Russian Warships Head To Syria In Show Of Power
Source: Chicago Tribune
MOSCOW -- Russian warships are returning to the waters near Syria in a new demonstration of the Kremlin's interest in the outcome of the crisis there.
The Russian Defense Ministry told the RIA-Novosti news agency on Tuesday that four large landing vessels were on their way to the Mediterranean near Syria, three weeks after the Russian navy conducted its biggest maneuvers in the region since the breakup of the Soviet Union.
"Based on the results of the Navy exercises in the Black and Mediterranean seas from Jan. 19 through Jan. 29 ... the Ministry leadership has taken a decision to continue combat duty by Russian warships in the Mediterranean," the ministry said in its statement. “In the future the number of warships in the group and types of vessels acting in the said region will be defined in accordance with the given situation."
Russia has been a close ally of embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad and has strategic and economic interests in the country.
The Defense Ministry said the landing ships Kaliningrad and Alexander Shabalin are en route to the region from the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. Two other big landing ships, the Saratov and the Azov, are scheduled to join them by the end of February.
Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/la-fg-wn-syria-russia-warships-20130219,0,4228868.story
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AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)n/t
loudsue
(14,087 posts)What is Russia planning to do with these ships? Posture? Blow stuff up?
I guess that's what landing vessels do.
hope when they leave Bashar Assad is one of the passengers.He'll fit right in, in Moscow.
David__77
(23,372 posts)He is a Syrian - it is his country.
As for Russia, it is defending the independence and sovereignty of Syria, and its right to defend against religious terrorism.
jzodda
(2,124 posts)This whole thing started out as peaceful demonstrations. The Syrian army and police fired on the demonstrators. They quickly escalated to heavy weapons and airstrikes on civilians in multiple cities.
The demonstrators did what anybody would do under the circumstances- They took up arms.
I hope the rebels kill every member of the Syrian government and any Russian who "lands" there. Russian troops are draftees and poorly trained in any event so I am sure if they land many will get killed and Russia will be embarrassed again like they were in Afghanistan.
The only ones defending the independence of Syria as far as I can see is the rebels. Whats left of the syrian gov has become no more than a client state of Iran's revolutionary guard.
David__77
(23,372 posts)"Peaceful demonstrations" of opponents of terrorism have been physically assaulted by "revolutionaries." Even recently this occurred in Aleppo.
I am SO glad that Obama opposed Hillary Clinton's plan to send weapons to these lunatics, and that thanks to the US, they're supply lines are drying up.
The Syrian army arrests and kill foreign fighters every day. They are the ones undermining Syria's independence.
A year from now, I'm sure the same discussion will be occurring, but hopefully the Sunni supramacists have been largely neutralized by then.
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)The Sunni and Shia on both sides will fight to the death. I predict it would be a genocidal disaster with nuclear Israel dragged in.
A negotiated departure for Assad and anyone else who wants to go would be FAR FAR preferable than for Syria to endure the bloodbath that will happen if he is assassinated.
We really don't know who the "peaceful demonstrators" are/were. Nobody does. In fact, from the muddled reports I've read, the crackdown began when 15 Syrian police officers will killed by the "peaceful demonstrators". We know for certain that the rebels NOW are Sunni extremists on the an AQ order, backed by powerful Sunni kingdoms like the Saudis.
Be very careful what you wish for here.
The Russians have a vested interest in their port in Syria but they are also extremely wary of the religious extremism that is a tinderbox waiting to explode in Syria. Obama has wisely decided (for once) to stay the hell out of the way. We can only hope he continues to stay that course.
jzodda
(2,124 posts)A negotiated end to this with Assad and his gang on a plane to wherever is the best result.
However, sometimes a full blown shitstorm is the only way out of these messes. That is what history, and the history of war has shown to us. There comes a point where 2 sides are too far apart and only victory on the field of battle can settle things. I do not foresee Assad and his gang willing to leave unless the FSA is on the march in sight of his palace. By then it will be too late anyway.
Eventually, I believe that the rebels will over-run the gov positions and the remnants of the regime will flee to the mountains where his sect are from. There, its possible they could continue the fight for an extended period. We don't know what will happen with the Islamists at this point, as its too early to tell.
