More on Syria

[rowan]

Another cowardly diversion tactic by the juvenile denialist, Stones. So far he has contributed precisely nothing constructive to the discussion, you will notice, and that is because he really knows nothing about it. Indeed narrow-mindedness is further exemplified by his obvious aversion to rugby in the non-elite playing nations. Such is the hideous face of jingoism.

[Stones of granite]

Another cowardly diversion tactic by the juvenile denialist, Stones. So far he has contributed precisely nothing constructive to the discussion, you will notice, and that is because he really knows nothing about it.

I asked you to comment on why your post said almost the exact opposite the article it linked to to support it. All you have done since then is bluster and lie.

You are a fraud and a liar.

Please consider changing your username to Billy Bullshit.

[rowan]

No, you simply decided to try and derail the topic with cowardly and juvenile attacks on the author of the article and my response to it, both of which you clearly misunderstood.

All you've got is Liar, liar, pants on fire

What an imbecile

So, in an attempt to get the discussion on track again:

As the article clearly states, if the US weren't still meddling in Syria, there would have been no need for its NATO ally Turkey to invade. You can read into that situation what you like, but it's going to be very difficult to resolve the issue with the Kurds being invaded and left out of negotiations.

Article being discussed: https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/01/29 ... ng-turkey/

[Digby]

Does anyone think for a moment, and by anyone I mean anyone but Billy Bullshit, if the US hadn't intervened or now removed themsevles from the process that Turkey would have no incentive to invade Syria and go after the Kurds? There is some history that might suggest it's happened before, which isn't to perhaps to excuse some of the latest stupidity of the Trump doctrine

[Sandydragon]

Turkey has a long running issue with the Kurds. The only way they wouldn’t have gotten involved is if the Kurds hadn’t expanded their area of influence during the past few years.

The US have helped some Kurdish groups, but given the situation at the time, it’s understandable why.

This is local power politics and Turkey waving a big stick, trusting that recent good relations with Russia will keep things sweet with Putin. I really don’t see how this can be blamed on Trump(for once).

[Mellsblue]

It would still be an ominshambles. It would just be a different ominshambles with slightly different actors.

[rowan]

Yes, Turkey has a longstanding conflict with the Kurdish community, who have the misfortune to be divided by the various regional borders. But it had never carried out major cross-border operations prior to the current conflict; at least not since the foundation of the republic. Trump has discontinued Obama's support for the anti-government rebels/terrorists, which was the underlying cause of the wider conflict to begin with. But America retains a presence in Syria, uninvited and unwanted, and in clear violation of international law. It clearly wants to retain a foothold in oil-rich northern Syria, and is using the Kurdish situation as a pretext - as if it cared about them. So we can only speak hypothetically about a Syria free of the US once again. Obviously pressuring Damascus to afford the Kurds a greater degree of autonomy is what we want, but it would further antagonize the Turks, who would no doubt not permit it. & if the US somehow succeeds in overthrowing Assad, the most likely replacement would be the Muslim Brotherhood, the arch enemy of the regime and cause of most of its internal conflicts. So given the Brotherhood was removed by the military in Egypt, and Egypt remains the second biggest recipient of US "aid" after Israel, that would seem more than a tad ironic.

[Donny osmond]

What has amused me *most* is that this...

'‘If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense,’ said Rowan. ‘Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?’

... was followed by this ...

blah blah wank. Precisely why I don't bother with this thread much. Blah blah wank. Sad.

... which was followed by numerous posts, including self-quotes, on this thread.

RR gold.

Sent from my HUAWEI VNS-L31 using Tapatalk

[cashead]

Does anyone think for a moment, and by anyone I mean anyone but Billy Bullshit, if the US hadn't intervened or now removed themsevles from the process that Turkey would have no incentive to invade Syria and go after the Kurds? There is some history that might suggest it's happened before, which isn't to perhaps to excuse some of the latest stupidity of the Trump doctrine

I'd say once it was appropriately destabilised, they'd have come wading in. Whether that would've happened sooner or later is anyone*'s guess.

*Except for you, Billy Bullshit.

[Sandydragon]

And in other news, the sarin has used against civilians has been positively identified as belonging originally to the Syrian government. A batch of the same stuff was surrendered to UN inspectors.

But of course, the use of chemical weapons was just propaganda, or else it was anti Syrian forces dropping chemical munitions from their own aircraft (not that they had any).

I suspect th same apologists would be up in arms if th US were using WMDs against civilians.

[rowan]

In fact, it is the invading forces of the NATO organization which are being accused by the victims themselves. You don't hear their stories because you don't live in this part of the world and have no real insight. What you read is the propaganda of the countries illegally involved in Syria, from precisely the same media outlets who accused Saddam Hussein of developing weapons of mass destruction and Muammar Gaddafi of planning a genocide of his own people; the racist, warmongering propaganda designed to support America's invasions and clandestine interventions across the Middle East, leading to millions of deaths, untold suffering, and destruction of entire nations. Legendary Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who exposed the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam and the torture at Abu Ghraib, has already traced the chemical weapons back to a NATO member. & Barack Obama himself recognized that arms being funneled to anti-government rebels fighting their proxy war were ending up in the hands of terrorists. It is possible their own stockpiles have been struck during bombing of their strongholds. But as another award-winning investigative journalist, the late John Parry (who helped break the Iran-Contra story) wrote in his final article, the accusations against Syria simply do not stand up to scrutiny, for those who care to apply it.

