Syrian Armenian

[Artashes]

Re: Syrian Armenian

Not sure why Mher posted the above?
100% propaganda. A few pertinent facts but slanted so badly toward showing the turc and cohort as being honest and decent???
Such garbage.

Also, I can't figure why Mher posted such in the "Syrian Armenian" thread?
I would assume, before the west/turc/sood/yahood instigation of armed revolt and fanning the flames of sectarian violence, the Armenian communities of Syria were relatively quietly successful and supportive of Syria at large. Our communities wherever they may be are generally quiet, non threatening communities that --- do not --- seek autonomy (lol), but rather strengthen the country we live in by our simple honest and industrious nature.

[Shant03]

Re: Syrian Armenian

Mher, did you read the article you posted?

[Mher]

Re: Syrian Armenian

lol maybe you guys can specify what was so offensive...

the article provided a lot of updates on the situation on the ground. as far as the opinion/analysis, take it how you want it, that wasn't the important part. It's always going to be biased towards someone, but none of it was that far off reality anyway.

lol let's not pretend there's some morality or good guy v. bad guy story line here
Assad is a pretty bad guy himself, but that doesn't matter in politics. He is useful to the Armenians, as well as the power structure our country has chosen to align itself with.

There's nothing different between what America does and what Russia wishes it could do. Any country would do what it could given the power.

as far as Turkey, there wasn't anything in the article i found wrong.

My biggest takeaway from it was the potential for a Kurdish sealing almost all the way across the Syrian-Turkish border and its implications, and the updates on the situation in Aleppo.

[Artashes]

Re: Syrian Armenian




Since Russia’s intervention at the end of September, supposedly to attack IS and JAN, the dynamics on the ground have been transformed. Once close to collapse, the regime of Bashar al-Assad is now confident of its survival and intent on regaining control of more territory. Pro-Assad forces are encircling the rebel-held parts of Aleppo, once Syria’s biggest city. Why should he and Mr Putin stop now?

The only puzzle is what John Kerry, America’s secretary of state, thought he could achieve through his agreement with Mr Lavrov—except, perhaps, to expose Russian cynicism. As John McCain, the chairman of the Senate armed services committee, put it: “This is diplomacy in the service of military aggression. And it is working because we are letting it.”

In the few days since the Munich agreement, the war has, if anything, widened and intensified. On February 15th nearly 50 civilians were killed when missiles hit rebel-held areas of Syria. At least 14 were killed in the northern town of Azaz when missiles hit two hospitals and a school where refugees were sheltering. Missiles also struck a hospital in Marat Numan, in Idlib province, south of Aleppo (see map). In all, five medical facilities were targeted. The UN condemned the attacks as a violation of international law. Turkey’s foreign ministry accused Russia of “an obvious war crime”.
I

The animosity between Moscow and Ankara is further fuelled by the advance of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters under the umbrella of the PYD, the main Syrian Kurdish force. This had been America’s most reliable ally on the ground against IS. But now, aided by Russian planes and weapons deliveries, it is fighting in tacit alliance with Mr Assad’s regime. On February 2nd the SDF severed the corridor between Aleppo and the Turkish border that is critical for rebel supplies. On February 15th it seized control of Tel Rifaat, one of the first towns to rise up against Mr Assad, squeezing the “Azaz pocket”, a rebel bastion on the border with Turkey.

The rush to Rojava
The Kurds want to carve out a continuous autonomous area by linking up the two enclaves they control along Syria’s border with Turkey. In the recently opened PYD office in Moscow, there is a map of a future Syrian Kurdistan, called “Rojava”. It covers a lot of territory.

Turkey is determined to stop the Kurds and has been shelling them for the past week. Its prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, says that Turkey “will not let Azaz fall” and threatens a “severe response” if the Kurdish-led forces try to take the town.

Tens of thousands of refugees are flowing out of Aleppo, heading both north towards the Turkish border town, Kilis, and west into mainly rebel-held Idlib. The regime seems all too happy to let the city’s population flow out through its siege lines.

Noah Bonsey of the International Crisis Group, a think-tank, believes that there is nothing indiscriminate about the bombing of civilian areas and infrastructure, including schools and hospitals. Both Aleppo’s main hospitals were systematically destroyed by Russian air strikes last week. The aim is twofold: to terrify civilians into leaving, so that even more ruthless tactics can be used against the fighters who remain; and to raise the price of resistance to the point at which communities will put pressure on fighters to accept whatever ceasefire terms the regime is prepared to offer, as happened in Homs two months ago.

Western diplomats accuse Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, of “weaponising” refugees to threaten Europe and punish Turkey, which supports the rebels and in November shot down a Russian plane that had crossed into its airspace. Turkey is doing everything it can to hold back the exodus from Aleppo by building big refugee camps on the Syrian side of the border. It is not yet clear whether it is prepared to defend these new camps against Russian or regime attacks. If it is, it could be the prelude to establishing an informal safe zone along the border—something the Turks have long demanded, but which America has refused to do, even when it would have been a lot less dangerous than it is now. Shooting down stray regime helicopters is one thing; risking a direct military confrontation with Russia is quite another. Syrian opposition leaders see it only slightly differently. One says: “It looks like Turkey is trying to create a humanitarian crisis. They think that maybe it could make the West finally act.”

