It's a very neat theory.
Remembering that this spat is Sunni/Shia, is there any data showing the ethnicity of these farmers who abandoned their land or which land they abandoned?
There is lots of detail of the over abundance of water management and their reliance of ground water in Wiki but no mention of water shortages amongst just one sect.
Syria watch...
Moderator: Peak Moderation
That was my first thought as well.Totally_Baffled wrote:Obama is now seeking a congress vote, is he quietly hoping he 'loses' the vote to avoid action? Is he thinking this is the way to lose the least amount of credibility? (Given the lack of support for military action)
Engage in geo-engineering. Plant a tree today.
From a US credibility perspective, the brazen challenge of Assad's resort to a major chemical attack posed a lose-lose dilemma for Washington.
Lose cred worldwide for mounting a punitive missile assault without UN mandate and with disputed Assad culpability -
or lose cred worldwide for being unable to impose its will militarily even in launching a minor demonstrative strike.
Given that the former would be somewhat more helpful to the Iran-Moscow axis, the latter is preferable for the US
- but it knocks a large hole in the US self-image of the invincible sole superpower, which congress may find hard to accept.
Seeing that if the chemical attack wasn't actually Moscow's ploy it would certainly have needed Moscow's sanction as Assad's prime sponsor,
then beside the those killed and the thousands more permanently injured,
if the US now imposes no proportionate response on Assad's forces and simply withdraws from the Syrian war
the major casualty will be the global treaty banning the use of chemical weapons,
which has taken most of a century to achieve.
Lose cred worldwide for mounting a punitive missile assault without UN mandate and with disputed Assad culpability -
or lose cred worldwide for being unable to impose its will militarily even in launching a minor demonstrative strike.
Given that the former would be somewhat more helpful to the Iran-Moscow axis, the latter is preferable for the US
- but it knocks a large hole in the US self-image of the invincible sole superpower, which congress may find hard to accept.
Seeing that if the chemical attack wasn't actually Moscow's ploy it would certainly have needed Moscow's sanction as Assad's prime sponsor,
then beside the those killed and the thousands more permanently injured,
if the US now imposes no proportionate response on Assad's forces and simply withdraws from the Syrian war
the major casualty will be the global treaty banning the use of chemical weapons,
which has taken most of a century to achieve.
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Little John
In this post you talk as if it is a fact Assad is behind whatever has happened in Syria and have also insinuated Moscow is also implicated. These thing may be true, they may not.Billhook wrote:From a US credibility perspective, the brazen challenge of Assad's resort to a major chemical attack posed a lose-lose dilemma for Washington.
Lose cred worldwide for mounting a punitive missile assault without UN mandate and with disputed Assad culpability -
or lose cred worldwide for being unable to impose its will militarily even in launching a minor demonstrative strike.
Given that the former would be somewhat more helpful to the Iran-Moscow axis, the latter is preferable for the US
- but it knocks a large hole in the US self-image of the invincible sole superpower, which congress may find hard to accept.
Seeing that if the chemical attack wasn't actually Moscow's ploy it would certainly have needed Moscow's sanction as Assad's prime sponsor,
then beside the those killed and the thousands more permanently injured,
if the US now imposes no proportionate response on Assad's forces and simply withdraws from the Syrian war
the major casualty will be the global treaty banning the use of chemical weapons,
which has taken most of a century to achieve.
However, you, like everyone else, do not know who is culpable, nor even the extent or exact nature of what actually happened. And yet, in every post you have made on this thread, you talk as if you do know what has happened. It's like listening to a bloody Fox news report reading your posts.
Your bias is ridiculously and pathetically apparent by the manner in which every post you make is a persistent attempt to move and redefine the terms of the debate into discussing this topic as if the facts are known. They are not known because the evidence for who is culpable for what has yet to be presented.
Give it up man, it's pathetic.
