Elsewhere in the Middle East

[LouiseBrooks]

I defy anyone to watch this Iraqi MP without weeping.

[Isitmebut]

Yes, once he (Assad) murdered innocent civilians demonstrating peacefully via tanks etc - why can't you see any leader wouldn't be ever be able to restore order for long, especially if murdering the oppressed religious MAJORITY, having done that?

Someone (a nobody) external stated the obvious on a Syrian domestic issue, does not maketh it a western hatched plot.

[Isitmebut]

Imagine if Ed Milliband came to power and said all non-whites were going to rule England, there was a peaceful demonstration of the whites, who were then killed in numbers by the army on Miliband's orders.

Led by Mr Farage (all Conservatives would have been shot by now lol) do you think the whites would rise on their own, or wait for a foreign leader elsewhere to tell them to?

It is the same thing

[claig]

You've lost me.

Your logic is untenable. There is no process of change that leaves your logic intact.

[Isitmebut]

Sorry, I should have realised that Farage being a real leader to a sane person wouldn't compute - my point is, whether the peoples revolution in Syria or any other, are you saying that all revolutions/rebellions are foreign plots - as the Syrian Sunni majority were not happy under Shia offshoot Assad, and when they peacefully protested, were murdered.

[claig]

'are you saying that all revolutions/rebellions are foreign plots'

Of course not, the UKIP people's revolution is no foreign plot

[Isitmebut]

Your clear inability to spot a domestic political wrong 'un aside, on Al-Jazeera, they have a report they air called 'Aleppo, Notes from the dark' - and I suggest that you watch it - it is very hard hitting.

The pretext for the 2nd war with Iraq was a dodgy dossier of WMD's made up my Mr Blair's sofa government special advisors - whereas Syria was all about 'the people' and how easy it would have been to make a difference to them by taking out clear, identified, military equipment pounding those people into the ground - but we let them down.

Now we need to chase around the desert of two country's looking for ISIS 4x4's hopefully flying a black flag, that GREW in size and professionalism out of our inaction -where when hiding in towns and villages we have little intel on, there is far more chance of civilians getting killed.

So our action now, realistically, will be fought with armed Drones picking targets out from the masses, that can fly into dodgy countries where terrorists are allowed to live or hide, like the Taliban in Pakistan. IMO.

[Isitmebut]

...the dodgy country in this case Syria, where Assad has asked for 'notice' of allied airplane attacks, to use as he wishes.

So Drones for surgical strikes, Cruise Missiles for ISIS bases, is what I'd do.

[claig]

Al Jazeera is a Qatari TV station and Qatar has been funding the "moderate rebels" to overthrow Assad for several years now, and all attempts to topple him using mercenary Jihadis have so far failed.

"The Qataris are playing a very interesting game. On the one hand, they are telling Assad that they are important in Syria. Assad is well aware of this, since Qatar has been throwing millions of dollars at the “moderate” rebels trying to overthrow Assad’s government – “moderates” who no longer exist – but whose successors have more recently been doing Assad a few favours."

www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/qatar-and-the-reason-us-hostage-peter-theo-curtis-has-been-released-9690048.html

Always read between the lines to see the true picture.

'So Drones for surgical strikes, Cruise Missiles for ISIS bases, is what I'd do.'

Sir Malcolm Rifkind, formerly regularly interviewed on the BBC and in favour of bombing Syria then, when the push to bomb Syria was ramped up to the max on the BBC, now says we should talk to Assad and eliminate Isis. Seems a sensible thing to do, but as the former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia so rightly said

"Mr Freeman says that he doubted that the liberal interventionists and neoconservatives who had pursued regime change in Syria were capable of reversing course. To do so would require them to admit that they bore considerable responsibility for legitimising pointless violence that has resulted in the deaths of 190,000 Syrians"

[claig]

All of this has long been known. Al Qaeda, Isis, Al Nusra, the whole lot of them have been receiving funding to overthrow the government of Syria and Syria has been destroyed and 190,000 people are dead. Maybe the policy will finally be changed, but one cannot tell because

"Mr Freeman says that he doubted that the liberal interventionists and neoconservatives who had pursued regime change in Syria were capable of reversing course. To do so would require them to admit that they bore considerable responsibility for legitimising pointless violence that has resulted in the deaths of 190,000 Syrians"

Here is Robert Fisk from the Independent again

"So far, Qatar appears to have the ear (or is filling the wallet) of the Jabhat al-Nusrah rebels in Syria who are scarcely moderate, rather quasi al-Qa’ida but not (yet) totally embraced by the “caliphate”. Of course, the authorities in Doha can swiftly deny that any money has changed hands. When you’re a Gulf state supporting armed militias, you don’t have to pay for the release of a hostage – especially if you’re already paying the wages of the hostage-takers. And if the Nusrah boys will give Assad a break and tough it out against the “caliphate” and vomit forth a hostage or two, well – in the eyes of the West – that’s money well spent."

www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/qatar-and-the-reason-us-hostage-peter-theo-curtis-has-been-released-9690048.html

[Isitmebut]

Claig ….. ‘I get it’ Qatar and others are helping rebels/revolutions in other countries, interference is regional along the religious lines I layed out before here.

