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For those more informed than me; why isn't just killing Assad an option?

It doesn't really solve anything. It'd just create a power vacuum without providing proportionally big benefits.

Killing Assad doesn't solve anything because the Syrian government isn't a single man. The Assad family is more than Bashar Assad. Too many in the current regime are too heavily invested to let all their efforts just collapse due to the death of one man. They will just find someone else. Most of us say Assad because he is a convenient representation of the Syrian government, but there has always been debate to what extent Assad is really in control of the wider war effort.

The truth is that what the Middle-East needs is an effort akin to that of the USA in Germany post WW2. A complete cultural restructuring from the ground up with a decades long occupation and direct control.

In short, cultural genocide. And nobody has the political willpower or desire to enforce that. Yet without it? Nothing will change short term. Dictators keep rising, fanatical religion drives atrocities, borders change, and anyone with half a brain or shred of morality flees.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
For those more informed than me; why isn't just killing Assad an option?

It's generally considered to be against the 'rules' of the great game to assassinate a head of state in peacetime, no matter how bad they are. It sets a dangerous precedent. It's why it's rare for an embassy to be raided, as your embassy in their country would suffer the same effect.

Wartime, is another matter, however.

 Ketara wrote:
The truth is that what the Middle-East needs is an effort akin to that of the USA in Germany post WW2. A complete cultural restructuring from the ground up with a decades long occupation and direct control.

In short, cultural genocide. And nobody has the political willpower or desire to enforce that. Yet without it? Nothing will change short term. Dictators keep rising, fanatical religion drives atrocities, borders change, and anyone with half a brain or shred of morality flees.

Hm. No.

 Ketara wrote:
The truth is that what the Middle-East needs is an effort akin to that of the USA in Germany post WW2. A complete cultural restructuring from the ground up with a decades long occupation and direct control.

In short, cultural genocide. And nobody has the political willpower or desire to enforce that. Yet without it? Nothing will change short term. Dictators keep rising, fanatical religion drives atrocities, borders change, and anyone with half a brain or shred of morality flees.

There's only one man who did cultural genocide in the Middle East, and that was Genghis Khan, and nobody wants to see somebody like him back again

I may get some stick for this, but I believe that Western values of liberty, democracy, freedom of speech, rule of law etc etc are superior to anything else on God's earth, and worth defending at all cost.

I also believe and accept that there are people on God's earth who have no interest in our Western values, and we should NEVER try and impose them on these places or people, Afghanistan being a prime example. Democracy, IMO, comes from the ground up, and if they want it there, they are perfectly capable of doing it themselves.

If it's there choice to live in tribal societies, then so be it. It's not for us to tell them how to organise their societies.

Defend ourselves? Yes. Impose? Never.

Part of the problem in the Middle East IMO, is that we're trying to impose our values and systems by a gun barrel or a cruise missile.

Never going to work.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
For those more informed than me; why isn't just killing Assad an option?

Killing Trump and Hillary will help more. Without Assad regime will be weaker and it will give relief to the terrorists, that they only endure an endless war

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Killing Assad doesn't solve anything because the Syrian government isn't a single man. The Assad family is more than Bashar Assad. Too many in the current regime are too heavily invested to let all their efforts just collapse due to the death of one man. They will just find someone else. Most of us say Assad because he is a convenient representation of the Syrian government, but there has always been debate to what extent Assad is really in control of the wider war effort.

Aye, he might well not be in control, at least not every day. Official Syrian news of the President supposedly doing something often seem to come with photoshopped pictures, a more or less fake looking Bashar al-Assad pasted into the scene. He was never there, either because the generals chose to lock him up that day, he feared assassins or it just wasn't important enough to care about.

Spetulhu wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Killing Assad doesn't solve anything because the Syrian government isn't a single man. The Assad family is more than Bashar Assad. Too many in the current regime are too heavily invested to let all their efforts just collapse due to the death of one man. They will just find someone else. Most of us say Assad because he is a convenient representation of the Syrian government, but there has always been debate to what extent Assad is really in control of the wider war effort.

Aye, he might well not be in control, at least not every day. Official Syrian news of the President supposedly doing something often seem to come with photoshopped pictures, a more or less fake looking Bashar al-Assad pasted into the scene. He was never there, either because the generals chose to lock him up that day, he feared assassins or it just wasn't important enough to care about.

