The Alawites, Suni and Shia have been fighting each other for centuries. Syria is a secular state where Christians, Jains, even Jews are protected by the reviled Assad regime, although I would never have liked to have been a Jew living in Syria. As in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhoods want to run the country on strictly Muslim/Islam lines, effectively disenfranchising all non-Muslims. The conflicts have spread, and, as elsewhere in the Mid East, Balkans and Caucasian former Soviet states, all kinds of inter tribal and inter ethnic feuds have come to the surface. As usual, GB and France are partly responsible for the historical situation, as is the case throughout much of ex-colonial Africa and the Middle East. However, mia culpa or not, we (i.e. the UK government) would be well advised to keep totally out of it. Nerve gas, deadly gases? .. it seems that all sides are throwing the deadly stuff around. There is a level of hatred in the area that we just cannot comprehend, it goes back for centuries.
I don't really have a clue. Although it's not on the same scale, Egypt has confused me as well. The military overthrew the government. Hundreds of the Muslim Brotherhood have been killed by the military/government, then they declare a state of emergency having been the cause of it? Or are there rogue groups of militants around Cairo who are taking matters into their own hands?
When it comes to weapons, be they hand guns, knives, clubs, whips, atomic weapons, drones, helicopters, nerve gases, submarines and so on, it seems to me that boys eventually always want to play with those toys. Assad probably figures 'what's the use of having nerve gas if you don't use it?', and then he brings it out of the box. Judging by the phallic parades of weaponry in totalitarian states (North Korea is a good example), killing mechanisms are sort of sexually exciting symbols of potency by the mainly male dominated authorities. You have to wonder if it is all not just a religion thing, not just a nationalist thing, not just a revenge thing, not just a liberation thing, but this adoration of destruction and death is also a male thing, a bloke thing. You can't uninvent the stuff, and I expect nuclear attacks to happen somewhere on the planet in the next 50 years or so. Unless of course there is an unprecedented change of centuries old attitudes, or unless we are all choking on our home made pollution by then. TS Eliot says the world will end, not with a bang but a whimper.
^^^^ superb analysis .. the powerful gun as substitute for a powerless penis ... although resources and the lack of same .. water, arable land animals as well as oil .. are also major factors in the Mid East/South Mediterranean/Caucuses area conflicts, as well as (e.g.) who shagged whose daughter/wife back in the year 250
oddly my mate when he was 10 ate pages of the bible just so the next day he could come into school to tell us he had a biblical sized shit that morning. it was quite funny.
Everyone's getting twitchy on this one. The RN is putting in place the Gibraltar Pivot which basically means a "bomber" based permanently in Gib to allow them to react to a) Syria in the east and b) still keep an eye on the Russians towards the west.
Everyone's getting twitchy on this one. The RN is putting in place the Gibraltar Pivot which basically means a "bomber" based permanently in Gib to allow them to react to a) Syria in the east and b) still keep an eye on the Russians towards the west.
you sure it's not there to bomb Madrid if necessary ?
I was (of course) being flippant .. Syria has been a 'client' state of Russia since the 1960s .. Putin and the Soviets ? .. spot the difference .. like it or not Britain is still an important cog in the whole geopolitical structure .. we (to coin a phrase) still punch well above our weight both militarily and politically .. though who knows for how much longer
Assad allies to Iran. Iran are sending in support with Hezbollah, the Lebannese group that have been hardened in fighting the Israelis. They have been turning the tide with Assads favour.
The situation is complicated as conservative islamic jihadists have come into the country to fight Assad.
All the Middle Eastern countries are countries bordered manipulated, drawn and redrawn by the French, British and Russians.
A new problem is in area where Syria borders Iraq and has ethnic kurds. Kurds also live in Northern Iraq, Turkey, and Iran. On the part of Syria that borders Iraq, jihadists (sunni muslim Islamic conservatives - alqaeda types) are trying to gain control of the area. The Kurds are fighting the jihadists. The Iraqi Kurds opened the border and 20,000 syrian kurds have escaped into Iraqi Kurdistan. The remaining Syrian Kurds are seriously starting to fight the Jihadists potentially joined by the Iraqi Kurds.
