ISIS in Iraq and Syria

Sir Matt said:
Kremlin: "Didn't happen."



Much like I'm sure that didn't happen either.
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The headline:
"13 dead as Russia strike hits Syria field hospital".

The content:
"Speaking on condition of anonymity, she did not specify whether the strikes were conducted by Russian warplanes."

I'm sure, there'll be reports in the future citing collateral damage from the Russian airstrikes and I'm sure some of them will turn out to be true, the civilian casualties are unfortunately inevitable in war. But so far most of what I've seen in the subject related reports from the western media is just a propaganda driven hysteria aiming to portray Russian involvement in Syria in a negative way.
 
antihenry said:
The headline:
"13 dead as Russia strike hits Syria field hospital".

The content:
"Speaking on condition of anonymity, she did not specify whether the strikes were conducted by Russian warplanes."

I'm sure, there'll be reports in the future citing collateral damage from the Russian airstrikes and I'm sure some of them will turn out to be true, the civilian casualties are unfortunately inevitable in war. But so far most of what I've seen in the subject related reports from the western media is just a propaganda driven hysteria aiming to portray Russian involvement in Syria in a negative way.
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Anytime you're involved in a war, it will by definition be portrayed in a negative manner. In this case, the Russian propaganda machine is going to have to figure out how to deal with the reality that people on the ground are going to report what has happened, and that information is going to be published by various media and NGO outlets. Rather than denying bombing various field hospitals, they should at least come out and say they did, apologize for civilians casualties, and commit to changing tactics to where civilians are not being targetted to go to militants.
 
Kaos said:
You're absolutely right, the peoples of Syria and Iraq are the ultimate losers in all this.

I can't speak for the Syrians, however I can tell you that the sentiment amongst Iraqis is that they very much welcome Russian support over whatever the US is doing over there. It doesn't make Russia some sort of benevolent vanguard, but it doesn't change the fact that they're currently more popular than the US over there - something many of the pro-Washington posters here seem to routinely be in denial about.
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To be fair, it would happen to any foreign military force anywhere. The longer they stay, the more the locals will turn against their "liberators". It's just a nature of things.
 
antihenry said:
The headline:
"13 dead as Russia strike hits Syria field hospital".

The content:
"Speaking on condition of anonymity, she did not specify whether the strikes were conducted by Russian warplanes."

I'm sure, there'll be reports in the future citing collateral damage from the Russian airstrikes and I'm sure some of them will turn out to be true, the civilian casualties are unfortunately inevitable in war. But so far most of what I've seen in the subject related reports from the western media is just a propaganda driven hysteria aiming to portray Russian involvement in Syria in a negative way.
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Of course civilian casualties will happen in war, especially asymmetric war. My point was that Russia started denying that there were any civilian casualties soon after the campaign started and characterized any such reports as "information attacks" on the Russian state to discredit those and future claims of civilian casualties. In the same press release, he said they were coordinating with the US on strikes, which was a blatant lie. It's pure theater.
 
American soldier killed in US operation to free 70 Kurdish hostages from Isil in Iraq

By Ruth Sherlock, Washington
22 Oct 2015

An American soldier has been killed in an overnight operation to rescue Kurdish hostages being held by Islamic State jihadists in Iraq, according to US officials.

The US Special Forces troop, whose identity has not yet been disclosed, was killed during raid by US special forces on an outpost of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant that released seventy Kurdish prisoners, two US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity told CNN.

This would be the first US combat fatality on the ground in the fight against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

A Pentagon spokesperson declined to confirm or deny the reports to the Telegraph: "We have nothing to say at this time," he said.

The attack took place in Hawija, an Isil-held town south west of Kirkuk in northern Iraq.

The mission was a collaborative effort between US Special Forces and their Kurdish allies, Iraqi officials told the New York Times.

The officials said the objective had been to break into an Isil controlled prison on the east of Hawija.

Kurdish special forces were said to have taken the lead on the attack, but worked in coordination with commandos on the ground. They were also reportedly backed by US air power.

