What Obama meant
The Obama administration decided to celebrate Star Wars day, by renewing the economic sanctions against Syria.
This is in no way surprising since we aren’t exactly at the best of terms with the U.S’ closest ally, guys are looking after their turf, it’s politically sound.
What I’m sick of is the constant volleys of political word-twisting heading against Syria every day. Some of the biggest words a politician can use against a country’s image… Supporting terrorism, pursuing weapons of mass destruction… I’m glad they didn’t accuse us of raping something holy.
Any political enthusiast with moderate to high knowledge of world politics would start getting images of this sort: A loose cannon, exporting terrorist cells left and right, threatening to nuke every country on the map, and even crazy enough to do it. Fuck, they probably have gulags too.
I’m going to be kind enough to do the US a favor, and explain to everybody what was exactly meant by what they said:
1-Syria supports terrorist groups:
What this statement made you think:
The Syrian administration are probably the guys behind the underwear bomber, the Madrid train bombings, the Texas chainsaw massacre etc. Those jerks train and send people to perpetrate killing and random violence around the world. Syria bears an extremist radical interpretation of Islam, and helps promote it around the world.
The truth:
Syria is a multi-cultural society and has a leadership that is… secular. Nope we don’t go to madrasehs where K is for kalashnikov. Sorry for ruining that for you guys. Syria is a really pragmatic country with some non-negotiable principles (The poor man comes first, whether it be subsidies or closing outside markets. Golan is kinda ours)… None of them religious. It’s pretty normal to walk around in Syria without a hijab.
By far the number one ideology for Syria is stability. To stability, all else comes second. And with neighbors like Israel, Iraq and Lebanon (no offense), who could blame us? And for that, Syria does “support terrorist groups”. The guy didn’t say anything wrong, we support Hizbullah and Hamas, which are terrorist groups. But they’re not terrorists like post 9-11 terrorists. They’re the 70s South America, Guevaraesque, hit-and-run, jungle guerrilla kind (there’s no jungle, I’m just drawing a mental image here). You know, the “in front of oppression my brothers, all we can do is fight” kind. The kind that gets called freedom fighters in history books a century later…
2-Syria’s pursuing weapons of mass destruction:
What this made you think:
Those guys are a cockroach antenna’s breadth away from obtaining nukes, and as soon as they do, they’re gonna unleash the fury! Or just be kinda annoying like Kim Jong-Il
The truth:
Syria has no nuclear agenda, the idea of obtaining one has never been put on the table. Officially it supports a nuclear free Middle East. The WMDs it has are a couple of rockets equipped with mustard gas. We’re not “pursuing” it, we already have it, we’ve stated that we have it. It’s the only deterrent we have against a heavily funded, trigger-happy enemy with a nuclear arsenal big enough to obliterate the whole region. We’ve got the chemical weapons, the guerrilla guys, and the fact that it doesn’t make logical sense to attack us (but we all know how reliable logic is here)
So guys, sanction us. It’s your right, and we really don’t care. But when you go on your podium to explain, just say because it makes diplomatic sense to support our allies. Don’t turn us into fresh demons from the seventh circle of hell….that’s below the belt.
Explore posts in the same categories: Politics, SyriaTags: Middle East, Politics, Sanctions, Syria
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The Diadochi 
May 5, 2010 at 5:51 pm
Well done habibi! it’s deplorable people can need this education. I admire the tone of dispassion. I fear since Franco things have not changed much in concept.(see George Orwell 1984)
May 5, 2010 at 8:43 pm
Confession. 1984 is by far my number one book 🙂
May 6, 2010 at 7:56 am
Please take your probe out of my brain 😀 I reserve confession for another place.
May 10, 2010 at 2:56 pm
you know i hate discussing politics,cuz each time i try to make some opinion i fail…that’s i lack to a lot of information.
in my opinion we all lack to information when it comes to politics, all we know is what comes up in media (and i personally dont trust what and how they present whats going on), besides ,in the world of politics we know how much “secret information” are important…(yes i am that curious and skeptic)i mean i need to know those ones too in order to say something like :”this country supports lablabla and has strong relationships to lablabla and is hiding inforamtion considering lablabla.. etc”
of course i dont minde that someone comes up and gives some lecture about “peace in the middle east” but i actually think he is just(well …dont habe better words) “funny”.
so seleucid hope you dont regret inviting me to your blog 🙂
i will try to clearify my point of view considering “politic discussions” based on your post about what obama meant…
lets begin:
you wrote : “I’m going to be kind enough to do the US a favor, and explain to everybody what was exactly meant by what they said:”
hold on !! you want to explain what the US want to say?? you mean they couldnt really tell what they really mean?? how come?? the most powelfull country on earth isnt able to express what it wants to tell the world??? be sure they study each single speech over and over again ,word by word , letter by letter.
so i beilieve your idea was that the US said something they know they dont mean, but they use this strategy to make some pressure to achieve some political goals. thats what you meant ,right?
if so, then you see with me that what they really mean is not a public information IT IS SECRET and can be TOP-SECRET.
you can have your own opinions about what the US has in mind and someone else can have other opposite opinions,,,you see my point? all these opinions can be true and all can be false , so i am sort of bored from trying to have my own political opinions(once again , i have no problem with people with certain political views but i do see a clear lack of proof in these opinoins,thats all)
here is an example of a statement you did, while you were trying to tell what is the truth behind what the US(or obama) said:
“Syria has no nuclear agenda, the idea of obtaining one has never been put on the table.”
well i really dont know for sure,i mean i hope it is true ,but where is your proof?? is it a guess?? maybe maybe we do have an agenda,but why so sure??
sorry for long..
tc
May 12, 2010 at 10:38 am
Hadaya.
Although we might not comprehend the complexities of political decisions behind closed doors, we can see the effects it takes on us. I may not understand how rain is formed in the clouds, but when it falls I can feel it on my face.
I don’t know what discussions went on in Obama’s office the days or weeks preceding the press conference, but what I know for sure is what was said, and what was said was not true (In my humble view of the world).
What I did in this blog was show my readers the real situation on the ground, giving a counter-argument to the points of the sanction. I did not talk about, and do not care how we got to that situation.
And about the nuclear ambitions. I meant there has been no public announcement of that sort, because the press release was trying to portray us as another Iran or N.Korea.
By the way, you can just copy paste the comments you do here, and you’d have your own blog lol. You can call it “replies to seleucid”