Jump to content
  • Sign up for free and receive a month's subscription

    You are viewing this page as a guest. That means you are either a member who has not logged in, or you have not yet registered with us. Signing up for an account only takes a minute and it means you will no longer see this annoying box! It will also allow you to get involved with our friendly(ish!) community and take part in the discussions on our forums. And because we're feeling generous, if you sign up for a free account we will give you a month's free trial access to our subscriber only content with no obligation to commit. Register an account and then send a private message to @dave u and he'll hook you up with a subscription.

Middle East Thread


Red Phoenix
 Share

Recommended Posts

I can clearly distinguish between a murdering, racist, apartheid regime, and a people who's sole purpose in life is just to survive on a day to day basis.

 

I certainly will be going to my grave knowing I never supported murdering, apartheid regimes. Some people will of course, and that indeed is their own (brainwashed) choice. Peace.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, I'm not interested in whether you side with a democracy or a theocracy in any particular land dispute, so goodness knows what you think you read. I'm just addressing Owen's logical fallacy that killing most people automatically makes you the bad guy. It's poor logic.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, I'm not interested in whether you side with a democracy or a theocracy in any particular land dispute, so goodness knows what you think you read. I'm just addressing Owen's logical fallacy that killing most people automatically makes you the bad guy. It's poor logic.

He didn’t say that, although they clearly are very bad guys. Your bizarre attempt to frame it as democracy = good guys is bizarre. A similar fallacy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

At the very least, he implied it, by contrasting the number killed by one side with the number killed by the other. What relevance does it have to anything?

 

I wouldn't ever say something as simple as "democracy = good guys", but I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking democracy superior to theocracy in general terms.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

At the very least, he implied it, by contrasting the number killed by one side with the number killed by the other. What relevance does it have to anything?

It's said in the context of what the support we give does. He's putting the disparity down to western support of killing.

 

I wouldn't ever say something as simple as "democracy = good guys", but I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking democracy superior to theocracy in general terms.

I think your use of it is pretty grim and one of the reasons I said what I said about sounding like an apologist and propagandist. Ask yourself why you don't frame the Iraq war like that, but rather 'the illegal war and torture party'. It isnt about which system is better. You want to talk about implementation above, what's implied from your comments is significantly worse, in my opinion.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As a general rule, I don't want to see a nation that subjects its own people to theocratic brutality make territorial gains from a nation that permits its citizens Western-standard human rights, so it's absolutely difficult for me to suspend that thinking in this particular context.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We happen to have an economic Theocracy in the West today. "The Invisible Hand Of The Market".

The High Priests of the Central banking system, rule us all. Time we ditched it. Even Politicians have to bow down to Reserve Bank Head Honchos, meaning that no political party, even if it has the will, can effect real change.

I'd also argue that any government accepting this economic Theocracy, and allowing poverty and mental health issues within it's borders, has blood on it's hands.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
  • 4 months later...

A BBC Syria producer claimed that he could prove without a doubt that the Douma hospital scene was staged. His twitter account was set to private shortly after and has stayed that way since.

 

 

This goes into the subject in quite a bit of detail too (have to scroll past video to read) What Happened in Douma? Searching for Facts in the Fog of Syria’s Propaganda War

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/14/2018 at 9:37 AM, Trumo said:

It's almost as if Crooked Hillary is in charge, ain't that right RP and Donny?

Would've agreed if I was around here when this happened I think, I don't remember even being aware of the bombing related to Douma last year though. I did a pretty good job of just fucking the news off almost completely for quite a while, was probably playing Elder Scrolls Online as it was happening.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

While Red Phoenix was getting his knickers in a twist about an Israeli defensive action that killed precisely nobody, his Russian mates were killing yet more civilians in Syria. I'm sure he just forgot to mention it

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/03/15/russia-restarts-bombing-campaign-rebel-held-syrian-city-idlib/

 

Quote

Russia restarts bombing campaign over rebel-held Syrian city of Idlib

Russian jets have bombed the last-remaining Syrian rebel stronghold, threatening a ceasefire reached to prevent a humanitarian disaster.

The raids on Wednesday, which killed at least 13 civilians including six infants, were the first on Idlib since Russia agreed to a de-escalation zone with Turkey in September.

The strikes targeted a displacement camp, as well as a prison - sparking a jail break by dozens of inmates. Footage of the incidents showed a father cradling his dead son in a hospital, while a man looks dazed with severe wounds to his arm.

Idlib, which is now home to almost four million people, has become the final refuge of those opposed to President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Mr Assad has said he will not stop until he regains every inch of Syria, but the international community has warned a military offensive in Idlib could send millions fleeing towards the nearby border of Turkey.

The province is largely controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a group led by Syria's former al-Qaeda affiliate. After rebel infighting last year, the Islamist group gained control of the majority of the northern province.

Turkey, which supports the rebels, persuaded Russia, which is backing the government, to hold off from a full-scale attack in return for disentangling HTS from the general population, but has so far failed to do so.

