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This video appears to show members of the Syrian opposition executing a large group of captives https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_ttA71FTB8
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Nov 1, 2012 17:01
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Brown Moses posted:This video appears to show members of the Syrian opposition executing a large group of captives Well that's no good. 
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Nov 1, 2012 17:19
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Hey, don't worry guys, the FSA is fighting for a bright future, birthing pangs of democracy amiright? 
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Nov 1, 2012 17:20
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Miruvor posted:Hey, don't worry guys, the FSA is fighting for a bright future, birthing pangs of democracy amiright? My delicate, hothouse flower of innocence has been shattered by both the video, and your insightful comment and ironic use of a smilie. Truly, you have righteously called us all out as internationalist swine whose hatred of Assad has blinkered us to the difficult truths about the Syrian rebellion. I'm sure that I speak for everyone in this thread when I say that your wisdom is both welcome and needed to ensure that we never let our naïveté throttle the discussion again.
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Nov 1, 2012 17:29
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It's a proud day for everyone in this thread, truly.
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Nov 1, 2012 18:04
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Well, we can scratch the FSA off the list of revolutionary groups that committed no war crimes. Let's review the list:
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Nov 1, 2012 18:07
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Don't forget that "Syrian opposition" is a lot of different groups, some of which you could call the FSA. Hence the difficulties/dangers in trying to arm or coordinate with them. I'm not saying they don't probably all have blood on their hands, but some are more extreme in their methods than others.
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Nov 1, 2012 18:39
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Yes, I prefer the term "Syrian opposition" as the FSA is just one of the armed groups fighting against the government in Syria, even if they are all mostly fighting alongside each other. It's a term that'll really come in to play when they start fighting among themselves.
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Nov 1, 2012 18:43
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It's almost as though we are capable of observing situations and processing them in a more complex faction than "good guys do good things, bad guys do bad things! good guys yay! bad guys boo!"
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Nov 1, 2012 19:26
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I am very ignorant of the region and this conflict. I have been following this thread for a few weeks and trying to read up. I was thinking good guy bad guy. That was loving sobering.
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Nov 1, 2012 19:35
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Brown Moses posted:This video appears to show members of the Syrian opposition executing a large group of captives How are you supposed to tell who's killing who in these kind of videos?
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Nov 1, 2012 19:37
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Is this 'classified Benghazi cable reviewed by Fox News' anything new? it's showing back up on my FB via two people.
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Nov 1, 2012 19:48
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One of the many things that worries me about a Romney presidency is the fact that he has often talked about wanting to arm the rebels in Syria. Of course he says he only wants to arm the "good" rebels. There is no way in hell anyone who pours weapons into Syria is really going to be able to control who gets them. The rebels might be really upset with Obama for not arming them, but the fact is the American people can also take comfort in the fact that he also not arming Al Quaeda, Jihadists etc. And if and when Assad goes, and this war turns into an even bigger civil war that might go beyond the boundaries of Syria we really don't need atrocities and massacres committed with American weapons. I just feel like Romney really doesn't have much of a grasp of foreign policy or at best a very simplistic view of the world and we've already seen what happens when we have a president who views the world in simple black and white.
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Nov 1, 2012 20:07
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Didn't the U.S. specifically arm and train the most hardline fundamentalists in Afghanistan because the moderates and seculars were too much of a "threat" for their interests? That is a quite different thing than giving weapons to Syrians. As long as we're not favoring one side over another or even promoting assassination of who we don't like i don't think arming the resistance would be a bad thing. Comedy option: Give the options to the Saudis, they'll know who to arm 
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Nov 1, 2012 21:14
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Mans posted:Didn't the U.S. specifically arm and train the most hardline fundamentalists in Afghanistan because the moderates and seculars were too much of a "threat" for their interests? Not specifically, no. Most of the money we put into Afghanistan came in via the Pakistanis, who favored the hard-line Islamists for a number of different reasons. A rather good book about US funding for the Afghan War is, "Charlie Wilson's War" which details the fascinating efforts of a Texas congressman to fund a proxy war against the Soviets.
