syrian people and refugees

[MajGenl.Meade]

I bet this cartoon is understandable - it's from a Saudi newspaper

Why are Syrians not fleeing to Arab states but trying to crash into Europe?

Always nice to get the Christian view of things from you.
yrs,
rubato

The "Christian view"? You did notice the cartoon is from Islamist SAUDI ARABIA and satirizes the refusal by Islamist Gulf states to assist their fellow Islamists in Syria?

You bigot

[Lord Jim]

You did notice the cartoon is from Islamist SAUDI ARABIA and satirizes the refusal by Islamist Gulf states to assist their fellow Islamists in Syria?

I assume that's a rhetorical question...

[wesw]

meade, I think that maybe the islamists are the ones staying put in Syria, tho it probably does apply to the govts you speak of.....

the refugees seem to be muslim, but not islamist, that s who they are fleeing.....

other than that, ive already agreed with the rest...

[MajGenl.Meade]

wesw, this may be news to you.

Mus•lim
also Moslem

adj., n., pl. -lims, -lim. adj.
1. of or pertaining to the religion, law, or civilization of Islam.
n.
2. an adherent of Islam.

All moslems are Islamist. This does not mean that all moslems are militant Islamists.

[Lord Jim]

Whoa, that's a little complicated Gen'l...

could ya slow it down?

the refugees seem to be muslim,

Wes, it's a fair bet that the vast majority of the Syrian refugees are Muslim...

There aren't a whole lot of Amish in Syria...

[Long Run]

Totally agree with LJ on this -- we bear a big part of the responsibility for this tragedy. Nice to the Administration out front helping lead a coalition to reduce the tragedy . . . oh wait.

[Sue U]

Wow, talk about wrong -- how does the U.S bear any responsibility for the Syrian civil war? When did you become the "Blame America First" crowd, Jim and Long Run? Do you have any clue about the history and politics of Syria over the last 50 years, or what it might take to resolve its internal conflicts?

War is obviously horrible and kills, maims and displaces many innocent people. The simple but awful truth is that we cannot be responsible for stopping all the wars in the world. And there could be absolutely no worse foreign policy for America than to insert itself into another nation's civil war -- particularly one as complicated and with as many enormous pitfalls and catastrophic consequences as Syria. American military intervention is far and away the worst possible choice in Syria -- not only in terms of Syria itself, but certainly regionally and potentially globally.

Syria is and should be first and foremost an Arab problem, and the Arab League plus Iran and possibly Turkey should be the ones taking the lead to end the war and broker a deal among the factions. They are the ones with the greatest influence over the situation and in whose interest it is to resolve it (or not). To the extent the war in Syria threatens or "spills over" into Turkey, it is in that respect a NATO problem, not one requiring unilateral U.S. action. The influx of refugees to Europe is a humanitarian problem for the EU to manage. (I heard a story on the radio the other day about how Spain is looking for people to populate its abandoned countryside villages -- which strikes me as one obvious "win-win," though clearly not the total solution.)

While the U.S. may have a role to play in resolving the Syrian conflict, it is not a leading role and it is certainly not a military role -- which would only escalate a terrible national calamity into a disastrous regional war involving so many different parties with so many different goals as to be the most intractable clusterfuck ever loosed on the planet.

[wesw]

jim, perhaps you would be so kind as to re read my post. I never said anything of the kind....

meade, they are certainly Islamic, but islamist is a term commonly used to refer to people who want government to implement sharia law and want govt to be religious in nature, no?

long run, of course jim is right...., he was agreeing with me

sue. nevermind. pointless.

[Lord Jim]

Do you have any clue about the history and politics of Syria over the last 50 years

Yes, in fact I can go back even further...

Nearly 100 years to The Balfour Declaration, and the carving up of Iraq, Syria and "Trans Jordan" and the transfer of authority of these lands from the defeated Ottoman Empire to the victorious Brits, after WWI...

(Not sure how that has any contemporary relevance, but since you seem to be interested in history lessons...)

Oh, and thanks for the heads up about this:

War is obviously horrible and kills, maims and displaces many innocent people.

That's a real eye opener...

I appreciate the 411...

[Econoline]

When did you become the "Blame America First" crowd, Jim and Long Run?

Ummm...when a Democrat moved into the White House? (Just a guess... )

While the U.S. may have a role to play in resolving the Syrian conflict, it is not a leading role and it is certainly not a military role -- which would only escalate a terrible national calamity into a disastrous regional war involving so many different parties with so many different goals as to be the most intractable clusterfuck ever loosed on the planet.

A corollary to the adage "When your only tool is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail." :

"When your only tool is a huge military, every problem starts to look like a war."

[Econoline]

"Islamism":

Islamism is an ideology that demands man's complete adherence to the sacred law of Islam and rejects as much as possible outside influence, with some exceptions (such as access to military and medical technology). It is imbued with a deep antagonism towards non-Muslims and has a particular hostility towards the West. It amounts to an effort to turn Islam, a religion and civilization, into an ideology.

