Russia's and Assad's War Crimes in Syria

POSTED BY: kpo
UPDATED: Monday, September 8, 2025 15:48
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SIGNYM

Tuesday, February 9, 2016 11:06 PM

Syria is a clusterfuck not because of the many POVs there, but because of the millions of dollars and hundreds of tons of weapons poured into that nation, along with the invasion by thousands of foreign jihadists paid by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and the USA CIA (indirectly). Because nothing creates a clusterfuck like fomenting a civil/ proxy war, on purpose.

The reality, G, is that in Syria there really are only two choices, because of who has chosen to exert themselves militarily:

Syria/ Russia/ Hezbollah/ Iran

OR

Saudi Arabia/ Turkey/ Qatar/ ISIL

One or the other is going to win. Not any other third or fourth party that you might prefer. From a moral or ethical standpoint, you might want to say "none of the above", and I might even agree, but that's just a hypothetical choice which is not going to happen, no matter how much you might want otherwise. I suspect that the USA might back some sort of "federalization" Sunnistan option as a third possibility, but I doubt that either Russia or Syria would allow that to happen. I think that Obama's restraint was brought about by Russia's open military assistance, because bombing Syria in 2013 suddenly didn't seem like such a good idea with Russia destroyers athwart the Syrian coast.

Now, given that only one or the other is going to occur, which one brings you closer to your goal of a democratic, open, secular Syria?

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

SIGNYM

Wednesday, February 10, 2016 12:42 AM

This is something of a repeat of a previous Zerohedge posting, but the fact that the KSA keep re-proposing "boots on the ground" is worrisome

Quote:
As we reported yesterday, in one of the most surprising developments involving the Syrian proxy war, Saudi Arabia and U.S. presence on the ground, the latest twist is that both Turkey and Saudi Arabia are now mulling a full-scale invasion while Russia and the Syrian government continue their progress in wiping out the US and Saudi-funded rebellion. To be sure, there was confusion when CNN Arabia reported first that the Saudis may send as much as 150,000 troops into Saudi Arabia, by way of Turkey, something which Anadolu news promptly denied.

However, the denial itself was softly denied by the Saudi Press Agency, which further stirred the water earlier today when it reported that not only is Saudi Arabia ready to send a special force to fight in Syria, but that this deployment was proposed by the US, which would oversee the Saudi troops as part of the US-led coalition in Syria. To wit:

AL JUBEIR SAYS U.S. PROPOSED GROUND FORCE DEPLOYMENT: SPA
SAUDI FORCE WOULD FIGHT AS PART OF U.S.-LED COALITION: SPA
SAUDI MINISTER SAYS SENDING GROUND FORCE UNDER DISCUSSION: SPA
SAUDI ARABIA READY TO SEND SPECIAL FORCE TO FIGHT IS IN SYRIA

And so, what was until recently purely an air campaign involving all the major global powers (except China, for for the time being), is about to become a full-blown land war, involving not only Suunis and Shi'ites (especially once Iran joins the fray), but also Russian troops on one side and US and Saudis on the other.

Most notably, oil has refused to budge even an inch on what is rapidly shaping up as a precursor to World War III.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-09/saudi-arabia-prepares-send-sp
ecial-forces-syria-will-fight-part-us-led-coalition

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

SIGNYM

Wednesday, February 10, 2016 8:54 PM

I think you place too much emphasis on how people "feel" about things. Most people are induced to feel one way or another about something because TPTB induce them to feel that way, for purposes of their own. The Saudi Royal Family has been pouring billions of petrodollars into wahhabist maddrassas for over 45 years ... since I was about 15, when I remember reading a distinct, impassioned, and long article about how the Horn of Africa was going to become radical Muslim if the western world didn't create a viable educational system there. The Saudis went on to radicalize Pakistan, which went on to radicalize Afghanistan etc. The USA must have had a deal with the Saudis, because "we" never interfered - despite full knowledge of what was happening- and we have found the jihadists somewhere between useful (Afghanistan, Chechnya, Yemen, Libya and the beginnings of Syria) to tolerable (Africa, Yemen) up to now. And then, funding jihadists with millions of dollars, arming them with hundreds of tons of weapons, and providing them with political cover (which KPO fully acknowledges) goes a long, long, long way to establishing their rule. You can't establishing a power base without these mechanics, as the fully-oligarchized USA is discovering.

