Middle East Conflict Megathread (Syria, Iraq, Yemen, etc)

[Auze]

Wow, very insightful, especially considering the Party of Regions appointed a Holocaust denier to replace the Majlis’ head a state agency. The Majlis is an extremist organization and it’s okay to disappear their members because they advocate for autonomy in opposition to a constitution nobody actually cares about, but the Crimean Russians who are 100% against Nazism are literally antifa angels for doing the same thing. This is why Russland, within its current borders, needs to be abolished.

Russia is oppressing Crimean Tatars for their ethnicity so much that you couldn't even name a single example, and are now heroically deflecting onto something irrelevant, like the Party of Regions, which hasn't been in power in Crimea since the Russians reclaimed Crimea. Meanwhile, I provided evidence showing that the majority of Crimean Tatars actually voted to be Reclaimed by Russia, citing several credible polling agencies.

Here's the thing: the Mejlis, is actually not well liked by most young Crimean Tatars, because the young Crimean Tatars want to work, party, and have sex, not necessarily in that order. They don't give a fuck about old grudges, and they don't want to have their living standards, which increased substantially since 2014, wasted on some hopeless crusade. The Human Rights Watch Report was so desperate to find something bad in Crimea, that they cited an organization, that's also banned in Germany, as struggling unfairly under Russian rule. Where's the outrage about it struggling unfairly under German rule?

But let's talk about Mustafa Dzhmeliev, Werpland's hero: https://sputniknews.com/europe/20150927 ... -blockade/

Entering its second week on Sunday, the Ukrainian food blockade of Crimea has 'borne fruit', forcing Ukrainian farmers dependent on the Crimean market to sell their goods for a pittance, destroying what remains. News portal Kherson.net.ua has reported that the blockade, initiated by the Right Sector and by Poroshenko Bloc Rada MPs and self-proclaimed leaders of the Crimean Tatar community Refat Chubarov and Mustafa Dzhemilov, has forced farmers in the region of Kherson to sell off their produce at prices up to ten times below what they would normally get.

The news portal explained that with produce meant for Crimea being dumped on the local market en masse by truckers turned back at the border, there is literally no point in bringing their goods to market. The oversupply and the loss of the Crimean market, combined with exorbitant gas prices, has led to a situation where the farmers "are literally feeding products to their livestock." Ukrainian television news program Sobytiya cited local farmers enraged over the consequences of the blockade on their communities.

"How are we supposed to live? How are we to survive? The winter is coming. If you decide to close the so-called 'border', find us an alternative market," one farmer noted. Another recalled that "earlier, Crimea took everything, gave a good price, but now we have to throw everything out –to feed our chickens and pigs with good produce. It's just not worth taking it to market."

Essentially Dzhemeliev launched a blockade, sometimes violently enforced, of Crimea, with the hopes of starving the peninsula from food, energy, water, etc, echoing Nazi attempt to starve Leningrad. The blockade, much like other things Dzhemeliev does, failed epically. The Russians were able to get food, power, and water to Crimea, across the Kerch Strait, ensuring that what little resistance remained, soon turned pro-Russian, while Dzhemeliev and company learned a harsh lesson: if you starve the people, they will not vote for you. Furthermore, his faction pissed off the Kherson farmers, who now lost a lucrative market. And that's what happens to those who side against Russia in Crimea. Those who don't know History, are doomed to repeat it.

You just deny the sources I would give. Considering you think Russia Today is more reliable and unbiased than Human Rights Watch, it's hopeless.

[Salus Maior]

Assad's far better than the rebels, so I'm fine with that.

Given that Assad uses chemical weapons on civilians, the rebels would have to be Satan in human form.

The rebels have done similar things.

And given the rebels are associated with Al-Qaeda and Islamist terrorists, I'd say that's close enough to Satan to prefer Assad.

[Sahansahiye Iran]

Given that Assad uses chemical weapons on civilians, the rebels would have to be Satan in human form.

The rebels have done similar things.

And given the rebels are associated with Al-Qaeda and Islamist terrorists, I'd say that's close enough to Satan to prefer Assad.

Which rebels?

[Negarakita]

The rebels have done similar things.

And given the rebels are associated with Al-Qaeda and Islamist terrorists, I'd say that's close enough to Satan to prefer Assad.

Which rebels?