The Syrian people fighting Assad don't have the weapons to defeat Assad. Assad is never going to concede. There are outside countries all with their interest and proxy soldiers, mixed in with religious conservatives. I can't see it having a good ending.
Assad allies to Iran. Iran are sending in support with Hezbollah, the Lebannese group that have been hardened in fighting the Israelis. They have been turning the tide with Assads favour.
The situation is complicated as conservative islamic jihadists have come into the country to fight Assad.
All the Middle Eastern countries are countries bordered manipulated, drawn and redrawn by the French, British and Russians.
A new problem is in area where Syria borders Iraq and has ethnic kurds. Kurds also live in Northern Iraq, Turkey, and Iran. On the part of Syria that borders Iraq, jihadists (sunni muslim Islamic conservatives - alqaeda types) are trying to gain control of the area. The Kurds are fighting the jihadists. The Iraqi Kurds opened the border and 20,000 syrian kurds have escaped into Iraqi Kurdistan. The remaining Syrian Kurds are seriously starting to fight the Jihadists potentially joined by the Iraqi Kurds.
The Syrian people fighting Assad don't have the weapons to defeat Assad. Assad is never going to concede. There are outside countries all with their interest and proxy soldiers, mixed in with religious conservatives. I can't see it having a good ending.
Most of the 'Rebels' are not syrians, they are foreign funded jihadis sent to try to overthrow the syrian government. What started as a peaceful movement for democracy was hijacked into a violent civil war.
WE can all speculate as to what we think should happen but what people dont ask is what the syrian people want?
Problem is, there are so many different groups in Syria that asking what 'the people' want is futile. Religion seems to make it impossible for people of different 'faiths' to coexist in the middle east, add old fashioned racism, power struggles that have nothing to do with religion and conflicts between different factions of the same bloody religion and you have a problem that literally has no solution.
Syria - as with most conflicts that people think are 'religious' - is not really about religion at all, its about power and who gets to run the place.
Just the same as in Northern Ireland and Israel, people are not fighting about whose God is more just or whatever bollocks like that, they are fighting over who gets to cut the pie up and who gets the biggest slices.
Syria - as with most conflicts that people think are 'religious' - is not really about religion at all, its about power and who gets to run the place.
Just the same as in Northern Ireland and Israel, people are not fighting about whose God is more just or whatever bollocks like that, they are fighting over who gets to cut the pie up and who gets the biggest slices.
Twas ever thus.
Spot on. I should have quantified what I meant. The idiocy of the masses allows people who are no more 'believers' in religion than I am to get away with whatever the fuck they like and claim they're doing God's work. It (religion) is indirectly responsible or directly responsible for most of society's ills. The rest are caused by money.
Despite most peoples complaints, we 'here' have not the scoobiest idea what it must be like to live somewhere like 'there'
I followed some of the utter horror going on in Egypt over the last week, which was dwarfed in the popular press by Helen Flanagan breaking a nail, and I genuinely wonder what it takes to shake the rest of the world into action when its not on our doorstep.
I'm glad William Hague has told them we are not jolly hockey sticks about it all though.
Despite most peoples complaints, we 'here' have not the scoobiest idea what it must be like to live somewhere like 'there'
I followed some of the utter horror going on in Egypt over the last week, which was dwarfed in the popular press by Helen Flanagan breaking a nail, and I genuinely wonder what it takes to shake the rest of the world into action when its not on our doorstep.
I'm glad William Hague has told them we are not jolly hockey sticks about it all though.
Helen Flanagan! My personal view is that if every man in the middle-east had a lass like Helen to soothe their tempers and melt their anger away with those extraordinary mammary glands then we'd have peace in the region by Friday prayers at the Mosque.