He has some level of control, but take for example say his brother Maher Assad. Maher is/was an important military commander, reportedly a very heavy driver of the violent crackdown on the early protests. Wider family members have all kinds of positions in the army and security forces, and its hard to assess the extent of freedom they have in pursuing their goals.

As to Bashar, its only logical that he tends to stay in his palace. He is very much a symbolic target. The brother I just mentioned, Maher, barely avoided being killed in a bomb blast and I believe a brother in law did actually die in a bomb blast. Assassination is a significant risk.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Freakazoitt wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
For those more informed than me; why isn't just killing Assad an option?

Killing Trump and Hillary will help more. Without Assad regime will be weaker and it will give relief to the terrorists, that they only endure an endless war

I know Russia tends to be stuck in the past, so you might not have heard Hillary hasn't been politically relevant since 2016... Otherwise, top notch rant.

I see. Thanks for the responsed guys.

 Freakazoitt wrote:

Killing Trump and Hillary will help more. Without Assad regime will be weaker and it will give relief to the terrorists, that they only endure an endless war

A swift nuke to both Moscow and Washington DC would solve a lot of problems, but generate a lot more. And Putin seems keen on creating 'endless war' as an instrument of state all over the place.



Also there's this. Macron seems to think he's got Trump convinced to not withdraw US troops from Syria.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43778831

I do not understand the position of the Kurds. Do they create a separate state or not? If so, why do not they announce it to get some kind of official protection? Or to agree with Assad on autonomy. I wonder what will happen if Turkey continues the invasion.

Rosebuddy wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
The truth is that what the Middle-East needs is an effort akin to that of the USA in Germany post WW2. A complete cultural restructuring from the ground up with a decades long occupation and direct control.

In short, cultural genocide. And nobody has the political willpower or desire to enforce that. Yet without it? Nothing will change short term. Dictators keep rising, fanatical religion drives atrocities, borders change, and anyone with half a brain or shred of morality flees.

Hm. No.

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
The truth is that what the Middle-East needs is an effort akin to that of the USA in Germany post WW2. A complete cultural restructuring from the ground up with a decades long occupation and direct control.

In short, cultural genocide. And nobody has the political willpower or desire to enforce that. Yet without it? Nothing will change short term. Dictators keep rising, fanatical religion drives atrocities, borders change, and anyone with half a brain or shred of morality flees.

There's only one man who did cultural genocide in the Middle East, and that was Genghis Khan, and nobody wants to see somebody like him back again

I just realised that I wasn't entirely clear in my earlier statement and phrased badly. I'm not advocating that we undertake cultural genocide in the Middle-East. Frankly I'm of the opinion enough blood and money has been sweated in that direction as is.

What I was trying to communicate was that if you would like to make the Middle East more like the West in terms of political stability, equality amongst sexes, etc, than that in turn would need a complete cultural restructuring (and thus occupation and cultural genocide). There's no other short term way of making it happen. Lobbing missiles and aid packages simply doesn't do it, and neither does getting chummy with the local dictator and hoping the soft power spreads.

It took the West a long time to mutate into its current incarnation, and you can't just replicate that in a few decades abroad. Not only that, you have an option that was far less prevalent before, where those of a more liberal or educated mindset have places to flee and try to start again more in line with their mentality; rather than being forced to stay at home and enact change there. The resultant brain drain makes it far more difficult to enact any kind of substantial societal shift.

This is of course, also all dependent upon one subscribing to the idea that we should be exerting cultural domination at the expense of other ones to boot. I tend to be of the opinion we should; albeit with much qualification and reluctance. Such things have gone badly wrong too many times before for it to sit comfortably with me. At the same time though, I look at the level of oppression and violence towards women and minorities specifically, and the population generally across the Middle-East, and would like to see it end.

How to achieve that? I honestly don't know. I've no appetite for a colonial occupation/cultural genocide, but at the same time, things clearly aren't working in the current model. Building a wall around the place is hardly the humane option. There really is no easy answer.

You are correct that what the West is currently trying to do with the Middle East won't make anything better. The thing is, though, that the West is not interested in improving the lives of the many peoples who live there. They just want to use the term "human rights" to justify deposing governments that don't want to work under Western powers. Look at how everyone calling for invasion and the deposing of the Syrian government are entirely uninterested in doing anything about Saudi Arabia murdering their way through Yemen.

