Syria

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dualstow
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Re: Syria

Post by dualstow » Tue Nov 17, 2015 5:29 pm

Interesting watching the commenters battle it out as to whether it's a fair comparison. I think user stone(?) touched on this during one of our long debates. Specifically, a perception of Jews as associated with the red scare.

From my perspective, they weren't blowing anything up or shooting anyone, and people still found reasons to keep them away. I've seen many documentaries about that.

Assad butchering his own people, and ISIS murdering innocent Muslims, something that gives even Al Qaeda the cold sweats, is a terrible thing. It wouldn't really make sense to call it genocide, since it's the same group of people.

In the end, though, I think there is a degree of validity to the comparison. Fear of the other, I guess.

Well, tons of migrants are coming whether we like it or not. Will they assimilate & integrate the way Jews have? Here's hoping.
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Re: Syria

Post by Greg » Thu Nov 19, 2015 12:02 am

http://www.nationalreview.com/syrian-re ... 1939s-jews

Good thoughts on Syrian Refugees and how being cautious is a good thing.
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Re: Syria

Post by Reub » Thu Nov 19, 2015 4:49 pm

Bringing in refugees from the Islamic world ensures that we end up just like Paris and Brussels.
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Re: Syria

Post by Fred » Thu Nov 19, 2015 5:39 pm

Reub wrote: Bringing in refugees from the Islamic world ensures that we end up just like Paris and Brussels.
Communists were long barred from immigrating to the United States because of their political views and I think maybe they still are.

I don't see why we can't do the same with followers of Islam. Their beliefs and way of life are incompatible with ours and I'm hard-pressed to see what the difference is. Why should they get a pass just because Islam is a religion?
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Re: Syria

Post by Kriegsspiel » Fri Nov 17, 2017 7:56 am

https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/ ... s-defeated
Despite the defeat of ISIS, Defense Secretary James Mattis told reporters this week that U.S. forces will remain in Syria.

The intention, he said, is to prevent the appearance of "ISIS 2.0."

There are hundreds of U.S. troops in Syria. Pentagon officials say the U.S. is on solid legal ground to be there because the U.N. Security Council endorsed the anti-ISIS mission. But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says the U.S. presence is "illegitimate."

"There are a lot of questions to ask about the United States' goals in Syria," Lavrov said, according to the Russian news agency TASS. "U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has told me many times that their only goal is to defeat IS."

A change in regime "runs counter to the Geneva agreements and ... assurances that the U.S.'s only goal in Syria is to fight terrorism," Lavrov said.

Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies are demanding the U.S. leave Syria.

The next meeting of the Geneva peace talks is Nov. 28. The U.S. is pressing for the Syrian Democratic Forces and the Syrian Kurds to be included at the negotiating table.

It's unlikely that Assad and the Russians will agree. With Russian and Iranian military assistance, Assad has emerged as the dominant political and military force in Syria with no need to accommodate his opponents.

...

Pentagon officials say the U.S. has one asset to advance its interests in Syria — money. The country needs to be rebuilt and the belief is Russia lacks the will or the resources to do it.

The U.S. is spending money now in Raqqa on what it calls "stabilization," and will likely help elsewhere, but hopes Saudi Arabia and the other Arab states will finance most of the rebuilding — in exchange for a political settlement of the Syrian conflict.

Yet this would seem to run counter to the Trump administration's aversion to "nation-building."
There might even be a chance this won't end up a giant clusterfuck.

::)
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Re: Syria

Post by boglerdude » Wed Feb 14, 2018 1:54 am

Incoming, Sergey!

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Re: Syria

Post by Kriegsspiel » Thu Mar 01, 2018 7:16 pm

http://www.newsweek.com/total-f-russian ... ens-818073

Interesting, the Russians have a direct equivalent to 'fuck' that they use the same way (unless the translator was making up their own stuff).

"“One squadron fucking lost 200 people..."

“They were all shelling the holy fuck out of it"

"our fucking government will go in reverse now"

“My guys just called me, they are sitting there drinking, many are MIA, it’s a total fuckup, another humiliation.... Nobody gives a fuck about us.”

“We got our fucking asses beat rough, the Yankees made their point,” he said. “What were they hoping for, that the Yankees are just going to fuck off?... It’s bullshit, some people can’t even be fucking ID’ed, too many people there.”

"There are about 215 fucking killed”
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Re: Syria

Post by Mr Vacuum » Thu Mar 01, 2018 7:33 pm

What a nightmare.

Unrelated but this thread reminded me, I’ve been missing TennPaGa’s posts around here.

