[prog2djent]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012...?newsfeed=true

If you aren't going to read the article, basically the "Free Syrian Army" (a mish-mash of Mercenaries, exiles, Salafist-Jihadists, Afghan, Iraqi and Lebanese Militants, or all heroic freedom fighters according to major western media sources), led the reporter down a firing line in the hope he would be killed by the Syrian Army, a quasi-false flag operation.

What's worrying is that one here, over news call in shows, opinion polls, even my own parents, are leaning towards "something has to be done, we need to intervene and stop Assad". This is absolute ******* propoganda. There are various videos flying round youtube of rebels dressing up as solidiers and killing various people, saying they'll send the news in the al-jazeera for obvious reasons.

Stability is the last thing the US and NATO want in Syria, and that's why they support these rebels.

[Aj12]

Right or wrong in this situation I find it just as disturbing that the Syrian government has free fire zones in cities.

Something else I have noticed about this whole thing in Syria, those that claim that the BBC and Western media are just spouting propaganda seem to blindly accept what the Syrian Russian and Chinese media have to say with a completely blind faith when these countries have a far worse record than the West could match even if it tried.

Im currently trawling through conspiracy sites or alternate media or whatever you want to call it to try to find the explanations that are apparently being hidden by the Western media and they are massively lacking. So far it always seems to come back to the US running the world, the NWO and Israel/Zionism being behind it , with no one explaining who these "terrorists" in Syria are or how they got so well armed and trained apart from saying the US did it with no proof whatever.

[I Kant Spall]

(Original post by prog2djent)
Stability is the last thing the US and NATO want in Syria, and that's why they support these rebels.

I think it's the opposite, actually. The West turned a blind eye to Assad's despotism in the decades prior because he left Israel alone and didn't cause too much trouble. He could even be pacified about the Golan Heights. It was and still is a regime that does not allow individuals to exercise their civil liberties, but back then it was stable.

However, this instability now is a nightmare for the West. Syria may not have natural resources but it is in an extremely inconvenient location: next to Turkey, a member of NATO; next to Israel; next to Lebanon; next to Iraq. Assad kept the plethora of religious and ethnic minorities in check, but now Syria is bursting at the seams.

If the West rallies behind the rebels, any atrocity that the rebels commit will reflect poorly upon it. Not to mention the hypocrisy of going against a ruler that they had tolerated for so long prior, as we have seen with Mubarak and Gaddafi.

[prog2djent]

(Original post by Aj12)
Right or wrong in this situation I find it just as disturbing that the Syrian government has free fire zones in cities.

Something else I have noticed about this whole thing in Syria, those that claim that the BBC and Western media are just spouting propaganda seem to blindly accept what the Syrian Russian and Chinese media have to say with a completely blind faith when these countries have a far worse record than the West could match even if it tried.

Im currently trawling through conspiracy sites or alternate media or whatever you want to call it to try to find the explanations that are apparently being hidden by the Western media and they are massively lacking. So far it always seems to come back to the US running the world, the NWO and Israel/Zionism being behind it , with no one explaining who these "terrorists" in Syria are or how they got so well armed and trained apart from saying the US did it with no proof whatever.

I'm not watching Russia Today or Chinese, Iranan PressTv, or even Memri. I'm watching videos from people in Syria, reading articles and blogs from Syrians. I can't believe the BBC even put this up http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/17425759

I recommend youtube channels TimeToFightBack1, SyrianFreedomFighter, Syriantruthnetwork, AssadBeforeAllah (not so much that one) youtube channels.

There are hundreds of bloggers aswell.

[Aj12]

(Original post by prog2djent)
I'm not watching Russia Today or Chinese, Iranan PressTv, or even Memri. I'm watching videos from people in Syria, reading articles and blogs from Syrians. I can't believe the BBC even put this up http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/17425759

I recommend youtube channels TimeToFightBack1, SyrianFreedomFighter, Syriantruthnetwork, AssadBeforeAllah (not so much that one) youtube channels.

There are hundreds of bloggers aswell.

What makes you so sure what they say is right over the other lot of videos bloggers ect that are putting out the exact opposite?

[prog2djent]

(Original post by I Kant Spall)
left Israel alone and didn't cause too much trouble.
.

Despite the fact Syria was probably the most liberal nation out of all the Asian Arab and N.African Arab nations (aside from pre Islamic revival Iran and Egypt, and current day Tunisian/Morroco),

Yes, assad left Israel alone, what with those peace talks and arming hezbollah and the PLC to the teeth.

[prog2djent]

(Original post by Aj12)
What makes you so sure what they say is right over the other lot of videos bloggers ect that are putting out the exact opposite?

Odd, because I find the bloggers who are anti-assad are mostly western journalists, and the establishment centre-right accross europe and the US.

Intervention would fit in nicely with our economic condition, secure another term of people who need it ... you know how the story goes.

