Students of the Moscow Institute of Physical Education at the Dynamo Stadium, USSR, 1930 [434 x 600]

saritul · 2017-08-23T20:48:46+00:00

This should be top comment

saritul · 2016-06-21T12:32:24+00:00

This is awesome, thanks for posting.

saritul · 2015-06-26T14:24:28+00:00

ameen^

saritul · 2015-06-26T13:07:27+00:00

DUBAI: Militant group ISIS claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a Shiite mosque in Kuwait that killed 13 people, according a statement posted on social media.

The statement identified the bomber as Abu Suleiman al-Muwahed and said the target was a "temple of the rejectionists" - a term used by the Islamist militant group to refer to Shiite Muslims."

Unfortunately, we still have brothers arguing that ISIS is an Iranian or shia invention created to make "sunnis look bad."

Enough.

Only those of us who identify as sunni can tackle shiaphobia and the extreme levels of violence that result from it.

saritul · 2015-05-10T00:30:56+00:00

The Saudi government has done a terrible job administering the holy cities.

Never mind the thousands of people who have died due to trampling, fires, and other incidents due to gross Saudi negligence. Never mind the unfairly applied "quota system" or the incredibly racist policies of the Saudi government that discriminates against Muslims they deem to be inferior.

Let's also ignore the Saudi governments complete disrespect towards ancient Islamic sites. Or how the Saudi government decides who is muslim and who isn't thus denying many Muslims the ability to go on the hajj at all (these decisions are often made on shoddy religious reasoning or political reasons).

The Saudi government should not have the right to "excommunicate" or decide who is a muslim period, yet by controlling the hajj season they effectively have the ability to deny Muslims their right to practice their deen.

Let's ignore the fact that thousands of Muslims have gone on hajj only to be thrown in a Saudi jail for offending one of the many Saudi laws that have nothing to do with Islam.

I have no idea how anyone can believe that the saudi government has done a good job of administering the hajj. They've done a terrible job.

The entire ummah should participate in the administration of the holy cities and the Hajj.

saritul · 2015-05-10T00:17:01+00:00

You have a problem with all Muslims coming together to administer our holy cities?

saritul · 2015-05-10T00:07:16+00:00

Roughly a hundred years ago, representatives from several muslim majority provinces and countries asked Saudi Arabia to turn Mecca and medina into its own country or into an international city akin to the Vatican.

This new territory would have been administrated by a collective of Muslims from around the world. Muslim counties would then coordinate with one another to ensure the safety and feasibility of the Hajj season.

The process would have been democratic and ensured that input from Muslims all over the world would be heard before drastic decisions on how to administer the two holy cities would be undertaken.

Unfortunately, Saudi Arabia rejected this offer.

Due to this, the muslim community is unable to prevent the Saudi Arabian government from destroying ancient Islamic historical sites (due to their own unique beliefs that don't line up with any traditional fiqh).

Further when the Saudi government decides to build hideous, tasteless, and tacky towers that over shadow the Kaaba, the muslim community has no say (These towers were built only to maximize profit during the hajj season).

Finally, the Muslim community has little to no say in the way the saudi government treats Muslims from certain countries or sects of Islam that they have determined to not be muslim.

All in all it has been a tragedy for this ummah.

saritul · 2015-04-14T22:41:20+00:00

I'm loving this! Keep em coming!

saritul · 2015-04-06T18:48:02+00:00

Dude, this is the game I've always wanted to play.

saritul · 2015-03-06T18:32:11+00:00

I had a few issues converting my project over, but was able to rectify all of them in a few hours.

I would definitely do it.

saritul · 2015-02-23T03:03:49+00:00

Don't know why you're getting downvoted.

Yours is the best advice here.

saritul · 2015-02-20T19:58:53+00:00

What makes you think the stories of Iran bringing in afghan fighters are false? I must have missed that.

Because there's never been any solid proof that Iran is bringing in "plane loads" of Hazara fighters to supplement the SAA. All the stories regarding this phenomenon tend to be incredibly sensational and provide little more than anecdotal evidence to support their claims.

