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The Pentagon Is Spending Up To $2.2B on Soviet-Style Arms for Syrian Rebels

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Re: The Pentagon Is Spending Up To $2.2B on Soviet-Style Arms for Syrian Rebels

#161
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the reason Syria was destabilized by the US. Natural gas to Europe. Period. This is not about Assad, the US is simply demonizing him to justify their destruction of another secular soverign country. Russia supplies Europe with almost all of its natural gas. This is unacceptable to the west. What the west wants is to drag nat gas up from Qatar through Syria to the med and north into Europe breaking Russia's st…

do you have any sources for these claims?

http://armedforcesjournal.com/pipeline-politics-in-syria/

http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/its-all-about-pipeline...

That took longer than it should have because of the stupid throttling at HN regarding posts. It's hard to carry any kind of discussion when you are limited to three? Replies per hour?

Re: The Pentagon Is Spending Up To $2.2B on Soviet-Style Arms for Syrian Rebels

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not people are horrified by Assad's regime at all. That's just a line to sell a war in newspapers. There are much much worse governments than Assad in the world. Some are nominally our friends. Some we just ignore because they aren't in strategically important locations or don't have resources of interest. I thought it was commonly understood at this point that "spreading democracy and human liberty" translated…

You're much too cynical. We support democratic nations and try to set up democracy and liberal institutions when situations present themselves. We don't completely shut out nations like Saudi Arabia because there is more to be gained by working with them than against them. What would you want the US to do, invade Saudi Arabia because we disagree with it?

who gave you the right to invade anyone on that matter? people will disagree all the time. if iran or somalia or kuba or whomever disagree how USA is governed, does it give them right to invade you? and will you have the same opinion if USA were to be weak and they had the power to do it?

Re: The Pentagon Is Spending Up To $2.2B on Soviet-Style Arms for Syrian Rebels

#163
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right about ISIS for what its worth. The documentary "The Power of Nightmares" is a really good introduction to the background of that whole story for people who criticize you on the topic. Its very accessible and well researched (and from the BBC, so reputable). But yeah, the short and long of it is that Donald Rumsfeld specifically disbanded the Iraqi command structure after the invasion, against President B…

"because he believed (correctly) that it would result in large groups of them forming armed militias and start a middle eastern uprising" Do you have a reference for that - because that is one hell of a strong accusation? NB Not saying that it would surprise me, but I've never heard that particular accusation before. Though it does sound worryingly like the claims that US money indirectly funded the Taliban via Pakis…

Watch the power of nightmares. I confess I'm not 100% confident that that's where I remember that quote from (Its been a few years now), but its a good bet.

Re: The Pentagon Is Spending Up To $2.2B on Soviet-Style Arms for Syrian Rebels

#164
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"because he believed (correctly) that it would result in large groups of them forming armed militias and start a middle eastern uprising" Do you have a reference for that - because that is one hell of a strong accusation? NB Not saying that it would surprise me, but I've never heard that particular accusation before. Though it does sound worryingly like the claims that US money indirectly funded the Taliban via Pakis…

Watch the power of nightmares. I confess I'm not 100% confident that that's where I remember that quote from (Its been a few years now), but its a good bet.

Thanks - I'm a huge fan of "Bitter Lake" so that gives me something else to watch.

Re: The Pentagon Is Spending Up To $2.2B on Soviet-Style Arms for Syrian Rebels

#165
post #104
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right about ISIS for what its worth. The documentary "The Power of Nightmares" is a really good introduction to the background of that whole story for people who criticize you on the topic. Its very accessible and well researched (and from the BBC, so reputable). But yeah, the short and long of it is that Donald Rumsfeld specifically disbanded the Iraqi command structure after the invasion, against President B…

> He literally admitted to a war crime, and nothing happened. I thought the idea was that you call them terrorists specifically so that they’re not official enemy combatants and the Geneva convention doesn’t apply?

He got away with it for a lot of reasons, ranging from issues with the term War Crime, to the fact that the US doesn't support the ICC, to the fact that he was a VP, etc, etc. I'm not surprised he avoided prison; rather, I was saddened by the lack of complete moral outrage after he made such a statement.

Re: The Pentagon Is Spending Up To $2.2B on Soviet-Style Arms for Syrian Rebels

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are those locations occupied exclusively by Al Qaeda? The only evidence you've shown is that the CIA has given arms to rebels in areas where Al Qaeda and its affiliates are known to operate. I see no evidence that the CIA directly gave weapons to Al-Nusra or other Al-Qaeda affiliates. And zero evidence of any direct funding or support of ISIS as conspiracy theorists and Putin propagandists love to assert. It's possib…

>fell into the hands of Al-Qaeda If you’re spending billions on weapons I doubt you didn’t make sure they go to the right person.

Even with a perfect screening process for the initial deliveries it's really easy for weapons to end up in unintended hands just as positions/territory are taken and lost by the various sides.