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vtsnowedin
- Posts: 6595
- Joined: 07 Jan 2011, 22:14
- Location: New England ,Chelsea Vermont
Really Steve? You want to dismiss his argument because it hasn't been certified ,sealed and delivered to the world court? What are the chances that his version od events are wrong? Look at it. You have a despot dictator with a stockpile of poison gas weapons and troops that know how to use them. His opposition is a rag tag bunch of untrained rebels that are short of everything from rifle ammo to water. Which one are you betting on to have shot gas weapons into the opposition held suburb? If you are betting on the rebel forces doing this I will have to reassess my view of your intelligence.stevecook172001 wrote:In this post you talk as if it is a fact Assad is behind whatever has happened in Syria and have also insinuated Moscow is also implicated. These thing may be true, they may not.Billhook wrote:From a US credibility perspective, the brazen challenge of Assad's resort to a major chemical attack posed a lose-lose dilemma for Washington.
Lose cred worldwide for mounting a punitive missile assault without UN mandate and with disputed Assad culpability -
or lose cred worldwide for being unable to impose its will militarily even in launching a minor demonstrative strike.
Given that the former would be somewhat more helpful to the Iran-Moscow axis, the latter is preferable for the US
- but it knocks a large hole in the US self-image of the invincible sole superpower, which congress may find hard to accept.
Seeing that if the chemical attack wasn't actually Moscow's ploy it would certainly have needed Moscow's sanction as Assad's prime sponsor,
then beside the those killed and the thousands more permanently injured,
if the US now imposes no proportionate response on Assad's forces and simply withdraws from the Syrian war
the major casualty will be the global treaty banning the use of chemical weapons,
which has taken most of a century to achieve.
However, you, like everyone else, do not know who is culpable, nor even the extent or exact nature of what actually happened. And yet, in every post you have made on this thread, you talk as if you do know what has happened. It's like listening to a bloody Fox news report reading your posts.
Your bias is ridiculously and pathetically apparent by the manner in which every post you make is a persistent attempt to move and redefine the terms of the debate into discussing this topic as if the facts are known. They are not known because the evidence for who is culpable for what has yet to be presented.
Give it up man, it's pathetic.
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Little John
Where have i said i am betting on the rebels having it done it? I am not betting on anything. I'm not even betting on what "it" actually is till I have been presented with actual evidence instead of the transparently propagandist bullshit spouted by our idiot Haig and his boss Cameron and also by Obama today.vtsnowedin wrote:Really Steve? You want to dismiss his argument because it hasn't been certified ,sealed and delivered to the world court? What are the chances that his version od events are wrong? Look at it. You have a despot dictator with a stockpile of poison gas weapons and troops that know how to use them. His opposition is a rag tag bunch of untrained rebels that are short of everything from rifle ammo to water. Which one are you betting on to have shot gas weapons into the opposition held suburb? If you are betting on the rebel forces doing this I will have to reassess my view of your intelligence.stevecook172001 wrote:In this post you talk as if it is a fact Assad is behind whatever has happened in Syria and have also insinuated Moscow is also implicated. These thing may be true, they may not.Billhook wrote:From a US credibility perspective, the brazen challenge of Assad's resort to a major chemical attack posed a lose-lose dilemma for Washington.
Lose cred worldwide for mounting a punitive missile assault without UN mandate and with disputed Assad culpability -
or lose cred worldwide for being unable to impose its will militarily even in launching a minor demonstrative strike.
Given that the former would be somewhat more helpful to the Iran-Moscow axis, the latter is preferable for the US
- but it knocks a large hole in the US self-image of the invincible sole superpower, which congress may find hard to accept.
Seeing that if the chemical attack wasn't actually Moscow's ploy it would certainly have needed Moscow's sanction as Assad's prime sponsor,
then beside the those killed and the thousands more permanently injured,
if the US now imposes no proportionate response on Assad's forces and simply withdraws from the Syrian war
the major casualty will be the global treaty banning the use of chemical weapons,
which has taken most of a century to achieve.
However, you, like everyone else, do not know who is culpable, nor even the extent or exact nature of what actually happened. And yet, in every post you have made on this thread, you talk as if you do know what has happened. It's like listening to a bloody Fox news report reading your posts.
Your bias is ridiculously and pathetically apparent by the manner in which every post you make is a persistent attempt to move and redefine the terms of the debate into discussing this topic as if the facts are known. They are not known because the evidence for who is culpable for what has yet to be presented.
Give it up man, it's pathetic.
