Syria Disintegrating: Part 2

[CountDeMoney]

Always bet on black.

Now that's a third gaming reference.  Max just had an aneurysm.

[DGuller]

Yes, nothing like superpower brinksmanship with a President that--as you guys had mentioned before--always, always, always raises at poker.


"You've got 20."
"Hit me."
"You've got 21."
"Hit me."
"That's 30."

I don't think that's poker, but maybe it's just the autism talking.

If it's blackjack, I don't think you're allowed to hit on 21.

[mongers]

Yes, nothing like superpower brinksmanship with a President that--as you guys had mentioned before--always, always, always raises at poker.


"You've got 20."
"Hit me."
"You've got 21."
"Hit me."
"That's 30."

I don't think that's poker, but maybe it's just the autism talking.

If it's blackjack, I don't think you're allowed to hit on 21.

Nice deadpan.

[Tonitrus]

Yes, nothing like superpower brinksmanship with a President that--as you guys had mentioned before--always, always, always raises at poker.


"You've got 20."
"Hit me."
"You've got 21."
"Hit me."
"That's 30."

I don't think that's poker, but maybe it's just the autism talking.

I'll just stick to one reference at a time for you.  I know you don't do more than one reference at a time very well.

Ya'll were oblivious to my reference too. 

[CountDeMoney]

Ya'll were oblivious to my reference too. 

You people give me a headache.  I think you do it on purpose.  Some of you, anyway.

[Tonitrus]

Ya'll were oblivious to my reference too. 

You people give me a headache.  I think you do it on purpose.  Some of you, anyway.

C'mon....US/Russian tensions...combat units acting nearby against each other in dangerous conditions...it was perfectly apropos. 

[Eddie Teach]

Always bet on black.

Now that's a third gaming reference.  Max just had an aneurysm.

Nah. That's a movie reference.

[viper37]

Yes, nothing like superpower brinksmanship with a President that--as you guys had mentioned before--always, always, always raises at poker.


"You've got 20."
"Hit me."
"You've got 21."
"Hit me."
"That's 30."

I don't think that's poker, but maybe it's just the autism talking.

I'll just stick to one reference at a time for you.  I know you don't do more than one reference at a time very well.

Ya'll were oblivious to my reference too. 

I missed your post, sorry!

One of my favorite Clancy novel too

[alfred russel]

Always bet on black.

That is what I thought, until I lost my life savings gambling at a swim meet. 

[CountDeMoney]

Always bet on black.

Now that's a third gaming reference.  Max just had an aneurysm.

Nah. That's a movie reference.

Shut up.

[Eddie Teach]

Always bet on black.

That is what I thought, until I lost my life savings gambling at a swim meet. 

That's a shame. I made a considerable sum betting on black at golf tournaments back in the day.

[Syt]

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/24/middleeast/israel-syria-golan-heights-strike/index.html

Israel strikes Syrian military near Golan Heights

(CNN)Israel launched strikes on Syrian military positions Saturday, close to the two countries' disputed border in the Golan Heights, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

The action was a response to what the IDF said were more than 10 projectiles fired into Israel from inside Syria. The IDF described the projectile fire as "errant," blaming it on internal fighting.

Israeli aircraft targeted three positions from which the projectiles were fired, the IDF said. The strikes included hits on two tanks belonging to the Syrian regime.

Syrian state-run news agency SANA reported several people were killed in the Israeli strikes. SANA said fighting in the area is between the Syrian regime and the al Nusra Front, a militant Syrian rebel group. No one is reported to have been wounded as a result of the projectile fire.

Israel lodged an official protest with the United Nations' Disengagement Observer Force, which monitors relations between Israel and Syria in the Golan Heights, over what it called an unacceptable breach of Israeli sovereignty.

[citizen k]

http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21724036-war-may-bring-end-christian-minoritys-century-long-story

Reverse diaspora
Syria's Armenians are fleeing to their ancestral homeland

The war may bring an end to a Christian minority's century-long story
Europe Jun 26th 2017 | YEREVAN

WHEN war broke out in Syria in 2011, some of the wealthier families from the country's Christian Armenian minority decamped to Yerevan, the Armenian capital, where they rented luxury flats on the city's Northern Avenue. It felt, some would later say, as though they were on holiday. The government allotted them space in a local school, where Syrian teachers who had fled as refugees continued to instruct their children using the Syrian curriculum. It took some time for it to dawn on them that they might never go home.

Syria's six-year-old civil war has forced more than 5m of its citizens to seek refuge outside their country. In 2015-16 hundreds of thousands trekked through the Balkans, seeking safety in Europe. But hardly any of Syria's Armenian minority took this route. Instead, many went to Armenia. With its own population shrunken by emigration (falling from 3.6m in 1991 to 3m today), Armenia was happy to welcome as many Syrian Armenians—most of them educated, middle class and entrepreneurial—as would come.
Latest updates

Before the war some 90,000 ethnic Armenians lived in Syria, two-thirds of them in Aleppo. Many were descended from ancestors who had fled their homeland in 1915, escaping systematic Ottoman massacres and ethnic cleansing. For most of them, the civil war has put an end to a century-long story. Hrair Aguilan, a 61-year-old businessman, invested his life savings in a furniture factory in Aleppo just before the war, only to see it destroyed. Now he is in Yerevan to stay. "It lasted a hundred years. It is finished," says Mr Aguilan. "There is no future for Christians in the Middle East."

