The western world had no right to go intervening in Syria's internal affairs in the first place. Guns and mercenaries were flooding in what was Assad supposed to do about it? What about those chemical weapons, notice we don't use that as a reason for our meddling anymore? It's because we now know that it was actually rebels on our side who used them and they were supplied by a Saudi prince. We constantly try to imply is was Assad but in fact we knew it was our side almost from day one. Whats the real reason for all this mess? Well it's oil of course. Qatar wanted to build oil pipelines in Syria and Assad wanted to do a deal with the Iranians and Russians instead, so we decided to give him and his people the international equivalent of a punishment beating. The cold war is over? Pull the other one.

Right, the Russians who prop up a dictator whose almost immediate response to the Arab uprising was to fire on the protesters and who terrifies his people into submission with barrel bombs and chemical weapons - they're the good guys.

See here's the funny thing. You or whatever you're reading is stuck in the Cold War mindset of the US intervening to prop up murderous dictators against the perceived threat of communism. However now that it's Russia intervening on behalf of its favored dictators you're too stuck in your narrative to see the irony of your position.

Russia is only intervening against ISIS to the extent it props up Assad. The US still of course supports dictators when it is in its economic interests (see Saudi Arabia and implicitly supporting its war in Yemen) but the fact that it's largely avoided arming the government or rebel groups in Syria, neither of which have their hands clean should indicate a lesson learned from arming the mujaheddin against the Soviets in Afghanistan, not a mistake.

You do realise it was Russia and China who were against causing the clusterfuck in Syria in the first place? At least in Iraq we bothered to come up with an excuse to go to war, even if there turned out to be no WMD. In Syria we didn't even bother to do that, we just said Assad is a bad person and sent in mercenaries and lots of guns and called them rebels and freedom fighters and watched the whole place blow up. Assad is such a bad person? Compared to the Saudi's? The Russians are the only ones who have stopped the place become an ISIS state by now.

Snowden went to whichever country wouldn't hand him over to the U.S.
And he still went to a country with sewerage.....
Not that it's even relevant, because that's one person vs some 50 million is not comparable.


Syria isn't the only country with refugees.

What about Edward Snowden?

Most of the Syrian refugees are actually still in Syria, or just over the border in Turkey, it's a fairly small percentage of that group who have chosen to try their luck in westernised countries.

@newtboy
I admit that perhaps invading Palestine slowly was their best viable option before the war ended.....I just think it's helpful to be perfectly honest that that's what happened and not play some game about it and pretend they hold the moral high ground on that part of the issue.

I guess I just don't agree on calling it an invasion from the outset. European Jews had the doors closed to them everywhere the world over, illegal immigration or staying in what would become Nazi occupied Europe were their only options. Palestine was hands down the most attractive option, despite a hostile Arab Palestinian population. The main reason being that the Jewish Palestinian minority were basically a state within a state. The Arab and Jewish populations had both sufficiently failed to integrate already that they were operating as largely segregated and autonomous regions. Thus, Jewish Palestine was both reasonably close to Europe, and very much welcoming to the people leaving. I don't believe that's fair to be marked as an invasion from the outset. I must insist that if we get to insist all actors conduct themselves in their own self interest, that the Jewish immigration from Europe to Palestine could have been entirely peaceful, and if the Arab population had taken a live and let live approach things could have gone swimmingly. Of course humans aren't ideal or moral very often, so both sides fought and tensions arose. By the time WW2 was over it was too late, the dice were cast and another Jewish exodus from Palestine back to Germany wasn't gonna work. Neither were the Jewish people promised a thing from Germany and it would all be on a hope and a prayer. They had a better shot making their own future by standing their ground in Jewish Palestine. Truth be told, I really can't blame the Jewish side for saying enough is enough and we're gonna stand and fight. Neither can I blame the Arab Palestinian's over much as their biggest fight was really just for independence from the British. With the British gone, both the Jewish and Arab residents fought it out over who would control what, which is sadly fairly natural.

