Thread: The crisis in Syria

Analysis: Military action in Syria faces uncertain fate in Congress | Reuters

Analysis: Military action in Syria faces uncertain fate in Congress - Reuters (US)

Underscoring the division was immediate discord over the timing of Congressional deliberations on Syria, particularly the decision by the House leadership to wait until the end of the summer recess on September 9 to get going, instead of returning to Washington on Tuesday or sooner.

While the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said late on Saturday it would begin hearings next week before Congress officially returns, no similar plan had been announced by the House.

"Congress should return to Washington immediately and begin to debate this issues," said Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, considered a likely Republican presidential contender in 2016.

The president has the authority under the Constitution to call Congress back in session "on extraordinary occasions," but so can the congressional leadership. Neither so far has taken that action.

Senior administration officials said Obama left it up to congressional leaders to decide whether to bring members back early because the administration wants to do classified briefings and make the case to Congress in the week ahead, and there were logistical issues with the Labor Day holiday on Monday and religious holidays in the middle of the week.

Originally Posted by Deborski

Human bones found at infamous Florida reform school | The Raw Story

Another example of horrendous torture of children in the US. This concerns the infamous Dozier Reform School for Boys in Florida. So far, more than 50 bodies have been found, of young boys who were so badly beaten and tortured, under the auspices of the school's "corporal punishment program," that they died. The school never reported their deaths, it just covered everything up, and buried the boys on school grounds.

This was only just discovered in 2011 and was just in the news again today because more bodies were found.



Torture, brutality, atrocities, murder of children... is not limited to Syria, unfortunately. It is a sickening and disgusting state of humanity.




Human bones found in dig at notorious Dozier reform school in Florida - U.S. News

That's just horrifying, Deb, a middle east style torture facility in the middle of Florida! I think there had been plenty of very good reasons to shut down that hellhole forever. I hope it never opens again. In the meantime, the U.S. juridical system actually recognizes those actions taken by the staff as really serious felonies, and if anyone of those who committed that is still alive, they're most likely going to jail for the rest of their lives.

Originally Posted by Eric C.

That's just horrifying, Deb, a middle east style torture facility in the middle of Florida! I think there had been plenty of very good reasons to shut down that hellhole forever. I hope it never opens again. In the meantime, the U.S. juridical system actually recognizes those actions taken by the staff as really serious felonies, and if anyone of those who committed that is still alive, they're most likely going to jail for the rest of their lives.

Yes, this one got shut down... but only after getting away with it for over ONE HUNDRED YEARS.

And I could provide dozens, if not hundreds, of examples of abuse, rape, torture, child molestation and so on that takes place in America's "for profit" prison industry as well. And as for our "justice system" - it does not always work nearly as well we would like to believe it does. In Texas, sheriff's deputies routinely grope the genitals of random citizens just because they get some kind of perverted kick out of it. All around the country, churches encourage parents to "pray to god" rather than seek medical attention when their kids are sick. Police stomped all over the protesters during the Occupy movement. There are rampant stories about the most horrible things you can imagine when you scratch beneath the veneer of "the land of the free."

I'm not in any way minimizing what is going on in Syria, I am just trying to put it into perspective. If every country acted like the US and decided to police the world with its military forces, I imagine a hundred nuclear bombs might be launched on our nation in retaliation for our many crimes against humanity, not just in our own country, but overseas!

What about all the chemical weapons the US has used? Remember "agent orange"? What about Nagasaki and Hiroshima where hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians died? Those atrocities were not even necessary - despite all the justifications our government has brainwashed us with - because Japan was ready to surrender before we even dropped the bombs. It was all just a big show of force, to establish the US as the new bully on the block.

My friend from Syria, whom I mentioned earlier, just sent me this clip from Canadian television interviewing her husband, a doctor who volunteers his time at the refugee camps, helping those who have fled Syria.

The interview is mostly in French, but there is a little English, and it does give you an idea of just how much he and the other volunteers are up against, who are just trying to provide humanitarian aid. The video shows him trying to get medical equipment and other much needed emergency supplies to the refugee camps, which is almost impossible at times.

http://www.radio-canada.ca/widgets/m...dianet/6811656

If anyone's French is adequate to interpret what he said in its entirety, I would be much obliged!

