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Syria
Aug 28, 2013 17:45:10 GMT
Post by Moose on Aug 28, 2013 17:45:10 GMT
I just saw some unbelievably horrific pictures in a news report that I won't post here of victims of an apparent phospherous bomb attack (no, I'd never heard of them either). I can't imagine the agony those people must be suffering. I don't know an awful lot about the situation in Syria but I've heard murmurings on facebook of a possible American invasion. What do people think?
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Syria
Aug 28, 2013 18:13:13 GMT
Post by Mari on Aug 28, 2013 18:13:13 GMT
Well, those murmurings are quite strong in the sense that national media are reporting on it as well. So far I don't think there's enough evidence to convict either side of the nerve gas attacks. I do, however, think there should be some interference with the situation. What is going on there is horrific, though to be fair, no worse than Somalia has been for a long long time and no one cares about that.
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Syria
Aug 28, 2013 18:22:02 GMT
Post by Moose on Aug 28, 2013 18:22:02 GMT
I don't know much about Somalia either Feel a bit guilty at being so badly informed.
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DGoeij
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Syria
Aug 29, 2013 20:15:23 GMT
Post by DGoeij on Aug 29, 2013 20:15:23 GMT
Wikipedia is your friend on Somalia I would guess, the situation is as it is for quite some time now and I'd expect a page on it to be relatively accurate and informative.
Any western/coalition forces on the ground in Syria I would deem unlikely. The conflict is volatile, messy and if I understand it correctly rife with sectarian violent armed groups who probably would be more than happy to stop shooting eachother and open up on the evil westerners. I don't see much support for boots on the ground arising in any country with the military capability to even get them there.
Intervention might take some token air activity if countries in the region don't balk at western air forces operating over Syria, unless the russkies suddenly grow some empathy for... well any empathy at this stage...
The attacks are strongly suspected to have been of chemical nature afaik. Haven't heard about phosphorus before. Bit of a blurred line there as such, but an attack with (presumably white) phosphor would cause horrific burns and hard to put out fire (the stuff ignites in contact with oxygen and just keeps burning), lovely to employ as a weapon. As such I would think somewhat easier to identify. With a chemical attack you'd sooner think of an attack with a gas of sorts causing al sorts of nasty things to people. Not sure if an attack with white phosphorus would be considered a chemical attack or just a more general arsehole thing to do to people.
As the current development has been sending in UN weapon inspectors to find out what happened with those people, I presume it wasn't as easy to figure if and what happened there.
I'm getting this mostly from the BBC TV news snippets I pick up during the morning routine and what I knowledge I picked up over the years though. International news sources are getting increasingly on my nerves in coming across as just not caring what they report as long as someone is shooting their mouth off and my knowledge on chemical warfare is rather shallow.
If it really was a chemical attack by the Syrian regime on its own civillians, that would be horrific, but not all that new. What does seem new is the amount of noise spokespersons for various governments are making about it. Apparently caring about this one is officially approved for now. And yes, I'm getting a bit cynical here. Sorry.
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Moose butwhyamiaguest?
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Syria
Aug 29, 2013 22:11:30 GMT
Post by Moose butwhyamiaguest? on Aug 29, 2013 22:11:30 GMT
No, all input is welcome. I went to my mum's earlier and watched a lot of TV news on it (to many howls of dismay from fourteen year old boys). I feel a bit clearer as to what is going on now and what might go on but still do not know enough to form a concrete opinion. I will keep reading and watching.
Re the phosphorous - the photos were unbelievably awful, of people burned so badly that I cannot even understand how they were alive. It mentioned that phos .. whatever just burns up oxygen and so the burns are very hard to treat and can dissolve bones.
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DGoeij
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Syria
Aug 30, 2013 22:17:56 GMT
Post by DGoeij on Aug 30, 2013 22:17:56 GMT
That does sound what I know of White Phosphorus. As I said, it just keeps burning, through skin, bones etc. Awfully nasty shit yeah. My dad's handbook for the conscript from the 60's/70's has some first aid guidance on it. As in, remove larger chunks with bayonet ( as in, from the skin of a screaming burn victim), soak wounds, soak bandages, keep bandages soaked (all of that to keep it from contact with oxygen), get to aid station asap. Lovely.
As such, it has been raining death on civilians there ever since the open conflict started (dunno how much people suffered under the regime pre-shooting as such). It has been going on for months and months. Yes, there is something terribly creepy and concerning about a regime willing to deploy even more awful weaponry, but it's not like kids and the elderly weren't dying from the more conventional explosives resulting in regular red-hot steel splinters flying through the streets.
I just get a bit irked by the notion that with either a white phosphorous or chemical attack (whatever difference in legalese that amounts to) now makes what is happening there Officially A Bad Thing, as opposed to the previous months of blood-shed being less officially bad or something.
