[NOTE- This was originally written and published 22 months ago today, on August 30 2013 at 1324 hours. It has been preserved in its original form, to preserve both accuracy and serve as a record of my writing and linguistic stylings, as well as my thought process and understanding of the situation. This also started an argument between myself and Blue Djinn, which started with the phrase "illegally occupying the Golan Heights my ass" and kept going from there. Israel is something we know we don't see eye to eye on, but can agree to disagree, because we're fucking gentlemen like that. ]
The whole Syria thing is a clusterfuck, and I'm trying to figure all of it out. Correct me if I'm wrong, and point me towards whatever resources may help clarify who what where and why with this whole thing. All of your news is either propaganda or bullshit, so lets just look at the facts, and the motives each of the nations has. There really aren't any 'good guys' or 'bad guys' in this situation, and almost everything you'll read on this subject is heavily slanted in one direction. American propaganda is gearing up to justify a war with Syria and Iran, while Russian propaganda is gearing up to justify a war in Saudi Arabia. Anyway, this is my understanding of how this all came to be:
Let’s start with Syria's independence after the Second World War. They literally couldn't hold on to a leader, with generals and leaders being ousted and deposed all the time. This instability lead people to oppose the government and demand reforms. Now, Egypt became all buddy-buddy with the USSR after the USA was pissed they recognized the PRC. There was something about a dam, and the Egyptians tried to nationalize the Suez Canal, and that lead to another Arab-Israeli war. Syria was involved in this, attacking Israel from the North. Because they were friends with Egypt, and Egypt was friends with USSR, Syria and USSR became great friends. The Russians gave Syria a bunch of weapons and other cool shit for allowing them to spread their influence in the region (and this pissed off Turkey, who doesn't like Syria). Around 1958, Syria and Egypt were like "Hey! Let’s blanda upp and become one country!" A lot of the political parties of Syria didn't like that, and they had to all stop what they were doing and do shit in secret.
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| Ah, Polandball. |
Hafez al-Assad, Bashar's father, was one of those guys. He and his military buddies made a super-awesome secret club for the Ba'ath party. Baathists are socialists who advocate for a single Arab state, free of imperialist (re: Western) influence, and were somewhat secularist (but also Sunni Muslims). So the Syrian Government gets overthrown (again!) and these guys take over. It was the 1963 coup, and then the government was all "Aw shit! We're in a state of Emergency! Let’s suspend the constitution and everybody's rights!" And it stayed like that for 48 years (Don't worry, America. I'm sure the state of Emergency you've been in since 9/11 will pass soon and you'll have your rights back any day now! You're different than these people!)
So if we've learned anything from history, it’s that it repeats itself, which it does in Syria. There are, once again, multiple coups and shit, and eventually the Baath party splinters into two factions: The Iraqi one that Saddam belonged to, and the Syrian one Hafez al-Assad belonged to.
When the Baath party took power, it outlawed the other parties. So now the Kurds, the hardline Muslim Brotherhood guys, religious minorities, didn't have political parties or influence. That really pissed off a lot of people, and the Muslim Brotherhood had a bunch of armed uprisings as a result. In fact, in 1980 being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood could mean death for you. Yeah, Assad killed people like that. So they fought back, and in 1982 the Hama Uprising began, and Hafez al-Assad sent a bunch of troops to siege the city. Between 10-40,000 people died.
So as you can see, Syria wasn't THAT great a place to be, but it also wasn't that bad. It was a secular government, not some Muslim shit hole. It was possible to survive being a Shia or a Christian or a Jew. But people wanted their rights and an end to the Martial Law.
So fast forward to 2000. Hafez al-Assad dies, and his son, Bashar, runs in the election unopposed. The Damascus Spring happens, but nothing comes of it and Assad suppresses the movement. As we can see, it takes a few times and a few uprisings to get shit into gear to get your rights back (so the 'failure' of OWS and the Tea Party movements aren't failures, but shows that we in America are on the right track). This kind of shit goes on until 2010, when something magical happens!
