Iraq / Middle East / Murder Thread

Russia Today buddy.

Completly biasedā€¦but all of those networks are.

About 400,000, according to the UN.

The entire Middle East is comprised mainly of lunatic fanatics.
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Absolutely agreeā€¦but the key here is Assad is secular and their wouldnt have been a war in Syria in the first place without Turkish/Gulf State and Western arming of the so called rebels who turned out to be Daesh. (With the aim being to overthrow a ā€œdictatorā€)

Id personally prefer a secular Assad who let christians practice in peace for decades rather then those lunatics run riot.

Air strikes from Trump boost their vicious warā€¦5/6 million civilians displacedā€¦its horrific.

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Who would you lay most of the blame for that at?[quote=ā€œanon7035031, post:2060, topic:17410, full:trueā€]
About 400,000, according to the UN.
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Is that what @anon7035031 is this week?

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Careful now, pal. He might send you an exploding chicken in the post.

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Iā€™m sure thereā€™s plenty blame to go around.

beer can chicken? A novel idea.

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I think he wants you to pin it on one person.

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Yep unreal

Quite obviously because:
i) He thinks he can get away with it, or is at least prepared to test the waters of what he can get away with. He also knows heā€™s backed up by Russia.
ii) Heā€™s a tyrant who has no problem with using chemical weapons.

No flies on you.

Depends what you mean by justified. Taken as a stand alone issue, Assad is a brutal tyrant and deserves to be overthrown and probably strung up (notwithstanding my opposition to the death penalty).

The problem is that none of these sort of things can be taken as a stand alone issue and with any such potential attack, what a tyrant deserves and the consequences have to be weighed up. The House of Saud deserves to be overthrown as itā€™s a despicable regime but the consequences of doing so would likely be appalling. Taken as a stand alone issue Saddam Hussein deserved to be overthrown. But the consequences of invading Iraq were so obviously terrible and the pretext for overthrowing Hussein so transparently bogus that it was always going to be a disaster.

And with Assad, you have the very real potential that any alternative could be even worse, if that were possible.

Trump has quite transparently done this for cynical reasons ā€“ his presidency so far has been a total disaster and he needs a ā€œwinā€ more badly than any president has ever needed one at this stage of their presidency.

Trump is above all an opportunist. The opportunity presented itself, and being desperate, he saw this as a way out of his domestic problems, particularly the Russia scandal, and went for it. War or military action is the oldest trick in the book for a struggling leader of a great power. Russia is now a complete noose around his neck and theyā€™re no longer any use to him ā€“ whatā€™s the best way of distancing yourself from Russia? Attack their ally.

Trump needs enemies. They are like oxygen to him. But at home heā€™s almost run out of new enemies, heā€™s made so many. Russia and Assad can serve that purpose for him now and he can appeal to the old cold war antagonism. Whereas he has picked his enemies very unwisely up to now, Russia is probably now a wise enemy for him to pick as the US people tend to rally around a leader who takes military action, come what may, especially if they play up the Billy Big Balls aspect of it, as Republicans generally do.

He probably wonā€™t care that the alt-right looks like itā€™s deserting him as it gives the optics of appearing more moderate. This, bizarre as it seems, is a sort of ā€œpivot to the centreā€ for him (quite clearly launching military strikes cannot be classed as a pivot to the centre in any real terms but it will appeal to middle America, much of whom still has a sort of John Wayne view of the USā€™s role in the world).

In this case, the potential consequences for the Middle East outweigh the potential very limited benefit for me, especially when itā€™s being overseen by such a simplistic-minded moron. I donā€™t expect this strike to be a one-off, I would not be surprised if there are more tonight. He could very quickly find himself in a quagmire if he plays things badly, and thatā€™s a serious danger.

Striking Assad could also benefit ISIS, although in the long run I think ISISā€™s days are numbered - the real battle and the real benefit to Trump could come when Raqqa has to be taken. But this strike makes that battle harder if and when it comes and it also doesnā€™t help in terms of radicalisation of Muslims in the west ā€“ itā€™s more grist to the mill of any radical elements who are looking for recruits.

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Itā€™s a very depressing turn of events.

The ME is a powderkeg waiting to explodeā€¦Trumps position has completly changedā€¦a complete reverse on his pre-election promisesā€¦disgustingly so tbh.

WWIII is scarily close with that carry on.

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Decent summary

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WW3 will start

What channel ?

Fox

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Trump is going to be dangerous but I do support the bombing in Syria that he carried out