Tags for this video have been changed from 'al jazeera, people, power, drones, air strikes, due process' to 'al jazeera, people, power, drones, UAV, air strikes, due process' - edited by calvados

Melissa Chan, the reporter in this piece, was recently expelled from China, which only happens rarely.

>> ^lantern53:

We can trust 'Russia Today', right?
I mean..they are our friends, right?
Ole Putin is a good old boy, right?


seriously?
are you trolling us?
putin has as much to do with RT as kalid sheik mohammed has to do with al jazeera or obama with msnbc.
/facepalm....

look up agent provocateur and then look up how many instances that tactic has been used by law enforcement in the USA alone.
notice anything?

see? information is your friend.

>> ^longde:

South Sudan has announced a withdrawal


Thanks for both the update and the video Longde. Here's a few lines from Al Jazeera's coverage of recent changes there:

Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir has said his troops have defeated South Sudanese forces who occupied his country's main oilfield, but added that the battle was not over.

"They started the fighting and we will announce when it will end, and our advance will never stop," Bashir told a rally attended by thousands in Khartoum on Friday.

He dismissed a statement by his southern counterpart Salva Kiir that the troops which had invaded Heglig - which accounts for about 50 per cent of Sudan's oil - had withdrawn.

"There is no withdrawal. We beat them by force ... Until now, their people are running," Bashir, wearing an olive army uniform, said at military headquarters.

Al Jazeera continues to break journalistic ground and puts much of American media to shame. Similar things can be said of Russia Today.

Scahill's reporting is incredible and if he maintains this incisive and revelatory effort, his work will hold a place among the epitome of journalism.

The regions of which you speak belong to another era. Villages out there take days to walk to along mountain trails in some of the highest mountain ranges in the world. Is similiar to a lot of terrain in Afghanistan. Natural forts.

They've never really been conquered or been part of established empire. People are still organized along tribal lines, with the tribes engaged in continuous inter-tribe warfare. Every kid is handed a gun as soon as he's old enough to shoot and raised to abide by the honour code (pashtunwali, yes they even have a name for it). When the tribe is under attack, you don't question right or wrong, you defend the tribe. They're no electricity, television, newspapers, literacy, or any other medium that counters this message. I know it sounds racist but those boys are like klingons, the Pakistani government has never really dared to take them on.

Couple that with the decades of training provided in the arts of guerilla warfare; including drug running, weapons manufacture, crude bomb manufacture, etc. by the CIA and ISI during the cold war and the Soviet invasion, means they are a force to be reckoned with as the US is finding out in Afghanistan.

Despite all of that they've never really bothered us until the "war on terror". They've always bbeen kind of our crazy cousins. We don't wanna be around them but they're family. Most of the country is similarly undeveloped (as in people still live like 3000 years ago undeveloped) and backwards. Bringing them into the modern era is a long term project but there's a 150 million more people on that waiting list.

Since the war on terror Pakistan has taken a serious beating. This was supposed to be our decade of growth instead the economy is in shambles. We've been through yet another round of Western supported, foreign policy obsessed, military dictator leaving our civil institutions in shambles. We've lost around 4 thousand soldiers another 8.5 wounded. 40 thousand civilians killed and 3.5 million internal refugees (dirt poor and starving variety).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_North-West_Pakistan

Those are big numbers, people are angry. The Americans are unlikely to win in Afghanistan. They're putting tribe against tribe. All this talk of democracy vs. extremism/terrorism is not something the average Afghan understands. The average Afghan is illiterate and does not understand complex ideas. He understands this: foreigners, christian army, my tribe has chosen this side because we always hated those other fuckers anyways. Americans will leave, leaving Pakistan with a mess. They did it before and we've been screwed since. There's a huuuuge (as in a small city big) Afghan refugee camp near where I live that's some thirty years old, from the last time American boys were in the region playing their geopolitical monopoly game. It's horrible.

