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marmar

(76,985 posts)
Tue Jun 18, 2013, 07:07 AM Jun 2013

Syria: If People Don't Do Their Own Damn Revolution, It Won't Work


Syria: If People Don't Do Their Own Damn Revolution, It Won't Work

Monday, 17 June 2013 15:19
By The Thom Hartmann Program, The Daily Take | Op-Ed


When revolutions don’t start from the bottom-up, they’re doomed to fail.

If the people of a nation in turmoil aren’t sufficiently motivated and capable of pulling off their very own revolution without the help of outside forces, then after the so-called revolution is over, the people will not be able to govern themselves, and the situation will be far worse than before.

For example, look at the American Revolution.

Before the American Revolution even began, we already had meta-governments in place in every state and city in the union. There were town councils, city councils, and state governments. The infrastructure needed to succeed post-revolution was already in place before it.

..........(snip)..........

This is not a popular perspective among warhawks in Washington. And many Americans believe, that if a dictator’s actions are awful enough, than there is a duty for outside nations, like the United States, to step in. .....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/17039-syria-if-people-dont-do-their-own-damn-revolution-it-wont-work



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hobbit709

(41,694 posts)
3. If all we're doing is helping one side in a power struggle, then it's a coup, not a revolution.
Tue Jun 18, 2013, 07:27 AM
Jun 2013

What usually happens then is "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss"

WovenGems

(776 posts)
5. Yes indeed
Tue Jun 18, 2013, 07:51 AM
Jun 2013

This is not a revolution. It is sectarian violence at its worst for now Shia nations and Sunni are sending men and materials to the zone. And rather oddly, we are siding with the Sunni who won't let girls go to school. Shia do. Why, Oil. Syria has none but the Saudi are awash in it and they are Sunni. Just like the Taliban and Al Qaida.

 

rastaone

(57 posts)
12. Its is an invasion not a sectarian war
Tue Jun 18, 2013, 10:07 AM
Jun 2013

That the other Sunni countries are attacking the sunni majority Syrian army means it cannot be a sectarian war. Its unfair to the many Sunni majority still fighting the foreigners called rebels

WovenGems

(776 posts)
13. Sunni
Tue Jun 18, 2013, 10:13 AM
Jun 2013

The Syrian army is Shia and other. The Sunni are fighting for control of whole country and not independence. Shia want to live in peace while Sunni want to eliminate all who aren't Sunni. And we chose to help the religiously conservative side. We do the dumbest things.

 

cali

(114,904 posts)
4. that's an awful piece.
Tue Jun 18, 2013, 07:32 AM
Jun 2013

and I am absolutely opposed to intervention in Syria

First of all, the comparison is utterly spurious. Fuck, of course the colonies were able to set up infrastructure. We were thousands of miles across an ocean from our colonizer, in an era when traversing the ocean took weeks.

Chile? Brazil? Almost as spurious. the religious divide which is such an enormous component in Syria, played virtually no part in those countries.

Oh, and lest Hartmann forgot: There was indeed foreign intervention/aid in the U.S. Revolution. Has he never heard of General Lafayette?

In the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), France fought alongside the United States, against Britain, from 1778. French money, munitions, soldiers and naval forces proved essential to America's victory over the Crown, but France gained little except large debts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_in_the_American_Revolutionary_War

About the only thing Hartmann gets right here is that U.S. intervention is a really, really bad idea.

 

pipoman

(16,038 posts)
6. Exactly what I was going to point out..
Tue Jun 18, 2013, 07:57 AM
Jun 2013

without the help of the French, the US revolution likely would have turned out much differently..no, the OP is inaccurate in that almost every successful regime change/revolution has hinged on assistance from other nations..I can't think of any which haven't..

 

cali

(114,904 posts)
7. Maybe I'm just too nitpicky but this kind of ahistorical stuff drives me nuts
Tue Jun 18, 2013, 08:46 AM
Jun 2013

I'm not convinced that your statement that "almost every successful regime change/revolution has hinged on assistance from other nations." is true however.

 

rhett o rick

(55,981 posts)
8. Even if a revolution is started from the ground, the elites will step in and
Tue Jun 18, 2013, 09:29 AM
Jun 2013

take over. Elite theory says that all organizations, governments, etc. are run by the elites. And I believe that all revolutions just replace one set of elite rulers with another. The new government may recognize they need to be nicer to the people, at least for a while. Revolutions make it easier for splinter groups to gain power which often turn out as bad or worse than the government that was replaced. The United States has had a terrible track record of choosing sides in foreign "revolutions".

I believe the American Revolution was unique. If it happened in England it would have been squashed. But it happened across a huge ocean while the Brits were fighting in Europe. And it was fortunate that the elites that believed in trying a new form of government that was a combination of democracy and republicanism.

sabrina 1

(62,325 posts)
9. I wonder when Assad suddenly became a dictator? He was an 'ally' when we were driving
Tue Jun 18, 2013, 09:35 AM
Jun 2013

millions of Iraqis from their own country and Syria was one of the most cooperative as far as accepting them.

I guess he's on the PNAC list, well Syria is. One of the seven countries they listed as part of their great plan to 'rearrange' the entire ME.

We have a new way of 'fighting wars' now. Hillary explained after we did it in Libya. We hire proxy armies from some of our dictator friends, Bahrain and Uzbekistan eg. We find some groups inside the country and arm them. Then we create a story about 'dictators' and NATO, not the US, creating a no'fly zone to help the rebels, well the fake rebels. This way we can claim 'we don't have boots on the ground'. We can use our drones and still make that claim also.

Ledeen, Woflowitz, Cheney et al, are still running the war machine it seems. I wish I knew what we have to do to stop them.

marble falls

(56,359 posts)
10. In the face of a reported over 90,000 dead in this outrage, I think that Syria has not reached a
Tue Jun 18, 2013, 09:57 AM
Jun 2013

tipping point where a majority of the population wants to have regime change. It may be arrangeable by supplying weapons or outside troops. Why? We need another Iraq? We need to bring down another non-theocratic government? How stable is Iraq right now? Once the majority of folks decided to bring down the USSR( an extremely centrally controlled system that withstood the Third Reich, internal genocides, NATO, the CIA, etc)it only took four days and a handful of casualties to bring it down.

I think what is happening in Syria is horrendous. I also think outside influencers may well have made it worse. I find the possibility of US or NATO or UN troop fighting along side of al Qaeda or other mujahedin forces surreal in light of everything thats happened since Russia invaded Afghanistan.

There's a lot of lessons to be learned in a photo of Sen McCain with a shit eating grin on his face standing next to a couple of murdering kidnappers.

 

watoos

(7,142 posts)
11. It has hardly been mentioned
Tue Jun 18, 2013, 10:02 AM
Jun 2013

that the majority of the people of Syria are not behind the rebellion. The majority of Syrians support Assad.

blackspade

(10,056 posts)
14. Hartmann's history is wrong on nearly all counts.
Tue Jun 18, 2013, 10:17 AM
Jun 2013

But, he is not wrong in his assertion that the US has no business being in Syria.

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