Everything Billhook contends may be right. It may also be wrong. I am not objecting to the contention. I am objecting the the contention being presented, persistently, as if it is a known fact. We see this kind of propagandist shit every day on our TVs. On here, I expect a better class of debate and will call someone out if I don't see that.
What's pissing me off about Billhook is that he is not stupid., as evidenced by the quality of his prose. Which tells me that his disinformation (in terms of presenting contentions as if they are known facts) is deliberate. Which, in turn, tells me he has an agenda to push which is sufficiently important (for whatever reason) that he is willing to distort/dispense with facts in order to push it. It wouldn’t matter so much if it was about some abstract topic. But it's not. It's precisely this kind of propaganda on which real lives hang in the balance right now.
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vtsnowedin
- Posts: 6595
- Joined: 07 Jan 2011, 22:14
- Location: New England ,Chelsea Vermont
I am well aware of the numerous times the media have misinformed the public, but I would like to look beyond that real possibility and look for the holes in the story being presented today. Point out a hole and your reasoning for doubting it's presumption. Just being a skeptic without pointing out some absurdity in the current narrative is too lazy on your part.stevecook172001 wrote:[What's pissing me off about Billhook is that he is not stupid., as evidenced by the quality of his prose. Which tells me that his disinformation (in terms of presenting contentions as if they are known facts) is deliberate. Which, in turn, tells me he has an agenda to push which is sufficiently important (for whatever reason) that he is willing to distort/dispense with facts in order to push it. It wouldn’t matter so much if it was about some abstract topic. But it's not. It's precisely this kind of propaganda on which real lives hang in the balance right now.
Steve Cook -
you seem to have difficulty in comprehending that someone who fundamentally opposes the present US hegemony
may not share your binary isolationist outlook on the Syrian War.
While I've made clear in a number of posts that a missile strike seems to me a probably counter-productive
and certainly sub-optimal response to the chemical weapons attack on rebel held areas,
which you've persistently ignored,
perhaps it would help to point out the degree of malice embodied in both the Assad and US regimes, with the example
of when the CIA found, under Bush/Cheney, that it needed to torture more people than its experts could handle,
Assad's staff were among the first foreign torturers to which the work was outsourced.
I write from the perspective of Assad's culpability for the chemical attack being a given, as that is my opinion,
which can readily be supported by rational analysis.
The reasoning behind that opinion can be re-iterated as follows:
1/. The SFA have no known capacity to acquire, load, deploy and accurately launch chemical weapons
in an attack on four districts of Damascus.
Nor do they have a motive for killing and maiming thousands of civilians and perhaps hundreds of their own troops,
nor for leaving critical areas of their front lines highly vulnerable to being overrun by govt forces.
Nor do they have a motive for causing the US the massive global embarrassment of the lose-lose dilemma as outlined earlier,
since one US decision leads only to a single limited indecisive missile strike, and the other leads to no strike at all,
while the US learning of a criminally atrocious attempt by the FSA to force the superpower's hand would terminate any further support.
2/. Assad by contrast has form in the mass killing of opponents, as in the previous failed uprising when around 30,000 were killed in reprisals.
He also has declared chemical weapons stocks and a regiment dedicated to the ability to use them.
He also had the motives of imposing the seminal lose-lose dilemma on the US,
(which in my view is far more likely of Russian origin than Syrian)
as well as that of smearing the SFA as having been culpable to break their international support
- which his propaganda offices have put major effort into,
as well as that of weakening the SFA's hold on parts of Damascus that are a key objective in the current state of the war.
The fact that the four districts hit had (according to survivors) just been shelled with HE,
thus breaking the windows and doors and maximizing the ingress of the gas
(as was standard practice in US & USSR training for the use of chemical weapons on an urban area)
confirms in my view the almost unequivocal confidence that Assad was responsible.
Your numerous statements declaring that everything coming out of Washington, Westminster, the BBC etc are entirely bullshit propaganda
are written as if you know this, when in fact this is just your opinion and you neither know nor can offer a credible rationale to support it.
In reality, any propaganda will utilize real supportable facts when it can and these are worth gleaning.
In addition, there are numerous individuals in both political centres and in the BBC
who put accuracy before towing the respectable propaganda line, and they are worth hearing, particularly if one reads between the lines.