From the Pakistani perspective the War on Terror has been a disaster. It's solved nothing and created tenfold the problem it aimed to solve. The Afghans are a primitive bunch (made more so by warfare) and need to establish a government, after which they will slowly over time, maybe a century, join the civilized world. Pakistan wholeheartedly supported the Taliban (as did the US) when they took control of the country and brought peace to it. Warfare is the real bitch not how "extreme" they are. Saudi's are equally nuts and there's not a single American president who doesn't go pay a visit right away upon taking office. Best friends.

Now the government/military of Pakistan is in a tricky situation, we have to play both sides, thus the lack of trust. Either side has the ability to seriously take Pakistan on and bring it to it's knees. The government the American's have propped up in Kabul wouldn't last a month without them, is corrupt, and allied to the Indians, with whom we see ourselves as being in a state of justified war. What to do!? What to do!? (in a indian accent).

I guess my point being, we're actually not a bad bunch. Just in a shitty situation. Come sometime and I can show you around. Most of the country is safe. Safer than mexico anyways.

Sorry that was a long post





>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^FermitTheKrog:
Thanks for having a more nuanced understanding of the matter... thought I'd share a Pakistani perspective:
-Yes, no arabs here. Lots of Muslims though as in loads of other countries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Muslim_population
-Pakistani's despise the drone strikes for the same reason we despised the Bin Laden assasination. It is a terrible loss of sovereignity to have foreign soldiers killing with impunity, racking up civilian casualties, within your borders. It makes the matter worse, Pakistan is radicalizing tremendously fast and every time the US flattens another village in Afghanistan or our border regions, everytime American troops accidentally kill ours, that pace accelerates.
-An analogy: If Mexico had drones over the US taking out gang leaders in LA, the US would flatten Mexico in response. All we do is get angry.
-Things are not that bad: Liberals are not dying off. We are in government by popular vote. The Pakistani military is not some tinpot force, it is very much in control of itself and thus of it's nukes. We will deal with the militancy problem over time; education, economic opputurnity, writ of law; not bombs. We are a third world country, Afghanistan has been a war zone forever now, these things take time, most of us still shit in fields, out people are hungry, we have bigger problems to deal with than car bombs.
-In Pakistan, conservatives want the American's gone because they are an imperial force at our doorstep. All talk of human rights and democracy is hogwash. Palestine is the example. Amongst the ultra right (3-4% of the population, I'm sure you have them too, wherever you are) the "we" is Muslims and the "them" is a collaboration of Zionists and American bible thumpers.
Liberals want the American's gone because they are an imperial force at our doorstep. All talk of human rights and democracy is hogwash. Saudi Arab is the example. If they go away we can educate our people out of the mental cesspit they seem to be headed into. American bombs make us look like traitors to our people and weaken our stance.
Thanks for listening. Open to discussion


>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^vaire2ube:
well the trick is eventually we dont tell the kids running the drones that its actually REALITY! Ahh! Ender's Game!
But by then the arabs formics will be gone.

The populations in Afghanistan and Pakistan are primarily Muslim, not Arab. There are in fact more Arabs living in America than there are in Afghanistan and Pakistan combined.
I know, not your point at all, but if you try and hash out the real news by reading through middle eastern news outlets you won't be able to make head from tails wondering why a pro-Arab outlet like Al Jazeera would willingly say anything bad about Iran. It's not until realizing that Iran is largely Persian and not Arab that it makes any sense.
I rant about this because it's crazily important and the details matter. American drone attacks have killed hundreds within Pakistan, but even by Pakistan's most anti-American media those people were largely militants responsible for killing Pakistani civilians. The Pakistani Taliban have meanwhile killed thousands of civilians, including former PM Benazir Bhutto, and there is infinitely more outrage and hatred for America's drones than for the Pakistani Taliban. It's something important to think about. What's more, there is MORE hatred in Pakistan over America's raid that killed Bin Laden than there is for the unmanned drone attacks. That's even more important to think about.
The reality is that the moderates in Pakistan are fighting an uphill struggle in Pakistan. We need them to win but they are being killed off faster than we can defend them, and even attempting to defend them is hurting their cause to boot. It's easy to declare that a strategy is bad and has horrible consequences, it's a lot more important though to propose a better alternative. Stop the attacks and do nothing means a Pakistan where the Taliban where still best friends with the military and intelligence agencies. It means a nuclear armed state that was best friends with terrorist organizations eager to use those nuclear weapons in their jihad while we lacked any way of assessing just how close and willing their partnership was. Don't dismiss this assessment as doomsday fear mongering. One of the debates in Pakistan's national assemblies after Osama's death included elected representatives bemoaning Pakistan's failure to protect a great Muslim hero like Bin Laden. Pakistan is a battle ground between extremist and moderate populations and we have a very vested interest in who wins that struggle.


