Molham Babouli

[El Hombre]

Oh good, political discussions.  This should be interesting.

I'm tempted to show a picture of any stadium in North America and wonder aloud how many in the crowd work for General Dynamics or Lockheed Martin and how they live with themselves...

[shamrock]

As horrible as it sounds (and it obviously is) to be gassing your own people, maybe dropping dirty bombs on hospitals is even worse. And there's plenty of evidence for that. 

[Obinna]

1 hour ago, shamrock said:

As horrible as it sounds (and it obviously is) to be gassing your own people, maybe dropping dirty bombs on hospitals is even worse. And there's plenty of evidence for that. 

Evidence?

[Obinna]

22 hours ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

The war is mainly about a gas pipeline from Qatar to Europe that required regime change in Damascus to be built and could have devastated the Russian economy given they depend on Siberian gas to Europe for much of their state revenues. You would be hard-pushed to find a government or rebel group in that part of the world that doesn't have a very bad human rights record, but considerations like that have never stopped western countries from doing business with Saudi Arabia, because not doing so would have devastated the western economy given it revolves around the petrodollar cycle. Don't think we have the right to judge what Babouli is doing from a moral standpoint because the world is a very messed up place and there's not a lot a soccer player can do to change that. Think Babouli's time was up at TFC and he wouldn't be in Syria right now, if he was ever likely to be the answer in MLS terms, because nobody in their right mind would move to Aleppo right now if they had viable options elsewhere. Seriously doubt Ben Spencer is the answer either, but he's younger and still viewed as a prospect. He probably has another 12 months or so to put the pieces together or he'll be on his way and somebody else will get the development time instead.

Very well put. I don't understand judging Babouli for playing in Syria. If anything, I admire him for chasing his professional dreams to such an extent that he now finds himself in a dangerous area of the world.

I also find it refreshing. The very existance of the Syrian league right now is a reminder that daily life goes on, despite all the hardship. 

It reminds me that there is more to Syria than just a big smolding crator, which is the image I get from the news. I am sure I am not alone.

Edited April 19, 2018 by Obinna

[shamrock]

1 hour ago, Obinna said:

Evidence?

Sorry I used the wrong frase, I meant barrel bombs. This can give you an idea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Syrian_Civil_War_barrel_bomb_attacks

As for the smartasses who will point out everybody can post on Wiki, the sources are right there.

As for evidence of gas attacks, it's quite hard to prove if Russian troops won't let you go near (I wonder why...). https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/18/arrival-of-chemical-inspectors-in-douma-delayed-by-gunfire

[Obinna]

36 minutes ago, shamrock said:

As for evidence of gas attacks, it's quite hard to prove if Russian troops won't let you go near (I wonder why...). https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/18/arrival-of-chemical-inspectors-in-douma-delayed-by-gunfire

Without evidence, all we can do is conjurer up conspiracy theories. Nothing wrong with that, of course, so long as you can admit that is what you are doing right now.

3 hours ago, shamrock said:

As horrible as it sounds (and it obviously is) to be gassing your own people, maybe dropping dirty bombs on hospitals is even worse. And there's plenty of evidence for that. 

 

[A_Gagne]

11 hours ago, Obinna said:

I try to stay away from the political stuff, but I couldn't help myself this time.

Is there actually any evidence those attacks were from Assad?

... cui bono

[BuzzAndSting]

10 hours ago, Obinna said:

Evidence?

Someone in Syria is gassing their own people. It’s been established that sarin attacks have occurred, in opposition held areas of Demascus in 2013. The UN report can be read here.

Edited April 20, 2018 by BuzzAndSting

[gator]

I just read a report on Twitter that Mo has been arrested in Syria for not serving mandatory milatary service, anyone see anything about this? 

[shamrock]

5 minutes ago, gator said:

I just read a report on Twitter that Mo has been arrested in Syria for not serving mandatory milatary service, anyone see anything about this? 

Seriously? I think this is the time to get the F out of there. 

