Egypt and Arab States circle toilet bowl

[TheMercenary]

Yea, but if some people get their way you will be buying 10 coffees a year and you would be hooked and addicted to getting financial aid for everything in your life, it's a slippery slope.

[TheMercenary]

Russia and Iran are continuing to send arms to the Syrian regime that can be used against protesters, a top State Department official said today.

"Iran is resupplying Syria and through Syria has supplied weapons to Hezbollah," said Tom Countryman, the assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation, at a Wednesday morning breakfast meeting of the Defense Writers Group in Washington.

Countryman's bureau plays a major role in monitoring international compliance with nonproliferation and arms control rules. He declined to go into specifics on what arms Iran and Russia are giving the regime of Bashar al-Assad, but he confirmed that both countries are still supplying arms that can be used to attack civilians and opposition groups inside Syria, who are engaged in an increasingly bloody struggle with the government.

"We do not believe that Russian shipments of weapons to Syria are in the interests of Russia or Syria," he said.

According to Countryman, the Iranian weapons being funneled through the Syrian government to Hezbollah are not being used by Hezbollah inside Syria, but are being transferred to Hezbollah groups inside Syria's neighbor Lebanon.

Countryman also said the U.S. government is working with allies to try to get a handle on the stores of conventional, biological, and chemical weapons inside Syria, to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands if and when the Assad regime collapses.

There are "tens of thousands" of MANPADS - shoulder-fired missile systems -- in Syria and nobody really knows where they all are, Countryman said. Unlike Libya, Syria is not a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention, so there is no official reporting on its store of those weapons, but the effort to locate them is underway.

"We have ideas as to the quantity and we have ideas as to where they are," Countryman said. "We wish some of the neighbors of Syria to be on the lookout... When you get a change of regime in Syria, it matters what are the conditions -- chaotic or orderly."

Russia is not our friend Obama....

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/po...ashar_al_assad

[Happy Monkey]

Obama's not the one who looked in Putin's soul and liked what he saw.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Obama's not the one who looked in Putin's soul and liked what he saw.

Maybe, but I bet Obama gave him a blow job.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Maybe, but I bet Obama gave him a blow job.

A new low... Merc's parents must be so proud.

[Ibby]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

A new low... Merc's parents must be so proud.

Not a new low, but I get yelled at every time I bring up Merc's REAL low points at the Cellar.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

A new low... Merc's parents must be so proud.

My parents are dead. Thanks anyway.

[classicman]

@ HM - Bwahahahahaa...

[Sundae]

That's because when you rake up the past you get the stench of decay.
Merc's made some gaffes, but it's not necessary to air them if you disagree with a current post. That should be enough.

I live with a woman who is happy to bring up things that happened over 20 years ago. It doesn't make for a sense of community.

[piercehawkeye45]

Don't know if this is just hype, but there is talk that the latest bombing on Assad's security officials could prove to be a "tipping point" in the Syrian conflict. The problem is, we have no idea where this new direction will take us (civil war, genocide, democracy)

The assassinations were the first of such high-ranking members of the elite since the revolt began and could represent a turning point in the conflict, analysts said. The nature and target of the attack strengthened the opposition’s claims that its forces have been marshaling strength to strike at the close-knit centers of state power.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/19/wo...e.html?_r=1&hp

The rapid deterioration of Assad's control in Damascus -- the capital was largely free from serious fighting a week ago -- may be surprising, but was also increasingly inevitable. For the past 16 months, the Syrian government has been caught in a vicious cycle: A city or a town rises up, and the military arrests, tortures, and kills its citizens in a bid to quell the uprising -- but only ends up driving Syrians into the arms of the opposition and spurring further military defections. This basic dynamic first played out in miniature in regions like Deraa, then on a grander scale in cities like Homs, and now in the capital . Since the beginning of the uprising, the Assad regime has found itself in a death spiral from which it seemingly has no clue how to extricate itself.

For those of us on the outside, all we can do is watch developments carefully, be careful of rumors and sources with an agenda, and try to make sense of the few pieces of confirmed news that filter out. With that in mind, here is a primer on the three Syrian officials confirmed dead or injured.

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/...s_death_spiral

No answers, only questions:

1. How frightened is the Iranian regime right now about the prospect of losing its only Arab ally?

2. What specifically is the West doing to make sure that Syria's chemical weapons are secure and are not used?

3. Could this mess have been avoided by early intervention?

4. Does Asma al-Assad, Bashar's wife, regret not taking a Jordanian offer of refuge months ago?

5. Anyone want to take out long-term life insurance on newly-appointed Syrian defense minister Gen. Fahad Jassim al-Freij?

6. Did today's suicide bombers watch "Valkyrie" and learn from Tom Cruise's mistakes?

7. What does Kofi Annan do now?

UPDATED:

8. How long before we find out that al Qaeda is behind this bombing, and how long before we discover that it does not know how to stop?

http://www.theatlantic.com/internati...future/259985/

[tw]

Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45

... but there is talk that the latest bombing on Assad's security officials could prove to be a "tipping point" in the Syrian conflict.

Same questions from Libya apply. Will combat and death rates be long enough and large enough for the country to unite as a nation? Or will the fall of Assad only result in more civil war?

How united are the Syrian people into making a nation rather than craving power or seeking revenge? Important in all such wars is a very high death rate among all combatants.

[ZenGum]

Syria, like many countries in the middle east, has borders drawn in peace conferences by The Powers after WWI and WWII. Those borders do not respect the actual ethnic distributions on the ground, leading to nations that are no more than political facades, held together by repression of dissent.

Civil war - if this isn't already it - seems pretty much inevitable.

[ZenGum]

The Syrian rebels have me quite impressed.

They don't waste ammo firing into the air in celebration.

Their battlefield tactics are competent - teams with covering fire, orders being followed - things that were conspicuously absent in Libya.

They seem to have a coherent strategy, including seizing border crossings to friendly countries (= arms supply) and are making a stand in Aleppo.

Assad still has air power, though.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

The Syrian rebels have me quite impressed.

They don't waste ammo firing into the air in celebration.

Their battlefield tactics are competent - teams with covering fire, orders being followed - things that were conspicuously absent in Libya.

They seem to have a coherent strategy, including seizing border crossings to friendly countries (= arms supply) and are making a stand in Aleppo.

Assad still has air power, though.

I heard this morning that they have acquired some tanks and are attacking the air bases.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

They don't waste ammo firing into the air in celebration.

NPR ran a report last week featuring Syrian rebels shooting holes in the sky after temporarily taking a check point.