
Audio Reveals What John Kerry Told Syrians Behind Closed Doors - livatlantis
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/09/30/world/middleeast/john-kerry-syria-audio.html
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Noseshine
So while I understand the Syrian's frustration, let's assume the US does the
most extreme thing to help them and goes to all-out war to remove Assad. They
would probably be able to do that even against the will of the Russians, since
those would hardly fight American forces, if we ignore the increased verbal
threats that would surely come.

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.

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tormeh
Assad wants power and control over Syria, obviously. The guy has few appealing
exile options. Most of the regime's members would face execution if they lost,
so they don't want that.

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meira
> Assad wants power and control over Syria, obviously

This is a President's prerrogative. Why is US preventing this to happen?

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cmurf
Syria's Constitution makes the country a single party system. Assad is a
dictator. There's nothing democratic about its government. It's a family
dictatorship. The people wanted their ouster, Assad refused to go and lit the
stables on fire in a huge fuck you to the whole country.

~~~
meira
The people elected recently a parlament that supports Assad, which was also
elected by vote. I don't see a good reason given for US to go there, fund ISIS
and screw half a dozen of countries.

~~~
cmurf
How do people have fair elections in the middle of a war zone with a single
political party as the option? The entire opposition boycotted the election.
What is your point in even bringing up such a obvious sham of an election?

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.

~~~
meira
US elections are also totally biased, all media is bashing Trump and
supporting Hillary. How do people have fair election there? Should China and
Rússia intervene?

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littletimmy
What a bunch of lies.

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?"

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supersaiyanverx
Propaganda. Assad and Russia are closer than ever to crushing the rebels
ending this 5 year war. The sob stories (over 100 children!) have been at
hysterical levels for the past week, but I can only hope most Americans will
not fall for it. What happens in Syria is not our business.

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arbuge
Which incidentally also goes to prove that most doors are not really closed
these days...

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babayega2
from the article <Kerry ask : “Who’s that going to be?” he asked. “Who’s going
to do that?” “Three years ago, I would say: You. But right now, I don’t know.”
>

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.

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tormeh
Sad. Seeing Russia determine the outcome of this war is frustrating. Then
again it's not the US's responsibility to fix everything.

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pabloski
Fix? They break everything they touch. Seriously, starting with Saddam they
have created utter chaos in the ME and helped spread terrorism all over the
world.

But hey, Eisenhower tried to wake up we (the people) when he talked about the
dangers of the military-industrial complex.

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faebi
Its the USA who started all this chaos in the near east and europe is the one
who suffers. Nicely explained by satire show "Die Anstalt" on youtube
[https://youtu.be/57fMqUl-sng](https://youtu.be/57fMqUl-sng) (english
subtitles)

~~~
travmatt
I'd argue Europe's brilliant idea to carve up the Middle East into countries
intentionally designed to be sectarian is a root cause of today's problems.
America took the lid off the problems, but we didn't draw the lines of Syria,
Iraq, etc.

