Russia's Track Record
So, I like the russians, that is their people anyways. I know a lot about their military and their strategies, their weapons and tactics, and even to some extent the culture and food. The food is okay, but some of it can be really good if prepared properly and uh, non-traditionally. But currently their government has more or less gone insane, basically reflecting soviet era-style rulings lead almost entirely by the now more-or-less dictator Putin. But uh, a lot of people seem to disagree. Trump for instance denied that the Russians were involved in the cyber attacks despite our sources in Russia confirming it. A lot of people seem to think that Russia's not so bad or even crazier that somehow, America is at fault for provoking the Russians. That somehow, we've been aggressive towards them. This isn't just an opinion by one presidential candidate, it's shared by two, one of them being Jill Stein. Jill stein is sort of the ultra-leftist hippie, so why she agrees that we are the one's at fault and not ultra-conservative Russia seems a bit... bizarre. And this isn't just two isolated incidents; a lot of people these days seem to think that Russia is the good guy, fighting terrorists, and America is tah debilsz, fighting people who only want to slaughter hundreds of thousands of innocent people-terrorists. So, who do we believe? The propaganda machine of RT news literally ran by the government or almost everyone other news station in the entire world? Do we trust common sense or, Donald Trump and Jill Stein? For some ,the answer seems to not be obvious. So, I will illustrate Russia's track record just so we can all keep up.
For more information on the Syrian conflict, please feel free to refer to my earlier posts on the topic.
The Beginning
Tracing the origins of the Russian's behavior back to the origin would be difficult since it's over 100 years of bloody conflict between various czars, the communist take-overs and so on. This recent crisis is perhaps best traced back to the Georgian war. In 2007, Russia invaded Georgia, citing tremendous civilian causality figures (nearly 2,000, which was later proven to be false) as their reason to intervene. During the war, not only was it revealed that maybe 130 or so people had died during this time, but after Russia invaded the death toll sky rocketed to over 500, mostly at the hands of the Russian forces. In essence, Russia invaded and resulted in dramatically more civilians dying. Russia had an economic sanction placed on them and their actions were widely condemned by the U.N. Eventually the war petered out, people hoping that Russia would simply remain our ally.
Then, their man didn't get elected in Ukraine. According to Putin "You don't understand, George, that Ukraine is not even a state. What is Ukraine? Part of its territories is Eastern Europe, but the greater part is a gift from us". After this, Russia invaded Ukraine. They denied it at first, claiming their men were "on vacation", then after achieving their military objectives switched their tones to not only admitting it, but celebrating it as a great victory for Russia. Thousands of civilians have now died after Ukraine refused to buy gas from Russia and elect their preferred leader. A referendum was held in Crimea that was not supervised by the international community, that gave them a 96% support. Given Putin's 146% support in a previous election and 107% in a later election, it's unlikely this election accurately reflects the people's will.
Conflict in Syria
Little has been more polarizing than the conflict in Syria. To understand the current problems between the U.S. and Russia, you really need to understand what is going on in Syria. The war grew out of the unrest of the 2011 Arab Spring and escalated to armed conflict after President Bashar al-Assad's government violently repressed protests calling for his removal. The conflict grew out of Bashar al-Assad's brutal repression of his own people, which up to the civil war included banning groups from walking in public with more than 5 people (a fairly arbitrary reason to arrest people), thousands of disappearances of those who were in jail for such petty offenses, a total ban on freedom of speech and at times impunity to arrest anyone he felt like without a trial. Thousands of cases of torture, mistreatment and even death have been documented, most of which Assad himself admits to. After these protests Assad had his meant open fire on numerous crowds of civilians, killing thousands, which sparked defections by many in the Syrian military who were fed up with killing their own people, and thus the Syrian civil war began. Other groups, such as militias, joined in with these dissenting military forces, and fought to overthrow Assad and establish a true democracy, carrying on the waves of the Arab spring.
The rebels, at one point, seemed to be winning. Assad to this day only controls about 16% of the territory, while the other 84% is under the control of various rebel groups. That is until, Russia got involved. With their indiscriminate bombings, they have committed numerous atrocities killing thousands in Syria in order to effectively solidify the Syrian government's control. Although they claim that every rebel is a terrorist or on the side of terrorists, Russia has thus far killed more innocent civilians than ISIS, making their supposed humanitarian efforts a bit dubious (just like in Ukraine and Georgia). The civil war has resulted in over 300,000 dead and approximately 12 million refugees and internally displaced persons, literally the largest refugee crisis that the world has ever seen, even larger than the holocaust (albeit, most the jews were killed and, not refugees), and is certainly the biggest humanitarian crisis of our time. [1][2] Although 300,000 have died from violence, it's believed that millions more have or will die from starvation and access to clean water and medical care. If the rebels surrendered tomorrow, it's unlikely Assad would stop the violence, as he was brutally repressing his own people and trying to ethnically cleanse the area long before his own troops defected and began fighting back. The conflict can truly only end with Assad out of power and the Syrian people in control. With Russia threatening war, possibly nuclear with the U.S. over Syria, this unfortunately doesn't seem like a possibility.
Russia has bombed both U.N. and other humanitarian organizations in Syria. [1][2][3] They have bombed U.S. military positions and [1][2], strikes that lead to the deaths of at least four people (although exact details have not been released). They have continued to violate the sovereignty of the people of Syria, Ukraine, Georgia and Chechnya. By direct Russian intervention, they continue to keep Assad in power and lengthen the Syrian conflict, which adds to the death toll if only by the deaths of those who cannot flee Syria and are in need of basic human necessities like food and water. They actively disrupt efforts to supply food and water to civilians, kill more than all the terrorists they propose to be fighting, and have launched aggressive attacks against both the U.N. and the United State's.
My question to you, ED, is this proof of American aggression? Have the Americans been too harsh on the Russians by not laying down and dying like they want us to? Is this somehow America's fault for trying to fight Assad and ISIS in Syria? ISIS who, didn't even come in to the Syrian conflict until 2014, 3 years after the war started in 2011, is a pretty small group compared to Assad's massacres and even Russia's own massacres, but is it possible that America is the bad guys for wanting both of these groups out of power in Syria? According to two presidential candidates and a swath of their supporters, apparently, yes. I don't know though ED, what do you decide is true and false? What do you make up is the facts or not? Whatever your opinion's on the U.S., it is obvious that Russia is absolutely atrocious and shouldn't be allowed to continue their reign of terror and repeated massacres in Syria. That Assad shouldn't be allowed to. And all Sarcasm aside, Russia is only getting worse, and tensions with the U.S. and Russia are continuing to build. [1][2] We can't allow these atrocities to continue, but at the same time, war with Russia would be a nearly inconceivable nightmare.
