|
Do we actually know if that lab was active before the strike? I do wonder if the reason we know it’s a chemical weapons facility is because it was one of the ones shut down in 2023-14 after Ghouta.
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 02:15
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 26, 2024 13:38 |
|
|
axelord posted:The research complex probably wasn't being used. The regime likely doesn't have the resources for it. Who said it was being used for research? A lab like that would contain everything required to whip up chemical weapons in useful amounts. I'd assume they confirmed it was in use before sending a shitload of missiles in to obliterate it, I mean it's not like Syria has a great track record when it comes to secrecy. Overall this seems like a much a smarter target than the airfield hit last time around, where the important assets had jet engines and could fly out after the warning was given. Not so easy to pack up a lab complex in a few hours.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 02:42
|
|
|
It could also have been converted to normal office space or something, or they were just using the parts that were normal offices before. So they've taken out the sub-sub-section for military accounting services.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 02:44
|
|
|
fishmech posted:It could also have been converted to normal office space or something, or they were just using the parts that were normal offices before. So they've taken out the sub-sub-section for military accounting services. I mean, maybe, but it's probably not a coincidence that this particular bigass lab got hit in retaliation for chemical weapon attacks.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 02:49
|
|
|
Warbadger posted:Who said it was being used for research? A lab like that would contain everything required to whip up chemical weapons in useful amounts. If it makes you feel better someone's gonna ask Trump how they knew the lab was used for chemical weapons and he'll probably burn the mossad mole that they got the intelligence from.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 03:02
|
|
|
I loving hate that lab, and I'm glad its dead.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 03:07
|
|
|
The attack was symbolic, so it barely even matters what the lab was actually used for, unless they pulled a Clinton and bombed a pharmaceutical factory or something, which doesn't seem to be the case.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 03:33
|
|
|
Thanks for all the help with ISIS, Kurdish guys! Have fun with Assad!
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 03:39
|
|
|
Sinteres posted:Trump doesn't seem to agree that Macron convinced him to stay in Syria. Sergg posted:Thanks for all the help with ISIS, Kurdish guys! Have fun with Assad!
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 04:08
|
|
|
I somehow called Trump/Mattis calling Putin's bluff and avoiding further escalation after the missile strikes. The immediate situation's de-escalated now, right?
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 04:09
|
|
|
Sergg posted:Thanks for all the help with ISIS, Kurdish guys! Have fun with
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 04:40
|
|
|
Grouchio posted:I somehow called Trump/Mattis calling Putin's bluff and avoiding further escalation after the missile strikes. Putin is nothing but bluff. Remember how well Russia's one carrier operated?
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 04:40
|
|
|
Maybe Assad will cut a deal with the Kurds and say "Give us those oil wells and all the Sunni Arab territory you occupy and we'll let Syrian Kurdistan have regional autonomy" and after he's finished clearing out Eastern Syria then he'll invade Syrian Kurdistan.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 04:40
|
|
|
Grouchio posted:I somehow called Trump/Mattis calling Putin's bluff and avoiding further escalation after the missile strikes. Mattis and the military wanted limited strikes. Trump/Bolton wanted hits against the Russians and Iranians and half of Syria. Mattis won. The de-escalation took place in the White House on Friday.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 04:45
|
|
|
Sergg posted:I'll submit your request to the complaint box. I'm also going to refrain from insulting you back and hear you out, as I feel perhaps you're someone why may also have contributions or insights, since I'm one of those disgusting jerks who wants to listen to people even if they vehemently disagree with me, insult me, and even if I think they're incorrect. Funny how you only calm down and cut the snide jabs at me once you've backed yourself into a corner. How fair and considerate of you to moderate yourself at this specific instance. At the very least I'll thank you for sparing me from your embarrassing attempts to own me by doing another rehashed impression of what you think someone who supports the Syrian government acts like. Sergg posted:You'll notice that we in the thread are trying to come up with a more accurate label for Assad's Alawite-led regime that better reflects its subtle differences between Rhodesia and South Africa's form of race-based persecution rather than the ethno-religious persecution between various Arab cultural groupings inside Syria. Right, that's