The Arab Spring begins in December 2010, and spreads to Syria quickly. In March 2011, about 15 teenagers are arrested and beaten by cops. The people didn't like this shit, and started a bunch of protests. Around the same time, there were protests around the funeral of someone who died in the Syrian Army, supposedly from an electric shock, but it was rumored he was tortured by security forces. So basically, Syria was as bad, the kind of bad the USA is heading for.
Assad cracks down, and that pisses off the international community, and the people. More people die, and get angry. He sees "Well shit, this isn't working, I guess I better do some reforming." He replaces his entire cabinet, begins reforms, and even was set to repeal the martial law. After that, though, he said there would be no grounds for the continued massive protests, and would consider the opposition "sabotage" if they continued.
The protesters at this point were more focused on getting Assad out of power than they were at the reforms. Although anti-government protests drew crowds, the pro-Assad rallies drew bigger ones at first. And then the fighting starts, and BOOM! Civil war.
So who is on what side? Syria is a key position in the Mediterranean, so them being friends with Russia is really, really good for Russia. And as we can see, historically Syria and Russia are pretty tight, like they are with Egypt. Israel hates them, and they want their historic Israel and are taking it by force from Palestine. They also illegally occupy Syria's Golan Heights, which has natural resources they are just going to take.
Speaking of resources, the Caspian Sea has tons of oil, and there's a pipeline that takes it through Turkey, to the Mediterranean, and down to Israel, to get through the Gulf of Aqaba (the body of water on the other side of the Sinai Peninsula from Suez). From there it goes to Asia. This makes Turkey and Israel lots of sheckles. So Israel does not like Syria, and is invading their land, pillaging for resources, and trying to keep the conflict there going to prevent oil from flowing elsewhere (cough Syria cough Iran cough cough). Also involved in this tangled little web of conflict is a little organization called Hezbollah, based in Lebanon. They have taken the side of Assad, and fight for the government of Syria in the civil war. They're also better known for attacking Israel for being Israel. Hezbollah is backed by Iran, and Iran is friendly to Assad. They're kinda in a serious bromance. It’s so serious, that an attack on Syria is an attack on Iran.
We also have the Muslim Brotherhood involved. These guys were running the government of Egypt under President Morsi from 2012 until the military overthrew the government in July of this year and is currently being led by General Abdul Fatah al-Sisi. So the Muslim Brotherhood no longer has the same power in Egypt that it did. The USA is friendly with the Muslim Brotherhood and was friendly with Morsi. We aren’t as friendly with Sisi.
So far, we have Israel, USA and Turkey being friends. USA is friends with Muslim Brotherhood. Muslim Brotherhood, Turkey, Israel and USA support the rebels and getting Assad out of power. Iran is backing Assad against those powers, so Iran is against the USA and Israel (obviously). Here’s where it gets tricky:
We also have the oil producing Gulf States to think of (aka, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, etc.). The Gulf States are against Assad. That means they’re with the Muslim Brotherhood, right? WRONG. They’re also pro General Sisi, against the Muslim Brotherhood, but also friendly to the USA.
But you can’t forget about Hamas in this conflict! Hamas rules the Gaza Strip, and fucking HATES Israel. Iran backs Hamas. Hamas hates the USA, but also supports the Muslim Brotherhood because they are an offshoot of them.
Our ally Turkey is with the Gulf States against Assad. However, they also support the Muslim Brotherhood (who the Gulf States oppose) against General Sisi. Hezbollah, based in Lebanon, is also backed by Iran against Israel and the USA against rebel groups, meaning that Hezbollah is against al-Qaeda. The USA and al-Qaeda are ‘enemies’ but working together against Assad.
