The Syria/Iraq Crisis
 

UN: Syria now in a civil war with 4,000 dead:

"Syria has entered a state of civil war with more than 4,000 people dead and an
increasing number of soldiers defecting from the army to fight President Bashar
Assad's regime, the U.N.'s top human rights official said Thursday."

See:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...0f50d1f6707711


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French forces said to be training Syria rebels:

"A Turkish newspaper has reported that French military forces are training armed
Syrian rebels to fight the government of President Bashar Al Assad.

According to Milliyet, France has sent its military training forces to Turkey and
Lebanon to coach the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA) — a group of defectors
operating out of Turkey and Lebanon — in an effort to wage war against Syria's
military.

The report added that the French, British, and Turkish authorities “have reached
an agreement to send arms into Syria.”"

See:

http://gulftoday.ae/portal/e772452c-...e91116b58.aspx



Is this going to turn into another Libya?

We have no news about attacking Syria here, hmm if I remember well, the idea of attacking Syria was totally expuseld of the mind of our minister of foreign affairs there are two weeks. Maybe it changed, I rarely see TV.

You should take it lightly. Even more the part about our government training soldiers.

Looks like the the Europeans have come out of their shell on military matters rather than having the Americans do things with or for them.

Well, the Cold war put a damper on European interventions. I think it started with the Suez Crisis, in which it became clear that the UK and France could no longer go against US wishes.

Anyway, this has been slow boiling for the last few months, no real way of knowing where it will go.

Before France or any other european country start to intervene seriously in Syria, Russia and China would have to stop to support Damas. Nobody would would go really seriously until thoses 2 stop their support. To help some rebels. if they think than they can do without being caught in another hand, is a bit more plausible but not by much.

I will need a reminder. How many Russian and Chinese military bases are scattered in the region? I know the Americans have troops in several countries in the region, but I am unfamiliar with Russian and Chinese troop deployments.

Russia has a single tiny navy base in Syria, with about 150 people. It's mostly logistical. Otherwise Russia has no bases outside the former USSR. China doesn't maintain any foreign military bases, far as I'm aware.

That is because these countries are the ones exporting oil to them. Now EU is in dire financial state, they cannot afford to have the price of oil to go up and hurt their economy.

2 Storm Shadows with thermobaric warheads should keep oil prices at a low for half a year.

Where would you aim them ?

Armour camp(s) and airfields, where else? :heh:

The fact than yu would use only 2 storm shadow, even with thermobaric warheads, suggested small, specific targets.

The thermobaric warheads are there for the "shock-and-awe" effect - like the way (forgive my usage of such a ethically questionable reference) US threatened to drop more after Little Boy and Fat Man.

Tank parks are pretty big and good targets for such a big weapon, while airfields are strategic assets.

That's just an inaccurate impression. France has been very active over the past 60 years whenever it concerned their past colonial turf (in direct contradiction with the idiotic "lulz surrender monkeeyz" view some people have of it).

Syria just happens to have been part of it.

That's quite true, actually.

France has to be one of the more militaristic european countries. Until the 20th century, a lot of Europes wars essentially boiled down to "France fights everyone else". They quite frequently won.

In the lead up to WW2 France was the most vocal country in opposing Germany's militarisation. It was England and the US that always held back...

Until the second empire and Napoleon 3, their glorious militarian past did kind of tourned sour.

France has been fighting everything around for the last 1000 years. As someone said, it wasn't until 150 years ago they started to lose more often. You also have to consider guerrilla warfare was not as advanced as it has been in the last 200 years.

Look at the nightmares in Morocco, Algeria, Indochina. hell, Afghanistan today. It is just something very hard to fight without annihilating an entire population.


As for Syria, it has been boiling for a while now. The entire Middle East is.

Also, China is building a naval base on Sri Lanka, and is negotiating bases in Indonesia and Madagascar(Another former French territory). Even rumors of negotiations with Cuba and Venezuela, but if they got that close to America, I wonder what the US government would do.

Shouldn't the title of this thread be called The Syrian Crisis?

You know...Israel could get a lot of good will if it took some strike jets and busted up Assad's military.

Well that's interesting. Would the Free Syrian Army want help from Israel?

Israel is probably the last country than should intervene in Syria, even thought than Damas did help with money and weapon some of his enemy.