3 ms·

If anybody has doubts how bad this could end for aid workers, here's an article about their current situation in Syria[0]. Summary: they are somewhat certain t

If anybody has doubts how bad this could end for aid workers, here's an article about their current situation in Syria[0]. Summary: they are somewhat certain to die when Assad's army takes over northern Syria and manages to identify them as aid workers, even remotely connected to anything we would consider "good". The agencies are trying to burn all their local paperwork to protect their employees' identities. [0]: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/10/america-policy-syria-deadly-end/600682/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/10/am...

jammygit 7y ago
> Throughout eight years of civil war, Syrians who tied their fortunes to the changing whims of American policy have been systematically arrested, killed, and driven from the country. > First it was protesters chanting for democracy—many took encouragement from Barack Obama’s statement in the summer of 2011 that the country’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad, should step down. But the U.S. government looked on as protesters were killed or disappeared into the regime’s teeming prisons. It’s as though the US government is on a mission to prove they should not be trusted. I hope most can get out of there somehow, this is very unfortunate
- jacquesm 7y ago
  > It’s as though the US government is on a mission to prove they should not be trusted. I would consider that mission solidly accomplished at this point.
  - tuesdayrain 7y ago
    I can't imagine why I would place a lot of trust in any government. It takes a special kind of cunning, controlling person to even want to be a politician. Let alone become successful enough to attain a high position in a government. So I don't trust any government really. All I can do is guess which politician's incentives could be the most aligned with mine.
  - irrational 7y ago
    Seriously, does anyone in the US or outside the US, in government or outside of government, anywhere in the world trust the US government? I seriously doubt it.
    - IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
      Yes, of course people usually trust the US government. We do so every time we get on a plane, keep money in USD, or run Windows, MacOS, etc. That doesn't mean the US was flawless before Trump. It had its flaws, just like any other government. But generally, they were trusted in scenarios like above, but also, for example, by diplomats to at least try to keep their word even across administrations, or by travellers not to be asked for bribes at the border. People have become rather cynical and won't believe me, but still it is worth mentioning: before Trump, politicians, including the presidents, almost never lied. On occasion, they would try but fail to make good on a promise. Or they would err, or go to great lengths to avoid answering a question. But actual lying, as in saying something wrong and repeating it even after it was pointed out to be wrong? It barely ever happened.
      - jdietrich 7y ago
        > Yes, of course people usually trust the US government. We do so every time we get on a plane, keep money in USD, or run Windows, MacOS, etc. Trust isn't binary, nor does it exist on a single dimension. I might use the products and services of US companies, I might conditionally trust the judgement of some US government bodies, but there's always a heavy set of caveats. I wouldn't trust a drug that had been approved by the FDA until it had also been approved by the European Medicines Agency. I would trust a NIST standard for metrology, but I certainly wouldn't trust a NIST standard for cryptography. I wouldn't ever allow a European customer's data to be stored in the US, or to transit US networks in plaintext. I trust US-made hardware and software about as much as Chinese-made hardware and software, which is to say I assume it's heavily backdoored. I haven't ever trusted the words of a US administration, red or blue; I do broadly trust that Merkel or Macron will mostly keep their word and mostly honour international law.
      - bordercases 7y ago
- xenyal 7y ago
