Syria: will the West attack?

[ALB]

Interesting article in today's Independent on the "Moderates":http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syrian-archbishop-pleads-for-uk-to-stop-backing-anti-assad-islamist-groups-a6697226.htmlThe Western capitalist powers did the same thing in Afghanistan of course. But that's realpolitik for you: anything goes when it comes to overthrowing a regime perceived as hostile to a state's economic and geopolitical interests.To give him his due, in this passage in his speech to the SNP Conference today Alex Salmond expresses a sensible view on the question of bombing Syria:

Quote:

Mr Salmond, the SNP foreign affairs spokesman at Westminster, said: "There is nobody in Syria who is not being bombed by somebody. That's why there are six-and-a-half million people displaced."He added: "What should our reaction be to this carnage in this country? We need to be the voice of clarity, of sanity and of humanity."We have to have the clarity to put forward the vision that adding a few more ageing Tornado sorties will have no military consequences whatsoever but it will add to human suffering".

[ALB]

As the Syrian government has launched an offensive to try to gain complete control of Syria's largest city, Aleppo, background article here explaining why many of Sunni Muslim background are fighting against the Jihadists and so-called "Moderate" rebels:http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/03/syria-aleppo-sunni-quds-baath-brigades.html#It seems that if there are any moderates in Syria they would be supporting the secular Syrian government against those who want to establish a confessional Sunni Muslim state there.

[ALB]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

And now read Amnesty Internation condeming moderate YPG for war crimes !http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34511134

YPG refutes Amnesty's allegations:http://www.syriahr.com/en/2015/10/kurdish-ypg-denies-amnesty-allegations-on-war-crimes-in-syria/

[alanjjohnstone]

Perhaps they do, ALB, but i'm hard pushed to recall any government or army that has ever accepted any of Amnesty International's reports unless it is about their rivals and opposition. We do have sometimes a quandary, they, Human Rights Watch and Reporters Without Borders are sometimes accused of political bias that affects their objectivity so yes , i think, we should sometimes reserve judgement.  

[alanjjohnstone]

I should add to organisations that is sometimes suspect, the website you link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Observatory_for_Human_Rights

[ALB]

I agree that the Syrian Observatory is biased, in its language and reporting, against the Syrian government (which it refers to as the "Syrian regime", as in "regime change") but in this case it was merely reporting. For a report of the same thing from another source:http://www.basnews.com/en/news/2015/10/17/ypg-calls-amnesty-international-report-arbitrary-biased/The YPG make a valid point when they accuse Amnesty of inadvertently stirring up already existing and long-standing ethnic tensions in the area. And of course there are "war crimes" and "war crimes" (a stupid concept anyway):  razing villages (which no doubt has gone on to some extent) is not the same league as publicly executing prisoners of war or enslaving an ethnic group as ISIS have done. In fact, as a secular group which says it is committed to the concept of political democracy, the YPG is one that might qualify as "moderate". The trouble, from the Western capitalist bloc's point of view, is that they are not fighting against the Syrian government: the two seem to have at least a tacit agreement not to tread on each other's toes. More on this here:http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/08/syrian-kurds-sets-terms-assad-partnership-150803191234786.html

[alanjjohnstone]

Amnesty denies YPG denialhttp://eurasianews.de/en/amnesty-international-confirms-kurdish-militia-ypg-commits-war-crimes-in-syria/

Quote:

the YPG threatened to request airstrikes from the US-led coalition, if they fail to leave their houses.“They told us we had to leave or they would tell the US coalition that we were terrorists and their planes would hit us and our families,” said one of the residents, Safwan, published on Amnesty International. The Kurdish militias refused said allegations, saying it was a preventive measure of isolation, to protect civilians in the near-by regions. However, Amnesty could not verify those claims, since no fights were taking place in near-by villages. “The Autonomous Administration must immediately stop the unlawful demolition of civilian homes, compensate all civilians whose homes were unlawfully destroyed, cease unlawful forced displacements, and allow civilians to return and rebuild,” said Lama Fakih.

You and i are in no position to be 100% sure of what is the truth, but we both know in that cliche, truth is the first casualty of war. Identifying moderates in the midst of a complicated civil war is difficult. 

[ALB]

Who does Lama Fakih think she is? Next she'll be telling ISIS that they "must" put the heads back on those they beheaded.  I see she's an "Arab American". Not biassed then? She's already been accused (ok, by a supporter of Kurdish nationalism) of being an "Arab Nationalist":https://www.change.org/p/amnesty-international-amnesty-international-must-remove-arab-nationalist-lama-fakih-reporting-about-kurdistan?recruiter=403036212&utm_source=share_for_starters&utm_medium=copyLinkThis is a good exercise is not taking what you read in the media at face value.

