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For Sykes-Picot, yeah the plan wasn't implemented exactly as written, but no poo poo. The plan promised the same chunks of land to multiple parties, while the French and the British (and loving tzarist Russia for a while) were busy figuring how to gently caress their allies to get the best of the deal. When people invoke Sykes-Picot, is usually a general sort of "colonial powers sliced and diced an empire, no poo poo there's been problems maybe there's a lesson here", rather than getting into the details. Which is fine. It was a secret plan of conquest behind talk of peace, and we should absolutely be wary of that today.
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Apr 14, 2018 16:41
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Remind me again why a Kurdistani nation wasn't included in the Versailles peace deal?
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Apr 14, 2018 16:42
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Grouchio posted:Remind me again why a Kurdistani nation wasn't included in the Versailles peace deal? Because the powers involved didn't give a gently caress who lived where, they only care about the wealth they could extract from the areas they were going to "administrate".
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Apr 14, 2018 16:46
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Libluini posted:And Germany got another chance to show off how peaceful and changed we are, with multiple instances of us declining in advance to take any part in the strike That's assuming the bundenswehr actually had the fuel to get the planes in the air in the first place. This whole thing is just silly posturing, and honestly I can't for the life of me see why anyone would deploy chemical weapons a day and a half before they take a small city. It's not like it was a turning point or anything, Douma was about to fall eitherway. It's most likely assads generals who can't keep their fingers of the button when they think putin has their backs; not to mention they havent gottten punished for Chlorine before to my knowlege. Postorder Trollet89 fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Apr 14, 2018 |
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Apr 14, 2018 16:51
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Brown Moses posted:Considering the Douma attack was done by helicopter and involved chlorine gas cylinder, last nights strikes wouldn't have done anything to prevent the Syrian government from doing exactly the same thing again. I expect by the end of the year we'll start seeing fresh credible reports of chemical weapon attacks again, likely chlorine at first. The Pentagon made it pretty clear during the briefing last night that it wasn't a comprehensive effort to eliminate the regime's capabilities. It was just another "hey don't do that" slap on the wrist. They're probably just hoping Assad's close enough to the finish line that they won't have to do this again in a year. If Assad does use gas again, my suggestion would be to immediately fire a quick and limited salvo just to show him he doesn't get more rope and we don't revert back to playing the 'I'm only using a little and a bunch of kids didn't die this time so it's okay right?' game with him anymore. Waiting until there's a big crisis again just risks a bigger escalation at that point, which is more dangerous for everyone. I'd even say the Pentagon should game out that kind of quick response ahead of time, and make sure Russia realizes it's the plan, so they can try to rein in Assad ahead of time. Plus making these responses as automatic as possible might keep Bolton from inserting his ideological goals into the process. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Apr 14, 2018 |
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Apr 14, 2018 16:52
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Grouchio posted:Remind me again why a Kurdistani nation wasn't included in the Versailles peace deal? There was no Kurdish nation during Ottoman times either. The Ottoman government hated the Kurds as much as Turks hate them. It's not like it was exactly peaceful there for the hundreds fo years before WW1; the Kurds were slaughtering Armenians and all sorts of poo poo was going down for more than a century before WW1. The late-stage Ottoman Empire was garbage and evil and it went downhill for a lonnnng time before its final collapse. One interesting book to read would be "Nineveh and Its Remains" which, although mostly about archaeology, has quite a few good first-hand accounts of Yazidis and Ottomans and Kurds and Amernians in the environs of Mosul in the 1850s (±300 km; he travels around a fair bit while the excavations are ongoing). E: Here are the internal borders of the Ottoman Empire pre-WW1 https://geopoliticalfutures.com/ottoman-empire-borders-versus-modern-day-borders/ You'll notice there's absolutely no Kurdish nation there either! Saladman fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Apr 14, 2018 |
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Apr 14, 2018 16:59
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Postorder Trollet89 posted:That's assuming the bundenswehr actually had the fuel to get the planes in the air in the first place. The Bundeswehr already has planes and poo poo down there, we're just not bombing. Earlier this year it looked like all our Einsätze got lengthened, some even grew in scope. We're just lucky that Merkel isn't tweeting our plans to the entire world, or more people would knew about our presence in Iraq and Syria. The base for the German units is in Jordan, after relations with Turkey cooled too much in 2017 and our military had to move away from Incirlik.
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Apr 14, 2018 17:00
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Grouchio posted:Remind me again why a Kurdistani nation wasn't included in the Versailles peace deal? Versailles only dealt with Germany. The treaty of Sevres was the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, which included a Kurdish homeland. The Turks repudiated it and then won a war against the signatories creating most of the modern borders of Turkey . This war was occasioned by genocides based on ethnic nationalist claims of sovereignty.
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Apr 14, 2018 17:06
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MiddleOne posted:By orchestrating a situation were every party got to save face? I have to say I wasn't expecting that but I should have. "Art of the Deal" right?