No more than 30,000 Syrian Armenians are believed to remain in Syria. Many dispersed to Lebanon, Canada, Turkey, the Persian Gulf states and elsewhere. The rest, up to 30,000, went to what they regard as the motherland. (Some have since moved on to other countries.) The wealthy, who found it easy to move, came first. Others tried to wait out the war in Syria, fleeing only once their means were exhausted. They arrived in Armenia with nothing.

Vartan Oskanian, a former foreign minister of Armenia who was born in Aleppo, says many of the refugees have started small businesses. In Syria, members of the Armenian minority tended to be skilled professionals or artisans; they were known as jewellers, doctors, engineers and industrialists. Native Armenians are delighted by the restaurants opened by the newcomers, who have brought their much spicier cuisine to a country where food (and almost everything else) has long been influenced by the bland flavours of Russia.

Almost all of the refugees have ended up in Yerevan, apart from some 30 families from a farming area, who were resettled in Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian-held territory that is disputed with Azerbaijan. Some young men who had fought in the Syrian army have volunteered to serve on the front lines of that conflict, but many more young Syrian Armenians hold off on asking for Armenian citizenship so that they do not have to do military service.

Vasken Yacoubian, who once ran a construction company in Damascus, now heads the Armenian branch of the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU), a global charity. He says refugees are still arriving from Syria, if no longer in large numbers. A few have even gone back, especially those with property (if only to try to sell it). Some Syrian Armenians argue that they have a duty to return: their diaspora forms an important branch of Armenian civilisation, and must be preserved.

Yet Mr Oskanian says those who have returned to Syria see little future for the community there. In Syria, Armenians have staunchly backed the regime of Bashar al-Assad, which has protected them from persecution by Muslim extremists. But that government controls only a portion of Syria's territory, and Mr Assad's fate in any peace deal is uncertain. Meanwhile officials at Armenia's Ministry of the Diaspora, which was caught unprepared by the influx of Syrians, are taking no chances. They are making contingency plans in case a new conflict erupts in Lebanon, sending thousands of Lebanese Armenians their way.

[alfred russel]

Syria's Armenians are fleeing to their ancestral homeland

When I first saw this, I thought, "so is it really a good idea for them to relocate to the eastern portions of the republic of turkey?

[CountDeMoney]

Syria Will 'Pay a Heavy Price' for Another Chemical Attack, White House Says
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR, HELENE COOPER and ERIC SCHMITT
The Failing New York Times
JUNE 26, 2017

WASHINGTON — The White House said late Monday that President Bashar al-Assad of Syria appeared to be preparing another chemical weapons attack, and warned that he would "pay a heavy price" if one took place.

Several military officials were caught off guard by the statement from President Trump's press secretary, but it was unclear how closely held the intelligence regarding a potential chemical attack was.

In the statement, the White House said that Mr. Assad's preparations appeared similar to the ones Western intelligence officials believe the Syrian government made before a chemical attack in April that killed dozens of Syrians, including children.

"As we have previously stated, the United States is in Syria to eliminate the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria," the statement said. "If, however, Mr. Assad conducts another mass murder attack using chemical weapons, he and his military will pay a heavy price."

While the White House's motivation in releasing the highly unusual statement is uncertain, it is possible that Mr. Trump or his advisers decided a public warning to Mr. Assad might deter another chemical strike.

Any intelligence gathered by the United States or its allies — notably Israel, which keeps a robust watch on unconventional weapons in the Middle East — would by nature be classified. But any American president has absolute power to declassify anything he chooses to release.

Brian Hale, a spokesman for the director of national intelligence, referred questions to the White House. Marc Raimondi, a spokesman for the White House's National Security Council, said, "We are letting the statement speak for itself."

Nikki R. Haley, the American ambassador to the United Nations, made clear that the United States was taking the latest threat seriously. "Any further attacks done to the people of Syria will be blamed on Assad, but also on Russia & Iran who support him killing his own people," she tweeted late Monday.

Russia and Iran are both allied with the Assad government. Last week, after the United States downed a Syrian warplane that had dropped bombs near American-supported fighters battling the Islamic State, Russia's Defense Ministry threatened to target any aircraft flown by the United States or its allies west of the Euphrates River valley.

Such a threat can cause an unintended showdown as competing forces converge on ungoverned areas of Syria. The collision has effectively created a war within a war.

Daryl G. Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association, said that he had not heard of Syrian moves toward more chemical attacks, but that he suspected intelligence reports had prompted the statement. Rocket attacks using sarin gas, as in the April strikes, require considerable preparation that American intelligence might well have picked up, he said.

Mr. Kimball added that he did not recall such a precise, pre-emptive public warning against a foreign government regarding banned weapons "in at least the last 20 years." More often, such matters are handled in private diplomatic or intelligence communications, he said.

Monday's message appeared designed to set the stage for another possible military strike. After Mr. Assad allegedly used chemical weapons in April, the American military fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at the air base his government had used to launch the attack.

The use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government has long been part of the clash between Mr. Assad and the United States.

In 2013, President Barack Obama's intelligence agencies concluded with "high confidence" that Mr. Assad had carried out a devastating chemical attack that killed hundreds of Syrians, despite having been warned by Mr. Obama against crossing a "red line" by using chemical weapons.

But Mr. Obama stopped just short of ordering a military strike, instead opting to work with the Russian government to identify and destroy Mr. Assad's cache of chemical weapons. Critics argued that the president's failure to enforce his own "red line" had emboldened Mr. Assad.

They also warned that all of the chemical weapons could not be found and destroyed. Within two months of Mr. Trump's taking office, images of another chemical attack spurred him to take the action that Mr. Obama had rejected.

This outer borough mouthbreathing monkey is going to get us in a shooting war with Russia and Iran, if only because it's the opposite of Obama's Syria policy.