The Syrian Conflict Thread

Dave said:
No, it's the way fake news permeates this thread under the guise of personal opinion laid down as fact.

I would turn that on you, please provide genuine links and sources when you make a statement of fact that is nothing but your opinion and conjecture based on speculation on websites or on reports that are 5 years old.
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As stated, I said it was estimated to be 200 to 400.

Armies don't exactly reveal how many secret agents and special forces they have illegally in a country as stated officially by the defense ministry spokesperson.

So it is what it is, an estimation. Nitpicking on what unit, when doesn't bring much to the debate as it's estimates.

None of my sources are "fake news" but established newspapers. I take the ones I can find as it is not an extensively discussed and disclosed topic.

Sorry but I don't receive internal emails from the Ministry every morning to keep me aware of this, so we have to do with the information available.
 
f2wohf said:
There was no vote, Obama just saw that he wouldn't get a majority.
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Conveniently he didn't even try. Only 13 democrat congressman out of 201 openly supported the strikes. Secondly Obama by his own admission had the authority to act without congressional approval.

So your statement is false. The truth is Obama refused to act and the French backed out when he didn't.

France doesn't have the military capacity to go by itself.
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Perhaps France should increase their own military capacity and stop leaching off the Americans.
 
Alan said:
Conveniently he didn't even try. Only 13 democrat congressman out of 201 openly supported the strikes. Secondly Obama by his own admission had the authority to act without congressional approval.

So your statement is false. The truth is Obama refused to act and the French backed out when he didn't.



Perhaps France should increase their own military capacity and stop leaching off the Americans.
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I'm not particularly pro Obama, all I know is that the US didn't follow France. I thought through some readings here it was due to the Republicans, might be as well Obama, doesn't change the end result.

Perhaps you should suggest that to the next french president. Although we only have the GDP of California so we'll never be able to reach the US size.

Even if we doubled or tripled our budget, we still wouldn't have the ability to defend our country, to keep forces in Africa, in Lebanon, in Kosovo, in Afghanistan, in plenty of other peacekeeping missions AND attack Syria on our own.

Only the US, Russia and probably China and maybe a few overmilitarized dictatures have that capacity without proceeding to conscription and hampering their economy.
 
I dont think there are any accurate estimates on French special forces because its all hush hush. They are definitely there and are taking part in the Raqqa preparations.
 
Unhappy438 said:
I dont think there are any accurate estimates on French special forces because its all hush hush. They are definitely there and are taking part in the Raqqa preparations.
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It's most likely not in tens and certainly not in thousands.

I'd think 200 to 400 would tend to be in the right range.
 
f2wohf said:
It's most likely not in tens and certainly not in thousands.

I'd think 200 to 400 would tend to be in the right range.
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Well its probably unfeasible to have less than 100 but if im not mistaken they only have 200 in Iraq so i dont think it will be as much as 400 in Syria.
 
Unhappy438 said:
Well its probably unfeasible to have less than 100 but if im not mistaken they only have 200 in Iraq so i dont think it will be as much as 400 in Syria.
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500 in Iraq actually.

https://www.google.co.za/amp/m.lepa...la-bataille-de-mossoul-17-10-2016-6219888.php

150 to train the Iraq Counter Terrorism Forces
150 to 200 training the peshmergas
150 specialized in artillery helping the Iraqis in Mosul

Including the aerial and naval, the support reached 4000 when the Charles de Gaulle was still there.
 
f2wohf said:
500 in Iraq actually.

https://www.google.co.za/amp/m.lepa...la-bataille-de-mossoul-17-10-2016-6219888.php

150 to train the Iraq Counter Terrorism Forces
150 to 200 training the peshmergas
150 specialized in artillery helping the Iraqis in Mosul

Including the aerial and naval, the support reached 4000 when the Charles de Gaulle was still there.
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Im referring specifically to special forces which is what this argument is about and probably why there is confusion. You suggested there is a significant number of 1st Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment guys there which are the special forces. Your link says approx 150 - 200 special forces guys in Iraq so that backs up what im saying. Yeah if you count every French national involved with counter terrorism or the army/logistics whatever you might get up to 400. But that's a different discussion.
 
f2wohf said:
I'm not particularly pro Obama, all I know is that the US didn't follow France. I thought through some readings here it was due to the Republicans, might be as well Obama, doesn't change the end result.
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It was Obama. He had the authority and he didn't act. Then tried to shift the blame....

In asking Congress for pre-approval on Saturday, Obama sent them a War Powers Resolution authorization even as he insisted he could act without their approval.
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http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/319827-obama-breaks-from-precedent-on-syria

Only the US, Russia and probably China and maybe a few overmilitarized dictatures have that capacity without proceeding to conscription and hampering their economy.
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France spends only 2.1% of GDP on defence and has a considerably higher GDP than Russia for example. If they want to be a major player on the world stage then they must obviously pay for the hard power to back it up.

