What's happening in Syria right now??

[Singularity]

Another country brought to its knees by its tribal cultural heritage. The affluent few vs the divided majority.

 

[Tee Kay]

Oh, and what about the women and children killed by the rebels? Even this report from the Arab League observation team points describes that:

So, tell us, is it to be a race for who can kill the most women and children? With outside interventions to make sure that race gets prolonged for as long as possible until Syria too is destroyed?

Oh, and how did the "liberation of Libya" turned out? I hear they were shooting about in the capital yet again, seizing and torturing political enemies, etc... I'm sure most Syrians are just eager to have that kind of "liberty". It's so much better that what they had before, isn't it?

Intentionally or not, you are misrepresenting my position. I observe the events and discuss the possibilities, but you don't see me crying out for foreign intervention or civil war, which is the worst thing that can happen. I hope we can have a sensible discussion on this since you sounds like a pretty smart guy, but it doesn't help when you're constantly framing me (and everyone else who takes a different position than you, for that matter) as an immoral colonialist warmonger who wants another Libya. Did I say the rebels were goodies? No, I didn't as you well know. Also, see below.

And if you were faced with the prospect of half a decade of sectarian civil war you might be singing a different tune, while Assad's offer to hold elections might seem like a bargain.

Furthermore, I don't think it's wise to uncritically support every element of the Syrian opposition. Some of what's going on is genuinely democratic ( the part we should support ), but there are also sectarian elements that have crawled their way to positions of influence. There has been a lot of racist rhetoric directed against Alawites or calling for genocide against Alawites, alongside other polarizing sectarian rhetoric.

My fear is that a Western intervention leading to civil war will only strengthen militant groups at the cost of marginalizing the grass-roots democratic movement. As in Iraq and Libya, it's militant sectarian groups like Al-Qaeda that benefit the most from armed conflict.

This. I don't support Assad and I don't support the rebels. I'm on the side of people trying to make a living. It's a tragedy all the same if they are killed by Baathist forces or by the self-proclaimed freedom fighters.

The rebels have genuine grievances. Assad's Syria is a Failed State and the Baathists only have themselves to blame for the conditions that led to this mess. That said, civil war is the worst thing that can happen to the country; it strengthens the extremists, feeds foreign exploitation, enforces sectarian hatred, ruins the economy and disrupts the lives of the survivors for years and years to come.

Islamic extremism... in Syria? No way. Syria has a sizable Christian minority with all the Muslims being divided between Sunni's (80%) and Alawites (20%). Should Islamic extremists become the most powerful faction in a hypothetical Post-Assad Syria, there won't be any regime at all.

Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon all have a sizable Christian minorities too and look what happened in those places. Like Egypt and Iraq, years of enforced secularism by a stale, authoritarian government probably strengthened the extreme underground Islamist movement at the expense of secularists, democrats and moderate conservatives.

And before you go to accuse Western powers of hypocrisy, the US eventually did drop Mubarak.

After 30 years. When it was clear that he'll lose. In favour of Tantawi.

 

[Snorrius]

Wait, did you try and justify sexual slavery?

Nope. Actually why are you talking about slavery at all? Most of sexual workers enter business out of their own will because for a lot of people it is only way to raise decent money if one have no other special decenly-paid skills.

Of course there are some cases of sexual slavery but these problem lies in the domain of slavery, not of the sex. If one is forced to do any other work against his/her will and do not get appropriate payment - it is bad as well but sex is not something special here.

 

[Winner]

Islamic extremism... in Syria? No way.

Syria has a sizable Christian minority with all the Muslims being divided between Sunni's (80%) and Alawites (20%). Should Islamic extremists become the most powerful faction in a hypothetical Post-Assad Syria, there won't be any regime at all.

So? Egypt has a sizable Christian minority as well, so does Lebanon, the Palestinians and many other majority Muslim countries. That has never stopped the Islamists from trying to seize power.

And what are you trying to say anyway, that because Sunni Muslims don't have 99% majority, there can't possibly be an islamist regime in Syria? You are really saying that knowing that the Alawites have managed to stay in power with their repressive regime for so long, despite them being a very small minority?

Y'know, if you keep talking like this, people aren't going to realisethat your avatar is supposed to be a joke.

You mean if I keep talking some sense, instead of that idealist nonsense other people cling to?