The word "Islamism" is highly appropriate, for this is an "-ism" like other "-isms" such as fascism and nationalism. Islamism turns the bits and pieces within Islam that deal with politics, economics, and military affairs into a sustained and systematic program. As the leader of the Muslim Brethren put it some years ago, "the Muslims are not socialist nor capitalist; they are Muslims." I find it very telling that he compares Muslims to socialists and capitalists and not to Christians or Jews. He is saying, we are not this "-ism," we are that "-ism." Islamism offers a way of approaching and controlling state power. It openly relies on state power for coercive purposes.

Islamism is, in other words, yet another twentieth-century radical utopian scheme. Like Marxism-Leninism or fascism, it offers a way to control the state, run society, and remake the human being. It is an Islamic-flavored version of totalitarianism. The details, of course, are very different from the preceding versions, but the ultimate purpose is very similar.

http://www.danielpipes.org/954/distinguishing-between-islam-and-islamism

[Lord Jim]

Ummm...when a Democrat moved into the White House? (Just a guess... )

Well that would be a bad guess, (at least in my case) because the record will show that I cut Obama a lot of slack on foreign policy during his first term, and praised him for a number of decisions that he made...

I thought the whole idea of a "forward leaning" approach...(with drones, intel, in combination with a coordinated organizational effort with local leadership, in places like Yemen and Somalia...) was exactly the right thing to do in order to avoid future "Iraqs" and "Afghanistans"...

What I did not count on, (and I apologize for my misjudgement) was just how poorly this Administration would implement this sort of a nimble policy, and how badly they would misjudge the nature of the enemy, and the threat...

And how in point-critical ways, they would act in such a timid, tentative, and uncertain fashion, that they would actually fan the flames of the threat...

Which in the event, is precisely what they have done...

This President has managed to make himself the worst, weakest, most ineffectual President in foreign affairs and national defense since Jimmy Carter...

A complete international joke; a man neither respected nor feared by anyone; friend or foe...

And if he keeps going down the road he's traveling, he's going to make Carter look like Douglas MacArthur by comparison...

[Lord Jim]

Here's a question...

When Barack Obama dismissively referred to ISIS a year and a half ago as a "JV team"...

Was he lying?

Or was he giving his honest view on based on what he thought was the best available intel he was receiving at the time?

[dales]

Or was he giving his honest view on based on what he thought was the best available intel he was receiving at the time?

No great fan of Pres. Obama here.......I'd prefer to give him the benefit of the doubt......That is until I learn more.

[Lord Jim]

Oh I absolutely give him the benefit of the doubt on that Dale...

There's not a doubt in my mind that he sincerely believes that he has tried act honestly in the best interests of the country...

(Though he hasn't proven to be particularly good at it...)

I think even Jimmy Carter believed that he was acting in the best interests of the country...

I don't think he was trying to be deliberately awful...

My point in posing that question about President's acting on available intel, was to see if any of the folks suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome, who have insisted that Bush fiendishly "deliberately lied" to get us into the war in Iraq, might not have a better understanding of how the whole intel system works, when considering a President they are fond of....

[wesw]

please don t insult jimmy carter like that.

Obama has been 10 times worse for America s security and international influence.

....and cheney was the one in charge of "fiendish lying", wasn t he? that and torture....

bush was just foolish enough to listen to him, and his buddy Rumsfeld.

[Sue U]

Sound and fury. Signifying nothing.

[Lord Jim]

Sound and fury. Signifying nothing.

When one looks at all the violated "red lines", the things that were declared "unacceptable" that have been accepted, etc, etc, that would be a good description of "The Obama Doctrine"....

One must really engage in an enormous amount of willful blindness not to see the many ways in which American inaction have contributed mightily to the crisis in Iraq and Syria.

I would have thought that the events in Iraq and Syria since we have taken essentially a "hands off" position would have been a real eye opener for the hand wringers who always advocate America doing nothing internationally as the best course, the folks who don't believe we can do anything effectively, if we get involved it will only make the situation worse, blah, blah, blah.....

But apparently for many of them the head-in-the-sand impulse is extremely tenacious and impervious to being moved, regardless of the facts. In fact they double down on do-nothingism. It makes one wonder just how bad things will have to get before they would actually support active US involvement.

ETA:

The price the US will now have to pay is already much higher than if we had been properly engaged three years ago; (when we could have kept ISIS in check in Iraq with a force that would have kept the Sunni militias in the fight, and in Syria with robust support for the non-sectarian rebel forces) and the more timidly we behave now the higher the ultimate price will be.

[rubato]

I bet this cartoon is understandable - it's from a Saudi newspaper

Why are Syrians not fleeing to Arab states but trying to crash into Europe?

Always nice to get the Christian view of things from you.
yrs,
rubato

The "Christian view"? You did notice the cartoon is from Islamist SAUDI ARABIA and satirizes the refusal by Islamist Gulf states to assist their fellow Islamists in Syria?

You bigot

And as my post proved it is factually untrue. Most refugees have been taken in by Islamic countries who have been doing so for many years. It is only recently that you have even been aware of it. It was a lie, thus the usual Christian lying propaganda. Finding a Saudi source does nothing to change that.




You bigot.



yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

Gulf states you blind tape worm... Gulf states. Suggest you read up on it and then return to your usual prejudicial statements and bigotry