Foreign involvement in Syria is getting bigger all the time. The Americans and Europeans are more openly talking about training and arming the rebels, although there is technically still an arms embargo in place. The gulf states are obviously openly supporting the rebels with arms. The Russians and Iran are still sending weapon shipments to Assad as well. And now it appears Hezbollah is also heavily involved in the fighting on the side of the regime, with already more than 100 dead Hezbollah fighters. Lastly, we of course have quite a few foreign jihad fighters who are active in Syria.
Hezbollah suffers heavy losses in Syrian conflict: 104 killed according to watchdog Published May 23rd, 2013 - 12:54 GMT via SyndiGate.info
Opposition-aligned Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports 104 Hezbollah militants killed since the conflict began
104 Hezbollah militants have died in the past few months, while fighting in Reef Dimashq and Reef Homs, Syria, a watchdog reported.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based opposition-aligned organisation monitoring the conflict, 46 Hezbollah fighters have been killed in the last five days, during fierce fighting in Qusayr.
The watchdog reported that sources confirmed a further 20 Hezbollah members have been killed in battles around Qusayr this month, whilst the organisation lost a further 38 members during Autumn in Reef Qusayr and Reef Dimashq.
Hezbollah has been involved [2] in the Syrian conflict for some time, with its fighters pouring [3] into Syria to take part in the ongoing battle for Qusayr, a strategic town near the Lebanese border which links Damascus to Bashar al-Assad's coastal support base.
Hezbollah initially claimed that it would only get involved in the conflict to defend border villages, home to Lebanese Shi'ites, as well as holy Shi'ite shrines in Damascus.Hezbollah denied any involvement in the Syrian conflict but the militia's involvement has been confirmed as a number of public funerals have taken place in recent days, for militants killed in the ongoing Qusayr fighting.
Is all this foreign involvement a good or bad? On the one hand it will only escalate the fighting, but perhaps international involvement is actually better as it prevents this from becoming a silent and forgotten civil war? Maybe it will eventually bring the war to a close more more quickly, either through fighting or international peace efforts.
http://www.youtube.com/user/robinb4life?feature=mhee
I will not calm down until I will put one cheek of a tyrant on the ground and the other under my feet, and for the poor and weak, I will put my cheek on the ground. - Umar ibn khattab(Ra)
Unfortunately, it's way too late for this. America doesn't like to talk about it, but we've been poking around in Syria for decades. Most people agree that our goal was to install a government that would be sympathetic to Israel. What many people don't know (or don't like to acknowledge) is that in the 60's, the Unites States was a supporter of the Baath party. Guess who the CIA considered an "asset" at the time? Saddam Hussein! America is much more responsible for what is happening in Syria than we like to admit.
format_quote Originally Posted by GuestFellow
This so sounds like what happened in Afghanistan during the cold war.
You nailed it, GuestFellow. Back then, the CIA was providing weapons, funding, and training to the Mujahideen (sp?). When they were fighting the Soviets, they were "freedom fighters." Fast forward a couple decades, when they are fighting America, and they suddenly become "terrorists."
America is your best friend when you are doing what we want. But the moment you start thinking for yourself.....
You nailed it, GuestFellow. Back then, the CIA was providing weapons, funding, and training to the Mujahideen (sp?). When they were fighting the Soviets, they were "freedom fighters." Fast forward a couple decades, when they are fighting America, and they suddenly become "terrorists."
America is your best friend when you are doing what we want. But the moment you start thinking for yourself.....
I think these groups will be influenced to fight Russia and China...
I was looking at myself talking to myself and I realized this conversation...I was having with myself looking at myself was a conversation with myself that I needed to have with myself.
I don't mean to take over this thread, but I want to add one more thing.
I think that we would all be wise to keep a close eye on American involvement in southeast asia. We are quietly building our presence in that part of the world, likely because it is just not possible to ignore China's status as a superpower. I think that we will see much of the two-faced behavior that we displayed in the mideast repeated in southeast asia. There are already hints of this. In the past couple of years the US has opened it's arms to Myanmar, just as Myanmar is becoming increasingly genocidal towards Muslims. I'll be the first to admit that my knowledge of this is quite limited, but I have a bad feeling that in 10-15 years we will be having the same conversations about America fighting in (against?) the Muslim world.
The Syrian civil war was received major international attention, and both the Syrian government and the opposition were received support from foreign powers.
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