[Darkphilosopher]

(Original post by Giant)
Despite his atrocious actions, I must say President Assad is quite clever. He knows he can get away with it, due to Obama's reelection this year and backing from Russia and China.

How can we let something as trivial as International Politics allow people to get away with these horrendous crimes! Disgusting.

Potentially starting a world war certainly isn't "trivial".

[TheHansa]

(Original post by *Hakz*)
I don't understand why the so called world savers (US) haven't done anything about this situation. It's been going on for ages.

The UN says no thanks to Russia and China who are allied with Al-Assad, and going against UN resolutions defeats the point of it.

[Giant]

(Original post by Darkphilosopher)
Potentially starting a world war certainly isn't "trivial".

That is a valid and fair point. But I was trying to emphasise the blame on the parts of Russia and China - that they shouldn't let personal relations with Assad or their own interests (however justified they are) come before the interests of those who are dying.

I am not too sure in what Russia and China have invested in Syria, other than having a Middle East Ally, but I think the time has come to let this friendship go, because their trust has been broken in such a violent way.

[M4LLY]

Again? Really?

[rawkus]

A Local Coordination Committees activist reported that the Syrian army began shelling the village with tanks at 7pm local time. After the shelling, militias loyal to Assad were reported to have entered the village and executed civilians with knives and AK-47s.

I am not defending Assad, in fact if the opposition remained a popular and peaceful revolt using the methods outlined by Gene Sharp, I would be fully and unconditionally backing it. Everyone seems to be jumping on the back of this "Assad is such a monster and evil guy" which I don't doubt he is. After all you don't come out a nice guy having repressed any sort of opposition in the last 10 years.

Still, with reporting like that quoted, this doesn't make sense. Lets say that this people were peaceful protesters and forces loyal to Assad bombed them. Why? Why would they have felt the need to have shelled peaceful protesters when it is such a waste of arms? Surely if they were intent on killing, it would have been much more effective to have surrounded them and mown them down with gunfire as opposed to scaring them away and then chasing them? Considering this guy is trying to hang on to power, surely he would know that massacring a bunch of people for no reason, especially women and children, is a PR disaster? Surely he knows such pointless and horrific actions is only going to push the world closer to sending a coalition in to depose him? None of this makes sense with regards to these past two massacres and I cannot believe that more people on a students forum are not questioning this more? The few people that I have seen say anything are either the well known anti-us crusaders who automatically ruin their position and those who arent are immediately shot down as "apologists". Surely there is nothing apologetic about questioning something that makes very little, if any sense at all?

He is a dictator, not a spacker. He knows that the more women and children he kills, the more support he will lose from both those who remain on his side in the country and in the international community? Someone please explain to me what he has to gain/ his motivations behind such actions beyond the primary school level line of thinking that "he is evil, nasty and unstable"?

(Original post by Aj12)
Yes.I am sure in the run up to Iraq Blair was merely waiting till public opinion favoured him.... It's.not like huge swathes of public.opinion were against him or that there were marches of over a million people.against the war. It takes far more than public opinion behind you to launch a war without un backing. You make it seem as if the public.supported an intervention we would be in there tomorrow.



This was posted from The Student Room's Android App on my LT18i

Indeed it does, I agree that public backing is not a sufficient factor but it is necessary. If you also remember, these anti-war protesters were made out to be silly, naive hippies for a murderous regime intent on destroying the west by the main stream press. The majority of us supported the war as it was supposed to be protecting us from certain destruction. Equally in 1999, all major news outlets were full of stories of a modern holocaust and 100s of thousands dead (which werent actually based on any solid reports) in Kosovo in order to justify going behind the UNs back to bomb not just Serbian military targets in the disputed region, but also the bombing of a hospital in Niis, South Serbia and targets in the far north of the country. Now, sarcasm is only effective if the original comment was completely false and stupid. Im sure I have my fair share of such comments but the last one was certainly not one of these.

