Yes PNP, so this took place from since the rebellion took place. Whilst i'm not sure i would agree with his actions and methods of what he has done, can you point me to him being this rampaging dictator like kim jong un where people are placed into concentration camps or even the likes of what erdogan is doing now in Turkey where he has rounded up way more than thousands? You might even argue that Assad is showing his true colours but i can understand his reaction to the rebellion after seeing whats happened to all the other dictators who have been overthrow - libya, egypt, iraq etc. As far as i am concerned, having seen what happened to libya and iraq, the smart thing would have been to leave assad to rule as he had been doing, not overtly intimating that he should go and inflaming the whole situation until a massive civil war broke out, but then again i'm not part of a government superpower who benefits from proxy wars
“Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.” Donald Trump jr.
so what do you think of edward snowden and chelsea manning who have been taken away and locked up or all the other prisoners in guantanamo bay? I'm not saying Assad can do xyz because everyone else is evil, but i think it would be pretty hypocritical to say lets remove him without all the other dictators going considering he's not even the worst of a bad bunch but instead got caught up in geopolitics. As a pragmatist, i can see that whilst Assad isn't the perfect human being and dictatorships are generally bad, the world was a better place especially in syria for thousand of more lives pre 2011 than post 2011
I don't think that that conflicts with what I said tbh, "I've talked to people from Syria, including a guy who claimed to have played a leading role in the early days of the conflict, for drumming up support overseas for the rebels. They all said without question, that if they could go back to how things were in 2010 they would do so in an instant. They also said that Syria was one of the most liberal places in the world (sic region), and that if you didnt try to get involved in politics or anti secular activities, then you could pretty much do whatever you wanted. Assad was probably the most benevolant and liberal leader of any country with an equivelant population in terms of religious and cultural diversity." In which peaceful and stable equivalent country has this not happened, in say the last 100 years for example ?
Assad's been doing this since he came to power, Bobby. This behaviour isn't new, it's just more open and better reported. The UN have been accusing him of stuff like this since just after he took power. Here's a Human Right's Watch report from 2009, for example: https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2010/country-chapters/syria Torture, disappearances, no political opposition or press allowed. He's another Saddam, basically.
"The SSSC sentenced over 45 people in 2009 on various grounds, including membership in the banned Muslim Brotherhood, Kurdish activism, membership in unauthorized political groups, and independent criticism of the government" 45 people arrested in a year ? you think that's equivalent to Saddam ????? come on PNP.
Snowden and Manning are slightly odd situations, as they've basically admitted to committing crimes. Should what they did actually be criminal? Some of it should've been, but definitely not all of it. They needed a legitimate outlet for some of the information that they had and that still needs to be addressed. Snowden's situation is also clouded by some of his other actions, unfortunately. Guantanamo's exceptionally dodgy and it's part of the whole climate of fear bullshit since 9/11. I'm opposed to a lot of what's happened since and I think that it plays into the hands of the terrorists. Murdering journalists, religious people of various faiths and shutting down all political opposition? What? And lots of others tortured and murdered, including systematically attacking the Kurds. How are you missing this stuff?
The Kurds don't even oppose Assad even now. That's one of the reasons why the policy Clinton stated last night of arming the Kurds to take down Assad, made no sense whatsoever. It is widely accepted that people have been free to practise whatever religion they wanted in Assad's Syria. It is a secular state in which religious groups' rights are protected, and it always has been under his rule. Any "oppression" on religious grounds, has been suppression of attempts to put an end to the secular state, such as movements equivalent to ISIS. I doubt many would criticise Assad for murdering ISIS tbh. Which murdered journalists are you referring to ?
Yeah i nearly fell for that. I picked up on the 45 people. So in a nutshell, he's a dictator and he represses people fairly badly if they try to overthrow him. Fairly typical of pretty much all the dictatorship regimes around the world. - The article quotes around 18,000 lives since the 70's, over 40 years equates to around 500 a year. to put this into perspective, the USA have killed around 2000 people through capital punishment since the 70s. Whilst this is not a small number, it's hardly large considering the size and length of time that this has taken place. - He denies syrian kurds citizenship, guess that's pretty bad - he's got fairly good record on gender discrimination and women have generally pretty good rights - they took on an estimate 1.5 million iraqi refugees when i guess he could have just shot them at the border instead of taking that strain on. - he integrated a lot of different races into the country (minus the kurds according ot HRW) Anyway my question to you is, do you think Syria is better off before the war or after the war? Do you think removing Assad which hasn't been done yet is a "price" worth paying? how many years post 2011 will it take for life to be better for the average syrian than when it was under assad?
The Kurds don't have an issue with Assad? https://www.hrw.org/news/2009/11/26/syria-end-persecution-kurds Freedom of religion, but with harassment, persecution and some anti-Semitism thrown in, unfortunately. Murdered journalists? There's a very long list since the war started, but not a lot of names before that, unfortunately. Lots of mentions of people being detained and going missing, but not many references to specific journalists, for some reason.
The fact remains though PNP, that in spite of the "harassment, persecution" etc, they do not - even now - seek armed conflict with Assad, or the removal of his government.
Syria's an absolute hellhole now, so it's clear worse for everyone. This wasn't something purely caused by Western interference, though. There were a number of opposing forces amongst the Arab nations picking sides and pushing their agendas, too. The Hezbollah attack that killed Rafic Harriri, the Prime Minister of Lebanon, was linked with Syria, as well.
Bobby, I think I'm right in saying that the 18,000 lives refers to the late 70s/early 80s, ie before BAA came to power. Furthermore, this was during a period in which the Muslim Brotherhood were in armed conflict with the government.
They're actively fighting for independence. They face multiple opposing forces, but Assad's are one of them.
And that brings us back to the start of the discussion. Trump wants to align with Russia to take out ISIS, and leave them and Syria to get rid of the other armed combatants. Clinton has some pie in the sky idea about a no fly zone, then taking out ISIS with saudi arabia, and then taking out Assad with the Kurds (who arent even at war wih him). Whatever your views on Assad or Putin, thte priority has to be to end the hell for the Syrian people, and as quickly as possible. That's Trump's way.
That's fine, we don't know if the west interfered or not or how much influence we (in the loosest of terms) had on the rebellion. My question was purely around Assad as a dictator and whether you think we should have been complicit of keeping in charge, knowing that as a dictator he was fairly liberal or whether you thought getting rid of him is the absolutely correct thing to do so they could build towards an ideal utopia (which i dont think any civilization could ever get to). The way you made it sound that working with him was a bad thing purely because he is a dictator. Do you not think as the ruling power we should try help him stabilise Syria even though he is a dictator as their is clearly no leadership in the Free Syrian Army, the Kurds are an unknown and in their own little proxy war with Turkey and i'm presuming we don't want ISIS to step into power? Just because most people hate Trump the most (and i'm guessing we don't like Hilary) and we are against Putin doesn't mean we cannot be objective about Assad and the Syrian conflict because Putin Trump and Assad are friends
I'd just add, if I may, that the Kurds don't seek to take control of Syria, and even if they did, the Turks would not let them.
