Thread: Why Does Assad Believe He Can Get Away With His Crimes?

This makes absolutely no sense to me. Assad obviously doesn't have any REAL support from 90% of his people. Those who do support him are only doing so because they're afraid he's going to kill them or their family. Once enough soldiers defect from the military, the country is going to topple. But yet Mr. Assad is persistent on staying in power. Does this guy have a death wish or something? Or is he too stupid to see what's really happening? Something tells me he's going to meet the same faith as Gadaffi - maybe even worse. And when his victims have a gun up in his face, he's going to beg for mercy like a 2 year old child. He deserves what's coming to him.

Originally Posted by gregdavidson

This makes absolutely no sense to me. Assad obviously doesn't have any REAL support from 90% of his people. Those who do support him are only doing so because they're afraid he's going to kill them or their family. Once enough soldiers defect from the military, the country is going to topple. But yet Mr. Assad is persistent on staying in power. Does this guy have a death wish or something? Or is he too stupid to see what's really happening? Something tells me he's going to meet the same faith as Gadaffi - maybe even worse. And when his victims have a gun up in his face, he's going to beg for mercy like a 2 year old child. He deserves what's coming to him.

Like khadafi, the rest of the arab world hates him - and the only place that he and his family/cronies can escape to would be russia, which would be a huge political black mark for both assad and putin as it would expose the russians as complicit in supporting assad's murder of his own people.

Since he has no one and no where to run to, the syrian people are going to have to kill him and his cronies off - which they eventually, inevitably will - and the fascist dictatorship of iran will be completely isolated.

My concern is that when he is about to be killed, iran and its terrorist tool hezbollah will launch a major attack on israel to try and stave off assad's overthrow. It wouldn't work, but may kill a lot of israelis and start a regional war.

It remains unclear how far russia and china are willing to allow syria to become a free nation. Their behind the scene dealings might have them insert another dictator willing to sell oil to the chinese and buy lots of russian weapons as part of a grand bargain with the West to replace assad.

They'd only give up assad if they could replace him with someone who'd also be in their orbit, as they do not want what happened in Libya, where the people who overthrew Khadafi wouldn't buy a pencil from russia or china after they were exposed late in the game supporting khadaffi.

Originally Posted by gregdavidson

This makes absolutely no sense to me. Assad obviously doesn't have any REAL support from 90% of his people. Those who do support him are only doing so because they're afraid he's going to kill them or their family. Once enough soldiers defect from the military, the country is going to topple. But yet Mr. Assad is persistent on staying in power. Does this guy have a death wish or something? Or is he too stupid to see what's really happening? Something tells me he's going to meet the same faith as Gadaffi - maybe even worse. And when his victims have a gun up in his face, he's going to beg for mercy like a 2 year old child. He deserves what's coming to him.

he's past the "getting away with it" phase and into "putting off the inevitable".

smoking too much coke perhaps ?

Russia proppin' up Assad...

Why Russia is standing by Syria's Assad
15 June 2012 - Russia is not motivated to support Bashar al-Assad by arms sales alone

As the United Nations warns that Syria has descended into civil war, Russia continues to back President Bashar al-Assad in the face of growing international condemnation. Konstantin von Eggert, political commentator for Kommersant FM radio in Moscow, looks at why the Kremlin is steadfastly supporting the beleaguered Syrian government. Foreign policy analysts usually tend to explain Moscow's inflexible stance on Syria by evoking arms sales to Damascus (Bashar al-Assad's regime is said to have placed orders for Russian hardware to the tune of $3.5bn) and the Russian naval station in the Syrian port of Tartous.

But this alone does not account for Russia's seeming indifference to the adverse effect that its international advocacy of the Assad government has on its relations with the United States, the European Union and the majority of the Arab states. The explanation has a lot to do with Russia's domestic policies and the obsessions of the Russian political class. By standing up for Damascus, the Kremlin is telling the world that neither the UN, nor any other body or group of countries has the right to decide who should or should not govern a sovereign state. If one looks at the Syrian crisis from this angle, many of Moscow's previously inexplicable actions take on a new, clearer meaning.