You have also repeatedly written as if the US is hell bent on imposing war on Assad as if you know it for a fact,
when again that is just your opinion. Again you cannot support it by rational analysis.
The reality is patently obviously the reverse, given over two years of prevarication and foot-dragging by Washington,
with occasional rhetoric as the casualties mount,
which has left the supposed US puppets in the SFA chronically short even of rifle ammunition,
let alone of effective weaponry to overthrow the Russian-backed dictatorship.
I don't complain of you stating your opinions, though it would be good to see you sidelining those which you cannot justify.
I shall continue to assert my own opinions of just what can be supported by rational evaluation of the available information,
so you are wasting effort in telling me to "give it up".
In case it still hasn't sunk in, I'd reiterate the fact that I have no loyalty whatsoever to the present global US hegemony,
whose fundamentalist ideology of nationalist supremacism seems to me the greatest peril facing society,
most particularly in imposing a brinkmanship of inaction on Climate with the goal of breaking China's bid for global economic dominance.
My interest in discussion of the Syrian War is in upholding the interests of those who've risen up
to overthrow a singularly vicious foreign backed dictatorship to establish a democracy in its place,
and it seems to me the moral duty and the global interest of those who have the vote
to urge those we elect to support those efforts in the most efficient manner possible which,
given the Russian veto at the UN, unavoidably means helping to bring Assad to the negotiating table by force of arms.
I understand from your explicit promotion in posts above of an isolationist amoral approach to foreign policy
that by contrast you would rather see our politics devoid of morality,
but this leaves the question of why you clearly feel so passionately about the immorality of US conduct in particular,
as it would appear to be a prime example of the ideology of amoral self-interest that you promote.
Some reasoned explanations would be helpful.
Regards,
Lewis
you seem to have difficulty in comprehending that someone who fundamentally opposes the present US hegemony
may not share your binary isolationist outlook on the Syrian War.
While I've made clear in a number of posts that a missile strike seems to me a probably counter-productive
and certainly sub-optimal response to the chemical weapons attack on rebel held areas,
which you've persistently ignored,
perhaps it would help to point out the degree of malice embodied in both the Assad and US regimes, with the example
of when the CIA found, under Bush/Cheney, that it needed to torture more people than its experts could handle,
Assad's staff were among the first foreign torturers to which the work was outsourced.
I write from the perspective of Assad's culpability for the chemical attack being a given, as that is my opinion,
which can readily be supported by rational analysis.
The reasoning behind that opinion can be re-iterated as follows:
1/. The SFA have no known capacity to acquire, load, deploy and accurately launch chemical weapons
in an attack on four districts of Damascus.
Nor do they have a motive for killing and maiming thousands of civilians and perhaps hundreds of their own troops,
nor for leaving critical areas of their front lines highly vulnerable to being overrun by govt forces.
Nor do they have a motive for causing the US the massive global embarrassment of the lose-lose dilemma as outlined earlier,
since one US decision leads only to a single limited indecisive missile strike, and the other leads to no strike at all,
while the US learning of a criminally atrocious attempt by the FSA to force the superpower's hand would terminate any further support.
2/. Assad by contrast has form in the mass killing of opponents, as in the previous failed uprising when around 30,000 were killed in reprisals.
He also has declared chemical weapons stocks and a regiment dedicated to the ability to use them.
He also had the motives of imposing the seminal lose-lose dilemma on the US,
(which in my view is far more likely of Russian origin than Syrian)
as well as that of smearing the SFA as having been culpable to break their international support
- which his propaganda offices have put major effort into,
as well as that of weakening the SFA's hold on parts of Damascus that are a key objective in the current state of the war.
The fact that the four districts hit had (according to survivors) just been shelled with HE,
thus breaking the windows and doors and maximizing the ingress of the gas
(as was standard practice in US & USSR training for the use of chemical weapons on an urban area)
confirms in my view the almost unequivocal confidence that Assad was responsible.
Your numerous statements declaring that everything coming out of Washington, Westminster, the BBC etc are entirely bullshit propaganda
are written as if you know this, when in fact this is just your opinion and you neither know nor can offer a credible rationale to support it.
In reality, any propaganda will utilize real supportable facts when it can and these are worth gleaning.