[toontownman]

Have a lots of Norwegian friends that had to do that. Lots of countries do it. I am grateful I never had to do it but I also don't think it's the worst idea either. 

[Grizzly]

22 minutes ago, shamrock said:

Sorry I used the wrong frase, I meant barrel bombs. This can give you an idea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Syrian_Civil_War_barrel_bomb_attacks

As for the smartasses who will point out everybody can post on Wiki, the sources are right there.

As for evidence of gas attacks, it's quite hard to prove if Russian troops won't let you go near (I wonder why...). https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/18/arrival-of-chemical-inspectors-in-douma-delayed-by-gunfire

There is nothing inherently worse using barrel bombs or chemical weapons than killing people with Tomahawk missiles or all the other weapons we are using or have supplied the Islamist militants with. If a government is using barrel bombs all that means is that they are running out of more expensive, conventional weapons. The rebels are using things like improvised mortar shell launchers, grenade catapults and suicide vehicles all of which do a lot of damage to government held areas which is not shown on our television. If we were on the government side our media would create a hysteria about certain type of rebel weapons just like it demonizes barrel bombs now. All these weapons are terrible and saying one is worse than others is just an excuse for us to intervene and kill people with our equally bad "approved weapons" on the false basis of humanitarian intervention. The US has already used white phosphorus in Syria and Iraq which most of the world considers a chemical weapon but the US just doesn't recognize the classification which is very convenient for them. Not to mention all the depleted uranium in weapons or the long history of chemical weapons use by the US, for example, Agent Orange much of which was Made In Canada!

You know what is worse than barrel bombs and chemical weapons? Robotic aerial death machines that fly in various countries throughout the world assassinating various people in other countries that the US and its western allies do not like and frequently killing innocent bystanders or mistakenly bombing wedding parties or funerals. Imagine the outrage and sanctions if Russia or China or Assad or Kim Jong Un bombed a wedding party in another country and killed 100 innocent people and then blamed it on mistaken intelligence. But when the US does it we don't demand sanctions against them, call Obama or now Trump a war criminal or animal who kills children or prevent them from hosting sporting events. In the rare instances it even gets reported the story disappears quickly without any consequences to the perpetrators.

There is a long history of lies used to justify wars from the USS Maine, to Gulf of Tonkin to Weapons of Mass Destruction. People should go watch the Incubator Babies video (possibly the greatest acting performance in history) which was used to justify the first invasion of Iraq. Remember that while the US government was trying to decide on a way to market the war, they conducted experiments that showed that showing people atrocities was the number 1 method to change people's opinions from anti to pro war, hence they came up with the incubator babies lie. This atrocities method has been used to justify mass murder and genocide by our western governments ever since. Recent estimates have put the war dead in Iraq War as close to 3 million. If we include the dead of the first war there and all those who died from sanctions we are getting close to the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust just on Western involvement in Iraq alone. Everyone knows both wars were based on lies and were not about human rights but were about oil, resources and geopolitical power.

Hussein may have been a nasty dictator but somehow we managed to kill several thousand people for every single person he might have killed had he remained and have been worse than him in every category we used to justify our attack. Millions protested the wars to no avail even though we are supposedly living in democracies that are supposed to respond to the will of the people. Just Iraq alone should have produced major sanctions and the shunning of the international community towards the US, the UK and all the other countries that participated including Canada which participated far more than most people realize. We prosecute African dictators for war crimes (most of the time guys we put in power but who fell out of favour) yet our war criminals like Bush, Blair and Cheney are doing the talk show circuit and lauded as great politicians even though they killed millions and knew and were warned this would happen.

