I got to hold a cutie-patootie, sweetie head possum!
How fun!
Update from Bluesky on Syria (which is giving me much quicker news than any other source):
The Rebels are in Damascus and Russia and Iran have withdrawn all their people (diplomatic and military) and Assad has bugged out, so it's basically over.
HTS (the major rebel group) has been saying all the right things and (so far) done them. That is, they have said they will safely treat all sects (Kurds, Sunni, Shia, Christians et al). HTS was originally an offshoot of Al-Qaeeda but split off from International Jihadism in 2016 and have maintained that they exist to overthrow Assad and set up institutional governance (that is - not under autocratic control).
Of course, the Taliban said a lot of things that were flat out lies as the Americans left Afghanistan and have gone back to their wicked anti-woman ways. But we really don't know if this is going to be better for the Syrian people, but Assad was a torturing, murdering fucker so there's a glimmer of hope it could be good and it would be difficult to be worse.
One reason to think HTS might mean what they say is that if they did the US would eliminate the sanctions that have crippled the Syrian economy, and would actually be happy to invest there.
In the realm of Realpolitik this has huge implications for world power struggles. It's a huge strategic loss for both Russia and Iran. Russia in particular loses its naval port in the Mediterranean, and it makes them look weak. Two things contributed massively to this: Israel taking out almost the entire leadership of Hezbollah, and Russia expending so many resources in the Ukraine it couldn't focus on Syria.
The two biggest winners in the power game are Turkey (which will have much bigger influence in the region) and Israel. Though the US benefits because it significantly weakens Russia and Iran. I wonder if it might be a factor in weakening Iran enough to overthrow the theocracy there.
tl;dr: huge change in the mideast which will have massive international implications, but too soon to tell if it will be good, bad or otherwise for humans on earth.
Named Pogo?
His name is Wish.
But that would have been awesome.
David, rumor has it that Assad’s plane fleeing Syria has crashed. No confirmation yet.
Shit’s getting CRAZY.
I have groups on FB I follow--very little of politics there. I never Twittered, except to follow links of interest sent me by friends, so I don't miss that. I haven't been to Tumblr in a while--once I went there I was there for the day, for mostly photography in various categories. I'm still holding all news at arm's length and will be for a while. I've forgotten my bs login, which was fandom, anyway. So if I decide to peek in there it will be a new one. And at the moment, as long as you're all here, that satisfies my need to catch up with you all.
Reuters says there's a high probability that Assad's jet went down, but nothing official.
If so, I expect it was shot down. By whom? I would guess Israel but I don't know.
Here's a good primer on Bluesky about the HTS (the successful rebels), which underscores how they evolved both militarily and diplomatically.
Primer: [link]
HTS laid the groundwork for this revolution for years, largely by reaching out to every region and sub-group in the country that wanted Assad out. So when they made their assault there was very little resistance from Assad's military, but also there was no need for a rear-guard action because every area that was liberated had welcomed it.
You'll see a lot of chatter that HTS are Al-Qaida, which is a facile and distorting. They did start as an Al-Qaida group but broke with them in 2016 focusing pragmatically on overthrowing Assad instead of an ideological International Jihad.
They have given a lot of lip service to building a pluralistic Syria, but I have no idea if they'll do that, or can sustain that, or what role women would have in that society.
HTS have also spoken about having a peaceful relationship with Israel (and credited Israel taking out Hezbollah). We'll see. But it's worth noting that Lebanon and Syria have both been used as pawns by Russia and Iran for over a generation and it has been devastating for them. So I could see why they would rather stop fighting for ideological reasons and reclaim their lives.
Nobody really knows what will happen next.
Side note: While Russia propped Assad up and gave it a lot of support, Putin also benefitted from the ongoing fighting there because Syrian refugees flooded into European countries. This led to increasing anti-immigrant sentiment and fueled right wing /authoritarian movements in those countries.
Here's a much more detailed breakdown of the initial build up of the resistance assault by the same writer. Pretty fascinating if you like military thrillers: [link]
"As the ground assault began, HTS’s Asaib al-Hamra cells inside Aleppo city were activated. Several conducted drive-by raids on regime checkpoints in the city’s western New Aleppo, Salah ad Din and Hamdaniyah districts, but one attacked a hurriedly convened emergency meeting involving senior commanders from the Syrian Army and Military Intelligence, as well as Russia’s military and the IRGC. The attack killed at least six people, including IRGC Brigadier General Kiomars Pourhashemi (Hajj Hashem).
Within 12hrs, the core initial goal of the offensive had been achieved, as regime frontlines repeatedly collapsed one after the other across the western Aleppo frontline. The opposition coalition appeared exhilarated by their rapid gains and although pushing towards Aleppo city had not been part of the initial plan, another new and largely untested HTS unit – Saraya al-Harari, or the Thermal Brigade – had been prepped to fight at nightfall. With at least 500 fighters at its disposal, Saraya al-Harari had been trained over the past two years to specialize specifically in night-time combat, with each and every one of its fighters equipped with assault rifles, sniper rifles and RPGs equipped with night-vision scopes. Their deployment onto the battlefield late on November 27 triggered disarray in regime ranks. Until now, darkness typically led to a temporary respite from fighting – not anymore.
In addition to HTS’s development of special forces-type units like Asaib al-Hamra and Saraya al-Harari, the groups Kataib al-Shaheen drone unit has proven a hugely valuable force multiplier to the opposition offensive, with 10-20 precision strikes on regime frontline assets every day. At least three senior regime commanders have been killed in drone strikes in recent days too."
Note to self: debriefing is threadkiller
I'm drinking hot cider and listening to the pigs getting into a swivet.
I used my new poached-eggs-in-the-microwave item and it worked to great effect.
Yay! Poached eggs on Sunday.
eta:
Sounds like Assad landed in Moscow, so I rescind the plane crashing bit (though Reuters reported it!)
Not really. Was a lot to read, just kind of digesting it.(I kind of do the opposite of hiding from the news, but I'm gonna try not to act like I live in Radio Free Europe this time, though.) I am subscribed to a bunch of alternate news outlets.
yeah, hard not to get it wrong when stuff is flying around and changing so much. in some ways, I'm not sure what the twenty-four hour cycle adds.