In addition, there are numerous individuals in both political centres and in the BBC
who put accuracy before towing the respectable propaganda line, and they are worth hearing, particularly if one reads between the lines.
You have also repeatedly written as if the US is hell bent on imposing war on Assad as if you know it for a fact,
when again that is just your opinion. Again you cannot support it by rational analysis.
The reality is patently obviously the reverse, given over two years of prevarication and foot-dragging by Washington,
with occasional rhetoric as the casualties mount,
which has left the supposed US puppets in the SFA chronically short even of rifle ammunition,
let alone of effective weaponry to overthrow the Russian-backed dictatorship.
I don't complain of you stating your opinions, though it would be good to see you sidelining those which you cannot justify.
I shall continue to assert my own opinions of just what can be supported by rational evaluation of the available information,
so you are wasting effort in telling me to "give it up".
In case it still hasn't sunk in, I'd reiterate the fact that I have no loyalty whatsoever to the present global US hegemony,
whose fundamentalist ideology of nationalist supremacism seems to me the greatest peril facing society,
most particularly in imposing a brinkmanship of inaction on Climate with the goal of breaking China's bid for global economic dominance.
My interest in discussion of the Syrian War is in upholding the interests of those who've risen up
to overthrow a singularly vicious foreign backed dictatorship to establish a democracy in its place,
and it seems to me the moral duty and the global interest of those who have the vote
to urge those we elect to support those efforts in the most efficient manner possible which,
given the Russian veto at the UN, unavoidably means helping to bring Assad to the negotiating table by force of arms.
I understand from your explicit promotion in posts above of an isolationist amoral approach to foreign policy
that by contrast you would rather see our politics devoid of morality,
but this leaves the question of why you clearly feel so passionately about the immorality of US conduct in particular,
as it would appear to be a prime example of the ideology of amoral self-interest that you promote.
Some reasoned explanations would be helpful.
Regards,
Lewis
-
Little John
So now you have provided some reasons here behind your opinion that Assad launched chemical weapons on his people. Fine. I happen to think your reasons are as weak as piss, but that's fine too. You're as entitled to them as I am to mine. The main thing to remember Billhook, is the next time you present those opinions as self evident facts in order to disingenuously move the debate on from whether or not they occurred to how we deal with them as if we already know they occurred and as if we already know by whom, I will call you out again.
As for my default position of disbelieving the narrative of our authorities unless and until I am shown incontrovertible evidence to the contrary?
Afghanistan
Iraq
Egypt
Saudi Arabia
Dodgy Dossiers
And that's just recent history.
There is also a part your post I do want to take particular issue with that is arguably yet another blatant misrepresentation by you of opinion as self-evident fact. Namely, your 'self-evident' statement that the people of Syria are "rising up". Do you actually know the breakdown of pro and anti Assad supporters in Syria? Do you actually know the proportion of those who don't support his regime that are actually engaged in armed conflict with his forces? Syria is made up of 29 different ethic and religious groups and I might imagine most of those, apart from a particular sect of Muslim fundamentalists, will be shitting themselves at the prospect of a rebel win.
You do realise that it is all a little bit more complicated than your binary analysis of the "good guys" versus the "bad guys?
As for my default position of disbelieving the narrative of our authorities unless and until I am shown incontrovertible evidence to the contrary?
Afghanistan
Iraq
Egypt
Saudi Arabia
Dodgy Dossiers
And that's just recent history.
There is also a part your post I do want to take particular issue with that is arguably yet another blatant misrepresentation by you of opinion as self-evident fact. Namely, your 'self-evident' statement that the people of Syria are "rising up". Do you actually know the breakdown of pro and anti Assad supporters in Syria? Do you actually know the proportion of those who don't support his regime that are actually engaged in armed conflict with his forces? Syria is made up of 29 different ethic and religious groups and I might imagine most of those, apart from a particular sect of Muslim fundamentalists, will be shitting themselves at the prospect of a rebel win.
You do realise that it is all a little bit more complicated than your binary analysis of the "good guys" versus the "bad guys?
Last edited by Little John on 01 Sep 2013, 13:20, edited 3 times in total.
