Hacker News Reader

Comment by yomism | Hacker News Reader

Well, it's the same when there's a terrorist attack that kills 30 people but wait... the victims don't share our skin tone and also it is in country which name we'll forget in a week.

If it doesn't affect us directly or our money, we don't give a crap... except for keeping a nice social facade sharing the outrage as you said.

In a historic/anthropologic way maybe a big part of human progress is based on dehumanizing people and exploting them or the resources they have. Seems like as a society all is well if it affects "them" and not "us".

View on HN

I visited Pakistan right after the terrorist attack on a school where hundreds were shot.[1]

After that, I stopped caring about the much smaller scale terrorists attacks. Paris and Lebanon were fairly big ones, but there are so many happening so regularly, I don't really care about events directly anymore, and Save my anger for past foreign interference of countries, destabilising them and turning them into terrorist breeding grounds. I think I'm quite numb now. 200000 people died because of the Syrian civil war for goodness sakes. I'm angry at the countries who would interfere to provide air strikes. Angry at the countries who supply the Rebels. Without this foreign interference Assad could have crushed the rebellion and the country would be in a more stable situation today. Why are we supporting the side that will divide the population along sectarian lines, against a government who has a track record of ruling for all religions? Yes he's a dictator, but so will be whoever comes into power next. Now we have a pseudo state of terrorists. What a joke.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Peshawar_school_massacr...

> Why are we supporting the side that will divide the population along sectarian lines

It's always the same: to expand the military influence. "Wars good," as long as the "dictators" aren't on "our side." But it they are they aren't called the dictators but "our guarantors of peace in the region." The apparent map of the US military bases in the region from 2010 says it all:

http://mycatbirdseat.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Iran-enc...

Peace and the well-being of people there aren't the real goals.

>Without this foreign interference Assad could have crushed the rebellion and the country would be in a more stable situation today. Why are we supporting the side that will divide the population along sectarian lines, against a government who has a track record of ruling for all religions?

Most of this isn't actually true.

- Assad wouldn't probably have crushed the rebellion in any way after part of the army deserted.

- Assad did voluntarily release some Jihadists in order to exarcerbate the sectarian aspect of the conflict

I don't buy your claims. US made plans to make / support "the rebellion" and also the "sectarian aspect" since at least 2006, all acceptable as long as Assad is subverted, as documented by the Wikileak of the US ambassador brief:

https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06DAMASCUS5399_a.html

(It's not an accident that Assange is where he is for so long.)

Looking at the map from my other post here, it's also obvious why.

Your sources?

I don't have any different sources. I read them differently.

You read "the US made plans to make/support relebellion and the sectarian aspect". I read "the Syran regime already has these vulnerabilities that could get exploited"

Probably because I don't believe in an all-powerful US.

>PLAY ON SUNNI FEARS OF IRANIAN INFLUENCE: There are fears in Syria that the Iranians are active in both Shia proselytizing and conversion of, mostly poor, Sunnis. Though often exaggerated, such fears reflect an element of the Sunni community in Syria that is increasingly upset by and focused on the spread of Iranian influence in their country through activities ranging from mosque construction to business.

> There is also tremendous fear in the Alawite community about retribution if the Sunni majority ever regains power.

> DIVISIONS IN THE MILITARY-SECURITY SERVICES: Bashar constantly guards against challenges from those with ties inside the military and security services.

> THE ECONOMY: Perpetually under-performing, the Syrian economy creates jobs for less than 50 percent of the country,s university graduates. Oil accounts for 70 percent of exports and 30 percent of government revenue, but production is in steady decline. By 2010 Syria is expected to become a net importer of oil. Few experts believe the SARG is capable of managing successfully the expected economic dislocations.

> I read "the Syran regime already has these vulnerabilities that could get exploited"

By the US (interested in removing Assad because of military supremacy), Saudis and Turkey ("our best allies," Sunnis to overcome "wrong believing" Assad). As planned since 2006.

The "rebellion" was mostly a Sunni extremist (as in, radicalized by the Saudi paid preachers) rebellion in the Sunni majority places, supported by the players above. Turkey was also strongly radicalized in the last few decades, also a lot of oil money. The US had also the "democracy" babble like that in Libya (supporting Al-Qaeda!) or Egypt ("but Muslim Brotherhood are our guys", we "really don't understand" why they turned Islamic, we don't read what they write, they told us it's democracy what they want). And the Iraq war was also to "bring democracy." It's hard to close the eyes so much.

If I understand, you have no sources for your initial claim:

> Assad did voluntarily release some Jihadists in order to exarcerbate the sectarian aspect of the conflict

That goal would be more than counterproductive. The "rebels" are almost in Damascus, threatening him. That he did some prisoner exchange or tried to appease the protest, I can imagine.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com