Syria watch...

[Little John]

Steve Cook - your posts are becoming as ridiculous as they are tedious and offensive.
You are plainly unable to discuss an issue on its merits, and so resort to gratuitous rudeness and distortion,
thus neatly demonstrating the weakness of your argument.

It is a lie to claim that Syrian rebel leaders devour human organs.
One deranged individual was shown to do so once, and with the terrible brutality of two years of Assad's airstrikes and artillery
it is scarcely surprising that some people become deranged.
But then perhaps you've never been in a war zone, and wouldn't have a clue.

It is exactly the kind of gross propaganda lie that you claim so self-righteously to oppose in Western govts,
yet you are plainly willing to use such lies yourself just for the childish ego trip of trying to score points in a debate.

Quite who you expect to delude with such dishonest nonsense is a mystery, but I'm sorry to see it degrading this site
and obstructing what could and should be a rational and creative discussion.

Yeah right.

Your posts have done most of the work for me in exposing the lies and hypocrisy of the propaganda behind an attack on Syria at this time. So, I suppose you should be thanked for that. You've also, I might say, pretty much extinguished your credibility as an honest debater on here in the process. Or, at least, to my mind you have; though I can't speak for anyone else.

Not because of your opinions, I should emphasise, but because of your deliberate attempt to present those opinions are unarguable "facts" and, in doing so, attempt to re-frame the debate into an evidentially groundless discussion of how to "respond". That really is a classic propaganda technique. The truth is, though, you're not very good at it.

We’re done.

[biffvernon]

could explain just how Obama has been striving to take the USA into war in Syria for the last 2 years ?
I've not seen a shred of evidence for this myself.

No, there's no evidence that the USA wants to 'take over' Syria, and before trying to blame Obama for anything one has to take into account that he has very little personal power but has to weave a path through the craziness of Congress.

However, climate change denial and the lack of support for Syria when faced with the Fertile Crescent's worst drought since the Neolithic can be laid firmly at American doors. The influx of 1.2 million people displaced from Iraq can't have helped either and is another American responsibility.

[biffvernon]

Here are the confidential cables (hat tip Assange) that show that the USA was warned in 2008 that the drought would lead to Syrian instability. The USA failed to act.

SUBJECT: 2008 UN DROUGHT APPEAL FOR SYRIA

Classified By: CDA Maura Connelly for reasons 1.5 b and d.

¶1. (SBU) This is an action request cable, see paragraph 7.

¶2. (SBU) SUMMARY: UNFAO (Food and Agriculture) Syria
Representative Abdullah Bin Yehia is seeking USG commitment
to the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
2008 Drought Appeal. Yehia proposes to use money from the
appeal to provide seed and technical assistance to 15,000
small-holding farmers in northeast Syria in an effort to
preserve the social and economic fabric of this rural,
agricultural community. If UNFAO efforts fail, Yehia
predicts mass migration from the northeast, which could act
as a multiplier on social and economic pressures already at
play and undermine stability Syria. End Summary.

For the rest see:

http://www.cablegatesearch.net/cable.ph ... s%20social

[Billhook]

Biff - Agreed.

The US is on track for fully informed culpability for the greatest genocide in history, achieved via its bipartisan climate policy
of a brinkmanship of inaction with China, and imposed by intensifying global crop failures that are looming for the 2020s.
It might be claimed that US obstructionism over the global climate treaty is only accidentally destabilizing China's agriculture,
but if so it is probably the first empire in history to destabilize its rival's food supply by accident.

What is happening in Syria as the result of the intensifying droughts is just the first blush of the "collateral damage"
of that bipartisan US policy.
I wish to God more decent kind American people were aware of what is being done in their name.

One snippet of news from the Guardian: Kerry has just stated that they have samples from the attack site
with a secure chain of custody that show evidence of Sarin being used in the attack.
The fact that they couldn't say this without 100% confidence that the UN inspectors will find the same
indicates at a minimum that Sarin was the weapon used.

Another is that he has just publicly acknowledged one horn of the lose-lose dilemma that the attack has imposed on the US,
by saying of the coming vote in congress:
"This is a matter of national security, it's a matter of the credibility of the USA."

Regards,

Lewis

[SleeperService]

Sleeper, in the interests of your not helping to make truth the first casualty of war,
perhaps you could explain just how Obama has been striving to take the USA into war in Syria for the last 2 years ?
I've not seen a shred of evidence for this myself.

With regard to your presumably comfortable and well protected assertions that we should:
"stay out and let this Civil War run it's course. In the long run fewer will die, less damage will be done
and the locals can decide what to do next."
I'm reminded of Rawnsley's description of the Conservative MPs who voted against Cameron's motion:

- It is the revival of an old strand of Tory isolationism, encapsulated by Neville Chamberlain's notorious phrase
describing Hitler's threat to Czechoslovakia as being "a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing".

If the aggression had been stamped out then, around 50m lives might have been saved,
and the locals across eastern Europe might have remained free to decide what to for the next 50 years.

Isolationism may give a comfortable illusion of safety, at the expense of our duty of solidarity with those resisting repression,
but that illusion is no more reliable than the assumption that charging in full tilt is necessarily the best way to disable a tyranny.

Personally I think you'd do well to be more discriminating as to just who you're climbing into bed with politically.

Regards,

Lewis

Nick replies thus; I don't believe and haven't mentioned that Obama has been trying to start a war for two years.

