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mwrightc

ISIS Pulls Out Of Palmyra, Leaves Destruction In Its Wake : The Two-Way : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...leaves-destruction-in-its-wake

ISIS attack destruction Syria

shared by mwrightc on 29 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • mwrightc on 29 Mar 16
     
    Progress has been made in Syria with the recapture of the central city of Palmyra. ISIS seized the city in May of last year and has now left it in a wake of destruction.
ralph0

Syria's Palmyra: Ghost Town Bearing Scars of IS Destruction - ABC News - 0 views

abcnews.go.com/...ing-scars-destruction-38088388

ISIS syria palmayra army

shared by ralph0 on 01 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • ralph0 on 01 Apr 16
     
    Finally Palmayra is no longer under the destruction that it was, or whatever's left of it. This article talks about how the city has changed under ISIS. Apparently, they handed out booklets to the residents advertising themselves.
hkerby2

Syria begins destruction of chemical weapons facilities - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...lweapons-idUSKBN0KS1GY20150119

syria OPCW destruction chemical weapons

shared by hkerby2 on 15 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • hkerby2 on 15 Feb 15
     
    After a long delay, Syria has begun its destruction of dozens of storage facilities used to house chemical weapons. Syria joined the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) after an attack in Damascus killed more than 1000 people in 2013. Syria has handed over thousands of pounds of chemical agents since joining the OPCW but has yet to disclose any documentation about its chemical weapons program.
hkerby2

Uncertainty on destruction of chemical weapons and facilities - 0 views

www.zawya.com/...al_weapons-ZAWYA20150322030602

destruction of facilities syria chemical weapons

shared by hkerby2 on 23 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • hkerby2 on 23 Mar 15
     
    there is uncertainty on destruction of chemical weapons and facilities. This thought arose shortly after the most resent attack on the Syrian people through the use of chlorine gas. There needs to be further investigation into the presence of chemical weapons and facilities
ralph0

Witness the stunning devastation inside Aleppo's destroyed souks - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...inside-aleppos-destroyed-souks

Aleppo destruction isis syria

shared by ralph0 on 01 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • ralph0 on 01 Apr 16
     
    This is an article with pictures of Aleppo, my hometown. I know most of these places, and the pictures are surreal. I cannot believe the level of destruction that has affected the city.
hkerby2

Ninety-six percent of Syria's declared chemical weapons destroyed - 0 views

www.un.org/...story.asp

UN OPCW 96 percent destruction

shared by hkerby2 on 12 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • hkerby2 on 12 Mar 15
     
    according to the UN, 96 percent of Syria's chemical weapons have been destroyed and the preparation for destruction of the 12 remaining facilities is underway. The UN hopes that peace and political process will be Syria's main priority soon.
allieggg

Can Libya Rebuild Itself After 40 Years of Gaddafi? - 0 views

www.newsweek.com/f-after-40-years-gaddafi-68601

Gaddafi libya Arab Nationalism recontruction political tabula rasa Revolution politics middle east

