Warbadger posted:

And yet none of your whataboutism examples come anywhere near the reckless methods or associated bodycount Russia or Assad's forces achieved in Syria.

I live the part where you already know that and try to handwave it because "well uhhhhh the people everyone else is bombing just aren't as well armed!" because you obviously know how insipid and stupid your argument is.

Josef bugman posted:

On that note, a larger philosophical question: How do we encourage better respect for Human Rights in the Middle East from a policy standpoint?

Mans posted:

"my imperialism is more humane than yours"

Mans posted:

The reason why Syria is so bloody is because the US and Saudi Arabia pumped, directly and indirectly, so much manpower, weapons and supplies to people who ended up being as secular as the freedom fighters in Afghanistan. No one is saying Russia is a good actor in the Middle East, the difference is that Russia's tremendously incredible crime is defending a regional ally from being toppled why the US's humane, sophisticated and civilized actions in the Middle East are based on invading countries with literally no reason, occupying them for two decades, kill millions of civilians and then pump weapons to allies who heroically bomb and starve unarmed civilians.

It's impressive the point where D&D has reached where it's controversial to say that US foreign policy in the middle east is a cancer that has destroyed the entire region for generations to come.


More humane US bombings of course.

Josef bugman posted:

On that note, a larger philosophical question: How do we encourage better respect for Human Rights in the Middle East from a policy standpoint?

Randarkman posted:

You know, if you think about it, if just the people of Syria had laid down and submitted to Assad when the government started violently beating down the protests then there would never have been a need to massacre them for years on end, so really this is all the protesters' fault.

Mans posted:

It's impressive the point where D&D has reached where it's controversial to say that US foreign policy in the middle east is a cancer that has destroyed the entire region for generations to come.

Mans posted:

The reason why Syria is so bloody is because the US and Saudi Arabia pumped, directly and indirectly, so much manpower, weapons and supplies

Mans posted:

The reason why Syria is so bloody is because the US and Saudi Arabia pumped, directly and indirectly, so much manpower, weapons and supplies to people who ended up being as secular as the freedom fighters in Afghanistan.

Squalid posted:

Syria has almost certainly been bloodier than it would have been otherwise because many actors pumped resources into the conflict. Whether you think doing so was moral or the optimal strategic decision for the US, Russia, Iran, or jihadis is irrelevant. Or at least this is the general opinion of the Rand corporation on the impact of foreign aid to the participants of civil conflicts. It conforms with common sense in the Syrian instance as well especially if you believe the Syrian government was about to crumble prior to the Russian intervention.

Count Roland posted:

Yeah, the short term calculus is different for sure. I love that photo because they're all natural rivals of each other. They're all smiling and shaking hands while holding daggers behind their backs.

I don't know if Iran has eyes on territory its lost. It'd be in modern day Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. I don't think that would mean Iran going to war against Russia (not if they could help it), but it could mean getting these territories or parts-there-of on side. I see this in the context of both the caucuses and especially central asia being unstable. If poo poo goes down, a more powerful Iran will have opinions on the subject.

Volkerball posted:

A lot of those actors spent the first couple years calling on the US to do something. It wasn't until Ghouta when the US' bluff was called that the Islamic Front rose, and Saudi Arabia and Turkey really took center stage in the proxy militia game on the rebel side. Before that, they were mostly making diplomatic moves to try and leverage their position within the SNC. I would also note that the reason the Saudi's haven't dumped MANPADs into Syria is because the US is so against it, so there's also a weapons restricting role the US has often played that nobody pays attention to because it doesn't fit the agenda.

Count Roland posted:

Sending lots but not all the weapons: a weapons restricting role

Count Roland posted:

Sending lots but not all the weapons: a weapons restricting role

Count Roland posted:

Interesting. How do Azeris in Azerbaijain get along with Azeris inside Iran? And why is the economic situation getting better? I'd have thought they'd be smarting from the still low price of oil.

Radio Prune posted:

ISIS have just released a sequel to The Flames of War (2014), and it's an hour long. Watching it now and they sure know how to make an intense opening montage.

The Iron Rose posted:

By definition, yes.

Nuance in all things, friend. The United States is responsible for plenty of heinous poo poo all around the world. That doesn't invalidate the legitimate role that we play keeping the world and conflict zones safer, unless you particularly want to see weapons that can bring down passenger airlines in the hands of every Abu Haajar in Syria.

The United States can, in fact, simultaneously funnel weapons and training to opposition groups while simultaneously preventing further Saudi involvement that'd cause way more deaths. Hell, we're not even doing the former any more.

FourLeaf posted:

What kinds of consequences are likely if Trump ends up moving the US embassy to Jerusalem this week?

e: please don't make me post this in the hell thread. i mean repercussions in the wider middle east

Warbadger posted:

The reason it's so bloody is the Assad government and Russia have been engaged in indiscriminate warfare on a scale that hasn't been seen since WWII. Including a concerted effort to target the civilian population and supporting infrastructure.

