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View Full Version : Syria - Please Do What You Can Now to Halt this Rush to War



سيف الله
08-29-2013, 12:05 PM
Salaam

Western governments and media are engaging in propaganda campaign to brainwash the public into getting (directly) involved in another war.

You cant make this up +o(.

However some do resist.

Please Do What You Can Now to Halt this Rush to War

I am moved to write what follows by a terrible feeling of powerlessness as the government of my country rushes towards a war for which it knows it has no mandate.

It appears that a decision has already been taken in Washington DC to launch some sort of attack on Syria. It also seems that the British government wishes to join in that attack. The House of Commons has been recalled but the behaviour of the Opposition Leader (and of the leader of the Liberal Democrats) suggests that they are not prepared to question this involvement with any vigour. If British people wish to oppose this bizarre and perilous adventure, it is therefore up to them to contact their MPs directly.

This posting is designed to help them to do so, calmly, reasonably, politely and logically while there is yet time. A decisive vote against British involvement is still quite possible, and would be an important demonstration of national maturity and responsibility, as well as a permanent check on the incurable enthusiasm of some politicians for war and its alleged glamour and glory.

Here are some arguments which you might wish to use, if and when (as I urge you to ) you contact your MP in the next two days.

It is being suggested (as it always is) that the planned attack will be precise, surgical, proportionate etc etc etc.

The truth is that nobody ever really knows the final consequence of any act of violence. Violence generally results in retaliation, which in this case might take many unpredictable forms.

Wars often begin with minor incidents, minor anyway to start with, which then bleed without ceasing until they have spread a vast red stain on much of the surface of the Earth. They are often begun on the basis of mistaken information, or indeed of lies. They are often begun by credulity, by emotionalism and by the failure of responsible persons to see through propaganda.

That is why thoughtful people hesitate greatly before even contemplating such acts, generally preferring to do them only in self-defence. When the violence involves a military attack on a sovereign country with which we are not at war, the matter is still more risky.

Precision warfare is a myth. On several occasions, supposedly super-accurate airstrikes on Libya resulted in the undisputed deaths of several entirely innocent people, including small children. Our attacks on Belgrade during the Kosovo crisis killed such dangerous persons as a make-up lady at Serbian national TV headquarters. If our concern is for the innocent, the launch of bombs and missiles is an odd way of showing it.

The moral clothing in which this attack is dressed is a mass of rags and tatters. The very same people demanding punishment for the Syrian state (including the discredited Anthony Blair) are those who defend or overlook the terrible mass killings by the Egyptian government. That government, which came to power in a blatant military coup, has - and I put this at its mildest – no more legitimacy than the government in Damascus. What is more, there is no dispute at all about who is responsible for the recent mass shootings of demonstrators in Egypt. Yet neither Washington nor London (who claim to be be to descry Syria's guilt by some sort of magic process) will even concede that a putsch has taken place in Cairo.

If we are outraged by governments that kill their own people, our outrage cannot be selective and aimed at only one government which does this. If it is selective, then it is false and has another purpose. What is that purpose? We are not told.

At the time of writing, the United Nations teams have barely begun their investigation into the episode. The Syrian government deny their involvement. There is no proof that they are lying. It is far from impossible to believe that the rebels have resorted to such weapons. In fact, it makes far more sense for them to have done so than for the Syrian government. That government has the upper hand in its civil war at present. It knows perfectly well that proof of its complicity in the use of poison gas will open it to attack. It also knows that such proof will remove the protection it has had up till now from the UN Security Council and the Russian-Chinese veto.

The rush to take action before those teams have reported is frighteningly reminiscent of the rush to attack Iraq, and the withdrawal of Hans Blix’s inspection teams from that country, which were of course on the point of discovering that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Governments simply cannot be trusted to act wisely or responsibly in such matters. They have repeatedly shown this in recent years. That is why we have a Parliament and a free press, to scrutinize and question such things. What is the rush? Why are we having the sentence first, and the evidence and the verdict afterwards? Mr Cameron should be told he cannot have his war until he has proof that it is justified, and until he can show that the actions that he plans are in the interests of this country.

Please do what you can, while you can. There are many honourable reasons for opposing this attack. Whether you are of the Left or Right, liberal or conservative, Christian, of another faith or without faith, patriot or internationalist, all can unite on the simple issues of preferring truth to falsehood, calm justice to wild, flailing vengeance , and careful deliberation to rush to judgement.

Please, do what you can to stop this.

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/

This video helps to understand how western propaganda systems work.

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Jedi_Mindset
08-29-2013, 07:08 PM
Syria was already on the list since the 90's



I am not defending assad nor FSA(I know that alot of these brigades dont want intervention, only its zionist leadership wants it) i seriously hope though that the zionists will fail, although the damage already has been done.

This crusade in favor of israel needs to stop. Hopefully it will end in their demise insha'Allah

I dont believe Assad nor FSA planted this WMD, it could be mossad or CIA. Assad is crazy, but i dont think he is that crazy to launch a chemical attack while the UN arrived on the same day.


This all being pre-planned.


At 42:10 a interesting subject which is currently happening, we dont need politics to realize this.
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Independent
08-30-2013, 10:51 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by Junon
The House of Commons has been recalled but the behaviour of the Opposition Leader (and of the leader of the Liberal Democrats) suggests that they are not prepared to question this involvement with any vigour.
How wrong can you get? Cameron lost the vote.
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سيف الله
08-30-2013, 12:15 PM
Salaam

Yes he lost the vote. It was close though. And the reasons given by many Mps for voting against were mainly tactical and pragmatic rather than principled. But then again that's politics for you.

Regardless, it was a good result.

I think the public are far more warier of Leaders pontificating on their burning need 'intervene' for 'humanitarian' purposes. Perhaps people understand that wading in blood is not the best way to express humanitarian sentiment.



Stop the War Coalition welcomes Parliament's rejection of war on Syria

The Stop the War Coalition welcomes the defeat of David Cameron’s plan to attack Syria in parliament tonight. We didn’t stop the war in Iraq, but we did create a mass anti war opinion in Britain. That tide of anti war opinion has made itself felt in the past few days. MPs have in their majority refused to back a fourth intervention by western powers since 2001. They have for once reflected the majority public opinion in this country.

We now have to reject all attempts at intervention in Syria and to develop a foreign policy which is based on equality and justice, and the rights of national sovereignty.

The Tory led government will try to recoup the situation. We will demonstrate on Saturday against this intervention, whether by the US alone or with Britain involved. It is the aim of the anti-war movement to ensure that the US is forced to abandon the attack on Syria now that the country with which it is supposed to enjoy a ‘special relationship’ has carried a parliamentary vote against war.

http://www.stopwar.org.uk/news/stop-...f-war-on-syria
And a reply from Peter Hitchens

A Word of Thanks

A brief word of thanks to those among you who followed my advice and contacted your Members of Parliament about Syria. I noted that some readers said the matter was foreordained and there was no point in this. I believe they were wrong. This country is not what it was, but still has independent public opinion, free speech and an adversarial parliament whose members in many cases pay attention to their constituents.

In instinctively felt that there was a chance of influencing events. Perhaps the matter was already settled when I wrote, but the closeness of the vote (which in all justice should have been more like 500 to 130) suggests that the usual counter-forces of ambition, cowardice, stupidity and dogma were still very much at work.

In any case, I thank all those who responded, and I thank those MPs who listened. This is the first time in years that I have felt actively proud of my own country.

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/
The reaction of Cameron and his supporters has been quite interesting. PM has gone into damage limitation mode. Meanwhile the rest of them are bleating on about how Britain doesn't 'care' what happens in the rest of the world and that we are a 'lesser' power now. Its interesting to see how deeply ingrained the colonial mentality is amongst certain sections of British society.
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GodIsAll
08-30-2013, 05:46 PM
I wrote to all of my representatives several days ago about this very thing. Our foreign policy disgusts me and most Americans.

Recent polls clearly state the U.S. citizens want nothing further to do with meddling in Middle East affairs.

Of course, our "representatives" are nothing more than self-serving sleazes. The "two-party" system is a joke. Something needs to change. Now.

By the way: "Hi, there, NSA! Put me on your harrass list if I'm not on it already".
Scumbags...
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Independent
08-31-2013, 09:56 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by Junon
Regardless, it was a good result.
For once we are in agreement. I'm delighted at the result. In my view the UK and the US should not intervene unless they have a genuine consensus of backing from other Muslim states (even if unanimity is unlikely for obvious reasons). For instance, Gulf War 1 was a properly supported war with clear, justified objectives which were carried out to the letter (even to the extent of leaving Saddam in power).

The stuff in the UK media from some commentators talking about 'decline in world influence' is wrong. They fail to understand that world politics have changed. This decision by the UK government is a model for the future. The US will also begin to pick and choose its fights more carefully. Increasingly, they will only support allies rather than trying to be the world policeman. Once consent for this role has been lost, it can't be continued.

However, it looks like the US will still make some kind of gesture on Syria because they have said too much to back down.
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سيف الله
08-31-2013, 11:24 AM
Salaam

Commentary on the wider situation.

We Should Have Been Traumatised Into Action By This War In 2011. And 2012. But Now?

By Robert Fisk


Before the stupidest Western war in the history of the modern world begins – I am, of course, referring to the attack on Syria that we all now have to swallow – it might be as well to say that the Cruise missiles which we confidently expect to sweep onto one of mankind’s oldest cities have absolutely nothing to do with Syria.

They are intended to harm Iran. They are intended to strike at the Islamic Republic now that it has a new and vibrant president – as opposed to the crackpot Mahmoud Ahmedinejad – and when it just might be a little more stable. Iran is Israel’s enemy. Iran is therefore, naturally, America’s enemy. So there is nothing pleasant about the regime in Damascus. Nor do these comments let the regime off the hook when it comes to mass gassing. But I am old enough to remember that when Iraq – then America’s ally – used gas against the Kurds of Hallabjah in 1988, we did not assault Baghdad. Indeed, that attack would have to wait until 2003, when Saddam no longer had any gas or any of the other weapons we nightmared over. And I also happen to remember that the CIA put it about in 1988 that Iran was responsible for the Hallabjah gassings, a palpable lie that focused on America’s enemy whom Saddam was then fighting on our behalf. And thousands – not hundreds – died in Hallabjah. But there you go. Different days, different standards.

And I suppose it’s worth noting that when Israel killed up to 17,000 men, women and children in Lebanon in 1982 in an invasion supposedly provoked by the attempted PLO murder of the Israeli ambassador in London – it was Saddam’s mate Abu Nidal who arranged the killing, not the PLO, but that doesn’t matter now – America merely called for both sides to exercise “restraint”. And when, a few months before that invasion, Hafez al-Assad – father of Bashar – sent his brother up to Hama to wipe out thousands of Muslim Brotherhood rebels, nobody muttered a word of condemnation. “Hama Rules,” is how my old mate Tom Friedman cynically styled this bloodbath. Anyway, there’s a different Brotherhood around these days – and Obama couldn’t even bring himself to say ‘boo’ when their elected president got deposed.

So what in heaven’s name are we doing? After countless thousands have died in Syria’s awesome tragedy, suddenly – now, after months and years of prevarication – we are getting upset about a few hundred deaths. We should have been traumatised into action by this war in 2011. And 2012. But now? Why? Well, I suspect I know the reason. I think that Bashar al-Assad’s ruthless army might just be winning against the rebels whom we secretly arm. With the assistance of the Lebanese Hizballah – Iran’s ally in Lebanon – the Damascus regime broke the rebels in Qusayr and may be in the process of breaking them north of Homs. Iran is ever more deeply involved in protecting the Syrian government. Thus a victory for Bashar is a victory for Iran. And Iranian victories cannot be tolerated by the West.

And while we’re on the subject of war, what happened to those magnificent Palestinian-Israeli negotiations John Kerry was boasting about? While we express our anguish at the hideous gassings in Syria, the land of Palestine continues to be gobbled up. Israel’s Likudist policy – to negotiate for peace until there is no Palestine left – continues apace, which is why King Abdullah of Jordan’s nightmare (a much more potent one than the ‘weapons of mass destruction’ we dreamed up in 2003) grows larger: that Palestine will be in Jordan, not in Palestine.

But if we are to believe the nonsense coming out of Washington, London, Paris and the rest of the ‘civilised’ world, it’s only a matter of time before our swift and avenging sword smiteth the Damascenes. To observe the leadership of the rest of the Arab world applauding this destruction is perhaps the most painful historical experience for the region to endure. And the most shameful. Save for the fact that we will be attacking Shiite Muslims and their allies to the handclapping of Sunni Muslims. That’s what civil war is made of.

http://www.zcommunications.org/we-should-have-been-traumatised-into-action-by-this-war-in-2011-and-2012-but-now-by-robert-fisk.html
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سيف الله
08-31-2013, 11:38 AM
Salaam

Comment pieces from the UK mainstream press. Too optimistic interpretation for my liking but its interesting nevertheless.

Britain’s message: out, but not down

The question that will be asked in some quarters is whether Thursday’s vote on intervention in Syria is symptomatic of a new attitude in Britain


Seven days ago, David Cameron was in the political ascendancy, his greatest worry – after a summer of unremitting good news – a few mildly embarrassing holiday photos. By the middle of the week, it appeared as though Britain was barrelling towards war with Syria. By its end, both the Prime Minister’s plans for military intervention, and his own reputation, had suffered a bruising and humiliating reverse.

More than 24 hours after the House of Commons voted against the Government resolution that would have paved the way for military action – something that seemed to surprise most MPs almost as much as it did ministers – the implications are still being digested. It was immediately obvious, as we wrote yesterday, that the ghost of the Iraq war had played a large and probably decisive role. After 2003, it is no longer possible for a prime minister advocating overseas intervention to plead for the nation’s trust and receive it, at least without the most stringent proof of overwhelming necessity. But the consequences for Britain’s international position, for our relationship with America, and for the people of Syria, have yet to be determined.

Still, there are many things that can be said with certainty. The first is that this was a day in which Parliament did much to restore its reputation. In reclaiming the right to decide on such great questions, MPs not only asserted their own prerogative but spoke up for a population alarmed and dismayed by the seeming rush to war. It was symbolic that they defeated both the Government motion and the Opposition amendment: this was not a carefully laid parliamentary plot, but a moment at which it became painfully apparent that ministers were too far ahead of the country. Indeed, while it will be cold comfort to Mr Cameron, he too deserves credit for giving Parliament the chance to debate the issue. In his excellent speech on Thursday, in which he laid out the evidence against Bashar al-Assad with both conviction and courtesy, the Prime Minister deliberately came across as the anti-Blair, a politician determined to be honest with and respectful of Parliament.

It was not, however, enough to save him from his own errors. Allowing his team in Downing Street to brief, disgracefully, that his opponents were giving “succour” to the Assad regime was bad enough. But the loss of Thursday’s vote, and the manner of it, said dreadful things about Mr Cameron’s party management skills – about his knowledge of his back benches; about the whipping operation that was in place (symbolised by the fact that the International Development Secretary missed the vote after failing to hear the Division Bell); and ultimately about the level not just of trust, but of faith, that he could draw on in order to persuade his MPs to vote against their instincts.

This was all the more glaring because of the details of the vote: thanks to the shabby game-playing of Ed Miliband, the Government’s initial resolution had been watered down to the point where it was thought that most MPs could accept it. While the direction of travel was clear, any military action would still require specific further endorsement by Parliament. It was for that reason that the vote on Thursday was expected to be something of a formality, with the real fireworks coming in the wake of the UN inspectors’ report.

We are left with a situation in which, while Parliament has regained its lustre, all three of the party leaders have lost much of theirs. Ed Miliband has a tactical victory, but it came almost accidentally – the product not of his leadership, but of his pathological reluctance to lead. That vacillation, combined with his monumentally unimpressive performance in the Chamber, scarcely burnished his prime ministerial credentials. As for Nick Clegg, his efforts to command the Commons while summing up for the Coalition were hardly more impressive.

While Mr Cameron will not thank us for saying so, it is no bad thing that the vote went as it did. True, for Britain to stand aside while others act goes against both our recent traditions and, perhaps, our sense of ourselves as a nation. Yet neither this newspaper, nor the British public, had been anything like convinced of the case for intervention – or, if there was to be intervention, that Britain should be to the fore.

The question that will be asked in some quarters – not least among our traditional allies – is whether Thursday’s vote is symptomatic of a new attitude in this country, a sounding of the recessional and a drawing in of horns. That should not be taken as the intention: we are one of the few nations with the capacity and inclination to intervene militarily on the side of the weak, where diplomatic efforts have failed. No one should doubt that Britain remains a full-blooded member of Nato and the UN, an ally of America and committed to its international responsibilities.

At the same time, it may be no bad thing that our leaders have learnt that they do not have free rein to commit the nation to overseas adventures – especially not when the public is unconvinced, the consequences are wildly uncertain and our military capabilities have been cut to the bone. Or that Britain has been left a humbler nation – with a far humbler Prime Minister.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/t...-not-down.html


The Syria vote: Britain's new mood

The country has not become isolationist. It is merely fed up with the debilitating post 9/11 years of national sacrifice


So, after a tumultuous political week dominated by the government defeat over Syria, which Britain do we inhabit now? Is it the free-at-last nation which is "no longer a plaything of the US military adventure," as one Labour MP put it on Friday. Or the humiliated irrelevance which awoke that day with "the international credibility of Luxembourg", as a Daily Telegraph blogger suggested. The reality, as soon as you think about it, is neither of them.

There is no doubt, however, that Thursday night's Commons vote on Syria was a major parliamentary moment. Prime ministers do not often put their foreign policy on the line. They get rebuffed by MPs even more rarely. Thursday's 272-285 defeat for David Cameron's watered-down Syria policy has few precedents. It is as big a defeat as the modern Commons has delivered to any PM on a foreign policy issue. It should not be belittled, least of all by Mr Cameron. But nor should it be exaggerated.

The first question is: where does Thursday leaves Mr Cameron? The answer is that he is in much the same place he was in on Wednesday, though with a big and largely self-inflicted new political bruise. When earlier prime ministers lost the confidence of MPs over foreign wars, they had to resign. As the result was announced on Thursday there was a solitary diffident Commons call for Mr Cameron to quit. Neither his own party, nor his coalition partners, nor even Labour, wants Mr Cameron's head. His standing has taken a big knock, at home and away. But the next election has not got a single day closer as a result of the vote.

It is not even certain that British policy towards Syria has done a total U-turn either. Yes, Mr Cameron was very quick to say after the vote that there would be no military action when he could have simply promised a second vote later. Yet all three main UK parties still support in principle the case for strong action against Syria over the use of chemical weapons. What should MPs do if the case that John Kerry made in Washington yesterdayon Friday is solidly proven, or if the Assad regime launches another mass chemical attack or if al-Qaida does the same? Still vote to stand aside? Perhaps. Or press for action in the generally cautious terms promoted in the Commons this week? It is not necessarily inconceivable for the issue to be back on the table at some later stage and even to win some form of Commons backing.

There is no evidence that British public opinion has turned isolationist. There is plenty of evidence that it is fed up with the debilitating post 9/11 years of national sacrifice, with the humiliating excesses of US national security policy (not least its abuses of human rights and surveillance), with the unequal burden-sharing among allies and, above all, with the failures of policy. Iraq casts a very long, very dark shadow. As a result, right from the start of its spiralling civil war, Syria has felt like a sacrifice too far. When the latest call to arms came, though it came from a respected American president and was provoked by clearly intolerable war crimes, the answer was a clear one. Enough.

Mr Cameron made a massive miscalculation this week. But he is not the only one who has had a wake-up call. So have the Foreign Office and the armed forces. So have the intelligence services and the government lawyers. All of them have something tough to absorb about public tolerance for dangerous military engagements in hostile environments which, ever since Iraq, have felt variously precipitate, illegitimate, excessive, costly, unfocused and even, in the end, not really our fight either. Should we feel ashamed about these limits of national will, as Paddy Ashdown said yesterday? No. We should feel ashamed that our instinct for legitimacy and our patriotism have been too often and too cheaply taken for granted. It is not the public's credibility on the line. It is the government's. The mood is not never again. The mood is not now, not again, not like this.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...mood-editorial
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sister herb
08-31-2013, 02:30 PM
Salam alaykum

Those evidences of possible chemical weapon will analyse in Finland and Sweden.
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M.I.A.
08-31-2013, 03:41 PM
i dont understand...again.

there is civil war in syria.

from what has been reported there are already huge civilian casualties.


there is already collateral damage.


the question is possibly not about any intervention by the west, because anybody in a position to step in and save people from there own bloodlust should do so.

but on who's side they will intervene on.


i do understand the region is of huge importance.

but none of its neighbours or religious brethren have taken any time to make any discernable difference.

i may be wrong again, maybe they have.

there was talk of supplying weapons as always.

and lets face it, even in conspiracy theories relating back decades. at least somebody had a plan and worked towards it with intent.

the rest of us are literally floating on the tide.



to be fair there is war until there is no war.

or there is leadership.
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sister herb
08-31-2013, 04:28 PM
Salam alaykum

It debends what the most of Syrians want that other countries will do.

Are the most of Syrians sunnis or shias?

And of cource - could possible attack to Syria to be good for the West?

The war is terrible expensive to the West - as like to the East.
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Jedi_Mindset
08-31-2013, 04:32 PM
I can assure you that most of the syrians dont want it, either ones who support opposition or Assad. They very know what happened in iraq.
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M.I.A.
08-31-2013, 04:47 PM
well the proof is in the quran,

how armies are checked by each other.

and some defeat twice in number.


unfortunately, the choice is with you.

the result is with allah swt.



i hope you are just even in war.
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Mustafa2012
08-31-2013, 10:06 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Jedi_Mindset
Syria was already on the list since the 90's



I am not defending assad nor FSA(I know that alot of these brigades dont want intervention, only its zionist leadership wants it) i seriously hope though that the zionists will fail, although the damage already has been done.

This crusade in favor of israel needs to stop. Hopefully it will end in their demise insha'Allah

I dont believe Assad nor FSA planted this WMD, it could be mossad or CIA. Assad is crazy, but i dont think he is that crazy to launch a chemical attack while the UN arrived on the same day.


This all being pre-planned.


At 42:10 a interesting subject which is currently happening, we dont need politics to realize this.
:salam:

This is an interesting idea you've presented and it is a possibility that someone is trying to play both sides against each other and give the U.S. an excuse to intervene.

The question is which country or countries have most to benefit from an attack on Syria?

Let's see what the UN Inspectors have find. That should help to clarify things.

But even if they find evidence of a chemical attack, they wouldn't be able to prove who was responsible for it.

They will have to turn to other forms if intel to work out the source of the crime.

But going by how previous political attacks have been orchestrated, chances are the truth will be buried with planes that have the capability of flying below radar and causing as much damage as they want without anyone finding out.
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Jedi_Mindset
08-31-2013, 10:22 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Mustafa2012
The question is which country or countries have most to benefit from an attack on Syria?
Oh thats easy to guess, every heard of the clean collar and the yinon plan? The destruction of arab countries surrounding israel by first destroying the state armies of iraq, syria and egypt? http://members.tripod.com/alabasters...nist_plan.html (Yinon plan)

Iraq is done, the country is divided in shia, sunni and a kurdish state. Syria will be divided in two sunni states, a druze one, and a alewite one at the coast (The alewites actually are planning this if Assad does lose). Egypt the start is already done, a classic one, dividing the country between pro-morsi and secularist camps.

Now the last video i presented is because all these three countries would be under severe blockades prophecied by rasoolAllah(Saw)



The War and Sanctions on Iraq, Syria, and in Future Egypt - as foretold in Hadith

With what has been transpiring in Iraq, and now Syria - it is extremely sad that the Muslim Ummah is SLEEP WALKING from one disaster into another - without paying much attention to what has been foretold to us in Ahadeeth and without realizing that Taaghooti forces are conveniently PLAYING our differences and Perceived fault-lines while the vast majority of the Ummah are getting exploited resulting in thousands of Muslims getting killed.
I encourage and invite all to go through some Ahadeeth and see for themselves what has been foretold and then put their hand on heart and ask themselves - if they want to be part of the problem - or part of the solution - a solution that unites and brings the ummah together - rather than cause its further destruction.
The following very interesting Hadith clearly foretold what is happening in Middle-East these days.
I first read the following hadith in Ibn'e Katheer's summary of Bidaya Wan Nihaya... but then on noted that it is from Sahih Muslim (as the original source).


Sahih Muslim Book 041, Hadith Number 6923.
The Book Pertaining to the Turmoil and Portents of the Hour

Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) as saying:

1. Iraq would withhold its dirhams and qafiz;

2. Syria would withhold its mudd and dinar and

3. Egypt would withhold its irdab and dinar and

4. You would recoil to that position from where you started and
(Repeated). You would recoil to that position from where you started and
(Repeated). You would recoil to that position from where you started,

5. The bones and the flesh of Abu Huraira would bear testimony to it.

Muslim: Book 41, Number 6961:

Abu Nadra reported: We were in the company of Jabir b. ‘Abdullah that he said:
“It may happen that the people of Iraq may not send their qafiz and dirhams. We said, “Who would be responsible for it?” He said, “The non-Arabs would prevent them.” He again said,
“There is the possibility that the people of Syria may not send their dinar and mudd.” We said, “Who would be responsible for it?” He said, “This prevention would be made by the Romans.” He (Jabir b. Abdullab) kept quiet for a while and then reported Allah’s Messenger (may peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) having said: “There would be a caliph in the last (period) of my Ummah who would freely give handfuls of wealth to the people without counting it”. I said to Abu Nadra and Abu al-’Ala, “DO you mean ‘Umar bin ‘Abd al-Aziz?” They said, “No (he would be Mehdi).”


When reading the above two ahadith together – it clearly explains what is happening in the Middle-East these days and who would be responsible for it.

Some research on this Hadith:

According to this Hadith - "sanctions" would be imposed on 3 countries in the Middle-East in specific order as mentioned in the Hadith:
1st Iraq, 2nd Syria, and finally 3rd Egypt.

Let us do some detailed evaluation of this Hadith.
The hadith above mentions – Dirham and Qafiz in reference to Iraq.

The Hadith says:

“Iraq would with hold its dirham and qafiz”

Dirham = Money (see below for details)
Qafiz = A Measure of Oil!

1 Dinar = Gold Coin weighing 72 grains of average barley. This is now calculated as: 4.45 gm of Gold.
1 Dirham = (7/10) = 0.7 Dinar. (i.e. Dirham is 70% of a Gold Dinar).

It should be noted that the word “Qafiz” has been used through history for a measure of oil! Because of the Arab influence over southern Italy the Sicilian language has also borrowed some words from Arabic. One such word is clearly from the Arabic “Qifaz” and that word in Sicilain language is “Cafisu” - (cafiso: measure of oil) - [Arabic: qafiz]


This means that the sanctions imposed on Iraq would be about “Money and Oil”. i.e. An economic sanction with holding Money and Oil. (Remember the UN sanctions on Iraq and the Oil for Food programme).


The Non-Arabs would prevent them

As the Hadith about Iraq sanctions mentions - "The Non-Arabs would prevent them" - meaning that generally the Arab population would not be in favour of the sanctions in Iraq and it would be implemented by groups of nations - mostly non Arabs (i.e. Western Powers + United Nation)

We now know as a fact that economic sanctions were imposed on Iraq - after which there was 1st Persian Gulf War and then a 2nd Persian Gulf War.
The Persian Gulf War (2 August 1990 – 28 February 1991), codenamed Operation Desert Storm (17 January 1991 – 28 February 1991) commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged under the U.N. authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the US and closely in cooperation with UK, against Iraq.

Duration of the Sanctions & War on Iraq

Sanctions were imposed (which can be seen in military terminology as a technique with the goal of “Softening up the Target”.
The war against Iraq started in August, 1990 – and ended in December, 2011 (although very strong foreign influences remain). The U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq was completed on December 18, 2011
Approximate Total time: Around 22-23 years. However – if you add the pre-war sanctions – the actual duration against Iraq is much longer. According to some estimates just the pre-war sanctions on Iraq were responsible for nearly 5 million deaths of children due to lack of medicine, medical supplies, and healthy nutrition.

The Number of Muslims Killed in Iraq

The result of the war on Iraq is clear. Although Saddam Hussain is gone – thousands upon thousands of Muslims have perished in this “foreign imposed war”.

A study, published in prestigious medical journal The Lancet, estimated that over 600,000 Iraqis had been killed as a result of the invasion (as of July 2006). Iraqis have continued to be killed since then.
The updated estimate as of 2012 is that more than a million Muslims died in Iraq. The estimate that over a million Muslims in Iraq have died received independent confirmation from a prestigious British polling agency in January 2008. Opinion Research Business estimated that the death toll between March 2003 and August 2007 was 1,033,000.

Syria would withhold its mudd and dinar ...

The Hadith mentions “Mudd and Dinar” in reference to Syria.

Mudd = typically used as a measure of Wheat, or more generally food (rice, wheat, barley, bread, etc). One Mudd is equated to ¾ of a kilogram, or sometimes as 708 grams. A mudd is a measure, commonly translated in today's terminology as a "Bushel"
This means that the sanctions imposed on Syria would be about Wheat and possibly general Food and (dinar) Money.

Further - the general food sanctions/witholding would be of a smaller nature compared to the sanctions imposed on Iraq (as Mudd refers to a small measure of general food items of around 708 grams).