The best we can hope for is that when the rebels to gain the upper hand overall is that the secularists have more arms than the Islamists so if civil war part 2 begins the Islamist could be defeated. More likely will be that the native Islamist groups who have fought for the rebels will be integrated into new establishment. Not preferable but maybe unavoidable.
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)and that battle will not end. History shows us that. The Sunni consider the Shia as heretics and that the Shia version of Islam needs to be destroyed. That battle's been going on for centuries - what's going on in Syria is now the latest chapter of a long bloody sectarian war.
If Assad is forcibly eradicated Iran will fight as the Shia in Syria will be hunted for slaughter. The regional bloodbath will be unleashed and nuclear armed Israel will lash out. The Russians are sending battleships to reinforce Assad (and their port). The ramifications are catastrophic.
The conflict is already spreading into Lebanon.
Syrian rebels attack Hezbollah's positions in Lebanon
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014405559
jzodda
(2,124 posts)You are talking about something different than I was. I was talking to how the winning faction (if they were to win) would deal with each other, not the losers.
The Assad's leadership and family is party of an obscure sect of the Shia based the mountains. Many Shia even consider them heretics. So maybe the demonization will be limited to them only.
This has not become full sectarian conflict however. There are Shia in the FSA and Shia on the governing rebel council. Now Hezbollah is a wild card in this. They are becoming more involved near the border. This could push this conflict over the edge.
Regardless of all of this I still root for the rebels and will continue to do so.
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)This IS a full religious sectarian conflict and arbitrarily drawn borders from 50 - 60 years ago mean nothing in the history of this region.
If you are not considering this as fact than you are sorely misinformed. If you have been viewing the "Arab Spring" revolutions as some kind of grass roots "democratic" movement than you are not paying attention to what's been happening in those countries "post revolution". All of them have formed Islamist Sunni governments and that isn't by chance.
Wake up. I don't mean that as a diss. You appear to be well intentioned. I simply don't think we can fool ourselves about what's happening in the region. Nuclear Israel is too damn dangerous and THEY are the wild card. The US has grossly misinterpreted the ME since we first became enmeshed in the region decades ago and I fear that Obama can/will become persuaded to take a side. We do NOT know who the Syrian "rebels" actually are - exactly the same as Afghanistan when we armed AQ against the Soviets.
pampango
(24,692 posts)there is a large element of just that. Are Sunni fundamentalists, elements in the West, dictators in the region and others taking advantage of the chaos to pursue their own goals? Undoubtedly. That does not mean that the desire of regular people to live under non-repressive governments was not a major factor. They are not that different from us. One of their goals in life is not that of living with no rights.
Just because the Great Terror came shortly after the French Revolution does not mean that the French people overthrew a king because they wanted to be ruled by a non-royal dictatorship. Just because Stalin was one result of the Russian Revolution does not mean that the Russian people wanted to replace the Tsar with a non-royal brutal dictator. The French, the Russians, the Syrians and the Egyptians all want about the same things that we want. They (and we) do not always get what we want, but that does not mean that we learn to passively accept bad government just because the alternative may prove to be worse.
Juan Cole: Tunisia's 3-way class polarization - workers, upper class and fundamentalists
Tunisia is roiled not just by a religion/secular divide but by a Religious Right vs. Workers and peasants divide, with many middle class intellectuals siding with the latter. That is why the protests took place in hardscrabble rural towns as well as in downtown Tunis. Rural Tunisia is relatively religious, but it is also disproportionately unemployed, and al-Nahda has yet to do much for them. Indeed, where they have tried to strike and protest on labor issues, it has put them down (in a way it seems uninterested in putting down violent Salafis).
