No, I meant the US. Every year, he introduced a bill to reintroduce the draft in the US and it was always rejected.
I say we send all these people complaining about their student loans. the GI bill would be perfect for them!
Which side has the greatest support among the people of Syria? Source: Bashar al-Assad has more support than the Western-backed opposition You can see the results of the poll from a pollster working for the US and British governments below. http://www.opinion.co.uk/perch/resources/syriadata.pdf While I am glad that there are headlines which quote John Kerry as saying that "Assad can stay for now", I noticed the Saudi sponsored groups were insisting that there will be no ceasefire unless Assad steps down. I also, of course, read about the Saudis forming and leading a coalition to "fight terrorism", which to me was like reading about Al Capone and his buddies in the 1920s forming and leading a group to fight organized crime. Great times we live in! We live in such times and people have become so jaded that they actually don't care that the policies that they have implicitly and explicitly supported have torn a nation apart, left millions of people homeless and as refugees, and caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, while they have spurred the growth of some of the most monstrous groups ever. Whatever reason they have supported these policies, those who have been pushing and pursuing them have been doing it ultimately all because of an obsession, ultimately, with Iran!
You have to take these polls with a grain of salt since half the population has either fled Syria, are internally displaced or isolated inside ISIS controlled areas. The methodology to perform an accurate poll in a war zone has to be nearly impossible. With that said those numbers are more or less what I would have expected. In fact I would guess that 2-3 years ago the support for Assad may have been even higher but that has eroded somewhat as the Syrian army has grown more desperate and more aggressive in trying to enlist new soldiers. There was a very broad middle class inside Syria who lived fairly well under Assad. The constitution was generally protective of minorities compared to some other countries in the region. The government and military definitely skewed towards Alawites, but there were Sunnis, Christians and Druze in top positions as well. For people who thrived in a peaceful secular Syria it's probably normal to blame the various rebels for the country's misfortune. I also find it odd that the poll didn't ask approval ratings for Russia, the Western alliance (USA/UK/France) and Turkey. Initially there was some positive chatter on social media when the Russians intervened. I think the SOHR recently estimated that Russian air strikes could have killed as many as 400 civilians. That may sound like a lot, but it's a lot more precise than a lot of the armed groups on the ground. I can imagine that there is a lot of war fatigue on the ground in Syria and at least the Russian action is decisive as opposed to all the other world powers who keep sending mixed signals and half measures.
There were polls taken before half of the Syrian population was misplaced as well! No one cared about those polls either. For instance, this article in the Guardian is based on a poll taken in Syria in 2012 commissioned by Qatar, who is among the states in the forefront of funding the opposition to Assad. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jan/17/syrians-support-assad-western-propaganda
More to the point, in any case, is the way you settle these things is through elections, not by fiat by foreign powers! On this point, I noticed that after reports quoting Kerry saying "Assad can stay for now", other reports suggest the US position hasn't changed! Not surprising, in a way, since the Saudi and the coalition they have led on the issue, as well as the Turks who are aligned with them, are adamant that Assad must go. https://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=2...-russia-denies-iranian-general-visited-moscow The Latest: US position on Assad hasn't changed, envoy says
Incidentally, the 2012 article in the Guardian which cited the poll that showed most Syrians supported Assad staying, a poll taken right before the Syrian civil war unfolded, had this passage that needs to be highlighted as well. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jan/17/syrians-support-assad-western-propaganda
I ran into this column by a Turkish journalist, peddling the Turkish propaganda on the issues in Syria, trying to change the subject away from what the people affected by the policies in Syria (namely the Syrians) think, to what people in other regional countries think about the issue. Leaving aside the propaganda and spin, what the Zogby polls (including the most recent one alluded to in this column) have shown in recent years is how politicized the attitudes in Sunni majority states (most of whom don't have any access to any opposing viewpoints on these issues) have become. Thus in the countries where Iran's involvement is being taken at issue by these foreign Arab or Sunni states, such as Syria, Lebanon or Iraq, you find more receptivity to Iran's role and often rather positive reactions to it among a significant portion of the population, while within the Sunni states which are criticizing Iran for its role and actions in the region, you find large segments of the population being taught to blame Iran! What I have said about Iran, applies almost equally to Russia and its role as well. http://www.dailysabah.com/columns/r...sia-iran-lose-minds-and-hearts-in-middle-east Russia, Iran lose minds and hearts in Middle East
China, Russia and Iran are not going to agree with that. http://www.economist.com/news/middl...ous-abuse-pronounced-genuine-bashar-al-assads If the pic violates rules, mods please delete. spoiler (Move your mouse to reveal the content) spoiler (open) spoiler (close)
The radicalization of Luke Skywalker. A Jedi's path to Jihad. http://decider.com/2015/12/11/the-radicalization-of-luke-skywalker-a-jedis-path-to-jihad/ Love the part about Yoda, "an extremist cleric who runs a Jedi madrasa on Dagobah."