Thank you for adding so much to the discussion, very much appreciated.
Yes, I do understand the sovereignty issue looms huge in the opinion of American actions within Pakistan's borders. I can really understand how that would enrage anyone with any manner of national pride. America is in a tough spot though too. The mountainous tribal regions along the Pak-Afghan border are not under the control of the Pakistani central government. On paper the border may run there, but in practice militants can relatively safely travel back and forth between the two. What's more, there still remain places within Pakistan's proper borders that are controlled by the local tribal leaders, and NOT the central Pakistani government. Those local tribal leaders are allying themselves to the Pakistani Taliban and providing them safe haven within Pakistan to launch attacks in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Afghan part does make it America's business. The Pakistani part in my humble opinion, should be a source of greater public outrage than it is.
I guess I find it worrying that extremists can be in de-facto control of large swathes of land within Pakistan's proper borders. So much so that it is still unsafe for the Pakistani police and even military to patrol there. To me, that seems like it is already an enormous sovereignty issue. America's attacks against militants in that region I can understand being a source of outrage. I don't understand why there isn't equal or greater outrage that those regions on the ground are no longer under the control of the Pakistani government at all and being used as a base of operations for launching attacks on the rest of Pakistan.
I think America's problem is knowing whom they can trust within Pakistan's power structure to work against rather than with extremists like the Taliban. Hamid Gul, former leader of Pakistan's ISI, scares the crap out of me. How many of his friends are still in the ISI that think like him? The JUI-F party declared Osama a muslim hero in Pakistan's National Assemblies. How much support has that party been able to hold onto within Pakistan still after taking that stance? Political parties like the PPP seem to share alot of moderate values, but have historically been ridden out of office by the military every few years.
Do you have good reasons that those fears are unfounded? From what I see and read(largely from "The News International") the moderates like yourself have always been in an uphill struggle against extremists and the opportunists willing to work with them.

>> ^FermitTheKrog:

Thanks for having a more nuanced understanding of the matter... thought I'd share a Pakistani perspective:
-Yes, no arabs here. Lots of Muslims though as in loads of other countries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Muslim_population
-Pakistani's despise the drone strikes for the same reason we despised the Bin Laden assasination. It is a terrible loss of sovereignity to have foreign soldiers killing with impunity, racking up civilian casualties, within your borders. It makes the matter worse, Pakistan is radicalizing tremendously fast and every time the US flattens another village in Afghanistan or our border regions, everytime American troops accidentally kill ours, that pace accelerates.
-An analogy: If Mexico had drones over the US taking out gang leaders in LA, the US would flatten Mexico in response. All we do is get angry.
-Things are not that bad: Liberals are not dying off. We are in government by popular vote. The Pakistani military is not some tinpot force, it is very much in control of itself and thus of it's nukes. We will deal with the militancy problem over time; education, economic opputurnity, writ of law; not bombs. We are a third world country, Afghanistan has been a war zone forever now, these things take time, most of us still shit in fields, out people are hungry, we have bigger problems to deal with than car bombs.
-In Pakistan, conservatives want the American's gone because they are an imperial force at our doorstep. All talk of human rights and democracy is hogwash. Palestine is the example. Amongst the ultra right (3-4% of the population, I'm sure you have them too, wherever you are) the "we" is Muslims and the "them" is a collaboration of Zionists and American bible thumpers.
Liberals want the American's gone because they are an imperial force at our doorstep. All talk of human rights and democracy is hogwash. Saudi Arab is the example. If they go away we can educate our people out of the mental cesspit they seem to be headed into. American bombs make us look like traitors to our people and weaken our stance.
Thanks for listening. Open to discussion


>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^vaire2ube:
well the trick is eventually we dont tell the kids running the drones that its actually REALITY! Ahh! Ender's Game!
But by then the arabs formics will be gone.