shared by allieggg on 12 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • the man has hollowed out the Libyan state, eviscerated all opposition in Libyan society, and, in effect, created a political tabula rasa on which a newly free people will now have to scratch out a future.
  • Jamahiriya, a political system that is run directly by tribesmen without the intermediation of state institutions
  • the problem is, of course, that much like in the former Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe, virtually everyone at one point or another had to deal with the regime to survive.
  • ...25 more annotations...
  • Libya is truly a case apart.
  • the disastrous Italian legacy in Libya, has been a constant element in Gaddafi’s speeches since he took power
  • inspired by Gamal Abdel Nasser, neighboring Egypt’s president, whose ideas of Arab nationalism and of the possibility of restoring glory to the Arab world, would fuel the first decade of Gaddafi’s revolution.
  • he was unimpressed with the niceties of international diplomacy,
  • In a brilliant move that co-opted tribal elders, many of whom were also military commanders, he created the Social Leadership People’s Committee, through which he could simultaneously control the tribes and segments of the country’s military.
  • When it turned out that Libya, which was still a decentralized society in 1969, had little appetite for his centralizing political vision and remained largely indifferent to his proposals, the young idealist quickly turned activist.
  • Green Book, a set of slim volumes published in the mid-1970s that contain Gaddafi’s political philosophy, a blueprint is offered for a dramatic restructuring of Libya’s economy, politics, and society. In principle, Libya would become an experiment in democracy. In reality, it became a police state where every move of its citizens was carefully watched by a growing number of security apparatuses and revolutionary committees that owed loyalty directly to Gaddafi.
  • Having crushed all opposition by the mid-1970s, the regime systematically snuffed out any group that could potentially oppose it—any activity that could be construed as political opposition was punishable by death, which is one reason why a post-Gaddafi Libya, unlike a post-Mubarak Egypt, can have no ready-made opposition in a position to fill the vacuum.
  • The tribes—the Warfalla, the Awlad Busayf, the Magharha, the Zuwaya, the Barasa, and the smallest of them all, the Gadafa, to which he belonged—offered a natural form of political affiliation, a tribal ethos that could be tapped into for support. And perhaps, in the aftermath of Gaddafi, they could serve as a nucleus around which to build a new political system.
  • Gaddafi feared they might coalesce into groups opposing his rule. So, during the first two decades after the 1969 coup, he tried to erase their influence, arguing that they were an archaic element in a modern society.
  • comprehensive reconstruction of everything civic, political, legal, and moral that makes up a society and its government.
  • After systematically destroying local society, after using the tribes to cancel each other out, after aborting methodically the emergence of a younger generation that could take over Libya’s political life—all compounded by the general incoherence of the country’s administrative and bureaucratic institutions—Gaddafi will have left a new Libya with severe and longstanding challenges.
  • the growing isolation of Libya as international sanctions were imposed.
  • Lockerbie was the logical endpoint for a regime that had lost all international legitimacy.
  • while the regime still had the coercive power to put down any uprisings that took place in the 1990s, it became clear to Gaddafi’s closest advisers that the potential for unrest had reached unprecedented levels.
  • way out was to come to an agreement with the West that would end the sanctions, allow Libya to refurbish an aging oil infrastructure, and provide a safety valve by permitting Libyans to travel abroad once more.
  • intent to renounce weapons of mass destruction in December 2003—after a long process of behind-the-scenes diplomacy initially spearheaded by Britain
  • “The Revolution Everlasting” was one of the enduring slogans of his Libya, inscribed everywhere from bridges to water bottles.
  • regime that had, for four decades, mismanaged the country’s economy and humiliated its citizens
  • country was split in half, with eastern Cyrenaica and its main city Benghazi effectively independent—a demonstration of the kind of people’s power Gaddafi had always advocated. Reality, in effect, outgrew the caricature.
  • used a set of divide-and-rule policies that not only kept his opponents sundered from each other, but had also completely enfeebled any social or political institution in the country.
  • Beyond Gaddafi, there exists only a great political emptiness, a void that Libya somehow will need to fill.
  • the creation of a modern state where Libyans become true citizens, with all the rights and duties this entails.
  • the terrorist incidents
  • Regimes can use oil revenues strategically to provide patronage that effectively keeps them in power.
  • allieggg on 12 Nov 14
     
    This article from News Week basically paints a picture of Libyan history and how Gaddafi's reign devastated the state economically, socially, and politically. Author Dirk Vandewalle uses the phrase "a political tabula rasa" which in Latin means a blank slate, to describe the fate of Libya after Gaddafi's rule and convey the extent to which the country has to literally reconstruct every component that makes up a society and its government. He highlights major events that led to the downfall of both the Gaddafi regime and the Libyan state as a whole such as Arab nationalism, Jamahiriya, the Green Book, security apparatuses snuffing all opposition, terrorist incidents, isolation and international sanctions, the Lockerbie bombing, weapons of mass destruction, human right violations, divide and rule policies, and his use of oil revenue to fuel his insurgency. Vandewalle concludes the article with uncertain ideas thoughts towards Libya's future and the way the state is going to literally rebuild themselves from this "blank slate" that Gaddafi left behind. 
fcastro2

A daring plan to rebuild Syria - no matter who wins the war - Ideas - The Boston Globe - 0 views

