Middle East landscape rapidly changing

[seafoid]

They are trying to crush the brotherhood with the backing of israel,saudi and the uae.  The cia coups in chile in 73 and iran in 53 were probably the same. Lies and mass murder.

[johnneycool]

They are trying to crush the brotherhood with the backing of israel,saudi and the uae.  The cia coups in chile in 73 and iran in 53 were probably the same. Lies and mass murder.

What would the religious make up be of the police force and Army considering the country itself had a Muslim brotherhood majority??

I see the Americans are threatening to pull $1.5b in aid. I wonder is that military aid?

[armaghniac]

American aid is military aid, mostly US made gear. This is under a deal where Isreal gets similar. Obama should stop both.

[seafoid]

American aid is military aid, mostly US made gear. This is under a deal where Isreal gets similar. Obama should stop both.

It all comes from the 1979 Camp David agreement that took Egypt offline in the Arab Israeli conflict.
Israel gets 3bn and Egypt gets 1.3bn to keep the border quiet.

[give her dixie]

A Damascus opposition monitoring group has said 494 people have been killed in a gas attack and shelling by president Bashar al-Assad's forces today, citing data from medical centres in the Syrian capital.

Syria has denied reports of chemical weapons being used in Damascus.

State television quoted a source as saying there was "no truth whatsover" to the reports, which it said were aimed at distracting a visiting team of United Nations chemical weapons experts from their mission.

The Damascus Media Office said in a statement 150 bodies were counted in Hammouriya, 100 in Kfar Batna, 67 in Saqba, 61 in Douma, 76 in Mouadamiya and 40 bodies were collected from Irbib.

"The attack began at around 3.00 am. Huge numbers of civilians were subjected to the gases. The numbers continued to increase rapidly as they suffocated to death, with lack of necessary medical supplies to save them," the statement said.

Activists said rockets with chemical agents hit the suburbs of Ain Tarma, Zamalka and Jobar in the Ghouta region.
Bayan Baker, a nurse at Douma Emergency Collection facility, said many of the casualties were women and children.
"They arrived with their pupil dilated, cold limbs and foam in their mouths. The doctors say these are typical symptoms of nerve gas victims," she said.

Britain has urged the Syrian government to allow the inspectors to visit the site of the reported attack.
A photo purportedly taken by activists in Douma showed the bodies of at least 16 children and three adults, one wearing combat fatigues, laid at the floor of a room in a medical facility where the bodies were collected.

The United States and European countries say they believe Assad's government has used poison gas including the nerve agent Sarin in the past, which Washington called a "red line" that justified international military aid to the rebels.

Khaled Omar of the opposition local council in Ain Tarma said he saw at least 80 bodies at the Hajjah Hospital in Ain Tarma and at a makeshift clinic at Tatbiqiya School in the nearby district of Saqba.

"The attack took place at around 3:00am (midnight Irish time). Most of those killed were in their homes," Mr Omar said.


http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/activists-say-gas-attack-near-damascus-kills-almost-500-1.1500860

[give her dixie]

http://www.theonion.com/articles/breaking-middle-east-conflict-not-solved-today,33571/

Middle East Conflict Not Solved Today

CAIRO—According to late-breaking reports emerging from Damascus, Gaza, Baghdad and elsewhere across the region, the deadly, generations-long conflict in the Middle East was not resolved today.

Reporters at Mideast bureau offices as well as scores of eyewitnesses on the ground are confirming that, as of press time, local militant groups, government forces, insurgents, and religious fundamentalists in multiple countries had neither reached a ceasefire agreement nor secured a peace deal, and as a result did not usher in a new era of tolerance and stability to the region Monday.

Additionally, 100 percent of accounts confirm that the situation is presently violent and unsettled.

"We can officially announce that lasting peace was not established across the Middle East today," said head of the United Nations Peacekeeping Department Hervé Lasdous in an afternoon press conference, confirming that the decades-old clashes that pervade nearly every country in the area had not been solved during the past 24 hours. "Ongoing political disputes, sectarian violence, and terrorist activity have not, as of yet, been brought to an end today, as no sides came together to seek a peaceful conclusion to the bloodshed and turmoil. A peace deal was not even considered, let alone drawn up or ratified."

"After years of bitter, bloody conflict, we can state that the atrocities and violence that were once synonymous with the Middle East are still very much synonymous with the Middle East," he added.

Lasdous' comments were corroborated by numerous Middle Eastern heads of state, leaders of terrorist organizations, and tribal warlords, all of whom separately confirmed that the most entrenched and divisive conflicts of the modern age, which have left millions dead and disaffected tens of millions more, have not been settled in any military, diplomatic, or humanitarian sense in the past few hours.

At the time this article went to print, the latest reports indicated that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; the Syrian civil war; the Sunni-Shia conflict; the war in Afghanistan; the Iraqi insurgency; violent protests in Turkey and Egypt; fighting between Arabs and ethnic Kurds; the Sinai insurgency; internal unrest in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen; and dozens of other conflicts were, in fact, still ongoing. Moreover, dozens of sources confirmed that brutality and strife, and not peace and prosperity, continued to dominate daily life in the region as of 6 p.m. local time today.

According to high-level sources with knowledge of the situation, the conflict is likely to persist into tonight and may continue into tomorrow as well.

