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What was Syria like before the war

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Re: What was Syria like before the war

#191

Post by orf »

easilyBored wrote: post #169
ta_qwerty wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The time will come when Westerners stop pretending Democracy is more important than a roof over your head and food on the table. All the praise in the world for North America and Western Europe for managing do develop with democratic governments, but China, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and others are there to show that prosperity reaches a broader definition than liberal democracy. Developing countries need growth, n…

The saying is "A democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch" By democracy I mean a system where basic human rights are protected and cannot be voted out. Would most Saudis, in a fair vote, allow for Catholic Churches to be open here? If the answer is no (and I think it is) then democracy is bad. Same for women rights, criticizing their faith, gay rights etc.

Given the current US climate I think a public vote about mosques being allowed might well fail.

Gay rights in the USA is a fairly recent thing in the scheme of things, and it's still not evenly distributed or enforced across states.

And if you think you can get into any public office in a large number of states if you criticize Christianity or even support a women's right to abortion, let alone gay rights, you must be joking.

All I'm saying is America isn't a basition of equal rights by a lot of measures, some in name more than in practice. The last lynching was in 1981 for Christ's sake. So lambasting other countries for not being so tolerant is not a great point to make, IMO.

1. https://www.aclu.org/map/nationwide-anti-mosque-activity

Re: What was Syria like before the war

#192

Post by 75dvtwin »

I dislike intellectually dishonest titles, that try to hide the humanitarian or politically oriented motif.

In this instance, much of the material is not about what Syria was like before, but about the horrors of war. And that Syrians are great refugees to have...

a) they do not really want to leave Syria and live in first world countries

b) they are more educated than Americans... With a strange 'inference and comparasing'

" .. 18 in 100 Syrians* have advanced degree vs 11 in 100 Americans ..." *Based on Syrian immigrants living in the US

What does it even mean? Syrian refugees have a projected higher contribution to US economy than Americans?

Overall, the article should have been in Arabic, English, Spanish and Chinese.

The article should have been labeled: "50 great reasons why you should want displaced Syrian refugees to immigrate into your country..."

Re: What was Syria like before the war

#193

Post by mythrwy »

omurphy27 wrote: post #159
candiodari wrote: post #3

I wish there were more definite sources detailing what the actual conflict is about. People are giving all sorts of accounts online and it seems to be divided into a few camps: 1) western and sunni middle eastern press: it's all Assad's (government's) fault. People want democracy. Specifically this is supposed to be a response to violent repression of pro-democracy protests from March 2011. Problem: very hard to beli…

One can argue over what's driving the conflict today, but how it started back in 2011 is very well documented by every current news source at the time. It began when Assad's security forces tortured children for spray painting anti government graffiti in Deraa. Protests, in the spirit of the Arab Spring which had spontaneously consumed the region, then followed. Assad met these protests with total violence, including…

There is a lot more to it than that. A lot.

"tortured children for spray painting graffiti" (which resulted in the sudden sprouting somehow of heavily armed and trained jihadists, many of whom were foreign).

You don't have to be much of a cynic to see the deep influences of foreign powers in this conflict. It's so deep that media takes (such as the view you present) don't do much to cover it up.

Re: What was Syria like before the war

#194

Post by mythrwy »

matt4077 wrote: post #24
candiodari wrote: post #3

I wish there were more definite sources detailing what the actual conflict is about. People are giving all sorts of accounts online and it seems to be divided into a few camps: 1) western and sunni middle eastern press: it's all Assad's (government's) fault. People want democracy. Specifically this is supposed to be a response to violent repression of pro-democracy protests from March 2011. Problem: very hard to beli…

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 f…

"It's really very simple: Assad is and always was a brutal asshole. At some point, hatred of him turned violent, and everything escalated."

Nothing is simple in that area of the world.

There are a lot of forces at play. One of which is upset Syrian citizens. Another of which are interested foreign powers.

Re: What was Syria like before the war

#195

Post by mythrwy »

matt4077 wrote: post #48
roadbeats wrote: post #38

The UN is not objective. They keep repeating the "peaceful protests" thing, but what sort of peaceful protests would aim to take down the president by force ? I'm not an Assad supporter but come on, we saw how that peaceful protests ended up in Libya; France was doing air strike to stop the Libya government to interrupt the protests, people killed their former leader with their bare hands. The only peaceful end durin…

What a load of conspiracy-bullshit: >If you're looking for truth, don't expect these corrupt organizations to tell you, do some research. Here's the data, from the horses' mouth: http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/regional.php . UNHCR runs accommodation for half a million refugees. More importantly, they have changed tactics in the last decades, and are trying to get refugees to live among the normal population, in…

How does a civilian population suddenly get a bunch of training and weapons all of the sudden? Why are (or were) so many of the "upset civilians" of foreign origin?