The populations in Afghanistan and Pakistan are primarily Muslim, not Arab. There are in fact more Arabs living in America than there are in Afghanistan and Pakistan combined.
I know, not your point at all, but if you try and hash out the real news by reading through middle eastern news outlets you won't be able to make head from tails wondering why a pro-Arab outlet like Al Jazeera would willingly say anything bad about Iran. It's not until realizing that Iran is largely Persian and not Arab that it makes any sense.
I rant about this because it's crazily important and the details matter. American drone attacks have killed hundreds within Pakistan, but even by Pakistan's most anti-American media those people were largely militants responsible for killing Pakistani civilians. The Pakistani Taliban have meanwhile killed thousands of civilians, including former PM Benazir Bhutto, and there is infinitely more outrage and hatred for America's drones than for the Pakistani Taliban. It's something important to think about. What's more, there is MORE hatred in Pakistan over America's raid that killed Bin Laden than there is for the unmanned drone attacks. That's even more important to think about.
The reality is that the moderates in Pakistan are fighting an uphill struggle in Pakistan. We need them to win but they are being killed off faster than we can defend them, and even attempting to defend them is hurting their cause to boot. It's easy to declare that a strategy is bad and has horrible consequences, it's a lot more important though to propose a better alternative. Stop the attacks and do nothing means a Pakistan where the Taliban where still best friends with the military and intelligence agencies. It means a nuclear armed state that was best friends with terrorist organizations eager to use those nuclear weapons in their jihad while we lacked any way of assessing just how close and willing their partnership was. Don't dismiss this assessment as doomsday fear mongering. One of the debates in Pakistan's national assemblies after Osama's death included elected representatives bemoaning Pakistan's failure to protect a great Muslim hero like Bin Laden. Pakistan is a battle ground between extremist and moderate populations and we have a very vested interest in who wins that struggle.



Thank you for adding so much to the discussion, very much appreciated.

Yes, I do understand the sovereignty issue looms huge in the opinion of American actions within Pakistan's borders. I can really understand how that would enrage anyone with any manner of national pride. America is in a tough spot though too. The mountainous tribal regions along the Pak-Afghan border are not under the control of the Pakistani central government. On paper the border may run there, but in practice militants can relatively safely travel back and forth between the two. What's more, there still remain places within Pakistan's proper borders that are controlled by the local tribal leaders, and NOT the central Pakistani government. Those local tribal leaders are allying themselves to the Pakistani Taliban and providing them safe haven within Pakistan to launch attacks in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Afghan part does make it America's business. The Pakistani part in my humble opinion, should be a source of greater public outrage than it is.

I guess I find it worrying that extremists can be in de-facto control of large swathes of land within Pakistan's proper borders. So much so that it is still unsafe for the Pakistani police and even military to patrol there. To me, that seems like it is already an enormous sovereignty issue. America's attacks against militants in that region I can understand being a source of outrage. I don't understand why there isn't equal or greater outrage that those regions on the ground are no longer under the control of the Pakistani government at all and being used as a base of operations for launching attacks on the rest of Pakistan.

I think America's problem is knowing whom they can trust within Pakistan's power structure to work against rather than with extremists like the Taliban. Hamid Gul, former leader of Pakistan's ISI, scares the crap out of me. How many of his friends are still in the ISI that think like him? The JUI-F party declared Osama a muslim hero in Pakistan's National Assemblies. How much support has that party been able to hold onto within Pakistan still after taking that stance? Political parties like the PPP seem to share alot of moderate values, but have historically been ridden out of office by the military every few years.