Considering the sanctions on Syria - the hadith mentions “This prevention would be made by the Romans". Also please note that this time it was not mentioned that "The non-Arabs would prevent them" - this means that not just non-Arabs but even Arab government and population will be included in this.

This is clearly visible by the direct involvement of many Arab countries in the Middle-east such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Gulf Countries, and even “fighters” have poured in from as far as Tunisia and Libya.

This means that the key driver of sanctions against Syria would be present day Romans - i.e. Europeans and USA plus UK.

Considering what happened with Iraq - a similar fate seems to now be emerging as the expected outcome in Syria - resulting in war, then destruction of the country and finally withdrawal of occupation forces. Already nearly 80,000 plus Muslims have perished in this internal strife and war in Syria.

Considering that war in Syria started in 2012 – although without direct and visible involvement of “Roman” forces yet (no boots on the ground) - if we expect this to take around the same time as in Iraq, it may take potentially until 2012+22 = 2034.
Muslims should pray that insha Allah – that the situation in Syria does not drag out in a long drawn out war and would end quickly.

Egypt would with hold its irdab and dinar and

Taking the hadith to its logical conclusion - we can expect that after the conflict in Syria finishes - a situation similar to that which happened in Iraq / Syria - would finally happen in Egypt.

When Husni Mubarak was in power - I used to think how the west can be against Egypt - as Mubarak was their own man. However - as the "revolution" started and Ikhwan (Muslim Brotherhood) started to come to power - it became clear to me that - this will happen after Ikhwan or may be a combination of "Islamist" parties stay in power for sometime in Egypt and start to change the policies - specially the policy of being friendly with Israel and blocking aid to Palestinians. Further imagine if the Islamic parties in Egypt rip apart the agreement signed with Israel about Sinai - and take ownership of Sinai - then - it will be considered as "open challenge" to Israel and the US and according to the current terms of agreement would be “an act of war”. Only Allah (swt) knows how the situation in Egypt would develop – however – already the “Islamist” parties have come to power in Egypt and already the relationship between Egypt and the Western Powers has changed.
The words used in reference with Egypt are Irdab and Dinar.

Irdab is a special measure especially related to Egypt.
1 Irdab = 73 KG (of Wheat)

When talking about grain - Irdab generally means wheat free from rubblish, dirt and the husks. More generally Irdab also refers to fruit in their dried state - such as dried dates and raisins.

Hence the economic sanctions against Egypt would impact dried fruits and wheat imports/exports and ofcourse dinar (money).

The present and future governments and citizens of Egypt - specially those who have any concern for the Muslims there - should take heed and start preparing for such eventuality by making sure that they can protect and defend themselves from certain onslaught that is to befall them in the future - as Hadith can never be wrong.

Finally the hadith mentions

you would recoil to that position from where you started and
you would recoil to that position from where you started and
you would recoil to that position from where you started,


It is good to remember that when Rasul Allah (saw) wanted to emphasize some pointso that those who listen - can memorize and pay special attention – he (saw) repeated in 3 times. Hence when we notice that this phrase is repeated 3 times - this is a sign that we should pay special attention and take heed/note.

"You would recoil to the position from where you started" to me means exactly what it says - that the muslims in various parts of the world - would recoil (i.e. return) to the position from where they started. This can most likely mean that muslims return to their places of origin - so the majority of muslims in non-muslim lands (like Muslims living in North America, and Europe) would potentially return to their land of origin in the Middle-East in great numbers. This would happen if the economic situation in these countries continue to deteriorate to the point that racism, islamophobia and islam bashing becomes common place and a muslim wearing islamic dress or a woman wearing Hijab or Niqab will be banned... early signs of all these have already started happening and I fear that this trend will only continue over time.

And Allah (azza wa jal) knows best.

http://ummahpriorities.blogspot.nl/2013 ... a-and.html
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سيف الله
09-01-2013, 09:45 AM
Salaam

A harsh assessment on PM David Camerons performance.

David Cameron is a vainglorious fantasist. He should quit

The Good Samaritan did not have a gun. I make this simple point to deal with those who seem to think that you can show mercy and pity by lobbing cruise missiles into war zones.

I make no claims to be a good person, but I am more and more annoyed by warmongers who dress up their simple-minded, vainglorious desire to bomb foreigners as moral.

Take Lord Ashdown, who moaned on Friday, after MPs voted against an attack on Syria, that he had never felt so ashamed. Really? Many of us can remember at least one occasion when Lord Ashdown certainly ought to have felt more ashamed.

But these days, our moral worth is not judged by such things as constancy and trust close to home, but by our noisy readiness to bomb people for their own good. The moral bomber is one of the scourges of our age. He gets it into his head that he is so good that he is allowed to kill people (accidentally of course) in a noble cause.

This stupid conceit was – at long last – challenged last week in the House of Commons. MPs, many of them rightly prompted by the fears and concerns of their constituents, refused to be stampeded by emotional horror propaganda. They kept their heads. The response of the moral bombers was typical of them. There was twaddle about ‘appeasement’. There was piffle about how our world status has suffered (don’t these people know what the rest of the planet has thought of us since the Iraq War?).

There was tripe about damage to the non-existent ‘special relationship’ between this country and the USA. Anyone who has spent two weeks in Washington DC knows that this ‘relationship’ is regarded there as a joke.

There was foul-mouthed fury from taxpayer-funded Downing Street aides, who I don’t doubt echoed their master’s voice. There were the usual snivelling attempts to portray dissent as disloyalty, cowardice or as giving aid and comfort to the enemy. These flailing, spiteful acts were the reflexes of a babyish despot deprived of a toy. Luckily, we are not yet a despotism. Despite a long assault on our free constitution, MPs can still follow their consciences, and public opinion cannot be entirely suppressed or manipulated.

In some ways, most shocking has been the behaviour of the BBC. It uncritically promoted atrocity propaganda from the beginning, making no effort to be objective. It frequently treated opponents of the rush to war with nasty contempt. If the BBC Trust is to justify its large budget and fancy offices, it would do well to investigate this grave failure to be impartial.

But it was not just the BBC. Until a couple of days before Mr Cameron’s War was abruptly cancelled, most of the media were still braying for an attack.
What bunkum it all was. The ‘West’ has no consistent or moral position at all. The ‘West’ readily condoned Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons against Iran in the 1980s and ignored his use of them in Halabja for years, trying to blame others for it.

Saddam, later a villain, was then our ally. Hypocrisy continues to this day. The US and British governments, as they vapour about the wickedness of Syria’s government, refuse even to admit the obvious fact that the Egyptian military junta came to power by a bloody and lawless putsch.

And, as they weep loud tears for the dead of Damascus (whose killers have yet to be identified) they are silent over the heaps of corpses piled in the streets of Cairo, undoubtedly gunned down by the junta, which used weapons paid for by the USA to do so, and didn’t even try to hide its actions.

Mr Blair himself, in an article for the Warmonger’s Gazette, formerly known as The Times, actually says we should ‘support the new [Egyptian] government in stabilising the country’.

That’s one way of putting it.

No doubt Bashar Assad would say he was stabilising his country. If outrage is selective it isn’t really outrage.

President Assad, for instance, was a welcome guest at Buckingham Palace on December 17, 2002, when his country was already famous for its torture chambers, its sponsorship of terror and its harbouring of grisly Nazi war criminals such as the child-murderer Alois Brunner.

If you know anything at all about the subject, it is rather difficult not to laugh at Mr Cameron’s righteous pose.

As for the rest of the Prime Minister’s arguments, they are not fit for an Eton junior debating society. WHAT is wrong with ‘standing idly by’, if the only alternative is to do something stupid? Why does it matter so much that this country takes part in the stupidity? How can he be sure that any military action is limited? If you start a fight, you provoke retaliation. And you then start a chain whose end you cannot possibly know. So it isn’t limited.
And, as he has been bursting to intervene in Syria for months, how can he claim that his passion is solely to do with the use of poison gas? If his aim is to deter future use, what is the mad rush?

As for Cameron’s ‘intelligence’ document, I could have written it myself. It all came off the internet.

Truly, he is the Heir To Blair. But having had one Blair already, we are at last learning the folly of indulging such fantasists. I don’t quite understand why he hasn’t resigned, as I’ve never in 40 years of journalism seen a Prime Minister more totally and personally repudiated by Parliament and nation. But, whether he knows it or not, I think he is now finished. That at least is one good thing to come out of this self-righteous, ignorant posturing.

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/
Reply

سيف الله
09-01-2013, 09:54 AM
Salaam

Not expecting this, Could it be that Barack Obama is attempting a 'reverse ferret'?

A US military attack against Syria was unexpectedly put on hold on Saturday, after president Barack Obama said that while he backed the use of force after what he called "the worst chemical weapons attack of 21st century", he would first seek the approval of Congress.

A US military attack against Syria was unexpectedly put on hold on Saturday, after president Barack Obama said that while he backed the use of force after what he called "the worst chemical weapons attack of 21st century", he would first seek the approval of Congress.

Obama said he had decided the US should take military action against Syria and had been told by his advisers that while assets were in place to launch strikes immediately, the operation was not "time sensitive". He said Congressional leaders had agreed to hold a vote when lawmakers return to Washington next week.

It was a dramatic turnaround by the White House, which had earlier in the week indicated it was on the verge of launching strikes against Syria without the approval of Congress. Only on Friday, secretary of state John Kerry had delivered a passionate case for taking action against Assad.

In an address to the nation from the Rose Garden at the White House, Obama said he had decided that the US should take military action that would be "limited in duration and scope", designed to "hold the Assad regime accountable for their use of chemical weapons, deter this kind of behaviour and degrade their capacity to carry it out".

The surprise came when Obama said that he had made a second decision: to seek the approval of Congress before launching any strikes. The president said he had listened to members of Congress who had expressed a desire for their voices to be heard, and that he agreed.

Obama insisted the delay did not have any tactical consequences. His most senior military advisor had told him an attack would be "effective tomorrow, or next week, or one month from now," he said.

The White House sent draft legislative wording to the House and Senate leaders on Saturday evening, which authorised actions designed only to neuter the threat of chemical weapons or to prevent their proliferation. The narrow wording was intended to make it clear that the administration had no intention of being drawn into to the wider Syrian civil war.

The move was a huge political gamble for Obama. There is no guarantee that Congress will approve military action and Obama did not say whether he would order air strikes if Congress failed to give its backing. A failure to secure approval would be a significant blow to Obama's authority, and some presidential observers suggested it could undermine the executive's traditional authority to make independent decisions on military actions.

Congress is not due to return from the August recess until 9 September. A statement from Republican leaders including John Boehner, the House speaker, said there would be no early recall. The statement said: "In consultation with the president, we expect the House to consider a measure the week of September 9. This provides the president time to make his case to Congress and the American people."

Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader in the Senate, welcomed Obama's decision, saying in a statement that the president's role as commander-in-chief was strengthened when he has the support of lawmakers.

The president's decision to seek the formal backing of Congress took Washington by surprise. Obama was widely believed to be on the cusp of military action against Syria over the chemical weapons attack last week, which the administration has said killed almost 1,500 people.

Obama said that while he still believed that as president he has the authority to launch strikes, he was mindful of the need for democratic backing and would "seek authorisation for the use force from the American people's representatives in Congress".

Senior administration officials told reporters on Saturday that the president had come to his decision to seek congressional approval at about 6pm on Friday evening. He discussed it during a 45-minute walk with his chief of staff, Denis McDonough, and then called a meeting of his top national security aides at 7pm.

The officials said there was a "robust debate" in the two-hour meeting. Some aides were concerned about the risk of seeking the approval of Congress, but officials did not say which advisers had argued against the decision. All now approved of it, the officials said.

Obama's decision was a sign that the White House feels exposed over Syria, amid waning international support, minimal public backing and a chorus of concern on Capitol Hill. In 2011, Obama was strongly criticised for not consulting Congress before launching strikes against Libya.

The president's critics in Congress were emboldened by the vote against military action in the British parliament on Thursday, and there was growing pressure on Obama to show he had the backing of the Senate and House of Representatives.

Obama directly referred to the vote in Britain, saying that some advisers had advised against a congressional vote after "what we saw happen in the United Kingdom this week, when the parliament of our closest ally failed to pass a resolution with a similar goal, even as the prime minister supported taking action."

But he insisted that taking limited military action against Syria was the right choice, even without the support of the United Nations security council, which he said was "completely paralysed and unwilling to hold Assad accountable". Russia and China have used their veto to block authorisation for the use of force against Syria.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/31/syrian-air-strikes-obama-congress
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Jedi_Mindset
09-01-2013, 12:28 PM
Iran news agency, however if this is true than i am not suprised, alot of syrians wont be happy when US attacks syria this includes many groups of the FSA.

Syrian Opposition Vows to Join Ranks with Assad if US Attacks Syria

A senior Syrian opposition figure warned Washington that all its
interests in the region will be attacked by battalions of suicide
bombers formed by the Syrian opposition forces if it dares to attack
Syria, stressing that homeland is more important to the dissidents than
opposition to the government.


"Although, we are among the Syrian government's opposition forces, we
assume our homeland's interests to be more important than any other
interest and therefore, we have formed a number of battalions to conduct
suicide operations and target the US interests in the Middle-East,"
Secretary-General of al-Shabab Party Mahir Marhaj told FNA on Saturday.

He blasted the US and its allies' warmongering policies and threats,
and said, "We in al-Shabab party are highly prepared to confront any war
against Syria."

Marhaj warned the White House against the consequences of war in
Syria, and said even a limited western invasion of the country will turn
into an open and unlimited war with unforeseen consequences when
Damascus gives back its crushing response.
The White House has signaled that Obama is still open to launching a
“limited” strike against Syria after reports alleged that Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad’s government was responsible for a chemical
gas attack that left hundreds of Syrians, including children, dead. The
Syrian government has strongly rejected the accusation.

http://english.farsnews.com/newstext...13920609001214

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~Zaria~
09-01-2013, 07:20 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Jedi_Mindset
Iran news agency, however if this is true than i am not suprised, alot of syrians wont be happy when US attacks syria this includes many groups of the FSA.

Syrian Opposition Vows to Join Ranks with Assad if US Attacks Syria

:salam:


^^ We recently had a Qiyam-ul-Layl (Night Prayer) programme on behalf of our brothers and sisters in Egypt, Syria and all other parts of the world.

From his many duaas, the imaam made the following duaa: O Allah, we do not know who are our enemies and who are our friends are anymore. Make it clear for us, that we may be able to discern between the two (not exact words, but to a similar effect).

I thought that this was very important to mention in duaa - because truly, it has become soo difficult to understand what each agenda is really about.

Allah knows best, and we ask of Him to show us the way that is true and free of doubt.
Ameen


(Ps. Its a good idea to encourage your local masaajid to also have a Qiyam-ul-Layl/ Zikr programme, or create one with your friends.
We often may feel so discouraged and depressed when we see our brothers and sisters suffering so many hardships - because we may not be able to physically do much/ directly assist them.
One of the ways that we can (and one of the best ways) is through duaa.
It is indeed, the believers 'strongest weapon'. SubhanAllah.)


:wa:
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GodIsAll
09-01-2013, 11:53 PM
I just don't trust any "reports" about chemical weapons attacks. Anyone remember how our country was going to save the world from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction? All credibility is loss...and that is one item of many.
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Independent
09-02-2013, 10:41 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by GodIsAll
just don't trust any "reports" about chemical weapons attacks.
I don't think anyone is disputing that it was a chemical weapons attack - not even the Russians - it's just that they say it was a spoof attack by the rebels to draw western response against Assad.

This is perfectly plausible in theory. Certainly it was an act of crass stupidity by Assad's forces to risk this attack. But in practice it's very difficult to see how the rebels could possibly have got access to the weapons and the delivery systems. Chemical weapons are not easy to deploy, compared to an explosive missile.

As for Iran's new president being the real target...the course of events has followed its own course, unrelated to Iranian election timings. Certainly Iran is a US enemy. But with Al Qaeda supporting the rebels, the US will be wondering if it's worth supporting either side. This will be one reason they haven't committed to military intervention, plus the Russian complication, the lack of public support, and the problem of finding suitable targets for a limited strike. If they can't take out the chemical weapons (which are widely scattered) they risk provoking greater use.
Reply

Ali_008
09-02-2013, 12:27 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by ~Zaria~
From his many duaas, the imaam made the following duaa: O Allah, we do not know who are our enemies and who are our friends are anymore. Make it clear for us, that we may be able to discern between the two (not exact words, but to a similar effect).

I thought that this was very important to mention in duaa - because truly, it has become soo difficult to understand what each agenda is really about.
Seriously! This is simply the biggest matter of concern with these recent wars. You just don't know who is right, and who is wrong. If Bashar is an oppressor then the rebels are breaking new limits of humanity as well. Similarly, in the case of Egypt, the Brotherhood seemed to have lost all respect and confidence from the people. These wars have evolved into an aliens vs. predators thing. No matter who wins, the people will lose.

Have a look at this video on facebook, and see the rebels in action. I'm open to all kinds of conspiracy theories, but one has to remember that unheard of and inhuman atrocities have taken place in Syria from both the government's side and the rebels' side.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=235940599886723
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WarriorforMarie
09-03-2013, 02:07 AM
It looks like many Republicans in the US are confusing their dislike for Obama as a need to prevent him from getting involved in Syria. They are also using the false assertion that the Syrian rebels are all associated with al-Qaeda. Sadly, because of the Iraq fiasco Americans in general seem reluctant to be involved overseas.

The more crass and despicable elements in America actually seem to be gleeful about the Syrian conflict going on and on because from their perspective it is "just a bunch of Muslims killing each other, no big deal"

I actually heard a jackass on the radio say this disgusting comment.
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Independent
09-03-2013, 05:01 PM
If Obama does get permission for an attack, my bet is that Syria will respond in the time-honoured fashion with an attack on Israel.

Just as Saddam did in Gulf War 1 in an attempt to split away Muslim support.

Rather than attacking a US target, Assad's best chance is to divert attention by an irrelevant war with the one enemy that everyone can agree on.
Reply

سيف الله
09-03-2013, 06:06 PM
Salaam

Some updates

First Syria rebels armed and trained by CIA 'on way to battlefield'

The first cell of Syrian rebels trained and armed by the CIA is making its way to the battlefield, President Barack Obama has reportedly told senators.


During a meeting at the White House, the president assured Senator John McCain that after months of delay the US was meeting its commitment to back moderate elements of the opposition.

Mr Obama said that a 50-man cell, believed to have been trained by US special forces in Jordan, was making its way across the border into Syria, according to the New York Times.

The deployment of the rebel unit seems to be the first tangible measure of support since Mr Obama announced in June that the US would begin providing the opposition with small arms. Congressional opposition delayed the plan for several weeks and rebel commanders publicly complained the US was still doing nothing to match the Russian-made firepower of the Assad regime. Mr McCain has been a chief critic of the White House's reluctance to become involved in Syria and has long demanded that Mr Obama provide the rebels with arms needed to overthrow the regime.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10283758/First-Syria-rebels-armed-and-trained-by-CIA-on-way-to-battlefield.html


Obama hints at larger strategy to topple Assad in effort to win over Republicans

President suggests strikes could lead to longer-term mission as tough White House rhetoric begins to win over Republicans


Barack Obama portrayed his plans for US military action in Syria as part of a broader strategy to topple Bashar al-Assad, as tougher White House rhetoric began to win over sceptical Republicans in Congress on Tuesday.

While stressing that Washington's primary goal remained "limited and proportional" attacks, to degrade Syria's chemical weapons capabilities and deter their future use, the president hinted at a broader long-term mission that may ultimately bring about a change of regime.

"It also fits into a broader strategy that can bring about over time the kind of strengthening of the opposition and the diplomatic, economic and political pressure required – so that ultimately we have a transition that can bring peace and stability, not only to Syria but to the region," he told senior members of Congress at a White House meeting on Tuesday.

Obama has long spoken of the US desire to see Assad step down, but this is the first time he has linked that policy objective to his threatened military strikes against Syria. It follows pressure on Monday, from senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, to make such a goal more explicit.

The apparent change of emphasis appeared to resolve some of the political deadlock on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, as House speaker John Boehner and a series of other Republican leaders announced that they would back the president's call for military authorisation from Congress. House majority leader Eric Cantor was most explicit, calling for the US to take sides in the "sectarian proxy war" against Iran.

"A well-designed and well-executed strike that deters the use of chemical weapons and diminishes the capacity of the Assad regime can contribute to the achievement of a clear and attainable goal: the ultimate displacement of the Assad regime by moderate elements within the opposition," he said in a statement.

The endorsement of GOP leaders could be important in winning over the Republican-controlled House, where Obama has failed to win any support since his re-election in November. But even the Republican leadership has struggled to control Tea Party radicals in the House, and an anti-interventionist wing in the Senate led by Rand Paul remains a substantial challenge for the White House.

"I'm going to support the president's call for action, and I believe my colleagues should support the president's call for action," Boehner said after meeting the president at the White House. "The use of these weapons has to be responded to, and only the United States has the capability and the capacity to stop Assad and to warn others around the world that this type of behaviour is not to be tolerated."

So far, the tougher US rhetoric does not seem to have deterred Democrats who back the president's call for military action on humanitarian grounds. Emerging from the White House meeting shortly after Boehner, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi said Syria's alleged used of chemical weapons was "outside the circle of acceptable human behaviour", but said she would not whip Democrats into voting yes.

"I don't think congressional authorisation is necessary, but I do think it is a good thing, and I think we can achieve it," she added.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/03/obama-strategy-assad-republicans-syria

Syria tensions rise as Israel test-fires missile defence system

Sparrow target missile launch triggers alerts across region, and Binyamin Netanyahu says attacks on Israel 'not advisable'


Israel fired a missile on Tuesday to test a new defence system, triggering alerts across a region that is braced for impending international military strikes against Syria.

The Israeli defence ministry confirmed it had launched a Sparrow target missile at 9.15am local time. It said the test of the Arrow anti-missile system was successful. The exercise was conducted jointly with the United States, according to Israel. However, a spokesman for the US navy European headquarters told Reuters: "No missiles were fired from US ships in the Mediterranean."

Russia sounded the alert, saying its radars at Armavir, near the Black Sea, had detected the launch of two ballistic "objects" in the area, fired from the central Mediterranean towards the east.

A Syrian source told Lebanese television that nothing had been detected by its early warning system.

The Israeli defence ministry said in a statement: "The experiment tested enhanced capabilities of a new type of target missile from the Sparrow series. Arrow anti-missile defence systems, including radars and a command and control system, were also tested."

It added: "The Sparrow missile successfully launched and performed its planned trajectory, in according with the test plan."

It was detected and tracked by the Arrow III missile defence system. "All the elements of the system performed according to their operational configuration."

Israel has redeployed most of its anti-missile systems to the north of the country over the past week amid fears that the Syrian regime could launch attacks on its neighbour – with whom it is still technically at war – following US strikes. The US-funded missile defence systems are effective at intercepting rockets, but Israel acknowledges that it does not have sufficient capacity to protect the country in the face of a sustained onslaught from Syria or Lebanon.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/03/syria-israel-missile-defence-system?CMP=twt_fd
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جوري
09-03-2013, 06:35 PM
Everything that comes out of the media is lies upon lies the only truth is reported through those on the battlefield themselves if you can find a channel that broadcasts for them or know of Syrians who'll inform you.
Psychological warfare is a known method of this army of satan to distort the image of Muslims to other Muslims the oldest and most effectual trick in the book!
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Karl
09-04-2013, 12:51 AM
The Western Zionist Empire is forging east toppling nations with false flag attacks, divide and conquer tactics and media propaganda campaigns. If Syria wants to survive, it must swallow it's pride and give the Russians free reign and do anything to get the Eastern powers Russia and China to protect them.
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جوري
09-04-2013, 01:04 AM
Not sure what brand of Islam you subscribe to but read suret at'tawbah - we don't ally with kaffirs and in fact that surrender was our downfall!
If you want to swallow your pride do it alone - we can only be granted one of two fine ends 1- Nasr or 2- shahdah!
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Karl
09-04-2013, 11:49 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by جوري
Not sure what brand of Islam you subscribe to but read suret at'tawbah - we don't ally with kaffirs and in fact that surrender was our downfall!
If you want to swallow your pride do it alone - we can only be granted one of two fine ends 1- Nasr or 2- shahdah!
True ...it looks like the Russians, Chinese and a lot of Muslim countries have sold out to the Zionists anyway. Syria is toast then Iran and on it will go. Everyone will be grinded down to serve "The Chosen Ones".
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sister herb
09-04-2013, 12:20 PM
Salam alaykum

The halting the war comes now from politicians.

We muslims should be enough united before to stop it.
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M.I.A.
09-04-2013, 12:32 PM
i saw a news report last night on tv from the city of Damascus seemed quiet and peaceful.

people well dressed. not seemingly distressed.

normality.

even giving there own opinions to the reporter, or at least making statements.


made me realise i have no idea what the fighting is about.
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WarriorforMarie
09-04-2013, 04:47 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by جوري
Not sure what brand of Islam you subscribe to but read suret at'tawbah - we don't ally with kaffirs and in fact that surrender was our downfall!
That sounds like an illadvised course of action. It is always preferable to have allies. Especially considering that all of the...kaffirs as you call them...are more powerful than the Middle Eastern Muslim countries. All of the major powers in the world are "kaffirs" and the only Muslim countries that even remotely resemble medium power status are Turkey, Indonesia, and Iran.
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Independent
09-04-2013, 05:07 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by جوري
we don't ally with kaffirs
Muslim/non-Muslim alliances are common throughout history. Even Saladin had alliances with Crusader states.
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جوري
09-04-2013, 05:55 PM
http://www.islam21c.com/politics/122...-us-led-attack
Great article!

What's ill advised or hx according to non Muslims again irrelevant to the next course of action- not sure how they assess 'powerful' when their ass is kicked according to them by plastic knife wielding cave dwellers!
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WarriorforMarie
09-04-2013, 06:35 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by جوري
What's ill advised or hx according to non Muslims again irrelevant to the next course of action- not sure how they assess 'powerful' when their ass is kicked according to them by plastic knife wielding cave dwellers!
That is a fair enough question. How does one assess 'powerful'? How would you measure 'power?'
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جوري
09-04-2013, 06:39 PM
That's what you wrote thus it's up to you to define that not my person!
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WarriorforMarie
09-04-2013, 06:54 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by جوري
That's what you wrote thus it's up to you to define that not my person!
Well, I think power is probably best understood as the ability to make others do what they would not otherwise do.

There can be hard power (coercion) and soft power (persuasion). There are many components of power, some are more easily measured than others. Obviously different political scientists have different views on how best to measure power. I would suggest there are four primary categories of power: Economic Strength (Economic Fundamentals, Entrepreneurship and Innovation), Governance (Government Capacity and Leadership, Foreign Relations), Social Capital (Human Capital and Social Trust), and of course Military Strength.
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جوري
09-04-2013, 07:30 PM
I agree with most of the above.. I also see those on the decline in the western world especially economically which in part is why they keep colonizing new territories force feeding them 'democracy' to sustain a failed ideology and maintain the debauched lifestyle for the untalented few.. I suppose when a loaf of bread is $7.00 & milk at $12 well the rest of the 90% living in the west finally wake up!

best,
Reply

WarriorforMarie
09-04-2013, 08:07 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by جوري
I agree with most of the above.. I also see those on the decline in the western world especially economically which in part is why they keep colonizing new territories force feeding them 'democracy' to sustain a failed ideology and maintain the debauched lifestyle for the untalented few.. I suppose when a loaf of bread is $7.00 & milk at $12 well the rest of the 90% living in the west finally wake up!
I do not think that empirical observation really validates the idea that the Western World is in decline, at least not an absolute decline. Perhaps a relative decline as other countries such as China and India develop. Not relative decline is not something to necessarily fear as long as absolute conditions are improving. Indeed, I think that the rise of China and India are overall beneficial to the United States since they help generate more economic activity. After all, is it better to have a third of a 30 gram loaf of bread, or half of a 10 gram loaf of bread?
Reply

جوري
09-04-2013, 08:11 PM
depeneds on your perspective -- adversity trains the soul, illuminates the mind, clarifies the thought processes and makes strong the body and sharp the mind, not sure what comes out of gluttony though.. at any rate, it is too early to tell, all empires decline and many don't rise again if they don't have a noble goal!

best,
Reply

سيف الله
09-05-2013, 10:03 AM
Salaam

Another comment piece, this this time referring to a specific technique of war propaganda.

Why They have to Drag Hitler into It - the Cult of the Good War

By Peter Hitchens


Here comes Hitler again, plus evil dictators in general, appeasement and the rest of the bits and pieces, board, dice, tokens, model ships and planes, and wads of other people’s money that are to be found in that much-loved Westminster and Washington DC board game, ‘How to Start a War’.

I was just wondering, on Sunday morning, how long it would be before Syria’s President Assad would be compared to Adolf Hitler, and the American Secretary of State John Kerry almost immediately obliged by saying Assad had ‘joined the list of Hitler and Hussein’ who had used evil chemical weapons. Alas, all kinds of countries have used these weapons. Many that never used them still made and stockpiled them. If the possession or use of chemical weapons is itself a crime, few major powers are clean. Winston Churchill’s own personal attitude to this matter is interesting, and characteristically robust, but does not fit too well with the ‘Assad as Hitler and Obama as Churchill’ narrative.