The ones that destroyed the death star

[Sahansahiye Iran]

Which rebels?

The ones that destroyed the death star

Now, those are the real terrorists. So many dead...

[Fahran]

Perhaps so, but it is very much in the Ba'athist government's interest to continue to seek the support of religious minorities like the Alawi, Eastern Christians, and Druze, moreso than it is to seek the support of the Muslims.

That's extremely debatable. Assad actually has some support within the Sunni community and the population on the whole appears to be radicalizing. There have already been crackdowns on the gay community, though the motivation for these remains unknown.

[Salus Maior]

The ones that destroyed the death star

Now, those are the real terrorists. So many dead...

The question is which one had more people: The Death Star or Alderaan? (And Jedha, and Scarif...)

[Sahansahiye Iran]

Now, those are the real terrorists. So many dead...

The question is which one had more people: The Death Star or Alderaan? (And Jedha, and Scarif...)

Iirc, Alderaan had 2 billion people. So, Alderaan.

[Salus Maior]

The question is which one had more people: The Death Star or Alderaan? (And Jedha, and Scarif...)

Iirc, Alderaan had 2 billion people. So, Alderaan.

And I'm pretty sure Jedha's uninhabitable now, probably Scarif too if it was hit with the same amount of power.

[Sahansahiye Iran]

Iirc, Alderaan had 2 billion people. So, Alderaan.

And I'm pretty sure Jedha's uninhabitable now, probably Scarif too if it was hit with the same amount of power.

Scarif had less than 500,000. Jedha had just over 11 million.

It always amazes me how underpopulated most Star Wars planets are. Like, Earth would be a very upper tier population.

[MERIZoC]

And I'm pretty sure Jedha's uninhabitable now, probably Scarif too if it was hit with the same amount of power.

Scarif had less than 500,000. Jedha had just over 11 million.

It always amazes me how underpopulated most Star Wars planets are. Like, Earth would be a very upper tier population.

What's amazing is that almost every planet is a single political entity with a government that rules the entire thing.

[Uxupox]

The question is which one had more people: The Death Star or Alderaan? (And Jedha, and Scarif...)

Iirc, Alderaan had 2 billion people. So, Alderaan.

alderaan never even existed. t's all rebel propaganda.

[Uxupox]

Scarif had less than 500,000. Jedha had just over 11 million.

It always amazes me how underpopulated most Star Wars planets are. Like, Earth would be a very upper tier population.

What's amazing is that almost every planet is a single political entity with a government that rules the entire thing.

from a realistic standpoint star wars absolutely makes no sense. it's a space opera it's for pure enjoyment. don't apply real world common sense to it.

[Sahansahiye Iran]

Scarif had less than 500,000. Jedha had just over 11 million.

It always amazes me how underpopulated most Star Wars planets are. Like, Earth would be a very upper tier population.

What's amazing is that almost every planet is a single political entity with a government that rules the entire thing.

Or that every planet was basically a singular biome and climate that stayed about consistent no matter where you went on its surface.

Though, I believe this is a threadjack

[Shofercia]

It's all about the Russian Occupiers for Werpland. He sees Russian Occupiers everywhere, even in areas where Russians lived since the 10th Century. Perhaps next he'll bullshit about the Russian "occupiers" of Sevastopol, where the Russians built the city, and then dared to continue and occupy the city that the Russians built, hence for Werpland, Russians are occupiers. Next up, Werpland will tell us all that the Russians are occupiers of Novgorod. Joe McCarthy must be going "damn, claiming that the Russians invaded Novgorod, missed opportunity there!"

This is off-topic (though then again, so is this whole discussion of Crimea in a thread on the Middle East), but what is the deal with your odd style of referring to the person you're responding to as if you're turning around to a crowd of people and giving an aside about them? It doesn't seem like a terribly compelling way to sway hearts and minds and get people to buy into the propaganda when you could be investing that time in fleshing out your "proof" and "arguments" further to muddy the waters more. Don't you have some sort of quality control metric to meet, or is it just a per-post rate?