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Apr 14, 2018 17:24
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Grouchio posted:Remind me again why a Kurdistani nation wasn't included in the Versailles peace deal? Because the Treaty of Versailles didn't involve the Ottoman Empire, and even if it had, the Ottoman Empire was still allowed to exist for quite a while after the war. There was no room for enforcing a division of any sort in 1919.
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Apr 14, 2018 17:24
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Grouchio posted:Remind me again why a Kurdistani nation wasn't included in the Versailles peace deal? For your reading pleasure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Turks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Sèvres https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_War_of_Independence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Lausanne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustafa_Kemal_Atatürk
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Apr 14, 2018 17:32
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https://twitter.com/laraseligman/status/985147012675964928 Looks like the Russians, rather unsurprisingly, didn't even bother to turn their radars on.
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Apr 14, 2018 17:36
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Rent-A-Cop posted:https://twitter.com/laraseligman/status/985147012675964928 If they did, all sorts of valuable electronic data could have been collected on how the top end russian systems work- they won't be turned on unless they really mean business.
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Apr 14, 2018 17:42
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Rent-A-Cop posted:Looks like the Russians, rather unsurprisingly, didn't even bother to turn their radars on. Have the Russians ever turned on the tracking radar of an S400 system outside of Russia where NATO/Israel could get a clean read of it's signature?
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Apr 14, 2018 17:46
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Cerebral Bore posted:Why not? They blew up some empty buildings so our glorious leaders of the free world can look tough without actually doing anything significant. Makes perfect sense to me. Would you have rather seen nuclear brinkmanship pushed to a new level?
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Apr 14, 2018 18:03
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Rent-A-Cop posted:https://twitter.com/laraseligman/status/985147012675964928 If they launched SAMs, they probably did actually turn on the RADARs to do it. I doubt they just started lobbing unguided SAMs like ridiculously expensive bottlerockets for the hell of it. After all, they definitely attempted to shoot down the tomahawks last time this happened with some limited success. These may not have been old tomahawks this time around - and the JASSM is a pretty modern missile built to be low observable to hit targets defended by modern air defenses. They may have legitimately avoided detection on the way in with the storm of SAM launches afterwards being a Hail-Mary attempt to shoot anything that looked a bit like a missile on the scope.
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Apr 14, 2018 19:04
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Count Roland posted:For Sykes-Picot, yeah the plan wasn't implemented exactly as written, but no poo poo. The plan promised the same chunks of land to multiple parties, while the French and the British (and loving tzarist Russia for a while) were busy figuring how to gently caress their allies to get the best of the deal. The invocations often have much more sinister motivations -- if you assume the borders are arbitrary and bad, then it follows there is no problem with the United States or somebody else redrawing them. This of course was one of the reasons IS liked bringing them up. Sykes-Picot is often used as a synecdoche for all the ills of colonialism. That it was never implemented in any form, much less as written, is dismissed is because what people really mean is that Britain and France are somehow to blame for the modern conflict. It's not like France and Britain don't share any of the blame, but objectively they just weren't responsible for most of the ills that people want to blame on them. France did not put Alawites in charge of the Syrian military. the borders between Syria, Iraq, and Turkey were determined through the machinations of Arab and Turkish leaders as much as those of Europeans. Historically the blaming Sykes-Picot for much of anything doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Politically, it's a way for Americans and Arabs to blame Europeans for problems of their own creation.
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Apr 14, 2018 19:34
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Warbadger posted:If they launched SAMs, they probably did actually turn on the RADARs to do it. I doubt they just started lobbing unguided SAMs like ridiculously expensive bottlerockets for the hell of it. After all, they definitely attempted to shoot down the tomahawks last time this happened with some limited success. Even unguided missiles look pretty badass, I think it would make sense to launch a few for the sake of PR even if they weren't capable or were too late to intercept anything 
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Apr 14, 2018 19:44
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Flavahbeast posted:Even unguided missiles look pretty badass, I think it would make sense to launch a few for the sake of PR even if they weren't capable or were too late to intercept anything Where was Brian Williams to comment on this?
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Apr 14, 2018 19:45
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Bip Roberts posted:Where was Brian Williams to comment on this?
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Apr 14, 2018 19:48
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Hey guys did I miss anything? No? Ok. While I should’ve reworded my prediction, in effect it’s the same result.
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Apr 14, 2018 20:36
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Warbadger posted:If they launched SAMs, they probably did actually turn on the RADARs to do it. I doubt they just started lobbing unguided SAMs like ridiculously expensive bottlerockets for the hell of it. After all, they definitely attempted to shoot down the tomahawks last time this happened with some limited success.
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Apr 14, 2018 20:44
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Al-Saqr posted:Hey guys did I miss anything? No? Ok. Your post, apart from being incredibly pathetic and showing once again that you're a massive oval office, was entirely wrong though?