It was perhaps a pity that a picture of Mr Kerry, and his spouse, dining with the future Hitler-substitute Bashar Assad (and his spouse, once the subject of an admiring profile in ‘Vogue’, now withdrawn) swiftly emerged from the archives . But what is that greenish fluid they are all about be given to drink?

Perhaps it wasn’t a pity. I myself find the wild mood-swings of the leaders of the ‘West’ , in their attitudes towards foreign despots, very informative. Nicolae Ceausescu’s Order of the Bath springs to mind, not to mention the reunited German state’s belated vendetta against Erich Honecker, whom they had once entertained and met as a diplomatic partner. And of course the very-swiftly-forgotten protests over Deng Xiaoping ‘killing his own people' in Peking’s Tiananmen Square, and the amazing licence granted to Boris Yeltsin to do things (including ‘shelling his own parliament’) which we would never approve of if Vladimir Putin did them. Though perhaps the Egyptian ‘stabilisation government’ or Junta, might get away with it. I see they are now charging Muslim brotherhood figures with murder, and nobody is laughing. As for Robert Mugabe, where does one begin?

These wild mood-swings inform me that their current spasms of outrage are false, and that the reasons they give for their behaviour are not reasons but pretexts, thus encouraging us all to search for the real reason. Does it lie in them, and in their flawed characters - or in some object they privately have, but won’t openly discuss? Perhaps both.

Mr Kerry (whose public speaking style I once unkindly compared to chloroform, after witnessing him alienate and bore a huge theatre full of American Veterans of Foreign Wars in Nashville, Tennessee) also proclaimed that ‘we’ (that is, the Executive of the US government) were ‘not going to lose’ the approaching vote on bombing Syria. This was delivered as a statement rather than a wish. Well, in that case, why hold the vote at all? I do think people should stop trying to influence votes by the stampede method, under which you persuade the more sheeplike voters that, by supporting you, they are just doing what everyone else is doing. Baaaa.

If you actually believe in debate, and people making up their minds on the basis of the arguments, this is surely an outrage. Of course, if you don’t actually believe in unpredictable votes, and cynically regard all this debate stuff as top-dressing for absolute power, then that’s another matter.

But Hitler always comes into this because he is part of a cult, the cult of the good war and the finest hour, one of whose branches is the cult of the nice bomb and the moral bomber.

According to the scriptures of this cult, a wicked dictator called Hitler was overcome by a brave and good democrat called Winston Churchill. Churchill triumphed at Dunkirk, and then fought Hitler to save the Jews from the Holocaust, also liberating Europe at D-Day, so that we all lived happily ever after. A group of people carrying umbrellas, called the ‘appeasers’ and led by a man called ‘Chamberlain’, wickedly opposed Churchill and gave in to Hitler at Munich. If it had not been for them, Hitler would have been seen for what he was, attacked and overthrown long before.

Regular readers of this weblog will know that this version of events contains some nuggets of truth – Hitler was evil and was defeated, Churchill had many noble qualities. Britain, though defeated on land in 1940, was not invaded. But they will also, I think, admit that a) it is far from complete and b) there are probably millions of people in Britain and the USA who believe something very similar to the above, about the events of 1938-45. This, alas, still influences their judgement when their leaders try to get them to go to war.

The most fanatical followers of this cult are, however, not just harmless members of a re-enactment society spending their weekends making ‘Boom!’ and ‘eeeee—ow!’ noises as they play with their Dinky toys and Airfix models in the attic.

They re-enact this myth in the form of actual red war, and are to be found among professional politicians in Britain and America. These initiates periodically choose a new person to take the role of ‘Hitler’. This can be almost anybody, including such minor figures as Manuel Noriega of Panama.

For, in the ritual of the Churchill cultists, the important thing is not who takes the part of Hitler, but who takes the part of Churchill, and who takes the part of Chamberlain.

And the smaller the would-be Churchills get, the smaller the alleged Hitlers get too. Note that, despite its many crimes against the laws of civilisation, the Chinese People’s Republic has never been called upon to play the part of Hitler, nor is it likely to be.

Invariably, the American or British leader calling for war imagines he is Churchill. Invariably, those who oppose the war are classified as appeasers and equated with ‘Chamberlain’. And invariably, the targeted dictator is classified as ‘Hitler’.

The awful truth of the Second World War is that it is much more complicated than that, that it was not fought to rescue the Jews (and largely failed to do so) and that many entirely innocent and harmless people did not experience it or its aftermath as ‘good’; also, that of its two principal victors (neither of whom was Britain, despite Churchill’s role) one, Stalin, was as evil a dictator was one might find in a long day’s search.

Which is why western schoolchildren learn little about the Soviet Army’s part in the defeat of the evil Hitler, or indeed about Churchill’s increasingly subservient, not to say appeasing , relationship with Stalin in the later years of the war. Or why so little is said about how slight Britain’s direct contact with the land forces of Nazi Germany was between 1940 and 1944. Let alone of the complex diplomacy which brought Britain into war with Germany in September 1939.

Let’s discuss some of this. Just before my recent journey to Berlin, I visited my favourite second hand bookshop in search of serendipity, and there found, in stout 1960s Penguin editions priced at three shillings and sixpence, a book I hadn’t read for years (A.J.P. Taylor’s ‘The Origins of the Second World war’ and a book I had never read but felt I should have done ,Len Deighton’s ‘Funeral in Berlin’).What could have been better travel reading, on a journey to Berlin undertaken close to the 74th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second Great War?

rest here

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/
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Independent
09-05-2013, 10:15 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by Junon
Which is why western schoolchildren learn little about the Soviet Army’s part in the defeat of the evil Hitler
i think Hitchens is talking about his own schooldays, things have moved on.

format_quote Originally Posted by Junon
Invariably, the American or British leader calling for war imagines he is Churchill. Invariably, those who oppose the war are classified as appeasers and equated with ‘Chamberlain’. And invariably, the targeted dictator is classified as ‘Hitler’.
This is true - in the same way, the term 'genocide' is thrown around and used to describe situations which are not remotely genocidal (although they may be horrible).

I completely disagree with the commentators who call this 'appeasement'. Assad is fighting a civil war an d not on a path to invade anybody right now. What he is doing is evil, but comparisons with Hitler vastly underestimate just how exceptionally bad Hitler was.
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جوري
09-05-2013, 02:38 PM
Perhaps you should look for the definition of genocide the same way you google depleted uranium not being illegal and use your brain if it is functioning to assess for a change over say accepting what they tell you at face value!
You remind me of people who expect a patient to come with every text book definition of a disease in order to diagnose it when nothing presents like a textbook. Just idiots who read and nothing actually settles in their brain that enables them to distinguish one thing from another yet appear to everyone as smart for their ability to regurgitate!
Not everyone is buying what you're selling here, most everyone actually sees through the transparency of your charade!

best,
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WarriorforMarie
09-05-2013, 06:30 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by جوري
depeneds on your perspective -- adversity trains the soul, illuminates the mind, clarifies the thought processes and makes strong the body and sharp the mind, not sure what comes out of gluttony though.. at any rate, it is too early to tell, all empires decline and many don't rise again if they don't have a noble goal!
What is China's noble goal?
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جوري
09-05-2013, 06:40 PM
None I reckon but they work for what they earn instead of robbing under some inane slogan!
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WarriorforMarie
09-05-2013, 07:04 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by جوري
none i reckon but they work for what they earn instead of robbing under some inane slogan!
:d:d:d
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WarriorforMarie
09-05-2013, 07:04 PM
I'm sorry, that was suppose to be three grinning smiliees :D :D :D
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جوري
09-05-2013, 09:07 PM
I understand work ethics to be a challenge for many- yes!
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Karl
09-05-2013, 11:31 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by WarriorforMarie
What is China's noble goal?
China has a philosophy called "the long view", it has given up violence against other nations because it reasons that given enough time everybody will be Chinese, genetically speaking. Seems the Indians may have the same ideas too.
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Karl
09-06-2013, 12:00 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by WarriorforMarie
That sounds like an illadvised course of action. It is always preferable to have allies. Especially considering that all of the...kaffirs as you call them...are more powerful than the Middle Eastern Muslim countries. All of the major powers in the world are "kaffirs" and the only Muslim countries that even remotely resemble medium power status are Turkey, Indonesia, and Iran.
I suppose it depends on faith. The very early Christians were persecuted by the Romans and were slaughtered in droves, they did not fight the pagans just prayed to their Lord and died. Why? Because they did not want to be the slaves of Satan or Mars? They did not want power and dominion on Earth? They wanted to keep their soul pure and not full of darkness hatred and so on? So if Muslims join in the evil game with non Muslims will that save their souls?
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YusufNoor
09-06-2013, 12:22 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by Karl
I suppose it depends on faith. The very early Christians were persecuted by the Romans and were slaughtered in droves, they did not fight the pagans just prayed to their Lord and died. Why? Because they did not want to be the slaves of Satan or Mars? They did not want power and dominion on Earth? They wanted to keep their soul pure and not full of darkness hatred and so on? So if Muslims join in the evil game with non Muslims will that save their souls?
that stuff about the early Christians is simply not true. no one of any intelligence believes it any more. there is no evidence to support it. there was sporadic episodes of persecutions, but most Romans could care two wits about the Christians. there were a few leaders of the Christians that lauded the idea "of dying like Jesus", but that's probably because Paul convinced them you couldn't "earn" salvation, unless you got yourself martyred.

Romans liked to enslave peoples who they conquered, those folks could see mass executions in the Circus (but you killed the men, you kept the women and children as slaves). Most Romans though Christians were just plain idiots who were trying to steal the God of the Jews. while they thought the Jews were foolish (just One God?? you nuts?), the Jews had "books" going back 1000 years. the Romans thought THAT was impressive! the Christians were just plain irritating, the big persecutions didn't come about 'till the 3rd Century. Romans loved to see conquered people die in the arena, but were less comfy with Christians letting their wives and children die (upsets the stomach). some persecution happened, but outside of Nero, not much till later. It's Catholic propaganda. (Everyone that's not Catholic is evil)

btw, THAT'S what we have now, Circuses. i would venture a guess that more people have died in Iraq and Afghanistan than were Christians killed in the arena.

make dua, follow Qur'an and Sunnah.
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سيف الله
09-06-2013, 10:09 AM
Salaam

Just another update. Focusing more on the liberal ideology that has been constructed to give 'justification' for 'humanitarian intervention'.

Why do Sixties Peaceniks Turn into 21st Century Warmongers?

Now, and it’s one of the most interesting things in the world that this is so, in the more thoughtful regions of the Left, there’s a contrasting love for war and bombing, the Chicago School, as one might teasingly call it, of people who are inspired by the speech delivered by Anthony Blair in Chicago in April 1999. This was the one which justified dumping the 350 years of wisdom since the Peace of Westphalia had accepted that you didn’t interfere in foreign countries because you didn’t like the way they were governed.

This conclusion had been reached after the Thirty Years War had shown what happened when you *did* interfere on such grounds. Much of the continent looked like like a Hieronymus Bosch depiction of Hell.

I doubt if the Blair creature understood the implications of the words he recited to the Economic Club that evening. ( a good clear version can be read here http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/international/jan-june99/blair_doctrine4-23.html)

I have never believed that he understood what he was doing, domestically or internationally. But others did understand.

But the speech contains a beautiful, near-perfect example of the ‘Good War’ concept I wrote about yesterday, in which all our foes are versions of Hitler, and we are all versions of Churchill : ‘This is a just war, based not on any territorial ambitions but on values. We cannot let the evil of ethnic cleansing stand. We must not rest until it is reversed. We have learned twice before in this century that appeasement does not work. If we let an evil dictator range unchallenged, we will have to spill infinitely more blood and treasure to stop him later.’

Very little work has been done, in the years since, on the actual fate of Kosovo or on the real nature of the ‘Kosovo Liberation Army’ to whom we lent the airpower of the North Atlantic Treaty. It is my belief, from what I have read, that the outcome has not been an unmixed joy, especially for the Serbian minority and the Orthodox Christian heritage in that place, and that the KLA are not necessarily gentlemen. I also remain fascinated by the way in which the Yugoslav Federation could not be permitted to coexist with the rival federation of the EU (in a milder, slower way, the United Kingdom, and its one-time semi-detached but actually rather close relationship with Ireland has also been quietly loosened by devolution).

The real core of the speech lay elsewhere. It was a proclamation of the end of the Nation State: ‘Globalisation’ Mr Blair trilled ‘has transformed our economies and our working practices. But globalisation is not just economic. It is also a political and security phenomenon.

‘We live in a world where isolationism has ceased to have a reason to exist. By necessity we have to co-operate with each other across nations.

‘Many of our domestic problems are caused on the other side of the world. Financial instability in Asia destroys jobs in Chicago and in my own constituency in County Durham. Poverty in the Caribbean means more drugs on the streets in Washington and London. Conflict in the Balkans causes more refugees in Germany and here in the US. These problems can only be addressed by international co-operation.

‘We are all internationalists now, whether we like it or not. We cannot refuse to participate in global markets if we want to prosper. We cannot ignore new political ideas in other counties if we want to innovate. We cannot turn our backs on conflicts and the violation of human rights within other countries if we want still to be secure.

‘On the eve of a new Millennium we are now in a new world. We need new rules for international co-operation and new ways of organising our international institutions.’

National sovereignty, a thing all previous British prime ministers had at least claimed to value, was now to be dismissed as ‘isolationism’ and ‘protectionism’. What had previously been normal was now redefined as a discredited dogma. Those who had for years seen Communism as the great revolutionary force in the world were now able to transfer their allegiance to a globalised, multicultural USA. That’s why you find so many Marxists cheering on the missiles.

These were the rules for intervention he set out.

‘Looking around the world there are many regimes that are undemocratic and engaged in barbarous acts. If we wanted to right every wrong that we see in the modern world then we would do little else than intervene in the affairs of other countries. We would not be able to cope.

‘So how do we decide when and whether to intervene. I think we need to bear in mind five major considerations

‘First, are we sure of our case? War is an imperfect instrument for righting humanitarian distress; but armed force is sometimes the only means of dealing with dictators. Second, have we exhausted all diplomatic options? We should always give peace every chance, as we have in the case of Kosovo. Third, on the basis of a practical assessment of the situation, are there military operations we can sensibly and prudently undertake? Fourth, are we prepared for the long term? In the past we talked too much of exit strategies. But having made a commitment we cannot simply walk away once the fight is over; better to stay with moderate numbers of troops than return for repeat performances with large numbers. And finally, do we have national interests involved? The mass expulsion of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo demanded the notice of the rest of the world. But it does make a difference that this is taking place in such a combustible part of Europe.’

Personally I find these rules rather incoherent. But have his heirs and successors even abided by them, especially on the questions of prudence, and of staying to see the matter through? Were they really observed at the time? Were such things as the Rambouillet accords on Yugoslavia (which no sovereign government could possibly have accepted) a real attempt to exhaust all diplomatic options? Have Britain and the USA seriously attempted to pursue peace in Syria? Who judges?

Well, here’s a intervention backed by the Chicago School, the one we engineered in Libya, by claiming (as in Kosovo and as in Syria) to be acting to prevent a massacre. I’ve always thought evidence of the likelihood of this massacre was in rather short supply, but leave that aside.

How is Libya getting on, since our humanitarian intervention? I’ve mentioned elsewhere the failed attempt by our supposed friends to kill the British ambassador, and their successful attempt to kill the US ambassador. I’ve mentioned their desecration of a British war cemetery in Benghazi, with special attention paid to smashing the gravestones of Jewish soldiers.

But, as so often if you want to know what’s really going on in the world, you need to turn to the work of that peerless foreign correspondent, Patrick Cockburn of the Independent, who keeps an eye on these liberated zones, after most people have gone. Read his article on today's Libya here http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/special-report-we-all-thought-libya-had-moved-on--it-has-but-into-lawlessness-and-ruin-8797041.html?origin=internalSearch

One particularly striking fact is this – that ‘Free Libya’, actually an oil producing state, is now importing oil to keep its power stations going because production has almost completely stopped. I remember a similar paradox in Iraq during my visits there after the invasion, with immense queues at the petrol stations.

invasion has , it seems to me, made things worse. Muammar Gadaffi was without doubt a wicked tyrant, and more than a little unhinged. But why did anyone think that, by overthrowing him, they could guarantee that his successors would be better? The same dim vision seems to inform those who wish to overthrow the Assad state in Syria. Can they guarantee that what follows will be better? Of course they cannot. Then how can they be so hot for action? And can President Obama (holder of the Nobel Peace Prize and, so far as I can recall, not elected on a platform of war-making in either 2008 or 2012)please make up his mind? Is his Syrian intervention a self-contained punitive strike, as we are told? Or is it in fact a plan for regime change, as the BBC reported he had told neo-conservative war enthusiasts? One or the other, but not both.

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/
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سيف الله
09-06-2013, 12:30 PM
Salaam

President Barack 'Yes we can!' Obama on red lines.



And now



Spot the difference! :hmm:

Since the usual assortment of American (and by extension western) moralists are getting worked up over Assads use of chemicals weapons. Let's look at Americas past record on its use and reaction to the use of 'chemical' weapons.

Lets start with the Vietnam war.



The Americans extensively used Agent orange as a defoliant between 1961 and 1971. The total cost in human lives during and after the war has been 400000 killed or maimed and 500000 born with birth defects. Courtcases has been brought (eg. by US veterans). The latest case in 2004 by Vietnamese victims was dismissed due to many factors chief being that America has sovereign immunity and its wasnt intended to be used against the population.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange#Vietnamese_victims_class_action_lawsu it_in_U.S._courts

A documentary on the effects of Agent Orange. Viewer discretion advised.



and a report on the current situation

Generation Orange: Heartbreaking portraits of Vietnamese children suffering from devastating effects of toxic herbicide sprayed by US Army 40 years ago

They were born decades after American forces had sprayed the herbicide dioxin Agent Orange in South Vietnam, but some children living in the region today continue to suffer from the horrifying effects of the chemical.

New York City-based photographer Brian Dricscoll traveled to Vietnam to document the everyday struggles of third generation Agent Orange victims battling dozens of serious ailments, physical deformities and mental disorders.

Driscoll was inspired to take up this difficult topic by his uncle, a Vietnam War veteran who may have been one of estimated 2.6 million U.S. soldiers believed to have been exposed to Agent Orange in the 1960s.

Rest of the story here, be warned disturbing images

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2401378/Agent-Orange-Vietnamese-children-suffering-effects-herbicide-sprayed-US-Army-40-years-ago.html

But that's all ancient history so lets move on

The Iran Iraq war Saddam used Mustard gas against Iranian troops killing up to 100000. The American government reaction was to give Saddam a slap on the wrist and block UN action against Iraq. After the chemical weapons attack President Reagan blocks Congressional sanctions against Iraq. The UK who were more interested in doing business (among other things, selling him the equipment to manufacture chemical weapons) with their friend Saddam conveniently looked the other way as well.

This just in

Revealed: Britain Sold Nerve Gas Chemicals To Syria 10 Months After War Began

BRITAIN allowed firms to sell chemicals to Syria capable of being used to make nerve gas, we can reveal today. Export licences for potassium fluoride and sodium fluoride were granted months after the bloody civil war in the Middle East began.

The chemical is capable of being used to make weapons such as sarin, thought to be the nerve gas used in the attack on a rebel-held Damascus suburb which killed nearly 1500 people, including 426 children, 10 days ago. President Bashar Assad’s forces have been blamed for the attack, leading to calls for an armed response from the West.

British MPs voted against joining America in a strike. But last night, President Barack Obama said he will seek the approval of Congress to take military action. The chemical export licences were granted by Business Secretary Vince Cable’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills last January – 10 months after the Syrian uprising began.

They were only revoked six months later, when the European Union imposed tough sanctions on Assad’s regime. Yesterday, politicians and anti-arms trade campaigners urged Prime Minister David Cameron to explain why the licences were granted.

Dunfermline and West Fife Labour MP Thomas Docherty, who sits on the House of Commons’ Committees on Arms Export Controls, plans to lodge Parliamentary questions tomorrow and write to Cable.

He said: “At best it has been negligent and at worst reckless to export material that could have been used to create chemical weapons.

“MPs will be horrified and furious that the UK Government has been allowing the sale of these ingredients to Syria.

“What the hell were they doing granting a licence in the first place?

“I would like to know what investigations have been carried out to establish if any of this
material exported to Syria was subsequently used in the attacks on its own people.”
The SNP’s leader at Westminster, Angus Robertson MP, said: “I will be raising this in Parliament as soon as possible to find out what examination the UK Government made of where these chemicals were going and what they were to be used for.

“Approving the sale of chemicals which can be converted into lethal weapons during a civil war is a very serious issue.

“We need to know who these chemicals were sold to, why they were sold, and whether the UK Government were aware that the chemicals could potentially be used for chemical weapons.

“The ongoing humanitarian crisis in Syria makes a full explanation around these shady deals even more important.”

Mark Bitel of the Campaign Against Arms Trade (Scotland) said: “The UK Government claims to have an ethical policy on arms exports, but when it comes down to practice the reality is very different.

“The Government is hypocritical to talk about chemical weapons if it’s granting licences to companies to export to regimes such as Syria.

“We saw David Cameron, in the wake of the Arab Spring, rushing off to the Middle East with arms companies to promote business.”

Some details emerged in July of the UK’s sale of the chemicals to Syria but the crucial dates of the exports were withheld. The Government have refused to identify the licence holders or say whether the licences were issued to one or two companies.
http://www.zcommunications.org/the-pot-calling-the-kettle-black-by-zoltan-grossman.html

http://www.zcommunications.org/revealed-britain-sold-nerve-gas-chemicals-to-syria-10-months-after-war-began-by-russell-findlay.html

http://kurdistantribune.com/2013/how-thatcher-helped-saddam-commit-genocide/

But again thats old hat. So lets get up to date.

Lets discuss the use of depleted Uranium used in Natos munitions in Iraq.





Though on this issue there is a different response from Western moralists namely silence. They care only for what the 'bad' guys do, not the 'good' guys.

format_quote Originally Posted by Independent
For once we are in agreement. I'm delighted at the result. In my view the UK and the US should not intervene unless they have a genuine consensus of backing from other Muslim states (even if unanimity is unlikely for obvious reasons). For instance, Gulf War 1 was a properly supported war with clear, justified objectives which were carried out to the letter (even to the extent of leaving Saddam in power).

The stuff in the UK media from some commentators talking about 'decline in world influence' is wrong. They fail to understand that world politics have changed. This decision by the UK government is a model for the future. The US will also begin to pick and choose its fights more carefully. Increasingly, they will only support allies rather than trying to be the world policeman. Once consent for this role has been lost, it can't be continued.

However, it looks like the US will still make some kind of gesture on Syria because they have said too much to back down.
On the first Gulf War I have a very different view to your 'rosy' view of that conflict put it mildly. If you want an 'alternative' view.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fNtEmmTrJA

Just one point, they left Saddam in power because they wanted him to stay in power. Ideally they wanted the Saddam regime without Saddam but since you cant always get your own way you have to settle for second best. So they decided to maintain Saddam. And the destruction of Iraqi infrastructure and its society during (and after) the war is hardly following the letter of the law.

And the UK has been in decline for many decades now ( Hear the latest from the G20? David Cameron has launched a passionate and lyrical defence of Britain’s history and culture after claims that Russia dismissed the UK as “a small island no one listens to”), which is not necessarily a bad thing, the weaker you are the more civilised you tend to behave. Contrast this with the rise of the USA. The more powerful it has become greater the danger to world peace, prosperity and happiness. Your reference to the US acting as a 'world policeman' is false and insult to the very idea of having a police, despite all their flaws. I think a mafia don is a far more appropriate way to describe how America acts on the world stage, it actually helps to explain why they act in seemingly irrational ways. Your last comment on Americas inability to 'back down' again demonstrates the logic of a mafia don.

format_quote Originally Posted by WarriorforMarie
It looks like many Republicans in the US are confusing their dislike for Obama as a need to prevent him from getting involved in Syria. They are also using the false assertion that the Syrian rebels are all associated with al-Qaeda. Sadly, because of the Iraq fiasco Americans in general seem reluctant to be involved overseas.

The more crass and despicable elements in America actually seem to be gleeful about the Syrian conflict going on and on because from their perspective it is "just a bunch of Muslims killing each other, no big deal"

I actually heard a jackass on the radio say this disgusting comment.
'Fiasco' an interesting use of words to describe the misery and death America unleashed on Iraq. I applaud the 'isolationist' sentiment that's building up in America. Personally wish Americans would take the Ron Paul approach and just mind their own business. Would be a major contribution to world peace.
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Independent
09-06-2013, 01:26 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Junon
On the first Gulf War I have a very different view to your 'rosy' view of that conflict put it mildly
The invasion of Kuwait by Saddam was very unusual. For perhaps the first time since WW2, a sovereign state was entirely wiped from the map. (In my view Tibet is an earlier example but not everyone accepts this.)

The great majority of other wars till that point had been versions of civil wars, albeit often with international proxy participation.

For that reason alone, Gulf War 1 was justified. It's also the reason why so many Muslim states joined the coalition. The events of Gulf War 2 have obscured and confused people's view of GW1 in a negative way.

Could a negotiated settlement been achieved? Saddam's first offer was completely unrealistic - basically, to solve all other territorial disputes in Israel, Syria and Lebanon before he would move out. There was absolutely no chance that this could be achieved and Saddam must have known that. This was not serious negotiation. Later he made a less demanding offer, but then reverted again to linking it with Palestine. After a certain point the military build up became self fulfilling and too difficult to stop.

format_quote Originally Posted by Junon
Just one point, they left Saddam in power because they wanted him to stay in power.
What evidence do you have for this? The reason why the Coalition did not invade Iraq was because the UN mandate did not permit it. This was discussed very publicly at the time. They were many US officials who wanted to continue while Saddam was plainly beaten. After the war ceased, the US plainly expected Saddam to be toppled by internal revolution, and they did what they could to encourage this. However, Saddam had preserved his elite Republican Guard from the fighting so he was able to suppress dissent again and survive. Saddam's unexpected survival was an embarrassment to the US, not an objective.
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Mustafa2012
09-06-2013, 03:02 PM
How can the very same countries that have been responsible for atrocities in Hiroshima, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, South America and Palestine etc. etc. and now after over 100,000 lives lost in Syria they talk about crossing the red line?

This is a so hypocitical.

What happened to the red line when they crossed it themselves?
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Independent
09-06-2013, 03:41 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Mustafa2012
This is a so hypocitical.
If you read down past the highly misleading headline on this article, you will see that the chemicals were in fact never actually exported.The initial permit was granted, but then stopped because of the sanctions.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...a-8793642.html

The chemicals involved have legitimate industrial uses but, in the case of suspicions over Syria, it was correct to prevent the export.
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جوري
09-06-2013, 03:59 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Mustafa2012
How can the very same countries that have been responsible for atrocities in Hiroshima, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, South America and Palestine etc. etc. and now after over 100,000 lives lost in Syria they talk about crossing the red line?

This is a so hypocitical.

What happened to the red line when they crossed it themselves?
He already told you on the Mursi thread Their usage of chemical weapons is legal according to their law. What the others do however is illegal according to the same laws!
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IAmZamzam
09-06-2013, 04:15 PM
I came here so that I could spread around this link to a popular online petition: http://dontattacksyria.com/

I would also like to encourage all of my fellow Americans to email, tweet, and especially call up their local congresspeople. We need to latch onto them like a series of stubborn little dogs on a mailman’s route.

I don’t think anyone is disputing that it was a chemical weapons attack.

On the contrary that has *indeed* been disputed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=et1NSxT1K4w (I don’t know how to embed videos in forum posts. An alternate link can be found here: http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=64...BD336C2196AD17) Imagine that a few dead housewives in the same county of the U.S. happened to have remote traces of mustard and bleach on their skin and the papers started jumping to the conclusion that they’d been gassed to death by terrorists. You’d think your society had turned into a madhouse. Now I’m not saying that the video is valid—I don’t know enough about either chemistry or the chemical investigation to say—but I do know one thing:

Assad *shmassad*: Wikileaks has revealed the only true reason why the U.S. government cares one whit about Syria:

http://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06...html#efmAcfAfB

And we already knew about the pipeline. And the ever diminishing supply of oil and other such resources on this planet which is making the hoarding of such things an increasing necessity. And about drinking buddy Israel’s stake in this game. *They’ve* got the goods, as well as lots of financial backing for ol’ Sam. In the end the energy companies (the lobbyists in general, to a fair extent) are always in charge. I don’t know who it was that first said that as long as war is profitable there will never be peace but he sure knew what he was talking about!

Call. Write. Sign. And don’t just follow the link. Feel free to find stuff, and think of stuff, on your own too.
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Independent
09-06-2013, 04:35 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by جوري
He already told you on the Mursi thread Their usage of chemical weapons is legal according to their law. What the others do however is illegal according to the same laws!
Incorrect, you seem to have trouble understanding English. I am opposed to chemical weapons anywhere and everywhere. But most of the examples you are quoting are not chemical weapons.

Back to the thread...

The example quoted by Mustafa2012 will be remembered from now on as a case of 'the UK exporting nerve gas to Syria', because people don't bother to read past the melodramatic headlines. Had this been a report on a Muslim state, similarly misrepresented, people would have been up in arms about it as another example of Islamophobia.

