Thread: Here we go again USA vs Syria

I think most of the noise coming from Russia is just that noise, they have no love for Islamic extremists any more than the west look at Chechnya etc but don't want to be seen siding with the US either

Originally Posted by THE BOOGER

I think most of the noise coming from Russia is just that noise, they have no love for Islamic extremists any more than the west look at Chechnya etc but don't want to be seen siding with the US either

True, but Syria buys arms from the Russians, and LOTS of them at that.
It's also one of their few remaining "allies" and I'm sure they'd like to keep it that way.

I guess that the position of Putin is that not one know who if any is going to run Syria if the actual leader goes.
Look what happens in Irak, it is hell and more people died now that when Saddam was in power.
IMO it is better to have the devil that you know than 3 or more that you do not know.
Is any body things that if the rebels win they are going to be peaceful and friends with USA?

The most sensible solution so far, Bob

Syria welcomes proposal to surrender weapons

But, will the rebels do the same?

Ref; Syria welcomes Russian proposal to surrender chemical weapons as Assad warns US over strikes - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

"His government also welcomed an unexpected proposal, set out by Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, for Syria to place its weapons under international supervision and have them destroyed."

"The Russians made the idea public after US secretary of state John Kerry made an off-the-cuff comment at a press conference, suggesting that Mr Assad could avoid a strike by giving up his chemical weapons in a week,"

It reads a lot different if this is added.

"-------- something he believed would not and could not happen."

.

Originally Posted by wrinklearthur

But, will the rebels do the same?

Ref; Syria welcomes Russian proposal to surrender chemical weapons as Assad warns US over strikes - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)





It reads a lot different if this is added.

.

It's called diplomacy, Arthur. And do we know who the Rebels are anymore?, Bob

Syrian opposition
Molhem Barakat / Reuters
Free Syrian Army fighters search bags belonging to civilians who are attempting to enter Turkey at the Bab Al-Salam border crossing September 9, 2013.


By Richard Engel, Chief Foreign Correspondent, NBC News
News Analysis
NORTHERN SYRIA and ANTAKYA, TURKEY -- There was another checkpoint up ahead, so we slowed down, but didn’t stop. It’s better to keep moving at rebel checkpoints now. Don’t make too much eye contact, and move on.
We were in a convoy of pickups with commanders from the Free Syrian Army, top guys, but they didn’t have much juice anymore.
A year or two ago, the FSA ran all the checkpoints. They ran the revolution. With their fatigues, Winston cigarettes and patriotic songs blaring on their car radios, they were the rebels of Rebelstan and the people loved them.
Farmers stopped them on the road to push baskets of figs snapped right from the trees into their cars. The FSA didn’t need bases because families opened their homes for fighters to bed down for the night.


But it got all messed up. The extremists started coming about a year ago.
Saudi teenagers looking to shoot someone with their new guns. Iraqis showing off how much they knew about fighting from years blowing up American Humvees. Tunisians and Libyans unsatisfied with their own revolutions and hungering for more. Al Qaeda put out the call to go Syria and it was answered.
Syrian opposition activists say a school was attacked Monday with a substance they compared to Napalm, saying the only injuries recorded were burns across 50 to 80 percent of victims' bodies. NBC's Richard Engel reports. Footage Courtesy BBC Panorama.

The men at the checkpoint waved us through.
“Who are these people?” I asked the commander in my pickup.
“I don’t know. Nusra maybe,” he said.
The al-Nusra Front used to be the worst, the hardest of the hardcore Islamists, earning a spot on the State Department’s list of terrorist groups. But now, Nusra has been surpassed by newer, more bloodthirsty gangs. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (also known as ISIS) is more radical than Nusra. So are the Mohajeroun, "the migrants."
On a spectrum of dark knights, Nusra has become a charcoal to the Mohajeroun’s raven black. The Nusra at least tried to play nice, handing out bread, picking up garbage and playing for hearts and minds. The Islamic State and Mohajeroun don’t bother. You either listen to them, live by their unbending interpretations of seventh century Islamic justice or they whip you and kill you and forget about you.
“They have no friends,” said a friend of mine who was kidnapped by the Islamic State and sentenced to death after a five minute Islamic "trial." He managed to slip away by the silver of his tongue.
The Islamic State whipped a young groom and his father last May in the town of Saraqib. A video shows men [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rAkHgMCaiM&sns=em"]giving the groom 40 lashes [/ame]with a length of rope and his father 50 lashes, for marrying a divorced women without waiting three months, as defined by Islamic law. Other radicals killed a boy in Aleppo in July for making an off-handed comment about the Muslim Prophet Muhammad, considering it blasphemy. In Raqqda last May, extremists carried out a public execution of three men they accused of being regime loyalists. They sat the men on the ground, hands bound behind their backs, read the verdict on a bullhorn, and shot each one with a pistol to the back of the head.
We’d only been driving for a few minutes since we’d gotten through the last checkpoint. The new one up ahead didn’t look promising. All black flags. Five men with AK-47s. No smiles.
I slouched in my seat. I knew it didn’t make me harder to see, but I couldn’t help it. I would have crawled into the glove compartment if I could have.
Slideshow: Syria uprising


