There is talk today of Russia sending arms to Syria and there was talk yesterday of William Hague pushing to arm some moderate syrian rebels.

Can someone explain it to me in simple terms what the hell is going on?

Im on the side of the hamsters!
🙂

Probably not. Bloody horrible evil mess driven by regional political self interest and sectarian hatred, and as usual innocent normal lives are snuffed out and a generation of children are psycologically damaged beyond repair so you can guarantee it will all happen all over again at some point in future years. What a stupid waste.

Russia wants to aid Assad. They have a big naval base there, and have an interest in maintaining the status quo.

Some people are not happy, tried to do something about it. This has lead to a lot of deaths. Now a lot of people who it has nothing to do with whatsoever (there is a long list) are getting involved.

As dd says no way of describing it simply, utter mess of carnage and competing factions.

Hopefully it’s about keeping the status quo as @shermer75 said. Not a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_war

In simple (Star Wars) terms, Hague wants to help the rebels while Russia wants to help finish te Death Star. On less simple terms, the rebels are not one unified, cohesive force (like in Libya, more or less) and some of them aren’t necessarily the good guys

We’re on the same side as Al-Qaeda, apparently. 😕

So its all a bit of a cluster**** then?

Kind of, yes.

We’re on the same side as Al-Qaeda, apparently.

Well, al Nusra who are the syrian wing of AQ and the best armed and most successful rebel group in Syria (at the moment). So pretty much, yes we are. There are reassurances that our weapons won’t be going in that direction, but who exactly is going to prevent that is anyones guess.

The opportunism of Hezbollah is truely sickening. They will help Assad murder random people in his own country in the name of support their sectarian brothers (I forget which tribe they claim to be, who cares) in return for Assad giving them great big rockets that they can use to kill more random people in Israel to further their political ends. What a lovely bunch of people they are, not to mention the rest of them in the region who are involved in stoking it all up.

I reckon China will win.

anybody got a wobbly economy they want to manufacture their way out of?

I presume there’s no oil. Else we’d have bombed it by now.

dd

on the flip side, Al Qaeda have formed a rebellion group with the sole intention of overthrowing the current government, which is what the West actually wants (Afghanistan part 2). Ultimately the West want Assad out so they can dictate their own foreign policy in the region. The Russians want the opposite and in the politics a lot of innocent people are suffering and dying 😥

I despise politicians, i just wish we had an alternative….

Whoever sells the arms to each side wins.

I dont think it is opportunism for Hezbollah more a roll of the dice with winner takes all. If Assad loses then they maybe cut off from Iran who provide arms money support etc. They will find themselves against Israel who have a score to settle, the Lebanese army who want them gone and with dwindling support in Southern Lebanon. It is in their best interest to support Assad by doing his murdering.

The fact that they are now killing people who used to support them wont be forgotten.

like all wars we are the good guys and they are the baddies unless we help them in which case they are also the goodies

, al Nusra who are the syrian wing of AQ and the best armed and most successful rebel group in Syria (at the moment)

I would ask for evidence but you will only get upset

It’s very well documented JY. It shouldn’t be too much of a challenge for someone of your intellect to find the evidence.

It’s as if we learned absolutely zero from Libya, or indeed 60 years of Middle East foreign policy failure. Arming rebel groups will prolong the bloodshed, engender yet more bitterness in generations of Syrians, and, in this case, far from guarantee the overthrow of Assad.

Libya shows us that even our favoured regime will generally turn out to be far less accommodating to western interests than hoped. If anything, Gaddafi, despotic shitbag that he was, was more useful to us in the end.

For all we are told about the appalling abuses of Assad’s regime, I suspect the bloody purges following a ‘rebel’ victory would be as great if not greater, and the pipedream of meaningful democracy would be swiftly shattered.

Perhaps the least worst outcome would have been to quietly green light the Russians to give Assad what he needed at the beginning to put down the rebellion quickly. But then, of course, we were all still romanticising the ‘Arab Spring’ and thinking we could reduce Russia’s influence in the region.

I think there are concerns that due to the sectarian – Sunni led opposition and Shi’a/Alawite/Ba’athist led Syrian government, element of the conflict that other nations could become easily involved.

You then have various factions/groups getting involved including Hizbollah, Iranian Revolutionary Guards & A.Q etc. On top of that we have Arabs, Kurds, Palestinians etc with wanting a slice of the action.

If that lot isn’t enough we then have the West + Saudi helping the rebels/freedom fighters on one side and Russia + Iran on the other, backing the Syrian government.

No one wants to see Israel dragged in to the conflict but Israel have already used their war planes to bomb Syrian targets. I wouldn’t be surprised if Israel aren’t threatening to bomb the crap out of Syria so Russia/the West do what Israel want.

