And next, Syria?

[elbows]

I don't think Russia have officially acknowledged it, and there is a difference between having the USA nag you about it and actually going along with it.

As for the chances of it happening, who knows. Its always possible, especially as he is 2nd generation rather than someone who spent his live trying to steadily work their way to the top. But I don't attach all that much weight to this aspect.

 

[Knotted]

Jihadi group Al Nusra Front claim responsibility for attack on pro-regime TV station:
http://news.yahoo.com/monitor-group-says-jihadists-claim-syria-attacks-105517332.html

Among the dozens of attacks that Al-Nusra claimed throughout the county was one last week on a pro-regime television station that killed seven people. Gunmen targeted the studios of the Al-Ikhbariya TV station in the town of Drousha south of the capital Damascus on June 27. One guard said after the attack that he had been kidnapped with a number of other guards. He had been released; the others had not.

 

[camouflage]

Assad has probably slaughtered more innocents in the last year than Israel has in the last 30 or 40. And of course Syria, Iran & Hez don't give a damn about the Palestinians. The Assad dynasty has had it's boot on the throat of the vast majority of Syrians since before the '73 war. Assad probably helps Israel's image by comparison. Time for him to go, even if it means outside intervention, which is already happening.

you've decided have you?

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Radio 4 seems to be quite excited by the defection of the ambassador to Iraq; it seems as much for his position as a tribal leader as his one in the state. For those in the know, is this an important development?

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[thriller]

A sunni defecting is hardly regime shattering. emabaressing, but not fatel.

 

[Lock&Light]

A sunni defecting is hardly regime shattering. emabaressing, but not fatel.

With a Sunni majority in Syria, but not well represented in the government, I would have thought a Sunni defecting to be more that just "emabaressing".

 

[thriller]

he was probably just a Sunni "yes" man who has seen the writing on the wall and defected. big deal.

 

[goldenecitrone]

he was probably just a Sunni "yes" man who has seen the writing on the wall and defected. big deal.

The writing on the wall being the fall of Assad and his murderous regime.

 

[thriller]

Nah. can't see it happening.

 

[Lock&Light]

Nah. can't see it happening.

Balthazer couldn't either.

 

[goldenecitrone]

let me know when the airforce starts bombing the demonstrators and the mercenaries get sent in .

Helicopters gunships.

The head of the UN monitoring mission in Syria has said that helicopters and tanks were used to shell a town in the centre of the country before a massacre that is believed to have killed more than 140 people on Thursday

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/13/syria-helicopters-tanks-tremseh

 

[teqniq]

Syria working to secure chemical weapons, say Israeli officials

I didn't realise they had chemical weapons though maybe it doesn't come as a complete surprise.

Western diplomats admit that the faulty intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction that was used to justify the 2003 Iraq war have made it extremely difficult to use the apparently more solid information about Syria's chemical arsenal to justify any outside military intervention.

Oh, the irony.

 

[ayatollah]

Syria working to secure chemical weapons, say Israeli officials

I didn't realise they had chemical weapons though maybe it doesn't come as a complete surprise.



Oh, the irony.

I vaguelly recall that past Syrian regimes actually employed old escapee Nazi nerve AND chemical gas weapons experts after WWII,, and those old boys were the bees knees in this area of mass killing, so the expertise has probably been available in-house for many years. If they drop that shit on a town no doubt Annan will REALLY give the regime a serious ticking off.

 

[thriller]

Seems the Tremseh attack was mainly targetted at rebels and activists, according to the UN. As per usual, talk of massacres easily swallowed by posters here.

 

[goldenecitrone]

Seems the Tremseh attack was mainly targetted at rebels and activists, according to the UN. As per usual, talk of massacres easily swallowed by posters here.

That's ok then. As long as they are only slaughtering activists.

 

[thriller]

you forgot the rebel part.

 

[TruXta]

I don't get this - it's ok to kill a bunch of rebels and activists? Why?

 

[thriller]

OK. Activists, obviously not.

But rebels are fair game. Contrary to posters here. I'm looking at the bigger picture. Overthrow of Assad will cut off support and supplies to Hezbollah. If the Sunni scoundrals come to power, they will form yet another bloc against Iran and Hezbollah. This is unacceptable.

 

[TruXta]

To whom? You?

 

[Knotted]

Excellent article in the Guardian on the exile opposition.

