Military Events in Syria and Iraq Thread #4

The first time since the begin of the Syrian crisis there has been now a partial demobilization. Those who have been mobilized in 2010 will now be demobilized. The reason is, of course, that the Syrian army has now enough fighters to clear the remaining parts of the country from terrorists. With the clearing of the most of the remaining terrorist enclaves on Syrian territory, a lot of fighters who were necessary to block them are no longer necessary, moreover, some of those fighters in the enclaves have not joined the Syrian army volitionally.

It looks like the next operation will be in Daraa. At the same time, there will be also the clearing of the Daesh pocket in the desert West of the Euphrat. The clearing of Daraa will be, probably, again combined with a Western media campaign about evil Assad, probably also with yet another claimed gas attack, we will see. There has been some information that there was reached some agreement with Israel that Iranian forces will not participate in the operation in Daraa. That's not a problem for Iran, they care about defending Abu Kamal and the land bridge along the Euphrat, far away from Israel.

No. Libertarian principles have been quite irrelevant for my choice, given that I anyway don't live in that GULAG, and the world as a whole will become more libertarian without the US empire. Simply there will be much more independent, sovereign states, which means more choices between different systems. Competence and sanity are not sacrificed at all, this is cheap polemics from your side only.

I support this because self-defense is ok for me - it is, by the way, an important libertarian principle - while starting an attack is not at all. So, don't suggest something different by wording like "you support Syrian attacks against Israel" or so.

If after MAD nobody survives because of nuclear winter, it may not matter who started the war and who retaliated (except you believe in some afterlife). But so what? Does it follow that I have to change my position that starting a nuclear war is evil, retaliating following the MAD doctrine is not? The fact remains that Clinton is a known war criminal with open war threats against Russia in her program, Trump not, and up to now Trump has done nothing where I would have expected Clinton would have done something better for the world. (Of course, Clinton would have done a much better job for the American empire - and harmed in this way the world much more.)

You think, given that some war criminals own nuclear weapons, the world has to submit to their rule giving up legitimate self-defense? Of course, this is a quite typical position for a statist, who supports submission to the government whatever the laws, simply because the government has the power. It is not a libertarian position, and therefore irrelevant for me.

I'm German but see no particular reason to care about the German state, so the "proud" in relation to Germany is your fantasy. Germany is actually an irrelevant puppet state of America with no own foreign policy. There is some minor hope that this changes, thanks to Trump

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, we will see. I have family ties in Germany, that's the only reason I spend some time there. Köningsberg was taken by the Russians during WW II, which was started by the Germans with the aim to occupy a lot of foreign territories, so there is not much reason to object for Germany if the winner behaves in a similar way. Similarly, I personally don't care about Israel occupying the Golan Heights. The only role the Golan Heights have played here is that there was that the Israeli airforce attack was answered by a ground attack against Israeli forces in the Golan Heights. The right of self-defense would have allowed them to attack Israel itself too.

I think it is important, and good, that only the Golan Heights have been attacked, but for a different reason. Namely, if one retaliates, in a situation where one has not retaliated before, it is safer to increase the retaliation in small steps. Even if one has the right to retaliate in a much more serious way, this would be more dangerous.

 

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Which was not a mitigating circumstance earlier - you were claiming that extra risk of nuclear war was your priority.

Of course not. I was pointing out that such was your priority, earlier. Now that it is a Russian proxy increasing the risk of nuclear war, you are suddenly not as concerned. Instead, you are talking about the rights of oppressive regimes to retaliate, retake territory they lost in earlier wars, and extend their authoritarian government control over areas they believe they have a right to own - even at an increased risk of nuclear war.

Now all you have to do is convince Israel that attacking its forces in the Golan Heights is a small step, and you're good.

 

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I have no need for mitigating circumstances - for the choice between Clinton and Trump, it remains the most important point.

Whenever you write something about me, you are wrong.

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Don't worry, if you would add an "I thought that" this could be even a reasonable part of a civilized discussion, where I could simply correct your misunderstandings.

The "Russian proxy" (in reality nonetheless a sovereign country named Syria) simply retaliates against an Israeli attack, that means acts in full agreement with the non-aggression principle. When I worried, the talk was about (as usual if one talks about the US) about unprovoked aggression.

