The Syrian Conflict Thread

[NarrowBandFtw]

Source: Turkish border officers cooperate with ISIL

Documents prepared by a prosecutor's office contain a large number of transcripts of “friendly” telephone communications between military officers and Mustafa Demir, the ISIL member in charge of Turkey's Syria border, the Cumhuriyet daily said on Monday.
The prosecutor's documents reportedly say Turkish military officers also met with Demir on the border. The ISIL leader is indicated in the documents as the person behind the transportation of bombs from Syria to Turkey.
“The transcripts and the documents in the investigation revealed that Demir received money -- purportedly for zakat [alms] -- from smugglers at the border and cooperated with the officers as far as [border] crossings are concerned,” the report stated.

Well then, no surprises here, I guess Erdogan will remain true to his word and resign? ...

 

[Unhappy1]

Well then, no surprises here, I guess Erdogan will remain true to his word and resign? ...

I don't think a corrupt border guard is much proof of anything, even if its likely that Turkey turns a blind eye to ISIS when its convenient for them.

 

[NarrowBandFtw]

I don't think a corrupt border guard is much proof of anything, even if its likely that Turkey turns a blind eye to ISIS when its convenient for them.

I was being sarcastic of course, even if Erdogan himself is filmed beheading a Syrian citizen while wearing ISIS pajamas he will not resign and claim it is the work of spies or propaganda

On the upside he doesn't need to send ISIS food at the moment, the World Food Program seems to be doing it pretty well:
http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-02-25-wfp-food-airdrop-faced-difficulties#.Vs6uNfl96Uk

The World Food Program says its first high-altitude airdrop over the Syrian city of Deir el-Zour, which is under siege from the radical Islamic State group, may have been off-target.

WFP spokeswoman Bettina Luescher said in an email late Wednesday that 21 metric tons of "assistance" were dropped, but that the overall operation had faced "technical difficulties."

It was not immediately clear if that meant that the airdrop had missed its target, but Luescher said: "High altitude drops are extremely challenging to carry out and take more than one trial to develop full accuracy."

 

[Unhappy1]

A new UN report 'shatters' one of the biggest myths about Syria and Assad

A UN report detailing the "massive and systematized" violence perpetrated by Syrian President Bashar Assad against his own people "shatters the notion that the regime is somehow a lesser evil" than ISIS.
That is according to Emile Hokayem, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, who said on Tuesday on Twitter that the report is "inconvenient" for those who argue that Assad should stay in power for the sake of creating stability and defeating ISIS and Al Qaeda.

The report concluded that widespread and systematic torture at the hands of the Assad regime — which, according to a Syrian-government defector codenamed "Caesar," had killed over 10,000 people as of July 2014 — amounts to "extermination as a crime against humanity."

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/un-report-shatters-one-biggest-204102634.html

 

[NarrowBandFtw]

A new UN report 'shatters' one of the biggest myths about Syria and Assad

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/un-report-shatters-one-biggest-204102634.html

The actual report is linked in the article and at first sight seems infinitely more objective than the article written about it: http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/CoISyria/A-HRC-31-CRP1_en.pdf

For a start Assad's name is never mentioned in the report, yet the article pummels it ad nauseam, there is not a single mention of "torture chambers" in the report, yet the article mentions it. Oh and of course the old favourite the "barrel bomb" makes a return despite the report not containing a single mention of it.

The report summarizes that all parties: the government, ISIS and the moderate rebels are guilty of these actions, somehow the journalist missed that entirely. It also does not mention hard numbers or indicate which proportions of the atrocities are blamed on which party so how the hell does this propagandist retard conclude it "shatters the notion that the regime is somehow a lesser evil than ISIS"?!? :wtf:

Seems simple: they're all doing stuff that's bad, and the report recommends they all stop doing it and that more is done to curtail terrorism.

 

[Unhappy1]

For a start Assad's name is never mentioned in the report, yet the article pummels it ad nauseam, there is not a single mention of "torture chambers" in the report, yet the article mentions it.

From your link

24. Interrogators and guards employed gruesome methods of torture to kill detainees. In
2014, a detainee held in a centre under the control of the 4th Division of the Syrian army
had his genitals mutilated during torture. Bleeding severely and left without treatment, he
died three days later. A detainee of a Military Security branch in Homs witnessed an elderly
man being severely beaten, and then hung by his wrists from the ceiling. The guards burned
his eyes with a cigarette, and pierced his body with a heated, sharp metal object. After
hanging in the same position for three hours, the man died.

