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My first fishmesch derail!....is a really desperate and confusing one. I feel like I just met a famous person, but they were bloated, drunk, and aggressively attacking my car while calling it a whore.
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Jul 21, 2018 03:51
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Volkerball posted:Some Iraqi activists are pushing for a nationwide protest campaign this Friday after prayers. We'll learn a lot about the scale and longevity of these protests then. https://twitter.com/abdullahawez/st...iveuamap.com%2F it looks like the protests were successfuly dispersed however HorrificExistence fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Jul 21, 2018 |
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Jul 21, 2018 05:03
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Saladin Rising posted:*snip* Good read, as always. And, sadly, part of reality. I mean, everyone ITT likes to talk about ideals and who should be in charge of it all, but after several years of this poo poo the facts on the ground simply become: "We don't care who's in charge so long as we get to live here." Even if that life is miserable.
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Jul 21, 2018 10:48
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Saladin Rising posted:And that's before you get to the part where the town [of Talbiseh] is loving wrecked, there's no jobs, and water and electricity are shoddy at best. God knows how long it's gonna be before Syria can rebuild itself What's interesting to me is that, in the satellite imagery of Talibseh on Google Images, dated from June 18, 2017, the town looks to be 100% intact with almost zero clearly visible damage. The only thing I see that's obvious is that the highway is ripped to shreds, but that was just as likely done by the rebels as a defensive mechanism than anything else. Ter Maleh looks fine too (Riad Sattouf's hometown). I vaguely followed liveUAmap for a couple years and I remember that pocket in the northern Homs countryside was surprisingly quiet compared to nearly everywhere else in Syria. [Edit: Rastan, also June 18 2017, also looks to be 100% intact.] Conversely look at northern Homs city and you can see it's absolutely destroyed to every building, completely unlike the small towns that are mentioned by that article where I was unable to even find a single building that looked clearly destroyed by an airstrike/artillery. Either the villages got completely wrecked in the past 13 months, or I don't understand why 90% of its population would flee when the infrastructure looks like it's still broadly there and it seems that Assad's government has really not at all been wholescale rounding up and slaughtering villages that surrendered. TBH I'd take unemployed limbo in my hometown compared to being a refugee in the hopeless Turkish province of Idlib, but I guess that relies on trusting that Assad's goons won't come at some point to arrest you. But again, 90% fleeing is nuts given that many people are women, too old, or too young to be especially relevant to goon squads. I mean even when literal Nazi goon squads were running through France I don't think it ever depopulated like that? [E2: This might be a really inapt comparison as I have no idea if you could actually have left to Vichy France if you even wanted to.] Saladman fucked around with this message at 11:14 on Jul 21, 2018 |
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Jul 21, 2018 11:05
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Squalid posted:I don't know what will happen to Syrian refugees. If they can go home safely that is probably the best outcome. If they can't however, I hope they will be able to build secure and permanent futures where they are today. While researchers are divided over the short term impacts of immigrants, in the long term the picture is much more evidently positive in terms of economic effect. The future risks are not so much related to the refugees themselves, who mostly want to build normal lives integrated with the wider community. However there are many mean and cruel spirited people who don't want that to happen, who want to keep them and their descendants second-class citizens. That is a surefire path alienation, violence, and discord. Preferably, if they can't go home (and I imagine quite a lot of them don't dare to in any case), something should be done so as not to create what amounts to a permanent refugee population in countries that aren't able to support them properly (like the Palestinians in Lebanon), the best thing would be for them to be settled in a variety of places and not concentrated in camps and ad hoc settlements so close to the former war zone*. *I can think of one example where that ended up really bad. Saladman posted:But again, 90% fleeing is nuts given that many people are women, too old, or too young to be especially relevant to goon squads. I mean even when literal Nazi goon squads were running through France I don't think it ever depopulated like that? [E2: This might be a really inapt comparison as I have no idea if you could actually have left to Vichy France if you even wanted to.] This kind of happened in Afghanistan in the 80s. Probably mostly as a result of the Soviet strategy of scorched earth and retaliation where villages would be destroyed, their herds slaughtered and the wells poisoned (not to mentioned that the people were killed) so they could not support the Mujahideen. Parts of southern Afghanistan were almost completely depopulated as a result of this. Ever since 2001 the government has been trying to get people to move back, as the country as not yet gotten over this loss of population, farmland and infrastructure, though of coruse the continuing war has made this difficult to say the least and continued producing new refugees as well. Randarkman fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Jul 21, 2018 |
