[Anabasis to Desta]

That was Syria back in 2009, 2 years before the so called "moderate opposition activists" sponsored by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Monarchies and later the USA started an armed insurgency which to date has resulted in the death of a quarter million people and led to the refugee crisis in Europe.

What struck me the most is that without the veils, they could easily pass for Greek, Italian. Spanish or Maltese students. Very open western attitude too.

It's insane to think that Western Powers want to get rid of the above and put in power the likes seen below.

I realize like all civil wars, there are a lot of factors involved that can't be easily boiled down to two videos with a Assad=Good/Rebels=Bad message. But the simple fact remains that Syria was way better off before the war and that currently,government held areas are the only places with any semblance of normal life in Syria.

[The Lizard of Oz]

The main brunette in the video is quite nice and dewy, a true 18 -- as 18 as it gets. She's like one of those sweets you could get at a good Damascus bazaar, an airy estrogen confection. The hijab girl is nice as well.

One imagines these kids come from upper class families and have made their way out of that hellhole by now. At least I hope so.

[Troll King]

The girl in the white hijab blew my mind for a moment. She looks incredibly similar to a girl I dated for several months the last time I was in Egypt. I thought it was her at first. She was one of a few women who ruined me for most western women. I couldn't believe how feminine she, and the two other girls I was hooking up with at the time, was compared to even the more modest girls in the south. Sigh.

[Laurifer]

I remember seeing this a few months ago.

They were all so full of excitement for their futures. Free to speak and dress the way they choose. If that's life under a dictator, I have to say it doesn't look half bad.

I'd take Assad any day over this mix and matched conglomerate of extremists, terrorists, moderates, and tampering foreign powers blowing each other to bits all for the sake of fucking democracy.

[Going strong]

"they could easily pass for Greek, Italian, Spanish or Maltese students"

No surprise that lots of Syrians look "very European". To begin with, their (main) ethnicity has always been quite close to Europeans, in looks, but also, they have quite a lot of... French blood in them. Absolutely: The crusaders' blood.

Read the story of the Krak des Chevaliers, and lasting reign (one century) of French crusaders over this area (near Homs)...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krak_des_Chevaliers

"Krak des Chevaliers housed a garrison of around 2,000" : a garrison of 2,000 strong and horny Alpha military men, during one century in a country, it has... genetics implications...

Anecdotally, this castle, once the most formidable of the World, legitimately belongs to the French State , by international property law, even though Syria formally controls it since 1946...

(This is why, on the Migrants thread, I always distinguish between true Syrians, and false Syrians (Afghans, Egyptians, Palestinians and other economic invaders) )

The most formidable fortified building in History, the fortress that was reputed to be "invincible" (kudos to French engineers), under ISIS bombing:



http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-26696113

[Dr. Howard]

(11-07-2015 10:31 PM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote:  

The main brunette in the video is quite nice and dewy, a true 18 -- as 18 as it gets. She's like one of those sweets you could get at a good Damascus bazaar, an airy estrogen confection. The hijab girl is nice as well.

One imagines these kids come from upper class families and have made their way out of that hellhole by now. At least I hope so.

Leave it to the lizard to use the perfect vocabulary. Dewey is a great term, and a "Dewey eyed" girl is amazing. The best way I can articulate it are those girls that are somewhat naive to their raw sexual feminine appeal. The ones that get glassy eyed and rationally left in the dust by their bodies 'doing what comes naturally' when in the bedroom.

Or, more succinctly...they have no idea what the dance steps are, but their bodies sure as hell do.

[Anabasis to Desta]

Quote:

(11-08-2015 08:46 PM)Going strong Wrote:  

"they could easily pass for Greek, Italian, Spanish or Maltese students"

No surprise that lots of Syrians look "very European". To begin with, their (main) ethnicity has always been quite close to Europeans, in looks, but also, they have quite a lot of... French blood in them. Absolutely: The crusaders' blood.

