The all purpose terrorism thread featuring plenty of allah akbar

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by mapuc

They sent the carrier to give USA a political wink

The US or British navy winks back by sending a sub.

[Von Due]

This little story caught my eye, about 2 women arrested in Saudi Arabia for being members of Al Qaeda:
http://www.arabnews.com/node/987891/saudi-arabia

Especially the last bit:

They were released the first time due to the intercession of several Al-Qassim notables with the minister of interior, asking him to release them and promising that they would not commit similar acts again.
News of their new arrest came as a shock to the notables who did not expect them to go back to their old ways.

Uuuh... right. If not the entire Saudi Govt support Al Qaeda then those notables there sure have a lot of saying. Lobbyism level Super Pro. Interesting too that they were Al-Qassim notables seeing Al-Qassim is the center for Salafism as well as a key supporter area for the Saudi royals all while being the spiritual home of anti Saud groups. The House Of Saud really could do with some house cleaning it seems. Someone in that house doesn't like daddy the king.

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

The US or British navy winks back by sending a sub.

As my Submariner buddy likes to say:

"There are two kinds of ships at sea, Submarines and Targets"!

[Jimbuna]

Syria conflict: New air strikes on Aleppo as offensive launched

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-37449968

It just keeps getting worse

I must say that I admire the stance John Kerry took when in a recent meeting attended by the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/ke...ssia-s-n651891

[Von Due]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

I must say that I admire the stance John Kerry took when in a recent meeting attended by the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/ke...ssia-s-n651891

Another side of that story, this time from one of Moscow's merry mouthpieces, Russia Today.
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/360283-un...-lavrov-syria/
Handle with care, but it's interesting to see how it's presented "on the other side" or rather, "from the other side".

[Skybird]

The difference between the two (men and countries alike) is that the one is willing to do whatever needed to fight a war to a victorious end that is killing as many enemies as possible - no matter what -, while the other allows more moral concerns coming into his way, hindering him. I think the West also allows itself more illusions about Syria.

I also assume if the West would not have gone into Syria and would have let Russia have its Chechnya-proven ways, the country by now probably would be wrecked, but the majoirty of regime-hostile militias and factions already being defeated and driven out, or destroyed. And that a miltia is hostile to the regime, does not automatically make it compatible with the West.

I do not say Russia's ways are more honest or humane. They play brutal since that is how you win wars, and they play foul since it makes sure they get their way, and the time they need. But I say I doubt that the Western views and interventions do that ammount of good that the West claims it intends. As I see it somebody repeats the same mistake here that he has done when wanting to remove Saddam for principle moral reasons - while ignoring pragmatic reality. It would have been better to leave PITA Saddam where he was. And to leave Assad in place as well. No ideal soltuions, but the pragmatically most desirable solutions.

I think the Western masterminds have no realstic clue at all what to get in syria if they would indeed defeat Assad and drive the regime out. I predict things would become much, much worse then, with all those Assad-hostile militias declaring victory and taking over control - and right starting the next civil war for power immedately after Assad's fall. The well-meaningness of aid organisations will have no meaning and relevance, that is for sure.

German news today said last Russian election statistics allow conclusions on that the number of Russian troops standing in Syria is probably much higher than formally announced by Russia, or estimated in the West.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Syria conflict: New air strikes on Aleppo as offensive launched

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-37449968

It just keeps getting worse

I must say that I admire the stance John Kerry took when in a recent meeting attended by the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/ke...ssia-s-n651891

UN officials are now saying that the recent attack on a convoy and daily airstrikes on hospitals and civilians could amount to war crimes.

[Skybird]

How to discriminate between "civilian" and "military" there?

What happens there, follows war's logic. That is not "nice" (Nancy Reagan), but then it also is not peace. Don't expect scenes from a picnic on the meadow when watching scenes of a hot war zone - especially when civilians and fighters live side by side, and live and use the same infrastructure (or what is left of it).

[Jimbuna]

So what of the hospitals?

Nobody knows the coordinates of such large buildings?

[Skybird]

Do you think hospitals do no treat fighters, do not need to share supplies with combat factions?

Why do you think have the Syrians pressed so hard to destroy the water supply in and to Aleppo? Where do you think do the fighters in Aleppo get their water from - do they maintain their own water supply network separate from that for the civilian population?

Where do you think do they hide, their fighters, their equipment, ammunition, weapns - if not in the cellars and buildings that from the city of Aleppo?

Its a war. Without taking any side here, i point out this: that the Syrians and Russians bomb Alleppo like crazy is because their enemies are in Aleppo and try to hold the city. If these militias would give up the city and pull out, or surrender, they might not be able to continue the war, might even suffer assassination if they allow to go into captivity - but their mere presence is the reason why the city gets destroyed and civilians get killed. If they want to save the civilians, they have to stay away from them, and away from civilian infrastructure.

That might not be in their military interest. But it also is not in the military interest of Russia and Assad to let them use and benefit from civilian hideouts and infrastructure without reacting to that. A water supply that supplies the fighter sof the enemy, is a tagert. Hospitals that treat fighters or share supplies with them, or get blackmailed to do so, are targets. Thats the simple cruel truth.

Its sometimes was said in past years that Western militaries should not target mosques. But all too often we have seen enemies hiding in mosques and stockpiling supplies there and opening fire from there, thinking the "holy" ground gives them immunity. My reasoning is different here. Enemy hides in mosque, operates and fires from there? Flatten that thing just like any other and bury the enemy in its rubble. Battle won, tactical problem solved.