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Jul 21, 2018 16:16
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Randarkman posted:This kind of happened in Afghanistan in the 80s. Probably mostly as a result of the Soviet strategy of scorched earth and retaliation where villages would be destroyed, their herds slaughtered and the wells poisoned (not to mentioned that the people were killed) so they could not support the Mujahideen. Parts of southern Afghanistan were almost completely depopulated as a result of this. Ever since 2001 the government has been trying to get people to move back, as the country as not yet gotten over this loss of population, farmland and infrastructure, though of coruse the continuing war has made this difficult to say the least and continued producing new refugees as well. Wow, holy poo poo I didn't really know anything about the Soviet-Afghan war other than that it was the "USSR's Vietnam", and I still don't know that much, but I just read the main Wiki page and some of the offshoot pages, and I didn't realize that it was so WW2-style brutal. I figured that meant proportionately, and not in raw numbers, but of a population of ±15 million, ±700k – 2.3m were killed (civilian and combatant)? It looks the Soviet-backed state had even thinner control of the country than the current Western-backed state. Are there any good books about that in English? The only thing I've ever seen is one Russian film, 9th Company, which anyway is a microscopic focus. I've read a few Cuban books recently, and it's also interesting how entrenched the Angolan Civil War was in their collective psyche, or at least it was in the 1990s, but how you never, ever, ever hear about it in Europe or North America. (Hell, that connection is even a lot weirder to me than USSR to Afghanistan, and I still don't understand the connection... although I was in Luanda recently and my flight to Lisbon was next to the Havana flight, and it looked totally full, so I guess there must still be some non-vestigial connection.)
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Jul 21, 2018 17:05
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Ardennes posted:Yeah, that isn't even remotely close to the point of the discussion? Not until you brought it into it idiot Ardennes posted:One explanation for the "racism" by the Lebanese (are they different race then the guys 100 kms away?)
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Jul 21, 2018 17:34
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Saladman posted:Wow, holy poo poo I didn't really know anything about the Soviet-Afghan war other than that it was the "USSR's Vietnam", and I still don't know that much, but I just read the main Wiki page and some of the offshoot pages, and I didn't realize that it was so WW2-style brutal. I figured that meant proportionately, and not in raw numbers, but of a population of ±15 million, ±700k – 2.3m were killed (civilian and combatant)? It looks the Soviet-backed state had even thinner control of the country than the current Western-backed state. It's a bit old by now, but one I always liked was "The Bear Came Over The Mountain". Forget who wrote it.
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Jul 21, 2018 18:27
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Warbadger posted:It is a lot easier to shoot at/over a bunch of unarmed people out to protest than it is to shoot at armed people who can shoot back, particularly the ones who set out to kill you. Look back at how brazenly the military and police were attacking civilians at the beginning of the Libyan and Syrian revolutions Uhh, I dunno how to break this to you but Syria and Libya began as peaceful demonstrations too and they got loving massacred for weeks on end and those of us who followed this from the beginning all had to watch it happen in hundreds of videos. Same deal with the Iraqi protests that eventually lead to massacres and then rebels taking control of the country which would agglomerate into ISIS. ISIS was simply the most powerful and organized group. The Naqshbandi Army did about half of the heavy lifting in the beginning before they were either purged or absorbed into ISIS. Also there were millions of Lebanese refugees all over the world, including many in Syria, due to their civil war. I specifically remember Syrians complaining that they had allowed the Syrians to take refuge in their cities only to be stabbed in the back by Hezbollah. Sergg fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Jul 21, 2018 |
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Jul 21, 2018 19:00
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Sergg posted:Uhh, I dunno how to break this to you but Syria and Libya began as peaceful demonstrations too and they got loving massacred for weeks on end and those of us who followed this from the beginning all had to watch it happen in hundreds of videos. That is what I said. That in Libya and Syria the police and military were brazenly attacking civilians and only curbed their enthusiasm when the civilians started shooting back. Hence it is easier, not harder, to shoot at unarmed people.
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Jul 21, 2018 19:02
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Warbadger posted:That is what I said. That in Libya and Syria the police and military were brazenly attacking civilians and only curbed their enthusiasm when the civilians started shooting back. Oh snap, my bad. Late night yesterday & I need a cup of coffee.