Read the story of the Krak des Chevaliers, and lasting reign (one century) of French crusaders over this area (near Homs)...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krak_des_Chevaliers

"Krak des Chevaliers housed a garrison of around 2,000" : a garrison of 2,000 strong and horny Alpha military men, during one century in a country, it has... genetics implications...

Anecdotally, this castle, once the most formidable of the World, legitimately belongs to the French State , by international property law, even though Syria formally controls it since 1946...

[quote](This is why, on the Migrants thread, I always distinguish between true Syrians, and false Syrians (Afghans, Egyptians, Palestinians and other economic invaders) )

So not only is Merkel bringing in millions of refugees, but she's also lying about their countries of origin? Why am i not surprised!?

I googled Syrian kids. Here's a video. These kids wouldn't look out of place in the Balkans let alone southern Europe. The immigrants i see flooding the EU do not look like this so you might be up to something.

https://vid.me/vV4P

[Mr. Brightside]

A few years ago during a Freshman university lecture, we had a Syrian student who would often tell tales of how great, compared to the rest of the region, Syria was. He was so proud of how Western his country was, how people had economic and religious freedom and how women were relatively liberated from Quranic nonsense.

I wonder what happened to him...

[Anabasis to Desta]

(11-08-2015 09:43 PM)Mr. Brightside Wrote:  

A few years ago during a Freshman university lecture, we had a Syrian student who would often tell tales of how great, compared to the rest of the region, Syria was. He was so proud of how Western his country was, how people had economic and religious freedom and how women were relatively liberated from Quranic nonsense.

I wonder what happened to him...

"Moderately" beheaded by the moderate rebels?

[Roardog]

Just like Afghanistan before the Taliban rose up and took over or Iran before the revolution (although Iran is still like this behind closed doors).

WB all of those girls except the one with short dark hair and glasses.

[PolymathGuru]

It would have been nice if you warned us about the guts pouring out of his body.

[Sherman]

I remember many years ago, I had a date with a lady from Iraq. She was modern and Western. She was telling me how wonderful Baghdad was and that I had to visit because it was just like Paris. Unfortunately, US foreign policy has been take over by criminals.

[N°6]

So saddening. If it can happen in Syria, it can happen anywhere.

It was probably the most successful multicultural society around as Syria pinned the cultural centre of axis to align with southern Europe and Lebanon.

I regret not visiting Syria when my friends went there in 2008. They returned saying it was the best country they'd ever visited.

The most frustrating thing is the Americans, British and French have no democratic route to take down the bloody madness of their élites and that NATO is now out of any sort of civil control.

It is now nearly 20 years since the Project for the New American Century targeted Syria and a list of other countries for "régime change". Until 2001, the authors of the hit-list observed that the operation could not begin as they were “absent some catastrophic catalyzing event –like a new Pearl Harbor”...

[RawGod]

There's no end to the madness and evil of the current West. At least China and Russia are empires that operate from a simple enough to understand perspective of survival and shoring up their own power. NATO/Israel/USA are layer upon layer of duplicity, lies, and destruction of the world and ultimately their own peoples.

[Yatagan]

(11-08-2015 11:06 PM)Roardog Wrote:  

Just like Afghanistan before the Taliban rose up and took over or Iran before the revolution (although Iran is still like this behind closed doors).

WB all of those girls except the one with short dark hair and glasses.

AFAIK, it was only in the major cities that Afghanistan was modern/western, the rest of the country was always backwoods islamic.

[Simeon_Strangelight]

The nightlife goes on in Damascus by the way:

Syria was on the brink of becoming Iraq or Libya. Even now it's not so certain.

A semi-good documentary by Frontline:

Interesting that they started it the same way as with Ukraine - legitimate protests, then some strange "protesters" starting to use military grade firearms and went from there.

While it's a mainstream docu and the guy always ominously referred to his sources as "regime-close", he notably did not visit the glorious free Syrian/ISIS terrains. They are sellouts, but they are not crazy.