This also demonstrates once again that the supposedly controlled western media is in fact free enough to make mistakes of its own, even to the extent of incorrectly labelling the UK as a chemical weapons exporter. If the Uk government took this one to a lawyer I think they could sue for defamation and stand a good chance of winning. Meanwhile, the real culprits (Russia and Assad) don't get a mention.
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جوري
09-06-2013, 04:50 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Independent
Incorrect, you seem to have trouble understanding English. I am opposed to chemical weapons anywhere and everywhere. But most of the examples you are quoting are not chemical weapons.
My lack of understanding of English (per you) still can't trump your lack of understanding of science or chemistry, or mere common sense (given the outcome is similar if not worse as it is the gift that keeps on giving!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_phosphorus

What you endorse or oppose also evolves based on the response of your audeince such as the case with most hypocrites!


again, if your govt. or countries don't classify or have a different definition for that and you prefer to subscribe to said definitions doesn't allow you
1- to impose your understanding of the terms
2- to classify this for other than what it is (plain flat hypocrisy)
3- Expectations that others should subscribe to your folly under some concocted banner and from the looks of things you're only capable of dishing out three of those and repeatedly- You are you either incredibly under educated, or purposefully devious and also boring.
_____________

bottom line for Muslims: (if you're looking for the west to suddenly develop a conscience or see the absurdity of their double standards which they dispense almost in the same breath) They won't -- their main concern is to protect the colonial settler cockroach state.. and all their dealings and wheelings have only that mantra in mind!
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Independent
09-06-2013, 05:00 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by جوري
My lack of understanding of English (per you) still can't trump your lack of understanding of science or chemistry, or mere common sense (given the outcome is similar if not worse as it is the gift that keeps on giving!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_phosphorus
The link you quote does not say that white phosphorus is regarded as a chemical weapon under international law. So as it contradicts your argument, I don't know why you provide it.

format_quote Originally Posted by جوري
What you endorse or oppose also evolves based on the response of your audeince such as the case with most hypocrites!
i don't endorse the use of white phosphorus, but it isn't a chemical weapon, so it's not relevant to the use of chemical weapons in Syria or anywhere else.

format_quote Originally Posted by جوري
again, if your govt. or countries don't classify or have a different definition for that and you prefer to subscribe to said definitions doesn't allow you
International law is agreed by all or most governments. That's what makes it international.
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جوري
09-06-2013, 05:16 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Independent
The link you quote does not say that white phosphorus is regarded as a chemical weapon under international law. So as it contradicts your argument, I don't know why you provide it.
it classifies it as a chemical weapon. 'International law' is semantics that you can shove!


format_quote Originally Posted by Independent
i don't endorse the use of white phosphorus, but it isn't a chemical weapon, so it's not relevant to the use of chemical weapons in Syria or anywhere else.
What you endorse or don't endorse is irrelevant. ---I can think of no good reason for it- Your condemnations or praise has no bearing on how any world govt. runs- your words are simply irritating is all!


format_quote Originally Posted by Independent
International law is agreed by all or most governments. That's what makes it international.
In what way does it matter? Especially when the same law is imposed on some and turned a blind eye to for others?
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Independent
09-06-2013, 06:36 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by جوري
it classifies it as a chemical weapon
No it doesn't.

format_quote Originally Posted by جوري
Your condemnations or praise has no bearing on how any world govt. runs
At last, you're starting to understand. My personal opinion has no bearing on international law. Now the bit you're missing - neither does yours. So just because you think something should be classified as a chemical weapon, that doesn't mean it actually is in reality. You need to separate reality from your imagination..
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Mustafa2012
09-06-2013, 10:02 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Independent
If you read down past the highly misleading headline on this article, you will see that the chemicals were in fact never actually exported.The initial permit was granted, but then stopped because of the sanctions.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...a-8793642.html

The chemicals involved have legitimate industrial uses but, in the case of suspicions over Syria, it was correct to prevent the export.
The chemical export licences were granted by Business Secretary Vince Cable’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills last January – 10 months after the Syrian uprising began.

They were only revoked six months later, when the European Union imposed tough sanctions on Assad’s regime

Mark Bitel of the Campaign Against Arms Trade (Scotland) said: “The UK Government claims to have an ethical policy on arms exports, but when it comes down to practice the reality is very different.

“The Government is hypocritical to talk about chemical weapons if it’s granting licences to companies to export to regimes such as Syria.


We saw David Cameron, in the wake of the Arab Spring, rushing off to the Middle East with arms companies to promote business.”
The article doesn't say anywhere that the chemicals were never exported. It just says they were granted and then revoked 6 months later. In that 6 months, a lot could have happened.

But let's just say you're right for a moment.

That still leaves the question...

What about the chemical attacks that were carried out by the U.S. on places Hiroshima, Vietnam, South America?

How can the U.S. and the U.K. be at the forefront in accusing Assad of using chemical weapons when they have in the past and up to recently have been involved in the use and supply of the very same.

So far, and I don't want anyone to think I'm on either side but there is no proof supplied that Assad's forces carried it out, nor any proof that the rebels carried it out which leaves some questions as to who was actually responsible.

A third party makes most sense.

Someone who wants to get both sides into trouble possibly.

As for international law. It is a joke.

The law is made and broken every day by the very people who make it. The only difference is that the rich and powerful escape it and the poor and weak are made the scapegoats of it.

It is used to serve the ends of whichever country has the most power and against those who are weaker.

The U.N. for e.g. is a puppet organization that is there so serve the interests of the largest members.

If something doesn't suit a particular member and they don't get U.N. approval for their intended crimes, then they just find some other legal loophole to achieve their goals. Iraq was a big example of how the U.N. was bypassed when it didn't serve their purposes.

With Syria, they were recently discussing how to bypass the U.N's ruling (against an attack without credible proof that Assad's forces were responsible) and use some other law to get around it. This is another example of how the U.N. is just a puppet organization. A tool that is used whenever is needed and bypassed whenever is needed.


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Independent
09-06-2013, 11:39 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Mustafa2012
The article doesn't say anywhere that the chemicals were never exported.
It does here: The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “You see the system working, with materials not exported. The facts are that the licences were revoked and the exports did not take place. Bear in mind also that these materials are not chemical weapons in themselves, they have normal commercial usage too.

format_quote Originally Posted by Mustafa2012
What about the chemical attacks that were carried out by the U.S. on places Hiroshima, Vietnam, South America?
There seems to be a lot of confusion about what constitutes a chemical weapon. Hiroshima involved an atomic bomb, which is not a chemical weapon by anyone's definition. With Vietnam - are you referring to Agent Orange? This is classified as a herbicide rather than a chemical weapon and was not even considered a poison at the time of its use (this changed as the long term consequences of heavy use became clear). With regard to South America - I'm not sure what events you're referring to.

Therefore, it remains the case that the US does not use chemical weapons as defined under international law, whereas Syria admits to having very large stocks. They wouldn't have developed them if they weren't prepared to use them. In addition Syria has an extensive biological weapons programme which many people would view as even worse.

format_quote Originally Posted by Mustafa2012
So far, and I don't want anyone to think I'm on either side but there is no proof supplied that Assad's forces carried it out, nor any proof that the rebels carried it out which leaves some questions as to who was actually responsible.
I agree there is no absolute proof yet made public that Assad did it. However, it's extremely difficult to see how the rebels could have managed it, and even more difficult for some mysterious third party (especially considering it is suggested there have been more than 10 attacks in total).

format_quote Originally Posted by Mustafa2012
Someone who wants to get both sides into trouble possibly
if you look at the politics of this, it's the US that's in trouble because of this attack. Obama plainly thought the warning, the 'red line', would be enough to prevent usage. Now he's forced himself into a corner where he has to back up his warning. As i write this it's very far from certain he will get Congressional approval.

format_quote Originally Posted by Mustafa2012
The U.N. for e.g. is a puppet organization that is there so serve the interests of the largest members.
When you criticise the UN, I think there is no one who would agree with you more than American right wingers. The largest members have the biggest influence - but none of them control it.

The UN has been hamstrung for most of its existence by the vetoes of one or other party. It is a deeply flawed organisation. But bad as it is, I find it hard to see how getting rid of it is going to make things any better.

Any organisation composed of many states is going to be at the mercy of individual interests.
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جوري
09-06-2013, 11:57 PM
lols at this guy- to him dying or being maimed or tortured or torn apart or torched or born with defects isn't what is important. What is important is defining this as chemical and that as atomic and such as plant feeding agent and its okay(ness) by his govt. or 'world govt.
You can't have any dialogue with a person like that!
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IAmZamzam
09-07-2013, 01:17 AM
I came here so that I could spread around this link to a popular online petition: http://dontattacksyria.com/

I would also like to encourage all of my fellow Americans to email, tweet, and especially call up their local congresspeople. We need to latch onto them like a series of stubborn little dogs on a mailman’s route.

I don’t think anyone is disputing that it was a chemical weapons attack.

On the contrary that has *indeed* been disputed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=et1NSxT1K4w (I don’t know how to embed videos in forum posts. An alternate link can be found here: http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=64...BD336C2196AD17) Imagine that a few dead housewives in the same county of the U.S. happened to have remote traces of mustard and bleach on their skin and the papers started jumping to the conclusion that they’d been gassed to death by terrorists. You’d think your society had turned into a madhouse. Now I’m not saying that the video is valid—I don’t know enough about either chemistry or the chemical investigation to say—but I do know one thing:

Assad *shmassad*: Wikileaks has revealed the only true reason why the U.S. government cares one whit about Syria:

http://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06...html#efmAcfAfB

And we already knew about the pipeline. And the ever diminishing supply of oil and other such resources on this planet which is making the hoarding of such things an increasing necessity. And about drinking buddy Israel’s stake in this game. *They’ve* got the goods, as well as lots of financial backing for ol’ Sam. In the end the energy companies (the lobbyists in general, to a fair extent) are always in charge. I don’t know who it was that first said that as long as war is profitable there will never be peace but he sure knew what he was talking about!

Call. Write. Sign. And don’t just follow the link. Feel free to find stuff, and think of stuff, on your own too.
That stuff is a good start but I've come up with something else. Here is President Obama's contact info. God willing I plan to write him myself--but surely I won't be the only one here to do so?
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faithandpeace
09-07-2013, 07:59 AM
Since Independent has made it clear that his intentions here are not to convert to Islam but to instead spend his time here spreading disinformation about political events and endlessly argue against and insult Muslims on an Islamic discussion board during political discussions, I have to wonder what his purpose is for being here. Since defending or supporting Islam obviously isn't one of them, I wonder what he is promoting and defending and why.
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Independent
09-07-2013, 08:31 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by جوري
lols at this guy- to him dying or being maimed or tortured or torn apart or torched or born with defects isn't what is important. What is important is defining this as chemical and that as atomic and such as plant feeding agent and its okay(ness) by his govt. or 'world govt.
No, I am wholly opposed to the use of Agent Orange and other items too - however they are not chemical weapons and were not illegal at the time of use, as has been suggested here.

As for violence in general, you have consistently argued in favour of war and against negotiation in practically every issue that has come up since I joined this forum. You're not anti violence, anti suffering, or anti dictatorship - it's just the identity of who's in charge that you care about. If
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Independent
09-07-2013, 09:11 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by faithandpeace
Independent has made it clear that his intentions here are not to convert to Islam but to instead spend his time here spreading disinformation about political events and endlessly argue against and insult Muslims
I joined the forum not to convert, but to learn both about Islam and about the politics in the Muslim world. I have found the religious side fascinating in so many ways. I have read the Quran but it did not have the effect on me that Muslim converts have described. I have also read widely about Muslim history and society, including many areas i didn't know much about before. I had been led to believe that this would be a good thing to learn, although it would seem you disagree.

On the political side - most of what we are talking about here is not 'Islamic politics' but 'politics involving Msllims and Muslim states.' If someone says that the UK exported nerve gas to Syria, and I correct this misinformation, what I am doing is not an attack on Islam. It has nothing to do with Islam. The idea that there is no separation between church and state in Islam has led many people into substituting politics for religion.

More generally - and this is getting to the issue that motivates me most - if many Muslims believe in an international conspiracy of the west against Islam - going back perhaps all the way to the Crusades and beyond - then we are in a state of de facto war. If you believe I am at war with you, then war it is, whether I want it or not. There is no possibility of peace because I can't undeclare a war i never declared in the first place. This would be a catastrophe on so many levels, but especially for all Muslims in western countries and Christians in Muslim countries.

This conspiracy theory of a secret elite was around perhaps a 100 years before it ever got taken up by Muslims, but in the last 50 years it has been thoroughly adopted and, for many of them, has become an article of faith. Religious faith.

The 9/11 conspiracy might as well be in the Quran, or a hadith (in fact many Muslims try to see this in the scriptures). In effect, many Muslims spend more mental energy worshipping politics than their God.

format_quote Originally Posted by faithandpeace
endlessly argue against and insult Muslims
I agree with some members and disagree with others. Like anyone else here. I may not agree with you, but that's another matter.

I am certainly rude to one particular member, but there is no other way to talk to her, since 80% of what she writes are personal insults. If I didn't reply to the insults, there wouldn't be much left. I don't think I insult Islam itself, I certainly try not to. But it's difficult. For example, if I say that 9/11 was an attack by Al Qaeda, not an Illuminati conspiracy, some Muslims regard that statement as itself an attack on Islam. This is so alarming - it becomes impossible for anyone to argue another point of view about world events. That doesn't matter about me so much, but it does matter that other Muslims can't make such statements without being told that they are 'not Muslim enough' or 'kaffir lovers'. The real battle that's going on is not with people like me, with non Muslims, but within Islam.

Politics has become their religion.

format_quote Originally Posted by faithandpeace
I have to wonder what his purpose is for being here.
My purpose is as described above. I am a private citizen with no affiliation to any group or party. Personally, I think that's obvious from what I've written over time, but I can't make you see that and I can't think of any way to prove it. I have many faults but that's not one of them. If I'm lying, your God will punish me for it, so why not leave it up to Him?
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جوري
09-07-2013, 09:39 AM
When Muslims fight against occupying raping, pillaging kafirs it's called resistance!
- peaceful negotiations don't work when your enemy comes in to gang rape 14 year olds spread the falsehood of Christianity and change our doctrines and constitutions and tell us which weapons we can or can't have and force a colony of Zionists in our midst while displacing and killing us and then pointing out how it's all legal under their laws!
Capice? All I've said about you is true and stands and anyone with foresight and a seeing heart can see through ---!
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سيف الله
09-07-2013, 03:29 PM
Salaam

Just another update



HP Sauce

David Cameron lost his Commons Syria motion in part by insisting UN weapons inspectors shouldn’t finish their work before an allied strike. It might seem surprising to some that he would risk his authority trying to pre-empt them – bit it reflects a long-running Anglo American hostility to the weapon inspectors. Cameron was backing Barack Obama, who pressurised the inspectors to leave Syria so that bombing could begin – reminiscent of 2003, when the US ‘advised’ the UN to pull its inspectors out of Iraq with their work unfinished. The friction is partly down to the fact that those pesky inspectors keep contradicting duff claims made by the US and Britain.

In 2003, just before the Iraq war, nuclear weapons inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) showed that the ‘Niger forgeries’, which the US claimed were evidence that Saddam Hussein was importing uranium from Africa, were poor quality fakes. The Americans tried to keep the IAEA from spotting how dodgy the documents were by holding the most obviously ridiculous of the forgeries back from the inspectors, but the IAEA was still quickly able to see they were rubbish.

US authorities have admitted that the Niger forgeries were behind false claims made about Saddams nukes – but to this day British intelligence refuses to disown the Niger story.

This wasn’t the first time the IAEA had shown up absurd lies about weapons of mass destruction. In 1995, the Sunday Times published a series of stories claiming that Iraqi nuclear scientist Khidir Hamza had tried to defect with proof of Saddams nuclear programme. Papers obtained by the Eye under freedom of information show the Foreign Office believed these ‘documents smuggled out of Iraq by a defector are credible’ and ‘will provide further justification for continuing to take a firm line with Iraq’, which at that time was under a sanctions regime. The Foreign Office was soon disappointed, as the IAEA showed the Hamza papers were ‘crude forgeries’ and the whole story nonsense.

Unfortunately, the IAEAs judgement was not reported by the press, so Hamza was able to peddle a whole new set of fake tales in the run up to the 2003 war. The IAEA exposure of these forgeries made the US and UK authorities very cross, and Britain discreetly backed US attempts to oust Mohamed ElBaradei, the IAEA’s capable leader, because his organisation was too independent. Edward Snowdens recent leaks about spying by Americas National Security Agency also show the US authorities put much effort into snooping on the IAEA.

It seems much less likely that UN inspectors will contradict British assertions on Assads use of chemical weapons. But it looks as if Obama and Cameron cent deal with an independent voice on Syrian war, as controlling both what is said and when it is said are crucial to building the shaky consensus for an attack.
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Signor
09-07-2013, 04:49 PM
Hello Independent

format_quote Originally Posted by Independent
More generally - and this is getting to the issue that motivates me most - if many Muslims believe in an international conspiracy of the west against Islam - going back perhaps all the way to the Crusades and beyond - then we are in a state of de facto war. If you believe I am at war with you, then war it is, whether I want it or not. There is no possibility of peace because I can't undeclare a war i never declared in the first place
I have requested you to read Clash of Civilizations written by a non Muslim author(Samuel Phillips Huntington) who endorsed a theory by another Non Muslims author of 1930's.Seems like you didn't...!Anyway,this piece may help you to understand

Five essential areas which should be taken into account while drawing any meaning comparisons and possibilities of dialogue between the West and Islam; ontology, epistemology, concept of man, Concept of self, and concept of universe.

West had an overwhelmingly materialist perspective regarding the nature of life and universe. The west is almost oblivious to an ulterior and superior hand involved in the creation of the universe. The modern western epistemological tradition, beginning mainly from René Descartes, believes in rationalist paradigm.

It considers man to be the center of universe and human reason to be the sole source of knowledge, emancipation and even salvation. It is equally true that there has been potent criticism on the limitation of human reason, namely, Immanuel Kant’s “critique of Pure Reason”; we can know phenomena but not noumena. The concept of man plays a pivotal role in outlining the salient features of a society. Unfortunately due to a rugged materialist tradition, the west has not gone beyond a bio-chemical conception of man. Man has only a material existence devoid of any sanctity and “deep” spirituality.

The modern western psychology had a very limited notion of self; it confines self into something that has only a bleak and ugly side. The materialist concept of universe espoused by notable western thinkers like Darwin, Marx and Stephan Hawking has only a one-dimensional perspective; there is nothing beyond this immediate universe.

Unlike the West, the supreme source of knowledge in Islam was revelation. Human reason does have its significant place in Islamic epistemology but the supreme verdict is always based on revelation. Moreover Islam has a profoundly spiritual perspective on the meaning of human life that essentially negates the notions of greedy materialism and consumerism.

Man in Islamic tradition has the responsibility to discover the true reality that can make him successful here and in the hereafter. Islam rejects the materialist notion of universe and man; it in no way means rejection of modern scientific technological developments. It is truly a monotheistic religion that fills all avenues of human life with concept of oneness of God.Islam gives a larger than life picture to humanity which can be the best possible satisfaction of real human aspirations.
format_quote Originally Posted by Independent
but in the last 50 years it has been thoroughly adopted and, for many of them, has become an article of faith.
How can you speak for MANY?Do you know one billion muslims while alleging them for considering conspiracy theories as article of faith.

format_quote Originally Posted by Independent
The 9/11 conspiracy might as well be in the Quran, or a hadith (in fact many Muslims try to see this in the scriptures). In effect, many Muslims spend more mental energy worshipping politics than their God.
Again MANY Muslims.

Islam(Quran and Hadith) collectively forbids killing of Innocent civilians.Period.How can it permits this act?

As for the confusion about Muslims who see this in their scriptures,its due to sheer ignorance.They use numerology to justify there blasphemous claim when its is unlawful to use it anyway.

format_quote Originally Posted by Independent
The real battle that's going on is not with people like me, with non Muslims, but within Islam.
There is no battle within Islam,only a conflict happens to be there among Muslims.

You have yet to study a lot about Islam,Question respectfully without passing judgements and we will try to answer God-willing.This is what beneficial for both of us.
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Independent
09-07-2013, 05:43 PM
Greetings Signor

format_quote Originally Posted by Signor
I have requested you to read Clash of Civilizations
Unfortunately I have been very busy the last few weeks - emigrating.

format_quote Originally Posted by Signor
How can you speak for MANY?
Well, there seem to be quite a number on this forum, and many more on other websites. How many overall? I have no idea. I hope it's not so many but there are people who like to say it's millions...

format_quote Originally Posted by Signor
As for the confusion about Muslims who see this in their scriptures,its due to sheer ignorance.
As a non Muslim it's hard for me to judge but I agree with you. People seem to find what they want to find.

format_quote Originally Posted by Signor
There is no battle within Islam,only a conflict happens to be there among Muslims.
Please accept my apologies for making this error. What I meant to say is, there is a battle or crisis between Muslims as individuals, not within Islam as a faith. For a non Muslim, the terms are pretty much synonymous, so it's a mistake that's hard to avoid. But I know that's not how it sounds to Muslims and it's the wrong way to say it.

format_quote Originally Posted by Signor
Islam(Quran and Hadith) collectively forbids killing of Innocent civilians.Period.How can it permits this act?
I agree 100%. That's why the demonisation of the entire western world and the invention of a conspiracy is so dangerous. It permits people to say all westerners are bad, that a state of de facto war already exists, so anything goes. Western countries and governments do plenty of bad things - but they are very far from being the sole source of trouble in this world.
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جوري
09-07-2013, 06:09 PM
This isn't an issue of all or some- I can't stand pendentary and recycled meaningless rhetoric which changes nothing and adds nothing!
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سيف الله
09-07-2013, 08:36 PM
Salaam

Ive been trying to get hold of this book 'Wars a Racket' for some time, finally managed to order it. Again a very good insight into why the USA does what it does.

War is a Racket by Smedley Butler

War is a Racket by Smedley Butler is a famous speech denouncing the military industrial complex. This speech by two-time Congressional Medal of Honor recipient exposes war profits that benefit few at the expense of many. Throughout his distinguished career in the Marines, Smedley Darlington Butler demonstrated that true patriotism does not mean blind allegiance to government policies with which one does not agree. To Hell with war.


More relevant A very good debate about the coming war on Syria.

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Muhammad
09-08-2013, 12:27 PM
Greetings Independent,

format_quote Originally Posted by Independent
I agree 100%. That's why the demonisation of the entire western world and the invention of a conspiracy is so dangerous. It permits people to say all westerners are bad, that a state of de facto war already exists, so anything goes.
Believing in conspiracy theories does not automatically mean that the entire western world is demonised. Conspiracy theories usually involve governments and particular groups, not the west as a whole. I don't know where you have received the impression that Muslims believe the whole of the west is evil - if that is the view of one or two members, it should not be reflected upon Muslims as a whole, certainly not when this forum is actively used by a handful as compared with the billions of Muslims out there.

More generally - and this is getting to the issue that motivates me most - if many Muslims believe in an international conspiracy of the west against Islam - going back perhaps all the way to the Crusades and beyond - then we are in a state of de facto war. If you believe I am at war with you, then war it is, whether I want it or not. There is no possibility of peace because I can't undeclare a war i never declared in the first place.
I hope you will also be motivated to learn what drives many Muslims to believe in such theories and hold distrust for western powers in the first place.

The 9/11 conspiracy might as well be in the Quran, or a hadith (in fact many Muslims try to see this in the scriptures).
Yet it is propounded by non-Muslims and Muslims alike, being presented in documentaries, articles and all kinds of media, as with other conspiracies. Why should Muslims be singled out or even blamed for believing in it? Let us not forget they suffered a far greater number of fatalities following that incident and continue to be viewed with increasing suspicion till today.
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جوري
09-08-2013, 03:33 PM
Simpleton minds draw satisfaction from overly simplistic conclusions.. what is the expectation?

btw this is courtesy of br. ABZ:


Main article: White phosphorus

White phosphorus sample
White phosphorus is made from a common allotrope of the chemical element phosphorus that is used in smoke, tracer, illumination and incendiary munitions.[2] Other common names include "WP", and the slang term "Willie Pete," which is dated from its use in Vietnam, and is still sometimes used in military jargon.[3] As an incendiary weapon, white phosphorus burns fiercely and can set cloth, fuel, ammunition and other combustibles on fire, and cause serious burns or death.

In addition to its offensive capabilities, white phosphorus is also a highly efficient smoke-producing agent, burning quickly and causing an instant bank of smoke. As a result, smoke-producing white phosphorus munitions are very common, particularly as smoke grenades for infantry, loaded in grenade launchers on tanks and other armored vehicles, or as part of the ammunition allotment for artillery or mortars. These create smoke screens to mask movement, position or the origin of fire from the enemy. White phosphorus is used in bombs, artillery, mortars, and short-range missiles which burst into burning flakes of phosphorus upon impact.

The use of white phosphorus as an obscurant is legal, as well as use as an incendiary weapon against military targets that are not in close proximity to civilians or civilian property. Article 1 of Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons defines an incendiary weapon as 'any weapon or munition which is primarily designed to set fire to objects or to cause burn injury to persons through the action of flame, heat, or combination thereof, produced by a chemical reaction of a substance delivered on the target'. The same protocol also prohibits the use of incendiary weapons against civilians (already forbidden by the Geneva Conventions) or against military targets in close proximity to civilians or civilian property.



On November 9, 2005 the Italian state-run broadcaster Radiotelevisione Italiana S.p.A. aired a documentary titled "Fallujah, The Hidden Massacre", alleging that the United States' used white phosphorus as a weapon in Fallujah causing insurgents and civilians to be killed or injured by chemical burns. The filmmakers further claimed that the United States used incendiary MK-77 bombs in violation of Protocol III of the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. According to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, quoted in the documentary, white phosphorus is permitted for use as an illumination device and as a weapon with regard to heat energy, but not permitted as an offensive weapon with regard to its toxic chemical properties.[6][7] The documentary also included footage which purported to be of white phosphorus being fired from helicopters over Fallujah. It also quoted journalist Giuliana Sgrena, who had been in Fallujah, as a testimony. [8]


http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White...us_use_in_Iraq
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WarriorforMarie
09-08-2013, 03:58 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Signor
I have requested you to read Clash of Civilizations written by a non Muslim author(Samuel Phillips Huntington) who endorsed a theory by another Non Muslims author of 1930's.Seems like you didn't...!Anyway,this piece may help you to understand
Wow Signor, you have read a work by Samuel Huntington? His is some serious political science. But be careful, Clash of Civilizations is considered to be one of his weakest works. The section "Islam's Bloody Borders" is particularly controversial. It has been a while since I've read it but I did find that his inclination to describe Islamic Civilization as being more prone to violence with its neighbors was full of spurious logic (pages 254-265 in my edition).
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جوري
09-08-2013, 04:11 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by WarriorforMarie
Wow
format_quote Originally Posted by WarriorforMarie
you have read a work
format_quote Originally Posted by WarriorforMarie
But be careful
got to love that brazenly sardonic style!
Only one book is taken in totality Marie and it is the noble Quran.. the rest of the books can be taken for what they're worth!

best,
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Signor
09-08-2013, 04:18 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by WarriorforMarie
Wow Signor, you have read a work by Samuel Huntington?
LOL,Does his works meant to be "all rights reserved for XYZ"^o)

format_quote Originally Posted by WarriorforMarie
Clash of Civilizations is considered to be one of his weakest works. The section "Islam's Bloody Borders" is particularly controversial. It has been a while since I've read it but I did find that his inclination to describe Islamic Civilization as being more prone to violence with its neighbors was full of spurious logic (pages 254-265 in my edition).
I've my areas of agreements and disagreements with Samuel Huntington(I forgot the name of other author whose theory he endorsed) which not the issue in hand right now.Independent believes only Muslims feel they have some problems with west not the opposite,this is what i addressed here.
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WarriorforMarie
09-08-2013, 04:34 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by جوري
got to love that brazenly sardonic style!
Only one book is taken in totality Marie and it is the noble Quran.. the rest of the books can be taken for what they're worth!

best,
I was not trying to be sardonic. I am actually impressed that Signor has read something by Samuel Huntington, he is a serious political scientist and it is impressive that anyone would try to read his work.
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جوري
09-08-2013, 04:35 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by WarriorforMarie
. I am actually impressed that Signor has read something
If you can't see your repeated insults here then I don't think anyone can help you!
Also who are you to be impressed or unimpressed by anyone on board?
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WarriorforMarie
09-08-2013, 04:36 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by جوري
What is that exactly? sob7an Allah at the trolls that frequent this forum!
Signor has read something by Samuel Huntington who is a significant scholar in the realm of political science.
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Independent
09-08-2013, 08:07 PM
Greetings Muhammad

format_quote Originally Posted by Muhammad
I don't know where you have received the impression that Muslims believe the whole of the west is evil - if that is the view of one or two members, it should not be reflected upon Muslims as a whole
Obviously I don't think this view is held by every Muslim. There is a terrific range of views in this forum, never mind anywhere else. it is perfectly possible to believe that 9/11 was a conspiracy without being anti western. However, for those who do feel that way inclined, it's an article of faith.

But there are Muslims who routinely demonise the West as a whole, without qualification. The urge for this is so great that there is little enthusiasm here for criticising Russia for what they have already done in Syria, they prefer to get agitated about what America might do. Russians are almost being turned into heroes for 'standing up to America' - even though they provided the chemical and biological weapons in the first place.