The operation came as the US-led coalition tries to regain momentum in its fight against the jihadists in Iraq. Hawija had been a major flashpoint in recent weeks.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...ee-70-Kurdish-hostages-from-ISIS-in-Iraq.html
 
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Uzz said:
I'm still waiting for a shred of evidence that he's falsifying claims or he's made them up.

The Guardian 'article' is full of hearsay and rumours - I've read it there's literally nothing there. This is the sum of their investigation ffs



Give me something to bloody work with here?? You've espoused time and time again they make things up, but I'm still waiting for you to give me an iota of something that is untrue.



Anyway, to your second link, it does nothing to aid your argument:



So again - where is this big lie that you claim he's been reporting? Where's the evidence that he's made it all up? Because surely, the only way to report the news is if you're physically there witnessing it. :wenger: I mean, there is clear hard evidence of what the regime has done reported from multiple sources. I still don't see your point, and tbh, I don't think you're making much of a point.

And then you back up your point with RT links....which doesn't actually show/say anything that credits your argument? antihenry posted it earlier claiming it said x and y, and I watched it and it didn't back any of those up.

So - I'll ask you again - can you provide me with evidence that he has made/falsified claims regarding the Syrian civil war?

Also to this bit:
'who's never been to Syria in 15 years'

Why does that bother you so much? He grew up in Syria, lived there for 30 odd years under the previous regime. You'd think he'd have some semblance of what Syrian life is like.

And this:


There's many Syrians I know living here for this same reason.


100% - it's what I've been saying all along. There is no sanctity of life with these guys involved.
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You're missing my point.

@antihenry made the point that the SOHR is a remote one-man setup - this is something you seem to routinely deny. The source material I've provided only reinforces the notion that this is a rather peculiar setup where it pretty much is one-man in his Coventry appartment using 'anonymous sources'.

Now I'm not suggesting that the stories covered by the SOHR are all fabricated, fictional pieces of propaganda, in fact I'll probably concede the story of the Russian strike killing 13 civilians may be true, but rather its bizarre how much of the Western media uses this unicellular organisation, openly aligned to one-side in a civil war, as a gospel-like source in covering said civil war.

Ask yourself - you wouldn't trust RT sources covering the Syrian war, so why trust the FSA-aligned SOHR?

Raoul said:
:lol: @Kaos you're not going to outfox Uzz on this one.
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Let's keep this an adult debate, no need for the childish digs.
 
Sir Matt said:
Except they did take responsibility for it. The reasoning behind it was unclear for several days, but the US never denied that it happened.
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Why was the reasoning unclear? These gunship attacks are to be directed by troops on the ground. These included US troops. Nobody was being fired at. MSF told them repeatedly to stop during the attack. The Afgan troop thing was a bogeyman. They lied about human shields and a Taliban base.
Unnamed sources have justified it since senior Talibanis were in the hospital, which would make this the deliberate targeting of a hospital not being used to attacks troops and hence a war crime.
It's quite clear they were lying for days, and refuse any other investigations. Given the rest of the (recent, again not going into past crimes) US military track record with gunships using journalists for target practice, I see no reason to trust the govt on this.

What "responsibility" have they taken for it? Any explanation for why it happened?
 
Kaos said:
You're missing my point.

@antihenry made the point that the SOHR is a remote one-man setup - this is something you seem to routinely deny. The source material I've provided only reinforces the notion that this is a rather peculiar setup where it pretty much is one-man in his Coventry appartment using 'anonymous sources'.

Now I'm not suggesting that the stories covered by the SOHR are all fabricated, fictional pieces of propaganda, in fact I'll probably concede the story of the Russian strike killing 13 civilians may be true, but rather its bizarre how much of the Western media uses this unicellular organisation, openly aligned to one-side in a civil war, as a gospel-like source in covering said civil war.

Ask yourself - you wouldn't trust RT sources covering the Syrian war, so why trust the FSA-aligned SOHR?



Let's keep this an adult debate, no need for the childish digs.
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It is an adult debate, he made a comprehensive point by point rebuttal of your previous post.
 
Kaos said:
You're missing my point.

@antihenry made the point that the SOHR is a remote one-man setup - this is something you seem to routinely deny. The source material I've provided only reinforces the notion that this is a rather peculiar setup where it pretty much is one-man in his Coventry appartment using 'anonymous sources'.

