I honestly can not say I have a deep knowledge of the Syrian civil war except for a few things.
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Multiple groups including Isis and the Syrian army are involved, some of which are US backed
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Rojava and the Kurds seem genuinely unproblematic and cool, and are currently being attacked by Syria and Turkey, and their support was withdrawn by trump.
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The resulting refugee crisis is a big deal, etc etc. I’ve actually been fortunate enough to talk with several refugees as my mother works in local government helping sponsor them, and one family threw a party and invited us. The food was delicious, but I felt like asking a family who had just been reunited with a family member after years about the civil war would not be a good idea. So I can’t say I learned much from the conversations I’ve had.
I see lots of Assad memes. Is it ironic? Is it unironic? Is it a big critical support deal like Kim Jong un? What’s the consensus? Can someone educate me or?
Thanks.
Very high-level description of middle eastern politics (and also parts of Africa) is that basically the country borders are shite, so you get ethnic groups who hate each other going back hundreds/thousands of years in the same country. (Normally these reasons make a lot of sense; Northern Ireland is a Western example.) The only stable countries are those with strongman leaders. Trying to remove said strongman leaders just means the country collapses into civil war. Saddam Hussein was a terrible person but it's hard to argue with a straight face that US intervention helped Iraq. Likewise for Afghanistan, etc.
You'll see a lot of warhawks talking about how this one regime change war is a good idea. But unless they come up with some really solid reasons that taking out the handful of people holding a country together won't explode into ethnic strife, war, famine, etc. and just go "mumble mumble we bring democracy, they'll welcome us as liberators" then you can guarantee it will be a shitshow.
That's why (imo) removing Assad is a bad idea. There's no followup plan that has any chance of making things better.
The borders argument is a western favourite, because it absolves them of the fact that most of the strife is caused by imperialist meddling in the region.
There are ethnically diverse countries that are stable, look at Belgium or Spain for example. Yeah the borders arent ideal, but we want to abolish borders anyway.
The borders were drawn by Western imperialists specifically in order to destabilise the region. Hence four different countries getting a chunk of the ethnically Kurdish region, which has led to multiple attempts at ethnic cleansing, to take one very straightforward example. The ethnic diversity isn't the sole cause of the various issues in the Middle East, of course -- but it's a key factor that no Western intervention is going to fix. And, historically, it's been exploited by imperialist meddling via arming different religious & ethnic factions.
I'm not saying that different Middle Eastern ethnicities are forced to fight each other due to their backgrounds. I'm saying that, much like Northern Ireland/Catalonia/other Western conflicts along similar lines, there are a multitude of societal fault lines that coincide with the various ethnicities present in each country to a large degree.
(Somewhere to start reading for anyone with a cursory interest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement)
Not to mention that the various Gulf micro-states like Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar were specifically fostered by the British, in combination with Saudi Arabia and Hashemite monarchist states such as Jordan and Iraq, to prevent a secular, nationalist pan-Arab state from gaining monopolistic control of the region's oil.
well Spain almost got an insurrection and Belgium works more like two counties(different parties for different ethnic)
Spain lolwut? Spain has been on the brink of civil war for over a century , with tensions higher than ever of late.
idk much about movements in spain but isn't catalan and basque independence pretty big?
Didn’t internal shit in Iraq start by active US interventions (after occupation) and fanning the flames? I think Scahill wrote something how it wasn’t organic explosion of previously suppressed violence, but active effort.
Assad is a mega shitter, critically support in struggle against US imperialism etc because most of yall are in the US and that's the most useful stance for radicalising people but be fucking careful not to alienate any comrades actually in Syria.
Is it a big critical support deal like Kim Jong un
my support for the Great Comrade is entirely uncritical 🇰🇵
While you can admire NK’s stance against American imperialism and isolationism, I’m always put off by the hereditary autocratic nature of the country. It’s overplayed by the west, sure, but even China isn’t hereditary at the very least. They could loosen up a little in some places
They could loosen up a little in some places
I get what you're coming from but it helps to remember what the last 70 years have looked like from their perspective (punishing bombing campaign including heavy use of biological and chemical weapons, sanctions, siege warfare) as well as the extent to which Kim has direct power and the extent to which he is more a head of state. it's really hard to evalute information about the DPRK but it's arguable that he's more head of state than head of government. those offices are fused in the USA, unlike most places, which leads to some disconnects in evaluating leaders, but even so the US has elected a father-son (Adamses), a grandather-grandson (Harrisons), and nearly went Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton
Oh believe me, I know about NK's history. I made a post about it. I critically support NK, but as I said, one element I do not support is the direct hereditary inheritance. I don't support nepotism in america either, but pointing it out in either country doesn't shape my whole opinion of either country.
