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Heliogabalos posted:Sorry if this is naive, but what constitutes the basis for Russia's alliance with Syria, other than obviously selling them weapons and generally just having a partner/tyrant/stake anywhere in the Middle East? I vaguely remember reading an article about various interests having interest/proxy-warring because of a proposed pipeline, and obviously Syria has oil fields. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Syria_relations
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Nov 29, 2017 03:08
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WhiskeyWhiskers posted:
It's laughable to the people who have ideological reasons for denying reality, I guess.
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Mar 20, 2018 17:32
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Libluini posted:Sadly, this legend is totally unbelievable if you even know a tiny bit about Germany. As a German, I can't even find this funny, just incomprehensible. Americans also like to joke about how Germans have no sense of humor.
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Mar 22, 2018 18:55
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Coldwar timewarp posted:It’s an unhelpful addition to discourse. Stupid things come out of the White House every day. No need to add to it rather than being straight up noncommittal like Mattis, someone who has more information on what plans are and has the common sense to say nothing at all. "We're not going to tell what our plans are" is the standard response given every time a reporter asks about them, ever. It would have been remarkable if he had said anything else. You're going a long way out of your way to get upset about nothing.
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Apr 12, 2018 02:45
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Sinteres posted:He was saying that Mattis said the right thing, whereas Sanders used the wrong generic phrase and signaled that we might be considering bombing Russians. She's not going to start WW3, it's just a stupid thing to even hint at; we all know targeting the Russian military isn't actually an option being actively considered. The Russians know it, too. It's a meaningless thing to get cranked about.
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Apr 12, 2018 02:58
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lollontee posted:Oh good, so it doesn't matter then? Colin Powell's famous Pottery Barn rule - you break it, you buy it. It is not in the US's interest to be the one to depose Assad and thus be responsible for what comes afterward. Actually, no one wants to be responsible for what happens after Assad, because it's going to be ugly and messy with lots of people dead and no real stability for at least a generation.
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Apr 12, 2018 20:31
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lollontee posted:Then come up with something else. Stall and avoid committing to anything until a better alternative materializes.
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Apr 12, 2018 21:04
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khwarezm posted:Hey guys (and especially Brown Moses, if he's reading), I've noticed that this has been tossed around social media as proof positive that all of the previous gas attacks are false flags, what do you make of it? https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2018/02/09/newsweek-engages-easily-debunkable-syria-chemical-weapon-trutherism-help-ian-wilkie/
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Apr 12, 2018 23:35
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Shear Modulus posted:TRUMP!!!! Uh, if there's any NATO troops in Ukraine somebody should tell NATO about it.
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Apr 14, 2018 01:41
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Brown Moses posted:Seeing Douma looks like it was at the very least a chlorine attack, delivered by Hip helicopters, you can tell the effectiveness of airstrikes in preventing future attacks by the number of Hip helicopters destroyed in the airstrikes. Zero. I don't think that's what they were even trying for. There are dozens of potential means of delivering chemical attacks, so there is no value in trying to take out one particular method. The intent was just to destroy difficult-to-replace assets as a deterrence to future use.
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Apr 15, 2018 17:41
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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.
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Apr 16, 2018 04:45
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Libluini posted:Who is that guy and what does he want to do? Send robots to Syria? Paid for by Mexico? Well, the analogy to the 30-years war is apt. Hire foreign mercenaries and pay them with looted spoils.
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Apr 17, 2018 18:06
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Randarkman posted:So, I read some article about the Russians claiming that they have uncovered a rebel chemical weapons facility in Douma and that they are also claiming that several doctors in the area are being threatened to remain silent. Is there any truth to do this? Or is it just another blatant lie from the Russians so that Westerners can keep feeling good about supporting Assad as the dastardly rebels gassed themselves again? You seem to have correctly answered your own question.
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Apr 18, 2018 00:19
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Grape posted:Iran only became Shia like 500 years ago lol. It's been going on for those 500 years, anyway. The Ottoman-Persian wars started in the early 16th century and sectarian shia vs. sunni disagreements were a significant part of it.