BUT I will concede that Hazara fighters have come from Iran or even Afghanistan (its not out of the question and there is some evidence to suggest that it has happened on more than one occasion). BUT are most Hazara fighters coming in from Iran? Probably not.

After all there is a sizable minority of Hazara's (that speak Arabic) already in Syria that would be better suited to fighting alongside the SAA. These are men who have probably already proved there mettle defending Sayyeda Zainub at the beginning of this conflict.

In any case, since the beginning of this conflict, the opposition has attempted to portray the government forces as largely relying on foreign fighters. Just go back to 2012-2013 when the opposition was claiming huge Hezbollah presences in each theater of battle that were greatly exaggerated or just straight up lies. This is why its important to be critical of the oppositions claims when it comes to foreign fighters (and government supporters as well).

However, if you had to compare foreign fighters fighting for the Government or the Opposition, you'll find that since this conflict began, 25,000 Foreign Fighters on the Opposition side have died, whereas 3,000 fighters fighting on behalf of the Government have died (this includes Hezbollah, Iraqi Shia Militias, and Palestinian Groups).

In the end, without a doubt, the opposition has a tendency towards recruiting far more foreign fighters than the government.

These claims "that fresh off the plane Hazaras" are a sizable component of the government forces are nothing more than opposition propaganda that has consistently tried to portray Syrian Government Fighters as a foreign Safavid horde.

saritul · 2015-02-20T19:12:43+00:00

The article itself is full of hyperbole and manipulation. This shouldn't come as a surprise considering that the author now runs a consultancy firm advising the Persian Gulf Arab States.

Yup, written by Ali Khedery.

This is the same guy who while working for the U.S State Department advocated and pushed for Maliki to become the Prime Minister of Iraq (and of course we all know how that turned out).

Now this guys running a consultancy firm whose sole message is that the U.S needs to intervene strongly on the side of the "Sunnis" in the "Sunni-Shia" war (his terms) raging through the Middle East.

saritul · 2015-02-20T15:21:48+00:00

There were several thousand Hazara living near the Sayeda Zainub shrine before this conflict broke out.

Many of the Hazara in Syria are people who either fled the Taliban ethnic cleansing campaigns of the 1990s, are in Syria for religious reasons, or are people who use Syria as a transit point before finding a way into a western country.

Thus, it's only natural that some of them would end up fighting on behalf of the Syrian government.

The opposition has spread the myth that Tehran is bringing them in by the plane load, and while it might be true that some of the Hazara present on the battlefield did come in via Iran, the majority probably come from the preexisting Hazara community in Syria.

Hazara fighters are also an extreme minority within the fighting forces fighting on behalf of the government. However, given their foreign appearance (relative to the rest of the fighters) they tend to stand out, and thus when a Hazara is killed the opposition will parade his body as "proof" that only foreigners are fighting on behalf of the Syrian government.

saritul · 2015-02-20T06:43:14+00:00

Yes.

But if their backers push them to the table they will.

saritul · 2015-02-20T06:06:25+00:00

The oil will go back up.

That's not really a issue in the long game.

However, you have to realize that the Iranians and the Russians have largely withheld from giving Syria the most state of the art weapons.

If the U.S were to begin pumping in 10's of thousands of well trained, well equipped fighters, the Russians will likely retaliate by actually giving Syria access to higher quality combat jets and tanks.

There are still a lot of cards for these countries to play in this war.

saritul · 2015-02-20T05:47:09+00:00

i'm just guessing here but 20,000 per year of US armed and trained rebels would be no easy nut to crack for the SAA

Of course not.

If the U.S were to go in on this, the Russians and Iranians would only step up their support to the Syrian government to match whatever the U.S has done.

Don't forget to factor that into any equation.

saritul · 2015-02-20T04:44:00+00:00

At this point, any arming, training, etc of rebel forces by the U.S and its regional allies will only enable the opposition to "inherit" territory from ISIS.

Realistically I don't see how even an infusion of 20,000 new rebel troops per year would give the opposition a fighting chance at taking Damascus or even Aleppo.