War's logic. You do not win war by saving the enemy and allowing him to hide.

A war crime it is then when the civilian population gets intentionally targetted as the primary target, for the sake of wanting to kill the civilian population, not the military target in its middle.

I also think it is quite a bit about psycho warfare and demoralization if "civilian" areas get bombed. Lets not forget that the population of Aleppo is not friendly towards the Assad regime, already was not friendly before the war.

[Jimbuna]

So you would advocate hospitals being exempted from the Geneva Convention should either side believe them to be treating wounded, whether military or otherwise?

Bit of a broad brush statement there Sky and thankfully one that isn't adopted by many in the west.

treating wounded =/= hostilities.
and doctors around the world swear to aid those who need it - their allegiance doesnt matter.

so yeah, lets bomb them...?

[HunterICX]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

So you would advocate hospitals being exempted from the Geneva Convention should either side believe them to be treating wounded, whether military or otherwise?

Bit of a broad brush statement there Sky and thankfully one that isn't adopted by many in the west.

Geneva Convention and War never mixed and never will.

While it may not be adopted in the West directly they yet keep backing these ''Terrorist'' Organizations who fight against Assad whil they shown themselves many times not to be any better the Daesh.

and speaking of such from back in 2014:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/syrias-...groups/5363563

and 2015:

https://off-guardian.org/2015/11/04/...tals-in-syria/

[Skybird]

Islamic fighters and Muslim armies never have adapted to the Hague Landwarfare Convention. Some of our "allies" in syria have been rpeort5ed to take civilians and human shields, and having committed atrocities themselves. Thats the guys that our guys fight with, support from the air, or spend millions and millions on.

I always considered it to be an utmost hypocrisy of a very sickening form that we hail the treatment of wounded soldiers by altruistic sisters in hospital, just then to send them back to war as soon as possible, or allow the enemy to send his treated soldiers back to battle so that they can shoot our soldiers - or tapping ourselves on the shoulder for being so "noble" and willing to prolongue a war by saving the enemy. Romanticism of this kind is nice in sports and fair sportsmanship. But this here is about war. To think in terms of noblesse or sportsmanship about it, makes me sick.

If there is infrastructure that is of use to the fighting forces of the enemy, it is a target. If there are resources that can be of use to the enemy, they are a target. If the enemy hides himself in the middle of civilian society, the enemy nevertheless is a target. Should the other side stop fighting just becasue he hides inside civilian society?

If you are not willing to accept that war is a bloody, dirty, inhumane, brutal and unfair event - , then do not go to war. If you are not willing to get your hands dirty from dealing blood-dripping cards - then don't play.

You recall the Laconia incident, sure you do. It often gets debated whether the Allies were right to attack. I happen to belong to those saying they were right - in war time. It was a German U-boat, and it had the wepaons and the crew to sink Allied vessels and kill allied soldiers and sailors. Thus, it weas a target. In peace, it would have been something very different. But it was no peace. I totally reject to assess the needs of war by standards and ethical views basing on peace times, nor do I accept to judge peace time procedures by means designed to be run during war time. Its two totally different things.

If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen. I wish we would have stayed out of Syria. Possible that the war already would have been over without Western and other supplies to fighting factions pouring in. But there we are, and we do not know what we really want there, and how to achieve what, and we do not get fully in and we do not want to get really out, and so the thing lasts on and on and on. In the end, there will either be a Russia-loyal regime that has ripped apart and drowned in blood the country (already now Syria will never be again what it was), or there will be an opposition waging war against itself after it sent Assad to hell and the Russians out, abusing and destroying the country even longer after Assad'S defeat, and this time Syria will get beaten up not in the name of Assad's and Russian interests, but "radical Islamists's " interest.

I pick no sides here on grounds of moral arguments, there are no moral arguments, becasue it is war. If you want to reduce the suffering of civilians, end the war. The best way to achieve that, is to stop all who suppoort the rbeels, and to see the Russians and Syrians defeating all militrary opposition as fast as possible. If you argue that you cannot allow a Russian victory or Assad to remain in power, and you keep the war running to prevent that - all your morally superior concerns over the civilians suffering, fly right out of the window.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Nippelspanner

treating civilian wounded =/= hostilities.
and doctors around the world swear to aid those who need it - their allegiance doesnt matter.

so yeah, lets bomb them...?

Precised that for you. The enemy treating his wounded fighters, is a hostile act - it supplies him with fighters that sooner or later start firing bullets at your fighters again. You prefer your fighters dead or wounded just to save the enemy? Is this this strange reasoning on what is morally okay to feed the illsuion that war is anything but inhumane?

The nurses of this world did their share to keep wars running. Thats the grim truth. And who said a doctor's oath is stronger than the sword?

Everything that makes war less determined, helps to make it more agreeable. And by that you make it more likely, and you make it lasting longer - and by that in the end costing even more suffering.

The Russians have interests in syria. Assad is about his mere survival. Both will not stop, the West can appeal as much as it wants. The West is not willing to start a big world war with Russia over Syria. Regimes like China are not in favor of Western positions on syria either. We have no plan for any - unlikely - victory of our "allies".

We should not be in this match at all. But we insist on doing our share to keep the war going.

Just meaning things well, often lead to the worst of results. Thats why I always recommend sober, unsentimental reason, with no emotion-soaking illusions. All in all it works way better.