9 questions about Syria you were too embarrassed to ask

[RussBLib]

Some good background. I'd like to think that right-wingers would read this, but they probably won't/don't venture out of their safe little shell of FOX. I think that some on this site could use a time-out too.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/08/29/9-questions-about-syria-you-were-too-embarrassed-to-ask/

[Arctic Dave]

1. Wow, I want my two minutes back.

That was one unbelievably idiotic article.

[yurbud]

8. propaganda talking points + a Hallmark card prose = that article

After reading it, I felt stupider.

[JayhawkSD]

2. I quit reading at point number two.

The uprising, as with most Middle East uprisings, was not "against the dictator" but had economic reasons, was protesting lack of jobs and an inability to feed their families. A citizenry does not live peacefully under a dictator for forty years and then suddenly explode into revolution unless some other factor intervenes, and the entire Middle East has been sunjected to rising food costs and diminishing economic conditions. Tunisia was a food riot, started by a food cart vendor setting himself on fire out of despair.

The article also does not mention the millions of refugees from Iraq which strained Syrian resources to the breaking point. The Syrian government tried to accommodate and provide for those refugees, further reducing the resources that it could provide to its own people. Those refugees took jobs and used resources, further impoverishing an already poor population.

We won't even mention who created the flood of refugees, because that actually is irrelevant.

The point is that we live in a land of plenty and are pretty passionate about our democracy, at least with words. We don't sign up to fight for it in any significant numbers. If our lives were consumned with a desperate daily battle merely to prevent our kids from starving to death we would not care whether our government was a democracy or a dictatorship; we would just want to find a way to survive. When we went into the street in protest it would not be about a form of government, it would be about jobs and food.

In fact, the one sizeable protest we have had lately was not about our government and the supposed 15% popularity of Congress, it was about "unfair economic inequality."

[RussBLib]

5. as the author stated, "it's not exhaustive or definitive"...

...that would probably take something the size of a book, and then you'd still have some disagreements.

[elleng]

3. good one.

Thanks

[Benton D Struckcheon]

4. Good article. n/t

[66 dmhlt]

6. A good easy to read Primer on Syria

[andlor]

7. Thank You, good one.