Speaking of how the story goes, I can see clear similarities between this and 80's, Soviet occupied Afghanistan. Namely the US arm the Mujahideen, a group of backward Islamist space muffins, to over throw their eternal enemny, the 2nd largest super-power. Assad is backed by China, Russia, Lebannon and more importantly .. iran. I don't need to delve far into that, the US and Russia are still opposed, always will be, the Wests' relations with China are at an all time low what with iran, dollar and gold purchasing and certain comments by Obama, and actions by Cameron. US-Iran is obvious enough, which ties in with Israeli interests, i.e, Lebannon and Iran again.

Thank God the left are speaking out on intervention.

And If I remember correctly, opinion polls were (I think) 64% against intervention from the UK population, Hague seems sort of geared up for it ... economy and all. But I don't think the Tories want to fall into the same position as blair, i.e Iraq intervention, which most hated, and that was the ultimate downfall of Blair, and the first nail in labours' coffin.

Anyway 55% of Syrians are pro-assad, it was 88% before the Homs conflict.

[Aj12]

(Original post by prog2djent)
Odd, because I find the bloggers who are anti-assad are mostly western journalists, and the establishment centre-right accross europe and the US.

Intervention would fit in nicely with our economic condition, secure another term of people who need it ... you know how the story goes.

Speaking of how the story goes, I can see clear similarities between this and 80's, Soviet occupied Afghanistan. Namely the US arm the Mujahideen, a group of backward Islamist space muffins, to over throw their eternal enemny, the 2nd largest super-power. Assad is backed by China, Russia, Lebannon and more importantly .. iran. I don't need to delve far into that, the US and Russia are still opposed, always will be, the Wests' relations with China are at an all time low what with iran, dollar and gold purchasing and certain comments by Obama, and actions by Cameron. US-Iran is obvious enough, which ties in with Israeli interests, i.e, Lebannon and Iran again.

Thank God the left are speaking out on intervention.

And If I remember correctly, opinion polls were (I think) 64% against intervention from the UK population, Hague seems sort of geared up for it ... economy and all. But I don't think the Tories want to fall into the same position as blair, i.e Iraq intervention, which most hated, and that was the ultimate downfall of Blair, and the first nail in labours' coffin.

Anyway 55% of Syrians are pro-assad, it was 88% before the Homs conflict.

I don't think it would. You overrate the political usefulness of foreign policy and military action. Bar an actual attack on a nation the political gains would be negligible to an election. Obama killed Bin Laden but its hardly helped his campaign and even at the time within a few weeks after the event his poll ratings were coming down. Libya did nothing for either Sarkozy or Cameron. IF anything it would have the opposite effect. You can't claim we have no money for the welfare state among other things whilst launching what would be an expensive military operation.

Can you source the 55% of Syrians bit? Even if the majority of Syrians do support Assad it does not give him the right to use military force against what were at the start anyway peaceful protests.

[prog2djent]

(Original post by Aj12)
I don't think it would. You overrate the political usefulness of foreign policy and military action. Bar an actual attack on a nation the political gains would be negligible to an election. Obama killed Bin Laden but its hardly helped his campaign and even at the time within a few weeks after the event his poll ratings were coming down. Libya did nothing for either Sarkozy or Cameron. IF anything it would have the opposite effect. You can't claim we have no money for the welfare state among other things whilst launching what would be an expensive military operation.

Can you source the 55% of Syrians bit? Even if the majority of Syrians do support Assad it does not give him the right to use military force against what were at the start anyway peaceful protests.

Agreed.

And there are various sources, just type "Assad Poll 55%" and google will have relavent suggestions for lots of pages, decide for yourself which is the most credible

Libya is a completely different situation though, an all out civil war, whereas Syria is at the most 15,000 FSA rebels and then scattered militias vs Assad's army, russian and iranian support and the majority of the population of his own country, and surrounding countries. The only people against him are Saudi Arabia, the US, Israel and Gulf States, which is never a good mix, ah em, ah em, bin laden.

[Lord-Voldemort]

The problem with this Arab Spring is that we are having to choose between the lesser of two evils, but not actually knowing which is the lesser.

[Darth Stewie]

look military intervention is not an option for us, any statements to the opposite is political penis waving. Everyone in any position of power knows how much propaganda is being pumped out of Syria and how absolutely pointless us going in would be. Syria is not France, they will not respond well to a foreign army entering their country. Despite how good our intentions are we meddle, we tell them what to think and how to act which is something people in that part of the world don't respond well to.

You don't have to worry about our military going into Syria, it won't happen despite how much propaganda the media peddles.

[Highlander03]

(Original post by Aj12)
I don't think it would. You overrate the political usefulness of foreign policy and military action. Bar an actual attack on a nation the political gains would be negligible to an election. Obama killed Bin Laden but its hardly helped his campaign and even at the time within a few weeks after the event his poll ratings were coming down. Libya did nothing for either Sarkozy or Cameron. IF anything it would have the opposite effect. You can't claim we have no money for the welfare state among other things whilst launching what would be an expensive military operation.

