After passively hearing about it for a couple years, I started going deep into the Syrian conflict a few days ago. So...

After passively hearing about it for a couple years, I started going deep into the Syrian conflict a few days ago. So, before you dismiss me as an idiot, please be fully aware that I know I'm a newbie about this.

So, I was confused about the status-quo of this whole thing and was under the impression that the Opposition was fully on the right this whole time, since it had the support of the western bloc and the like, and following the Arab spring, it seemed sane to assume that Assad was just another Gaddafi. I thought that it would make sense for the US to support Assad if he was secular and reasonable, and that the Syrian folks were indeed under strong pressure from the Syrian government.

After reading up on the issue, my understanding is that Assad is actually incredibly solvent, intelligent and secular. Moreover, it seems that most Syrian people actually support him and his status as an authoritarian is grossly exaggerated. As for hurting civilians, I'm still confused about that. It all seems to revolve around use of chemicals in 2013 or so and the bombardment of a hospital a few months back. It's still not clear to me why or how these things happened.

Anyway, to get to the point. I have a half-Greek/half-Egyptian friend, fully grown in Greece. He's Christian, and comes from a very Christian family (though he's not too religious himself). He's very intelligent, and we generally align politically on most issues. Definitely not liberal, but relatively modest.

Not realising how controversial the issue is, I talked to him about my newly-forming opinion on Assad. How he may not be the bad guy, and how mind-blown I was about finding out. Needless to say he pretty much raged on me and called me a reactive tinfoil-hatter. He seemed utterly enraged by the idea of Assad possibly being the good guy and the west doing more harm than good on the region.

I tried to show him some of the sources that discuss the topic, but he seemed dead set on his opinion.

Am I in the wrong? Am I naïve to trust Assad? How much is he like Gaddafi or Mubarak? And is there a reason why my friend reacted like that? Is there some political/cultural conflict that could create bias for him against Assad? I don't mind discussing relatively controversial issues with friends, but I also don't want to sound insensitive when the people involved are more directly affected by them than I am.

tl;dr: I am new to the Syrian conflict issue, but I'd like to learn more. I think I fucked up by being openly pro-Assad in front of my Egyptian friend, and I'm not sure if his response was due to some bias, or because Assad may not be as in the right as I understood him to be. I'm mainly trying to understand why he reacted that way.

Any good unbiased sources?

You should post in /sg/ and read some of the stuff in the OP when it gets posted (not sure if there is a /sg/ running right now, it's not how it used to be)

In short, your suspicions are correct. Assad may or may not be an angel, but the singling out of Syria and the subsequent arming of rebels has nothing to do with humanitarian concerns. The 2013 chemical report was later followed up by a report saying the rebels were actually the ones that used chemicals. But you won't find Obama mentioning that.

In the end, regardless of anyone's opinion of Assad, it is quite clear that his removal right now would result in utter chaos and destruction, and anyone advocating for this is a useful idiot.

if your not on the side of assad youre either on the side of alnusra or isis. apparently youre friend is too stupid to know this. and if he lived is syria he would supported assad, cuz his life would be on the stake then hypocrite piece of shit

>actually support him and his status as an authoritarian is grossly exaggerated

Actually they don't since it's a sectarian conflict and most are Sunni. He's extremely authoritarian.

>Actually they don't because buzzwords

Is it a matter of Middle Eastern diaspora having no first-hand experience of the issues? How do Syrians grown in the West react to Assad?

Can you elaborate on that? Syrians don't support Assad?

>since it's a sectarian conflict
Youre fucking retarded lmao

Trying to figure out whether Assad is good or bad is missing the point. The big problem in the middle east is that everyone has a Quran stuffed up their ass. This is merely bad in the countries where the leaders and the everyman at least agree on which version of Islam it is.

But Syria, like Iraq under Saddam, has the problem that the majority think the ruler belong to a heretical sect of Islam that they hate. The only way that arrangement stays stable is by the ruler jailing and killing a bunch of people every time they mention that fact.

Everywhere you see a civil war in the middle east, give up on trying to figure out which side are the freedom fighters and which side are the totalitarian scum. They're actually having an argument about some post-Mohammad faction leader that got murdered 1200 years ago.

Actually I'm a bit confused by that as well. Why do Saudis support the Free Army?

Saudis have no direct connection to them though. FSA gets all its weapons from loot, the US, turkey, and very small amounts from certain gulf states.

>The big problem in the middle east is that everyone has a Quran stuffed up their ass
>Not cold war era proxy wars
>Not Sykes picot
Lol no

your friend may know nothing of syria, he may have some friends with extreme wahabi background, and hes adopting their opinion because of their friendship.

