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Answering here, so that my reply to your post [1] won't get squeezed. [PART 1] Just in case: I believe in your sincerity and want for the truth, and didn't me
by pipy 13y ago
Answering here, so that my reply to your post [1] won't get squeezed.
[PART 1]
Just in case: I believe in your sincerity and want for the truth, and didn't mean to offend you in any way.
>Amnesty talks about 10K dead just in detentions (without e.g. bombing/shelling of cities) as probably low.
No, I've opened the actual article by Amnesty that is linked in Wikipedia near the figure, and on pages 10 and 11 it states this:
Since the outbreak of pro-reform protests in Fe
bruary 2011 and of mass protests calling for the
downfall of President Bashar al-Assad and his
government, in particular after the security
forces first shot dead several demonstrators in Dera’a on 18 March 2011, Amnesty
International has received the names of more than 10,000 people – mainly men and boys -who
have been killed during the unrest, although
the actual figure may be considerably higher.
The evidence collected in the Aleppo and Idlib governorates, including the Jebel al-Zawiyah and
Jebel al-Wastani areas, shows that hundreds, possibly more, have been deliberately killed at
close range. While some of the victims were active in the opposition, many of them were killed
unlawfully after having been taken captive; others
appear to have been targeted simply because
they were living in opposition-held areas and
as such may have been considered supporters of
armed opposition groups, including those linked
to the FSA. Others were reportedly killed
simply because soldiers wanted
to take revenge on people from the area and/or could not find
those they were looking for. [2]
That is not to say that Assad is not to be held accountable for at least part of this deaths, but it is a civil war death toll, and not the number of deaths in detention/and deliberate killings.
I think that Assad is a horrible guy. His father was obviously a brutal dictator and Assad has mismanaged the country so badly that it fell into the civil war. I have personally seen videos of the shootings at demonstrators. One of the most touching and at the same time not explicitly graphic being this one [3]. I think that he's got to be held accountable for what he did. But not at the expense of tens of thousands dead innocent people.
>AGAIN: WHY WOULD THE RESULTS OF THE STRIKES BE WORSE THAN LETTING THE MASS MURDERERS GET AWAY WITH IT, SO THEY KEEP USING WMD??? (Not to mention keep using air/artillery on civilians.)
Here, I would abstain from commenting on the validity of claims that the chemical weapons were used by Assad regime, since I think that I've already made my point that the so called 'evidence' is not to be taken seriously. Even the members of the US House Intelligence Committee that have seen the full classified version of it don't seem to consider the evidence compelling. Even the White House chief of staff has stated that the "Administration lacks irrefutable beyond-a-reasonable-doubt evidence". Let's consider that the WMD was used by the explicit order of Assad, just for the sake of the argument.
0. Why not call for peace talks, and/or immediate ceasefire? It is the US and Syrian opposition that has continuously abstained from them.
1. First and foremost, if the good of the Syrian people is to be taken as the priority, before any strike there should be a plan that takes potential civilian death toll into consideration. There is no such plan, not to my knowledge. And not to the knowledge of the members of the UK House of Commons and US State Senators (at least, the ones whose testimony I watched). How are you going to imply that the death toll would be magically minimal? Do you really think that it is the matter to be discussed without relying on documents, calculations, etc.? You somehow seem to imply that it is commonsensical that the death toll would be low, but that is not enough, as the past shows.
1.A. Kosovo (in this thread I have made a sourced point about the civilian death toll in Kosovo operation and the fact that it was well above the supposed number of Milosevic victims).
1.B. Iraq. Invation of Iraq has led to a horrendous civil war with tens of thousands (by conservative numbers) civilians killed, and that is not to mention couple of thousands of civilians that were killed during the invasion itself. Sorry, US has destroyed this country, it's infrastructure, etc. etc. The fact that Saddam was a horrible guy is not a validation for destroying the lives of millions of Iraqis. This is a crime against humanity, the same one for which people were hanged after Nuremberg Trials. Not to mention the horrible illnesses that were inflicted on Iraqis by depleted uranium contamination.
Actually, the list can go on, and on, and on.
As a large number of experts claim, and as I have written in previous comments, the situation could potentially deteriorate and go out of control. Israel is preparing for potential armed conflict with Iran as a result of this war. Turkey is preparing it's troops for potential ground invasion of Syria. Etc. etc. etc., I have written about it in this very thread. The civil war in Syria is not a war of Assad against all of it's people (or he would've already lost long time ago). It is a war between various factions in Syria and outside of Syria. It is a war of Alawites against members of other sects. It is a war between Sunni and Shia. It is a war of Syrian people against invasion of foreign jihadi militants from all over the world. It is a war of Quatar for the ability to sell natural gas on the European market (they finance foreign militants to be able to install the regime that will allow to build pipeline over Syrian territory). It is a war of Saudi Arabia, United States [4] [5] for the regional domination. It is a war of Iran for it's security. It could be a war of Israel to potentially gain more territories beyond Golan Heights. It is a war of Russia for the domination of the European natural gas market. It is a war of Russia with it's very own jihadists that have travelled to Syria from Chechnya, the list goes on, and on, and on. Oh, and also this is an opportunity for the Kurds to create their own nation state. And a war of different factions of Iraqis against each other.