This is absurd at every level, including the term 'Westerner' itself - which effectively is now being used as a racial term, rather than geographical or economic.

As I said before, it's very difficult to know numbers. One thing is for sure is that the internet is the home of conspiracy theories. The internet has caused their popularity to rise exponentially, along with many other views formerly confined to isolated individuals. I love the internet for my work and for recreation, but I'm beginning to wish it had never been invented, when I see what people do with it.

format_quote Originally Posted by Muhammad
Believing in conspiracy theories does not automatically mean that the entire western world is demonised
I agree, it doesn't have to mean that. The range of views based on the same basic principle (a secret elite that is controlling the world) is huge. In fact, one of the many, many reasons I find these theories to be wholly unconvincing is that they have been used for such diverse and contradictory messages. As far as the 'it's an anti Muslim conspiracy' version of the theory goes, this is relatively recent. The same theories were knocking around for a hundred years or more before it got turned that way.

format_quote Originally Posted by Muhammad
Why should Muslims be singled out or even blamed for believing in it?
Right wing American patriots are another significant group - however, they are localised to the US and personally I don't think they ever will do much (unless the US economy collapses). There is also the old, ever popular anti semitic strand (which is usually worked into all the other versions too).

Logically of course, if someone believes in the 'secret elite' story, they should see Westerners as victims alongside themselves. But this doesn't seem to happen. They criticise westerners both for being 'sheeple' and ignorant, whilst also blaming them for the actions of this same elite which they aren't supposed to know about. Does it make any sense? Of course it doesn't.

format_quote Originally Posted by Muhammad
I hope you will also be motivated to learn what drives many Muslims to believe in such theories and hold distrust for western powers in the first place.
I couldn't have been a member here for this long and not realise that. I totally agree that Muslims are suffering in many countries. But I don't think this is the result of an international conspiracy. I think it is for the same kind of reasons that people suffer in other parts of the world today and back through history. At this point i don't see that there is something different going on although I continue to read and learn more. But there are plenty of successful, wealthy Muslim states in the world today. I don't see how Muslim states have had it worse than sub Saharan Africa, for instance.

This is an Islamic website so certain things get talked about, and others not. But the context is missing. You cannot understand Bosnia unless you also know about Croatia. You can't analyse what's happened to the Rohinga unless you also look at the fate of the Karen. Yugoslavia and Burma are both better defined as wars of nationalism, rather than purely anti Muslim. In both cases, religion was one identifier of nationalism, but it wasn't the only one and nor was it just Islam. There is so much that is left either unexplained or simply non-sensical, if it is seen exclusively from the Muslim viewpoint.
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Karl
09-09-2013, 12:35 AM
The Zionist New World Order is as plain as the nose on your face. International Jewery by another name. It is the reason for all the aggression against Islam.
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سيف الله
09-09-2013, 11:51 AM
Salaam

Another analysis on the general situation.

While Syria Descends Into Suicide, Israel And The Us Are Enjoying The Spectacle

Ceasefire (Frank Barat): What is the definition of negotiations in Israel-US language and why is the Palestinian Authority playing along?

Noam Chomsky: From the U.S. point of view, negotiations are, in effect, a way for Israel to continue its policies of systematically taking over whatever it wants in the West Bank, maintaining the brutal siege on Gaza, separating Gaza from the West Bank and, of course, occupying the Syrian Golan heights, all with full US support. And the framework of negotiations, as in the past twenty years of the Oslo experience, has simply provided a cover for this.

CF: In your opinion, why is the PA playing along with this and going to negotiations time after time?

NC: It’s probably partly out of desperation. You can ask whether it’s the right choice or not but they don’t have many alternatives.

CF: So it’s pretty much to survive that they indeed accept the framework?

NC: If they were refuse to join the US-run negotiations, their basis for support would collapse. They survive on donations essentially. Israel has made sure that it’s not a productive economy. They’re a kind of what would be called in Yiddish a “Schnorrer Society”: you just borrow and live on what you can get.

Whether they have an alternative to that is not so clear, but if they were to refuse the US demand for negotiations on completely unacceptable terms, their basis for support would erode. And they do have support – external support – enough so that the Palestinian elite can live in a fairly decent – often lavish – lifestyle, while the society around them collapses

CF: So would the crumbling and disappearance of the PA be a bad thing after all?

NC: It depends on what would replace it. If, say, Marwan Barghouti were permitted to join the society the way, say, Nelson Mandela was finally, that could have a revitalising effect in organising a Palestinian society that might press for more substantial demands. But remember: they don’t have a lot of choices.

In fact, go back to the beginning of the Oslo Agreements, now twenty years old. There were negotiations under way, the Madrid negotiations, at which the Palestinian delegation was led by Haider Abdel-Shafi, a highly respected, Left-Nationalist figure in Palestine. He was refusing to agree to the US-Israel terms, which required crucially that settlement expansion was allowed to continue. He refused, and therefore the negotiations stalled and got nowhere.

Meanwhile Arafat and the external Palestinians went on the side-track through Oslo, gained control and Haider Abdel-Shafi was so opposed to this he didn’t even show up to the dramatic and meaningless ceremony where Clinton beamed while Arafat and Rabin shook hands. He didn’t show up because he realised it was a total sell-out. But he was principled and therefore could get nowhere, and we’ll get nowhere unless there’s substantial support from the European Union, the Gulf States and ultimately, from the United States.

CF: In your opinion what is really at stake in what’s unravelling in Syria at the moment, and what does it mean for the broader region?


NC: Well, Syria is descending into suicide. It’s a horror story and getting worse and worse. There’s no bright spot on the horizon. What will probably happen, if this continues, is that Syria will be partitioned into probably three regions; a Kurdish region – which is already forming – that could pull out and join in some fashion the semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan, maybe with some kind of deal with Turkey.

The rest of the country will be divided between a region dominated by the Assad regime – a brutal horrifying regime – and another section dominated by the various militias, which range from the extremely malicious and violent to the secular and democratic. Meanwhile, Israel is looking by and enjoying the spectacle. If you look at the New York Times this morning there’s a quote by an Israeli official essentially expressing their joy at watching Arabs slaughter each other.

CF: Yes, I read that

NC: For the United States, that’s fine, they don’t want an outcome either. If the US and Israel wanted to assist the rebels – which they do not – they can do it, even without military intervention. For example, if Israel were to mobilise forces on the Golan Heights (of course, it’s the Syrian Golan heights, but by now the world more or less tolerates or accepts Israel’s illegal occupation,) If they would just do that, It would compel Assad to move forces to the South which would relieve pressure against the rebels. But there’s no hint even of that. They’re also not giving humanitarian aid to the huge number of suffering refugees, not doing all kinds of simple things that they could do.

All of which suggests that both Israel and the United States prefer exactly what is happening today, just as reported in that NYT story this morning. Meanwhile, Israel can celebrate, and its status as what they call a “Villa in the Jungle”. There was an interesting article by the editor of Haaretz, Aluf Benn, who wrote about how Israelis are going to the beach and enjoying themselves, and congratulating themselves as being a “Villa in the jungle” while the wild beasts out there tear each other to shreds. And, of course, Israel under this picture is doing nothing except defending itself. They like that picture and the US doesn’t seem too dissatisfied with it either. The rest is shadowboxing.

CF: What about talk of a US strike then, do you think it’s going to happen?

NC: A bombing?

CF: Yes

NC: Well, it’s kind of an interesting debate in the United States. The Ultra-Right, the Right wing extremists who are kind of off the international spectrum, they’re opposing it, though not for reasons I like. They’re opposing it because “Why should we dedicate ourselves to solving other people’s problems and waste our own resources?” They’re literally asking “Who’s going to defend us when we’re attacked, because we’re devoting ourselves to helping people overseas?” That’s the Ultra-Right. If you look at the ‘moderate’ Right, people like, say, David brooks of the New York Times, considered an intellectual commentator on the right. His view is that the US effort to withdraw its forces from the region is not having a “moderating effect”. According to Brooks, when US forces are in the region, that has a moderating effect; it improves the situation, as you can see in Iraq, for example. But if we’re withdrawing our forces then we’re no longer able to moderate the situation and make it better.

That’s the Standard view from the intellectual right over to the mainstream, the liberal democrats and so on. So there’s a lot of talk about “Should we exercise our ‘Responsibility to Protect’?” Well, just take a look at the US record on ‘Responsibility to Protect’. The fact that these words can even be spoken reveals something quite extraordinary about the US – and, in fact, Western – moral and intellectual culture.

This is quite apart from the fact that it’s a gross violation of international law. Obama’s latest line is that he didn’t establish a “red line” but the world did through its conventions on chemical warfare. Well, actually, the world does have a treaty, which Israel didn’t sign and which the US has totally neglected, for example when it supported Saddam Hussein’s really horrifying use of chemical weapons. Today, this is used to denounce Saddam Hussein, overlooking the fact that it was not only tolerated but basically supported by the Reagan administration. And, of course, the convention has no enforcement mechanisms.

There’s also no such thing as “Responsibility to Protect”, that’s a fraud perpetrated in Western intellectual culture. There is a notion, in fact two notions: there’s one passed by the UN General Assembly, which does talk about “Responsibility to Protect,” but it offers no authorisation for any kind of intervention except under conditions of the United Nations charter. There is another version, which is adopted only by the West, the US and its allies, which is unilateral and says R2P permits “military intervention by regional organisations in the region of their authority without Security Council authorisation”.

Well, translating that into English, this means that it provides authorisation for the US and NATO to use violence wherever they choose without Security Council authorisation. That’s what’s called “Responsibility to Protect” in Western discourse. If it weren’t so tragic it would be farcical.

CF: Thank you, Professor Chomsky.

http://www.zcommunications.org/while-syria-descends-into-suicide-israel-and-the-us-are-enjoying-the-spectacle-by-noam-chomsky.html
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سيف الله
09-09-2013, 11:55 AM
Salaam

An update, looks like the date is set for the bombs to fly :(


US gives Syria one week to surrender chemical weapons or face attack

John Kerry tells press conference with William Hague in London that US intelligence blames Assad regime for gas attack




The US secretary of state has said that President Bashar al-Assad has one week to hand over his entire stock of chemical weapons to avoid a military attack, but said he had no expectation that the Syrian leader would comply.

John Kerry also said he had no doubt that Assad was responsible for the chemical weapons attack in east Damascus on 21 August, saying that only three people are responsible for the chemical weapons inside Syria – Assad himself, one of his brothers and a senior general. He said the entire US intelligence commnity was united in believing Assad was responsible.

Kerry was speaking on Monday alongside William Hague, who was forced to deny that he had been pushed to the sidelines by the House of Commons decision 10 days ago to reject the use of UK force in Syria.

The US Senate is due to vote this week on whether to approve an attack and Kerry was ambivalent over whether Barack Obama would use his powers to ignore the Senate, if it were to reject an attack.

Kerry said the US had tracked the Syrian chemical weapons stock for many years, adding that it "was controlled in a very tight manner by the Assad regime … Bashar al-Assad and his brother Maher al-Assad, and a general are the three people that have the control over the movement and use of chemical weapons.

"But under any circumstances, the Assad regime is the Assad regime, and the regime issues orders, and we have regime members giving these instructions and engaging in these preparations with results going directly to President Assad.

"We are aware of that so we have no issue here about responsibility. They have a very threatening level of stocks remaining."

Kerry said Assad might avoid an attack if he handed every bit of his chemical weapons stock, but added that the Syrian president was not going to do that. He warned that if other nations were not prepared to act on the issue of chemical weapons, "you are giving people complete licence to do whatever they want and to feel so they can do with impunity".

Kerry said the Americans were planning an "unbelievably small" attack on Syria. "We will be able to hold Bashar al-Assad accountable without engaging in troops on the ground or any other prolonged kind of effort in a very limited, very targeted, short-term effort that degrades his capacity to deliver chemical weapons without assuming responsibility for Syria's civil war. That is exactly what we are talking about doing – unbelievably small, limited kind of effort."

The secretary of state repeatedly referred to genocides in eastern Europe and Rwanda in putting forward his case for taking military action. "We need to hear an appropriate outcry as we think back on those moments of history when large numbers of people have been killed because the world was silent," he said. "The Holocaust, Rwanda, other moments, are lessons to all of us today.

"So let me be clear," he continued. "The United States of America, President Obama, myself, others are in full agreement that the end of the conflict in Syria requires a political solution."

But he insisted such a solution was currently impossible if "one party believes that he can rub out countless numbers of his own citizens with impunity using chemicals that have been banned for 100 years".

Hague was forced to emphasise that the UK was engaged in the Syrian crisis through its call for greater action on humanitarian aid, as well as support for the Geneva II peace process.

He pointed out that David Cameron had convened a meeting of countries at the G20 summit in Saint Petersburg to ramp up the humanitarian effort.

Hague met members of the Syrian opposition last Friday and described its leaders as democratic and non-sectarian. On Monday, he avoided questions on why he was not providing lethal equipment to the Syrian opposition.

He said it was for the US to decide whether to attack Syria without congressional endorsement. "These are the two greatest homes of democracy and we work in slightly different ways and we each have to respect how each other's democracies work."

Kerry said he did not know if Obama would release further intelligence proving the culpability of Assad in the chemical weapons attack, saying the administration had already released an unprecedented amount of information.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/us-syria-chemical-weapons-attack-john-kerry
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Abz2000
09-09-2013, 01:49 PM
John Kerry also said he had no doubt that Assad was responsible for the chemical weapons attack





Intelligence leaves no doubt that Iraq continues to possess and conceal lethal weapons


George Bush, US President 18 March, 2003




Saddam's removal is necessary to eradicate the threat from his weapons of mass destruction


Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary 2 April, 2003




Before people crow about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, I suggest they wait a bit


Tony Blair 28 April, 2003




We are asked to accept Saddam decided to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd


Tony Blair, Prime Minister 18 March, 2003


It is possible Iraqi leaders decided they would destroy them prior to the conflict


Donald Rumsfeld, US Defense Secretary 28 May, 2003



Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.



Dick Cheney
Speech to VFW National Convention
August 26, 2002



Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons. George "aWol" Bush
Speech to UN General Assembly
September 12, 2002


If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world. Ari Fleischer
Press Briefing
December 2, 2002



We know for a fact that there are weapons there. Ari Fleischer
Press Briefing
January 9, 2003



"25,000 liters of anthrax ... 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin ... materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent ... upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents ... several mobile biological weapons labs ... thousands of Iraqi security personnel ... at work hiding documents and materials from the U.N. inspectors." George "aWol" Bush
State of the Union Address
January 28, 2003


We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more. Colin Powell
Remarks to UN Security Council
February 5, 2003


We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have. George "aWol" Bush
Radio Address
February 8, 2003



So has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad? . . . I think our judgment has to be clearly not. Colin Powell
Remarks to UN Security Council
March 7, 2003


Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. George "aWol" Bush
Address to the Nation
March 17, 2003




my first suspect would be israel, second washington, third - the rebels, last (in light of the situation) - assad (despot though he may be).
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Mustafa2012
09-09-2013, 11:22 PM
:salam:

Brother Abz, that is one of the best posts I've seen in a long time :ma:.

In the good old days, people would let each side have their say and present their evidence and let a jury decide the verdict.

These days it works the other way round.

First the media and governments decide the verdict and then they present evidence to support their judgement which may or may not be the right one.

But it must be right if they say it is, right?

After all, it's not possible for the media or even a government to be wrong, is it?

Of course not.
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Karl
09-09-2013, 11:57 PM
Assad is going to get rid of his chemical weapons to comply to requests. He is clever as chemical weapons are useless against the Zionists as they have protective gear.
If the Zionists attack him after he gets rid of his naughty chemical weapons the aggressors will look bad. The Wests propaganda machine will weaken if Assad plays it like Gandhi. He is also in luck that the rebels are attacking Christians, the rebels don't appear to be the goody goodies the West is making them out to be. The American soldiers or "grunts" don't even like the situation, they are waking up to the fact that they are being used for dirty wars for the progress of the internationalist Zionists euphemistically known as "The International Community". But the game plan is to hit Syria to bait a military response from Iran so they "The International Community" can invade and conquer Iran. I don't think Iran will fall for it.
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Independent
09-10-2013, 08:19 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by Abz2000
We know for a fact that there are weapons there. Ari Fleischer
Press Briefing
January 9, 2003
What an odd post from Abz. The issue is not whether or not Syria possesses chemical weapons - they've already admitted it. They've even thrown them into negotiations.
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Trumble
09-10-2013, 10:54 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by Karl
He is clever as chemical weapons are useless against the Zionists as they have protective gear.
So, if Assad is clever enough to know chemical weapons are useless against the 'Zionists', why does he have them? Who did he intend to use them against?
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جوري
09-10-2013, 12:05 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Trumble
So, if Assad is clever enough to know chemical weapons are useless against the 'Zionists', why does he have them? Who did he intend to use them against?
His own people as he has been doing.. not that I agree that the west should interfere, they're obviously there because they know he is done for and don't want the weapons to fall in the hands of gabhat anusra whom they put on their terrorist list.. surprisingly Bashar and HizbuAllah are not so we know who the west defines as a true enemy and we certainly have Iraq as an example!

best,
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Independent
09-10-2013, 12:34 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Trumble
So, if Assad is clever enough to know chemical weapons are useless against the 'Zionists', why does he have them? Who did he intend to use them against?
Chemical weapons are regarded as a kind of 'poor man's nuclear weapon' along with biological weapons - which Assad also has and which are even more indiscriminate. Chemical weapons can have at least some battlefield application, whereas biological are almost entirely random.

Syria has developed them primarily as an ultimate deterrent against Israel, just as Israel itself has nuclear weapons for the same reason. But of course, if Syria is threatened by any other country, then Assad has the weapons available. The main threat to the US would not be chemical but biological.
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جوري
09-10-2013, 12:48 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Independent
as an ultimate deterrent against Israel,
Kaffirs in here must really address themselves with these comic quips?

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articl...an-in-damascus

and regardless of their own admissions, I guess the record speaks for itself, he hasn't fired a single bomb against Israel and well what of the Golan heights for a guy who is an enemy of Israel and capable of that much carnage he would have been hailed as a hero.. the only time he'll ever fire against Israel is to save himself as a last ditch effort. The west is very happy with despots ruling over Muslims, they're also very happy with Muslims specifically Sunnis dying any which way and the 4th generation style war where the nation eats itself from within is their best bet for now!
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Independent
09-10-2013, 03:10 PM
[quote=جوري;1596222]and regardless of their own admissions, I guess the record speaks for itself, he hasn't fired a single bomb against Israel/quote]
i don't think you have grasped the concept of a 'deterrent'.

format_quote Originally Posted by جوري
The west is very happy with despots ruling over Muslims
Assad is Russia's man, not the US, and always has been.
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جوري
09-10-2013, 04:51 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Independent
Assad is Russia's man, not the US, and always has been.
it doesn't matter who plays good cop bad cop when it comes to Israeli interests.. The article is about 'Israel's' man not the U.S or Russia..
stop with the irrelevant drivel!
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Independent
09-10-2013, 05:17 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by جوري
The article is about 'Israel's' man not the U.S or Russia..
However, you quoted the article in support of a different claim: 'the west is very happy with despots ruling over Muslims'. I can't help it if your article is irrelevant to your own post.

Other despots have received western assistance, and sometimes lost that assistance - but Assad is all Russia and Iran.

You've also missed the most important development of the day. Under Russian persuasion, there is a possibility that Syria will allow the UN to immobilise their chemical weapons, in order to avert attack. It's very unusual for Russia to take such a proactive and genuinely helpful role. At this point it's far from certain it will come off, but it might.

This will avert US involvement although it will mean Assad is likely to stay in power, as he shows no sign of losing the civil war.
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جوري
09-10-2013, 05:25 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Independent
However, you quoted the article in support of a different claim: 'the west is very happy with despots ruling over Muslims'. I can't help it if your article is irrelevant to your own post.
The only thing you can't help is to tie things together that are separated by time and space!
You're a concrete thinker and that's actually a compliment from how I'd like to describe you!


format_quote Originally Posted by Independent
You've also missed the most important development of the day. Under Russian persuasion, there is a possibility that Syria will allow the UN to immobilise their chemical weapons, in order to avert attack. It's very unusual for Russia to take such a proactive and genuinely helpful role. At this point it's far from certain it will come off, but it might.
Actually that's a brilliant step to enable Bashar to stay and continue on his agenda!


format_quote Originally Posted by Independent
This will avert US involvement although it will mean Assad is likely to stay in power, as he shows no sign of losing the civil war.
Yup, US has no problem playing good cop, bad cop for the bigger picture. Any votes in the U.N can be vetoed by Russia and that would take the edge off the U.S they still come out the good guys when they're all devils!
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Independent
09-10-2013, 05:35 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by جوري
Actually that's a brilliant step to enable Bashar to stay and continue on his agenda!
By the Russians, yes. Why does everyone always talk about the Americans when they're not the key players in this scenario?

format_quote Originally Posted by جوري
Any votes in the U.N can be vetoed by Russia and that would take the edge off the U.S they still come out the good guys when they're all devils!
This episode has already caused the Obama administration considerable problems and no political advantage. I wonder if perhaps you have heard of the Cold War? It would be worth googling a few details. I feel you should know, the US and Russia have not exactly been best buddies over the last 70 years.
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جوري
09-10-2013, 05:41 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Independent
By the Russians, yes. Why does everyone always talk about the Americans when they're not the key players in this scenario?
They don't need to be key players, they just need to be players.
format_quote Originally Posted by Independent
I wonder if perhaps you have heard of the Cold War?
Thank God for your presence here and 'marie' to point out historical, political and philosophical nuggets that us enshrouded cavemen and women have never heard of!
The U.S isn't best buddies with Iran either overtly so but they also share a common agenda. You don't need to be simpatico in creed and style to share common grounds.
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Independent
09-10-2013, 05:48 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by جوري
The U.S isn't best buddies with Iran either overtly so but they also share a common agenda
I'm always reading here that everything is a supposed to be secret US plan to target Iran (because Americans are closet Sunnis perhaps). But you say the US is in fact in cahoots with Iran! What agenda is this?
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Berries'forest
09-10-2013, 05:49 PM
About the chemical weapons thingy..what I don't understand is why the 'international community' or western alliance showing concern over 'what kinds of weapons being used' for killing innocent people more than the killing of people itself. So, does it make it right or okay if people were being killed just without the use of chemical weapons?. So just as long as the Asad regimine don't use chemical weapons the killing is of less concern...?
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جوري
09-10-2013, 05:52 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Independent
I'm always reading here that everything is a supposed to be secret US plan to target Iran (because Americans are closet Sunnis perhaps). But you say the US is in fact in cahoots with Iran! What agenda is this?
I don't think anything is a secret really. Your ignorance doesn't equate to secrecy.
If you want to learn about the matter you may go to your library here's a good read on the subject:

http://www.amazon.com/Treacherous-Al...erous+alliance
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WarriorforMarie
09-10-2013, 06:34 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by جوري
I don't think anything is a secret really. Your ignorance doesn't equate to secrecy.
If you want to learn about the matter you may go to your library here's a good read on the subject:
This is actually a good book, I recommend it.
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WarriorforMarie
09-10-2013, 06:57 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by جوري
Thank God for your presence here and 'marie' to point out historical, political and philosophical nuggets that us enshrouded cavemen and women have never heard of!
I should point out that I'm not Marie. My id is WarriorforMarie. I am the Warrior who fights on her behalf.
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WarriorforMarie
09-10-2013, 07:11 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by جوري
The west is very happy with despots ruling over Muslims, they're also very happy with Muslims specifically Sunnis dying any which way and the 4th generation style war where the nation eats itself from within is their best bet for now!
Admittedly, there are many in the United States who believe we should simply stand aside and allow the two sides to kill as many of each other as possible. I cannot deny that on advantage the United States has vis-a-vis the Islamic World is the latter's inclination to tear itself apart over seemingly trivial differences in religion. I understand that differences between Sunni and Shia probably seem pretty big to some Muslims, but from a Western perspective it is baffling in a way. Both sides are Muslim!!!!
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WarriorforMarie
09-10-2013, 07:38 PM
Well, I hope the United States doesn't put ground troops into Syria. It certainly was a waste of time, money and lives for the United States to go into Iraq. The Muslim Middle East is far behind the rest of the world in political development that it is ridiculous trying to build democracy there. I suppose I do prefer for the Assad regime to fall though. By removing Saddam the United States allowed Iraq to fall into the Iranian sphere of influence, we need to balance things out by removing Syria from Iranian influence. Of course if that moron George W. Bush hadn't taken us into Iraq we wouldn't have to balance things out because Iraq would still be an Iranian enemy and we could leave the Assad regime in place.
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جوري
09-10-2013, 08:17 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by WarriorforMarie
that it is ridiculous trying to build democracy there.
The U.S has proven that it has no interest in democracy east or west and as the Arabic adage goes 'faqid ashya la yo3teeh' all it is, is about the system they want and it doesn't matter to them who runs that system or under what title it falls just so long as it prevails!


best,
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Independent
09-11-2013, 09:34 AM
Good news - Assad is to get his chance to disarm his chemical weapons voluntarily:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24043751
Hopefully this will not turn out to be a delaying strategy. If it is, it will damage all such negotiations in the future, as well as the Syrian situation.

It is a much better outcome than a strike because, if the agreement is honoured, it stands a chance of removing such weapons from the region totally. Whereas a strike could only have hoped to destroy a small percentage of the capacity and risked spreading what remained into even worse hands.

It also makes a nonsense of that subset of conspiracy theories which claimed Obama couldn't wait to invade Syria and/or Iran (if they weren't such a nonsense anyway).
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Taabuu
09-11-2013, 01:43 PM







take action to save Syria's children by signing the petition





http://www.avaaz.org/en/syria_will_t...929184&v=14806


Posted: 28 May 2012

The pictures from Al Houla, Syria, last Friday are almost too brutal to look at. I have a 5 year old daughter and I know it's only luck of birth that separates her from this horror. But my shock led me to write this today as I know there is something we can all do together to stop this.

Dozens of children lie covered with blood, their faces show the fear they felt before death, and their innocent lifeless bodies reveal an unspeakable massacre. These children were slaughtered by men under strict orders to sow terror. Yet all the diplomats have come up with so far is a few UN monitors 'observing' the violence. Now, governments across the world are expelling Syrian ambassadors, but unless we demand strong action on the ground, they will settle for these diplomatic half-measures.

The UN is discussing what to do right now. If there were a large international presence across Syria with a mandate to protect civilians, we could prevent the massacres while leaders engage in political efforts to resolve the conflict. I cannot see more images like these without shouting from the rooftops. But to stop the violence, it is going to take all of us, with one voice, demanding protection for these kids and their families. Sign the urgent petition on the right to call for UN action now and share this campaign with everyone.

Alice Jay, Campaign Director
Tell Your Friends


Right now governments are deciding what to do. The more of us join this call, the stronger it becomes! Please help spread the word using the Facebook and Email tools below and forward the original email from Avaaz!

for the tools, go to their website :
http://www.avaaz.org/en/syria_will_t...929184&v=14806


: I do not deem this a political post but a humanitarian one.
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IAmZamzam
09-11-2013, 08:35 PM
Independent, come now.

THERE'S ALMOST NO CHANCE RUSSIA'S PLAN FOR SYRIA'S CHEMICAL WEAPONS COULD WORK

Russia's proposal for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to place his chemical weapons under international supervision and then destroy them is quickly gaining steam. Assad's government accepted the plan this morning. A few hours later, President Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Francois Hollande announced that they'd seriously explore the proposal. It already has the backing of United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and a growing number of influential lawmakers from both parties. There's just one problem: the plan would be nearly impossible to actually carry out.

Experts in chemical weapons disposal point to a host of challenges. Taking control of Assad's enormous stores of the munitions would be difficult to do in the midst of a brutal civil war. Dozens of new facilities for destroying the weapons would have to be built from scratch or brought into the country from the U.S., and completing the job would potentially take a decade or more. The work itself would need to be done by specially-trained military personnel or contractors. Guess which country has most of those troops and civilian experts? If you said the U.S., you'd be right.

"This isn't simply burning the leaves in your backyard," said Mike Kuhlman, the chief scientist for national security at Battelle, a company that has been involved in chemical weapons disposal work at several sites in the U.S. "It's not something you do overnight, it's not easy, and it's not cheap."

The decades-long U.S. push to eliminate its own chemical weapons stockpiles illustrates the tough road ahead if Washington and Damascus come to a deal. The Army organization responsible for destroying America's massive quantities of munitions says the effort will take two years longer than initially planned and cost $2 billion more than its last estimate. The delay means an effort that got underway in the 1990s will continue until roughly 2023 and ultimately cost approximately $35 billion.

To be fair, the U.S. stockpiles were far larger than Assad's. At its height, the American military possessed 30,000 metric tons of mustard gas, VX and sarin, the nerve agent Assad is alleged to have used to kill more than 1,400 civilians late last month. Assad has similar weapons, but his arsenal is thought to be significantly smaller. On the other hand, the U.S. chemical weapons were stored at just a handful of sites. Assad's have been disbursed across dozens of sites, many of them moveable, so locating all of the facilities would require the complete cooperation of the Assad regime. That, to put it mildly, is far from guaranteed.

Gwyn Winfield, the editorial director of CBRNe World, a magazine that focuses on biological and chemical weapons, said the success of the Russian proposal "depends on Assad making an honest declaration of where his munitions are" because the personnel charged with destroying those weapons can only work at sites they know about. Assad, he noted, would have a clear incentive to hold on to as much of his stockpile as possible.