  I mean, with everything that's happened since Snowden, it more or less started with ordinary US citizens losing trust in them before it carried over via other circumstances to nations like Syria. The root cause is elsewhere; what's happened in Syria is merely symptomatic.
- surge 7y ago
  Because things always go super well when we act as the world police. Knock out Assad, ISIS takes over. Help out a rebel group, they later radicalize and declare the west their enemy. Seriously, I think after several failed attempts to establish "peace" in a region and the insane amount spent on military operations mortgaged against our children, you'd realize that's not possible and cut our losses. Why does it have to be the US? Can't the EU step up if it's such a tragedy. If UNICEF is involved the rest of the EU can send troops if they truly feel they need to be there. You have a very short memory, the cognitive dissonance is beyond me unless you also supported the invasion of Iraq too? The indefinite nature of that should be a point that this can go on forever and it will. If we're going to stop being the world police, we have to actually stop getting involved and back away as we've been doing slowly over the past decade. This isn't a big surprise.
  - unityByFreedom 7y ago
    It is not so simple, these are proxy wars. We already saw Russia take over part of Ukraine, and Putin is hungry for more.
stevenjohns 7y ago
The Atlantic article serves as a great reminder of why alternative media picks up more and more steam, and why "fake news" is a problem that isn't just limited to smaller groups. Let me present an alternative outcome: when the SyGov enters into joint-control of Northern Syria, nothing will change. And the bulk of the SDF will be incorporated into the Syrian military... exactly as the same as what has happened every single time this has happened in the last 8 years. There is not a single reason to suspect otherwise, and propagandists like Hassan Hassan and co. will just find a new talking point next week. It's actually ridiculous that the inner-circle of Twitter MENA propagandists, led by Henry Jackson Society notables like Michael Weiss, are still the go-to "experts" people depend on and still have a platform to spread their poison in 2019.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
  Yes, Assad is well-known for his easygoing manners and quick forgiveness of those previously working against him. And while your simulacrum of expertise is impressive, you missed the basic point that the article isn't even about the SDF, but civilian aid workers.
  - stevenjohns 7y ago
    Well... yeah. He kind of is. The Syrian government's history of reconciliation is spotless. They intentionally try to make the reconciliation process as clean as possible so they can encourage more of it. They provide full amnesty to non-combatants and in almost every situation so far they incorporate the rebel fighters into the localised defense forces. The YPG had a similar ideology of treating POWs well in order to encourage more people to surrender knowing that they won't die or be mistreated if they do. That's one of the things that encouraged so many people to ally with the YPG and eventually form what is now the SDF. Even the ones who do not want to reconcile are happy to jump into the green buses[0] and go to Idlib. They were happy because they knew they were safe. There were no extra-judicial murders, no retributions, no nothing. If Bilal Abdul Kareem from OGN TV was able to leave Aleppo unharmed, why would aid workers be targeted? This isn't some sort of conspiracy theory - it's just common-sense tactics for the Syrian government. It also doesn't mean that post-war there won't be retributions. I'm sure there will be. But there is no reason to suggest why aid workers would be high in that list when that same list contains some of the most deplorable extremist militia groups too. Talking about the SDF is important, because the article is about what happens when the PYD leaves and the SyGov enters. And the answer is that nothing much will change, because SDF forces will just be rebranded to being SyArmy forces; they're going to take off SDF patches and wear Syrian ones. As has happened a dozen times before. [0] https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/03/syria-green-buses-symbol-seismic-shift-170321120600909.html https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/03/syria-gree...

