Middle East Thread: Clarissa Explains the Fall

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Middle East Thread: Clarissa Explains the Fall

CrazyLoon: Aug 10, 2015; "..."

Saladman posted:

I also don't think I've ever seen anyone who considers themselves leftist in any way support Assad or crow about his victories except when they were against ISIS.

Well, that's just the thing, really. Some of them take it so far as to go that everyone Assad fights is as bad as ISIS (see human grand prix in the previous page lol) or part of western imperialism and Syria needs some order, goddamit, no matter how many bodies have to pile up.

It's a slippery slope and it's really easy to deceive someone generally ignorant on the subject into black and white reasoning. I know that when I first heard of him, I thought: "What's Assad doing right that he's not losing everything while there's all these other changes in other countries affected by the Arab Spring?" and yea, turns out it's just being a ruthless murdering gently caress with support from Russia and Iran and that's about the extent of how competent (if at all) he is. And if that's doing something right, then frankly I'd rather be wrong. But the average person likely won't bother looking into things that much, and can easily be taken into the whole 'Lion Assad' poo poo unironically.

The virtue of coming out on top is in and of itself strong enough for most that are utterly ignorant to idolize a movement or a person. After all, they must've done something right to still be alive, right? No...not really. The world is not as fair a place as that.

CrazyLoon fucked around with this message at 23:00 on Mar 5, 2018

# ? Mar 5, 2018 22:53

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# ? May 27, 2024 19:25

Volkerball: Oct 15, 2009; by FactsAreUseless

Saladman posted:

I am pretty sure that except for the most absolutely insane of right-wing death squad supporters, no one thinks that literally everyone opposed to Assad is a jihadist. I get the impression that most people think that the FSA was a pretty promising thing to start. Reading about Loubna, it looks like Loubna was even in on it on the ground... and then got the gently caress out and fled to the US once it started turning into "Idlibistan". From a cursory read of her background, she is a good case for I think the opposite argument you are trying to make.

This is the fundamental misunderstanding people seem to have. All you are seeing is rebels. You don't see all the people caught in the middle who still stand up for what is right. When you ask a westerner to name prominent Syrians, they name combatants. When you ask Syrians opposed to Assad the same question, they name activists and protest leaders. They don't define the opposition as jihadists because they know better. Here's a segment from her article the other day criticizing the western left that touches on this.

quote:

Like in any chaotic conflict, radicalisation found fertile ground in the Syrian struggle. When people are exposed to tremendous pressure and injustice, tragically some will become radicalised.

The fact that there are some who took a more radical path in the past seven years, doesn't mean that everyone who is anti-Assad is also a terrorist.

In Syria - in Ghouta in particular - we have armed groups like Jaish-al Islam and Failaq al Rahman, Ahrar al-Sham, Hay'et Tahrir al-Sham (which has a very small presence, despite what Assad might have you believe) and others - all of which have committed violations and human rights abuses.

However, this doesn't mean that Ghouta is populated by terrorists. Plenty of Syrians, not only in Ghouta but also across rebel-held areas, have stood their ground and resisted extremism and oppression from all sides. A good example are the activists Razan Zeytouneh and Samira al-Khalil, who were documenting violations on all sides in Eastern Ghouta, for which they were threatened both by the regime and armed groups in the area. They were abducted in December 2013 and have not been seen since then; their families have held Jaish al-Islam responsible.

So yes, there have been violations by the armed groups, and yes, they have also shelled civilian areas in Damascus. But by looking at the abuses of only one side, you are missing the point: first, the general population in Eastern Ghouta - which suffers the most - is not fighting; two, the regime is killing on a massive scale. Shelling by rebels killed 64 civilians in February in the whole of Syria, while regime bombardment killed 852. The regime, too, has arrested, forcibly disappeared, tortured and executed tens of thousands of people.

And the Russian accusations that the armed groups are holding civilians back as human shields sound all too familiar. Every time the Israelis bombs Gaza, they slip into the same narrative; those 1,500 civilians who died in the summer of 2014 were also all "human shields victims". The US, too, said the same about the nearly 1,000 people who lost their lives during the offensive on Raqqa.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, the US and Israel have all been involved in this conflict, but so have Russia and Iran. Rebel groups have killed civilians, and so has the regime - on a massive scale, too. You cannot condemn the crimes of one side without condemning the crimes of the other and still think you are a proponent of justice.

quote:

Serious question: is there anyone like her who lives in Idlib (or any rebel-controlled territory) who can tweet like she does and not end up in someone's prison? You seem to know way more about this stuff than me, so maybe I'm off base, but I get the very strong impression that if you live in Syria, you are not allowed to, in any way, criticize the faction that is controlling the territory in which you live. "Moderate" factions just seem to be those that put you in prison and feed you when you make an inapt political statement, rather than beat/rape/starve you to death.

Not a lot of places are really controlled like that. The rebel groups are constantly infighting and fronts are constantly shifting. Kidnappings and things of that nature are the larger risk, and for the more prominent anti-jihadist figures in Idlib like Raed Fares, it's very dangerous. But there's safety in numbers, and protests against HTS and such happen every week or two in Idlib, and have for years. Here's a recent example.

https://twitter.com/LeilaShami/status/968195326246113281?s=19

quote:

I also don't think I've ever seen anyone who considers themselves leftist in any way support Assad or crow about his victories except when they were against ISIS.

I've seen them mock children being bombed by the regime, like it's all rebel propaganda. It's all ISIS as far as many of them are concerned.

# ? Mar 5, 2018 23:17

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

Meanwhile in the New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/05/world/middleeast/saudi-women-drivers.html

quote:

�Oh My God� Turns to �Yay Me� as Saudi Women Practice Driving

By BEN HUBBARDMARCH 5, 2018

JIDDA, Saudi Arabia � �O.K. Come drive now,� said the trainer.

�Oh my God,� the architecture student replied.

