I’ll confess, I’m embarrassingly uninformed on Assad and the broader situation in Syria. Anybody have any good resources to get a basic understanding?
I mean the wiki is never a bad place to start https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Syrian_civil_war_(January–October_2024)
Fuck Assad, he could have simply chosen to not order shooting at peaceful protesters in 2011 and overseen a peaceful transition to democracy. Instead, he chose death and destruction for millions of people. He deserves everything that’s coming to him, and Syrians everywhere have every right to celebrate tonight.
The future is uncertain: this is what freedom looks like. My entire heart goes out to the Syrian people. Hopefully the maniacs leading the HTS and the SNA will not manage to smother them.
Why are the HTS maniacs again?
The are a rebranding of Al-Nusra, a split of Al-Quaeda.
This is their leader: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Mohammad_al-Julani
They are putting on a “moderate” face, it remains to be seen if they mean it.
The are a rebranding of Al-Nusra, a split of Al-Quaeda.
They’re a split of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, who was mostly (or only??? Idk) fighting the US invasion, so that doesn’t say much. Also from what I have read they’ve been keeping their promise of civil liberties in their territories. So what I want to say is: Have they done something or does anyone who’s not secular enough qualify as a maniac?
We are not talking about “not secular enough” here, we are talking about Al-Quaeda, get a grip. The leader guy had made an oath of allegiance to al-Zawahiri. Al-Nusra at times collaborated (and tbf also fought against) ISIS. They were also responsible for war crimes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Nusra_Front#War_crimes
Regardless, like I also said they are putting on a moderate face and say they are different now. But minority groups in Syria are rightly feeling threatened. We’ll find out soon enough it seems.
We are not talking about “not secular enough” here, we are talking about Al-Quaeda, get a grip.
Again, we’re talking about Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and the now leader/founder of HTS joined them to fight against the US invasion of Iraq. Not saying they’re good guys or not, but in this context “they’re Al-Qaeda” isn’t saying much. This sort of bad word logic doesn’t really check out with reality.
They were also responsible for war crimes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Nusra_Front#War_crimes
Okay fair enough that’s maniac material. That said, don’t they have a good enough track record as HTS starting 2017?
Well, you know the movie reference: Illinois Nazis, I hate Illinois Nazis.
Anyway, we’ll find out soon enough what these guys are.
Minority groups in Aleppo welcomed them and said they feels safe. Whether this will last has yet to manifest, but probably the main dividing line would be Sunni-Shia.
Also protection of minorities is a fundamental islamic value. People like Daesh bastardize Islam.
overseen a peaceful transition to democracy
Paving the way for outside actors to mess with those elections. Look at how much democracy Lebanon has with all its parties and yet it’s a giant mess. Americans complain about Russian interference in US elections but somehow don’t understand how that problem is far worse in a country with a tiny fraction of the resources that the US has. In fact, the US would be one of those outside actors trying to influence the elections, which they’ve done for many decades now in many different countries.
The future is uncertain: this is what freedom looks like. My entire heart goes out to the Syrian people. Hopefully the maniacs leading the HTS and the SNA will not manage to smother them.
This is what freedom for the most brutal looks like. The most brutal tend to be religious fanatics because they think they have God on their side and they’re willing to die for their cause. You can guarantee that whoever comes out on top will be establishing an ultraconservative theocracy and things will be worse for the Syrian people (except for those who are into that shit, maybe).
Respectfully, that’s a load of nonsense:
Paving the way for outside actors to mess with those elections.
So? If potential future foreign interference is a legitimate reason to NOT have democracy at all, then ALL democracy becomes impossible. You’re basically making the argument that democracy is impossible so Syrians should never ask for democratic reforms because …if they do sometime in the future some external actor might try to influence their election?
And it’s actually worse than that. They asked for democracy and they got bullets, chemical warfare and over a decade of destruction and dispossession. Was the threat of some potential election meddling that horrible that all of that is preferable? Ask any Syrian refugee in Lebanon if they wouldn’t trade the destruction of their country with Lebanon’s broken sectarian system.
Ultimately you’re making an argument that either they should have 100% of a good thing or 0% of the thing AND brutality for asking for the thing in the first place. And that’s utterly nonsensical.