"The reason why they created this program in the first place was as a deterrent to the expected Israeli nuclear option," he said. "That isn't going to go away."

Finding and securing all of Assad's sites would be the first major challenge of implementing the Russian plan, but it would be far from the only one. The U.S. and allied personnel would then have to separate the chemical substances themselves from the warheads of his rockets, artillery shells or missiles that had been designed to carry them to their targets. The work itself would be carried out by either robots, contractors or specially-trained troops, but it would still be time-consuming and dangerous.

The next step would be to physically destroy all of chemical weapons, which can be done through one of two basic options. The first involves spraying the chemicals themselves into specialized furnaces and then burning them at around 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit for one or two seconds. Nerve agents like sarin can also be rendered largely harmless by the addition of liquid sodium hydroxide, while mustard gas can be made safe with alkaline water.

Kuhlman and other experts say that either type of destruction would have to be done at individual Syrian weapons sites because it wouldn't be safe to move the munitions to a centralized collection point inside Syria while the fighting was raging. That would mean either building a new permanent disposal facility at each Syrian compound or bringing in newly-fielded mobile disposal units from the U.S. The mobile systems have not been tested in an active warzone and may not have the capacity to deal with Assad’s huge quantities of weapons.

"Do you really want to have truckloads of chemical weapons driving around Syria during the current situation?" Kuhlman asked.

A senior Defense Department chemical weapons specialist raised a different concern. The official said the biggest security challenge would be keeping the weapons safe while they were in storage waiting to be destroyed, not while they were being moved.

“Does an insurgent group attack a heavily armed convoy of chemical weapons moving from one or more sites to a disposal facility, with lots of response plans and forces on call, or does it wait until the weapons are moved and the nasty military units go away and the disposal operations start,” the official said. “The easier target is the disposal facility.”

The official said a safer option might involve moving the weapons out of Syria entirely and doing the disposal work in a safer and more secure country.

Cheryl Rofer, who supervised a team responsible for destroying chemical warfare agents at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, said none of the work could be carried out until there was a full cease-fire between Assad and the rebels fighting to unseat him. There are no indications, she noted, that either side was prepared to come to the negotiating table or wind down a civil war that has already been raging for more than two years.

"This is simply dangerous to do while people are shooting at each other," she said.

Libya, the most recent country to embark on a chemical weapon destruction effort, offers another cautionary tale. Tripoli declared its possession of the weapons in January 2004 and voluntarily promised to get rid of them. In November 2011, the Libyan government abruptly declared that it had found a "previously undeclared chemical weapons stockpile" that included several hundred munitions loaded with mustard gas. The destruction of those weapons was halted because of a technical malfunction at the disposal facility and is still not complete. Nine years after vowing to get rid of its weapons, Libya has destroyed barely half of its total mustard gas stockpile and just 40% of its stores of chemical weapons precursor elements.

Rofer noted that Syria has far more chemical weapons than Libya, so getting rid of them could take even longer. "I wouldn't be surprised to see this last as long as ten years," she said.

If the U.S. and Syria came to a deal -- a very, very big if -- there would still be one major wrinkle. Rofer said that the only two organizations who really know how to get rid of chemical weapons are the Russia and American militaries. Given the amount of time it would take to build and then operate the disposal facilities, those specially-trained troops would need to stay in Syria for years. In a war-weary U.S., keeping that many boots on the ground for that long would be an extremely hard sell.


(Source: http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/po...pons_will_work)

Besides, even the article you cited makes it sound fairly doubtful for various reasons.
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Independent
09-11-2013, 09:49 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by IAmZamzam
Besides, even the article you cited makes it sound fairly doubtful for various reasons.
I don't think anyone's seriously expecting 100% perfection in the short term. But voluntary chemical disarmament is better than anything else. For starters, the Syrians actually know where the weapons are hiding. The weapons are not in rebel territory, they are under government control (at least, no one has claimed otherwise). If the Syrians are sincere (admittedly a big 'if') then they should be able to do the job over time. The problem is not elimination, but verification.

Most of all, it offers the real prospect that the government won't actually use the weapons again - which is surely the best possible outcome in the short term. If Syria claims to have eliminated the weapons, but then uses them, not even the Russians could save them from attack.

Longer term it means that another very significant country has abandoned chemical weapons and sets a great precedent for the Egyptians and others to follow suit. There really will be a 'red line' against chemical weapons.

Compare that to the only other alternative - a US bombing campaign that absolutely no one, not even the most die-hard hawk, thinks will hit all the weapons. And which may well provoke Assad to use the weapons again.

How is that not a better outcome? What other possible options are there? The only negative is for those who wish to see an American attack because they want to see the end of Assad (which doesn't look like it's going to happen any other way).
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IAmZamzam
09-12-2013, 12:12 AM
Nobody was speaking of mere verification. And I hadn't even mentioned how Kerry admitted to the impossibility of the demand he was making (and then nervously recanted the comment without a legitimate excuse).

"He could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week. Turn it over, all of it, without delay, and allow a full and total accounting for that. But he isn’t about to do it, and it can’t be done, obviously.”

(Source: http://english.alarabiya.net/en/pers...kthrough-.html)

No "mystery" there. Sometimes a man lets more of his true leanings and intentions slip than he means to, that's all.
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Independent
09-12-2013, 08:57 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by IAmZamzam
No "mystery" there. Sometimes a man lets more of his true leanings and intentions slip than he means to, that's all.
This deal has come about in a strange way, through a random remark by Kerry. But however it began it's in the process of happening, so who cares?

Kerry seems to have been given the 'bad cop' role in the push to drum up support for war. Whether his rhetoric comes from personal conviction, or because that's his brief, I don't know. But he has been well ahead of Obama in the strength of his language. I've always felt that Obama is reticent about war and made the 'red line' speech because he thought that would be enough to stop the use of chemical weapons. Having had his bluff called, he then felt obliged to act tough. The current situation is a way out.

No matter about the political background, it still seems to me the best outcome under the circumstances (except for those who want regime change and those rebels that hoped for assistance). However long it takes to actually destroy these weapons, from the moment Syria signs up to this deal it becomes incredibly hard for them to use them again. Military action would be certain, and not just by the US - even the UK might come back into play. Assad cannot renege on such a promise without expecting the worst consequences.

Better still, it creates a hugely significant worldwide precedent for chemical disarmament. What other possible outcome could be better than this? I genuinely can't think of one.
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IAmZamzam
09-12-2013, 01:55 PM
Independent, your thinking always seems to be plagued by this same one problem, and it makes it increasingly harder for anyone to communicate with you about anything remotely political. Namely, you appear to define “conspiracy theory” as any viewpoint of any kind whatsoever, under the sun, which attributes an ulterior motive, under any circumstances at all (at the very least not long in retrospect), to a human being who’s in a position of authority. Basically if anyone should ever dare to suggest that the powers-that-be anywhere are fudging and distorting and hiding things, or even grossly enough understating or euphemizing their true reasons for doing something—in other words, whenever anybody has the sense to claim that a politician is being a politician—you shrug this off as being, to some extent or other, comparable to 9/11 trutherism and the moon landing hoax community or the people who believe that Elvis is still alive somewhere and living in a trailer park in Waco. Evidently there’s some little voice in your subconscious (don’t get me wrong, this is a very repressed voice you will deny) which always tells you that the only people on Earth who never lie about what they’re up to are the people who have the most obvious and pressing incentives to do so. Or is there a one in five chance that there are a few countries where you wouldn’t be pulling this stunt? Are there maybe a few countries, or a few politicians, besides Kerry who could have spoken those same exact words without you responding with, “There’s no way to know for sure what they indicate, and who cares anyway?” What exactly is going on here?
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Independent
09-12-2013, 03:16 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by IAmZamzam
Namely, you appear to define “conspiracy theory” as any viewpoint of any kind whatsoever, under the sun, which attributes an ulterior motive, under any circumstances at all (at the very least not long in retrospect), to a human being who’s in a position of authority
I'm confused - are you suggesting there is a conspiracy with regard to this offer? I've re-read your post and I'm not sure which part of the offer you don't believe, or who you think is deceiving who, and about what.
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Trumble
09-12-2013, 05:49 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Independent
No matter about the political background, it still seems to me the best outcome under the circumstances (except for those who want regime change and those rebels that hoped for assistance). However long it takes to actually destroy these weapons, from the moment Syria signs up to this deal it becomes incredibly hard for them to use them again. Military action would be certain, and not just by the US - even the UK might come back into play. Assad cannot renege on such a promise without expecting the worst consequences.

Better still, it creates a hugely significant worldwide precedent for chemical disarmament. What other possible outcome could be better than this? I genuinely can't think of one.
I can; peace in Syria. All this is just a carefully arranged diversion.

I can't really suggest this 'deal' is what Assad and Putin planned all along without entering 'conspiracy theory' territory, but it couldn't have worked out any better for them. While everyone messes about with face-saving diplomacy and then difficult technicality, Assad just gets on with his war free from any intervention. Other than assistance for himself from Russia and Iran, of course. The opposition in Syria, of all flavours, have been stitched up like the proverbial kipper, and must be in complete despair.
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IAmZamzam
09-12-2013, 06:59 PM
Independent, if I haven't made myself clear by now, I've apparently lost all ability to communicate whatsoever. Not that you needed me, what with the government telling the same old story with every single war now. It's getting old, and that's why people are getting cynical. How many times, I wonder, will the exact same thing have to happen in a row, with each successive presidency, before it ceases to become a "conspiracy theory" for us to notice it?
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Independent
09-12-2013, 07:19 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Trumble
I can; peace in Syria. All this is just a carefully arranged diversion
Obviously peace would be better but that's above and beyond the chemical weapons issue and whether or not the US should intervene. Can you imagine a better outcome to the chemical weapons issue specifically?

Not sure how anyone except Russia and Iran could make peace happen - but everyone wastes time talking about America, a minor player in this crisis with no plausible means at their disposal to bring peace.

I find it staggeringly unlikely that the chemical weapons attacks, followed by this diplomacy, were planned from the start. Events have unfolded in a far from predictable way and the US/UK might easily have gone to war before the Russian deal was ever put on the table. Imagine sitting down a year ago and planning all that - no one would dream that such a complex chain of events could be predicted.

Also, if this is a US plan, why have they made themselves look so bad? Where's the political advantage?
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Independent
09-12-2013, 07:51 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by IAmZamzam
Independent, if I haven't made myself clear by now, I've apparently lost all ability to communicate whatsoever
Ok, I just read further back at your earlier posts. You question whether it really was a chemical weapons attack - however, events have moved on and even Assad and Russia seem to accept it was now (they just say it was the rebels).

More importantly you suggest that this is a US conspiracy in order to build an oil pipeline. You offer no evidence except referring to Royal Dutch Shell's interest in the region. I guess you might try to refer to Afghanistan - which of course is another non existent pipeline of which not one metre was ever laid, or ever attempted.

How you can manage to make this idea work with the course of the Syrian war over the last 2 years I can't imagine. As usual, it requires truly divine levels of control and influence over countries and populations where the Us seems to have minimal presence and leverage.

Contrary to what you think, I'm not opposed to conspiracy theories in principle. I don't care if it's true. Why should I? If there really is a secret elite controlling the world, then that means there's a chance they will be overthrown, so the world will be a better place. What's not to like about that? It would mean the world is capable of a huge leap forward in justice and quality of life in a way i never previously imagined. Why should I refuse to accept that, when it's to my advantage?

My issue is I just don't believe the evidence put forward, which is way beyond credibility. I wish it were true, but i can't just pretend. All these theories pick bits and pieces of hsitory and ignore the rest.

So far the US has been notable by its absence in Syria. Yet everyone obsesses about the details of their non activity, whilst ignoring the central and negative role of Russia and Iran. America has been a minor player throughout this crisis and, after the disarmament offer, may well remain so.

Isn't that a good thing? Isn't it a good thing that the use of chemical weapons is being abandoned? What's not to like about this development? If you think the US wants to invade Syria, how does this make that more likely?
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IAmZamzam
09-12-2013, 10:49 PM
You see? There you go--lumping me in with people who believe in a secret elite controlling the world. It's all or nothing. You simply cannot differentiate in your mind between "conspiracy theorists" and the merely distrustful who recognize that the government has a tendency to lie. Did I or did I not say, "I don't claim to know whether or not the video is true"? I was throwing it out there. I wouldn't have needed to had so many people not made such an irritatingly huge issue out of acting like it was more relevant than it was who was behind the attack. I didn't care then and I don't care now. I wasn't proposing control over the course of the whole conflict then and I'm not proposing it now. (Not to mention that you completely ignored half of the points in my original post, making it look like everything hinges on that pipeline. Or would anyone deny that the world's oil is getting extremely limited? I wasn't aware that sources were necessary at this point.)

Profitability. Taking advantage of a good thing. Looking out for number one. This is the name of the game, and it always has been. The recent enormous pressure from Congress and from the American people has forced the situation to cool off a bit when before Obama and Kerry were both flip-flopping like crazy but still overall dropping unreasonable deadlines and belligerent words like there was no tomorrow (of which I gave one of the worst and clearest examples, which you shrugged off with a "who cares" before having the gall to speak of people ignoring evidence), and you somehow twist this around and use it as a sign that the government truly does want peace after all. Is there any point in speaking to you??

P.S. I said that the situation has cooled off a bit. I didn't say that we were in the clear. It disturbs me just how much optimism is beginning to emerge around the net. Including from you.
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Independent
09-12-2013, 11:13 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by IAmZamzam
I wasn't proposing control over the course of the whole conflict then and I'm not proposing it now.
Good - but it's hard to tell from what you've posted.

format_quote Originally Posted by IAmZamzam
you shrugged off with a "who cares"
i was principally making a comment about chemical weapons disarmament - not the conflict in general, or possible wider motivations. The consequence of Kerry's remark has been to spur Russia into proposing a disarmament deal which, with luck, could actually go through. In this context it truly does not matter what Kerry was thinking or what he wanted, which neither of us can tell anyway - the result is what matters, in a conflict where very few positive things happen.

format_quote Originally Posted by IAmZamzam
somehow twist this around and use it as a sign that the government truly does want peace after all
You'd certainly have to twist it a long way to suggest the opposite.

format_quote Originally Posted by IAmZamzam
Profitability. Taking advantage of a good thing. Looking out for number one. This is the name of the game, and it always has been.
As this is the same for absolutely everyone involved it doesn't get us very far as an insight.

For once something good is about to happen. I don't care if Assad is just trying to get himself off the hook, it's still good. Entirely unexpectedly, it looks like the use of chemical weapons could be on the retreat not just in Syria but worldwide. This is a big issue, isn't it?
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IAmZamzam
09-13-2013, 02:00 AM
I don't get it, Independent. If you're willing to acknowledge that it's all about profitability, taking advantage of a good thing and looking out for number one for all of these people, including the American politicians, what's so farcical and fantastical about the notion about them having had militant and ulterior motives from the start? Or were you intending to play the old "take the other guy's own words and turn them around to mean the opposite of what he intends" game? It's more profitable for them to do what you think they're doing et cetera? Should I have gone for a less potentially ambiguous choice of words on the spur of the moment than "taking advantage of a good thing"?

And what is this about how "the use of chemical weapons could be on the retreat not just in Syria but worldwide"? Perhaps someday some event will trigger that, but I fail to see the connection with this, even if the event is what it appears to be. Besides...

http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Report-...des-ago-325706

Mind you, I can't necessarily vouch for the factuality of that either but I'm interested in how (not quite so much if) you'll argue to the contrary. Is it not true? Is it somehow not relevant again? I hope you'll believe me when I say that I respect you more than it probably looks at the moment. You're often willing to stick up for the little guy when someone's being discrimated against and you seem to have an open mind in most respects, I think. But every now and then we run into a curious roadblock, and I'd like to know what's at the root of it.
Reply

Independent
09-13-2013, 07:49 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by IAmZamzam
If you're willing to acknowledge that it's all about profitability, taking advantage of a good thing and looking out for number one for all of these people, including the American politicians, what's so farcical and fantastical about the notion about them having had militant and ulterior motives from the start?
it would depend on each situation - but the most common reason that makes me sceptical is simple practicality. Very often, these interpretations require the most fantastic prior insight, together with control not just of individuals who are often enemies not allies, but also entire populations. Yet mysteriously, there are many other situations abroad and at home where they seem to have no control whatsoever. If they can magic up an uprising in Egypt, why not Afghanistan? Why is American domestic politics so chaotic?

THIS IS JUST TOO HARD. Only a divine being could exercise that kind of control.

My whole experience of life working with innumerable large companies and organisations screams at me that such perfect control is absolutely impossible. I have seen that incompetence and error is at least as powerful a determinant of events as skill and perfection of execution. I see companies credited with clever strategies, or feared for their control, when I know from the inside that it was a complete cock up from beginning to end.

It absolutely cannot be done in the way that many conspiracy theories or other accounts describe. And if if they were lucky enough to pull it off once, they could never do it time after time.

format_quote Originally Posted by IAmZamzam
I fail to see the connection with this, even if the event is what it appears to be. Besides...

http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Report-...des-ago-325706

Mind you, I can't necessarily vouch for the factuality of that either but I'm interested in how (not quite so much if) you'll argue to the contrary. Is it not true?
I don't know anything about this possible Israeli weapons facility, as described in your link. But i certainly think it could be true and would entirely fit with israel's need for a ultimate deterrent, in the time before they had nuclear weapons.

format_quote Originally Posted by IAmZamzam
And what is this about how "the use of chemical weapons could be on the retreat not just in Syria but worldwide"?
There are several reasons I say this. Firstly, Syria itself is less likely to use such weapons once it has signed the Treaty and begins to destroy its stockpiles. But the significance is wider than that because it says to the world that the use of such weapons can turn the world against you and bring retribution. Assad very nearly turned a war he was winning into a losing situation. And for what - killing a few hundred civilians with minimal military benefit. Self interest, as you describe, would argue against using such weapons in the future.

A precedent has been set whereby the use of chemical weapons did not pay. This is the first time that's happened. In the past, when chemical weapons were used by Saddam, or further back in WW!, they did pay.

For that reason I think it could contribute to a decline in chemical weapons worldwide, especially since most countries have already long since rejected them.
Reply

سيف الله
09-13-2013, 12:41 PM
Salaam

A fast moving situation. I didn't expect the Assad to give up his chemical weapons. After all nothing will stop the USA from bombing Syria in the future (they'll just dream up another pretext) and they'll be sure that there will be no credible response.

This video will help you get up to speed with current events.



Another comment piece, focusing on the liberal ideology that is constructed to justify Western 'interventions'. There is an interesting editorial in the Guardian International Order: drifting without an anchor. They realise that 'democracy promotion' and 'state building' are 'debased currencies' so they have to construct a new ideology to justify western interventionism. Old wine new bottles as they say.

This time it's Syria, last time it was Iraq

John Pilger, 10 September 2013.

Obama chose to accept the entire Pentagon of the Bush era: its wars and war crimes.


On my wall is the Daily Express front page of September 5 1945 and the words: "I write this as a warning to the world." So began Wilfred Burchett's report from Hiroshima. It was the scoop of the century. For his lone, perilous journey that defied the US occupation authorities, Burchett was pilloried, not least by his embedded colleagues. He warned that an act of premeditated mass murder on an epic scale had launched a new era of terror.

Almost every day now, he is vindicated. The intrinsic criminality of the atomic bombing is borne out in the US National Archives and by the subsequent decades of militarism camouflaged as democracy. The Syria psychodrama exemplifies this. Yet again we are held hostage by the prospect of a terrorism whose nature and history even the most liberal critics still deny. The great unmentionable is that humanity's most dangerous enemy resides across the Atlantic.

John Kerry's farce and Barack Obama's pirouettes are temporary. Russia's peace deal over chemical weapons will, in time, be treated with the contempt that all militarists reserve for diplomacy. With al-Qaida now among its allies, and US-armed coupmasters secure in Cairo, the US intends to crush the last independent states in the Middle East: Syria first, then Iran. "This operation [in Syria]," said the former French foreign minister Roland Dumas in June, "goes way back. It was prepared, pre-conceived and planned."

When the public is "psychologically scarred", as the Channel 4 reporter Jonathan Rugman described the British people's overwhelming hostility to an attack on Syria, suppressing the truth is made urgent. Whether or not Bashar al-Assad or the "rebels" used gas in the suburbs of Damascus, it is the US, not Syria, that is the world's most prolific user of these terrible weapons.

In 1970 the Senate reported: "The US has dumped on Vietnam a quantity of toxic chemical (dioxin) amounting to six pounds per head of population." This was Operation Hades, later renamed the friendlier Operation Ranch Hand – the source of what Vietnamese doctors call a "cycle of foetal catastrophe". I have seen generations of children with their familiar, monstrous deformities. John Kerry, with his own blood-soaked war record, will remember them. I have seen them in Iraq too, where the US used depleted uranium and white phosphorus, as did the Israelis in Gaza. No Obama "red line" for them. No showdown psychodrama for them.

The sterile repetitive debate about whether "we" should "take action" against selected dictators (ie cheer on the US and its acolytes in yet another aerial killing spree) is part of our brainwashing. Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international law and UN special rapporteur on Palestine, describes it as "a self-righteous, one-way, legal/moral screen [with] positive images of western values and innocence portrayed as threatened, validating a campaign of unrestricted political violence". This "is so widely accepted as to be virtually unchallengeable".

It is the biggest lie: the product of "liberal realists" in Anglo-American politics, scholarship and media who ordain themselves as the world's crisis managers, rather than the cause of a crisis. Stripping humanity from the study of nations and congealing it with jargon that serves western power designs, they mark "failed", "rogue" or "evil" states for "humanitarian intervention".

An attack on Syria or Iran or any other US "demon" would draw on a fashionable variant, "Responsibility to Protect", or R2P – whose lectern-trotting zealot is the former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans, co-chair of a "global centre" based in New York. Evans and his generously funded lobbyists play a vital propaganda role in urging the "international community" to attack countries where "the security council rejects a proposal or fails to deal with it in a reasonable time".

Evans has form. He appeared in my 1994 film Death of a Nation, which revealed the scale of genocide in East Timor. Canberra's smiling man is raising his champagne glass in a toast to his Indonesian equivalent as they fly over East Timor in an Australian aircraft, having signed a treaty to pirate the oil and gas of the stricken country where the tyrant Suharto killed or starved a third of the population.

Under the "weak" Obama, militarism has risen perhaps as never before. With not a single tank on the White House lawn, a military coup has taken place in Washington. In 2008, while his liberal devotees dried their eyes, Obama accepted the entire Pentagon of his predecessor, George Bush: its wars and war crimes. As the constitution is replaced by an emerging police state, those who destroyed Iraq with shock and awe, piled up the rubble in Afghanistan and reduced Libya to a Hobbesian nightmare, are ascendant across the US administration. Behind their beribboned facade, more former US soldiers are killing themselves than are dying on battlefields. Last year 6,500 veterans took their own lives. Put out more flags.

The historian Norman Pollack calls this "liberal fascism": "For goose-steppers substitute the seemingly more innocuous militarisation of the total culture. And for the bombastic leader, we have the reformer manqué, blithely at work, planning and executing assassination, smiling all the while." Every Tuesday the "humanitarian" Obama personally oversees a worldwide terror network of drones that "bugsplat" people, their rescuers and mourners. In the west's comfort zones, the first black leader of the land of slavery still feels good, as if his very existence represents a social advance, regardless of his trail of blood. This obeisance to a symbol has all but destroyed the US anti-war movement – Obama's singular achievement.

In Britain, the distractions of the fakery of image and identity politics have not quite succeeded. A stirring has begun, though people of conscience should hurry. The judges at Nuremberg were succinct: "Individual citizens have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity." The ordinary people of Syria, and countless others, and our own self-respect, deserve nothing less now.

http://www.stopwar.org.uk/news/john-pilger-this-time-it-s-syria-last-time-it-was-iraq
Reply

IAmZamzam
09-13-2013, 11:46 PM
it would depend on each situation - but the most common reason that makes me sceptical is simple practicality. Very often, these interpretations require the most fantastic prior insight, together with control not just of individuals who are often enemies not allies, but also entire populations. Yet mysteriously, there are many other situations abroad and at home where they seem to have no control whatsoever. If they can magic up an uprising in Egypt, why not Afghanistan? Why is American domestic politics so chaotic?

THIS IS JUST TOO HARD. Only a divine being could exercise that kind of control.

My whole experience of life working with innumerable large companies and organisations screams at me that such perfect control is absolutely impossible. I have seen that incompetence and error is at least as powerful a determinant of events as skill and perfection of execution. I see companies credited with clever strategies, or feared for their control, when I know from the inside that it was a complete cock up from beginning to end.

It absolutely cannot be done in the way that many conspiracy theories or other accounts describe. And if if they were lucky enough to pull it off once, they could never do it time after time.


Thank you for again proving my allegation.

You see what I mean, guys? WHAT IS THIS NONSENSE??? This guy absolutely cannot separate mere cynicism about the motives and words of politicians from wild-eyed conspiracy theorist loons. Sooner or later we always snap back to square one. There is no difference between the two, nor between the concepts of taking advantage of a lucky opportunity when it comes and meticulously manipulating every single factor from the very start with a downright psychic degree of understanding like Emperor Palpatine himself. The wheat and the chaff are one. Either/or. Black and white. Whence this pro-government/anti-norm bias comes I have no clue, and I'm a freaking Social Democrat.

I guess I'm just going to have to give up. I'm talking into a dead phone.
Reply

Karl
09-14-2013, 01:26 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by Trumble
So, if Assad is clever enough to know chemical weapons are useless against the 'Zionists', why does he have them? Who did he intend to use them against?
They are a deterrent to neighbouring nations attacking. They are useless now as the Zionists have targeted Syria for takeover. If Assad does not flee Syria he will be destroyed. The US plan of taking control of nations across North Africa through the Middle East and right across to Indonesia has been planned since the 1950s. The Soviets spread Marxism around the world also but the Muslims and Hindus would not swallow it, so it has left it open to the Western Empire. Now that Russia is Capitalist and also China they can now divvy up the world. The only problem is the West especially the USA is drunk on power and with it's myopic delusions of grandeur and megalomania things could get very messy. Napoleon comes to mind, lots of life, liberty and fraternity rhetoric but he was just an evil man that the English and Germans sorted out. Who's going to sort out the Zionists?
Reply

~Zaria~
09-14-2013, 09:01 AM
:salam:


Please continue to make duaa and take every means possible to support for our brothers and sisters in Syria (and all other parts of the world as well).

While we continue to debate on the agendas of this war, and try (often in vain) to direct some of our members to a deeper understanding, and to be able to distinguish truth from falsehood......there are actual people, like you and me, who are enduring some of the most in-humane and sadistic forms of torture as we speak.
The types of stories that have emerged from this war are so heart-wrenching - that often the mind does not even want to believe it ;'(
SubhanAllah, may Allah save our brothers and sisters and grant victory to the believers. Ameen ya Rabb.



Reply

Independent
09-14-2013, 09:16 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by IAmZamzam
You see what I mean, guys? WHAT IS THIS NONSENSE??? This guy absolutely cannot separate mere cynicism about the motives and words of politicians from wild-eyed conspiracy theorist loons.
I'm sorry to disappoint you but I'm finding it difficult to know which question you want an answer to. I am explaining why I am sceptical about any political analysis which flies in the face of practicality. Many popular notions are simply too hard and improbable to execute.

format_quote Originally Posted by IAmZamzam
There is no difference between the two, nor between the concepts of taking advantage of a lucky opportunity when it comes and meticulously manipulating every single factor from the very start
Of course, it follows from what I say that opportunism is perfectly practical and possible. Far from rejecting it, I think it plays a role in almost every conflict. I don't know why you think I would reject it.

In the case of Syria particularly, I think that the US has certainly seen this as a possible opportunity to depose Assad. Assad and his father have been enemies of US interests for most of the last 40 years and strong allies of Russia/Iran. In this the US is just like any other state - they have allies and enemies, and a predisposition to support or oppose.

But this doesn't mean the US started the rebellion or that they have played anything but a relatively minor role so far (by supplying support via third party Muslim states).

As events have unfolded the US will also have begun to consider whether Assad may be 'better the devil you know than the one you don't', and that removing him may simply lead to a worse government or just chaos, which would be worse still. Different members of the administration will have different views (eg Kerry may be more belligerent, Obama less so) so the government may not act entirely with one voice.

So with regard to Syria and events as they have unfolded so far, I don't think that the US has had much of an influence - certainly nothing in comparison to Russia, iran, Hezbollah and the Gulf states. The US is essentially reacting to events in Syria, not controlling or directing them. The US is no friend of Assad and, at the start, may have celebrated his problems. But that doesn't mean they've managed to contribute much to events so far.

At a more general level, the focus by many people on US motivations is obscuring the real issue which is Assad's brutality, as endorsed by Russia and Iran. No one ever seems to criticise Russia, even when they are the major players. US intervention might have brought about Assad's defeat - US absence certainly favours his survival and the continuation of the civil war. However, without unequivocal support from the Muslim world, I personally would be strongly against US intervention.
Reply

~Zaria~
09-14-2013, 10:09 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by Independent
it would depend on each situation - but the most common reason that makes me sceptical is simple practicality. Very often, these interpretations require the most fantastic prior insight, together with control not just of individuals who are often enemies not allies, but also entire populations. Yet mysteriously, there are many other situations abroad and at home where they seem to have no control whatsoever. If they can magic up an uprising in Egypt, why not Afghanistan? Why is American domestic politics so chaotic?

