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alarsso

Understanding Syria: From Pre-Civil War to Post-Assad - The Atlantic - 0 views

  • xtreme temperatures
  • drought from 2006 to 2011
  • 2001 to 2010, Syria had 60 “significant” dust storms.
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  • lessening of rainfall
  • as of the last year before the civil war, only about 13,500 square kilometers could be irrigated
  • agriculture
  • 20 percent of national income
  • employed about 17 percent
  • Syria’s oil is of poor quality, sour, and expensive to refine
  • densely populated
  • less than 0.25 hectares (just over a third of an acre) of agricultural land per person
  • population/resource ratio is out of balance.
  • So it is important to understand how their “social contract”—their view of their relationship with one another and with the government—evolved and then shattered.
  • threw the country into the arms of
  • Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser
  • or three and a half years
  • part of the United Arab Republic
  • A fundamental problem they faced was what it meant to be a Syrian.
  • 1961 Syrians were thrown back on their own resources
  • The majority of those who became Syrians were Arabic-speaking Sunni Muslims
  • seven and eight in 10 Syrians saw themselves as Muslim Arab
  • being a Muslim Arab as the very definition of Syrian identity.
  • Nationalists took this diversity as a primary cause of weakness and adopted as their primary task integrating the population into a single political and social structure.
  • Israel
  • Looming over Syrian politics and heightening the tensions
  • A ceasefire, negotiated in 1974, has held, but today the two states are still legally at war.
  • or Hafez al-Assad, the secular, nationalist Baath Party was a natural choice: it offered, or seemed to offer, the means to overcome his origins in a minority community and to point toward a solution to the disunity of Syrian politics
  • bridge the gaps between rich and poor
  • socialism
  • Muslims and minorities
  • Islam
  • society
  • hould be modern
  • secular
  • defined by a culture of “Arabism”
  • the very antithesis of
  • Muslim Brotherhood
  • military, which seemed
  • o embody the nation.
  • help the Syrian people to live better provided only that they not challenge his rule
  • his stern and often-brutal monopoly of power
  • foreign troublemakers
  • Hafez al-Assad sided with Iran in the Iran-Iraq war
  • During the rule of the two Assads, Syria made considerable progress.
  • locked into the cities and towns
  • they f
  • had to compete
  • Palestinians
  • Iraqis
  • Syria was already a refuge
  • March 15, 2011
  • small group gathered in the southwestern town of Daraa to protest against government failure to help them
  • government saw them as subversives.
  • He ordered a crackdown
  • And the army,
  • responded violently.
  • Riots broke out
  • attempted to quell them with military
  • what had begun as a food and water issue gradually turned into a political and religious cause.
  • interpretation of Islam
  • the Syrian government is charged with using illegal chemical weapons
  • All observers agree that the foreign-controlled and foreign-constituted insurgent groups are the most coherent, organized, and effective
  • astonishing as they share no common language and come from a wide variety of cultures
  • slam has at least so far failed to provide an effective unifying force
  • all the rebels regard the conflict in Syria as fundamentally a religious issue
  • pwards of $150 billion
  • a whole generation of Syrians have been subjected to either or both the loss of their homes and their trust in fellow human beings.
  • How the victims and the perpetrators can be returned to a “normal life”
  • First, the war might continue.
  • Second, if the Syrian government continues or even prevails, there is no assurance that,
  • t will be able to suppress the insurgency.
  • Third,
  • Syria will remain effectively “balkanized”
  •  
    This article captures Syria's geography, history, and all events leading up to the state Syria is in today.
mwrightc

How ISIS Spread in Syria and Iraq-and How to Stop It - The Atlantic - 0 views

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    This article approaches understanding ISIS by looking at it from the root cause rather than trying to understand based on their current movements and attacks. The movement has spread so easily because it is fighting for the noble cause, to so many people, of making the world a better place and moving towards the end of the world.
yperez2

Egypt's Trouble With Women - 1 views

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    This article provides a better understanding as to why women have begun to lose their rights that they used to have. Lotfia is mentioned, a women who brought hope to Egyptian women and is seen as a hero.
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    This article provides a better understanding as to why women have begun to lose their rights that they used to have. Lotfia is mentioned, a women who brought hope to Egyptian women and is seen as a hero.
cthomase