Originally Posted by Basil77

This article was deleted several hours after publishing more than half of a year ago:

U.S. 'planned to launch chemical weapon attack on Syria and blame it on Assad' | Mail Online

All this Syria issue smells very dirty to me.

You are JOKING, is this for real!?!
It's totally outrageous. He's talking about actions that could start a war, as if it was a stroll in the park.

The guy exists, he is on LinkedIn and all, and they've got personnel in the Middle East and connections to Ukrainians. I didn't quite get why the people filming it had to speak Russian, but I get that the general idea was to plant false evidence villifying Assad.

And "David Goulding" for goodness sake. I wonder what religion he might be.

This smells to high heaven. I can hardly believe it's for real. This is the very worst fears I had about Syria, that this sort of stuff was happening.

And what a t-sser to mail something like this over the internet where it obviously got hacked or otherwise picked up by somebody who "shouldn't" have seen it.

Originally Posted by Hanna

You are JOKING, is this for real!?!
It's totally outrageous. He's talking about actions that could start a war, as if it was a stroll in the park.

That's ordinary American practice. They kill their own citizens for the political purposes, organize provocations all over the world etc, so don't you think they care about these nasty muslims somewhere in the hole like Syria? Even if those muslims are not religious fanatics? (There are a lot of Christians in Syria, by the way)

I didn't quite get why the people filming it had to speak Russian

Are you really so naive? It shocked me.
They want to produce kinda "evidence" that Russia supports Assad and helps him to kill people with the help of CW. Because they think it would take Russia out of the game, if they publish these "facts" in the US Media. Of course, these "facts" must be obvious even for the most stupid American lookers.

I hope we are watching the last burping of the stinking monster before it croaks. Amen.

NATO data: Assad winning the war for Syrians’ hearts and minds | World Tribune

Meanwhile, Assad has more support from the Syrian people than Obama has from the American people:

“The people are sick of the war and hate the jihadists more than Assad,” a Western source familiar with the data said. “Assad is winning the war mostly because the people are cooperating with him against the rebels.”

The data, relayed to NATO over the last month, asserted that 70 percent of Syrians support the Assad regime. Another 20 percent were deemed neutral and the remaining 10 percent expressed support for the rebels.

Nobel Peace Prize laureste, Mairead Maguire, tells her account of her visit to Syria.

While Maguire was in Syria she discovered that the war in Syria is not as depicted a civil war but a proxy war with serious breaches of International laws and the Humanitarian International laws. The protection of the foreign fighters by some foreign countries among the most powerful gives them a kind of an unaccountability that pushes them with impunity to all kind of cruel deeds against innocent civilians. Even war conventions are not respected resulting in many war crimes and, even, crimes against humanity.

Originally Posted by Deborski

NATO data: Assad winning the war for Syrians’ hearts and minds | World Tribune

Meanwhile, Assad has more support from the Syrian people than Obama has from the American people:

Those are terrifying numbers. If that's true, I honestly have no idea what else that dictator has to do to make those people "unsupport" him... (I would understand 70 percent of neutral ones vs 20/10 for the dictator and rebels respectively, but 70 percent for the dictator? Terrifying...)

Originally Posted by Hanna

You are JOKING, is this for real!?!

This doesn't look like a joke for me at all. "Civil" war in Syria is fueled by Quatar and Saudi Arabia, "rebel" forces consist mainly from jihadist Al-Quaeda mercenaries hired by these two countries, if not for them, Assad would ended this long ago imho. And I believe those "nice" and "peace loving" countries can do ANY nasty thing if it suits their goals. Fortunately for them, USA (=NATO="democratic world") consider them allies, so they have some sort of indulgence and "free democratic" media is more likely to believe any bullsh!t they make up instead of obvious facts.

Originally Posted by Deborski

“The people are sick of the war and hate the jihadists more than Assad,” a Western source familiar with the data said. “Assad is winning the war mostly because the people are cooperating with him against the rebels.”

