The Syrian Civil War Thread

[Blaze86420]

Yeah sure. Nobody is saying Assad's regime was all good and nice. On the contracy. But the only alternative is the Muslim Brotherhood or worse.
Under Assad the three main religious groups lived peacefully side by side, they had free healthcare, free education and a reasonable living standard.
But hey, lets have ten thousands of deaths, have many formerly beautiful, lower standards of live, infrastructure that takes years to rebuild (if you had a functioning government that is) and ancient cities now turned into Battlefield 3 maps so we can have the wonderful freedom to elect the Muslim Brotherhood to lead us (and opress the dirty Alewite/Christian kafirs).

The people who support Assad prefer religious tolerence, free healthcare/education over bearded men with the quran on their left hand and a kalashnikov in their right hand. Even if that means having to live in a totalitarian police state.

Wow, so much BS. A ruling elite exists in Syria; Alawites dominate the government, hold most of the key military positions, and enjoy a disproportionate share in the state's educational resources, but somehow it a secular, religiously tolerant state built on equality. You are speaking of a regime founded by a secrete Alawite alliance that was built within the Baath party and infiltrated the Syrian armed forces, and yet you somehow fit the words secularism and tolerance in the description. Just falsehoods piled on top of falsehoods. Describing the the Muslim Brotherhood as bearded men with Kalashnikovs, and having the audacity to shift the blame of Syria's destruction to the opposition, just absolutely terrible.

You have no idea what you're talking about.

[motiv-8]

Nice white-wolf? Have you seen any videos of rebel and government armor squaring off? I think this month is the first instance of it.

[white-wolf]

Nice white-wolf? Have you seen any videos of rebel and government armor squaring off? I think this month is the first instance of it.

I think I saw one or two.

[DarthShizNit]

Could you post videos of armor going at it? That artillery duel was a fine piece of combat footage right there, oppsoition crew I assume?

[white-wolf]

right.

[motiv-8]

The Syrian government is now firing large unguided rockets such as the Scud and Frog ballistic missiles, with a spread of 500 to 700 meters, INTO Damascus city from long range. Absolutely insane.




But, like, free healthcare and stuff.

[Treize]

Aren't they still in control of Damascus proper?

[Sir Pignans]

Apparently we (The British) might flaunt the EU embargo on weapons and send them to Syrian rebels. I am not a fan of this idea. Monetary support, I'm not a fan of it but fair enough. Weapons? Can't get behind that idea at all. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21763345

[Treize]

Hans van Baalen also called for this. He forgot we hardly have enough arms for our own ever-diminishing force.


As for combat footage in the Damascus suburbs:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=94b_1362574963

Ah, the price for 'freedom'. Happy now?

[Vanoi]

As for combat footage in the Damascus suburbs:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=94b_1362574963

Ah, the price for 'freedom'. Happy now?

Happy about what? People dieing? Nope, but death isn't exactly un-avoidable in war.

[motiv-8]

Treize demands we feel sorry for tank crews who have been shelling neighborhoods and destroying the city around them without mercy finally finding themselves on the receiving end. I can tell you one thing, it still won't make the people of Daraya happy, it won't bring back their dead children and brothers and wives nor their destroyed homes. But they had it coming anyway for complaining about their (broken) free healthcare and (lagging, religion-infused) free education and a (stagnant) economy with a 33% unemployment rate.

I wonder how many videos of children I could show him before he realized his support for jihad and murder is a mistake. Probably not enough, they're all "terrorists with a Quran in one hand and a Kalashnikov in the other" after all. It's so easy to dismiss the victims of violence when you've spent months preparing by dehumanizing them and pretending they're something else.

[Bobz]

Apparently we (The British) might flaunt the EU embargo on weapons and send them to Syrian rebels. I am not a fan of this idea. Monetary support, I'm not a fan of it but fair enough. Weapons? Can't get behind that idea at all. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21763345

You've misread that article. We're not planning, yet, on arming rebels, the government doesn't want the arms embargo to be extended in a way that would prevent Britain from assisting in the future.

[Sir Pignans]

You've misread that article. We're not planning, yet, on arming rebels, the government doesn't want the arms embargo to be extended in a way that would prevent Britain from assisting in the future.

From the article:

Last week, Foreign Secretary William Hague said the government would provide armoured vehicles and body armour to opposition forces in Syria "to help save lives",

Yes, technically not weapons. But I am still uncomfortable with sending body armour. Armoured vehicles I actually have less of a problem with, they're easier to track.

[Bobz]

From the article:
Yes, technically not weapons. But I am still uncomfortable with sending body armour. Armoured vehicles I actually have less of a problem with, they're easier to track.

Really, why do you? I'm guessing you don't want it falling into Islamist hands, but it's only body armour, you're not going to see atrocities carried out because someone was wearing a vest. Tracking the vehicles isn't going to help, you can't just ask an Islamist group for it back if they steal one. You've just got to make sure you're aiding the right people in the first place and try to ensure they lose as few weapons as possible, regardless of what whether you're giving them radios or anti-tank missiles.

[Sir Pignans]

Really, why do you? I'm guessing you don't want it falling into Islamist hands, but it's only body armour, you're not going to see atrocities carried out because someone was wearing a vest. Tracking the vehicles isn't going to help, you can't just ask an Islamist group for it back if they steal one. You've just got to make sure you're aiding the right people in the first place and try to ensure they lose as few weapons as possible, regardless of what whether you're giving them radios or anti-tank missiles.

It's a war zone. Simply giving it to the Free Syrian Army (who do co-operate with Islamist forces) and assuming it won't fall into their hands is a naive notion at best. That's not even to deny that there's more than likely Islamists within the Free Syrian Army itself (even if the actual organisation is secular) so they might get access that way.

But I think having body armour would improve terrorists chances and such, or will fall into the hands of terrorist groups like the ones in the Mali. I mean we already have a history on this front. A bunch of night vision goggles we sent to Iran ended up in the hands of Hezbollah in the 2006 war.

[Anna_Gein]

Under Assad the three main religious groups lived peacefully side by side

I really like when people throw this "argument". It is not as if there was a civil war going on because that dude wants to remain in power.

[Heathen Hammer]

That's pretty simple, and I've done it before. I support the ability of the people to take up arms in order to defend themselves against the violence of their own government, when they have no other recourse, as happened in Syria in 2011. I would have much preferred there to be no civil war, no death, no destruction, no wasting of an entire generation to conflict, poverty, hunger, and despair, but Bashar al-Assad insisted that his people have all those things so here we are.

Why can't government defend itself against armed people that attack it?

That question is an elevation in knowledge for you, actually; you finally admit that the insurgency is native in character instead of mindlessly repeating the propaganda line that they're "foreign terrorist gangs." So good on you, you're learning.

I never said that all of them were "foreign". Again, you continuously fail to address my posts and respond to what you made up, and not my post.

[motiv-8]

Haha, Volh's third persona posts a dumb rhetorical question that doesn't address the post HE's responding to and then complains about others not addressing his posts to his standards.

[DarthShizNit]

And you seem to forget that it was the the goverment who forced armed gangs shooting at them to be necessary after they started shooting at peaceful protesters, so your question shouldn't be whether or not the goverment has the right to shoot at people shooting at them, but whether or not the people have the right to shoot back at a goverment that's sniping them from rooftops (hint: They do)

[Condottiere 40K]

SAMALE Sons of Anarchy Syrian Chapter, headquartered in Aleppo

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...with_Dan_Snow/