It all makes sense now !!!!!!!!!!!!

paddyfrog

paddyfrog

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SyriaNow pay attention, because I'm only going to say this once...

President Assad (who is bad) is a nasty guy who got so nasty, his people rebelled and the Rebels (who are good) started winning (Hurrah!).

But then some of the rebels turned a bit nasty and are now called Islamic State (who are definitely bad!) and some continued to support democracy (who are still good).

So President Putin (who is bad because he invaded Crimea and the Ukraine and killed lots of folks including that nice Russian man in London with polonium poisoned sushi) has decided to back Assad (who is still bad) by attacking ISIS (who are also bad) which is sort of a good thing.

But Putin (still bad) thinks the Syrian Rebels (who are good) are also bad and so he bombs them too, much to the annoyance of the Americans (who are good) who are busy backing and arming the rebels (who are also good).

Now Iran (who used to be bad, but now they have agreed not to build any nuclear weapons and bomb Israel, are now good) are going to provide ground troops to support Assad (still bad) as are the Russians (bad) who now have ground troops and aircraft inSyria.

So a coalition of Assad (still bad), Putin (extra bad) and the Iranians (good, but in a bad sort of way) are going to attack IS (who are bad) which is a good thing, but also the Syrian Rebels (who are good) which is bad.

Now the British (obviously good, except that nice Mr Corbyn in the corduroy jacket, who is probably bad) and the Americans (also good) cannot attack Assad (still bad)
for fear of upsetting Putin (bad) and Iran (good/bad) and now they have to accept that Assad might not be that bad after all compared to IS (who are super bad).

So Assad (bad) is now probably good, being better than IS (but let's face it, drinking your own wee is better than IS, so no real choice there) and since Putin and Iran are also fighting IS, that may now make them good.

America (still good) will find it hard to arm a group of rebels being attacked by the Russians, for fear of upsetting Mr Putin (now good) and that nice mad Ayatollah in Iran (also good) and so they may be forced to say that the Rebels are now bad, or at the very least, abandon them to their fate. This will lead most of them to flee to
Turkey and on to Europe or join IS (still the only constantly bad group).

To Sunni Muslims, an attack by Shia Muslims (Assad and Iran) backed by Russians will be seen as something of a Holy War and the ranks of IS will now be seen by the
Sunnis as the only Jihadis fighting in the Holy War and hence, many Muslims will now see IS as good (D'oh!).

Sunni Muslims will also see the lack of action by Britain and America in support of their Sunni rebel brothers as something of a betrayal (hmmm, might have a point)
and hence we will be seen as bad.

So now we have America (now bad) and Britain (also bad) providing limited support to Sunni Rebels (bad), many of whom are looking to IS (good/bad) for support
against Assad (now good) who, along with Iran (also good) and Putin (also,now, unbelievably, good) are attempting to re-take the country Assad used to run before
all this started.
 
Nope, sorry.
Can't get past the use of 11 exclamation marks.
 
OldCarlos said:
So are the rules in cricket......
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That's easy, if they are out when they are in, they then go in when they are out, oh and they rub their balls on their trousers too :thumbs:
 
It's good you have started questioning the whole mess. "Good" and "bad" are commonly relative in this imperfect world. Human beings are imperfect and easily corruptible by both power and money. Let's not forget for a moment that the war zone is incredibly rich in oil, and that lobbying is deeply rooted in the US and many other countries (either officially or unofficially).

Since we got the boring philosophical bit out of the way we don't need to view Americans (Obama administration commanded armed forces to be more specific - I am sure many americans have different views) as only "good". One shall see that their actions in Iraq and Libya were not justified nor did much good. The wars brought a disaster and fuelled the propagation of radical islam guerilla. You may have noticed, in every occupied country there is a sort of guerrilla movement, that is normally seen as terrorists by the other side. Al quaeda and now DEASH want us all dead or converted to their doctrine across the world so that makes the situation very grave.