That states - as oppressive as popular - in international law handle human beings like trash is, of course, not libertarian at all. This is what libertarians are fighting against, but this fight is independent of the questions discussed here. BTW, the war where Israel has taken the Golan Heights is formally not an "earlier war", but never ended - we have yet a status of a ceasefire.

No necessity. The point of the strategy of small escalations is quite simple:

Code:

whlle(Israel continues attacks){
        escalate the retaliation measure a little bit;
}

No necessity to convince Israel about anything. If they think it was too big, and start a full-scale war, because of a small escalation of the retaliation, the algorithm has failed. But this is not very probable if the escalation steps are really small. Because even Israeli politicians (at least I hope so) make choices about war and peace in such cases (there are, of course, others in democracies like a war to win the next elections) based on the facts on the ground, not the propaganda they sell to the sheeple.

 

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Seems I'm not the only one who recalls nuclear war as Schmelzer's stated priority in the Clinton-Trump race. I don't seem to recall anything about "I hope you Yankees vote for Trump so he can weaken America". This was back when it looked like Trump was going to hand the planet to Putin on a silver platter, mind you.

 

Germany signed those treaties at gunpoint, it's not a legitimate excuse to conduct ethnic cleansing on their cities and replace their citizens with Russians. If Israel beats down on Assad to the point where he formally gives up the Golan, you'd consider that legit?

 

It's too late to edit your posts, the ones in which you claimed avoidance of increased risk of nuclear war as your overriding priority in all matters relating to international politics.

No.
You were specifically and explicitly worried about Russian response to US aggression, the resulting exchange of hostilities leading to nuclear war. You explicitly described the Russian response as justified and provoked and even inevitable - like the weather, it required no failure of judgment or bad motives on the Russian side. You took it for granted.

And avoiding any risk of that situation - where an inevitable and automatic and provoked and justified Russian nuclear launch would happen - was your first and overriding priority of international politics.

Now you have Russian proxy States attacking a paranoid nuclear power already under threat, and it's ok with you because the "non-aggression principle" is not violated in your opinion.

 

No need for this, because I have not used the phrase "overriding priority in all matters", this is your usual fantasy.

Of course, in the Trump vs. Clinton question, my priority was avoidance of nuclear war.

You have now raised the issue about a possible conflict between the basic libertarian right of self-defense - to answer an attack with a counterattack - and avoidance of nuclear war, if a criminal uses blackmail with nuclear war to reach everything. I acknowledge the conflict and say that one is not morally obliged to submit to that blackmail. In this sense, avoiding nuclear war is not the ultimate priority. But this is an irrelevant restriction so that it is natural that I don't mention it in some forum posts. If you think I have written somewhere something which explicitly denies the right of self-defense if there is a danger of nuclear war, quote me explicitly, with a link to the context.

And there is the conflict here?

I defend consistently the right of reasonable self-defense. If Clinton is establishing a no-fly zone in Syria and shoots Russian planes, Russia will retaliate, and, if the response is of reasonable size, shoot some US planes or so. If Israel shoots on Syrian territory, Syria has the right to retaliate appropriately. Bombing some Israeli forces at the Golan Heights is such an appropriate self-defense.
If nobody attacks, there will be no retaliation and therefore no nuclear war. The guys who are to blame are those who attack the territory of other states. That means the Israeli forces and Clinton's plan of a no-fly zone.

Irrational Israeli paranoia does not change the point. It does not make the Syrian retaliation an aggression and does not change the fact that Israeli attacks are an aggression.

 

i'm not saying it should have been ethnically cleansed but even since the 2+4 agreement germany has repudiated territorial claims to it. no i wouldn't mainly because i'm a firm believer in the principles of the montevideo convention. it should also be noted that a russian general sent west germany a message offering it back but it was declined as reunifiction was deemed more important. you still trying to compare 2 completely different situations.


if you think im a supporter of russians criminal activities im not i was just trying to point out your analogy wasn't that great

 

I'm not aware of any historical offer by the USSR to return Konigsberg or under what terms, so if you can provide more information about your claim that would be helpful. Regardless, Germany renounced the territories annexed to Russia and Poland while under foreign occupation, as a condition for that occupation ending, so it would be no different if Israel were to hold the Golan until one of Syria's dictators eventually signs it away. I'm also not aware of any legal basis for Konigsberg to have passed to direct Russian sovereignty after the collapse of the USSR, nor any basis for the original inhabitants of Konigsberg to be denied financial and territorial compensation for their post-WW2 losses.

