Syria - سوريا

archive.org. This archive doesn't load everything so I've added screenshots of the article in the comments.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/27982892

The BBC speaks to men released from Saydnaya prison - a place known as the "human slaughterhouse".

Archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20241214061228/https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy4784vn4jdo

SpinScore: https://spinscore.io/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Farticles%2Fcy4784vn4jdo

The rebellion in Syria has taken the world by surprise and led to the fall of the Assad family dictatorship, which has ruled Syria since Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez, took power in a coup d’etat 54 years ago. Neither the regime’s military forces nor its imperial sponsor, Russia, and its regional backer, Iran, were able to defend it. Cities under the regime’s control have been freed, thousands of political prisoners liberated from its notorious dungeons, and space opened for a new fight for a free, inclusive, and democratic Syria for the first time in decades.

At the same time, most Syrians know that such a struggle faces enormous challenges, beginning with the two key rebel forces, Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) and the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA). While they spearheaded the military victory, they are authoritarian and have a history of religious and ethnic sectarianism. Some on the Left have claimed without foundation that their rebellion was orchestrated by the U.S. and Israel. Others have uncritically romanticized these rebel forces as rekindling the original popular revolution that nearly overthrew Assad’s regime in 2011. Neither captures the complex dynamics unfolding in Syria today.

In this interview, conducted amidst a rapidly changing situation in Syria, Tempest asks Swiss Syrian socialist Joseph Daher about the process that led to the fall of Assad’s rule, the prospects for progressive forces, and the challenges they face in fighting for a truly liberated country that serves the interests of all its peoples and popular classes.

تتزايد الضغوط العسكرية والسياسية على رئيس النظام السوري بشار الأسد، في ظل تراجع الدعم العلني من حلفائه التقليديين، روسيا وإيران، إذ تؤكد تقارير صحفية أن موسكو وطهران باتتا أكثر ميلاً لترتيب مصالحهما في سوريا بعيداً عن الالتزام المطلق ببقاء الأسد، مما يضعه أمام واقع سياسي وعسكري شديد التعقيد.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17822555

Independent news and investigative journalism on politics and empire.

Pushback with Aaron Maté is an independent media show hosted by Aaron Maté and presented by The Grayzone.

Pushback with Aaron Maté

The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal discusses his reporting trip to Damascus in the aftermath of Syria's proxy war. He interviewed residents who were caught between Western and Gulf-backed extremist insurgents and the Syrian government’s war to retake territory, and who now struggle to recover under a US-led economic blockade.

"They want to attack and intimidate people from the West who want to have cultural and personal contact with Syrians in the area where most Syrians live," Blumenthal says. "I went there and I took that opportunity to have contact with them because I’ll take any reasonable opportunity to break the media blockade in countries targeted with regime change, and to show my fellow citizens what’s on the other side of the corporate media and the US national security state’s information war."

Guest: Max Blumenthal, Editor of The Grayzone and author of "The Management of Savagery."