You can guarantee that whoever comes out on top will be establishing an ultraconservative theocracy and things will be worse for the Syrian people
You actually cannot “guarantee” it. It is a possibility, but there are no guarantees. You can be pessimistic of course. But history never guarantees anything. I mentioned elsewhere in the thread that by “freedom”, I was referring to this particular moment right here, where nothing is for sure and things could go to the better or the worse. RIGHT NOW, there is uncertainty. Even if tomorrow HTS tries to enforce a khalifate or whatever shit, right now, this is a moment of freedom for Syrians. Just look at what they are saying. You can’t deny what you see. They are saying that after decades they are able to finally breathe. The future IS open, but not guaranteed.
Your mistake is in thinking that people simply asked for democracy. The movement gained its moment from the “Arab Spring” and as regimes were being toppled, someone spray painted basically “you’re next” to Assad. Tell me, which country would tolerate such a threat? Try doing that in the US and you’ll have the feds up your ass in a hot minute, even though the US is a much more stable country with nowhere near the same threat of the government being forcefully changed.
Obviously war is horrible, but what Syria had before then was better than what Lebanon had and has now. The war was quickly hijacked (or, perhaps, even started with help) by outside forces and was stretched out to over a decade. You could say that Assad should’ve just stepped down, but you could just as easily say that these outside groups should’ve just stopped as well. A bunch of far-right religious troglodytes don’t necessarily represent the people any better.
I can understand the momentary feeling of relief as fighting hits something of a lull and a pivotal moment of change occurs, but very soon people will see that the change will not be for the better. I slap a guarantee on it based on what has happened in the past, including the very recent past, with Iraq and Libya. People were saying the same thing when they were liberated and look at them now. I wish things would turn out better, but it seems obvious to anyone paying attention that there is so small a chance of that happening that it may as well be zero.
Your mistake is in thinking that people simply asked for democracy.
Oh excuse me for listening to what actual Syrians have been saying. You obviously know better.
The movement gained its moment from the “Arab Spring” and as regimes were being toppled, someone spray painted basically “you’re next” to Assad.
Yes, that’s called a revolutionary wave. Or are those allowed for white people of previous centuries?
The rest of your comment is apologia for (brutal) state repression. Not interested.
Oh excuse me for listening to what actual Syrians have been saying. You obviously know better.
This is always a funny thing to say because you seem to think a handful of views repeated by media interviews represent the views of an entire country.
Yes, that’s called a revolutionary wave. Or are those allowed for white people of previous centuries?
That’s hilarious that you’d make this statement implying that I think only white people can have a “revolutionary wave” which, by the way, plays out much differently in reality than compared with a time-compressed account written after the fact.
The rest of your comment is apologia for (brutal) state repression. Not interested.
Cool, revel in your ignorance and then be shocked and amazed when the inevitable happens. Pointing out that Assad, Saddam, and Gaddafi were better than what came after is not apologia, it’s just the reality, just like how pointing out genocide-supporting Biden is better than Trump is not genocide apologia.
Media interviews? You know that for a decade now there are about 6 million refugees living outside Syria, right? It’s not exactly difficult to meet them and hear what they have to say.
Yeah, gee, I wonder why people who fled a war would say it’s bad where the war is. Keep in mind that the majority of voters in the US voted for Trump because they thought Biden was the reason for the price of eggs.
This is not “what freedom looks like” this is “what a violent rebellion looks like”. There are good odds that the new regime will be as bad or even worse. People who overthrow a power with military force aren’t often interested in sharing that power afterwards.
The other option: overthrow the violent regime with magic.
I don’t know what to tell you - people always think there must be a “good” option, and if the current one is bad then any other option must therefore be good.
This could also be a radical regime like the Taliban that could actually be worse for most people.
What about this: the status quo under Assad with houndred of thousands tortured and murdered is bad enough to try to change it.
Well… Yeah. But do the rebels care about that? Or do they just feel that Asad was just torturing and murdering the wrong people? And do they feel that Assad was just not following the koran closely enough by allowing women to be educated?
Rebellion against oppression often leads to a different type of oppression, and given the groups these rebels have been associated with in the past it’s concerning at least.
You just write down what pops up in you mind.
Where are your sources for those claims?
What claims? You just say things that pop in your mind too. Where are your sources?
This is untrue considering their track record after the rebranding from Al-Nusra to HTS. They’re not spawning out of thin air.