Can you source the 55% of Syrians bit? Even if the majority of Syrians do support Assad it does not give him the right to use military force against what were at the start anyway peaceful protests.

That statistic seems like horsecrap to me too. It seems it was conducted by Qatar. "The poll conducted by YouGov Siraj questioned more than 1,000 people in the Arab world between December 14 and 19. " I honestly think that the majority of his supporters are a part of his own 12% minority. And an additional 15% roughly due to spreading fear amongst other minorities. Given the majority of the protesters are from the 70% sunni majority, I truly fail to see how he can have major support from Syrians.


This was posted from The Student Room's Android App on my GT-I9100

[Highlander03]

(Original post by Darth Stewie)
look military intervention is not an option for us, any statements to the opposite is political penis waving. Everyone in any position of power knows how much propaganda is being pumped out of Syria and how absolutely pointless us going in would be. Syria is not France, they will not respond well to a foreign army entering their country. Despite how good our intentions are we meddle, we tell them what to think and how to act which is something people in that part of the world don't respond well to.

You don't have to worry about our military going into Syria, it won't happen despite how much propaganda the media peddles.

Forget foreign ground intervention. Most people are against that anyway. Arming them should be enough. If they`re not willing to even consider that, then the UN can do us all a favour and stop acting like it actually cares.

This was posted from The Student Room's Android App on my GT-I9100

[Aj12]

(Original post by prog2djent)
Agreed.

And there are various sources, just type "Assad Poll 55%" and google will have relavent suggestions for lots of pages, decide for yourself which is the most credible

Libya is a completely different situation though, an all out civil war, whereas Syria is at the most 15,000 FSA rebels and then scattered militias vs Assad's army, russian and iranian support and the majority of the population of his own country, and surrounding countries. The only people against him are Saudi Arabia, the US, Israel and Gulf States, which is never a good mix, ah em, ah em, bin laden.

From what I can find of the poll 55% of Syrians support Assad over civil war. That's a little different from outright supporting him. Given the alternative of civil war or a dictatorship most people will pick the latter. I know I would. But if the question was would you rather have Assad or free elections, X, Y or Z the results would be a little different i'd imagine. The poll also seemed to only ask 1000 Arabs rather than the whole group being Syrians. This is what I can find from the sources out there which tend to just be blogs linking to other blogs.

I think its a bit more than that. Just armed resistance, IE the free Syria army is small, that's pretty obvious or they would be able to hold territory. But the outright opposition to Assad I think is much larger. There have been protests involving hundreds of thousands of Syrians, Syria since the start has been reluctant to see large scale armed uprisings and it took a hell of a long time for violence to become more accepted. To sum up I'm basically saying there is far more to this than just the FSA.

[Dirac Delta Function]

(Original post by prog2djent)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012...?newsfeed=true

If you aren't going to read the article, basically the "Free Syrian Army" (a mish-mash of Mercenaries, exiles, Salafist-Jihadists, Afghan, Iraqi and Lebanese Militants, or all heroic freedom fighters according to major western media sources), led the reporter down a firing line in the hope he would be killed by the Syrian Army, a quasi-false flag operation.

What's worrying is that one here, over news call in shows, opinion polls, even my own parents, are leaning towards "something has to be done, we need to intervene and stop Assad". This is absolute ******* propoganda. There are various videos flying round youtube of rebels dressing up as solidiers and killing various people, saying they'll send the news in the al-jazeera for obvious reasons.

Stability is the last thing the US and NATO want in Syria, and that's why they support these rebels.

Absolute ****ers.

There's no "good side" in this war, it's Ba'athist tyrants vs Salafi *****.

[Dhaal_Chawal]

(Original post by Dirac Delta Function)
Absolute ****ers.

There's no "good side" in this war, it's Ba'athist tyrants vs Salafi *****.

Do you have proof most of them are Salafi's? I really doubt most of them are. The Salafis are just tying to jump on the bandwagon.

[Dirac Delta Function]

(Original post by Dhaal_Chawal)
Do you have proof most of them are Salafi's? I really doubt most of them are. The Salafis are just tying to jump on the bandwagon.

They're fully on the bandwagon, they jumped on long ago.

[Dhaal_Chawal]

(Original post by Dirac Delta Function)
They're fully on the bandwagon, they jumped on long ago.

Still, most of them aren't Salafis. What do you think will happen once Assad is overthrown, it will turn into an authoritarian religious Saudi like state? Very unlikely.

[SnoochToTheBooch]

well don't go to ****ing syria then. jesus. he put himself in harm's way and now he's dead.

[Dirac Delta Function]

(Original post by Dhaal_Chawal)
Still, most of them aren't Salafis. What do you think will happen once Assad is overthrown, it will turn into a religious Saudi like state? Very unlikely.

Hard to say.