2 ms·

Please don't spread the idea that its all funded by the west. Local actors are the most imporant players, not the global powers. The war in Syria and Iraq is f

by nickik 10y ago

Please don't spread the idea that its all funded by the west. Local actors are the most imporant players, not the global powers. The war in Syria and Iraq is financed by a hole variaty of countries, organisation and people. ISIS gets money not from Saudi Arabia but by taxation. I have also stopped reading mainstream media on these subjects. Fortunatly you can still find experts on these subjects, writting articals, blogpost or give talks.

pmyjavec 10y ago
How do you actually know how the money flows in that mess, I'm genuinely curious ? By the way, you're right, I'm not saying it's entirely funded by the west, but those weapons are coming from somewhere. Do local players have fighter jets, drones etc ?
- nickik 10y ago
  Well I can only trust experts on these things. You can find these stuff from different people and organisation. Its sometimes hard to figure out who to believe but I think you can find a reasonable amount of agreement. > By the way, you're right, I'm not saying it's entirely funded by the west, but those weapons are coming from somewhere. Yes they do, but there are a lot of actors in play, the west are just one of the players, and not the biggest one. Western weapons get resold quite a bit as well. The Syrian war is so complex because the huge amount of local, regional and global actors. All have different goals and values. Almost all regional and global actors provide some form of assistant to the groups they prefer. Often in the form of money or weapons of course. I would say in all of the West was comparatively hesitant in doing to much. Mostly because they like non of the people fighting and those they like, some of their allies don't like. The US for example, would love to support the PYD (even more), but Turkey essentially says PYD=PKK and the US has the PKK on the terror list. It seems that even most Foreign policy experts are highly unsure how to handle the current situation. > Do local players have fighter jets, drones etc ? No, but most fighting is not done with fighter jets and drones. Also, regional players, such as Jordan, Turkey, Iran and so on DO have fighter jets. The US could of course stop selling jets to Jordan but that would not change the current situation very much. Plus it would have many other effects. In my opinion the hole ME policy should be rethought but that needs a larger context.

by nickik 10y ago

pmyjavec 10y ago

How do you actually know how the money flows in that mess, I'm genuinely curious ? By the way, you're right, I'm not saying it's entirely funded by the west, but those weapons are coming from somewhere. Do local players have fighter jets, drones etc ?

nickik 10y ago
Well I can only trust experts on these things. You can find these stuff from different people and organisation. Its sometimes hard to figure out who to believe but I think you can find a reasonable amount of agreement. > By the way, you're right, I'm not saying it's entirely funded by the west, but those weapons are coming from somewhere. Yes they do, but there are a lot of actors in play, the west are just one of the players, and not the biggest one. Western weapons get resold quite a bit as well. The Syrian war is so complex because the huge amount of local, regional and global actors. All have different goals and values. Almost all regional and global actors provide some form of assistant to the groups they prefer. Often in the form of money or weapons of course. I would say in all of the West was comparatively hesitant in doing to much. Mostly because they like non of the people fighting and those they like, some of their allies don't like. The US for example, would love to support the PYD (even more), but Turkey essentially says PYD=PKK and the US has the PKK on the terror list. It seems that even most Foreign policy experts are highly unsure how to handle the current situation. > Do local players have fighter jets, drones etc ? No, but most fighting is not done with fighter jets and drones. Also, regional players, such as Jordan, Turkey, Iran and so on DO have fighter jets. The US could of course stop selling jets to Jordan but that would not change the current situation very much. Plus it would have many other effects. In my opinion the hole ME policy should be rethought but that needs a larger context.