Yup, and that was clear to anyone who bothered listening to any kind of non-mainstream media over a year ago.
"Better the devil you know" obviously, and Assad was not that bad, by Middle Eastern standards.

It's quite unbelievable that BBC made quite charming "week-away" reports from Aleppo and Latakia only a few years ago, and portrayed the Assad regime as just a bit quaint and rather harmless and apologetic dictator who was earnestly trying to reform, with his super-chic British wife by his side. She worked as an analyst or something like that, for JP Morgan, if you would believe it!! ]

But then, they become aware that Syria is on Uncle Sam's hit list, and suddenly Syria is an evil dictatorship somebody wants to take it down and suddenly he's the worst monster that ever walked the earth, and his wife is Imelda Marcos / Marie Antoinette.

Originally Posted by Paul G.

That's ordinary American practice. They kill their own citizens for the political purposes, organize provocations all over the world etc, so don't you think they care about these nasty muslims somewhere in the hole like Syria? Even if those muslims are not religious fanatics? (There are a lot of Christians in Syria, by the way)


Are you really so naive? It shocked me.
They want to produce kinda "evidence" that Russia supports Assad and helps him to kill people with the help of CW. Because they think it would take Russia out of the game, if they publish these "facts" in the US Media. Of course, these "facts" must be obvious even for the most stupid American lookers.

I hope we are watching the last burping of the stinking monster before it croaks. Amen.

Yeah, maybe I AM a bit naive. I really didn't want to think they were doing things like that for real.
I don't WANT to hate America, and I want to give it the benefit of the doubt, but it's just impossible.

I have a particularly strong hatred for hypocrisy - I hate that, whether it's a country or a person displaying it.
I feel I must be sick in the head or something, because lately I am revising my view and beginning to genuinely feeling that the wrong and less worthy country won the Cold War. I was taken in by all the shocking "revelations" in the 90s and assumed the USA must be the lesser of two evils, but I am beginning to think I bought into a lie on all that. The USSR was doing it's dirty business to its own citizens early in its histry, instead of double-dealing around the world! Towards the end, it just wasn't prepared to play as hard and dirty as the game required, at home or abroad. The USA has no such scruples, clearly! The USA has more lives on its hands then the USSR had, I'd say.

Spying on the whole world, by default as we now know for sure, and then planting false and misleading evidence to start a war! While Putin is talking about "partners" and actually seems to be making gestures of friendship towards the USA, they plan this kind of things, with Quataris.

The email is real, 99% certain and I am sure people better than me tried to verify it, with more access as well.
That Malaysian hacker seems like the real deal for sure.

Go figure the Daily Mail pulled it after an hour! Probably they got a phone call from high up! Freedom of the press, huh!
Who are we to then complain that other countries put the lid on things! Or maybe it's not censorship if it happens here! It's perhaps anti-terrorism or something...

Daily Mail is quite conservative on most issues, but rather unexpectedly it will occassionally be extremely anti-American, to the extent you almost fall off your chair. In a sort of highbrow conservative British way that is extremely patronising and scornful. There was a similar article yesterday with regards to the USA, the Syria role and the UK.

Such a relief that the House of Commons saw sense on this war at last! I was mortified that my tax money should be used to kill innocent people in Syria, and open the country up for globalist exploitation.

It's a tragedy that it came to this. Apparently it was genuinely nice and safe for an Arab country, with everything from ancient ruins, cool souks and beaches. Now it's in ruins and millions have fled the country. We are expecting millions of refugees to try to make it to the EU, The Greek are mortified that they'll have a million of Syrians to take care of by international law, when their country is bankrupt.

The data, relayed to NATO over the last month, asserted that 70 percent
of Syrians support the Assad regime. Another 20 percent were deemed neutral and the remaining 10 percent expressed support for the rebels.

I think he always had at least 50% more or less behind him. Instead of having elections, places like this have revolutions or coups.


