Middle East thread

[H4run]

IS bombed our subway stations they had to go, beyond that we did not participate in the eternal wars in the ME, nor did NATO.

That is an US American s%show, not ours, we told them invading Iraq was a bad idea, they did not listen.

In Syria in particular it was the Russians that bombed everything to rubble, not NATO either.

Small numbers are sometimes welcomed by their fellow religionists.

Humanitarian corridors remain a legal and safe path for people seeking refuge from war situations: 38 Syrian refugees from Lebanon welcomed in Belgium - NEWS - COMMUNITY OF SANT'EGIDIO

On Wednesday 6 November 2024, 38 Syrian refugees arrived at Brussels-National Airport through the Humanitarian Corridors organised by the Community of Sant'Egidio in Belgium since 2018. They are now safe and legally welcomed in the country after living under

www.santegidio.org

Others return :

First group of Syria refugees leave Belgium to return to their homeland, following fall of Assad – Middle East Monitor

www.middleeastmonitor.com

@EnglishEdward Stop liking the post and nodding along. You know very well that, among all Western countries, it’s your country that went along the most with the American fiasco. Don’t just like comments and hide behind Snowygerry. Bush and his puppet Blair started this.

No, no, no, Snowygerry, you can’t refuse responsibility. You may have gotten a smaller portion of the blame than America and England, but you still played your part. ISIS was born from the power vacuum in Iraq. You toppled Saddam and committed atrocities there on every level. One million civilians died in Iraq, and many of ISIS’s top officers were former Fallujah prisoners who were detained and tortured in Abu Ghraib. Your occupation and injustice created this mess. You can’t push it back onto us, this is your doing, your product, not us, we can fix it together, but you can’t just throw your hands in the air as if you had nothing to do with it. IS is the abomination that coming out from your "intervention policy" lab, it's your son, adopt it.

 

[Snowygerry]

We played no part at all in the toppling of Sadam, he was considered a useful idiot here, we were in the first war that left him in place.

Take your complaints to the US, to Crezth for example

Luckily the internet never forgets :

US threatens Nato boycott over Belgian war crimes law

The bitter dispute between the US and Europe over Iraq burst into the open again yesterday when the US threatened Belgium with a boycott and Germany and France registered protests at the UN about Washington's continued opposition to the international criminal court.

www.theguardian.com

The US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, warned Belgium at a Nato meeting to drop its controversial war crimes law or face a boycott of Nato's Brussels HQ.

Belgium opposed the war in Iraq, along with France and Germany, and then joined them in launching a separate EU defence initiative in April.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Kurdish-led SDF agrees to integrate with Syrian government forces​

A Kurdish-led militia alliance which controls north-eastern Syria has signed a deal to integrate all military and civilian institutions into the Syrian state, the country's presidency says.

The agreement, which includes a complete cessation of hostilities, says the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) will hand over control of the region's border posts, airport, and vital oil and gas fields.

It also recognises the Kurdish minority as "an integral part of the Syrian state" and guarantees "the rights of all Syrians to representation and participation in the political process".

SDF commander Mazloum Abdi called the deal a "real opportunity to build a new Syria".

"We are committed to building a better future that guarantees the rights of all Syrians and fulfils their aspirations for peace and dignity," he wrote on X on Monday night.

Abdi signed the deal in Damascus alongside interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa.

It represents a major step towards Sharaa's goal to unite the fractured country after his Sunni Islamist group led the rebel offensive that overthrew president Bashar al-Assad in December.

The size of that challenge has been made clear by the recent violence in western Syria, where attacks on security forces by Assad loyalists triggered reprisals in which more than 1,000 civilians were reportedly killed, most of them members of Assad's minority Alawite sect.

The deal could also de-escalate the SDF's conflict with neighbouring Turkey and Turkish-backed Syrian former rebel factions allied to the government, which are trying to push the alliance out of areas near the border.

The SDF, which has tens of thousands of well-armed and well-trained fighters, was not aligned with either Assad's regime or the opposition during the country's 13-year civil war.

It currently controls more than 46,000 sq km (18,000 sq miles) of territory in the north-east, where it defeated the Islamic State (IS) group in 2019 with the help of a US-led coalition.

The SDF plays a major role in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), which governs the region also known to Kurds as Rojava.

About 10,000 IS fighters are being detained in SDF-run prisons spread across the region and about 46,000 other people linked to IS, mostly women and children, are held in several camps.

