After yesterday’s ceasefire agreement on Syria, a lot of media outlets are expressing surprise that fighting is continuing today, and pointing to continued Russian airstrikes. The deal, however, does not take effect for another week.
The negativity toward the deal, and the effort to single out Russia actually are reflecting closely what the US-backed rebel factions are saying, as they insist the deal will “never work” and complain about the terms of the pact.
Rebels expressed particular annoyance that Russia is allowed to continue its air campaign at all, even with the deal limiting them to airstrikes against ISIS and al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front. It would’ve been unthinkable, however, for the ceasefire deal to oblige an end to attacks on ISIS.
Analysts are noting that there are a lot of questions about how the deal is structured, but as the first serious attempt to end the protracted Syrian Civil War, it is in somewhat uncharted territory. With many of the rebels still irked by the notion of a peace deal that doesn’t include unilaterally installing them as the new government, it’s unsurprising they aren’t totally on board.
I’ll admit I share Trumps’ view that Syria should be left to the Russians and the locals. The US has a wonderful strategic asset, it’s separated by thousands of miles of ocean from Syria. If the US would simply abandon the place as Raygun Ron did Lebanon, indeed abandon the whole Middle East, it’d be a lot better off.
Trumps’ strategy of just stopping Muslims from entering the US is obviously simpler, cheaper and easier than fighting futile wars in the Middle East. As for the oil, the US is almost self-sufficient now that fracking has increased production, and if this production should drop, South African synthetic fuel technology can use plentiful American coal to make all the oil needed.
If you’re worried about climate change, the GE-Hitachi breeder reactor can provide all the electricity the US needs for a couple of centuries, and all the hydrogen to convert the coal to synfuel, by burning all the spent nuclear fuel and depleted uranium the US has in store.
Get wise fella—recall 7 middle East countries need to be destroyed and by way of ” A new Pearl Harbor” 1999
Here is even more info in related news. Dec 9, 2015 US & Britain Planned Use of Islamic Extremists to Topple Syria ’57’ Years Ago
BBC reports that – in 1957 – the British and American leaders approved the use of Islamic extremists and false flag attacks to topple the Syrian government: Nearly 50 years before the war in Iraq, Britain and America sought a secretive “regime change” in another Arab country… by planning the invasion of Syria and the assassination of leading figures.
https://youtu.be/57Qk0wEPZWE
I agree with you that the US military withdrawing from the middle east would be a positive thing for both the USA and for the middle east. However the problem with Trumps’ strategy of stopping Muslims from entering the US is that it runs against the principle of freedom of thought and belief, which would turn your country into an Orwellian nightmare – if it isn’t already one. You might start by banning anyone who believes in Allah and Muhammad, but soon it’ll be banning anyone who believes in libertarianism, socialism, pacifism, then it will move on to locking up anyone who uses an ad-blocker, and neutering everyone who doesn’t spend all their savings on the latest designer clothes.
Americans are being murdered. The only common factor that can be detected is that the murderers are Muslims. It thus makes sense to ban Muslim entry to the US.
When the Libyans began amusing themselves by blowing up aircraft in the 1980’s, Libyans were banned from flying. This ban proved quite effective. There’s no reason to believe the ban on Muslims won’t be similarly workable.
Besides if, as you suggest, the US is becoming an Orwellian nightmare, no Muslim would wish to go there anyway. So they won’t be losing any privilege they’d find of value.
There are over 14,000 murders a year in the USA. Would you care to back up your assertion that the common factor is the murders are Muslim? Because such a claim sounds quite ridiculous.
I can understand your lack of concern for Americans murdered by Muslim terrorists. But of course some of us look at things a trifle differently.
So, your answer is no then, you wouldn’t care to back up your false assertions. Never mind then.
“Americans are being murdered. The only common factor that can be detected is that the murderers are Muslims.”
Wow, only Monday and already a strong candidate for “dumbest thing I’ve read this week.”
It almost seems like this site’s editor is more sympathetic to Syrian Regime than the rebels. That seems very odd to me because I know that war only happened because the protesters demanding accountability from Assad regime were brutally repressed just as with Libya and all the other authoritarian Arab states. While the rebels have become radicalized in a way we see as negative this in my view was only in response to the Assad regime in trying to put down the revolt which again was peaceful at first.
Dude. FFS, give your oh-so-stale propaganda a rest. Everyone knows that the small number of Syrian anti-Assad protestors of yesteryear have absolutely nothing to do with the many thousands of well-armed foreign jihadi mercenaries that have destroyed Syria.