The point I DO lay blame is when the civil war took a pause and Israel declared independence on the UN mandated borders. The Arab world(not the Arab Palestinians) jointly refused to accept any Jewish portion of Palestine and swore to drive them into the sea. Worse, they vehemently called for the retreat of all Arab palestinians from the region to make it easier to clear the country out. Of course, they failed to win that fight and it's been a source of great shame and horror ever since. They didn't fail for lack of strength in arms or numbers, but because each neighbouring Arab state cared not a whit for restoring Palestine to the Arab Palestinians but instead each sought to seize a portion of it for themselves, as invaders. Luckily for Israel they exploited those divisions to come out the other side.

There's plenty of atrocities to blame on the Palestinian response, but also empathy for a displaced and, today, a decimated people still suffering horrifically, mostly for 'sins' of their grandfather's, namely the sin of fighting invaders stubbornly.

But that is all the more the tragedy, as that is very clearly the way the Israeli's started out. They remained peaceful and fled as nation after nation tried to destroy them. The most open place to them in the time probably was Jewish Palestine. For all the atrocities to blame on Israel, I also have empathy for the plight they started from. Even their whole history through today is a tight rope walk were losing any single one of the wars from then till now would have seen the end of Israel as state.

As much blame as one can put on Israel for meeting homemade rockets with professional air strikes, they aren't the only ones to be blaming. Yes, more empathy is needed for the Palestinians than blame. But their are plenty of states, mostly Syria and Iran using the Palestinians as proxies and pawns. So many Arab entities WANT to see dead Palestinians in the news because it plays well for them. I really insist they get as much or more heat than Israel for the tragedy unfolding.

Gawd, the world just sucks sometimes. The guy who saved the baby died in August 2016 in Aleppo.

He was a father with two kids.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/08/13/489906652/the-volunteer-who-rescued-syrias-miracle-baby-is-killed-in-aleppo

As depressing as it is, Trump might very well be the preferable outcome for people in the Maghreb. Clinton has been a major driver behind the clusterfuck that used to be Syria and Libya.

Also, if you browse through the economics commentaries outside the mainstream, you'll notice that the US-based crowd seems to be borrowing yet another word from German: Lumpenproletariat. Old Marx is back with a vengeance.

And if people like Clinton, Cameron, Hollande, Rajoy and Merkel piss on the Lumpenproletariat, you get your Farages, your le Pens, your Trumps, your Petrys. Treat the plebs like rats, and many will follow whatever rat-catcher comes along...

Then you end up with people taping mags together and reloading within a second or so.
Even faster if they count shots and stop firing at capacity-1 before reloading.
There are work-arounds...




Realistically, the end game of the political left is a gun ban + confiscation. The end game of the political right is total gun deregulation.
Each side needs something to argue to excuse their existence, so they will argue in their direction so long as there is anything left to argue, and those are the natural consequences.
Gridlock is literally the best thing that can happen for folks in the middle.




Syria isn't the best example. The people were not armed, and they turned to foreign auxiliaries to fight for them. They invited and gave shelter to all sorts of foreign militants to fight against their government, and made a mess of things. They would have been better off with a home-grown insurgency.

Not like a home grown insurgency would have done much good either way. The Syrian Arab spring was a democratic call for ... Islamic law. It originated in Hama, where an earlier Islamic insurgency was put down (the muslim brotherhood) by Assad's father. Half the country didn't support the insurgency against Assad, and anyone who is non-muslim or secular, or even moderate, is sitting on Assad's side of the country hoping he holds out.

But generally speaking, insurgency with small arms is what defeats occupiers over time. Not in pitched battles, but by making occupation so expensive and tedious that the occupier loses interest over time.


-schehearazde

Why are voters so stupid? Before I Iraq/Afghanistan/Syria/all other wars I agree, this party was pretty lame.

