Military Events in Syria and Iraq thread #3

[CptBork]

I have no interest in other people moralizing about who they think the good guys or bad guys are. (I have NO respect for or interest in any of your moral opinions, about anything).

Well unfortunately for you, that's exactly what Schmelzer's been doing all along with his "another good news" posts.

This thread was intended to be about objective facts, about real physical events on the ground.

Then the thread shouldn't be given over to conspiracy blogs and one-sided re-posts of Kremlin and Ayatollah propaganda while everything else is summarily dismissed as "fake news".

I have no problem with what Schmelzer is doing... I like the guy.

Great, go cheer for him and his one-sided propaganda on a private blog somewhere.

The fact that some of you hate Russia while Schmelzer seemingly likes it, is largely irrelevant to what's really happening in Syria.

What's relevant to Syria are facts, like hospitals being bombed and civilians being tortured to death. Schmelzer needs to prove that the news is fake if he wants to summarily dismiss it while continuing to post his neo-Soviet fairy tales.

 

[CptBork]

Hm, let's try if there were such links in July...

What I find is https://twitter.com/RudawEnglish/status/758611554657005568 Which, twitter claims, was posted 28. July. So, even if there would have been somewhere an error about the date, what would the point of falsifying it, once there anyway have been such twits in July?

You don't allow for the fact that bombed hospitals were frequently repaired (at least partially) and continued to operate afterwards, until being attacked once again. You continue to ignore that several of the posts referred to "last hospitals" in different regions of Aleppo, rather than one single region. Furthermore, you cite the misinformed posts of ordinary Twitter "twits" and equate them to "mainstream media" in a deliberate effort to discredit the latter. Your news source is demonstrably mistaken, and I therefore ask you to retract the claim that the aerial hospital bombings are fake news, unless you have proper evidence to back this claim.

 

[Schmelzer]

What's relevant to Syria are facts, like hospitals being bombed and civilians being tortured to death. Schmelzer needs to prove that the news is fake if he wants to summarily dismiss it while continuing to post his neo-Soviet fairy tales.

I don't have to prove that what I don't believe is really false, those who make claims have to support them with evidence from sources they consider as reliable. If I don't consider your sources as reliable, you have to live with that.

You don't allow for the fact that bombed hospitals were frequently repaired (at least partially) and continued to operate afterwards, until being attacked once again.

Wrong. I allow you to believe whatever you want. But, sorry, I'm not obliged to believe neither the claims themselves, nor the various imaginable excuses, and I don't believe them.

... and I therefore ask you to retract the claim that the aerial hospital bombings are fake news, unless you have proper evidence to back this claim.

I have not made any such claim. If you don't get it - the very point of such a collection is not at all that any particular one of them is a fake. Here, again, what I have written:

I'm quite comfortable with you discrediting yourself by openly believing NATO propaganda. It is not my problem, but your problem, if you believe in "last hospitals in Aleppo destroyed by Russian airstrikes"

 

[Yazata]

Here's another map of the situation in northern Hama as of Sunday April 2, 2017.

http://www.edmaps.com/html/northern_hama_april_2_2017.html

If the rebels' goal was to reach, establish themselves inside, and perhaps even to take the city of Hama, then their offensive appears to have failed. All they succeeded in doing was temporarily taking a few small farms and villages around the edge of the Taybat al Imam salient near Hama. The Syrian army seems to be methodically retaking them.

 

[Schmelzer]

During the last two days there were mainly artillery preparations, today the Syrian army has started attacking again. Actually, Iskanderiya and Maardez have been liberated. So, the actual map may be something like this, (even if in some aspects, especially South of Halfaya and North of Mahardah, it looks far too pessimistic):

There are claims that the Syrian army starts to attack Souran.

 

[joepistole]

The war in Syria has moved to Mother Russia as was predicted when Mother Putin entered the war. What a great job Mother Putin has done. He has caused the destruction of a Russian airliner with the lives of all aboard forfeited, and now he has caused the deaths of many more Russians in the Russian homeland. And on top of all that, several tens of thousands are protesting in the street. The Russian economy is in a prolonged recession and thanks to Mother Putina its few military resources are overstretched as well. The West will once again observe the collapse of the Russian state.

Russia, i.e. Putinia, is repeating the mistakes of the old Soviet Union. What a great guy - aside from all his war crimes and human rights violations of course!

 

[Schmelzer]

Nice to see that it is so easy for terrorists to make joepistole happy.

Whatever, after some rest the Syrian army has started again doing something in East Aleppo, taking two villages near the Jirah airbase. Looks like the want to continue advancing in this region too.

 

[joepistole]

Nice to see that it is so easy for terrorists to make joepistole happy.

It's time to be honest comrade. I didn't say that or even infer it. I did predict it. You denied it, and now it has happened as predicted.

 

[Schmelzer]

It's time to be honest comrade. I didn't say that or even infer it. I did predict it. You denied it, and now it has happened as predicted.

Nonsense, I never denied that there may be terrorist attacks in Russia. The danger of such attacks was obvious, given that there have been thousands of Russian-speaking jihadists in Syria, and the open wish of Daesh in some future to take also Russian territory. What I think is that the danger of such attacks will be, in the overall and the long run, lower than if Russia has not started to fight these terrorists.