Anyway, the day is fast approaching when we won’t have to put up with tr0lls like you. The Russians are seeing to your ‘rebels’ (AKA non-Syrian foreign jihadi filth) with a very effective pest control programme. They are right on the verge of being finally exterminated – so you’ll have to find some other stinking vermin to defend. How about the Nazis in Ukraine….
Your response reminds of that General in Star Wars when he cried out “Rebel Scum!”
For the empire any suggestion that what they were doing was unjust or hypocritical would have been seen as rebel propaganda.
All i ask people is that if there fed up with Western Propaganda don’t ape the other side’s propaganda which may even be worse and more absurd than that of the West.
What I ask is you use your mind not too parrot other people’s uncritical views of the world but rather to ask critical questions as an independent thinkers as to whats really going on beyond the propaganda put forward by both sides.
If you consider that trolling then maybe your just as much in denial of reality as the Obama Birthers.
Fella, I’m not uncritical of the ‘other side’. Far from it. I despise criminals like Assad. But I try to understand things in terms of facts, checks and balances.
You, on the other hand, seem to prefer fiction – such as the fiction that the small number of ‘peaceful’ Syrian anti-Assad protesters of yesteryear turned into the many thousands of well armed, foreign-financed, non-Syrian jihadis that have destroyed Syria today. And that this transformation happened “….only in response to the Assad regime in trying to put down the revolt which again was peaceful at first”. LMFAO! You think that ISIS and Al Qaeda are anti-Assad protestors ‘gone bad’? LOL!
Even in terms of blatant propaganda you are years out of date. i.e. Not even the MSM is spouting this foolish line any more….
So, yes. I do indeed consider the parroting of completely discredited fiction and nonsense to be ‘trolling’.
Fiction? but how do you know for sure? How can you be so sure unless youve go out there and seen it for yourself?
I cant be sure either but I dont feel the kind of conspiracy thats implied – by saying all the reports coming out of Syria are nonsense but the Syrian governments version is golden – is plausible in terms of being orchestrated by the mainstream global media. Bias is different than outright conspiracy to fabricate and sooner or later word gets out about what really happened. Im pretty confident on the right side on this and that Assad is a brutal dictator who has committed war crimes against his people.
When people get brutalized they in history they tend to get radicalized. I must have read hundreds of articles about the war in Syria. The reporting documented the process clearly. Unless of course you believe its also BS but possibly those on the other side are putting out BS too.
So possibly the truth is somewhere in the middle? OK ill accept that. But if Assad’s a criminal thug dictator from a family of similar types who have a stranglehold on their countries economy why wouldn’t we expect that people would want to resist that. If you accept that Assad’s behavior towards his people is unjust then how is seeing that people there would resist – seeming like a fictional narrative of reality. Seems pretty plausible to me.
And once they resist what do criminal type dictators do? They get the thug military security types to come in and try to make an example of those protesting.
Its happened again and again in history in resistance to unjust and brutal regimes so why is my assertion that happened here seen as fiction. What makes this situation different than the rest?
Other than thats the narrative the Syrians, Russians and Iranians want you to believe?
As for trolling, I was responding to a post at AntiWar.com.
The idea that because my opinion is different than yours or others who might have responded – even radically different – does not in my reading and understanding of the definition of the word – constitute trolling.
From Wikipedia:
“Application of the term troll is subjective. Some readers may characterize a post as trolling, while others may regard the same post as a legitimate contribution to the discussion, even if controversial. Like any pejorative term, it can be used as an ad hominem attack, suggesting a negative motivation”.
“Abusive ad hominem usually involves attacking the traits of an
opponent as a means to invalidate their argument(s). Equating someone’s
character with the soundness of their argument is a logical fallacy.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll
So actually if anyone is trolling it is when they attack someone’s character equating that with the soundness of their argument.
And to call someone a troll for putting forward views that others feel are inconvenient to theirs is a ad hominem attack because it has nothing to do with the soundness of their argument.
Assad’s barrel bombs casualties are 99% civilians and only 1% rebel fighters. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35568692
Russia also uses cluster bombs which kills at least as many civilians per combatant.
http://news.antiwar.com/2016/02/12/syrian-rebels-ceasefire-deal-wont-work/#comment-2513564017
Many join the Syrian rebels because one of their relatives died from Assad’s barrel bombs or Russian bombs and cluster bombs.
Iraq is a brutal regime that delegitimized itself to Sunni Arabs. Iran-sponsored Shiite militias murder, forcibly displace and commit other hate crimes against Sunni Arabs. 30,000 to 50,000 Sunni Arabs are held in detention facilities for “terrorist” and are detained without trial. 20% of them are tortured to death. Hundreds of thousands of Sunni Arabs protested against the Iraqi regime every Friday.
