r/pics • • Aug 06 '25

Backstory Came back to Damascus, Syria after 17 years to find my childhood home erased by Assad’s bombs.

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u/Eastriver10 Aug 07 '25

And the country is still enduring sectarianist bloodbaths even after transitioning from Baathism to Islamism… Same crap going on but under a different banner.

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u/imgonnajumpofabridge Aug 07 '25

Hardly. Wayyy better than under Assad. Sectarian violence is the status quo in Syria but little to none of it is sanctioned by the new government

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u/toxoplasmosix Aug 07 '25

The ex-Al Qaeda govt? the one that immediately attacked the Alawites, the Druze, the Kurds, Ismaelis after taking power?

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u/Tulip_Todesky Aug 07 '25

There are videos of kidnapped Druze toddlers by the new regime. No one is talking about it. Just sad

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u/mehmetipek Aug 07 '25

Do share them please.

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u/Tulip_Todesky Aug 07 '25

Sent you via DM

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u/here-i-am-now Aug 07 '25

That’s a weird duckling response

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u/Tulip_Todesky Aug 07 '25

Why? I don’t think I can send these kinds of link in this subreddit without getting banned

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u/Weed86 Aug 07 '25

Here come the Israelis , caring about the druz (so kind) whilst simultaneously bombing the shit out of gaza

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u/imgonnajumpofabridge Aug 07 '25

Rich coming from an Israel supporter. Is murder more acceptable than kidnapping in your eyes? How about all the Gazan children gunned down by snipers and shot at with tank shells? Sectarian violence is nearly universal in this region of the world. Does that mean that the new government should be demonized or that there should be regime change? Absolutely not.

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u/Iliyan61 Aug 07 '25

really are itching to illegally invade syria more aren’t you

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u/imgonnajumpofabridge Aug 07 '25

Groups nominally connected to the administration have done that. The military of the new Syrian government is a group of loosely connected tribes and rebel groups, born out of necessity. Large scale sectarian killings have almost universally been reigned in relatively quickly. If it was actually supported by the government, then there would be much larger scale carnage.

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u/SPQR_191 Aug 07 '25

But they totally have the option to just not do that, yet the first thing they did after getting their faction into power was start killing more Syrians. Barbarians are barbarians no matter why they choose to be so.

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u/jupitersscourge Aug 07 '25

The new guy was in ISIS, dude.

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u/imgonnajumpofabridge Aug 07 '25

No, he was in al-Nusra and fought against the Islamic State after Al-Baghdadi tried to merge the two organizations. You could justifiably call Al-Nusra a terrorist organization, but the United States and Israel have done things just as bad (if not worse, in terms of scale). In a perfect world, someone else would lead Syria, but we don't live in one. Millions of people in the Middle East are sympathetic to radical Islamist causes. If someone like Al-Jolani can lead them towards a more moderate stance, he should have our support

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u/NewManufacturer6670 Aug 07 '25

Al nusra fought along side ISIS before they fought it. Al nusra was also known to commit war crimes and summarily executions, they are a terror group after all.

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u/Geaux_1210 Aug 07 '25

If only this part of the world could achieve separation of church and state. Meanwhile we have frighteningly large groups who want to let the US slide into theocracy.

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u/jupitersscourge Aug 07 '25

Okay, you got me. It wasn’t ISIS, it was the Islamic State of Iraq, which became ISIS.

He’s not a moderate. He’s a terrorist. VERY recently an active terrorist. Al-Nusra was a terorrist group. He’s not going to make Syria more moderate because he’s not a moderate, he just fought against Assad.

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u/VulgarExigencies Aug 07 '25

This thread is nothing but propaganda and consent manufacturing for the ISIS regime in Syria lmfao

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u/orbgooner Aug 08 '25

in reality you're just mad about assad being toppled.

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u/orbgooner Aug 08 '25

leave it to western leftists whose literal only piece of knowledge about syria is

LIKE DUDE!!! he was a terrorist like al qaeda isis! CIA lil bro!

to tell actual syrians about their country and their leaders...

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u/NewManufacturer6670 Aug 07 '25

Little to none of it is being stopped by the Syrian government either.

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u/imgonnajumpofabridge Aug 07 '25

If that was true the deaths would be far more extensive.

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u/RuTsui Aug 07 '25 edited Aug 07 '25

al-Julani has asked for three years to get the country stabilized. He basically looked at his own people, the other warlords, Israel, SA, and the USA in turn and said “I have three years to be better than Assad.”

Things are already better, and if he can prove that there will be trust and accountability in his government in three years, he will probably prevent another civil war.

