Solidarity

There are KIA and WIA in Turkey very often these days, lots of IEDs and car bombs recently, even things like ATGM attacks, SAM missile attacks and ambushes... Turkey is basically fighting a insurgency against the Kurds, and the kurds are reasonably well equipped and trained, with significant western support. The kurds and ISIS are not afraid to target civilians as has been seen by many of the attacks on Istanbul, I would describe these as terror tactics. Now you could argue that terror tactics within the framework of asymmetrical warfare towards a political end can be an effective strategy... however ugly. Massacres and targeting of civilians is certainly nothing new in civil warfare, insurgency, let alone middle eastern conflicts. Anything coming out of AKP-friendly media regarding Kurdish casualties is pretty much over inflated BS. PKK and kurdish forces would be completely annihilated if the turkish military (TSK) had killed as many of them as they claim.

Do you really believe the AKP's economic statements Altai? How can the economy be one of the fastest growing when tourism is way down, terrorism is growing and there are soldiers KIA and WIA almost every day... some cities of the SE are starting to look like Syria (Diyabakir, nusaybin ect), which in itself is a huge economic loss... For another example, the grand bazaar in istanbul has 600 closed shops, and I haven't even started to calculate the drain on the economy from supporting millions of refugees from Syria and Iraq... Most of turkeys economic boom over the past decade has been based in the construction sectors, financed specifically by the Arab $$$ flooding into turkey. Just because there are more skyscrapers being built in Izmir and Istanbul does not mean anything...

Sadly for Neo-Ottoman dreams, Turkey is in no position to assume any kind of permanent control over these areas. Turkey would find opposition from both Western factions, whom have supported Kurdish interests, nor from the Shia-Russia alliance, which supports the Iraqis government claims over this area. Turkey is not a weak nation, but it simply is not powerful enough to move unilaterally against American/Russian interests in this way. Erdogan may be bold, but he is not this stupid either. Signs point towards a closening of turkish-russian relations, which will be good for Turkey in its conflict with Kurds. This also ensures Iraqi will retain its territorial integrity.

Turkey/Syria are among the world's most geopolitically significant places right now. There is a struggle for influence and power, many of the major powers are deeply involved. The EU refugee crisis, a possible Kurdistan,and the recent attempted Coup illustrate the magnitude of the stakes. Recent developments suggest a deal has been struck behind the scenes involving at minimum Turkey, Syria, Iran, Russia. Interesting times for sure.

Horrific, RIP. Hopefully Pakistan will be galvanized to eradicate these neanderthals for once and for good.

Might as well rename this forum Israel/Palestine.

The west completely destabilized Iraq through invasion, and been a major factor in the destabilization of Syria through supporting anti-assad elements with hundreds of millions of dollars of logistical and military aid. Now we blow up even more of the Syrian and Iraqi people's infrastructure (including highly valuable oil and gas infrastructure) to degrade the force we were instrumental in creating and allowing to grow. ISIS is not really a nation state and this is not a total war for western nations. It's a very different situation than your examples.

Our power and internet infrastructure does seem vulnerable to cyber/computer attacks. I think in the event of a conflict between two tech superpowers (ie china/usa/russia?/other?) you would see some critical vulnerabilities exposed. Maybe the military stuff is probably secure but I can imagine a lot of the civilian and commercial infrastructure being targeted/reduced. It's simply too exposed to the internet.

Are you joking? Nobody comes close to the USA when it comes to aggressive warfare, international arms dealing (often to subversive groups, ie FSA, Mujaheddin, Contras), and uninvited meddling. The likes of Abu Ghraib and My lai aren't the main issues, they affected a few thousand at most. The real issues are the Vietnam war and Iraq war (and dozens of other bloody interventions) as a whole. The issue of who gets more bad press is irrelevant, when the bigger issue is the millions of dead men, women and children, for no good reason. Of course the people of the world will hold the USA to a higher standard than a bunch of fanatical lunatic terrorists.

Well, some interesting news popped across the ticker yesterday. "Turkey has agreed to allow moderate Syrian rebels to be trained on its soil, the US says, in its bid to combat Islamic State in Syria and Iraq." http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29591916 That is not the Kurds they will be training. We will be giving MORE aid to the so called 'moderates' who make up the non-ISIS wing of the Sunni opposition. The most moderate rebels left in Syria are basically Muslim Brotherhood types. They are more likely to fight against Assad than against ISIS. I don't think its unfair to say that the west is actively and openly involved in continuing the Syrian Civil War, and attempting to make sure that Assad loses.

It boggles my mind how much Israel and Jews and accusations of racism and antisemitism come up on this forum in my short time here, it seems like every thread gets infected. This boring repetition should be confined to an 'angry man yells at cloud' thread (maybe the Israel thread) because it never adds to the discussion.