In particular, one consequence of the Russian participation is that the terrorists run our of money, and have now to slash salaries: https://www.almasdarnews.com/articl...ebel-fighters-amid-dwindling-foreign-support/

Its fine that you do not admit that you are happy. This shows that there are at least some remains of moral knowledge that openly supporting such terrorists would be amoral. But, given your hatred against Russia, and your reaction to this terrorist act, you denial sounds not very plausible.

 

[joepistole]

Nonsense, I never denied that there may be terrorist attacks in Russia. The danger of such attacks was obvious, given that there have been thousands of Russian-speaking jihadists in Syria, and the open wish of Daesh in some future to take also Russian territory. What I think is that the danger of such attacks will be, in the overall and the long run, lower than if Russia has not started to fight these terrorists.

In particular, one consequence of the Russian participation is that the terrorists run our of money, and have now to slash salaries: https://www.almasdarnews.com/articl...ebel-fighters-amid-dwindling-foreign-support/

Its fine that you do not admit that you are happy. This shows that there are at least some remains of moral knowledge that openly supporting such terrorists would be amoral. But, given your hatred against Russia, and your reaction to this terrorist act, you denial sounds not very plausible.

I don't hate Russia or Russians. I do not like Putinia. I don't like what he has done. I don't like what Russia has become. After the collapse of the Soviet Union I had high hopes for Russia, that Russia could become a responsible member of the community of nations. But unfortunately, that's not what has happened. Russia has regressed to the Soviet days of corruption and authoritarian rule.

 

[Bells]

I have asked in #529 for a link to this "section of the rules in regards to propaganda" and received no answer.

Oh you didn't get the link?

What does this have to do with the information I give here about the military events in Syria? The information I give is about what happens in Syria. There is no aim to proclaim some superiority - instead, the aim is to give information about the actual events.

Right..

Let's see.. Just a random post of yours on page 28..

Quite good day in Northern Hama. The hills taken yesterday have given something today, four villages in the region between Tal Shiya and Tal Saman and West of Tal Saman have been liberated today.

There was also some quite heavy fighting around an army position known as Nr. 50, with Al Qaida attacking it heavily, finally taking it, but losing it again after a counterattack. Similarly, there has been a quite heavy attack in the Northern part, around Kernaz. Finally it ended without any gains for the attacking terrorists too, but where were intermediately claims about some village they have taken. Not clear if this was wishful thinking or an intermediate success which has later been lost.

Your "quite a good day", was indeed, well, disturbing to say the least.

Syrian human rights groups reported on what you deemed "quite a good day in Northern Hama"..

Also the escalation of shelling yesterday have injured tens of people and caused cases of suffocation, and several reliable sources confirmed to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that the number of injuries have exceeded 50 people, in the bombing on al-Lataminah, Arzah, al-Zowwar, the vicinity of Qamhana and other areas in the countryside of Hama.​

You aren't just proclaiming superiority, Schmelzer, you are calling actions with result in people suffocating to death and dozens injured as being part of a "good day". What part of that day was good for you? When people suffocated to death? Or when the Syrian army shelled it to pieces, resulting in suffocation? Just out of curiousity, because you seem to be giving information on what is literally the deaths of dozens of people daily, with absolute glee and praising those who cause the deaths. Do you feel any sense of remorse for any of that?

There is a complete lack of objectivity in what you are reporting. There's updates, and then there's stuff that comes out of the propaganda war mill, such as this..

In Hama, the Syrian army starts to attack, today several hills have been taken:

It reads like propaganda. It's a type of hyping up the people. Countries at war often use this manner of speech, to rally the troops and the populace.. This is literally the kind of thing leaders bellow into microphones with gravitas and a fist raised in the air. To the one, it's kind of tacky, but the disturbing thing is that you completely disregard the mass levels of casualties resulting for these conflicts, completely ignore them really, and instead focus on how these are good days for the side you are on.

For example:

The hills taken yesterday have given something today, four villages in the region between Tal Shiya and Tal Saman and West of Tal Saman have been liberated today.​

If this was not real life and people were not dying, it literally sounds like the rallying speeches one finds in movies before and during battles.

You aren't reporting the news, Schmelzer... Reporting the news means a sense of objectivity. It does not mean calling days where dozens of civilians are suffocated to death and dozens more injured "good days"..

Ok, I believe that the secular Syrian government is superior to the rule of islamic fundamentalism as proposed by Daesh or Al Qaida, but it this is not the topic in this thread. I'm not at all preaching anything in favor of Assad, which is, imho, simply the least evil in that war. The same holds for other politicians too - I'm a libertarian anarchist, and reject all government as inherently evil, so there is in general only a question about less evil government.

I honestly do not care which side you are on.

If you wish to report the daily occurrences in the horror unfolding in Syria, then perhaps being a bit more objective and not sounding like you are reading the news on State controlled media, from a script handed to them by the State, might be better, don't you think?

Also, I do not think you are a libertarian anarchist. If you were, you would not support regimes who murder their opposition and who repeatedly refuse to hold free elections and open fire on their citizens for requesting free elections.

If you object that I name military organizations which fight the Syrian government "terrorists", and talk about "good news" if the Syrian government has some success in its fight against these groups, then, please, describe precise rules. Which organizations I'm allowed to name "terrorists"? Those accepted by the UN as terrorist organizations? Or, as usual, all organizations which fight, with military means, the government of the country? Can you give me a list of organizations I'm not allowed to name terrorists, or where I'm forbidden to name it "good news" if they loose in the fight with the government? A question to you in some sense similar to the one asked by the reporter in https://twitter.com/Souria4Syrians/status/761248812254031872 - I would simply like to hear some clear criteria.