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Apr 14, 2018 20:46
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TheRat posted:Your post, apart from being incredibly pathetic and showing once again that you're a massive oval office, was entirely wrong though? how was it pathetic and wrong? I was wrong in the sense that a strike did happen, but I was right in the sense that it was a meaningless gesture. Why was I a oval office? for giving a prediction?
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Apr 14, 2018 20:52
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Al-Saqr posted:Hey guys did I miss anything? No? Ok. OH BOY SOME POINTLESS BOMBINGS THAT ONLY SERVED TO ACT AS THEATER AND FURTHER CAUSE DESTRUCTION!
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Apr 14, 2018 20:52
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Darkman Fanpage posted:OH BOY SOME POINTLESS BOMBINGS THAT ONLY SERVED TO ACT AS THEATER AND FURTHER CAUSE DESTRUCTION! yeah exactly.
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Apr 14, 2018 20:55
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https://twitter.com/BarzanSadiq/status/985244146733547522
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Apr 14, 2018 21:08
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this is absolutely Israel, which means Assad and Iran will stay silent about this. It's clear from the very beginning that the whole point is never to actually get rid of assad, it's to have it be in a constant state of weakness and misery while preventing Iran from making a solid foothold there.
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Apr 14, 2018 21:11
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Al-Saqr posted:this is absolutely Israel, which means Assad and Iran will stay silent about this. It's clear from the very beginning that the whole point is never to actually get rid of assad, it's to have it be in a constant state of weakness and misery while preventing Iran from making a solid foothold there. If that's the idea wouldn't just deposing Assad and arranging for the Sunni Syrians to take over be a better plan? I mean it would probably be bad from a humanitarian standpoint but when has that stopped governments
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Apr 14, 2018 21:19
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Moatman posted:If that's the idea wouldn't just deposing Assad and arranging for the Sunni Syrians to take over be a better plan? I mean it would probably be bad from a humanitarian standpoint but when has that stopped governments Also I wouldn't just assume an ammo depot exploding is Israel. Those tend to explode on a fairly regular basis without any outside help.
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Apr 14, 2018 21:22
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Rent-A-Cop posted:A neverending meat grinder where Hezbollah and Quds Force go to die is a great thing if you're Israel. Alternatively somebody parked a drone with an incendiary grenade over it and got lucky.
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Apr 14, 2018 22:17
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how depleted are iranian and hezbollah forces at this point?
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Apr 14, 2018 22:28
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I just wish commentators would understand that there is basically no parity between US forces and any other uniformed military on the planet. Like, it is so loving dangerous to have Syrians and Iranians talking about how they are ready to resist an american attack. Twitter people are very delusional and it will lead to brinkmanship and bravado.
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Apr 14, 2018 22:43
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Here's some before and after images of the locations hit in the airstrikes: https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/985275345279635458
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Apr 14, 2018 23:00
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I think people should take into consideration that al-Saqr has had close friends of his tortured to death by the Syrian government before they condemn his anger & aggressive language.
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Apr 14, 2018 23:15
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Sergg posted:I think people should take into consideration that al-Saqr has had close friends of his tortured to death by the Syrian government before they condemn his anger & aggressive language. no, clearly me, an american marxist, is more effected
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Apr 14, 2018 23:17
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Even if we had an Alawite living in Latakia willing to post in this thread, if that Alawite's innocent civilian friends/family had been boiled alive by al-Nusra when they overran Idlib, you should at least make an effort to understand his rage and pain when reading his pro-Assad posts.
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Apr 14, 2018 23:19
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There is also something to be said to the fact the rebels are by and large working class or lower, the regime are literally the top strata of Syrian society, I feel like not enough western leftists acknowledge that.
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Apr 14, 2018 23:22
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We used to have a very pro-Assad poster in here from Iran who was kind of a drunkard and would make all sorts of bombastic statements about how he couldn't wait for all those treacherous Sunni fanatics to have their skin peeled off and be dumped in a ditch and Brown Moses eventually banned him for his raging murder boner, but TBH I think we should make an exception for actual Middle-Eastern posters who live this war, because they provide valuable insight into the minds of those engaged in these conflicts. As it stands us white people have chased out almost every Middle-Eastern poster from this thread except for a few Kurdish ones and al-Saqr.
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Apr 14, 2018 23:28
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HorrificExistence posted:There is also something to be said to the fact the rebels are by and large working class or lower, the regime are literally the top strata of Syrian society, I feel like not enough western leftists acknowledge that. 100% agreed. I've said multiple times in this thread that Syria is essentially an Alawite-Power state, an Apartheid regime, if you will, where resources and jobs are directed from the top down through patronage networks that disproportionately favor a small minority group. Many Sunni officers living in Damascus have giant Assad banners hanging everywhere in their homes to avoid suspicion & are afraid to drive outside their neighborhood in plain clothes for fear that SAA or Shabiha who don't recognize them will stop them at a checkpoint and detain them just for being Sunni. That series of interviews was written awhile ago when Assad was more on the ropes so I don't know if things have relaxed at all since then.
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Apr 14, 2018 23:34
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