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Jul 23, 2018 22:30
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Sneakster posted:Wait, so why is the US in Afghanistan again? The Taliban were giving safe harbor to Al Qaeda and they were using that as a base for global terrorist operations. Thus it was decided that the Taliban taking over the whole country would be a very bad result. Afghanistan was still in the midst of a rather long and ugly civil war. We didn't technically invade, we just started giving lots of help to the Northern Alliance faction. It's been rather more difficult to stabilize the country than anticipated, shockingly. It's a good question as to whether letting the Taliban take over the country would have produced a worse result. I'm not sure at this point. Afghanistan was going to be a weeping sore for decades whether we had intervened or not and it's hard to judge which outcome would have been worse.
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Sep 11, 2018 04:16
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Sneakster posted:As far as I know its due to the Afghan government requesting any evidence of Osama Bin Laden's involvement with 9/11, which we said "gently caress you, here's our evidence", we invaded, and he was killed almost 10 years ago, and now we're there because... ??? ....sell them Ford's to drive on some highways we made there? Whats the US goal/endgame? Occupy until we've managed to stamp out mindcrime or any resentment created out from murdering civilians? ...end communism? It feels like we're just there to justify our bloated military. Gotta invade something, I guess. Ah, my apologies. I thought you were asking a sincere question in good faith. I see rather that you're here to push an agenda. so I will proceed to ignore you.
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Sep 11, 2018 04:30
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pro starcraft loser posted:Outside of purchasing US military equipment, what does SA do for us? I suspect oil has something to do with it.
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Oct 10, 2018 23:39
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Count Roland posted:Oh, they don't display for me, I just see a random twitter link and have to click through for the content. With FF, you have to allow trackers only in private windows for Tweets to embed.
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Dec 1, 2018 16:00
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Sergg posted:There are tens of thousands. It's estimated that there are about 6,000 members, actually. They'd sure like you to think there's tens of thousands, though.
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Jun 25, 2019 03:34
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Moridin920 posted:It's pretty fuckin' wild to say that "it's biased when the NYT editor removes all mention of US making up cassus bellis with regards to Iran" is a tankie position. So the paper "removed all insinuation or mention of the concept that this might all be made up bullshit designed to start a war" by leaving in an entire paragraph about the Gulf of Tonkin? quote:That historical reference is telling. It was in citing the “Gulf of Tonkin incident” — the North Vietnamese were accused of attacking American destroyers in that gulf in 1964 — that President Lyndon B. Johnson persuaded the Congress to authorize greater American military involvement in Vietnam. Historians have concluded that the attack never happened and Johnson’s ploy is now seen as the quintessential false flag operation. That's the third paragraph of the article. What are you criticizing, anyway?
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Jul 6, 2019 18:42
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Herstory Begins Now posted:What I'm saying is, and speaking as someone who has been here since before he could find syria on a map, I liked the dude and I liked his body of work but I respect him quite a lot less for how he's engaged with people here, especially after he came here to post his own loving article here for us to read and comment on. The problem is that nearly everyone who does disagree with him is actually an ideological nitpicker making disingenuous critiques. The criticisms aren't earnest or considered.
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Jul 7, 2019 01:01
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steinrokkan posted:Ask yourself which jingoistic country that offers unconditional support to Israeli military controls bases in Rojava, and then consider whether these reports should cast a shadow on the Kurds, or rather this imperialist country with a track record of unauthorized military interventions in the Middle East. A better question is to ask yourself which forum you're reading this on, and whether or not you should believe anything you read there.
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Aug 30, 2019 20:16
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Yemen war: Houthi rebels claim mass capture of Saudi troopsquote:Houthi rebels in Yemen say they have captured a large number of Saudi troops after a major attack near the border between the two countries.
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Sep 28, 2019 22:22
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:nato is silent on their member states actions They usually are. NATO is about collective action. Individual states can continue to do whatever they want on their own.
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Oct 11, 2019 23:47
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Less Claypool posted:I honestly can’t tell if he is being literal or sarcastic. That depends on how people respond to it. If they say nice things, he was serious. If they dislike it, he was joking.
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Oct 14, 2019 21:01
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Less Claypool posted:I think he is saying, fair ones don’t make a democracy great. Which is pretty true because most people are ignorant. See middle America. People freely choosing a stupid government is exactly how democracy is supposed to work.
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Oct 25, 2019 15:10
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suck my woke dick posted:The US should've unilaterally pulled out the nukes and announced it after the fact, change my mind I suspect the rules of NATO would rather frown on that. Keeping each other apprised of what you're up to is pretty integral to its operation.