After Libya, understanding war - 0 views

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    A record of Michael Christopher Brown's life both inside and outside Libya during 2011, this new photobook details is about a young man going to war for the first time and his experience of that age-old desire to get as close as possible to a conflict.
hkerby2

CDC | Facts About Chlorine - 0 views

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    In this link the Center for Disease Control and Prevention or CDC, offers information on chlorine gas poisoning including: what chlorine is, where it is found and how it is used, exposure, how it works, signs and symptoms, and long term health effects. This is beneficial for understanding one of the main chemical weapons in Syria, chlorine gas.
aavenda2

The most important thing to understand about the coming oil production cutbacks - 1 views

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    The United States and Canada are cutting back on oil production beginning 2015. The high cost of production in the two countries does now allow it to compete with Saudi Arabia oil and other countries with lower costs as market prices begin to fall
klweber2

Israel cartoon highlights troubled ties with US - 0 views

  • sraeli political cartoon
  • troubled relationship between Israel and the United States.
  • against its message of a crisis in bilateral relations
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • tense dynamic with Netanyahu,
  • Obama administration
  • defending Israel's interests.
  • ecturing tone toward the U.S. president.
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    This is an article about an Israeli political cartoon that depicts an Israeli plane flying towards a US tower. The article discusses how this is very thoughtless on the Israeli side and does't understand the magnitude of 9/11. 
hkerby2

President Bashar al-Assad - 0 views

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    This link is a biography of President Bashar al-Assad. Towards the end of the biography Assad's role in human rights and use of chemical weaponry is mentioned. Additionally, the link provides his early life and life in presidency which is crucial to understanding the current situation that exists in Syria.
wmulnea

Libya: Contemporary Affairs - 1 views

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    This article provides a brief background and history of the Libyan revolution. This background is helpful in understanding the current situation in Libya.
hkerby2

10 simple points to help you understand the Syria conflict - 0 views

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    This is a complicated war. This site explains in more detail than others and with more emotions put into it as well. It offers first hand accounts of men and women involved in the civil war. Also it discusses the refugee camps that are not mentioned in other sites. The site states that this is a messy, cruel war where neither side has much regard for civilian casualties.
mwrightc

ISIS trail of Terror | Is ISIS a Threat to the U.S.? - ABC News - 0 views

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    This is another article that describes the group ISIS and how it started as a small part of Al-Quaeda into one of the most notorious terrorist groups today.
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    This is another article that describes the group ISIS and how it started as a small part of Al-Quaeda into one of the most notorious terrorist groups today.
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    By Lee Ferran and Rym Momtaz Born from an especially brutal al Qaeda faction, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has grown from relative obscurity in recent years to overshadow its extremist patrons. It now terrorizes large swaths of Syria and Iraq, has become the target of the largest U.S.
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    Should the United States fear ISIS as a possible threat? This interactive learning site gives an understanding of who ISIS is, their history, and what their mission is.
ralph0

Walsall to Syria: Fighters, travellers and victims? - BBC News - 0 views

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    This article is definitely an interesting read. It talks about a network of travelers from Walsall that are now part of ISIS. I think that we really need to better understand why people in Western countries feel the urge to leave everything they have and go live under Islamic rule in Syria. There has to be some sort of brainwashing involved because this article shows one of the men having claimed not to be murderous, and that he just wants to "live under Islamic law and help the oppressed amongst us."
cguybar

Where Did Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood Go Wrong? - US News - 0 views

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    This article gives insight on how the Muslim Brotherhood misjudged the support they had in Egypt, which assisted in the downfall of the Brotherhood. Another concept brought up was their actual lack of understanding and experience of governing a large population.
ralph0

How Russian bombing is changing Syria's war, in 3 maps - Vox - 0 views

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    Awesome article about the recent Russian bombing of Syria and how it affects the big picture. This article has some time-lapse maps with territories highlighted on it. It is very helpful in better understanding how current events are affecting the territories being controlled.
ralph0

Turkey shelling Syrian Kurdish militia in northern Aleppo - YPG - RT News - 0 views

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    How is Turkey getting away with this? It is noteworthy that the Aleppo mentioned is not the city, but the province which extends much further north. However, I still fail to understand how countries can get away with blurring lines and breaking international law, while I have to pay simple traffic fines. What will be the response of the idealistic democracies of the West?
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