I honestly can not say I have a deep knowledge of the Syrian civil war except for a few things.

  1. Multiple groups including Isis and the Syrian army are involved, some of which are US backed

  2. 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seem genuinely unproblematic and cool, and are currently being attacked by Syria and Turkey, and their support was withdrawn by trump.

  3. 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.

  • SowTheWind [none/use name]
    ·
    4 years ago

    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.

    • SimMs [none/use name]
      ·
      4 years ago

      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".

      • SowTheWind [none/use name]
        1·
        4 years ago

        Where are the tweets of him praising Assad? I didn't see any, hence it's a smear