Also good to see how many Syrians clearly state that they don't see an alternative to Assad - it's either him or Libya or Iraq all over again.

Frankly the young Syrians leaving now are either cowards or they belong to the terrorist side. I understand that Assad's army is not on par with European standards of morals and integrity, but them leaving the country and coming over to Europe is not a sign of great morals.

But maybe it's as others have said - they don't see any future in that country, since everything is bombed to smithereens. Still - leaving the country of their birth to those head-chopping crazies is just bad. I would turn all of them back and tell them to fight for their country.

Of course - the Western powers don't want them to, because they know that the Assad side makes more sense and they would later rather join the military than the psychopaths on the Obama side:

[Troll King]

I wonder what happened to those girls and girls like them. According to the pics and vids in the migrant thread, and elsewhere, it is at best 80% young men and most pics/vids look to be around 98% young men.

I know they aren't all Syrian, but where are the Syrian girls? In a camp in Lebanon or turkey? Where?

[DjembaDjemba]

In many ways the rebels of Syria and their Isis counterparts represent the reactionary takeover of middle eastern nations. This reactionary wave is against the perceived evils of the West. What they see as liberalism.

I don't care for or trust reactionary politics anywhere in the world. It offers nothing better than the status quo. It'll give a small loud faction of society the ability to terrorise the greater population and try to impose their own sense of morality on them at the tip of the barrel of a gun.

[xpatplayer]

Most regions within Lebanon, Coastal Syria, Israel, Turkey, Tunisia, Morocco, and enclaves in urban Egypt, Iran, the Gulf Kingdoms, Iraqi Kurdistan, and Pakistan are relatively liberal. Libya and the rest of Syria were also relatively liberal before the Arab Spring. Baghdad was renowned as a liberal city before the 2003 invasion. Kabul was much more beautiful 40 years ago than it is today.

All of these regions have one thing in common - they are not controlled by Islamists. They are controlled by people who want to live good lives in their homeland, regardless of what some religious preacher says is right or wrong.

The Middle East's main problem is rapid cultural change. While the cities are liberal and international, the villages are stuck in the 19th Century. Villagers see people in the cities enjoying life instead of toiling in the sun and impregnating Fatima back home with her 8th child. This pisses them off because having fun is 'wrong'. They come up with some religious justification that their local Mullah supports. Kind of like how omegas in the West decide to go MGTOW because 'women are all evil'.

This is why democracy can't succeed in the Middle East. The people voting are rural hicks who hate their urban counterparts. Look at what these illiterates have done to Libya, Afghanistan, and Eastern Syria.

[DjembaDjemba]

(11-10-2015 04:47 PM)xpatplayer Wrote:  

Most regions within Lebanon, Coastal Syria, Israel, Turkey, Tunisia, Morocco, and enclaves in urban Egypt, Iran, the Gulf Kingdoms, Iraqi Kurdistan, and Pakistan are relatively liberal. Libya and the rest of Syria were also relatively liberal before the Arab Spring. Baghdad was renowned as a liberal city before the 2003 invasion. Kabul was much more beautiful 40 years ago than it is today.

All of these regions have one thing in common - they are not controlled by Islamists. They are controlled by people who want to live good lives in their homeland, regardless of what some religious preacher says is right or wrong.

The Middle East's main problem is rapid cultural change. While the cities are liberal and international, the villages are stuck in the 19th Century. Villagers see people in the cities enjoying life instead of toiling in the sun and impregnating Fatima back home with her 8th child. This pisses them off because having fun is 'wrong'. They come up with some religious justification that their local Mullah supports. Kind of like how omegas in the West decide to go MGTOW because 'women are all evil'.

This is why democracy can't succeed in the Middle East. The people voting are rural hicks who hate their urban counterparts. Look at what these illiterates have done to Libya, Afghanistan, and Eastern Syria.