The US goal in the Middle East is not at all democracy. What is meant when they say "democracy" is not that, say, the people of Iran should decide for themselves what they should do. What is meant by "democracy" is a system that is subservient to the economic and imperial interests of the US.

There aren't any easy answers but there are some clear starting points. One of these is the cessation of Western manipulation.

Rosebuddy wrote:
You are correct that what the West is currently trying to do with the Middle East won't make anything better. The thing is, though, that the West is not interested in improving the lives of the many peoples who live there. They just want to use the term "human rights" to justify deposing governments that don't want to work under Western powers. Look at how everyone calling for invasion and the deposing of the Syrian government are entirely uninterested in doing anything about Saudi Arabia murdering their way through Yemen....

...There aren't any easy answers but there are some clear starting points. One of these is the cessation of Western manipulation.

I think that trying to portray 'the West' as a monomind entity callously manipulating things is somewhat baffling to begin with. Different institutions and people have different aims and goals within different regions of the Middle East. Sometimes even the same people have countervailing goals, and end up having to make contradictory choices.

To take someone like Theresa May as an example straight off; she appears to have fairly strong beliefs about womens rights. But she has to balance that against UK economic interests, which are positioned next to British geopolitical/diplomatic needs, which are in turn sat heavily next to a desire to try and stop any forms of international terrorism which could come home to bite us in the bum domestically.

That's a lot of motivations all sitting uneasily in one lone woman, motivations which will ally on certain issues and clash on others. Sometimes one will win over another, another time it will reverse according to priority. And that's a single person! When you replicate that across the political spectrum of the entire Western world, you end up with a clashing incoherent mess of goals and objectives.

So talking about how 'the West' needs to stop meddling, as if it's just one person with one unifying aim, simplifies things to the point of being meaningless. Humanitarian charities will keep on trying to provide aid regardless of what dictators they prop up in the process, countries will keep selling weapons (amongst many other forms of produce) so as to keep their economies running, secret services will carry on trying to eliminate any threats there (because that's what they exist to do), and so on. There are many different people with many different motivations. You can curtail one or two if you're in the relevant position of power, but humans are always going to poke their nose into each others business.

Not sure there's much you can do to stop that outside of a facist autocracy. And I'm not sure that setting up those in the West is the solution to problems in the Middle-East....

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

There's only one man who did cultural genocide in the Middle East, and that was Genghis Khan, and nobody wants to see somebody like him back again

You mean a genuine visionary who managed to transform a disparate collection of individual tribes into one of the greatest empires ever seen? And who did so through radical reform of the culture and traditions of said people just as much as through military acumen?

Genghis Khan was brutal in warfare when given reason to do so, but his politics was also surprisingly liberal. He deconstructed the rule of the aristocracy in favour of meritocracy where people were given positions based on skill rather than breeding, abolished slavery for mongols, made kidnap and selling of women (previously a legitimate form of acquiring a wife) illegal, declared that any child born of mongol parents was legitimate, ordered the adoption of writing, introduced freedom of religion, tax exemptions for people who provided public services such as religious leaders, undertakers, doctors, teachers, scholars, etc.

 Ketara wrote:
What I was trying to communicate was that if you would like to make the Middle East more like the West in terms of political stability, equality amongst sexes, etc, than that in turn would need a complete cultural restructuring (and thus occupation and cultural genocide). There's no other short term way of making it happen. Lobbing missiles and aid packages simply doesn't do it, and neither does getting chummy with the local dictator and hoping the soft power spreads.

Not to mention that the West hasn't exactly been too interested in seeing any democracy there, because dictators are so much easier to make deals with. Iran used to be a democracy with quite a lot of freedom for both sexes before certain powers saw fit to install the Shah as supreme ruler instead, for example. Easier to keep the oil money rolling in, though the official reason for the coup was IIRC the fear that they'd go Communist. Instead we got the famous religious uprising against the immoral lifestyle of the ruler. And it's not the only time outsiders have messed up a ME country or other for some short-sighted goal without foreseeing possible later developments.

So in a way it might be best we keep our hands off as much as possible. No one foresaw ISIS rising, mess up a few more places and who knows what will replace the dictator/government there!

 Ketara wrote:
I think that trying to portray 'the West' as a monomind entity callously manipulating things is somewhat baffling to begin with.

