To live and die in Syria

teddy_irish

A good to watch interview with Bashar Al-Assad broadcasted on 09.11.2012

The syrian President is talking about 25 minutes with the RT presenter and is revealing his point of view which is by default banned from the mainstream media.

pickarooney

It's farmer cornflakes, Olivia, tumours, infarctions and dead tissues can result.

Boring username

I spent a lot of time thinking about this thread today after seeing it this morning, so I waited a while until I thought about what I wanted to say. So here it goes.

Like a lot of people, I glanced over this thread this morning and laughed at the high jinks and smart alecy replies of most posters. It was all just fun and games and standard after hours banter, 'don't-take-it-seriously-it's just-a-laugh' stuff. Aren't we a right bunch of messers, coming up with all those witty puns?

And then I watched that last video.

What I saw there has had me asking myself a lot of questions about what kind of person I am, or at least thought I was. It begins with run of the mill war zone stuff-smoke, chaos, shouting. Nothing we haven't seen a million times before on tv. Just another day in the Middle East, I'm saying to myself.

And then, at 3.30, I see one of the most gruesome sights you will ever see. It's an incinerated human burnt beyond recognition. And they appear to be moving. So I'm watching this movie, and the light banter attitude I had minutes earlier has been replaced with a sense of disbelief. I'm not casually smirking with the rest of you any more-now I'm seeing the reality of this for the first time. These are real people we are joking about, and they are burning to death. And here we are laughing about it.

I see more horror at 4.20-it's a burnt body being removed by a makeshift rescue team. Again, the person is unrecognizable. You hear the old cliche 'That is someones son/daughter/father/sister.' And you don't really think about it; it's always somehow distant. Not really 'real', if you know what I mean.

But something happened as I saw that body there being carted off, with arms twisted into a grotesque pose from the heat. I imagined for just 2 seconds that it was the body of my niece; and I swear to christ, I was nearly physically sick at that thought. Now it's real for me. Looking at it through that perspective just got to me...and I'm not usually a person who 'does' emotion.

So I've been thinking about those people all day. Out trying to just survive as best they can....not even to prosper, just to make it through another ****ing day in a place that most of us can't even comprehend about in our worst nightmares. And here we are having a big laugh about it on our iphones and laptops.

Now I'm not running for sainthood or anything, and I'm not trying to start a witch hunt against the people who were posting jokes about this. I'm not claiming to be holier-than-thou. As I say, I'm as guilty as the rest. But what I'm saying is.......I've had a good long chat with myself about what I did today. Maybe the rest of you should do the same. So thanks, Cork Boy 55 for bringing this video to my attention. At least some good came of it. It got through to at least 1 person here, for whatever good it will do.



So that was my reaction to this video, and to this thread.

I just thought I should share that with you folks.

I'll give it 3 posts before tl;dr.

coffee_cake

If we all engaged emotionally with every single horror story or video or event occurring anywhere in the world at any given time we'd be snivelling wrecks after about 3 days. Would it even make any difference? - no.
These things happen all the time and you pretending it's someone you know just to make yourself sick isn't going to help them. Someone you do actually know may be going through some difficulty of their own even if it's just to talk to someone (or something a lot worse), so instead of giving out that people make jokes without watching yet another horrific video, go and help them.

Son Of A Vidic

teddy_irish wrote: »

A good to watch interview with Bashar Al-Assad broadcasted on 09.11.2012

The syrian President is talking about 25 minutes with the RT presenter and is revealing his point of view which is by default banned from the mainstream media.

All of which doesn't change the fact that we had months of peaceful street protests, where his security forces gunned down men, women and children with impunity. He brutalised his own people, forcing them into an eventual armed struggle against him. You reap what you sow.

iColdFusion

So, ahhh, is anybody else getting an ad in the bottom right to "Meet free Muslim girls"? :eek:

Ellis Dee

It's far more complex than war, in which the first casualty is always truth.:rolleyes::rolleyes:

barrackali

To intervene in Syria would be madness.....wft would the west want to help the Al-Nusra front for example. They are nothing but an extension of Al-Qaeda in Iraq....pure salafists.

Ideally I would prefer if Dr Assad was to crush those cnuts, but in reality I expect he will either die in this conflict or end up in Russia.

Btw I would fully expect Russia and China would not take too kindly at any western attack on Syria.

SafeSurfer

It's far less complex than Libya, not enough factions and good issues can result.

petersburg2002

He should have stuck with dentistry. The smiling tyrant will go the same way as Gaddafi.

barrackali

petersburg2002 wrote: »

He should have stuck with dentistry. The smiling tyrant will go the same way as Gaddafi.

But not before hopefully thousands more of the terrorists his forces are fighting.

This is an asymmetrical war carried out by proxies in the region and also between the U.S and Russia. The outcome is going to be interesting indeed, especially when you consider the Kurds are fighting against the so-called rebels in Syria.

megafan

barrackali wrote: »

But not before hopefully thousands more of the terrorists his forces are fighting.

This is an asymmetrical war carried out by proxies in the region and also between the U.S and Russia. The outcome is going to be interesting indeed, especially when you consider the Kurds are fighting against the so-called rebels in Syria.

As are Hamas & Palestinians.... (Syria supporter of both in the past) What ever happens outcome will not be good for area or its people...

gurramok

barrackali wrote: »

But not before hopefully thousands more of the terrorists his forces are fighting.

You meant freedom fighters there.

barrackali

Freedom fighters......give me a break. Whatever rebellion there was against president Assad has been hijacked by a large and growing force of salafist terrorists. These are the exact type of terrorists who caused the Iraqi christian community to flee in their droves from Iraq.

Many of these christians settled in Aleppo ffs....now they are on a shifting front line trying to protect themselves against snipers, suicide bombers etc.

The original aim of many discontented sunni citizens was to oust Assad, groups like the Al-Nusra front (should read Al-Qaeda in Iraq) don't care for these aspirations....they wish to establish an Islamic caliphate.

gurramok

barrackali wrote: »

Freedom fighters......give me a break. Whatever rebellion there was against president Assad has been hijacked by a large and growing force of salafist terrorists. These are the exact type of terrorists who caused the Iraqi christian community to flee in their droves from Iraq.

Many of these christians settled in Aleppo ffs....now they are on a shifting front line trying to protect themselves against snipers, suicide bombers etc.

The original aim of many discontented sunni citizens was to oust Assad, groups like the Al-Nusra front (should read Al-Qaeda in Iraq) don't care for these aspirations....they wish to establish an Islamic caliphate.

The salafist terrorists as you called them(you branded the entire freedom fighters as terrorists) are a minority of forces fighting alongside the FSA, probably 10% in numbers. They're good at suicide bombs, thats it.

SafeSurfer

The way I see it is that the Russians and Chinese were duped into a supposed "no fly zone" in Libya, which the "Allies" turned into full scale regime change.

They are in no mood to be fooled again so Syria becomes "hot" in the new cold war.