I was ready to say that I'd think you'd want to use the Rebels for the show, then saw he did that... and also one for Dallas that fits far better than I'd have thought.

Sincere thanks for that, @enoch.

While I am too ignorant of the situation to be completely convinced by either side of this, I must admit that it does seem fishy for Assad to use such weapons now. AND, the CIA and other US agencies / forces have a really long track record of doing shady things to "protect US interests" with proxy wars, false flag operations, etc. etc.

The US funding Syrian "rebels" that are an offshoot of Al Qaeda doesn't shock me much considering that the roots of Al Qaeda itself pretty much come from the CIA funding the Mujahideen in Afganistan...


Anyway, I can see and understand your reasons for choosing to downvote the video. That being said, I don't personally regret upvoting this because it does seem to be a good introduction / refresher to the situation in Syria, at least with respect to the standard media take on it. For someone like me, it gets me the broad strokes in 6.5 minutes, which has some real value.

But your post here (and a PM from eric) are equally valuable to me for pointing out bits where that "broad strokes" intro is controversial or potentially misleading (if not flat out BS). So again, sincere thanks to both of you.

@MilkmanDan

i do not want to speak for eric,so i will just explain why i downvoted.

this video attempts to explain the syrian crisis,with almost zero critical examination.the video practically regurgitates the current american political narrative and never mentions the conflicts of information.

let me explain:

1.the video states this all started due to the arab spring,but totally fails to mention that the MAIN reason for the continued conflict is not arab spring,but the fact the both qatar and saudi arabia have been pushing syria to allow them to build a pipeline through syria in order for those countries to sell oil and gas to europe.

which would be in direct competition with russia,which is the main provider of oil and gas to europe.

2.this video claims..twice..that assad has used chemical weapons against his own people.while convenient for a western power which may,or may not,wish to engage militarily.there was no evidence in 2013,and there is no evidence this time (mainly due to time.i mean come on,TWO days? and BOOM.assad did it,nothing to see here.move along).

the only journalist in 2013 that challenged the narrative was seymor hersh.who was ridiculed and chastised,and ultimately vindicated in 2014 by the UN securities commission,that assad was not the perpetrator,but rather the al qeada off shoot el nosra.

which was barely covered,if at all,in american corporate media.

it is also important to mention that the assad regime,in full compliance with the UN,handed over all materials that could be used in chemical warfare.i.e:sarin gas.

3.while the video DOES mention it,it does so in a very slick way,and if you are not following this situation,you will miss it.

america IS supporting and funding "rebels",but pay attention to who those rebels are:they are the offshoot of al qeada,el nosra.

so in effect,america sis funding and supporting al qeada to fight against the assad regime.

i will give you time to allow that to sink in a moment.

these are only a few of the glaring inconsistencies in this video,but i will agree that the situation in syria is complicated,but the reasons for that complication are not being mentioned in this video..at all.

and one final thing to chew about before i go,because i think it is an important aspect to ponder,and as of right now,thats all it really is:speculation.

assad was set to meet with a UN peace council in a week to discuss possible diplomatic solutions.add to this that trump had just recently (last week) backed off obama's "red line" approach,and stated quite clearly that america is ONLY interested in dealing with ISIS,and had NO interest in dealing with assad.

question:

why would assad,with only a week to go before peace negotiations,commit politicial suicide by gassing his own people?

who benefits from this attack?

because it sure is not assad.

we all know the situation in syria is dire,complicated and grotesque,but the current narrative being fed to americans simply does NOT add up.

2+2 does not = 5

and this video does nothing to clear that up,it simply regurgitates american corporate media's narrative.

and i refuse to upvote that.

My mom wants it to still be mooing. I guess I rebelled, because I like med-well, to the horror of all my Texan relatives.

As for black garlic, make your own, then you know it's done right! It only takes a few weeks according to google.

Yes, I agree, Assad would be replaced tomorrow if he went against Putin, but he won't. He knows who butters his bread.

I don't think a targeted assassination was what Obama meant when he drew his red line in the sand over Assad gassing civilians. I expected, say, a no fly zone or US bombings of Assad's troops and headquarters, assisting the rebels without arming them. Agreed, that would be NO guarantee that another despot or worse wouldn't fill the void in power.
Perhaps the 'democratic" alternative would be separating Syria into 2 or more countries with local rule? That seems like it would have been better in Iraq than what happened.
Best would be if we could just stay out altogether and let them sort it out themselves, but that seems an impossibility for numerous reasons.

Was not Aleppo held by "moderate" rebels, not Daesh or other religious fanatics? I suppose that would mean they ARE mostly wiped out now, but only recently.

