What will happen to Syria?

[kılıç_mehmet]

Nothing. We're dealing with terrorists every day, and we have to worry about the arabs killing eachother? Turkey will not attack Syria. Instead, we should plot the downfall of those Russians!
They are the ones who have shot down our plane.

[paintpooper]

Please, the Syria thing is just another western backed coup by using al-queda terrorists to cause terror in a nation. Libya all over again. If the drugged terrorists can't defeat Assad then some NATO action will be taken, once they start a course of action they hardly ever stop.

[Autumnlicious]

If the drugged terrorists can't defeat Assad then some NATO action will be taken, once they start a course of action they hardly ever stop.

Hello there, Muammar Gaddafi!

Terrorists, usually associated with ultraconservative Islam, taking drugs?

You've truly hit batshit.

[paintpooper]

If the drugged terrorists can't defeat Assad then some NATO action will be taken, once they start a course of action they hardly ever stop.

Hello there, Muammar Gaddafi!

Terrorists, usually associated with ultraconservative Islam, taking drugs?

You've truly hit batshit.

You can't slit kids throats if you are a human being, so they must be on something.

NATO is the terrorists. Please wake up.

Have you ever watched a speech by Muammar, Assad, or Ahmadinejad. They are very smart intelligent people, way more articulate and bright then Obama or Bush or any of our stupid puppets. These leaders care for their people. You are being deliberate fed mis-information. Go watch some of their speeches I dare you, tell me they are not smart educated men with their people in mind first.
Then tell me that our leaders have our best interests in mind, they fucking don't, they care about themselves and their elite.

Ultraconservative lol that shows you know nothing about the situation in Syria or the middle east, you are being mislead my friend.

http://libyanfreepress.wordpress.com/

Read something other then some liberal/conservative government ran media.

Batshit... no my friend, I know the truth.

[Autumnlicious]

You can't slit kids throats if you are a human being, so they must be on something.

I'll leave this here to show off how your definitions are... well... batshit.

When in doubt, don't add conditionals to the definition of a human being.

Because at the days end, a human being is simply a member of Homo Sapiens Sapiens. No good, bad or other moral crap.

NATO is the terrorists. Please wake up.

Ah, yes, the "wake up" phrase I've heard echoed before.

Have you ever watched a speech by Muammar, Assad, or Ahmadinejad. They are very smart intelligent people, way more articulate and bright then Obama or Bush or any of our stupid puppets. These leaders care for their people. You are being deliberate fed mis-information. Go watch some of their speeches I dare you, tell me they are not smart educated men with their people in mind first.
Then tell me that our leaders have our best interests in mind, they fucking don't, they care about themselves and their elite.

Of course, you're 100% right.

Gaddhafi never sent death squads into hospitals, sent gunmen after US students, jailed/tortured/disappeared people professing political party membership.

Ahmadinejad never defended proudly the persecution and execution of gays (No gays in Iran quote anyone) or espoused pan-Islamicism at the point of a sword.

Assad never opened fire on peaceful protesters.

Go blow Muammer, Bashir and Mahmoud at your ass.

Ultraconservative lol that shows you know nothing about the situation in Syria or the middle east, you are being mislead my friend.

http://libyanfreepress.wordpress.com/

Read something other then some liberal/conservative government ran media.

Batshit... no my friend, I know the truth.

Truth is lie. Freedom is oppression. Paintpooper is full of valid facts and observations.

[paintpooper]

---

You can't slit kids throats if you are a human being, so they must be on something.

I'll leave this here to show off how your definitions are... well... batshit.

When in doubt, don't add conditionals to the definition of a human being.

Because at the days end, a human being is simply a member of Homo Sapiens Sapiens. No good, bad or other moral crap.

NATO is the terrorists. Please wake up.

Ah, yes, the "wake up" phrase I've heard echoed before.

Have you ever watched a speech by Muammar, Assad, or Ahmadinejad. They are very smart intelligent people, way more articulate and bright then Obama or Bush or any of our stupid puppets. These leaders care for their people. You are being deliberate fed mis-information. Go watch some of their speeches I dare you, tell me they are not smart educated men with their people in mind first.
Then tell me that our leaders have our best interests in mind, they fucking don't, they care about themselves and their elite.

Of course, you're 100% right.

Gaddhafi never sent death squads into hospitals, sent gunmen after US students, jailed/tortured/disappeared people professing political party membership.

Ahmadinejad never defended proudly the persecution and execution of gays (No gays in Iran quote anyone) or espoused pan-Islamicism at the point of a sword.

Assad never opened fire on peaceful protesters.

Go blow Muammer, Bashir and Mahmoud at your ass.

Ultraconservative lol that shows you know nothing about the situation in Syria or the middle east, you are being mislead my friend.

http://libyanfreepress.wordpress.com/

Read something other then some liberal/conservative government ran media.

Batshit... no my friend, I know the truth.

---

Truth is lie. Freedom is oppression. Paintpooper is full of valid facts and observations.

Do you know in Iran they give government paid sex changes? Why would they do that if they kill gays? He explained they don't have a "gay" problem like we do in the states. They do not kill gays show me the evidence.
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2008...go_to_iran

For 25 years? Wow what a progressive country.

Death squads into hospitals??? LOL
It is the same damn terrorists killing women and children in Syria, it is a terrorist network trying to cause chaos. Al-Qaeda, and western backed entities.

http://libyanfreepress.wordpress.com/201...12-videos/

[Autumnlicious]

You're full of shit again.

Lay off the goddamn drugs.