I'm not going to write a thesis about Iraq and Libya; much info is available from many sources on internet. It is reasonable to believe Iraq was invaded due to their trade policies such as trading oil in euros instead of petrodollar, and taking the oilfields. We now clearly know the chemical weapons didn't exist and it was a smokescreen. It just happened to be that the nasty dictator Hussain managed to oppress the very nasty people that formed ISIS. US and UK forces really struggled to deal with them and used to pay sunni militias to secure problematic areas. The withdrawal of US was a complete disaster that even I could clearly foresee. And indeed within 2 weeks the territory was taken over by radicals. Al qaeda to ISIS shift is mainly a transition to new harder leadership and strengthening in ideology as well as goals of setting up a state rather than just running a militant group.

Libya crisis was also setup in a similar way. Gadaffi was no longer a friend, their policies were bad and oil was attractive. The only people (if you may call them so) who gained in strength across the whole north Africa are the radical groups related to ISIS. The countries that were once prosperous are now destroyed and destabilised and are literally a breeding ground of terrorism. The so called "moderates" have already discredited themselves many times over. There are reports ISIS are moving the headquarters to Libya since the Russians inflicted heavy damage in Raqqa.

Syria was no different to Iraq and Libya. It was yet another stabilised dictatorship with a few dirty little secrets keeping. Jihadists were under control but also the population was fairly civilised and prosperous. There was no major issue with Syria other than "hostility" to US and trade difficulties. A war was needed to "fix" that and install a "friendly" new dictator. This is what the moderate rebels were supposed to achieve, except the game didn't play out in Libya or Iraq style. ISIS also joined in the game and gained strength. The rebel and ISIS forces are in fact competing for fighters by trying to offer higher salaries, etc. All are funded by US and rich Arab states... Look at the weapons they all use: American made advanced weapons, tanks, etc... There goes the untarnished idol image of the rebels! Yet I am further appalled by the response from Turkey and the toothless Obama administration. The are practically helping ISIS (despite running different media narrative), and obstructing Russia.

So the Americans are still our allies, but in the grand scheme of things their actions have led to very bad results in the Middle East. This is where conspiracy theories are starting. You will find ideas that US is using divide and rule tactics to overtake the oilfields at any humanitarian cost. This is probably the hardest one to discredit. Military conflict requires weapons bought by governments, and this is again where rich bankers with shares in ammunition stocks make their $$$$. There are even talks that this is going to spread to Iran or even setup a WW4 (WW3 was apparently the Cold War) - even more money to be made. This would be a total disaster so I want them stopped right here at any cost.

Russia is certainly perceived as the enemy of the NATO bloc. It is only natural that Putin's interests come at odds with ours. It was particularly obvious with Ukraine. Btw nobody's talking about it any more. Nobody cares. The US clearly didn't have long standing intentions there; they just put people in civil war and left. Ukraine has no stable border and as a result is ineligible for NATO or EU membership, and they alienated their old trade partner. They are now f***ed and the US are doing little about it. The US did nothing about the occupied Eastern bloc countries after WW2.
In many ways Putin is about as evil to 'us' as it can get. Russians love him because he stands up against bullying by the world's policeman. However in the Middle East he is just the stabilising factor that we need. He wants to stabilise his ally Syria and Iran. It is bad for us to loose the potential oil fields, but jihadi threat is far worse. So this is "good" for us except for the establishment bankers. You may hate Putin for a good reason but trust me only he can clean up this mess.

The mainstream media coverage of the whole op is disgusting. The propaganda agenda is running full stream in all respective countries. You have to read from several sources to realise how distorted reality becomes. The US agenda is run by bankers who bankroll the president and senators. They also happen to control the mainstream western media. Putin control's his, etc. People are completely brainwashed about this whole thing.

So you can see I am making a clear conclusion so far that invasion was a bad thing and that the war is a complete disaster. This is correct. But now we have a problem - ISIS. We have created a very real Frankenstein. They are NOT going to go away overnight if we withdraw. They are not retreating back into their caves like Bin Laden once did. They are setting up a state and spreading like wildfire through middle East, Africa and now into Europe and even the US. They are not stopping for anything. Radical Wahhabi terrorism is cancer. For this reason alone we have to stay at war and play to the tune of Putin to our disadvantage or else the future is grim. The closure of borders here in EU is also common sense. It is a must. 1 / 10 illegals are ex-ISIS fighters. Just a few men can do untold damage in the city. We have multiple thousands. We are deep in trouble thanks to Merkel. Before we can accept any refugees we need to properly screen them and 100% integrate them into our society. The alternative is death of western society as we know it. You choose.
 
