Our old friends Sadam and Gaddafi were pretty sound on Al Qaida

their main backers were the Saudi's and the Pakistani's

sometimes doing good is the opposite of doing what is sensible..............

Interesting article. Is a no fly zone needed?: Attrition: The Destruction Of The Syrian Air Force

Losses in more detail: Syrian Conflict 2011 - 2012

Armour attrition is also significant.

Eclectic: a point to remember is that attrition to armor and air only matters if war continues and they are needed. Otherwise, cost of doing business if Assad ends up on top when fighting stops. The loss of his aircrews is the critical issue. Regenerating them takes time and flyable aircraft, which he seems to be short of.

"According to the Syrian Revolution General Commission (SRGC) since the conflict began the Syrian Military have lost

37 helicopters
24 Mig, Sukhoi fighter and training jets.

40 aircraft were shot down, and 21 were destroyed in FSA attacks on military airport bases."

Harry:
The world isn't black and white, of course. Politics makes for interesting pairings. Some of the revisionist spray painting of Saddam and The Mad Colonel by recent folks with an agenda obscures the points you make.

As to Saddam "doing good" vis a vis Islamists, I'd say he was looking after his own interest, as was Muhumar. This aligns with sensivle, but not related to good, bad, or neutral.
It's what you do when you run a nation state: you look after your interests.

indeed - especially when you see what happens when the other side takes over

I'm sure Mr Assad doesn't fancy a 7ft drop or a knife up the rear and is willing to fight on until he wins

Syria: 'Britain Must Be Prepared For War'
 

Syria: 'Britain Must Be Prepared For War'

Syria: 'Britain Must Be Prepared For War'

It is disappointing (to say the least) to see how far removed British political thinking is from the wisdom necessary to address this dilemma.

The answer (if one is to get involved at all) lies in neither with backing the rebels or the current regime but in removing both, installing a provisional government (purely administrative) made up, if necessary, by foreign (even British) administrators supervising local personnel, while creating a domestic environment in which independent parties can be formed and fair elections held. But, that is a 5 year plan at the least.

My advice is that unless you are willing to do the above - stay out of it.

that's right - invade - remove all the native leaders and install a British Administration - let's call it part of the Empire while we're about it :rolleyes::rolleyes:

fortunately such thinking disappeared around 1895

If that report is true I think that things could get bad pretty quick.:eek:

How utterly deceptive of you.

Try reading the paragraph as a whole.

Churchill's Ghost:

Under what political authority do you suggest that your course of action be undertaken? Please provide examples from any similar approach, successful, since the UN was founded.

Whomever comes in to do such in any country, as a foreigner, will immediately accrue resistance due to (among other things) not being local. I find your suggestion at odds with the past sixty years of global geopolitical history.

EDIT:

On the other hand, the "we'll help you until we won't" theme in American foreign policy seems to be a "it doesn't work" forumula.

David Ignatius did a recent piece that summarizes the frustrations of various rebels/freedom fighters, and the expected help from America that doesn't materialize. He compares it to jilted lovers in Victorian literary tropes.

"Try reading the paragraph as a whole."

i did and I have and I'm with Lone wolf here

You just can't remove the locals and replace them with a foreign administration - Afghanistan again........

For the benefit for Heathrow Harry, Lonewolf and anyone else unable to grasp my point, I am saying that backing one tide or the other in a situation such as this is pointless and likely to cause severe damage to the country (Syria).

As in many countries where dictatorial regimes have been in power, Syria's senior government figures are polarised (politically) and must therefore be replaced by a caretaker government which can run the 'machine' of government until just elections can be held.

Allowing Syrians to order government in the short-term causes problems because whoever does this will be opposed by various sections from among their society. If there has to be a 'bad' guy then it is better than 'foreigners' occupy this place because this lends towards national unity in that it is better for domestic resentment be focused towards an 'external' entity than a domestic one. Efficient short-term administration of their government will in any case reduce resentment.

Such an interim government would be an ideal task for the UN, comprised of representatives from member nations but, getting members to agree on something like this, well, it hardly warrants further comment. And yet, if you are to enforce a regime change then appointing a 'neutral' interim government is vital to the maintenance of ongoing affairs while preparing for fair elections.

The business of elections would, I suggest, benefit from a two-step process in which a referendum is held to determine the broad priorities (in terms of policy) that their society wishes to see, followed by the elections themselves, once enabling equal representational opportunities among the prospective parties has been achieved (no mean feat).

Because the UN lack the ability to agree on such decisive measures and because their own bureaucracy is so sluggish, sometimes even non-responsive, it would take a nation 'with balls' to step in and assert such clear control, that's for sure.

However, if the genuinely desired outcome is that of liberating the people of Syria, of sustaining an efficient interim government which delivers impartial public services, then what I suggest is an answer to consider.

I sincerely hope so. Otherwise I should be offering absolutely nothing new.

In any case, I should worry not about it.

Britain has no more leaders left with sufficient wisdom and confidence to be able to tackle any situation, whether large or small, including this one.

