Just because they might have chance to return home and rebuild doesn't mean that they will. Somalis arrived in the 90's, and they never returned back there except for vacations.
There's not likely to be much to go back to for most of the people who've left.
If it was the former case, then approximately 7b people would be valid refugees.
The asylum claim processing authorities were a bit overwhelmed, but soon learned to ask questions such as "can you tell me in which city you used to live, what was the name of the mayor, what was the closest mosque/church, your address, your school" etc. Few of the fake ones could answer such probing in a satisfying way.
B) they released all prisoners now. And at least some of them were part of ISIS.
The point is, that no matter what they did, they are all free now.
If their numbers are so small, why was the IS a global problem then, a couple of years ago?
While the US spend lots of effort on hunting them?
Keeping the flames high, to play firemen?
I don't think that there was a need of more flames, for that theory to be plausible. Occasionally some western weapons likely did found their ways towards IS as well, but they rather captured the bulk of it. Or do you have other sources?
Seriously, do you also believe North Korea is a People's Republic or that the Soviet Union consisted of a literal union of soviets?
It's not about trust. We have enormous amounts of evidence from all human rights organizations monitoring the situation. You may not understand this but the entire war was filmed. You can just go look up who they are, what they believe and what they have done to people. They advertised it themselves for the majority of their career.
I still think it's pretty clear that there can be some hierarchy within that category. HTS and the Kurds are less evil than the Taliban, which is less evil than Al-Qaeda, which is less evil than ISIS.
Like you said, there is plenty of history to look at here. HTS has run Idlib for years and they have done nothing that compares to the likes of ISIS. Maybe that will change if they consolidate total power, but neither of us have any evidence to state definitively what will happen. There are plenty of reasons to be either pessimistic or optimistic.
> I still think it's pretty clear that there can be some hierarchy within that category. HTS and the Kurds are less evil than the Taliban, which is less evil than Al-Qaeda, which is less evil than ISIS.
This I can agree with for sure. There are lesser evils and a hierarchy. I think the hierarchy also depends on the situation on the ground for who it's tolerable to support at a specific time. If it would have taken HTS as much bloodshed to get to where they are today as it did Assad to originally regain control, then I think it would less favorable than what actually happened, for example.
How it will develop has yet to be seen, but I'm hopeful.
Freeing all the political prisoners, yes, I support that. I am not a fan of Assad.
But also all the IS militants who while being free, made a competition, of who can be the most cruel?
I am sceptical. And also about where those people will end up. And they are more than a handful.
Lets not get too emotional in these discussions, facts are enough.
That's misinformation which has been debunked:
https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.347B339
https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/video-people-thrown-roof-...
To quote Wikipedia:
> Homosexuality is not a capital offence in the Gaza Strip or elsewhere in Palestine.[54][55] The laws against homosexual behavior in Palestine[d] are a relic of the British and Ottoman rule in Palestine; they specify prison sentences of 10 to 14 years.[54][55] There is no evidence that these British colonial-era laws are actually enforced in Gaza.[54]
> Reports of extra-judicial killings of LGBT people in Palestine have circulated, without being confirmed. Sources such as the news agency Reuters, the news outlet The New Arab, and the NGO Human Rights Watch, characterise many of these reports as misinformation: the stories are exaggerated, oversimplified, or misattributions of events that occurred elsewhere.[56] Examples of this include:
> Two members of Palestinian nationalist militant groups were accused of espionage and killed by their comrades in situations that included rumours about homosexuality or bisexuality.[57][58]
> During the Israel–Hamas war, a video described as "Hamas executes people by throwing them off a roof of a building!" circulated on social media. Some derivatives of the meme claimed the men were executed for being gay.[56] The video, however, was from 2015 and not from Palestine.[56] A July 2015 report from Al Arabiya, included identical images and states that they were originally shared by the so-called Islamic State, and showed the execution of four gay men in Fallujah, Iraq.[56]
> In February 2016, the Al-Qassam Brigades (the militant wing of the Hamas movement) executed Mahmoud Ishtiwi, the commander of Al-Qassam's Zeitoun Battalion.[59] The alleged offences were described evasively, the stated reason was Arabic: تجاوزاته السلوكية والأخلاقية التي أقر بها, lit. 'for behavioral and moral violations, to which he confessed',[58] which some western news media interpreted as a euphemism for homosexual activity.[60][61] Local sources clarified that Shteiwi was convicted of spying for Israel.[62] The Qassam Brigades alleged that Ishtiwi had been executed by firing squad,[63][58] but people who saw his body before burial alleged that he might have died in custody and been shot after death.[64][58]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_for_homosex...
There's plenty of "stuff on internet" about piles of beheaded babies on Oct 7, too.