The utter mess that this entire conflict is just depressing. Countless civilians are getting caught up in the fighting and without an end in sight. I really hope the UK government do not start supply arms to any side in Syria.

Iran has second largest natural gas field in the world, and Iraq has agreed to a pipeline through Iraq to Syria (and world export). Iran is committed to breaking the US dollar grip on oil and gas sales.

The more countries that join in the bigger the mess will be but this time it will be a bang, a bigger bang than most of the so called A-rab spring …

glenp – Member

Iran has second largest natural gas field in the world, and Iraq has agreed to a pipeline through Iraq to Syria (and world export). Iran is committed to breaking the US dollar grip on oil and gas sales.

With the help from Russia (already with EU) and China (look at their cars) … their dream will come true.

What happened to settling grievances with a fist-fight or a game of conkers… 🙄

Muslims (as a collective) will never be happy unless they’re at war…whether it’s a different a brand of muslim (sunni or shia) or non-Muslims…

It’s been this way as far back as I can remember and shows no signs of improving in the future.

We’d be better off keeping our noses out and resolving our homeland affairs first before waving the moral finger at other nations. Otherwise well always been seen as the interfering busy body that everyone else loves to hate.

Er. I think “muslims” might very well point out that the West seems never to be happy unless invading somewhere half way across the world. We could just leave them to it, but they got all the oil amnd gas (well, a lot of it) – not only do we want it, we want it at our prices and sold in our currency… and if they don’t like it we’re gonna kill em. Doesn’t sound like a “muslim” problem to me.

Muslims (as a collective) will never be happy unless they’re at war…

That’s just straight up bigotry/racism. Nice. 🙄

ddmonkey – Member

They will help Assad murder random people in his own country in the name of support their sectarian brothers

Well Assad will never win if he murders “random people”. He needs to concentrate on murdering his enemies, that’s for sure. I think you might have figured out what he’s been doing wrong 💡

Btw ddmonkey, Hezbollah spanked Israel’s arse and drove them out of Lebanon, which is more than the UN, the US, the UK, or anyone else, managed to do, so for that they get the thumbs up from me 🙂

It’s very well documented JY. It shouldn’t be too much of a challenge for someone of your intellect to find the evidence.

well if it is easy you must be in with a chance then 😉

Muslims (as a collective) will never be happy unless they’re at war…whether it’s a different a brand of muslim (sunni or shia) or non-Muslims…

Indeed that is bigotry/racism PS it is not like the west has a long and illustrious record of being at peace now is it

well if it is easy you must be in with a chance then

Drew a blank did you? 😉

😀

Muslims

(as a collective)

That’s a bigotry double whammy right there.

It’s like racism smackdown in here today! 😀

Russia has many vested interests in arming Assad, they get money, they have their only Mediterranean naval base on Syrian coastline, and they are worried about radical Islamists taking power should Assad’s regime topple. Russia also has energy interests, with regards to Syria-Iraq-Iran oil pipeline deal that would supply them with oil.

Syria would be a useful place for the US to keep a close eye on Iran, plus it would be useful to topple one of Iran’s most powerful allies. The EU is already buying oil from rebel seized oil fields. But who know’s maybe “the west” are genuinely intervening to promote human rights and democracy.
Oh, I found this:

Dubious statements by Western and Israeli officials — couched in suspicious language of unknown likelihood like “varying confidence” and “limited evidence” — have now accused the Assad regime of using chemical weapons, a purported “red line” for direct military response on the part of the U.S. and its allies.

None other than United Nations official Carla Del Ponte, who cooperated with the U.S.-NATO war against Yugoslavia, exposed the chemical weapons charge. She said that if chemical weapons were used, it was the anti-Assad forces that used them. (Reuters, May 5) Who knows whether it bares any truth whatsoever.

China’s veto to intervention could be because of it’s long standing policy of non-intervention. Or because it doesn’t want to see another westernized Arab country.
Who knows?

Oh dear Patriotpro.

It’s all Jonny Foreigner’s fault!

Having just re read Peter Hpkirk’s book, The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia, the news reads like deja vu all over again. Same region of the world, same large players, same minor players, same result for the poor sods trying to eek out a day to day living in the area.

Buy it here and read it, there are sooooooo many parallels it’s enlightening and depressing in equal measure.

But it’s still a very good book.

im sure patriotpro will be on here shortly saying he knows lots of muslims and they all want a fight …….. 😆

Or he will get banned..

Israel’s defense chief said Tuesday a Russian plan to supply sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles to Syria was a “threat” and signaled that Israel is prepared to use force to stop the delivery.

Israel to shoot at the Russians… That would be the beginning of the end for all of us or at the very least the end of Israel. If it wasn’t Obama in power I’d say the former.

im just getting myself up to date on all this……. is william hague really that stupid or am i missing something.?