This seems like semantics. Many 'civil wars' in history have had outside interference. Yes the Syrian conflict is obviously a 'proxy war' in many respects however the clear lines between shia/alawite, sunni, and kurdish factions and the neighborhood against neighborhood level of fighting make this a 'civil war' in many respects. I don't think that these definitions are mutually exclusive. I believe this is being done, but new accounts pop up. Logistically this may also be a struggle due to the fact a lot of these accounts are in Arabic, where algorithms and human monitoring are likely less effective due to the language barrier. I don't disagree with the points (I think) you are hinting at though. The west and our allies have been anything from complicit to directly involved in allowing the conflict in Syria to reach the stage it is at. The current actions being taken need to be viewed closely and with skepticism. What are the actual goals of the 'coalition'? To degrade and destroy ISIS, or simply to further West and Western allies interests in the region (ie protect KRG and its oil, but let Rojava get massacred by ISIS, and allow ISIS to continue operating against Assad and the Shia block, but not to spread to Turkey or KRG). Is the Western led effort kabuki theater or is there a long term plan with noble goals? I am extremely cynical at this point.

What is the evidence that most of the rebels are not Syrian? Sources I've seen peg foreign fighters at around 12K over the length of the conflict (http://soufangroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/TSG-Foreign-Fighters-in-Syria.pdf). That's significant, but still nowhere near being the majority of the rebels.

You would have to elaborate. Foreign intervention, mercenaries and intelligence games don't take away from the fact Syria fractured, and fought along ethno-religious lines.

As the war on ISIS ramps up and Syria takes a central awareness in foreign affairs discussion I think it's a good time to reflect upon the Syrian Civil War in general. It's stunning to see how undignified national leaders and the global community are capable of acting, while caught in the clutches of rampant corruption, narcissism and realpolitik which seem to control decision making within government. The international community, and 'world superpowers', have allowed this war to go on for roughly 1300 days, and shown a total lack of effort to stop the suffering. The fact that the rebels were lunatic fundamentalists was evident long before the current beheading, remember the jihadi who tore out and ate a Syrian soldiers heart? Syria is hell on earth . The statistics of the war are staggering. 200k-250K dead, 5+ Million refugees, over 25% of the pre-war population. Historical cities reduced to rubble, scenes of total devastation and destruction not seen since the Russians leveled Grozny. The world community allowed Syria to be destroyed, mainly by Al Qaeda and ISIS, when we are literally in the midst of a 'war against terror'. Inaction is not enough for some of our allies however, apparently they must increase the chaos, death, and misery. The radical opposition is armed with loads of American/euro kit and drive around in Humvees towing American artillery. ? Machiavellian strategic goals, gross incompetence, or just a complete lack of empathy, whatever the reason, the whole world either sat back and watched it happen or threw fuel on the fire... for 1300 days. http://static.businessinsider.com/image/51910e14ecad046e01000007/image.jpg http://d.ibtimes.co.uk/en/full/1378266/homs.jpg http://ghadry.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Syrian-Forces-Advance-on-Aleppo-Rebels-Fear-Another-Siege.jpg https://www.wodumedia.com/wp-content/uploads/Smoke-billows-over-shelled-and-destroyed-buildings-in-Aleppo-Syria-where-the-Syrian-army-has-brought-in-reinforcements-to-try-to-end-the-rebels-resistance.jpg http://d.ibtimes.co.uk/en/full/1378262/city.jpg The west and Canada has spilt a lot of blood and spent a decades worth of our potential wealth and growth on ramped up intelligence, military operations, security theater, ('leadership' summits like the G20) while in the meantime our national debt increased, and important sectors such as public transportation, the legal system (needs serious reform), healthcare, arctic development and education saw minor improvement at best, mainly stagnancy or decay. We have nothing to show for it except chaos and destruction

Let's compare how this intervention has gone so far, with the most recent prior case. "As of Friday, the U.S. and its allies had conducted 250 airstrikes on Islamic State targets in Iraq and 80 in Syria". The estimates of dead ISIS from the air strikes has not even reached triple digits. A single Hezbollah ambush inflicted more manpower losses than the totality of the 'coalition' airstrikes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Otaiba_ambush). http://online.wsj.com/articles/u-s-led-airstrikes-disrupt-islamic-state-but-extremists-hold-territory-1412555718 libya - over 3,000 targets hit in 14,202 strike sorties http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/may/22/nato-libya-data-journalism-operations-country In Libya there was also a fairly united, relatively strong land army to back up these air strikes, the 'moderate rebels' if you will. Of course those 'moderates' have now transformed libya into a failed state whose government has to take refuge in a car ferry at the very edge of libyan territory but that is somewhat tangential. (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/09/libyan-parliament-refuge-greek-car-ferry) In Syria/Iraq you have no such thing, the only groups staunchly opposed to ISIS are the Kurdish/Assad/Hezbollah block with Al Nusra/various Islamic opposition groups and FSA (if these guys actually still exist outside of simple defensive territorial militias, which is debatable) often allying with ISIS. The KRG and Iraqi Government seem very reluctant if not incapable of actually attacking ISIS and advancing into Sunni areas. Nato members are all abhorrent against boots on the ground so far, and Turkey seems content to watch ISIS cleanse the kobane kurds right at their border. The other facet of the plan devised by great minds in western strategic command and intelligence is that the best way to destroy ISIS with boots on the ground is to funnel more weapons and training to the 'moderate' opposition, ie those who have often allied with ISIS in the past, and who have been key in fighting against Assad and his allies. So far, it doesn't add up.