In any case regardless of what the law says, one would think that an ethnic German patriot would feel they have more claim to Konigsberg and other historical German territories as compared to a nation which has killed more foreigners than even the Nazis themselves. Of course Ilya isn't even a German name, so I wasn't really expecting Mr. Schmelzer to agree, but I still gave him a perfectly fair opportunity to surprise me for once.

 

But everyone involved is both attacking and defending, and the only nuclear power involved with any territory of "their own" under attack is Israel. So there is no hope of avoiding nuclear war by not having nuclear powers attack each other's territory - that's not the issue.

Your earlier priority was avoidance of nuclear war, regardless of who was to "blame". You also regarded nuclear war involving Russia as the primary threat, but Russia as bearing no responsibility for it.
Now you are defending Russian involvement and Russian proxies risking nuclear war in a situation in which Russian territory has not been attacked (rather, Russia has annexed other people's territory), and Russian involvement is strictly voluntary.

Only between your priorities then and now.
Your priorities have changed to the point of inversion.

But it does raise the risk of nuclear war involving Russia. And that is now OK with you.

 

Seems Mr. Schmelzer and Mr. Assad disagree about Schmelzer's theory of progressive deterrence. According to Assad, the only thing he can do at the moment to deter Israel is to upgrade his air defenses with Russian assistance, no mention of any rocket attacks on the Golan or any other part of Israel.

Source: https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/There-are-no-Iranian-troops-in-Syria-Assad-says-558870

Still no Syrians officially taking credit for any rocket attacks on the Golan, which still has all the markings of an attack by Iran and its proxies. Assad continues to publicly deny the presence of Iranian troops and militias in his country, which ought to make one wonder just what Iranian force it is that Russia now apparently wants to remove.

 

That's simple, the former Soviet republics have gotten all their territory. And the enclave of Königsberg was part of the SFSR, the Russian Soviet republic. The people living there now are anyway mostly Russians.

Those who think so are an irrelevant minority in Germany even among the Nazis.

The name "Ilja" is a nice joke of my parents, named Ilse and Janis. Add that my parents were communists, that means at that time very pro-Russian, so that giving me a Russian name was fine to them.

No. Syria does not make any attacks against Israel except for retaliation. Instead, Israel is attacking Syrian territory without any justification as retaliation.

The hope is to avoid nuclear war by not having nuclear powers attack each other's territory. Simply don't forget that retaliation does not count in this context as an attack.

Quote please. Whatever, if Russia restricts itself to retaliation, it will not bear responsibility.

I defend a Russian involvement which is in full agreement with international law. What you name "Russian proxy" has been attacked, and does only retaliate, thus, also acts in full agreement with international law.

Russia annexing other people's territory is nonsense. To repeat, the legal government of Crimea has split from the Ukraine after a fascist coup against the democratically elected president, thus, in a situation where were has been no legal power in Kiev. This is completely unproblematic. That this legal government of Crimea has, together with the legal Ukranian president, asked Russia to help to preserve the legal order makes any Russian support also completely legal. Once independent, the government of Crimea has done a referendum and, following its results, asked to join the Russian federation.

That means, only between your fantasies (not supported with quotes) and my position now. I have yet to see any contradiction between what I have said in the past and what I think now.

That Israeli paranoia defines some risk of nuclear war involving Russia is a fact of live, but nothing which is ok for me. I simply cannot do anything about it.

 

Everybody else can. They can read your posts.

Russia's territory is not under attack. Nothing Russia does in Syria, Ukraine, or related arenas, is retaliation for an attack on its territory.

The only nuclear power whose territory is involved here is Israel. Israel will of course decide for itself what constitutes an "attack" on its territory.

Russian territory is not being attacked. Nevertheless, we see the risk of nuclear war involving Russia rising. And this is ok with you now, whereas before it was the one thing to be avoided above all - even at the risk of a fascist demagogue getting control of the US military.

Too late. If you recall, Israel's occupation of the Golan Heights was a retaliation in the first place. We've got nothing but retaliations from all sides here. Calling things retaliations isn't going to avert their consequences.

That's always been true - including when your priorities were much different than deciding who to blame.

 

The people living there now are mostly colonists from the deep Russian hinterland, sent over by Stalin to smash the cultural relics, wipe out most of the local population and establish the area as what ultimately became a glorified nuclear weapons base in the middle of Europe. They have no more claim to Konigsberg than anyone outside Israel has to the Golan, which was seized by Israel in self-defense 50 years ago, and whose indigenous population still lives there and has mostly accepted Israeli citizenship.