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Jul 21, 2018 19:03
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Saladman posted:Wow, holy poo poo I didn't really know anything about the Soviet-Afghan war other than that it was the "USSR's Vietnam", and I still don't know that much, but I just read the main Wiki page and some of the offshoot pages, and I didn't realize that it was so WW2-style brutal. I figured that meant proportionately, and not in raw numbers, but of a population of ±15 million, ±700k – 2.3m were killed (civilian and combatant)? It looks the Soviet-backed state had even thinner control of the country than the current Western-backed state. That's mostly civilian, by far, something like 100,000 mujahideen were killed, probably less. You should also add about 5 million refugees, mostly in Iran and Pakistan, and almost the same number of internally displaced (in the 80s like 1 of every 2 refugees in the world was an Afghan). Afghanistan was far from a modern country before the Soviet Intervention, but that war more or less completely destroyed the country. The Soviet-backed regime never managed to achieve any significant control of the country outside of the couple of major cities the country has. And while the current regime primarily faces armed resistance from the Pashtun Taliban, the communist regime was opposed by pretty much every ethnic group in the country (the primary supporters of the communist regime were military officers and their family, many of whom had been educated in the Soviet Union as part of an exchange program that gave training and aid to the Afghan government and army). This really made any kind of progessive reform agenda the communist regime in Afghanistan had completely worthless. The only experience the population at large had with the regime was at the exceedingly brutal hands of the Soviet military. Generally the Soviets did not trust their Afghan allies to conduct any kind of operations, and even had secretly (though in a shamelessly blatant manner) arranged for the assassination of the prime minister who initially called for Soviet aid in order to replace him with someone more compliant. Interestingly the communist regime actually managed to secure signficantly more popular support once the Soviets left the country and for the next few years of the civil war the government (though it recast itself as an Islamic republic) and the army actually emerged as one of the most powerful factions vying for control. I actually have never read any books specifically about the period of Soviet intervention*, only read about it in books that dealt with broader themes of the Islamic world and such. A friend of mine has been recommending "The Looming Tower" to me, though I think that primarily deals with Afghanistan in describing how al-Qaeda fit into it and what bin Laden was doing there (also of course that book primarily deals with 9/11. For just a really good book about Afghanistan I heartily recommend "Return of a King" by William Dalrymple, which deals with the first Anglo-Afghan war, but features a whole lot of research done by the author in India and Afghanistan and thus is based on a whole ton of Afghan and Indian (mostly Punjabi/Sikh) sources on that war. As for a movie I'd recommend "the Beast" which came out the same year as Rambo III but which is pretty much better in all conceivable ways (well, except for doing terribly at the box office), like the book you read it has a microscopic focus focusing on the crew of Soviet tank who are hunted by Mujahideen whose village they devastated (the Soviet tank crew are the protagonists and all speak English with American accents, while the Afghans speak Pashto, but the movie does a really good job of humanizing both the Afghans and the Soviet tankers even the Afghan soldier servng with the Soviets gets a notably sympathetic portrayal, it also delves somewhat into Pashtun culture), it's one of my personal favorite movies. * You often see it called the "Soviet war in Afghanistan" though it is important to remember that Afghanistan already was at war before the Soviets intervened (rebellion against the communist government, which had been installed by a miltiary coup began in 1978) and that the war has never really stopped, though it entered a period of relatively lower intensity between 1996 and 2001 when the Taliban had seized much of the country and were battling against the remnants of the Northern Alliance. edit: Just skimmed a bit through the wiki article again, and it reminded me how I've seen it mentioned that the Soviet forces made liberal use of booby traps in areas they devastated to prevent people returning to them, all part of the strategy to deprive the Mujaideen of sustenance and support. In addition to more improvised booby traps, they planted between 10 and 15 million landmines, the wiki article says that the UN estimates it will take 4,300 years to remove them all. Afghanistan is just completely hosed. Randarkman fucked around with this message at 20:04 on Jul 21, 2018 |
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Jul 21, 2018 19:36
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^^^ Jesus. Thanks for the summary, I'll have to read more into it. Also in news back on the Middle East, Vice's episode yesterday was 30 minutes of Isobel Yeung in Raqqa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rJCLrmTLE8 Unsurprisingly, it's incredibly depressing. Her episodes and Ben Anderson's are always super hard to watch.