Russia's a part of the Caucasus, and plays a role in the Middle East, and Russia's Crimean Policy certainly contributes to that, i.e. Russia and China finding joint ground on Crimea/Taiwan, and in the Middle East. I've fleshed out the proof and argument plenty of times, I've used sources, such as Gallup, GfK, and Pew to demonstrate that a majority of Crimean Tatars wanted Russia to Reclaim Crimea, I've challenged Werpland to name a single Crimean Tatar who was oppressed solely for his ethnicity, and yet, none of that go through to Werpland, and apparently isn't getting through to you, Senkaku. Instead, here you are, attacking a fellow poster, which is always off topic, while whining about something that you think if off topic, the very definition of hypocrisy.

Assad's far better than the rebels, so I'm fine with that.

That really depends on what you mean by better. If we're employing the metric popular in liberal democracies, the YPG/YPJ are miles ahead of Assad. If we're discussing representation of the Syrian population's political opinions, the FSA is probably slightly better than Assad. The guy mismanaged his country so badly that he evoked a popular uprising that led to a six year civil war. If we're talking about the best option we're going to get, you might have a point.

He's probably talking about the latter.

You just deny the sources I would give. Considering you think Russia Today is more reliable and unbiased than Human Rights Watch, it's hopeless.

I read your source, and found it to be bullshitting. I explained how it was bullshitting. Your source claimed that there's persecution of Crimean Tatars, implying persecution based primarily on their ethnicity. It failed to prove said claim. It proved persecution against Mejlis, Kurltai-Rukh, which is technically Mejlis' political arm, and Hizb-al-Tahrir, an organization that is banned in Russia, in Germany, in China, and, as the HRW admitted, The European Court of Human Rights has held that bans on Hizb ut-Tahrir in Germany and Russia do not violate the European Convention on Human Rights.

So you have members of two groups, Hizb-al-Tahrir, and Mejlis, persecuted. That is political persecution, that the HRW is trying to pass off as ethnic based persecution. Does lying promote or demote Human Rights? My point was that there was no ethnic-based persecution. I've never argued that Russia was some paragon of Civil Rights; the lack of Civil Rights is one of my few disagreements with the Putin Administration. However, I've yet to see concrete proof that said persecution is based on ethnicity. Scratch that. I've yet to see any decent proof that said persecution is based on ethnicity. Even your very own article admits: Some of those Human Rights Watch interviewed believed the Russian authorities used these lists to identify and prosecute Crimean Tatars for involvement in the organization.

They weren't persecuted for being Crimean Tatars; they were persecuted for their involvement will Hizb-al-Tahrir, and organization that the ECHR ruled could be legitimately banned, and is banned in Germany, Russia, and China. Russians involved with these organization are also persecuted. It's not ethnic-based. The HRW even admits that the terrorism-related charges were based solely on the suspects’ alleged association with Hizb ut-Tahrir. Not on their ethnicity. Not because they were Crimean Tatars. Not because they spoke out. Despite this admission, HRW continues to pretend that the persecution is ethnic based. And that's how Human Rights Fighters lose credibility in Russia, in China, and perhaps in Germany.

Moreover, there's the Belieber Fallacy, claiming that some believe a source so much, that even if said source bullshits, they'll pretend it's the truth. It originated from Justin Beiber's fans claiming that he can do no wrong. In your case, you are essentially a Belieber when it comes to HRW. And yet, just because one source is more credible than another, doesn't mean that one source is always right, and the other is always wrong. Harvard is more credible than Prager University, but that doesn't mean that every single Harvard Lecture is better than every singe Prager University Lecture. You seem to believe that's not the case, and therein lies your error.

Unlike HRW, I'm all for promoting Human Rights. Let's have an Independence Referendum in Crimea, and if the majority of Crimean Tatars vote on it, Russia should be punished. But the majority will vote yes, based on everything I've seen. In 2006, out of hundreds of thousands of Crimean Tatars, the Mejlis' Kurltai-Rukh got 62,448 votes. In 2010, after the Crimean Tatar population increased even more, the Mejlis' Kurltai-Rukh got 51,253 votes, and I doubt all of them were Tatar votes. Those are the facts.

And the reason that both of the above named parties are persecuted, is because they're trying to stir up ethnic based or religious based insurrection in Russia. That's against Russia's Constitution. Hence the persecution. The Mejlis also called for a blockade against Crimea, akin to what Nazis did to Leningrad. Not sure if certain members of the HRW is aware, but Nazis weren't too keen on Human Rights. Hmm... I wonder, why would Russians want to persecute Nazis? Something about the 40s...