It's not like I have any notion of some solution to any of it, apart from an instant paralyzing brain disorder for any murderous tool out there.
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Syria
Aug 31, 2013 3:36:00 GMT
Post by whollygoats on Aug 31, 2013 3:36:00 GMT
Okay...My question is: Where are the combatants getting this stuff? As weapons grade, it's fairly sophisticated.
*sigh*
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Syria
Aug 31, 2013 4:16:15 GMT
Post by tangent on Aug 31, 2013 4:16:15 GMT
^ that
Our attention is focused on people doing the fighting but the people who supply the arms are just as bad. In my opinion, they are guilty of war crimes.
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Syria
Aug 31, 2013 13:14:57 GMT
Post by whollygoats on Aug 31, 2013 13:14:57 GMT
I'm of the same opinion. The provisioners of these weapons who should be held just as responsible as those who use them.
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Syria
Aug 31, 2013 17:51:36 GMT
Post by Moose on Aug 31, 2013 17:51:36 GMT
Would be fairly ironic if they had originated in some lab in the UK or US.
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Syria
Aug 31, 2013 18:33:49 GMT
Post by raspberrybullets on Aug 31, 2013 18:33:49 GMT
Probably did. Who else has money and research capabilities to make such weapons?
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Syria
Aug 31, 2013 19:03:21 GMT
Post by Mari on Aug 31, 2013 19:03:21 GMT
Actually, most trade conducted by the Dutch is weaponry of some kind. This does include illegal trade and is thus an estimate, but there is also a fair share of legal Dutch weapons trading going on in the world
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Syria
Sept 1, 2013 9:51:55 GMT
Post by JoeP on Sept 1, 2013 9:51:55 GMT
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Syria
Sept 1, 2013 13:30:10 GMT
Post by Mari on Sept 1, 2013 13:30:10 GMT
Very interesting and helpful. I've been following Syria since the protests, but there is some info in there I didn't know.
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DGoeij
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Syria
Sept 1, 2013 18:47:49 GMT
Post by DGoeij on Sept 1, 2013 18:47:49 GMT
Interesting article, much better phrased what I was thinking . This one mentions Sarin though. Although civilians dying either way is awful.
But yeah, great. Old fashioned 17th century hell hole with the added bonus of modern weapons...
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Yuki
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Syria
Dec 4, 2013 10:26:20 GMT
Post by Yuki on Dec 4, 2013 10:26:20 GMT
I don't know much about Somalia either Feel a bit guilty at being so badly informed. There's virtually nothing strategically important about Somalia, so no media, for profit institution, or government would spend much money or time on it.. The situation in Syria was pretty confusing at first, but some friends from there explained what was going on to me, and it started to make sense.. when you have old ideological rivalries and strong sectarianism with several factions, a moderately secular dictatorship may be a lesser evil than a revolution that would remove the policeman all of a sudden, leaving a dangerously empty authority gap, even if he was doing a lousy job on many other things. A more practical approach would have been a gradual reform from within the system, focusing first on basic demands of the people and education. But I guess those activists with steamy dreams of revolution have a mosquito's patience when it comes to changing society. They want change now, they want it fast, which often results in catastrophes as we are witnessing now in Syria, and also throughout history. I think this stems from political immaturity, and I was such a political immature person not long ago (but then I only became interested in politics 4 years ago or so, and before that I always put it under the "boring stuff" category), not that I'm any better now, but I'm still learning. A lot of people I know who were in favor of The "Arab Spring" or even participated in its initiation and process as activists, have realized the big mistake they made (not all of them unfortunately). Some even went from the far left to the far right (or at least started to support right wing policies strongly on some points). I didn't have such a sudden swing, but I drifted slightly to the right, after the experience I made as a close witness to the aftermath of the "Arab Spring" and its negative results, either in the form of a complete failure, as it was the case in Morocco, or a political and social mess as in Tunisia, Egypt, and to a stronger extent in Syria. Middle Eastern and North African countries simply cannot go directly from their present state to democracy. Democracy came to be in the Western World through a slow historical process, and was aided and accompanied by other social changes, such as rationalization, the disappearance or decline of older forms of belonging (tribal, religious), in favor of modern forms like nationalism and then globalism or universalism. In most countries of the Middle East and North Africa, tribal sentiments are still too strong, and so is the idea of the "Umma" (i.e. the global community of Muslims as a unity), which often trump nationalistic sentiments. It's easy to move people there using their religious sentiments. One clear example is that Arab-speaking accounts, pages, and groups of atheists and freethinkers on facebook get easily reported and removed using facebook's reporting system itself. The system expects that a large number of people signaling a picture or a page as offensive must be right about the offensiveness of that item, and therefore removes it automatically. It doesn't expect that you could easily create a group, call it "in defense of Muhammad and Islam", add all your friends and ask them to do the same (you can't refuse to defend the prophet and Islam, can you? *Laina's face*), and whenever you post a link to a page or a group or a profile with a description saying "this pig is defying Allah and his prophet and insulting Islam, report him!", hundreds or thousands would obey your orders unquestionably and mostly without even taking a peek at the content. Well, in short, a direct transition to democracy in such countries wouldn't work because religion is still not regarded as a personal matter, and people still see their interest in favoring their own group (either a tribe or a religious group), and highlighting tribal and religious values more than anything else (which most often run counter to secularism, free speech, human rights, etc). A number of friends think the "enlightened dictatorship" model would work better (19th century Japan may be a good example), at least for a few decades, and that's why they'd prefer Assad to take the power back over Syria.
