People use religion to advance their stupid ideas. That's what the Muslim Brotherhood does in Syria. This uprising has been planned and sponsored by the West, and most importantly Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAB and Kuwait. All of these 4 countries are the masters of religious hatred and sectarianism. Hundreds of billions of dollars has been pumped into making Syrians fight each other.With enough time and money a portion of the population has been convinced that they were oppressed and somehow mistreated. It is possible, with enough effort, to make someone believe that their neighbor is the enemy, and therefore the cause of all the problems. Just like it was done in the breakup of USSR. Just like it was done in the breakup of Yugoslavia. Just like it was done in Nazi Germany. With enough propaganda, many people blamed their problems on the neighbor and members of other ethnic groups
I know the west is giving money and arms to the rebels, and I'm not very happy about that, but is it really something they have planned? It seems that lots of dubious pople like al-qaeda and the taliban are helping the rebels so I don't think the west has really thought through its action. And what would be the goal of helping the rebels? To bring down assad? If the west are smart enoughto plot his downfall they ought to be smart enough to realise that his successor will not be much more friendly as they are fundamentalists. I think the west are just being bleeding heart idiots, as usual.
The problem with older settled areas is that the populations of the different ethno-religious populations are quite mixed together. You would have to do an awful lot of basically forced resettlements to get anything approaching rational borders and that doesn't even take into account the problem of large mixed population cities. Who would get Beirut in Lebanon or even Brussels in Belgium? For that matter, what about places where the population is so diverse and mixed that it is very hard to find a dominant group (Papua New Guinea, for instance).
Absolutely. The violence was planned and encouraged by the West and oil rich Kingdoms like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait. The U.S. ambassador was traveling in Hama and Homs encouraging the protesters to overthrow Assad. What more proof does one need that the West already had it's mind made up before the violence even started. Think about it this way, how long was it before the armed groups began attacking Syrian Army and Police personnel? It was literally within months. Now look at Egypt, the army overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood government, but yet no attacks on Egyptian Army. No desertions from Egypt Army to join the protesters. That is because the Saudis and the West do not need such things happening in Egypt. If somebody had actually tried to encourage violence and pour money into there, then Egypt would be in a civil war too. Now look at Bahrain. There were hundreds of thousands of Shia protesters who were peacefully marching for democracy, reforms and equality. Not a SINGLE attack on the Bahraini Army or Police. The West sees it as a threat to their Bahraini allies, and stay quiet regarding the protests! No coverage about their protests, their demands and plight. Not only that but Saudi Army invades to help Bahraini Army crack down and crush peaceful demonstrations. Every protester is detained, jailed without a trial, even doctors who treated wounded demonstrators are jailed for years! Any doctor, lawyer, intellectual, or a civilian in general that helped the demonstrators escape the violent Saudi Army was jailed. No mention of it in the West. Think about that. In Syria they encourage violence because it benefits their belief that the Assad government is not to their liking. In Egypt they do not encourage demonstrators because Mubarak is their ally. There is a peaceful and careful handover of power to appease the protesters but all the power still stays with the Egyptian Army. In Bahrain, not only did they stay mum but they gave a green light to Saudi Army invasion of the country to crush the Shia demonstrators. In Libya the Islamists started carrying out their attacks in the matter of days after protests began. Same narrative by the West, "Libyan people oppressed by evil regime, need to be liberated" Alleged massacres by Libyan leader Gaddafi, need airstrikes by NATO to protect civilians. No massacre ever took place and the Libyan Army was simply to maintain law and order. West already had mind years before the conflicts began, Libyan, Syrian governments must be destroyed. Bahraini government must be supported at all costs, no matter who demonstrates. If tomorrow there are 100,000 demonstrators in Saudi Arabia, they will eliminated faster than one can blink, the West will not notice. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, UAB = allies no matter what, protests are crushed, basic rights violated, no one cares. Syria, Libya, Iran = enemies no matter what, protests and violence is encouraged.
I heared that the Syrian Kurds were looking for a piece of land within Syria, if their is no defined supreme governance within Syria, I could say that this is possible, no one of the opposing side would yield and the animosity is escalating because of so many deaths. A peaceful reunification is already impossible, I could see a truce, their would be a stalemate considering that Russia is supporting Assad's regime while on the other side a wave of endless queues of jihadists. The humanitarian factor such as the volume of displaced Syrian refugees would also place a pressure to abate the confrontation.
indeed. One has to take into account that the borders must be somewhat even and the country should form a blob instead of a patcjwork but that will lead to small pockets of minorities here and there. the solution to that is to just give those few places much autonomy i guess. as long as theres a clear majority it should work. As for cities they would give preference to historic owners in my view, so brussels go to flanders.