Now I'm not suggesting that the stories covered by the SOHR are all fabricated, fictional pieces of propaganda, in fact I'll probably concede the story of the Russian strike killing 13 civilians may be true, but rather its bizarre how much of the Western media uses this unicellular organisation, openly aligned to one-side in a civil war, as a gospel-like source in covering said civil war.

Ask yourself - you wouldn't trust RT sources covering the Syrian war, so why trust the FSA-aligned SOHR?

Let's keep this an adult debate, no need for the childish digs.
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You did make that point though - that he's made falsified claims (this is a few weeks ago). Even if he it initially was a one man set up - I posted a list of people who are a part of the set up when we initially debated this. And don't you think these 'anonymous sources' have some legitimacy considering we can corroborate what they say with other sources reporting the same thing? I mean, if they were outlandish claims, I'd agree with you, but they report the same thing that appears on twitter feeds, independent sources, and mainstream avenues as well. I really don't get what you're trying to say here apart from the fact that it's one guy. It's neither here nor there. Don't you think one of these news corps with a bit more nous, time, £, and resources would have proven he was making it all up by now? The sum of their investigation saying 'it's one guy off the M1'. Would you take him seriously if it was 10 guys in a room in Coventry? Or if he was in London? I mean, come on - it's a really random bone of contention that doesn't really amount to much.

And I can't see comparison with RT sources. I'm no expert on RT, but considering Russian news sources were denying Russian troops on the ground in Ukraine not too long ago, I wouldn't use what they say as any form of reliability. And considering Russia is quite authoritarian on what is/isn't reported, I don't seen anything analogous to SOHR. The SOHR don't actually do any opinion pieces. There's nothing on their site which is opinion or subjective based.

Here's an example of one or two of their 'articles' today:
Clashes around Aleppo and its countryside
October 22, 2015 Comments Offon Clashes around Aleppo and its countryside


Aleppo province: Clashes taking place between Islamic battalions and regime forces around Bala village, amid targeting regime tanks with missiles what devastated a tank. Clashes also took place between the two sides around al-Khaldia, Shehan, and al-Malhab barracks, and around Bashkwi, Hendarat, and al-Brej areas.

17 explosive barrels hit Homs countryside
October 22, 2015 Comments Offon 17 explosive barrels hit Homs countryside


Homs province: Rose to 17, the number of explosive barrels which were dropped on the northern countryside of Homs, no reports of losses. amid aerial bombardment on the area and clashes between regime forces and rebels in Talbisa and around the villages of Senesel and Jolak in the northern countryside what devastated a tank for regime forces around al-Dar al-Kebera in the northern countryside.

Idlib province: A child was killed by Russian airstrike targeted al-Bara town in the Zawiya mount about a month ago.
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Like I said, there's practically 0 opinion on what is reported.

If it annoys you that Western media use him, your bone of contention lies with them and not with SOHR. It'd be like me blaming Rooney for being picked, when I should blame LvG.
 
Uzz said:
You did make that point though - that he's made falsified claims (this is a few weeks ago). Even if he it initially was a one man set up - I posted a list of people who are a part of the set up when we initially debated this. And don't you think these 'anonymous sources' have some legitimacy considering we can corroborate what they say with other sources reporting the same thing? I mean, if they were outlandish claims, I'd agree with you, but they report the same thing that appears on twitter feeds, independent sources, and mainstream avenues as well. I really don't get what you're trying to say here apart from the fact that it's one guy. It's neither here nor there. Don't you think one of these news corps with a bit more nous, time, £, and resources would have proven he was making it all up by now? The sum of their investigation saying 'it's one guy off the M1'. Would you take him seriously if it was 10 guys in a room in Coventry? Or if he was in London? I mean, come on - it's a really random bone of contention that doesn't really amount to much.

And I can't see comparison with RT sources. I'm no expert on RT, but considering Russian news sources were denying Russian troops on the ground in Ukraine not too long ago, I wouldn't use what they say as any form of reliability. And considering Russia is quite authoritarian on what is/isn't reported, I don't seen anything analogous to SOHR. The SOHR don't actually do any opinion pieces. There's nothing on their site which is opinion or subjective based.