[Fahran]

I agree that he should definitely work to alleviate poverty in rural areas. For me that's part of his duties, so I didn't view that as a concession, but I see what you're saying.

We actually agree on this much. I appreciate your broaching of duties as well. These sorts of discussions too seldom pay any mind to such things, so it's refreshing. Do you believe that Assad will be up to the task? Or should we expect another crisis in a couple decades?

Russia is perceived as being more corrupt than Moldova and Ukraine, but it's clearly not the case. Corruption harms economic growth, so one of the things we can see, is how the economy grew over time when compared to other SSRs. Ukraine's economy was fucked. At one point in time, Ukraine had the same GDP PPP per capita as Belarus. According to World Bank Data, Belarus: $18,060; Ukraine: $8,272. Ouch! Russia is nowhere near that bad. Not even close.

While corruption is negatively related with economic growth in general as you mentioned and my source confirms, it's a bit more complicated than that.
Source.

Corruption is a multifaceted issue though. Russia is perceived as corrupt for a plethora of reasons and I'm inclined to believe monitors given that they appear consistent in their criteria. Things like bribery, redirecting of state contracts, and cronyism may actually be impeding Russia's economic growth. It's difficult to assess without very narrow studies.
Source.

I'll let this point rest after you respond, since, as others have pointed out, we're drifting a bit off-topic. I think our opinions on Assad have more or less met as much as one could expect them to meet.

Moving on to Kadyrov - let's take the two examples that your source offered, buying vehicles for the Chechen Branch of the Night Wolves, and paying Mike Tyson to box with himself. I highly doubt that boxing with Kadyrov is the only thing that Tyson did; I think he was in Chechnya to promote sports, and spent some time with the kids as well, not just Kadyrov. A cursory search will show photos of Tyson mingling with Chechen kids.

I have more objections to funding the Night Wolves, the opulent lifestyles of Kadyrov and his friends, and other such questionable behavior than I do with his invitation to Tyson. There doesn't appear to be a clear distinction between revenues raised to address the needs of the Chechen people and Kadyrov's personal back account. Mind you, the other warlords weren't any better, but it's still a concern.

Next up - the Night Wolves. I think that we can both agree that rape is a bad thing. The Night Wolves, and similar organizations, punish rapists quite severely, and thus prevent others from getting it on without consent. I view the purchase of vehicles for the Night Wolves as providing vehicles to an organization that provides community services, rather than corruption.

I view it in a manner similar to how I'd view an American politician purchasing vehicles for Hell's Angels or a similar motorcycle club. Yes, they do the occasional philanthropic deed and they have their own vigilante codes of justice, but they're still often mired in the criminal underworld and shouldn't qualify as a publicly subsidized institution. What's worse is that both Putin and Kadyrov refer to them as personal friends much of the time. That makes it at least seem corrupt in my opinion.

Tell that to Trump, whose withdrawal from the Iran Treaty is destabilizing the Middle East.

It's a bit more complicated. That was an executive order, not a treaty. Trump's policy is still thoughtless though.

Of course, but I'm not sure that Beijing is going to use said soft power to mess with Moscow. Ditto for India, who needs Russian support in the SCO moreso than other members. Furthermore, in Central Asia the days of the USSR are sorely missed, because of the loss of Social Rights, so as long as the Russia-friendly Governments continue to slowly increase Social Rights...

I don't think they'd throw around their soft power vindictively, but I expect both will do it as all burgeoning economic powers must at one point or another. The Chinese will almost always and probably should always value Chinese interests over American or Russian interests. As soon as those interests no longer coincide, then the disagreements begin.

The Kiev "Government's" ability to fuck their own people never ceases to amaze me. Right now they're switching from the European Healthcare Model to the American Healthcare Model. The European Healthcare Model is superior in all aspects to the American Healthcare Model. And yet, they're switching. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if the Ukrainians rioted and started dismembering their "Government" members limb by limb.

What motivated that decision out of curiosity?

Actually, that's a Western Media myth. I'll respond with more information, data, and analysis in another post, but the Tatars living in Crimea, (I'm not going to separate those who are Tatars from those who are Crimean Tatars, because Tatars are going to Tatar,) are very much pro-Russia, after Putin yielded to certain education reforms, on the advice of Konstantinov. There's oppression, but it's oppression of a political party that's genuinely attempting to start a civil war in Russia, (and failing quite miserably,) so I don't particularly mind that oppression. Starting civil wars in nuclear countries is a bad thing.

