Syria - What should we do if anything?

[Slatts]

It is called baiting a whole Alliance into a binding legal resolution, which will end up with bombs raining down the skies over Damascus, courtesy of yours truly.

Have a nice Summer, folks.

I dunno. Bombing campaign...likely.
Full on invasion I highly doubt.

[gammadust]

Hi all, back from holiday. Very strange event isn't it? Why no warnings, why the unusual agressiveness?
The wreckage has been located in over 1300m of water which makes Syria's claim that the jet crashed 10km off Om al-Tuyou doubtful. If you look at this nautical chart of the area:http://www.charts.noaa.gov/NGAViewer/56041.shtml
Waters of that depth don't occur until more than twice that distance from shore. It looks more likely that the jet was flying in international airspace. Even if it did fly a few miles inside Syrian airspace, why the shootdown, usually nations issue a formal protest when this occurs? Syrian radar would have been able to track the jet from takeoff at Erhac Airbase, it's only 100 miles from the Syrian border. The Syrian account doesn't add up.

With the Russian arms shipments and their determination to keep their naval base at Tartus, defections from the airforce and army, intimidation of UN observers, civilian massacres etc. was this done to change the headlines? What a crackpot regime.

The report which mentions the depth of 1300m also mentions:

Search teams have located the wreckage of a Turkish fighter jet shot down by Syria on Friday in Syrian waters at a depth of 1,300 meters, Turkish news channels reported on Sunday, without citing a source.

But looking at that map, depth isolines are not marked, making it hard to come to such conclusion as "Waters of that depth don't occur until more than twice that distance from shore". And regarding depth points you do have some at least under 8-10km from shore. Also keep in mind that Territorial Waters are considered those under 12 Nautical Miles (~22km or roughly 15minutes at that latitude)

[ProfTournesol]

I dunno. Bombing campaign...likely.
Full on invasion I highly doubt.

I don't think so. Any foreign intervention will lead to Iran direct involvement, nobody wants this. Maybe Turkey could do something on his own, as it's a very influent country.

[PELHAM]

The report which mentions the depth of 1300m also mentions:
But looking at that map, depth isolines are not marked, making it hard to come to such conclusion as "Waters of that depth don't occur until more than twice that distance from shore". And regarding depth points you do have some at least under 8-10km from shore. Also keep in mind that Territorial Waters are considered those under 12 Nautical Miles (~22km or roughly 15minutes at that latitude)

There are no 1300 depth points under 20km from the shore off Om al-Tuyou where the aircraft is said to have crashed, I would have preferred isolines but good charts are hard to find online. If you look at any radar depth images of the bay off Om al-Tuyou it shows shallow waters. While we can't be certain I'm sure enough to bet my right nut on this lol. Hopefully the Turkish Navy will be good enough to draw a cross on a map for us in the next few days.
PS It's more important to consider where the jet was when it was shot down, not where the wreckage landed.

Looks like the Russians are thick skinned enough to have a second attempt at supplying Syria with attack helicopters, I guess Tetris and mail order brides don't supply enough revenue rofl:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-to-Syria.html

[Spooky Lynx]

I thought that this plane would be something like gulf of Tonkin incident. But still there's no sh!tstorm over Syria.

[NoRailgunner]

Its all speculation until there are facts eg mission of the Turkish Air Force pilots, radio messages/warnings..... rumours said that pilots were on a recon mission and just flew a little bit too far into Syrian airspace while other rumors said that the Syrians were just a little trigger happy and ordered to shoot down any plane that doesn't respond accordingly after the defection of a Syrian pilot with his plane. Guess both sides will blame each other for beeing unprofessional and not using proper means of action + communication. Doubt that NATO will send a retaliation force or something similar....

[Spooky Lynx]

I suppose that plane failed to get any info about air defense of that place before it was shot down. So there won't be any retaliation until proper intel will be gathered.

[oxmox]

Syria - What should we do if anything ?

This is for sure a good question, watching a lot of discussions with experts on TV and reading about it I thought I will post some important points which people here dont talk about or people should think about. May english isnt perfect...