That or teh ev1l wikipedia is also a CIA front or something.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Iran

Homosexuality is a crime punishable by imprisonment, corporal punishment, or in some cases of sodomy, even execution of the accused is legal under the laws of this country's theocratic Islamic government.[1] Gay men have faced stricter enforcement actions under the law than lesbians.[2] Iran insists that it does not execute people for homosexuality, and those executed had either committed rape, murder, or drug trafficking.[3]

In 2007, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking to Columbia University, said that homosexuality does not exist in Iran, though a spokesperson later stated that his comments were misunderstood.[4]

Any type of sexual activity outside a heterosexual marriage is forbidden. Transsexuality in Iran is legal if accompanied by a sex change operation; however, transsexuals still report societal intolerance as in most societies.[2]
...

...
No legislation exists to address discrimination or bias motivated violence on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Officially, the Iranian government believes that everyone is heterosexual and that homosexuality is a violation of the supreme will of God.[citation needed]

Same-sex marriages and or civil unions are not legally recognized in Iran. Traditional Iranian families often exercise strong influence in who, and when, their children marry and even what profession they chose (although the latter is often common in any society).[35] Few LGBT Iranians come out to family for fear of being rejected, abused or turned over to the authorities.

Traditional Iranian families tend to prohibit their children from dating, as it is not a part of Iranian culture, although this has become somewhat more tolerated, among liberals.[35] In 2004 an independent film was released, directed by Maryam Keshavarz, that examined the changing mores of Iranian youth when it comes to sex and dating.[36]

Gay Iranian couples are often afraid to be seen together [37] in public, and report that LGBT people were widely stereotyped as being sex-obsessed child molesters, rapists, and diseased ridden degenerates.[38] A popular Iranian derogatory slur against is that of a, "evakhahar", typically a very effeminate gay man who seeks casual sex in public.[39]

The social prejudice and threats of criminal charges, tends to encourage LGBT Iranians to socialize at discrete private gatherings, but these are still subject to police raids.[39]

And can you back up your assertion that Al Qaeda is "Western backed"?

I used to think everyone else used drugs to open their mind.

I never considered someone would warp their world view so far as to claim Iran is progressive and that giving homosexuals a choice between sexual reassignment surgery or death is fine.

How boorish, to say the least.

[Anomalocaris]

Basically, Syria and Libya were two reasonably friendly ports which Russian Navy could use to maintain a presence in the mediterranean.

Having secured access to the mediterreanean has been the penultimate geopolitical aim of Russia since Peter the Great. Russia and the west went to war in 1854 because Russia sought to crush the Turks to gain secure access to the Mediterranean, while Britian and France would prop up even the turks, and directly invade Russian territory, to keep Russia bottled up in the Black Sea. Russia went to war in 1914 because she convinced herself that by joining the allies, and Allied victory over the central powers would give Russia control over Bospherus and secured access to Mediterranean. So convinced were the Czar about this that Russia's 1915 naval program, approaved just before the war in 1914, was essentially a program to build a battlefleet for the Mediterranean assuming the defeat of Turkey and Russian naval base in Corfu. Part of Soviet aim in the Russo-NAZI pact in 1939 was to give Soviet leverage in the Balkans towards eventual seizure of constantinople and secure control of access to Mediterranean.

When the west intervened in Libya, it did so with Russia's acquiescence because it was done under the pretext that intervention would not topple the Kaddahfi regime, and therefore would not jepardize continued Russian access to the less important of their two potential naval footholds in the Mediterranean.

To the Russians, the subsequent toppling of Kaddahfi was a complete stab in the back by the west after Russia offered her cooperation.

It is sheer fantasy that Russia would now make the same mistake again and lose her most important naval foot hold in the Mediterranean.

Mr. Clinton is a total idiot if she thinks she could conceivable cause Russia to "pay a price" that, in Russia mind, could match the weight of giving up the penaltimate geostrategic goal of the Russian nation for the last 300 years.

Russia will accept even a shooting war to maintain her accesss to Syrian port and her influence over Syrian regime. West is not willing to stomach a shoot war with Russia to topple Syrian regime and install a Regime friendly to western interest, and therefore hostile to penaltimate Russian strategic goal.

That's the bottom of it. To everyone outside of the west, the more the west blow hot and cold over Syria, the more it appears that it is Russia who is the really genuinely serious player with eye on the grow up's ball.

[Cato]

Explain why Assad is "toast".

I see that he now has every reason to use any means to fight the rebels, especially given that Russian and the US are deadlocked over dealing with it, and, as Chuck pointed out, Turkey has no reason to visibly upset the power balance between the US and Russia. This means he might become more entrenched and has a better chance of surviving the revolt, if only through the knowledge that he must succeed or die like Gaddhafi.

Assad and toast: Wishful thinking on my part and not necessarily informed prognostication. I prefer his ouster to the alternative. I also recognize that his ouster does not guarantee a 'better' fate for the people of Syria, but it would present an opportunity for reform.

Russia's interest and resulting military equipment support seems to be motivated by the never ending quest to maintain a warm water port. U.S. and other western nations support for the rebels seems to be driven by the continued vainglorious mission to forceably spread democracy.

I agree with your take on Turkey not wanting to upset the Russia/U.S. power balance, but Turkey along with Lebanon and Jordan will have to seriously take a stance to address the refugee issue, particularly if the conflict escalates to a full blown civil war.

[Anomalocaris]

It seems to me American policy in the Middle east is driven by a schizophrenic oscillation between three poles:

1. Spread democracy (underlying assumption is democracy must be friendly to the interest and outlooks of the west)
2. Spread compliant regimes (underlying assumption is democracy has nothing to do with friendliness)
3. Spread what hawks in Israel wants (underlying assumption is what is good for the Likud is good for America, in this world or the next, no questions needs to be asked)