Sovereignty is king

Ever since the fall of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, but especially after the 2004 "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine, the Russian leadership has been obsessed with the idea of America and the EU engineering the overthrow of governments that, for whatever reason, they find unsuitable. President Vladimir Putin and his team seem to be convinced that something like that could happen to Russia. Russia's political class never accepted concepts like "responsibility to protect", which aim to limit the ability of authoritarian governments to repress their own people. Sovereignty, to the Russian leadership, means an unlimited licence for governments to do as they please within their national borders.

Ever since the Nato operation against former Yugoslavia in 1999, Moscow has deeply mistrusted Western humanitarian rhetoric and sees it as nothing but a camouflage for a policy of regime change. The 2011 Libyan crisis revived these fears. Many Russian leaders, and Mr Putin himself, see then President Dmitry Medvedev's decision to abstain during a vote on UN Security Council Resolution 1973, which authorised a "no-fly zone" over Libya, as a disaster. In Mr Putin's view, it opened the way for external intervention on behalf of one of the sides, in what was essentially a civil war, and the eventual removal of Col Muammar Gaddafi from power.

More http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18462813

See also:

Russia says no talk on Syria's post-Assad future
15 June`12 — Russia's foreign minister said Friday that Moscow isn't discussing Syria's future without President Bashar Assad as Washington has claimed, in the latest volley in a contentious back-and-forth on how to end the bloody conflict.

Sergey Lavrov denied Thursday's statement by State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland that Moscow and Washington "are continuing to talk about a post-Assad transition strategy." Lavrov, who met with the State Department's No. 2 official William Burns in Kabul on Thursday, maintained that Russia believes it's up to the Syrians to determine their country's future and said foreign players shouldn't meddle. "It's not true that we are discussing Syria's fate after Bashar Assad," Lavrov said following talks in Moscow with his Iraqi counterpart. "We aren't dealing with a regime change either through approving unilateral actions at the United Nations Security Council nor through taking part in some political conspiracies."

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has issued increasingly harsh words over Russia's refusal to take tougher measures on Syria, though her accusation that Russia "dramatically" escalated the crisis in Syria lost steam Thursday when the State Department acknowledged the helicopters she accused Moscow of sending were actually refurbished ones already owned by the Assad regime. The claim had complicated the Obama administration's larger goals for Syria and U.S.-Russia relations. Despite pressure from the West, Russia, along with China, has twice shielded Syria, its last remaining ally in the Arab world, from international sanctions over Assad's violent crackdown on protests that have left 13,000 people dead, according to opposition groups.

Lavrov argued that an international conference on Syria that Russia has proposed should focus on persuading the Syrian parties to sit down for talks. He said that a June 30 meeting on Syria in Geneva proposed by U.N. and Arab League envoy for Syria, Kofi Annan, should pursue the same goal, warning that Russia would oppose any attempt to use the conference to determine Syria's future. "This meeting should be aimed at mobilizing resources that foreign players have to create conditions needed to start an all-Syrian political process, not to predetermine its direction." He warned against using the conference to "justify any future unilateral actions." Lavrov said that Russia believes that a conference on Syria it's proposing should bring together the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council along with all Syria's neighbors, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the Arab League, the European Union and Iran.

In an apparent reference to the U.S. objections against Iran's participation, Lavrov said the conference organizers should be driven by a desire to settle the conflict, not "ideological preferences." In an opinion piece in the Huffington Post, Lavrov insisted that "Russia is not a defender of the current regime in Damascus and has no political, economic or other reasons for becoming one." He also reaffirmed criticism of Assad, saying that "the main responsibility for the crisis that has swept over the country lies with the Syrian government, that has failed to take the course of reform in due time or draw conclusions from the deep changes unfolding in international relations." But Lavrov also argued that a push for an immediate ouster of Assad would plunge Syria into an all-out war. "Pressing for an immediate ousting of Bashar al-Assad, contrary to the aspirations of a considerable segment of Syrian society that still relies on this regime for its security and well-being, would mean plunging Syria into a protracted and bloody civil war," Lavrov wrote.

http://news.yahoo.com/russia-says-no...094603499.html

Related:

US believes Russia has ship with weapons, troops en route to Syria
June 15th, 2012 - The United States says it is tracking a Russian military cargo ship as it makes its way to Syria carrying weapons, ammunition and a small number of Russian troops.

