Syria - or Desert strike III

Discussion in 'Off Topic Area' started by Dead_pool, Nov 26, 2015.

  1. holyheadjch

    holyheadjch Valued Member

    Iraq, yes, because we decided that a dictator needed to be overthrown because 'democracy!'. And then we did the same to Libya and now we want to do the same with Assad.

    The power vacuums we leave behind are much worse than the tyranny that was present before.

    That said - IS needs to be destroyed. They are a cancer on the region. You can't look to political settlements in Syria whilst IS holds so much of the territory. You can't sit them around a negotiating table (because they'll be wearing a bomb), so you have to remove them from the equation.
     
  2. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    We invaded iraq, because our leaders said they had weapons of mass destruction which could reach the UK in 45 minutes.

    Our leaders knowingly lied.
     
  3. holyheadjch

    holyheadjch Valued Member

    No - that's clearly not what I said - but nice attempt at playing the race card, I'm sure it made you feel all tingly. What matters from a national security perspective is that we (and our allies) are being attacked by this group.

    I'm horrified by what is happening in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Tunisia, Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya and 20 other countries, but it is not the UK's job to go and fix those countries - we keep on trying that and we keep on making it worse. What is the UK's business is attacks on NATO allies and attacks on our citizens whether at home or abroad - it is the job of our government to go after those people and make sure they are not capable to launching further attacks.

    And as I said - when you have Russia, the US and Iran all on the same side of an issue - maybe that is the side to be on.

    TO COVER YOUR EDIT:

    We are already taking military action against ISIS and they are already actively trying to attack us!!! The only thing we are trying to do is remove the arbitrary border that we acknowledge by IS does not. It's ridiculous that we can attack ISIS in Iraq, but not in Syria.

    Assad's war crimes are for the UN to sort out. There are processes in place for that.
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2015
  4. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    More people die from diabetes, by emotionally reacting like this we are doing exactly what they want us to do, we as a country are idiots.
     
  5. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    Russia and the US are not on the same side.
    They're diametrically opposed.

    Russia supports Assad, the US are trying to remove him.
     
  6. Ben Gash CLF

    Ben Gash CLF Valued Member

    Russia want action against ISIS because Assad is one of their few remaining proxies in the region.
    Iran want action against ISIS because ISIS at it's heart is an anti-Iranian movement, it's fundamentally a Sunni-Shia conflict, and again Assad is Iran's proxy.
    The US want action against ISIS because they're paranoid about Islamist terror and have a pathological inability to learn from their mistakes.
    None of these are good reasons.
    Military action in Syria that doesn't involve a ground war and doesn't deal with the Syrian government as part of the problem is doomed to fail.
     
  7. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    You'll notice that I mentioned neither the idea that we should not deploy conventional military forces, nor did I mention hugs.

    Yes, our intelligence services have been in it for some time, aiding the Salafist rebels :rolleyes:

    The idea that we've left Syria alone, and our democratically elected representatives have to vote in some public mandate by proxy before we go meddling in other countries' affairs, is laughable.

    We're already in a proxy war against Russia. The Cold War never ended, and more have died in it than in WWI and WWII combined.

    We've sided with the Americans so far in this proxy war. Do you think we should do the ol' switcheroo and side with the Russians in an infantry-led counter-insurgency? If you think the U.S., Russia and the U.K. can all come together for a common cause, well... I can only say that your view of geopolitics is far less cynical and jaded than mine.

    "The prosecution of a Swedish national accused of terrorist activities in Syria has collapsed at the Old Bailey after it became clear Britain’s security and intelligence agencies would have been deeply embarrassed had a trial gone ahead, the Guardian can reveal.

    His lawyers argued that British intelligence agencies were supporting the same Syrian opposition groups as he was, and were party to a secret operation providing weapons and non-lethal help to the groups, including the Free Syrian Army."


