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Reports that Bassel Khartabil has been sentenced to death

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Re: Reports that Bassel Khartabil has been sentenced to death

#21

Post by lemevi »

omarish wrote: post #6
corndoge wrote: post #2

I hate feeling completely powerless in these kinds of situations. All I can do short of flying to Syria and taking up arms against such tyranny is upvoting this post. Absolutely pathetic. Update: The least we can do: http://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/syria...

I'm probably going to get downvoted a lot for this, but this is probably the exact feeling people on the other side get that causes them to go to Syria and take up arms and join isil. Edit: To be 100% clear, I'm by no means sympathizing. Rather, I believe that understanding an adversary's motivations can help resolve a conflict.

How does that logic go? "I don't like tyranny so I'm going to join a group of murderers and rapists who are best known for their beheading videos".

I know nothing about the complex situation in Syria and Iraq but I always guessed that ISIL in Syria was more about Iraqi post-Sunni Awakening fallout after being locked out of governing by al-Maliki. Like if you look at a map of ISIL in Iraq you see the area they have is the area that was hostile to Iraqi Occupation in 2007 and the leader of ISIL is Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, an Iraqi who was an insurgent from Fallujah. They just took advantage of the problems in Syria and used that as a spring board into Iraq.

The reason the fight against ISIL is going so slow in Iraq is the same reason it was such a tough fight in 2007. They're fighting the Iraqis who live there, it's not a Syrian invasion force.

So why would someone from Damascus be joining ISIL over this problem?

Re: Reports that Bassel Khartabil has been sentenced to death

#22

Post by dave2000 »

lemevi wrote: post #21
omarish wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm probably going to get downvoted a lot for this, but this is probably the exact feeling people on the other side get that causes them to go to Syria and take up arms and join isil. Edit: To be 100% clear, I'm by no means sympathizing. Rather, I believe that understanding an adversary's motivations can help resolve a conflict.

How does that logic go? "I don't like tyranny so I'm going to join a group of murderers and rapists who are best known for their beheading videos". I know nothing about the complex situation in Syria and Iraq but I always guessed that ISIL in Syria was more about Iraqi post-Sunni Awakening fallout after being locked out of governing by al-Maliki. Like if you look at a map of ISIL in Iraq you see the area they have is…

"I know nothing about the complex situation in Syria"

https://kanvaasi.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/bors151112-1500...

Re: Reports that Bassel Khartabil has been sentenced to death

#23

Post by vkou »

jqm wrote: post #18
DiabloD3 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, honestly, its shit like this other countries should go to war over. The United States was founded on free speech, not just having it, but spreading that ideal everywhere. FOSS is free speech. We dropped bombs on Iraq for non-existant WMDs, and invaded Afghanistan over a CIA agent that was living in Pakistan, yet we won't do anything to an out of control government bent on destroying what little society it has l…

Maybe part of the reason we won't, (and shouldn't), do anything about Assad is because of the outcomes of our last military "fixes". What we left behind is a lot worse than what was there originally.

The US has been directly[1], and indirectly[2] providing weapons to Syrian terrorist groups, including Al Nusra (Their local branch of Al Qaeda - with similar goals to what they pursued in Iraq over the past decade) for two years, now.

The State Department has never been skittish about getting into bed with violent islamic fundamentalists, and doesn't care about the success (Or the lack thereof) of the last round of military "fixes." It also doesn't seem to recall how this situation played out in Afghanistan... Circa 1980.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-b...

[2] http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/09/25/443577215/...

Re: Reports that Bassel Khartabil has been sentenced to death

#25

Post by elipsey »

jqm wrote: post #9

Does anyone know what specifically he was accused of doing? If he had ties with Western intelligence his detention is understandable (I don't support death penalty in this case, nor Assad, and it would be cool if they released the guy to the West, I'm only saying it's understandable if he was active in opposition spheres). Just because a person is a "hacker" doesn't mean they weren't involved in trying to violently o…

He blogged about people being arrested by state security during the protests.