Alice Martins / AFP - Getty Images
A look back at the conflict that has overtaken the country.

Launch slideshow



The men at this checkpoint were wearing Pakistani-style pajama suits. They were playing dress up jihadi. War can be fun for certain people. It’s a magnet for sadists, losers and angry dreamers. You get to travel and carry a gun and stop cars and kill people if you want to and tell them what to do and watch them cower in front of you.


It beats working in a grocery store in Benghazi or Karachi, simmering all day as you watch Muslims being killed on TV. In Syria, you can play al Qaeda superhero, a Muslim Ironman flying in to rescue Syrians from Bashar Assad’s Alawite death machine. Maybe you can even make money from kidnappings, or die and win a trip on the express elevator to heaven.
The men in pajamas waved us through the checkpoint, but there were more checkpoints to come. During the recent hour drive from Aleppo to the Turkish border, our convoy passed through nearly a dozen. Only two were run by the Free Syrian Army. The rest belonged to Nusra, the Islamic State, the Mohajeroun, or were run by men unknown to the FSA commander with us.
He told me his men had stopped traveling alone. Even the original rebels weren't safe from the whims of the Islamic extremists.
So who exactly would the United States be helping if it bombed Syria? We don’t really know. Neither do many Syrians.
In some ways Washington would be providing air support for al Qaeda-backed fighters. The extremists would benefit from the U.S. military intervention and try make advances. But attacking Assad’s regime would also help the FSA and its moderate leader General Salim Idris, a U.S. ally.
What about doing nothing? That's also has costs. Ignoring the crisis has only made Syria the mess it is now.

bob10...Very interesting post mate, VERY interesting.
So, what do you say SHOULD happen, what do you think WILL happen.
If the "World" stays out,...will Assad stay "In"?
Cheers, Pickles.

Originally Posted by Pickles2

bob10...Very interesting post mate, VERY interesting.
So, what do you say SHOULD happen, what do you think WILL happen.
If the "World" stays out,...will Assad stay "In"?
Cheers, Pickles.

Let Russia handle the Syrian Gov., , form a coalition to oversee the collection of chemical weapons, [ getting the mix of countries right would be crucial], Get the UN to declare a neutral zone , on the border with Turkey, Syrian rebel fighters & refugees to muster there. All minority groups out, only Syrian opposition stay. A UN resolution to force both parties to the negotiating table. A security council resolution to form a balanced and highly capable task force , Russian led, with Arab League involvement , and Turkish/ NATO troops, ready to intervene if the neutral zone is compromised. US observers only, no US boots on the ground.

As for Assad, this is a Syrian problem, they must be forced to negotiate a solution. Whatever happens Russia has to be onside, but Assad has to know the "World" will not tolerate the fighting any more. The Muslim world must be assured this is not a vendetta against them. But, most of all, every rabid minority group of jihadists/ ratbags must be sent on their way, and the only country who can make that happen is Iran. What we desperately need now is some old fashioned diplomacy, to knit it all together. Dare I say, the Poms have a reputation at being good at this sort of thing. Keep the USA out, you may get Iran in. If Iran thinks they can score points over the US, it might just work. The US has to pull their heads in, cop it sweet, and show the World they have learned the hard lessons of Iraq & Afganistan..........Simple, really.


What will happen? it would be easier to muster cats than predict that. Bob