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Jul 21, 2018 23:28
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Saladman posted:^^^ Jesus. Thanks for the summary, I'll have to read more into it. Don't mention it. I have to clarify one of my statements though, about the fate of the communist government after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989. While it is true that they managed to garner more effective popular support and legitimacy following the withdrawal of Soviet forces, the shift away from communism actually began in 1987 when the constitution was rewritten, by 1990 most or all references to socialism were gone and we're essentially talking about an Islamic republic like that which replaced the government when it fell in the wake of a large part of the army defecting under General Dostum. Chalk my own fogginess with many of the details up to me neve really having read a book that deals specifically with the Soviet-Afghan war itself, which is a shame because it really is the key event in Afghanistan's modern history I think, everything that has been going on there since has essentially (allowing myself to overly simplify things here though) been various factions fighting over the ruins created by that war. Part of the reasons there doesn't(?) seem to be any major books dealing with that war as a whole is that it is far from concluded and continues to this day and that really doing the research for such a book might just be too daunting (not to mention dangerous) a task to undertake. e: with the war in Afghanistan and the economic and environmental impact of their agricultural and industrial policies (not to mention the nuclear tests and other military weapons research) in the Central Asian republics the Soviet Union's legacy in that region is just loving dire. Randarkman fucked around with this message at 00:27 on Jul 22, 2018 |
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Jul 22, 2018 00:23
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svetlana alekseievich has a really good book about the war in afghanistan whose norwegian title translates to "zinc coffins"
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Jul 22, 2018 03:10
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Dostum was a general in the communist army? drat that guys like a bloated tick on the side of Afghanistan you just can't seem to shake. You know that perverted rapist is planning to return from exile on Sunday? It's sickening these beasts can spend a lifetime evading justice https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-dostum/exiled-afghan-vice-president-dostum-due-to-return-home-on-sunday-idUSKBN1KB0HT quote:KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan’s Vice President General Abdul Rashid Dostum, who left the country last year amid allegations of sexual abuse and torture, will return home on Sunday after more than a year in exile and resume his duties, officials said.  for those not in the know, he's in exile for raping a political rival. Or rather he ordered a subordinate to sodomize the man with a rod or gun or something after he couldn't get his own dick up. He has a long well documented history of this kind of behavior, previously going into exile for the same crime in 2008. There's no low he wouldn't stoop to
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Jul 22, 2018 04:08
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Squalid posted:for those not in the know, he's in exile for raping a political rival. Or rather he ordered a subordinate to sodomize the man with a rod or gun or something after he couldn't get his own dick up. He has a long well documented history of this kind of behavior, previously going into exile for the same crime in 2008. There's no low he wouldn't stoop to Super cool that Turkey was willing to provide him with a place to hide out until things blew over on both occasions.
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Jul 22, 2018 04:33
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The guy is the archetypal central asian warlord of our age. He's also the guy who packed Taliban prisoners into shipping containers, and let them roast in the sun. And during the civil war of the 90s he fought with and against everyone at one point or another.
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Jul 22, 2018 04:42
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Sinteres posted:Super cool that Turkey was willing to provide him with a place to hide out until things blew over on both occasions. He's was almost certainly on Turkey's payroll in the 1990s, and I suspect he still is. I read an absolutely insane op-ed by a some Congress person, I forget who, about how we need to support people like him in the Afghan government instead of these horrible Pashtuns. I think this was a result of Turkish lobbying, if not bribes. Dana Rohrabacher wants to kiss Dostum on the lips: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/may/17/dana-rohrabacher-rashid-dostum-afghan-vice-preside/ Dana Rohrabacher posted:Two years ago, a new team was elected to power. President Ashraf Ghani reached out to Gen. Dostum and made him vice president. He earned the job. Now, when decisions must be made, our president and his team are treating this Afghan hero as a pariah.
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Jul 22, 2018 04:44
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CrazyLoon posted:Good read, as always. And, sadly, part of reality. I mean, everyone ITT likes to talk about ideals and who should be in charge of it all, but after several years of this poo poo the facts on the ground simply become: "We don't care who's in charge so long as we get to live here." Even if that life is miserable. For the few thousand left behind after the nakba I suppose. Millions upon millions of refugees are going to be permanently displaced when this is all said and done. For the few who's homes haven't already been destroyed by regime bombings, under law 10 their properties will be confiscated, so there's nothing really to return to.