If you have some other objections, beyond naming some possibly US-supported groups "terrorists" and a success of the government against such groups "good news", please details, with a quote as an example.

And here we go again with the propaganda..

You are just proving my point.

I do not believe all the groups fighting against Assad's regime are terrorist groups. You claim to be a "libertarian anarchist", but you have fallen right into line and you are parroting the exact same thing that the despotic leader of Syria spouts. That all who oppose him are terrorists and are treated as such. It's a very strong narrative to ensure the populace accepts what he is doing. After all, any political dissent means torture and likely death in Syria. Labeling the opposition as terrorists is a means to silence and destroy them.

Unless of course you wish to forget and ignore that this conflict started after Assad had his troops opened fire on people who were protesting for free and democratic elections in Syria?

Was that a "good day" in your opinion in the fight against people who were suddenly labeled terrorists by the regime?

I would also like to hear a clarification which type of behavior on my side is forbidden behind the IMHO meaningless accusation of "treating this thread like your blog". Maybe I'm not allowed to post something until somebody else posts something? Again, I have no ability to create a discussion here, I can only post what I think is important for the topic "Military Events in Syria and Iraq".

To be honest with you, you do treat it like a blog. Anyone who attempts to discuss these topics in this thread, who voice an opinion, you come down on them like a tonne of bricks, disregard what they say entirely, claim it is false and just carry on posting.

You are using sites like StormFront, which asks people to "swallow the red pill", and your sources are incredibly biased.

As such, you aren't really open to discussion in this thread. Your sources are exceptionally questionable and biased and you are touting how it's a good day, while ignoring dozens of deaths, you parrot the regime's lines about how their opposition are terrorists. You have turned this thread into a blog.

You want to post updates? Sure. How about you do so in a way that is a bit more balanced and less gleeful of events that result in dozens of deaths and you cite your sources and ensure those sources are balanced and not mouth pieces for either side?

Sound fair to you?

Can you support this imho nonsensical accusation with some example, and some explanation why you think so?

This has already been addressed in this post.

 

[joepistole]

This is your "good day" Comrade Schmeltzer:

Unfortunately for your Russian comrades and Assad's thugs, the rest of the world doesn't agree.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/04/world/middleeast/syria-gas-attack.html?_r=0

 

[Yazata]

I'm noticing that a number of Sciforums' moralists are taking over this thread. Apparently Schmelzer indicating that approves of advances by the Syrian government is unacceptable. It's being called "propaganda".

"Putina"... isn't using the feminine version of Putin's name that way misogynist? As if suggesting fancifully that he is somehow feminine is putting him down. "Comrade"... Earth to Sciforums: the Cold War ended some 27 years ago. Russia isn't communist any more. (China is, but our media opinion-leaders tell us to like China.)

There's lots of talk about people dying. Supposedly people dying in Syria means that everyone should hate the Russians or something. (Despite its scientistic pretensions, Sciforums has always been more about emotion than logic.) Of course, the Russians didn't start the Syrian civil war, the rebels did. In wars, people are guaranteed to get hurt. The rebels refuse to admit they've failed and lay down their weapons, prolonging the bloodshed. So it seems to me that there is plenty of blame on both sides. It isn't "good-guys (rebels) versus bad-guys (Assad and Russia)", like some would like to frame it.

In post #536, I wrote this:

"I think that since 2003, the history of the Middle East has shown the folly of creating power vacuums by overthrowing tyrants with little or no thought to what will replace them. We saw it in Iraq, which spiraled into being a failed state once Saddam was overthrown. We saw it in Libya which spiraled into a failed state once Qaddafi was overthrown. We saw it in Yemen. We saw it in Egypt where the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak led to the Muslim Brotherhood taking control. (Luckily the Egyptian military was able to take back control.) And we saw it decades earlier in Somalia, when the Siad Barre dictatorship collapsed. (Somalia might never recover.)

Given that history, I'm skeptical about all the breezy moralistic talk about how overthrowing Assad will be a good thing for the Syrian people and for the world. The obvious question is: What is supposed to replace Assad?

Assad is a brutal dictator, I think that we can all agree on that.

But frankly, I don't see any realistic path to his being replaced by anything better. The "rebels" are a loose and disorganized assortment of mostly radical Islamist groups. If they ever ended up in control in Damascus, they would immediately start fighting among themselves for supremacy. They generally favor imposition of strict shariah law and driving all non-Sunnis out of Syria. That's millions of people, some of them historic communities there since late antiquity. More than one of the stronger and currently ascendant rebel groups are current or former al Qaeda affiliates.

So I think that the most realistic, achievable and least harmful path forward is Assad reasserting his tyranny. It will be ugly, but it looks to me like the best of a collection of bad options.

I don't really favor the United States or its allies (like Australia) allying with Assad. He's too smelly and nasty for that. So let the less fastidious (and more desperate) Russians do it. I don't see how Syria returning to its historical position as a Russian client will hurt any vital US interests. It would help US interests since the US has no interest in any more countries in that part of the world devolving into anarchy.

A patchwork Syria "ruled" by dozens of competing radical Islamist militias is in neither the American, the Australian or the world's interest."

I still stand by it.