Economics drives many of the legitimate pro-democracy movements around the world, including, I assume, in the Middle East. What contributions to Syria's current misery stems from Assad's embrace of neo-liberal reforms? Do you find any of the following credible? "The Social and Political Context in Syria "There is certainly cause for social unrest and mass protest in Syria: unemployment has increased in recent years, social conditions have deteriorated, particularly since the adoption in 2006 of sweeping economic reforms under IMF guidance. The later include austerity measures, a freeze on wages, the deregulation of the financial system, trade reform and privatization. (See IMF Syrian Arab Republic IMF Article IV Consultation Missions Concluding Statement, 2006). "Moreover, there are serious divisions within the government and the military. The populist policy framework of the Baath party has largely been eroded. A faction within the ruling political establishment has embraced the neoliberal agenda. In turn, the adoption of IMF 'economic medicine' has served to enrich the ruling economic elite. "Pro-US factions have also developed within the upper echelons of the Syrian military and intelligence." http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-nato-s-next-humanitarian-war/29234
I thought the idea was to avoid wars. The only reason Belgium hasn't split into two countries is that both populations want Brussels, and we're talking unwarlike Belgians here. If either the Walloons or the Flemish were given Brussels, war would be inevitable.
I suppose it could be jointly administred then? It's on the border pretty much anyways isn't? By the way, I forgot to comment on what you said about papua new guinea. There exist many places like that, in africa for example, were there's just a thousand small very different ethnic groups that live very dispersed in an area, making the formation of a nation state very hard if one wants neat borders and a country that isn't pathetically weak. I think it's important that a country has defensible borders and that it's strong enough to support itself. Thus there needs to be slight compromising on the nation state principle. It's actually not a nation state per se that's important, just that the people comprising the state get along. To get along they don't necessarily need to be one people or one ethnic group, that fully depends on the history that the different peoples have had with eachother. Take Finland and Sweden for example, we have a close history and our relationship is very positive and friendly so we could perhaps become finland-sweden without much conflict due to our peoples' good relation, but take other peoples like the turks and armenians and you won't get as stable a country. Id est, if we can just find groups that don't have a history of hating eachother we could form countries around that. But sadly, peoples tend to wage war on their nieghbors just because, so I don't know if the nation state principle can be applied everywhere. sadly.
I'm not denying that the west is messing in the middle east, but I'm sceptic as to wheter they really have a thought through plan. If they simply want governments more friendly to them they would have been so positive towards the overthrowing of mubarak, nor assad. Surely they can see that the rebels they are supporting are much more religious than the former regimes. I think they are just under the illusion that the arab spring is mostly about wanting to become western style democracies, when it's in fact not quite about that but instead about becomming more fundamentalists.
There was little disturbance between religious groups in Syria before the war against Syria. And, there is still little trouble between religious groups inside Syria. The US supported terrorists and assassins hate all Syrians and want to imprison the surviving Syians into a Jihadist work camp for world conquest for the Talmu-"Islamic" Allah Akhbar crazies. The Europeans and Americans are the world's most stupid countries in that they are stoopped under the vast body of Talmudic doctrine that they worship instead of "nature's God". The apostate Christians of Europe and America worship their social egos, Molech, the Israelis and the Chief Prince of Gog & Magog. This is the root cause of the trouble. The current US supported war against Syria is, in essence, no different from the US supported wars in Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnia, Afghanistan and Syria. If America were following Christ, there would have been no Communist revolution in the USA under Lincoln, no mass slaughter of Native Americans, no invasion of China, Mexico, Philippines, Haite, Cuba; No WW1, No communist take over of Russia, No WW2; And hundreds of other wars over the last 200 years would not have occurred. Christians have not left Mount Sinai. They refuse to let "nature's God" rule them direct. Instead, they want priests to tell them "God" Will". Hence they evade Christ's Will, and substitute their social ego, imagining that someday Jesus is going to come and fix everything. He is not coming! His harvestors are coming to take out the apostate Christians just as happened in Anatolia, Russia, and other places. Christians refused to rule the world in Christ's Righteousness, and turned the world over to Anti-Christs. Yet most Europeans & Americans refuse to face their terrible condition. The Communist Hammer and Sickle are Biblical symbols from Christ's Parables: The Sickle is for harvesting tares, and then the wheat. The Hammer is Christ upon whom we are to be broken in repentence, or it will crush us to dust. Christ told His people that if they lose the flavor of His Character in them, that they are "fit for nothing" and are to be cast out and trodden under the feet of men.
Ivan...DAMN! LOL! That was some post! I can honestly say that of the several times I have had to do a...JOB...in the Middle East there was never a hint of any Talmudic Doctrine that guided my actions. In fact quite the opposite. Your concept that the United States and how it acts is somehow being directed by anything other than U.S. interests is flawed. AboveAlpha
OK, AboveAlpha, how do you imagine that the complete denial of our Divine Mandate, our 200 years of constant wars of aggression, our acceptance of the 10 Planks of The Communist Manifesto and the Noahide Laws, and our utter and complete hypocrisy and love of lies are what America should be about? And if you can't see our Phariseeism, then, AboveAlpha can't see his own.