Here's an example of one or two of their 'articles' today:


Like I said, there's practically 0 opinion on what is reported.

If it annoys you that Western media use him, your bone of contention lies with them and not with SOHR. It'd be like me blaming Rooney for being picked, when I should blame LvG.
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Spot on. It's a Russian government funded news site and tv station that is used to propagate pro-Putin narratives to foreign audiences. It is therefore nothing more than state run propaganda.
 
Raoul said:
Spot on. It's a Russian government funded news site and tv station that is used to propagate pro-Putin narratives to foreign audiences. It is therefore nothing more than state run propaganda.
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So? Doesn't mean, they're always wrong. Just like it doesn't mean that 'free' and 'independent' mass media from across the ocean gets it right more often than RT. It's up to an individual to dissect the information from various sources and decide what they want to believe.
 
antihenry said:
So? Doesn't mean, they're always wrong. Just like it doesn't mean that 'free' and 'independent' mass media from across the ocean gets it right more often than RT. It's up to an individual to dissect the information from various sources and decide what they want to believe.
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They're no more always wrong than Fox News are always wrong. Both are examples of government and corporations blatantly attempting to influence audiences to the political views of their owners.

As far as "its up to the individual to dissect the information", most individuals don't have the ability to do that, especially in an authoritarian regime like Russia, where the government controls what sort of information the public are allowed to see.
 
Kaos said:
Pretty much all of the Iraqi military's successes in recent months have largely been down to the militias. I can't see them being too happy with Abadi turning down some much needed Russian air support.
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Of course, but I don't think they even need the Russian airstrikes. I was hoping the US will leave them alone this time, well...

"Three or four weeks ago, there was no movement at all around Ramadi, no movement toward Beiji," said Dunford. "Now we see more movement than we've seen before, movement that I think we can take a look at and say, 'OK, how do we reinforce success now?'"

http://news.yahoo.com/top-us-military-officer-arrives-talks-iraq-075512831.html

I think we all know what's coming, but hopefully the political pressure to save ISIS (through supporting ISIS's political representatives in Iraq) will be less than usual with the Russians lurking now..

By the way, I like the way the US media is totally ignoring Iraq's most swift and decisive victory in the whole conflict, and one in ISIS' most fortified cities. I wonder why...
 
Are some people here seriously arguing that that man who lives in England is a neutral and reliable source of news regarding Syria?! :lol: He has the rebels flag on his site and calls the "rebels" who are killed "martyrs".
 
Classic attempt at attempting to discredit the source of the information rather than deal with the substance. Obviously we can't expect two dictatorships to come clean about their atrocities, which is why they and their cyberstooges are going after the observatory and any other NGO that questions their misdeeds.
 
Raoul said:
Classic attempt at attempting to discredit the source of the information rather than deal with the substance. Obviously we can't expect two dictatorships to come clean about their atrocities, which is why they and their cyberstooges are going after the observatory and any other NGO that questions their misdeeds.
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Exactly. I'm still waiting for someone to post some evidence that SOHR makes it up or offers some opinion on what they report. But instead we get drivel with green smileys as if that's validation.

And the funny thing is we can corroborate what is shown on multiple other sources.

:wenger:
 
Raoul said:
Classic attempt at attempting to discredit the source of the information rather than deal with the substance. Obviously we can't expect two dictatorships to come clean about their atrocities, which is why they and their cyberstooges are going after the observatory and any other NGO that questions their misdeeds.
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That's what you do with RT (or any news source you don't like) every single time. You never discuss the content, you always try to dismiss the news and resort to discrediting the source instead.

You want us to take the news of your source (the US supported and, probably funded, SOHR) as granted without questioning (even though his bias is very obvious), while you refuse to even discuss the news on other news sites (that you don't like) and demand hard evidence when anything is reported before even discussing it. You can't have it both ways.

