Show HN: Help programmers from Syria get jobs elsewhere
hireprogrammersleavingsyria.org
hireprogrammersleavingsyria.org
The conclusion was that we don't know what the right answer is, but there must be some better way. We've got to stop thinking that military action is the only alternative.
We need to seriously do some bigger, different thinking. Possibly the UK granting opening it's doors to anyone who wants to flee this hell? I don't know.
Initiatives like Hire Programmers from Syria are a great start to thinking differently. I have no idea if it will be successful at achieving its goals or not, but I still applaud the effort.
Well done, and good luck.
Of course, even if they do convince Assad of that, it doesn't mean things will go smoothly. The "rebels" might still be upset if they lose the election, which is why it's so important UN or whoever needs to guarantee fair elections. It's the least they can do to appease the rebels, so they don't want to start the civil war all over again. They could even guarantee some sort of remuneration from the state for all the people who lost a family member in the war.
This is the least violent, and best solution for everyone involved.
According to Juan Cole (who IMO has a pretty good feel for the Middle East), Assad has the backing of ~50% of the population.
http://www.juancole.com/2013/08/bombing-unlikely-effective.h...
this is not a war by an outside force like the Serbs of ethnic cleansing against a neighbor, but rather it is a civil war. The Alawis, Christians and secular-minded Sunnis in Syria are afraid of the rebel forces and either support or are neutral toward the Syrian government; together they may well come to half the country. That isn’t exactly a mandate for outside intervention.
I don't think its just Assad driving this.
Is that how we say "50%" nowadays?
Have Assad escrow his chemical forces with the Russians at the Russian naval base in Syria (Tartus), on the basis of "you may have lost control of your forces; they must be kept safe so there will be no unauthorized use."
Other than that, focus purely on helping the civilians. I dislike both Assad and the rebels (the AQ/etc. groups), and don't want either to win. I also don't want them to fight forever, because it is killing civilians.
We should provide secure IDP facilities within Syria (either camps or protected cities), with real force (so we never again have another Srebrenica), or just focus on providing what infrastructure we can (free internet/phone/tv/etc. from Rivet Joints and UAVs and cross-border, medical supplies, etc.).
Taking sides doesn't really help.
(Letting Assad step down and go into comfortable exile in Iran or Russia would be fine, too, but making regime change a requirement to deal with chemical weapons seems to be an overcomplication.)
My only addition would be that the rebel groups must be inspected to determine whether they have gained control of any chemical stockpiles.
Bonkers.
The suggestion was also mentioned by someone else too. Can't remember what the timestamp was.
And as always, we'll never learn the truth in time.
> Carla del Ponte, a member of the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, told Swiss TV there were “strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof,” that rebels seeking to oust Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad had used the nerve agent.
This means: it's not impossible that rebels have access to some chemical weapon.
The US gov keeps repeating "we have evidence that it has happened" but a) they have never shown it, and most of all: b) they don't say "we have evidence that shows it was Assad".
What happened on August 21 is an entirely different matter: it involved a large-scale rocket barrage on a dozen locations in discontinuous rebel-held neighborhoods which gassed entire city blocks; the gas persisted long enough afterwards to kill people such as journalists who responded to the reports. Hundreds of Youtube videos of the fairly characteristic aftermath exist, with the bodycount presently at about 1500. The areas gassed were threateningly close to the core of Damascus. This much cannot be reasonably contested.
The US government reports that it was listening in on the phone calls from one military commander to another and heard comments indicating regime involvement. They are also claiming to have identified using aerial imagery the area the rockets were fired from, the preparation three days before, and the actual firing of the rockets:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nearly...
I just don't understand why they could not let the UN check what they call "evidence".
Also logic dictates it's very unlikely that the Syrian government, which is winning the war, will launch Sarin Gas in a Damascus neighbourhood (which is the capital, and thus where Al-Assad and this relatives live), leaving the US and its allies with an excuse to strike. Also Washington didn't want UN inspectors to stay longer to investigate, and it's doing everything possible to strike before UN inspectors can reach any conclusion. Without talking about Kerry proclaming US government has "proofs" but unwilling to show these proofs to anyone... Sorry, this is a "déjà vu".
Besides, witnesses and a AP reporter say it was the rebels who performed the attack. http://www.mintpressnews.com/witnesses-of-gas-attack-say-sau...
I don't think Israel will allow an enemy guerrilla army from being armed with chemical weapons.
The real issue here is that Russia has vowed to protecting the Assad regime. This conflict is ultimately a proxy war.
The real question I have is why Russia is protecting Assad? Is it just a question of support what in their eyes is the lesser of two evils or is it a case of RDF?
I have read an analysis that Syria doesn't have enough water to make cement/concrete to rebuild all the damaged buildings.
One reason to choose Syria is that the situation may be more acute than it is in most other places in the world at the moment.
One reason to choose programmers could be that this is also the industry that the founder is active in, perhaps making it easier to approach potential customers.
Why are Syrian PROGRAMMERS the focus?
It would be just as easy to divide up the population into any other constituent subgroup and select only those for help.
Any of these would also be a valid goal according to the effort being proposed here:
Syrian auto mechanics Syrian bakers Syrian musicians Syrian nurses
You are presupposing that you can ONLY easily help programmers and furthermore, ONLY those Syrians with programing skill SHOULD be helped. Taken to it's logical extension, you end up helping people based on Ethnicity or Religion.
Why not instead focus on trying to help the greatest number of people in the most expedient way possible: by working to END this terrible civil war. That's CERTAINLY possible given the assemblage of talent reading these words.
You're setting your sights FAR TOO LOW.
This is HN, it's only natural to focus on programming. There are many here with the authority to hire programmers, not many people hiring nurses or mechanics. Besides, it's easier to get a visa if you're a programmer, and it's also easier to get remote work (e.g. in case a Syrian can't get a visa to US or EU but can move to Lebanon or Turkey).
B. Because Syrians never had equal access to knowledge as other nations (they were punished by US and other countries)
http://www.sanctionswiki.org/Syria
this means No hosting is allowed, no paypal, no ecommerce, no Google services, No Source forge , I remember we couldn't even download java ..
C. Because it is okay to help others.
In the mean time, let's go for the alternative that seems less ideal but concrete and doable.
I know this could possibly be a life changer for a lot of Syrians (I will try as much as possible to spread it across my friends and colleagues are still alive there)
For a Syrian, living abroad means a lot, it means having basic human rights, equality, freedom of speech, and easy access to knowledge etc .. those privileges are taken for granted by most western people.
Unfortunately, We are victims of a geographic accident and we have to go through a harder way to have those privileges.
The degree of disconnection here from the reality of the situation in Syria is so enormous as to be insulting, even though that was not the intent.
The HN community from Syria can also share their contact information in this thread.
Open all the borders. Revolutionary, radical, but consider the thought before you trash it.