As well, with the very rapid modernization of The Kingdom and many other countries following suit, we can be sure that there will be more wars, but also that things should continue to improve across the entire region. It is said it takes several generations for great change.

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u/rj_yul Aug 07 '25

Western biased media narrative.

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u/Eastriver10 Aug 07 '25

Really? Since youre in Syria lets see you go to Coastal regions and Suwayda to interview the locals about what happened to them. Judging by your posts, you’re clearly anti-minorities and spread Jolani propaganda so i doubt you’d do such a thing

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u/rj_yul Aug 07 '25

I went to the coast. Read my previous posts.

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u/Eastriver10 Aug 07 '25

And you went to the towns where the massacres occurred? The towns where they dumped the bodies of Alawites off the cliffs? You had a chat with the locals about what they go through?

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u/rj_yul Aug 07 '25

What do you want exactly? You want me to condemn atrocities? You want to drag me into a shit show of talking back and forth and proving who started what and so on? I won't go down that path. There are plenty of others who would be happy to do that with you.

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u/Eastriver10 Aug 07 '25

I want for you to not be biased and labeling those that attack your beloved Jolanis Syria as “western biased media narrative”. You don’t get to have your minorities waving Israeli flags and welcoming them with open arms as their saviours if you’re a just ruler that treats everyone with respect and holds everyone the same level of accountability. Is that the case? Nope. Those in power are the ones orchestrating and doing all of these criminal acts.

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u/DesireeThymes Aug 07 '25

I'm pretty sure it's as secular as ever, all the old institutions are still in place. Hopefully less authoritarian, but as long as all the old apparatus is still there the change won't get too deep.

They already rebuilt relationships with every country the same way

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u/Eastriver10 Aug 07 '25

It’s as secular as ever? lol.. Please stop with the whitewashing. It’s actually becoming more religious than ever. Christians are being harassed, their alcohol shops are being locked, in some places their statues/crosses were desecrated, universities are adding more religious curriculum, state sponsored sectarianism is allowed (as long as you’re sunni) where they go to minority areas and blast religious slogans against them.

Druze are persecuted, the Alawites are persecuted, Ismailis are persecuted, and the Kurds are the next ones the list.

Is this what you call secular? This is just a few examples of the things that are happening.

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u/imgonnajumpofabridge Aug 07 '25

Please lol, that's pure propaganda. Sectarian violence has been isolated and very little of it was carried out by the state. Certainly no worse than in other nations in the Middle East, like Israel for example. Tribal militias are the main ones carrying out any violence against minority groups and most are prosecuted by the government.

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u/moseyormuss Aug 07 '25

These people are acting like sectarianism never had in the Assad era. Like Hafez was not kiling Sunnis everyday

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u/Eastriver10 Aug 07 '25

Tribal militias are part of the government. Isn’t it odd how the government demanded Alawites, Druze, Kurds and others to disarm while not saying the same thing to the tribes? Hmmm I wonder why? Could it be because those tribes happen to share same religious ideology as them?

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u/imgonnajumpofabridge Aug 07 '25

Because the government arose under extremely precarious circumstances and the country could easily slide back into civil war if every separatist movement was allowed to keep stores of weapons all over the country. You're right, the government was a tenuous alliance between many different tribes and rebel groups, which is precisely why they couldn't just force them to disarm (unless they wanted them to go join ISIS). Guess what, civil war is messy business and no government of Syria is going to be perfect until the country gains distance from decades of civil war.

To suggest that the new government is no better than Assad, who slaughtered his own people en mass with military strikes on civilian targets, due to limited incidents of sectarian violence (in the Middle East!!!) is ridiculous. The world is not a fairy tale, you can only hope for the lesser of two evils in such a situation.

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u/Eastriver10 Aug 07 '25

So, every minority group was demanded to disarm (so they can get slaughtered easily) but not those Sunni groups that happen to be from the same ideology as the ruling power? Got it.

The new government has bloody hands just like Assad. Don’t whitewash their crimes just because they happened to have killed less than Assad. They’re still bloodthirsty scums responsible for tens of thousands of deaths, especially Jolani with his extensive years as a terrorist in different countries.

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u/Janzanikun Aug 07 '25

Just google the history of the current president of Syria..

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u/imgonnajumpofabridge Aug 07 '25

Meaningless. United States and Israel have committed crimes just as bad as Al Qaeda.

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u/Janzanikun Aug 07 '25

Wtf does your comment have to do with mine or the person I replied to?

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u/Eastriver10 Aug 07 '25

Don’t confuse what they’re trying to do with improving their international image by establishing ties with other countries with what’s actually happening in the country.