- #736
Astronuc
Staff Emeritus
Science Advisor
2023 Award
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Russia bombed Syria for a third day in a row on Friday, mainly hitting areas held by rival insurgent groups rather than the Islamic State fighters it said it was targeting and drawing an increasingly angry response from the West.
The U.S.-led coalition that is waging its own air war against Islamic State called on the Russians to halt strikes on targets other than Islamic State.
Damascus (AFP) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad warned the success of Russia's military intervention in his war-torn country was vital for the entire Middle East, as Moscow ramped up its bombing campaign Sunday.
DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Islamic State militants have blown up the Arch of Triumph, a major monument in the 2,000-year-old Roman city of Palmyra, Syria's antiquities chief said on Sunday, after they destroyed two ancient temples at the central Syrian site in recent months.
Maamoun Abdulkarim told Reuters that sources in Palmyra had confirmed that the Arch of Triumph, a jewel in the exquisite collection of ruins in the oasis city, had been blown up.
mheslep said:I'm missing how SIGAR is relevant to my statement. The Afghan defense force, as created in 2002, has a couple hundred thousand troops (also here). If you mean a lot of money is wasted on missteps, or that creating the force at all may be unwise, or that it may be misused, yes of course, but that's true of any government operation including the operation of the US domestic military.
It's stupid because once they win the will be the next threat to America and the world. I don't know why America hasn't learned that history repeats itself. We don't need to arm them we need to kill the extremist and educate the rest of those people. "The pen is mightier than the sword" a wise person once said.fargoth said:Iran troops to join Syria war, Russia bombs group trained by CIA
Russian warplanes, in a second day of strikes, bombed a camp run by rebels trained by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, the group's commander saidI think that in this instance, Russia might actually do more good than the U.S., since this group is probably almost as bad as ISIS:
...
Hassan Haj Ali, head of the Liwa Suqour al-Jabal rebel group that is part of the Free Syrian Army, told Reuters one of the targets was his group's base in Idlib province, struck by about 20 missiles in two separate raids. His fighters had been trained by the CIA in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, part of a program Washington says is aimed at supporting groups that oppose both Islamic State and Assad.
A publication of the Counter Terrorism Centre in August 2013 described Suqour al-Sham as belonging to the most stridently Islamist wing of the Free Syrian Armyand the Syrian Islamic Liberation Front.[18] After ending relations with those two organisations it joined the Islamic Front in November 2013, a charter released by the new group described their shared beliefs as rejecting representative democracy and secularism, instead seeking to establish an Islamic State ruled by a Majlis-ash-Shura and implementing Sharia law.[20]And can someone please explain this to me?:
"Creating and arming a Syrian rebel force, Obama has insisted, is a fantasy."If the president thinks it's a bad move, and he's the one calling the shots on foreign affairs - why does the U.S. create and arm Syrian rebel forces?
Nico Crawford said:It's stu
It's stupid because once they win the will be the next threat to America and the world. I don't know why America hasn't learned that history repeats itself. We don't need to arm them we need to kill the extremist and educate the rest of those people. "The pen is mightier than the sword" a wise person once said.
And the means to kill the extremists and educate the remainder is? With training of Syrian rebels off the table as "stupid", you then favor the introduction of US ground troops into Syria followed by a prolonged nation building exercise to accommodate education?Nico Crawford said:...
It's stupid because once they win the will be the next threat to America and the world. I don't know why America hasn't learned that history repeats itself. We don't need to arm them we need to kill the extremist and educate the rest of those people. "The pen is mightier than the sword" a wise person once said.
What is Putin doing about ISIS? That is, what do you observe are the US mistakes in Syria and what in particular is Putin doing about them?fargoth said:...
Anyway, seems like Russia is fixing US's mistakes at the cost of probably getting itself into deep **** and falling out of favour with the gulf states.
mheslep said:What is Putin doing about ISIS?
mheslep said:And the means to kill the extremists and educate the remainder is? With training of Syrian rebels off the table as "stupid", you then favor the introduction of US ground troops into Syria followed by a prolonged nation building exercise to accommodate education?
mheslep said:What is Putin doing about ISIS? That is, what do you observe are the US mistakes in Syria and what in particular is Putin doing about them?
A pamphlet aimed at civilians, and designed to look like 'religious literature', read: 'Co-operate with the army and leave the zone of the special operations for the sake of your own life.'
It said they can travel through Syrian checkpoints safely with the leaflet, and the government will give them 'shelter, food and medical aid'.
Another one, meant for ISIS fighters, said: 'Don't make it even worse for yourselves.
'The Motherland [presumably Syria] is ready to hug you back again. Give up your arms as hundreds of other young guys like you have done.'