Its weird how you cant accept that Assad runs a brutal disgusting regime

 

[NarrowBandFtw]

Its weird how you cant accept that Assad runs a brutal disgusting regime

Where did you get that from? I wasn't making a single excuse for the regime, I was pointing out the obvious editorializing in the article.

The journalist is using facts and adding more than enough fiction to fit an agenda. Assad's regime is brutal, does that automatically mean he is personally the cause of it? Is the regime more brutal than the terrorist group who beheaded how many westerners by now and f-ing broadcast it to the world?!?

I have no problem with calling the regime all sorts of things, brutal, disgusting etc but concluding that this particular report is clear proof that they are as bad or worse than ISIS is just plain BS. Even if they are worse than ISIS, if, this report is not proof of that.

 

[Unhappy1]

Where did you get that from? I wasn't making a single excuse for the regime, I was pointing out the obvious editorializing in the article.

The journalist is using facts and adding more than enough fiction to fit an agenda. Assad's regime is brutal, does that automatically mean he is personally the cause of it? Is the regime more brutal than the terrorist group who beheaded how many westerners by now and f-ing broadcast it to the world?!?

I have no problem with calling the regime all sorts of things, brutal, disgusting etc but concluding that this particular report is clear proof that they are as bad or worse than ISIS is just plain BS. Even if they are worse than ISIS, if, this report is not proof of that.

I don't think they are worse than ISIS but i think having them in charge of the country isn't much better than many of the terrorist groups. I dont think the article is nearly as bad as you're trying to make out.

 

[NarrowBandFtw]

I don't think they are worse than ISIS but i think having them in charge of the country isn't much better than many of the terrorist groups. I dont think the article is nearly as bad as you're trying to make out.

The opening line of the article sealed it for me, hard to come back from such obvious framing:
"A UN report detailing the "massive and systematized" violence perpetrated by Syrian President Bashar Assad against his own people "shatters the notion that the regime is somehow a lesser evil" than ISIS."

On other threads around here it's been said that as bad as Gaddafi was, at least Libya was stable under him, as bad as Saddam was, at least Iraq was stable. It just seems the US is hell bent on never learning from their experience and won't rest until we can also say as bad as Assad was, at least Syria was stable ...

 

[Unhappy1]

On other threads around here it's been said that as bad as Gaddafi was, at least Libya was stable under him, as bad as Saddam was, at least Iraq was stable.

Torturing your own citizens hardly seems stable to me.

It just seems the US is hell bent on never learning from their experience and won't rest until we can also say as bad as Assad was, at least Syria was stable ...

This is the UN so bringing up the US is nonsense and again i believe you have a warped view of stability.

 

[Xarog]

From your link



Its weird how you cant accept that Assad runs a brutal disgusting regime

Yeah, that stuff is pretty gruesome. I want to know from you why you're so selective about when you bring it up. And just btw, don't search the internet for pictures of "terror suspects" who were interrogated by US friendly regimes away from US human rights laws as a courtesy to US intelligence agencies, you won't like what you find.

And just for the record, this is why civil wars instigated by external sources for their own benefit is a bad idea; the ultimate responsibility for these atrocities lies at the doorstep of those that fomented the uprising.

 

[NarrowBandFtw]

Torturing your own citizens hardly seems stable to me.

This is the UN so bringing up the US is nonsense and again i believe you have a warped view of stability.

The article is pushing the US agenda, not the UN report, and the article is written by Business Insider which is a US company.

Although speaking of the UN, it is headquartered where again? with the biggest influence from who again? I wouldn't be too quick to assume their reports are always as objective as they should be although that is a different matter entirely, my comments are about the article, not the report.

Stability is relative, torturing your own citizens is not stable compared to the western norm yes, it is very stable compared to all out war and a multinational terrorist group on the brink of claiming the entire country for themselves. If those two extremes are the only options available which one do you choose?

 

[Unhappy1]

Yeah, that stuff is pretty gruesome. I want to know from you why you're so selective about when you bring it up. And just btw, don't search the internet for pictures of "terror suspects" who were interrogated by US friendly regimes away from US human rights laws as a courtesy to US intelligence agencies, you won't like what you find.

And just for the record, this is why civil wars instigated by external sources for their own benefit is a bad idea; the ultimate responsibility for these atrocities lies at the doorstep of those that fomented the uprising.

This is the Syrian thread, nothing to do with the likes of guantanamo bay, btw i could throw that right back at you. Why are you so selective about what you post?

 

[Unhappy1]

The article is pushing the US agenda, not the UN report, and the article is written by Business Insider which is a US company.

Although speaking of the UN, it is headquartered where again? with the biggest influence from who again? I wouldn't be too quick to assume their reports are always as objective as they should be although that is a different matter entirely, my comments are about the article, not the report.