Edit: And that's regardless of how much power he does or doesn't have. The queen of england has no real power but she inherited her position and did 0 work in her life to earn. While I know it isn't a direct comparison, I'm just saying if Un has lots of power that's bad, and if he doesn't its still symbolically kinda dumb, IMO. Mao didn't pass any of his stuff on, I don't see a particular reason to HAVE to pass on anything.
fair enough but China wasn't subjected to those conditions, either
EDIT: I think "symbolically kinda dumb" is a defensible take from a western perspective but I'm just saying, consider that it might look differently to Koreans after those decades of hot and then cold war experiences and could be a desire for symbolic continuity. for a head of state, obviously, it's less defensible as you add power
Fair enough. I try to have reasonable takes on regions I know have been devastated by the west. I appreciate that even if we can't see exactly eye to eye we can respect eachother's opinions on this site
I’m always put off by the hereditary autocratic nature of the country.
The country doesn't really have such a nature, aside from the inherent flaws in a democratic system. Kim Jong-un is basically the equivalent of a celebrity, so of course he has an advantage in gaining power through democratic processes. But it's not like he's codified as the leader by birth in the constitution or anything, he's just popular. If he stopped being popular, he'd stop being the leader.
friendly reminder that max blumenthal used to spam anti-assad stuff until he magically switched sides after the rt gala invitation
https://medium.com/@_alhamra/documenting-max-blumenthals-regime-change-from-assad-opponent-to-assad-apologist-8715eb9d941b
Bruh that's literally a Russiagate conspiracy theorist, they're citing accounts named "#DroneAssad" and defending the fucking White Helmets, like come on.
I sincerely wonder what your thought process is here. Did you think the author faked 500 tweets for the medium article? Did you not bother to check it out properly?
meme for you: https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/100706368041914368
Sudden and radical changes of heart are entirely plausible within incredibly short amounts of time without resorting to hysterical accusations of foreign influence. Especially when you already work within a corrupt edifice. The propaganda offensive supporting the Syrian War was incredibly elaborate and overwhelming, Max probably realized he was acting as a cog in a massive, evil machine.
Like no joke I went from "Hillary stan" to the kind of liberal who unironically believed the best way to help minorities in the era of Trump was to join the local police, to a radicalized anarcho-socialist in the span of 7 months. Today I'm a hardline Marxist-Leninist.
I very much think this is a product of short-term cultural memory. 2012-2015 were very incoherent times in terms of ideological ferment. The far right was very much on the rise (for example, the Tea Party IRL and GamerGate online) while the "left" was in a big awful tent under the thrall of Obama. Occupy was a very recent memory, a memory that had been brutally crushed, and Occupy itself had been an event very much within the confines of liberal discourse. The resurgence of socialism, communism, and anti-imperialism was really not a thing until 2015 at the earliest.
Does this dude not realize the war itself changed? The jihadists did take over as the dominant opposition. I also couldn't find any instance there of Blumenthal being an "Assad apologist" like is claimed. Since he put in quite a lot of effort to compile his anti-Assad views but has none for this supposed praise of Assad, I'm going to continue to assume it's a baseless smear.
H.. hello? How can you possible perceive this as "a baseless smear", this is evidently a crystal clear documentation of the switch in editorial stance, the discourse, the actors targeted, the objectives focused on etc.
Now the reason I posted this is because it seems like a lot of our fellows here are tightly devoted to the grayzone-network reportings, so it is very much needed to show that there is a questionable intransparancy at play here. Getting corrections on fake news is well and good, but one should never rely solely on this source for an opinion on Syria. That's how you get upvoted comments on here praising "assads progressive government".