Do you have good reasons that those fears are unfounded? From what I see and read(largely from "The News International") the moderates like yourself have always been in an uphill struggle against extremists and the opportunists willing to work with them.

Thanks for having a more nuanced understanding of the matter... thought I'd share a Pakistani perspective:

-Yes, no arabs here. Lots of Muslims though as in loads of other countries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Muslim_population

-Pakistani's despise the drone strikes for the same reason we despised the Bin Laden assasination. It is a terrible loss of sovereignity to have foreign soldiers killing with impunity, racking up civilian casualties, within your borders. It makes the matter worse, Pakistan is radicalizing tremendously fast and every time the US flattens another village in Afghanistan or our border regions, everytime American troops accidentally kill ours, that pace accelerates.

-An analogy: If Mexico had drones over the US taking out gang leaders in LA, the US would flatten Mexico in response. All we do is get angry.

-Things are not that bad: Liberals are not dying off. We are in government by popular vote. The Pakistani military is not some tinpot force, it is very much in control of itself and thus of it's nukes. We will deal with the militancy problem over time; education, economic opputurnity, writ of law; not bombs. We are a third world country, Afghanistan has been a war zone forever now, these things take time, most of us still shit in fields, out people are hungry, we have bigger problems to deal with than car bombs.

-In Pakistan, conservatives want the American's gone because they are an imperial force at our doorstep. All talk of human rights and democracy is hogwash. Palestine is the example. Amongst the ultra right (3-4% of the population, I'm sure you have them too, wherever you are) the "we" is Muslims and the "them" is a collaboration of Zionists and American bible thumpers.

Liberals want the American's gone because they are an imperial force at our doorstep. All talk of human rights and democracy is hogwash. Saudi Arab is the example. If they go away we can educate our people out of the mental cesspit they seem to be headed into. American bombs make us look like traitors to our people and weaken our stance.

Thanks for listening. Open to discussion




>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^vaire2ube:
well the trick is eventually we dont tell the kids running the drones that its actually REALITY! Ahh! Ender's Game!
But by then the arabs formics will be gone.

The populations in Afghanistan and Pakistan are primarily Muslim, not Arab. There are in fact more Arabs living in America than there are in Afghanistan and Pakistan combined.
I know, not your point at all, but if you try and hash out the real news by reading through middle eastern news outlets you won't be able to make head from tails wondering why a pro-Arab outlet like Al Jazeera would willingly say anything bad about Iran. It's not until realizing that Iran is largely Persian and not Arab that it makes any sense.
I rant about this because it's crazily important and the details matter. American drone attacks have killed hundreds within Pakistan, but even by Pakistan's most anti-American media those people were largely militants responsible for killing Pakistani civilians. The Pakistani Taliban have meanwhile killed thousands of civilians, including former PM Benazir Bhutto, and there is infinitely more outrage and hatred for America's drones than for the Pakistani Taliban. It's something important to think about. What's more, there is MORE hatred in Pakistan over America's raid that killed Bin Laden than there is for the unmanned drone attacks. That's even more important to think about.
The reality is that the moderates in Pakistan are fighting an uphill struggle in Pakistan. We need them to win but they are being killed off faster than we can defend them, and even attempting to defend them is hurting their cause to boot. It's easy to declare that a strategy is bad and has horrible consequences, it's a lot more important though to propose a better alternative. Stop the attacks and do nothing means a Pakistan where the Taliban where still best friends with the military and intelligence agencies. It means a nuclear armed state that was best friends with terrorist organizations eager to use those nuclear weapons in their jihad while we lacked any way of assessing just how close and willing their partnership was. Don't dismiss this assessment as doomsday fear mongering. One of the debates in Pakistan's national assemblies after Osama's death included elected representatives bemoaning Pakistan's failure to protect a great Muslim hero like Bin Laden. Pakistan is a battle ground between extremist and moderate populations and we have a very vested interest in who wins that struggle.