As usual, a lot of pundits are looking to use the instability in Tunisia to indict the Arab Spring. But the divisions and the structural problems in the country were largely produced by the old dictatorship, which could no longer deal with them by state coercion. Tunisia is wracked by that new phenomenon, of open political struggle. The country needs to rework it into peaceful civil politics if it is to go ahead, but the struggle itself is salutary. The old Tunisia of 80,000 secret police spying on citizens’ every word and the criminalization of political speech is gone, and good riddance. People who want that back for the sake of ‘stability’ are being unrealistic; it is what produced the instability, because it was untenable in the long run.
http://www.juancole.com/2013/02/tunisias-spring-turmoil.htmlHuman Rights Watch: Before the Arab Spring, the Unseen Thaw
Why didn’t we see the upheavals coming? One reason was because we overestimated the robustness of some of the authoritarian regimes, and underestimated demands for a better life, measured partly in human rights terms. Yes, we heard a lot about the hogra, an Algerian term used throughout North Africa to denote the contempt of rulers toward their people. But we failed to see how quickly it could ignite into a region-wide revolt that is, in large part, a struggle for dignity.
Long before Tunisian peddler Mohamed Bouazizi set himself ablaze on December 17, 2010, to protest a humiliating run-in that day with local police—igniting unrest that ousted President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali one month later and spread as far as Syria, Bahrain, and Yemen—there were countless, equally poignant protests against indignity that passed unnoticed. But they added to the pent-up frustrations that gave resonance to Bouazizi’s desperate act.
Even in Syria and Libya—where the governments were among the region’s most brutal—human rights contestation picked up during the past decade. In the former, the “Damascus Spring” reform movement and the Committees for the Revival of Civil Society that launched shortly after Bashar al-Asad succeeded his father as president in 2000, as well as the Damascus Declaration of 2005, displayed a new assertiveness by small groups of Syrians demanding basic rights, although many wound up serving long prison terms. And in Libya, families of victims of the 1996 mass killings in Abu Salim prison became the first group in the country to demonstrate regularly in public after a North Benghazi court in 2008 ordered the government to reveal the fate of Abu Salim prisoners who had “disappeared.”
We didn’t see the Arab Spring coming because we missed signs of the thaw. But we would do well to keep in mind what Arab peoples showed us about the power of the aspiration for dignity, a power that they are unlikely to surrender anytime soon.
http://www.hrw.org/world-report-2012/arab-spring-unseen-thaw
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)and in real life who don't seem to consider all of the facts about what's going on there. They are encouraging the US to become involved and/or they conveniently forget about Israel plunked in the middle, or they don't see the dangerous religious implications etc. I just believe its important to point out the full scale of what's happening when it comes up. The cheerleaders (imho) don't appear to ever consider the full scale of horror that's looming around the corner for the region.
Also I'm tired of an ignorant rush to war from folks who seem to believe we should be "helping" the "revolutionaries", or that we can manage the chaos that inevitably follows these sorts of things, or that we can even adequately pick who the "good guys" are. I'm absolutely sure we are damned if we do intervene and damned if we don't but personally I'm voting for the "don't intervene" side.
jzodda
(2,124 posts)To somehow justify non intervention and support the regime you are trying to change the nature of the conflict by substituting the words Government vs Rebels to Sunni vs. Shia.
Its a false equivalence. There is still a right and wrong. If it so happens that it breaks down demographically that most rebels are Sunni and the gov forces are Shia, Allawite and Christian then so be it.
It does not change the fact that the rebels are fighting the gov. It does not change the fact that the gov has used terrible tactics vs civilians, and far more than the rebels. The rebels are not using tanks, the rebels are not using airstrikes, or ground to ground missiles. The rebels have hardly any heavy weapons.
Just about EVERY ngo as well as the UN has said that while there have been atrocities committed by both sides its overwhelmingly lopsided in favor of the gov forces.
All your convoluted and twisted lingo to try and somehow support Assad does not in the end hold any water. The only trump card that supporters of Assad and his thugs have left is to try and put forth the notion that this is a religious conflict and that he rebels are all terrorists. Well its not going to work.
To be clear though I don't support intervention either. Not directly at least. The US can't always be the worlds police force. We have our own problems to work through.
If You really want to know more about the current state of the conflict on the ground and who makes up rebel forces watch this great 25:00 video on AlJazeera.
Its titled "Syria: Shifting the strategic balance"
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidesyria/2013/02/2013217115930168889.html
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)jzodda
(2,124 posts)Its just that some of what you were saying Assad supporters have also been saying. They are desperate to spin this conflict into a religious war so the US and Europe won't support the rebels more forcefully.