THIS IS JUST TOO HARD. Only a divine being could exercise that kind of control.

My whole experience of life working with innumerable large companies and organisations screams at me that such perfect control is absolutely impossible. I have seen that incompetence and error is at least as powerful a determinant of events as skill and perfection of execution. I see companies credited with clever strategies, or feared for their control, when I know from the inside that it was a complete cock up from beginning to end.

It absolutely cannot be done in the way that many conspiracy theories or other accounts describe. And if if they were lucky enough to pull it off once, they could never do it time after time.
Greetings,

We have had this discussion with you now, in soo many threads.
We have provided so many evidences (not conspiracy theories - but factual proof) linking our current world events to its actual agenda.
Still you continue to ignore these, and try to convince us to do so in a similar manner - based on your concept of 'practicality'.

Please watch the 3 videos in the following thread: http://www.islamicboard.com/general/...d-war-iii.html

The best that we can do, is to provide you with the information.
If you still wish to live your life in denial - despite all evidences (brought forward by non-muslims in the far majority of cases) and reasoning - then, this is your choice.

For the rest of us - muslims and non-muslims alike - the world is certainly waking up.
Alhamdulillah.
Reply

Independent
09-14-2013, 10:28 AM
Greetings Zaria, I hope you are well.

I guess universal agreement is not very likely either in this forum or anywhere else. But I shall play your video later today, hopefully.
Reply

سيف الله
09-26-2013, 07:05 PM
Salaam

A report on the use of depleted uranium in Iraq. Just compare and contrast with the hysteria generated in western maintstream media over the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

‘****ing Evidence’ Becomes ‘No Clear Evidence’: Much-Delayed Report On Congenital Birth Defects In Iraq

In a 2010 alert, 'Beyond Hiroshima – The Non-Reporting Of Fallujah's Cancer Catastrophe', we noted the almost non-existent media response to the publication of a new study that had found high rates of infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city. The dramatic increases in these rates exceeded even those found in survivors of the atomic bombs dropped by the United States on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The Independent's Patrick Cockburn was a lone exception in reporting these awful findings.

As many readers will recall, Fallujah was subjected to US military attacks in March 2004 and an even larger assault in November 2004 which also involved UK forces. Our media alerts at the time highlighted the abysmal lack of media coverage of Western war crimes in Fallujah, including the use of chemical weapons and depleted uranium. Media Lens paid particular attention to the appalling performance of BBC News ('Doubt Cast on BBC Claims Regarding Fallujah', 'BBC Silent On Fallujah', 'BBC Still Ignoring Evidence Of War Crimes').

And it is not just Fallujah that has suffered appallingly. Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, an environmental toxicologist at the University of Michigan's School of Public Health and author of the book Pollution and Reproductive Damage, notes that increasing numbers of birth defects have also been seen in Mosul, Najaf, Basra, Hawijah, Nineveh and Baghdad. In some provinces, adds Dr Savabieasfahani, the rate of cancers is also increasing. She says:

'Sterility, repeated miscarriages, stillbirths and severe birth defects - some never described in any medical books - are weighing heavily on Iraqi families.'

In Basra, attacked and occupied by UK troops, childhood leukaemia rates more than doubled between 1993 and 2007, the year that UK troops withdrew from the city.

Dr Savabieasfahani describes 'an epidemic of birth defects in Iraq' and says that what is 'most urgently needed' is:

'comprehensive large-scale environmental testing of the cities where cancer and birth defects are rising. Food, water, air, and soil must be tested to isolate sources of public exposure to war contaminants. This is a necessity to discover the source, extent, and types of contaminants in the area followed by appropriate remediation projects to prevent further public exposure to toxic war contaminants.'

In 2012, the World Health Organization (WHO), after being pressured by public health experts for a decade, belatedly instigated a study in conjunction with the Iraqi Ministry of Health (MOH) to investigate 'prevalence and factors associated with congenital birth defects' in Iraq. But although the study is extensive in scale, with 10,800 Iraq households selected as the sample size, Dr Savabieasfahani describes the scope of the research as 'severely handicapped'. Why? Because of the controversial decision not to investigate the possible causes of birth defects and cancer; in particular, depleted uranium (DU), white phosphorus and other dangerous residues of the war, notably lead and mercury.

DU is a by-product of the process of enriching uranium. Because of its very high density, it is often used in weapons designed to penetrate buildings and armoured tanks. Dr Keith Baverstock, a former health and radiation adviser to WHO, says that:

'There is absolutely no doubt that DU is toxic if it becomes systemic and gets into the bloodstream.'

The decision by WHO and MOH not to consider uranium in their study 'is an important omission', says Dr Baverstock, and he 'believes that WHO has miserably failed to assess risks posed by DU... There is no doubt in my mind that the upper management of WHO failed to fulfil their obligations to examine the public health implications of DU.'

In 2004, Dr Baverstock was the lead author of a WHO report linking the US and UK use of depleted uranium in Iraq with long-term health risks. But the report was declared 'secret' and never published. Dr Baverstock said that the report was 'deliberately suppressed', pointing the finger of suspicion at the powerful pro-nuclear UN body, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The War Is Responsible – 'No Other Explanation'

The new WHO/MOH report was originally due to be published in November 2012, but it was indefinitely postponed with no satisfactory reason given. Months passed. Meanwhile, in March 2013, the BBC included a report on its World News channel about birth defects and cancer in Iraq. BBC reporter Yalda Hakim interviewed Dr Mushin Sabbak at Basra Maternity Hospital. He told her that he believed that 'mercury, lead, uranium' from the war were responsible for a 60 per cent increase in birth defects there since 2003. 'We have no other explanation than this,' he added. (An edited version of the World News segment appeared here on BBC News.)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-21873892

Dr Chaseb Ali, a senior MOH official in Baghdad, told Hakim that:

'All studies done by the Ministry of Health prove with ****ing evidence that there has been a rise in birth defects and cancer, since the substances in question cause birth defects if the mother was exposed to them, or cancer, or in some cases, both.' (English subtitles)

The BBC journalist said in the report's voiceover:

'Dr Chaseb says there could be many factors, including the use of depleted uranium, and the looting and destruction of Saddam Hussein's laboratories.'

Tellingly, when the journalist asked the senior Iraqi health official whether, given the extensive findings of increased birth defects and cancer, the Iraq government would call for action, he smiled uncomfortably and said:

'I'll keep my thoughts to myself.'

Switching to English, he stated directly:

'I have no answer. I know the fact, but I cannot say anything.'

Hakim then spoke with two Iraqi Ministry of Health doctors working on the WHO/MOH study. These researchers discussed the increase in Iraqi birth defects, and blamed the increase on the war. The BBC reporter was told that the report had been repeatedly delayed but that:

'They confirm that the report will show a rise in birth defects in areas which show heavy fighting.'

There is no shortage of ****ing testimony of the awful Western legacy suffered by the people of Iraq. Donna Mulhearn is an Australian antiwar activist who has travelled repeatedly to Fallujah, talking with Iraqi doctors as well as affected families. She told journalist Kelley Vlahos:

'I believe the Iraqi government is responding to pressure from the US to keep the issue under the radar.'

The physical horrors reported by Mulhearn and others include:

'babies born with parts of their skulls missing, various tumors, missing genitalia, limbs and eyes, severe brain damage, unusual rates of paralyzing spina bifida (marked by the gruesome holes found in the tiny infants' backs), Encephalocele (a neural tube defect marked by swollen sac-like protrusions from the head), and more.'

Mulhearn said:

'When I was in Iraq earlier this year there was a definite feeling of fear and intimidation among doctors who felt pressure from the Government to stay quiet about increasing levels of cancer and birth defects.'

She added:

'One cancer specialist in Basra was removed from his senior position in a hospital because he has been outspoken on the issue of radiation caused by depleted uranium pollution and what he believes is its terrible impact of the health of Iraqis in the Basra region. He was nervous about giving us an on-camera interview because of possible ramifications.'

'We Worry That This Is Now Politics, Not Science'

In May 2013, with still no sign of the joint WHO/MOH report, a call was issued by a number of public health and medical experts, together with around 50 others including Noam Chomsky, asking for the immediate release of the report. A petition on Change.org, initiated by Dr Samira Alaani, a pediatrician working in Fallujah General Hospital, attracted almost 50,000 signatures. Dr Alaani wrote:

'I have worked in Fallujah as a Pediatrician since 1997 but began to notice something was wrong in 2006 and began logging the cases; we have determined that 144 babies are now born with a deformity for every 1000 live births. We believe it has to be related to contamination caused by the fighting in our city, even now, nearly 10 years later. It is not unique to Fallujah; hospitals throughout the Anbar Governorate and many other regions of Iraq are recording increases. Every day I see the strain this fear puts on expectant mothers and their families. The first question I am asked when a child is born is not "is it a boy or a girl?" but "is my child healthy?"' (Emphasis in original.)

She added:

'The research is now complete and we were promised that it would be published at the beginning of 2013, yet six months later the WHO has announced more delays. We worry that this is now politics, not science. We have already waited years for the truth and my patients cannot wait any longer. [...] My patients need to know the truth, they need to know why they miscarried, they need to know why their babies are so ill but, most importantly, they need to know that something is being done about it.'

When UN sanctions were imposed on Iraq in the 1990s, the British oncologist Karol Sikora, who was then chief of WHO's cancer programme, wrote that:

'Requested radiotherapy equipment, chemotherapy drugs and analgesics [were] consistently blocked by United States and British advisers [to the Iraq sanctions committee].

Dr Sikora told John Pilger:

'We were specifically told [by the WHO] not to talk about the whole Iraq business. The WHO is not an Organization that likes to get involved in politics.'

But it's even worse than that. WHO is an organization that seemingly bends to the will of powerful Western governments. Hans von Sponeck was the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq before he resigned in 2000 in protest at the appalling level of deaths caused by the sanctions (his predecessor, Denis Halliday, resigned in 1998 for the same reason). Von Sponeck noted that:

'The US government sought to prevent WHO from surveying areas in southern Iraq where depleted uranium had been used and caused serious health and environmental dangers.'

Halliday said:

'The World Health Organisation (WHO) has categorically refused in defiance of its own mandate to share evidence uncovered in Iraq that US military use of Depleted Uranium and other weapons have not only killed many civilians, but continue to result in the birth of deformed babies.'

In July 2013, around 50 medical experts and other concerned people, wrote a second time to WHO:

'The joint WHO and Iraqi Ministry of Health Report on cancers and birth defect in Iraq was originally due to be released in November 2012. It has been delayed repeatedly and now has no release date whatsoever. [...] we are baffled and alarmed at the WHO's inability to release any of its findings, despite our urgent request of May 2013, for the WHO to release its report.

'The Iraqi birth defects epidemic, by itself, would outrage anyone with the simplest understanding of population health and disease. Who could justify blocking the release of information from a long-completed investigation of that epidemic?

'Why have our inquiries failed to break the WHO's apparent filibuster against releasing that data? WHO has a staff of thousands, including medical doctors, public health specialists, scientists, and sophisticated epidemiologists. They are certainly capable of presenting that data to the public by now.' (Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, via email, July 26, 2013)

rest here

http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/alerts-2013/741-****ing-evidence-becomes-no-clear-evidence-much-delayed-report-on-congenital-birth-defects-in-iraq.html
Reply

~Zaria~
09-29-2013, 04:17 AM
Thousands of Syrian children flee conlict zone unaccompanied






Agencies | 23 September 2013/17 Dhul Qa’dah 1434

Over 4,000 Syrian children have fled the troubled Middle Eastern nation without any adult supervision, a United Nations agency said, stressing that children are extremely vulnerable to abuse and exploitation when they do not have a guardian.

The UN’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said Friday that aid workers have identified and registered 4,150 Syrian child refugees. Spokesperson Marixie Mercado said that many fled into Syria’s neighboring countries. “We’re working to provide income back to families, and we’re desperate to get [the children] back to school.”

At least 1,698 of the children are located in Lebanon, where many have been used for cheap agricultural labor. They have no choice but to work in order to receive food, water, and shelter. Many are also responsible for younger brothers and sisters, with hundreds pulled out of school to work for their family’s survival.

“Families are poor and destitute after two and a half years of war…Often, in order to continue living here, they have a lot of expenses they need to pay and the result is that kids have to work,” UNICEF’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, Maria Calivias, told Reuters.

Another 1,170 children, many under 10 years old, now call Jordan home. They have taken refuge in the Za’atari camp, a makeshift home for fleeing Syrians that has grown to a population of 120,000 – making it the fourth largest population center in Jordan.

“Each of those children has witnessed or been the victim of horrific levels of violence,” Mercado said.

The Jordanian government announced Thursday that it plans to open another camp to house the thousands of Syrians, young and old, who continue to cross the border.

Lebanon, unlike Jordan, does not allow permanent encampments – partly because of the nation’s experience with Palestinian refugee camps that were overcome by militants during the Lebanese Civil War between 1975 and 1990.

“We can’t have permanent tents,” Calivis told Reuters. “Every night, we take the tents down, and every morning they have to be put back up. So imagine, that is 365 days, take tents up and down, for 300,000 refugee students.”

The horror and displacement so many children have endured is a consequence of the Syrian internal conflict between the government of Bashar Assad and over 1,000 opposition groups dedicated to his removal from power.

The conflict which began over two years ago, has claimed more than 100,000 lives, and has recently seen the US threaten to deploy a missile strike against the Assad government for its reported use of chemical weapons. Yet many have complained that, as world powers posture, the plight of the Syrian people has been lost in the conversation.

“These are the humanitarian issues and the human rights issues that are really spiraling out of control inside Syria – we need our political leaders to address those as well,” UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Valerie Amos said Friday.

As many as one million of the two million people who have fled Syria are children, according to UN numbers.

Education has traditionally been one of UNICEF’s top objectives and is especially important in the Syrian culture, as demonstrated by the lengths that people have gone to in order to receive schooling.

“When we visited places inside Syria, we would see in the middle of the shelling, parents holding their kids by the hand and accompanying them to nearby schools,” Calivis said. “That is how crucial they saw their children’s education. Education is a passport for their future when they’ve lost everything else.”

But as the war has continued and the sudden influx of refugees has overwhelmed host countries, education has fallen behind survival on the list of priorities.

“Absorbing them in the current school system is impossible, but starting new schools that can accommodate such numbers and finding qualified teachers, funding, and facilities has proved to be extremely difficult,” wrote Aziz Abu Sarah, a journalist for National Geographic who traveled to various refugee camps.

“There is barely any monitoring to guarantee the schools’ quality, and in its absence, radical ideas can easily become part of the curriculum…Five years from now, due to this lack of foresight, the world will have to deal with an uneducated and very possibly disenfranchised generation that is ripe for radicalization.”


http://www.ciibroadcasting.com/2013/...unaccompanied/
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سيف الله
09-29-2013, 11:05 PM
Salaam

insightful comment piece.


Syria: the strategy has backfired

The Gulf states' plans to undermine Iran and Syria are in tatters. But a new relationship may now emerge




What a curious turn of events: from the very brink of a military intervention in Syria that might have precipitated a wider regional conflagration, we have moved to one of those rare "points of inflection" over Iran which seems fecund with potential possibilities, including a solution in Syria. Of course, such tipping points can tip either toward new solutions, or into a new phase of conflict.

Why should the possibility of US talks with Iran hold out such potential? It is because an earlier such point of inflection over Iran, a decade ago, tipped toward conflict, into the "axis of evil" versus the western-backed "moderates". It was the fierce push-back by Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and (at that time) Hamas against this attempt to impose a "hegemony of moderation" across the region, that caused regime change in Syria to become such a priority for the Sunni monarchies of the Gulf.

After the 2006 Lebanon war, Saudi Arabia took further fright at the mounting popularity of Iran and Hezbollah within its own Sunni streets. Revolutionary Islam seemed to be gaining the upper hand. And – finally, the straw that broke the camel's back for the Gulf states: the outbreak of Arab upheaval of 2011, with its evident disdain for established authority. Gulf states decided to do whatever it takes to halt Iran and the new currents of thinking (such as a rising Muslim Brotherhood). Their very survival, it seemed, hinged on it. Overthrowing President Bashar al-Assad became the explicit cornerstone of this strategy of confronting Iran.

But this Gulf containment strategy of igniting a Sunni "intifada" against Shia influence seems to have collapsed, as the Gulf monarchs absorb the significance of Barack Obama's U-turn on Syria, and the opening to Iran. What made it so traumatic was that not just Obama but the US system itself had buckled (public and Congress together). It represented rather a strategic lurch. President Assad would stay, and Iran would not be dismantled but emerge strengthened.

We have seen much sabre-rattling from Gulf leaders as a consequence. They threaten to stand steadfast to the cause – in spite of US "weakness" – determined to remake the Middle East in their authoritarian image. But this is evidently fanciful (in spite of their possibly pyrrhic victory in Egypt). What is emerging (just as it did three decades ago in Afghanistan) from their firing-up of Sunni Islam, is extremism rather than moderation – and inter-Sunni strife.

The Gulf strategy in Syria is also in tatters: its aspirations are not succeeding in the field, and – paradoxically – it seems that the imminent prospect of US military intervention in Syria created a schism within the Syrian opposition. So apprehensive were the jihadist groups that they would be the prime object of US attacks – as a prelude to the west setting up the Free Syria Army as a copy of the Sunni awakening councils in Iraq – that several days of bloody inter-factional fighting among the opposition ensued. Its perverse outcome has been a further radicalisation of Syria's jihadist groups, so that 13 of the most powerful, led by al-Nusra Front, now flatly reject the western-backed opposition group's leadership, and have committed instead to Sharia. Who now can be said to represent the opposition?

In the Gulf, anger and resentment at this turn of events is to be expected, but how far realistically can these monarchs step out of the western orbit, to which they are tied in so many ways? Ultimately this point of inflection offers the chance to undo that earlier tip towards conflict. Iran is already signalling its readiness to help Saudi Arabia make the necessary transition, as the latest appointment of Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani – well known to King Abdullah for his earlier mediation – as national security adviser clearly signals. In undoing the axis of evil and moderation, a political solution in Syria becomes possible. As one ex-diplomat notes: "The Persians and the Sunni sheikhs quarrel all the time, but also can patch up without outsiders' help." If this initiative bears fruit, Syria is likely to be a key part of this.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/29/syria-brink-of-solution
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Independent
09-30-2013, 09:39 AM
^^ Very interesting article and genuinely challenging. The Gulf States are hard to read because they back so many horses at the same time.

I think there is another possible 'point of inflexion' going on, and this one is between the US and Iran. US/Iranian relations fell apart not so much in the 1979 revolution, but in the Teheran Embassy hostage siege a couple of years later. This is the seminal event that turned out to prefigure the style of the next 3 decades of US/Muslim relations. It's also the point at which the modern image of the Muslim world in the west (ie terrorism, suicide bombings, hostages, scary mobs) begins. There are any number of other complicated factors going on, but this is the event that defines the current era of US/Muslim relations, and it's gone on for long enough that many people assume that it's always been like that.

The 'accidental diplomacy' around Syria's commitment to surrendering chemical weapons has the potential to take the heat out of the US/iranian relationship. Rouhani is clever enough to have worked out what North Korea cannot - that developing nuclear weapons is not a guarantee of security, but the exact opposite. It's a guarantee of intervention. If Iran really does draw back from the nuclear option, it will not only remove the single factor most likely to draw an attack on themselves, but it will also reverse the whole direction of relations. These things tend to have momentum one way or the other. There is a real prospect of rapprochement between the US and Iran which will change everything about the region.

Of course there are many things that can get in the way. Will Rouhani be permitted to have his way by the Ayatollah? Will the Sunni Gulf States hold the US back behind the scenes? And there's always the Israel random factor, which can mess up everything else no matter how much sense it makes.

But with Afghanistan winding down and other US regional commitments already over, a restoration of relations with Iran after 30 years of hostility could change everything for US/Muslim relations, although it will do nothing to solve the growing problem of sectarianism, except perhaps showing it more clearly for what it really is.
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سيف الله
12-13-2013, 01:38 PM
Salaam

David Cameron was keen to bomb Syria in the name of 'humanity'. Alas actually giving meaningful help to the Syrians is beyond his capabilities.

Amnesty: Europe has 'miserably failed' to help Syrian refugees

Britain has offered no spaces for Syrian refugees fleeing from civil war, according to the human rights group


European leaders should "hang their heads with shame" over their treatment of Syrian refugees fleeing the country's brutal conflict, Amnesty International said on Friday.

In a briefing entitled; "An international failure: The Syrian refugee crisis", the charity states that EU member states have only offered around 12,000 places to Syrian refugees as part of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' goal of securing 30,000 places.

"The EU has miserably failed to play its part in providing a safe haven to the refugees who have lost all but their lives," said Salil Shetty, Amnesty's secretary general .

"The number of those it's prepared to resettle is truly pitiful," he added.

He called upon EU leaders to open their borders, provide safe passage to those seeking refuge, and refrain from "unlawful push-back operations" currently being employed to stop refugees entering the continent.

Only 10 EU member states offered resettlement or humanitarian admission places to refugees from Syria, according to the report.

Of the 12,000 places offered, 10,000 have been pledged by Germany. France has offered 500 places and Spain 30.

Eighteen EU member states - including the UK and Italy - have pledged no places, said the London-based charity.

Amnesty claims that the low chance of being granted asylum is forcing refugees to risk their life by undertaking dangerous boat and land crossings.

The report contains an account given by Awad, a 17-year-old from Damascus, whose boat loaded with around 400 asylum seekers sank in the Mediterranean while on its way to Italy.

Awad, whose mother died in the accident, escaped through a window, but described how he saw people clinging to dead bodies and boat wreckage to stay afloat.

"I have no idea where my family are," he said.

"I used to have ambition but now I have lost my mother, I don't want anything, I just want stability, everything else is second to that."

The report claims that those who make it to Europe are often mistreated.

"In two of the main gateways to the EU, Bulgaria and Greece, refugees from Syria are met with deplorable treatment, including life threatening push-back operations along the Greek coast, and detention for weeks in poor conditions in Bulgaria," it said.

One refugee described how he and his group were abused by the Greek coastguard near the island of Samos in October.

"They put all the men lying on the boat; they stepped on us and hit us with their weapons for three hours," he explained.

"Then at around 10 in the morning, after removing the motor, they put us back to our plastic boat and drove us back to the Turkish waters and left us in the middle of the sea."

In Bulgaria, Amnesty said it had found refugees "living in squalid conditions in containers, a dilapidated building and in tents."

"It is deplorable that many of those that who have risked life and limb to get here, are either forced back or detained in truly squalid conditions with insufficient food, water or medical care," said Shetty.

Around 55,000 Syrian refugees have managed to get through and seek asylum in the EU, said the report.

Some 97 percent of Syria's refugees - estimated by Amnesty to be 2.3 million in total - have fled to five neighbouring countries: Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt since fighting began.

The conflict, which has killed an estimated 126,000 people and driven millions from their homes, was sparked when the regime of President Bashar al-Assad launched a crackdown after a series of pro-democracy protests in March 2011.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10515120/Amnesty-Europe-has-miserably-failed-to-help-Syrian-refugees.html
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جوري
12-13-2013, 03:44 PM
They secretly want Sunni Muslims to die out and the free army not to come into any weapons because it wouls spell disaster for the Alawite regime and the rest of the kaffir regimes in the region. So you don't actually need articles on their failure.. we know they want to fail on purpose :)
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observer
12-13-2013, 06:46 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by جوري
They secretly want Sunni Muslims to die out and the free army not to come into any weapons because it wouls spell disaster for the Alawite regime and the rest of the kaffir regimes in the region. So you don't actually need articles on their failure.. we know that want to fail on purpose :)
What would you like to see the west do here? Looking at it, it seems that anything the west did would be seen in a negative light, so what would you like to see happen?
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MartyrX
12-13-2013, 07:49 PM
The whole thing is a mess and the only ones really losing are the refugees and the innocents who have already died. May Allah take care of them.
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جوري
12-13-2013, 08:15 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by observer
What would you like to see the west do here? Looking at it, it seems that anything the west did would be seen in a negative light, so what would you like to see happen?
butt out for a change, that's what I'd like to see happen!
but they're busy of course calling Jabhat an'nusra 'terrorists' and tightining in on them for Bashar the non-terrorist and hizbuallah the other non-terrorist.. when they kill it is for the good of mankind!


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Jedi_Mindset
12-13-2013, 08:50 PM
The FSA are split, most of them have allied to groups who are more seeking for a more islamic approach like the islamic front, they actually seized the SMC buildings at a border crossing between turkey and syria last week. The only FSA brigades are the ones fighting alongside the islamist groups or fighting against the islamists. Thats why the US has pulled out of syria since their stooge salim idriss isnt respected anymore. They are now creating new fronts to fight against the ones who want a islamic state. These fronts are led by warlords, criminals and by intelligence officers of the Assad regime.

Its a complicated situation.


Right now most children are dying because of freezing tempratures, i have seen pictures of babies litteraly frozen because they arent getting help. Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raijoon.

Most of the opposition groups in syria actually dont want the US to invade syria, the US will place their stooge anyway. Luckily syrians are sick of the SMC and their inaction.

The video is posted by someone who supports regime however the vid doesnt lie since it is posted by many islamist groups.



here is complete interview:

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observer
12-14-2013, 01:28 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by جوري
butt out for a change, that's what I'd like to see happen!
I tend to agree, we should do nothing. But when the west does nothing, it gets accused of being complicit in atrocities. When it intervenes, it gets accused of causing atrocities. Why is there not more condemnation of muslim nations here? What is Qatar, Saudi, Kuwait doing to help? The west seems to get blamed a lot but "muslim" countries barely get mentioned.
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dcalling
12-14-2013, 04:53 AM
May God help the Syrian people. I still remember when I first saw the Arab spring in Syria, I was happy, and thinking another dictator will go. The situation has proven me wrong, and now I wish it never happened. So many people died for ... nothing?

And it has been so chaotic, Hezbollah fighting rebels alone side Assad, in my mind they fight against Israel and noting else. Initially Assad is the bad guy, then the rebels come in and started chopping heads and kidnaping nulls. The world (espically the rich Arab oil states) should step in, but not militarily, just setup a safe zone so all the refuges can flee there, let the factions due out and God will pick a winner (but let the people flee to the zone).
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جوري
12-14-2013, 05:02 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by dcalling
should step in
No one should step in and Bashar would be out in no time. The only reason he has lasted so long is because of all the mercenaries.
If Mercenaries don't want to lose their head perhaps they shouldn't stand on the side of a tyrant. War is a ***** like that and no one is gonna ride on it once they've liberated ashaam :ia: it is just a matter of time and unfortunately there will be casualties and will count them as martyrs.

P.S I didn't reply to the other guy simply because I find his posts sophomoric, undereducated and silly.
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Jedi_Mindset
12-14-2013, 10:47 AM
^Indeed

format_quote Originally Posted by observer
I tend to agree, we should do nothing. But when the west does nothing, it gets accused of being complicit in atrocities. When it intervenes, it gets accused of causing atrocities. Why is there not more condemnation of muslim nations here? What is Qatar, Saudi, Kuwait doing to help? The west seems to get blamed a lot but "muslim" countries barely get mentioned.
We even dont want 'help' from the west as they're killing muslims in yemen, somalia, pakistan and afghanistan. If the west helps it will be for colonial purposes and for the security of the zionist state.
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~Zaria~
12-16-2013, 02:51 PM
December 15, 2013 - Aleppo, Syria








May Allah (subhanawataála) bring this war to an end soon.
Ameen :cry:
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Jedi_Mindset
12-16-2013, 10:24 PM
Ameen. I have heard another story that the top airforce commander in damascus said that he wants to raise dumeir(Damascus suburb) from the ground (due to many opposition supporters there, not just fighters)

Other news, shaykh zahir mahmood went to syrian refugee camps and is holding a talk about it on the 31th of december.

http://www.as-suffa.org/item/syria.html

However, alot of dua, prayers are needed, and if able to: action, donate. I regret my previous stances on this conflict.
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dcalling
12-17-2013, 01:43 AM
If you read my message, you would have seen I meant step in for aid of the refugees, not weapons (In fact I said not militarily).
And it is not only the guys who are helping Assad are losing their heads, the rebels just beheaded one of their own by mistake.

And only God decides who wins, and who are martyrs.

format_quote Originally Posted by جوري
No one should step in and Bashar would be out in no time. The only reason he has lasted so long is because of all the mercenaries.
If Mercenaries don't want to lose their head perhaps they shouldn't stand on the side of a tyrant. War is a ***** like that and no one is gonna ride on it once they've liberated ashaam :ia: it is just a matter of time and unfortunately there will be casualties and will count them as martyrs.

P.S I didn't reply to the other guy simply because I find his posts sophomoric, undereducated and silly.
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dcalling
12-17-2013, 02:00 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by Jedi_Mindset
However, alot of dua, prayers are needed, and if able to action, donate. I regret my previous stances on this conflict.
Agreed, a lot of prayers are needed. Just wondering what was your previous stance on this? It seems all of you are against Assad (I WAS too, I still like the Kurds, the FSA, but those who chops heads really turned me off).
I think there were verses in Quran about Muslims not killing Muslims (I only heard of it, have not read the full Quran yet so I might be wrong). Is that considered a lesser surah that can be trumped or abrogated by other verses?
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Jedi_Mindset
12-18-2013, 09:12 PM
I dont like the beheadings too, but you have to understand that this is because of the enormous anger residing in the heart of the rebels because of Assad's torture, scorched earth tactics and killing of protestors.