The reality is all news sources skew the news/lie in their favor (have you noticed how the US propaganda machine have gone crazy since the Russian airstrikes started in Syria and the joined operation room was formed in Iraq?). Everybody does it, even you. Not long ago you posted that "news" about the British giving orders to their airforce to attack Russian jets if they get close to them (remember?), which turned out to be a total bullsh*t of course, and it wasn't more than an attempt to calm the nerves and give the impression that Russia is weak, typical propaganda.

So stop this nonsense and take Kaos' advice so we can have a good debate here.
 
berbatrick said:
Oh come on, half the posts in this thread are about how bad RT is.
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That's a legitimate criticism since RT is a mouthpiece for the Russian government, who are engaged in bombing Syrian citizens. The Syrian observatory seems like an NGO who are attempting to report civilian casualties on the ground irrespective of who is responsible for them. They are light years apart in terms of comparability.
 
Raoul said:
They're no more always wrong than Fox News are always wrong. Both are examples of government and corporations blatantly attempting to influence audiences to the political views of their owners.

As far as "its up to the individual to dissect the information", most individuals don't have the ability to do that, especially in an authoritarian regime like Russia, where the government controls what sort of information the public are allowed to see.
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There's an invention, I'm not sure if you've heard about it, its called the Internet. You can connect your computer to it and check the various new sources, blogs, etc and figure out what you think the actual truth is. You can do it in Russia, in the USA and many other places across the world. If you happen to know more than one language, that helps in your search for an objective information, too.
 
Raoul said:
That's a legitimate criticism since RT is a mouthpiece for the Russian government, who are engaged in bombing Syrian citizens. The Syrian observatory seems like an NGO who are attempting to report civilian casualties on the ground irrespective of who is responsible for them. They are light years apart in terms of comparability.
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Who's funding SOHR?
 
antihenry said:
There's an invention, I'm not sure if you've heard about it, its called the Internet. You can connect your computer to it and check the various new sources, blogs, etc and figure out what you think the actual truth is. You can do it in Russia, in the USA and many other places across the world. If you happen to know more than one language, that helps in your search for an objective information, too.
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I've used that invention and I've asked you Kaos + Danny boy to see if he's made false claims, given opinions on incidents, been disingenuous etc and you're all left found wanting. If we use that same invention on Russian news corps we can find differing information.
 
All this bleating about the SOHR is ridiculous. The sum of your frustrations is its one guy in Covvie. But in terms of the reports and incidents themselves has their been anything that isn't true? Genuine question.

And again - there's no opinion on what is reported. The articles are 3-4 sentences long ffs. Where's the big conspiracy?
 
@2cents ,in these last days I had more time to check the twitter list that you shared and is really great.Many photos of villages,militias,tanks...there is even a guy that is traslating hundreds of ISIS administrative documents,the pity is that probably I am missing nice things since there are tweets in arabic. @antihenry ,are you russian?
 
Uzz said:
All this bleating about the SOHR is ridiculous. The sum of your frustrations is its one guy in Covvie. But in terms of the reports and incidents themselves has their been anything that isn't true? Genuine question.

And again - there's no opinion on what is reported. The articles are 3-4 sentences long ffs. Where's the big conspiracy?
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I'll just repond here because I can't be arsed to go up and multi-quote.

Let's forget about the 'one-man covvie' angle and talk of conspiracy and just think of the implications of trusting a man who is openly aligned to the opposition. Firstly, would there be any way of really verifying his stories? You mention his media corraborators, but if they've pretty much accepted him to be the one-stop show for all Syrian news, then we're essentially stuck in a endless loop of unverified stories. If many pro-western media outlets have pretty much accepted his sources as gospel, what's to stop him conjuring up and story and pushing it? It happened during the Iraq war and Libya, where supposed 'internal experts' had conjured up stories about massacres, no one had verified them, and years later they had belatedly been proven to be false. It was of course too late since those countries had since been ransacked. There's of course the other issue of SOHR neglecting to report the massacres and crimes committed by the opposition, and we know they were plentiful.

Regarding RT, well of course they're a untrustworthy source, I never claimed otherwise. But like it or not, they're no different to the SOHR in the sense that their loyalties towards a certain faction are evident.

So I'll ask this question - Do you think its right for a man/organisation who openly backs one side in a civil war, to be an impartial source of human rights observation for this very same civil war?
 
