Refugees "flooding" Europe !NEW POLL!

[Grytviken]

At least Russia isn't bombing the kurds. And US aren't the only to respond to this, Saudi Arabia has been whining about it as well, France and UK have confirmed that targets haven't primarily been daesh. If Saudi Arabia is complaining about it it can only be a good thing.

There's 3 main factions involved, and everyone of them have committed atrocities. Media sources are already reporting Russian Airstrikes killing civilians. This is how these groups drum up support, as soon as they see jets they send the woman and children out to play. Putin is clever, he knows that liberal Europe will clean up the mess for him with their huge asylum quotas. Once he drives these other groups to join ISIS, Assad will be seen as the only legitimate solution.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/09/dozens-civilians-killed-syria-air-strikes-homs-150930113334991.html

[Vovka]

http://www.almasdarnews.com/article/russians-offer-to-aid-lebanon-in-their-fight-against-isis-hezbollah-key-player/

[Oberyn]

As fucked up as hezbollah seemed even a few years ago it's nothing compared to what sunni militias "accomplished" in Iraq and Syria with tacit NATO support and outright, obvious Wahhabist/Salafist support from the usual suspects. Russia picked the other side of this Cold War, the shia side, and tbh I'm jealous. It's hard to see NATO countries still persist with the lie that there is such a thing as "moderate" rebels. Can't fault the shia when you see what the sunni have in store for them, something they make abundantly clear at every opportunity. What do you all think would happen if the "moderate" rebels managed to topple Assad at this point? Nothing but massive ethnic cleansing of the alawites.
Not that I think Russia is doing this out of a sudden liking for justice, it's just usual realpolitiks.

[Grytviken]

As fucked up as hezbollah seemed even a few years ago it's nothing compared to what sunni militias "accomplished" in Iraq and Syria with tacit NATO support and outright, obvious Wahhabist/Salafist support from the usual suspects. Russia picked the other side of this Cold War, the shia side, and tbh I'm jealous. It's hard to see NATO countries still persist with the lie that there is such a thing as "moderate" rebels. Can't fault the shia when you see what the sunni have in store for them, something they make abundantly clear at every opportunity. What do you all think would happen if the "moderate" rebels managed to topple Assad at this point? Nothing but massive ethnic cleansing of the alawites.

 I think too much emphasis is put on western intervention and not enough on the failed policies of the Iraqi and Syrian government's who alienate their own populaces based off of ethnicity and religion. Non-Western weaponry and training has always been readily to available to these people, so the idea that the Russians or US/NATO are instigating any of these problems is blatantly exaggerated for propaganda purposes. These people are not stupid and have their own agendas/pride/nationalism. When the Soviet Union dissolved every kind of weapon became readily available to anyone who could afford them for very cheap prices, so to blame anyone for arming or supporting anyone at this point is more or less irrelevant. Conspiracy theories and false information runs abundantly across the internet which makes finding facts a difficult task. The rebels have people from all ends of the spectrum fighting for them, from religious psychopaths to moderates who just want a secular government, I think the idea of supporting them is more or less based on the fact that they control the majority of the population of Syria and it's their country and they can do what they want. The only group in the cross-hairs of the coalition is ISIS because of obvious reasons, removing Assad is what the majority of Syrians want so it makes no sense to support them, but not to directly intervene. No matter what happens the outcome looks bad.

[Oberyn]

That's because the "Iraqi" and "Syrian" governments never existed, they have been since their births nothing but extensions of tribal and religious identity. Sunni minority brutally repressing shia majority in Iraq, along with a smattering of other minorities, shia minority brutally repressing sunni majority in Syria, along with a smattering of other minorities. I say shit about sunni militias in Syria and Iraq, sure, but Baghdad for example went through massive ethnic cleansing of sunni by shia militias. There really are no "good guys" here. There seldom are anywhere. Anyone who was even slightly familiar with the history and culture of both of these countries knew this, the fiction that a government fairly ruling over these disparate groups that loathe each other could be accomplished in Iraq and can be accomplished in Syria is toddler-level Disney princess unicorn wishfull thinking.

[Oberyn]

This is a good article on the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad. Resumes very well the different events that led to "sectarian violence", as it was dubbed at the time. I doubt the trend suddenly reversed with the rise of ISIS and the almost voluntary partition of northern Iraq into it's orbit.

http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.fr/2009/11/blog-post.html

[Kafein]

That's because the "Iraqi" and "Syrian" governments never existed, they have been since their births nothing but extensions of tribal and religious identity. Sunni minority brutally repressing shia majority in Iraq, along with a smattering of other minorities, shia minority brutally repressing sunni majority in Syria, along with a smattering of other minorities. I say shit about sunni militias in Syria and Iraq, sure, but Baghdad for example went through massive ethnic cleansing of sunni by shia militias. There really are no "good guys" here. There seldom are anywhere. Anyone who was even slightly familiar with the history and culture of both of these countries knew this, the fiction that a government fairly ruling over these disparate groups that loathe each other could be accomplished in Iraq and can be accomplished in Syria is toddler-level Disney princess unicorn wishfull thinking.