a funny way to say that you were wrong and decided to backpedal away after you realized you had nothing to back your claim up. You're the one who confidently and proudly declared that Syria was an apartheid state, now "we" (you) are brainstorming Sergg posted:Even in Rhodesia there were plenty of loyalist Zimbabwean collaborators whom Ian Smith considered "one of the good ones". From 1978 onwards, the Rhodesian military was extremely similar to the SAA. The majority of its soldiers were black with a core nucleus of career white soldiers and white officers, and its elite units (Rhodesian SAS and Rhodesian Light Infantry) were white-only, similar to Syria's elite fighting units like the Republican Guard and 4th Armored Division who are Alawite-only. There was also a large contingent of South African mercenaries fighting for Rhodesia who were black with white officers. Ok, there is a similarity between the two armies in that the upper ranks and special units were compromised of different groups than the majority of it's soldiers. I hope I'm not out of line when I say I think that fact alone does not mean that the alawite/sunni relationship is anywhere near that of the white/black relationship in rhodesia in any other sense than simple composition of the military. Sergg posted:I didn't skim the Wikipedia page, I actually did extensive research on this before posting it since I didn't want to misrepresent the facts, and every single source I found, from academic papers, Stratfor articles, books etc. said the same thing, 80% of the officers are Alawite. Yes, great, amazing, I can check the sources for the wikipedia articles too. also idk if you noticed but I didn't challenge that figure, I accepted it. Sergg posted:This was more akin to the Iranian Revolution where both radical Islamists and far leftists tried to overthrow the government with both thinking they'd end up on top afterwards. The far leftists were moreso remnants of the previous regime who felt Hafez had strayed too far from the path of Socialism or were just personally loyal to the people he'd deposed. I can't find a single thing about leftists fighting in the uprisings along them, maybe I'm not looking hard enough. This also doesn't really have much to do with our topic at hand unless you want to repeat yourself a third time but instead specify that the government had Alawites in it and that the radical Islamists were Sunni. Sergg posted:...but white-ruled South Africa, Rhodesia, etc. are the closest modern historical analogue I can think of You keep saying you think that but you're not telling me why. Unless you've been posting in invisible ink you have only brought up statistics about the military and some vague notion that the government is disproportionately Alawite, neither of which I disagree with, nor do I think those facts being true makes Syria an apartheid state. It's also suspect that from what I can find by briefly googling "syria alawites" I've found the same weak and barely relevant "evidence" that you're bringing here. You can't drown me in these huge walls of text where you bring up literally everything but the one thing I'm asking you for. I mean, you can try, but I've learned to fight the urge to let my eyes glaze over when I read your posts. Sergg posted:Holy poo poo I didn't even know about the Alawite-only traffic lanes. Pretty loving surreal. What's surreal is that you would take a one line anecdote from an article published by a UAE mouthpiece at face value. No, wait. I would expect nothing less from you. You feign this sense of fairness and righteousness when it's convenient for you but you fall back into the same ideological traps the instant you hear what you want.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 08:26
|
|
|
^^^^ you’re one of the worst posters I’ve seen in this thread in the past year, probably second worst after LeoMarr. please stop. I can’t even tell if you’re cheerleading for Assad or what. E: also hugely ironic if you to talk about him drowning -you- in huge walls of text. Lol look in a mirror.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 09:56
|
|
|
Saladman posted:^^^^ you’re one of the worst posters I’ve seen in this thread in the past year, probably second worst after LeoMarr. please stop. I can’t even tell if you’re cheerleading for Assad or what. I fully understand that I have owned myself by trying to debate and discuss in debate and discussion. I asked them a simple question that should have been responded to with a simple answer: "Why do you think Syria is an Apartheid State?" and you can see the result for yourself. It's like squeezing blood from a stone trying to get an answer that isn't a deflection or a paragraph about something else entirely to steer the discussion away. I literally have not even put forth a point of my own other than the fact that he's a lying moron who makes poo poo up. I'm sorry your regularly scheduled twitter reposts and masturbatory slavering over more war and destruction was disrupted. I'll do better, for you.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 10:18
|
|
|