My point is that in Syria, there aren't any good guys. (Maybe individually, like the Syrian Red Crescent or something, but not any good guys with any chance of winning the all-against-all civil war.) So the best path for Syria is probably to have the least bad guys win. I think that's probably the SDF. But since the Kurds aren't going to end up ruling all of predominantly Arab Syria, I think that means a choice between Assad, the "Rebels" and Islamic State.

Assad is a brutal dictator, for sure. But prior to the civil war, it was possible for just about everyone who wasn't an opponent of the regime to live a decent life (by local, not necessarily Western standards). If you were a regime opponent, God help you. Assad is an Alawite (a small and peculiar Shi'ite spinoff) and he's always been a protector of religious minorities (since he is one). And his regime has always been secular in nature. Syria was ruled by civil law (even if the police were often thugs and the courts were unreliable) and women had more freedom in Syria than is common in that part of the world.

The anti-Assad rebellion began in an explosion of "Arab spring" optimism. Young Syrians were using social media, so it was assumed that they must share Western values! But as time went on, things unraveled. The superficially Westernized rebel leadership proved better at wearing expensive suits in Turkish exile and giving news conferences than in achieving any unity among themselves and organizing an effective military opposition to Assad. And it turned out that the young Syrians on social media didn't really represent the average Syrian villager, most of whom saw the alternative to Assad not in copying the United States but in returning to the purity of Islamic Law. Law written by man had proven corrupt, so it was time to return to God's perfect Law. Soon the best and most effective anti-Assad fighters were mostly radical Islamists dedicated to the imposition of harsh Shariah and to driving all non-Sunnis out of Syria. (They represent millions of people and some of their communities have lived there since late antiquity.)

And lastly there's Islamic State, which represents all of these tendencies to the utmost degree.

The worst fate for Syria is probably Assad being overthrown with nothing to take his place. That would result in a Somalia-style failed-state where little radical militias and local warlords rule at the village level, fighting incessantly among themselves. That's a situation not unlike a Mad Max movie.

If Russia wants to take on responsibility for imposing some order on Syria, I say more power to them. It's in the US, European and Australian interest.

One of my bigger concerns at the moment is the influence that Hezbollah and Iran are gaining over Syria. (When Schmelzer refers to the rebels as "terrorists", we mustn't forget that Assad employs terrorists on his side too.) Syria devolving into an Iranian client state, or playing host to a Hezbollah state-within-a-state (like there already is in Lebanon) is not in the US interest. So if increased Russian influence in Syria serves to reduce Iranian and Hezbollah influence, if Syria becoming a Russian client prevents it from becoming an full fledged Iranian client, then that's a net good in my opinion.

I think that the United States should probably seek ways to cooperate with Russia in Syria.

 

[Schmelzer]

Oh you didn't get the link?

Yes. I had to find it later myself.

Your "quite a good day", was indeed, well, disturbing to say the least.
Syrian human rights groups reported on what you deemed "quite a good day in Northern Hama"..
You aren't just proclaiming superiority, Schmelzer, you are calling actions with result in people suffocating to death and dozens injured as being part of a "good day". What part of that day was good for you?

No. I have not made any comment about what SOHR has "reported". I do not read SOHR because it is an unreliable propaganda source. What was good was that several villages have been liberated from terrorists.

Just out of curiousity, because you seem to be giving information on what is literally the deaths of dozens of people daily, with absolute glee and praising those who cause the deaths. Do you feel any sense of remorse for any of that?

If those killed are terrorists, I think this is good news. Sorry for having no sympathy for Daesh and Al Qaida fighters. But, as I have already explained, if the administration thnks that they should not be named terrorists, but freedom fighters or whatever, I will in future name them "freedom fighters". All I want are precise rules about this.

There is a complete lack of objectivity in what you are reporting. ... It reads like propaganda. It's a type of hyping up the people. Countries at war often use this manner of speech, to rally the troops and the populace.. This is literally the kind of thing leaders bellow into microphones with gravitas and a fist raised in the air. To the one, it's kind of tacky, but the disturbing thing is that you completely disregard the mass levels of casualties resulting for these conflicts, completely ignore them really, and instead focus on how these are good days for the side you are on.

Sorry, but I cannot follow. The language used to hyping up people is afaiu quite different. It has to be emotional. I use only a few emotional words (good day, terrorists, liberation), and I offer to stop to use them.

I do not only not focus, but try to avoid information about casualties. There is a good reason for this: Claims about casualties are usually full of lies, and it is almost impossible to find out the truth. The typical lies here are: 1.) low casualties among the own fighters, 2.) high casualties among enemy fighters, 3.) Enemy fighters killing a lot of innocent civilians. So, there is no information about the casualties which one can simply believe. The information I give is usually much more trustworthy, because it is much more difficult to lie about the actual frontline. Of course, there are unreliable sources, which try, and proclaim victories of the own side which are in reality only wishful thinking, but to identify sources with such a tendency is, in comparison, simple. So, it is my attempt to present only objective information, instead of war propaganda, which prevents me from taking into account claims about casualties.

You can, of course, say that once there is a war going on, there cannot be any good day in principle. A reasonable position. Nonetheless, I do not share it. If terrorists are killed, and villages liberated from terrorists, it is a good day, because it helps to decrease the time the country has yet to live in a state of war with the terrorists. I'm not a pacifist. But, ok, if you insist that I should not name terrorists even gangs which are named terrorists by the UN, your decision, in this case I will name them islamists.

