What was Syria's economy like under Bashar al-Assad and also his father? Here is a narrative floating around the internet which claims poor economic policy on their part is what caused the civil war:
The Arab Spring came to Syria because the Assad family ran the country like the fucking mafia. Syria's economy was primarily based on oil and mineral exports to Russia and neighboring states (Dutch Disease basically) off of which a small Alawite elite (Assad family) became tremendously rich. They poured all this infrastructure spending into developing oil/minerals rather than developing a more wide-range economy. Assad could have avoided all this mess had he grown other parts of Syria's economic system.
This sounds like pseudo-HistMat to me. I DM'd Roo on this topic and he said it's fake, that we have photos of Syria before the war where the country looked just as prosperous as any western state. I asked him for economic data to debunk the bullshit and he didn't respond. So, does anyone have any insight to these claims?
Yeah, we are totally defending Assad for his economic policies and not the fact that it's not okay to bomb the shit out of a country for no reason and that the Syrian people have a right to self-determination
Dominic Edwards
The Syrian people want Assad out.
Colton Phillips
How do you know? The anti-Assad forces are made up of almost 70% foreigners. Terrorists, mercenaries and CIA assets. Is that "the Syrian people" you? The Syrian people want peace, and potentially a constitutional assembly. Assad was elected president, with no complaints by international observers from the UN and the OSCE.
Honestly, what's wrong with this board? There people defending the Ukrainian government in the other thread, and here Department of State talking points are regurgitated ("Assad must go"). What a shame
John Martin
user, this thread is about Assads economic policies, please stay on topic instead of shilling
Parker Stewart
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Noah Jenkins
Dude I'm more sympathetic to Assad than the jihadists but he was elected in the middle of a civil war. You'd be beyond autistic to think that vote was a good indication of what every person over the age of majority born within the borders of Syria wanted.
Christian Howard
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Benjamin Sanchez
I don't think you know what an election is, let alone how they work. Also, nonsensical word salad.
Jaxson Brown
What?
Jack Ortiz
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Chase Rivera
Because all Muslims across the globe are compelled to feel a sense of solidarity with one another. They will go wherever Muslims are being persecuted and fight.
Noah Cox
That was not what I was replying to. It was said "Syrians don't want Assad" which is just another phrasing of the infamous "Assad must go" shtick originating in the Department of State.
Kayden Barnes
Muslims were persecuted?
Juan White
Baathism was a co-opting and complete betrayal of the working class, but it was probably the most advanced and humane economic system in the Middle East. So, naturally the US and NATO wanted to destroy it ASAP.
Justin Rodriguez
to a degree Sunni muslims were. That's why it was so easy for groups like ISIS to recruit Sunnis to fight Assad.
Justin Murphy
Alawites are kuffar according to Sunnis.
Ian Stewart
Assad almost came close to making peace with Israel, true fact. Either way, he may have to sell off the Golan (Julan).
David Gomez
Your sectarianism is the problem tbh, there is only one Islam
Eli Butler
Islam is more fractured than Christianity. In the early days there were multiple versions of the Qur'an which were all burned except one.
Charles Scott
Are you the same faggot from the religion thread who claimed Islam is socialist?
Wyatt Harris
No.
Jordan Edwards
There was a drought and price inflation in many Middle eastern states, which at least in Syria precipitated a migration of rural people to the cities which elevated economic and political tensions. Much of the social base of the rebels was within this demographic.
Zachary Martin
Thank you.
Joshua Rogers
That's like saying you support Hitler out of solidarity with the victims of the bombing of Dresden. More "anti-imperialist" tankie nonsense.
Jacob Nguyen
tankies are retarded
Noah James
damn Godwin nigga u quick
do you think he thinks the bombing of Dresden was bombing the shit out of a country for no reason tho???