[Aj12]

(Original post by rawkus)
I am not defending Assad, in fact if the opposition remained a popular and peaceful revolt using the methods outlined by Gene Sharp, I would be fully and unconditionally backing it. Everyone seems to be jumping on the back of this "Assad is such a monster and evil guy" which I don't doubt he is. After all you don't come out a nice guy having repressed any sort of opposition in the last 10 years.

Still, with reporting like that quoted, this doesn't make sense. Lets say that this people were peaceful protesters and forces loyal to Assad bombed them. Why? Why would they have felt the need to have shelled peaceful protesters when it is such a waste of arms? Surely if they were intent on killing, it would have been much more effective to have surrounded them and mown them down with gunfire as opposed to scaring them away and then chasing them? Considering this guy is trying to hang on to power, surely he would know that massacring a bunch of people for no reason, especially women and children, is a PR disaster? Surely he knows such pointless and horrific actions is only going to push the world closer to sending a coalition in to depose him? None of this makes sense with regards to these past two massacres and I cannot believe that more people on a students forum are not questioning this more? The few people that I have seen say anything are either the well known anti-us crusaders who automatically ruin their position and those who arent are immediately shot down as "apologists". Surely there is nothing apologetic about questioning something that makes very little, if any sense at all?

He is a dictator, not a spacker. He knows that the more women and children he kills, the more support he will lose from both those who remain on his side in the country and in the international community? Someone please explain to me what he has to gain/ his motivations behind such actions beyond the primary school level line of thinking that "he is evil, nasty and unstable"?



Indeed it does, I agree that public backing is not a sufficient factor but it is necessary. If you also remember, these anti-war protesters were made out to be silly, naive hippies for a murderous regime intent on destroying the west by the main stream press. The majority of us supported the war as it was supposed to be protecting us from certain destruction. Equally in 1999, all major news outlets were full of stories of a modern holocaust and 100s of thousands dead (which werent actually based on any solid reports) in Kosovo in order to justify going behind the UNs back to bomb not just Serbian military targets in the disputed region, but also the bombing of a hospital in Niis, South Serbia and targets in the far north of the country. Now, sarcasm is only effective if the original comment was completely false and stupid. Im sure I have my fair share of such comments but the last one was certainly not one of these.

If its Houla that you are referring to above then this might interest you, I haven't got an online source for it since I read it in the Times but you should be able to find one if you do some googling. Anyway the massacre started off with protests at a near by checkpoint, they were shot at so armed rebels attacked the checkpoint causing the military to shell the town, after this a militia affiliated with Assad went into the town and carried out the massacre. That's my understanding of what happened. I have found it incredibly annoying that the circumstances surrounding the massacre are usually ignored by the media with most just focusing on the death count not why it happened.

[Perseveranze]

(Original post by rawkus)
He is a dictator, not a spacker. He knows that the more women and children he kills, the more support he will lose from both those who remain on his side in the country and in the international community? Someone please explain to me what he has to gain/ his motivations behind such actions beyond the primary school level line of thinking that "he is evil, nasty and unstable"?

Whether Assad called the shot for the massacre is another matter. What we can probably say is that the massacre was done by Pro-Assad supporters, there are eye witnesses to attest to that.

[TheHansa]

(Original post by rawkus)
I am not defending Assad, in fact if the opposition remained a popular and peaceful revolt using the methods outlined by Gene Sharp, I would be fully and unconditionally backing it. Everyone seems to be jumping on the back of this "Assad is such a monster and evil guy" which I don't doubt he is. After all you don't come out a nice guy having repressed any sort of opposition in the last 10 years.

What is the opposition meant to do when Assad's men are killing civilians, it's not pleasant but someones got to fight to defend them.

[DawnRaider]

(Original post by TheHansa)
What is the opposition meant to do when Assad's men are killing civilians, it's not pleasant but someones got to fight to defend them.

Anyone else jsut think this is another place where one nasty guy and his army are squabbling for a power with another bunch of nasty guys. Isnt that just the story of the region as a whole

and ps, does anyone know what religion this dude is?

[AspiringGenius]

They need to take Assad out.

