...------------------------------------------------- THIS HOUSE WOULD ARM THE SYRIAN REBELS (from idebate.org) Syria, a relatively small but pivotal Middle Eastern Country, has been on a downward spiral since March 2011 when there were peaceful street protests calling for the President, Bashar al Assad, to step down. Assad responded with force, firing on the protestors in Daara on 21st March, and within a week demonstrations and some clashes in six of the twelve provincial capitals. Quelling Daara with force was followed in late April with violent clashes in Homs which in turn escalated nationwide on April 22 when more than 100 demonstrators were killed across the country.[1] Some among the protestors responded to force with force and formed the Free Syrian Army at the end of July whose organisation was enhanced by defections from the Syrian army.[2] Peace attempts have failed[3] and the country is now involved in a full scale civil war between rebel groups, that want to overthrow the government as inspired by the other Arab spring revolutions, and Assad's government. The civil war is compounded by the fault lines that run through Syria's history, the government is supported by a Shi'ite sect called the Alawites, that have historically been a persecuted minority but under Bashar's father, Hafez who was president from 1971 to 2000, they rose to prominence. Sunnis, the majority, want to return to political dominance, but these are not the only two groups, there are also Christians...
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...HUMA215 -1504A -09 | Syria | | | 10/25/2015 | | Syria is a country with extensive religious and political history. Throughout time Syria has had many governments before finally being governed by the Baath Party since 1963. The country also has deep roots within Christianity as well as becoming predominately Islamic. Religion is a large part of government being governed by Shai Alawite as of most recent, as well as family being in position to be in the government. Government has shaped the way Syrians live daily life but religion is where they draw their beliefs and customs from. The influence the government has had on the country is evident in the ways Syrians are treated. The authoritarian style governing has led to an uprising of citizens stemming the current civil war within the country. Syria has a history and culture deeply entwined with both religion and government. Syria’s government has gone through numerous changes throughout history. Syria has been governed by different entities such as the Umayyad Dynasty and Ottoman Empire (1516-1918) as well as French influence under the French Mandate (1923−1946) and finally the Baath Party (1963–present). “The Arab Socialist Resurrection (Baath Party) took control after the Baath Revolution in 1963. ‘The Baath Party was formally founded in April of 1947, and membership was open to all from the Arab Fatherhood’.” (Devlin, 1991). Traditionally Syria was stratified with landowners and merchants having the highest...
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...Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in Western Asia. De jure Syrian territory borders Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest, but the government's actual control now extends to just 30–40% of the de jure state area and less than 60% of the population. A country of fertile plains, high mountains, and deserts, Syria is home to diverse ethnic and religious groups, including Arabs, Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians, Kurds, Circassians, Mandeans and Turks. Religious groups include Sunnis, Christians, Alawites, Druze, Mandeans, Shiites, Salafis and Yazidis. Sunni Arabs make up the largest population group in Syria. In English, the name "Syria" was formerly synonymous with the Levant, while the modern state encompasses the sites of several ancient kingdoms and empires, including the Eblan civilization of the 3rd millennium BC. Its capital Damascus is among the oldest continuously-inhabited cities in the world. In the Islamic era, Damascus was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt. The modern Syrian state was established after World War I as a French mandate, and represented the largest Arab state to emerge from the formerly Ottoman-ruled Arab Levant. It gained independence as a parliamentary republic on 24 October 1945 when Syria became a founding member of the United Nations, an act which legally ended the former French...
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...------------------------------------------------- Advice to the Minister Date NOTE: PLEASE DELETE INSTRUCTIONS AS YOU FILL THIS TEMPLATE OUT ISSUE: * Two and half years have now passed and the Syrian civil war is getting further out of control with no clear indication of things getting better anytime soon. If anything the situation in Syria is getting worse by the day. Syrian Civilians are fleeing the country to neighbouring borders such as Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey, in hopes of a better future for their families. Unfortunately thousands of people have already fallen victim to shameless crimes committed by the Syrian government, with no end in sight. BACKGROUND: * Syria has seen constant unrest for the better part of almost two and a half years. Close to 100,000 people have been killed and millions of Syrians displaced due to the internal conflict that has now become a full-blown civil war. The killing started when peaceful protests inspired by earlier revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia rose up to challenge the dictatorship running the country; namely President Assad. Government forces started quickly kidnapping, killing, torturing, raping, and mutilating bodies of activists and their families before dumping them on the sides of roads. Then troops simply disregarded any judgement of humility and simply just started opening fire amongst crowds of people. Eventually, civilians started shooting back. Syria’s government has been trying to supress a popular...
