Kinja reply list

Read More
thatsjustmyhairGail Sheehy
2/25/16 11:40am
In case anyone else is interested, read an enlightening piece on Politico written by RFK, Jr.

“Why the Arabs Don’t Want Us in Syria”

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story...

TLDR version: The U.S.A. has been purposefully fucking up M.E. democracy for decades bc Oil and $$$

I had no idea how many coups the CIA has (successfully) attempted in the M.E.
Reply
- Read More
  andsmokeit is mrs tormund giantsbanethatsjustmyhair
  2/25/16 11:45am
  and in south and central america!
  
  the cia is fun
  Reply
- Read More
  thatsjustmyhairandsmokeit is mrs tormund giantsbane
  2/25/16 12:07pm
  and we are bewildered why people hate us. eeesh.
  Reply
Read More
chritter is a nocturnal feminist mancatfishGail Sheehy
2/25/16 11:09am
Gail Sheehy is writing for Jezebel now?! Great heavens, that’s a helluva coup. Wonderful, informative piece, thank you for it.
Reply
- Read More
  Lula Mae Broadwaychritter is a nocturnal feminist mancatfish
  2/25/16 11:27am
  Took the words out of my mouth. V. Surprised to see this here and not in NYTimes Magazine.
  Reply
- Read More
  MillvilleLula Mae Broadway
  2/25/16 12:17pm
  “...an intrepid and slight blonde twentysomething from Idaho with a name like a Beatles song...” Maybe that line is why. Not her best.
  Reply
Read More
MessO'Espresso is a noodle-bodied slothGail Sheehy
2/25/16 11:08am
The way journalists are treated in many of these countries afflicted by conflict is terrifying. I’m glad the embassy got to Ana Therese Day, and I thank her for her bravery in reporting from the front lines. Let’s also not forget the many local journalists, interpreters, and others who cannot appeal to a powerful home country to assist them with security forces and/or terrorists come after them.
Reply
- Read More
  andsmokeit is mrs tormund giantsbaneMessO'Espresso is a noodle-bodied sloth
  2/25/16 11:18am
  lol you think other people live in the middle east besides american journalists
  
  silly messo
  
  fun game
  
  find two arabic names in this article that aren’t mentioned as part of isis
  Reply
- Read More
  DuddyKravitzMessO'Espresso is a noodle-bodied sloth
  2/25/16 11:19am
  A little alarming the embassy had been alerted immediately but didn’t offer help for 48 hours though. Actually they didn’t offer help until Day faked a fit and called them to demand they help.
  Reply
Read More
andsmokeit is mrs tormund giantsbaneGail Sheehy
2/25/16 11:03am
great follow up to the piece about the uprising from a bahraini perspective imo
Reply
- Read More
  Sobchak Securityandsmokeit is mrs tormund giantsbane
  2/25/16 11:37am
  And remember… There’s a reason you’re not reading this in a mainstream American ‘news’ outlet. Some of them have relationships and receive funding from despotic ME regimes so they self-censor stories like this.
  
  http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/sep...
  Reply
- Read More
  andsmokeit is mrs tormund giantsbaneSobchak Security
  2/25/16 11:44am
  also most them realize that americans don’t give a shit
  Reply
Read More
Cereal MonogamistGail Sheehy
2/25/16 11:42am
This was a fascinating read - I lived in Bahrain for several years and I am conflicted about that time of my life. I loved my time there, including traveling to the UAE, but in retrospect I was so naive to what was going on beyond the expat community. I’m uneasy reading things like this, but it’s so important that it’s exposed.
Reply
- Read More
  GeehaaCereal Monogamist
  2/25/16 6:55pm
  You took the words out my mouth - although I was in Saudi not Bahrain. Fond memories, but wow, I did a lot of head in the sand denial of stuff.
  Reply
- Read More
  Cereal MonogamistGeehaa
  2/25/16 10:02pm
  It’s weird, because I really didn’t feel like I had my head in the sand at the time - we moved there in 2005, and Bahrain was definitely the more liberal, open place to be in the Middle East. We were treated very well, by both expats and locals, and I really did leave with a good impression of the country. Of course, the public airing of human rights abuses during the Arab Spring changed a lot of my perception. While I obviously support those abuses being brought to light and rectified, I don’t know how to frame that in reference to my time there. It doesn’t change the experiences that I had, and the friends that I made, but in retrospect there was definitely a lot of negative things happening that I was unaware of. I would love to know about your Saudi experience, though!
  Reply
Read More
harmagedomGail Sheehy
2/25/16 12:54pm
Two words: Pax Syriana. The US will never, ever, seriously intervene in Syria, unless Assad goes absolutely insane. Right now he’s just murderously evil, what the US have never had a problem with...
Reply
- Read More
  Person29harmagedom
  2/25/16 2:33pm
  Actually, the US intervened in Syria for over a decade; they put sanctions on Syria at the behest of Israel, despite the fact that Syria enthusiastically helped America against Al Qaeda from 2001-2006, giving America some much needed intelligence on the group in September 2001.
  Reply
- Read More
  harmagedomPerson29
  2/25/16 3:04pm
  Although you’re factually correct, that’s kind of my point: the US will only go as far as sanctions, not actual intervention, like in Iraq, Afghanistan or Central America, exactly to not disrupt the Pax Syriana doctrine.
  Reply
Read More
imTired™thatisall is saving up for Gronk Cruise 2017Gail Sheehy
2/25/16 10:57am
Thank you for this article.
Reply
- Read More
  eatbeesimTired™thatisall is saving up for Gronk Cruise 2017
  2/25/16 11:14am
  Agreed. More stories like this please!
  Reply
- Read More
  SaintClarence27eatbees
  2/25/16 11:53am
  YES.
  Reply
Read More
EileenOnSundayNightsAfterAllInTheFamilyOnCBSGail Sheehy
2/25/16 11:09am
I’ve had that young Italian who was killed in Cairo on my mind this week. This story highlights how many Westerners want to understand as well as expose what’s happening and how easily it can go wrong.