It's not clear that he has been formally acussed of anything in particular beyond "treason". Detailed formal charges may be an unessecary formality in Syria.

https://www.eff.org/offline/bassel-khartabil

Re: Reports that Bassel Khartabil has been sentenced to death

#26

Post by efuquen »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #3
corndoge wrote: post #2

I hate feeling completely powerless in these kinds of situations. All I can do short of flying to Syria and taking up arms against such tyranny is upvoting this post. Absolutely pathetic. Update: The least we can do: http://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/syria...

Yeah, honestly, its shit like this other countries should go to war over. The United States was founded on free speech, not just having it, but spreading that ideal everywhere. FOSS is free speech. We dropped bombs on Iraq for non-existant WMDs, and invaded Afghanistan over a CIA agent that was living in Pakistan, yet we won't do anything to an out of control government bent on destroying what little society it has l…

I'm sure Saddam kill thousands of Bassel Khartabil like figures during his time in power. By this logic you should have supported that war as well. I'm not quite sure what you mean by Afghanistan? I'm pretty sure we invaded because of 9/11. If we went to war solely because of things like this we would be fighting a lot more of them.

I think you are too emotionally close to the issue because of the specific subject matter this activist fought for. No, I would not condone a war just for stuff like this, I don't want American's to die anymore then I want Bassel Khartabil to die.

Re: Reports that Bassel Khartabil has been sentenced to death

#27

Post by [deleted] »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #3
corndoge wrote: post #2

I hate feeling completely powerless in these kinds of situations. All I can do short of flying to Syria and taking up arms against such tyranny is upvoting this post. Absolutely pathetic. Update: The least we can do: http://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/syria...

Yeah, honestly, its shit like this other countries should go to war over. The United States was founded on free speech, not just having it, but spreading that ideal everywhere. FOSS is free speech. We dropped bombs on Iraq for non-existant WMDs, and invaded Afghanistan over a CIA agent that was living in Pakistan, yet we won't do anything to an out of control government bent on destroying what little society it has l…

[deleted]

Re: Reports that Bassel Khartabil has been sentenced to death

#28

Post by [deleted] »

maxerickson wrote: post #8
omarish wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm probably going to get downvoted a lot for this, but this is probably the exact feeling people on the other side get that causes them to go to Syria and take up arms and join isil. Edit: To be 100% clear, I'm by no means sympathizing. Rather, I believe that understanding an adversary's motivations can help resolve a conflict.

Quick, edit out the preemptive complaint so you can see what people think about what you say instead of what they think about the whining.

[deleted]

Re: Reports that Bassel Khartabil has been sentenced to death

#29

Post by pessimizer »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #3
corndoge wrote: post #2

I hate feeling completely powerless in these kinds of situations. All I can do short of flying to Syria and taking up arms against such tyranny is upvoting this post. Absolutely pathetic. Update: The least we can do: http://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/syria...

Yeah, honestly, its shit like this other countries should go to war over. The United States was founded on free speech, not just having it, but spreading that ideal everywhere. FOSS is free speech. We dropped bombs on Iraq for non-existant WMDs, and invaded Afghanistan over a CIA agent that was living in Pakistan, yet we won't do anything to an out of control government bent on destroying what little society it has l…

American allies in the Middle East are Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Israel. We don't care about human rights in the Middle East; we prop up horrible administrations there and shield them indefinitely. Why you think elite concerns like free speech and open source software should be a special case is beyond me.

Re: Reports that Bassel Khartabil has been sentenced to death

#30

Post by jqm »

elipsey wrote: post #25
jqm wrote: post #9

Does anyone know what specifically he was accused of doing? If he had ties with Western intelligence his detention is understandable (I don't support death penalty in this case, nor Assad, and it would be cool if they released the guy to the West, I'm only saying it's understandable if he was active in opposition spheres). Just because a person is a "hacker" doesn't mean they weren't involved in trying to violently o…

He blogged about people being arrested by state security during the protests. It's not clear that he has been formally acussed of anything in particular beyond "treason". Detailed formal charges may be an unessecary formality in Syria. https://www.eff.org/offline/bassel-khartabil

Well.. that doesn't say he didn't have ties to Western intelligence.

But I followed the links and sent an email to Syrian ambassador for the UN appealing for Khartabil's release.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/syria...

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