y-going-2.html

One thing I have to reiterate, nomatter how ruthless you think Syrian government may be, they are not stupid. With the benefit of seeing how a number of recent pretexts for war are manufactured (in Bosnia, Yugoslavia & Iraq just to name a few) they would have to be retarded to order such an attack.

Syria brings the US one step closer to Iran, and that's always been their long term goal. You only have to listen to the US state Department rhetoric on Iran to see what's going on.

My $0.02.

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Syria brings the US one step closer to Iran, and that's always been their long term goal.

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I smell a rat, but that doesn't mean that the Assad regime is innocent in this..
Are they playing a part/role??
They say there is no evidence it was us, instead of co-operating to show the world it wasn't them, & waited 5 days after the event,
I suspect the U.S/West has been lured "hook line & sinker" into the situation (chemical weapons used) crossing the "red line"
Now the haters of the USA & West will have in their small minds "Justification" to hate /attack/fight/terrorize the West & create a major conflict

Local arabs like the saudi's and such like should deal with it if
anyone is going to....

I do not like it at all, Putin is not push over :(
It looks like that he would like that USA respect the future resolution of the UN Security Council were Putin will veto any intervention in the dispute.

Russia sends warships to Mediterranean as Syria tensions escalate

good, the bloods on his hands and the russians don't have a social conscience to battle so all posts are winners for the ring stealing superhero.

good time for the west to stand down and leave it in their capable hands till it all goes to **** big time further down the road...

funnily enough the russians are still having issues with their islamic friends in surrounding states... maybe he wants to ship them all to syria ;)

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Originally Posted by roverv8

I smell a rat, but that doesn't mean that the Assad regime is innocent in this..
Are they playing a part/role??
They say there is no evidence it was us, instead of co-operating to show the world it wasn't them, & waited 5 days after the event,
I suspect the U.S/West has been lured "hook line & sinker" into the situation (chemical weapons used) crossing the "red line"
Now the haters of the USA & West will have in their small minds "Justification" to hate /attack/fight/terrorize the West & create a major conflict

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Innocence is a relative concept - Strategically, the US cannot allow a functioning democracy to flourish on the Arab peninsula (or in any other corner of their empire for that matter). This is because in any democratic society, people will elect a government that will best look after their own interests (somewhat akin to introduction of the mining tax for example). This would be in direct conflict with US interests in the area (or anywhere else within their empire for that matter), which in this instance is syphoning off mineral wealth from the peninsula.

What they really need in these areas is a dictator subservient to their interests, so they can go on with the business of extracting in peace (think Saddam prior to ~1990, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt or The Shah of Iran prior to 1979). I would say that the Syrian "regime" was one of the better towards its people in the region, certainly better than say Bahrain or Saudi Arabia.

Anyone notice how Syria has a "regime" while Iraq and Egypt have "governments"?

As for your suggestion of cooperating to show the world it wasn't them, it's a noble idea, but it doesn't work in practice. Back to the recent examples of Bosnia, Yugoslavia or Iraq.

In 1993, the Bosnian Serb government cooperated with the Western media to show them they weren't "all bad". They guided them through a Serb controlled area, including a school which was used as an emergency shelter for refugees displaced by the war. The school had a small utility shed on the grounds which was fenced off by a fence with a couple of strands of barbed wire on the top. An ITN camera crew found a guy with a birth defect (skinny chest, exposed ribcage), put him topless in front of the fence and photographed him from inside, making it look reminiscent of WW II concentration camps. This made front page news of just about every western newspaper and set off outrage around the world that eventually paved the way for an intervention. Unfortunately for ITN a local film crew captured the whole thing on tape.
A quick search turns up a summary on Youtube if you're interested [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xss0Ep1MJM]Serbian Concentration Camp fabrication - YouTube[/ame]

In Yugoslavia, the international community put together a "Kosovo Verification Mission" taskforce to monitor peace, a short time later it produced footage of a massacre of Albanian civilians in a place called Racak, Kosovo. This was also shown to be a fabrication, but by then it was too late. Once again, there was public outrage, followed by NATO's 3 month bombing campaign. I remember at the time thinking the taskforce was headed by a senior US diplomat (William Walker) whose previous diplomatic posts in places such as El Salvador, Bolivia, Panama and Honduras happened to coincide with formations of death squads, government overthrows, assassinations of political figures, and in Honduras, organising guerrillas fighting the Nicaraguan government at the time... can someone say CIA....