I know there must be many in the region who want their stories to get out and are likely compiling their own journals of what’s really happening. But it’s far more likely will hear a story from and/or about Day, another Westerner like us, than any of them.
Reply
- Read More
  Akat101EileenOnSundayNightsAfterAllInTheFamilyOnCBS
  2/25/16 11:54am
  Day is very fortunate she’s still alive, after all she’s been through. As I read I kept thinking of the two female journalists who died under highly suspicious circumstances while reporting in Turkey.
  
  And I would like to think that in the future we will be hearing the stories of these countries from the nationals themselves rather than just Westerners who went there.
  Reply
- Read More
  katieglyphEileenOnSundayNightsAfterAllInTheFamilyOnCBS
  2/25/16 1:26pm
  I’ve seen some interesting theories as to why Giulio Regeni was picked up, disappeared, and tortured (there’s a good article here). I mean, we all know that the Egyptian secret police disappear people, and terrible, terrible things happen to them, but generally speaking, they don’t disappear foreign nationals, who have friends and families who will contact their embassies if they go missing, and who may be connected with international institutions such as Cambridge University and AUC. The most likely theory I’ve heard about what probably happened to Giulio is that whoever picked him up didn’t realise that disappearing and torturing a foreign national was a bad idea, and it was only when the penny dropped that they couldn’t just let him go, because he would be able to tell the world what goes on inside Egyptian jails, that they realised how colossally they’d fucked up. And then when news of his disappearance blew up on social media and the Italian government got involved, I would imagine there was some major panicking going on before they decided to just dump his body in a ditch by the side of the road and hope for the best, because, you know, if he turned up somewhere like that, well, anything could have happened to him! Egyptian police logic is truly a beautiful thing. (Seriously, this is country in which a four-year-old child was just mistakenly sentenced to a prison term for running over and killing a woman.)
  
  I’m sure Giulio knew that as a foreigner, it’s dangerous to ask questions about things like labour reforms and trade union disputes in Egypt. If you start asking questions about domestic Egyptian political affairs, some people (such as the secret police) will be very suspicious as to why you’re interested, and what you’re planning to do with that information, especially if you’re alone (try going anywhere involving a police checkpoint alone as a foreigner in Egypt, it’s a barrel of laughs, I can tell you). He probably expected that he might get picked up and questioned and have his apartment searched, and maybe get roughed up a bit and told to stop poking his nose in where it didn’t belong at worst, but I doubt he seriously thought that anything as awful as what eventually befell him would happen. You think your foreign passport will protect you, but in Sisi’s insanely paranoid Egypt, if you ask the wrong questions and associate with the wrong people, no matter who you are, you’re fair game.
  Reply
Read More
amarnagirl13 is on a Panera spree (mmm... bread...)Gail Sheehy
2/25/16 11:53am
GREAT article. The last sentence in this paragraph, especially, seemed to stick out to me:

“By June, ISIS had advanced to Aleppo and Assad was bombing the highways clogged with fleeing refugees. The U.S.-trained rebels were pleading for air support, of the kind they had seen the U.S. giving to the Kurds. Who came to the rescue? Al Qaeda affiliates roared across Aleppo in jeeps to save the rebels from ISIS.”

I believe it’s because we, in the west, seem to lump those two groups together and think they work WITH each other since they’re the nasty-big-bads...

I knew al-qaeda didn’t really jones well with ISIL because of ISIL’s brutish insanity, but I didn’t think they outwardly showed it in such a way.
Reply
- Read More
  Akat101amarnagirl13 is on a Panera spree (mmm... bread...)
  2/25/16 11:57am
  It's also sad to consider how easily the moderate rebels started to disappear once one extremist group swooped in to save them from another.
  Reply
- Read More
  pibberamarnagirl13 is on a Panera spree (mmm... bread...)
  2/25/16 12:59pm
  Yes, you nailed it about lumping the 2 groups together. I’m working so I can’t read this article as closely as I want, and because of that plus the lumping I was having trouble keeping up. I need to read more articles like this.
  Reply
Read More
Stig-a-saw-us wrecks loves nuclear power.Gail Sheehy
2/25/16 10:50am
“You’re a journalist, you hate our government, you’re working with terrorists!” her interrogators shouted.

Hi Pot, meet Kettle. The irony of that statement coming from the Daesh is absolutely eye opening.
Reply
- Read More
  The Noble RenardStig-a-saw-us wrecks loves nuclear power.
  2/25/16 10:53am
  That statement came from a Bahraini police officer. Bahrain has been providing military support against ISIS.
  Reply
- Read More
  Some of my best friends are firewalls- Whaaaaaaaa ha ha haStig-a-saw-us wrecks loves nuclear power.
  2/25/16 11:07am
  WTF? Did you actually read the article?
  Reply