There was a report the other day that Egypt and United Arab Emirates aircraft helped to authorities in Libya the other day against varios rebels, and Egypt will ‘help’ anyone against the Muslim Brotherhood.

But this is secondary to UNDERLYING domestic situation in Syria, bearing in mind sectarian and other ‘tribal’ issues within all these conflict.

Forget that Syria’s Assad was know to be a Human Right bastard at home and the Lebanon, they invaded and kept for 20-odd years, and now use Hezbollah and similar to control the Lebanon once they pulled their own troops out.

Syria Population; 23 million.

The President Assad Alawites (Shia) + similar Muslims form 16% of the population.

The Christians + other form 10% of the population.

The Sunni oppressed 'rebels' form a honking 74% of the population.


So the fundamental situation in Syria is that a very nasty dictator, representing i6% of his population,

And rather than ‘reform’ and give the vast majority of his population representation (admittedly encouraged by the ‘Arab Spring’ elsewhere), chose to murder them by guns, gas and imprisonment when peacefully demonstrated – and OTHER countries of a shared Sunni religion (that is stateless), that saw the west abandon the Syrian people due to a parliamentary vote, are now unapologetically helping as best they can.

[claig]

'that saw the west abandon the Syrian people due to a parliamentary vote'

Are you saying that the modernisers who wanted to bomb Syria knew more than the British public and Farage who opposed and succeeded in stooping the strike on Syria?

Syria is run by a secular, socialist, pan-Arab Baathist regime, just like Saddam's secular, socialist, pan-Arab regime, which was also Baathist.

The French and British always put minorities in charge of countries so that they could be easily controlled against majority populations.

Iraq is majority Shia, but Sunni Saddam was in charge. That is nothing new.

Now the Sunnis are being used to carry out regime change in Syria, backed and funded by big gas players such as Qatar who are annoyed that Assad did not agree to use their gas pipeline to supply Europe, but preferred to go with the Iranian pipeline through Iraq and Syria.

That is why Qatar is spending millions backing all the Jihadis to try and topple Assad. It is about regime change for the sake of big money and gas and already 190,000 people are dead and there is still no end in sight and the butchers and Jihadis and Al Qaeda and Isis and all the rest of teh funded terrorists are still in Syria beheading people in public squares on Fridays.

[Isitmebut]

Claig ….. I know you get an ideal then scramble around to try and support it, but you are being disingenuous (at best) in comparing the situation in Syria with Iraq – and THAT WAS the mistake those that objected to any military action in Syria made then and why 200,000 plus Syrians are now dead, over 9 million displaced and why ISIS decided it was to form a new Sunni state/caliphate straddling Syria and Iraq.

Firstly the Iraqi religious divide was far closer than Syrias; Saddam’s Shia minority administration was as much as 37% of the population, Assad’s Alawites (Shia) minority administration under 16% of the population.

In Iraq there was a Blair/Bush led full-on Western invasion on WMD false pretences - and wasn’t a popular uprising of the oppressed people.

In Syria, Cameron/Obama asked for parliament for permission to help Syria’s masses getting slaughtered by the town load, by Syrian government forces with far superior long range guns, tanks, helicopters and planes - by taking out Syrian’s military means of inflicting those murders, easily identifiable as the masses (now ‘rebels’ trying to organise themselves), never had any.

Spot the difference of UK military action between the two events, urgency, difference of civilian casualties, and humanitarian motives?

If “the British Public, comrade Farage” and the parliamentary Labour Party did not realise either the plight of the Syrian people, the ruthlessness of Assad, or the difference back then between a military actions in Syria versus a full scale invasion of Iraq – then I’m not just “suggesting” they were wrong, the Syrian facts/numbers and growth of ISIS PROVE they were all wrong.

[Isitmebut]

It is good to see to siege Shia Amerli in Northern Iraq was both relieved and supplied after months blocked off by ISIS - and not one British military life was lost - as somehow the 270,000 strong Iraqi Army got their 'stuff' together.

[Isitmebut]

To the war against ISIS begins with the U.S. leading a coalition or Arab and western forces - I just wonder with all the warning ISIS have had, how initially effective they will now be.

Once the black flag 'advertising' comes down, how do airplanes flying at god knows what height and speed, differentiate between the good Sunnis and the naughty ones....well they can't, so have to have pin point accuracy. God willing.