There's a difference between people who think a territory rightfully belongs to them, and people who think it's worthwhile to pursue war with a nuclear power or absorb their welfare-dependent colonists in order to get it back.

 

But they also cannot post them. Note, the disagreement is about quite subtle points, which you usually get completely wrong, not about the rough idea that in the Clinton vs. Trump discussion I said that the most important point is the danger of nuclear war with Russia.

Nothing is in violation of international law. If nobody violates international law, there will be no nuclear war. So, all this is irrelevant, because it does not lead to a nuclear war.

The point being? Of course, Israel may go completely insane, like the US who decided that Russia attacked it by somehow influencing its elections or so. But so what? Other states have no choice but to act as if Israel is not going completely insane. Being insane means being unpredictable, and so one cannot even know what increases the danger of war and what, instead, reduces it.
If Israel decides, on a rational base, what constitutes an attack and what, instead, is simply adequate retaliation, there is no problem with Syrian retaliation.

So, again, you want to argue that Russia or Syria has to submit to an even implicit blackmail by US or Israel with starting a nuclear war? If not, what is the point? Syria, as well as Russia, have all rights to behave in agreement with international law, and in particular to retaliate to whatever aggression is started. This does not increase the danger of nuclear war, except US or Israel go insane and start one, violating international law.

And, again, if you think that I have earlier proposed something different, quote. All that I see up to now is that I have ignored this particular point, namely that basic principle of international as well as libertarian law are superior even to the question of nuclear war, for the simple reason that this question was irrelevant in the Trump vs. Clinton debate.

It is ok if other countries do what they are allowed to do following international law, given that a nuclear war can start only if at least one country violates international law. As long as the fascist demagogue does not violate international law, I have no problem with this. And, as long as the question is who is less evil, Clinton or Trump, even a lot of violations of international law by Trump appear to be irrelevant, given that Clinton openly supported such behavior and wanted even more.

Nonsense. What we are talking about here are retaliations of attacks made by Israel on the same day. So, cause and reaction are quite obvious here.

This formulation makes no sense as it is, but so what. What has been done against German civilians in Köningsberg, as well as in the former German parts of what is now Poland and Czechia, were, of course, horrible crimes. And I think also that the world would have been better if Stalin would not have made these crimes, and would not have occupied those territories, and supported similar crimes by the Poles and the Czech. What follows?

I'm libertarian and do not think states are something rightful themselves. So, I do not believe from the start that there is such a notion as a "territory which rightfully belongs" to some state. So, I care neither about Königsberg belonging to Germany nor about the Golan Heights belonging to Syria.

And essentially my answer does not change if we use this weaker position: The supporters among the Germans would be anyway a small minority. The only modification would be that I would no longer add "even among the Nazis". There are a lot of Germans who simply accept this as a penalty for what the Nazis have done. For the majority of those who don't follow this line, the question is as irrelevant as for the Brits if the US belongs rightfully to them or not. It is, last but not least, a question of international law, and international law became irrelevant for the US (and, as a consequence, for the West) with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

 

Which raise the risk of nuclear war involving Russia.
And the last fifty years never happened - all involved were dropped into the scene by starship from Neptune, without briefing. The Syrian conflict with Israel started yesterday.

The point was that all your yak about territory and who's attacking whom is bullshit, just like your claim to be first and foremost concerned with the threat of nuclear war represented by Clinton was bullshit.

They don't? They used to. What happened?

And: That's not what you were posting before. Your priorities have changed - almost inverted. Some horrible authoritarian regime's world government provided international law right to self defense is now more important to you than the risk of nuclear war involving Russia.

 

Israel has no legitimate claim to golan. that it was a war of self defense or not is irrelevent its still illegal under international law to unilaterally annex territory. like it or not syria has a valid claim. no wether or not they should press it can be debated but to say they don't have a claim to it is flat out wrong. everyone has to play by the same rules, even israel.

 

The annexation and ethnic cleansing of Konigsberg was illegal too, even if it has since been posthumously legitimized in exchange for Germany's ability to reunite. In any case, I'm not here to debate the intricacies of international law on this particular issue.