With what situations are we confronted, just some issues:

* Syria, 21 million citizen and an Army with modern russian equipment with around 460.000 men
* Syria isnt isolated and backed up by Iran, Russia and China
* an economical conflict about energy when we watch the planned Pipeline system for Gas/Oil
* it is an religious conflict about the power in Syria itself
* the central problem: a strategical conflict exist with the aim to weaken the axis of Iran-Iraq-Syria-Lebanon



Nobody denies the massacres in Syria and the current issues within this conflict, even the witness statements showed by our media is a little bit one sided. And if you think an intervention will help, just have a look what happened with Lybia, after the NATO attacks the country changed into a region of chaos where former "freedom fighters" are gruesome like Gaddafis troops before. By the way the civil war in Lebanon took place for around 15 years.....

Around 12 million Alawites, which are actually secular but shia friendly, are living in Syria who are committed to the current political system and are in key positions, who actually benefit from it. The counterforce to the Assad regime are also hard line Islamists like the Salafi and parts of it Al Quaida members. In Syria a small part are Shiites and 2/3 of the citizen Sunni muslims, 10% christians under the protection of the Alawite regime. If these oppisition groups will succeed and get into power, there will be highly likely bloody fights or even massacres against the Alawites which would fight until the last breath. By the way, the Salafism (Salafi) is the synonym of the severest and most intolerant form of Islam, a sect called Wahabism and is the state religion in Saudi Arabia.

The whole situation in Syria would have been not that explosive when actually the support from abroad in form of weapons or money would be not existent. Probably the riots would have ended already. It is no secret in the meanwhile that countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar are behind the weapon deliveries for the opposition which is coordinated by the USA and adds fuel to the fire.

Syria is not Libya which had only 120.000 men under Gaddafi and has around 6.5 million citizen only. After the NATO did finish their job in Libya the civil war actually worsened, there are estimates from experts which I saw in a political TV discussion that around 60-70.000 victims died in this conflict until now. In Libya exists chaos, the former freedom fighters are gruesome like Gaddafis troops before and there are still Gaddafi supporter who are fighting. It is more worse than before and actually Gaddafi would have stopped the riots, but the NATO effort destroyed his tank columns which did change the overall situation. Currently we see 10.000 deaths in Syria, there will be a lot more if the riots change into a bigger conflict/civil war and especially when foreign troops would join the conflict with military forces.

What do we win, when the western military march in ? It is still a high risk and after so many lost wars i.e. Iraq war lost, Afghanistan lost, we flee form Somalia, in Libya is chaos....I wonder if you have to be crazy to vote for any military intervention to go into Syria. In the meanwhile Islamists get support with weapon deliveries wheras in other regions western military did fight or fighting against them. Nobody talks about the Libya anymore, which was a fail if you see what is going on now.

In Libya the opposition did form already a transitional council before the military intervention, in Syria the opposition groups itself are splintered and quarrelled. There is nobody who would fill the gap after the current regime would be removed.


The central problem:

---> Actually it is not mainly about Syria but rather about the IRAN !

It is well known that the Iran is Shiite, since the year one a historical counterpart to Saudi Arabia with its intolerant Wahabism and in clashes with the Sunnis. It is a strategical conflict to weaken the consistently stretch of land Iran-Iraq-Syria. Iran and Iraq is mainly and governed by Shiites, in Syria the Allewites feel associated with the Shiites and the stretch is even longer if you take the Lebanon into consideration with its Hizbolla, which represent Shiite muslims aswell. An strategical interest exist to weaken the links and to weaken the Iran itself, therefore Syria gets battered.


By the way this is not the first Islamic uprising in Syria, from 1976-1982 Sunni Islamists, tried to overthrow the Assad regime aswell. The first one in 1964.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_uprising_in_Syria
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Hama_riot

[PELHAM]

Syria - What should we do if anything ?
This is for sure a good question, watching a lot of discussions with experts on TV and reading about it I thought I will post some important points which people here dont talk about or people should think about. May english isnt perfect...

I say lets hear from the Syrian's themselves........what is it they want, no one has bothered to ask yet:

One of the defectors, Colonel Abdal Fareed Zakaria, spoke excusively to Al Jazeera.
He says President Bashar al-Assad's forces are in disarray.
He also says more soldiers want to defect, but there are serious risks, and the international community isn't helping.

[oxmox]

You should read more about the riots and especially about the religious clashes in Syria to understand the conflict. "The Syrians" dont exists like you think, there are many different religious groups in Syria and a struggle for power between certain groups of them.