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PaperclipPerfector  16d ago (text post)   30774 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024

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Is he really worse compared to the new regime?

In the limited way relevant to US interests, very much so. In the language of the Cold War, Assad is their son-of-a-bitch, whereas the factions taking over are our sons of bitches. (I do not claim that the new regime is better than Assad for the civilian population of Syria, although it could be).

  • The Syrian Free army (now controls northern Damascus) is an actual US client group, which allows the US to use the territory it controls to spy on Iran and launch airstrikes against ISIS.
  • The Southern Operations Room (now controls southern Damascus) is a coalition of militias which worked with various western and Gulf Arab countries until we stopped throwing good money after bad and decided (wrongly, as it turned out) that Assad had beaten them.
  • HTS (controls Aleppo, Homs and Hama) is a coalition of jihadi groups some, but not all, of which used to be affiliated to Al-Quaeda. They have been co-operating very closely with Turkish-backed secular groups to the point where they can probably be considered as part of the Turkish client faction. Turkey is, of course, a NATO member and western ally.

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