Aleppo

[Magic]

Just watched that Panorama programme. Fuck me. When is enough enough? I wondered why the SAA don't just go in and fucking raze the place to the ground but the rebels are actually not that far away from matching in numbers.

Feel properly helpless so is there a decent charity/aid/foundation or whatever that won't spend my donation on administration costs or pencils? I'd rather just give money directly, for example to continue to fund that underground nursery but that'll probably mark me down as a terrorist.

I've just seen #THEWHITEHELMETS were the guys involved in that programme tonight and you can donate directly to them. Also found some lol freaks on Twitter saying they are about to join, namely one small bodybuilder from Finland. What a jobbee!

[Spikey M]

As with all 'wars' these days it's pretty much impossible to tell the local butcher from an enemy. This is going to go on for a long, long time.

[Magic]

Well those guys look pretty legit. I've given a tenner anyway. Let's hope they spend it on something decent and not just pass it on to IS.

[GS]

We can't, and shouldn't, militarily intervene and any ceasefire is likely to collapse because both sides have too much to lose.

So what do you propose we do?

[Magic]

We can't, and shouldn't, militarily intervene and any ceasefire is likely to collapse because both sides have too much to lose.

So what do you propose we do?

I know, you don't have to patronise. There is a human side to this, believe it or not.

[Spikey M]

That would be a very good point if you hadn't spent the last couple of years watching people play with their own intestines on Liveleak.

[Giggles]

That sick sadistic cunt on about a human side :D

[GS]

I'm not patronising - or certainly not intentionally. It's grim - but there's nothing material we can do about it.

The best bet is probably to continue doing what we're doing - air attacks on Islamic State and leave the Russians to reinforce Assad's ground forces with tacit acquiescence from the west.

But we need to stop sudden outbursts of caring when we see something on TV or read about it in the newspaper. Everybody knows this has been happening for five years. It's a "hot" issue now and will be for two or three weeks, then something else will come up and everybody will forget about it again. See: last year's migrant crisis.

[Magic]

That would be a very good point if you hadn't spent the last couple of years watching people play with their own intestines on Liveleak.

And it's those very intestines that have prompted me to donate.

[Magic]

I'm not patronising - or certainly not intentionally. It's grim - but there's nothing material we can do about it.

The best bet is probably to continue doing what we're doing - air attacks on Islamic State and leave the Russians to reinforce Assad's ground forces with tacit acquiescence from the west.

Russia aren't doing enough to make that worthwhile. If they got boots on the ground and took everything back by absolute force, fine. But this is just a steady stream of awfulness with no win in sight.

[Spikey M]

Russia learnt their lesson in Afghanistan. Proper Armies are fucking useless against Guerilla tactics.

[GS]

Russia aren't doing enough to make that worthwhile. If they got boots on the ground and took everything back by absolute force, fine. But this is just a steady stream of awfulness with no win in sight.

The Russians want influence in the Middle East, and they fucking hate international interference in "domestic" issues. They're stopping Assad from losing, which given the alternative to Assad is a good thing.

The only way you're getting your resolution is if the western powers realise that recognising the rebels a few years ago was laughable, that trying to separate from the terrorists from the "moderates" is a waste of time and that we were all better off when we just left the likes of Assad and Gaddafi to smash internal dissent. If they did, we'd just make a deal with the Russians and Assad and pile in (without boots on the ground) properly to reestablish government control.

As it is, our glorious leaders love a bit of humanitarian interventionism which has only made it, and which will continue to make it, even worse. Well done, everyone.

[Magic]

Sorry what's the alternative? Don't say IS either.

[GS]

The alternative to Assad would be a power vacuum and lawlessness the likes of which you see in Libya or on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border.

Given Syria borders Israel, the last thing you need is some proper nutters getting a foothold post-Assad and deciding they'd quite like the Golan Heights back. Assad might be a bastard, but you knew what you were getting from him. Gaddafi was also a bastard, but you'd struggle to find anybody who would think the west wasn't better off with him in charge. Instead we thought we'd settle decades-old scores by indulging in a bit of regime change.

It's not the west's job to bring liberal democracy to the Middle East - it will come in its own time. Nor can we now fix the messes we've created.

[Magic]

Yes chlorine bombing civilians is far more preferable.

