Iraq & Syrian Civil Wars - Page 62

On August 04 2013 15:39 iMAniaC wrote:
You forgot to mention how we conveniently come up with new classifications to justify our holier-than-thou actions, so that any comparison between us good guys and them bad guys is immediately invalid. We want to take away the basic rights of soldiers at war? Well, they're not soldiers, they're "illegal combatants", so they don't have any rights. We want to justify how our invasions are good, but other countries' invasions are bad? Well, they (like Russia in 2008) invade "sovereign countries" while we, of course, don't. So we can't even be compared to everyone else. Granted, this was more a Bush thing, but it's kind of stuck, so I'm mentioning it anyway.

I don't mean to derail the thread by rehashing old discussions, but I just thought this could be added to the rant

On August 04 2013 10:06 Dapper_Cad wrote:
The first step to ending this mess is us not demanding Assad step down as a precondition for a settlement.

We are exactly like Iran, The Muslim Brotherhood, Russia etc. it's our proxy war too only we don't talk about ourselves in those terms.

We select the despotic regimes that we feel we have a comfortable level of control over and support them, like Egypt or Bahrain, we take any opportunity presented to overthrow regimes over which we feel have little control like Syria or Libya.

This is fine, or at least, this is the way of the world.

What winds me the fuck up is the holier than thou crap we spoon-scrape into our own mouths. Open a paper, turn on the a t.v. news station. Their actions our terrible, ours regrettable. They block peace, we support democracy. They arm tyrants, we seek "stability".

The really worrying thing about this current shit sandwich is how chaotic and complex it's getting. There are so many players with so many agendas, that the possibility of gross miscalculation and a wider conflict is growing. And it will keep growing the longer it goes on.

We can seek peace, we should seek peace, but we won't.

America and Europe. Fuck yea.

On August 12 2013 07:48 DeepElemBlues wrote:


Terrorists were never considered soldiers even after Geneva II until George W. Bush was president, then all of a sudden they're soldiers. Why? Not because they're actually soldiers, but because if you say they're soldiers, you can criticize the US for not treating them like soldiers.

Never heard anyone denying that the countries the US invaded after 9/11 were sovereign countries.

Dishonest, double-standard and other unfair arguments are why comparisons can't be made, a real comparison would be welcome but the bullshit and the double standards show that an honest comparison is not the intent.

On August 12 2013 07:48 DeepElemBlues wrote:


Terrorists were never considered soldiers even after Geneva II until George W. Bush was president, then all of a sudden they're soldiers.

So far the UK has sent around £8m of “non-lethal” aid, according to official papers seen by The Independent, comprising five 4x4 vehicles with ballistic protection; 20 sets of body armour; four trucks (three 25 tonne, one 20 tonne); six 4x4 SUVs; five non-armoured pick-ups; one recovery vehicle; four fork-lifts; three advanced “resilience kits” for region hubs, designed to rescue people in emergencies; 130 solar powered batteries; around 400 radios; water purification and rubbish collection kits; laptops; VSATs (small satellite systems for data communications) and printers. In addition, funds have been allocated for civic society projects such as inter-community dialogue and gathering evidence of human rights abuses. The last “gift” to the opposition, announced by William Hague last week, is that £555,000 worth of counter-chemical warfare equipment is on standby.

The items, channelled through the Free Syrian Army (FSA), are of use to the opposition, but they will have little impact on the fighting. Even the chemical equipment may not be of much use without adequate training. Potential users need the ability to assess threats and calculate the correct dosage for medication, along with an appreciation of differing field conditions, stressed Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, who has served with the UK’s specialist biosecurity forces and is in favour of sending the WMD kit to the rebels.

Any military aid from Britain will not arrive until Parliament returns from its summer break. Last month the Commons approved by 114 votes to one a motion calling for the “explicit consent” of MPs, in both debate and vote, before weapons are sent to Syria.

France was instrumental, alongside the UK, in lifting the European Union arms embargo on Syria which would allow supplies to be sent to the rebels. But the messages from the Hollande government on the issue have been ambiguous. Last month Foreign minister Laurent Fabius stated that it would not be possible to send weapons as they may fall into the wrong hands and end up being used against France.

French fears are informed by the country’s experiences during the recent intervention in Mali, when French forces encountered surface-to-air missiles that had been looted from Libya. Some of the stock was brought to Mali by Tuareg tribesmen who had been in the pay of Muammar Gaddafi, while others had come from Islamist rebels who had been fighting his regime.

The French had provided arms on the ground in the Libyan conflict, airlifting around 40 tonnes to the rebels in the Nafusa mountains in the west in preparation for the assault on Tripoli. Some Syrian opposition commanders in Jordan and Lebanon have claimed that French-supplied weapons – assault rifles, pistols and ammunition – have already arrived, although this is strongly denied by Paris.

Instead both France and Britain, say they are exploring high-tech methods to ensure any weapons supplied in the future are tracked and can be de-activated if they come to the possession of hostile groups. In essence this would apply to missiles, the tools the opposition need the most to counter Assad’s warplanes and armour.

