:smack: Sorry, see you weren’t the one who originally brought this up. My bad. :o
A stark assessment of the law of the jungle that rules the world. Of course, if America had been dealt with for all it’s other numerous violations then it maybe wouldn’t be in Syria helping to push it into civil war in the first place.
And Assad’s foot would firmly be on the necks of the Syria people as the gods intend, right? Yeah, totally America’s fault there that he’s not large and in charge as he should be. Good think Russia is out there to set things right!
No problem, buddy. 
Once he’s gone they’ll put someone just as bad in charge. They always do. It’s not like the prospects of real improvement are stunningly good. Even if they could find a nice guy to govern, the population is traumatised, like a whole country with PTSD, thousand yard stares and outbreaks of irrational violence.
…which nobody but NGOs ever seem to consider. The PTSD of NATO troops gets increasing coverage, which is good - it should do, but there’s virtually nothing in our media about the countries where our forces are active, which has to be whole orders of magnitude greater - whether caused by us or their own rulers.
If there is a danger of US troops going kill crazy one day from PTSD, imagine how many there are in the Arab world just living on a knife edge and without the same level of support or recognition that Westerners get - probably only prayers to try and keep them stable. Good luck with that.
…or maybe be like post war Europe and find it’s conscience ? Makes you wonder how bad things have to get before real change happens.
So, your point is that the US, France and the rest should just leave it to Assad and Putin because the PTSD will be less if we just let them get on with the killing and get it over with and because whoever comes next will be bad too?? I totally don’t see what you are getting at here, to be honest. Turkey should let the Russians violate their air space because of this as well, or is this separate and just about the US, France and the other coalition members needing to pack it in and leave it to the Syrians and Russians???
Of course, that’s what Putin would want you to believe.
No I’m just saying whatever happens, the outcome will be bad. Can you construct a lovely democracy from a traumatised population ? Just following the convo. Never mind, short diversion, back to planes.
Actually, it is increasingly prominent in NGOs working in conflict and post-conflict zones. In refugees areas you’ll see it as “psycho-social services”, and among former fighters it’s a part of rehabilitation.
Yeah, and those Russians in the Ukraine were almost surely just tourists…and that build up of troops along the border were just made up by NATO most likely. 
According to this BBC report it doesn’t look like war is imminent…just a lot of finger pointing and accusations, with some additional posturing on the part of the Russians.
There is a picture in here of the difference in opinion over the flight paths. While I’m predisposed to distrust the Russians version (the whole ‘are their lips moving? Must be lying then’ thingy), looking at the two versions the Russians flight path LOOKS wonky to me while the Turkish one looks more logical. However, until and unless we get some sort of 3rd party data it’s going to be a he said she said kind of thing. The fact remains that Russia HAS pushed other countries in the past, including Turkey, with their attempts at dominance through sending their air craft to penetrate other nations airspace, so to me this is basically the result of such posturing…they got bit on the ass for it. Probably what Putin wants, actually, though gods know why he thinks this will be a good idea in the long run. Eventually, trying to distract the Russian people with this sort of loopy bullshit is going to turn on him and then I’m not sure where he thinks he’ll be then.
Is it effective ?
It seems a lot better than doing nothing.
A conflict zone takes generations to resolve.
Although it’s an alien concept to “the West” the caliphate idea seems to have a cultural relevance in that part of the world.
Maybe the Turks are the bridge to build a caliphate that isn’t actively seeking extermination.
“Us or them” seems to cause a lot more trouble than “us and them”
A better caliphate than the present version isn’t that hard to imagine?
…more by Fallon on selection of psychopathic traits in conflict areas
But, yeah, what about Germany ? It hit psycho rock bottom, was devastated, but is now one of the more conscientious countries. Could this be just a result of Marshall Plan aid, and without that sort of help it would not be able to develop socially in the way it has done, but would rather be still a very violent aggressive culture ?
Nm
Personally I think the best possible response to the middle east is to completely disengage from them. Leave them to themselves and spend the money that the US gives to Egypt / Israel on research into renewables and clean nuclear energy. But that will never happen because “politics”
An article that illustrates how both Erdogan and Putin are two sides of the same coin.
True. The gambit of ‘Russians are the only ones invited in by the Syrian govt’ is really stretching form over substance legalisms to the breaking point. It’s fair to say though that ‘the Russians don’t belong there’ is a value judgement based on assessing Russian (Putin that is) motives as less good (more bad) than Western. I’ve perfectly willing to make that judgement, but a lot of people twist themselves into pretzels never to, and a lot of Westerners seem nowadays brought up to question Western, especially US of course, motives first last and always, but give everyone else loads of benefit of the doubt. Strange characteristic of a culture, I wonder how long it can last.
Putin’s narrow goal is to prop up Assad, not necessarily bring about an Assad victory and that’s likely beyond his power to do anyway. More broadly Putin wants to foment unrest in the Mideast to prop up oil prices, since prolonged low prices might bring down his own regime. He’s certainly not there to ‘fight terrorism’, except in PR terms. I think it’s reasonable to designate Putin a bad actor in the region just as he clearly is wrt aggression on his own borders.