She climbed into the driver�s seat, put on her seatbelt, found the pedals, released the hand brake and put the car into drive. Then she took a deep breath, eased her foot off the brake and began doing, for the first time, what women will soon be doing all over Saudi Arabia: driving.

�Is this O.K.?� the student, Rahaf Alzahrani, 21, asked nervously as she inched along.

�Yes. It�s O.K.,� the instructor said.

Three and a half months remain before the date when the rulers of this ultraconservative kingdom have promised to lift the longstanding ban on women driving, and many here are already planning for what is sure to be a major change in Saudi society.

Women�s universities have announced that they plan to open driving schools, and car companies have shifted their ads, seeking to profit from the anticipated flood of new drivers � and car buyers � in this country of 32 million.

Uber is planning to recruit women to train women who aspire to be Uber drivers, and some dealerships have already set aside shopping hours for women. Ford, Nissan, Jaguar and even Coca-Cola have sought to capitalize on the buzz around women sliding into the driver�s seat.
Continue reading the main story

Saudi women are approaching the change with an often complicated mix of enthusiasm and apprehension, as was tangible on Monday on the campus of Effat University in this Red Sea port city, where a number of young women piloted cars for the first time.

The university may later open a driving school for women, administrators said, but it is waiting for the government to issue the proper regulations. So the course was a more of a workshop offered by the Ford Motor Company Fund that sought to improve drivers� safety. Since Saudi Arabia does not yet issue licenses to women, the course was aimed at women who had no experience being in charge of cars.

About 15 female students gathered in a classroom for the start of one workshop. They all wore abayas, the baggy gowns Saudi women wear to hide their forms in public. Most had their hair covered and a few covered their faces, too. Some wore tennis shoes and jeans underneath and lugged backpack and handbags.

The workshop began with a brief talk about road safety, car accidents and the huge number of them caused by texting at the wheel. Then the women broke up for more hands-on experiences.

In an outdoor courtyard, they donned goggles meant to simulate impaired vision from medication, drowsiness or drunkenness, which is not usually a problem, since alcohol is banned in the kingdom. Then they had to pilot a small wheel on the end of a pole across a map on the ground while paying attention to streets, stop signs and pedestrians.

But the real action was in an enclosed parking lot nearby, where there were real cars.

Groups of women sat in the cars while instructors explained their features: the gear shift, the gas and brake pedals, the temperature gauge, the cruise-control buttons, the turn signals and windshield wipers. At one point, a student sitting in a driver�s seat sprayed the windshield, making all of the other women laugh.

Finally, the instructor told the woman to put her foot on the brake and push the ignition button. The car roared to life and a smile bloomed on her face.

�All right!� she said, and the other women clapped.

It is hard to overstate how much the right to drive will change the lives of Saudi women. Women were long kept out of public life in Saudi Arabia, segregated from men in most settings, limited to a small number of professions or encouraged to stay home, and forced to rely on private drivers or male relatives to pilot them around.

But much has changed for Saudi women in recent years as they have been allowed to work in new fields and appointed to high-profile positions, and have graduated in ever-increasing numbers from universities. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom�s de facto ruler, has spoken of the importance of increasing women�s role in the work force as part of his effort to diversify the economy away from oil.

The women at the workshop all approved of having the right to drive, and some had already set their sights on specific cars. One wanted an Audi.

�It�s a strong car,� she said.

Another wanted a Mercedes, �like my dad.�

Yet another said she would send her Indian driver home and drive his car.

They said being able to drive would decrease their reliance on those who now have to ferry them around, while putting them in charge of their own schedules.

�I don�t want to drive just to drive,� said Rehab Alhuwaider, 21. �I want to be able to do my daily routine.�

She said she hated it when she wanted to go to the gym in the morning and had to wait for someone to drop her off. The best part of driving, she said, would be �feeling more freedom.�

But some were not sure they were ready to face Saudi Arabia�s often ferocious traffic, or male drivers who have no experience interacting with women on the roads.

Raneem Modaress, 22, said she had wanted to drive before a car she was riding in got hit a month ago, leaving her with bad bruises up and down her side.

�It was terrible,� she said.

Now she plans to wait to see how it goes for other women before getting her own license.

The workshop concluded with what remains a rare opportunity for women in Saudi Arabia: the chance to drive a car through a course of cones in a parking lot.

Before she got her shot behind the wheel, Ms. Alzahrani, the architecture student, said she had driven Jet Skis in the Red Sea and motorcycles in the desert, but never cars. The thought of doing so made her nervous.

�I don�t know where the brake is and where the gas is,� she said.

She started slowly, then rounded the first curve, then the second. She approached a stop sign and hit the brake too hard, causing the other passengers to jolt forward. She laughed nervously and then went forward again before reaching the end and stopping with a slightly lighter jolt.

�Praise God for your safety,� the instructor said.

�Yay me!� she said.

The drive had taken only a few minutes, but it had changed her outlook on the whole endeavor.

�It was so amazing. I loved it,� she said. �It felt good to be behind the wheel.�

Of course I know the Times is a loving joke but even so this is almost surreal. Also lays some doubt on the idea that it's just the opinion side of the paper that's basically ghostwritten by Saudi and UAE marketing agents and not the newsroom

icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 03:40 on Mar 6, 2018

# ? Mar 6, 2018 03:36

Dr Kool-AIDS: Mar 26, 2004

Volkerball posted:

This is the fundamental misunderstanding people seem to have. All you are seeing is rebels. You don't see all the people caught in the middle who still stand up for what is right. When you ask a westerner to name prominent Syrians, they name combatants. When you ask Syrians opposed to Assad the same question, they name activists and protest leaders. They don't define the opposition as jihadists because they know better. Here's a segment from her article the other day criticizing the western left that touches on this.