This is an incisive post. It's interesting that the dichotomy between urban and rural ideologies span over multiple societies.

The people that gave us whore houses (harems) and belly dancing while European women were covered down to the toes have regressed to a strange moral antiquity.

Essentially with the help of the USA and its anti communist paranoia, the most hardcore reactionary Islamist elements of these societies hijacked political life. And now we have this ridiculous situation.

[Anabasis to Desta]

^^ I somewhat agree with both Xplat & Djemba but don't think the rural/urban dichotomy is the main cause of this whole mess in the Middle East.

Some have pointed out the reason behind the current turmoil in the region is US foreign policy. But US foreign policy has been nothing but reactionary in the region since the 60's.

The root cause of this whole clusterfuck is Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is the Cancer, AIDS and Malaria of this planet!

Up until the very recently there was a very strong Arab Nationalism and Arab identity throughout the Middle East and North Africa.Pretty much what we call Baath-ism.

Baath-ism despite all it faults (Arab-Socialism) was secular, non-Islamic,in support of social progress, pro-Science and Research & pan-Arab in nature. The urban elite and middle class drove the cultural and political context of their countries. Think of Egypt during Gamal Abdel Nasser, Syria during Hafez Al-Assad and Lebanon before the civil war. The region had it's problems but Arabs were modernizing fast.

This was until the Saudis started exporting their cancerous Wahhabi version of Islam. They opened and funded Madrasas in Pakistan, sent their scholars to Indonesia, Malaysia, Iraq, the Levant, North Africa, Nigeria and Somalia.

You know how many millions of people 1000 fucked up Imam's can brainwash?

Islam has never been a problem in my home country of Ethiopia for example. They existed as a peaceful minority. As friends and neighbors until the Saudis started "funding" Mosques in the early 90's.

Ethiopian Muslims never wore Niqabs and used to be very secular. Now you see Niqabs everywhere in Muslim neighborhoods. In Muslim majority parts of the country you get Saudi trained dogs protesting the construction of Orthodox Churches.

Shia Islam, Sufi Islam and the West African (think Ivory Coast,Mali,Gambian & Senegalese) versions of Islam have never been violent until they got infected by the Wahhabi poison from Saudi Arabia. Same rule applies to North African,Malaysian & Indonesian Muslims. I'm not sure about Pakistan.

Djemba ... are you Cameroonian?

[el mechanico]

No matter how much I try to read I don't understand Muslims or Islam.

Is the Hassad guy good? His family looks like a normal kinda American one why would he implode his country?

[Anabasis to Desta]

(11-10-2015 05:44 PM)el mechanico Wrote:  

No matter how much I try to read I don't understand Muslims or Islam.

Is the Hassad guy good? His family looks like a normal kinda American one why would he implode his country?

Assad is hated by ISIS, Israel, Al-Qaeda, Islamist rebels who want to take Syria back to the 7th century, NATO, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuweit.

He is supported by the majority of his own people, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah.

He's also a British educated Eye Doctor.



He's fighting against NATO sponsored moderate democratic activists pictured below.



And no those guys are not ISIS. That group is called Jaish Al-Fateh which has received TOW missiles and other advanced weaponry from the US.The same guys who John McCuckain has been vouching for.

You decide who's good!

[xpatplayer]

Forgot to add another detail - the Arabs, Persians, Pakistanis, and Afghans I hang out with have deep pride in their nation-states, not in their ethnicities. They have pride in the Islamic Golden Age, but not in Islam itself (even if they are devout, 5 prayers a day Muslims). Syrians, Saudis, and Iranians bitch about Saddam, Iraqis and Lebanese bitch about Assad. But its for politics, not for religion. They all hate Hezbollah and the Ayatollahs, the al-Saud family (especially the Saudis), and the infinite Sunni militias out there.