I haven't even mentioned all the other wars besides Iraq and already the western death toll is in the millions. Yet we go around talking about human rights and pointing the finger at dictators and countries we do not like (who just happen to be the same countries who want to have their own sovereign policies and not be told what to do by the West). What other country in the world has killed several million people recently? If you piled up all the dead from dictators and countries we don't like and made another pile of dead from wars from western democracies our pile would be 100 or 1000 times larger. We control almost all non-military levers of power in the world as well as having the largest military force. No one can compete with us on any level except for the mutually assured destruction level of nuclear weapons. We also create the conditions where conflicts are bound to happen, moving NATO to Russia's borders, surrounding China with military, supporting one side in ethnic or religious conflict, bullying countries to follow our policies, regime change operations and interfering and buying the democracies of other countries. Then when some other country does something to defend itself or its interests often in no win situations we say , "Look at them, they are the bad guys!" The monument to the victims of communism is still being planned in Ottawa. I have no problem with that as there were indeed victims of communism although in concentrating only on people who suffered from communism they are ignoring a lot of the things that were good in many communist countries. However, if we are going to build a monument to the victims of communism, we should build a monument to the victims of western democracy right beside it. And from the end of the second world war to the present time, the number of victims of western democracy is far higher than the number of victims of communism or any other political system.

One thing is for sure, as by far the most powerful military, economic and political power in the world, the killings and war will not stop until the western powers recognize their own war crimes and take steps to create a world in which countries are able to act in accordance with international law that applies to everyone and doesn't exempt ourselves because we are the rich and powerful "good guys." No one else can take the high road without our lead because we would use that to destroy and control them. But apparently there is too much money and power for those who control our military industries, media and politics so we continue to talk about evil Putin or animal Assad and flood the world's media with how bad they are while conveniently ignoring the crimes of our own much worse war criminals.

 

[gator]

18 minutes ago, toontownman said:

Have a lots of Norwegian friends that had to do that. Lots of countries do it. I am grateful I never had to do it but I also don't think it's the worst idea either. 

I don't think I would want to serve time in the Syrian Army!

[Grizzly]

On 4/18/2018 at 1:12 PM, Dub Narcotic said:

 

Wonder how many of those in the crowd work in Assad's torture prisons or are involved in the chemical and conventional indiscriminate bombing of civilians in the war. Frankly, it's disgusting that Babouli is playing there in tacit support of the regime and disgusting that the World Cup is going ahead in Russia this year, but, "The Beautiful Game..."

Even if everything we said about Assad and Syria were true, the idea that a high percentage of people involved in these things are in attendance at a soccer match is pretty ludicrous. Many may be Assad supporters but that does not mean they are involved in military operations and we are not supposed to be bombing people for their political beliefs. And whether Assad is guilty or not of what we accuse him of, lets be absolutely clear here, Assad's government and Syria were not targeted for regime change and war because of human rights violations. If we were upset about human rights violations or war crimes against humanity we would be attacking Saudi Arabia and not selling them weapons and helping them both oppress their own people and commit a genocide in Yemen. Assad's sin is that he did not do what the western powers wanted him to do in a variety of issues such as agreeing to oil pipelines, refusing to trade with Russia and China and not recognizing Israel.

22 hours ago, El Hombre said:

Oh good, political discussions.  This should be interesting.

I'm tempted to show a picture of any stadium in North America and wonder aloud how many in the crowd work for General Dynamics or Lockheed Martin and how they live with themselves...

Even here in Montreal I have friends working for American aerospace companies. They are working on civilian projects but suspect that some of their work is relevant to and used by the military wings of the company which makes them uncomfortable.

DC United's shirt sponsor is the military contractor Leidos. MLS teams like those in other leagues get paid for promoting the US military at games. The following report by Senators/War Criminals McCain and Flake talks about MLS in this regard starting on page 69 (McCain and Flake are not angry at the practice, they are angry that the US government has to pay for it): https://www.scribd.com/doc/288517847/Tackling-Paid-Patriotism-Oversight-Report-Embargoed-Until-Nov-4-11-45am#from_embed

[Zem]

Here's the tweet:

The follow-up is reassuring though:

 

Edited April 20, 2018 by Zem

[Grizzly]

In 1935, Major General Smedley Butler, at the time the most decorated Marine in US history has this to say about his military career:

I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

[Obinna]

10 hours ago, BuzzAndSting said:

Someone in Syria is gassing their own people. It’s been established that sarin attacks have occurred, in opposition held areas of Demascus in 2013. The UN report can be read here.