Your suggestion is based on something which doesn't work, or maybe more correctly, hasn't been shown to work yet for some very predictable reasons.

Thanks for taking the time to flesh it out. Coming in from the top down to take charge of a country (and just what are you doing with all of those people in the government when you do remove them ... ???) has the problem of being seen as a foreign invader and taking on the added problem of locals not believing in any altruistic motive -- however much professed by outsiders.

UN might be seen as legit, or it might not, depending on which locals one is referring to.

Cheers.

With this level of MANPAD usage surely Syria is becoming a no fly zone:

http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/9453/2n1u.jpg

Video of weapon delivery:

Has anyone seen any footage of Syrian Air Force/Army assets using flares to counter SAMs? Are their aircraft fitted with chaff/flare systems? Do they have them but have run out of reloads? Are they trained in counter SAM TTPs?

Given that these SAMs appear to be Russian types and the Syrian mil use mainly Russian kit you might have thought they knew how to counter SAMs. I haven't seen any footage of their FJs and helis using flares at all.

Well it wont matter what happens now for at least two weeks. With the royal birth imminent I expect all the war reporters will have gone on block leave! It's wall to wall on sky this morning with cutting edge stories like 'what is is like to have a baby' and 'baby names'..... Like they say, good time to sneak out bad news :rolleyes:

See following, Roland.

Su-24



Su-22



MiG-23BN



MiG-21



Mi-24/25

About chaffe and flares that may or may not be on Assad's aircraft:

If you don't have an auto missile warning system (inbound) on your helicopter, you may not see the puff of smoke that the hand held SAM makes when launched, and thus may not deploy chaffe / flares due to not having the trigger info t needed o do so.

I'll go no further than that.

You'd think so, but even the Russians struggled to counter their own kit, the Georgians shot down several russian bombers using russian designed AD kit that they couldn't counter....

Attrition seems to have created a de-facto no fly zone.
Here is a rebel convoy yesterday which would make a juicy target to any air assets.



And to show what is happening on the ground this is a Sunni convoy that has given up on fighting the government in Homs so that they can go and fight the Kurds.

Given a voice in policy decisions, which I of course don't have, I'd suggest to the US government that support to the Kurds is in order. Fun with our dear NATO ally Turkey over that, I am sure ... but that's what I'd recommend.

I spoke too soon. Here some government helicopters pretty much destroy an ISIS (extremist islam) convoy (probably the same one in the previous video).
You can see an oil drum bomb in the helicopter. The sort they also drop on bread queues.

Video: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=218859071598590

Now it is not just MANPADs. The rebels captured this SA-8 Gecko;



Then (allegedly) used it (maybe yesterday):

I wonder where they got the training on the SA-8. Not exactly an off the shelf Nintendo style piece of kit. :cool:

I would imagine they just read the instruction book in the glove compartment. Having said that, they do seem to shout a lot.

Daz

The rebels include large numbers of Syrian army defectors. So they should be able to operate any Syrian army kit they capture.

That isn't going to endear them to the rest of the world.

Not sure their GiveAF8ckOMeter is even twitching........

I am sure it isn't !

I actually meant all the others who are jumping up and down
to support them not liking it.

Homs today. This happened on the government side. How did the rebels do this?




Also rebel AAA

I don't understand what happened in the first video. What blew up?

The second looks like a standard ZSU-23 type tracked AAA rig.

Old reliable, as it were.

The first video looks very petroleum like.


Petrol storage tank or something where the blast is directed upwards and so forming the mushroom ?

I stand corrected

It was a Gov't arms dump hit by a rocket.

To whomever the rocketeer was: nice shot! :ok:

Wouldn't want to be part of a government tank crew, the attrition rate is very high. And it is about to get higher. The rebels have captured a warehouse full of Konkurs, Kornet, Fagot and Milan.
This is a different form of warfare. Light infantry using lots and lots of tube launched artillery. Mortars, rockets, RPGs, missiles. The big explosion in the video above was caused by a rebel Grad landing on a government arms depot.
The rebels have factories making some of their tube artillery and the ammunition for it.

Warehouse:

Menagh air force base near Aleppo has been surrounded by the rebels since January. It is a classic siege. The rebels have thrown lots of mortars, ATGMs and rockets at it. Killing the tanks there one by one.

The government have been re-supplying by airdrop (the runway is not usable, being under constant fire) and have been doing repeated air strikes against the surrounding rebels, at least 6 this morning, for instance.



Now the rebels made the mother of all car bombs. They added lots of extra armour to a BMP armoured personnel carrier, put 6 tons of high explosives in it then drove it into the centre of the base and set it off.



BMP setting off on mission:



The explosion:




Then they sent in the infantry:



There are so many cameras in the conflict and they upload videos so quickly that it is possible to follow events in near real time.

No, it isn't, but it is a way to get a look see at a few things that have gone on.

That large car/BMP bomb was an ingenious little move. :ok:

This video is supposedly a successful MANPAD shot at a fast jet: