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Syrian government falls in end to 50-year rule of Assad family

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Re: Syrian government falls in end to 50-year rule of Assad family

#121
Assad was backed by Iran & Iran has been bad news for that region for some decades. the new coalition is backed by Turkey, and since they share a border it makes a lot more sense than Iran ever did.

way too early to say much more right now. next few weeks/months should be interesting though.

Re: Syrian government falls in end to 50-year rule of Assad family

#122

I would love to hear what the Syrian hacker news community has to say about this. I’m reading so many comments here but not sure how many are from actual Syrians who probably have a deeper understanding and hope/fears about what comes next.

“Actual Syrians” isn’t a thing for this — it’s like wanting to hear from ‘actual Americans’ what they thought of the US election.

Depending on the ethnicity, religion and politics of those Syrians you’ll get wildly different views.

Re: Syrian government falls in end to 50-year rule of Assad family

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assad wasn’t really a stabilizing force holding back worse players, he was a desperate despot just barely holding on to power thanks to a proxy war. Now the rest of the parties have a real chance to establishing a governing coalition. Syria has always been relatively secular and the rhetoric coming from the rebel side is in marked contrast to the usual pattern in the region. The most extremist group involved HTS has…

The vast majority of Syrian refugees are going to try their best to stay in Europe because why would they want to leave to return to devastation and ruin (aside from forced deportation).

Most Syrians I know have unbounded love for their country and their people. You'd be surprised by the number of people who are not motivated purely by financial gain.

Re: Syrian government falls in end to 50-year rule of Assad family

#124
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A) in the open B) they released all prisoners now. And at least some of them were part of ISIS.

The majority of them (at the Saydenia) are political imprisoned citizens.

Well, technical IS supporters (who did not participated in killings themself) are political imprisoned citizens as well.

The point is, that no matter what they did, they are all free now.

Re: Syrian government falls in end to 50-year rule of Assad family

#125
post #43
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love for someone to explain to me why there is a cheering section for Bashar al-Assad. I understand what Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is. I can read a Wikipedia page. HTS: not great. Got it. But why am I supposed to believe the Syrian Ba'athists are (sorry, were) a fulcrum of peace in west Asia? Someone give me the pitch. Is it really all a fiendish plot to eliminate the meal of dinner?

Given how it played in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and to a less degree Tunisia, these revolutions have all been more catastrophic than the status quo.

The reason Lybia turned to shit was French and US secret services battling through interposed assassinations and supporting people with army but not popular support.

Us secret services seems to have won (at least Hillary's leaked emails make it seems US services got what they wanted), but since their candidate was really bad,the country split (not saying that what the French did was any better by any mean, but at least their initial candidate,pre assassination, had grassroot support.)

Still, the original Sin was French, so they're the main culprit of what happened in Lybia. Especially since it's possible that the war was started to remove witnesses of illegal campaigns fonds transferred from Gaddafi to Sarkozy, but we only have circumstancial evidence. Mostly because Gaddafi died shortly after being captured alive in the hand of french-supported rebels, his finance minister unluckily drowned himself in Vienna, and one witness retracted himself after a weird assassination attempt.

Re: Syrian government falls in end to 50-year rule of Assad family

#126

What are the chances the Kurds will get their own land out of this?

Somewhere between 0 and None, which is a good thing for literally everyone. Unless we’re now cheering for ethnostates and a full blown Turkish invasion. Even the Syrian Kurds don’t want independence, rather just autonomy as part of a multiethnic Northern region.

Re: Syrian government falls in end to 50-year rule of Assad family

#127
post #48
post #6

Much though I want to view this as good news I keep finding myself steelmanning that it's actually bad news * destabilising a region already in flames * replacing a secular evil government by.. jihadists in a loose coalition. WCGW? * Russia used port and airfields to maintain a presence in the Med and for nefarious purposes in Africa. What do they do now, to replace them because I doubt "nothing" is the answer. * doe…

I don't know that "what kind of news is it" is the right way to look at this. Things happen, without a reckoning of whether they are convenient or inconvenient to the most powerful military forces in the world. The people who just overthrew the Ba'athists are Salafists; their leader has (had?) a $10MM price on his head from the US for leading the al-Nusra front, which was (is?) al-Qaeda in Syria, and was almost a com…

HTS was at some point related to al-Qaeda. This hasn't been the case for almost 10 years. The biggest sign that this isn't only appearances is that they've pivoted from religious rhetoric to that of liberation. I don't care who the US has a price on. It's not a sign of anything at this point.

Re: Syrian government falls in end to 50-year rule of Assad family

#128

I would love to hear what the Syrian hacker news community has to say about this. I’m reading so many comments here but not sure how many are from actual Syrians who probably have a deeper understanding and hope/fears about what comes next.

“Actual Syrians” isn’t a thing for this — it’s like wanting to hear from ‘actual Americans’ what they thought of the US election. Depending on the ethnicity, religion and politics of those Syrians you’ll get wildly different views.

Most Syrians I know are celebrating. I could have a biased demographic tho.

Re: Syrian government falls in end to 50-year rule of Assad family

#129
post #4

Who are likely to control Syria now? Will Syria become an islamic state?

Turkey is relatively liberal (for an islamic country) and they backed the "revolutionaries". I'm kind of wondering what Jordan is going to do in the coming weeks/months.

Re: Syrian government falls in end to 50-year rule of Assad family

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Syria wasn’t a particularly shitty place before all this began in 2013.

It was under a repressive dictatorship with crumbling infrastructure. Sure, it can always be worse, but the people deserve and are capable of so much better.

"Sure, it can always be worse"

Yes, I would argue the islamic state was indeed worse. And so far I see nothing preventing them or a similar force taking hold again. I mean turkey is the moderating factor here and turkey under Erdogan has gone the authorian islamic way since a while.

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