Continuing the thread drift, I watched 13 Hours and liked it a lot. Hats off to the filmmakers and of course the “practitioners,” to use Kbg’s term.
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Re: Syria

Post by Kriegsspiel » Wed Apr 11, 2018 10:27 am

Tucker Carlson talks about our meddling in Syria. His take is that it would be syriasly stupid to escalate.
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Re: Syria

Post by ochotona » Wed Apr 11, 2018 6:26 pm

We've been in the f-ing sandbox for 15 f-ing years. No more.
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Re: Syria

Post by ochotona » Thu Apr 12, 2018 8:28 am

I think Drumpf has people who are trading his accounts based on his Tweets. He can move the Dow hundreds of points in a day with a single tweet. What an opportunity for profit potential.

How convenient that he refused to out his assets into a blind trust, like every other recent President.
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Re: Syria

Post by ochotona » Thu Apr 12, 2018 9:17 pm

Desert wrote:
ochotona wrote:I think Drumpf has people who are trading his accounts based on his Tweets. He can move the Dow hundreds of points in a day with a single tweet. What an opportunity for profit potential.

How convenient that he refused to out his assets into a blind trust, like every other recent President.
Yes. He definitely can move the markets with barely-veiled WWIII references. This is what sane people expected from him in this office, and well, now we see it. It's tragically funny ... all so predictable, but somehow people wanted to buy into his carnival barking. So sad. But it won't last much longer.
It just seems unsustainable. How long can he go on before he just strokes out?
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Re: Syria

Post by Tortoise » Thu Apr 12, 2018 10:12 pm

I’m assuming the establishment wants regime change in Syria because the current regime is very friendly with Russia?

In other words, Syria is really just a proxy war with Russia, right? And the radical Muslims are just a common enemy of both sides, like banana peels on an obstacle course?
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Re: Syria

Post by dualstow » Fri Apr 13, 2018 6:15 am

Don’t forget the the not so much radical but dangerous pragmatic Persians: Iran.
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Re: Syria

Post by Mountaineer » Fri Apr 13, 2018 7:13 pm

Desert wrote:
ochotona wrote:
Desert wrote:
Yes. He definitely can move the markets with barely-veiled WWIII references. This is what sane people expected from him in this office, and well, now we see it. It's tragically funny ... all so predictable, but somehow people wanted to buy into his carnival barking. So sad. But it won't last much longer.
It just seems unsustainable. How long can he go on before he just strokes out?
Yeah, I agree. The chaos is unbelievable. We've never seen turnover in WH staff like this. He isn't looking too healthy. I actually hope he makes it through his term and goes back to private life, allowing another Republican to run.
It's all good. 8)

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Re: Syria

Post by MWKXJ » Sat Apr 14, 2018 1:37 pm

These multi generational, half-hearted, Vietnamesesque misadventures in the Middle East could serve to train the nation's competitors how best to fight the United State's military.
The Thebans, meantime, singly, having many skirmishes with the Spartans in Boeotia, and fighting some battles, not great indeed, but important as training and instructing them, thus had their minds raised, and their bodies inured to labour, and gained both experience and courage by these frequent encounters, insomuch that we have it related that Antalcidas, the Spartan, said to Agesilaus, returning wounded from Boeotia, "Indeed, the Thebans have paid you handsomely for instructing them in the art of war, against their wills.

-Plutarch, Parallel Lives, Pelopidas
...IMHO, there seems to be far more safety in adopting a Switzerland-style neutrality rather than pre-empting danger by diving headlong into global Machiavellian intrigue and proxy conflicts. The only way to win is simply not to play.
[...]a new king of the Mendesian province was proclaimed his successor, and came against Nectanabis with an army of one hundred thousand men. Nectanabis, in his talk with Agesilaus, professed to despise them as newly raised men, who, though many in number, were of no skill in war, being most of them mechanics and tradesmen, never bred to war. To whom Agesilaus answered, that he did not fear their numbers, but did fear their ignorance, which gave no room for employing stratagem against them. Stratagem only avails with men who are alive to suspicion, and, expecting to be assailed, expose themselves by their attempts at defence; but one who has no thought or expectation of anything, gives as little opportunity to the enemy as he who stands stock-still does to a wrestler.

-Plutarch, Parallel Lives, Agesilaus
...as with investing, the best strategy in geopolitics would likely be to to avoid tinkering and simply leave things be.
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Re: Syria

Post by ochotona » Sat Apr 14, 2018 4:57 pm

Why did the Brits and Frogs go in with Drumpf?
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Re: Syria

Post by Kriegsspiel » Sat Apr 14, 2018 9:01 pm

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Re: Syria

Post by boglerdude » Sat Apr 14, 2018 11:05 pm

ochotona wrote:Why did the Brits and Frogs go in with Drumpf?
The world is a business, Mr. Beale!
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