Cyprus-Forum.com

[DrCyprus]

We are going to keep Mr. Putin very busy for a good number of years.

What you are saying to me translates as:

Both the U.S.A and Russia will prolong the war in the M.E in order to justify using disproportionately sickening amounts of their tax payer's funds and transfering them as wealth to their weapon-military industrial complexes. Meanwhile, everyone else will be footing the refugee bill and getting poorer and more uneducated so that a few people can control the world through selling and using weapons.

[Paphitis]

We are going to keep Mr. Putin very busy for a good number of years.

What you are saying to me translates as:

Both the U.S.A and Russia will prolong the war in the M.E in order to justify using disproportionately sickening amounts of their tax payer's funds and transfering them as wealth to their weapon-military industrial complexes. Meanwhile, everyone else will be footing the refugee bill and getting poorer and more uneducated so that a few people can control the world through selling and using weapons.

What I am saying is that the Gulf States are going to prolong this war and fund it with Petrodollars.

[Paphitis]

Yeah really,

Yes really!

Putin has his new Afghanistan and not to mention Chechnya!

We are going to keep Mr. Putin very busy for a good number of years.

Mr Putin is destroying your rebels faster than you can assemble and supply them.

Don't think so.

These rebels are not going to be destroyed with the use of Air power. You will see what happens when the Syrian Army begins its Ground Offensive. You guys are going to be in a world of hurt because it is very hard to fight these determined rebels with a conventional army as Russia knows all too well from its experience in Afghanistan.

[Get Real!]

The criminal Americans caught with their pants down again dropping supplies off to ISIS in Iraq...

https://mobile.twitter.com/Hayder_alKho ... 5791422464

[Tim Drayton]

I actually visited Syria for holidays before this bullshit began. I saw the beggar children in the street, I saw the police everywhere, I saw the gigantic pictures of Assad on every single building and the little pictures of Assad in every single Syrian taxi. Assad isn't exactly a leader to support.

All the same, and unfortunately for the Syrian people who tried hard to do something about it, all these rebel groups have nothing to do with them. No rebel group in Syria represents the Syrian people nor is Assad.

The U.S.A/U.K, Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia highjacked their rebellion, their spring for proper democracy with imported killers and fanatics and depraved scum from all over the globe.

The only victim in this story are the Syrian people.

That sounds spot on, but I don't think the aspiration for change has been killed.

[Tim Drayton]

It gives me no pleasure to report this, because I want nothing so much as to see the inhuman barbarians of Daesh destroyed, but the following I am afraid supports the main thesis I have been advancing all the time:

Daesh fighters have seized Syrian villages on the outskirts of Aleppo from rival insurgent fighters, a monitoring group said on Friday, despite Russian air strikes that Moscow says have targeted the militant group.

http://gulfnews.com/news/mena/syria/dae ... -1.1597865

Putin is using the propaganda line that the main target of his Syrian intervention is Daesh, and according to Russian propaganda they have supposedly taken quite a pasting. Yet, in the past couple of days Daesh have advanced on Aleppo, a city they have never been close to before. How are they managing to do so well when Russia is supposedly destroying them? Putin, who having been a staunch atheist for all of his life suddenly underwent a miracle conversion to Christianity at about the age of 50 at a time when it was politically expedient for him to do so and now parades before the gullible as some kind of defender of the faith, is also lying about his true goal in Syria. His forces are attacking all of the anti-Assad forces in Syria but not Daesh. Daesh was created by Assad and it is expedient for the Assad regime for Daesh to exist until the rest of the opposition to his regime has been annihilated. The facts are starting to come out. As Abraham Lincoln once said, “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”

[Tim Drayton]

Stories like these, taken from the website ‘Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently’ produced by Syrians (and Daesh has already killed some of those who work to keep this site going) who support democratic change in their country and now live under the occupation of the Daesh thugs, fill me with hope, despite everything.

Souad Nofal: The teacher who stood up to ISIS

When the Assad regime was forced from the northeastern city of Raqqa in the summer of 2013, Souad Nofal was elated. A schoolteacher in the town, she belonged to a revolutionary group that used non-violent tactics to instigate civil unrest. ‘We rushed into the street, crying and singing,’ she remembers. ‘I wanted to live as they do in the countries we see on the TV – for a person to say whatever they want and not be afraid.’