So Syria has (had?) plans for a new oil pipeline that would threaten the wealth that brings to our allies. A continuous conflict will prevent that from being built. It’s no coincidence that now there are dozens of nationalities fighting a jihad in Syria in what used to be a Civil War. Iran also wants to sell oil in gold, not dollars. The USA’s petrodollar system ensures everyone trades oil in dollars, requiring everyone to have dollars, driving up the demand and keeping the dollar strong no matter how shitty our economy is. There were a few other world leaders who wanted to do the same thing, but the United States killed them (like in Libya, when we killed Gaddafi the same year he was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize because he wanted to switch to the Gold Dinar). Iran has started the Iranian Crude Oil Exchange, an exchange market specifically for trading oil in other currencies.
This is not good for the USA, since our currency isn’t backed by gold anymore, but black gold. So we need a way into Iran. Hey, remember when we tried convincing the world they were gonna build a nuke? And wipe poor Israel off the map, even though Israel refuses to sign the NNPT and Iran is a member? And remember when the CIA and Mossad came out and said “Lol, they don’t have shit and aren’t trying to build any nukes” so we dropped the whole thing for a bit?
It was about this time last year they did that. That’s also when Obama started talkin’ about that “thin red line” that Assad shouldn’t cross. They talked and talked and talked about the possibility of Assad using chemical weapons. And if he did, we were gonna liberate the shit out of him like we did to Iraq. So Assad knows the ONE THING he shouldn’t do if he doesn’t want the USA to invade is use chemical weapons.
THEN, EARLIER THIS YEAR, CHEMICAL WEAPON WERE USED! But it wasn’t Assad who did it. As soon as it happened, American/Western media reported immediately Assad used chemical weapons. After a UN investigation, it was concluded that the rebels/terrorists who the USA is supporting used Chemical Weapons. This is still cited right now as proof Assad used chemical weapons.
In July of 2011, the Syrian Army raided a rebel stronghold, and found tons of lab equipment and ingredients for chemical weapons. This was in Jobar, outside of Damascus.
On August 21, they were used again outside of Damascus. Again, Western Media immediately blamed Assad, and the USA continues to do so without any proof. We tried getting Britain involved, and they sent warships before their Parliament said “fuck no, we’re not going in there.” So the USA had been sending its fleet to the region, in preparation for this, especially before budget cuts force us to cut down on our presence in the region. So far, we have 5 missile cruisers and an unknown number of subs in the Mediterranean, and two Aircraft Carrier strike group in the Persian Gulf. Russia responded by sending a bunch of their shit to the port they control in Syria. Iran said if we attack Syria, Syria and Iran will turn Israel to glass. If they try doing that, the USA and Israel will attack Iran. Russia does not want the USA to attack Syria, and might step in. They claim they won’t with their words, but their actions say “back off or we’ll fuck you up.” The Saudis (friends of USA, enemies of Assad and Russia) offered Russia a bunch of natural gas and stuff to drop their support of Assad. They also said “hey, you got them Olympics coming up soon. We control the Chechen terrorists who might do something to it. You should take our offer, it’d be a shame if anything happened…” which pissed off Putin immensely. So an attack on Iran might, in turn, cause retaliation attacks on the Allies of the USA, namely Israel and Saudi Arabia.
[Anyone else think it’s slightly odd that Boston was orchestrated by Chechen terrorists, whom our ‘friends’ the Saudis claim control over? Especially after the FBI straight up executed an unarmed, injured Ibragim Todashev?].
Evidence that the Aug. 21 attacks were done by Assad is shaky at best. Israel (who is against Assad!) claims that their wiretapping provided all the evidence. The USA is quick to try a build a coalition before the UN finishes their inspection, and are even talking of going in alone if need be. However, the side we support has been caught with chemical weapons before, and was just caught with the shit required to make them. And now, suddenly that they’ve been used, Assad did it? I’m not buying it.
So that’s the situation, folks. We have no real evidence that Assad did anything, the white house released something that would have gotten me a C in my sophomore year of high school as ‘evidence’, and the USA is trying to erase old cold war alliances and put in western-friendly forces instead so we can continue to control the oil.
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