The US, England, France, what have you, are conveniently baked together into the useful shorthand of "the West" because that is often how they like to portray themselves and because while they may have different exact goals in mind the overall approach and impact is the same. Never mind that they work together a fair amount of the time. If you want to really get into the nitty-gritty of it, it's no less simplistic to talk about "the Middle East" than it is to talk about "the West". To accept the former but object to the latter is a case of blindness, either caused by ideology or by the simple fact of being more aware of the differences between and within Western countries than the differences between and within Middle Eastern countries.

Rosebuddy wrote:
You are correct that what the West is currently trying to do with the Middle East won't make anything better. The thing is, though, that the West is not interested in improving the lives of the many peoples who live there. They just want to use the term "human rights" to justify deposing governments that don't want to work under Western powers. Look at how everyone calling for invasion and the deposing of the Syrian government are entirely uninterested in doing anything about Saudi Arabia murdering their way through Yemen.

The US goal in the Middle East is not at all democracy. What is meant when they say "democracy" is not that, say, the people of Iran should decide for themselves what they should do. What is meant by "democracy" is a system that is subservient to the economic and imperial interests of the US.

There aren't any easy answers but there are some clear starting points. One of these is the cessation of Western manipulation.

Wrong. You have to look back at decades of terrorism before 9/11 to see how we got here and what the US and western powers have tried to do. There has always been a conflict in American politics, whereas we do not like places like Saudi Arabia and so on, yet at the time were heavily dependent on oil. After decades of high-jackings, bombings, etc etc, the conclusion some came up with was that if the people of the middle east had more of a say in their government (who many times were supported by us or the Russians), then they 'should' be less likely to resort to terrorism. The attacking of westerners was lashing out for the support for the governments they were resisting at home. At least in most places. In some places, it was just state-sponsored terrorism (Libya). They felt if you could remove US support for some of these governments, they would be easier to bring down.

The US wasn't oblivious to this. They were caught between a rock and a hard place. At the time, it was felt that if you could get democracy to flourish at least in one country in the middle east, it would spread to others. Of course, most governments wouldn't go willingly, but the thought was, if the middle east had open, democratic, and secular societies like in the west, there would be a lot less terrorism. Business and trade would benefit as well.

Iraq was part of that great experiment. Iraq happened for a lot of reasons, but make no mistake about it, the pretext of weapons of mass destruction was just to galvanize support, because the idea of overthrowing a government and nation building was too much for most people to handle. That is why policy makers seemed so naive. It was thought that, by removing Saddam, who we felt everyone hated, would allow everyone to hug each other in celebration and begin starting their new government. Instead, the US wasn't prepared to deal with the deep divisions within Iraq's society and things pretty quickly went to hell. But had Iraq worked, it would have served as a template to be followed in the middle east. And who knows, if Iraq turns into a stable, prosperous, and democratic country in 20 years, who knows what effect that will have on the region. Creating democracies is a messy business. It failed in Russia and many other places.

But the long term goal of the US has always been to try and make the region more stable, as it was dependent on it. Thanks to fracking, we aren't so dependent on it for the time being. But it took some pretty brutal regimes to rule over all of their parts of the middle east, and thanks to some borders that really need to be re-drawn, it makes getting various parties on the same page difficult. Iraq fractured, Syria fractured, Libya fractured, Yemen fractured, and I am sure others would as well before its all said and done.

Rosebuddy wrote:

The US, England, France, what have you, are conveniently baked together into the useful shorthand of "the West" because that is often how they like to portray themselves and because while they may have different exact goals in mind the overall approach and impact is the same.

The fact you keep using the moniker 'they' and collectively keep grouping together the intent and actions by everything from animal welfare charities to intelligence services to collaborative projects between academics feels a bit weird, I won't lie.

If you want to really get into the nitty-gritty of it, it's no less simplistic to talk about "the Middle East" than it is to talk about "the West".

Errr....One is a geographic region of the world. Like Asia and Europe.

The other is a half baked colloquial concept used for designating the collective cultural offspring of specific political, philosophical, ethical and economic discourses from the past millennia. Like you said, it's a 'useful shorthand', but it's about as much use when discussing complex international matters as describing everything above the legs as 'the torso' during heart surgery. I mean, sure, it gets you moving in vaguely the right direction, but you need to look a bit more closely at the instruction sheet quite quickly.