Links to reasonably trustable reports needed, please. Otherwise what you're saying is just more "stuff".
Overthrowing Gaddafi didn't make Libya a better place. Now it has open air slave markets, amongst other loveliness.
I certainly wouldn't like to be a black manual worker in any Arab country. Even if you aren't a formally legally enslaved person, you will be treated as one.
And then Western mass media stopped showing news from "freed" Libya. Because, you know, public executions and human slave markets kinda not something, their population should know about, unless it's done by "bad guys".
This concept of neoMarxist sympathies of educated people(white collar workers) in urban areas and Ivy Leagues, that focus extremely on sex and wokeism, that concept only exist in the US.
In Europe "liberal" means he who follows economic liberalism, that is being part of the "right".
In Asia and Middle East is even weirder. Iran is probably the place of Earth that had more Empires in its History. Nationalism, ethnic identity and religion is way more important than anything else, specially on Sha's time. If you call communists people you are referring to Chinese land type of communism instead of industrial, very different from Europe or the US one.
I had a great time skiing on Iran back on the day.
Questionable statement.
Syria has (had) a secular government that allowed Sunnis, Alawites, Christians, Druze Muslims, twelvers, and Kurds to live there. The status quo for the region is theocratic iron fist of a particular Islamic denomination, with all others persecuted.
Not to mention, Assad is a Ba’athist (as was Sadam) which by definition is all about Arab unity.
Which Sunni warlord group should we hand the country to now? Do you think things will be better? Can you name a single Syrian political figure or interest group (don’t Google!) that you would propose lead the country? Be honest with yourself.
>Almost seven million Syrian refugees might have he chance to return home and rebuild now
They’re not going back.
"live" is a strong word to use there.
I love it when online commenters display more confidence in their opinions than experts in the field. Really shows how much value their opinion has.
Yes, I would argue the islamic state was indeed worse. And so far I see nothing preventing them or a similar force taking hold again. I mean turkey is the moderating factor here and turkey under Erdogan has gone the authorian islamic way since a while.
Erdogan is as much pro-ISIS as one can be. Maybe just a political game during complex conflict to fight against US-supported kurds at all costs, maybe not. We don't know.
I said I am sceptical for the outcome, if Erdogan is the moderating factor. Or do you think, he cares much for human rights and democracy?
That is far from saying he is like IS.
Btw. I just read, a pro SNA news source:
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/politics/russia-astana-format-meeti...
It seems the war will continue.
Edit: Also your linked article no longer reflects the current stance of Russia.
It was just to illustrate that Erdogans goals are not peace, after Assad is gone.
No, it implies the focus on the authorian aspects of Islam, just like certain groups in the US would like a authorian christian rule of law.
They don't know that Turkey has been delivering oil to Israel all the time and that Israel is in favor of the current events in Syria.
If all of Turkey, the U.S. and Israel support the Syrian rebels, we may assume that the goal is to install a U.S. friendly government (perhaps supervised by Turkey) and have more buffer states against Iran.
Except Germany and Japan, the third and fourth largest economies in the world…
Which is a shame because the 1950s strategy of investment and prosperity made the world much better and the modern strategy of destabilisation tends to make it worse.
Regardless, HTS isn’t the group that captured the capital so I don’t know why everyone is so focused on them right now. They got the ball rolling with their November 27 offensive and captured Hama but they’re still restricted to the northern provinces.
While on the topic of ISIS, I don’t think it’s the rebels we should be worried about. ISIS would never have become what it was without the former Ba’athist officers from Saddam’s regime building out its command structure and military. It’s the disaffected Ba’athists from Assad’s regime that we should be worried about.
It didn’t turn out well when we took him off the board.
Both Syria and Lebanon have managed, in the past, to work out a way for their various regions and tribal/ethnic groups to co-exist.
West propped and props up Islamism (and other tyrannies) to prevent nationalisations of oil resources. Seems to be mostly working as intended.
No? The post-invasion process turned into a simmering insurgency followed by a loose civil war, but since then and so far, Iraq has stabilized into a more or less functional state in which investment is growing and living standards are again moving upwards. I don't see how the automatic response of "it didn't turn out well" applies. The shaky morality of a historical decision (invasion and toppling Saddam in this case) doesn't necessarily translate to a bad outcome in the long run.
There are reasons to interpret this as very good news: Iran and Russia no longer have enough resources to project power. Even with a warm water port and strategic position in the Mediterranean at stake, they just can’t prop up the regime anymore. I can’t help but think that two fewer regional powers meddling in Syrian affairs is nothing but a stabilizing force.
Almost seven million Syrian refugees might have the chance to return home and rebuild now. That’s great news.