"Syria conflict: Aleppo rocked by fresh fighting" Topic

"The battered Syrian city of Aleppo faced another wave of airstrikes and shelling Friday, activists said, killing worshipers at a mosque and damaging a clinic after an earlier air blitz left dozens dead, including patients and staff at a main hospital.

The attacks — apparently carried out on both sides — further eroded efforts to rebuild a cease-fire and halt what a United Nations envoy described as a "monstrous disregard for civilian lives" by all factions in the conflict.

More than 200 people have been killed in the past week in Aleppo from pro-government airstrikes and rebel barrages on regime-held neighborhoods, said a Britain-based monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights…"
Full article here
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Also
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The truce is dead…

Amicalement
Armand

And more deliberate targeting of medical facilities.

And yet some people think Assad is fit to run the country. He's only really fit to be in front of a panel of judges in the Hague.

Somehow I doubt we'll get a 3,000 page report on why that atrocity happened.

I'm confused, Stu.

A few days ago you were yammering about how well the highly competent Syrian and Russian air forces were able to limit collateral damage from bombing, and demanding that our own fly-boys should bomb accurately and often in Libya. And now, here you are, blubbering over a few hundred dead doctors and babies and pregnant women and stuff. This is what you get when you bomb. Every time.

A few days ago you were yammering about how Israel should partner with Hezbollah to support Assad, the only progressive force for stability and secularism in Syria. And today you want to try Assad in the Hague. This is how you run Syria, Stu. It's how Assad's father ran Syria (Hama massacre), how the French ran Syria, how the Ottomans ran Syria. It's how Erdogan will run Syria if he gets the chance – lookit the bastard bombing Syrian Kurdistan. There is no other way.

Some people don't keep track of you, Stu, but I do. What do you want us all to do today, Stu?

I have never stated the Russians and Syrians were competent. I don't think I mentioned them at all.

I have been saying the USAF needs to be more careful.

Helps if you actually read what I write.

This is what you get when you bomb. Every time.

Except it isn't. Neither the USAF or RAF bombing campaigns in Iraq or Syria have produced a huge toll of civilian casualties.

Sorry to use actual facts to deflate your argument.

The Syrians are once again dropping naval mines on civilian targets. These are far more destructive than barrel bombs. You'd think the West and Russia would pressure the Assad regime to be less cavalier about civilian deaths but we're so preoccupied with ISIS that we ignore the atrocities of the devil we know. We really are hypocrites with no moral compass anymore. It's pretty disgusting.
Rod Robertson.

Well the West has exactly zero influence over Assad, so I think we've been asking Vlad to keep his pet under control…

With predictable results.

The west had the chance to rid Syria of Assad on by demanding that he step down or impose a No Fly Zone including airstrikes against his forces like what they did to Gaddafi, but then three things happened:

1. ISIS grabbed the world's attention and put Assad on the backburner, and

2. Having learned from what happened to Gaddafi, Russia intervened on his behalf and pre-empted any western military intervention to depose Assad.

3. An America that is war weary after over a decade of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even after the Ghouta chemical attacks which implicated his regime, the US congress was still largely opposed to a military response, even something as limited as a cruise missile strike.

You'd think the West and Russia would pressure the Assad regime to be less cavalier about civilian deaths but we're so preoccupied with ISIS that we ignore the atrocities of the devil we know. We really are hypocrites with no moral compass anymore. It's pretty disgusting.

The US/West has NO / 0 influence on Assad or much of the rest of the region. What do you suggest ? NATO invading Syria to stop Assad and his allies from killing civilians ? I think we don't want to go down that road.

And note … Daesh, AQ is a threat to the West … Syria … not so much …