Sadly, she's coming round mine for a bunk up instead so the civil war will just have to go on.
Causes can't simply be labelled religion or money. Someone (third party) will get in there and arbitrate eventually. Each side will get to understand the others, then compromises will take place, probably involving re-drawn borders. Along the way one or several of the armies will be starved of weapons, a no-fly zone may be enforced. For the time being no external forces are stepping forward to take a lead in sorting it out but a conflict with porous borders is going to draw others in eventually and giving up on the basis of a 'hopeless case' will not be an option.
Comments
The conflicts have spread, and, as elsewhere in the Mid East, Balkans and Caucasian former Soviet states, all kinds of inter tribal and inter ethnic feuds have come to the surface.
As usual, GB and France are partly responsible for the historical situation, as is the case throughout much of ex-colonial Africa and the Middle East. However, mia culpa or not, we (i.e. the UK government) would be well advised to keep totally out of it.
Nerve gas, deadly gases? .. it seems that all sides are throwing the deadly stuff around. There is a level of hatred in the area that we just cannot comprehend, it goes back for centuries.
On a serious note what is so terribly sad is that the innocent children are indoctrinated to hate 'the enemy' and so it continues.
Judging by the phallic parades of weaponry in totalitarian states (North Korea is a good example), killing mechanisms are sort of sexually exciting symbols of potency by the mainly male dominated authorities.
You have to wonder if it is all not just a religion thing, not just a nationalist thing, not just a revenge thing, not just a liberation thing, but this adoration of destruction and death is also a male thing, a bloke thing.
You can't uninvent the stuff, and I expect nuclear attacks to happen somewhere on the planet in the next 50 years or so. Unless of course there is an unprecedented change of centuries old attitudes, or unless we are all choking on our home made pollution by then.
TS Eliot says the world will end, not with a bang but a whimper.
I was (of course) being flippant .. Syria has been a 'client' state of Russia since the 1960s .. Putin and the Soviets ? .. spot the difference .. like it or not Britain is still an important cog in the whole geopolitical structure .. we (to coin a phrase) still punch well above our weight both militarily and politically .. though who knows for how much longer
The situation is complicated as conservative islamic jihadists have come into the country to fight Assad.
All the Middle Eastern countries are countries bordered manipulated, drawn and redrawn by the French, British and Russians.
A new problem is in area where Syria borders Iraq and has ethnic kurds. Kurds also live in Northern Iraq, Turkey, and Iran. On the part of Syria that borders Iraq, jihadists (sunni muslim Islamic conservatives - alqaeda types) are trying to gain control of the area. The Kurds are fighting the jihadists. The Iraqi Kurds opened the border and 20,000 syrian kurds have escaped into Iraqi Kurdistan. The remaining Syrian Kurds are seriously starting to fight the Jihadists potentially joined by the Iraqi Kurds.
The Syrian people fighting Assad don't have the weapons to defeat Assad. Assad is never going to concede. There are outside countries all with their interest and proxy soldiers, mixed in with religious conservatives. I can't see it having a good ending.
WE can all speculate as to what we think should happen but what people dont ask is what the syrian people want?
Just the same as in Northern Ireland and Israel, people are not fighting about whose God is more just or whatever bollocks like that, they are fighting over who gets to cut the pie up and who gets the biggest slices.
Twas ever thus.
I followed some of the utter horror going on in Egypt over the last week, which was dwarfed in the popular press by Helen Flanagan breaking a nail, and I genuinely wonder what it takes to shake the rest of the world into action when its not on our doorstep.
I'm glad William Hague has told them we are not jolly hockey sticks about it all though.
Sadly, she's coming round mine for a bunk up instead so the civil war will just have to go on.
It's such a complicated battle (like most countries currently in the middle east), there's no easy 'good' side for foreign governments to help out.
I will tell her you said that when she gets round here!