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Jul 22, 2018 05:37
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Count Roland posted:He's also the guy who packed Taliban prisoners into shipping containers, and let them roast in the sun.  Also jesus, that OP-ED. I can really recognize a former speech-writer for Reagan by the increase of my blood pressure as i am reading his text.
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Jul 22, 2018 08:44
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So those 800 white helmets getting priority resettlement in 'Western countries' is pretty much an admission they're assets, right?
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Jul 22, 2018 10:26
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WhiskeyWhiskers posted:So those 800 white helmets getting priority resettlement in 'Western countries' is pretty much an admission they're assets, right? Yeah, pretty much I guess, especially since Israel was facilitating the process. It is also true obviously they were also non-combatants assisting in civil defense, but it does seem there was a quid pro quo in place.
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Jul 22, 2018 10:37
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WhiskeyWhiskers posted:So those 800 white helmets getting priority resettlement in 'Western countries' is pretty much an admission they're assets, right? Assets to achieve what exactly? Western countries had zero apetite to tackle assad and were content to let russia and iran do what they want. What a load of horseshit. The white helmets are humanitarians and activists by nature in a sense that their reporting made the regime look bad and its supporters go bozonkers. It is not hard to imagine the fate worse than death that the mukhabarat has in store for them thus relocating them is the least anyone with a tiny bit of humanity left could do.
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Jul 22, 2018 10:53
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A database released containing 1.5 million people wanted by the regime. Nearly all my syrian friends name are on that list. It is not hard to see why the vast majority of refugees wont come back. . http://leaks.zamanalwsl.net/1.5m.php Savy Saracen salad fucked around with this message at 11:36 on Jul 22, 2018 |
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Jul 22, 2018 10:58
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White Helmets and their families have also been repeatedly targeted with arrests and reprisals following the capture of opposition held areas by government forces, plus they're potential witnesses for future war crime prosecutions, so leaving them to their fate in Syria would hardly be without consequences, now and in the long term.
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Jul 22, 2018 10:59
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It makes sense they are trying to get out of Syria, it is more that the Israeli government is assisting them in priority resettlement en masse to Western states that is the rub.
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Jul 22, 2018 11:04
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WhiskeyWhiskers posted:So those 800 white helmets getting priority resettlement in 'Western countries' is pretty much an admission they're assets, right? If you believe western countries care one bit about their supposed "assets", you must not have read as many stories as I did about Afghan translators getting turned down for asylum and then tortured by Talibans while NATO yawns as loudly as possible to cover their cries. Ardennes posted:It makes sense they are trying to get out of Syria, it is more that the Israeli government is assisting them in priority resettlement en masse to Western states that is the rub. All that means is that Israel said "we don't want these icky people soiling the ethnic purity of our homeland, please take them off our hands before we have to shove them away in Gaza or something". Cat Mattress fucked around with this message at 12:01 on Jul 22, 2018 |
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Jul 22, 2018 11:58
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Here's the BBC reporting on this: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-44915099 quote:Jordan said it had authorised the passage of 800 people, but it was later reported that several hundred were unable to make the journey. Those successfully evacuated included about 100 White Helmets, with the rest family members.
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Jul 22, 2018 12:12
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Was that a binding agreement with the White Helmets or in general? Certainly, there are hundreds of thousands of refugees out there with their lives in danger including all types of people who would probably be in trouble back in Syria. Also, the IDF going out of their way to conduct an operation to rescue them is quite a thing. Of course, I understand Israel's bind of them having to find then having to find "appropriate housing/restrooms/drinking fountains etc" and luckily could keep them moving.
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Jul 22, 2018 13:10
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Cat Mattress posted:All that means is that Israel said "we don't want these icky people soiling the ethnic purity of our homeland, please take them off our hands before we have to shove them away in Gaza or something". You know, does it ever occur to you that moustache-twirling monocle'd evil as you seem to portray is pretty much only the domain of Bond villains and similar cardboard fictional characters? Far more likely to me is "Israel figured (less out of altruism than realpolitik) it'd taint the White Helmets' usefulness as an independent witness if they settled in Israel, so agreed to allow them to transit Israel en route to places safely far away from the Middle East and thus away from the reach of Syrian hit squads. Jordan had the same basic idea and a border that was less insane to attempt the crossing of, and the mentioned Western countries had the ability to be unwise for the Syrians to conduct covert operations in, and an interest (for whatever reasons, maybe altruistic, maybe cynical) in seeing war crimes prosecutions be possible against Assad and co. at some future point." Because let's not kid ourselves, once they arrive in their destination countries, I fully expect the White Helmets are going into essentially witness protection.