Cmmon, no need to yell "tinfoil hat Zionist Clinton Soros conspiracy theorist"! in an attempt to discredit. That doesn't help the "story".

It's plainly obvious there are a number of interested parties who are participating by proxy. Or openly even. There is nothing conspiratorial about that. It's pretty obvious.

Re: What was Syria like before the war

#196

Post by didibus »

tyingq wrote: post #77
romanovcode wrote: post #74

Refugee stats: 3.6 Women and Children 1.6 Men God, I hate stats like these, why is it so hard to break up men, women and children separately to give more insight. Women are not the same as children. Or is google trying to tell us that woman are basically, well, children?

UNHCR has detailed stats, here: http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/regional.php If you draw the line at age 18: Roughly, 27% male adults, 25.5% female adults, 47% children.

I think it was done to appease people. I have an impression most would feel more compassionate knowing that there are little men, since they tend to cause more issues. Though when you split the stats, you see there's actually more men than women refugee.

Re: What was Syria like before the war

#197

Post by shitgoose »

hackuser wrote: post #133
shitgoose wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am afraid that burden of proof is still on you. The habit of throwing in an accusation and suggesting that your opponents go and look for proof, became too widespread.

> The habit of throwing in an accusation and suggesting that your opponents go and look for proof, became too widespread. Generally I agree, but in this case it's very easily found.

you can't be serious.

Re: What was Syria like before the war

#198

Post by shitgoose »

pm24601 wrote: post #137
shitgoose wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am afraid that burden of proof is still on you. The habit of throwing in an accusation and suggesting that your opponents go and look for proof, became too widespread.

Not really, if you choose to silently disbelieve that is fine. Expecting anyone else to spend their time and energy on "proving" some thing to someone else, should only happen if there is a pay off. https://xkcd.com/386/

shitgoose to pm24601: you suck!

pm24601 to shitgoose: why!?

shitgoose to pm24601: go google it yourself!

pm24601 to shitgoose: why should i google why i suck?

shitgoose to pm24601: if you choose to silently disbelieve that is fine. Expecting anyone else to spend their time and energy on "proving" some thing to someone else, should only happen if there is a pay off.

Re: What was Syria like before the war

#199

Post by euyyn »

toyg wrote: post #189
euyyn wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - The Spanish civil war was heavily influenced by foreign powers, with Germany and Italy instigating and materially supporting Franco, the USSR helping the Republic, and everyone else providing covert support for this or that faction. There's a pretty high jump from "Hitler helped the rebels during the war" to "the Civil War was orchestrated and triggered by foreign powers".

If I tell you that I'll give you weapons and support "should you decide to rebel", am I "orchestrating" or "helping"? Semantics.

If you don't tell me such a thing during the months of planning before the war starts, you aren't orchestrating anything.

It's not semantics, sometimes people happen to rebel without it being the machinations of a foreign power.

Re: What was Syria like before the war

#200

Post by euyyn »

toyg wrote: post #190
euyyn wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In some cases (like Pinochet or Franco), the ruling dictator simply accepts there is no point in continuing and just dies away without bestowing the country on his children. Yeah that's not what happened in Franco's case. He appointed Juan Carlos to succeed him as King of Spain. Juan Carlos was crowned after Franco's death, and decided to turn the country into a democracy. So we got lucky in that sense.

For all of Franco's troubles, the conclusion was basically foregone when he appointed as heir a member of the royal family. Juan Carlos's father had long accepted an evolution into a constitutional monarchy should he ever regain the throne, as an inevitability; any smart person in JC's shoes would have seen the writing on the wall and would have acted in the same way, imho. I don't think it was luck, the forces in mo…

> any smart person in JC's shoes would have seen the writing on the wall and would have acted in the same way, imho

I disagree. As evidenced in the 23-F coup, the armed forces were either opposed to democracy, or loyal to the king. If Juan Carlos had wanted to remain an absolute monarch, all the machinery of the state would have kept turning as usual. The same way it did during 30 years of dictatorship during the Cold War.

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