Live data from Hacker News

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

apnews.com

141–150 of 530 posts

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

#141

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…

>Almost seven million Syrian refugees might have the chance to return home and rebuild now. That’s great news. Just because they might have chance to return home and rebuild doesn't mean that they will. Somalis arrived in the 90's, and they never returned back there except for vacations.

Um, did Somalia actually get much better since then ?

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

#143
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any regime change that involves freeing many thousands of women and children from prisons notorious for torture and mass-executions seems like a decent one! The future is uncertain, but it's not like "everyone chills out and gets into their hobbies" was an option -- it's gotta be one of the most war-ravaged places to exist in human history.

>Any regime change that involves freeing many thousands of women and children from prisons notorious for torture and mass-executions seems like a decent one! Overthrowing Gaddafi didn't make Libya a better place. Now it has open air slave markets, amongst other loveliness.

Slavery was common place during the Gaddafi era as well.

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

#144
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…

[flagged]

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

#146
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any regime change that involves freeing many thousands of women and children from prisons notorious for torture and mass-executions seems like a decent one! The future is uncertain, but it's not like "everyone chills out and gets into their hobbies" was an option -- it's gotta be one of the most war-ravaged places to exist in human history.

>Any regime change that involves freeing many thousands of women and children from prisons notorious for torture and mass-executions seems like a decent one! Overthrowing Gaddafi didn't make Libya a better place. Now it has open air slave markets, amongst other loveliness.

[flagged]

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

#147
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

This might surprise you, but most Syrian refugees didn't go to Europe. Turkey has 3 million, for example.

Plus a lot of people who tried to pass themselves off as Syrians aren't Syrians at all.

The asylum claim processing authorities were a bit overwhelmed, but soon learned to ask questions such as "can you tell me in which city you used to live, what was the name of the mayor, what was the closest mosque/church, your address, your school" etc. Few of the fake ones could answer such probing in a satisfying way.

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

#148

Nassim Taleb (in Lebanon not far from Homs right now): "The strangest thing is that after 14 years of war, the Syrian rebels walked into the entire country faster than if they were on a tourist sightseeing tour. Except at the beginning, there was no fighting." (from his X Account)

That could only be strange for him if he doesn't understand the structure of the war or he hasn't been following current events.

Assad was only able to take back Syria with air support from Russia, ground support from Hezbollah and re-enforcement by Iran and other Iranian aligned groups in Syria.

Russia is busy and drained of resources because of its misadventure in Ukraine, Hezbollah is reeling from it's shocking loss to Israel while Israel has been targeting Hezbollah and anything vaguely tainted by Iran in Syria for years now. Iran itself is being very careful with that it's doing after losing so much of the long-term strategic positioning it invested in.

All of that, that was what was holding back opposition. SAA couldn't have done it in the first place without that support and that support later became security while SAA had other things to do. When it was weakened, the opportunity began to exist.

My personal opinion is that it's been a while since that security actually existed and due to all of the above mentioned problems, it's been a bluff for longer than it has seemed. When the Aleppo lines collapsed, HTS figured this out and acted swiftly to take advantage of that fact. SDF and the southern front joined in when they say they were having so much success.

Taleb should know better, or not be commenting. It makes it sound like a conspiracy theory or something.

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

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Almost seven million Syrian refugees might have the chance to return home and rebuild now. That’s great news. Just because they might have chance to return home and rebuild doesn't mean that they will. Somalis arrived in the 90's, and they never returned back there except for vacations.

Um, did Somalia actually get much better since then ?

[dead]
Post reply on HN