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Nov 1, 2012 21:23
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^^^  Mans posted:Didn't the U.S. specifically arm and train the most hardline fundamentalists in Afghanistan because the moderates and seculars were too much of a "threat" for their interests? Sort of. We gave money and weapons to Pakistan, which then armed the ones they liked the best (fundamentalists).
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Nov 1, 2012 21:23
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Adrastus posted:How are you supposed to tell who's killing who in these kind of videos? Helps to have Arabic speakers telling you what's going on. Here's a L-39 being shot down in Aleppo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knroraf7UcY
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Nov 1, 2012 21:24
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Saw this come up on NBC earlier http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/01/14855573-israel-admits-killing-deputy-of-late-palestinian-leader-yasser-arafat?lite . From the thread I get the sense that Israel doing stuff like this isn't really a new idea, but I'm curious if the actual admission of assassinating him, in a separate foreign country no less, would have any particular international ramifications beyond "Oh those wacky Israelis and their assassination missions."
SpaceViking fucked around with this message at 21:55 on Nov 1, 2012 |
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Nov 1, 2012 21:49
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SpaceViking posted:Saw this come up on NBC earlier http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/01/14855573-israel-admits-killing-deputy-of-late-palestinian-leader-yasser-arafat?lite . From the thread I get the sense that Israel doing stuff like this isn't really a new idea, but I'm curious if the actual admission of assassinating him, in a separate foreign country no less, would have any particular international ramifications. No. The killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in January 2010 was a high-profile debacle that ended up plastering the faces of Israeli secret agents all over the world and pissing off a lot of friendly governments, and nothing ever really came of it. At least nothing public.
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Nov 1, 2012 21:57
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Mans posted:Didn't the U.S. specifically arm and train the most hardline fundamentalists in Afghanistan because the moderates and seculars were too much of a "threat" for their interests? In addition to the other replies, it's worth noting that it was post-Soviet withdrawal that basically everyone in the region started funding and arming their choice of militant groups in the hopes that they'd end up in charge of a client state. Pakistan's choice wins only they were really loving stupid about who they picked to back. Things only irrevocably go to poo poo in Afghanistan after the US has stopped paying attention.
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Nov 1, 2012 22:03
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Brown Moses posted:Helps to have Arabic speakers telling you what's going on. Not to accuse you of anything, but I was wondering if you are going to try to learn Arabic and/or Farsi. It would probably cut out the middleman with a lot of your reporting. Volkerball posted:Probably been posted here before, but this popped up on my feed today. It's a short video made before the civil war in Syria kicked off that is a nice contrast to the awful things that get posted here. It's called Syria: The other side. This was a really great video. I think people in the West have trouble seeing just how similar everyone else is to us. My background is Italian and if one of my Sicilian family members sent me this video I'd believe it was from a rural Italian town. Very beautiful. Friendly Factory fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Nov 1, 2012 |
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Nov 1, 2012 22:20
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Friendly Factory posted:Not to accuse you of anything, but I was wondering if you are going to try to learn Arabic and/or Farsi. It would probably cut out the middleman with a lot of your reporting. It's finding the time, maybe if I end up at the BBC it's something that'll become possible.
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Nov 1, 2012 22:24
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Friendly Factory posted:Not to accuse you of anything, but I was wondering if you are going to try to learn Arabic and/or Farsi. It would probably cut out the middleman with a lot of your reporting. To this point, are there a lot of regional dialects in play? Specificly the Kurds are a distinct ethinic group, do they have their own language?
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Nov 1, 2012 22:24
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Bombadilillo posted:To this point, are there a lot of regional dialects in play? Specificly the Kurds are a distinct ethinic group, do they have their own language? There is a language called Kurdi. I might be wrong, but I think Kurdi is under the Indo-Aryan language pool (and Indo-European at large) whereas Arabic is a Semitic language.