As someone who repeatedly insists on being a neutral German with no significant bias in Russia's favour despite all the multitudinous cultural ties he exhibits, I'm surprised to see Schmelzer getting so worked up about the Golan issue thousands of miles away, to the point of essentially threatening war and the accompanying risk of nuclear escalation, with far greater injustices occurring and having previously occurred right on his own doorstep. I could bring up issues like Ukraine and all the other dozens of territorial and human rights catastrophes Russia is creating at this very moment elsewhere in the world, but we already know Schmelzer's position on everything not directly related to Russo-German relations, so I figured I'd focus on his "home turf" for a change.

 

https://twitter.com/ArabianaINTEL/status/1003002671446585344?ref_src=twsrc^tfw tells that

So, the partisan forces to fight the US occupants have now an official name, "Popular Tribal Resistance". And the official supporter is some diffuse meeting of "Syrian Arab Tribes". Assad, I would guess, likes this, but is not officially responsible for what these Tribal Resistance fighters will do.

LOL, I have never made any such claims about neutrality. I leave claims of neutrality to those who want to deceive. I have studied in Russia, 5 years, and liked this country, the people, and the culture. That I'm a German is simply a fact about my nationality, quite irrelevant politically.

You seem to have misunderstood something. The Golan Heights are completely irrelevant for me. They appeared there only because they appeared in the news - there was some attack by Syrian/Iranian/Martian forces against some Israeli positions on the Golan Heights - and a side remark of Iceaura about what prevents peace between Israel and Syria, where I have mentioned the simple fact that Israel could easily get peace with Syria by giving up the Golan Heights, but does not want to do this. Which is simply a fact.
I'm not at all threatening any war, I simply defend the right of self-defence of Syria against actual attacks by the Israeli air force against Syrian territory. This right of self-defence is completely independent of the Golan Heights issue, Syria could as well bomb Israeli territory itself, given that the Israeli attack bombed Syrian territory itself.

Which suggests that you are completely unaware of the actual positions of German people about Königsberg. In Eastern (communist) Germany, where I grow up, the very idea to question the results of WW II was criminal, fascist, impossible. Moreover, there was a strong anti-German element in the school teaching of history. The West was more open to this during the cold war, but already at that time, there were important parts of the left against this. The left as a whole had, beyond being anti-fascist without any question, always had some anti-German elements in West Germany too. This became stronger after the cold war, with Merkel moving the CDU to the left, and today in the West the left as a whole is quite anti-German, and it is the East where pro-German forces remain. But even these pro-German forces are far from questioning the WW II results.

(Surprisingly, these pro-German forces are much more pro-Russian than the anti-German left who are now strongly anti-Russian. As surprising, I would say, that the left-wing green party has been the main German supporter of the Ukrainian fascists, while the German right-wing guys the main German supporter for the Ukranian anti-fascists. In fact, not that surprising if one remembers that the mainstream in the West followed Obama, and once Obama was supporting the fascists against the anti-fascists in Ukraine, the mainstream left had to follow. This is the cost of being pro-Obama, and, in general, pro-American. You have to support all the ... the US likes to support to regime change whatever government it does not like, and those forces are usually the most despised ones by every reasonable person.)

Iceaura is in the usual repetition mode, without anything new, fantasies about what I think without even a single point of evidence for what is claimed. Seems, the misrepresentations reach now a level that in Iceaura' s claims about contradictions in my postings already both claims of what I said at different times have nothing to do with what I really said.

Let's only note that I see no danger for a nuclear war Israel-Russia, Israel would not start one because this would be obviously suicide, and without this Russia's doctrine would forbid the use of nuclear weapons too. (The other theoretical possibility would be Israel winning a conventional war against Russia endangering the survival of the Russian state, lol.) And the actual Russian leadership does not seem to plan to violate its own rules, at least I see no evidence for this.

 

An argument that as easily applied to that silly fear of yours about a US-Russia nuclear war to be started by Clinton, back when - you rejected it then, explicitly. Your arguments, as well as your priorities, have inverted.

But you maintain one consistency: You still seem to have overlooked the most likely instigator of nuclear war, which is escalation from blunder and/or accident in a touchy situation involving shortsighted paranoia and irresponsible governance.

I rest my case.

A Russian proxy has received your blessing to attack a nuclear power already under threat and already known to be paranoid and violent. Your justification for that is world government's law - world government is something you favor, when it favors Russia - under which these attacks are ok because they are retaliations. The extra risk of nuclear war is no longer important to you - obedience to world government is your new criterion of highest priority.