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Post by miscmisc on Aug 30, 2017 18:03:37 GMT 1
OK, ALL of my British friends told me that no one in Britain took Louise Mensch seriously, like, "I mean, LITERALLY NO ONE." And I believed them. Well, I seem to have missed this article on the Guardian. Evidently not "no one in Britain".
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gols
Novice Member
Posts: 159
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Post by gols on Aug 31, 2017 15:49:57 GMT 1
Julian Borger has obviously been in Washington too long
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bol
Novice Member
Posts: 69
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Post by bol on Sept 4, 2017 11:25:05 GMT 1
Lol another "highlight". I just joined twitter recently btw., and that platform is as bad as feared (140 signs good for media hacks though). The discussions/commentaries by most people there seem to be even more stupid than at youtube-videos.
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Post by K1power on Sept 4, 2017 18:41:54 GMT 1
The discussions/commentaries by most people there seem to be even more stupid than at youtube-videos. And that's an accomplishment!
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 5, 2017 8:03:19 GMT 1
Yeah, particularly pundits/journalists' obsession with tweeting is really a blessing. Now we have hard evidence of what kind of twats they are, and of the fact that the media world is the opposite of meritocracy.
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 5, 2017 8:45:20 GMT 1
One of the things that signified the virtual end of the Syrian opposition was the recent return of Al Khatib and Al Soma into the Syrian national football team, both of whom are star players who opted and stayed out of the team in solidarity with the opposition (Al Khatib's hometown was pretty much destroyed by the government force). It was hardly reported in the West, but that meant a lot to many Syrians. I can't even imagine what the two players had to go through mentally to reach that decision to return to the national team to de facto re-legitimize the government, but here they are, in time for the last stage of the qualification campaign. In the previous match, Syria defeated and eliminated Qatar by 3-1, which means Qatar will be the only country in history who hosts the World Cup without ever having played in the damn thing before. And tonight we'll have the last matches of the final round of the AFC (Asian) World Cup qualification. And surprisingly, almost shockingly, Syria is still in the race for Russia. With Iran and Japan having already secured the 1st place and therefore automatic entries into the World Cup in their respective groups, South Korea/Syria/Uzbekistan/China in Group A and Saudi Arabia/Australia/(UAE, pretty much only in theory) in Group B will battle for the 2nd place for the automatic entry, or 3rd place for the play-offs. It will be a very exciting night. If Syria manages to finish 2nd place - or finish 3rd and win the play-off against the 3rd-place team from Group B and then win another play-off against the 4th-place team from CONCACAF (North/Central America) - it will be the country's first ever participation in the World Cup. While the country's torn apart by the civil war, and the team had no "home" games (obviously), with some key players missing for much of the campaign in protest over the war, no less. In Group A, Uzbekistan will play South Korea at home, and Syria will play Iran in Tehran. I won't explain the scenarios here, but here's the table: It'll be hard for Syria for sure, but it can happen.
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 5, 2017 21:50:39 GMT 1
Well, it sort of happened. The dramatic equalizer in the additional time keeps Syria alive (2-2). Uzbekistan vs. South Korea was predictably 0-0 (predictably, because Uzbekistan is the notorious mental midget of the AFC, and South Korea is ridiculously inept at attacking lately), so Group A is (1) Iran (qualified) (2) South Korea (qualified) (3) Syria (playoff).
In the other group, Australia ended up in the 3rd place after only barely beating Thailand, and Saudi Arabia managed to beat toothless Japan uno-zero in front of the 60k+ home crowd. It's (1) Japan (qualified) (2) Saudi Arabia (qualified) (3) Australia (playoff) in Group B.
So, the AFC playoff will be Syria vs. Australia. Australia is the better side on paper, but I'd say it will be 50-50 now.
To be continued...
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bol
Novice Member
Posts: 69
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Post by bol on Sept 6, 2017 17:27:15 GMT 1
Miscmisc, I often only read but I would like to especially point thankfully out your post from Aug 4, 2017 about Calvinist ethics in America. That is such an important point for them to understand, I always come across that problem too when talking to Americans (or also others with similar backgrounds, found it among Australians living there too), even among the nicest people. And like your rightfully pointed out, they blame themselves then for things who are simply not their fault. I even copied your comment into my notes (as unstructured as it is ), when I talk to Americans I have it as argument reminder among me.
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 7, 2017 6:29:37 GMT 1
Cheers. I hope they didn't and won't accuse you of being a Stalinist or something, lol.
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 7, 2017 7:00:23 GMT 1
In Syria, the Syrian army broke the siege of Deir ez-Zor by ISIS, finally. About 80k people were trapped in the city for several years. Remember the US military attacked the SAA's defensive positions in Deir ez-Zor, an attack which greatly assisted ISIS, saying "Oh I'm sorry, it was just an accident"? Ah, the memories.
With the YPG/SDF certain to take Raqqa in the coming weeks, and the ISIS forces around Deir ez-Zor falling apart, it's safe to say ISIS as a state-like entity is done. This is big.
And fittingly, Deir ez-Zor is the city where Syrian striker Al Soma - arguably the best forward on the Asian side of the Arab world - is from.
Not all Syrians celebrated that goal, of course. Some of the opposition called him a traitor who sold his soul to Assad the Devil. Some of them opted to celebrate the goal by Saudi Arabia's Al Muwallad against Japan instead, which secured the 2nd place finish for Saudi Arabia in the other group, because the Saudis will "represent Arabs" in Russia. Heh.
A vast, vast majority of Syrians, including those who hate, hate, hate Assad, were jubilant, though. Why not. Football is one of the few things where they feel like they belong to a "nation".
Anyway, that was a very good short-counter-attacking goal, indeed. Well done.