Fair enough.

Stability is relative, torturing your own citizens is not stable compared to the western norm yes, it is very stable compared to all out war and a multinational terrorist group on the brink of claiming the entire country for themselves. If those two extremes are the only options available which one do you choose?

You're presenting a form of the relative privation fallacy.

 

[Unhappy1]

The US don't have any altruistic reasons for wanting to get rid of Assad, they support the Saudi's after all. However in this case they are right, Assad does run a brutal disgusting regime that should not exist much like the Saudi one.

 

[Xarog]

This is the Syrian thread, nothing to do with the likes of guantanamo bay, btw i could throw that right back at you. Why are you so selective about what you post?

Because to put it bluntly, you're selectively self-righteous. You can discuss an issue calmly until someone says something that disagrees with one of your preconceptions. When that happens, instead of discussing the disagreement politely you get pretty snippy. You've done it to Dave123, myself and NarrowbandFtw in short succession.

Yeah, is that why you are pointing out motives? To prove Syria's guilt? Well as you know i've already done that but apologies, i thought you had other reasons for doing so.

If you meant your apology, then I really think you should take a step back from the discussion and consider exactly how the other person's perspective differs from your own so that you don't simply leap to the conclusion that the disagreement as a result of bias. And accept that none of us with only the internet to help us decipher the truth is in a position to prove what happened on the battlefield one way or the other; all we can reasonably do is speculate.

And to explain my own post:

The US rendition program is to point out that despite calls for governments to follow the rule of law, when it comes to issues of national security it is pretty much inevitable that nation-states will violate their own laws when in extremis. You have not in any way discredited the argument that I provided that the Syrian government was forced into a conflict it did not choose and that this has forced it to have to often choose the least-bad option where every choice has a terrible cost to go along with it. And because you have not been able to do so, I think it's fair in the case of this discussion to admit that as bad as Syria's actions are with regards to their human rights record in this conflict, the people who instigated the conflict itself share responsibility for those crimes.

Can you do that?

Edit: This post is why NarrowBandFtw's comment was not a relative privation fallacy.

 

[NarrowBandFtw]

You're presenting a form of the relative privation fallacy.

Not quite, it can only be a fallacy in the first place if the reasoning is faulty. It just so happens that we have two recent examples very similar in nature of the "before and after" US-meddling in the middle east.

Judging by the sheer destruction of infrastructure and loss of lives I cannot fathom how anyone in their right minds could think Iraq or Libya is better off now, or the world somehow is better off with them in their current state.

So that part I do not regard as any kind of fallacy, the logic is sound.

Syria is also in the middle east, and also was not a threat to world stability until there was US-meddling which gave birth to ISIS.

Syria under ISIS would certainly not result in less torture, and the regime sure as hell does not engage in terror attacks in Paris. Not fallacy. The true fallacy here is the US agenda which is "Assad must go, then we'll somehow reign in all the hell hounds we set loose including ISIS", in which universe is it a good plan to bargain on not one, but two regime changes at the same time?

 

[Unhappy1]

Not quite, it can only be a fallacy in the first place if the reasoning is faulty. It just so happens that we have two recent examples very similar in nature of the "before and after" US-meddling in the middle east.

Judging by the sheer destruction of infrastructure and loss of lives I cannot fathom how anyone in their right minds could think Iraq or Libya is better off now, or the world somehow is better off with them in their current state.

So that part I do not regard as any kind of fallacy, the logic is sound.

Syria is also in the middle east, and also was not a threat to world stability until there was US-meddling which gave birth to ISIS.

Syria under ISIS would certainly not result in less torture, and the regime sure as hell does not engage in terror attacks in Paris. Not fallacy. The true fallacy here is the US agenda which is "Assad must go, then we'll somehow reign in all the hell hounds we set loose including ISIS", in which universe is it a good plan to bargain on not one, but two regime changes at the same time?

Right so we should just support the reinstatement of Assad and be fine with his torture? Just turn a blind eye?

 

[Xarog]

Right so we should just support the reinstatement of Assad and be fine with his torture? Just turn a blind eye?

Should we throw an entire country to the pits of chaos just to get "justice" against one man?

 

[Xarog]

The US don't have any altruistic reasons for wanting to get rid of Assad, they support the Saudi's after all. However in this case they are right, Assad does run a brutal disgusting regime that should not exist much like the Saudi one.

It's not about their motives. It's about what they did to achieve their goals. They destabilised the regime with violence. They did the same in Ukraine, in Libya, in Iraq; they tried to do it in Iran.

That **** is just not cool, and all of us suffer because of it.