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Nov 1, 2012 22:28
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Bombadilillo posted:To this point, are there a lot of regional dialects in play? Specificly the Kurds are a distinct ethinic group, do they have their own language? Yes, there's a big to-do about it in Turkey as Kurdish was effectively banned until recently, and there's been some changes in recent years to be more accommodating to the language.
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Nov 1, 2012 22:29
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This video from the Idlib Martyrs brigade gives a good example of the different weapons used by the opposition at the moment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP4cTB8LI7U
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Nov 1, 2012 22:39
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Speaking of Turkey, Reuters just had an article examining the results of UN findings about their use of anti-terror laws to suppress dissent or support for Kurdish groups. Apparently the've locked up more journalists than Iran or China, which is a little surprising to me.
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Nov 1, 2012 22:52
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Turkey's treatment of their Kurdish minority is one of the major impediments in their attempts to join the EU if I recall correctly.
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Nov 1, 2012 23:05
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I like this little sketch based off the Hajj pilgrimage from Syrian activists in Talbiseh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Gx11sp_s2c
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Nov 1, 2012 23:06
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Bombadilillo posted:I am very ignorant of the region and this conflict. I have been following this thread for a few weeks and trying to read up. I was thinking good guy bad guy. After 20 months of conflict where bands of Assad's soldiers have walked into towns, killed everyone they could find, then tossed their bodies into houses and lit them on fire, I think it's a safe bet that the opposition in general is losing grasp on perspective. Especially when you consider that the international community has done nothing but pay them lip service. I can't imagine how traumatizing it must be to deal with this conflict as someone stuck in Syria who just wants it to be over. While atrocities do happen from both sides, if there's a video of kids who have been stabbed to death, or a bunch of burnt families laid out in a mosque, it's a safe bet that it wasn't the opposition. There's going to be a point, that has probably already been crossed, where it's going to be impossible for Syria to assimilate into a new government without a hell of a lot of bloodshed after the fall of Assad. Every day is a step further in the wrong direction. Kids still aren't going to school, people are still getting blown up daily, more jihadists and people with their own agendas are moving in, and Assad seems no closer to falling. The opposition has never been unified, but it seemed to me like earlier in the conflict, when Syria State TV was denouncing the opposition as terrorists, they had to grasp at straws for examples of it a lot more than they do now. I think if there had been intervention in the first few weeks, a lot of these problems would have been avoided. Over a year later, it's hard to see what will change assuming Assad is even killed. Volkerball fucked around with this message at 23:34 on Nov 1, 2012 |
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Nov 1, 2012 23:27
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A good piece by one of my arms nerd buddies about the FAB high explosive bombs being used in Syria, Evidence of large unguided Blast Bombs reported from Syria
Brown Moses fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Nov 1, 2012 |
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Nov 1, 2012 23:32
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Zeroisanumber posted:Not specifically, no. Most of the money we put into Afghanistan came in via the Pakistanis, who favored the hard-line Islamists for a number of different reasons. A rather good book about US funding for the Afghan War is, "Charlie Wilson's War" which details the fascinating efforts of a Texas congressman to fund a proxy war against the Soviets.
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Nov 2, 2012 02:24
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Friendly Factory posted:This was a really great video. I think people in the West have trouble seeing just how similar everyone else is to us. My background is Italian and if one of my Sicilian family members sent me this video I'd believe it was from a rural Italian town. Very beautiful. Last year, someone had a photo essay of when they went to Syria, just before the major poo poo started happening. They took a lot of pictures of that covered marketplace in Aleppo I think it was. Sadly, the war burned it down.