 

[Tee Kay]

There's a fine line between sensible realism and sardonic cynicism.

 

[Traitorfish]

What does "inherently" "undemocratic" and "repressive" exactly means? Did God said a country should be "democratic"? And if we are talking about biological nature of human where does "inherent multipartying" resides in human brain?

Did you ever hear what Goebbels said about "abolishing 1789"? Seems like you too would have a lot to talk about.

I would hesitate to call Ba'athism 'fascist', at least if we are following the example of Italian Fascism. While many of their policies were outwardly similar to Fascism, the underlying ideology was radicaly different. Italian Fascism was focused on the greatness of the country. Ba'athism, on the other hand, was a political group made up of Arab Nationalists (at least initialy) who emphasized the greatness of the Arabs in general (the UAR for example).

I don't really follow; how is Arab nationalism "radically different" than any other nationalism? Just because the nation-state they wanted to construct didn't exist yet- hadn't been unified when they got there, as was the case in Germany and Italy- doesn't mean that they weren't ultranationalist. If anything, I'd say it's the underlying ideological structure which they most share with the fascists, and it's their policies, with the heavy Arab Socialist influence, that make Ba'athism distinct.

You mean if I keep talking some sense, instead of that idealist nonsense other people cling to?

Yeah, this is the sort of thing I mean- openly sympathising with fascists and then calling it "sense" is the sort of thing I mean. I'd cut back it on you. Makes you look a tad shady.

 

[Winner]

Yeah, this is the sort of thing I mean- openly sympathising with fascists and then calling it "sense" is the sort of thing I mean. I'd cut back it on you. Makes you look a tad shady.

This is so lame, I'd expect better from such a paragon of the intellectual left on this forum. Oh well...


Last attempt to make the obvious clear to you: if the choice is between a secular authoritarian regime that has a good track record in keeping the various ethnic/religious groups at peace and a) equally or more repressive Islamist regime; or b) chaos, interethnic civil war, and Lebanon-style bloodbath, I choose the secular authoritarian regime. (Which being a good leftie that you are you have to insist on calling fascist, of course).

And no, I don't only have this view with regard to 'them Muslims' and other 'brown people', in case you want to pull that PC multikulti crap on me and accuse me of racism. I believe Yugoslavia was better off under Tito (secular left-wing dictatorship) then it was under what followed him. And if Czechoslovakia in 1989 faced a choice between the old regime and bloody civil war followed by anarchy or theocracy, I'd choose the Commies without a moment's hesitation.

 

[Snorrius]

What Winner said. I was going to write an extensive post about how come we do not live in ideal world where people are born with inherent built into a brain set of liberal democractic values, and the number of alternatives for Syria is quite limited, but Winner summed up it quite nicely.

 

[Traitorfish]

[Edit: Never mind, no point starting squabbles.]

 

[Tahuti]

So? Egypt has a sizable Christian minority as well, so does Lebanon, the Palestinians and many other majority Muslim countries. That has never stopped the Islamists from trying to seize power.

Syria has relatively more Christians than Egypt has. And trying is something entirely else than succeeding. Hezbollah could never solely exercise power in Lebanon, for example, as they would face opposition from all non-Muslims and Muslims who do not agree with them (and yes, these exist).

And what are you trying to say anyway, that because Sunni Muslims don't have 99% majority, there can't possibly be an islamist regime in Syria? You are really saying that knowing that the Alawites have managed to stay in power with their repressive regime for so long, despite them being a very small minority?

The Alawites are an exception because the French colonial régime made sure the French Syrian military had an Alawite majority in the officer corps, making Syria easier to manage for the French. When the French left, the religious make-up of the officer corps remained. Eventually, the Alawites became the ruling minority when that same Alawite officer corps committed a military coup in Syria and installed a military régime with (surprise! surprise!) the Alawite Hafiz al-Assad as its leader.

 

[Tee Kay]

Syria has relatively more Christians than Egypt has.

Both has about a 10% Christian population.

 

[Glassfan]

So now that China and Russian have vetoed the UN resolution, apparently do to trade reasons, where exactly does this put us?

Does this give the Regime the opportunity to increase the killing, knowing Putin has their backs?