In the middle of a war, and probably in the aftermath given what we learned from Iraq, the only opposition that matters is the opposition that has guns. I hope they will be free someday, but ceding the battlefield to monsters isn't going to get them there. I don't remember any protest leaders driving ISIS out of their villages, you know? If anyone in the region had cared about the Syrian people at all, they would have tried to organize the rebels behind non-insane leadership, but the US is the only country that even tried (though to call the effort half-assed would be generous), and working with the US doesn't exactly help anyone's reputation in that neighborhood. Maybe Turkey's belated efforts will work out for the people of Idlib, and the refugees they shove back into Afrin and northern Aleppo, but killing Kurds and getting rid of refugees (who they admirably housed for years, admittedly) has pretty clearly been Turkey's priority, not trying to create a meaningful alternative to Assad, even before they were playing footsie with Russia.

Edit: I'm not saying the people without guns don't deserve our sympathy; we just can't assume they'll suddenly develop the capacity to govern a country overrun with militias overnight just because Assad gets overthrown. Realistically we're talking a lengthy occupation at best if we didn't want to hand over the country to jihadists (and if Russia stayed out of things), and as Iraq showed, an occupation may be even more effective at radicalizing insurgents as the dictator remaining in power in the first place, and there's no guarantee that the Western-friendly government that emerges from the occupation is any more capable of dealing with the jihadists when the re-emerge than they were in the first place. Hell, Afghanistan's an even worse example for the ability of the US to dislodge extremists. We're just not capable of reshaping a society so unlike our own like that, and the countries nearby with more skin in the game have other motives that don't match our own.

Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Mar 6, 2018

# ? Mar 6, 2018 04:09

Wez: Jul 8, 2006; not a stupid noob

Volkerball posted:

This is the fundamental misunderstanding people seem to have. All you are seeing is rebels. You don't see all the people caught in the middle who still stand up for what is right. When you ask a westerner to name prominent Syrians, they name combatants. When you ask Syrians opposed to Assad the same question, they name activists and protest leaders. They don't define the opposition as jihadists because they know better. Here's a segment from her article the other day criticizing the western left that touches on this.

Not a lot of places are really controlled like that. The rebel groups are constantly infighting and fronts are constantly shifting. Kidnappings and things of that nature are the larger risk, and for the more prominent anti-jihadist figures in Idlib like Raed Fares, it's very dangerous. But there's safety in numbers, and protests against HTS and such happen every week or two in Idlib, and have for years. Here's a recent example.

https://twitter.com/LeilaShami/status/968195326246113281?s=19

I've seen them mock children being bombed by the regime, like it's all rebel propaganda. It's all ISIS as far as many of them are concerned.

This post is a breath of fresh air. Thanks.

I strongly recommend Robin Yassin-Kasseb and Laila al-Shami's Burning Country for more of the same.

https://www.amazon.com/Burning-Country-Syrians-Revolution-War/dp/0745336221

Wez fucked around with this message at 07:48 on Mar 6, 2018

# ? Mar 6, 2018 06:25

Sergg: Sep 19, 2005; I was rejected by the:

Sinteres posted:

In the middle of a war, and probably in the aftermath given what we learned from Iraq, the only opposition that matters is the opposition that has guns. I hope they will be free someday, but ceding the battlefield to monsters isn't going to get them there. I don't remember any protest leaders driving ISIS out of their villages, you know? If anyone in the region had cared about the Syrian people at all, they would have tried to organize the rebels behind non-insane leadership

You realize there were multiple years in the Syrian Civil War where the majority of casualties were ISIS liquidating the other rebel groups, right? Strategically it made sense. Go after a weaker opponent, absorb their land, conscript them into your army at gunpoint and offer pay raises, etc. Assad was pretty happy to ignore that up until his soldiers were getting frogmarched out into the desert in Taqba and getting domed in their underwear.

Sergg fucked around with this message at 07:03 on Mar 6, 2018

# ? Mar 6, 2018 07:01

Grape: Nov 16, 2017; Happily shilling for China!

CrazyLoon posted:

We are in 'democracy', for whatever that's worth. Which is still a lot better than a police state where the mere whiff of criticism of authority can land you in jail or disappeared. Heck, maybe the Soviet Union under Stalin is to be congratulated, with everyone else in the west being so terrified of it that we collectively finally started to stumble to where we are now in opposition to what it stood for, which is better no matter however imperfect.

And yea, the original sea of blood from things like the French Revolution, that initially led into something far more oppressive and worse than the monarchy, is a straight up testament that the glorious white master race is no better at this than anyone in the Middle East is trying for right now.

If the West really needs a wake up call to our recent centuries of senseless barbaric sectarian violence, well they have this neat living museum in the UK called "Northern Ireland".

svenkatesh posted:

The faction list is from Wikipedia. Does the opposition to Assad really have the moral high ground?

Congratulations on being unable to read a simple wikipedia feature correctly.

Here's a hint, CLICK the "show" next to "support".
And behold, even wikipedia has broken down the opposition into three broad entirely different cliques.

Grape fucked around with this message at 10:05 on Mar 6, 2018

# ? Mar 6, 2018 10:00

Cable Guy: Jul 18, 2005; I don't expect any trouble, but we'll be handing these out later...; Slippery Tilde

Grape posted:

Congratulations on being unable to read a simple wikipedia feature correctly.

Here's a hint, CLICK the "show" next to "support".
And behold, even wikipedia has broken down the opposition into three broad entirely different cliques.

Hey there Kramer with the two posts... It's really not that simple.

Was a totally fair question... Qatar and SA (dubious) with US supporting one faction... also supporting Turkey in another faction... It's a clusterfuck. The question wasn't stupid.. gently caress knows I wouldn't answer it.

Cable Guy fucked around with this message at 13:14 on Mar 6, 2018

# ? Mar 6, 2018 10:12

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Grape posted:

If the West really needs a wake up call to our recent centuries of senseless barbaric sectarian violence, well they have this neat living museum in the UK called "Northern Ireland".

The way things are going with Brexit, they're going to update it for the new millennium too.

# ? Mar 6, 2018 10:45

khwarezm: Oct 26, 2010; Deal with it.