Foreign fighters on your side doesn't make your fight illegitimate for either side. Having ONLY foreign fighters on either side would mean it's no longer a civil war but is now an invasion. Thanks to targeting the local citizens first (fighters or not), that may be where we are now.

For all I know, the Syrian secessionists (if that's what the original local revolutionists should be called) are all gone and the fighters of today are nearly all foreign invaders

Given that both the government and ISIS armies both specifically targeted them first they likely are all gone. If you go back to Al Jazeera's coverage of the early Russian offensives, their airstrikes and attacks were ignoring the ISIS held territory and only hitting the moderate/legitimate rebels. Similarly, pretty much all reports of the ISIS foreign fighters coming in were that they never pretended to support the rebels, but merely replaced them demanding obedience or death.

@radx

The foreign element is fighting both sides of the war. The strongest fighting force on the 'rebel' side is ISIS and the strongest fighting force overall is the Russians fighting for Assad. If foreign support makes the rebels illegitimate doesn't it do the same for Assad?

Moderate rebels? This has been fake news carrying the Obama propaganda during his administration. No such thing.

Now under Trump the Truth is coming out??? Do tell.

Absolutely. We've had our share of - primarily Austrian and French - mercenaries as part of our internal wars. These were groups who enlisted for one of the fighting parties.

In Syria, however, you've had thousands of mercenaries who were not fighting for the government or the "rebels", but for their own. And we're not just talking about ISIS carving out pieces of Syria for their own caliphate, but also other jihadists who merely want to turn Syria into another failed state, like Libya.

To describe this as a civil war distorts the nature of this conflict, it makes it sound as if it were a struggle for control between two groups of Syrians. It may have been at some point years ago, but it hasn't been for a long time.

Mali is looking awfully similar by now, too. Lots of foreign fighters in nation states that were only ever stable on paper anyway -- a recipe for disaster.

I'll bite. (needless to say, spoilers)

The characters certainly had motivation.

Jyn's motivation, much like Rae in FA, is simple, daddy issues. She isn't so much invested in the rebellion as she is in enacting vengeance for her father. She is stunted emotionally and is not idealistic, but I think she uses that as a vehicle to push other characters along with her. Her last moments with Cassian aren't driven by any great romance, just the solace of two people who don't know if what they did will make a difference, but they succeeded in what they set out to do. I suspect she understood before she left Yavin that she was not going to get out of it alive, which sort of fits with her fairly nihilistic view of the universe.

Cassian was entirely driven by the fight against the Empire. He was willing to do anything, and was completely ruthless at the start, but he does mellow towards the end as Jyn makes a point of saying that he was like a stormtrooper. He is a zealot, a true believer, and is willing to sacrifice everything, even his humanity, for the cause.

Orson, the imperial commander, is a mixture of patriotism and self interest. He's a fervant believer in the imperial ethos of bringing order to the galaxy, but he is also deeply interested in recognition and commensurate rise in rank. He is so motivated that he risks his life directly to try and stop the rebels (not something you typically see bad leader types do outside of superhero movies, that's what henchmen are for) at the end.

The droid is all programming, but his comedy relief is explained by the dialogue that slicing an imp droid can affect it's personality. He is the one of the few light hearted notes (and consequently gives us a pretty poignant note when he says goodbye and get's shut down) in what is a fairly depressing movie. His bluntly honest statements are perfectly ironic and as such really do deserve the laughs they get.

The monk and the warrior were guardians of a temple but are now displaced. While it's couched in the monks mysticism, I think honestly they were happy to stand up to the big bad guys who wrecked their temple and extract some form of revenge. I think it would please both of them to know that it was worth it in the end.

The imperial defector seems to have little motivation, but he has already taken the dangerous step of defecting and getting the ball rolling for the entire plot etc, he's obviously completely displeased about the empire and willing to risk his life to do something about it.

Saul has been driven mad by the fight. The rebel leadership all seem to fit well within their established roles in the canon, as do Tarkin and Vader. Random rebel and imp personal are placeholders and who really gives a fuck what their motivations are? X D

/shrug As far as character development goes, it's certainly not a work for the ages, but to say these characters are going to get a thing because they need to get a thing seems to be nitpicking for the sake of nitpicking.

Oh yeah, and in regards to AT AT's, it's a strategic imperial world and heavily garrisoned. Likely a staging point for excursions around the galaxy as well. It has major shielding, AA and fighter complements, Star Destroyers standing guard etc. Sure, fan service is a thing (although the homages in R1 are far less clunky than FA, including things like the Hammerhead, references to the cartoons etc), but as an imp commander, I would certainly release AT AT and AT ST vehicles against an attacking force of unknown size, particularly when you see a whole bunch of landing pads explode simultaneously. Are their 10 commandos or 1,000? 10,000? Yeah, go lowball and wait for them to walk out in the open right? \= |

It's not like the AT AT's were stomping all over the archive looking for a guy hiding behind valuable Imp data infrastructure, they are roaming the outer regions and are fairly proof against ground troops. Makes sense to me.