 

[innonimatu]

So now that China and Russian have vetoed the UN resolution, apparently do to trade reasons, where exactly does this put us?

Does this give the Regime the opportunity to increase the killing, knowing Putin has their backs?

No. It gives the Saudi Arabia - US - Qatar alliance the opportunity to send more weapons and fighters into Syria so as try to escalate the thing into a full-blown civil war and then attack Syria regardless of the UN.

Loaded questions - aren't they nice?

 

[Glassfan]

No. It gives the Saudi Arabia - US - Qatar alliance the opportunity to send more weapons and fighters into Syria so as try to escalate the thing into a full-blown civil war and then attack Syria regardless of the UN.

Loaded questions - aren't they nice?

OK, so where does it leave us?

 

[innonimatu]

Intentionally or not, you are misrepresenting my position. I observe the events and discuss the possibilities, but you don't see me crying out for foreign intervention or civil war, which is the worst thing that can happen. I hope we can have a sensible discussion on this since you sounds like a pretty smart guy, but it doesn't help when you're constantly framing me (and everyone else who takes a different position than you, for that matter) as an immoral colonialist warmonger who wants another Libya. Did I say the rebels were goodies? No, I didn't as you well know. Also, see below.

As with Libya before, why should I trust the media and some shady organizations supposedly within Syria for casualty reports, any more than I should trust the government of Syria?
Today I heard on news reports that 58 more people have been killed. Proof? In these days of ubiquitous video devices it shouldn't be hard to come up with ample recordings of what went on. But, in Syria as in Libya, all we have are unsubstantiated reports being delivered as facts by our media. And we all know, from past experience, how easy it is to use them to drum up support for wars with false reports.

That there is an armed rebellion within Syria is not in doubt. That there is dissatisfaction at the government in some quarters of its territory, likewise. That there are indiscriminate killings of civilians going on, or a majority opposition to its government, is very much in doubt. The source of the fighters for this rebellion, its leaders, and the source of the weapons has not been announced by anyone, other that some claims (obviously an attempt to copy the libyan script) that they were supposedly defectors from the army. But the copy of the libyan script is not going very well, as the latest vetoes in the UN show: people have seen it all and are not going to tolerate another US-sponsored civil war.

Turkey of all states, which seems to have been also having an hand in this, should be more careful with sponsoring wars across its borders, as it has an on-and-off armed rebellion within its won borders and has been doing pretty much everything the syrians did (or more) to try to contain it. The US had no problem leveling whole cities in Iraq. But Syria, no, it's a breach of human rights, oh the horror!
The double standard is obvious. The media reports being manipulated by western governments is obvious (in Fallujah they were terrorists, in Syria they are freedom fighters). The goal of all this is obvious: the destruction of yet another sovereign state, its replacement with a weak client regime.

The fact here is that there are only two possibilities: foreign intervention to cause a civil war, or no intervention and the syrian government remains in control (in which case how the syrian government will evolve afterwards will be solely up to the syrians).

 

[Commodore]

The country is divided, but a majority (55%) want Assad to stay in power.

I hate to nitpick, but 55% is not a majority, it is a plurality. A majority is generally considered to be 66% or higher.

Of course Assad still needs to step down even if he has popular support. His inept leadership is contributing to the further destabilization of the region, which is against global interests. In my opinion, global interests trump national interests every time.

 

[jtb1127]

I hate to nitpick, but 55% is not a majority, it is a plurality. A majority is generally considered to be 66% or higher.

Of course Assad still needs to step down even if he has popular support. His inept leadership is contributing to the further destabilization of the region, which is against global interests. In my opinion, global interests trump national interests every time.

majority
noun, plural -ties.
1.
the greater part or number; the number larger than half the total ( opposed to minority): the majority of the population.

 

[Glassfan]

I hate to nitpick, but 55% is not a majority, it is a plurality. A majority is generally considered to be 66% or higher.

I hate to nitpick, but less than 50% is a plurality, more than 50% is a majority, and 66% is a "super majority" - as in legislative approval of a Constitutional Amendment.

 

[Leoreth]

Calling Assad's Alawite regime secular is plain ridiculous.

 

[Commodore]

majority
noun, plural -ties.
1.
the greater part or number; the number larger than half the total ( opposed to minority): the majority of the population.

You're right, my mistake. I was thinking of a supermajority.