Grape posted:

If the West really needs a wake up call to our recent centuries of senseless barbaric sectarian violence, well they have this neat living museum in the UK called "Northern Ireland".

Ok, I know it's real tempting to draw parallels between northern Ireland and various current Middle Eastern conflicts, especially religious ones, but they're really not similar, at all.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

The way things are going with Brexit, they're going to update it for the new millennium too.

The Troubles will not be revived because of Brexit.

# ? Mar 6, 2018 11:08

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

khwarezm posted:

The Troubles will not be revived because of Brexit.

Well, breaking the Good Friday Agreement is a good start at least.

# ? Mar 6, 2018 11:50

khwarezm: Oct 26, 2010; Deal with it.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Well, breaking the Good Friday Agreement is a good start at least.

Everybody is desperately trying to avoid a hard border and that consideration will have a major impact on how Brexit actually goes down. Even if it were instated, against all logic, the conditions that lead to the Troubles are just way less prominent and the region doesn't have the powder keg of problems that blew up back in the 60s anymore. Nationalists aren't discriminated against anywhere near as much as they were in the old days while Sinn Fein and the other Republican groups have a powerful vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Nobody wants to return to bombs and gun battles, the worst that might happen is a few fringe republican groups try some stupid poo poo that could kill some people but it would peter out quickly and wouldn't approach how bad things used to get.

# ? Mar 6, 2018 12:05

Dr Kool-AIDS: Mar 26, 2004

Sergg posted:

You realize there were multiple years in the Syrian Civil War where the majority of casualties were ISIS liquidating the other rebel groups, right? Strategically it made sense. Go after a weaker opponent, absorb their land, conscript them into your army at gunpoint and offer pay raises, etc. Assad was pretty happy to ignore that up until his soldiers were getting frogmarched out into the desert in Taqba and getting domed in their underwear.

The point is that if freedom loving people took up arms the same way jihadist fanatics do, and/or if regional powers had given freedom loving people preference over monstrous killers, ISIS wouldn't have been able to hijack their revolution. Personally, I'd be a refugee in Europe given the chance, 100%, so I don't fault anyone for making the decision to survive rather than fight, but when the strongest groups fighting don't represent the people, nobody has any reason to believe the will of the people would prevail if the tyrant was toppled.

And yeah, I realize Assad opportunistically allowed ISIS to flourish in order to ensure the rebellion would become unacceptable to foreign backers. It wasn't totally successful, both because ISIS got out of control and that led to Turkey and the US occupying a huge chunk of his country now, but Assad still managed to consolidate the core and thus far maintain his rule. He deserves the worst that could happen to him for sure, but he had a whole lot of help in transforming the rebellion into something much of the world views as being as much of a problem as he is.

# ? Mar 6, 2018 13:04

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

khwarezm posted:

Everybody is desperately trying to avoid a hard border and that consideration will have a major impact on how Brexit actually goes down. Even if it were instated, against all logic, the conditions that lead to the Troubles are just way less prominent and the region doesn't have the powder keg of problems that blew up back in the 60s anymore. Nationalists aren't discriminated against anywhere near as much as they were in the old days while Sinn Fein and the other Republican groups have a powerful vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Nobody wants to return to bombs and gun battles, the worst that might happen is a few fringe republican groups try some stupid poo poo that could kill some people but it would peter out quickly and wouldn't approach how bad things used to get.

The first part is definitely not true for the people who have the most say, the British government, but I hope you're right about the second part and that the bombing that happened in Belfast a few hours ago was jut a fringe thing and not the start of something.

# ? Mar 6, 2018 13:16

Volkerball: Oct 15, 2009; by FactsAreUseless

*coughs*

# ? Mar 6, 2018 13:24

khwarezm: Oct 26, 2010; Deal with it.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

The first part is definitely not true for the people who have the most say, the British government, but I hope you're right about the second part and that the bombing that happened in Belfast a few hours ago was jut a fringe thing and not the start of something.

Are you talking about this?

Volkerball posted:

*coughs*

Sorry, yeah, wrong part of the world, I'll shut up now.

# ? Mar 6, 2018 13:37

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

The new UN Commission of Inquiry report on Syria is out. Lots of details on the systematic targeting of schools, hospitals and markets by pro-government forces, and this on the US coalition killing 150 civilians it still claims were 30 ISIS guys, even after they investigated it:

quote:

On the night of 20 to 21 March 2017, at approximately 11 p.m., United States-led coalition forces carried out an airstrike against Al-Badiya school in Mansurah (Raqqah), an area that was under ISIL control at the time. The Commission initially reported on that incident in July 201710 and its findings are detailed in annex IV below (paras. 7�11). The Commission conducted 20 interviews with survivors, relatives of victims, rescuers, village residents and individuals on site after the airstrike and concluded that the school had been housing internally displaced families since 2012. Of more than 200 residents in the school, 150 were killed. The Commission identified 12 survivors, several of whom had sustained serious injuries, including severe burns and loss of limbs. Among the survivors there were four women and six children, the youngest of who was a 10-month-old baby.

During a briefing of journalists on 28 March 2017, the Combined Joint Task Force established by the international coalition took responsibility for the strike, claiming that it had targeted 30 ISIL fighters whom it claimed were using the school. The Task Force stated that it could not corroborate that the school was used by internally displaced persons.

Information gathered by the Commission does not support the claim that 30 ISIL fighters were in the school at the time of the strike, nor that the school was otherwise being used by ISIL. Rather, the status of casualties and the nature of the Al-Badiya building is widely divergent from the international coalition�s assessment. Information that residents of the school were internally displaced families, including a large number of women and children, and that the school had been used to shelter internally displaced persons since 2012 should have been readily available to the coalition�s targeting team. The Commission therefore concludes that the international coalition should have known the nature of the target and failed to take all feasible precautions to avoid or minimize incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects, in violation of international humanitarian law. The subsequent investigation conducted by the international coalition should have been able to identify the high number of civilian casualties resulting from this incident.