Sergg posted:Maybe Assad will cut a deal with the Kurds and say "Give us those oil wells and all the Sunni Arab territory you occupy and we'll let Syrian Kurdistan have regional autonomy" and after he's finished clearing out Eastern Syria then he'll invade Syrian Kurdistan. I'm thinking a functionally permanent Turkish occupation zone in northern Syria is looking pretty likely. Assad and Erdogan going to cut a deal on this.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 10:33
|
|
|
Morzhovyye posted:I fully understand that I have owned myself by trying to debate and discuss in debate and discussion. Apartheid can be used to describe political systems not openly emulating an extinct South African one. Words can be reused and repurposed, that's how language works. It's why I'm fine with calling the Regime Fascist even though they (and their supporters) hate the word and want nothing more than to declare themselves as the good guys who are definately secular and non-sectarian. Stop exploding into furious little pieces every time someone calls you a oval office for your beliefs. It's lovely, nobody likes the posters who do it, and it's called a meltdown. oval office Morzhovyye posted:What's surreal is that you would take a one line anecdote from an article published by a UAE mouthpiece at face value. No, wait. I would expect nothing less from you. You feign this sense of fairness and righteousness when it's convenient for you but you fall back into the same ideological traps the instant you hear what you want. Hmm, yes. As opposed to the constant and reliable reporting done by those all Reuters and BBC journalists embedded and free to move in Regime territory. The ones they definately did not deport.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 10:36
|
|
|
HorrificExistence posted:Putin is nothing but bluff. careful, you can get called a neo conservative if you don't acknowledge the fearsome might of the admiral kusnetsov!
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 10:43
|
|
|
I mean if you want an actual definition for Syria it's a presidential republic in theory but an authoritarian oligarchy in practice. 
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 10:53
|
|
|
Syria bad
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 11:23
|
|
|
Morzhovyye posted:I fully understand that I have owned myself by trying to debate and discuss in debate and discussion. It’s not really so much what you said so much as how you said it. You come off as frothing at the mouth (not in this post, but the ones towards Squalid or Sergg or Sinteres or whichever one of those S posters it was that set you off a couple pages back. But now I’m curious are you actually supporting The Lion Assad and think he’s stand up, or do you just really care that labels and words are used according to your reference dictionary? If it’s the latter you should learn French and take up a job at l académie française, those old dudes would love you. Besides Al Saqr it doesn’t seem like anyone posting here really has any skin in the game anyway, except a handful of people who professionally work on MENA politics (but aren’t Syrian).
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 11:44
|
|
|
Squalid posted:I'm not sure there's any consistently established terminology. Kathleen Colins uses the term "clan-based authoritarianism," in reference to Central Asia. I like the term "personalistic dictatorship" for the Assad dynasty which I've taken from the Samuel Decalo's work on African praetorian regimes. Unlike the explicitly ethnic based systems of wealth redistribution seen in the African Apartheid states, the Alawites disproportionate access to resources comes indirectly through their personal relations with powerful figures that disperse patronage. Excellent points all around, as usual, Squalid. You've basically got a whole generation of dead Alawite men and the people best connected to the patronage networks could travel abroad or afford the bribe money to avoid military service. From the statistics I looked at, 95% of the refugees coming into the United States were Sunnis although I'd expect other destinations like Lebanon or Turkey would probably be more attractive to Alawite emigrants. It's also a reflection of the fact that the vast majority of fighting happened in Sunni areas that resulted in their towns being shelled to rubble. I do believe that the Alawites think themselves superior to the other ethnic groups but that's pretty typical ethnocentrism magnified by their control of the state, military, and large portions of the economic apparatus. I do think they would prefer to live in peace with the other ethnic groups, so long as most everyone else was willing to acknowledge Alawite hegemony in perpetuity. I suppose "Alawite-Power" is maybe too strong of a phrase because it evokes images of Nazis and Hitler. In all fairness, the Syrian state does gas children, purposefully target civilians, run mass execution facilities complete with crematoria, and there's that corpse processing yard where the bodies are photographed a few hundred meters from the balcony of Assad's Presidential Palace. I wonder if he ever looks down to see the handiwork of his security apparatus. Probably not. Mukhabarat security detail on him is probably too tight to let him linger on an open balcony. To me the best descriptor would be "Fascism wearing a rubber Joseph Stalin mask." Morzhovyye posted:Funny how you only calm down and cut the snide jabs at me once you've backed yourself into a corner. How fair and considerate of you to moderate yourself