What was Syria like before the war

I am Win10, Chrom 58, same message. Yeah, what a joke.

Stuff like this doesn't happen for some pipeline. In this case, the theory has the following problems:

- The supposed Qatar->Europe would have to cross Saudi Arabia, which is a much larger obstacle to any pipeline project.

- Same for Turkey

- Dependence on Russian gas isn't so much a "European" problem, as a Eastern-European problem, from Germany to Greece. These are countries that aren't really known for 007-style false flag operations in the middle east

- There doesn't seem to be a pipeline being build anywhere near Syria. This outcome wasn't that surprising, considering almost every other conflict in the region also turned into a decades-long quagmire

- The further destabilisation of the middle east creates risks that dominate any supposed gains from lower energy dependence: the migrant crisis was among the worst in the European Union's history, at least in terms of its potential to unravel the union. The power vacuum that was created gave rise to ISIS, which the west will have to grapple with for decades in some form or other

- The supposed perpetrators in the west are democratically elected politicians, not actually psychopaths trying to amass natural resources.

- Even if they were so inclined, they'd have a really hard time profiting from it because

   (a) elected politicians think in much shorter timeframes
       than what would be required for this pipeline 
       to start making money, 

   (b) they would never be able to actually do anything 
       with any money they made, being constantly in the
       public eye even after their terms are up, 

   (c) they'd be dead by then anyway, 

   (d) most politicians have actually proven that 
       they have below-average interest in monetary 
       riches compared to public admiration, and 

   (e) they could never get that, either, because 
       they'd be prosecuted and ostracised if it 
       ever came to light.

It's really very simple: Assad is and always was a brutal asshole. At some point, hatred of him turned violent, and everything escalated. There are two dozen different foreign and domestic powers with a stake in the outcome, and each of them funds this group or that, securing a continuing source of violence, just add angry young men.

Some of the opposition may have democratic ideas, some may be communists, or fascists, or islamists, or hairdressers. There's no easy way to label the opposition because Assad really managed to get a lot of people rather angry, for all sorts of different reasons (but mostly for killing people other people liked)

As another point: if you take a really good look at Iran, you'll find they are a lot less bad than one might think. They are without any doubt the second-best democracy in the region–behind Israel, but quite certainly ahead of today's Turkey. And while that democracy is incredibly flawed, Iran is so much better than Saudi Arabia, it isn't even funny. With the added knowledge that all the islamic terror against the west since 2001 has been Sunni, it's really strange to see who's an ally and who is in line to get bombed when the US President next has a bad day.

Islamic state really doesn't have much to do with the conflict, except that there was suddenly a lot of territory in eastern Syria that the Syrian state could no longer defend, i. e. a power vacuum.

Northern Iraq was similarly weak, and there was a lot of frustration against the Iraqi government, plus many unemployed former members of Saddam Hussein's military with some experience.

So they thought "fuck it, lets start our own country. With blackflags and dead hookers". A bit like these sovereign citizens, but with better social media.

>Meet 7-year-old Bana, who shared her experience of war on Twitter.

It's like the movie Wag the Dog. Sad to exploit a child like this.

Have you seen hypernom.com for visualizing 4 dimensions?