U.S. intelligence believes the Russians are sending the ship to help fortify its naval base in Syria as the situation in country continues to spiral out of control, Pentagon officials told CNN Friday. The presence of the ship was first reporting by NBC News. Classified U.S. imagery shows the ship, called the Nikolay Filchenkov, began loading in the port of Sevastapol on the Black Sea on June 7 and is headed for the Syrian port of Tartus, where the Russians have a naval faciility. The port is vital for Russian naval access to the entire Middle East. Under martime rules, Russia should declare what the ship is carrying when it enters the Mediterranean, U.S. officials said.

The sources could not say how many troops are on board, though it is not believed to be a large number. In addition, the officials said, it is not clear if the troops are only to help secure and transport the weapons and equipment or if they will stay in Syria. For now, the United States believes Russia's intention is to defend its naval base. But it is not clear how much of a threat the Russians really are facing from Syrian opposition forces. There have been no reports of significant fighting in the area lately. U.S. officials are worried there could be other plans for the troops and military gear should the Russians offload the ship in Tartus.

The Nikolay Filchenkov is a large landing ship capable of carrying up 1,700 tons and 300 troops, according to Human Rights Watch, which monitors ship activity in relation to Syria. Russia has already been in a fierce back-and-forth with the United States, after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Russians were shipping attack helicopters to Syria. The Russian government has said the helicopters are not new, but rather were refurbished under an existing contract with Syria. "As we said before, there are no new combat helicopters supplies to Syria. Our military and technical cooperation with Syria is limited to delivery of defensive arms. As for helicopters, earlier we did a planned maintenance of equipment that had been supplied to Syria many years ago," Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement published on its website Friday.

MORE

Oh my...

Maybe because a LOT of Syrians support him. What do any of you ass holes really know about the Syrian situations other than what The Big Six feeds your brain?

Originally Posted by spiellgood

Like khadafi, the rest of the arab world hates him - and the only place that he and his family/cronies can escape to would be russia, which would be a huge political black mark for both assad and putin as it would expose the russians as complicit in supporting assad's murder of his own people.

Since he has no one and no where to run to, the syrian people are going to have to kill him and his cronies off - which they eventually, inevitably will - and the fascist dictatorship of iran will be completely isolated.

My concern is that when he is about to be killed, iran and its terrorist tool hezbollah will launch a major attack on israel to try and stave off assad's overthrow. It wouldn't work, but may kill a lot of israelis and start a regional war.

It remains unclear how far russia and china are willing to allow syria to become a free nation. Their behind the scene dealings might have them insert another dictator willing to sell oil to the chinese and buy lots of russian weapons as part of a grand bargain with the West to replace assad.

They'd only give up assad if they could replace him with someone who'd also be in their orbit, as they do not want what happened in Libya, where the people who overthrew Khadafi wouldn't buy a pencil from russia or china after they were exposed late in the game supporting khadaffi.

Just remember that Syria is not a serious oil producer... Maybe .05 % of world production.

Originally Posted by gregdavidson

Why Does Assad Believe He Can Get Away With His Crimes?

According to Syria's new constitution that Assad supported the Syrian president is limited to two terms in office of seven years duration each. Assad's second seven year term expires in two years time then someone else will be the president of Syria so what makes you think Assad believes he has crimes that he needs to get away with by staying in power?

Mebbe because he is...

... mebbe because of the common defense pact with Russia and Iran...

... which would cause them to come in should a coalition force try to help the opposition...

... which was once a thread here...

... but has mysteriously disappeared.

well one thing is clear

Saudi Qatar and USA have set up Al Qaeda in Syria now and are arming and funding them through Iraq and Lebanon