animist wrote:Dave B wrote:id you support Saddam Hussein? Frankly I see little difference between him and Assad. Unfortunately I fear Syria is in for a rocky future whoever wins.
cast your mind back to the 1980s and early 1990s, Dave. Saddam invaded Iran in the 1980s and Kuwait in the 1990s. The Assad regime has done nothing remotely comparable; like most animals, it simply seeks to survive by all available means, and can one blame it?
Yes, Saddam Hussein attacked his neighbours as well, fighting one of the longest wars in history against Iran, but that sort of war has been going on throughoutvhistory - differences are ones of scale. I cannot now remember the actual triggers for the Syrian civil war but, like Saddam Hussein, Assad has used chemical warfare and the deliberate bombing of civilian areas as strategies.
Unfortunately this strategic mindset seems to be inherent in the culture of the whole region. The "West" are pilloried, for days if not longer, by all for every instance of "collateral damage", as is right - yet the wholesale killing of women and children by suicide bombers often gets less mention.
Assad's victory will do nothing good for the West but that is not they point - what would it do for the millions of Sunni citizens of Syria who are still fleeing its borders? Will they want to go back? Will they be greeted with open arms and given the chance of rebuilding a good life? Like Iraq Syria has lost a great deal of its arts and culture and national personality. I fear it will not be easily regained under such a regime.
Not that the West were exactly brilliant at building a "cicilised" society in Iraq!
Perhaps, in terms of the long view of future history it would be better to let them alone to sort it out once and for all. That would be slaughter I agree, but there may be many decades of slow near genocide to come in the current war, sectrarian and tribal fighting has continued to flare for well over 100 years now, perhaps several hundred, and the "external" influences have only made it worse.
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
Me, 2015