I'll read your sources and look into it in greater detail as soon as possible. It took me a week or two to reply, so...

My primary issue with the Baltic States is that they boldly discriminate against the Russian Language. I really wish they'd follow the EU line on that, or the US policy. It's not like the Russian Language is going to invade them. Also, I was talking about SSRs, you're talking about Warsaw Pact

It's a nationalism thing, I imagine. They want to reassert their own culture, institutions, and values. It's an understandable inclination to most right-leaning folks.

Oh, the nitpicks.

Led by President Kardashian!

Please, no. Though given Kanye's bromance with Trump, this might actually promote world peace.

Please do, and thank you for the insight!

I'll make a habit of it, and it was my pleasure.

[Soviet-mongol]

It's all about the Russian Occupiers for Werpland. He sees Russian Occupiers everywhere, even in areas where Russians lived since the 10th Century. Perhaps next he'll bullshit about the Russian "occupiers" of Sevastopol, where the Russians built the city, and then dared to continue and occupy the city that the Russians built, hence for Werpland, Russians are occupiers. Next up, Werpland will tell us all that the Russians are occupiers of Novgorod. Joe McCarthy must be going "damn, claiming that the Russians invaded Novgorod, missed opportunity there!"

This is off-topic (though then again, so is this whole discussion of Crimea in a thread on the Middle East), but what is the deal with your odd style of referring to the person you're responding to as if you're turning around to a crowd of people and giving an aside about them? It doesn't seem like a terribly compelling way to sway hearts and minds and get people to buy into the propaganda when you could be investing that time in fleshing out your "proof" and "arguments" further to muddy the waters more. Don't you have some sort of quality control metric to meet, or is it just a per-post rate?

Russians were more than tolerant to Crimean Tatars if you consider that Crimean Tatars used to make Money from slave trade of Russians and Ukrainians. Slave trade was the main economy of the Crimean Khanate.

[Aulus Maximus]

Just make me Emir of the Levant, free hijabis for everyone tbh fam

[Fahran]

Just make me Emir of the Levant, free hijabis for everyone tbh fam

Your post makes me want to support Greater Israel.

[Alsheb]

Assad's far better than the rebels, so I'm fine with that.

Given that Assad uses chemical weapons on civilians, the rebels would have to be Satan in human form.

Oh God. Oh God. There are literally still people who fall for the "muh chemical weapons" lie?

[Erdogan in cool sunglasses]

Assad's regime used chemical weapons at least once - the first about which the media informed. Why I am sure about that? Because various sides of conflict informed about it. Other uses are questionable because it was reported only by American/Israeli side.

Assad is definitely not a good guy here but there are no good guys in the Middle East at all.

[Phoenicaea]

Oh God. Oh God. There are literally still people who fall for the "muh chemical weapons" lie?

still people citing their useless and dirty, farce brothel's scene god, it may be said.

[Constitutional Technocracy of Minecraft]

Given that Assad uses chemical weapons on civilians, the rebels would have to be Satan in human form.

Oh God. Oh God. There are literally still people who fall for the "muh chemical weapons" lie?

Please give me credible sources (the only source I've been given was one from RT, which is the Russian government's propaganda machine) that the Douma chemical attack, and 84 other chemical attacks during the Syrian Civil War documented by Human Rights Watch, never happened.

[United Muscovite Nations]

Oh God. Oh God. There are literally still people who fall for the "muh chemical weapons" lie?

Please give me credible sources (the only source I've been given was one from RT, which is the Russian government's propaganda machine) that the Douma chemical attack, and 84 other chemical attacks during the Syrian Civil War documented by Human Rights Watch, never happened.

The only source that the Douma chemical attack even happened is the White Helmets, who are a known Jihadist affiliate.

[Constitutional Technocracy of Minecraft]

Please give me credible sources (the only source I've been given was one from RT, which is the Russian government's propaganda machine) that the Douma chemical attack, and 84 other chemical attacks during the Syrian Civil War documented by Human Rights Watch, never happened.

The only source that the Douma chemical attack even happened is the White Helmets, who are a known Jihadist affiliate.

1. The White Helmets are not a jihadist group. That claim is perpetrated by Bashar al-Assad's regime and by Russia, which are by no means reliable news sources.
2. The Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) also reported the attack.