It's not the first time a US coalition investigation has found a dramatically different version of events than other investigations. Bellingcat, HRW, and Forensic Architecture worked together to investigate the Al Jinah mosque bombing, which the US claimed initially was an Al Qaeda meeting location, but which we found was full of civilians with not a scrap of information indicating Al Qaeda was there. Forensic Architecture made this awesome video about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc3UaxLqEWw

The US claimed at first it wasn't a mosque, then changed their claim after we published our reports, but still claimed it was full of civilians. They didn't publish a report, but gave a press conference, which fortunately AirWars transcribed. Here it becomes clear why their investigations aren't terribly reliable:

quote:

Q: Well just on that one point, so did you speak to anybody who was actually on the ground. You said you spoke to dozens of people. How do you � how would you characterize those people?

GEN. BONTRAGER: Right. So we did not � we did not speak with any � anyone on the ground in Syria except for the � the individuals in the unit that conducted the strike. We simply didn�t have access to � to anyone in the location of the strike. So � so the answer to that is a simple no. We spoke to dozens of people throughout the process � the approval process, the strike cell, as well as � as anyone who had any � any information with regard to the � the intelligence available or the � or what else was available.

# ? Mar 6, 2018 13:44

Dr Kool-AIDS: Mar 26, 2004

The YPG seem to have said they aren't fighting ISIS anymore, and they're redeploying troops to Afrin. I understand the first part, but I still don't understand what they hope to accomplish by sending more guys to die in Afrin since Turkey doesn't exactly seem to be having a hard time beating them, and the rumors about the SAA coming in to save them any day seem to have died down. If anything it seems like they should start thinking about evacuating fighters from Afrin, but maybe this is why I'd be a terrible rebel commander, because valiant last stands really aren't my thing.

# ? Mar 6, 2018 14:05

Warbadger: Jun 17, 2006

Sergg posted:

You realize there were multiple years in the Syrian Civil War where the majority of casualties were ISIS liquidating the other rebel groups, right? Strategically it made sense. Go after a weaker opponent, absorb their land, conscript them into your army at gunpoint and offer pay raises, etc. Assad was pretty happy to ignore that up until his soldiers were getting frogmarched out into the desert in Taqba and getting domed in their underwear.

He was pretty happy to ignore that, too, aside from rolling back the periodic ISIS offensive on his skeletonized defenses. At least until the major ISIS strongholds were finished off by other parties along with the vast majority of it's combatants - Assad was very happy to Hoover up territory and claim victory at that point.

Warbadger fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Mar 6, 2018

# ? Mar 6, 2018 16:14

Panzeh: Nov 27, 2006; "..The high ground"

Sinteres posted:

The YPG seem to have said they aren't fighting ISIS anymore, and they're redeploying troops to Afrin. I understand the first part, but I still don't understand what they hope to accomplish by sending more guys to die in Afrin since Turkey doesn't exactly seem to be having a hard time beating them, and the rumors about the SAA coming in to save them any day seem to have died down. If anything it seems like they should start thinking about evacuating fighters from Afrin, but maybe this is why I'd be a terrible rebel commander, because valiant last stands really aren't my thing.

From what I understood, the YPG in Afrin was receiving some reinforcements from nearby NDF militia with whom they had a pretty good relatioinship, rather than outright regime aid(otherwise there would probably be more SAM attacks on Turkish planes).

The regime relies heavily on NDF militia for economy-of-force operations so that Russians, Hezbollah, and regular regime forces can take the offensive in other areas.

# ? Mar 6, 2018 16:33

TROIKA CURES GREEK: Jun 30, 2015; by R. Guyovich

Saladman posted:

I am pretty sure that except for the most absolutely insane of right-wing death squad supporters, no one thinks that literally everyone opposed to Assad is a jihadist. I get the impression that most people think that the FSA was a pretty promising thing to start.

The problem for this "clean opposition" to Assad is that it's an open question as to whether that was something that ever really existed. The most ruthless actors, of which there were many on the rebel side, were inevitably going to rise to the top (moderates don't do well in civil wars it turns out). Regardless, whether or not you want to call the FSA radicals from the getgo or not is largely irrelevant, there was never a group you could point to and say 'yes these guys should win because they support peaceful democracy for when the fighting stops.' From the start the opposition was made of people who had similar ideas as Assad as for what to do: shoot the other side until they give up, and then persecute/kill the losers.

Here's an account about the beginnings of the war from a Syrian on the ground as it was happening. His account is much different than the story you see repeated here: https://seriouspod.com/sio29-the-syrian-civil-war-with-nanar/ Sure, there were isolated pockets of groups you could point to and say 'look! good guys! arm them!' but they were the minority and almost immediately subsumed into much worse groups (which is exactly what a lot of people here predicted would happen if you started arming rebels).

I don't think their account should be taken as the absolute truth, namely it shows how hard it is to draw solid conclusions from events where the only information is essentially propaganda coming from groups who have an active interest in making themselves look good and everyone else look evil. I'm not sure there's any analysis of the early war that actually has pierced that veil with good clarity.

# ? Mar 6, 2018 16:44

Punkin Spunkin: Jan 1, 2010

https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/971049937617211392

# ? Mar 6, 2018 17:48

guidoanselmi: Feb 6, 2008; I thought my ideas were so clear. I wanted to make an honest post. No lies whatsoever.

icantfindaname posted:

Meanwhile in the New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/05/world/middleeast/saudi-women-drivers.html

Of course I know the Times is a loving joke but even so this is almost surreal. Also lays some doubt on the idea that it's just the opinion side of the paper that's basically ghostwritten by Saudi and UAE marketing agents and not the newsroom

As someone who's gotten marketing done for their company, this is how the entire industry works. Press has really abandoned journalism in order to make a buck and save time creating content.