If you wish to report the daily occurrences in the horror unfolding in Syria, then perhaps being a bit more objective and not sounding like you are reading the news on State controlled media, from a script handed to them by the State, might be better, don't you think?

I have a link to SANA, but I don't read it. Too boring. I live in the internet, not in mass media of any type. How I "sound" to you is nothing I would care about, as long as you do not support this with evidence.

Also, I do not think you are a libertarian anarchist. If you were, you would not support regimes who murder their opposition and who repeatedly refuse to hold free elections and open fire on their citizens for requesting free elections.

First, libertarians are not democrats, thus, do not care about "free elections" at all. Then, I support states only in comparison, as least evil. The IS as well as the Shariah states created by Al Qaida, FSA and so on on the territories they control are IMHO more evil than the secular dictatorship by Assad.

I do not believe all the groups fighting against Assad's regime are terrorist groups.

Me too. But most of them - and in particular all the big ones - are. At least this is my opinion. But there are also a lot of self-defense militias in almost all villages and towns. And a lot of work is done to make various types of ceasefires and piece negotiations with them.

That all who oppose him are terrorists and are treated as such. It's a very strong narrative to ensure the populace accepts what he is doing. After all, any political dissent means torture and likely death in Syria. Labeling the opposition as terrorists is a means to silence and destroy them.

Propaganda. Actually, there is a quite good offer for amnesty. If those who are fighting against Assad now lay down their weapons, and are not known for serious war crimes, they get amnesty.

Unless of course you wish to forget and ignore that this conflict started after Assad had his troops opened fire on people who were protesting for free and democratic elections in Syria?

I do not believe in these descriptions of the start of this conflict, because I have seen other sources which give a quite different picture. To accuse me of "wishing to forget or ignore" things I simply don't believe is nonsense.

Was that a "good day" in your opinion in the fight against people who were suddenly labeled terrorists by the regime?

No, a good day fighting Al Qaida.

To be honest with you, you do treat it like a blog. Anyone who attempts to discuss these topics in this thread, who voice an opinion, you come down on them like a tonne of bricks, disregard what they say entirely, claim it is false and just carry on posting.

Hm, I'm obliged to say they are right if I think they are wrong or what? And what does this have to do with a blog? A blog is something where the author can censor comments, even edit them. So I have simply no possibility to treat this thread like a blog. The closest thing to a blog would be not answering them at all, which is not what I do. I answer. That you don't like the answers, sorry.

You are using sites like StormFront, which asks people to "swallow the red pill", and your sources are incredibly biased.

A lie. I have never used StormFront.

You want to post updates? Sure. How about you do so in a way that is a bit more balanced and less gleeful of events that result in dozens of deaths and you cite your sources and ensure those sources are balanced and not mouth pieces for either side? Sound fair to you?

No. What I can offer is:
1.) I can stop to name days when villages have been liberated from terrorists "good days".
2.) I can stop to name terrorists terrorists, and, instead, name them islamists.
3.) I can stop to name the liberation of some village from terrorists "liberation" and use neutral terms.
What I refuse to do is
a.) to give any information about casualties, because such information is inherently unreliable. From all sides. The only exceptions may be possible if one sides admits losses of own fighters, or own killings of civilians.
b.) to use sources which you consider to be "balanced". The source you have quoted here, as if it would present facts, was SOHR, which is the mouth piece of Western anti-Syrian propaganda. Moreover, I reject the very idea that there may be sources of information about a war which are somehow balanced. One always needs some own judgement about which side is supported, and which type of information is reliable.
Sound fair to you?

 

[Yazata]

Reportedly Islamic State has launched another violent attack against the little surrounded Syrian garrison in Deir Ezzor. Given that ISIS appears to be losing ground on almost all fronts, why launch an attack here?

An answer might be discernable in this interesting (if speculative and largely unsubstantiated) article.

http://moderndiplomacy.eu/index.php...om-raqqa-to-mayadin-in-deir-ez-zor&Itemid=154

It seems that top level ISIS leadership is disappearing from Raqqah. Even street-level enforcers are less evident and reportedly locals have started smoking in public as a sign of defiance. (ISIS had outlawed smoking and being caught smoking makes one subject to public whipping.) Shipments of cash from the increasingly depleted ISIS treasury are being moved east to a small town called Mayadin, not far south of Deir Ezzor. Apparently the disappearing leaders from Raqqah are heading there and the Iraqi ISIS leadership that fled from Mosul has ended up in Mayadin too. The article suggests that ISIS' foreign fighters have been moved to the same place.

So, if Mayadin is intended to be the fallback Daesh capital if/when Raqqah falls, they probably want to better secure the area. Hence the desire to finally eliminate the tiny Syrian enclave just up the Euphrates river.

 

[joepistole]

I'm noticing that a number of Sciforums' moralists are taking over this thread. Apparently Schmelzer indicating that approves of advances by the Syrian government is unacceptable. It's being called "propaganda".

One or two posts in a 29 page thread is taking over this thread? Really....?

"Putina"... isn't using the feminine version of Putin's name that way misogynist? As if suggesting fancifully that he is somehow feminine is putting him down. "Comrade"... Earth to Sciforums: the Cold War ended some 27 years ago. Russia isn't communist any more. (China is, but our media opinion-leaders tell us to like China.)