    - http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...sed-terrorism-offences-collapse-bherlin-gildo

    "A revealing light on how we got here has now been shone by a recently declassified secret US intelligence report, written in August 2012, which uncannily predicts – and effectively welcomes – the prospect of a “Salafist principality” in eastern Syria and an al-Qaida-controlled Islamic state in Syria and Iraq. In stark contrast to western claims at the time, the Defense Intelligence Agency document identifies al-Qaida in Iraq (which became Isis) and fellow Salafists as the “major forces driving the insurgency in Syria” – and states that “western countries, the Gulf states and Turkey” were supporting the opposition’s efforts to take control of eastern Syria.

    Raising the “possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality”, the Pentagon report goes on, “this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran)”.

    Which is pretty well exactly what happened two years later. The report isn’t a policy document. It’s heavily redacted and there are ambiguities in the language. But the implications are clear enough. A year into the Syrian rebellion, the US and its allies weren’t only supporting and arming an opposition they knew to be dominated by extreme sectarian groups; they were prepared to countenance the creation of some sort of “Islamic state” – despite the “grave danger” to Iraq’s unity – as a Sunni buffer to weaken Syria."


    - http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/03/us-isis-syria-iraq
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2015
  8. Ben Gash CLF

    Ben Gash CLF Valued Member

    So when has such military action done anything to prevent such attacks? Why are ISIS attacking Western countries? Why do Western Muslims join them?
    Assad and ISIS are two sides of the same problem. What exactly are the UN going to do to a sitting head of state?
     
  9. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    Obviously the Middle East is far more stable, and the West is far more secure, since we sorted it all out in Afghanistan and Iraq :p

    All that's missing is just one last war... then it will all be good. Promise!
     
  10. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    It's far more dangerous than that.

    With Russian and US forces in Syria, we are one incident away from WWIII.
     
  11. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    This was very revealing to me -
    its a very complex situation.

    [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cgi9tz3IZWQ"]SYRIA'S WAR: A (5) MINUTE HISTORY - YouTube[/ame]


    and from 2013 -

    [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5H5w3_QTG0"]The war in Syria explained in five minutes | Guardian Animations - YouTube[/ame]
     
  12. holyheadjch

    holyheadjch Valued Member

    Don't be melodramatic.

    Neither Putin nor Obama are actually crazy.
     
  13. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    War isnt only between mentally unstable people.

    And I wouldn't say american polititians (republican party anyone) or Putin is exactly stable
     
    Last edited: Nov 27, 2015
  14. holyheadjch

    holyheadjch Valued Member

    Nuclear holocausts are.

    No accident in Syria is going to lead to war between the US and Russia. And it would take one hell of a non-accident to spark one.
     
  15. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    escalation anyone?
     
  16. holyheadjch

    holyheadjch Valued Member

    Again with the melodrama.
     
  17. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    russia and turkey (NATO member) have both fired missiles at each others military.

    That's definitely an escalation from being at peace.
     
  18. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

  19. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    Firstly, I didn't mention nuclear weapons.

    Although they certainly do pose a huge risk:

    "A shared belief in nuclear deterrence is not the only plausible explanation for this avoidance of nuclear war. Rather, individual decision-making, often in disobedience of protocol and political guidance, has on several occasions saved the day. Whereas the popularized image of the ‘Moscow–Washington hotline’ gives the illusion that vital communication in times of crisis is possible, these incidents reveal the reality that those who possess nuclear weapons will continue to be distrustful of one another and remain reliant on data transmitted by systems that are vulnerable to error or misjudgment, particularly when leaders have to respond too quickly to be able to make fully informed decisions.

    Historical cases of near nuclear use resulting from misunderstanding demonstrate the importance of the ‘human judgment factor’ in nuclear decision-making. In addition to cases from the Cold War, recent incidents, such as the 2009 collision of French and UK submarines, along with cases of misconduct in the US Air Force revealed in 2013, suggest cause for concern regarding current laxity in safety and security measures and in command and control. Incidents similar to those that have happened in the past are likely to happen in the future."