However, since then they have become a viable option not just in my opinion, but in the opinion that was liberal back in those days. Stupid people just haven't caught up. Although I truly value your thinking and openness Chaos, I cannot fathom why someone as smart as you can't get it...so I will explain it in another post.

My point here will be this---the party is not why I am voting. The candidate is as honest as Bernie Sanders, despite the fact that it will cost him the election. So he earns my vote, not on platform, but period.

And notice--that party actually VOTED DOWN THE CRAZY SHITHEADS, unlike the main parties.

That's basically all there is left to say about TTIP, TPP, CETA, TiSA, etc, isn't it...

-------------------------------------
"It is of the utmost importance to work alongside other world leaders."

Just a small note on that one: thanks to the actions of Victoria "Fuck the EU" Nuland and the Nazi-supporting, oligarch-empowering regime of Yanukovich/Poroshenko in Ukraine, the "working alongside" part seems to fall awfully short when it comes to the Bear in the East. The Putin administration does some fucked-up shit, but all those tanks taking part in Anaconda 16, the biggest excercise since the end of the Cold War, they don't sport Russian insigniae. That's NATO, excercising a "Invasion of Russia" scenario at the border of Russia.

Maybe it's because I live in what would have been the battlefield of WW3, maybe it's because parts of my family come from Königsberg/Kaliningrad, but I support the old notion of "There is no safety in Europe against Russia, there is only safety in Europe with Russia".

Somehow, he doesn't seem to have issues working alongside the Saudi royalty who support all kinds of extremism while waging a war of aggression against Jemen. You know, the kind of extremism that gave the war mongerers in Washington an excuse to wage war in multiple nations.

How's Clinton doing, by the way? Still hailing her push to turn Libya into a failed state as an accomplishment and a sign of her experience in foreign policy? Still defending her vote for the illegal war of aggression in Iraq? Still pushing for more war in Syria? I would be interested in what Justice Robert H. Jackson, Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, would have to say about the Bush administration, the Obama administration and our cherished Presidential Candidate in spe, HRC. Maybe he'd commend them on their oratory prowess or sense of fashion...

"[the] world is actually healthier, wealthier, better educated, more tolerant, less violent than it has ever been."

Not in places like Afghanistan, Libya, Jemen, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Lebanon, downtown Chicago, Detroit or Cleveland. Not in Greece. And I'm not entirely sure it's a better place for the hundreds of millions of Chinese who left their rural areas to become work nomads. Also not sure about the all the millions of people in Africa whose livelihood gets crushed by subsidised produce/corn from the West. Not sure about all the Indian farmers who are driven into suicide by the monopoly powers of seed suppliers. Not sure about India as a whole, now suffering from the third year in a row of a belated monsoon and horrific drought.

"Democracy means you don't everything you want, when you want it, all the time" ... "and occasionally comprise, and stay principled, but recognise that it's a long march towards progress"

He talks the talk, but even for a center-right guy, he doesn't walk the walk. Principles went out the window in Gitmo. Principles went out the window when the drivers behind the illegal war of aggression in Iraq were not prosecuted in accordance with the Nuremberg Principles. Principles went out the window when carpet surveillance pissed all over the Constitution. Principles went out the window when US military forces aid Al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria just because they oppose Assad. Even mentioning principles in the face of the gruesome, drone-driven terror campaigns in at least half a dozen countries makes me want to vomit.

And don't get me started on compromise. If you ban single-payer and drop the public option before negotiations begin, that's not compromise. That's theatre meant to mislead us plebs while you add an additional layer of "market" to an already dysfunctional market, which ends up profiting the insurance companies yet again.

Your video, Drone Footage Of Homs (Syria) Aftermath, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Excellent propaganda. 40 seconds of radical muslim horror - in German, Belgian, French, Swedish cities possibly near you, a real present day danger which we need to do something about .