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biffvernon
- Posts: 18538
- Joined: 24 Nov 2005, 11:09
- Location: Lincolnshire
- Contact:
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SleeperService
- Posts: 1104
- Joined: 02 May 2011, 23:35
- Location: Nottingham UK
The first casualty of war is truth, most of the victims are civilian.
Everything else is open to interpretation. Steve is right. We need to be very careful of 'credibility creep' this happened so that must have caused it so....
As an example;
In 1914 advancing Imperial German soldiers killed babies in hospitals, disguised themselves as nuns and looted churches.
In 1939 advancing Nazi soldiers also did all these things.
In 1990 advancing Iraqi soldiers did the first, disguised themselves as women in burkas and looted hospitals.
In reality none of these things happened, except on an isolated individual basis and then not necessarily by the named perpetrator.
I'd be very surprised if, when the power hungry are neutralised, we don't find any reason to hate most other people. Some may be unpleasant but that's not the same thing.
Obama, Cameron, Putin et al are trying to make Syria into a 21st Century Danzig. Or Sarajevo. God Help Us All!
And that I think is a good enough argument to 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.
Everything else is open to interpretation. Steve is right. We need to be very careful of 'credibility creep' this happened so that must have caused it so....
As an example;
In 1914 advancing Imperial German soldiers killed babies in hospitals, disguised themselves as nuns and looted churches.
In 1939 advancing Nazi soldiers also did all these things.
In 1990 advancing Iraqi soldiers did the first, disguised themselves as women in burkas and looted hospitals.
In reality none of these things happened, except on an isolated individual basis and then not necessarily by the named perpetrator.
I'd be very surprised if, when the power hungry are neutralised, we don't find any reason to hate most other people. Some may be unpleasant but that's not the same thing.
Obama, Cameron, Putin et al are trying to make Syria into a 21st Century Danzig. Or Sarajevo. God Help Us All!
And that I think is a good enough argument to 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.
Scarcity is the new black
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biffvernon
- Posts: 18538
- Joined: 24 Nov 2005, 11:09
- Location: Lincolnshire
- Contact:
Dear Syria,
We're on holiday at the moment so we won't be able to kill random members of your population who happen to be standing where our cruise missiles land until we get back after next week. It's all to do with democracy.
Best Wishes
Uncle Sam.
PS, Sorry about the weather ( http://biffvernon.blogspot.co.uk/ )
We're on holiday at the moment so we won't be able to kill random members of your population who happen to be standing where our cruise missiles land until we get back after next week. It's all to do with democracy.
Best Wishes
Uncle Sam.
PS, Sorry about the weather ( http://biffvernon.blogspot.co.uk/ )
Sleeper, in the interests of your not helping to make truth the first casualty of war,SleeperService wrote:The first casualty of war is truth, most of the victims are civilian.
. . . . . . . .
Obama, Cameron, Putin et al are trying to make Syria into a 21st Century Danzig. Or Sarajevo. God Help Us All!
And that I think is a good enough argument to 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.
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
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Little John
A bit rich coming from someone who is, apparently, happy to uncritically accept non-evidence-based propaganda as a basis the USA and UK to climb into bed with human-organ-devouring Syrian Rebel leaders.Billhook wrote: ..Personally I think you'd do well to be more discriminating as to just who you're climbing into bed with politically.
But, then, we've been here oh so many times before haven’t we. Remember when the Taliban were "freedom fighters" back when we were fighting a dirty war by proxy with Russia? Or when Saddam Hussain was our "friend" back when he wasn't trying to sell his oil in currency other than dollars? So much so, in fact, the West supplied him with the chemical weapons he used to gas the Kurds and the USA and UK sent over "special advisors" to show him how best to "manage" dissent. All of which is not to mention the massive quantity of conventional weapons supplied to him by the West that he killed innumerably more of his people with. But, that's okay isn't it because conventional weapons are "nice" weapons so they don't count right? I suppose that must be the reason why the USA, despite a bit of public-relations bleating following the massacre of at least a thousand unarmed Egyptian civilians and the maiming of uncountable numbers more, is indicating absolutely no intention whatsoever of ceasing to supply the murderous Egyptian military junta with such weaponry.
I could go on...and on....and on.
Your arguments are morally bankrupt. Give it up man.
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.
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.