Middle East landscape rapidly changing

[muppet]

Lunatic is gassing innocent people and your solution is to cut Israel adrift and call a peace conference. Unbelievable.

Maybe education cut advocates have a point.

[seafoid]

Lunatic is gassing innocent people and your solution is to cut Israel adrift and call a peace conference. Unbelievable.

Give us your solution, Itchy.

[Itchy]

I already did. It didn't mention Israel so you probably ignored it.

[Itchy]

Lunatic is gassing innocent people and your solution is to cut Israel adrift and call a peace conference. Unbelievable.

And what evidence do you have that says Assad is responsible?

Let me guess, Israel did it right?

[theskull1]

I think ghd's question is completely valid. The middle east has a lot of players

[Itchy]

It is. Then is it reasonable of me to request proof that Israel fires rockets into Gaza and some one else trying to blacken Israels name? Of course it isn't.

[seafoid]

I already did. It didn't mention Israel so you probably ignored it.

what would airstrikes (far sexier word than indiscriminate aerial bombing) achieve ?

BTW do you think the Brits should have bombed Tyrone in 1974  ?

[Itchy]

Assad has a conventional army. It is not like the Taliban or IRA. Targeting his military bases and wrecking the means to launch some of his rockets is a reasonable response. No I don't think the Brits should bomb Tyrone but I do think that is a typical brainless comparison from you.

[seafoid]

Assad has a conventional army. It is not like the Taliban or IRA. Targeting his military bases and wrecking the means to launch some of his rockets is a reasonable response. No I don't think the Brits should bomb Tyrone but I do think that is a typical brainless comparison from you.

Leave out the ad homs, Itchy. You should be able to make your point without resorting to them.
Do you think Qatar got value for money for the Billion dollars it spent funding the Syrian opposition?
Should the Yanks intervene so the jihadis and the sunni extremists take over ? Did that work in Afghanistan ?
And how do you think it will influence the Iran situation?   
Do ordinary Syrians deserve  any say in any of this?

[Itchy]

Seafood - you don't give a shit about 'ordinary' Syrians (whatever an ordinary Syrian is). You just want to find another reason to hate Israelis in every conflict, this is all Israels fault isn't it. Yes there are bad forces on the many opposition sides but none of them have access to weapons such as Gas which a totally illegal means of waging war. Tell me will all the different factions in Syria turn up at this peace conference of yours.

[seafoid]

Seafood - you don't give a shit about 'ordinary' Syrians (whatever an ordinary Syrian is). You just want to find another reason to hate Israelis in every conflict, this is all Israels fault isn't it. Yes there are bad forces on the many opposition sides but none of them have access to weapons such as Gas which a totally illegal means of waging war. Tell me will all the different factions in Syria turn up at this peace conference of yours.

give it a rest itchy. Since when has international law or the geneva conventions applied to the West's wars in the Middle East? Libya worked out fabliss, didn't it?  Bombing Syria won't achieve anything. How would you like your sister selling herself in a refugee camp tent because Qatar wants regime change in cavan? The whole thing is a big f**king mess. The only thing guaranteed is that civilians get shafted.

[Itchy]

Seafood you are impossible to debate with. Your sister statement is just unreal.

[seafoid]

Seafood you are impossible to debate with. Your sister statement is just unreal.

Itchy, you can do far better than that. Do you know how war works? The most vulnerable families are left with nothing.
Prostitution goes with airstrikes like strawberry goes with cream.
So if you want a full blown war at least defend the fallout.

And do you want to take Iran out at the same time so Israel gets to control the whole region?

[Itchy]

You do realise there is already a war in Syria? Do tell me all about your first hand knowledge of war Seafood. International warrior like you must have some stories. And then the mask slips, Israel is your main concern. Let's just eliminate Israel and all will be well in the middle East. You are a headcase.

[seafoid]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/24/options-syria

Choosing between bad options in Syria becomes ever more complex

The west needs to address the detail, not unleash rhetoric

"One defining feature of western foreign policy over the past two-and-a-half decades is the question of when, in what circumstances, and in what way the international community should intervene to prevent large-scale human rights abuses. The doctrine of responsibility to protect – R2P – was inspired in large part by the bloodshed that followed the break-up of Yugoslavia when, as today, the world seemed unable to shape a coherent response.

The promise that it once held, despite the criticism of some states that it threatened the principle of national sovereignty, has been badly eroded in the past 10 years. An illegal war in Iraq dressed up as a protective necessity has been followed by other interventions that have backfired, not least in Libya. In the process, different models of intervention have been destruction-tested. The large-scale and hugely costly US-led commitments to reconstruction and democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan have little to show for the effort except a continuing cycle of bloodshed and instability. Intervention-lite – in Libya again for instance – has left a country close to the brink of anarchy. And where the international community has forsworn any meaningful pressure – in Syria, and now in Egypt – events, at every juncture, have taken a turn for the worse.

If the issues involved have been complicated, it is because the US has, in recent years, relentlessly undermined any claim it might have had to moral leadership. Rendition, Guantánamo Bay and drone killings, which have all claimed too many civilian lives, have tarnished its reputation, not least in Asia and the Middle East. The UN Security Council, and in particular its five permanent members, is ever more at odds, with Moscow and Washington implacably opposed over Syria.

Today, the world appears to be at a crossroads. The stark and compelling evidence of large-scale atrocities, including the strongly suspected use of chemical weapons outside Damascus last week, killing perhaps hundreds of people, comes amid a growing perception that a weak and divided international community is powerless and unwilling to act on crimes against humanity. A sense of impunity feeds boldness and escalation. In Damascus, Cairo and elsewhere, actors today are making dangerous decisions based on the calculation that they will not be called to account.

In these circumstances, it is the easiest thing to say that, in the case of Syria in particular, there are only bad options. That may be true. But increasingly it may be that there is a worse option: doing nothing.

This paper has resisted the calls for military intervention in Syria. It remains the case that such intervention seems a deeply perilous route, with no guarantee of success and pregnant with the risk of triggering a wider regional war. But we do appear to be coming ever closer to a tipping point, with difficult judgments ahead. The recent statements from William Hague and President Obama have raised the temperature and increased the likelihood of some form of action or sanction if it is conclusively proved that the Syrian regime is authoring chemical attacks on its citizens. Hague is right to say that "a chemical attack ... is not something that a humane and civilised world can ignore".

Yet the case for military intervention has still to be made. Obama seems intent, rightly, on getting international agreement for an even more limited form of action – securing chemical weapons or neutralising missile sites. And, looking back at Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan, who can say with any certainty that the lives of Syrians would improve in the long term if such a course of action was taken?

But as the situation deteriorates, there is a responsibility on all our parts to engage meaningfully with this debate and consider the choices we might face. If, after due consideration, the decision is made to leave well alone, we will at least be clearer as to why we have made that choice.

Last week, the French foreign minister said that "force may be needed" in the event of a chemical attack. But what kind of force, and from where, and to achieve what? And what then? Does force come allied to political initiatives, or not? We need to address the detail, not unleash rhetoric.

There are no easy answers here, but we need to ask the questions. And we should trouble ourselves to think through the possible outcomes for the people of Syria. Until the most recent statements from the US and the UK, it looked increasingly like we weren't bothered and didn't care.

We can avert our eyes when "suspected" chemical attacks take place. Can we still avert our eyes if they are proved to have taken place? The answer may still be yes, but let's explain to those caught in the Syrian nightmare why that is so."