Syria

DannyL

Wild Horses
This is an excellent piece of journalism that brings home the cross-regional nature of the conflict and the webs of economic dependency and status that the war has created: https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...ory.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.eaabda5ef278

Between 5,000 and 12,000 Afghans have participated in such units since they were established within the Fatemiyoun Division of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to human rights and research groups. Most are refugees or workers living in Iran, but hundreds come from poor, ethnic Hazara and Shiite communities in this windswept city near the Iranian border, as well as other regions of Afghanistan.

One of the stories that's been emerging over the last few days is the delivery of death in custody notices to local town offices - now the war has been effectively won (if not the peace), the regime can begin to public acknowledge this. Thousands and thousands of people, tortured to death, though the notices all say "heart attacks". I'll post some links later. The saddest thing about this is all the photos - all these optimistic young activists vs. how they no doubt ended up after years in Assad's dungeons. This sort of shit should prevent the normalisation of relations with Assad's Syria (and the subsequent aid and redevelopment money) but I'm not holding my breath.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
I don't know if anyone is listening to Rukmini Callimachi's Caliphate podcast? - because you should, it's amazing - in one of the later episodes (8?), she balances the two positions of intervention and pacifism very fairly. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
 

sufi

lala
I don't know if anyone is listening to Rukmini Callimachi's Caliphate podcast? - because you should, it's amazing - in one of the later episodes (8?), she balances the two positions of intervention and pacifism very fairly. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
I was following her for ages, but now she's done this weird thing of looting all the documentation about ISIS on behalf of NYT

I would rather read than listen TBH, it feels like she's making herself and her looted materials into a netflix boxset

Thanks for keeping this thread going btw
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Wouldn't that be standard journalistic practice? Gathering as much evidence as possible? She's working on behalf of the NYT but - I'm assuming but don't know - she'd turn this info over to state forces at some point - she seems to have pretty solid links with security services there and in the US and she has to keep 'em sweet somehow.

Re. the boxset thing, I did actually think on listening that this sets a new bar for podcasts - I could imagine seeing increased professionalisation of the medium in the wake of this.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Oh she says in last episode that the documents have been scanned and will be publicly available. The originals have gone to the Iraqi Embassy.
 

sufi

lala
Oh she says in last episode that the documents have been scanned and will be publicly available. The originals have gone to the Iraqi Embassy.
Yeah i was following the controversy if not the podcast. Implementation of making the documents available publicly has been flaky and appears to be an afterthought, so it's sadly all looking like part of the thieving and destruction of Iraqi culture in the bigger picture.

I don't particularly blame Callimachi herself, apart from being a bit over-keen, but the NYT are basically dirty babylonians
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Some photos:
Facebook link:
Can't help but wonder what this implies about demographics in Syria. If the brightest and the best have been murdered or sent into exile, that's going to bite hugely at some point in the immediate future, assuming things are in any way normalised.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
I don't like to use this thread as a kind of blog but I guess at least that means no one wants a huge argument. This story is too massive not to share's - if it true. It need further verfication but the reporter purports to have gained access to quotes from a meeting of high-ranking Syrian regime officials who're effectively proposing genocide:

http://syrianobserver.com/EN/Features/34576/Jamil_Hassan_Any_All_Opposition_Will_Be_Eliminated

The Head of the Air Force Intelligence said that more than three million Syrians are wanted and their judicial cases were ready. He added that “the huge number of people wanted will not be a major difficulty in achieving the plan.

“A Syria with 10 million trustworthy people obedient to the leadership is better than a Syria with 30 million vandals,” as he put it.


3 million people is 15% of the population - so that's 15% of the population that face torture at a bare minimum and murder as a possibility. Should have a huge impact of the refugee crisis as it's obviously illegal to return people facing this kind of threat.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
A friend of mine has made this:

Directory of International Assadists - it's a reference dictionary of 151 politicians, journalists and public figures who in one way or another provide cover for the Assad regime.

The social media response has been really interesting - several thousand tweets against it in a few days, coming in at 1 a minute at one point.
 
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DannyL

Wild Horses
The same guy wrote this which I guess can be seen as a useful philosophical accompaniment to the 'practical' first piece, though this isn't as tightly focused on Syria as the first for obvious reasons.:
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
A friend of mine has made this:

httphttps://medium.com/@kesterratcliff/international-assadists-references-directory-8038067fe394 - it's a reference dictionary of 151 politicians, journalists and public figures who in one way or another provide cover for the Assad regime.

The social media response has been really interesting - several thousand tweets against it in a few days, coming in at 1 a minute at one point.

Thanks for that Dan (the URL is slightly broken, btw).

I wonder if anyone listed there will ever actually look at the full index, and whether it might give any of the purported leftists there pause to see themselves listed next to the likes of Steve Bannon, Mike Cernovich, Ann Coulter, Milo Y, David Duke and Katie Hopkins.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
There have been two RT hit pieces against that list in as many days so he's obviously doing something right.

To reply to your (rhetorical?) question Olly - I don't know. I think if anyone takes the time to read Kester's terms and explanation of what he's doing, it'd be hard not to be persuaded, the difficulty is getting people to read that far.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
The real news in Syria is what's going in Idlib, and if Erdogan is going to stick with his promises and face down an attack by Assad's forces. Seems foolish to rely on him but there's not much else standing between the people there and yet more massacres. Lots of "false flag" talk of chemical attacks flying around. The Russian Embassy in UK is tweeting absolutely base bullshit that I can barely believe is legal:

Idlib - CNN

On the Embassy claims - Telegraph
 
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craner

Beast of Burden
It’s an interesting list and project, possibly needs more work to be definitive. But it certainly displays a Rogues Gallery. To what end, this deep in, is another question. I scanned it and just felt really exhausted and depressed.

Like you say, meanwhile in Syria...
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Yeah.

I don't think it's about trying to win the war at this stage - though I do wonder about the stability of such of Assad's Syria without a war to give it purpose, Russia doesn't have the money to rebuild it, see Merkel's refusal of Putin's request for reconstruction money just last week, I think it could all come down very quickly - on one level, Kester says it's a reference guide for speedy rebuttals in internet arguments, but on another, deeper level, I see this as a kind of sally against the falsehoods that have been setting the agenda for the last 8 years or so. What do we want our politics to do and be defined by? A pushback creates some space for those questions.

Globally, I think we're in danger of, or even in the middle of "the fascist moment" - the exposure of a major propaganda network has got to be worth something. I think that's where to situate this.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
It’s an interesting project but, frankly, seems trivial and piecemeal for the very reasons you mention.
 
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