    - https://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/papers/view/199200?dm_i=1TY5,2EIQH,BHZJ2P,8Q9SA,1#

    Between the USA, Russia, France and the UK, there are around 2000 nuclear weapons ready to launch within 5-15 minutes at this very moment. The more tension there is between major power blocs, the more likely that a false alert or communications failure will result in a launch. The policies on launching a nuclear assault are still of the "use it or lose it" approach.

    But the main worry is that both Putin and Obama have reached the end of their "wriggle room" already. The NATO military encirclement of Russia and her allied satellite states, Crimea, Ukraine, UN sanctions, Assad, Russian development of the Arctic... all these events have pushed both leaders to the very edge of diplomatic solutions.

    Proxy wars have killed millions upon millions since WWII, but they give extra diplomatic breathing space through proxy buffers. Once the national militaries are in the same country, small incidents could well quickly spiral out of control, because both Putin and Obama have their back against the wall in terms of national pride and how far they will acquiesce to the actions of the other.

    Then let's not forget America's recent goading of China in the South China Sea. It is probably also worth remembering China's voting history when it comes to Syria in the UN.

    You don't have to be crazy to start a war, you just have to run out of excuses for inaction. Otherwise, we would live in a reasonably peaceful world.

    "Just as Herodotus is the father of history, Thucydides is the father of realism. To understand the geopolitical conflict zones of the 21st century, you must begin with the ancient Greeks. Among the many important lessons Thucydides teaches in his History of the Peloponnesian War is that what starts a war is different from what causes it.
    [...]
    No one understood this distinction, which was perhaps made first in literature by Thucydides, better than Thucydides' most distinguished translator, the 17th century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes writes that a pretext for war over some worthless place "is always an injury received, or pretended to be received." Whereas the "inward motive to hostility is but conjectural; and not of the evidence."

    - http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2013/02/21/how_wars_start_100568.html

    More on the ongoing "Cold" War:

    "We never know the length of the wars that drag on around us. When peace improbably comes, we’d like to think that the treaties are permanent, that they’ll turn former combatants into grumbling but harmless neighbors.

    Wars, however, are like acid reflux—they keep recurring no matter how much Pepto-Bismol we chug. Perhaps the Vietnamese thought they’d finally won their independence when they delivered a stinging defeat to the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Perhaps the Afghans imagined that self-determination was theirs when the Soviet superpower withdrew in 1989 (or, for that matter, when the British withdrew in 1880). Wars defy our efforts to write their obituaries."

    - http://fpif.org/cold-war-never-ended/

    It doesn't come down to decisions to start a war with Russia, it comes down to having no other option (well, no other option without losing the respect of your country and rewriting the book on geopolitical policy - I believe most leaders would press the button before doing that).
     
    Last edited: Nov 27, 2015
  20. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    A couple of quotes from Syrians I saw on the BBC news site:

    "We are against the UK strikes on Raqqa. All the world is bombing Raqqa and the UK will not make any change in the situation. If the UK wants to help people then it should accept Syrian refugees and not close the border.
    "Just bombing IS in Raqqa from the sky will not defeat IS, but it will make people suffer more. IS will use the UK strikes to recruit new people in the West and new fighters and maybe they will carry out terrorist attacks.
    "In the end nobody will liberate Raqqa except the people of Raqqa."


    - Raqqa is being Slaughtered Silently - citizen journalist group in the IS stronghold

    "Humans can't survive there. Nothing works. That's why many people are trying to leave Raqqa," he told BBC Turkey correspondent Mark Lowen.
    "Air strikes were not effective in reducing IS. It just destroyed some buildings and places with very few fighters. The places where strikes could have had most effect were not hit. Air strikes are not enough to defeat IS and push it out of the area. It needs local troops who know the area well, like the Free Syrian Army. IS fighters regroup in other parts.

    "More air strikes could reduce fighter numbers. To defeat IS? No. You need ground troops."


    - Hassan, Raqqa resident now living in Turkey

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34992616
     

Share This Page