Since the fall of Assad, the SDF has warned that attacks from Turkish-backed factions are forcing it to divert fighters away from guarding the prisons and paving the way for an IS resurgence.

The Turkish government views the biggest militia in the SDF, the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), as a terrorist organisation. It says it the YPG is an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) group that waged an insurgency in Turkey for decades but whose imprisoned leader recently declared a ceasefire.

There was no immediate comment from Turkey in response to Monday's agreement.

Between 25 and 35 million Kurds inhabit a mountainous region straddling the borders of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Armenia. They make up the fourth-largest ethnic group in the Middle East, but they have never obtained a permanent nation state.

Syria's Kurds, which make up about make up about 10% of the population, were suppressed and denied basic rights during the Assad family's rule.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cedlx0511w7o

 

[amadeus]

Are you assuming American more educated than Middle-Eastern and North African?

Generally? Yes. Oversimplifying for brevity, Americans have more money to spend on education, so educational outcomes are better.

I would encourage you to look deeper into that supposed 79%—measuring reading comprehension is different from basic reading and writing skills.

 

[Samson]

Or which part of the country you live in and where you grew up. or even your job or education level. We are diverse.

You are diverse compared to say a European country. You are not diverse compared to the Middle East.

 

[amadeus]

It seems Middle East and North Africa have better efficiency and effectiveness on its spending because the outcome is definitely better than US.

By what metric?

They are measuring the same thing, if literacy means the capability of reading, then 99% of middle east able to read, as reading (The Quran) is part of religious obligation.

I’m saying specifically the two figures you cited are not measuring the same thing.

 

[H4run]

I’m saying specifically the two figures you cited are not measuring the same thing.

I completely understand what you're implying. That's why I say, if we were to literally measure the ability to read and write in the Middle East, the percentage might very well be 99%. This is because reading is a part of our religious rituals, something that has been practiced by us—not priests or Jesuits—for the longest time.

And I don't think you have any idea what constitutes the Middle East. It’s not a place filled with Bedouins riding camels and robbing people, as Hollywood often depicts it. Just type "Dubai," "Qatar," "Abu Dhabi," or "Doha" into a search engine and look at the images—you might be surprised at how it actually looks, and it will be easier for you to imagine that these nations have a better literacy rate than that of US in average.

Just saying.

 

[Snowygerry]

"We want none of it."

And who are you to decide what "we" want as a nation? The EU's Trump?

Why not just say, "I don't want any of it"? That’s more accurate.

(...)

"We" in this context, are the citizens of the city of Gent in as far as they agree with me, all the rest are foreigners, need to sort out their own problems, and stop nagging.

 

[amadeus]

And I don't think you have any idea what constitutes the Middle East.

I don’t think you know what my ideas are, and even if I thought they were riding camels with big curvy swords, that doesn’t change the fact that educational attainment is lower across the Mideast as measured by the World Bank and probably other data-gathering institutions.

It’s not even me judging their values, it’s just this is what happens—broadly—in this region.

Just type "Dubai," "Qatar," "Abu Dhabi," or "Doha" into a search engine and look at the images—you might be surprised at how it actually looks, and it will be easier for you to imagine that these nations have a better literacy rate than that of US in average.

There are a few problems here, the most glaring of which is that if you pick out the outliers in anything you can say whatever you want. Watch: find Google pictures of the Mayo Clinic, Harvard University, and the last 25 winners of the Super Bowl; these prove that the U.S. is always better compared to everyone at everything.

 

[r16]

dubai , English money . Expat labour

abu dhabi , English money . Expat labour

doha , English money . Expat labour . And oh , the way the three hate each other . They are also responsible as the agents of the Western chaos in the Middle East .

 

[Birdjaguar]

You are diverse compared to say a European country. You are not diverse compared to the Middle East.

Wouldn't depend upon how one measures diversity? Diversity cuts across many different categories.

 

[Samson]

Wouldn't depend upon how one measures diversity? Diversity cuts across many different categories.

I do not think so. I do not think there is an axis of variation that has more difference between geographical locations within the US than the differences between Istanbul, Beirut, Cairo, Tehran, Dubai, Mecca and Jerusalem.

 

[r16]

it is this enlightened age the West propagandized was the norm . Where people were to be , you know , accepted ?

 

[Samson]

Their is media ciculating apparently of the new Minister of Justice presiding over the execution of a woman in the Idlib countryside for "tion and prostitution".

