Blocking Democracy as Syria's Solution

[Scootaloo]

16. Oh lord. This garbage?

Sorry AngryAmish, you're falling for some ignorant prejudice that the US has towards other parts of the world.

You know how "Africa" is so often characterized as a single coutnry, represented by crippling poverty and flies crawling on the nose of ab arefoot kid? Yeah, I hope you know that's complete bullshit, right?

So too with the image of Arabs as these backwards tribal primitives who run around the desert, screaming about shit and being manifestly "unready" for even the concept of nation-states, much less democratic governments. it's been a handy prejudice, given our interaction with Arab states in the last eighty years.

Syrians have a very strong national identity. Probably the second-strongest among the Arab states, after Egypt - and for much the same reason, Syria has a national history that predates the written word. Yeah, a civil war engenders societal breakdown. But it's not "they don't see themselves as citizens of countries" it's that "holy shit we're getting killed who can I run to that won't kill me."

This was the basic ignorence that caused first thinking invading Iraq was create a grateful Iraqi people. Nope. It also led the US to back the Arab Spring. How did that work out?

No, the problem with Iraq wasn't the Iraqi people - goddamn, victim blame much? The problem with iraq was the fucking fact that we invaded Iraq.