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Nobody is questioning anything. It is a "lazy" copy and paste that has been doing the rounds on the Internet And surprise surprise it was already posted in the Syria thread and discussed.
 
LongLensPhotography said:
Since we got the boring philosophical bit out of the way we don't need to view Americans (Obama administration commanded armed forces to be more specific - I am sure many americans have different views) as only "good". One shall see that their actions in Iraq and Libya were not justified nor did much good. The wars brought a disaster and fuelled the propagation of radical islam guerilla. You may have noticed, in every occupied country there is a sort of guerrilla movement, that is normally seen as terrorists by the other side. Al quaeda and now DEASH want us all dead or converted to their doctrine across the world so that makes the situation very grave.

I'm not going to write a thesis about Iraq and Libya; much info is available from many sources on internet. It is reasonable to believe Iraq was invaded due to their trade policies such as trading oil in euros instead of petrodollar, and taking the oilfields. We now clearly know the chemical weapons didn't exist and it was a smokescreen.
Click to expand...

I sometimes wonder if I'm completely out of step or living through a version of 1984 with minions somewhere busily rewriting history.

This is not aimed particularly at LLP but just on the general view that Iraq was all wrong and chemical weapons never existed.

I actually agreed with toppling Saddam Hussein. The guy invaded Kuwait to grab the oil fields (so it was all about oil after all....) so Gulf War 1 pretty much had to happen in some form or another to get him out. That's just one point and we seem to have air brushed from history some of the other stuff like the murder, torture and oppression of many thousands of his own people and the torture and murder and rape camps and the mass graves. Did Gulf War 1 ever end? I seem to remember the efforts at ethnic cleansing and the setting up of the no fly zones and the pot shots at allied aircraft and the retaliatory bombing of the missile batteries and the small scale special forces actions. Where was the peace between Gulf war 1 and 2?

And of course we have the air brushing from history of the chemical weapons. How many people died? I seem to remember people dying and the horrific images of men, women and children lying dead in the streets but this must all be a false memory as it's now accepted and much repeated that chemical weapons didn't exist and it was all a smokescreen. Those faked news reports and photo's seemed pretty convincing at the time though but I suppose they were all faked, personally, by George Bush and his poodle Tony Blair. To me this is akin to holocaust denial.

I don't know if I want to live in a world in which evil dictators can invade other countries and commit any brutality including almost industrialised levels of torture, rape and murder which might have made the Nazi's blink, and the world just sits back and does nothing.

In my poor deluded mind the world should act against anyone who illegally attacks a neighbouring country as Saddam did when he invaded Kuwait or sets out to rape, torture, murder and oppress within the countries own borders, as Saddam Hussein did. Lets not air brush completely from history that Iraq had chemical weapons and used them on civilians to devastating effect. To delete these facts from history and replace them with the lie that chemical weapons never existed or to describe the horrors committed within the confines of a nations borders as a few dirty little secrets is in my opinion bordering on obscene. Actually it doesn't border on, it is obscene. We live in strange times. IMO.

But, what to do about it? "We" can't do anything as "we've" simply got no stomach for meaningful and effective involvement in foreign parts these days in the cause of good. It costs too much, we don't like the body bags coming home and we don't like the mistreatment or killing of innocents. We can invade, but we'll see the body bags, the bad publicity and the cost and we'll cut and run and leave a mess behind us as we did in Iraq and Afghanistan. Neither the USA or the UK let alone any European power is going to invade Syria and spend 20, 30 or 40 years attempting to build a nation, it's not going to happen. So we'll just have to accept the high level precision bombing from 10 miles away and get used to a very protracted process with little sign of any end and we'll just have to accept the daily abduction, rape, torture, oppression, murder, slavery and other obscenities and the refugee crisis these things create because we don't care enough to do anything effective about a bunch of fascists in a foreign land and their mostly foreign victims.

