I don't know where I sit with Syria

Well witnesses on the ground were the ones saying it was a militia affiliated with the regime that carried out the Houla massacre. Whilst these reports should be treated with some scepticism if everyone who saw it claimed it was the regime that did it its difficult to believe anyone else could have been responsible

I'm getting a bit annoyed now that nearly every time I post on here, people reply to points I havent actually made. I agree that recording such horror shows the world what, to an extent, is happening. I never said otherwise. I was instead disgusted at the way in which the bodies were treated. Instead of panning the camera across the corpses, they were picked up and shaken about as if they were of a doll as opposed to innocent children who had been caught up in a conflict that they had no participation in.

I agree with your first sentence though. Note how as soon as reports filtered of the massacre, certain leaders were using it as proof of Assad's crimes despite no real clarification having been made as to who was responsible at that time.

I can't comprehend how people can say 'not our problem'?

I mean, that is exactly the same attitude people took during the Rwandan genocide. They shrugged it off until it became too late and 20% of the country were killed. When mass amounts of people are being killed, one should not just ignore it.

I'd say at least bring the UN in so that it could at least be resolved peacefully.

There are 'UN observers'

Observed merely observe. The next step is to bring in a UN mandated peacekeeping force, not at all different than that sent to theatres such as Kosovo. But only as a last resort and when even Russia knows that the Assad regime completely failed with its attempt to maintain stability.

I've heard conflicting reports thought. I have heard that the men were dressed in military uniform and I have heard that they were masked and not wearing uniform. We know what story the general mainstream media believes and so of course they are going to pick the reports favourable to their general position. I've heard reports that the men spoke with Alawite dialects, but also I have heard reports that it was mostly Alawite people that were killed. Then again I have also heard that they were Sunni and that the attackers came from the direction of Alawite dominated villages.

It is not exactly impossible to believe that a dictator would attack his own people to secure his position but I still find it hard to believe that with the whole international community busting his balls, Assad would be so reckless as to allow massacres such as these. When I make this point, the only real response I get is along the lines of "well he is a murderous dictator and so he doesnt think like a logical person" which I always find a bit lacking. But yeah, I havent made my mind up really on the Syria thing, and I find it difficult to considering the level of misinformation coming from our media, the opposition and of course Assad's government itself and also its allies.

Yes, it does seem that the UN observers are hardly having a great effect. However, waiting a peacekeeping force until it is a 'last resort' just does not seem right; especially when more and more people are being killed.

TH west wont step in the only reason it intervened in libya was it felt the middle east would begin to embrace democracy, now that Islamist have been elected in the countries, the west relaliases helping Syria would only be digging its own grave.

By "Liberating" syria the west would only be cropping up more enemies for the itself.

"Islam itself has never been an enemy to the west". Islam and the west have been fighting for over a mellieium and yes its Islam the aggressor, no it not Islam mistranslated or "taken out of context" its the real islam. In-fact Islam is an an enemy to all people who are not Muslim, just take a look at its history.

It's pretty simple: evil dictator rules a country (I think no one here is under the illusion that Assad is a democratic, altruistic statesman), has a terrible reputation and after the Arab spring started, dubious islamists and criminals hijacked peaceful demonstrations to wage their own war on the regime which, due to its (rightfully) bad reputation, is an easy target for the media.


Who is on the bad side? Both Assad as well as the militant opposition.
Who is on the good side? No one.

Who is left suffering? The people who initially wanted to initiate a peaceful change.

The general fear of the west would more be to do with muslim Theocracy e.g Iran than any Muslim Democracy e.g. Tunisia because in Theocracies you have Religious fundamentalists in control of the state, In Iran's case on the verge of acquiring a nuclear weapon - religious fundamentalists with a nuke, when these people harbour literal beliefs about the end of the world and the return of the messiah it is dangerous them having their fingers on the button no? And have we the west of yet ever declared war on the Entire population of a Muslim country, no we declared war on The Taliban, who in Afghanistan sheltered international terrorists of alkieda and ruled by fear and oppression. The Enemy is the fundamentalist - and what will be seen by them as grounds for hostilities will be such things as educating woman, maintaining a religiously plural society - so if you want avoid hostilities with these people, we the west will have to capitulate a lot before they are happy.

The problem is simply that people are too ignorant to know what the enemy is. Of course we need to completely oppose any fundamentalism. Yet some people are too ignorant to differentiate between genuine Muslims and extremists Muslims, so they consider all Muslims as the enemy. Which is not only wrong, it is also counter-productive since it starts alienating those Muslims who are actually reasonable and simply gives the extremists another ally.

The general fear of the west would more be to do with muslim Theocracy e.g Iran than any Muslim Democracy e.g. Tunisia because in Theocracies you have Religious fundamentalists in control of the state, In Iran's case on the verge of acquiring a nuclear weapon - religious fundamentalists with a nuke, when these people harbour literal beliefs about the end of the world and the return of the messiah it is dangerous them having their fingers on the button no? And have we the west of yet ever declared war on the Entire population of a Muslim country, no we declared war on The Taliban, who in Afghanistan sheltered international terrorists of alkieda and ruled by fear and oppression. The Enemy is the fundamentalist - and what will be seen by them as grounds for hostilities will be such things as educating woman, maintaining a religiously plural society - so if you want avoid hostilities with these people, we the west will have to capitulate a lot before they are happy.



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