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Jul 22, 2018 13:13
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Cat Mattress posted:If you believe western countries care one bit about their supposed "assets", you must not have read as many stories as I did about Afghan translators getting turned down for asylum and then tortured by Talibans while NATO yawns as loudly as possible to cover their cries. Translators are just people doing a job. These are quasi- or overtly politically involved, which gives them usefulness outside of Syria. As BM pointed out, they'd be effective as witnesses of Assad's brutality, which could be useful for a formal prosecution or less formal action/intervention in Syria. They're also super experienced, they'd make good trainers of similar activists/humanitarians in other arenas. Or even politicians in exile for Syria itself. It makes sense that they're worth some effort and risk to evacuate.
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Jul 22, 2018 14:15
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Spacewolf posted:You know, does it ever occur to you that moustache-twirling monocle'd evil as you seem to portray is pretty much only the domain of Bond villains and similar cardboard fictional characters? Israel only took them in the first place because other countries requested it. They made it pretty clear that they had a no entry policy and would accept zero refugees when the southern offensive began. Whether you view that as mustache twirling villainy or pragmatism is up to you, but it's their policy either way.
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Jul 22, 2018 14:26
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Count Roland posted:Translators are just people doing a job. These are quasi- or overtly politically involved, which gives them usefulness outside of Syria. As BM pointed out, they'd be effective as witnesses of Assad's brutality, which could be useful for a formal prosecution or less formal action/intervention in Syria. So basically, they are assets that could be reused for a future government in exile?
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Jul 22, 2018 14:36
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Given how much damage the refugee crisis did to the political systems of a lot of Western countries, and to NATO given the crisis it provoked with Turkey (though they were drifting before that), I think they'd be insane to try and spark a new one any time soon by doing anything that might restart the civil war. Maybe I'm being naive, but it's possible that Western governments wanted White Helmets evacuated in part because they're widely celebrated as humanitarian heroes and they didn't want to just leave them there to die.
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Jul 22, 2018 15:01
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From the work I've done with NGOs and other organisations in the last several years there's definitely been a shift in focus in the last year to justice and accountability, with a number of major efforts taking shape. The formation of the International Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) on Syria by the UNGA has been one driving force behind this shift, along with the general acceptance we're in the final stages of the conflict. A lot of these efforts are focused on Germany, as they can prosecute cases if the victims now live in Germany, even if the crimes occurred in Syria, and the recent charges against Jamil Hassan, head of Syria's feared Air Force Intelligence relating to Syria's torture programme is part of this. It's also not merely a case of presenting some videos from Syria and saying it's as war crime, but also proving who was giving orders and directly responsible for a specific crime. Organisations like CIJA, who have spent several years gathering and archiving vast numbers of documents smuggled out of Syria, including specific military orders, are key to building these cases, but it's an extremely time intensive and complex process. There's also a question of what to do with all the video and photographic content produced from the conflict. There's efforts now, which I'm involved in, around not only archving this content securely but also making it accessible to organisations like the IIIM. We're taking millions of videos from social media sites alone, and it's one thing to archive that, but another to make it accessible and, most importantly, searchable. On top of that there's a vast, but yet unknown, quantity of videos and photographs that are just sat on hard drives belonging to individuals and organisations across the world. Reaching out to those individuals and organisations, making the material accessible to the right parties, and a myriad of related issues is what I'm working on with a range of organisations. This doesn't only effect Syria, I'm also involved with similar projects around Yemen, and Libya is also of great interest as the ICC currently is investigating crimes there, and they have a great interest in the use of open source material and investigation. In August 2017 the ICC issued their first arrest warrant based on posts from social media, execution videos posted by one of General Haftar's commanders on Facebook. What was particularly interesting there is usually ICC arrest warrants are issued long after crimes are committed, but thanks to open source videos they were able to issue the warrant as the crimes were still ongoing, which had a significant polticial impact both with in Libya and internationally. There's a lot of this stuff going on quietly, and these are things that'll take years, if not decades to resolve, so even if the conflict in Syria ends tomorrow that will all still continue. What's also happen is lessons are being learnt about how open source material can be used by a range of organisations, from bodies like the UN and ICC all the way down to individual bloggers, journalists, and activists, so in future conflicts we hopefully won't spend years figuring out what to do with all this material.