What is untrue? My concern? How can my concern be “untrue?”
The skills needed to be a revolutionary are very different from the skills needed to govern. Remember when the taliban was “kinder and softer” for a few months?
I’ll be happy if my concern is misplaced. But time will tell.
How can my concern be “untrue?”
The idea that they “could be” ignores the fact that they’ve been actively governing their territories since (and before, I guess) 2017, and they haven’t started a Taliban-style brutal regime there. I mean I guess it’s not impossible for them to suddenly change their style of governing, but what I’m trying to say that they have a track record we can use to try and predict their future behavior.
So maybe next time have a conversation rather than just telling somebody “that’s untrue”? No need to be weirdly adversarial…
That said - you raise some good points. I’m not ignoring anything though. You’re acting like my “concern” is saying “things will go bad” when it’s not.
I mean very narrowly this moment right now. This moment of uncertainty where anything is possible. This is what freedom looks like: anything is possible, the best and the worst.
I gotcha - though I personally wouldn’t choose the word “freedom” for that. “Uncertainty” is more appropriate I’d say. The future of the nation will be up to the rebels, not the people. They won’t get any say unless the new regime lets them.
“The king is dead! Long live the king!” and all that…
This is for sure a byproduct of the war in Ukraine. This really shows Russia’s weakness.
This is a huge loss for Russia too. Any smaller country considering joining (or staying in) Russia’s sphere of influence for security just saw one of their peers get exiled from their country by its populous.
I believe Syria also has Russia’s only friendly port in the Mediterranean. If that base falls to rebels that would be a huge blow to Russia’s ability to project power over the region.
Ha ha and their only warm water port, except that in Kaliningrad, which, thanks to putin, is now incercled by the NATO alliance lol.
Kaliningrad was encircled anyway. Unless you mean Lake NATO.
this is flight path of that plane, it crashed in the mountains
he’s dead
The article mentions he did an abrupt U turn, before “disappearing off the map”. No mention of crashes or problems. Couldn’t they have just turned off the comms and transponder? These sites normally project the path the airplane will take until the next update from the plane.
Turning in a circle while turning off the transponder would seem to be a sensible thing if you suddenly realise people could be viewing your projected route…
altitude decreased at 15ft/s before disappearing at 1500ish ft, and few minutes later syrian army command informed officers about fall of regime
i don’t think they just faked it, there’s also no airport there and emergency landing in terrain like this is, i think, quite extravagant option
That will be one piece of good news this year if he is dead. Fuck that piece of shit. We should’ve listened to our Syrian ambassador Robert Ford and fully supported the FSA.
Give him state funeral because a lot of people would like to be sure that he’s dead
Sic semper tyrannis
Good riddance and hopefully Bashar al Assad is found and brought back for fair and prolonged trial (because his list of deeds is long, and he needs to testify).
I suspect he’d easily get the maximum punishment available, in any reasonably balanced justice system on the planet. A dictator on trial would also be a cautionary example for future dictators.
However, given that he’s not entirely out of resources, I think he may temporarily slip away into a country that agrees to host him.
About things in Syria: I worry that civil war isn’t over. Judging by the fighting in Manbij, one faction of the rebels (SNA) is now attemping to conquer territory from the SDF (Autonomous Administration of North-Eastern Syria). Unlike the government, the SDF however isn’t demoralized - they aren’t fighting for dictator Assad, but democracy and autonomy, and they can be expected to mount an effective resistance.
I hope that someone reminds the parties to the conflict that they need to stop and negotiate really soon now.
The news from only a day ago is already out of date wow.
People thought this was gonna be some extended situation but they really did sweep in only a matter of days.
There are some reports he was shot down.
By the Russians lol.
“Sergei… Are we the bad guys?”
“I don’t even know anymore, Ivan”
That would be the funniest shit if true.
If it were true (currently I don’t think so) we’d have a warm spot on FIRMS and civilian reports of a transport plane coming down, but nobody has reported one so far. (However, Syria is likely to have so many warm spots currently that a private researcher may be unable to count them and make sense.)
However, assassinating someone with an air defense complex while retreating / evacuating yourself in face of an advancing opponent - that’s unreliable. (Russians were last seen evacuating their air defense systems and flying away with what could be taken along, but rebels did get some really interesting items.)
He’ll come back in several pieces probably.