Saying 'the West should stop meddling in the Middle East as a precursor to [undefined]' actually says very little beyond implying some vague belief that the 'West' is responsible for negative things there. A bit like Brexiteers blaming immigrants. So....what part of the 'West' needs to stop 'manipulating' things?

Should the tourists all go home? They bring revenue and cultural appreciation, but they also bring different concepts and behaviours, and end up remodelling local provinces to meet their needs instead of that of locals. Should the aid charities go? They provide a much needed degree of charity to people in desperate need, but they also prop up dictators and violent groups in order to get some of that aid through; as well as impacting negatively on local economies. What about foreign reporters and journalists? Sure, they often grab and disseminate accurate information which people like to know, but that sort of information flow often causes ructions and unrest. Foreign business? Western companies can grant revenue and technology for exploitation of resources which the locals often don't have access to on their own; but they can all too often suck out most of the profit and failt o re-invest it locally.

Heck, the 'West' involves cultural spread as well. Should we be banning Sky from showing the Simpsons in other parts of the world? Demonstrating that a better basic standard of living often causes jealousy or resentment, as well as making people feel like their culture is being edged out by the corporate behemoths of the 'West'. It also forces people who might not want to deal with issues such as gender inequality come face to face with those concepts. Should the 'West' be made to leave them alone?

You'll doubtless point out that I haven't mentioned a single government, but that's kind of my point. 'The 'West' is a very broad brush concept and just vaguely attributing ills in the Middle East to it is, I think, a bit intellectually lazy. There's nothing happening in the Middle East involving the West that doesn't also occur in Africa. Yet it's quite clear that the further you move North of the equator, the more problems with fundamentalism and military conflict gradually increase.

There's nothing wrong with saying that European or even 'Western' or North American Governments should stop interfering in local politics. It's a good starting place for debate. But it begins to descend into problems the moment you move past the obvious 'invasions/assassinations' level of discourse (and even there, one has to consider items like 9/11 and geopolitical concerns as legitimate items for potential military action).

For example, is conducting trade with Middle-Eastern governments 'interfering'? If not, what if it consists of selling arms and oppression methods/training? As mentioned before, what if that trade involves importing novel concepts along with entertainment packages or books, like the one where women count as independent actual people? Your local Wahhabist cleric might well consider that political interference, especially if religion is mixed with the state, as it causes political unrest.

Ulltimately it is, I think, the sort of issue that occurs when cultures clash in an oppositional way. Not just between the 'West' and those located in the Middle-East. But on a more general level. Information, goods, and people all travel at blinding speeds compared to yesteryear. Yet certain factors in the Middle East would appear to make that culture clash more violent and shocking then they do in other parts of the world, like South America. And I don't think that can or will be resolved in the next century without action so oppressive it would make most liberals shudder.

I'm not sure if this has been discussed elsewhere, but the ARES group have put up an article discussing the Coalition attack a few days ago.

http://armamentresearch.com/summary-of-weapons-used-in-recent-strikes-against-cw-targets-in-syria/

Its fairly brief, but their blog has some really interesting posts if you're into weaponry. They also have various reports on all sorts of topics, usually commissioned to provide an impartial overview of the subject matter. If you know Forgotten Weapons, Ian who runs that also works for ARES.

 Ketara wrote:
Saying 'the West should stop meddling in the Middle East as a precursor to [undefined]' actually says very little beyond implying some vague belief that the 'West' is responsible for negative things there. A bit like Brexiteers blaming immigrants. So....what part of the 'West' needs to stop 'manipulating' things?

The governments, intelligence agencies and armed forces that are the ones doing the y'know bombing, the arming of militant forces, the enforcement of sanctions and so on. Animal activitsts very obviously don't matter all that much in this context that we're talking about, the context of military and economic force applied to the Middle East by US, French, English etc (IE, "Western") governments, and state organs.

The people who decide and enforce policy.



But you actually know this already and are just being wilfully obtuse because your ideology prevents you from admitting that there in fact is such a thing as the West that has a long history of colonialism and interference in the Middle East. If you have followed various news about the political situations in the Middle East for long enough that you feel you can make the proclamation that nothing short of genocide will fix anything then you damned well know what "the West" means. Not the least because the people to whom it applies use it in the same way as I do. It's been in use since the Cold War, ffs.

Rosebuddy wrote:

But you actually know this already and are just being wilfully obtuse because your ideology prevents you from admitting that there in fact is such a thing as the West that has a long history of colonialism and interference in the Middle East...