>> ^vaire2ube:

well the trick is eventually we dont tell the kids running the drones that its actually REALITY! Ahh! Ender's Game!
But by then the arabs formics will be gone.


The populations in Afghanistan and Pakistan are primarily Muslim, not Arab. There are in fact more Arabs living in America than there are in Afghanistan and Pakistan combined.

I know, not your point at all, but if you try and hash out the real news by reading through middle eastern news outlets you won't be able to make head from tails wondering why a pro-Arab outlet like Al Jazeera would willingly say anything bad about Iran. It's not until realizing that Iran is largely Persian and not Arab that it makes any sense.

I rant about this because it's crazily important and the details matter. American drone attacks have killed hundreds within Pakistan, but even by Pakistan's most anti-American media those people were largely militants responsible for killing Pakistani civilians. The Pakistani Taliban have meanwhile killed thousands of civilians, including former PM Benazir Bhutto, and there is infinitely more outrage and hatred for America's drones than for the Pakistani Taliban. It's something important to think about. What's more, there is MORE hatred in Pakistan over America's raid that killed Bin Laden than there is for the unmanned drone attacks. That's even more important to think about.

The reality is that the moderates in Pakistan are fighting an uphill struggle in Pakistan. We need them to win but they are being killed off faster than we can defend them, and even attempting to defend them is hurting their cause to boot. It's easy to declare that a strategy is bad and has horrible consequences, it's a lot more important though to propose a better alternative. Stop the attacks and do nothing means a Pakistan where the Taliban where still best friends with the military and intelligence agencies. It means a nuclear armed state that was best friends with terrorist organizations eager to use those nuclear weapons in their jihad while we lacked any way of assessing just how close and willing their partnership was. Don't dismiss this assessment as doomsday fear mongering. One of the debates in Pakistan's national assemblies after Osama's death included elected representatives bemoaning Pakistan's failure to protect a great Muslim hero like Bin Laden. Pakistan is a battle ground between extremist and moderate populations and we have a very vested interest in who wins that struggle.

>> ^longde:

I agree with most of your points, except that a toothless UN resolution has any material affect on what is going on in Syria.>> ^bcglorf:
@longde:And I think that anyone from any country would be in a bad position if they went on a foreign broadcast and openly blasted their country and government. They may not be thrown in a gulag, but it wouldn't sit well with the neighbors and boss.
You can't honestly speak like the risk of being thrown in a gulag is equivalent and no different from something not sitting well with the neighbors and boss. If you say something in China that stirs up enough people and you keep on saying it, ending up in a jail is a very real possibility. Meanwhile in America that's exactly what guys like Michael Moore not only make a habit of, they make a very profitable career out of it.

On Taiwan, most mainland chinese consider it a province of China, as well as Tibet. Little real dissent there.
The right of the Taiwanese and Tibetan people to self determination though is in stark contrast to that of Iraqi's, Libyan's, Afghan's, and Syrians. Despite opposing military action in every one of those countries, when it comes to Taiwan and Tibet, it is unquestioningly accepted that all out war is the natural and just course against the people of Taiwan and Tibet if they were to declare independence. That's a stark contrast, and one that I believe would be unexpected by a westerner listener who had just heard the same people opposing military adventures and the global police.
What is the direct damage of voting against the UN measure?
First off, use the right terms. China and Russia didn't merely vote against the UN motion, if they had only done that the motion would have still carried with a majority in favor. China and Russia exercised their veto rights, to trump the will of the majority on the Security council. It's their right within the structure of the UN SC, but that they used it to protect Assad while he murders his own people is hardly something defensible.
As for the direct damage, Syria immediately stepped up it's offensive on Homs:
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Danny Abdul Dayem, a resident of Homs, said: "It has been terrible. There is non-stop bombing with rockets, mortar bombs and tank shells. There were more than 50 people injured in Bab Amr today.
"I saw with my own eyes kids with no legs, and a kid who lost his whole bottom jaw. It is terrible."