Just to elaborate, according to a Qatari poll that was made in the end of 2011, 55% of Syrians were supportive of Assad at the time. [6]
- pipy 13y ago[PART 2] 1.C. As you probably know, today Syria and Russia have agreed to the proposal by Kerry that the only way to prevent attacks is to put the WMD's under international control. And the US reaction, at least immediate, was to instantly shift the goals of Syria bombings from helping the people of Syria to "Making a point for international community", and state that it welcomes the political solution but is still going to bomb Syria nevertheless. 2. In fact, the Obama administration has constantly shifted the goals of the bombings, to the point when it is really hard to take their arguments seriously. They were stating that they are not going to force Assad out of power, now they are stating that they are going to force Assad out of power, etc. I hope that I have answered your question about why the bombings are a great potential threat to the people of Syria. I don't see the US trying to find a peaceful solution. 3. Obama is a mass murderer himself, he kills thousands of people by drones, not to mention the "double drone attack" tactic that targets first responders, which constitutes a war crime under international law. [7] And the list can be continued with mass tortures (for which large number of torturers have recently got official immunity [8]), extraordinary rendition, etc. Man, suppose we have a large family in which one of the members is abusing others. You are suggesting feeding an entire family to a crocodile (US bombs and forein jihadis brought in by Quatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey) as a remedy. Or, potentially nuke them from orbit with a whole city as a worst-case scenario (ignite the whole region in conflict). Shit has hit the fan on the March of 2011. And there is no silver bullet, no silver DU munitions, not even a silver nuke to clean it up. You are suggesting to fight fire by pouring gasoline into it. A number of countries and experts have called for ceasefire and peace talks, to which the Syrian government has agreed. There is no rational reason behind US putting this option off the table beyond it's strategic interests in the Middle East. Not that I know of. This, plus the lack of evidence that support the statement that it is Assad who used WMDs, is a giant red flag (don't forget the Iraq lies too). Sadly, there is no good force to sort things out, probably, beyond the UN. I'm probably as against Assad as you are. The point in which I differ is that the US bombardments would cripple the poor country even further. Oh, I think I should've gone to sleep long time ago... ---------- [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6355356 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6355356 [2] http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE24/041/2012/en/30416985-883b-4e67-b386-0df14a79f694/mde240412012en.pdf http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE24/041/2012/en/30... [3] http://vimeo.com/72095995 http://vimeo.com/72095995 [4] General Wesley Clark Reveals US Plan To Invade Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Lybia, Somalia, Sudan, And Iran Made in 2001 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8YtF76s-yM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8YtF76s-yM [5] To quote Zbigniew Brzezinski, renowned US strategist and Obama's mentor (sorry for pasting such large number of quotes, but it's definitely worth it). "...To put it in a terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together." "Moreover, they [the Central Asian Republics] are of importance from the standpoint of security and historical ambitions to at least three of their most immediate and more powerful neighbors, namely Russia, Turkey and Iran, with China also signaling an increasing political interest in the region. But the Eurasian Balkans are infinitely more important as a potential economic prize: an enormous concentration of natural gas and oil reserves is located in the region, in addition to important minerals, including gold." (p.124) "The world's energy consumption is bound to vastly increase over the next two or three decades. Estimates by the U.S. Department of energy anticipate that world demand will rise by more than 50 percent between 1993 and 2015, with the most significant increase in consumption occurring in the Far East. The momentum of Asia's economic development is already generating massive pressures for the exploration and exploitation of new sources of energy and the Central Asian region and the Caspian Sea basin are known to contain reserves of natural gas and oil that dwarf those of Kuwait, the Gulf of Mexico, or the North Sea." (p.125) "In fact, an Islamic revival - already abetted from the outside not only by Iran but also by Saudi Arabia - is likely to become the mobilizing impulse for the increasingly pervasive new nationalisms, determined to oppose any reintegration under Russian - and hence infidel - control." (p. 133). "It follows that America's primary interest is to help ensure that no single power comes to control this geopolitical space and that the global community has unhindered financial and economic access to it." (p148) "America is now the only global superpower, and Eurasia is the globe's central arena. Hence, what happens to the distribution of power on the Eurasian continent will be of decisive importance to America's global primacy and to America's historical legacy." (p.194) "With warning signs on the horizon across Europe and Asia, any successful American policy must focus on Eurasia as a whole and be guided by a Geostrategic design." (p.197) "That puts a premium on maneuver and manipulation in order to prevent (preempt) the emergence of a hostile coalition that could eventually seek to challenge America's primacy..." (p. 198) Zbigniew Brzezinski, "The Grand Chessboard": http://www.takeoverworld.info/Grand_Chessboard.pdf http://www.takeoverworld.info/Grand_Chessboard.pdf Obama: I've learned an immense amount from Dr. Brzezinski: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASlETEx0T-I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASlETEx0T-I [6] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jan/17/syrians-support-assad-western-propaganda http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jan/17/syrians... [7] http://www.livingunderdrones.org/living-under-drones/ http://www.livingunderdrones.org/living-under-drones/ [8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q14fz0Bd-kM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q14fz0Bd-kM