Anyway, you get the idea, you're probably familiar with Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector who publically contradicted Bush / Blair claims of WMD's in Iraq... even this fell on deaf ears.

With this in mind, if you were the Syrian government, what would you do? Not an easy question, is it?

The better question is, who takes control of Syria if Assad goes?

Surprisingly interesting commentry along similar lines here - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...dly-error.html

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Originally Posted by Vanguard

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The UN is a complete farce. Russia and China should not be on the security council as they veto everything and are completely obstructionist and devoid of any feeling of obligation to preventing humanitarian crises.

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I say the UN isn't a farce and the correct action to take is to leave it up to them. The UN was against the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions from the start. The UN. weapons inspectors refuted Bush's claims, yet good people were duped by bad people into regretable actions. If the UN says intervention is required, then our forces can be committed with a clear conscience. The US and UK made the UN appear a farce by ignoring it but the UN will outlast both of them because it is the logical future. People tend to call anyone who doesn't agree with them obstructionist. There are a lot of people in a lot of places saying "please, stop saving me" to cowboys who have gone in guns blazing.

The US gets on its high horse about the actions of others but has the US ever been held to account for its invasion of Iraq - no - might is right in this world. How many war crimes trials been held against those who have been on the allied/winning side - none.

Americans was the rest of the world to mimic their sick society but the world refuses to hold the US to account for their actions but happily holds regimes to account who the US dislikes.

In addition to the gas attack in Syria, there was a phosphorus attack which has got the US all upset yet when Israel used phosphorus weapons in Gaza a few years ago, other than saying bad boy nothing was done to sanction Israel.

And the US wonders why no one believes its statements and comes across as not being sincere and hypocritical in its actions.

The US would be better expending its energies in reforming the UN Security council to change the veto system so that no one country can veto a resolution - also would help if the US started paying its way in the UN - it never pays its full contributions to the UN.

Garry

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Originally Posted by garrycol

The US gets on its high horse about the actions of others but has the US ever been held to account for its invasion of Iraq - no - might is right in this world. How many war crimes trials been held against those who have been on the allied/winning side - none.

Americans was the rest of the world to mimic their sick society but the world refuses to hold the US to account for their actions but happily holds regimes to account who the US dislikes.

In addition to the gas attack in Syria, there was a phosphorus attack which has got the US all upset yet when Israel used phosphorus weapons in Gaza a few years ago, other than saying bad boy nothing was done to sanction Israel.

And the US wonders why no one believes its statements and comes across as not being sincere and hypocritical in its actions.

The US would be better expending its energies in reforming the UN Security council to change the veto system so that no one country can veto a resolution - also would help if the US started paying its way in the UN - it never pays its full contributions to the UN.

Garry

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So just how much do you think that they SHOULD be paying. ;)

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/

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Originally Posted by BMKal

So just how much do you think that they SHOULD be paying. ;)

http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/1617/5t6l.jpg

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It should be 25%.

The US have been in arrears for years.

Since 1985 the U.S. Congress has refused to authorize payment of the U.S. dues, in order to force UN compliance with U.S. wishes, as well as a reduction in the U.S. assessment.

After prolonged negotiations, the U.S. and the UN negotiated an agreement whereby the United States would pay a large part of the money it owes, and in exchange the UN would reduce the assessment rate ceiling from 25% to 22%.

Even with the above agreement in place the US short changed the UN and U.S. arrears to the UN currently total over $1.3 billion.

Typical USA - don't like the UN policies so don't pay.

Garry