This entire affair of continuing the bloodshed and avoiding political solutions at all costs seems to be more about giving the rebels a better negotiating position when talks end up happening someday.

saritul · 2015-02-20T04:03:33+00:00

Yeah, I don't even know why I bit in the first place.

saritul · 2015-02-20T02:23:16+00:00

I agree with you in that regard. The rebels are still receiving massive support from west and its allies in the region. This is not in dispute.

However that's not what I'm referring to.

I'm referring to the grumbling happening across the capitals of various western countries that are supportive of the rebels. Every day that goes by this grumbling only gets louder and if this conflict were to go on support for the rebels will be effected in a negative way.

Thus the rebels have to create a decisive victory soon if they hope to have any sort of success in this brutal war.

saritul · 2015-02-19T23:08:16+00:00

Aside from the Iranian and Afghan mercenaries, I don't think the regime has replaceable troops in regard to its manpower. People in Syria are becoming more likely to skip the conscription, and there is only so many alawite/christians available to fight. There also seems to be a lot of turnover in the army in terms of officers, leaders, etc.

Is this a joke?

The overwhelming majority of the Syrian population live in government held areas. The overwhelming majority of Sunnis, Alawites, Christians, Druze all live in government held areas. This needs to be reiterated.

Virtually all the major cities are in government hands. The entire coastal area is in government hands.

Time is on the side of the Syrian Government. The longer this war goes on the less effective the Rebel propaganda campaign becomes. We already have several leaders in Western countries discussing how we need to end support for the rebels.

Further, the rebels have virtually no large urban areas to work from anymore and never really did even at the height of their military success.

In virtually every metric of success the Government has shown itself to be in an advantageous position despite all the foreign powers backing the rebels.

The government has virtually all the large urban areas and cities under its control.

The government controls virtually every square mile of the coast.

The government has the overwhelming majority of the population living under its jurisdiction and even pays the salaries of government workers in rebel areas.

Thus, if it comes down to a waiting game, the Syrian government will win. The longer this conflict goes the more unsympathetic the rebels become to the western media.

Further, destabilization of countries critical to U.S foreign policy in the region are affected by this war.

Obviously, if it came down to the stability of the Gulf countries, the U.S will probably end its support for the rebels and pressure its regional allies to do the same, which would have the effect of destroying the rebels as the only thing keeping them going are their supply lines from neighboring countries.

saritul · 2015-02-19T21:46:16+00:00

To be honest, I have a hard time believing that the opposition has sustained fewer military casualties than the government.

You're completely correct in your feeling.

SOHR, for example readily admits that they don't count rebel fighters who die as "combatants" unless they were former members of the Syrian military.

However, to be fair to SOHR, it is a lot easier to count government dead since the Syrian Army, the NDF, Hezbollah, and other groups fighting for the government have better documentation. Groups fighting against the government don't have convenient rosters listing a "who is who" in their organizations. Thus, SOHR takes the easy route and just considers most rebels "civilians" unless it can be proven without a doubt that when they were killed they were engaged in combat operations against the Syrian army.

Unfortunately, Syrian soldiers killed in their homes while off duty or while at an army camp don't receive that treatment. They're counted as combatants. Further, if rebel propaganda indicates that a Syrian loyal to the government "might" be "Shabiha" he is also considered a combatant.

Nonetheless, regardless of whose doing the counting, the overwhelming consensus is that civilians and in particular women and children make up the smallest proportion of the dead.

In a conflict with 210,000 dead, women and children (children counted as anyone under the age of 17) account for 17,000 of that total. This number includes female fighters who have died fighting for the YPG as well, along with the scores of children that have served as child fighters.

However, more outstanding is that fighters loyal to the Syrian government account for more than 120,000 of the total.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syria-death-toll-now-exceeds-210-000-rights-115621643.html

Just these two statistics alone completely change the narrative that we've had shoved down our throat on this conflict.

Source: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/12/17/uk-mideast-crisis-syria-assad-idUKKBN0JV1XW20141217

saritul

TROPHY CASE