V Nah, but with the death of print the business models changed rapidly to emphasize contributed content, whether or not it's actually labelled. At least as I understand it.

guidoanselmi fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Mar 6, 2018

# ? Mar 6, 2018 18:51

svenkatesh: Sep 5, 2016; by FactsAreUseless

That's nothing new though, is it?

The US funded Mujahideen in the Soviet-Afghan war under the same pretense that T.E. Lawrence funded the Arabs against the Ottomans. The miscalculation was that the Taliban would be funded beyond their useful life.

Side note: "Directorate S" is a really good book about the region and the backgrounds of the conflict.

# ? Mar 6, 2018 18:54

Count Roland: Oct 6, 2013

Sinteres posted:

The YPG seem to have said they aren't fighting ISIS anymore, and they're redeploying troops to Afrin. I understand the first part, but I still don't understand what they hope to accomplish by sending more guys to die in Afrin since Turkey doesn't exactly seem to be having a hard time beating them, and the rumors about the SAA coming in to save them any day seem to have died down. If anything it seems like they should start thinking about evacuating fighters from Afrin, but maybe this is why I'd be a terrible rebel commander, because valiant last stands really aren't my thing.

It may be a tactic to pressure the US into helping somehow in Afrin.

"Hey we'd love to keep destroying IS, but you see we have this problem with Turkey..."

I'm not sure what the US can do though. Erdogan doesn't take orders, and Turkey is NATO. And the YPG can't openly snub the US or the US will just cut off support and then they're really hosed.

I see the pentagon has made a statement about this, how there's an "operational pause" against ISIS. But, how much was really being done against ISIS anyway? Their little pockets haven't shrunk much lately. The US seemed to be focused on seizing oil fields and defending them from Assad's allies.

# ? Mar 6, 2018 21:46

Dr Kool-AIDS: Mar 26, 2004

Yeah, this really just makes official what was already happening anyway.

I'm a bit skeptical of this talking point, because I don't think the US feels a whole lot of need to justify our presence in the country at this point, but some more cynical people have suggested the US is plenty happy to keep a minimal ISIS presence around so we can point to that and say of course we can't leave the country yet since ISIS hasn't been defeated. The continued ISIS presence east of the Euphrates definitely hurts our argument that we're the ones dedicated to fighting ISIS while Assad is "unwilling or incapable" of defeating them (as the Coalition continues to say) though.

# ? Mar 6, 2018 21:51

Grape: Nov 16, 2017; Happily shilling for China!

Cable Guy posted:

Hey there Kramer with the two posts... It's really not that simple.

Was a totally fair question... Qatar and SA (dubious) with US supporting one faction... also supporting Turkey in another faction... It's a clusterfuck. The question wasn't stupid.. gently caress knows I wouldn't answer it.

You seem confused about what I was responding to, and what point I was making myself.

"It's simple" being the complete opposite of what I was saying for instance.

# ? Mar 6, 2018 21:54

Grape: Nov 16, 2017; Happily shilling for China!

khwarezm posted:

Ok, I know it's real tempting to draw parallels between northern Ireland and various current Middle Eastern conflicts, especially religious ones, but they're really not similar, at all.

It was an ethno-religious conflict, a post-colonial (kinda) conflict, a territorial dispute conflict...
Just about the only thing it doesn't have in common is the level of intensity.
It's especially extremely east to draw direct parallels to specific mid-eastern conflicts like Israel-Palestine, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Cyprus.

Either way the point I was making was that Northern Ireland is and was a little anachronistic living reminder of the Wars of Religion.

# ? Mar 6, 2018 22:01

Herstory Begins Now: Aug 5, 2003; SOME REALLY TEDIOUS DUMB SHIT THAT SUCKS ASS TO READ ->>

Sinteres posted:

Yeah, this really just makes official what was already happening anyway.

I'm a bit skeptical of this talking point, because I don't think the US feels a whole lot of need to justify our presence in the country at this point, but some more cynical people have suggested the US is plenty happy to keep a minimal ISIS presence around so we can point to that and say of course we can't leave the country yet since ISIS hasn't been defeated. The continued ISIS presence east of the Euphrates definitely hurts our argument that we're the ones dedicated to fighting ISIS while Assad is "unwilling or incapable" of defeating them (as the Coalition continues to say) though.

There's really no internal US pressure to not have a presence in the ME from any side of the political spectrum. Even the non-interventionists aren't complaining about current involvement in Syria. Hell the Afghanistan troop numbers are substantially on the rise and it's still basically crickets. Trump is so completely uninvolved in military decision making that needing to justify a military presence in Syria (much less one on top of oil reserves, which historically requires by far the least ink to justify) likely won't be a political reality for 2-3 more years.

Part of this is because Syrian involvement was kept so exceptionally quiet. It's hard to do justice to just how quiet that scale of involvement was kept. Vietnam might have been the first televised war, the US adventure in Syria was the first non-televised war.

Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Mar 6, 2018

# ? Mar 6, 2018 22:51

Dr Kool-AIDS: Mar 26, 2004

Yeah, that's why i wa saying I don't really buy the cynical explanation. Even when Obama was president nobody really cared what we were doing overseas as long as body bags weren't coming home (with Benghazi showing just how little appetite the public had for any amount of risk taking at all), and with the Trump circus in town everyone's too busy freaking out about whatever idiotic thing he's doing to worry at all about what's going on overseas. We've always been a myopic country, but that's dramatically increased over the last couple years.

# ? Mar 6, 2018 23:04

khwarezm: Oct 26, 2010; Deal with it.

Grape posted:

It was an ethno-religious conflict, a post-colonial (kinda) conflict, a territorial dispute conflict...
Just about the only thing it doesn't have in common is the level of intensity.
It's especially extremely east to draw direct parallels to specific mid-eastern conflicts like Israel-Palestine, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Cyprus.

Either way the point I was making was that Northern Ireland is and was a little anachronistic living reminder of the Wars of Religion.