[TheHansa]

(Original post by DawnRaider)
Anyone else jsut think this is another place where one nasty guy and his army are squabbling for a power with another bunch of nasty guys. Isnt that just the story of the region as a whole

and ps, does anyone know what religion this dude is?

I think it has more to do with what both Assad and his father have done in the past it only takes a small thing to set of the rage that has been building up, the FSA has taken on a job where they know they'll probably die but Assad's men have laid siege to cities and they know if his army is allowed to march in it will be a bloodbath.

Assad is Shia, the country is majority Sunni and he has commanded massacres against Sunnis in the past.

[Fires]

The sight of Assad and his wifey in that C4 film where they are driving around being all middle-class and lovely is literally enough to make one reach for the meat cleaver.

Not to mention seeing that vile little body Putin snarking up to the Chinese and agreeing to do ****-all so they can spite the US.

I seriously question why we are all buying goods from China and having things made in China. They have NIL respect for us, NIL respect for our values and NIL respect for human rights.

[rawkus]

(Original post by TheHansa)
What is the opposition meant to do when Assad's men are killing civilians, it's not pleasant but someones got to fight to defend them.

Lol, you haven't even attempted to answer my question (which is a genuine question, not me trying to expose everything as lies) you merely cut out a paragraph which was related to the whole question and took issue with it.

If it can be proved that these people are defending civilians and only defending civillians, then I completely agree, in fact I dont think anyone can take issue with that. but a) they clearly not just defending the civillians and b) going back to my original question which you didnt answer:

Why would Assad just embark on a campaign of killing civilians? What would that achieve? In the same way that I would question it if Press TV announced during the London riots that the Conservative government had given orders to fire on innocent civilians I am questioning this?

It seems to have been overlooked by everyone as to WHY he and his forces would do such a thing? He doesnt achieve anything by randomly deciding to fire upon people asking for reforms, and then later on shelling a town full of civllians before dispatching troops to massacre them in a hideous manner.

By doing that he isnt "crushing dissent" and detering others from joining in the rebellion, rather by deliberately killing innocent women and children he would be merely encouraging rebellion and making those who so far have remained loyal, to defect. Equally, doing such things when he knows the whole world is watching and that certain nations are just waiting for an excuse to send a "peace keeping force" over there to depose him is non nonsensical. He isnt a retard no matter how oppressive and nasty he isnt meant to be, so please explain to me why he would kill hundreds of women and children, especially when on both occasions the UN security councils were to convene?

(Original post by Perseveranze)
Whether Assad called the shot for the massacre is another matter. What we can probably say is that the massacre was done by Pro-Assad supporters, there are eye witnesses to attest to that.

There were also witnesses on the ground that said those killed were pro-alawite who would be unlikely to be killed by pro assad forces. considering that we get our information largely from the people who are fighting to get rid of Assad, I dont think we can believe their accounts of everything with 100% belief any more than we can do with believing Assad's account that the oppositiona re all islamist terrorists.

By the way, didnt you describe most of the mainstream media's reporting of Libya's events as lies?

[Perseveranze]

(Original post by rawkus)
There were also witnesses on the ground that said those killed were pro-alawite who would be unlikely to be killed by pro assad forces. considering that we get our information largely from the people who are fighting to get rid of Assad, I dont think we can believe their accounts of everything with 100% belief any more than we can do with believing Assad's account that the oppositiona re all islamist terrorists.

"Islamist terrorists", I wish that was true (regarding the first part), but no, they're not Islamists. Although heavily influenced by their religion to do Jihad, they don't intend to bring about an Islamic state or Caliphate. It'll most likely be similar to what happened in Libya, where a democratic-like situation would occur with Islam in general, no longer being oppressed.

I would be interested in hearing what your sources are for "eye witnesses who said pro-alawite were killed" are.

(Original post by rawkus)
By the way, didnt you describe most of the mainstream media's reporting of Libya's events as lies?

Doubtful, I never supported Gaddafi.

[layabout_guy]

The cost of dealing with the Syrian situation (removal of Asad and co) is to many not worth the reward (Obama re-elect year, Russian arms deals with Asad) until profit is to be made by intervening then things will stay as they are