[GS]

I'm not condoning that - it's bastard's behaviour. However, the west recognised the rebel forces, including the terrorist organisations fighting therein, as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people - a group who barely constitute an effective organisation, never mind a government in waiting. They did so purely for gesture politics, nothing more. By doing so, and making it clear that any deal must necessitate Assad's stepping down, it put him in a position where he had nothing whatsoever to lose from trying to hold on at all costs.

To compound matters, Obama announced chemical weapons would be a red line. The British House of Commons had a vote on airstrikes against him, and Ed Miliband espying an opportunity to give David Cameron a black eye meant that it was politicised and voted down. Obama then backed down himself. This basically gave Assad a 'free hand' because it showed clearly that the west weren't prepared to actually follow anything through. The later deal to give up his chemical weapons (which he predominantly did) was brokered by the Russians, who later came in to prop him up.

So ask yourself - why is Assad doing what he's doing? He's not in this position and doing what he's doing for a laugh - western governments, particularly the Americans, have been fucking useless. The whole thing's a foreign policy disaster the like of which it's difficult to comprehend. We're now bombing the other side, for fuck sake, which basically proves the Assad's plan of just holding on or a bit is working.

[Magic]

I think he probably is doing it for a laugh. The bastard.

[Lewis]

I once applied to work on a project about humanitarian intervention (Syria was one of the case studies) by selling myself as somebody who thought that it was bollocks, which I claimed made me an objectively better researcher than somebody going into it wanting to prove its worth. I didn't get it (obviously). Oh well.

Your options in Syria are the current government (who control territory containing at least two thirds of the population, lest anybody buy into the idea that popular support is wholly with the opposition) or some form of cunt Islamists. Not necessarily the Islamic State, but certainly a Saudi Arabian satellite organisation. That is it, and anybody still holding out for some sort of Westernised government of secular intellectuals is deranged. With that in mind, are we better off with a foreign policy establishment that bullshit us about that and advocate an Islamist state behind closed doors, or are we better off with fuckwits who believe what they say publicly?

[GS]

Humanitarian intervention is almost always a waste of time. Starkey makes some good points here, including throwing in some much welcome French bashing. This is from four and a half years ago, for fuck sake.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jLGTX_C488

[mugbull]

What is he going on about with regards to the Balkans? That's an example of where intervention clearly did work. Those countries are doing pretty fucking well for themselves, certainly not 'ungovernable'.

[elth]

Feel properly helpless so is there a decent charity/aid/foundation or whatever that won't spend my donation on administration costs or pencils? I'd rather just give money directly, for example to continue to fund that underground nursery but that'll probably mark me down as a terrorist.

MSF have some of the lowest overheads in the charity world, and they're the ones staffing hospitals and getting bombed in shitholes like Aleppo. If you want to help out, they're doing amazing work.

[elth]

Russia learnt their lesson in Afghanistan. Proper Armies are fucking useless against Guerilla tactics.

They're not at all, you just need overwhelmingly force, a giant pile of money and a complete disregard for the lives and human rights of those you are suppressing. Russia learned how to do it again in Chechnya, but the British and US know how to do it too. They just don't do it because it's brutal.

[Magic]

Well those guys look pretty legit. I've given a tenner anyway. Let's hope they spend it on something decent and not just pass it on to IS.

So it out they might be using donations to smuggle arms to the FSA. D'oh!

[GS]

The idea that there are 'moderate' rebels we can rely on is a joke. It's Assad or chaos, and will remain so.

[Disco]

The Food Standards Agency?

[Lewis]

Shia Twitter has been buzzing this weekend, and that pretend seven year old is seething.

[Boydy]

What? Who?

[Lewis]

There is a seven year old (https://twitter.com/AlabedBana) in Eastern Aleppo who always gets in the media, because think of the children, but pro-Assad Twitter refuses to have it and reckons some nonce runs it.

[GS]

More interestingly, the French may elect Fillon next year. He's a lad who's quite attached to the old notion of 'Holy Russia' and seems quite relaxed about Russian involvement if it means slapping the terrorists about.


It's a "hot" issue now and will be for two or three weeks, then something else will come up and everybody will forget about it again. See: last year's migrant crisis.

Every time.

[Henry]

The west probably need to pick a side, rather than trying to be against ISIS and against all of ISIS's main opponents simultaneously.

And whatever happens let's hope that there are eventually some war crimes trials.

[GS]

You go with Assad and offer incentives to transition towards democracy / liberalise the country etc., including buying him off personally if needs be.

There will be no war crimes trials because nobody is interested in setting uncomfortable precedents.