I should not have said that you support the regime and you can't take that from your statements. You may have said some of the things they have been saying but for a different reason, which seeming is to keep this conflict from spreading as many others have also been saying. Hopefully it won't spread- I share that goal.
You should check out that video. They do a weekly show now on the war there and its very informative.
pampango
(24,692 posts)If the latest Assad family ruler were mainly interested in the 'independence and sovereignty' of Syria he could have negotiated with other Syrians for a peaceful transfer of power to other Syrians and a non-royal form of government when Syrians took to the streets in massive peaceful protests 2 years ago.
He chose the path of repression (always a favorite path of dictators who have large armies and a desire to hold on to the personal power that he inherited from his father) gambling that his military could win a civil war if it came to that. The king (a non-Sunni in a majority-Sunni country) is smart enough to know that a civil war in Syria, if it happened, would not be a quick victory for professional soldiers with tanks and planes over civilians learning how to shoot a rifle and a few military deserters. It would be long, ugly and sectarian. That is what has happened. Après moi le déluge.
Most of those opposed to Assad's royal dictatorship are not 'religious terrorists' (though the longer the civil war goes on the more true that becomes). Most of the opposition to the king comes from Syrians who see a chance to escape from life under a repressive regime.
An argument can be made that Syrians are going from the 'frying pan' to the 'fire', but that argument has rarely stopped revolutions in the past. The French Revolution overthrew Louis XVI but got the Great Terror a few years later. Russian overthrew the Tsar but got Stalin a few years later. People rebel against the repression of royal rule even though there is no guarantee of what will come after it. That is why royal families do not rule forever. (If you or I lived under the repressive rule of a royal family for a few decades we might well take to the streets in protest its continuation.)
To portray a dictator as a great protector of national 'independence and sovereignty' against 'religious terrorism' is precisely the 'logic' offered by Bush in 2001. Perhaps Syrians should be 'smart' enough to have accepted continued royal rule because the alternatives might be even worse, but history shows that is not how people think.
jzodda
(2,124 posts)n/t
David__77
(23,372 posts)"The king (a non-Sunni in a majority-Sunni country) is smart enough to know that a civil war in Syria, if it happened, would not be a quick victory for professional soldiers with tanks and planes over civilians learning how to shoot a rifle and a few military deserters. It would be long, ugly and sectarian."
I hope you're not inferring that Assad is a royalist BECAUSE he is a non-Sunni. The anti-Alawite agitation of the Sunnis reminds me very much of the anti-Semitism of old Europe's oh so pious Christendom. Yeah, there are lots of backward people pissed that a "heretic" is president, and that most of the country's leadership are "heretics" as well.
"Most of those opposed to Assad's royal dictatorship are not 'religious terrorists' (though the longer the civil war goes on the more true that becomes). Most of the opposition to the king comes from Syrians who see a chance to escape from life under a repressive regime."
How do we know the character of "most?" And does it matter who is numerically superior in any case? Who will achieve hegemony is not just a function of numbers. What Syria, which of the roads that are open to the Syrian people, will lead to the country best for the women, for the non-Muslims, even for the gay people like me!
The NCB, the progressive opposition force, the one that has never engaged in suicide bombings, beheadings, or driven Christians from their homes, has been completely crushed in the pincers between the autocratic government and Sunni extremism.
pampango
(24,692 posts)operate.
Some Syrians are 'pissed' that an Alawite (15% of the population) rules by force a country that is 75% Sunni. (Those percentages are about the same as in apartheid South Africa when minority Whites ruled majority Blacks. Back then liberals thought that all people have a right to have a say in who governs them - regardless of their race, religion or gender - even if they might choose the 'wrong' people as a result.) Other Syrians are 'pissed' because they have no rights regardless of which group the repressive royal ruler happens to belong to. (Egyptians, Tunisians, Libyans and others did not revolt because of which sect their dictator belonged to, but because of rights they did not have.)
A policy of promoting/protecting dictators and royal families in the hopes that they (and their successors) will be more progressive than leaders elected democratically is not a sound long term policy. The chances of obtaining and protecting rights in the long run for women, minority religions and gays is better under democratic governments (even flawed ones). Relying on a succession of royal rulers to promote and protect these rights is not a liberal alternative.