Misogynist...? Well that's a stretch. Putin takes extraordinary measures to create a macho image of himself for public consumption. Referring to him as Putina is a knock on him and those who love him and his macho image. It isn't a knock on women.

There's lots of talk about people dying. Supposedly people dying in Syria means that everyone should hate the Russians or something. (Despite its scientistic pretensions, Sciforums has always been more about emotion than logic.) Of course, the Russians didn't start the Syrian civil war, the rebels did. In wars, people are guaranteed to get hurt. The rebels refuse to admit they've failed and lay down their weapons, prolonging the bloodshed. So it seems to me that there is plenty of blame on both sides. It isn't "good-guys (rebels) versus bad-guys (Assad and Russia)", like some would like to frame it.

Well it means people should be offended and angered at those who are dropping the bombs and causing the killing, i.e. Russia and its ally Assad. There is nothing about science which requires people to check their morality at the door. There isn't anything unscientific about having a moral code.

Whether the Russians started the Syrian civil war is debatable. They certainly had a role to play. They have long supported Assad's regime. Actually Assad started the Syrian civil war. He mismanaged the country for decades, and when he began murdering peaceful protesters, people rebelled. That's how the Syrian civil war began.

It seems to me people have the right to govern themselves. It seems to be that dictators have no right to enslave and abuse others. It seems to me that when a regime begins murdering its people, the people have a right to rebel.

In any case, no one is forcing Russia and Assad to bomb civilians. No one is forcing Russia and Assad to bomb hospitals. No one is forcing Russian and Assad to gas children as they have repeatedly done.

In post #536, I wrote this:

"I think that since 2003, the history of the Middle East has shown the folly of creating power vacuums by overthrowing tyrants with little or no thought to what will replace them. We saw it in Iraq, which spiraled into being a failed state once Saddam was overthrown. We saw it in Libya which spiraled into a failed state once Qaddafi was overthrown. We saw it in Yemen. We saw it in Egypt where the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak led to the Muslim Brotherhood taking control. (Luckily the Egyptian military was able to take back control.) And we saw it decades earlier in Somalia, when the Siad Barre dictatorship collapsed. (Somalia might never recover.)

Given that history, I'm skeptical about all the breezy moralistic talk about how overthrowing Assad will be a good thing for the Syrian people and for the world. The obvious question is: What is supposed to replace Assad?

It's not for use to decide. Syrians have the right of self determination. Syrians should decide what comes next. Syrians should decide who replaces Assad. Russia's support of Assad is prolonging the war. Failed states do recover. Somalia is recovering.

None of that justifies what Russia and Assad have done and continue to do.

I think that the United States should probably seek ways to cooperate with Russia in Syria.

Well of course you do. You like Schmeltzer love Russia and Putina.

 

[Bells]

No. I have not made any comment about what SOHR has "reported". I do not read SOHR because it is an unreliable propaganda source. What was good was that several villages have been liberated from terrorists.

Their use of these sorts of weapons has been corroborated by Médecins Sans Frontières, after their hospital was shelled by Assad's forces, resulting in the same type of injuries, in the Hama region.

At about 6:00 p.m. local time, Latamneh hospital in northern Hama governorate was targeted by a bomb dropped by a helicopter, which hit the entrance of the building. Immediately after the impact, patients and staff reported suffering severe respiratory symptoms and burning of mucous membranes—symptoms consistent with an attack using chemicals.​

Or do you think that Médecins Sans Frontières is also an unreliable propaganda source?

If those killed are terrorists, I think this is good news. Sorry for having no sympathy for Daesh and Al Qaida fighters. But, as I have already explained, if the administration thnks that they should not be named terrorists, but freedom fighters or whatever, I will in future name them "freedom fighters". All I want are precise rules about this.

As I noted before, not all resistance in Syria are terrorist or ISIS fighters.

And a lot of those killed were civilians.

Do you approve of the use of chemical weapons in warfare?

Sorry, but I cannot follow. The language used to hyping up people is afaiu quite different. It has to be emotional. I use only a few emotional words (good day, terrorists, liberation), and I offer to stop to use them.

Your lack of objectivity has resulted in every source that reports on the realities of this war being propaganda, because it does not fit into the narrative of what you wish to report. So when you report on the greatness of villages being taken, you refuse to acknowledge the loss of civilian life, and you instead seem to infer that those killed are terrorists. They are not all terrorists. Many of them are literally men, women and children, caught up in an impossibly deadly conflict, where the use of chemical weapons has now become the norm. But you just seem to prefer to refer to all the dead as 'terrorists'.

Chemical attacks on civilians should be deplored, regardless of who uses it. You seem to refuse to even believe it is happening, referring to all who report on their use as being 'pro Western propaganda'. Despite their use being corroborated by organisations like Médecins Sans Frontières, but also flagged by Human Rights Watch, for their use of it in Aleppo late last year. The pattern is the same as what we are currently seeing in the Hama region, where these types of weapons are used prior to Assad's forces advancing. In Aleppo, for example:

Syrian government forces conducted coordinated chemical attacks in opposition-controlled parts of Aleppo during the final month of the battle for the city, Human Rights Watch said today.

Through phone and in-person interviews with witnesses and analysis of video footage, photographs, and posts on social media, Human Rights Watch documented government helicopters dropping chlorine in residential areas on at least eight occasions between November 17 and December 13, 2016. The attacks, some of which included multiple munitions, killed at least nine civilians, including four children, and injured around 200.