Raoul said:
That's a legitimate criticism since RT is a mouthpiece for the Russian government, who are engaged in bombing Syrian citizens. The Syrian observatory seems like an NGO who are attempting to report civilian casualties on the ground irrespective of who is responsible for them. They are light years apart in terms of comparability.
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Well considering they seem to conveniently forget the crimes committed by their championed opposition factions, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Being an NGO doesn't absolve you from biased reporting.
 
In my opinion Syria, Iraq and Iran are easily capable of destroying ISIS.

I still don't understand why some many countries need to meddle and cause so much havoc on top of the already confused and dangerous situation in Syria. I wonder what the agenda is keeping a few thousand untrained ISIS fighter roaming the country and causing havoc for so long?
 
Raoul said:
Classic attempt at attempting to discredit the source of the information rather than deal with the substance.
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:lol:

You've spent all of this thread doing exactly the same with any source that even slightly disagrees with your point of view.
 
Kaos said:
Well considering they seem to conveniently forget the crimes committed by their championed opposition factions, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Being an NGO doesn't absolve you from biased reporting.
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It certainly doesn't and that should be considered when evaluating the information in each case.
 
Raoul said:
It certainly doesn't and that should be considered when evaluating the information in each case.
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The trouble is, its difficult to evaluate information that is largely unverified. You either choose to believe it or you don't. In the case of many pro-Western media outlets, they opt for the former.

Giving your organisation an official-sounding grandiose name doesn't make it any more credible, especially if its impartiality is compromised from the start.
 
Raoul said:
I've drawn a clear distinction as to why in each case.
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There is no distinction. They are both unreliable sources. Either you address the substance of the sources as you put it or you stop being a hypocrite.
 
Sultan said:
In my opinion Syria, Iraq and Iran are easily capable of destroying ISIS.

I still don't understand why some many countries need to meddle and cause so much havoc on top of the already confused and dangerous situation in Syria. I wonder what the agenda is keeping a few thousand untrained ISIS fighter roaming the country and causing havoc for so long?
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Syria is a failed state and Iraq is not too far away from being one since the central government has hemorrhaged influence beyond the Shi'a areas. Assad, until a few weeks ago, was on the cusp of rebels closing in on him before Putin and the Iranians concocted a scheme to intervene. He's struggling to survive, much less rout ISIS.
 
Akash said:
There is no distinction. They are both unreliable sources. Either you address the substance of the sources as you put it or you stop being a hypocrite.
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There is a distinction in that one is the arm of the Russian government and has millions of dollars behind its propaganda, which makes it a much more insidious operation than some guy running a small NGO and calling people on the ground for information.
 
Any air strikes in Syria are illegal unless they are invited by Syrian authority.

Russia although invited in supporting Assad are responsible for killing innocents and supporting someone who's crimes are well documented.
 
Sultan said:
In my opinion Syria, Iraq and Iran are easily capable of destroying ISIS.

I still don't understand why some many countries need to meddle and cause so much havoc on top of the already confused and dangerous situation in Syria. I wonder what the agenda is keeping a few thousand untrained ISIS fighter roaming the country and causing havoc for so long?
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A broad range of Sunni countries led by Saudi Arabia regard the expansion of Iranian power in the region to be a greater threat to them than jihadism, and so see ISIS as a useful buffer against Iranian influence in Iraq and Syria.

The Syrian government is not entirely unhappy about the rise of ISIS as it makes them look better by comparison and thus draws international support to their side while they fight the other rebel groups which pose a much greater threat.

The rise of ISIS has made the Syrian and Iraqi governments far more dependent on Iranian support, this facilitating the spread of Iranian power in the region, so the Iranians also benefit.

Turkey regards the possibility of Kurdish autonomy as a greater threat to it than ISIS, and so sees them as a useful buffer against the Kurds.

Israel sits back and watches the 'Resistance' bloc and Sunni jihadists kill each other and is probably delighted.

Ultimately, while ISIS hates them all (but reserves special hatred for Iran), the only regional government that appears to regard ISIS as their main enemy is the Iraqi one.
 
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