In fact, there is little prospect of Western intervention. Even if Russia and Turkey come to blows in Syria it is not at all clear that NATO, of which Turkey is a member, would be obliged to come to its aid unless Turkey’s own territory were under attack. The desperate diplomatic floundering of Mr Kerry suggests that President Barack Obama, with only a year left in office, will not adopt a more hawkish approach unless events force him to.

In the absence of direct Western military intervention, most military analysts doubt that much can be done to stave off further rebel defeats. The Saudis are thinking of supplying them with shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. But America rejects this idea because of the danger that they would be used by terrorists to shoot down passenger airliners around the world.

None of this means that Aleppo will fall quickly to regime forces. There are about 40,000 battle-hardened rebel fighters from more than 50 opposition groups still in the city. Most have remained relatively independent of JAN. As a recent analysis by the Institute for the Study of War, a think-tank in Washington, DC, argues, they are a resilient bunch. However, the think-tank warns that the pressure of the coming siege will be used by JAN and its Salafi-jihadist ally, Ahrar al-Sham, to get moderate groups, who feel betrayed by the West, to merge with them. That would play into the regime’s account of the opposition being composed only of “terrorists”.

Without Russian air support the pro-regime forces ranged against them would look a lot less formidable. There are relatively few units of the Alawite-led Syrian army left. By the middle of last year it was on the brink of disintegration. It is now being retrained and rearmed by the Russians, but it is largely deployed close to the regime’s heartland in Damascus and Latakia. Most of the forces around Aleppo are Iranian-led Shia militias, from Lebanon and Iraq, with some fighters from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Western intelligence sources put their number at about 15,000, not including around 5,000 from Hizbullah, the powerful Lebanese Shia militia. Some Russian Spetsnaz special forces are working on the ground, co-ordinating air strikes. One rebel commander said: “We can beat them on the battlefield. Our men have been fighting them for five years and this is their terrain. But the Russian bombings make the difference.”

The West agonises over its self-inflicted impotence, while Turkey and its Gulf allies flail and threaten. But Mr Putin has a clear strategy that appears to be succeeding on almost every level. A newly confident Mr Assad talks about retaking the country bit by ruined bit.

Vlad the victor
Mr Putin’s immediate aim is to return Aleppo to government hands, allow the Kurds to create at least a semi-autonomous region in the north and then to use the suspended UN-sponsored peace process to lock in these gains. Underpinning this plan is his belief that a European Union bickering about refugees is desperate for the war to end at almost any cost, while Mr Obama has already given up trying (not very hard) to get rid of Mr Assad.

As a juicy carrot, Mr Putin will hold out the promise of a genuinely concerted attack on IS in eastern Syria to bolster the apparently feeble efforts of Mr Obama’s coalition. He may get a deal; he may even be prepared to offer up Mr Assad as well, as long as he is replaced by someone Russia finds acceptable.

From a wider perspective, Mr Putin’s strategy is paying dividends. His overarching reason for sending bombers to Syria, so soon after annexing Crimea and stirring up a separatist war in east Ukraine, is to force the West to take Russia seriously as a great power. In both cases the Kremlin portrays its action merely as a response to the provocative behaviour of America and its allies. In Mr Putin’s mind the revolution in Kiev in February 2014 was the result of a Western plot to claw Ukraine away from Russia. Similarly, the war in Syria was fomented by the West with the aim of dislodging Mr Assad. It is now getting its comeuppance, he believes.

The flow of refugees into Europe, increased by Russian air strikes, is another bonus. Mr Putin has for several years been giving material support to populist and nativist parties in Europe that oppose the EU. They have been boosted by the union’s floundering response to the migrant crisis. A weakened EU, Mr Putin calculates, should make it easier to keep the likes of Ukraine, Georgia and Belarus within Russia’s sphere of influence.

Not least, the Syrian campaign is helping to maintain Mr Putin’s approval ratings at home, which remain steady at more than 80% despite a painful recession in Russia, caused by cheap oil, Western sanctions and Mr Putin’s own misgovernment. Russian television depicts the war as an action blockbuster to cheering viewers. After Russian bombs hit hospitals in Aleppo, it shifted the blame onto America by showing footage of US Air Force A-10s allegedly operating in the skies over the city. America’s weary denial only confirmed its guilt. According to the Levada Centre, a pollster, nearly 60% of Russians support the war in Syria.

Yet however successful Mr Putin’s strategy appears now, it is fraught with risk. Saudi Arabia, as the leader of a newly formed Islamic coalition, is conducting large-scale exercises, possibly in preparation for a ground campaign against IS. Turkey, to which the Saudis have recently sent planes, could become a partner. If they were to go ahead (and it remains a very big “if”), matters would be unlikely to stop there: regime forces could also come under attack, directly or indirectly. Russia would then either have to insert substantial ground forces of its own or back down, while America might have little option other than to support its allies.