[alanjjohnstone]

I don't think you can automatically declare a bias simply because she is an Arab-American. You'd be more on target by citing her last job with HRW. She seems to be a career-woman for NGOs. She is certainly anti-Assad.Full AI report http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/files/live//sites/almonitor/files/documents/2015/AI.WeHadNowhereElseToGo.PDFThe Kurds do not deny all the accusations but justify them as isolated and in the interests of the safety of the locals. And have identified those who supported ISIS.Collective punishment whether Israeli house demolitions or Kurdish are treated alike as war crimes by AI…Or should they be discrimatory in apportion blame and culpability. 

[ALB]

ALB wrote:

As the Syrian government has launched an offensive to try to gain complete control of Syria's largest city, Aleppo, background article here explaining why many of Sunni Muslim background are fighting against the Jihadists and so-called "Moderate" rebels:http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/03/syria-aleppo-sunni-quds-baath-brigades.html#

Just realised that the author of this article is the same "Edward Dark" who a couple of years ago wrote this moving obituary for the "revolution" (which, I think, was mentioned here at the time):http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=246_1369829961He is living in the government-held part of Aleppo.

[ALB]

Article here which argues that why Russia has intervened to prop up the Syrian government (and why the West want it overthrown) is who is to control the gas fields that have been discovered in the Eastern Mediterranean:http://cyprus-mail.com/2015/10/18/war-in-syria-today-could-spell-war-for-cyprus-tomorrow/Could be something in it.

[alanjjohnstone]

It  wouldn't explain the support Soviet Union/Russia have given Syria since 1955. http://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/833/the-syria-soviet-alliance(despite the suspect source it lays out a fairly accurate time-line) CNN seems to concur with it http://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/09/opinion/russia-syria-relations/I think the main priority right now for Russia is to secure its marine base by keeping Assad in power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_naval_facility_in_TartusPlus as usual demonstrating that any alliance with Russia will be honoured, something future potential allies would want to be assured of.Another interesting theory, though, is the abortive Qatar-Syrian pipeline …plenty on the web on ithttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar-Turkey_pipelinehttp://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-09-10/competing-gas-pipelines-are-fueling-syrian-war-migrant-crisishttp://www.globalresearch.ca/the-geopolitics-of-gas-and-the-syrian-crisis-syrian-opposition-armed-to-thwart-construction-of-iran-iraq-syria-gas-pipeline/5337452Does it explain the long-established monarchist Saudi antipathy to a republican rival, though?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia%E2%80%93Syria_relationsI'm fairly suspicious of simplistic one-cause explanations…A lot of different interests are involved…the fact that Israel now think oil exists in the occupied Golan Heights no way determines its relations with Syria, for example.The real tension that might have unintended consequences is the off-shore oil/gas that Israel and Lebanon and the proto-Palestinian state are claiming…If the water supply is anything to go by, Israel will somehow acquire the giant share, i'm betting.  

[Young Master Smeet]

Interestingly, Juan Cole takes a look at who is supporting the Syrian state (perhaps, he's right to suggest that that's not the same thing as supporting Assad, though in the short term, it is):

Juan Cole wrote:

It is not clear exactly what the Syrian Arab Army is fighting for. Probably not, by now, the ruling Baath Party or war criminal President Bashar al-Assad. A mixture of Alawite Shiites and secular-minded Sunnis, my guess is that the SAA is fighting against the Salafi fundamentalists who they know would gladly oppress or even kill them. Syria is likely 10-14 percent Alawite, 5 percent Christian, 3 percent Druze, and it has some Twelver Shiites as well. Along with these minorities, probably a half to a third of the Sunni Arab population (about 60% of the whole) is standing with the regime. Another 10 percent are Kurds, who are also fighting the fundamentalists and sometimes have alliances of convenience with the al-Assad regime against Daesh (ISIS, ISIL). So the demographic weight of Syria has so far told against the conservative rural Sunnis and the urban lower middle class Muslim Brotherhood adherents.

http://www.juancole.com/2015/10/advances-russian-support.htmlAt least he brings class into the question, as well as ethnicity (and I suppoe there is a long standing correlation between the two out there).

[Young Master Smeet]

Oh, and a non-rebuttal rebuttal from a volunteer, taht seems to be saying, yes, the things happened, but, y'know, it's a warzone:http://kurdishquestion.com/index.php/kurdistan/west-kurdistan/open-letter-to-amnesty-from-uk-ypg-volunteer/1173-open-letter-to-amnesty-from-uk-ypg-volunteer.html

Quote:

When we entered a village sometimes we had to use people's properties. This involved fortifying them with sandbags and earth (using diggers). This was as a necessity of war and because of the risk of an ISIS attack. There was never a deliberate policy to damage property.

[jondwhite]

ALB wrote:

Article here which argues that why Russia has intervened to prop up the Syrian government (and why the West want it overthrown) is who is to control the gas fields that have been discovered in the Eastern Mediterranean:http://cyprus-mail.com/2015/10/18/war-in-syria-today-could-spell-war-for-cyprus-tomorrow/Could be something in it.

Even if the gas fields don't prove profitable it is kind of like capitalism would regard any investment, some pay off and some don't.

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