I'll quite readily agree that virtually everything the UN does is toothless and in that sense, completely worthless and meaningless. I would however argue that the Russian and Chinese vetoes absolutely do have a material affect on what is going on in Syria. The vetoes are sign of the depth of Russian and Chinese commitment to Assad's regime. That support is absolutely vital and essential to Assad's continued military campaign against his own people. Without that support, the combined efforts of the Arab League and the Syrian opposition would be seeing Assad forced to back down.

I agree with most of your points, except that a toothless UN resolution has any material affect on what is going on in Syria.>> ^bcglorf:

@longde:And I think that anyone from any country would be in a bad position if they went on a foreign broadcast and openly blasted their country and government. They may not be thrown in a gulag, but it wouldn't sit well with the neighbors and boss.
You can't honestly speak like the risk of being thrown in a gulag is equivalent and no different from something not sitting well with the neighbors and boss. If you say something in China that stirs up enough people and you keep on saying it, ending up in a jail is a very real possibility. Meanwhile in America that's exactly what guys like Michael Moore not only make a habit of, they make a very profitable career out of it.

On Taiwan, most mainland chinese consider it a province of China, as well as Tibet. Little real dissent there.
The right of the Taiwanese and Tibetan people to self determination though is in stark contrast to that of Iraqi's, Libyan's, Afghan's, and Syrians. Despite opposing military action in every one of those countries, when it comes to Taiwan and Tibet, it is unquestioningly accepted that all out war is the natural and just course against the people of Taiwan and Tibet if they were to declare independence. That's a stark contrast, and one that I believe would be unexpected by a westerner listener who had just heard the same people opposing military adventures and the global police.
What is the direct damage of voting against the UN measure?
First off, use the right terms. China and Russia didn't merely vote against the UN motion, if they had only done that the motion would have still carried with a majority in favor. China and Russia exercised their veto rights, to trump the will of the majority on the Security council. It's their right within the structure of the UN SC, but that they used it to protect Assad while he murders his own people is hardly something defensible.
As for the direct damage, Syria immediately stepped up it's offensive on Homs:
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Danny Abdul Dayem, a resident of Homs, said: "It has been terrible. There is non-stop bombing with rockets, mortar bombs and tank shells. There were more than 50 people injured in Bab Amr today.
"I saw with my own eyes kids with no legs, and a kid who lost his whole bottom jaw. It is terrible."

@longde:And I think that anyone from any country would be in a bad position if they went on a foreign broadcast and openly blasted their country and government. They may not be thrown in a gulag, but it wouldn't sit well with the neighbors and boss.

You can't honestly speak like the risk of being thrown in a gulag is equivalent and no different from something not sitting well with the neighbors and boss. If you say something in China that stirs up enough people and you keep on saying it, ending up in a jail is a very real possibility. Meanwhile in America that's exactly what guys like Michael Moore not only make a habit of, they make a very profitable career out of it.


On Taiwan, most mainland chinese consider it a province of China, as well as Tibet. Little real dissent there.

The right of the Taiwanese and Tibetan people to self determination though is in stark contrast to that of Iraqi's, Libyan's, Afghan's, and Syrians. Despite opposing military action in every one of those countries, when it comes to Taiwan and Tibet, it is unquestioningly accepted that all out war is the natural and just course against the people of Taiwan and Tibet if they were to declare independence. That's a stark contrast, and one that I believe would be unexpected by a westerner listener who had just heard the same people opposing military adventures and the global police.

What is the direct damage of voting against the UN measure?

First off, use the right terms. China and Russia didn't merely vote against the UN motion, if they had only done that the motion would have still carried with a majority in favor. China and Russia exercised their veto rights, to trump the will of the majority on the Security council. It's their right within the structure of the UN SC, but that they used it to protect Assad while he murders his own people is hardly something defensible.

As for the direct damage, Syria immediately stepped up it's offensive on Homs:
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Danny Abdul Dayem, a resident of Homs, said: "It has been terrible. There is non-stop bombing with rockets, mortar bombs and tank shells. There were more than 50 people injured in Bab Amr today.