But weapons specialists urge caution about the availability and effectiveness of such “fail-safe” systems. An official at MBDA, one of Europe’s largest missile manufacturers, points out that its products do not come off the production line with such features and complex and expensive alterations would have to be carried out.

August 12, 2013 (WASHINGTON) – The Sudanese government has been selling Chinese and local-made weapons to the Arab Gulf state of Qatar which in turn has been shipping it to rebels in Syria who have staged an uprising against Bashar al-Assad’s rule since 2011, U.S. officials and rebels told the New York Times (NYT).

The shipments included newly manufactured small-arms cartridges and antiaircraft missiles which were desperately sought by rebels over the last year to neutralize Assad’s superior firepower.

Western nations have been hesitant to supply sophisticated weapons such as surface-to-air missiles or shoulder-mounted missiles for fear that it might fall into the hands of hardline Islamist factions for use against western targets.

Two American officials told NYT that Ukrainian-flagged aircraft had delivered the shipments. Air traffic control data from an aviation official in the region shows that at least three Ukrainian aviation transport companies flew military-style cargo planes this year from Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, to a military and civilian airfield in western Turkey.

Western analysts and officials said Sudan’s clandestine participation in arming rebels in Syria suggests inherent tensions in Bashir’s foreign policy, which broadly supports Sunni Islamist movements while maintaining a valued relationship with the Shia theocracy in Iran.

Other officials suggested that a simple motive was at work — money. Sudan is struggling with a severe economic crisis after losing the oil-rich south in July 2011.

On August 15 2013 14:16 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Another possible loophole: Sell to African nations, or even offer economic incentives they ship the weapons to gulf states who then sell it to the Rebels. This is an Arm Smugglers wet dream.



Source

A car bomb explosion has killed at least 20 people in Beirut's southern suburbs, according to the Lebanese Interior Ministry.

The explosion struck near a complex used by Hezbollah, the Shia political party and armed group that in recent months has become increasingly and more publicly involved in the conflict in neighbouring Syria.

At least 200 people were injured in the blast, which occurred between the Bir el-Abed and Roueiss neighbourhoods on Thursday.

The blast put buildings and cars on fire and sent a column of black smoke over the densely populated area.

Hezbollah's television channel showed firemen helping residents trapped in their homes escape the flames, as well as a crowd of people in panic and rage, gathered near the site of the explosion.

"Terrorism has struck the southern suburbs again," said Al-Manar's television presenter, adding that Hezbollah was "paying the price for its position".

The US and Iraq agreed on Thursday to boost cooperation to keep Iran from flying weapons over Iraq to Syria, and to curb the radicalization of young Iraqis and other spillover effects from the Syrian conflict.

US help for Iraq will include intelligence- and information- sharing in the short term, followed by a planned sale of a $2.6 bn integrated air defense system and F-16 fighter jets, a senior US official said.

The agreement came during talks in Washington led by Secretary of State John Kerry and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari, which took place amid a period of escalating bloodshed that has taken the monthly death toll in Iraq to its highest levels in five years.

Syrian rebels have killed at least 11 people, including civilians, in an attack on a checkpoint west of the city of Homs.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that nine of those killed in the attack on Saturday were Christians.

It said rebels attacked checkpoints manned by the pro-government National Defense Forces militia, killing five of them. It said the other six were civilians, including two women.

A resident who visited the site of the overnight attack said he saw the remains of a destroyed checkpoint and two civilian cars nearby, whose passengers may have been caught up by chance in the fighting.

The checkpoint had been used as an artillery base to bombard the rebel town of Hosn, about 2km away, which lies below the towering Crusader castle Crac des Chevaliers, resident said.

U.N. inspectors arrived Sunday in the Syrian capital of Damascus on a mission to investigate the alleged use of chemical weapons, as Syrian officials vowed to fully cooperate with them. Their arrival comes after months of refusals by Syria’s government to let the teams into the war-ravaged country, where more than 100,000 people have been killed since fighting began in 2011.

Syrian plainclothes security men whisked away the 20-member team, led by Swedish chemical weapons expert Ake Sellstrom, from a crush of waiting reporters and cameramen as they arrived at their five-star hotel in the heart of Damascus.

"I assure you, on behalf of the Syrian Arab Republic, that we will fully cooperate with this team and provide it with all information we have and all facilities to reach a rational conclusion," Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad told the Associated Press.

"Our basic target is for this team to find facts on ground, especially about what happened in Khan al-Assal, because we, as a government, do not know about any other cases other than the case where chemical weapons were used by terrorists there," he said. Syria's government refers to rebels fighting its rule as "terrorists."

Khan al-Assal is a suburb of Aleppo, Syria’s second largest-city and the scene of heavy fighting between Syrian government forces and rebel fighters.

The U.N. team's mission will be limited to investigating the alleged use of chemical weapons in three areas, in particular the March 19 attack in Khan al-Assal that President Bashar al-Assad blames on rebels. The other two sites have been kept secret.