Thank god that previous generations thought differently and gave a damn. After all, Hitler never intended war with Britain, he admired the British and thought that the British Empire was essential for world order. We didn't have to go to war with Germany, we could have just sat back and decided that it was way too expensive, would cost too many British lives and if we did do anything we might injure or kill too many innocent people.

Not that I have any answers, it's just that I hate the idea that crimes against humanity are committed and "we" do very little about it. I also don't like the rewriting of history that goes on. I remember a quotation I read from the days when the British were fighting the Anglo Saxons for control of these islands and there was much treachery and changing of sides etc. It went something like - These days there's no shortage of men who make wrong seem right. Food for thought for us all in that snippet from centuries ago, nothing seems to have changed.
 
woof woof said:
I sometimes wonder if I'm completely out of step or living through a version of 1984 with minions somewhere busily rewriting history.

This is not aimed particularly at LLP but just on the general view that Iraq was all wrong and chemical weapons never existed.

I actually agreed with toppling Saddam Hussein. The guy invaded Kuwait to grab the oil fields (so it was all about oil after all....) so Gulf War 1 pretty much had to happen in some form or another to get him out. That's just one point and we seem to have air brushed from history some of the other stuff like the murder, torture and oppression of many thousands of his own people and the torture and murder and rape camps and the mass graves. Did Gulf War 1 ever end? I seem to remember the efforts at ethnic cleansing and the setting up of the no fly zones and the pot shots at allied aircraft and the retaliatory bombing of the missile batteries and the small scale special forces actions. Where was the peace between Gulf war 1 and 2?

And of course we have the air brushing from history of the chemical weapons. How many people died? I seem to remember people dying and the horrific images of men, women and children lying dead in the streets but this must all be a false memory as it's now accepted and much repeated that chemical weapons didn't exist and it was all a smokescreen. Those faked news reports and photo's seemed pretty convincing at the time though but I suppose they were all faked, personally, by George Bush and his poodle Tony Blair. To me this is akin to holocaust denial.

I don't know if I want to live in a world in which evil dictators can invade other countries and commit any brutality including almost industrialised levels of torture, rape and murder which might have made the Nazi's blink, and the world just sits back and does nothing.

In my poor deluded mind the world should act against anyone who illegally attacks a neighbouring country as Saddam did when he invaded Kuwait or sets out to rape, torture, murder and oppress within the countries own borders, as Saddam Hussein did. Lets not air brush completely from history that Iraq had chemical weapons and used them on civilians to devastating effect. To delete these facts from history and replace them with the lie that chemical weapons never existed or to describe the horrors committed within the confines of a nations borders as a few dirty little secrets is in my opinion bordering on obscene. Actually it doesn't border on, it is obscene. We live in strange times. IMO.

But, what to do about it? "We" can't do anything as "we've" simply got no stomach for meaningful and effective involvement in foreign parts these days in the cause of good. It costs too much, we don't like the body bags coming home and we don't like the mistreatment or killing of innocents. We can invade, but we'll see the body bags, the bad publicity and the cost and we'll cut and run and leave a mess behind us as we did in Iraq and Afghanistan. Neither the USA or the UK let alone any European power is going to invade Syria and spend 20, 30 or 40 years attempting to build a nation, it's not going to happen. So we'll just have to accept the high level precision bombing from 10 miles away and get used to a very protracted process with little sign of any end and we'll just have to accept the daily abduction, rape, torture, oppression, murder, slavery and other obscenities and the refugee crisis these things create because we don't care enough to do anything effective about a bunch of fascists in a foreign land and their mostly foreign victims.

Thank god that previous generations thought differently and gave a damn. After all, Hitler never intended war with Britain, he admired the British and thought that the British Empire was essential for world order. We didn't have to go to war with Germany, we could have just sat back and decided that it was way too expensive, would cost too many British lives and if we did do anything we might injure or kill too many innocent people.