Oh dear.

Guv, if you're going to throw about vague terminology and statements and then get arsey when I start picking up on that? There's not much discussion to be had. Either engage with me to discuss concepts of cultural transfer and impact properly or don't bother. Ranting about my 'ideology' is just wasting both your time and mine; it's only about two steps away from shouting 'Wake up sheeple!'

 Ketara wrote:

Rosebuddy wrote:

But you actually know this already and are just being wilfully obtuse because your ideology prevents you from admitting that there in fact is such a thing as the West that has a long history of colonialism and interference in the Middle East...

Oh dear.

Guv, if you're going to throw about vague terminology and statements and then get arsey when I start picking up on that? There's not much discussion to be had. Either engage with me to discuss concepts of cultural transfer and impact properly or don't bother. Ranting about my 'ideology' is just wasting both your time and mine; it's only about two steps away from shouting 'Wake up sheeple!'

You're pretending to not understand a term that has been in globally accepted use for over half a century, including by the people it refers to.


EDIT:


The reason I know that you aren't engaging with me honestly is that you didn't simply ask what I mean with "the West" and explain that you understood it as a broad cultural sphere, but instead went off with this:

 Ketara wrote:

The other is a half baked colloquial concept used for designating the collective cultural offspring of specific political, philosophical, ethical and economic discourses from the past millennia. Like you said, it's a 'useful shorthand', but it's about as much use when discussing complex international matters as describing everything above the legs as 'the torso' during heart surgery. I mean, sure, it gets you moving in vaguely the right direction, but you need to look a bit more closely at the instruction sheet quite quickly.

Saying 'the West should stop meddling in the Middle East as a precursor to [undefined]' actually says very little beyond implying some vague belief that the 'West' is responsible for negative things there. A bit like Brexiteers blaming immigrants. So....what part of the 'West' needs to stop 'manipulating' things?

Should the tourists all go home? They bring revenue and cultural appreciation, but they also bring different concepts and behaviours, and end up remodelling local provinces to meet their needs instead of that of locals. Should the aid charities go? They provide a much needed degree of charity to people in desperate need, but they also prop up dictators and violent groups in order to get some of that aid through; as well as impacting negatively on local economies. What about foreign reporters and journalists? Sure, they often grab and disseminate accurate information which people like to know, but that sort of information flow often causes ructions and unrest. Foreign business? Western companies can grant revenue and technology for exploitation of resources which the locals often don't have access to on their own; but they can all too often suck out most of the profit and failt o re-invest it locally.

Heck, the 'West' involves cultural spread as well. Should we be banning Sky from showing the Simpsons in other parts of the world? Demonstrating that a better basic standard of living often causes jealousy or resentment, as well as making people feel like their culture is being edged out by the corporate behemoths of the 'West'. It also forces people who might not want to deal with issues such as gender inequality come face to face with those concepts. Should the 'West' be made to leave them alone?

You'll doubtless point out that I haven't mentioned a single government, but that's kind of my point. 'The 'West' is a very broad brush concept and just vaguely attributing ills in the Middle East to it is, I think, a bit intellectually lazy. There's nothing happening in the Middle East involving the West that doesn't also occur in Africa. Yet it's quite clear that the further you move North of the equator, the more problems with fundamentalism and military conflict gradually increase.

There's nothing wrong with saying that European or even 'Western' or North American Governments should stop interfering in local politics. It's a good starting place for debate. But it begins to descend into problems the moment you move past the obvious 'invasions/assassinations' level of discourse (and even there, one has to consider items like 9/11 and geopolitical concerns as legitimate items for potential military action).

For example, is conducting trade with Middle-Eastern governments 'interfering'? If not, what if it consists of selling arms and oppression methods/training? As mentioned before, what if that trade involves importing novel concepts along with entertainment packages or books, like the one where women count as independent actual people? Your local Wahhabist cleric might well consider that political interference, especially if religion is mixed with the state, as it causes political unrest.