"I saw with my own eyes kids with no legs, and a kid who lost his whole bottom jaw. It is terrible."

>> ^marinara:

downvote for being propaganda
http://rt.com/news/syria-opposition-weather-forecast-867/


Yes, I'm sure the Russian state run media is MUCH more trustworthy. Surely the entirety of the Arab League and their observers are all making everything up...

Maybe go see what Al Jazeera is saying about it before dismissing the deaths of so many because surely the Russian state run media is above reproach and can be trusted completely.

>> ^cosmovitelli:

>> ^bcglorf:
Why is the guy working for a Russian propaganda outlet talking about himself as if he is average joe American who is being down trodden by the man?

He's no worse than many US 'news' services and a damn sight better that the australian disinformation network (fox). It's just not couched in all the ritual bullshit you're used to. Extract the useful facts and ignore demagoguery here, and having learned that trick you can apply it to the media in general - you'll find they are all selective and at least subconsciously biased.


The ritual bullshit I'm used to is a far sight better than this. Of course, I don't follow the American networks too closely and find myself reading Al Jazeera more often than anything else.

This isn't any better than what you see on FOX, it's as bad or worse and hardly worth the time let alone an upvote.

Thanks for trying to at least provide some references Ghark. I'm curious how credible you honestly believe them to be though. All but 2 of them are to the same blog, the one is a very short piece by Ynet with nothing more to say than that SANA declares itself the victim and the other is a different blog reporting proof that America supports activists in authoritarian countries.

That last bit seems to be the most veracious of all the claims, but I wouldn't call it 'news'. America(sadly, like virtually all governments) not only supports repressed activists but has also actively supported what can only be called terrorists and has on multiple occasions participated in the overthrow of foreign rulers through covert and even overt assassinations. Don't mistake my claims here as being based on the naive notion that America or the CIA would never do anything like this, as they have and without a doubt will again. My claim is much different, and so is Tarpley's.

The important nuance I think your missing in my disagreement with Tarpley here is that his claim is NOT CIA support for a Syrian uprising. His claim is that there is, in fact, no legitimate Syrian uprising and that it is all a facade orchestrated by the CIA, Mossad, or whomever else he thinks is the puppet master. The truth of the matter is that the Syrian people are now living under their second generation of brutal dictatorship. The truth of the matter is that the Syrian people have seen the difference between the free world and their own, and those people have taken to the streets. Importantly to our discussion here, one of the ways they have seen the difference between freedom and repression has been through social media, like facebook, twitter and to at least some extent our dear videosift here as well.

The sources you referenced supporting Tarpley's notions on Syria all point back to either SANA, the Syrian state media, Al-Alam, the Iranian state media or XinhuaNet, China's state media. For brevity I won't point out the massive number of articles from the NYtimes, the CBC and BBC all reporting on the Syrian protesters being brutally repressed and murdered by Syrian forces. If you wish, I can fill out a page with supporting links, but I hope you might be able to recognize that at the very minimum these sources balance out with equal support. I would go further and posit that state funded media like CBC and BBC are vastly more independent from the state message than SANA and Al-Alam, but it isn't necessary to my argument.

If you accept my generous notion that the above can be called a draw, and we throw them out as having a bias one way or the other, what are we left with?

We are left with Al Jazeera reporting an entirely different story than Tarpley's:
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/Syria

If you want more links from Al Jazeera they have a wealth of stories from all manner of separate and independent sources all backing their overall view that there is a legitimate internal Syrian uprising independently demanding the basic freedoms of a democracy, and the Syrian government met them with deadly repression, over and over and over again.

Is Al Jazeera a pro American tool of the CIA?

I'm going to cite what I consider to be very basic, fundamental facts but if you want references for them I can provide them if you don't trust a 5 second google verification of them.

The UN human rights committee voted 122 in favor of condemning Syria's crackdown, are they a pro American tool of the CIA?

The Arab League has threatened to revoke Syria's membership and asked that Syria allow their monitors into the country as a path to reconciliation, which Syria rejected.

Is the Arab League a pro America tool of the CIA?