My comparison was Danzig which was the cornerstone of Nazi policy from 1933 on. Czechoslovakia was a step along that road. Easier to stop him starting than after his cause had built momentum after the Saar, Rhineland and Austria.

I'm opposed to getting involved in a conflict without knowing the agenda of the side I'm supporting. We made the right decision in staying out of Vietnam and, I believe the right one with Syria. I am being very discriminate in who I align with! The 'resistance' to Assad look increasingly like the people who have been attacking us in Afgan and Iraq. The only freedom I believe they're interested in is the freedom to impose their will on the population rather than Assad's.

Once the war is over we, as a country should offer unconditional assistance to rebuild, repair and heal the victims. As an ex-squaddie I know that the British Infantryman can be a huge asset in restoring confidence to a battered population. A pair of boots can interact with the locals in a multitude of ways from smiling, offering first aid, through shouting and rounds in the air to killing them. Everything else either does nothing or kills.

If you've ever been to Syria you'll know that it's no more a tyranny to the vast majority of the population than Egypt, Russia, Israel or the US. Just because they have different values doesn't make them evil.

Hell if we want to get involved why don't we load up our tomahawks with nuclear waste and send it over with Trident to follow. That will solve the problem for a few thousand years. The Americans have already done the same on a smaller scale in Iraq and Afgan.

[Billhook]

Nick - I read your line:
"Obama, Cameron, Putin et al are trying to make Syria into a 21st Century Danzig. "
as implying that like Hitler's agitating for years to take Danzig, so Obama has been striving to take Syria.
Hence the misunderstanding.

With respect I'd point out that your discrimination is in not aligning with ether the US or the democratic wing of the rebels or the jihadi wing,
which actually puts you alongside the Tory isolationists in the UK, whose major achievement was the disastrous failure
to halt German expansionism at Munich.

Reuters has a news quote that is interesting for reason of the speaker and the publisher:
(Reuters) - Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said the Syrian government, a strong ally of Tehran,
had carried out chemical weapons attacks against its own people, the semi-official Iranian Labour News Agency reported on Sunday.

"The people have been the target of chemical attacks by their own government and now they must also wait for an attack by foreigners,"
Rafsanjani said, according to ILNA. "The people of Syria have seen much damage in these two years."

(Reporting By Yeganeh Torbati, Editing by William Maclean and Andrew Heavens)

Regards,

Lewis

[Little John]

Don't forget, depleted uranium shells are "nice" weapons.

[raspberry-blower]

Someone who has been in Syria recently was Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mairhead Maguire.

Her views on what she witnessed can be found here

In short, rather than supplying arms to an unstable region, shouldn't we be getting everyone to sit round the negotiating table?

[JavaScriptDonkey]

- It is the revival of an old strand of Tory isolationism, encapsulated by Neville Chamberlain's notorious phrase
describing Hitler's threat to Czechoslovakia as being "a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing".

If the aggression had been stamped out then, around 50m lives might have been saved,
and the locals across eastern Europe might have remained free to decide what to for the next 50 years.

Chamberlin was right not to get involved in the annexing of the Sudentland in 1938 as there was nothing the British empire could realistically do to stop it. Similarly when the remainder was invaded there was nothing that we could actually do. Czechoslovakia is a land locked country so the bulwark of our power, the Royal Navy, could hardly influence matters at all and there was no route for our barely adequate army to get there.

It could be argued that had the UK formed a proper alliance with Germany earlier* then the slaughter of millions within Europe would have been avoided AND the subsequent invasion by Soviet forces would never have happened.

These fantasies are all pointless though. We did spend our Empire defeating Nazism, the Soviets did invade Europe and we still have no influence in Syria. it does go to show though that in the long game it is often difficult to be sure who is the best pony to back.

*pre Hitler

[woodburner]

You can find more here............

This would not look too bad if:

Thursday, the British public set a rare, but clear example of what a functioning democracy can look like by rejecting military aggression.

was not there. It may have been very different if some MPs had not missed the news footage of the gas attacks, some MPs bothered to get back from their holidays, and some who just didn't turn up.

It was not the British Public making a clear decision, just a narrow margin that stopped a military escapade.

[biffvernon]

In the previous two posts on my blog about the Syrian conflict I have suggested that the roots of the disaster lie in climate change. A key feature of the current coverage of the reporting on the conflict is the absence of consideration of the origins, particularly any reference to global warming. Global policy decisions are being made with reference to symptoms not causes.

It turns out that there is an extensive literature relating what may be the Fertile Crescent's worst drought since the Neolithic to man-made climate change. Importantly, warnings were made of social unrest and military conflict that would be the likely consequences if the effects of the drought were not mitigated. These warnings were issued in timely manner but, at least to any meaningful extent, were left unheeded, action not taken.

I've listed a selection of reading, from short blog-pieces and journalists' reports to academic papers and lengthy reports from international organisations.
http://biffvernon.blogspot.co.uk/

[JavaScriptDonkey]

Have you found the evidence to show that these FSA rebels were all forced off their land by drought?

[biffvernon]

Of course they weren't

Go work through my Further Reading.

[woodburner]

It may have been suggested, but it's possible the rebels had the chemical weapons, and incoming government artillery hit them, causing the weapons to discharge the gas. In which case, who was responsible?

[SleeperService]

It may have been suggested, but it's possible the rebels had the chemical weapons, and incoming government artillery hit them, causing the weapons to discharge the gas. In which case, who was responsible?

History suggests whoever loses....