Another somewhat unrelated fact - they hate Israel for 1967, not for Judaism. In fact, they get along pretty well with Israelis (until politics comes up). I have a theory that Israeli Jews essentially became liberal Arabs once they made Aaliyah. Hard to understand until you remember that Zionism was a moderate-leftist cause in the West until Likud came into power.

I like liberal Middle-Easterners, regardless of nationality or religion, because they are very cultured in every sense of the word. Middle Eastern culture is honor-based, hospitable, and not as traditional as the media portrays it. Most of the post-2011 American debacles in the Middle East (or post-2003 for that matter) could have been avoided if the American leadership only understood that it is the urban Arabs who are easy to negotiate with and share Western ideals, not the rural folks who have lived the same way since Neolithic times, only with a different religion.

Anabasis - what you need to understand is that the Al-Saud family doesn't practice what they preach. They implement Wahhabi Islam strictly only because that is their only claim to legitimacy. They are Najd Arabs, Bedouins with very little historical connection to historically liberal Hejazi Arabs. The Princes and Kings have only implemented Wahhabism because they would be overthrown by a democratic movement if it wasn't for their brand of Islam. As a Hejazi friend told me 'The assholes treat the country like their personal brothel, but tell us to be pious.' Once a liberal prince comes into power (a Saudi Gorbachev), the radical Sunni movements everywhere else will collapse overnight.

(11-10-2015 05:12 PM)DjembaDjemba Wrote:  

(11-10-2015 04:47 PM)xpatplayer Wrote:  

Most regions within Lebanon, Coastal Syria, Israel, Turkey, Tunisia, Morocco, and enclaves in urban Egypt, Iran, the Gulf Kingdoms, Iraqi Kurdistan, and Pakistan are relatively liberal. Libya and the rest of Syria were also relatively liberal before the Arab Spring. Baghdad was renowned as a liberal city before the 2003 invasion. Kabul was much more beautiful 40 years ago than it is today.

All of these regions have one thing in common - they are not controlled by Islamists. They are controlled by people who want to live good lives in their homeland, regardless of what some religious preacher says is right or wrong.

The Middle East's main problem is rapid cultural change. While the cities are liberal and international, the villages are stuck in the 19th Century. Villagers see people in the cities enjoying life instead of toiling in the sun and impregnating Fatima back home with her 8th child. This pisses them off because having fun is 'wrong'. They come up with some religious justification that their local Mullah supports. Kind of like how omegas in the West decide to go MGTOW because 'women are all evil'.

This is why democracy can't succeed in the Middle East. The people voting are rural hicks who hate their urban counterparts. Look at what these illiterates have done to Libya, Afghanistan, and Eastern Syria.

This is an incisive post. It's interesting that the dichotomy between urban and rural ideologies span over multiple societies.

The people that gave us whore houses (harems) and belly dancing while European women were covered down to the toes have regressed to a strange moral antiquity.

Essentially with the help of the USA and its anti communist paranoia, the most hardcore reactionary Islamist elements of these societies hijacked political life. And now we have this ridiculous situation.

[xpatplayer]

(11-10-2015 05:44 PM)el mechanico Wrote:  

No matter how much I try to read I don't understand Muslims or Islam.

Is the Hassad guy good? His family looks like a normal kinda American one why would he implode his country?

Its all about politics and power. Too complex to explain in a post (you need to understand the last 100 years of the region's history), but the gist is that al-Assad is a liberal Arab (his wife grew up as a white girl in London).

He didn't care much about religion, until the crazies started killing his soldiers. He's an eye-doctor, not a politician so he just bombed them hoping they'd go away. But he killed civilians so more people joined the crazies. Now you have a full-blown civil-war.

The guy isn't too politically savvy, but he's powerful, because his father stated that he was to be President after he died. The guy is a typical beta doctor. He's not a negotiator or politician, which is why he hasn't made significant compromises.

He wants a Syria where he's in power, but doesn't know how to create power other than by force. Most Syrians from the city support him because they are culturally more Western than old-school Muslim.