Where are the tweets of him praising Assad? I didn't see any, hence it's a smear
It’s not support, maybe more of “don’t fuck up syria as well” looking at other nation in this region.
Honestly, it’s issue of framing in the media. Like it’s either (1) bomb Syria or (2)don’t bomb Syria, somehow (3) unconditional invitation of refugees never even enter into the conversation for example or (4) provide food/water/medicine. So people generally don’t like option 1 and default to option 2.
The 2 Syrian communist parties are behind Assad and put out statements saying they have comrades in the Syrian Army
By 2012 the majority of the opposition went back to Assad as they saw Syria become a foreign proxy war
Assad has been leader during a time 42 armisa have had troops on Syrian soil
Assad has faced something akin to Stalingrad, the people are behind him and the 2 communist parties are behind him
Why wouldnt i support Assad
Edit: statements from the 2 main communist parties
When the Syrian Communist Party Unified or the Syrian Communist Party Bakdash are in a position to overthrow capitalism I willy rally behind those. However those 2 Communist parties have surveyed the local landscape of Syria and correctly identified the people are behind Bashar in a period where over 40 foreign armies have occupied Syrian soil in one of the bloodiest civil wars of the century so far
Statement from Syrian Communist Party Unified ( click for full statement I only copied the most pertinent bit )
Blood is still being shed in Syria, especially in the city of Aleppo, the second capital of the country. 75 percent of its territories were freed by the Syrian Arab Army and its allies. However, terrorists in Aleppo refused any truce to save the lives of civilians, whom they use as human shields.
The Syrian people, along with the government, Syrian army and progressive political forces of the country, has been bravely resisting this aggression since its beginning in 2011.
Terrorists who fulfill this attack on Syria have come from more than 80 countries, supported by the imperial powers of the world and their allies.
Comrades, our party is most interested in confirming the following facts:
It is not acceptable to put the offender and the victim on an equal footing.
International law does not allow any county to interfere in the internal affairs of any other country, which is what the terrorists and their supporters do in Syria. Demanding President Assad step down is an affair to be decided only by the Syrian people.
The aggressors are the only side who carry the full responsibility for the losses and damages in the country.
The aggression against Syria is going along with mass media/imperialist campaign, on which billions of dollars are spent by the USA and Saudi Arabia. Through this media facts about events in the country are falsified and this information is spread around the world.
Iraq is also under the same aggression and the Iraqi people are resisting it. It is the duty of all progressive forces of the world to supported the brave resistance of the Iraqi and Syrian peoples against the international terrorist aggressors.
Statement of Syrian Communist Party Bakdash
We support the national resistance against the aggressive policy of the reactionary regimes of Arab countries, USA, NATO and Turkey -putting aside the people of Turkey. In certain sensitive areas our comrades took up arms to defend themselves and their families. We also have comrades in the Syrian army.
Dear Comrades!
The target of these attacks is to beat Syria eventually. Because Syria is a front resisting imperialism. Syria is resisting with its people's dedication, determination of its army for the independence and honour of the country. And of course with the solidarity of you, all the people of dignity. I thank you once again for your solidarity on behalf of the Communist Party of Syria and the Syrian people.
Like Ammar Bakdash, our leader said: "The only power which does not surrender to the invaders is the power of the people" To stand up is not only our duty but it is also possible.
Syrian Communist Party stands shoulder to shoulder with the patriots in Syria against imperialists, Zionists and islamic reactionaries in order to empower the Syrian people. This is not only our patriotic but also internationalist duty.
We do not give up our class struggle while fighting the outsider enemies.
My comrades of the Communist Party, Turkey, forward to the Socialist Revolution!
The victory will belong to the Palestinian people struggling against Zionism.
The victory will belong to the people of Yemen against Saudi's.
The victory will belong to the people of Iraq resisting invaders and terrorists.
Eternity is for our martyrs.
The victory belongs to all the people who resist.
Dear Comrades!
I repeat: Syria will not surrender!
Long live Communism!
Long live the internationalist movement of the working class"
Why wouldnt i support Assad
You have no need to, you just need to oppose US imperialism in the country
Being against the Iraq war doesnt mean you have to support Saddam Hussein, being against the Afghanistan war doesn't mean you have to support the Taliban.