Re: The Pentagon Is Spending Up To $2.2B on Soviet-Style Arms for Syrian Rebels

#168
post #85
post #74

I guess it makes sense, seeing how Israel is known to have supported Al-Qaeda by taking care of wounded soldiers in the border zone. I thought it was strange that Israel supported a group that the US was officially fighting, but I wrote it off as part of Israel's policy of destabilizing its neighbors. Could someone explain to me why Al Qaeda and ISIS are aligned with Israel's interests? I don't understand why they li…

So you actually hit on the correct answer in your response. According to George Friedman, the futurist, it is "to destabilize the region". That might not be the original goal of any mission the US does, but the fact remains, if the US goes into an area and really help a population, we win. If the region is destabilized such as crazy infighting occurs that prevents people coming together and such, the US also wins. A…

How would Israel benefit from a stable Middle-East? I'm of the impression that Israel would want perpetual instability in order to prevent the Arabs from uniting and destroying the Jewish ethnostate, and that's why they orchestrated the war on terror.

Funny that you mention Napoleon, he was allegedly funded by the Rothschild banker family as were the British; they funded both sides. It seems to me that Israel is doing the same thing now.

One barricade to discussing this seems to be the word "antisemitism". Right now antisemitism is a very broad term which includes anti-Zionism, being critical of Israel, disliking people for being Jewish of race, culture, ethnicity or religion, and goes up all the way to "gas the kikes". It even includes things like talking about "blood libel", which is a misleading term in itself because there have been proven cases of Jews killing goyim for ritual sacrifices.

I'm personally against discriminating on the basis of race or ethnicity, but I deplore the idea of any culture or religion being above critique. If a culture or religion tries to tell me I can't talk about them because they are so oppressed, while they are themselves disproportionately wealthy, influential and perhaps also intelligent... that's not being oppressed, that's a manipulation tactic only afforded by those already in power.

Lately I've been trying to understand the relation between Israel, US foreign policy, Zionism, Marxism, feminism, the concept of "isms", and the Jewish faith, especially the Talmudic branch. It's a... noisy thing to research, lots of angles, ill-defined terms, lots of misinformation going around. Forgive me if I got something obviously wrong.

If you think my beliefs are inaccurate on any of this stuff, please help me develop them by helping me to some better sources of information (or perhaps techniques on better historic research). It's hard researching this and my time is limited.

Re: The Pentagon Is Spending Up To $2.2B on Soviet-Style Arms for Syrian Rebels

#169
post #168
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you actually hit on the correct answer in your response. According to George Friedman, the futurist, it is "to destabilize the region". That might not be the original goal of any mission the US does, but the fact remains, if the US goes into an area and really help a population, we win. If the region is destabilized such as crazy infighting occurs that prevents people coming together and such, the US also wins. A…

How would Israel benefit from a stable Middle-East? I'm of the impression that Israel would want perpetual instability in order to prevent the Arabs from uniting and destroying the Jewish ethnostate, and that's why they orchestrated the war on terror. Funny that you mention Napoleon, he was allegedly funded by the Rothschild banker family as were the British; they funded both sides. It seems to me that Israel is doin…

> How would Israel benefit from a stable Middle-East?

Israel-the-people or Israel-the-currently-dominant-political-faction?

Because the answers are different and opposed.

Re: The Pentagon Is Spending Up To $2.2B on Soviet-Style Arms for Syrian Rebels

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Broadly, America has traditionally supported Sunni leaning states, most notably Saudi Arabia. Russia has traditionally supported Shia Iran, and both the powers are competing for influence within the region. In the course of the Arab Spring, the legitimacy of many ME leaders/dictators was questioned, among the most notable of these was the rule of Bashar al-Assad of Syria. A popular local outpouring of resentment agai…

Oh wow. The refugee crisis unfolded years before Russia even entered the conflict. Accusing them of creating it now is silly. Nor did Russia have a large air base in Syria until last year. Nor did the Russians supply or use chemical weapons. In fact, they earnestly tried to do the opposite - take Assad's chem weapons away (though they obviously failed). The thing about Russia targeting civilians is curious to me. Is…

>The refugee crisis unfolded years before Russia even entered the conflict. Accusing them of creating it now is silly. Nor did Russia have a large air base in Syria until last year. Nor did the Russians supply or use chemical weapons. In fact, they earnestly tried to do the opposite - take Assad's chem weapons away (though they obviously failed).

Correct, I misspoke earlier - the Russians did not create the refugee situation - but they have certainly inflamed and weaponised it. In addition to targeting civilian population centers with indiscriminate munitions, they have also shut down legal asylum from Syria into Russia, claiming that Syria is safe for its residents. Again, it does this so the refugees are forced to flow eastward into turkey then Greece, despite Syria being a proxy state and Russia owing some form of assistance. They've compounded these issues by spreading disinformation in Europe, planting stories of fake rapes and murders by Syrian refugees in European media, again to sow distrust and create political instability. And I'm thoroughly unconvinced about the efforts of Russians to find and confiscate chemical weapons - they only agreed to the deal in the first place to mitigate the chance of Americans opening direct military operations after the red line violation, and as you've alluded to, there have been plenty of chemical weapon attacks since then.

And to fend of further misrepresentations of my words, I never said Russia's goal is to kill civilians - again their goal is to destroy their homes and communities, so that they are forced to become refugees. By closing its own borders it's making sure other countries have to bare the burden of its operations - this is what the NATO commander meant when he said Putin is trying to use Syrian refugees to break NATO.

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