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Dec 12, 2019 16:20
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Grouchio posted:Trump did all of this in an attempt to distract PR away from impeachment. Do you folks think this will subtract from (distracting proxy war) or add to impeachment proceedings? (wanton aggression) Rudy Giuliani has assured me this is all Hunter Biden's doing. I'm sure he'll get to the bottom of it.
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Jan 3, 2020 03:16
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Saint Celestine posted:Right, so whats the exit strategy? You can't keep ^ that up for ~20 years. I suspect having all US bases overrun by militias simultaneously should do it.
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Jan 3, 2020 23:33
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Haramstufe Rot posted:Gonna cost a lot of money and lives even if the US bulldozes the military. Conservatives are still sore about the embassy hostages from 40 years ago.
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Jan 6, 2020 00:03
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Hamelekim posted:This could explain the fire. That was actually the first thing I thought of. drat.
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Jan 8, 2020 05:18
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V. Illych L. posted:iran's air defence systems being on a hair trigger is probably not unrelated to the world's sole superpower with a major emphasis on air power assassinating their top general out of the blue, to be fair Perhaps it would have been responsible of Iran to close its airspace to commercial traffic during the few hours of action to stay on the safe side.
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Jan 10, 2020 01:50
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Count Roland posted:Huh, I didn't even know there were extensions outside of Firefox's own website search. But why wouldn't there be. Another option is Content Block Helper, which lets you pick and choose which scripts to load on a site. With a bit of detective work you can figure out the ones that control accounting and page access and disable them.
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Jan 15, 2020 23:24
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Brown Moses posted:His suicide belt would go off like a nuclear bomb. "Finally, monsieur – a wafer-thin mint."
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Jan 18, 2020 22:15
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Jagged Jim posted:This is just the perfect time for this poo poo. Iran's flying gunboats are a real problem, all right.
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Apr 22, 2020 14:50
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Grouchio posted:I suspect he'd be the sort of fellow to merge the presidency with the supreme leadership upon Khamenei's death. He may be, but it hasn't happened yet and he is officially and legally the president of Iran. Pretending otherwise is dishonest.
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Jun 21, 2021 20:33
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Nenonen posted:Right, Taliban rule was not good by any metric, and if nothing has changed then it will be just as bad. The other question is will Afghanistan become a safe haven for terrorist groups once again, in which case the war will not actually end. It doesn't seem like IS will be able to live amicably with Taliban but some Al Qaida successor cell might get along. Afghanistan will have a democratic, Western-style government when they collectively want one. Right now, they've been so traumatized they just want peace and stability. The Taliban are the only ones determined to keep fighting no matter what, so they're going to win by default. It will probably take a generation or two for them to get fed up with the constraints of Islamic fundamentalism and start trying to do something about it. Maybe by the the Taliban will have chilled out a bit, as well. I think it's going to be a problem that we'll have to admit can't be solved at the moment and will have to leave it for posterity to figure out.
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Jul 6, 2021 17:53
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Nenonen posted:lol No, it's not the will of the Afghan people as a whole. The people with the guns tasked with defending the state are throwing down their arms and running away, though. No outside force is going to fight for them. So the Taliban will win by default. How that plays out is for history to tell. Maybe the Taliban will mellow, maybe there will be a democratic revolution. Whatever it is, it will have to come from the Afghan people themselves, not imposed by colonial powers.
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Jul 6, 2021 18:49
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Nenonen posted:Yes, and what's your point? Just let everyone rot under a zealous dictatorship is an improvement? Global powers will continue bombing them if terrorist organizations take root there and Afghanistan's only real income will continue to be from opium trade which together with Taliban's human rights stance will keep them as a pariah country that no one cares about, so I find it very, very hard to see any silver lining here. There isn't any silver lining. Sometimes reality sucks and there's nothing you can do about it. The Taliban will be awful and everyone will hate it. We've just seen what happens if outside forces try to fix things. The solution is going to have to come from within Afghanistan itself and it's probably going to be a while.
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Jul 6, 2021 19:01
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Grip it and rip it posted:Right, so I'm not following the assertion that the war was to protect mining interests? Seems like mining was a red herring Before the Soviets invaded, there were some known mineral deposits that were ready to be mined and exploited. However, it all got shut down and never revived once the shooting started. So there are mining interests, but nothing to protect at this point.
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Jul 7, 2021 02:55
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