“There is no solution against the Russian occupier, Assad’s forces and the Iranian militias except confrontation and confrontation only,” HTS said in a statement in response.

"A large-scale military assault on Idlib would create the worst humanitarian catastrophe the world has seen in the 21st Century," Mark Lowcock, UN humanitarian chief, said on Thursday at a three-day pledging conference in Brussels.

Senior representatives from scores of countries and international organisations have gathered this week in the Belgium capital in a fresh effort to drum up aid for Syria amid growing donor fatigue as the conflict enters its ninth year.

UN agencies, non-governmental organisations, and think tanks are warning that the conflict, which has killed more than 500,000 people and sparked a refugee exodus that destabilised Syria's neighbors and also hit Europe, is far from over.

Nearly four million are living outside of Syria, mostly in neighbouring Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan, with many reluctant to return, fearing violence, conscription or prison. Around 80 per cent of people inside the country live in extreme poverty.

"Syria remains one of the great crises of our time," Mr Lowcock added. The UN has launched an appeal for £3bn for inside Syria, and £4bn is for refugees and host communities in neighbouring countries.

The European Union, the world's biggest aid donor, announced that it would provide 560 million euros (£477million) this year, while planning to offer the same amount next year and in 2021.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Strontium Dog said:

While Red Phoenix was getting his knickers in a twist about an Israeli defensive action that killed precisely nobody, his Russian mates were killing yet more civilians in Syria. I'm sure he just forgot to mention it

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/03/15/russia-restarts-bombing-campaign-rebel-held-syrian-city-idlib/

 

 

Russian mates, haha. I don't like Putin or Assad and I don't support any government using planes for bombing campaigns. (You won't find any post of mine where I've ever supported any type of bombing as far as I remember.) And I agree that it's sickening that civilians are dying in Idlib. I'm mainly focusing on Israel/Palestine for more reasons than I even remember right now and it'd take ages to list them all, but despite what you might think it's not because I hate the Jews or think Israel should be focused on while everything else is ignored. I'm glad that people are reporting on what's happening in Idlib as well but I don't pretend to know how that mess is going to be solved.

 

I find it fucking unreal that Israel struck 100 or so targets and didn't manage to kill anyone either. Especially after seeing so many images of the bombs going off last night. It doesn't make it acceptable that two rockets that didn't damage any property or injure anyone should be returned with 100 targets being hit by Israel's military though, and that's along with finding out that the Israeli army thought that the rockets were set off by mistake during maintenance work in the first place (from here).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-hospital-bombings-idlib-un-doctors-russia-assad-attack-a8942076.html

 

Doctors in Idlib will no longer share coordinates of hospitals with UN after repeated attacks from Russian and Syrian forces
 

More than 25 hospitals bombed by Russian and Syrian forces in just one month

 

Doctors working in rebel-held northern Syria will no longer share the locations of medical facilities with the United Nations after doing so failed to stop them being targeted by airstrikes.
 

Some 25 hospitals have been bombed by Syrian government and Russian forces in the past month, as the two allies push an offensive against the last opposition bastion of Idlib.

 

The coordinates of nine of those facilities were shared with the UN, which passed them to Russia in an effort to protect them from being bombed and encourage some form of accountability for attacks. Instead, they also came under fire.

 

“Most of the partners will never again share their coordinates with the UN because it is not working,” said Dr Mohamed Zahid, from Physicians Across Continents, a medical organisation working in Syria.
 

“Last year six hospitals were attacked, and this month another eight hospitals were attacked after their coordinates were shared with the UN. So most NGOs in Syria decided to stop this process,” he told The Independent.
 

The move reflects a growing desperation on the part of doctors and medical staff working inside Idlib, as they struggle to treat patients while dealing with an unprecedented level of attacks on their facilities.
 

The Syrian government and its Russian ally launched an offensive to recapture parts of Idlib in late April. The province is mostly controlled by the formerly al-Qaeda-linked rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, and the Syrian government frequently cites the group’s presence as a justification for military action.
 

But intensive bombing of densely populated areas has killed more than 270 civilians since the offensive began. More than 300,000 people have been displaced during that time, pushing the province to the brink of a major humanitarian disaster. Idlib is home to some 3 million people, more than half of whom are displaced from other parts of the country.

 

An open letter signed by dozens of doctors from around the world and published over the weekend said the targeting of medical facilities by the Syrian government and Russia “has forced the hospitals that remain to operate under a state of emergency, only treating the most urgent cases and unable to take in patients for routine care”.
 

The targeting of healthcare facilities is not new in Syria’s civil war. The US-based Physicians for Human Rights documented more than 500 attacks on more than 350 medical facilities between 2011 and 2018 – 90 per cent of which were carried out by Syrian and Russian government forces.  
 


 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here’s a funny thing. DC Pride have banned a rainbow Israeli flag for fear of upsetting Palestinian pride attendees despite Israel being the only place in the Middle East gays aren’t prosecuted and Palestine wanting a sharia state where gays will be killled. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
  • 4 weeks later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share


×
×
  • Create New...