I agree that peaceful progressives (and non-repressive conservatives, if they existed) lose out as the civil war drags on. The longer revolutions take the more that the violent wings on both sides take command. The peaceful or moderate opposition and support get crushed in the process. Assad is smart enough to know that he benefits from the crushing of moderates and the emergence of the violent wing. Now he can say "You are with me or you are with the terrorists." He could not say that in the spring of 2011.
If the crisis had been resolved early on there would have been a better chance that peaceful protesters and moderate supporters could have worked out a nonviolent solution. (The "NCB, the progressive opposition force, the one that has never engaged in suicide bombings, beheadings, or driven Christians from their homes" was a major player in the early phase of the revolution. It is, as you say, much less so now.)
You may believe that in the spring of 2011 Assad was willing to negotiate a more open and democratic government with peaceful protesters even though that would have endangered his continued rule. I believe he rejected that option since he had a massive military and security system at his disposal that could repress the protesters (as they had in the past). If they failed at this (as they did - and as happened to the security services in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia) and the situation devolved into a civil war, he had the professional soldiers, tanks and planes to win that as well.
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)The reports appear to indicate that the rebels are Sunnis backed by terrorist Sunni religious states like the Saudis who are determined to have their proxy war with Shia Iran via the Shia Alawite Syria.
If it ever were a grass roots type of revolution that was very, very early in the process and appears to have lasted for such a short time its moot as the more sectarian religious rebels quickly overtook that. I'd even go further and bet that the Sunni led kingdoms were watching the Arab Spring movements occur elsewhere and made plans to begin torching Syria as soon as the movement reached there.
Don't get me wrong, Assad is a butcher thug and I'd like nothing better than to see him gone but right now until he can negotiate an exit, without being assassinated by the Sunni-led "rebels", him staying alive is keeping the lid on this simmering civil war. Once he goes the entire region will be engulfed in a firestorm of Sunni/Shia violence with nuclear Israel dragged in.
pampango
(24,692 posts)And that is what the French king Louis XVI said: "Apres moi le deluge." And indeed he was right. The Great Terror was not long in coming.
Juan Cole estimated a few months ago that 10% of the opposition fighters (admittedly some of the best fighters) were foreign jihadists. (Even 10% is a large absolute number in terms of how much damage they can do.That percentage, if accurate, is undoubtedly higher now. Cole is the only one who has any credibility with me who as given an estimate.
Here's a Cole posting in late January:
As the above piece makes clear, it is worrying that some of the recent military successes have been won by the Jabhat al-Nusra or Victory Front, hard line fundamentalists who may have an al-Qaeda-like ideology. This group is very minor in the revolution a a whole, representing a small percentage of the actual fighters, but the US has designated it a terrorist organization in hopes of isolating it from the rest of the opposition. (So far, as the SA article makes clear, there is close coordination between the group and the moderate Free Syrian Army.)
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Unlike some, it's "his country" to me means that he belongs to it.
Not as in your sense of "Syria is his to rule and dominate."
David__77
(23,372 posts)If he falls, it should be in Syria.
dlwickham
(3,316 posts)sounds like he would fit in with the Russians since they have a long history of dictators who are responsible for the murder of millions of their citizens
PufPuf23
(8,771 posts)is located in Syria.
Seldom mentioned in the build up to the Libya incursion, Gaddafi was negotiating with Russia to allow a second Russian Mediterranean naval base on the coast near Benghazi.
The Libyan base was on the site of a naval base occupied by the USA in the aftermath of WWII.
roxy1234
(117 posts)Why is it so controversial for Russia to go in an rout the terrorists attacking Syria when its ok for the French to go into Mail and Saudi Arabia to do the same in Bahrain?
dlwickham
(3,316 posts)and some people on here don't see anything wrong with Islamic terrorists
it's a big let's hate the West circle jerk
roxy1234
(117 posts)But why cant Russia use that justification to attack those Islamic terrorists attacking their ally in Syria?
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)For sale sign on the old rusty Russian warships 