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator...=FR&start=1988&view=chart&year_low_desc=false
 
Alan do you honestly believe a president should launch a full scale war on another country without authorisation from congress?
 
Unhappy438 said:
Im referring specifically to special forces which is what this argument is about and probably why there is confusion. You suggested there is a significant number of 1st Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment guys there which are the special forces. Your link says approx 150 - 200 special forces guys in Iraq so that backs up what im saying. Yeah if you count every French national involved with counter terrorism or the army/logistics whatever you might get up to 400. But that's a different discussion.
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The counter terrorism units are definitely also part the COS (special operations command) and part of the missions of the 1st RPIMA and 13th Dragoon Regiment.

I just checked, for artillery, I can't find any unit under special forces.

So 350 in Iraq.

Just found the English link:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Operations_Command_(France)

Let's leave here, anyway 200 or 700 won't change the face of the war. The Iraqi forces and rebels in Syria are doing most of the actual job against ISIS.
 
Who was saying that Trump is getting close to Iran and with the pipelines deals & co ? That fell today apparently.

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/19/watch-rex-tillerson-statement-on-iran.html

"Sec of State Tillerson warns 'unchecked Iran' could follow path of North Korea
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says the U.S. will review its policy toward Iran.
Tillerson told Congress on Tuesday the Trump administration will consider whether to break with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal."

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/04/rex-tillerson-iran-170420003500176.html

"US secretary of state says Tehran's behaviour undermines US interests in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon."
 
NarrowBandFtw said:
Bellingcat :crylaugh:
The same crackpot "investigators" that used decade old pictures of Russian tanks in a parade in another country entirely to "prove" there's a Russian invasion in Ukraine :crylaugh:

File them just below Buzzfeed and Salon on the press credibility list.
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What are you referring? My Google-fu letting me down here
 
C4Cat said:
What are you referring? My Google-fu letting me down here
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You can read up about the fake tank pics incident here:
https://www.rt.com/news/232963-germany-russia-tanks-ukraine/
https://www.rt.com/news/232067-fake-photos-russian-army/

The Ukraine government, the US government and a German TV channel got caught lying. Bellingcat basically started it all with "investigations" like this:
http://www.stopfake.org/en/tanks-of-buhaivka-a-training-facility-in-eastern-ukraine/

They have a proper throbbing hard-on for Russia and their so called "investigations" usually rely on comparisons of old satellite images to deduce troop or weapon movements from/to a single location i.e. a bunch of utter nonsense. Of course they never start an "investigation" before they've already convicted Russia :D

Long story short: Bellingcat is about as reliable as Salon or Buzzfeed
 
NarrowBandFtw said:
You can read up about the fake tank pics incident here:
https://www.rt.com/news/232963-germany-russia-tanks-ukraine/
https://www.rt.com/news/232067-fake-photos-russian-army/

The Ukraine government, the US government and a German TV channel got caught lying. Bellingcat basically started it all with "investigations" like this:
http://www.stopfake.org/en/tanks-of-buhaivka-a-training-facility-in-eastern-ukraine/

They have a proper throbbing hard-on for Russia and their so called "investigations" usually rely on comparisons of old satellite images to deduce troop or weapon movements from/to a single location i.e. a bunch of utter nonsense. Of course they never start an "investigation" before they've already convicted Russia :D

Long story short: Bellingcat is about as reliable as Salon or Buzzfeed
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Thanks. Still though, even if Bellingcat is sometimes unreliable it still doesn't mean their assessment about Postol using old information from 2013 and claiming it to be a current, is false. Are you saying this didn't happen and Bellingcat made it up?
 
C4Cat said:
even if Bellingcat is sometimes unreliable it still doesn't mean their assessment about Postol using old information from 2013 and claiming it to be a current, is false
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Indeed, I was mostly just mimicking the typical responses here when any article, however credible and objective, is posted from RT or ZH for example. Invariably it is "RT :crylaugh:" etc without even reading the actual content.

This particular effort by Bellingcat just seems like a targeted character assassination of Postol, it doesn't really offer anything other than attacks on Postol, which is quite ironic given Bellingcat's own credibility leaves much to be desired; they wouldn't fare well if they were the target of a character assassination.

That aside, the US sent Tomahawks flying without ANY investigation, their version of events can be filed in the toilet as their credibility was shot to shyte the moment they acted without evidence yet again (like WMD in Iraq). The French version of events is based on an investigation where they relied entirely on third parties to collect evidence, it is a compromised and invalid investigation. The Russian version of events sound quite convenient for them, perhaps too convenient.

So who is going to give us some real objective facts on the matter?!?
 
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