>not liking assad makes you a wahhabi
t. alawite

Right. It's reassuring to hear that I'm not crazy. I think I'll avoid discussing the issue with him though. He thinks I'm a reactionary hypocrite to adopt the non-mainstream opinion, since I'm not associated with any of the groups. Still, I hope to learn more about this, and let other people know if possible. It pisses me off that the West spreads the idea that people suffer because of the country's native administration while hypocritically causing more division themselves and preventing the resolution of the ISIS problem.

Both parties are pieces of shit who kill civilians, but Assad (like Gaddafi and Sadam) is at least a stabilizing factor and the only reason why ISIS doesn't have an entire country under their control and America's leash holder Saudi Arabia hate him for being secular.

This user gets it.

>that brazilian flag

What did they mean?

My Sufi Egyptian American friend makes facebook posts that terrorists have "legitimatae grievences (After SanBernardino)" and that he is against Anglo-Saxon Law (read:American Law) and for the Law of God (Read:Sharia). Because of him, and my Syrian American friend who calls Alawites "Not Real Muslims" and described how he wants to slaughter ruling Alawites, I have lost all faith in Islam or people who show affinity to Islam, particularly Sunni Islam, or even Sufism. Why my Sufi friend pretends to be "Peaceful" Then defends terrorists, and then speaks against the "Apardtheid State Isreals" while shilling for an Apartheid system of Sharia to but put on me, is only explained by what Islam teaches. It is hypocritical and barbaric, and against everything old liberal values stand for.

>Alawites
>Wahabi
>ISIS
>Al Nusra
>Sunni
>Cher
This is why Islam will never be as succesful as the west, they simply lack the skill to talk their way through shit and simply stay a culture of tribal cult leaders which are stuck in the past century.
The lack of motivation from their leaders to drive the people, to understand and emulate by adopting some of our ideas on rules and regulations holds them back.
Until they stop rejecting the west the entire middle east will remain a shithole obsessed with fighting by following a medieval doctrine.
When that oil money runs out within a decade say good bye mudslimes and welcome ethnic cleansing after years of abuse, crime and violence caused by immigrants in the EU.

B-but Sykes Pycot created diverse multicultural states, They should be paradise! Multiculturalism Yay!!!

Meanwhile critisizing WWI treaties, muslims speak out of diversity in the US and Europe. Self serving, intellectually dishonest Hypocrites.

i didnt say that.
i really hate both sides but i would unthinkably take assads side if i had to chose between assad and alnusra.
before the war around 2009 i was a kid and my friend made me watch a video of village people in syria, daraa. taking part in smashing a 16 yo girls head. would you believe that these people are fighting for freedom now? and i hated my government for not going after them because it didnt want to upset dangerous people and let many similar honro killing slide.

...

>Assad is actually incredibly solvent, intelligent and secular.
That's very questionnable. His main allies on the ground (so excluding Russia) are the Hezbollah and Iran. "Hezbollah" literally means "the party of Allah". They are a shia islamist group from Lebanon. Iran is an Islamic Republic. That's why I think that the secular part of Assad is very questionnable.
I also doubt about him being solvent since his alliance with the Islamic shia movements was one of the causes that turned the conflict into a religious one.
>How much is he like Gaddafi or Mubarak?
He is nowhere as batshit crazy as Gaddafi (Bachar Al-Assad was actually a very smart leader) or the Saudi leaders. That doesn't make him a great leader though.

The Syria civil war is a very complex problem, there are no "good" sides. The key is don't believe the propaganda of the different sides (Assad, the rebels, IS ...). Bachar is nowhere as crazy as the Western media pictures him, but he's nowhere as good as /sg/ pictures him.
Gather informations and make up your own opinion, that's the most intelligent path (in my opinion).

>Can you elaborate on that? Syrians don't support Assad?
It's a very complicated issue, but since he's Alawi and since most of the Syrians are sunni, there are problems between communities. Most of the important people in the government are Alawi but 80% of the population is sunni. Some sunni feel the are not well represented in the government.

How is the Syrian conflict not a sectarian conflict ?

The want to weaken the inluence of Iran in the region. Since Bachar is an ally of Iran, they fund the people who fight Bachar, hence their support to the rebels

My parents knew some Syrians who fled Syria because of the authoritarian regime back in the 80's-90's. They were nice people, I don't think they were muslims (they drank wine) and they didn't like the Assads at all.

>Gaddafi
First Gaddafi did nothing wrong.

You are so bluepilled that it's disgusting to argue with you.

>Gaddafi did nothing wrong.