Archive Translated with google translate:

Did the current Minister of Justice appear in a video documenting the execution of a woman in the Idlib countryside?

Social media users circulated two video recordings showing the execution of two women on charges of "corruption and prostitution" and said that the man who read the two sentences is the Minister of Justice in the government affiliated with the new Syrian administration, Shadi Al-Weisi. We received messages inquiring about the verification.

The "Taakad" platform conducted a precise verification process using specialized technical tools to match the features and tone of voice that are clearly heard in at least one of the two recordings, with the features and voice of Minister Shadi Al-Weisi, who recently appeared in several video interviews. The results showed a high percentage of matching, despite the poor quality of the two circulated recordings.

To make sure and given the specificity of verification in conflict areas according to the approved methodology, the "Tahakak" platform contacted several parties in the new Syrian administration and a senior official confirmed that the man appearing in the two recordings is indeed the current Minister of Justice, Shadi Al-Waisi, who was a judge at the time.

 

[Arakhor]

Moderator Action: Closed for review.

 

[The_J]

Moderator Action: Thread reopened.
Well, until someone steps out of bounds again, which with this topic we can be sure will absolutely happen.

 

[r16]

the execution thing is maybe 2 months old ? These are moderate jihadists . If he didn't execute them by his own hands , what's the thing to discuss ?

turkey did not assist the jihadists . That's New Turkey . It is a stark distinction . One is a country . Other is a political thing that attempts to , like , create the conditions for , like , Arab assimilation of the country . CIA supported El Kaide non-stop . Against the Centcom support for Kurds . Leading to clashes between the proxies at the height of ISIL . The peace deal thing from 2018 assured Qatar alone was responsible for the upkeep of HTS , the El Kaide that wasn't the El Kaide . This keeping a sizeable percentage of the jihadist potential away from New Turkey funded and so called controlled Syrian Army . Don't know whether they are the Free Syrians or the National Syrians these days , would have to look up .

new Syrian propaganda makes it clear that their victory did not owe anything to New Turkey . The so called Turkish support is being filed to justify Israel bombing us . No , this was not unexpected .

the stuff involves Esad's people for real . We are agitatedly told Kurds in Syria under American control allowed an Iranian convoy pass their territory . You know , one needs to blame foreigners in everything . Those doing the massacres or more pertinently those filmed doing the massacres are like New Turkey's Turkmen proxies . Who were once massacred by Esad's soldiers and militias . People in this country get angry when you use the word salak about their fancy brilliant plans and whatnot . Al Sharaa regime has ordered the video recording of the massacres to end and that will be the end of it . No more disturbing images , everybody will sleep happily .

the lack of reaction here involves the idea that the moderate jihadists (as the Western press defines them) fought against the Russian interests . The words and phrases that were in evidence are the norm in CFC . Used against Russians , the other others everyday . Might not have been noticed ... People are so conditioned to think they are virtous and their opponents are paid trolls or worse .

there is nothing wrong in Afghan kids flying kites . Probably they can't these days and Condeleeza Rice said the invasion was for the control of the drug trade anyhow . European inclusiveness would be good these days , as for some arcane reason there are people who are trying to sell me Eurofighters or whatever .

 

[Arwon]

Fwiw I continue to be surprised that the issue isn't the butchered christians and other denomination muslims, murdered by the new jihadist terrorists in power in Syria. I'd be more annoyed if this was some major media, but now I am just surprised ^^
I suppose that if a christian state had a self-proclaimed "crusader" government, with its leader being a former prominent member of a terrorist group, and then started butchering muslims and other denomination christians, it wouldn't be a topic for discussion either.

You're surprised a strategically western and Israeli aligned regime (ie, against Iran and Hezbollah) is getting its reputation laundered and actions minimised?

 

[Kyriakos]

You're surprised a strategically western and Israeli aligned regime (ie, against Iran and Hezbollah) is getting its reputation laundered and actions minimised?

The reference was to discussion in this thread, and to be fair on an interlude, nothing stable - hence the "if this was some major media" (inferred: instead of our game-related forum). Afaik the US government has officially spoken about it, and not in favorable terms for the jihadists in Syria. But the Eu made a ridiculous "both sides" statement.

 

[Lexicus]

not in favorable terms for the jihadists in Syria.

Learn to read between the lines. Rubio's statement implies that it is not the Syrian state itself carrying out these massacres. It's not really much of a condemnation.