Na i dont believe in that
All that happens is you get shitlibs go
"Oh so you support a dictator"
And you end up giving out some trotty arguement like "hes shit and terrible and i dont support dictators blah blah"
Much better to say Assad is great death to America
Much better to say Assad is great death to America
So its about optics more than actual principles?
Its whatever is most effective to support an anti-imperialist line
Ive no problem gaslighting liberals
Well, I'd say the allegations of chemical warfare would be a start. Again, this is just based on what I have heard. I'm still making up my mind on critical support here.
Meh maybe you shouldn’t unironically critically support him, he’s not a leftist. It’s more like one should oppose US/nato intervention and advocate for better refugee treatment. It’s much more consistent position and easier to argue with libs, compared to “Assad done nothing wrong” thought termination.
Assad has a higher approval rating than the majority of US presidents
Assad has done nothing wrong except defend his country against one of the worst crimes the West has committed this century
Assad has done nothing wrong
😬
Assad's support from the right-wing has mostly been from the far-right, both before and during the Syrian Civil War. David Duke hosted a televised speech on Syrian national television in 2005.[281] Georgy Shchokin was invited to Syria in 2006 by the Syrian foreign minister and awarded a medal by the Ba'ath party, while Shchokin's institution the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management awarded Assad an honorary doctorate.[282] In 2014, the Simon Wiesenthal Center claimed that Bashar al-Assad had sheltered Alois Brunner in Syria, and alleged that Brunner advised the Assad government on purging Syria's Jewish community.[283][284]
The National Front in France has been a prominent supporter of Assad since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War,[285] as has the former leader of the Third Way.[281] In Italy, the parties New Front and CasaPound have both been supportive of Assad, with the New Front putting up pro-Assad posters and the party's leader praising Assad's commitment to the ideology of Arab nationalism in 2013,[286] while CasaPound has also issued statements of support for Assad.[287] Syrian Social Nationalist Party representative Ouday Ramadan has worked in Italy to organize support movements for Assad.[288] Other political parties expressing support for Assad include the National Democratic Party of Germany,[289] the National Revival of Poland,[281] the Freedom Party of Austria,[290] the Bulgarian Ataka party,[291] the Hungarian Jobbik party,[292] the Serbian Radical Party,[293] the Portuguese National Renovator Party,[294] as well as the Spanish Falange Española de las JONS[295] and Authentic Falange parties.[296] The Greek neo-Nazi political party Golden Dawn has spoken out in favour of Assad,[297] and the Strasserist group Black Lily has claimed to have sent mercenaries to Syria to fight alongside the Syrian army.[298]
Nick Griffin, the former leader of the British National Party, was chosen by the Assad government to represent the UK as an ambassador and at government-held conferences; Griffin has been an official guest of the Syrian government three times since the beginning of the Civil War.[299] The European Solidarity Front for Syria, representing several far-right political groups from across Europe, has had their delegations received by the Syrian national parliament, with one delegation being met by Syrian Head of Parliament Mohammad Jihad al-Laham, Prime Minister Wael Nader al-Halqi and Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad.[288] In March 2015, Assad met with Filip Dewinter of the Belgian party Vlaams Belang.[300] In 2016, Assad met with a French delegation,[301] which included former leader of the youth movement of the National Front Julien Rochedy [fr].[302]
For someone who's "done nothing wrong" Assad sure tends to hang out with a lot of fucking fascists.
Also, homosexuality is still illegal in Ba'athist Syria and has been since 1949 with a penalty of 3 years in prison for sex acts.
Pretty sure "Human Dignity Trust" is a CIA front just by the name but they quote actual Syrian penal code which I couldn't find elsewhere in a hurry: https://www.humandignitytrust.org/country-profile/syria/
Edit: human dignity trust seems more likely to be MI6 than CIA but you get the picture
Did Assad write that law or did the Mps of parliament write them? :thinkin-lenin:
if you asked the average Syrian do you think they would have progressive values comparable to the West or reactionary ones given their economic wealth in comparison? :thinkin-lenin:
What part of giving literal Neo-Nazis medals and TV time says "has done nothing wrong" to you?