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35144420 This is more or less what I've been suspecting. It's absurd how much attention this "ISIS" acronym gets. God forbid the man that plays an ISIS drinking game during our presidential debates. All we're doing is giving that particular group free advertising but they're really inconsequential in the big picture. They're just a symptom of a much larger cultural phenomenon. ISIS used to be Al Qaeda in Iraq and before that it was just Al Qaeda. Tomorrow Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi could be killed in a drone strike and the new generation of leaders renames the group the Martyrs of the Caliphate or some such nonsense. Our obsession with ISIS identifies why our Western leaders are still incapable to really understand what they're dealing with. It seems like 100% of our attention is focused on Syria while there is already evidence that ISIS is shifting some operations to Lybia, Afghanistan, Gaza and Yemen. This social media era has created an environment where groups that barely used to know each other can now swear allegiance to each other over a vast geographical area. ISIS is aligned with groups as far away as Boko Haram in Nigeria and Abu Sayyaf in Philippines. Our post 9/11 experience should have taught us this lesson already. We became obsessed with Al Qaeda. Eventually we toppled their base in Kandahar and killed Bin Laden, but what did that really accomplish in the big picture? Not much if you look around the world today. Before any progress can be made we need leaders in the West who are first willing to appreciate the scale of what is going on here. We need to take a step back from Syria and really address this on a regional geopolitical level. We need to be talking about democracy and human rights all over the Middle East and Africa including the countries we're allied with. We really need talk about this Sunni/Shiite divide openly. We need to acknowledge and address the theological conflict that conservative Islam has with the dominant Western culture. As long as we get bogged down with individual terrorist groups these broader cultural currents will pass over our heads unaddressed.
The west shares the blame for radicalisation. Take Somalia as an example. The Islamic Courts Union there brought stability and tried to end piracy and warlordism. They controlled much of Somalia before they were overthrown by outside interference, due to the West disliking any form of Islamism. Now you have the country torn apart and run de facto by the warlords, a power vacuum due to an ineffective central government, the return of piracy and a violent insurgency by extreme elements who broke off from the ICU and formed AlShabab. The ICU wasn't attacking the west when it got attacked. AlShabab wouldn't have formed and become more extreme if the ICU had been left to govern. It's the same in large parts of the Islamic world - a popular movement disliked by the west but supported to a large extent by the locals overthrows a usually western backed dictatorship or fills a power vacuum, is toppled by western-backed military might and a more extreme version of the toppled group arises and continues an insurgency. I would argue that the problem is not the problem conservative Islam has with the west, but the converse.
Some good news on how to fight Islamist. I am sure it happens a lot, we just do not hear about it. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-35151967
They were supported by one of the war lords, Yosuf Siad, So having 1 warlord defeat all other warlords in a way is better than having multiple fighting, for you it was better to have an Islamist one (well not sure about him, just that he saw his opportunity by backing the ICU), you would sing a different tune if the winning warlord had not been Islamic. But you do leave out the Ultimatum the ICU gave the AU and UN to leave their territory, to be fair, they were in control of most of South Somalia and felt they were the legit government and not the union of warlords that asked the AU/UN to stay. They did attack the AU/UN in Baidoa. Ethiopia feeling that the ICU (ICU was very federated, so it was just some members of the ICU, the most radical sections) was influencing Muslims in Ethiopia went in to help the UN/AU and they eventually took down the ICU. So more complex than your narrative for sure. But yes, the contry went back to being a multiple warlord conflict over a 1 warloard monopoly.
Was the rule of the ICU better or worse than the situation today, and was it better or worse than the situation prior to the ICU? That's the question, and if the answer is "better", then who takes the blame for the status quo? Surely the fault of the people who overthrew the ICU? This is the problem with the world today. Too many powerful people with fantastic skills in killing people and destroying societies, not so good at offering alternatives.
Was Syria better off with Bashar in full control of Syria than they are today, then the blame falls on the people for demanding Democracy. If Shias and Kurds were to claim that they are better off today than under Saddam would the world recognize Bush mad genious. Supporting dictators, even religious ones because they bring stability is not a good policy, even the people may support being ruled by them over chaos. People are willing to trade freedom for security, scary but true, just look at Egypt.
http://harpers.org/archive/2016/01/a-special-relationship/ This is a long piece, which begins by discussing the links between the US and jihadist groups, including what became known as Al Queda, before 9/11 and how those links were more calculated then pretended by Washington some of those links were exposed in the wake of 9/11. The piece then discusses how the US again jumped into bed with Al Queda and ideologically similar groups as part of the policies Seymour Hersh had already exposed in his article in the New Yorker, called the Redirection. The policies and programs established under the so-called "Redirection" by the Bush administration in conjunction with Saudi Arabia, continued under the Obama administration ironically with greater focus and determination then before, especially as the US and its ally, Saudi Arabia, calculated on how they could turn the so-called Arab Spring against Iran? These arms were going to whoever was there to fight Assad. Certainly to Al Queda and its affiliate in Syria, namely Nusra and their allies, Ahrar al-Sham. The indiscriminate supply of arms began to take a lot more discriminate form, as Qatar and Turkey allied themselves directly with the Al Queda allied group, Ahrar al-Sham, and openly supported and shielded this group from censure in various diplomatic venues. But, of course, it wasn't just little Qatar -- who has allied itself with Turkey to carve some independent room for itself within the Saudi dominated so-called GCC -- that was pouring in arms and money into Syria. Pretty much each entity in the anti-Assad coalition formed its own group. The Saudis, however, wanted to have a group they could control and which wasn't going to be a threat to them. Hence, they began to focus their funding and assistance to other Wahabi groups they formed inside Syria. As for the US, the piece discusses the chorus of establishment figures and voices which have joined to openly advocate that the US ally itself with Al Queda! They include one of the initial architects of the "Redirection", David Petraeus. Others might find an open alliance with a "brand" responsible for 9/11 a bit distasteful so they are interested in re-branding the same ideology and attitudes and supporting the re-branded groups. The consequences of all this, of course, is predictable enough. Of course, when that happens, you can expect resolute action, like the bill that passed the US Congress in response to the attacks in Paris, which withdraws the visa waiver that otherwise apply for citizens of EU and some other countries if they have traveled to Iran and Iraq!