22-Jun-12 WV-Syria grounds air force after pilot defects

[John]

22-Jun-12 World View -- Syria grounds air force after pilot defects to Lebanon

Economic news on Thursday goes from bad to worse

** 22-Jun-12 World View -- Syria grounds air force after pilot defects to Lebanon
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e120622#e120622



Contents:
Syria grounds air force after pilot defects to Lebanon
U.S. Ambassador to Syria uses Twitter to encourage defections
Report: U.S. helping funnel arms to Syria's rebels
Protests and name-calling dominate Cairo Egypt
Economic news on Thursday goes from bad to worse


Keys:
Generational Dynamics, Syria, Lebanon, Col. Hasan Merhi al-Hamadeh,
Robert Ford, Twitter, Egypt, Supreme Presidential Electoral Commission,
Ahmed Shafiq, Mohamed Mursi, Moody's, China, Europe

[Trevor]

Based on what's going on in Syria, I'm starting to wonder if this is really their crisis after all. It seems extremely bloody for an awakening era period.

Bad economic news like the jobless reports reaching a 6-month high and some predictions that we might have job loss in the next unemployment report?

[Marc]

Based on what's going on in Syria, I'm starting to wonder if this is really their crisis after all. It seems extremely bloody for an awakening era period.

I've actually been wondering that myself, Trevor, and as much as GD makes sense, I do wonder if, in extraordinary circumstances, if one can have a crisis civil war during an Awakening period. Rare exceptions causing it, if it can happen, would perhaps be along the lines of what we're seeing in Syria (e.g., a minority population in a country that is armed with superior weaponry, and is brutally using it to maintain dominance within the country). Thanks for the cogent thoughts. —Best regards, Marc

[Trevor]

My thoughts were more along the lines of the possibility that the Hama Massacre was the awakening climax that stated that the older generation won and that this is the war resulting a generation later.

[John]

Crisis wars come from the people. Non-crisis wars come from the
politicians. There is no way the the Syrian conflict is a crisis war.

Austin Tice at McClatchy has produced some good stuff. Here's
an article from today:

http://www.lakewyliepilot.com/2012/06/2 ... roops.html

Some rebels wonder if Syrian troops’ poor use of tanks, helicopters is
intentional ...

There is no way to know whether the inept use of heavy weaponry is the
result of poor training, incompetence or intentional. Some rebels,
however, say they believe at least some of the erratic military
actions are expressions of sympathy with the rebel cause by Sunni
Muslims who are serving in the country’s armed forces.

John

[Trevor]

Perhaps, but it seems pretty horrible for an awakening era event. About the only thing they haven't done is send aircraft to bomb the protestors and that could change, which was why the possibility that this is their crisis came to mind.

[Marc]

Perhaps, but it seems pretty horrible for an awakening era event. About the only thing they haven't done is send aircraft to bomb the protestors and that could change, which was why the possibility that this is their crisis came to mind.

Again, I've also been thinking that what's happening in Syria seems pretty horrible for an Awakening-era event. I don't doubt what John just said in regards to some likely wavering on the battlefield among the pro-Assad Syrian troops in many instances. Yet, I am respectfully left wondering what happens if you have enough loyalists in a situation like this who don't waver too much or at all (which seems to be the present case in Syria), and who have weaponry that they mercilessly use to slaughter another ethnic or religious group, and if the attacked group is also able to get its hands on potent weaponry as well (such as via sympathetic outside groups slipping it to them, or through the successful raiding of weapons caches). Maybe such a thing could cause a rare case of a First Turning reset via a civil-war–type event in an Awakening era; it is at least interesting to ponder. (However, your "Hama Massacre last-Awakening climax" theory is an interesting one, too, Trevor.) Thanks, all, for the further cogent thoughts. —Best regards, Marc

[Trevor]

Admittedly, John is likely correct about this, but I still consider it to be a possibility. The violence doesn't seem to be easing up in the least and unlike Iraq, you're not seeing too many casualties from terrorist attacks.

[Marc]

The increasing lethality of available weapons, and their increasing availability, can be a game-changer in unpredictable ways. At a minimum, one can certainly say that Syria at this time is a cesspool of war crimes and crimes against humanity. It's a most ugly scenario. —Best regards, Marc

[Trevor]

I might be sympathetic to what they're going through, but getting involved may not be a good idea. The way things are now, even something small could trigger a major war (though that's going to happen anyway, sooner or later) I also don't see us intervening directly the way we did with Libya.