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waveshaper

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Posts posted by waveshaper

  1. A short history of the region we now call Syria, as I understand it.

    1. The Majority Sunni Muslims have dominated/ruled the region containing Syria, almost exclusively, since the founding of Islam; apx 1400 years.

    2. In 1945 there were only 45 documented Alawite Shia living in Damascus.

    3. The French and then British set the stage for the minority Alawite Shia to rise to power post WW1.

    4. Assad's daddy took power in 1970. So out of 1400 plus years the minority Alawite Shia have been in power for only 43 years.

    5. If history is any indicator of future events then the minority Alawites will be forced out of power shortly. The Sunnis will dominate once again and the Alawite Shia will join the other Syrian minorities (Druze, Christians, and Kurds) in Syrian obscurity once again.

    6. Conclusion; The Rebel Sunnis are going to win hands down, Assad and his Shia boys are toast, even without our help.

  2. New Zeland Herald has a quick run down of Syria's possible reprisal options. Not much in the way of sources for the info quoted in the article, but still an interesting read.

    Interesting article. I will only speculate on Turkey since it was my home away from home for some time. There are over 500,000 (could be more now due to refugees) Alawite Twelvers in Turkey and they could be potential trouble. The vast majority of Alawites live in "ADANA" or on its door steps (Adana and Hatay province). There are also about 15 million Alevi Twelvers in Turkey but they are well dispersed and not closely affiliated with Syria or Assad.

  3. The bulk of evidence proving the Assad regime's deployment of chemical weapons – which would provide legal grounds essential to justify any western military action – may have been provided by Israeli military intelligence, the German magazine Focus has reported. If this is anyway true it could be a credibility problem for justifying military strikes. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/la-fg-wn-syria-israel-intelligence-chemical-attack-20130827,0,3332576.story

  4. The U.S., British, and French will shortly announce the name of the pending Joint Operation against the Syrian government forces. There are no rumor of what this joint operation will be called at this time. Key administration official did release the name of the designated theme tune for this Joint Operation. The theme tune that was selected is; The Three Stooges, which according to key administration officials is both patriotic and historical. The same officials cautioned older Americans and children to not confuse the Three Stooges theme tune with the Three Blind Mice tune. The Three Blind Mice tune was determined to be unpatriotic and it also has connections to Islamic fundamentalism that can be traced back over a millennium.

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  5. I think the answer to this mess is for us to stay the hell out! Everything we entangle ourselves in turns to mess. Our foreign policy is so broken and this will prove to be simply the latest chapter in a book of failures. The senior WH official talking out of his ass, swearing that this is Assad's chemical act with evidence that proves it, while saying that three days of UN delays will prove any evidence at the site useless, makes me question the story even more. Not that the story makes sense from any angle (as others have pointed out already). We (WH bobble heads) are positive that Assad's military carried this out even though we don't have a shred of evidence. Shocking. Common sense and objective thinking says otherwise. The only folks that have shown this type of pure disregard for innocent lives are the various barbaric factions that comprise the Syrian rebel groups. Reference the multitude of decapitations, road-side assassinations, etc. scattered across the internet for examples and grotesque illustrations.

    Our foreign intervention and covert entanglements led to what we currently hate about Iran. Our explorations In Vietnam were a huge success, and that started with a fairy tale much like this one likely will prove to be. How about our dealings with the Freedom Fighters a couple decades later in Afghanistan? Fast forward to Iraq and what a utopian paradise we turned that place into. We're still confused about what we're doing in Afghanistan now, so we might just walk away and call that a success too. I guess the US sponsored Arab Spring is the real model of success that we are looking to craft in Syria. Those are working out beautifully in places like Egypt. We're on a roll, why stop now?