Thanks for sharing. I'll read it, but I don't mind a spoiler. Can you tell me if this UN report contains proof it was Assad?

[Gian-Luca]

1 hour ago, Zem said:

Here's the tweet:

The follow-up is reassuring though:

 

The second tweet is somewhat reassuring but overall this is disappointing to read on so many levels. I understand the lure of playing international football and that he was unlikely to be given much of a sniff for Canada given the winger options we're producing, but I still hope he changes his mind and gets out of there after reading that.

[BuzzAndSting]

1 hour ago, Obinna said:

Thanks for sharing. I'll read it, but I don't mind a spoiler. Can you tell me if this UN report contains proof it was Assad?

No, that’s why I said “someone was gassing their own people.” The UN investigators have found definitive proof of sarin poisoning and almost certain use of surface to air missels to deliver it, however they were not tasked with determining the perpetrators. The gas attacks have occurred in opposition held areas so it’s either the opposition doing it to themselves, the Assad regime or a group who is opposed to the opposition.

[shamrock]

You're seriously equating the US with Syria? If anything, Western powers should have used more force when it mattered (before Russia was involved) but they were too divided and didn't want to get involved. Yes killing people is always bad but intention does matter. It might have saved hundreds even thousands of people. 

And at worse, two wrongs don't make it right.

[Lord Bob]

Assad, Trump, Putin, it doesn't matter, end this division and focus on the real enemy: Benito Archundia.

[Dub Narcotic]

You can look at any independent civilian casualty count of the war in Syria and find that the Syrian-Iran-Russia-Hezbollah axis is responsible for somewhere around 90% of all civilian casualties in the current war, a war that was started when Assad's government started bombing civilian protesters whom were protesting for democracy as part of the Arab Spring. This doesn't include the incredible number of people not killed in combat but tortured to death in Assad's prisons or the lucky ones who were just flat out assassinated for being part of any kind of civilian opposition to Assad. This is nothing new for the Assad Baath communist dictatorship, as his father was responsible for some of the worst crimes against humanity in the 1980's, repeatedly massacring whole towns that were against his rule.

As usual, the Soviets/Russians have their 'Useful Idiots', whether they be called Trump or Grizzly who love to repeat their propaganda, no matter how ridiculous, for whatever psychological or ideological reason that only they can say.

As for Babouli, it was stupid as hell to go into this war zone, and he's not the first athlete to run into problems with conscription when playing in a country with mandatory military service where citizenship is held. Its the reason many Israelis immigrants will not go back to play in leagues there, for example. 

 

 

[Grizzly]

3 hours ago, shamrock said:

You're seriously equating the US with Syria? If anything, Western powers should have used more force when it mattered (before Russia was involved) but they were too divided and didn't want to get involved. Yes killing people is always bad but intention does matter. It might have saved hundreds even thousands of people. 

And at worse, two wrongs don't make it right.

I am not equating the US with Syria, I am stating the US is far far far worse than Syria and that Bush, Obama, both Clintons and now Trump are far worse war criminals than Assad even if everything our governments are saying about Assad are true. But let me ask since you advocate the West using more force in Syria which model of future outcome from Western military intervention you are advocating? Do you prefer the Iraq model of liberating people or the Afghanistan model? Or how about the lovely Libyan model of freedom from a horrible dictator who gave his citizens the highest standard of living in Africa? Those Libyans have a lot to thank us for! Or maybe we could do for the Syrians what we are doing for the Yemenis in helping our allies blockade the country and cause a famine. So tell me Shamrock which form of western country destruction and mass murder you are advocating for here?

[badname22]

Seems like he's back to playing for his club again 

 

[Grizzly]

His club has a video of him returning to the team