Not intentionally killing civilians and causing substantially fewer civilian deaths in the process is in fact a more humane way to bomb you gibbering idiot.

Mans posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9yRzoOB1C4

Learn what words mean you daft putz.

Al-Saqr posted:

Saudi is going to get a nuclear technology transfer from the U.S. thanks to daddy trump:-

https://www.propublica.org/article/white-house-may-share-nuclear-power-technology-with-saudi-arabia


Does the U.S. ever export Nucular power reactors to other countries? Normally I hear of French, German, British or Russian firms providing that tech but I've never heard of an american firm doing so.

Al-Saqr posted:

Saudi is going to get a nuclear technology transfer from the U.S. thanks to daddy trump:-

https://www.propublica.org/article/white-house-may-share-nuclear-power-technology-with-saudi-arabia


Does the U.S. ever export Nucular power reactors to other countries? Normally I hear of French, German, British or Russian firms providing that tech but I've never heard of an american firm doing so.

Al-Saqr posted:

Saudi is going to get a nuclear technology transfer from the U.S. thanks to daddy trump:-

https://www.propublica.org/article/white-house-may-share-nuclear-power-technology-with-saudi-arabia

Does the U.S. ever export Nucular power reactors to other countries? Normally I hear of French, German, British or Russian firms providing that tech but I've never heard of an american firm doing so.

Mans posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9yRzoOB1C4

Learn what words mean you daft putz.

Al-Saqr posted:

so here's some interesting news, the police state oval office who ran against Morsi in the only free election egypt ever enjoyed, Ahmad Shafik, is being held captive in the Emirates and is being banned from traveling to egypt after he announced he'd like to run for president.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/11/egyptian-pm-ahmed-shafiq-blocked-leaving-uae-171129195447265.html

I dont get why the UAE would block him from running since he's the same kind of dog and slave as Sisi is.

Randarkman posted:

e: Speaking of that, I've always, as someone who has studied a bit of nuclear physics and nuclear energy, found it a bit weird that Iran's been going the uranium enrichment route for its nuclear program.

Randarkman posted:

Randarkman posted:

Israel was French (and British) reactor technology I think, as well as substantial supplies of heavy water (useful for making plutonium from natural, rather than enriched, uranium) from Norway. So, yeah, don't think the US was involved there, then again Israel began its nuclear program sometime before they really were a US ally.

e: Speaking of that, I've always, as someone who has studied a bit of nuclear physics and nuclear energy, found it a bit weird that Iran's been going the uranium enrichment route for its nuclear program.
Since WW2 the vast majority of nuclear weapons have been plutonium bombs, as well as the vastly more powerful hydrogen bombs (which incorporates a plutonium nuclear device to generate the energy to initiate fusion) because in order to enrich uranium to weapons grade you need a whole goddamn lot of it, and the enrichment process is very intensive and expensive as well. In comparison, plutonium is a waste product of uranium reactors operating with low-enriched uranium (or even natural uranium if using heavy water as a moderator) and basically it's weapons grade if you don't leave it in the reactor for too long. Meaning you need substantially less uranium to make a plutonium bomb and you don't require the whole infrastructure dedicated to the enrichment procedure (or you don't need to do nearly as much enrichment). And on top of that it even allows you a kind of plausible deniability of pretending it's all research reactors (reactors meant for producing energy are less than ideal for producing weapons-grade plutonium and it's easier to prove that you are lying about their purpose). With uranium enrichment there isn't that much of a deniability inherent in it, as when you are producing very highly enriched uranium there's really not much else you can use it for than weapons.
I guess the actual bomb design for plutonium bombs and the technology involved in them is much more complicated than a uranium bomb, and it's no cakewalk to extract plutonium from spent fuel, but it still strikes me as kind of strange.

Volkerball posted:

You've looked at a war in which 10 million people have had their lives upended simply so that one man could remain in power, and your response is to mock the severity of it and blame the victims, so you can spare us the crocodile tears about Vietnam. The value of a victims life to you is only worth what it can contribute to your ideological goals, and the architects of the Vietnam war would agree with you. At least in Vietnam, victims had the left sticking up for them. In Syria, their lives aren't worth a dollar to most people.

Ze Pollack posted:

"at least I've never cared about civilian lives" is an interesting tack to take while trying to claim the moral high ground, but let's see how it plays out for him

Volkerball posted:

You've looked at a war in which 10 million people have had their lives upended simply so that one man could remain in power, and your response is to mock the severity of it and blame the victims, so you can spare us the crocodile tears about Vietnam. The value of a victims life to you is only worth what it can contribute to your ideological goals, and the architects of the Vietnam war would agree with you. At least in Vietnam, victims had the left sticking up for them. In Syria, their lives aren't worth a dollar to most people.