Christmas in Damascus

Bab Touma's Dandana Cafe is fully decked out for the season [Ali Haj Suleiman/Al Jazeera]

Opening paragraphs from an Al Jazeera report:

Christmas in Damascus is different this year, after al-Assad’s fall by Ali Haj Suleiman

Damascus, Syria – There’s something different about Christmas this year, Damascenes say.

Although the decorations may have been more elaborate last year, Carol al-Sahhaf says this year’s festive mood is a cut above, less than two weeks after Bashar al-Assad fled and his regime crumbled.

On either side of the biblical Street Called Straight – or al-Mustaqeem or just Straight Street for short – lights and Christmas trees adorn the cafes, restaurants, shops and homes of Bab Sharqi, the neighbourhood nestled up to the Eastern Gate of the ancient Old City.

The alleyways around Straight Street are bustling, with a spring-like feeling in the air as shopkeepers repaint, dust off their shelves, and hang the green, white and black Free Syria flag.

Lights, cookies, and optimism

Al-Assad fled on December 8, and the country erupted into jubilation that lasted for days as Syrians celebrated the fall of the al-Assad family and the end of more than 50 years of brutal rule.

As those celebrations calmed, Olga al-Muuti told Al Jazeera, everyone turned to preparing for Christmas, New Year’s and Orthodox Christmas.

 

Syria

al Assad - Dasha Zaitseva/Gazeta. R

The sudden departure of Assad seems to have caught everyone by surprise. The situation seems to be chaotic at best. Don't want to speculate what's going to happen, but this might be good time to review what led to this situation. Here's some stories I can across today:

• Assad’s collapse was coming – everyone just looked away by Vitaly Ryumshin
• Families search Syria’s Sednaya Prison for loved ones after al-Assad’s fall
• The Syrian mess - Bayou Rennaissance Man
• Syrious Change - The Assad Regime Falls - The Shekel

I do wonder why most every country outside of North America and Europe seems to be run vicious thugs. Is that the only way they can keep a lid on things? Are their populations just more naturally fractious? Are they stupid? Has the heat fried their brains?

Or maybe I just haven't seen the light. If I had, I would know in my heart of hearts that the Grand Poobah of Lower Elbonia was the voice of God and that I should kill all the infidels. I'm sorry, I can't. I am too indoctrinated with the liberal ways of the West. Christ almighty, my wife not only drives, she has her own car.

Syria

A street in Douma, east of Damascus, Syria, 2015

Syria is a mess. Haven't heard anything coherent for a while. Oh, there's a bits a pieces, but seldom do I see an overall picture of the situation, well, at least one short enough for my limited attention span. I'm not going to spend hours digging into it mostly because I am not that curious. However, I am a little curious and today I found this succinct summary of the situation on Gatestone Institute.

Excerpt from Syria: Geopolitical Tragedy by Amir Taheri:

The tragedy that has claimed almost half a million lives and made nearly half of the population refugees or displaced persons wasn't caused by a defective constitution and won't be concluded with a constitution dreamed by Pedersen and his associates.

The truth is that Syria has ceased to have effective existence as a nation-state. At the same time, however, it cannot be regarded as a classical "ungoverned territory" because different chunks of it are under some measure of governance by foreign powers and their local surrogates and allies.

That makes Syria a complex geopolitical problem that cannot be solved with pie-in-the-sky legalistic gambits.

Today, Syrian territory is under some measure of control by five different players.

One segment is run by Russia, partly through private security companies, with the remnants of President Bashar al-Assad's regime as its local façade. Another segment is controlled by Turkey and its local Muslim Brotherhood allies. The United States and some NATO allies control a third segment with support from local ethnic Kurds. The Islamic Republic of Iran and its Afghan, Pakistani, Iraqi, Syrian and Lebanese "foreign legions" control a fourth chunk. The last chunk is held by the remnants of the ISIS and former foes turned allies among anti-Assad groups.

. . .

Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. 

The Islamic Revolution in Iran happened in 1978, which probably explains why Amir stopped being the editor-in-chief.

Half a million lives is a considerable loss. That's almost 3% of the population.

I wonder if cutting the country up into five smaller fiefdoms might help. The old English guy's video on multiculturalism kind of explains why Assad was such a hard ass - it was the only way he could hold the country together. Not quite sure what happened. Was it ISIS or some other outside power that upset the apple cart, or did he suddenly become soft? Not that it matters now. Right now it is a battlefield for a proxy war between the USA and Russia, not that we'll ever admit it.

Aero L-39 Albatros

Aero L-39 Albatros

The Aero L-39 Albatros is a Czech jet trainer. They built almost 3,000 of them. Naturally the Soviet Union was the biggest customer. They were exported around the world. Some were adapted for ground attack.