Knowledgeable reporters (like Pepe Escobar) trace this to the attempted establishment of a Qatar to Mediterranean pipeline which is supposed to displace Russian gas from the EU, which is a USA geopolitical goal. In his view, this is so much pipeline-drive that he has called this region "Pipelineistan".

How people feel is very malleable. The population of the USA can be turned against any nation within a few months. Just look at how people jumped on board the various invasions of formerly unnoticeable nations, like Grenada and Panama and Afghanistan and Iraq.

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

SIGNYM

Wednesday, February 10, 2016 11:20 PM

What I'm trying to say is that how society works, and the way it runs, isn't just a reflection of the average opinion of "people" or how they feel. If that were the case, there would not be the misery that we have today, when most people don't get what they want or need. Society becomes something between an organism and an ecology. I go into a lot more detail about what I think the real drivers of society are in

Quote:
Society is not the government, or the nation

http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=60332

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

KPO

Thursday, February 11, 2016 5:24 AM

Syrian regime 'exterminating detainees' - UN report:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-35521801

1KIKI

Thursday, February 11, 2016 6:23 AM

But when the US kills or 'renders' detainees, it's A-OK!

And when the 'militants' (officially on the US terror list) overrun a city or region they politely ask people who disagree with them to please leave their homes and possessions, schools and places of worship and businesses behind and please find another place to live.

Right?

Or do you find the accusations in the MSM peculiarly one-sided? Because from what I've been reading, only a few bad apples sawed of people's heads with dull knives or set them alight in cages, and that was ages ago. Other than that - if you go by what you see in the MSM - they must be perfect gentlemen.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

THGRRI

Thursday, February 11, 2016 7:39 AM

Gotta say it again, I LOVE IT. The past year we have witnessed SIG and 1KIKI defend atrocity after atrocity when committed by Putin and his allies. Their credibility when pointing the finger at anybody for anything is now officially nil. Them complaining about atrocities against man going forward will only be met with laughter.

Nice job guys, you've yourselves. AGAIN

SIGNYM

Thursday, February 11, 2016 4:22 PM

To quote from the BBC itself

Quote:
The report says thousands of detainees have been killed while in the custody of warring parties* during that time.

* "Warring parties" like ... ISIL? FSA? Ahrar ash Sham? Al Qaida? Hezbollah? Syrian government?

As G has so helpfully pointed out, there are quite a few "warring parties" in Syria, of which the Syrian government is only one. The BBC quote leads me to think that the actual report talks about many bad actors, but KPO - with his axe to grind - focuses on only one. I'm sure there are atrocities all the way around, some of which can be placed on the Syrian government, and some of which can be placed elsewhere.

The detainees are portrayed as just a group of democracy-loving secularists, when in reality you have no idea how many may have been Sunni extremists. My Syrian Xtian acquaintance was horrified from the get-go about what was happening, he and his family in Syria realized almost from the start that this was a "depose Assad" movement, not a "pro-democracy" movement, and as a non-Sunni minority he predicted- accurately- where this was all going. I still trust his reaction more than the western press: many demonstrators were pro-Sunni Sharia law. Democracy was not in their plans, but it WAS a convenient cover-story for the western press, just like R2P was a convenient cover-story for Libya and WMD was a convenient cover-story for Iraq.

Well, whether Sunni terrorists or not, they shouldn't be tortured. That's an aspect of the Syrian government which needs to be changed. But you're not going to get where you want to go by allowing extremists to dismember the government, and turn Syria in Libya or Iraq or Afghanistan ...

which is where KPO and THUGR seem to be heading unerringly.

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

SIGNYM

Thursday, February 11, 2016 4:25 PM

Quote:
Gotta say it again, I LOVE IT. The past year we have witnessed SIG and 1KIKI defend atrocity after atrocity when committed by Putin and his allies

I've always said: COUNT THE BODIES first, and scale your criticism based on that.

Well, have you counted the bodies?

Because so far, in the body count, the USA is way ahead.

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

SIGNYM

Thursday, February 11, 2016 4:39 PM

Meanwhile ...

Quote:
Two US Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II assault warplanes carried out airstrikes on Aleppo Wednesday, destroying nine facilities, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported. The same day, the Pentagon accused Moscow of bombing two Aleppo hospitals, while there were no Russian flights over the city.

https://www.rt.com/news/332109-russian-jets-isis-warlords/

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G: Well, I could have quoted Reuters. It's a NEWS ITEM. Hello...
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-aleppo-airstrik
e-idUSKCN0VK0JD

Feel better now?
I guess that Russia doesn't want to get into a shooting war with the USA.

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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