The attacks took place in areas where government forces planned to advance, starting in the east and moving westwards as the frontlines moved, Human Rights Watch said.
“The pattern of the chlorine attacks shows that they were coordinated with the overall military strategy for retaking Aleppo, not the work of a few rogue elements,” said Ole Solvang, deputy emergencies director at Human Rights Watch. “The United Nations Security Council shouldn’t let Syrian authorities or anyone else who has used chemical weapons get away without consequences.”​

Which is exactly what they are doing in retaking those villages. They use chemical weapons, killing dozens of civilians and injuring as many, and then they advance, in what you termed as a "good day" for Assad's forces.

I do not only not focus, but try to avoid information about casualties. There is a good reason for this: Claims about casualties are usually full of lies, and it is almost impossible to find out the truth. The typical lies here are: 1.) low casualties among the own fighters, 2.) high casualties among enemy fighters, 3.) Enemy fighters killing a lot of innocent civilians. So, there is no information about the casualties which one can simply believe. The information I give is usually much more trustworthy, because it is much more difficult to lie about the actual frontline. Of course, there are unreliable sources, which try, and proclaim victories of the own side which are in reality only wishful thinking, but to identify sources with such a tendency is, in comparison, simple. So, it is my attempt to present only objective information, instead of war propaganda, which prevents me from taking into account claims about casualties.

You can, of course, say that once there is a war going on, there cannot be any good day in principle. A reasonable position. Nonetheless, I do not share it. If terrorists are killed, and villages liberated from terrorists, it is a good day, because it helps to decrease the time the country has yet to live in a state of war with the terrorists. I'm not a pacifist. But, ok, if you insist that I should not name terrorists even gangs which are named terrorists by the UN, your decision, in this case I will name them islamists.

You can, of course, say that once there is a war going on, there cannot be any good day in principle. A reasonable position. Nonetheless, I do not share it. If terrorists are killed, and villages liberated from terrorists, it is a good day, because it helps to decrease the time the country has yet to live in a state of war with the terrorists. I'm not a pacifist. But, ok, if you insist that I should not name terrorists even gangs which are named terrorists by the UN, your decision, in this case I will name them islamists.

You keep focusing on one thing, when I have barely even addressed that thing, and ignore everything else I have pointed out.

Why do you do that?

Let's look at your refusal to provide any information on casualties. It's actually quite obvious. If you were to provide information on casualties, you would be forced to recognise the use of illegal weapons against civilians. Which is why your posts read like propaganda. You refuse to acknowledge civilian loss because you choose to paint the casualties as being terrorists. So these villages are "liberated" from the terrorists, inferring those who died are terrorists, ignoring civilian casualties, which again, perpetuates the myth that all who oppose Assad are terrorists. This is how Assad reports on the casualties. Any who oppose him are labeled as terrorists in their propaganda. Any media outlets in Syria, or human rights groups that report on the atrocities, are labeled as enemies, often killed or imprisoned or shut down. And you have fallen completely for Assad's propaganda machine.

You are just another Assad mouth piece, completely lacking in objectivity and you use the same words and manner of arguments, to spread propaganda.

 

[Bells]

I have a link to SANA, but I don't read it. Too boring. I live in the internet, not in mass media of any type. How I "sound" to you is nothing I would care about, as long as you do not support this with evidence.

But you spread propaganda mass media hype about the war in Syria, without any form of objectivity at all.

First, libertarians are not democrats, thus, do not care about "free elections" at all. Then, I support states only in comparison, as least evil. The IS as well as the Shariah states created by Al Qaida, FSA and so on on the territories they control are IMHO more evil than the secular dictatorship by Assad.

Then you aren't a libertarian. The people of Syria want free elections. Those supported by the Assad regime, obviously do not, as they stand to gain from the Assad regime. But the rest of the population want free elections, without the opposition being systematically killed or imprisoned. Any who criticise Assad and his regime, are imprisoned and tortured. Free speech is non-existent and always has been. All of this started when some teenagers were arrested and then tortured by Assad's regime, for posting anti Assad graffiti. That is when the uprisings began, when people around Syria began to protest not just the arrest of those teenagers and their torture, but also the fact that they live in a dictatorship.

Neither side are good in this conflict. But the people must be given the right to choose their own leader and Government in free elections. The Assad family must allow that if they want peace and stability in their country. But they aren't fighting to "free Syria". This fight started when people dared to demand free elections in Syria and be freed from a dictatorship.

How can you, a supposed libertarian, support this?

Me too. But most of them - and in particular all the big ones - are. At least this is my opinion. But there are also a lot of self-defense militias in almost all villages and towns. And a lot of work is done to make various types of ceasefires and piece negotiations with them.

Any who oppose the Assad regime are labeled terrorists. You just bought into that propaganda.

Are there ISIS terrorists in Syria? Yes. But not all of those who oppose Assad and his dictatorship, are ISIS or terrorists.

Propaganda. Actually, there is a quite good offer for amnesty. If those who are fighting against Assad now lay down their weapons, and are not known for serious war crimes, they get amnesty.

Considering Assad had 15 boys arrested and tortured, one murdered, for daring to post graffiti that was anti-Assad, what type of amnesty do you think would be on offer?

The offer of amnesty, is to surrender to Assad, which means no free elections and a regime that is even more empowered to brutalise the populace and crack down on any who oppose him.

Does that sound like amnesty to you?