www.bostonglobe.com/...story.html

syria plan war politics china russia the west

shared by fcastro2 on 23 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • The first year of Syria’s uprising, 2011, largely spared Aleppo, the country’s economic engine, largest city, and home of its most prized heritage sites. Fighting engulfed Aleppo in 2012 and has never let up since, making the city a symbol of the civil war’s grinding destruction
  • Rebels captured the eastern side of the city while the government held the wes
  • , residents say the city is virtually uninhabitable; most who remain have nowhere else to go
  • ...28 more annotations...
  • In terms of sheer devastation, Syria today is worse off than Germany at the end of World War II
  • ven as the fighting continues, a movement is brewing among planners, activists and bureaucrats—some still in Aleppo, others in Damascus, Turkey, and Lebanon—to prepare, right now, for the reconstruction effort that will come whenever peace finally arrives.
  • In a glass tower belonging to the United Nations’ Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, a project called the National Agenda for the Future of Syria has brought together teams of engineers, architects, water experts, conservationists, and development experts to grapple with seemingly impossible technical problems
  • It is good to do the planning now, because on day one we will be ready,”
  • The team planning the country’s future is a diverse one. Some are employed by the government of Syria, others by the rebels’ rival provisional government. Still others work for the UN, private construction companies, or nongovernmental organizations involved in conservation, like the World Monuments Fund
  • As the group’s members outline a path toward renewal, they’re considering everything from corruption and constitutional reform to power grids, antiquities, and health care systems.
  • Aleppo is split between a regime side with vestiges of basic services, and a mostly depopulated rebel-controlled zone, into which the Islamic State and the Al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front have made inroads over the last year
  • The population exodus has claimed most of the city’s craftsmen, medical personnel, academics, and industrialists
  • It took decades to clear the moonscapes of rubble and to rebuild, in famous targets like Dresden and Hiroshima but in countless other places as well, from Coventry to Nanking. Some places never recovered their vitality.
  • Of course, Syrian planners cannot help but pay attention to the model closest to home: Beirut, a city almost synonymous with civil war and flawed reconstructio
  • We don’t want to end up like Beirut,” one of the Syrian planners says, referring to the physical problems but also to a postwar process in which militia leaders turned to corrupt reconstruction ventures as a new source of funds and power
  • Syria’s national recovery will depend in large part on whether its industrial powerhouse Aleppo can bounce back
  • Across Syria, more than one-third of the population is displaced.
  • Today, however, the city’s water and power supply are under the control of the Islamic State
  • The city’s workshops, famed above all for their fine textiles, export millions of dollars’ worth of goods every week even now, and the economy has expanded to include modern industry as well.
  • A river of rubble marks the no-man’s land separating the two sides. The only way to cross is to leave the city, follow a wide arc, and reenter from the far side.
  • Parts of the old city won’t be inhabitable for years, he told me by Skype, because the ground has literally shifted as a result of bombing and shelling
  • The first and more obvious is creating realistic options to fix the country after the war—in some cases literal plans for building infrastructure systems and positioning construction equipment, in other cases guidelines for shaping governanc
  • They’re familiar with global “best practices,” but also with how things work in Syria, so they’re not going to propose pie-in-the-sky idea
  • If some version of the current regime remains in charge, it will probably direct massive contracts toward patrons in Russia, China, or Iran. The opposition, by contrast, would lean toward firms from the West, Turkey, and the Gulf.
  • At the current level of destruction, the project planners estimate the reconstruction will cost at least $100 billion
  • Recently a panel of architects and heritage experts from Sweden, Bosnia, Syria, and Lebanon convened in Beirut to discuss lessons for Syria’s reconstruction—one of the many distinct initiatives parallel to the Future of Syria project.
  • “You should never rebuild the way it was,” said Arna Mackic, an architect from Mostar. That Bosnian city was divided during the 1990s civil war into Muslim and Catholic sides, destroying the city center and the famous Stari Most bridge over the Neretva River. “The war changes us. You should show that in rebuilding.”
  • Instead, Mackik says, the sectarian communities keep to their own enclaves. Bereft of any common symbols, the city took a poll to figure out what kind of statue to erect in the city center. All the local figures were too polarizing. In the end they settled on a gold-colored statue of the martial arts star Bruce Lee
  • “It belongs to no one,” Mackic says. “What does Bruce Lee mean to me?
  • is that it could offer the city’s people a form of participatory democracy that has so far eluded the Syrian regime and sadly, the opposition as well.
  • “You are being democratic without the consequences of all the hullabaloo of formal democratization
  • A great deal of money has been invested in Syria’s destruction— by the regime, the local parties to the conflict, and many foreign powers. A great deal of money will be made in the aftermath, in a reconstruction project that stands to dwarf anything seen since after World War II.
  • fcastro2 on 23 Feb 15
     
    While it is still unclear as to who will win the Syrian conflict, there are people who are already looking towards the future and a better Syria. Plans are being made but, of course, these plans will entirely depend on who wins the war. 
mcooka