Dunno, I think the RLM reviews are generally entertaining and thoughtful, but in this case whoever writes Plinkett has let his acerbic dislike of "new" Star Wars cloud his objectiveness imo. It was an enjoyable flick and certainly one I intend to own. I don't think it's anywhere near the best sci fi (although I kinda like it on par with Empire) movie out there, but it's far better than RLM gives it credit for, imo.

Oh certainly, there are definitely glaring flaws with Rogue One.

The biggest problem for me was how every character conveniently dies IMMEDIATELY as soon as their narrative purpose is done with. And strangely, every character seems completely ready to die in a way that makes the deaths fairly laughable.

Saw: "I'm gonna stare out this window and not even try to escape."

Bodhi: "I'm gonna close my eyes and not even try to toss that thermal detonator back out of the shuttle."

Baze: "Welp, my best friend is dead so I'm just going to Leroy Jenkins those Deathtroopers."

They missed major dramatic opportunities for each character death. Think "Saving Private Ryan" where each character death is meaningful. Caparzo disobeys a command to do something decent and gets himself killed. Wade dies because Tom Hanks wanted to do the right thing and clear the machine gun nest. Fish dies because Upham is too cowardly to climb the steps and fight. And none of those guys resigned themselves to death--they all wanted desperately to live.

A couple of other things that bothered me about Rogue One:

Why did Admiral Raddus take Princess Leia--a Galactic Senators daughter--into a major battle with the Empire, one which most Rebels were convinced was a trap designed to draw out the fleet?

Why didn't Vader just Force pull the Death Star plans out of the escaping rebels before massacring them all?

Why did the Death Star "miss" Scarif base and hit the ocean instead despite them showing it had pinpoint accuracy when blowing up Jedha?

All that being said, TFA disappointed me big time. It was just trying waaaaaaaay too hard to evoke the original trilogy. If I wanted to watch the original trilogy again I'd, you know, watch the original trilogy. And don't even get me started on Kylo Ren. I haven't wanted to punch a character in the face so hard since whiny Anakin from Attack of the Clones.

EDIT: To keep this on topic, I'm annoyed that Plinket didn't point out the actual flaws in the movie and instead focused on the "they didn't explain the Force" bullshit.

Seems with all the Muslim rebel rousing going on I believe Merkel will lose big time.

Bite your tongue, Rebel Scum!

So... someone who knows nothing about the situation in Syria/Aleppo makes a video about it, and proves he is a complete dipshit.
Perhaps he could mention the rebels in Aleppo taking citizens hostage?
Or them shelling escape routes?
Or them mining every exit point?
"Assad bad! Assad Bad!" he might as well chant over and over. I'm sorry, chappy, it aint as simple as that.

And the US having tried everything to solve the situation? How about NEGOTIATION??? Since day 1, they have refused to, and undermined all and every effort to actually discuss the problems in Syria, and instead and repeatedly fuelled the chaos by provided arms, including another 50 tonnes of weapons and ammo dropped this week. Yes, it is more complex than that, but in a nutshell, that's better than this cretan's attempt.
So, a fucking awful attempt to explain the situation.

I know it's a bit of a cliche to say it, but this whole video is just so much Russian propaganda. Right from the very first story 'ignored' by the MSM, you have the very same day coverage by the BBC here:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36835678

The only difference is that the BBC coverage has some details that the video's source leaves out, like that the Free Syrian Army condemned the beheading and was seeking to punish those responsible.

There is absolutely zero question that Syria is currently a war zone, with Russian jets dropping Russian made bombs on Syrian civilians. There is overwhelming evidence that chemical weapons have been deployed by BOTH ISIL and the Syrian government.

I'm not really sorry if it seems like the MSM is drawing a picture that makes the Assad regime look like bad guys. The reality is that the FACTS make the Assad regime bad guys. That doesn't make ISIL good guys because they are fighting Assad, criminals try and kill each other all the time and that's what's happening. The really troubling aspect is there exist plenty of Syrian people in the region who legitimately wanted an end to Assad's dictatorship and started a legitimated rebellion and have been almost completely cut out and killed off by both Assad and ISIL. If you've been paying attention, Russian bombing strikes focus heavily on the NON-ISIS rebels because they have legitimacy and thus need to die first.