Meanwhile the people of Bahrain struggle on and nobody could care less in the Western media.
They can't have an Arab Spring because their regime is strongly west allied and and supports the US naval base there...
(and somehow it's wrong that Russia has a tiny, tiny base in Syria while it's completely ok that the USA has a kickass base in Bahrian.

Originally Posted by Eric C.

Those are terrifying numbers. If that's true, I honestly have no idea what else that dictator has to do to make those people "unsupport" him... (I would understand 70 percent of neutral ones vs 20/10 for the dictator and rebels respectively, but 70 percent for the dictator? Terrifying...)

There is no way to know whether the people were ordered to support Assad, of course. I think 70% is a little high as well.

I just spoke with my friend from Syria and she disagrees with the Assad poll. She thinks it was staged, like many of the pro-Assad demonstrations are. However, she agrees with me that the Syrian people do not like the jihadists either! The original rebel movement has, unfortunately, been taken over by terrorist factions much like the Taliban, who want to turn Syria into a religious state like Iran where women are not allowed to show their faces in public. My friend strongly opposes any military action in Syria by the US. In her words, it will escalate the situation and bring retaliation upon the people of Syria. She, like me, wishes more people would just send food, medical supplies, clothing, blankets, tents and anything/everything that can help the thousands of refugees! Fortunately, her own family and friends are safe and she herself is living in Canada.

Syria refugee crisis: how to donate | Global development | theguardian.com

In honor of my friend's wishes - here is an article from the Guardian UK with information on how to donate to the refugees of Syria. The article lists several reputable organizations who are trying to help. If you care about Syria, please give what you can. Every bit helps!

and somehow it's wrong that Russia has a tiny, tiny base in Syria while it's completely ok that the USA has a kickass base in Bahrian

Hanna, please forget about superpower USSR/Russia. Its influence belongs in the past (or distant future?) We are still making missiles, but that's it.
Бабло победило...

Originally Posted by Deborski

There is an American saying "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." I imagine there is a similar поговорка in Russian.

This time, most of us are not fooled. We know it's a lie. But they are going to make the "WMD" claim anyway, even if no one believes it.

There's an aphorism by Kozma Prutkov (you can read Wikipedia article about that "author") based on russian proverbs: "Единожды солгавши, кто тебе поверит?" ("Thou who lied once, who will believe thou after?")

Originally Posted by Deborski

The original rebel movement has, unfortunately, been taken over by terrorist factions much like the Taliban, who want to turn Syria into a religious state like Iran where women are not allowed to show their faces in public.

Just a minor correction. In Iran women do not hide their faces. They are only required to wear a headscarf at least partially hiding their hair. Nevertheless, it is fashionable to leave the front part of the hair open. Many Iranian women even do plastic surgery to make their faces more beautiful.

The country where women tend to hide their faces is Afghanistan. When Taliban was ruling, they were not allowed to show faces in public at all. Now, as far as I know, there is no legal restriction, but many women still tend to hide their faces there.

Originally Posted by Боб Уайтман

Just a minor correction. In Iran women do not hide their faces. They are only required to wear a headscarf at least partially hiding their hair. Nevertheless, it is fashionable to leave the front part of the hair open. Many Iranian women even do plastic surgery to make their faces more beautiful.

The country where women tend to hide their faces is Afghanistan. When Taliban was ruling, they were not allowed to show faces in public at all. Now, as far as I know, there is no legal restriction, but many women still tend to hide their faces there.

Fair enough, however, depending on what brand of Islam they subscribe to, women in many Muslim countries do wear the full burkha rather than just the hijab which only covers the hair. When I was in Syria during the 1980's, women completely covered in black burkhas were a common site even though the government at that time was secular. But you are correct, the government of Iran does not require women to hide their faces. Some of the more extreme factions fighting in Syria do.

Originally Posted by Hanna

It's totally outrageous. He's talking about actions that could start a war, as if it was a stroll in the park.
The guy exists, he is on LinkedIn and all

Indeed -- someone who wanted to fake a "smoking gun" email between a high-level manager and the founder of this "Britam Defence" company would have an easy time finding out the two guy's names, 'cause they're publicly known and can easily be found on LinkedIn.