Not that I have any answers, it's just that I hate the idea that crimes against humanity are committed and "we" do very little about it. I also don't like the rewriting of history that goes on. I remember a quotation I read from the days when the British were fighting the Anglo Saxons for control of these islands and there was much treachery and changing of sides etc. It went something like - These days there's no shortage of men who make wrong seem right. Food for thought for us all in that snippet from centuries ago, nothing seems to have changed.
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Very well put @woof woof so good I had to quote it in my response :) I fully agree with it, I mean that I was on active duty must have meant I was stoned and just imagining things or something...Too many arm chair experts about who merely quote something they read online so it must be true...
 
woof woof said:
I don't know if I want to live in a world in which evil dictators can invade other countries and commit any brutality including almost industrialised levels of torture, rape and murder which might have made the Nazi's blink, and the world just sits back and does nothing.

In my poor deluded mind the world should act against anyone who illegally attacks a neighbouring country as Saddam did when he invaded Kuwait or sets out to rape, torture, murder and oppress within the countries own borders, as Saddam Hussein did. Lets not air brush completely from history that Iraq had chemical weapons and used them on civilians to devastating effect.
Click to expand...


However, when Saddam invaded Iran in the early eighties and used chemical weapons against both the Kurds and Iranian soldiers and civilians, the US was actively helping him, so your argument holds no water.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26...rove-america-helped-saddam-as-he-gassed-iran/

The war and invasion of Iraq in 2003 was an act of revenge for 9/11 even though Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with that act of terrorism. It was also a war based on the fact that Saddam wanted to start trading oil in Euros instead of US dollars.
 
andy700 said:
However, when Saddam invaded Iran in the early eighties and used chemical weapons against both the Kurds and Iranian soldiers and civilians, the US was actively helping him, so your argument holds no water.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26...rove-america-helped-saddam-as-he-gassed-iran/

The war and invasion of Iraq in 2003 was an act of revenge for 9/11 even though Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with that act of terrorism. It was also a war based on the fact that Saddam wanted to start trading oil in Euros instead of US dollars.
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I'm happy to add my view on the points you've raised but again in a general way...

I was making a few general points and my points do indeed hold water even if there happen to be a few minor leaks. "We" and by that I mean the UK did not AFAIK ask Saddam to invade Kuwait and I'd be amazed if the USA did either. "We" also AFAIK never asked him to carry out almost industrialised atrocities and bury the victims in unmarked graves in the middle of nowhere. Did we? Did the USA?

Could the situation of the Iraqi regime continuing mass atrocities including attempting genocide and taking pot shots at RAF planes patrolling the no fly zones in an attempt to stop it continue forever? I suppose we could have just left them to it and accepted the genocide on the news every night and wrung our hands but accepted that frightful though it was it just wasn't anything to do with us?

I'm well aware of who backed who pre Gulf War 1 and I often wonder why the UK and the USA are criticised more than other nations who were busily supplying technology and / or weapons. For example the Russians and the French supplied arms and technology in that part of the world but the fashion these days seems for us to be very suspicious of anything that the USA and to a lesser extent and on a sliding scale the UK or European or someone else elsewhere in the world does and to almost ignore the actions of those who it's not so fashionable to criticise. Criticise the French? Unacceptable. Criticise the Russians? More acceptable these days I suppose but given the option of criticising the USA, the UK or the Russian's many western liberals would have a hard time even appearing to justify the actions of the USA.
 
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woof woof said:
Even stoned most people would still have a better grip on reality than some of the current deniers and history rewriters we see.
Click to expand...


It seems that you are the one IGNORING history when it suits your argument.
 
woof woof said:
Even stoned most people would still have a better grip on reality than some of the current deniers and history rewriters we see.
Click to expand...
You appear to be rewriting history yourself by changing the timing of events.
The atrocities you refer to mostly occurred prior to Gulf War I, and the subsequent sanctions and weapons inspections.

We were repeatedly told that the sanctions were working and preventing Hussein rebuilding his supplies. Blair is on record stating that at the dispatch box when parliament voted to extend the sanctions regime prior to the war. The WHO estimated that at least 500,000 Iraqis had died as a result of sanctions by then, so it was not a trivial matter (if you're into conspiracy theories, check out the timing of that vote and the signing of a key arms deal with Saudi Arabia 'al-armanya' IIRC)...