I do not believe in these descriptions of the start of this conflict, because I have seen other sources which give a quite different picture. To accuse me of "wishing to forget or ignore" things I simply don't believe is nonsense.

Of course you do. Because it does not fit into the Syrian regime's propaganda.

You choose to ignore the accounts of civilians who came under fire by the regime as they protested peacefully against Assad, asking for free elections. As I said, you are simply an Assad mouthpiece and completely lack objectivity.

No, a good day fighting Al Qaida.

How do you know they are all Al Qaida?

Hm, I'm obliged to say they are right if I think they are wrong or what? And what does this have to do with a blog? A blog is something where the author can censor comments, even edit them. So I have simply no possibility to treat this thread like a blog. The closest thing to a blog would be not answering them at all, which is not what I do. I answer. That you don't like the answers, sorry.

I would have thought it was clear. You post as if this is your blog. You dismiss any who dare post anything different and then you flood the thread with your questionable sources, few of which are linked, I suppose for obvious reasons. You appear to dislike having to discuss any of it, you shut down anyone who attempts to discuss what you are posting as being pro Western propaganda, while hypocritically flooding this thread with pro Assad propaganda.

In short, you treat it like it is your blog. The only thing you cannot do is edit people's comments, but you don't need to. You just dismiss it outright and carry on, as though no one said anything at all.

James also commented on your treating this like it is your blog. And he is correct. You do. All I ask is that you leave the propaganda out of it. It's not that hard, surely?

A lie. I have never used StormFront.

That was my mistake. Was reading about storms at the same time of posting. I meant SouthFront. I apologise for that.

No. What I can offer is:
1.) I can stop to name days when villages have been liberated from terrorists "good days".
2.) I can stop to name terrorists terrorists, and, instead, name them islamists.
3.) I can stop to name the liberation of some village from terrorists "liberation" and use neutral terms.
What I refuse to do is
a.) to give any information about casualties, because such information is inherently unreliable. From all sides. The only exceptions may be possible if one sides admits losses of own fighters, or own killings of civilians.
b.) to use sources which you consider to be "balanced". The source you have quoted here, as if it would present facts, was SOHR, which is the mouth piece of Western anti-Syrian propaganda. Moreover, I reject the very idea that there may be sources of information about a war which are somehow balanced. One always needs some own judgement about which side is supported, and which type of information is reliable.
Sound fair to you?

Or you can report on the facts, and leave the propaganda and rhetoric out of it.

How does that sound to you?

I don't care if you post daily updates about the events in Syria, I do care about the level of propaganda in those updates. Be a bit more objective. That shouldn't be too hard, surely?

 

[spidergoat]

What was good was that several villages have been liberated from terrorists.

And at some point you must have been liberated from all human decency.

 

[Bells]

I'm noticing that a number of Sciforums' moralists are taking over this thread. Apparently Schmelzer indicating that approves of advances by the Syrian government is unacceptable. It's being called "propaganda".

A couple of posts in 29 pages is hardly "taking over".

I wasn't aware that people were not allowed to write anything in this thread if they disagreed with how he was posting.

Emphasis added for obvious reasons.

Would you prefer no one posted anything in this thread, because heaven forbid people disagreed with his 'ra ra ra Assad succeeds' types of posts?

Let me ask, how do you view success in this war? What do you think the end goal is for either side? There are multiple factions fighting in Syria. Assad, with the support of Russia and Iran, wish to retain power. One faction is fighting for democracy and free elections and freedom from a cruel regime, another faction is fighting to topple all, and implement Islamic rule. Are you not concerned that Assad has labeled all as terrorists?

Are you not concerned with the toll on civilians as this war rages on?

I mean shit dude, are you not even slightly concerned with the use of chemical weapons in this conflict to aid the Assad's regime's advancement?

There's lots of talk about people dying. Supposedly people dying in Syria means that everyone should hate the Russians or something. (Despite its scientistic pretensions, Sciforums has always been more about emotion than logic.) Of course, the Russians didn't start the Syrian civil war, the rebels did. In wars, people are guaranteed to get hurt. The rebels refuse to admit they've failed and lay down their weapons, prolonging the bloodshed. So it seems to me that there is plenty of blame on both sides. It isn't "good-guys (rebels) versus bad-guys (Assad and Russia)", like some would like to frame it.

I think the issue here is that 'people dying' should raise questions about all parties in this conflict.

The war started when civilians protested Assad's regime and were fired upon and a movement of sorts rose from that, other factions then involved themselves and here we are today.

Or do you think the civilians who first rose up against Assad should have just sat back down and taken it?

Want to reduce the bloodshed? Why don't all parties lay down their arms, come to some sort of agreement about how to proceed, which would include free elections for all positions of Government? But Assad won't do that, will he?

How well do you think peace talks would go, when all sides are fighting so badly, so much so that the use of chemical weapons is now the norm?

My point is that in Syria, there aren't any good guys. (Maybe individually, like the Syrian Red Crescent or something, but not any good guys with any chance of winning the all-against-all civil war.) So the best path for Syria is probably to have the least bad guys win. I think that's probably the SDF. But since the Kurds aren't going to end up ruling all of predominantly Arab Syria, I think that means a choice between Assad, the "Rebels" and Islamic State.

There are several opposition groups, the "rebels", I guess, who have been pushing for peace talks and a peaceful resolution to the conflict, but one of their demands is free elections and removing Assad from lifelong power..