One of the pamphlets, obtained by the Kremlin-friendly Russian Komsomolskaya Pravda website, featured a cartoon of an al-Nusra front figurine being wound up by Israel and the United States.
The message accompanying the propaganda cartoon - designed to sow divisions between the extremist factions - read: 'Al-Nusra terrorists, they are American and Israeli rebels.'
The leaflets, were dropped out of ageing Russian-made Mi-8 helicopters guided by a 'tablet with Google Maps'.
Sources? You will find that Putin is primarily attacking anti-Assad forces, without regard to religious view. As of a couple days ago, he had made no attacks on ISIS whatsoever, though he did have fighters in Turkish airspace which locked their firing radar on Turkish forces.fargoth said:Russia is targeting muslim extremists, some of which are ISIS, others were trained and equipped by the ...
Infamous, not famous, as that answer was not an alternative at all from a President/CNC. Instead it was sophomoric and impudent in the face of several hundred thousand dead in Syria, the use of chemical weapons by Assad, invasion of neighbors by Putin, and millions migrating to Europe. That is, the Obama statement itself was stupid stuff.fargoth said:How about the third alternative, advocated by Obama in the following famous sentence "Don't do stupid ****"?.
mheslep said:Sources? You will find that Putin is primarily attacking anti-Assad forces, without regard to religious view. As of a couple days ago, he had made no attacks on ISIS whatsoever, though he did have fighters in Turkish airspace which locked their firing radar on Turkish forces.
fargoth said:Iran troops to join Syria war, Russia bombs group trained by CIA
Russian warplanes, in a second day of strikes, bombed a camp run by rebels trained by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, the group's commander saidI think that in this instance, Russia might actually do more good than the U.S., since this group is probably almost as bad as ISIS:
...
Hassan Haj Ali, head of the Liwa Suqour al-Jabal rebel group that is part of the Free Syrian Army, told Reuters one of the targets was his group's base in Idlib province, struck by about 20 missiles in two separate raids. His fighters had been trained by the CIA in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, part of a program Washington says is aimed at supporting groups that oppose both Islamic State and Assad.
A publication of the Counter Terrorism Centre in August 2013 described Suqour al-Sham as belonging to the most stridently Islamist wing of the Free Syrian Armyand the Syrian Islamic Liberation Front.[18] After ending relations with those two organisations it joined the Islamic Front in November 2013, a charter released by the new group described their shared beliefs as rejecting representative democracy and secularism, instead seeking to establish an Islamic State ruled by a Majlis-ash-Shura and implementing Sharia law.[20]And can someone please explain this to me?:
"Creating and arming a Syrian rebel force, Obama has insisted, is a fantasy."If the president thinks it's a bad move, and he's the one calling the shots on foreign affairs - why does the U.S. create and arm Syrian rebel forces?
The Russian defense ministry said on Wednesday (October 7) four of its warships in the Caspian Sea launched 26 rockets at Islamic State in Syria which hit their targets earlier in the day
fargoth said:About Russia hitting US backed extremists:
About Russia hitting ISIS - you can find several instances, but a quick search in reuters got me today's action:
Thanks for the references. How is it from these events that "Russia is fixing U.S. mistakes"? From the reports on Russian strikes, they are overwhelmingly (~95%) on Syrian rebels of all kinds.fargoth said:About Russia hitting US backed extremists:
About Russia hitting ISIS - you can find several instances, but a quick search in reuters got me today's action:
mheslep said:Thanks for the references. How is it from these events that "Russia is fixing U.S. mistakes"? From the reports on Russian strikes, they are overwhelmingly (~95%) on Syrian rebels of all kinds.
I was thinking about this recently, that Darfur had fallen off the radar screen of the international media. It seems attention shifted to the conflict between Sudan and South Sudan and more recently Boko Haram. But this is a subject of another thread.fargoth said:Where was the U.S. when Sudan murdered more than twice the people who died in the Syria conflict?
Has Anyone even mentioned anything about this? (just a recent example)
HossamCFD said:US to abandon training new rebel groups in Syria, focussing on equipping existing groups instead
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34486572
HossamCFD said:US to abandon training new rebel groups in Syria, focussing on equipping existing groups instead
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34486572
lisab said:So, are the rebels we're arming the same ones the Russians are bombing?
Are we at the beginning of a proxy war between the US and Russia?
Astronuc said:Oops - Four Russian cruise missiles fired at Syria from the Caspian Sea landed in Iran, unnamed US officials say. Not even close!
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34479873
Iran's Irna news agency reported on Wednesday that an unknown flying object had crashed in the village of Ghozghapan in the Iranian province of West Azerbaijan, said to be under the missiles' flight path.