"Neither we, nor our enemies, set down our arms today in the spirit of building peace," said Abu Ubaida, a leader of the Palestinian resistance group al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, who stated that the idea of putting aside differences with his adversaries and working toward a mutually agreeable solution "really didn't cross [his] mind" either this morning or this afternoon. "We did not find any common ground with the other side. We did not develop a roadmap to peace. And we certainly didn't sit down in good faith with our historic enemies with the shared recognition that what both sides truly desire is a future for our children in which they are safe from harm. That definitely didn't happen."

"It's safe to say that, since we awoke today, we haven't taken any measurable step toward ending the persistent cycle of hatred and hostility that has defined our lives for generations," Ubaida continued. "In fact, our sworn enemies remain just that, and we're actually quite committed to going on killing them."

Hailing the day's developments as "pretty much the same" as those of any other day, sources throughout the region reported feeling not even the slightest bit hopeful about the prospect of a brighter future, citing no discernable change in the level of fighting and instability they experienced relative to the day before. Additionally, residents noted that the detonation of multiple car bombs, the massacre of innocent civilians, the perpetration of dozens of kidnappings, and the use of chemical weapons against a state's own citizens were all concrete realities that had occurred within the past several hours, suggesting that, if anything, their lives may have actually grown worse since yesterday.

In addition, the region's top diplomatic figures confirmed that they did not broker a historic peace accord Monday and therefore did not finally bring tranquility and a spirit of reconciliation to a people who had known nothing but war and hardship for generations.

"Didn't happen today," said President of the Syrian National Council George Sabra, speaking to reporters amid audible gunfire and occasional nearby explosions. "Nope. Not even close."

Added Sabra, "We'll let you know if it does."

The Onion will continue to follow this story as it develops. Readers are encouraged to continue checking this website for hourly updates on whether the Middle East conflict has been resolved.

[macdanger2]

Hard to believe that Mubarak is going to be released while the democratically-elected Morsi is detained 

[seafoid]

Hard to believe that Mubarak is going to be released while the democratically-elected Morsi is detained 

It is consistent with past behaviour in Iran, indonesia and chile . Our son of a bitch is rarely elected .

[mylestheslasher]

Shocking pictures in the papers today of murdered people, many of them innocent kids, by a gas attack in Syria. Could Assad be this mental? The conspiracy theorists say it makes no sense that he would do this in a war he is winning. I don't know but I hope whoever is reponsible gets what is coming to them. I also hope whoever makes and supplies this gas gets what is coming to them too.

[trileacman]

Lads help me out here. I could quite reasonably follow the conflict in Isreal, Iraq and Afghanistan but the current flashpoints have me bamboozled.

Are the current uprisings linked to the long history of troubles in the region? Because to me it doesn't seem so. It looks more like a internal problem in both countries. And despite whoever or whatever comes to power the West is always supporting the wrong side as GHD and Seafoid continually decry.

[seafoid]

Middle East landscape rapidly changing... back to what it was in 2010....

[muppet]

From twitter:

God ‏@TheTweetOfGod 21 Aug
There is no area on earth to which I have devoted more time and attention than the Middle East and just look at the f**king place.

[macdanger2]

Shocking pictures in the papers today of murdered people, many of them innocent kids, by a gas attack in Syria. Could Assad be this mental?

What happened is terrible but is dying as a result of chemical weapons any worse than being killed by napalm, cluster bombs or a drone strike? All these methods of warfare are designed to indiscriminately kill as many people as possible but in the media at any rate, chemical warfare seems to be seen as a line not to be crossed for some reason. I'm not defending it in any way but it's a bit laughable that you can kill thousands of people in other ways without any real recriminations but using chemicals is a big no-no.

On the production side, chances are that a lot of these chemical weapons are manufactured in France / Britain / US or China / Russia.

[seafoid]

Shocking pictures in the papers today of murdered people, many of them innocent kids, by a gas attack in Syria. Could Assad be this mental?

What happened is terrible but is dying as a result of chemical weapons any worse than being killed by napalm, cluster bombs or a drone strike? All these methods of warfare are designed to indiscriminately kill as many people as possible but in the media at any rate, chemical warfare seems to be seen as a line not to be crossed for some reason. I'm not defending it in any way but it's a bit laughable that you can kill thousands of people in other ways without any real recriminations but using chemicals is a big no-no.

On the production side, chances are that a lot of these chemical weapons are manufactured in France / Britain / US or China / Russia.

Conventional weapons are apparently more moral. If Israel drops cluster bombs on Gaza it is civilised.
Very nice way to die.
There is no discussion on how our media report war. We are never told why wars start and who runs them. The enemy is never the opposition or the iranians or the israelis. The enemy is war and the system that generates it.

[Abble]

Shocking pictures in the papers today of murdered people, many of them innocent kids, by a gas attack in Syria. Could Assad be this mental?

What happened is terrible but is dying as a result of chemical weapons any worse than being killed by napalm, cluster bombs or a drone strike? All these methods of warfare are designed to indiscriminately kill as many people as possible but in the media at any rate, chemical warfare seems to be seen as a line not to be crossed for some reason. I'm not defending it in any way but it's a bit laughable that you can kill thousands of people in other ways without any real recriminations but using chemicals is a big no-no.

what is maybe worse, is seeing the survivors and how their bodies react to a chemical attack. you would almost prefer to see them with busted legs, battered and bloodied from a normal attack. if they get killed by any form of attack then that's it, they're gone but can these poor kids who survive, recover fully from a chemical attack, I'm not sure. its almost like a form of nuclear attack