17 years after war - Yugoslavia again protesting NATO - Workers World - 0 views

www.workers.org/...goslavia-again-protesting-nato

war nato workers world

shared by mcooka on 24 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Home » Global » 17 years after war — Yugoslavia again protesting NATO 17 years after war — Yugoslavia again protesting NATO By Heather Cottin posted on March 22, 2016 Share On March 24, 1999, the U.S. led its European NATO allies in a 78-day bombing campaign targeting
  • Serbia in order to destroy Yugoslavia, the last socialist country holding out in Europe. NATO planes bombed hospitals, factories, schools, trains, television stations, bridges and homes, killing thousands of Yugoslavs.
  • n 2000, the same NATO forces destabilized what remained of Yugoslavia — the republics of Serbia and Montenegr
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • ugoslavia was an independent and relatively prosperous country. With no Soviet Union after 1991, Yugoslavia was vulnerable to the powerful imperialist countries in Western Europe and the United States, which provoked and exacerbated disputes among the various Yugoslav peoples
  • NATO’s pattern for the destruction of Libya and Syria — and also of Iraq and Afghanistan, with variations
  • cialism in Yugoslavia produced artists and intellectuals, free health care, zero unemployment, free education, excellent public transportation and advanced industrial and agricultural developmen
  • After the destruction of Milosevic and his party, neoliberal forces in Serbia and the other republics privatized the health care system, sold off the mines, and closed automobile, petroleum and other industries. Now Bosnia has an unemployment rate of 43 percent, Croatia’s is 19 percent, and tiny Kosovo’s is 45 percent. Kosovo hosts the largest U.S. military base in the Balkans, Camp Bondsteel, which protects Kosovo’s criminal government and oversees NATO control in the Balkans.
  • n the U.S. in 1999-2001, the International Action Center and Workers World Party played a leading role among those who stood firm against expanding NATO’s mayhem and slaughter in Yugoslavia.
  • mcooka on 24 Mar 16
     
    This is an article about Yugoslavia which doesn't want the interference of NATO in their lives any more. NATO and Yugoslavia gets into details about foreign policy 
ralph0

Syria's future: A black hole of instability | GulfNews.com - 0 views

gulfnews.com/...-hole-of-instability-1.1715692

Syria aleppo future al assad

shared by ralph0 on 18 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • ralph0 on 18 Apr 16
     
    This is an article that looks forward at Syria's future and compares it with the past. It talks about how Syria used to be a regional keystone state, and that its stability allowed it to be a refuge for people from wars all around. Now, however, it talks about the destruction that has happened and how much work it would take to rebuild the Syrian economy. It also talks about how even after the conflict, there will be a 10 year period needed to clear the country of warlords and thugs from the war.
kevinobkirchner

Egypt says killed 26 Sinai 'terrorists' over last week | Middle East Eye - 0 views

www.middleeasteye.net/...rists-over-last-week-803759725

egypt sinai terrorists immigrants

shared by kevinobkirchner on 28 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • kevinobkirchner on 28 Sep 14
     
    In the week leading up to 9/28/14 the Egyptian army has killed 26 terrorists and arrested 84 others. The operations took place mainly in and around the Sinai peninsula and include the destruction of 18 cross border tunnels between Egypt and Gaza and thwarting illegal immigration of 148 people. This was part of a larger ongoing operation against unknown militants in Sinai that rose up after the ousting of Mohamed Morsi last summer.
wmulnea

New Attacks on Libya's Oil Fields Shake Nation's Stability, Energy Markets - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...lity-energy-markets-1425840239

shared by wmulnea on 09 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • wmulnea on 09 Mar 15
     
    Another article addressing the recent destruction of Libyan oil fields, the Wall Street Journal points a more direct finger at the Islamic State. This article suggests that militant groups do not have the expertise to take advantage of the oil fields themselves,; therefore, they destroy the oil fields in an attempt to keep rival political factions from using the oil fields to their advantage.
wmulnea

Attacks Cripple 11 Oil Fields, Libya Says - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...oduction-at-11-oil-fields.html

shared by wmulnea on 09 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • wmulnea on 09 Mar 15
     
    The New York Times reports that eleven oilfields in Libya are not operational due "theft, looting, sabotage and destruction." The armed groups responsible remain unidentified. ISIS has allegedly beheaded Egyptian Christians in the area, but as of yet, are not taking responsibility for the oil field looting.
hkerby2

Declared Syrian chemical weapon stockpile now completely destroyed - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...kpile-now-completely-destroyed

chemical weapon obama syria cargo ship

shared by hkerby2 on 12 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • hkerby2 on 12 Mar 15
     
    In August of 2014, the Obama administration announced the completion of destruction of Syrian chemical weapon stockpile was destroyed. The stockpile was aboard a Danish cargo ship and held some of the worlds most dangerous weapons.
jshnide

Hamas vs. Fatah: The Palestinian Civil War | Foundation for Defense of Democracies - 0 views

www.defenddemocracy.org/atah-the-palestinian-civil-war

hamas palestinian civil war fatah

shared by jshnide on 13 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • jshnide on 13 Apr 15
     
    In 2007, the Palestinian Civil War took place and the fighting between Fatah and Hamas caused much destruction. This war makes peacemaking extremely difficult for the nation today.
petergrossmanseu

Kobane - Before and After The War - YouTube - 0 views

www.youtube.com/watch

Kobane syria ISIS RPGs before and after

shared by petergrossmanseu on 03 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • petergrossmanseu on 03 Feb 16
     
    The video contains quite a bit of footage shot in the streets during firefights and also contains lots of before and after shots of the city. I found the direct before-and-after comparison shots really powerful and it was for a sort of visual representation of the scale of destruction going on.
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