And then they start using the words refugee and Arab.

Of the current wave of people uncontrollably and iresponsibly invited by Angela Merkel and company to Germany estimates are (because real official numbers apparently will not be available before mid 2016) about 40% are refugees from war zones, mostly Syria, families, many educated people, several irrelevant religions (including a few flavors of muslim) some Arabs. We can keep these and try to help them. Educational videos and money will keep them warm and fed, Afghan families will eventually learn to use flushing toilets. They will find jobs and start kebab joints and go to school. Refugees.

Which leaves 60% of north african, balkan, middle eastern immigrants, overwhelmingly men 18-25, muslim, many illiterate (some Arab but that is irrelevant). Who join the masses of crazy radical muslims already living here in Europe previously. Not refugees. Not running away from something but running to the social systems and muslim ghettos of western Europe. Not easily separable from the above mentioned refugees. Protected by the insane political correctness of German and Swedish and Belgian politicians. Educational videos will entertain them and keep them warm. No amount of welfare will ever be enough for them. Very few will get an education and jobs, lots of trouble ahead. How do we get rid of these people now? Radical muslim immigrants.

Meanwhile we also have lots of regular immigrants in Europe, like Ukrainians, Russians, varieties of asians, and generally from all over the world as the trend is that jobs are available in parts of Europe and overall its a nice safe place to live in.

Problem is if we dont get rid of the stupid radical muslims its not going to stay that way, as jews and now women have found out in some large European cities. Hopefully the refugees can stay, but our inability to react in the face of danger at least according to previously agreed measures (Schengen border protection) will make it difficult for us to help real refugees in the face of public opinion damaged by these idiots (radical muslims and politically correct politicians).

@newtboy
If it was about safety, they would have illegally immigrated to the multiple neighboring countries

Right, as if you don't know how well fleeing from Germany to neighbours like Poland or France or Italy would have worked out for them... Seriously?

If the Syrians all went to Belgium, installed their own laws and government supplanting the local Belgians', made the Belgians non-citizens, took their lands and properties, pushed them into one small corner ghetto, then complained about how bad the Belgians are...

Are you suggesting that Jews did all this prior to the outbreak of civil war in Palestine? That doesn't reflect reality in any way shape or form.

it was close to 5% before the invasion.

When do you count Jewish immigration to Palestine as becoming an invasion? Palestine was already 8% Jewish by demographics in 1890. That's enough time for almost a 3rd generation to be born by 1940. Slowest, invasion, ever.

The leap was from 1930-1940, with an additional 450k Jewish Palestinians. In that same time the Arab population grew by 420k, so I guess they were both invading???

The alliance of Arab nations that fought them was much SMALLER militarily, you know this.

Right, Israel's initial standing army was 10k, matching Egypt's 10k. But Egypt wasn't the only one in the alliance of course, Jordan had that many as well. Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the remaining alliance members represented another 10k together too. Sure, in hindsight we know they don't jointly commit their entire forces to the task an outnumber the Jewish military 3 to 1. I'm not quite sure how the Jewish people planning a defense were supposed to anticipate that and 'hold back' accordingly.

Honestly, I just can not comprehend what you expect Jewish people fleeing Europe to have done instead. Fleeing to other parts of Europe still left them in Nazi controlled territory and on a train back to Poland. Standing to fight in other European countries meant getting shot at, defeated, and then on a train to Poland. Crossing the ocean was a far sight harder than going to the middle east. Of all the middle east countries, Palestine was the most promising so I find it hard to fault the folks leaving Europe and setting up shop there. Once arrived there, I again find it hard to condemn them for demanding fair treatment and being willing to fight for it.

I said those illegally invading in the 30's had little to flee (unless you are saying they had a time machine and KNEW what was coming).

Mein Kampf was first published in 1925, it had sold nearly a quarter million copies by 1933 when Hitler took power. How could they ever have seen anything bad coming their way I wonder...