At best Mr Putin will have to contend with an incomplete triumph. Even with the help of Russia, Iran and Shia mercenaries, Mr Assad can at most retake the populous western end of the country. He will continue to face a large, radicalised insurgency. Mr Putin may find it as difficult to withdraw from Syria as the West has from Afghanistan. Nor will his promise of working with America to defeat IS be honoured unless Sunni Arabs are prepared to take and hold IS’s stronghold in Raqqa and the surrounding area can be taken and held by Sunni Arabs—in other words, those Russia now describes as “terrorists”. Mr Putin and Mr Assad may feel like winners for now. But in Syria “winning” and “victory” are slippery terms.

http://www.economist.com/news/middle...wouldhestopnow[/QUOTE]
At first glance, article looks well balanced. But it's not.
Article was too long for me to address in entirety, but let me make a few points to show misleading slant to this article.
Article states ... Turc doing everything it can to hold back the exodus from Aleppo by building big refugee camps on Syria side of boarder.
Conclusion to be drawn ... How valiant and kind of the turc, hey, they are doing everything the can.
That's a false depiction to mislead. The turc is supporting the 40,000 terrorists in Aleppo in every way they can. The most prosperous city in Syria is now offline to Syrian countries benifit and being utilized to fracture the country and destabilize it. But the terrorists in Aleppo aren't called terrorists, but rather "insurgents" by this article. Grossly misleading and pointedly slanted view.
Aleppo is a main conduit to turc boarder supply line. Aleppo is one of the main storage points for weapons and personal being introduced by the west/turc/sood/yahood.
Again, article states ... In mr Putins mind, west provoked Ukraine and war in Syria fomented by west.
Conclusion to be drawn from articles targeted audience ... That's how Putin sees it (BUT) the west is innocent of these charges and it is "just in Putins mind".
Reality check, USA spent millions of $ organizing the maidan riots before first radicle act was committed.
USA/cohorts did same in Syria to escalate Syria into violence. But hey, it's all in Putins mind.
Plausible deniability is all USA/cohorts have to hide behind. But that's fallen apart. By turc/saud admission, they have been fostering literally all out of country terrorists with money, arms, transportation, safe havens and medical care.
Again, article states ... After Russian bombs hit hospital, Russia (shifted ) blame on 2 a10s (warthog) ** allegedly ** flying in the sky over Aleppo.
Notice is not alleged about Russian bombing, although no definitive proof supplied, but it's only an allegation that two warthogs were spotted in vicinity.
And last, article states ... At most Assad can take west of country back, but will (continue) to face large radicalized insurgency.
That's what article wants targeted audience to think. Article producers have inserted their opinion/desire as fact. They've presented crap as fact.
Reality ... When article said Assad would continue to face large radicalized insurgency, the author of article failed to mention the "large radicalized" is being (a) finananced, (b) promoted, (c) expedited (d) etc by west/turc/sood/yahood.
Mher, I read your posts with great interest. My comments on this article were questioning and not derogatory towards you.
Sorry but this article is actually slanted to misreprent the facts to its targeted audience.
It's nothing more than sly propaganda.
No personal offense meant.

[Vrej1915]

Re: Syrian Armenian

Armenian woman dies in Aleppo shelling
19/03/2016


Ethnic Armenian woman, Nvard Furunjyan-Asaturyan, 1955, dies in Aleppo
shelling, amid the violation of the ceasefire, Kantsasar paper
Facebook page reports. The source says the rocket attack by armed
terrorist groups came at Aleppo's Armenian-populated district Nor
Gyugh wounding a group of several others with no risk to their life.

[Eddo211]

Re: Syrian Armenian

Few weeks ago one of my neighbors committed suicide. Shot himself in the head. He was Armenian Syrian with his parents still in Syria. He left behind two small kids, a wife, a house that was almost payed for, collection of hotrod cars, a girlfriend, etc.
Makes no sense, unless strong pain medications with alcohol caused it from a surgery he had recently.

[Haykakan]

Re: Syrian Armenian

Few weeks ago one of my neighbors committed suicide. Shot himself in the head. He was Armenian Syrian with his parents still in Syria. He left behind two small kids, a wife, a house that was almost payed for, collection of hotrod cars, a girlfriend, etc.
Makes no sense, unless strong pain medications with alcohol caused it from a surgery he had recently.

This is not all that uncommon. My neighbor also committed suicide. He was a neurosurgeon very well off with wife, two kids, girlfriend..

[Vrej1915]

Re: Syrian Armenian

[Vrej1915]

Re: Syrian Armenian

Հալեպում հայ զինվոր է զոհվել

7 Ապրիլի 2016,

http://www.yerkir.am/news/view/104574.html

Երեկ Դամասկոսի արվարձաններից մեկում զոհվել է սիրիական բանակի հալեպահայ զինծառայող Ռաֆֆի Գազեզյանը։

Ըստ «Գանձասար»-ի՝ հանգուցեալին դին այսօր առավոտյան կուղարկվի Հալեպ:

[Vrej1915]

Re: Syrian Armenian