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...The Syrian civil war[74] is an ongoing armed conflict in Syria between forces loyal to the Syrian Ba'ath Party government and those seeking to oust it. The conflict began on 15 March 2011, with popular demonstrations that grew nationwide by April 2011. These demonstrations were part of the wider Middle Eastern protest movement known as the Arab Spring. Protesters demanded the resignation of President Bashar al-Assad, whose family has held the presidency in Syria since 1971, as well as the end to over four decades of Ba'ath Party rule. In April 2011, the Syrian Army was deployed to quell the uprising, and soldiers were ordered to open fire on demonstrators. After months of military sieges,[75] the protests evolved into an armed rebellion. Opposition forces, mainly composed of defected soldiers and civilian volunteers, became increasingly armed and organized as they unified into larger groups. However, the rebels remained fractured, without organized leadership. The Syrian government characterizes the insurgency as an uprising of "armed terrorist groups and foreign mercenaries".[76] The conflict has no clear fronts, with clashes taking place in many towns and cities across the country.[77] The Arab League, United States, European Union, and other countries condemned the use of violence against the protesters. The Arab League suspended Syria's membership because of the government's response to the crisis, but granted the Syrian National Coalition Syria's seat on 6 March 2013.[78]...
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...Syria Simulation On this workshop I learned about the serious problems that Syria is facing right now. The Workshop was a three-hour activity where the organizer provided us with an overview of the Syrian conflict. The workshop had three different round of simulations and depending on the action each table decided to take, the staff decided the probability of this action to occur in real life. If the attack was successful then they determined the consequences such as the number of casualities. For this workshop I was assigned the Assad table. We learned about Assad position and that helped us to represent him and make decisions that he will probably choose to do in real life. In the first round, the Salafi rebels (ISIS) attempted to kill Assad because they did not believe in the regime and they wanted to recreate the time of the prophet Mohamed. We (Assad) pointed out that the attack was a violation of Syria’s sovereignty and we blamed the United States sanctions for creating and humanitarian crisis. In the second round Turkey accepted Syrian refugees and we started a social media campaign, so our population does not turn on us. We said in the campaign that the sanctions were hurting civilians more than helping them. During this round we also make strategic alliances with Iran, They provide us with financial and military aid. In the third round, the free Syrian army broke their alliances with the Islamist and they started to support the western powers. The Salafi rebels...
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...Although the war in Syria begun over 6 years ago, it continues to fill the headlines of news reports around the world. This civil war, a conflict between citizens of the same country, started in 2011. Syrian citizens took to the streets, demanding democracy and opening showing their disapproval of the government and president, Bashar al-Assad. The Assad family has held power in Syria for generations, many citizens blamed them for their lack of freedom, high unemployment rates, and economic woes. When President Bashar al-Assad succeeded his father in 2011, the citizens of Syria started a peaceful uprising to show their discontent and insisted on change. Their protests and demonstrations quickly turned violent. Assad’s government used deadly...
