Posted on 12/23/2016 12:15:07 AM PST by Cronos
The evacuation of civilians and fighters from the last rebel-held part of Aleppo concluded on Thursday after long delays because of frigid weather, putting all of Syria’s industrial capital back in the hands of President Bashar al-Assad’s forces for the first time since 2012.
...Tens of thousands of people have been removed from eastern Aleppo since Dec. 15. Before the last buses left on Thursday, the Red Cross said that 34,000 people had left the city, including 4,000 fighters who had left in their own vehicles the previous night.
...The seizure of all of Aleppo by Mr. Assad and his allies signals a turning point in the nearly six-year conflict.
...Throughout the conflict, Mr. Assad has characterized the rebels seeking his ouster as foreign-backed terrorists, and he hailed the retaking of Aleppo on Thursday as a blow to those forces. He also thanked the international backers who helped.
“Liberating Aleppo from terrorism is a victory not only for Syria, but also for those who really contributed to the fight against terrorism, especially Iran and Russia,” Mr. Assad said at a meeting with a visiting Iranian delegation, according to the Syrian state news service, SANA.
...The ordeal had changed his thinking about the rebel movement, and he criticized its commanders for the infighting that had long sapped their movement and for the Islamist agenda that some had adopted.
“I might stop fighting. I lost the motivation,” Mr. Nadaf said. “The goals changed — the situation on the ground changed.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
And then let the Russians and the Chinese and the Indians kill off the Arabs to get the oil there. Win-win
That’s what the MSM believe and sell. I am not yet convinced.
What you said.
Russia and Syria have been tight since at least 1940. Just fyi.
Putin/Russia have a much larger hand in this game than we ever had. I think the pipelines story is probably more true than Saudi oil fields as a factor.
So we bombed them under Clinton.
I was in Russia 3-4 times in the 90's and it was a third world country on the first visit. They had no postal service.
So?
The thing is Milosevic refused a pipeline in Serbia before the bombs. Which does make me wonder...Anyway I think this is a clear read on the idea and am sharing it.
If you add in "fascist" this is how the left portrays Trump.
Which makes me hesitant to believe it about Assad.
I am curious how many Syrians you think Bashir Assad killed in the first 11 years of his presidency ( from 2000 - 2011) ? It was after 2011 when obama Clinton and the saudis began to employ “ arab Spring” to overthrow all the nonsecular heads of state by funding and supporting violent radical islamists many of whom were foreign to the countries they infiltrated.
Qadaffi didn’t fight back effectively, the Egyptians fought back after the MB figurehead Morsi showed his stripes, Assad ( eventually with Russian and iranian support) fought back when his police governors supportive communities and military were being assassinated. If there is a kinder gentler way to resist tens of thousands of ISIS and Al Qaeda anarchists embedding themselves among intimidated brutalized civilians, maybe western historians can someday write a kinder gentler war plan.
Assad has been elected 3 times now.
Canadian journalist Eva Bartlett has traveled in Syria and the region and describes the sentiment of the silent majority of Syrians who support their president and consider their national army as liberators. If Assad was as brutal as you say then why did he allow “ fighters” to evacuate eastern Aleppo instead of flattening the place or besieging and starving them out?
Eva Bartlett interview at the UN
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AbIqdRvOnww
I do not think trump wants to “ undermine” the Saudis
But they need to be reined in and we must never again bow to them
A rebalancing of power spheres among all interests must be undertaken by sane diplomacy and enforced. Time to stop the deadly war games and proxy wars.
Saudi and Gulf money influence and ambition has totally unbalanced the region, caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and corrupted our own ideals of morality and justice. They have gotten a complete pass from responsibility for what their money has done to corrupt the honor of the US military and to destroy Syria .
No one has even paid attention to what they are doing to Yemen because muslim on muslim genocide gets about as much press as black on black killings. .
There is nothing just honorable or moral about creating and backing ISIS and Al Qaeda no matter what bad names you call the Syrian president.
He was also getting his (Libyan) money, the gold Dinar, widening use to replace the American Dollar as the standard for petroleum trades.
Assad is a strongman dictator. But, prior to the uprising we started and supported the last 5 years, Syria was relatively peaceful and all religions and cultures lived there in peace.
It takes a murderous strongman to control Muslims and Arabs. See Lybia for example.
I think with Trump we’ll see a long overdue realignment of international relations, including an end to the Bush New World Order, which was ultimately responsible for the Arab Spring that Putin has basically ended. That’s one reason why the neo-cons and the Dems had to go down in this past election.
I also like the fact that Putin has the clout now to keep Syria and Iran contained. That can’t be bad for the US.
Under Trump, I hope we get out of the business of ‘regime building’ (except for our own). It’s none of our business.
The realignment around Christian ideals would be frosting on the cake. First we have to fix the massively anti-Christian bigotry in our own country that evolved under Bill Clinton and Obama. That includes putting the homosexualist movement back in the bottle, and homosexuals back in the closet. With a new Supreme Court, the natural law must become the national law again.
Trumps’ natural paleo-con instincts are what put me in his corner. I hope he can deliver. No one in my life time has had the potential to be as strong as he. I give thanks to the FReeper who helped me see that.
Dang, I’m so glad he’s blue collar. He understands what really makes the world work. He touches dirt and makes things grow.
Graham and Rubio are deeply troubled, too, they helped John McCain arm the jihadis.
Marco Rubio was right there helping McCain and Graham arm the jihadis, he should not get a pass.
Red Cross or Red Cresent? I didn’t see the Cross on ambulances or buses.
Exactly.
It's absolutely disgusting that the jerk who's still polluting the White Hut for another month is doing everything in his power to PREVENT the exploitation of our resources, thus benefitting the camel-f*****g head-choppers.
FUBO!
I will not argue with you, the GOP Establishment in foreign policy runs wide and deep.
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