    Our country is bled dry and needs CPR. Another wasted war in another wasteland is not the lifeline we need right now. What exactly is our objective if we go in? How do we define success and when do we exit? Will we even ask these questions? If only we had leaders that understood this or cared. Instead, here we go marching into Syria (it's good for economic spending right) wasting more valuable resources to replace one tyrannical government with a lawless group of Islamic fundamentalist that will rage a civil war well into the future; well past the our attention span. This'll be fun.

    I am starting to get that sinking ROPE-A-DOPE feeling, AGAIN. I have lost track of what ROPE-A-DOPE round the U.S. is now in but the pending Rumble in the Syrian Arab Republic looks like it may be fixing to start in some form. Some recent U.S. ROPE-A-DOPE rounds in the Islamic world; Beirut, Somalia, Afghanistan War, Iraq War, Libya TBD, Egypt TBD, Syria TBD.

  6. This is more than a shame. This is an outrage. The same as the Aussie kid shot for no reason. If there was a time for people to be up in arms and hopping mad these are the acts that should drive such a public outcry. Killed for no other reason than existing while some one else was "bored". But there will not be such an outcry, there will be no protests, no calls for action (rational or irrational), no statements of kinship from the Administration. Its not about the crime, the motive, or the effects, its about who commits it and whether that story will sell.

    The NAACP, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and other civil rights activists have called on the U.S. Department of Justice and Attorney Gen. Eric Holder to press federal civil rights charges against Zimmerman. I assume that the three guys in Oklahoma will have the same folks or other activist leading the effort to have the same type charges filled against them for violating the Australian guys civil rights.

  7. The next time that Putin and Obama get together I can see their new joint announcement on Syria; " U.S and Russia to form a joint coalition in support of Bashar Al Assad and his government forces". It may be better to deal with the enemy we know and Russia very well could be right on this one, now that would be a curve ball. An even better solution would be if the big four (U.S./NATO, Russia, China, India) could get together on at least the one issue we all have in common and that would defeating radical Islam.

  8. Lets see murderous Islamist or a murderous Tyrant. Is it possible that we can help both sides totally eradicate each other just short of nuclear weapons.

    I concur. We had a good thing going back in the day when we had the Iran/Iraq war. Looking back the Iran/Iraq war was about as good as it could get for the U.S. considering what has transpired in that part of the world since it ended. Maybe it would be best if this conflict in Syria continues and the rest of the non-islamic world lets each side bleed out for a couple of generations.

  9. I would like to know why there is no firm info on the families travels from late1986 to 2001. There are reports out in some media sources that the family was displaced from the Chechen area do to the conflicts. Where did they go, what country or area did they stay in? I suspect that Tamerlan made some lifelong childhood friends during this time of conflict and displacement. These old buddies may be some of the folks he went to reconnect with in the Russian/Chechen area last year (jan-july2012). The guy (Abu Dujana), in the islamic video, looks about the same age as Tamerlan and i would not be surprised if these two and others like them (Islamic Militants) paths had crossed sometime in their childhood. Abu Dujana was killied by Russian special forces in dec 2012 at an apartment building in the city of Makhachkala, Dagestan; which is only a couple of mile away from Tamerlans dads house in Makhachkala. I think his islamic radicalization may be as simple as peer pressure and DNA (ethnic Chechen/muslim).

  10. This is my first post. I am retired USAF and all the posts about mortgages got me thinking about a few mortgage related questions I have. I live near two major bases, have a couple friends who are realtors, and these are some of the observations I have made in my neighborhood about, 0-2 thru 0-5, and home mortgages.

    Ob1#. Get the best or close to the best interest rate available.

    Ob2#. Realtors top rated customer base, 5 stars.

    Ob3#. Average length of holding mortgage 3 to 5 years before PCS or retirement for senior folks.

    Ob4#. 0-2/3 first mortgage in career, 0-4 second or more mortgages in career, 0-5 third or more mortgages in career.

    Based on my gut observations i was wondering; apx how many mortgages would a typical officer hold during a normal career (20 to 30 years) and whats is the average length of the mortgage?

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