Though it is not yet stated US government policy to oust Assad by force, these spokespeople are vocal advocates of foreign military intervention in Syria and thus natural allies of well-known US neoconservatives who supported Bush's invasion of Iraq and are now pressuring the Obama administration to intervene. As we will see, several of these spokespeople have found support, and in some cases developed long and lucrative relationships with advocates of military intervention on both sides of the Atlantic.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/12/syrian-opposition-doing-the-talking

 

[thriller]

To anyone who can see the bigger picture. The wider context.

 

[ayatollah]

To anyone who can see the bigger picture. The wider context.

You are a complete and utter twat , thriller. Just the sort of comfortably safe armchair "progressive" only too happy to justify the Great Purges of Stalinism or the genocidal atrocities of Pol Pot, in the interests of the "Big Picture". Yeh , let's all rally round the neo fascistic religious dictatorship that is Iran... cheer them on as they terrorize opposition activists off their streets, and as they supply murder gangs to assist the Syrian regime to murder civilians. FFS, you are a seriously deluded and fucked up person, with your juvenile support for bogussly "progressive bloc" police states across the Middle East. Big fan of North Korea too are you ?

 

[Divisive Cotton]

OK. Activists, obviously not.

But rebels are fair game. Contrary to posters here. I'm looking at the bigger picture. Overthrow of Assad will cut off support and supplies to Hezbollah. If the Sunni scoundrals come to power, they will form yet another bloc against Iran and Hezbollah. This is unacceptable.

It's "unacceptable" to oppose Iran and Hezbollah? What the fuck are you talking about

 

[TruXta]

thriller's a "big picture poster". He has insights us lesser creatures do not.

 

[Captain Hurrah]

You are a complete and utter twat , thriller. Just the sort of comfortably safe armchair "progressive" only too happy to justify the Great Purges of Stalinism or the genocidal atrocities of Pol Pot, in the interests of the "Big Picture".

His position is shit, yes.

Just thought I'd throw in that genocide isn't the term to use either.

Awaits the capital letters.

 

[TruXta]

His position is shit, yes.

Just thought I'd throw in that genocide isn't the term to use either.

Awaits the capital letters.

Well, there were certainly strong racial/ethnic elements to the massacres happening under Khmer Rouge.

 

[Captain Hurrah]

Yes, there were certainly elements of that, but not in all places and to all people. I should have distinguished between the treatment of minority non-Khmer groups, which I would find most convincing for the genocide argument. Aside from the generally forced, militarised methods of post-war reconstruction, which saw most excess deaths during the short-lived regime occur due to government incompetence and structural breakdown, there was also a considerable minority (cadre belonging to regional government and military structures) who were targeted because of internal political divides. Genocide it wasn't.

There's also a lot of talk about their strong nationalism feeding into that, and what that meant, which is imo misunderstood and down to ignorance of Stalinism in general and the particular relationship of two Communist Parties in the region.

 

[Chester Copperpot]

From the guardian

Major-General Adnan Sillu, the former head of Syria's chemical weapons programme, has reportedly defected.

 

[thriller]

You are a complete and utter twat , thriller. Just the sort of comfortably safe armchair "progressive" only too happy to justify the Great Purges of Stalinism or the genocidal atrocities of Pol Pot, in the interests of the "Big Picture". Yeh , let's all rally round the neo fascistic religious dictatorship that is Iran... cheer them on as they terrorize opposition activists off their streets, and as they supply murder gangs to assist the Syrian regime to murder civilians. FFS, you are a seriously deluded and fucked up person, with your juvenile support for bogussly "progressive bloc" police states across the Middle East. Big fan of North Korea too are you ?

LOL. Comparing the abrab springs of the middle east to Pol Pot and labour camps of Stanlinist Soviet Union. LOL.

 

[thriller]

It's "unacceptable" to oppose Iran and Hezbollah? What the fuck are you talking about

Yes. Hezbollah is the only credible resistance force to Israeli aggression. The resistance they put up in the 2006 Lebanon War in face of israeli brutality was incredibly impressive. Contrast that to the laughable sunni states whose army have a history of running everytime they encounter IDF. Their history is plagued with humuliation and defeat in the hands of Israel. Hezbollah is well organised, disciplined and trained. It cannot be allowed to be weakended by Assads overthrow.