[Henry]

People are interested in setting precedents for the defeated parties, like they did after Yugoslavia and Sierra Leone. So it won't touch anyone attached to the major powers, but I'd feel a lot of satisfaction if the cunts who destroyed Nimrud end up in The Hague.

[GS]

You could have "war crimes" trials for some of the non-Assad forces (see: Timbuktu (http://www.reuters.com/article/us-warcrimes-mali-idUSKCN11X0IS)), but you're not getting anybody who actually matters prosecuted.

[Henry]

Russia aren't doing enough to make that worthwhile. If they got boots on the ground and took everything back by absolute force, fine. But this is just a steady stream of awfulness with no win in sight.

There might be no end visible yet, but I'd say that the Assad regime is very much in the ascendent. The Russians are bombing the fuck out of the opposition forces rather than ISIS. The latter are being pushed back in Iraq though and will probably have no significant territory left soon.

[niko_cee]

Is it my waning attention span to the news, or does this conflict lack the sort of high profile protagonists of those of yesteryear? The Balkans conflict was chocked full of names, Ratko, Slobodan, Arkan, Radovan, and even later stuff like Gulf 2 had oooday and kooosay, and the comedy information minister, and old Tariq.

[Disco]

Chemical Ali.

[Raoul Duke]

We had Jihadi John, but he got croaked by a drone or something.

Assad is a mong, but he gave me some lulz. I used to work with a guy called Assad and we used to address him as President Assad

[Lewis]

Suheil al-Hassan ('The Tiger') is the star player. When he's in town it's going off. Honourable mentions too for Hassan Nasrallah carping from the sidelines, and Qasem Soleimani turning up in his street clothes like the big man.

[Disco]

You see they just sound like the cast of Benny Lava or something.

[Magic]

Assad really is a humourless mong as well. The other parties are too lightly spread and Islamic to have charisma about them.

[John Arne]

What's a Leppo?

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2016-07-22-1469148215-7692903-GaryJohnsonxlarge1.jpg

[Lewis]

Rebel-held East Aleppo is now thirty per cent of what it was two weeks ago, and people are BOTTLING IT all over the shop. It's got the whiff of a general collapse about it now, so the next few months should be interesting.

[Giggles]

Aleppo's a place? I wasn't sure if it was a person or a group.

[Spikey M]

Giggs, without meaning to (but without caring if I do) sound like a cunt, is there anything you do actually know?

[Disco]

Whose ranium?

[Giggles]

Giggs, without meaning to (but without caring if I do) sound like a cunt, is there anything you do actually know?

If you're talking politics outside this country then the safe bet is no. I only care about what directly effects me and even the aforementioned politics in this country doesn't in a wider sense.

[Lewis]

Rebel-held East Aleppo is now thirty per cent of what it was two weeks ago, and people are BOTTLING IT all over the shop. It's got the whiff of a general collapse about it now, so the next few months should be interesting.

They have agreed to give up a load more now (this (https://twitter.com/TheArabSource/status/806248004386582528) is a mega account, by the way), so the government now has eighty-five per cent of it.

[GS]

It's only going to end when Assad reasserts control.

Unless, of course, moderate pro-democracy academic liberals are waiting in the wings to move into the power vacuum caused by a regime collapse.

[Lewis]

Hezbollah Twitter (legends) sez that the remaining Syrian rebels want to give up, but it's the foreign-born headbangers who refuse (presumably because they would disappear in prison). It will probably end up with some sort of face-saving BOTTLE JOB from the Green Team under the guise of turning on Islamic State and the leadership pissing off to Qatar.

[Boydy]

Why do you love Hezbollah Twitter?

[Lewis]

It's an interesting window into it all, and there is something funny about all these Arabs supporting them like you would a football team.

[Lewis]

They have memes (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CzBu2b9XcAA0ng7.jpg) and everything.

[Magic]

Bloody hell. Shooting women and children on sight. Loads of them are killing themselves and their families to save humiliation and rape from Assad's forces.

Also this shit in Yemen is beyond words too.

[Lewis]

Nobody actually seems to have verified those reports (why would you let the remaining fighters leave but shoot up women and kids?), and Shia Twitter is full of videos of people celebrating. They may well be doing it for the cameras, but it doesn't suggest that things are as grim as opposition reports would have it.

[Magic]

Western Aleppo was celebrating. Not Eastern. Certain media outlets are describing it as a liberation. They are basically out of the frying pan and in to the fire.