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...2011 in the Arab world was markedly different from its predecssors. “The Arab Spring” as it was called began in Tunisia and spread across the region (Al Jazeera). The protestors in this revolt wanted a myriad of things. Some wanted democracy, respect for civil rights, and some want Islamization of government and a movement to theocracy. Syria, once a province of the Ottoman Empire, is a small middle-eastern nation between Lebanon and Turkey. In March 2011, pro-Democracy Arab Spring protestors who were marching to decry the arrest and torture of teen graffiti artists were fired upon by police. After the shootings, many more protestors joined the public displays of defiance (BBC ). After nationwide unrest and a refusal by President Assad to abdicate, the protestors began to arm themselves (Semple). The violence in the country escalated so quickly that by June of 2013, 90,000 people had been killed in the fighting and that number moved to 250,000 by August of 2015 (BBC ). Into the fray came the self-stylized Islamic State. This terrorist group which is opposed to Assad is fighting to create a Muslim caliphate throughout Iraq and Syria. In June of 2014, the group claimed that it’s caliphate had been established, which lead to US airstrikes to destroy the group, thus entering another belligerent into the fight (BBC). The Syrian Civil War was killed more than 250,000 people and approximately 11-12 million of the nation’s 22 million people are displaced. Approximately 6.5 million...
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...Armed Conflict in Syria: Background and U.S. Response Jeremy M. Sharp Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs Christopher M. Blanchard Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs September 6, 2013 Congressional Research Service 7-5700 www.crs.gov RL33487 Armed Conflict in Syria: Background and U.S. Response Summary The popular-uprising-turned-armed-rebellion in Syria is in its third year, and seems poised to continue, with the government and an array of militias locked in a bloody struggle of attrition. Members of Congress and Administration officials are debating options for responding militarily to President Bashar al Asad’s forces’ reported use of chemical weapons in attacks on rebel-held areas and civilians. After the U.S. intelligence community concluded that Asad’s forces used weapons in limited attacks earlier this year, the Obama Administration had signaled a pending expansion of U.S. civilian and military assistance to the opposition. Earlier in the conflict, U.S. officials and many analysts asserted that President Asad and his supporters would be forced from power, but had difficulty articulating how that outcome would take place within the timeframes they set forth. Recent developments suggest that both the opposition and the Asad regime face considerable challenges in their attempts to assert greater control over Syria. Increasingly, analysts have focused on the potential for the regime and its opponents to carve out strongholds and prolong the fighting. Rapid escalation...
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...The current uprising in Syria may be seen by the rest of the world as just the latest episode of the Arab Spring, the latest domino to teeter under the weight of dissatisfaction that has spread across the Arab world. The circumstances leading to each uprising are caused by different variables that are unique to each country’s domestic policies, and each country’s own experimentation with incompetent dictators and despots over decades. Syria’s circumstances are less known than others, but they centre around the Assads, and their unique hold on power. The Assad family has ruled Syria for the past 41 years. The country’s current president, Bashar al-Assad, inherited the reins from his late father, Hafez al-Assad, who led a bloodless intra-party coup d’état in 1970, replacing then-president Salah Jadid, one of the Baathist leaders. The elder Assad’s iron-fisted style ended the instability and countless disagreements between various factions in the Baathist Party on how to lead the country. With the help of the military and loyalists among his minority Alawite sect, he consolidated his power by eliminating all his opponents in the Baath Party. He then formed a legislature dominated by the Baathists (while allowing a few seats to a handful of other parties he deemed friendly), and created a coalition of pro-Baath committees that helped establish local councils within each of the 14 governorates in Syria to maintain a tight stranglehold on power in all municipalities and...
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...President Obama along with a few other key members of the US Government plan on taking action in the war currently going on in Syria. However one large factor in being able to do so is missing, and that is support not only from other nations, but from America’s own citizens. As an attempt to cure this President Obama attended the G20 Summit in Russia to try and coax other nations to back America in the war. Then, to deal with its own citizens the government is putting out classic pre-war propaganda to convince everyone it’s the right move for us to make. Unfortunately for president Obama, his attempts aren’t doing so well on either front. Chemical Warfare was used in Syria, that’s a fact. The UN recently confirmed that it was the chemical sarin that was used (which was announced a WOMD and a world crime to have and use against people after WW2). The chemical is a very volatile gas that will be gone with no trace very shortly after it is made and released. So to find out it was used is hard enough, finding out who deployed it without them saying/showing it is near impossible. Regardless, Obama has stated that he is confident that the Syrian Government released this attack under the order of their president, Bashar al-Assad, and that that the world is obligated t do something about and take action back. Russian President Vladimir Putin quickly dismisses this as being “absolutely absurd” and it would appear none of the other countries that attended agreed or saw Obama’s...