[rowan]

In fact, the Syrian Kurds allied to the Americans have repeatedly accused NATO of supplying chemical weapons directly to the anti-government rebels/terrorists, who were in turn using them against the Kurds themselves, as well as on civilian targets to frame the leadership. There are countless reports on this in various languages including English, but it has been ignored by the Western mainstream media, as have the findings of the aforementioned Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.

"Yellow phosphorous is highly toxic and banned under international law from use in civilian areas, although it has been proven used in war zones by Israel and the US.

Its effects are similar to napalm, i.e. burning the flesh down to the bone and inhibiting breathing.

A report from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical weapons last month accused ISIL of using chemical weapons against the Kurds in 2015.

FBI agent Coleen Rowley brought up the possibility that ISIL has had chemical weapons for years, and has in fact used them against civilians in an effort to bring the US into the civil war.

Rowley questioned current CIA director James Clapper and then-director John Brennan about their failure to attribute chemical weapons attacks to ISIL and instead to the Syrian government.

“Possibly even back in 2013 it was the terrorist groups that staged that attack of sarin in order to get the US to enter into the fray in Syria. This is something that should be investigated internationally; human rights groups and the UN should be investigating right now. It is a good thing there is a ceasefire, and it is a bad thing that some elements want to stop that ceasefire and get back to having war,” Rowley said.

If the YPG accusations are in fact true, and they seem to be, the course of the Syrian war and foreign intervention could be altered significantly."

Good article on the topic here: http://theantimedia.org/chess-game-syri ... ly-turkey/

[cashead]

Another cowardly diversion tactic by the juvenile denialist, Stones. So far he has contributed precisely nothing constructive to the discussion, you will notice, and that is because he really knows nothing about it. Indeed narrow-mindedness is further exemplified by his obvious aversion to rugby in the non-elite playing nations. Such is the hideous face of jingoism.

Quoted: a constructive addition to the discussion.

[rowan]

Another cowardly diversion tactic by the juvenile denialist, Stones. So far he has contributed precisely nothing constructive to the discussion, you will notice, and that is because he really knows nothing about it. Indeed narrow-mindedness is further exemplified by his obvious aversion to rugby in the non-elite playing nations. Such is the hideous face of jingoism.

Quoted: a constructive addition to the discussion.

Quoted: a constructive addition to the discussion. Trala !


Here, watch this & learn something:

[cashead]

Another cowardly diversion tactic by the juvenile denialist, Stones. So far he has contributed precisely nothing constructive to the discussion, you will notice, and that is because he really knows nothing about it. Indeed narrow-mindedness is further exemplified by his obvious aversion to rugby in the non-elite playing nations. Such is the hideous face of jingoism.

Quoted: a constructive addition to the discussion.

Quoted: a constructive addition to the discussion. Trala !


Here, watch this & learn something:

It's hilarious how witty you think you are, when all you've got in your arsenal is parroting what the other person says, and spouting the same old tired catchphrases.

The fact that you're a hypocrite overflowing with utter shit is beautifully demonstrated in the fact that you accuse others of being propagandists, and then you go ahead and post something from RT.

[cashead]

And another thing: considering how you can't even type "Seymour Hersh" without mentioning his one Pulitzer, as if that means everything he states is gospel, it's funny how you turn around and criticise a link to the New York Times. They've won 122, so shouldn't that make them 122 times more reliable than old Hershy?

Or does that only count when they're confirming your specific biases?

[rowan]

Seymour Hersh who exposed the My Lai Massacre and Aru Ghraib torture chambers compared to the New York Times, which blindly supports all of its government wars? & you've clearly taken the latter? That says an awful lot about you, hapless.

Meanwhile, here's the template for the standard warmongering speech directed at every sovereign nation America wishes to invade, right up to Syria: To keep falling for this same old racist propaganda is not only stupid, it requires a certain degree of evil:

[cashead]

Or does that only count when they're confirming your specific biases?

Seymour Hersh who exposed the My Lai Massacre and Aru Ghraib torture chambers compared to the New York Times, which blindly supports all of its government wars? & you've clearly taken the latter? That says an awful lot about you, hapless.

[rowan]

Wonderful contribution you're making to the discussion, Hapless.

[cashead]

Wonderful contribution you're making to the discussion, Hapless.

Oh good lord, you still don't get it do you?

Have you ever wondered why no one bothers to engage with you? And that the closest anyone would come to even giving you the time of day is to dunk all over you?

The fact that you can't even recognise the fact that this particular round of you getting shat on started with you getting called out for hypocritically engaging in the very behaviour you accuse others of speaks for itself. Are you really too fucking stupid to even recognise that this particular tangent was never even intended to be related to the main topic of this thread to begin with?

I'm sure you'll have some sort of witty response to this, which will be little more than either A) "I know you are, but what am I?" or B) a big old word salad where I'm apparently supposed to be an imperialist propagandist blah-blah-blah.