at this specific instance. At the very least I'll thank you for sparing me from your embarrassing attempts to own me by doing another rehashed impression of what you think someone who supports the Syrian government acts like. Alright dude, that bombastic spiel I recited about "blah blah may Assad gas every traitor" is something I've done since the days of LF whenever people were talking about how awesome Putin or Ahmadinejad or some other crazy repressive leader was. With the people praising Ahmadinejad I was all "Yes may Allah (PBUH) bless Ahmadinejad! May the billy clubs of the Basij smash the whore lips of every strumpet without her headscarf! etc. etc." It's an exercise in hyperbole to highlight the extremely horrific things these leaders do. I say the same poo poo to Americans who think torture is cool until I tell them about the glowstick sodomy and being locked in a coffin full of spiders that we did to various Guantanamo detainees. Matter of fact I think our current CIA Director may have been the one that locked Abu Zubaydah in a coffin full of spiders. Fun fact about Abu Zubaydah: he suffered severe brain damage from a shrapnel wound to his head in Afghanistan and he wrote journals in two voices, one in the present tense, the other in the past tense, to try and reconcile his severe amnesia, and US interrogators thought it was some kind of trick or code or something. Dude ended up being some low-level flunky who barely knew poo poo, as one might expect from someone with severe brain damage. As far as the leftists that opposed Hafez Assad's rule, it's a pretty obscure topic and they were a minor speed-bump on the way to Hama. The Islamist insurgency started in the 1970s with assassinations against prominent Alawite leaders, escalated into guerrilla warfare, and led to a split in the Baath Party and a few shakeups in the leadership as one side favored concessions, the other repression. Kinda like how the "Naqshbandi Army" of Saddam loyalists did a lot of legwork in Iraq to drive the Iraqi government out of towns in the north and in a few weeks they were either all absorbed into ISIS or dead in a ditch. Same deal with the concessionists that sided with the Islamists in Syria. They got a participation trophy and 6 feet of high-quality Levantine sand. The threat from the Muslim Brotherhood was orders of magnitude greater and the concessionists arguing for curtailing the powers of the security state soon found themselves purged. I still think the term Apartheid or at least "Diet Apartheid" apply to the Syrian government, as well as "fascist", for the record, based on the massively disproportionate power Alawites have over every lever of social dominance in Syria and their zealous devotion to maintain that power through brutal violence, which is basically the root cause of this war, which happens every generation as per the above paragraph. They may be forced to adopt a more pragmatic approach towards decentralizing power after this war, since they don't have the manpower to garrison the country anymore without subcontracting out to mercs and rebuilding will take, gently caress if I know, decades and decades. Either that or they might just double down on the brutality and give the Kurds a few thousand free barrels & some of that nap-time vapor.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 12:08
|
|
|
Fwiw there are more then a few Sunni businessmen who are key supporters of the regime, and control large swathes of the countries economy. They are now deeply intertwined by marriage and political links. Without them Assad would of never been able to afford the war.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 12:23
|
|
|
I did a fact-check and it was definitely our current CIA Director who ordered Abu Zubaydah (a man with severe cognitive impairment and amnesia from a head injury) to be waterboarded 83 times in one month, tortured so badly it destroyed his eye, and locked in a coffin full of spiders. No valuable intel was gained. I know Bush et al made a strong case that Zubaydah was a really high-ranking and valuable mastermind in Al-Qaeda but he literally had to write in multiple voices in his journals to remember basic details of his life.freeasinbeer posted:Fwiw there are more then a few Sunni businessmen who are key supporters of the regime, and control large swathes of the countries economy. They are now deeply intertwined by marriage and political links. Without them Assad would of never been able to afford the war. Oh most definitely. There is a core of Sunni loyalists and moderates who find the government distasteful but believe ISIS and other jihadist groups to be a much bigger long-term threat to their way of life. Lots of them used to live in Aleppo. Sergg fucked around with this message at 12:28 on Apr 16, 2018 |
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 12:26
|
|
|
Thank you for the post.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 12:30
|
|
|
Maybe Macron should just shut the gently caress up. https://twitter.com/hasavrat/status/985787667446198272 https://twitter.com/DailySabah/status/985839529675419648 Edit: For what it's worth, the Turkish FM also said relations with Russia aren't an alternative to NATO, and that Macron invited himself to the tripartite meeting with Turkey, Russia and Iran, and that Rouhani kept him out, but a 3+1 meeting may take place later. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 13:14 on Apr 16, 2018 |
