Four-fifths of Russia's Syria strikes don't target Islamic State: Reuters analysis

[Collegeguy]

Meanwhile Obama is arming ISIS. He asks Toyota why do ISIS use Toyota trucks exclusively and then admits he gave a crap ton of Toyota trucks to Syrian rebels.

[Independent voter]

In some ways true, but do you honestly believe it would be that simple, the answer is no. There are no easy solutions in such matters, just look at Lybia, it is of worse of without Gadaffi and the syrian rebels are far from united, it will become a battle royal for power, once the establishment is gone.

Some regimes are so bad that they need to go. If you use terror to repress your own people, torture, false imprisonment, etc, you need to be replaced.

And the Sunnis are like 80-90% of the Syrian population. How can you justify governing a country where you have to oppress 80% of the people?

[Combatbutler]

Some regimes are so bad that they need to go. If you use terror to repress your own people, torture, false imprisonment, etc, you need to be replaced.

And the Sunnis are like 80-90% of the Syrian population. How can you justify governing a country where you have to oppress 80% of the people?

The sunnis aren't united and the next regime could turn out worse than the current one, the fighting has been going on for so long, if you want a good example of how syria will most likely turn out look at Lybia, Syria is a failed state, the best would be to dissolve it and give each faction some territory.

[freakyduck]

The sunnis aren't united and the next regime could turn out worse than the current one, the fighting has been going on for so long, if you want a good example of how syria will most likely turn out look at Lybia, Syria is a failed state, the best would be to dissolve it and give each faction some territory.

They had relative "peace" right up till the point they found that natural gas deposit near Qatar and decided they wanted to route it through Iran, Syria, Turkey and into Europe.

I mean, Assad has been ruling that country since 2000, nearly 11 years worth of "peace" there....then this pipeline is proposed and all of a sudden a "civil war" breaks out in Syria and we're supposed to believe that Assad just became a dictator and decided he needed to tear up his country?

I would think that with people like John McCain admitting that the CIA has been in Syria for a while now would be enough to show anyone that the US had something to do with the beginning of the "civil war" 4 years ago.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Possible, but why do you think that is, because they fear Assad himself or the alternative.

It's not unlikely the people feign support so they aren't looked at or bombed/shot. Weather it's good for the US or Russia is another matter. One thing I wonder about is, let's say Russia bombs the rebels and some innocents are killed.


If the US government gets self righteous, I'll probably facepalm and say "We do it to bro."

[Slaskra]

I thought Putin made it clear that ISIS is not their only target?

[Deleted]

There are a lot of extremists active and very few moderates left in syria actually.
If Assad falls, it's libya once again. Why would anyone want that?

[Kellhound]

I thought Putin made it clear that ISIS is not their only target?

Putin made it clear they are only there to keep Assad in power.

[Deleted]

Putin made it clear they are only there to keep Assad in power.

In order to do that they need to remove any armed group that poses a threat to Assad, obviously.
Eventually the moderate ones will just agree to negotiate i guess... All the many islamist extremist groups can go fuck themselves though.

[Independent voter]

In order to do that they need to remove any armed group that poses a threat to Assad, obviously.
Eventually the moderate ones will just agree to negotiate i guess... All the many islamist extremist groups can go fuck themselves though.

Looks like all the Syrian Sunnis are joining ISIS. The problem is taken care of, there aren't going to be any Syrian Sunni rebels, just ISIS.

[Deleted]

Looks like all the Syrian Sunnis are joining ISIS. The problem is taken care of, there aren't going to be any Syrian Sunni rebels, just ISIS.

Sounds like a reasonable claim.

[Belize]

Sounds like a reasonable claim.

I'm not sure that's better than the current situation IMO...

Isn't it better to have a handful disorganized group fighting each other, and scrambling around than a single organized group?

[Deleted]

I'm not sure that's better than the current situation IMO...

Isn't it better to have a handful disorganized group fighting each other, and scrambling around than a single organized group?

I was being ironic obviously. "All syrian sunnis are joining ISIS" Sounds like quite the fucking claim.
And I don't know. Maybe everyone joining ISIS would turn this from a nasty threesome to a more defined standard us vs them civil war.
A bit easier to understand.

[Daten-shi]

Oh God, not again one of these threads...

[bagamuti]

HD video of Jabar, western part of Damascus

looks like a WW2 city in the 21st century.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q60yBQG8XI

[turboether]

I'm not sure that's better than the current situation IMO...

Isn't it better to have a handful disorganized group fighting each other, and scrambling around than a single organized group?

If you want the region to be unstable for the foreseeable future, sure. I'll let others tinfoil hat the repercussions of this.

[Grimbold21]

Whats the surprise? Russka considers any group attacking Assad a terrorist.

[Deleted]

Whats the surprise? Russka considers any group attacking Assad a terrorist.

quoting an earlier post by ringpriest:

All Syrian militant groups are "terrorists" (insofar as that term has any meaning anymore) - early on, the lion's share of the funding (and weapons) from the GCC and others (like Turkey) went to various flavors of extremists, also, the extremists tended to be better able to recruit. They then used those advantages to utterly dominate whatever secular rebel groups existed - and there were precious few to begin with: Assad's (murderous and authoritarian, even sectarian) regime was pretty secular, and so are the Kurds; Wahhabism and its variants are the inevitable opposition.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Their missiles probably just got lost on the way. Gravity can be a bitch, you know.

[Venant]

They had relative "peace" right up till the point they found that natural gas deposit near Qatar and decided they wanted to route it through Iran, Syria, Turkey and into Europe.

I mean, Assad has been ruling that country since 2000, nearly 11 years worth of "peace" there....then this pipeline is proposed and all of a sudden a "civil war" breaks out in Syria and we're supposed to believe that Assad just became a dictator and decided he needed to tear up his country?

I would think that with people like John McCain admitting that the CIA has been in Syria for a while now would be enough to show anyone that the US had something to do with the beginning of the "civil war" 4 years ago.

Something the media will never talk about. Its unfortunate that the US Military is still being used as thugs for a cadre of international economic gangsters. People wonder why the US doesn't 'win' wars anymore, but in reality the US isn't *trying* to win.