I also like how you keep trying to make that "hapless" insult a thing. You're like Gretchen from Mean Girls, trying so hard to make "fetch" happen.

[rowan]

You still haven't contributed to the discussion, hapless. A little ironic, given the tone of your earlier post. Like a few others, you're only tactic is to drag the discussion down to kindergarten level because you have no sensible argument to offer.

[Stones of granite]

Wonderful contribution you're making to the discussion, Hapless.

Oh good lord, you still don't get it do you?

Have you ever wondered why no one bothers to engage with you? And that the closest anyone would come to even giving you the time of day is to dunk all over you?

The fact that you can't even recognise the fact that this particular round of you getting shat on started with you getting called out for hypocritically engaging in the very behaviour you accuse others of speaks for itself. Are you really too fucking stupid to even recognise that this particular tangent was never even intended to be related to the main topic of this thread to begin with?

I'm sure you'll have some sort of witty response to this, which will be little more than either A) "I know you are, but what am I?" or B) a big old word salad where I'm apparently supposed to be an imperialist propagandist blah-blah-blah.

I also like how you keep trying to make that "hapless" insult a thing. You're like Gretchen from Mean Girls, trying so hard to make "fetch" happen.

Almost everything that Billy Bullshitter has written about the Turkish campaign in Afrin is wrong.
The Americans didn't deliberately provoke it, the article he cited confirms this. Also the American (and French) governments have raised protests with the Turkish Government. Protests that Erdogan in his usual style has rubbished with the kind of rhetoric that we expect from Bully Bullshitter, perhaps it's a Turkish thing.
"Meanwhile, Turkey took umbrage at remarks by French President Emmanuel Macron, who warned against an "invasion operation" of Afrin.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu called the warning an "insult" and said Thursday that France was in no position to "teach a lesson" to Turkey over its cross-border offensive, referring to past French military interventions in Algeria and other parts of Africa. "

The YPG in Afrin are not supported by the Americans. American support is limited to the SDF - which does include a substantial number of YPG fighters - which is part of the anti-Daesh coalition. The YPG in Afrin are not part of that. It is fairly likely, however, that some equipment will find its way from American trained and supported units to those in Afrin.

The number of Turkish troops directly involved in Afrin is still relatively small, with the Turkish Government preferring to fight this campaign with Syrians. Probably at least partially due to the fact that Erdogan recently purged the army of 28,000 men.

Meanwhile, there are reports that "Operation Olive Branch" is provoking a Kurdish backlash, which may well result in the resumption and upscaling of terrorist activity by the PKK inside Turkey itself.

Standby for the stock response of "you don't live in the region" by Billy Bullshitter.

[rowan]

Original post. Stones has seized upon the last comment (in bold) to suggest that I had contradicted the entire article by raising the possibility that the NATO allies are not at odds at all but putting on a performance while they continued to invade Syria. But Stones has worked himself into a lather over this, claiming it's all lies, damned lies, because we all know NATO would never do anything dishonest like that

What the US has done is deliberately provoke the Turks into invading Syria by setting up a protectorate along the border manned by a proxy army of mostly Kurdish fighters. The objective is clearly to prolong the war, divide Syria and ultimately replace Assad with a leadership they can control - or, failing that, total chaos (a la Afghanistan, Iraq & Libya). They failed in their first attempt to achieve the latter goal, effectively suffering defeat at the hands of Russia, Iran and Hezbollah - who they subsquently attempted to demonize and blame for the whole shebang. This article explains it well, though I would certainly raise the possibility that the NATO allies are co operating entirely and simply putting on a show to disguise the fact: https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/01/29 ... ng-turkey/

[rowan]

perhaps it's a Turkish thing.

& Perhaps denying war crimes your own country is involved in is a British thing, Stones of Cowardice...

The YPG in Afrin are not supported by the Americans.

According to media sources within the region itself there have been instances of direct support. The YPG themselves have also stated this. You've obviously been brainwashed by the corporate media, Stones of Cowardice . . .

The number of Turkish troops directly involved in Afrin is still relatively small

Silly comment. They're boasting about killing almost a thousand evil terrorists and marching on to the next frontier. You don't do that with a small number of troops, Stones of Cowardice . . .

Probably at least partially due to the fact that Erdogan recently purged the army of 28,000 men.

I'm sure that has totally decimated Turkey's army of almost 700,000, Stones of Cowardice . . .

Meanwhile, there are reports that "Operation Olive Branch" is provoking a Kurdish backlash, which may well result in the resumption and upscaling of terrorist activity by the PKK inside Turkey itself.

No kidding, Stones of Cowardice . . . !

Standby for the next edition of I know everything about a region I don't even live in by Stones of Cowardice . . .

[cashead]

Are you really too fucking stupid to even recognise that this particular tangent was never even intended to be related to the main topic of this thread to begin with?

You still haven't contributed to the discussion, hapless. A little ironic, given the tone of your earlier post. Like a few others, you're only tactic is to drag the discussion down to kindergarten level because you have no sensible argument to offer.

You sure answered that question.