Most of the Russian attacks have been on rebel held territory with the exception of a couple ISIS attacks. Many of the rebels are ex-Syrian military.fargoth said:Russia is hitting these extremists.
As the US DoD has now admitted the US had not materially intervened in the Syrian civil war as of a few weeks ago, not even after Assad's use of chemical weapons. Only a handful of rebels have been trained, and US airstrikes, the few that were actually executed, have been against ISIS.Had the U.S. and gulf states not intervened in the first place,...
NYT said:...those in the Pentagon and elsewhere in the administration have been saying in the wake of revelations that the program at one point last month had only “four or five” trainees fighting in Syria
There were some 200K fatalities in Syria before the US dispatched a single military resource towards the conflict. And the massacres of Assad's father Hafez are legendary.fargoth said:] Assad would have "resolved" this conflict with much less bloodshed (like his father did in the 80's - no one seemed to care then).
Where was the US supposed to be? The question was about US mistakes in Syria. The action/inaction of the US elsewhere in the world is immaterial to this questionfargoth said:]Where was the U.S. when Sudan murdered more than twice the people who died in the Syria conflict?
The US wants to control Syria? Consider that the US, and many other countries, might simply not want another failed state in Syria that allows a fertile breeding ground for the like of ISIS. Otherwise you might have saved us both some time and cut to your point, a demonization of the US regardless of what it does or does not do.fargoth said:]It's all about control, for both the US and Russia - but I think the outcome Russia is driving for is both more feasible, and a bit better for Syria (Not sure about the rest of the region, though... Iran is getting stronger by the minute)
mheslep said:Most of the Russian attacks have been on ... ex-Syrian military.
mheslep said:As the US DoD has now admitted the US had not materially intervened in the Syrian civil war as of a few weeks ago, not even after Assad's use of chemical weapons. Only a handful of rebels have been trained, and US airstrikes, the few that were actually executed, have been against ISIS.
Source?mheslep said:There were some 200K fatalities in Syria before the US dispatched a single military resource towards the conflict.
mheslep said:And the massacres of Assad's father Hafez are legendary.
mheslep said:Where was the US supposed to be? The question was about US mistakes in Syria. The action/inaction of the US elsewhere in the world is immaterial to this question
The US wants to control Syria? Consider that the US, and many other countries, might simply not want another failed state in Syria that allows a fertile breeding ground for the like of ISIS. Otherwise you might have saved us both some time and cut to your point, a demonization of the US regardless of what it does or does not do.
See the Russian air strike maps here:fargoth said:Source? (I hope this shortened version of your reply is what you meant to say).
WSJ said:To identify rebel brigades eligible to receive support, the Americans created a color-coded ranking system. Green dots were assigned to brigades deemed acceptable to all parties. Yellow dots went to borderline groups. Red dots were for radicals. Since the system’s inception, the U.S. and its allies have continued to squabble over which groups belonged in which categories, officials said.
mheslep said:There were some 200K fatalities in Syria before the US dispatched a single military resource towards the conflict.
For Syrian civil war fatalities? There are many sources. The UN put out an estimate, reported here in http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/15/syria-rebel-truce_n_6478226.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592 :fargoth said:Source?
...Western diplomats and local officials have championed local truces as a way of easing the suffering caused by Syria's four-year conflict, which the U.N. estimates has killed some 220,000 people.
mheslep said:For Syrian civil war fatalities? There are many sources. The UN put out an estimate, reported here in http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/15/syria-rebel-truce_n_6478226.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592 :
which doesn't include the casualties from the IS spill over into Iraq. The war began in early 2011. Obama's first "degrade and ultimately destroy" statement that announced the beginning the US limited air campaign against ISIS was Sept 2014. US intelligence got involved earlier via training though their efforts have been reported as insignificant despite the significant funding involved.
What's your advice to those capable of stopping them if Daesh and al-Qaeda decline to go away and continue chopping off heads instead?Astronuc said:My advice to Daesh and al-Qaeda is "Put down your weapons, and go away".
I would prefer a less violent course, but I don't think Daesh or Al Qaeda will go away quietly or quickly.mheslep said:What's your advice to those capable of stopping them if Daesh and al-Qaeda decline to go away and continue chopping off heads instead?
Evo said:Was watching a tv show filmed in Turkey and was appalled as were the tv filmers (they were filming a coffee show) of the Turkish government's allowing ISIS terrorist trafficking back and forth without restrictions.
Evo said:Was watching a tv show filmed in Turkey and was appalled as were the tv filmers (they were filming a coffee show) of the Turkish government's allowing ISIS terrorist trafficking back and forth without restrictions.