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...Syria Syria’s Desalination Investment Syria is a country located in the Middle East between Lebanon and Turkey which boarders the Mediterranean Sea. It is a nation slightly larger than the size of North Dakota and has become the source of investment for Haddock and Siska Incorporated (H&S Inc.) H&S Inc. has obtained a contract from Capital Investor’s Group to invest $50 million in Syria. In view of the fact that the goal of the contract is to spread western ways to the Middle East, H&S has decided to invest in a $34.5 million water distillery plant. This plant will benefit the people of Syria and their economy by purifying and distill rating 5 million gallons of water a day . This purification process will continue to help boost Syria’s agricultural sector which has already contributed to the country’s economic growth. In addition, the World Factbook identifies Syria as having problems with water pollution from raw sewage and petroleum refining wastes. The country also has inadequate potable water. Within the next 20 years, it is said that Syria will be in a crisis for water. In light of this information, there is a growing need to develop water desalination technology. The need for this technology has led Syria to form the Scientific National Commission for Water Desalination. H&S hopes that their investment will offset the water problems. In order for this investment to take place a throughout investigation of the country’s economic, political, and social...
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... complete understanding of what constitutes civil war and provides a framework 76 Introduction the Middle East, authoritarian regimes thought invulnerable to protest and impossible to oust began to cede to massive protest. Attacks on governmental institutions and elite leaders ensconced from public opinion developed divergently in each nation, employing tailored strategies to mobilize the public and reap key support. This paper focuses on the nature and development of these Arab Spring further use these distinctions to illuminate the conceptual, instrumental, and semantic nature of civil war in general. - exacerbated the grievances felt by rebel forces and smoothed over ethnic, religious, and tribal ten- trastingly, in Syria, instances of mild reform under Bashar al-Assad, popular concerns for security, kept civil war at bay. Conceptual Isolation of Civil War presence or absence of civil war. However, the scholarly distinction between civil war and other insurgency and counter-insurgency, uprisings, genocide or genocidal actions, and general loss of internal monopoly over the legitimate use of force.1 confuses the framework of responses and semantically politicizes actions by regional and international players. Thus, in order to explore the causal factors in reaching civil war, the instrumental and The constitutive dimensions of civil war are conceptually under debate. The majority of However, 1...
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...War in Syria DBQ Essay Megan Gubler In Syria wars have been outraging between other groups formed and other countries. In there has been constant violence, shooting, killing, and bombing. What is the cause for all this violence? Some examples of all this violence are one disagreements, just by an opinion or a choice made that thought was right has brought war with others. The Kurds and Turkey at war because of a disagreement, however US is allied with both Turkey and Kurds. Two, sects, this has also brought violence to Syria, because of it three government loyalists were killed and when people found out they were outraged. Buildings were burned and more deaths were made. Finally, allied fighting. Similar of what happened in...
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...Syria- Massive explosion in Hama A cease fire in Syria showed more indications of unraveling. Al Jazeera television has reported that at least 69 people were killed in an explosion in Syria’s city, Hama on Thursday, citing militants. According to these militants the blast was caused as a result of government shelling. Blast also hit a house that was in use by armed terrorist groups as a bomb factory. The area is being under investigation by UN monitors under the supervision of Britain based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. This kind of devastation cannot be caused by conventional shelling. The violence comes when UN negotiated for ceasefire which is a part of peace plan proposed by Kofi Annan, UN-Arab league envoy. Syria blamed terrorist bomb makers for this blast. The two causes of attack are still unclear. Both the government and rebel sides reported this explosion as “massacre” but both are blaming each other for this attack and used it to buttress their own story of wider situation. State TV is showing pictures of survivors and wounded children in hospital due to blast caused by an accident at a building which was being used as a bomb factory by terrorist armed groups who were staging an escalation programme backed by international and regional quarters whose aim was to derail the Kofi Annan peace progress. According to Kofi Annan the presence of UN peace monitors will help to bring situation under control by changing the political dynamics on the ground. It’s...
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