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 8, 2017 18:59:00 GMT 1
My own mea culpa re: the Syrian civil war is not "You haven't condemned the atrocities done by Assad enough!" or whatever the fuck else like that stupid shit, but that I completely underrated Assad and his government. I always had the so-much-easier-said-than-done attitude toward the whole regime change shit, but I didn't expect them to survive and actually all but win this way against the absolutely formidable alliance of big players.
And I for sure still don't know how the hell the SAA troops trapped in Deir ez-Zor had been able to hold their position there for so long without much help from outside. They were permanently short of food, fuel, ammo, everything, and had to deal with tens of thousands of civilians trapped in the area too. No one in the West shed any tears for them, while being busy screaming about imminent atrocities and massacres in Aleppo (which, incidentally, never happened). They were starved out by the al-Nusra blockade for two years, and then by the ISIS blockade for three years, and at one point even bombed by the combined force of the US, UK, Australia and Denmark for one and a half hours, losing more than 100 men and then some more after ISIS poured in to take advantage of the chaos, and those Western countries first denied they did it - Hell, that scumbag Samantha Power even fucking accused Russia and Assad of lying in her usual eloquent, righteous manner - and then going, "Oops, it seems we did do it, sorry about that accident...". Amazing. They survived all that.
I underestimated not only Assad, but also the resilience of the SAA.
And it turns out that the US government, as a whole, was even more reluctant to go all in on the regime change business than I thought, that Obama and Biden had a lot more allies inside the government than I thought (against the neocon faction, liberal Kerry/Clinton faction, etc.). It seems that the CIA and State Department goons were practically shunned by the other saner factions. I suppose many of them changed their opinions as facts changed on the ground, but you'd think it should be very, very hard for ANY American official to swallow the idea of letting Russia and Iran and Hezbollah score ANY not-so-small points in the international arena.
I also didn't expect the Saudis to let it go this easily. I know, "easily" is an inappropriate word here given how many Syrians have perished in this civil war, but it's still surprising, especially since they seem to have got the Trump administration by the balls. Yes, if Trump is in anyone's "pocket", it's not the Russians', but the Saudis'. You really, really haven't paid any attention if you didn't know that.
I guess, after all, those think-tanks and lobbyists have a lot more influence on the media than they do on the actual government these days. They can buy a lot of politicians for sure, but the US government, particularly in terms of foreign policies, isn't exactly fully "democratic".
Still, the war is still far from truly "over" IMO. We don't know what will happen after ISIS in Syria is no more as a governing state. What will happen between YPG and the government? What will Turkey do now? What will happen to that shit load of ISIS sympathizers in the area ruled by YPG now, who would never, ever accept the de facto Kurdish rule? What about Idlib? It's not strategically important at this point, but will Assad try to take it back any time soon?
So many questions to be answered. But for now, the government and Kurds/YPG are the only ones left standing, and the Syrian "opposition" has failed, as YPG has never been part of the "opposition".
I know, I've been saying for months already that it had failed, but now it seems that it's truly, truly over, done.
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 8, 2017 19:41:43 GMT 1
Love it when some American think-tank media blowhard says to me, "HOW DARE you challenge my view on Syria and Iraq, I personally know more Syrians and Iraqis than you do, idiot!" and it turns out that literally every single one of those "Syrians and Iraqis" is from an urban upper-middle class family, educated in American universities, and has lived in the US/West much longer than they did in Syria/Iraq.
One Syrian guy that I know who grew up in Homs as a son of a small local grocery store owner and now lives in Lebanon, he alone is worth 100 times more than those "Syrians and Iraqis" that the idiot "personally" knows as a source, and he's not even on the Assad's side. It's just that he's not detached from the Syrian realities unlike that blowhard's friends. He warned me early on, way back, while condemning Assad, that the "opposition" would quickly go the wrong way, the hardcore Sunni sectarian way that is, it was already underway pretty much on Day One, and he turned out to be absolutely right, while apparently those "Syrians and Iraqis" have never informed the fool of that.
Those people in Washington D.C. are just hopeless. Confirmation bias is a bitch, I guess.
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gols
Novice Member
Posts: 159
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Post by gols on Sept 11, 2017 14:34:10 GMT 1
Love it when some American think-tank media blowhard says to me, "HOW DARE you challenge my view on Syria and Iraq, I personally know more Syrians and Iraqis than you do, idiot!" You really need to stop mixing with these people, it's not good for your health
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 11, 2017 21:50:51 GMT 1
Well, I had to read Hillary Clinton's new book last week. I'm made of hard stuff, gols.
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 11, 2017 22:05:08 GMT 1
I often think "journalists" need to work in the real world for several years, doing real work, before working for those media outlets. Why are they like fucking children, for whom the real world seems to be a pure abstraction?
Case in point: Many of them seem to seriously think that Trump giving up and donating his salaries as US president is an admirable thing.
Seriously? It's almost upsetting.
Donald Trump is a rentier, a financial mafioso. He has lived on rents etc. for his entire adult life. He doesn't need the salaries. Hell, he doesn't WANT them. He doesn't want to pay taxes.
I mean, seriously. I even feel silly saying this much, as if to explain to an adult that the sun is actually not revolving around this planet.
Also, George Washington tried to do the same shit, as a political gesture, and others begged him not to do it because they thought that would damage the notion that the president devotes all of his time to the job of being the president, and that nothing other than that duty, no other source of income, can influence his decision-making. The irony is that Washington was actually short of money, and that the salaries did help him maintain his upper-class living. He had big assets, but didn't have much income.
Again, I feel silly saying this much, about a symbolic meaning of the salaries for US president.
It's just tragic that people take those know-nothing children seriously because the words like "Washington Post" are attached to their drivel.
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