Outsiders to the NI conflict tend to massively overemphasis it's religious nature, people hear (or heard I guess) Ian Paisley bloviating about fire and brimstone and have a vague conception that it's Catholics vs Protestants acting out conflicts that started in the 16th century but this ignores the specifics of Irish and British history and when you take that into account it looks much, much more like an ethnic nationalist conflict where religion is simply an easy but clunky way to assume who's on what side in a typically conservative christian society. Nationalist people in Ireland stereotypically go on about '800 years of oppression' which is a bit ridiculous but just that phrase showcases the trouble with perceiving the whole thing as a quaint reminder of the Wars of Religion, British colonialism in Ireland significantly predates the reformation and even if you read what the English themselves were saying while creating plantations in Ireland (for example, Edmund Spenser) it quickly becomes clear that this went way further than a religious conflict and that they perceived Ireland and the Irish as a very alien society who's customs, laws and language were not compatible with English civilization. The whole idea of the plantations was that the only way to rule Ireland was to literally transplant English and Scottish people to remake the country entirely, honestly there aren't many places in Europe during the Early Modern period where ethnicity became so important, in France or Germany at the same time the Protestants and Catholics were often close to each other in things like culture and language or even physical proximity. I went on a bit there but the ways the conflict goes well beyond religion are still very clear today, cultural matters that have absolutely no root in religion, like language policy are contentious topics in NI, some of the most important figures in the Republican pantheon today were Protestant (like Robert Emmet or Wolfe Tone), just look at the way both sides tend to perceive themselves, in NI they don't really call themselves the 'Protestant' or 'Catholic' side, it's 'Loyalist/Unionist' and 'Nationalist/Republican' which don't really bring any intrinsic religious connotations with them.

To give you credit, in fairness I actually am happier comparing Ireland to somewhere like Cyprus, and I've done so in the past, since that's also a conflict that kind of looks simply religious from a distance but is a lot more complex close up. What bothers me is when people, for example, talk about the IRA as if it's the christian version of the Muslim Brotherhood or even ISIS, which is hopelessly wrong.

# ? Mar 6, 2018 23:56

hohhat: Sep 25, 2014

Herstory Begins Now posted:

There's really no internal US pressure to not have a presence in the ME from any side of the political spectrum. Even the non-interventionists aren't complaining about current involvement in Syria. Hell the Afghanistan troop numbers are substantially on the rise and it's still basically crickets. Trump is so completely uninvolved in military decision making that needing to justify a military presence in Syria (much less one on top of oil reserves, which historically requires by far the least ink to justify) likely won't be a political reality for 2-3 more years.

Part of this is because Syrian involvement was kept so exceptionally quiet. It's hard to do justice to just how quiet that scale of involvement was kept. Vietnam might have been the first televised war, the US adventure in Syria was the first non-televised war.

A new theater would create an outcry, but they can keep it to funneling troops or arms into the existing open wounds indefinitely.

# ? Mar 7, 2018 00:13

Grape: Nov 16, 2017; Happily shilling for China!

khwarezm posted:

Outsiders to the NI conflict tend to massively overemphasis it's religious nature people hear (or heard I guess) Ian Paisley bloviating about fire and brimstone and have a vague conception that it's Catholics vs Protestants acting out conflicts that started in the 16th century but this ignores the specifics of Irish and British history and when you take that into account it looks much, much more like an ethnic nationalist conflict where religion is simply an easy but clunky way to assume who's on what side in a typically conservative christian society.

Most religious conflicts are something else deep down, that isn't unique to NI. That doesn't absolve the religious element from existing.
You're really downplaying how much more clearly it exists in the conflict though.
Cyprus is a good genuine example of where there's a religious difference between two feuding parties, but one that almost never ever comes up in spite of what's happened.
In NI religion and the corresponding history is part of that ethnic-nationalist identity. Even if yes as you say it came later.

quote:

Nationalist people in Ireland stereotypically go on about '800 years of oppression' which is a bit ridiculous but just that phrase showcases the trouble with perceiving the whole thing as a quaint reminder of the Wars of Religion, British colonialism in Ireland significantly predates the reformation and even if you read what the English themselves were saying while creating plantations in Ireland (for example, Edmund Spenser) it quickly becomes clear that this went way further than a religious conflict and that they perceived Ireland and the Irish as a very alien society who's customs, laws and language were not compatible with English civilization.

And at some point (the 1600's) religious difference became sucked into that vortex, becoming part of it.

Would you for instance deny that religious difference has any relevance to the Iran/Saudi cold war? Even though there have been Arab/Persian tensions before the Shiification of Iran, or even the Islamization period?
I mean again, I'm not disagreeing with the main point you're making. But I think you might be overcorrecting a bit in the other direction.

quote:

To give you credit, in fairness I actually am happier comparing Ireland to somewhere like Cyprus, and I've done so in the past, since that's also a conflict that kind of looks simply religious from a distance but is a lot more complex close up.

It's not religious at all. Like zilch. I mean sure during the violence there was some obligatory desecration of the other side's idols and symbols. But that's it. It's straight down the line ethnic.
In effect it goes to show that while yes not the underlying thing, that religion is still very much an element of NI.

I think Israel is a much better comparison, especially given the settler vs native dimension. Which while somewhat a factor in Cyprus, is pretty distantly in the background (unless we're talking the post-74 Turkish mainland settlers which is a whole other kettle of fish)

quote:

What bothers me is when people, for example, talk about the IRA as if it's the christian version of the Muslim Brotherhood or even ISIS, which is hopelessly wrong.

They're drat similar to the PKK rather.

# ? Mar 7, 2018 02:00

Herstory Begins Now: Aug 5, 2003; SOME REALLY TEDIOUS DUMB SHIT THAT SUCKS ASS TO READ ->>

Agag posted:

A new theater would create an outcry, but they can keep it to funneling troops or arms into the existing open wounds indefinitely.

Syria was more or less a new theatre that is still escalating and there isn't even a hint of outcry. Though if you mean a new theatre as in a whole new region that isn't north Africa or the ME then yeah probably.