[Isitmebut]

‘Syrian plane shot down over Israel’

The Israelis are like a rottweiler at the gate, stick a hand or anything else over, and they’ll bite it off. lol

It clearly didn't have a 'friend not foe' whirlygig inside to identify it on the Israeli radar, or did it? Nah, you don't hand those bits of kit out to Assad.

[Shakshuka]

Not just in Israel.

Why do you think Isis haven't attacked Jordan? Let's just say the Royal Jordanian Legion isn't the reason.

[Isitmebut]

Sorry Shakshuka .. unless you are saying that Jordan has rottweilers, I'm not getting your point.

[Shakshuka]

Israel is protecting Jordan from Isis

[Isitmebut]

So the UK (recalled) Parliamentary Games begin again on Friday, re ISIS.

All the pre election 'I am a serious MP, nay statesman' showboating going on when the problem is a clear and present danger; thank god those in Amerli and under siege for weeks, weren't waiting for our parliamentarians to vote to break the ISIS stranglehold.

The anti ISIS coalition is already in place, do we really have to show ourselves up again, when arguably we could have stopped ISIS growing in strength earlier. The Iraq dodgy dossier happened, fart arsing about now hmming and arrring trying to dot every i and cross t's feigning humanitarian reasons and firm goals on a highly mobil target, won't change that.

[Isitmebut]

Shakshuka ..... I can't work out what you are saying, as it is a Syrian fighter shot down, possibly trying to kill a few Syrian Rebels under the radar and confusion of coalition attacks - currently occupying the only border crossing to Israel from Syrian via the Golan heights.

“Syrian Rebels, al Qaeda linked militants seize Golan Heights border crossing”
edition.cnn.com/2014/08/27/world/meast/syria-crisis/

How is Israel protecting Jordan, not at war with Syria?

[claig]

Shakshuka is saying that Israel is protectng Jordan from Isis and that Isis is scared of Israel.

'The anti ISIS coalition is already in place, do we really have to show ourselves up again'

It has taken ages to get this up and running. The public is in favour of sorting these terrorists out. But you have to understand the rise of Isis and who funded and supported it.

The Syrian government does not fully trust the US motives in what is happening, they think it might be a trick against them. Iran and Syria who are enemies of Isis have not been asked to join in and help.

But Obama made a very good speech where he said we should stop the hypocrisy of countries benefitting from the global economy while simultaneously funding terrorists who are trying to bring it down. That was a reference to Isis's funders and backers.

Hopefully this will be a real attempt to stop Isis and is not a trick to attack Syria.

[Shakshuka]

Who is funding and supporting isis?

[claig]

A lot of US allies have been responsible for funding Isis. The official story is that it is wealthy individuals within these allies e.g. within Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Araba with countries like Turkey turning a blind eye whilst Isis were supplied through the Turkish border etc.

"America's Allies Are Funding ISIS

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), now threatening Baghdad, was funded for years by wealthy donors in Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, three U.S. allies that have dual agendas in the war on terror.

The extremist group that is threatening the existence of the Iraqi state was built and grown for years with the help of elite donors from American supposed allies in the Persian Gulf region. There, the threat of Iran, Assad, and the Sunni-Shiite sectarian war trumps the U.S. goal of stability and moderation in the region.

It’s an ironic twist, especially for donors in Kuwait (who, to be fair, back a wide variety of militias). ISIS has aligned itself with remnants of the Baathist regime once led by Saddam Hussein. Back in 1990, the U.S. attacked Iraq in order to liberate Kuwait from Hussein’s clutches. Now Kuwait is helping the rise of his successors."

www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/14/america-s-allies-are-funding-isis.html

Read the whole thread. Isis was created to foment a Sunni/Shia clash, to try and topple Assad and to weaken Shia Iraq and has been equipped and supplied in order to do so. Syria has been fighting 100,000 terrorists from 7 different countries for a period of 3 years as the Syrian government supporter said on Radio 4.

It is part of a movement to foment a Sunni/Shia clash, to weaken the Shia Crescent, to redraw boundaries that were originally created by the Sykes-Picot agreement as well as the usual oil pipeline style battle to weaken governments trying to build a pipeline through Iran/Iraq/Syria rather than the Qatari backed pipeline.

[Shakshuka]

Not surprised about Qatar given that they also fund Hamas (but, hey, let's award them the world cup!).

I doubt that Saudi Arabia is giving them any support though, as a country, although I'm sure there are individual supporters.

My dh was saying that Isis in Iraq is basically the remnants of the old Iraqi army which was Sunni dominated.

[claig]

Yes he is right, that some ex-Saddam generals and other Sunnis are fighting with Isis. This is part of the funded Sunni versus Shia clash.