And "David Goulding" for goodness sake. I wonder what religion he might be.

Well, don't keep us all in suspense, darling -- why don't you share with us your interesting theories about what his religion might be?

(Personally, I wonder whether he likes having sex with other guys, as 98.07% of British men do...)

This smells to high heaven. I can hardly believe it's for real.

It's good that you can hardly believe it, because it's not for real -- and the only thing you smell is the stink of incompetent forgery. Apparently, someone hacked into the servers of Britam Defence, found a genuine email from Goulding to Doughty discussing "the Iranian issue", and then modified it to create the email discussing . (The most suspicious detail: the "Iran" email and the "Syria" email were both supposedly sent at exactly 23:57:18 Singapore Time, and both were received at exactly 23:57:27 London Time. I would also note the difference in tone between the "Iran" and "Syria" emails. The Iran one uses rather vague language describing "the Iranian issue" and "preparatory details" -- one would naturally expect the executives in a corporate-security firm to be pretty vague in an unencrypted email -- while the Syria message is like the villain in a movie explaining his evil-genius plan in complete detail, unaware that the hero has a tape-recorder in his jacket...)

And, incidentally, British courts agreed back in June that the emails were fake -- resulting in a £110,000 libel suit against the Daily Mail.

Though I suppose it's theoretically possible that the British courts were paid by the CIA to declare that the email (which was actually genuine) was a fake, as part of a complicated scheme to advance the interests of the US military-industrial complex, the Freemasons, and the Rothschilds, while creating a phony pretext for the future invasion of Iran, AND making innocent Russia look bad at the same time! However, I doubt it.

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

Indeed -- someone who wanted to fake an email between a high-level manager and the founder of this "Britam Defence" company would have an easy time finding out the two guy's names, 'cause they're publicly known and can easily be found on LinkedIn.



Well, don't keep us all in suspense, darling -- why don't you share with us your interesting theories about what his religion might be?

(Personally, I wonder whether he likes having sex with other guys, as 98.07% of British men do...)


It's good that you can hardly believe it, because it's not for real -- and the only thing you smell is the stink of incompetent forgery. Apparently, someone hacked into the servers of Britam Defence, found a genuine email from Goulding to Doughty discussing "the Iranian issue", and then modified it to create the email discussing . (The most suspicious detail: the "Iran" email and the "Syria" email were both supposedly sent at exactly 23:57:18 Singapore Time, and both were received at exactly 23:57:27 London Time.)

And, incidentally, British courts agreed back in June that the emails were fake -- resulting in a £110,000 libel suit against the Daily Mail.

Though I suppose it's theoretically possible that the British courts were paid by the CIA to declare that the email (which was actually genuine) was a fake, as part of a complicated scheme to advance the interests of the US military-industrial complex, the Freemasons, and the Rothschilds, while creating a phony pretext for the future invasion of Iran, AND making innocent Russia look bad at the same time! However, I doubt it.

From your gleeful response I'm assuming that you can't wait to "liberate" the poor Syrians and bring them some "democracy", huh?


.....and fake or not (haven't got the time to dig around online) Britain DOES do this type of stuff, and always has, sadly. It wouldn't be much out of character, just not something you normally see proof of. But after GCHQ, I am prepared to believe almost anything. The taste of money and power is so sweet that they spy on their own citizens and pass on the findings to a third country.

The UK has it's good sides as a country, but extremely dirty playing is unfortunately part of the way this country stays at the top of the pack.

If you think you're insulting me by insulting British men, you are wasting your time. I'm neither a man, nor British and I have no particular love for it.

I agree the timings would be suspicious. But hacking an account to pull the emails would be just how somebody would come across correspondence of that nature. The UK has some very sinister "security consultancy" firms and it certainly isn't inconceivable that someone would pull rank on a court or a judge if national security was at stake. We just don't know.
It's not like the legal system would just thank the hacker for revealing a scandal. Just look at how Assange is treated in this country. It's got s-d all to do with the "crime" he's suspected for.