Syria

[Hydra009]

Figured this deserved its own thread.

This latest push by the rebels has been lightning fast - taking over large swathes of territory within days.  Just in the past few days, the rebels took Hama and pushed on Homs.  Just last night, I checked the live map and in addition to the fighting along the northern and eastern fronts, there was a lot of rebel activity south of Damascus.  I wake up and go to work and by the time I'm back, there's fighting along the outskirts of Damascus due to rebel advances from the south and northeast.  There's a good chance that Damascus will fall before I got to bed.  The writing is on the wall.  The rebels will definitely win and soon.

The $64,000 question is what happens next.  There has been a lot of speculation about whether Assad is still in Syria.  Will the remaining Assad loyalists fight to the bitter end or surrender?  What will the new government be like?  Will the fighting stop?

I confess to enjoying watching dictatorships crumble - as they often do - though this one is too far to the south for my liking.  Far too many have died already and I worry that the new regime might be Islamist and inflict a different sort of misery on people who have already suffered a great deal.  Though of course I have no idea what might happen.  All I know for sure is that a brutal dictatorship will be gone soon.

[Hydra009]

Damascus has been taken and Assad has fled the country

Assad's dictatorship is over.

[aitm]

They will probably replace one with another....sos.

[Unbeliever]

Yeah, and the new dictator will likely be even worse than the old dictator.

[Hydra009]

HTS (main rebel group) leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani (sometimes spelled Golani)

"Syria deserves a governing system that is institutional, no one where a single ruler makes arbitrary decisions,"

"Don't judge by words, but by actions," he said.

His bio certainly makes for interesting reading as does the HTS organization   "HTS poses a low threat to those outside of its immediate area of control." Well, that aged like milk.  Bear in mind that the second article is from 2023 so it's a little bit outdated.

I honestly don't know what to make of it one way or the other, but I suppose we'll find out shortly.

[Hydra009]

Israeli forces have entered Syrian territory

[Hydra009]

Assad in Moscow, given asylum by Putin

One wonders what he needs Assad for, Putin is not known for his generosity.  Perhaps he plans on establishing a Syrian government-in-exile with the hopes of re-establishing some control over Syria in the future, though it may be quite a while before Russia can spare the forces needed for such a task, seeing as they have their hands full with Ukraine.

[Shiranu]

Can't remember if this guy's videos were shared on here; he's been serving as a gun-for-hire for some time - going from service in the US to some anti-authoritarian Middle Eastern militant groups (at least the Kurds) before going to Ukraine and fighting for the UAF IIRC.

It's late and I've not had time to watch this video yet, but he comes from an anti-dictator, anti-foreign invasion, pro-independence standpoint and offers a very unique perspective. Interesting to see him pop here, I try not to get too invested or follow where he is.

Edit - Welp, as I've watched it I've come to hate Turkey (the political institution) even more than I already did.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The Mediterranean Balkans. Always a fun view.

[Hydra009]

[Hydra009]

Assad released his first official statement since his dictatorship collapse

It paints a very strange and self-serving narrative where Assad valiantly "stood alongside the officers and soldiers of the army on the frontlines, just meters away from terrorists in the most dangerous and intense battlefields"  Yeah, right.  And I'm the Emir of Baghdad.

It goes even further than that to paint the picture of a truly selfless man who didn't do anything for personal gain, refused bribes, never abandoned or betrayed any allies, especially the Palestinians, etc.  But the part that really burns my biscuits is that this murderous dictator says that he carried out the people's will until the very last moment - like he was just a delegate governing with the consent of the governed.  Dictatorships are by definition disconnected from the consent of the people - there's not even a pretense of discussion or debate - one man makes the decisions for everyone else and Assad's reign was unquestionably a dictatorship.  And obviously, lots of people in Syria wanted him gone.  So that part is not only wrong, but so egregiously wrong that it's clear he's just living in a fantasy world.

So how did such a brave, loyal, and selfless man come to leave Syria?  He says that he was at a Russian base (somehow) and there was intense fighting, so the Russians - the most cautious people on the planet (cue Ukraine war footage) - insisted on an immediate evacuation.  Presumably, this too-pure-for-this-world man was knocked out and carried away from his beloved country and people.

I know I'm just beating a dead horse, but holy moley, this guy is lying his butt off.  He had a garage full of luxury cars, he used sarin gas on rebels in his country, and he had a prison where torture and murder where regularly practiced in such spectacularly cruel ways that they immediately bring to mind a nazi death camp.

I didn't expect 100% honesty from him of course, but he could've at least tried to stay somewhere in the realm of believability.  This guy might as well say he cured smallpox, invented grass, and causes the moon to shine at night.

[Hydra009]

I'm not kidding about the nazi comparisons

"We really haven't seen anything quite like this since the Nazis," Rapp said of the evidence emerging from the mass graves.

"From the secret police who disappeared people from their streets and homes, to the jailers and interrogators who starved and tortured them to death, to the truck drivers and bulldozer drivers who hid their bodies, thousands of people were working in this system of killing," he said.

"We are talking about a system of state terror, which became a machinery of death," Rapp said.

[Hydra009]

Syrian de facto leader claims Presidency, abolishes the Constitution

That blurb was a bit alarming but it's apparently more of a transitional rule (three guesses as to who gets officially picked to rule) and a new Constitution will be drafted.

While I remain both cautiously optimistic and cautiously pessimistic, it is encouraging to see the right things being said:

He said the first priority was to "fill the power vacuum in a legitimate and legal way". Secondly, he added, civil peace should be maintained by "seeking transitional justice and preventing revenge attacks".

He also called for state institutions, particularly the military, security agencies and police, and economic infrastructure to be rebuilt.

It's the doing that's hard.  But I hope everything works out.

Finally, I should highlight that in its first official talks with Russia post-Assad, Syria demands war reparations (after all, Russia backed Assad and conducted an intense bombing campaign on the rebels).  Also up for discussion are handing back Assad to Syria to face...well, something sharp.  And finally, Russia hopes to preserve both its naval bases in Syria.  While Russia isn't exactly rolling in cash anymore thanks to sanctions and refinery "problems" and might ordinarily lose face by paying to someone else, if it wants those bases badly enough, I'm almost certain some combination of the above can be arranged.