# ? Mar 7, 2018 02:44

hohhat: Sep 25, 2014

Herstory Begins Now posted:

Syria was more or less a new theatre that is still escalating and there isn't even a hint of outcry. Though if you mean a new theatre as in a whole new region that isn't north Africa or the ME then yeah probably.

I'm thinking something major like Iran/Pakistan/Nigeria. Direct US involvement in North Africa was muted enough to escape any outcry, and I bet the average American thinks Syria is similarly hands-off and restricted to air power.

But I might be underestimating how jaded people are. There's no anti-war movement per se, I'm talking about fatigue and skepticism over the costs.

# ? Mar 7, 2018 02:59

khwarezm: Oct 26, 2010; Deal with it.

Grape posted:

Most religious conflicts are something else deep down, that isn't unique to NI. That doesn't absolve the religious element from existing.
You're really downplaying how much more clearly it exists in the conflict though.

I'm not, the thing is, when I studied this in college (in Ireland) Northern Ireland was the source of some irritation among my lecturers specifically because it was so frequently used as an example by historians who were much more informed about Continental European history rather than Irish history about the ongoing effects of religious conflict in Europe after the reformation, the problem was that it's totally different from Germany, or France, or England etc and the conduct of religious strife in those places during the Early Modern Period and using Ireland as a generic example of that strife is a really bad misrepresentation of the reformation generally and the realities of Ireland's political and religious turmoil.

There's also this undercurrent that the rest of Europe has moved on from such silly religious squabbles but those backward nuts in Northern Ireland still haven't gotten the memo.

If I overstated this a bit it's because the complexities of Ireland's history too often get boiled down to Protestants vs Catholics, again I always find Edmund Spenser's A View of the present State of Ireland absolutely fascinating because it's one of the best sources on the English view of Ireland in the period of that massive political and religious upheaval, Spenser was part of the wave of colonists during the Munster plantation and he has a lot to say about religion, but that's part of wider view of Irish society which he basically treats as barbaric and repugnant in almost every area (he opens the whole thing talking about their laws, which really seems to rile him up). In a modern context I find it difficult to look at the NI conflict and see really serious religious conflicts over questions of theology and such that for a group like ISIS, even if they many other reasons for doing what they do, clearly take much more seriously just from their actions and words.

quote:

And at some point (the 1600's) religious difference became sucked into that vortex, becoming part of it.

And I don't deny that, but people overstate the nature of the conflict as a primarily religious one and overall I don't think NI is a useful point of comparison for most of the hottest conflicts in the Middle East.

quote:

Would you for instance deny that religious difference has any relevance to the Iran/Saudi cold war? Even though there have been Arab/Persian tensions before the Shiification of Iran, or even the Islamization period?
I mean again, I'm not disagreeing with the main point you're making. But I think you might be overcorrecting a bit in the other direction.

Well, Iran tries to set itself up as the leader of the Shiite world. Arab and Persian tension is a real thing but places like Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and Syria aren't Persian and yet Iran has significant leverage in all of these places regardless. Does the current Iran/Saudi conflict break down along ethnic lines as neatly as it does religious ones? Nimr al-Nimr was a Saudi Arabian by birth and lived there most of his life but his execution was widely perceived as an insult towards Iran and Iran had the most vigorous response to the event, that would be pretty weird if this was an ethnic conflict with a religious coat of paint, if we're making parallels between the two places, is there anything you consider comparable in the NI context?

khwarezm fucked around with this message at 03:56 on Mar 7, 2018

# ? Mar 7, 2018 03:54

Grape: Nov 16, 2017; Happily shilling for China!

khwarezm posted:

I'm not, the thing is, when I studied this in college (in Ireland) Northern Ireland was the source of some irritation among my lecturers specifically because it was so frequently used as an example by historians who were much more informed about Continental European history rather than Irish history about the ongoing effects of religious conflict in Europe after the reformation, the problem was that it's totally different from Germany, or France, or England etc and the conduct of religious strife in those places during the Early Modern Period and using Ireland as a generic example of that strife is a really bad misrepresentation of the reformation generally and the realities of Ireland's political and religious turmoil.

It's that same strife laid on top of a pre-existing conflict. In other places that same process occurred as well, even if as you say it wasn't the proto-colonial ethnic case as in Ireland.

quote:

There's also this undercurrent that the rest of Europe has moved on from such silly religious squabbles but those backward nuts in Northern Ireland still haven't gotten the memo.

This sort of bigoted framing is just as easily wormed in if you pare it down to only the ethnic-nationalist land conflict though.

quote:

Well, Iran tries to set itself up as the leader of the Shiite world. Arab and Persian tension is a real thing but places like Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and Syria aren't Persian and yet Iran has significant leverage in all of these places regardless.

Being a Shiite Arab is being on the outside of the Arab world mainstream, I don't particularly see that as all that much in conflict with Iran vying against the Saudis.
My main point with that was less ethnic (I'm not really sure Iran is all that ethnic-nationalist as it is plain old fashioned nationalist) than the idea of some sort of ages old clash of egos.

Anyway, what I think you didn't see about the first post was the target. Precisely the sort of people who make assertions about so and so region being barbaric backwards people because "we don't have ANYTHING like that on our area!" was my target.

# ? Mar 7, 2018 04:28

Collateral Damage: Jun 13, 2009

Punkin Spunkin posted:

https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/971049937617211392

The article is available online, so you don't have to strain your eyes trying to read it:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...in-1465715.html

# ? Mar 7, 2018 12:01

mediadave: Sep 8, 2011

https://twitter.com/AlSuraEnglish/status/971399390618378241

# ? Mar 7, 2018 17:09

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# ? May 27, 2024 19:25

steinrokkan: Apr 2, 2011; Soiled Meat

The narrative of the vast and powerful Qatar empire being a global villain is not even funny any more, it's just pathetic for KSA and their bootlickers.

# ? Mar 7, 2018 17:24

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Middle East Thread: Clarissa Explains the Fall

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