This aircraft is operated by AEC Skyline, who support the Dutch air force. not to be confused with Skyline Aviation in San Angelo, Texas.

Related news:

The Russian Ministry of Defense shared footage of Syria’s new pilots flying on L-39 Albatros high-performance fighter jet trainers.  The Syrian Arab Air Force (SyAAF) has been using this type of warplane in close air support and in ground attack missions since 2012. - South Front

History

Salisbury Cathedral, reflections on the baptismal font
The cathedral in The Pillars of the Earth was modeled on Salisbury cathedral

I've started reading The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. It's not a great book, but it's a good story about building a cathedral in 12th century England. The story is painted in broad brush strokes. The hero is brave, strong and true, the princess is beautiful and the villain is despicable. In this way it is similar to Ertugrul, the Turkish soap opera we've been watching about a tribe of nomads in 13th century Turkey / Syria.

Today I figured out why I like these stories. It's because they include many of the details of everyday life back then. Most scholastic history is all about names and dates. 'So and so went to war against these other people and defeated them at the battle of the slimy swamp', which is all very well if you want to chronicle the power struggles that were going on at the time. But that shit is endless. There is always somebody picking a fight, and someone betraying his allies and somebody getting their ass kicked, but it doesn't really tell you very much about the how or why of something happening.

Now occasionally a small group of motivated, and presumably talented, warriors will score an unexpected victory, but more often it is a matter of training, tactics and superior weaponry. And those come from a society that is rich enough to spend time developing these things. And you get a rich society from free trade, free minds and the rule of law.

The Pillars of the Earth is more nuts and bolts, building a cathedral requires a great many craftsmen making things. The politics, so far, has all been of the local variety. Ertugrul is more like propaganda: the Muslims are good, the Templars are bad, but it does a good job of portraying life in a nomadic encampment, well at least life among the one-percent-ers.

Aleppo

Aleppo in the 13th Century

We've been watching Resurrection: Ertugrul on Netflix. In episode 5 our hero pays a visit to Aleppo. It flashes on the screen for maybe a second just after the 17 minute mark. Is this the same Aleppo that has been getting hammered in the Syrian civil war? Why, yes it is. The place has expanded significantly since the 13th Century.

The ancient citadel with the modern city.

DIY WEAPONS OF SYRIA

An armored dullbozer in Dahiyat al-Assad, west Aleppo city, Syria. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah

Reuters has a series of 20 photos of homemade weapons being used by the rebels against the government. The captions of 14 of the photos refer to ¨Free Syrian Army¨, not ¨the rebels¨. 6 of the photos refer to ¨forces loyal to Syria's president Bashar al-Assad¨, not ¨Government Forces¨ as you might expect if Assad was a friend of ours. But since he´s on the our blacklist he gets called out. I would be offended. No wonder he is buddying up to Russia. Our government is living in some fantasy land. I doubt Trump would make a good president, but we really need to come down from our cloud.

Via California Bob.

P.S. Something funky going on with my browser, every time I want to use a quote character I have to type it twice. Some weird function must have got turned on by my ham-handed typing.

Syrian Refugees

Syrian Refugee Camp

Read something in the news the other day about how there are more refugees from Syria than there are grains of sand in the universe or something, which got me to thinking, as usual: "what the hell is going on over there?". Once I applied my brain to the problem (or once I had asked the right question) it became obvious.
    It does not take a large number of people to make an area unpalatable, and by unpalatable I mean dangerous enough that a reasonable person would think they would be safer somewhere else.On one hand we've got Assad, his supporters and the army, which, while numerous, probably don't make up more than a few percent of the population. On the other we've got the "rebels" (all the people who are angry enough with Assad to go against him), Al-Qaeda and all the loonies who like to wave guns around. Probably not any more than Assad has. But it only takes one RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade) blowing up your neighbor's house to make you think that maybe life would be better in Jordan or Turkey or, shoot, just about anywhere else.
    In the US Civil War about 10% of the population was in one army or another (3 million out of 30 million). In Syria I'm guessing it's more like 3%. The armed forces have 300 thousand men. Figure the rebels have about the same, and the population is something over 22 million. In the USA right now only about one half of one percent (0.5%) of the population is in the military.
    On one hand I sometimes think Assad is a tyrant on the same order as Saddam Hussein or the Shah of Iran. On the other hand, maybe he's become soft listening to Westerners talking about peace-love-and-understanding. I hate to say it but maybe what Syria needs is a good strong does of Stalin-esque discipline.

Update November 2020 replace photo and deleted Picasa album link.