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Syria
Dec 4, 2013 22:45:59 GMT
Post by tangent on Dec 4, 2013 22:45:59 GMT
Putin seems to have the right answer then.
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Yuki
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Syria
Dec 5, 2013 3:55:00 GMT
Post by Yuki on Dec 5, 2013 3:55:00 GMT
Perhaps, I don't know. At least I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that a revolution is needed. In politics most often you have to choose between the bad and the worse..
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Syria
Jan 4, 2014 16:34:22 GMT
Post by spaceflower on Jan 4, 2014 16:34:22 GMT
I would hope for the more moderate FSA (Free Syrian Army) but I fear that ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) are stronger. What can the world do? At least take care of the refugees from Syra. But many countries don't. www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-25345923Of course, there are many in Sweden who say "why should little Sweden receive so many refugees, we don't have housing and jobs enough".
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Syria
Jan 5, 2014 0:25:44 GMT
Post by Moose on Jan 5, 2014 0:25:44 GMT
We hear that sort of thing a lot here too .. at the moment the media are going on about the so called 'influx' of Romanians and Bulgarians. I have no idea how many have come here but doubt it is as many as some newspapers want us to think
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Syria
Jan 5, 2014 7:02:59 GMT
Post by tangent on Jan 5, 2014 7:02:59 GMT
That's true but we have had so many migrants over the past 15 years that we have not been able to cope with. It's a situation that is ripe for demagoguery.
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Syria
Jan 5, 2014 13:09:51 GMT
Post by Mari on Jan 5, 2014 13:09:51 GMT
In June 2012 apparently 11,3 percent of the British population was considered an immigrant. In the Netherlands December 2013, it's 26,7 percent. These figures do include work immigrants in both cases, but that's only a small group. Not sure if the UK government has different definitions from the Dutch one, but those are the numbers I found on the government statistics websites.
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Syria
Jan 5, 2014 13:34:01 GMT
Post by tangent on Jan 5, 2014 13:34:01 GMT
26,7% is very high. The definition is very important. I rather think Britain would collapse with that high a percentage.
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Syria
Jan 5, 2014 14:49:02 GMT
Post by Alvamiga on Jan 5, 2014 14:49:02 GMT
In my opinion, we're doing badly enough at 11.3%
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Syria
Jan 5, 2014 18:33:03 GMT
Post by spaceflower on Jan 5, 2014 18:33:03 GMT
Well, in Sweden there are 15% immigrants, and authorites are expecting them to be 18% in a few years (and stay that way, though how they came to that conclusion I don't know). The many refugees need housing, jobs and treatments for PTSD. So you can't have more trouble than we have.
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Syria
Jan 5, 2014 22:36:29 GMT
Post by Moose on Jan 5, 2014 22:36:29 GMT
Aren't we all immigrants one way or another? I'd be interested to hear other country's definitions.
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Syria
Jan 5, 2014 23:24:17 GMT
Post by tangent on Jan 5, 2014 23:24:17 GMT
Not if you are born in the country where you are now living.
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Syria
Jan 6, 2014 0:36:05 GMT
Post by jayme on Jan 6, 2014 0:36:05 GMT
We are 13% immigrants, which is around 40 million people. I couldn't find any statistics about what percentage are refugees and asylum seekers that are from 2013, but I found this: www.migrationinformation.org/usfocus/display.cfm?ID=931Unfortunately, that info is too old to be applicable to what is happening in Syria.
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Syria
Jan 6, 2014 10:42:32 GMT
Post by JoeP on Jan 6, 2014 10:42:32 GMT
We hear that sort of thing a lot here too .. at the moment the media are going on about the so called 'influx' of Romanians and Bulgarians. My Bulgarian colleague has announced he's going back to Bulgaria. For a week's holiday only, but still.
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Syria
Jan 6, 2014 12:42:44 GMT
Post by tangent on Jan 6, 2014 12:42:44 GMT
You sound pleased he's going back but disappointed it's only for a week
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