Given Syria and Libyas history (Libya financing IRA)its probably Assads way of fucking with the West and fermenting internal conflict to highlight reprobabtes like that in which case critical support for trying to fuck with the West
Approval rating in war-torn country is patently meaningless, of course after eight years of this bloodbath people would want to chill and return to some kind of normalcy.
And Ba’ath party was arresting communists in the 90s I thought? Also Kurds didn’t spontaneously rebel, they had some issues with him. And communist party supported (more or less) more autonomy for them, I believe.
Frankly, it’s meaningless argument I feel. As I’ve mentioned it’s better if Assad stays and gives concessions to saner rebel groups, then US overthrows him, put some mercenary ghouls around oil fields and funnel weapons around the state to keep divided people fighting over nothing, doesn’t make him a good guy. Politicians by default should be treated with extreme suspicion.
And Ba’ath party was arresting communists in the 90s I thought?
And now those communists are behind Assad
Its almost like when circumstances change so should your strategy:thinkin-lenin:
Well no shit, doesn’t make him a good guy (tm). Like do you think Chang Kaishek and kmt were good guys? Or they were the least bad option for early cpc to support?
Regarding chemical weapons reports:
https://thegrayzone.com/category/syria/
https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/war-propaganda-firm-bellingcat-continues-lying-about-syria-60e02587e66f
https://medium.com/@jrbml.public/the-skripal-incident-and-bellingcat-881d85660dfdThat medium post is pure schizo ranting that hinges on "something dropped from high up would never bounce and then land near the spot it bounced from"
Opcw report was doctored by Yankee bastards
The head inspector came to the conclusion rebels did it yet bastard West doctored his report to say the exact opposite
This inspector provided a full statement at the UN to this effect
Dont trust western media
From 21:13 to 27:50-ish is my opinion on Syria.
https://youtu.be/ju5Ykgf8gJ0?t=1273This is essentially the series of events, to my understanding:
- Idealistic, young, secular, middle-class students form a spontaneous anti-Assad "pro-democracy" movement in the upswell of discontent that was the Arab Spring
- They are almost immediately given massive coverage by Western media, and even approached by Westerners giving them advice on how to conduct their protests (ie the elaborate apparatus goading and trianing color revolutionaries that has existed since the late 80s)
- A disparate network of American and British ex-spooks rapidly organizes a elaborate propaganda apparatus designed to propagandize for all anti-Assad groups and activity
- The destabilization of the Assad government triggered by the Arab Spring protests in turn triggers a massive upswell in hyper-sectarian Sunni fundamentalism that dwarfs the original protesters, which organize into murderous sectarian militias to conduct pogroms against non-believers
- The Assad government rapidly loses control of the situation and its authority effectively disintegrates in most parts of the country. The original middle-class secular student protesters realize what is happening and back the government.
- The United States, its propaganda apparatus now continuing to portray these radical fundamentalist militias as "moderate rebels", begins flooding arms to these various sectarian Sunni fundamentalist groups. These guys are all fighting each other as well as the Assad government, not merely for sectarian reasons but because they are various proxies for rival US-allied Sunni states - Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia - jockeying for influence in the presumed successor government
- The most effective anti-Assad fighters by a considerable margin are al-Qaeda affiliates like the al-Nusra Front/Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and Islamic State, the latter of which rapidly gains influence between 2013-2014 in the vacuum left by the Assad government's disintegration of authority due to being experienced in fighting insurgencies and being highly organized before the conflict even started (due to having its origins in the anti-US insurgency in Iraq). Despite the US explicitly telling the proxies they're arming not to give these weapons to groups like al-Nusra, because those people are literally the most effective fighters this inevitably happens anyways.
- Islamic State spills across the border into Iraq in 2014. The completely unreliable Iraqi military basically disintegrates before them. Only desperate action, IS overextension, and extensive American intervention prevent the Iraqi government from collapsing.
- Russia begins intervening extensively to protect their ally and hit back against American imperialism, as they have been fed up with the Americans since at least 2008 and are now acting accordingly to roll back or resist American encirclement
- The US begins backing the Kurds against both Assad and Islamic State, in both northeastern Syria and northern Iraq, against the wishes of their Turkish allies. The Kurds turn out to be more reliable proxies. Their initial plan is to split off northeastern Syria from the Assad government and form a Kurdish state chiefly in order to deny Assad control of oil resources in the region. This is obviously contradictory with the US's firm commitment to the Turks as a member of NATO.