By the way, how's that second Rwandan genocide coming along?

[Oberyn]

Perfect example of foreign meddling, high handed, idiotic projections of our cultural values onto a situation that cannot be explained by them. I have a tendency to side with the Tutsi more than the Hutu, and not only because of the endless propaganda trying to paint them as the agressors and the Hutu as the victims.

https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/tutsi-empire-interrupted/

[Grytviken]

This is a good article on the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad. Resumes very well the different events that led to "sectarian violence", as it was dubbed at the time. I doubt the trend suddenly reversed with the rise of ISIS and the almost voluntary partition of northern Iraq into it's orbit.

http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.fr/2009/11/blog-post.html

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_Provisional_Authority_Order_2

  Major mistakes were made during the interim government without any consultation of our military leaders. This led to the highest ranking US Generals resigning. They didn't want to have any attachments to the mess that followed after all of their concerns were ignored. The Shiite majority used democracy as a weapon to seek revenge against the Sunni which also led to the fallout of relations between the US and Iraq and many more problems. The whole idea was implemented by politicians without any clue as to what was actually happening in the country.

[Kafein]

Perfect example of foreign meddling, high handed, idiotic projections of our cultural values onto a situation that cannot be explained by them. I have a tendency to side with the Tutsi more than the Hutu, and not only because of the endless propaganda trying to paint them as the agressors and the Hutu as the victims.

https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/tutsi-empire-interrupted/

Heh, in the Rwandan case and much of sub-Saharan Africa the effects of 19th century racial theory applied to politics were really obvious and rarely in a good way. Tutsi and Hutu are so physically similar that they can't even tell the difference themselves in many cases. Colonizers almost fabricated that difference by privileging the Tutsis in a typical divide-and-conquer strategy. That said, the other major reason the country is fucked up is demographic pressure. So yeah, idiotic projections of our "cultural values" at the time.

[Oberyn]

Lol sure, the Watutsi and Hutu didn't have an old, old history of rivalry and ethnic conflict dating back thousands of years before the europeans even knew subsahara existed. "Almost created", hah. Are you gonna blame the bronze age tradition of pygmy slavery that endures to this day on 19th century racial theories as well? Might as well say the europeans "created" the division between shia and sunni, would be just accurate.

[Oberyn]

Wiki has a good resume, as it usually does on old dead history that no one cares about.

Prior to the arrival of colonists, Rwanda had been ruled by a Tutsi-dominated monarchy since the Bronze Age. Beginning in about 1880, Roman Catholic missionaries arrived in the Great Lakes region. Later, when German forces occupied the area during World War I, the conflict and efforts for Catholic conversion became more pronounced. As the Tutsi resisted conversion, missionaries found success only among the Hutu. In an effort to reward conversion, the colonial government confiscated traditionally Tutsi land and reassigned it to Hutu tribes.[15]

The area was ruled as a colony by Germany (prior to World War I) and Belgium. Because Tutsis had been the traditional governing elite, both colonial powers kept this system and allowed only the Tutsi to be educated and to participate in the colonial government. Such discriminatory policies engendered resentment.

When the Belgians took over the banana, they believed it could be better governed if they continued to identify the different populations. In the 1920s, they required people to identify with a particular ethnic group and classified them accordingly in censuses. European colonists viewed Africans in general as children who needed to be guided, but noted the Tutsi to be the ruling culture in Rwanda-Burundi.[citation needed]

In 1959, Belgium reversed its stance and allowed the majority Hutu to assume control of the government through universal elections after independence. This partly reflected internal Belgian domestic politics, in which the discrimination against the Hutu majority came to be regarded as similar to oppression within Belgium stemming from the Flemish-Walloon conflict, and the democratization and empowerment of the Hutu was seen as a just response to the Tutsi domination. Belgian policies wavered and flip-flopped considerably during this period leading up to independence of Burundi and Rwanda.

[Siiem]

This might work, Just hire a few Somalians, Pakistanis and some Croatians.

[Kafein]

Wiki has a good resume, as it usually does on old dead history that no one cares about.

Well yeah, that's basically what I was talking about. Colonial governments played the natives against each other to have at least some allies among them, that policy largely supported by racial theories of the time. Hutu and Tutsi aren't so easy to distinguish, and many Hutu villages were ravaged by Hutus during the genocide.

Might as well say the europeans "created" the division between shia and sunni, would be just accurate.

That's bullshit and you know it.

[Mr_Oujamaflip]

Bunch of dudes from the Calais ghetto broke into the channel tunnel. Parents are pissed cos its now closed and they were gonna go to France for the weekend.