Gavin Rogers
yawn. Anybody who can not see the difference between the Syrian state defending itself and Hitler trying to conquer the entirety of Europe including an industrial genocide needs to be lobotomized
Henry Brown
Yeah the so-called FSA which was from the very beginning influenced by American meddling never had the slightest majority in Syria. After the very beginning of the civil war, you got, as I said above, mostly foreign fighters on the rebel side, like ISIS, Al-Nusra, and whatnot - financied by the KSA, UAE and Qatar. Your statement is nothing but historical revisionism and blatant apologism for interventionist rethoric.
Josiah Hill
America can't just create a mass opposition. They take advantage of contradictions which already exist.
Chase Lewis
The US, together with their allies, did though, considering all the amount of foreign fighters existing in Syria. CIA spent 15 billion or something on arming rebels.
You know, Assad declared multiple times he would be open for amnesty and a constitutional assembly after the war - that was his stance since the very beginning of it. Now the whole thing is basically Syrians vs. Invaders anyway.
Liam Perry
Doesn't mean the general Syrian population was behind Assad.
Adrian Diaz
False dichotomy. DFSNS > Syrian government any day.
Jackson Hughes
Those are called Potemkin Villages, son.
Aiden Sanchez
DFSNS ARE burgerland, it's a fifth column, meant to balkanize the region, so american porky can exploit the region.
Evan Morris
Ah yes. Just like how every single city in NK is "fake" and how the Soviet Union made everyone wait 12 hours for a loaf of bread (while there are no lines at all in the west!) Fuck off.
Levi Lopez
It was either that or IMF loans which I remind you KILLED the Jugos.
Cooper Long
Pic related. Literally no economic or diplomatic ties, purely military based relationship.
Jaxon Bell
There is truth to some of these claims though.
Parker Williams
I don't know man. My family obviously supports Bashar because they're Alawites I guess. I feel like a lot of people support him though. A lot of Christians and even some Sunnis. Syria was better before ya boi America got involved regardless.
Angel Lopez
If Bashar was a neoliberal, why would Amerikkka attack him?
Ryan Young
Because capitalist nations regularly compete with one another, and assad doesn't fall under the sphere of influence of burgerland anymore but instead of Russia and Iran.
I don't think you can blame burgerland for the civil war. You can blame them for prolonging it, but to state that it was entirely their doing is a bit of a stretch. At least we got DFSNS out of it.
Dylan Ortiz
Yeah of course, I worded that wrong.
Andrew Phillips
seymour hersh in 2007
Charles Lopez
But didn't the American's intentionally start the Arab Spring, with the CIA using Facebook to help anti-government and rebel forces to co-ordinate.
James Mitchell
Absolutely fucking disgusting. Not my comrade.
Dominic Perez
Insurgency movements actually need more then just guns and weapons, they need the support of the local populace. This support couldn't have just been manifested by burgerland as well.
Anti-government disdents can't figure out how to use facebook without the CIA? Again, these dissidents don't just spring out of nowhere. This all started with existing unrest in the country, if burgerland did anything they threw fuel on it but to say the started the fire is a bit too conspiratorial for my tastes
Not an argument. Give me one reason why I should support some bourgie despot who sells off his countries resources while he lives in luxury. DFSNS has actually created a socialized economy within their area of autonomy, which is more then Assad has given the people if that's your standard for success then I think you're better off using this flag instead
Parker Scott
Current attempts to spin the Arab Spring, and the US's response to it, as a wholly premeditated US operation from start to finish, are farcical bordering on insane.
Leaving aside all the other problems with this paranoid delusion, is the fact that many dictators toppled or disturbed by it were longtime US allies (such as Assad himself), probably the best example is Egypt. Hosni Mubarak was a loyal lapdog of Washington for decades, and the abrupt about-face by the US State Department from propping him up against his own people to calling for his ouster as global sympathy for the protesters swelled, was sufficiently awkward as to be noted even in mainstream media.
To be sure, the spark coincidentally ignited by Julian Assange was ruthlessly exploited by the US (and other major powers), but some of this was spontaneous opportunism or pivoting in response to something beyond anyone's full control, and to deny that is the worst sort of conspiratorial obsession.