- Pretty much all players in the conflict unite against Islamic State. They are essentially defeated by 2018. The Assad government and Kurdish SDF are the biggest beneficiaries. By now the tide has turned decisively against the rebels and in favor of the Assad government. At some point (2016?) the rebel forces in southern Syria become pinned in and a massively "humanitarian" evacuation campaign led by the US and Israel either gets them out of the country or dumped into a stronghold around the city of Idlib in Northerwestern Syria. Additionally in late 2017 the recovered Iraq government moves to crush the autonomous Kurdish Regional Government by force to put down any hint of separatism and uniting with Syrian Rojava as a Kurdish state. This pretty much scuppers any US plan to partition off Rojava into a Kurdish state, but they keep the Kurds in limbo about this, deliberately telling them to stonewall negotiations from Assad, for like two years.
- Turkey, which has been heavily supporting the Sunni fundamentalist rebel groups throughout the war, intervenes directly by invading the SDF's enclave in Afrin in early 2018. This is due to long-running concerns about the Kurdish communist-nationalist-separatists that have plagued the country for decades, and them potentially becoming emboldened and strengthened through cross-border cooperation.
- In 2019, the Turks invade Rojava, intending to secure a "buffer zone" all along the border where they can expel the Kurds and resettle the region with their Sunni jihadist proxies. Rojava, who again have been discouraged from negotiating with Assad by the US for years, are cut loose and thrown to the (grey) wolves. In desperation, they cut a deal with Assad where they will presumably be able to negotiate regional autonomy after the war is over. The SAA takes positions with the SDF in northeastern Syria and effectively halts the Turkish-jihadist advance
- In very late 2019 the SAA begins a renewed offensive against the Idlib Pocket. They are rolling them back rapidly and it seems an end to the war is in sight. Then a (probably Russian) air strike kills like 60 Turkish special forces "advisers" near Idlib. This causes the Turks to again escalate their intervention and they inflict severe losses on the SAA, halting their advance.
And that's effectively where we are now. An extremely uneasy truce and stasis.
In this sequence of events there is effectively no scenario where Assad being defeated by the US-led coalition would lead to a better outcome for the Syrian or Kurdish peoples. You pretty much have three scenarios:
- Islamic State wins. This probably triggers a direct and large-scale intervention by the United States, which will mean prolonged war and insurgency for decades.
- The Assad government collapses entirely, without Islamic State as the primary beneficiary. Syria essentially turns into a Libya-style anarchy except much worse, as the jihadist proxies for various actors in the region begin conducting sectarian pogroms with no resistance and fighting each other for their share of the ashes. Eventually one faction will win out and impose a Sunni fundamentalist regime that is a puppet for either Turkey, Qatar, or Saudi Arabia.
- The same as Scenario 2 except the SDF carves out an independent Kurdish state in northeastern Syria in the process. Turkey invades and crushes them, then either annexes the region outright or eventually hands it off to a puppet government they help set up in Damascus.
Assad is the lesser evil in pretty much every way.
I remember hearing stories somewhere in 2015-2017 about Assad dropping chemical weapon barrel bombs on protestors and civilians. There were a bunch of videos of critically injured women and children and stuff. However, this was back when I was still a lib and more susceptible to western propaganda. Can any comrades help with either validating or debunking this stuff?
All I'm really going to say is that those allegations are questionable. To the point that, in regards to the last attack carried out that was blamed on Assad, the OPCW literally censored dissenting opinions in the report that suggested a plausible alternative that the weapons were planted after the fact rather than dropped from aircraft.
Source on that. For news on the Syrian War as a whole I've heard the Independent has consistently had better coverage compared to other media outlets.
the grayzone did a series of articles on the multiple OPCW whistleblowers (I think there were five) who allege the Douma report was fabricated and were retaliated against
so the grayzone gospel will because of the douma coverage have you believe that there was no chemical gas attacks by the syrian state, and while this instance was a hoax, the un fact finding missions have extensively documented such attacks in a lot of other cases.