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 12:40
|
|
|
Truly he is Jupiter come to life.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 13:01
|
|
|
freeasinbeer posted:Fwiw there are more then a few Sunni businessmen who are key supporters of the regime, and control large swathes of the countries economy. They are now deeply intertwined by marriage and political links. Without them Assad would of never been able to afford the war. Quite a few more fled. Most ended up in Egypt. The Syrian refugee business community in Egypt is huge, and they've contributed almost a billion dollars towards investments for new businesses in Egypt. https://stepfeed.com/syrian-businesses-contributed-usd800-million-to-egypt-s-economy-since-the-war-began-9828 And this thread seems relevant. https://twitter.com/Sergwalden/status/917139103803756544?s=19
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 13:38
|
|
|
Sergg posted:suppose "Alawite-Power" is maybe too strong of a phrase because it evokes images of Nazis and Hitler. In all fairness, the Syrian state does gas children, purposefully target civilians, run mass execution facilities complete with crematoria, and there's that corpse processing yard where the bodies are photographed a few hundred meters from the balcony of Assad's Presidential Palace. I wonder if he ever looks down to see the handiwork of his security apparatus. Probably not. Mukhabarat security detail on him is probably too tight to let him linger on an open balcony. To me the best descriptor would be "Fascism wearing a rubber Joseph Stalin mask." I don't think so. Daniel Pipes was writing about 'the Alawite capture of power' back in 1989 so it's not like its radical new conceptualization of the Syrian state. Syria is in many ways typical of the certain kind of dictatorship that is common among the diverse multiethnic states of subsaharan Africa, wherein one ethnicity comes to completely dominate the military or civil service. The most extreme example is probably Idi Amin's regime in Uganda, during which over just a few years Amin replaced almost the entire military with members of the northern Sudanic tribes that made up less than 10% of Uganda's population. lollontee posted:Apartheid can be used to describe political systems not openly emulating an extinct South African one. Words can be reused and repurposed, that's how language works. It's why I'm fine with calling the Regime Fascist even though they (and their supporters) hate the word and want nothing more than to declare themselves as the good guys who are definately secular and non-sectarian. Also goddamn it dude, how are so loving embarrassing. Please stop.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 15:50
|
|
|
Squalid posted:Also goddamn it dude, how are so loving embarrassing. Please stop.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 15:59
|
|
|
Lol I was thinking Daniel Pipes was who I remembered he was then I googled him and it all came back.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 16:45
|
|
|
Herstory Begins Now posted:careful, you can get called a neo conservative if you don't acknowledge the fearsome might of the admiral kusnetsov! I mean the ship did shoot down 3 Russian planes, pretty effective imo
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 16:48
|
|
|
[quote="“Bip Roberts”" post="“483204272”"] Lol I was thinking Daniel Pipes was who I remembered he was then I googled him and it all came back. [/quote] Yeah Volkerball has given good reasons for why he’s an idiot.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 17:20
|
|
|
Herstory Begins Now posted:careful, you can get called a neo conservative if you don't acknowledge the fearsome might of the admiral kusnetsov! ::Places hand over heart:: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yHbAhFnfrA
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 17:29
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/AP/status/985895476858904576?s=19 Funny since Russia already reportedly have Robert Fisk in there writing up some victim blaming nonsense.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 17:56
|
|
|
HorrificExistence posted:I mean the ship did shoot down 3 Russian planes, pretty effective imo Was that when they couldn't land because of the smoke cloud or is that a whole other fuckup. Ah Arresting cables malfunctioning  and it doesn't have a catapult it just has a ramp
Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Apr 16, 2018 |
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 18:43
|
|
|
Volkerball posted:https://twitter.com/AP/status/985895476858904576?s=19 Reports who?
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 18:58
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 26, 2024 13:38 |
|
|
A number of journalists were on the media tour, here's one of the first reports published: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSXwG-901yU And here's a preview of Fisk http://podcasts.spiritradio.ie/robert-fisk-from-douma-syria/ From what I'm seeing the locals are saying both there was definitely no chemical attack, and there was chemical attack, but the rebels did it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2018 19:27
|
|