Many of the allies of the Islamic state are secular or moderate. For
example, the secular former Ba’ath Party militias and Sunni Arab
tribesman are allied with the Islamic State. Waging war against the
Islamic State will only strengthen
the alliance between the secular Ba’ath Party militias, the Sunni Arab
tribesman and the Wahhabi fighters. Many of the top officials within the
Islamic State itself are secular like the ex-Saddam Ba’ath party
members.
Secular Sunni Arabs, currently, are more worried about the Iraqi government and its Shiite militias than the Wahhabism of the Islamic State.
Despite the alliances between some Syrian/Iraqi rebels and the Islamic State,
there is still infighting. There is fighting between al-Nusra and the
Islamic State, and between the Islamic State and Syrian rebels.
There is fighting between the moderate Islamist rebels and the
puritanical Islamist rebels. Again, waging war against the rebels /
Islamic State will only strengthen
the alliances between the secular rebels (like the pro-Saddam militias)
and moderate Islamist rebels (like the moderate Muslim Brotherhood) and
fundamentalist Islamic rebels (like the Islamic State).
“What I ask is you use your mind … to ask critical questions as an independent thinkers as to whats really going on”
Man, you best start with your own colonic-vistas-based view of reality. While you’re working on that go back to your day job because your comments clearly indicate that you’re not qualified currently to participate in any thoughtful reality-based discussion. Where have you been hiding — working hard to support yourself and family I hope — for the last 16 years that you are so ill-informed?
What did I say that “disqualified me” other than me saying something that put you off emotionally and it offended your sensibilities so that you had to insult me without even really knowing who I actually am. Isn’t that just another form of contempt prior to investigation?
Assad’s barrel bombs casualties are 99% civilians and only 1% rebel fighters.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35568692
In a previous post you had denied this and thought the barrel bombs kill “terrorists only.”
Also Russia is known to have cluster bombs:
Below is a picture of a bomblet from a cluster bomb.
I expect these cluster bombs to kill at least as many civilians as Assad’s barrel bombs.
Although the Russian deny using cluster bombs, it seems clear that they do in fact use them due to the visual and video evidence. Just like how Assad denied barrel bombs, he still use them.
You’re a clown. Completely incapable of critical thinking. In this conflict, truth is replaced by propaganda and you have to be very careful and very skilled to separate the two. Clearly, you lack that skill, and are consequently unqualified to do anything but pass on third hand baloney.
The only thing I want to know from you is how old you are — young and naive/stupid I suspect — and, to confirm my suspicions regarding why you are a supporter of Sunni jihadi terrorism — where you’re from and what is your ethnic identity.
Other than that, don’t bother me. I don’t have time for fools and tools.
Also see my other comment: https://disqus.com/home/discussion/antiwar-news/syrian_rebels_ceasefire_deal_won8217t_work/#comment-2513581746
I am not the user “buderman” (the user who you replied to.)
Perhaps your post was directed toward the wrong person.
This source states that 99% of the people die from the barrel bombs were civilians, only one percent were Syrian rebels: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-25466541
I’m emphasizing barrel bombs, not other forms of fighting. Barrel bombs have a high civilian/combatant fatality rate.
Empire USA created terrorism at the same time they created Israel and for the same purpose, to maximize explosions so that they could maximize profit in the trading of Western war materials for Middle-East oil.
There are no “Syrian Rebels” just as there are no “moderate terrorists,” just Western-backed terrorizers so filled with vengeance they cannot see the forest for the trees.
For vengeance driven terrorism is caused by the upper-half of society striving to enrich itself upon the misery of the laboring-class lower half.
John I think the core of our difference is that you seem to accept the Russian and Syrian premise that there is no legitimate resistance movement in Syria while I believe that 50 plus years of Assad family tyranny leads to a lot of mad and pissed off people. What facts do you base such a statement on except Syrian and Russian News Media?
Nice, John. But this level of nuance is way beyond “buderman” (real name John Buder).
Looking for the quote “the oppressor always hates the oppressed”, I stumbled almost accidentally upon this website:
Quotes about oppression.
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/oppression
Good read indeed. Mucho wisdom. Enjoy.
Actually, Assad IS a “brutal thug dictator.” That doesn’t justify any US role in Syria’s civil war, though.
Jeff,
Well, I don’t see why we should have to agree.
Assad is the head of the largest and most powerful violent street gang currently at large in the area most people think of as “Syria.” He’s just as much of a thug as Obama, or Netanyahu, or Modi, or Cameron, or whoever. And they are all brutal, dictatorial thugs because that’s what violent street gang leaders are and do.