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Nov 2, 2012 03:10
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Mans posted:Didn't the U.S. specifically arm and train the most hardline fundamentalists in Afghanistan because the moderates and seculars were too much of a "threat" for their interests? Not to put too fine a point on it, but the U.S. interests in Afghanistan were "kill Soviets." I mean, I feel that it isn't really an exaggeration to say that Michael Vickers saw his role to facilitate making the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan as bloody as possible for them, period. It just so happened that we had to funnel most of the money/arms/supplies through the ISI and they had other motives/interests. After the Soviet withdrawal U.S. interests changed to "...which -Stan is that, again?" while like Alchenar said everyone else started backing factions in the ensuing civil war. Arming everyone is a terrible idea...the fact that we've demonstrated in the past that we don't necessarily consider the ramifications of our actions in choosing sides in a conflict isn't cause to start acting like a combination of Santa Claus and Viktor Bout, it's a pretty good reason to stay the hell out of the "arming shadowy groups we don't fully understand the composition of" business. And yeah, Ghost Wars is a good read on the subject of 1979-2001 Afghanistan.
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Nov 2, 2012 03:33
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Young Freud posted:Last year, someone had a photo essay of when they went to Syria, just before the major poo poo started happening. They took a lot of pictures of that covered marketplace in Aleppo I think it was. This thread was posted back in January. The OP had some great photos, and I contributed some of my own as well. It really loving sucks about Aleppo 
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Nov 2, 2012 07:17
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iyaayas01 posted:Not to put too fine a point on it, but the U.S. interests in Afghanistan were "kill Soviets." I mean, I feel that it isn't really an exaggeration to say that Michael Vickers saw his role to facilitate making the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan as bloody as possible for them, period. It just so happened that we had to funnel most of the money/arms/supplies through the ISI and they had other motives/interests. It's worth noting that the ISI funded fundamentalist groups in part because they were much more aggressive and much more militarily effective. Mohammad Yousaf, who ran the ISI program which armed and funded those groups, wrote a pretty decent book ("Afghanistan, The Bear Trap") which goes over this. The ISI was aware of the potential for blowback, it just didn't make much sense to spend a lot of time arming and training groups that weren't interested in engaging Soviet units.
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Nov 2, 2012 08:14
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Paper Mac posted:It's worth noting that the ISI funded fundamentalist groups in part because they were much more aggressive and much more militarily effective. Mohammad Yousaf, who ran the ISI program which armed and funded those groups, wrote a pretty decent book ("Afghanistan, The Bear Trap") which goes over this. The ISI was aware of the potential for blowback, it just didn't make much sense to spend a lot of time arming and training groups that weren't interested in engaging Soviet units. It's hard to believe it was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's military prowess that got him to receive most military aid. From Stephen Tanner's book on the military history of Afghanistan it was clear being a Pashtun got him that position over the far more competent but Tajik Massoud. Hekmatyar had very little support in Afghanistan which made him all the more perfect as he totally depended on ISI support.
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Nov 2, 2012 08:35
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CeeJee posted:It's hard to believe it was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's military prowess that got him to receive most military aid. From Stephen Tanner's book on the military history of Afghanistan it was clear being a Pashtun got him that position over the far more competent but Tajik Massoud. Hekmatyar had very little support in Afghanistan which made him all the more perfect as he totally depended on ISI support. For sure, and those considerations weren't mutually exclusive (which is why I said "in part")- there were a number of moderate Pashtun groups in Pakistan that were essentially militarily inactive, who, according to Youssaf, were cut off by the ISI as a result, despite American pressure to continue supporting them. In any case, my point was just that the religio-political orientation of those groups was secondary to pragmatic considerations like the ones you've mentioned, which I find useful to keep in mind when thinking about who's supporting who in a place like Syria.
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Nov 2, 2012 08:58
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An article written by a Dutch journalist about the Benghazi attacks has answered some questions:quote:One letter, written on Sept. 11 and addressed to Mohamed Obeidi, the head of the Libyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs' office in Benghazi, reads:
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Nov 2, 2012 10:39
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Chronojam posted:Speaking of Turkey, Reuters just had an article examining the results of UN findings about their use of anti-terror laws to suppress dissent or support for Kurdish groups. Apparently the've locked up more journalists than Iran or China, which is a little surprising to me. They spend colossal amounts of time to suppress Roj TV (a kurdish channel) here in Denmark, so if their zeal here is anything to go by, loving with kurdish journalism must be priority one.
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Nov 2, 2012 11:32
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