I am certainly not pro-execution, infact i think the best way is to convince them that they are wrong, it works in yemen with ansar al shariah.



^

This how prophet muhammed(Saw) and the sahabah(Ra) took care of their captives, i assure you , there are very few people or groups who do this! Are these the acts of murderers, terrorists? Do terrorists provide electricity to their populations, set up courts, schools?

Subhan'Allah

Note for the moderation staff of IB: I didnt post this to promote this group, just to show a example of real life situation where prisoners get treated the same way as the sahabah(Ra) had done.
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dcalling
12-19-2013, 03:21 AM
Assad setup courts and schools as well, and the rebels torture and even more. Just read a story on Yahoo, rebel claims Assad fire bomb a neighbor that killed women/children, Assad claimed rebels killed 70 by roasting them in ovens..

Remind me a story in WWII, when Nazis invaded Russia, the Russians were happy because how ruthless Stalin was. Then they found the Nazis are even worse....

May God help the Syria refugees.

Another thought, since any moves by West is not welcome (I suggested humanitarian help and someone rejected), the near by Muslim countries should take it on. Setup safe zones where refugees can flee to. epically Saudis and Turkey, they are rich countries (and Iran, not rich but resourceful).

I hope the Muslim community can take up the pressure on those countries. Setup safe zones so people between the war zones can flee to, there is no need for civilian causalities.

format_quote Originally Posted by Jedi_Mindset
I dont like the beheadings too, but you have to understand that this is because of the enormous anger residing in the heart of the rebels because of Assad's torture, scorched earth tactics and killing of protestors.
I am certainly not pro-execution, infact i think the best way is to convince them that they are wrong, it works in yemen with ansar al shariah

This how prophet muhammed(Saw) and the sahabah(Ra) took care of their captives, i assure you , there are very few people or groups who do this! Are these the acts of murderers, terrorists? Do terrorists provide electricity to their populations, set up courts, schools?
Subhan'Allah
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Jedi_Mindset
12-19-2013, 10:46 AM
The humantarian help should be accepted, there are however alot of independent organizations who are working on this. The world leaders, not so much and if they want to help it will be because of their own interests/influences. Understand the power play going on.
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~Zaria~
12-29-2013, 03:15 PM
:salam:

Its important to realize that there are many rebel groups in Syria - whose ideologies, methods, support systems, etc differ from each other.
This makes it even more difficult to discern who is committing a particular defense, attack, atrocity, etc:



Understanding Syria’s rebel groups – Who’s who?

Azhar Vadi | Cii Analysis


Originally made up of citizen volunteers who took up arms against their government and called the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the anti-government military formations in Syria have mushroomed into several hundred groupings numbering a few dozen to over 10 000 fighters.

Many of these groups have common ideas and backgrounds while some are diametrically opposed to each other in every respect other than their opposition to the regime of Bashar Al Assad.

At times these groups may carry out joint operations only to attack each other in isolated incidents.

Several broad categories of fighting groups are identifiable and these have within themselves formed further, splits, coalitions and alliances.

1) SUPREME MILITARY COUNCIL (SMC) OF THE FREE SYRIAN ARMY

Lead by Brigadier General Salim Idris, the SMC has purported itself to be the military representative of the Syrian people and was formed in December 2012 when the various groups flying the flag of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) came together. The FSA was initially formed by military generals who had deserted the ranks of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA). The SMC initially had 30 members and seeks to create a new Syria based on mainly western democratic principles. The West has viewed the SMC as a moderate force that they would prefer to take control of the country if Bashar al Assad were to fall. However the SMC has not been able to unite the various groups on the ground in Syria, particularly those with a more Islamic reference. The SMC decision makers and its political leadership have been accused of not bearing the brunt of the violence in Syria as they are based in Turkey and other countries.


Groups aligned to the SMC include the Martyrs of Syria Brigades with approximately 7000 fighters and no particular religious ideology, the Brigade of the Northern Storm who are described as moderate Islamists and the Ahrar Souriya Brigade.

The Northern Storm Brigade, headed by former Syrian colonel, Abdul Jabbar Ogaidi, has recently clashed with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), an Al Qaeda offshoot with its own strict interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence.
The Northern Storm Brigade has however in September 2013 expressed support for the formation of Islamic Alliance that has denounced the SMC.

2. SYRIAN ISLAMIC LIBERATION FRONT (SILF)

The Syrian Islamic Liberation Front (SILF) is a loose alliance of various groups that have based their fight on an Islamic platform. They are largely made up of Syrian fighters filling the ranks of some 20 groups. Some of the groups, while being members of SILF, also hold positions on the SMC. They have however grown increasingly weary of Western interference in the SMC and attempts by the Americans to direct their revolt. In September 2013, key member groups of SILF joined a coalition that has publicly renounced the SMC and rejected its representation of the Syrian people.

Farouq Brigades

The Farouq Brigades are amongst the larger groups within the SILF. Originating from Homs, it has also fractured, with some of the leadership taking a more conservative Islamic approach while others have opted for a more moderate outlook. They however remain a powerful force particularly along the Syrian-Turkish border.

Suqour al-Sham and Liwa al Tawhid

Suqour al-Sham (Falcons of Syria) and Liwa al Tawhid have based their struggle squarely on Islamic principles and hold influence in Damascus and Aleppo. Liwa al Tawhid was called in recently to negotiate between the Northern Storm Brigade and ISIS when they clashed in Azaaz, north of Aleppo.

Liwa al Tawhid – BBC

Liwa al-Tawhid (Battalion of Monotheism) was formed in July 2012 to unite many separate fighting groups around Aleppo as the city joined the revolt against the government. Although they were originally part of the SMC, they have now joined the coalition of groups denouncing the SMC as a tool for western interference in Syrian affairs.

3. JAYSH AL-ISLAM

Jaysh al-Islam (Army of Islam) was formed by some 50 groups operating in and around Damascus in September 2013. Its most influential constituent is Liwa al Islam headed by Zahran Alloush. Jaysh al Islam seek to unify various groups and has the support of other key groups like the Liwa Fath al-Sham, Liwa Tawhid al-Islam and Liwa al-Ansar.

The united front was seen as a blow to the Western backed SMC.

The Army of Islam is located in the Damascus area, it but also includes brigades in Homs, Latakia, Deir Ezzor and Aleppo.

Liwa al-Islam as an individual group, was founded two years earlier by Zahran Alloush and has around 9000 fighters. It is the leading rebel group in the east of the Ghouta agricultural belt around Damascus.

4. SYRIAN ISLAMIC FRONT (SIF)

At the helm of the Syrian Islamic Front is the Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiyya (Ahrar al Sham). Along with it comes another 10 groups all espousing an Islamic ideology that is not comfortable by most western standards and has rattled the regime in its encounters on the battlefield.

The SIF takes its lead from Hassan Abboud of Ahrar al Sham and is said to have at least 30 000 fighters covering most of Syria. Some of the battalions that contribute to this enormous and disciplined fighting force include the al-Haqq Brigade, the Ansar al Sham Battalions from Idlib, the Jaysh al Tawhid from Deir al-Zour and the Hama based Mujahidi al Sham Brigade. SIF has never agreed to work under the auspices of the Supreme Military Council (SMC) and has a close relationship with the various other Islamic groupings operating in Syria.

At the height of the US threat to attack Syria in the chemical weapons debacle, the group issued a statement on its Facebook page stating that it rejected “Western military intervention in Syria and considered it a new aggression against Muslims”, saying that the intervention would only serve American interests and not the cause of those seeking to topple al-Assad.

5. GROUPS LABELED AS JIHADIST BY WESTERN MEDIA AND ANALYSTS

Nusra Front – Aljazeera

Jabhat un Nusra or Al-Nusra Front

Lead by Abu Mohammed al-Julani the group is believed to have anywhere between 5000 and 7000 fighters.

It is reported that this group has emerged from the belly of Iraq, staffed by fighters initially part of Al Qaeda in Iraq and the Islamic State of Iraq. The fighters are particularly well trained, disciplined and have been responsible or played key roles in some of the major victories against the regime.

The Nusra front was officially classified as a terrorist organisation by the US as of December 2012. They have worked well with other rebel groups including those regarded as moderate Islamists.

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant/Shaam (ISIS)

BBC


Lead by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ISIS, broke away from the Nusra Front in April 2013 and although the split has been rejected by Nusra, ISIS has taken part in several joint operations. Their ranks are mainly filled by foreign fighters who espouse their own very strict interpretation of Islam. ISIS has not been afraid to clash with rebel formations including the Northern Storm Brigade in Azaaz.


A senior leader of Ahrar al Shaam was also reportedly shot and died as a result of ISIS intercepting a humanitarian convoy said to be from Malaysia September 2013. Their efforts have however earned them respect as daring fighters and they have been key in carrying out human bombings that helped capture two military bases.

ISIS also has the support of the Jaysh al-Muhajirin wa al-Ansar headed by a Chechen, Abu Omar al-Shishani.

6. ISLAMIC ALLIANCE

On 24 September 2013, 13 groups issued a statement condemning the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition (SNC) who effectively are the political leadership of the Supreme Military Council (SMC).

The 13 included, Jabhat al-Nusra, Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiyya, Liwa al-Tawhid, Liwa al-Islam, Suquor al-Sham, Liwa al-Haq, Harakat Fajr al-Sham al-Islamiyya, Harakat al-Nour al-Islamiyya, Kataib Nour al-Din al-Zinki, Liwa al-Furqan, Liwa al-Ansar, Tajamu Fastaqm Kamr Umrat and Forqat al-Tisaa Ashr

They condemned the SNC as being “unrepresentative” of the Syrian people inside Syria and called explicitly for “an Islamic framework based on sharia (Islamic law).”

The Brigade of the Northern Storm did not sign but expressed support for the new formation.

The Islamic State in Iraq and Shaam (ISIS) did not sign and was not part of the pact.

The move to divorce the SNC from the armed groups effectively crippled the influence of the Syrian Military Council (SMC), the Americans closest ally. It has also weakened Saudi influence as they have been the major backers of the SNC thus far.

The SNC/SMC has been accused of not sharing the reality of the situation on the ground and of being a tool of the US to interfere in the Syrian affair.

The US has thus lost favour and now risks having any supplies it sends to Syria landing in the hands of groups categorically opposed to its ideals.

Three groups whose signatures initially appeared on the Islamic Coalition list have since been removed. Liwa al-Furqan and Liwa al-Haq have given support for the statement but have not signed it and Jabhat al Nusra said that while they condemned the SNC and its foreign-based leadership it was not part of the coalition.

7. INDEPENDENT GROUPS

Ahfad al-Rasoul Brigades

This alliance of groups has been accused of having links to Western intelligence agencies and Qatar and has clashed with ISIS in the town of Raqqa. Despite comprising of about 40 smaller groups, ISIS managed to kick them out.

Several other independent alliances and groups exists.

The Asala wa al-Tanmiya Front has a particular presence in Aleppo and in the tribal areas of the eastern province of Deir al-Zour.

The Durou al-Thawra Commission is linked to the SMC-linked and was set up in 2012 with the help of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood

The Yarmouk Martyrs’ Brigade operates close to Jordan and the Golan Heights.
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Jedi_Mindset
12-29-2013, 05:27 PM
True,


SIF&SILF have already merged into the 'islamic front' group which contains another blow towards the western/israeli backed SMC. There are more than 1000 groups and you cant say which one is right which one is wrong, remember there are also alot of groups infiltrated.
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Karl
01-01-2014, 11:16 PM
Very messy, also the Russians believe the terrorist attacks there are a spin off of this Syrian civil war. They are eyeing up Saudi Arabia and Qatar as well as the Western intelligence meddlers. They said Russia should be more like the Americans in rooting out terrorism. If Saudi Arabia and Qatar are financing terrorist attacks in Russia this is an act of war and they would have the right to crush those terrorist funding regimes. They couldn't crush the West for it's involvement, that's in the too hard basket. Assad is backed by Russia as they have a military base there and a lot of Russians also live there. Israel wants Assad out so the Western stooges want Assad out. The Saudi's and Qatar and all those other little oil states are apostates and crawl on their bellies to the West want Assad out. The Russians will follow the money trail. A possible scenario is that this Syrian civil war is a set up for the Russians and USA to grab the oil states by luring Saudi Arabia and the other little oil states into funding terrorism. But this is unlikely because the USA wants it all and the power stalemate between the East and West is protecting the Middle East from conquest. This civil war could go on for ever as it is good for arms dealers, as the saying goes "money is the root of all evil".
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Jedi_Mindset
01-02-2014, 09:28 AM
I dont think the west wants Assad out at all, they're purposely enflaming this conflict so both sides keep fighting each other so that it will spread in lebanon and iraq and more people will be killed. See it as just like the iraq - iran war.

infact we see that the west is currently cooperating with iran and iraq's dictator to attack sunni tribes and a major insurgent group. Alliances have shifted and probably indeed russia will attack saudi-arabia sooner or later.


2014/1435 will be much worse.
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RedGuard
01-02-2014, 08:06 PM
1. Russia will not attack Saudi Arabia. At best they'll try to pull off assassination attempts against some Saudi jihadists or members of the house of Saud.

2. Israel does not want Assad out. The current draw (no side being able to win decisively) suits their interests just perfectly.

3. I agree that 2014-15 will be much worse. But if Muslims can't live without fighting each other, then is it any surprise that other political powers are trying to use this enmity for the sake of their own agendas?
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RedGuard
01-02-2014, 08:38 PM
Seems that the war in Iraq has reignited. ISIS has taken over Ramadi and Fallujah. In Falliujah they took over all arms storages, freeing more than 100 prisoners (prison guards fled without giving a fight)
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BeTheChange
01-02-2014, 09:51 PM
why write to the governments? Your wasting your time there. They'll always take decisions to support agenda and suger coat thier agenda.

use your time to make dua to Allah swa
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Karl
01-02-2014, 11:19 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by strivingforgood
why write to the governments? Your wasting your time there. They'll always take decisions to support agenda and suger coat thier agenda.

use your time to make dua to Allah swa
Yes, governments always sit at the right hand of Satan. Politicians are all liars and hypocrites and are trusted less than used car salesmen.
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Karl
01-02-2014, 11:45 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Jedi_Mindset
I dont think the west wants Assad out at all, they're purposely enflaming this conflict so both sides keep fighting each other so that it will spread in lebanon and iraq and more people will be killed. See it as just like the iraq - iran war.

infact we see that the west is currently cooperating with iran and iraq's dictator to attack sunni tribes and a major insurgent group. Alliances have shifted and probably indeed russia will attack saudi-arabia sooner or later.


2014/1435 will be much worse.
You could be right if the "Muslims" slaughter off each other, then Israel can expand without the Zionists losing their lives. Maybe the Russians can get Iran to take out Saudi. It would spare Russian lives and Western backlash on them. Wouldn't it be great to have the master plans of all these nefarious regimes. They all smile at the cameras shaking hands and plotting to kill each other. All bleat that God is on their side... I wonder. "The meek will inherit the Earth" it sure won't be people then.
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RedGuard
01-03-2014, 08:33 PM
Some brigades have declared war on ISIS. Below is a written declaration of war (mods - convert it to an image, please)
militaryphotos.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=212600&d=1388773453
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RedGuard
01-04-2014, 08:36 PM
Iraqi 10th division sent to fight in Anbar.
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dcalling
01-06-2014, 02:31 AM
Thanks for the list of the group break downs, I am still confused as every. It is clear that all of you don't like the FSA (think it is western backed), many dislike Assad (but some likes him).

I am amazed that all still think the West has any control over this. The rebels kills FSA commanders like there is no one guarding them (One of them is invited over and killed), I seriously doubt FSA or the West can have any influence in this war (Unless God intervenes). It is jus a war between Assad and the Rebels now.

I am still amazed that how the rebels without the help of the West is better armed than the FSA, which is supported by West. I think they are from Iraq with Saudi money, then I heard the news that Saudis send Millions of money to Lebanon, that means Saudis are now supporting Hezbollah fighting for Assad, so there is no way they could been support the rebels.....
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سيف الله
01-06-2014, 06:59 PM
Salaam

Its hard to make sense of whats going on. Heres one attempt.

Now it's Middle Eastern regimes fighting al-Qa'ida, while the US ties itself up in knots

This is “Arab unity” as we have never seen it before. But watch out


And so, for the first time in recent history, it seems that the “war against terror” – and specifically against al-Qa’ida – is being fought by Middle East regimes rather than their foreign investors.

Sure, American drones still smash into al-Qa’ida operatives, wedding parties and innocent homes in Pakistan. But it’s General al-Sisi of Egypt, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq, President Hassan Rouhani of Iran – even powerless President Michel Sleiman of Lebanon – who are now fighting “terrorists”.

It shows how powerful the bad guys have become that mutually antagonistic dictators and satraps can gang together against America’s enemy. This is “Arab unity” as we have never seen it before. The Ottoman Empire lives again. But watch out.

You need to put on a tin hat to avoid the ironies crashing out of the sky. John Kerry – now the most outrageously funny Secretary of State in US history, he who promised an “unbelievably small” airstrike against Syria – says America supports the secular rebels against Assad, who are fighting the Islamist rebels who are fighting against Assad even though the US still wants the overthrow of – you guessed it – Bashar al-Assad.

Meanwhile the Saudis are still pouring money into Syria to help the al-Qa’ida-associated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) – against whom Bashar and the secular Free Syrian Army are now fighting – while the Saudis also contribute billions to Sisi’s army in Egypt which is fighting identical al-Qa’ida-linked “terror” in Sinai and now, it appears, in Cairo itself. And if you are confused by all this, try Lebanon.

Last week, the authorities claimed to have arrested Majid bin Mohamed al-Majid, one of the “most wanted” al-Qa’ida men in Saudi Arabia. All they had to do to confirm this extraordinary detention was to use DNA to check the man’s identity. This came only weeks after Lebanese Shias blamed Saudi “terrorists” for blowing up the Iranian embassy in Beirut, an attack followed by the assassination of a prominent Sunni politician and then – last week – by a further attack on Shias in the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital. No sooner had Sunni ex-minister Mohammed Chatah been car-bombed to death, than the Americans promised more money to the Lebanese army. How, then, could the Lebanese avoid being drawn into the “anti-terrorist” war after arresting Majid? Miraculously – and there have been a lot of miracles in the Middle East region, as we all know – the Lebanese not only confirmed that they had indeed got the right man, but that he had regrettably died of organ failure while in their custody. Phew!

But US support for the Lebanese military will go ahead. Just as Washington is now offering more missiles and planes to the Shia sub-dictator President Maliki of Iraq if he goes on biffing Sunni insurgents and al-Qa’ida men in Anbar province. History, of course, repeats itself in Fallujah and Ramadi, the two cities repeatedly conquered and then re-conquered and then re-conquered for a third time by US forces after the illegal invasion of 2003. In 2004, the Marines claimed they had wiped out al-Qa’ida in Fallujah, then handed the city over to Baathist policemen. Then the Americans virtually destroyed the city around the heads of al-Qa’ida after another few months – we will not mention the use of US phosphorous shells and the outbreak of childbirth abnormalities more than five years later – and now the largely Shia Iraqi army is fighting the Sunni tribesmen of Fallujah. Who are in turn (be patient, readers) claiming they are fighting the local al-Qa’ida groups, just as the Free Syrian Army insists that it is now in combat against the same al-Qa’ida groups in Syria.

Meanwhile Kerry – who has not invited the Iranians to the Geneva 2 talks on Syria – says Iran might play a valuable role “on the sidelines” (has ever an invitation to Iran appeared more insulting?) while the main Syrian opposition forces have no intention of taking part in the Swiss conference. Geneva 2, in other words, is a dead duck; just like the Palestinian-Israeli talks of which Kerry still speaks with optimism – a sure sign that this particular duck is also dying.

Who now remembers the Arab Awakening – or “spring” as some of my colleagues still insist on calling it? Well, let’s just take a look at an ominous statement this past weekend in which the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claimed responsibility for the latest bomb in Beirut – the one that killed at least four civilians in the Hezbollah suburbs. So now Isil – as I suppose we must call it – acknowledges it is fighting on three fronts: Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. So we have Arab regime unity at last. As for America – well, I guess they’ll go on supporting the Free Syrian Army which is fighting al-Qa’ida which is fighting Bashar whom Washington wants to dethrone.

America’s Muslim Brotherhood friends in Egypt have just been formally classed as “terrorists” by Sisi who is supported by the country which is paying – long live Salafism – for Islamist “terror” in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. And Saudi Arabia – the key to the whole fandango, though no one will say this – remains a close and “moderate” friend of America. Say no more.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/now-its-middle-eastern-regimes-fighting-alqaida-while-the-us-ties-itself-up-in-knots-9039977.html
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Jedi_Mindset
01-06-2014, 07:44 PM
Its just inciting fitnah, thats it. No other words for this.
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turkishpower
01-15-2014, 10:24 AM
Basically, these are rumors. <br><br><br><br><br>Insider News. Not made to the Public. We all know what is happening in Syria right now, and now we have Sunni rebel groups fighting against each other. Someone in the Turkish Military Intelligence says <br><br>- They lost contact with the most credible people in these rebel groups<br>- Iranian troops are underestimated, news say 1000. But there is over 10000, and more flooding in.<br>- Don't forget hezbollah (Lebanon Shia military too) and Iraqi Shia fighters. These are not farmers but trained military personal that join in with Assad's army. (So it looks like only foreigners are in the rebel groups)<br>- Russian are giving intelligence to Assad too.<br>- Turkey is now more concern with spies in the refugees camps and terrorist attacks from both Assad(and other Shia) and Sunni Rebel groups.<br><br><br>Turkish Alliance with Syria Rebel group is causing Political Crisis. There is also Saudi Political crisis which America is deeply concerned about. <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>I knew once Sunni group was fighting the other, it could never end well. =/
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جوري
01-15-2014, 05:26 PM
It has to happen because it is :Allah::swt: promise:

Al-Nour [24:55]

وَعَدَ اللَّهُ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا مِنكُمْ وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ لَيَسْتَخْلِفَنَّهُم فِي الْأَرْضِ كَمَا اسْتَخْلَفَ الَّذِينَ مِن قَبْلِهِمْ وَلَيُمَكِّنَنَّ لَهُمْ دِينَهُمُ الَّذِي ارْتَضَى لَهُمْ وَلَيُبَدِّلَنَّهُم مِّن بَعْدِ خَوْفِهِمْ أَمْنًا يَعْبُدُونَنِي لَا يُشْرِكُونَ بِي شَيْئًا وَمَن كَفَرَ بَعْدَ ذَلِكَ فَأُوْلَئِكَ هُمُ الْفَاسِقُونَ

WaAAada Allahu allatheena amanoo minkum waAAamiloo alssalihati layastakhlifannahum fee alardi kama istakhlafa allatheena min qablihim walayumakkinanna lahum deenahumu allathee irtada lahum walayubaddilannahum min baAAdi khawfihim amnan yaAAbudoonanee la yushrikoona bee shayan waman kafara baAAda thalika faolaika humu alfasiqoona
24:55 Allah has promised, to those among you who believe and work righteous deeds, that He will, of a surety, grant them in the land, inheritance (of power), as He granted it to those before them; that He will establish in authority their religion - the one which He has chosen for them; and that He will change (their state), after the fear in which they (lived), to one of security and peace: 'They will worship Me (alone) and not associate aught with Me. 'If any do reject Faith after this, they are rebellious and wicked.


and those who believe it is fitnah or whatever can do what they do best, sit at home and curse at everyone. :Allah::swt: knows whom his soldiers and hosts are on this earth and :ia: victory is coming!
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Muhaba
01-15-2014, 05:38 PM
The only One Who can do anything is Allah, so how about making duas? Surely if every Muslim cried for the Syrians like they would if their own relatives were in trouble there, Allah's Help would actually come.

A few weeks ago some Syrian women were crying for their relatives in Dar'aa because the place was under siege and no one could get food, etc and no one could get out (except for college students and public sector employees who were allowed transit in and out of the place). The women made duas while crying in the masjid and other muslimas (nonSyrians) joined in and made duas. Within the week the situation improved and many of the inhabitants of that area were able to escape from the city and go to other places.

So how about crying to Allah to send His Help. It will definitely come because Allah is the hearer of the hearts in distress. The Muslims are supposed to be like one body so when any part of the body is in pain, the whole body is in distress. So when a part of the Ummah is in so much pain, why aren't the rest of us in distress? Is it because we don't care?
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سيف الله
01-15-2014, 06:09 PM
Salaam

Isnt this interesting

West has discussed co-operation with Syria, Damascus claims
UK government denies co-operation, while US secretary of state John Kerry indicates he is not aware of contact


Some western nations opposed to President Bashar al-Assad have discussed security co-operation with his government, Syria said on Wednesday, a move which if true would suggest a rise in western concerns about foreign militants in rebel ranks.

The UK government denied having any such co-operation with the Assad regime and the top US and French diplomats both said they were personally unaware of such contacts though did not go so far as to deny that any had taken place.
Syria's deputy foreign minister Faisal Mekdad said several western intelligence services had visited Damascus for discussions. His comments were broadcast a day after the Wall Street Journal reported that French and Spanish spy services had made contact with Assad's government. French media have carried similar reports.

"I will not specify [which countries] but many of them have visited Damascus, yes," Mekdad said in a BBC interview.

Any suggestion that western countries were talking to Assad's government could complicate their relationships with opposition groups supported by the United States and Europe, and with wealthy Gulf states that fund the rebels.

Asked about the report, US secretary of state John Kerry indicated he was not aware of such contacts.

"I don't know anything about that, certainly not under my auspices," he told reporters in Kuwait, where he is on a visit.

In Paris, French foreign minister Laurent Fabius declined to comment, although when pressed he said he had the "same position" as Kerry. The defence ministry declined to comment.

The French newspaper Le Figaro reported in December that the DGSE external intelligence service had gone to Damascus to discuss cooperation on terrorists. Damascus had replied that it would do so if France re-opened its embassy, it reported.

There was no immediate reaction from officials in Germany or Spain.

Western powers have long supported Syria's opposition with rhetoric but the past year has seen a shift in emphasis, with countries backing away from material aid to the rebels as al-Qaida-linked groups have gained power in rebel-held regions.

Western countries are worried about the presence in rebel ranks of foreign Islamist militants who have travelled to Syria to join a near three-year-old struggle to topple Assad.

"Frankly speaking the spirit has changed," Mekdad said. "Many of these countries have contacted us to coordinate security measures."

"When these countries ask us for security cooperation, then it seems to me there is a schism between the political and security leaderships," he added.

Assad has always maintained that the uprising against him is run by terrorists and that western support for the rebels damages western countries' own interests.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...n-syria-claims
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سيف الله
01-15-2014, 06:13 PM
Salaam

And another

Western spooks and 'evil' Syria in talks about common enemy
• MI6, MI5, and allies see growing threat posed by jihadists in Syria
• Classic, discreet, role for intelligence agencies


That western intelligence agencies, including an official representing MI6, Britain's foreign intelligence service, have been talking discreetly to the Syrian government, a regime savaged by David Cameron and other western political leaders, should come as no surprise.

Andrew Parker, the head of MI5, and Richard Walton, head of Scotland Yard's anti-terrorism command, have both warned recently about the potential threat posed by the number of young men (between 200 and 300 according to their latest estimates) leaving Britain to fight with "al-Qaeda linked" groups in Syria's civil war.

They could return, say counter-terrorism officials, flaunting their status and posing a dangerous threat as battle-hardened jihadists.

More than 1,000 Europeans are said to have joined extreme jihadist groups in Syria.

Nigel Inkster, former deputy chief of MI6, now a senior fellow of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told the Commons home affairs committee on Tuesday that while the groups fighting in Syria had no "particular animus" towards the UK, Syria could become "a crucible for a new generation of international jihadists", compared to the anti-Soviet mujahadeen in Afghanistan in the 1980s, a "band of brothers", looking for other fields in which to fight, including, possibly, the UK.

There was not a huge amount Britain could do about it, Inkster suggested, other than trying to keep tabs on them.

That is the context behind the claim, reported by the BBC's Lyse Doucet, that western intelligence officers have visited Damascus for talks on combating radical Islamist groups. The claim was made by Syria's deputy foreign minister, Faisal Mekdad.

Doucet says that according to "informed sources" western intelligence officials have met Syrian intelligence officers, including the Syrian security chief, General Ali Mamluk.

One of the tasks of a country's intelligence service - always officially "deniable" - is to try and sort out the mess by their short-sighted political masters who helped to create it in the first place.

MI6 talked behind the scenes to the IRA engaged at the time in bloody confrontations with British troops and planting bombs that were killing British civilians.

MI6 was trying to talk to Taliban years before western political leaders belatedly thought it would be a good idea.

Cameron and William Hague, the foreign secretary, are clearly having second thoughts about their demands that Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, whom they have described as "evil", must go before negotiations in Geneva can start, let alone any direct talks in Damascus.

Weak or divided governments have presented a dangerous opportunity for jihadists, notably those fighting for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ISIL.

Assad's enemies have become those of the west as well.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/defence-and-security-blog/2014/jan/15/syria-intelligence-terrorism-jihadists
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