Quote Originally Posted by Greenbeanz View Post
Whilst Russia and others continue to arm the regime inactivity is no longer passive. The ideal solution may not exist but surely pressure on those who are propping up the regime to desist would at least allow the war that is happening anyway, to not be prolonged. Or is the converse true ? I have no idea but am wary of suggesting doing nothing is in some way standing up for the oppressed. I hope I am wrong but Kirkland and Miles seem to be more interested in point scoring and demonizing any intervention by the west in any of these situations, than actually being concerned with civilians being killed and that is a bit sad.
It's nice that we care about civilians being killed now. We put sanctions on Iraq that killed over a million civilians, mainly children. We're backing regimes in Saudi, Kuwait, Bahrain and the other Gulf emirates who ruthlessly supress and kill any kind of civilian opposition. Circulating a petition in Saudi asking for democratic elections will get you thirty years if you're lucky. Doctors in Bahrain treating pro-democracy protestors have been executed in their offices or thrown in jail without trial. We'll stand any level of killing and repression from any dictator in the region who we support, including Saddam Hussein in the 70s and 80s, so don't say I'm point scoring or any other bullshit when I point out facts.

Once agin -- we don't give a flying fuck, not a moment's thought to civilian repression and death in the Middle East. We only notice it's happening when we want to use it as an excuse to intervene over there. Right now there are civilians being slaughtered in half a dozen conflicts in Africa. When was the last time you saw coverage of one of those conflicts, hmm? When was the last time an African conflict was wall-to-wall coverage on the teevee?


And you seriously want to give weapons to the rebels? Most of those guy swe were calling Al Quaeda terrorists and fighting them in Iraq a decade ago. They just killed a 14 year old boy for being disrespectful to Islam and that's only one story that's made it through into our free press. Neither side in this are angels and neither side is good news for us, just one side hates Iran too so some idiots on our side think it's a good idea to support them.