Ulltimately it is, I think, the sort of issue that occurs when cultures clash in an oppositional way. Not just between the 'West' and those located in the Middle-East. But on a more general level. Information, goods, and people all travel at blinding speeds compared to yesteryear. Yet certain factors in the Middle East would appear to make that culture clash more violent and shocking then they do in other parts of the world, like South America. And I don't think that can or will be resolved in the next century without action so oppressive it would make most liberals shudder.

wherein you list the Simpsons and tourists, that do not have political, economic or military power and very pointedly don't mention governments until halfway through when you demonstrate that you understand precisely what I mean when I say that the West should stop interfering in the Middle East. Communication is built on mutual good will and this principle is so strong that one immediately discounts absurd interpretations of even comically broad statements. I don't think that the Simpsons is interfering with Middle Eastern countries to the detriment of the people living there (the show hasn't become that[/] bad yet) because within the context of a discussion on the political situation it would be absurd to attribute military power to a North American TV show instead of to the US armed forces. You [i]know what I mean but find the sentiment ideologically unpalatable so you try to punish me for expressing it by trying to waste my time.

No, he's pointing out how useless that term is in the context.

So I just watched the Maybot flounder around excruciatingly trying to justify trailing along behind the Washington wotsit to illegally blow up a few empty warehouses.

I am pretty sure we have now seen the 1st example of right wing virtue bombing. SHE took 7 days to make an "Urgent" decision and then gave 48hrs notice to Russia/Iran so they could remove there men and materials to safety before blowing up the empty building.

Don't get me wrong I'm glad no one was hurt and that no chemical weapons were there as if they had been we could have horribly killed a large amount of civilians with the fall out.

So an illegal attack that achieved nothing other than costing a fortune and making us look weak with the bonus of potentially more terrorists the alliance of incompetents I bring you F, UK, US

SeanDrake wrote:
So I just watched the Maybot flounder around excruciatingly trying to justify trailing along behind the Washington wotsit to illegally blow up a few empty warehouses.

I am pretty sure we have now seen the 1st example of right wing virtue bombing. SHE took 7 days to make an "Urgent" decision and then gave 48hrs notice to Russia/Iran so they could remove there men and materials to safety before blowing up the empty building.

Don't get me wrong I'm glad no one was hurt and that no chemical weapons were there as if they had been we could have horribly killed a large amount of civilians with the fall out.

So an illegal attack that achieved nothing other than costing a fortune and making us look weak with the bonus of potentially more terrorists the alliance of incompetents I bring you F, UK, US

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd think that they'd use munitions capable of destroying the chemicals sufficiently so as to stop that sort of issue right? Youknow, for the reasons you expressed... And well, its hardly like this is the first time that any Western forces have blown up Syrian chemical weapons sites; it just so happens that the media's placing a lot of attention on it now due to the political climate.

What made this attack illegal again? The West already has forces in country, and as I said, has had the mandate to attack chemical weapons sites for a while (besides those sites violating international law). It wasn't illegal in terms of any of the countries involved constitutions, there just wasn't the usual amount of paperwork (for the same eventuality - the government ignores what the other side says and does it anyway).

Besides, as that ARES article mentions, and civilian casualties of the event likely having resulted not from the West's attack, but the subsequent Syrian missile launch in the same area (where they bombed the area presumably to cause the civilian causalities which the West wanted to avoid. ...Youknow, that whole propaganda machine thing).

This whole situation comes across as various militaries performing an action which they understand, then from the outside we have people commenting on how horrible and imprecise everything was. Which, well you'd think that those who launched that attack would have considered all the implications and picked sites which would fit into their own PR aims. I.e. not to stir up support for the opposition (they could have similarly carpet bombed the sites and the surrounding neighbourhoods. ...Though that happens to be against international law - which fun fact, is something the Russians have been doing). Again, this is all ignoring all those other attacks which have been carried out over the years, and instead just moving with the mass media with the shock train.

Somehow this situation is worse than all those other attacks, besides the ones involving limiting Assad's use of chemical weapons? ...And limiting Assad's ability to use chemical weapons is a bad thing right? Even if in reality what these attacks meant was that the Syrians are forced to move their chemical weapons to locations secured by the Russians. ...Which, ah, hang on. Those chemical weapons are illegal right? And that would make the Russians culpable for their use in the region? Damn, I'm sure nobody ever even considered that... Nope, there's no wider picture going on here at all. ¬¬

An "illegal attack"?

When is an attack actually legal?

KTG17 wrote:
An "illegal attack"?

When is an attack actually legal?

It technically is illegal because you need Security Council approval (for offensive acts) which makes it legal, but seeing as Russia has a veto saying it is illegal holds absolutely zero value as you would never be able to go for the 'legal' option.