248 Comments
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Kerry Bart-Raber's avatar

I endorse your retelling / brilliantly and in depth - TY so mucho - I am so Happy for Syria 🇸🇾 and all the relatives scattered far and wide that can maybe return Safely now -

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Joe Schmoe, Troublemaker's avatar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3yDyZrKOV4

[ Living Colour - Cult Of Personality w/ Steve Vai at Rock In Rio 2022 ]

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Joe Schmoe, Troublemaker's avatar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6V5VkMqM07s

[ Living Colour - Open Letter To A Landlord ]

Unrepentant apologies, these dudes ROCK!! One of my fave CDs from the '80s

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DJ Teetop's avatar

The best ever heavy metal band featuring an Ornette Coleman alumnus on guitar, hands down. Though James Blood Ulmer probably has it in him to challenge if he wanted.

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Zyxomma's avatar

Ta, Marcie. I never saw the Baba Wawa interview, but I do remember seeing Assad Jr. on Charlie Rose. I thought he was a heartless, slick liar.

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Open Letters by Mersault's avatar

AN OPEN LETTER TO TULSI GABBARD: THE DANGERS OF HAVING A DICTATOR’S ALLY IN CHARGE OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE

“Your Complicity with Tyrants Makes You Unfit to Lead.”

https://open.substack.com/pub/patricemersault/p/an-open-letter-to-tulsi-gabbard-the?r=4d7sow&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

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Tosca's avatar

Sic semper tyrannis. May it work out much better for the Syrian people, than the fall of Saddam Hussein did for the Iraqi people.

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fuflans's avatar

on syria, i have now read the economist write up, listened to Ben Rhodes and Tommy Vietor's emergency podcast and heard the estimable carlotta gall on the daily.

however as no one else covered the louboutin angle, this is the best.

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Bitter Scribe's avatar

Funny little wrinkle: There was a time when conservative idiots were lionizing Assad as the protector of Syria's Christians, preventing them from being massacred by ruthless fanatical Muslims. Then Assad turns around and gets his support from Iran and Hezbollah. I guess the useful idiots had stopped paying attention by then.

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DJ Teetop's avatar

How useful of them

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Enter Ranting's avatar

Donald Trump: "Assad is being treated very unfairly."

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michael wood's avatar

Thank you, Marcie Jones ! So much better than whatever crap NYT and WaPo are saying about it!

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Maybe's avatar

I wonder how many pairs of shoes Asma has.

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Daniel O'Riordan's avatar

Every time I see her name, I think Lord of the Flies.

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Stephanie Hobbs's avatar

Ah, she can just order her haute couture online, amirite?

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Daniel O'Riordan's avatar

It's not the same as doing it in the City of Lights.

It lacks the whole jeune se quois.

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Paytheline's avatar

Surprised the Assads moved to Russia. The weather there is bad for Asma.

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Stephanie Hobbs's avatar

I see what you did there!

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Doloras LaPicho's avatar

Has anyone checked up on Susan Sarandon and that guy from Pink Floyd, who've been insisting for ages that Assad never gassed anyone and it's a false flag to do a regime change on him? Other former Assad shills are divided between "NOOOOOO THE ZIONISTS HAVE WON" and "akschually we were opposed to Assad all the time, don't know how you got that from our reporting on how he never poisoned gassed anyone"

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Doloras LaPicho's avatar

There is no guarantee of the future in Syria, but al-Jolani is playing an excellent PR game. He's started dressing like Zelenskyy, for heaven's sake, and has just put out an order that HTS fighters are prohibited from trying to tell women how to dress.

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swmnguy's avatar

There's a template. With wardrobe and dialogue.

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Daniel O'Riordan's avatar

"I understand Arafat buys his suits there."

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Doloras LaPicho's avatar

The Assads are from the historically persecuted Alawi minority. There may be a precedent in the Middle East for a historically persecuted minority setting up a militarised state to keep themselves safe, which descended into paranoia and systematic war crimes, but I can't think of one right now.

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Megan Macomber's avatar

Asma (why did her parents give her a disease for a name?) can get Louboutins online. Discounted. No one has to know. And if past is precedent, no one will.

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Maybe's avatar

Does Amazon deliver to Russia?

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Just_Jim's avatar

Is there money in it?

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