Fast forward a few years and the same PM is at despatch box saying, out of the blue, that sanctions haven't worked, Hussein is armed to the teeth and the UN Weapons Inspectors are wrong. Unsurprisingly, a few people sense something isn't right. A million people take to the streets in protest, Cook resigns, but to no avail. NOTE: no apology is offered for the half a million civilians we have apparently killed for nothing.

We vote to invade and guess what? No sign of those stockpiles. And even more civilians dead (maybe a million).

If you want an expert's opinion, ask Hans Blix, who was adamant before the war that the weapons weren't there, and was proved right.
 
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andy700 said:
The war and invasion of Iraq in 2003 was an act of revenge for 9/11 even though Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with that act of terrorism.
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A convenient untruth.
Cheney wrote a policy document prior to Bush's election outlining invasion of Iraq as an aim. If anything, 9/11 and the Afghanistan Invasion got in the way. It did, however, later provide a pretext for the unquestioning/gullible by linking Hussein to Al-Qaeda, but in reality the decision had been made long before that.
 
It's not that complicated - we only consider it complicated because of the furious tap-dancing propaganda that's our governments need to emit to distract us from the fact that our former good guy <insert name of random dictator> has now become a bad guy, and needs replacing with another madman we can support.

Fundamentally it's because somehow 'the west's oil' ended up underneath their countries - no more complex than that, everyone pushing and shoving over the rights to drill it up and profit from it, back their currency issuance with it. Just look up the names Sykes & Picot, and work forward from there. The people local to the region certainly know who they are, even if we don't.
 
woof woof said:
Even stoned most people would still have a better grip on reality than some of the current deniers and history rewriters we see.
Click to expand...
I seem to recall Hussain being told to destroy all his chemical weapons or face being overthrown. It seems he did but we overthrew him anyway. That's not revisionism, that's fact.
 
jakeblu said:
I seem to recall Hussain being told to destroy all his chemical weapons or face being overthrown. It seems he did but we overthrew him anyway. That's not revisionism, that's fact.
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I believe that Assad in Syria has done that as well, but it doesn't mean that ISIL and other extremists haven't got hold of chemical weapons.
Oh, I nearly forgot, some of that is fine, because aren't we backing the "moderate extremists"?
 
Llamaman said:
A convenient untruth.
Cheney wrote a policy document prior to Bush's election outlining invasion of Iraq as an aim. If anything, 9/11 and the Afghanistan Invasion got in the way. It did, however, later provide a pretext for the unquestioning/gullible by linking Hussein to Al-Qaeda, but in reality the decision had been made long before that.
Click to expand...

There is no reason why Bush couldn't plan invasion for reasons I outlined as well as prepare in advance for what al qaeda would do a year later. 9/11 became a convenient reason to boost national sentiment in the country and a great pretext to start a war, not really the major reason at all. After all the terror was committed by the hands of al qaeda, not saddam's army.
 
LongLensPhotography said:
There is no reason why Bush couldn't plan invasion for reasons I outlined as well as prepare in advance for what al qaeda would do a year later. 9/11 became a convenient reason to boost national sentiment in the country and a great pretext to start a war, not really the major reason at all. After all the terror was committed by the hands of al qaeda, not saddam's army.
Click to expand...
Sadam Hussain made the mistake of selling his oil in Euros, not US$. So did Iran, and so did Lybia. Iran was threatened and sanctions were imposed, but they couldn't be invaded because they were supported by Russia. Iraq was invaded and Gaddafi was overthrown - the good old USA has a massive military and doesn't hesitate to use it to force other nations to create a flow of currency to the USA, or to punish them for using other currencies.

And whenever things go a bit quiet, those lovers of freedom and democracy stir up a bit more trouble, usually in a middle eastern or African country, this results in more people and more nations depositing their reserves in the USA, simply because their currency is perceived to be safe. And now they've increased their interest rate, even though their own economy is far from "hot" and have publicly stated that there will be 2 more increases within the next 12 months - this is no doubt intended to frighten more people into propping up the US economy out of fear. And the increase will also damage the Euro and will cause inflation in other countries too.

But now America has a serious financial rival, the Asian Infastructure Investment bank. Despite pressure not to do so, the UK was the first foreign country to adop it. http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...l-system-shake-up-australia-should-be-part-of
 
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