What a pathetic state of affairs for the house of commons. Has the level of discourse ever been lower? These clowns and anyone who condones or accepts this state of affairs is guilty of undermining Canadian democracy. I would love it if the party system or FPTP would disappear overnight, perhaps then we could get a productive government, based on good ideas and consensus instead of based on party power and ideology. What we have now hardly even resembles a representative, functional democracy.

You think Harper wouldn't have joined the Iraq coalition? Really???

The rojava kurds (syria) seem to be in pretty dire straights. Something upwards of 50 000 refugees from around the city of Kobane are trying to flee into turkey in the last few days, as the most recent ISIS advance has captured scores of villages and threatens the city itself. It's a pretty sick situation really, the well-financed force of takfiri barbarians armed with advanced weaponry (Much of it American, via the gulf states or seized from Iraq), a significant tank force and other armored vehicles and artillery against unpaid volunteers fighting with ak 47's and a few other outdated soviet weapons. The only people helping these kurds are Assad,the PKK (which the west almost uniformly designates a terrorist group) and very recently a bit from the KRG. The Rojava forces (PYD/PYG and PKK) are the ones who prevented the massacre of the yezidis on sinjar mountain by opening an escape corridor, yet the west has done literally nothing to support these people. Obama stated that the coalition and USA's goal was to degrade and destroy ISIS. Where is the air campaign to do so then, we all know the immense capability of the combined US/NATO air forces. It's not like ISIS is tough to find either, they are rolling across the plains of northern Syria virtually unchallenged. I don't remember this reluctance to bomb in Libya, or the Iraq war. The longer this state of affairs continues the more I will give weight to the idea that the real 'western' goal is to contain ISIS within Syria where they can continue to pressure Assad and his allies, while protecting western interests in Iraq and Kurdistan. Other factors such as Nato ally turkeys open support of ISIS, and US/Gulf allies training and supplying of 'moderates' who often defect to ISIS, or ally with ISIS give this theory legitimacy, in my opinion. Why are they deserving of 500 million dollars (online.wsj.com/articles/obama-proposes-500-million-to-aid-syrian-rebels-1403813486) but the rojava kurds are deserving of no help whatsoever.

Yet another post of yours from fantasy land filled with your baseless assumptions and statements. And I'm some sort of hitler youth for making logical factual statements? Get bent! I'm done responding with you on issues regarding Ukraine/Russia you are way to emotional about these issues to take seriously.

I wonder how much leeway an independent Scotland would have to re-negotiate or tear up existing contracts negotiated by Westminster.

Ukraine is effectively partitioned, barring some new military actions. Donetsk and Lugansk are the new South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transnitria.

The problem is your opinion is baseless. My 'boiler plate' is as such because its a well accepted fact, ie it's reality. Where is any evidence of this powerful anti-Putin undercurrent or opposition? The Russians don't give a hoot if the ethnic Ukrainians die, just as they didn't give a hoot when Chechens or Georgians came into the firing line. I would argue the 'Slavic brotherhood' extends as far as the people identify themselves as Russian and generally pro-Russia pro-Moscow.

My point is these guys were an obvious threat, but were portrayed as somehow different from the Taliban/Al Qaeda. There should have been no western exposure in the region, ie peacekeepers, aid workers, journalists. I don't disagree with anything you said, and I'm not saying we should try and prosecute them. I just think we should be there only be in the region with military forces if at all, its simply too dangerous. Let locals or regional actors bring in the humanitarian aid/report on the situation.

Well the Syrian rebels were the 'good guys' up until their foray into Iraq and Kurdistan. They received US training in Jordan, logistical (read medical, food, transportation, safe havens) support from US allies in Jordan and Turkey, and are in possession of millions of dollars of US military kit either seized from the Iraqi's or given to them by the Gulf states (Who bought it all from the USA of course). If we treated these guys like the Taliban from the get-go there would be a lot less western exposure (ie aid workers, journalists).