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Jul 22, 2018 15:24
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Ardennes posted:So basically, they are assets that could be reused for a future government in exile? You really, really want them to be guilty of something, don't you?
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Jul 22, 2018 15:30
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Squalid posted:He's was almost certainly on Turkey's payroll in the 1990s, and I suspect he still is. Not at all unlikely. After the US lost interest in Afghanistan and the Soviet Union collapsed, the Afghan civil took on aspects of being a proxy war between regional powers. With Turkey and Iran being the primary backers of factions in the United Islamic Front (or Northern Alliance) and Pakistan and Saudi Arabia backing first Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's* Hezb-e Islami against them after the (formerly-)communist government fell and then later the Taliban once they emerged. Though I question whether any of these were really puppets in the true sense that these countries could direct them much other than by just providing the arms and funds and kind of hope they went after the guys they didn't want in power. V. Illych L. posted:svetlana alekseievich has a really good book about the war in afghanistan whose norwegian title translates to "zinc coffins" Ordered! To be honest, I am more interested in getting something from the Afghan perspective, particularly something that deals with the years leading up to the communist coup and why and how it happened. I have a general awareness of the events and major places but, as I've said before, I've never read anything that specifically deals with that. But I'll take the experiences of the Soviet soldiers, and I already read her book about female soldiers in WW2 which is very good ("the unwomanly face of war" or something like that) * This guy, like General Dostum, is a fixture in Afghanistan. In the civil war of the 1990s his forces practically destroyed Kabul through months of shelling when the government installed by the Northern Alliance held the capital. He was later defeated by the Taliban and went into exile, but his forces have since 2001 often fought alongside them against NATO and government forces. In 2016 he made peace with the government and, like Dostum is set to do, he's come back. He goes back further than the 90s civil war though, his forces were one of the factions that the Pakistanis tried (and to a certain extent succeeded) to have favored with funds and arms during the Soviet intervention. Pakistani (and Saudi by way of funding) association with him goes back further than the Soviet-Afghan war though. He's like the OG dude of radical Islamism in Afghanistan and had some followers but was largely shunned by most other Islamist organization in Afghanistan due to his extreme views at the time. During the time when Daoud Khan ruled Afghanistan (first through his nephew the king then as president after deposing the king) and was pushing for "Pashtunistan" (which was pretty damned close to sparking off a war with Pakistan) the Pakistanis did arm Islamist rebels and attempt to use them to start a proxy war in Afghanistan to weaken, or possibly depose, Daoud Khan, however Hekmatyar's radical Islamist did not have the support or numbers to pull it off and they were suppressed. e: Interestingly it looks like Hekmatyar's daughter actually has spoken up in the last few years in support of women's rights, more specifically the right to education. Randarkman fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Jul 22, 2018 |
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Jul 22, 2018 15:58
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:You really, really want them to be guilty of something, don't you? That is literally what he said. I have been posting in these threads for years, and haven't brought up White Helmets (at least from what I can remember.) That said, It absolutely does look fishy. Btw, the fact that war criminals can be treated absentia in Western countries is probably going to lead to even more bitter conflicts since the accused know they have no chance after the war and that the only way out for them is a victory. It also gives a leg up to countries looking for loyal proxies there is nothing waiting for them. Also, I wouldn't be surprised it if also leads to even more flagrant human rights abuses, and gives powers opposing the West an easier time. true.spoon posted:Let me guess, is Russian media pushing this point of view? Ah, ye olde, tis the Russkis who has invented this! gently caress, I don't know I don't read Russian news that much, and I am in Azerbaijan at the moment. It seems to be posted on a bunch of Western news-sites. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 16:50 on Jul 22, 2018 |
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Jul 22, 2018 16:29
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Let me guess, Russian media is pushing this point of view.
true.spoon fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Jul 22, 2018 |
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Jul 22, 2018 16:38
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