The elation was short lived. The Islamist group that had just started to call itself ISIS quickly became a major presence in the city. Many of Raqqa’s revolutionaries left, and those that remained were intimidated into silence. But as Nofal saw the revolution’s promise betrayed, she decided to confront the Islamists.

Every day for more than two months she stood alone outside ISIS headquarters in Raqqa carrying a hand-drawn placard. Each criticized a different aspect of the group’s ideology or behaviour. ‘Don’t talk so much about your religion,’ said one, ‘show us your religion through decency, compassion, and good deeds.’ Another read ‘Our revolution was started by honourable people, and is being stolen by thieves.’ The simplest message of all was ‘ISIS = Assad’.
It was an astonishingly brave thing to do. ‘They put AK47s to my head, but I laughed at them’, says Nofal. ‘I could feel their fear, fear of the words I wrote on my posters.’

In early October 2013, Nofal used her placard to condemn the burning of two Christian churches in Raqqa. ISIS militants ripped the paper to shreds and fired shots at Nofal and her sister as they ran down the street. Days later, Nofal escaped across the border into Turkey. She is now a refugee in Holland.

http://www.raqqa-sl.com/en/?p=1455

If enough decent ordinary Syrians continue to aspire for a better future then I believe they will eventually attain it, despite the odds.

[Tim Drayton]

Stories like these, taken from the website ‘Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently’ produced by Syrians (and Daesh has already killed some of those who work to keep this site going) who support democratic change in their country and now live under the occupation of the Daesh thugs, fill me with hope, despite everything.

Souad Nofal: The teacher who stood up to ISIS

When the Assad regime was forced from the northeastern city of Raqqa in the summer of 2013, Souad Nofal was elated. A schoolteacher in the town, she belonged to a revolutionary group that used non-violent tactics to instigate civil unrest. ‘We rushed into the street, crying and singing,’ she remembers. ‘I wanted to live as they do in the countries we see on the TV – for a person to say whatever they want and not be afraid.’

The elation was short lived. The Islamist group that had just started to call itself ISIS quickly became a major presence in the city. Many of Raqqa’s revolutionaries left, and those that remained were intimidated into silence. But as Nofal saw the revolution’s promise betrayed, she decided to confront the Islamists.

Every day for more than two months she stood alone outside ISIS headquarters in Raqqa carrying a hand-drawn placard. Each criticized a different aspect of the group’s ideology or behaviour. ‘Don’t talk so much about your religion,’ said one, ‘show us your religion through decency, compassion, and good deeds.’ Another read ‘Our revolution was started by honourable people, and is being stolen by thieves.’ The simplest message of all was ‘ISIS = Assad’.
It was an astonishingly brave thing to do. ‘They put AK47s to my head, but I laughed at them’, says Nofal. ‘I could feel their fear, fear of the words I wrote on my posters.’

In early October 2013, Nofal used her placard to condemn the burning of two Christian churches in Raqqa. ISIS militants ripped the paper to shreds and fired shots at Nofal and her sister as they ran down the street. Days later, Nofal escaped across the border into Turkey. She is now a refugee in Holland.

http://www.raqqa-sl.com/en/?p=1455

If enough decent ordinary Syrians continue to aspire for a better future then I believe they will eventually attain it, despite the odds.

PS - Do you think the above person had the opportunity to vote in the 2014 presidential election that supposedly gave Assad 88.7% of the vote?

[Tim Drayton]

I have literally not spoken to a single Syrian who sympathises with Assad. Not even one!

I can't say that I have spoken to enough Russians about politics for it to make up a representative sample, but all the Russians I have spoken to share my views about Putin, even though he apparently has 80%+ approval ratings. Strange.

[Tim Drayton]

Others are seeing that Putin’s campaign, wittingly or unwittingly, is aiding Daesh.

Islamic State has seized control of several villages north of Aleppo, Syria, despite Russian and US air strikes said to be targeting the group.
Moscow says its air force has killed 300 militants over the past 24 hours.

But a BBC correspondent in the area says the strikes seem to be mostly hitting rival rebel groups, allowing Islamic State (IS) to push forward.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34488087