Audio Reveals What John Kerry Told Syrians Behind Closed Doors
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
So let's assume the US is victorious and Assad gone. And now? A lot of Syrian fractions, deprived of their common enemy, and a lot of them are extremists. I'm sure very few of them would be okay with an international occupying force.
What I'm missing in all the news is even a hint that the journalists are willing and/or capable of looking at motives. We are always told about this or that attack, and how many children died - never mentioning that if the table were turned it would just be the children of the other group(s) that would die (but the media could just stop reporting about them, the news articles are way too inconsistent in whom they are reporting about and whom not, that alone is a significant selection bias).
I have yet to see any article that tells us (in believable terms and not just superficially) what "Assad" (meaning more than just the one guy) actually wants. I only read that he and Putin are bombing hospitals and children. The German leading magazine and news source "Der Spiegel", where I get most of my daily news, is especially bad. They've had 2-4 such Syria articles on the front page every single day for a while now, without giving any actual (deeper) information or a (thorough) look at the alternatives. And then they wonder about the apathy among the readers? They enable the forum only under every 10th or so of those articles, and each time they do the tone is highly skeptical, not of any one party in the conflict, but about how we are informed and the lack of actually clear and good alternatives.
This is a President's prerrogative. Why is US preventing this to happen?
And which half a dozen countries are you talking about exactly, that aren't already screwed?
I'm a non-interventionist myself, but it isn't an absolute position. Accepting years long conflict isn't good for anyone either.
Coming to think of it, the US resembles an oligarchy more than anything else. Perhaps Russia should start arming rebels in the US?
On the other hand nobody has anything worthwhile to say really, including myself, since we know next to nothing. I just wish that at the very least people become more conscious of when they know nothing and merely regurgitate the sound bites they've heard often enough to have memorized and internalized them.
Another issue with the shallow feel-bad event-based stories is that they are much more easily manipulated than actual deep analysis of the background behind conflicts.
It's this level of analysis that is completely absent from news sources. In the UK there is a perpetual debate about immigration that cuts across party lines. I'd love to see some attempts at analysis of the various factions and what their motivations stem from. It occasionally gets touched upon but it's usually relegated the extended segments in the late news.
Give people context and background. Educate them to look behind the surface. Maybe we would then stop obsessing about the precise turn of phrase used by politicians as it has very little relationship to what's actually going on. Then maybe we can start thinking about having a functioning democracy.
He talks as if the action against Syria is because Assad is a brutal military dictator. The reality is that the US wants Assad gone because he is an ally to Russia/Iran who can exert control over Lebanon, and he is blocking a gas pipeline from Qatar to EU that would weaken Russia.
The simple solution for there to be peace in Syria is for the US to get out. Stop sponsoring terrorists (yes, the "rebels" the US sponsors are terrorists) in Syria, just get out. Assad maintained peace from 2000 - 2011, and he can do it again.
The saddest part is this: when a Syrian kid learns of the destruction of his country and wants revenge on the US, it will be these same newspapers that will be crying about "Why do they hate us?"
So now oppositions all over the world go ballistic and use violence as the only solution to a problem, confident that USA will come and take out the head of the regime they oppose, ...Americans coming in, die for them. 3 years ago they were betting on Americans invading Syria and do the work for them ?
Silly.
But hey, Eisenhower tried to wake up we (the people) when he talked about the dangers of the military-industrial complex.
This is probably where Eisenhower learned the dangers of the 'military industrial complex', because the US was actually opposed to intervention in Iran until Eisenhower came to power and changed that position (on the advice of Winston Churchill)
Instead, the following year, Assad pursued negotiations for an alternative $10 billion pipeline plan with Iran, across Iraq to Syria, that would also potentially allow Iran to supply gas to Europe from its South Pars field shared with Qatar...
The Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline plan was a "direct slap in the face" to Qatar's plans. No wonder Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, in a failed attempt to bribe Russia to switch sides, told President Vladmir Putin that "whatever regime comes after" Assad, it will be "completely" in Saudi Arabia's hands and will "not sign any agreement allowing any Gulf country to transport its gas across Syria to Europe and compete with Russian gas exports", according to diplomatic sources. When Putin refused, the Prince vowed military action."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/a...
"Don’t let anyone fool you: As we have detailed since 2013, sectarian strife in Syria has been engineered to provide cover for a war for access to oil and gas, and the power and money that come along with it."
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-09-10/competing-gas-pipel...
"An Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline is unacceptable in the Beltway not only because US vassals lose, but most of all because in currency war terms it would bypass the petrodollar. Iranian gas from South Pars would be traded in an alternative basket of currencies."
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/08/syria-ultimate-pipeli...
"Many have questioned why Russia became involved in the Syrian war but often overlook the fight over natural gas. As Harvard Professor Mitchell A Orenstein and George Romer wrote last month inForeign Affairs, Russia currently supplies Europe with a quarter of the gas it uses for heating, cooking, fuel and other activities.
In fact 80 per cent of the gas that Russian state-controlled company Gazprom produces is sold to Europe, so maintaining this crucial market is very important. But Europe doesn’t like being so reliant on Russia for fuel and has been trying to reduce its dependence. It’s a move that is supported by the United States as it would weaken Russian influence over Europe."
http://www.news.com.au/world/middle-east/is-the-fight-over-a...
"In 1989, Qatar and Iran began to develop the South Pars/North Dome field, which is buried 3,000 meters below the floor of the Persian Gulf. With 51 trillion cubic meters of gas and 50 billion cubic meters of liquid condensates, it is the largest natural gas field in the world. Approximately one-third of its riches lie in Iranian waters and two-thirds in Qatari ones.
Since the discovery, Qatar has invested heavily in liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants and terminals that enable it to ship its gas around the world in tankers. Yet liquefaction and shipping increase total costs and, particularly as gas prices have slipped, Qatari gas has remained easily undercut in European markets by cheaper pipeline gas from Russia and elsewhere. And so, in 2009, Qatar proposed to build a pipeline to send its gas northwest via Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria to Turkey, an investment of billions of dollars up front that would reduce transportation costs over the long term. However, Syrian President Bashar al Assad refused to sign the plan; Russia, which did not want to see its position in European gas markets undermined, put him under intense pressure not to."
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-secret-stupid-saudi-us-deal...