Greatest Purveyor of Violence on the Planet. More than 20 million (mostly civilian) human beings have been maimed, murdered, and displaced by US Executive Branch decisions in the last fifty years. WWIII has come and gone for millions more of this world's disposable people. http://www.alternet.org/investigations/executive-branch-evil-and-lawless
Oh...PLEASE! The only reason why you are not speaking either German, Russian or Japanese right now is because of the United States. It is one thing to criticize U.S. Mistakes. It is quite another to just make up stories. You should thank your lucky stars we are here. AboveAlpha
How did the murder of one million Vietnamese prevent Stalin, Tojo, or Hitler from banning English in my schools?
Banning English in YOUR schools? Where are your schools located? You do know the Vietnam right now is PLEADING with the U.S. State Department to allow it to FULLY NORMALIZE RELATIONS with the United States right? Vietnam welcomes American tourists and investors with OPEN ARMS and because it HATES CHINA and China had it's ASS HANDED TO IT when it invaded Vietnam in 1979 is still holding a grudge. The Vietnamese are holding NO GRUDGES against the United States and want close ties and trade. AboveAlpha
Unless I'm mistaken, the Vietnamese war was inherited from France. Blame them! Besides we did have the arms, especially nuclear to have evaporated them all, and we didn't. Instead we risked the lives of our own soldiers. Now I'm going to tell you something else. The U.S. will not be the world's policeman for very long, and if you think what happened in the past was bad, then you ain't seen nothing yet. What's going to occur when the U.S. becomes weak, will be so catastrophic that it will make every war that happened before it seem like child's play.
Getting back to Syria, right now the Kurds who are in charge of many of the towns in Northern Syria are forming their own administration, and that is panicking Turkey. As a matter of fact Turkey had shipped in the Al Nusra rebels specifically to fight the Kurds, but it didn't seem to work. The agreement Erdogan had made with his own Turkish Kurds is now falling apart as well, so they will probably unite with the Syrian ones. If Turkey dare invade Syria, Assad might use his chemical weapons as threatened. Also what will Russia and Iran do, that is the question?
By "weak" do you mean what's going to occur when the US can no longer afford to borrow enough money to maim, murder, and displace millions of innocent civilians on the opposite side of the planet? (Think Mexico) It's only play when someone else's (brown) child is blown up in her hometown.
If you recall when the U.S. economy was doing well under Clinton...and the U.S. Economy is like a living thing it does what it want's when it want's....the U.S. economy had grown so much in such a short period of time that we had balanced the budget and it was determined the U.S. could pay off the deficit within 8 years at the current rate of growth. If the economy had not had to have endured 9/11...I am certain we would have been fine. Still even though we have a large deficit...a country with a $17.7 Trillion economy which is expected to reach $21.9 Trillion by 2017...THAT MUCH MONEY...AND THAT BIG OF AN ECONOMY...will have no problem paying off the deficit if we can just get 10 good years of economic growth. China has a vested interest in the U.S. and of all the places China could have invested...they thought the best bet would be the United States as it was considered a safe investment. As well...anyone thinking owing this much money to China would somehow place the U.S. in a position to be manipulated by China is thinking wrong because it is the EXACT OPPOSITE. NEVER LEND MONEY TO SOMEONE THAT YOU HAVE NO POSSIBLE WAY TO FORCE THEM TO PAY YOU BACK! The Chinese Communist Party mistakenly thought loaning large sums of money to the U.S. would somehow give them leverage upon U.S. policy making but exactly the opposite happened. China's entire economy is centered around exports to the United States...over 90% of the Chinese Economy is geared to this task. As well these goods being imported by the U.S. are not necessary for the U.S. and should the U.S. decide to stop all imports from China say as a response to a Chinese Attempt to invade Taiwan...and should the U.S. also stop all loan payments to China....THE CHINESE ECONOMY WOULD COLLAPSE. What could China do? Absolutely NOTHING! They cannot force the U.S. to either pay back loans or force the U.S. to accept imports as China's Military is no match for the U.S. Military...they would be SCREWED! AboveAlpha
A Kurdish partition from Syria would quickly have Kurds in Iraq follow suit and there is little the chaotic government of Iraq can do about it. Also northwest Iran is heavily Kurdish, but the big enchilada is Turkey. Turkey is ethnically one-third Kurdish. A united Kurdish state will require radical re-drawing of post World War One maps. Not only Syria, but Turkey, Iraq, and Iran could be dismembered and left as diminished rump states.
And here I was under the impression the brown people were blowing up and displacing their own brown children. I didn't realize we're the ones fighting in Syria and everywhere else. Hmmm! I guess then we should leave, so they'll all hug one another again.
Turkey has a megalomaniac at its helm reminiscent of Hitler, so no one never knows what he will do. Erdogan has been expanding his armed forces and navy like mad, and in his quest to restore the Ottoman hegemony, he has threatened the Syrian Kurds and said he will not allow them a fait accompli. Will Turkey be able to do anything, I don't know? They do have the largest army in Europe, so one never knows. What I do know is that members of their armed forces have been found in Syria working with the rebels.