jammygit 7y ago

> Throughout eight years of civil war, Syrians who tied their fortunes to the changing whims of American policy have been systematically arrested, killed, and driven from the country. > First it was protesters chanting for democracy—many took encouragement from Barack Obama’s statement in the summer of 2011 that the country’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad, should step down. But the U.S. government looked on as protesters were killed or disappeared into the regime’s teeming prisons. It’s as though the US government is on a mission to prove they should not be trusted. I hope most can get out of there somehow, this is very unfortunate

jacquesm 7y ago
> It’s as though the US government is on a mission to prove they should not be trusted. I would consider that mission solidly accomplished at this point.
- tuesdayrain 7y ago
  I can't imagine why I would place a lot of trust in any government. It takes a special kind of cunning, controlling person to even want to be a politician. Let alone become successful enough to attain a high position in a government. So I don't trust any government really. All I can do is guess which politician's incentives could be the most aligned with mine.
- irrational 7y ago
  Seriously, does anyone in the US or outside the US, in government or outside of government, anywhere in the world trust the US government? I seriously doubt it.
  - IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
    Yes, of course people usually trust the US government. We do so every time we get on a plane, keep money in USD, or run Windows, MacOS, etc. That doesn't mean the US was flawless before Trump. It had its flaws, just like any other government. But generally, they were trusted in scenarios like above, but also, for example, by diplomats to at least try to keep their word even across administrations, or by travellers not to be asked for bribes at the border. People have become rather cynical and won't believe me, but still it is worth mentioning: before Trump, politicians, including the presidents, almost never lied. On occasion, they would try but fail to make good on a promise. Or they would err, or go to great lengths to avoid answering a question. But actual lying, as in saying something wrong and repeating it even after it was pointed out to be wrong? It barely ever happened.
    - jdietrich 7y ago
      > Yes, of course people usually trust the US government. We do so every time we get on a plane, keep money in USD, or run Windows, MacOS, etc. Trust isn't binary, nor does it exist on a single dimension. I might use the products and services of US companies, I might conditionally trust the judgement of some US government bodies, but there's always a heavy set of caveats. I wouldn't trust a drug that had been approved by the FDA until it had also been approved by the European Medicines Agency. I would trust a NIST standard for metrology, but I certainly wouldn't trust a NIST standard for cryptography. I wouldn't ever allow a European customer's data to be stored in the US, or to transit US networks in plaintext. I trust US-made hardware and software about as much as Chinese-made hardware and software, which is to say I assume it's heavily backdoored. I haven't ever trusted the words of a US administration, red or blue; I do broadly trust that Merkel or Macron will mostly keep their word and mostly honour international law.
    - bordercases 7y ago
xenyal 7y ago
I mean, with everything that's happened since Snowden, it more or less started with ordinary US citizens losing trust in them before it carried over via other circumstances to nations like Syria. The root cause is elsewhere; what's happened in Syria is merely symptomatic.
surge 7y ago
Because things always go super well when we act as the world police. Knock out Assad, ISIS takes over. Help out a rebel group, they later radicalize and declare the west their enemy. Seriously, I think after several failed attempts to establish "peace" in a region and the insane amount spent on military operations mortgaged against our children, you'd realize that's not possible and cut our losses. Why does it have to be the US? Can't the EU step up if it's such a tragedy. If UNICEF is involved the rest of the EU can send troops if they truly feel they need to be there. You have a very short memory, the cognitive dissonance is beyond me unless you also supported the invasion of Iraq too? The indefinite nature of that should be a point that this can go on forever and it will. If we're going to stop being the world police, we have to actually stop getting involved and back away as we've been doing slowly over the past decade. This isn't a big surprise.
- unityByFreedom 7y ago
  It is not so simple, these are proxy wars. We already saw Russia take over part of Ukraine, and Putin is hungry for more.

stevenjohns 7y ago

The Atlantic article serves as a great reminder of why alternative media picks up more and more steam, and why "fake news" is a problem that isn't just limited to smaller groups. Let me present an alternative outcome: when the SyGov enters into joint-control of Northern Syria, nothing will change. And the bulk of the SDF will be incorporated into the Syrian military... exactly as the same as what has happened every single time this has happened in the last 8 years. There is not a single reason to suspect otherwise, and propagandists like Hassan Hassan and co. will just find a new talking point next week. It's actually ridiculous that the inner-circle of Twitter MENA propagandists, led by Henry Jackson Society notables like Michael Weiss, are still the go-to "experts" people depend on and still have a platform to spread their poison in 2019.

IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
Yes, Assad is well-known for his easygoing manners and quick forgiveness of those previously working against him. And while your simulacrum of expertise is impressive, you missed the basic point that the article isn't even about the SDF, but civilian aid workers.
- stevenjohns 7y ago
  Well... yeah. He kind of is. The Syrian government's history of reconciliation is spotless. They intentionally try to make the reconciliation process as clean as possible so they can encourage more of it. They provide full amnesty to non-combatants and in almost every situation so far they incorporate the rebel fighters into the localised defense forces. The YPG had a similar ideology of treating POWs well in order to encourage more people to surrender knowing that they won't die or be mistreated if they do. That's one of the things that encouraged so many people to ally with the YPG and eventually form what is now the SDF. Even the ones who do not want to reconcile are happy to jump into the green buses[0] and go to Idlib. They were happy because they knew they were safe. There were no extra-judicial murders, no retributions, no nothing. If Bilal Abdul Kareem from OGN TV was able to leave Aleppo unharmed, why would aid workers be targeted? This isn't some sort of conspiracy theory - it's just common-sense tactics for the Syrian government. It also doesn't mean that post-war there won't be retributions. I'm sure there will be. But there is no reason to suggest why aid workers would be high in that list when that same list contains some of the most deplorable extremist militia groups too. Talking about the SDF is important, because the article is about what happens when the PYD leaves and the SyGov enters. And the answer is that nothing much will change, because SDF forces will just be rebranded to being SyArmy forces; they're going to take off SDF patches and wear Syrian ones. As has happened a dozen times before. [0] https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/03/syria-green-buses-symbol-seismic-shift-170321120600909.html https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/03/syria-gree...