If Syrians voted, would they reelect president Assad? Would they vote for the new military rulers?

@Burnley123 I would just disagree with you on a single point. How long a conscript army holds out after a decade and a half of collective economic punishment is not really an indicator of anything other than how well supplied or paid the army is.

It is easy to corrupt officers that are making 30 dollars a month when the jihadis are backed by people payingy 1500 a month.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow The Asad army had the benefit of initial strategic advantage, military equipment and money.

From nowhere, they suffered a series of defeats and lost Aleppo. Then it collapsed.

The motivation of a military or civil society is very much influenced by how much it cares about the regime. If it's held together only by only money and fear, then it will collapse at the first sight of trouble.

It's similar with how quickly the Afghanistan regime collapsed after the Americans pulled out. The soldiers had no motivation because they didn't care about the regime.

If a regime is popular, then soldiers (and ordinary people) will make sacrifices and put lives on the line. Even if they are losing and fighting against the odds. Ukraine is one example of this.

This is how you can judge popular will in a war zone. It's not an exact science but the general theory is sound.

@Burnley123 Well you have the first part right but they have been broke for a decade.

The US has illegally occupied all of their oil fields and most of their farm land since 2015. And they have been sanctioning the country for at least as long.


Ultimately people need to feed their families. Loyalty doesn't put food on the table.


Afghanistan was a completely different situation and not remotely comparable. Afghanistan since the 1980s has had more in common with Europe 800 years ago with tiny warring fiefdoms run by warlords. And in 20 years the US and NATO never managed to control more than 20% of Afghanistan and none of the US backed territories were contiguous. So they were like a bunch of tiny islands that had no way to support each other without the Americans. There is no scenario where that would have ended any other way. Even if they all fought to the end the only difference is a bunch more of them would have died for a colonial master that was leaving them to their fate.


Ukraine is basically bankrolled by the US and NATO. They are getting billions and billions of dollars and are not being sanctioned into oblivion by the largest economy on earth. That is a false comparison.


And no. Not really. The facts on the ground matter. You can have the most popular government in the world but if the situation on the ground is hopeless all you have is a few martyrs and the rest will do what they have to to survive.

@Burnley123
There is no real democracy in America either. Our factional war is still ongoing regardless of regime change. Trump will be allowed to change the icing on the cake but the confection stays the same.

@sree251 Hmm... There are degrees of it.

I'm a socialist so I'm skeptical of bourgeoise liberal democracy. My point was that there is no liberal democracy tradition in Syria. Not an opinion, just a fact.

@Burnley123 The involvement of Russia is vastly overstated. Russia has not been funnelling billions and billions into Syria to the point of paying the government's salary. The US is literally paying Zelensky's salary and the salaries of basically the entire Rada.

Lol. No. Turkey and the Gulf States have been dumping massive amounts to the so called rebels. The 30 dollars a month versus 1500 was not an exaggeration.



It is not contentious. It is factual. All you need to do is look at a map of the country. Controlling two major cities is not going to hold a country together.

It fell apart because they never controlled more than 20% of the country and each American fiefdom was geographically surrounded by hostile warlords. It was never going to end any differently.



Please. Your own PM was used to threaten Ukraine into fight Russia to the last Ukrainian and threatened them with the same economic ruin imposed on Syria and other countries if they didn't go along with the NATO plan.

It has nothing to do with nationalism outside the far right ultra nationalists.

Ukraine is kidnapping men off the street and forcing them to the front with no training. The US is also trying to pressure them into drafting 18 year olds making sure they have a demographic collapse.


The comparison with Afghanistan was not fair because it was like comparing medieval Europe to a flawed but modern nation state.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow Yes, I'm aware that the rebels were funded by outside agencies but they had homemade drones against planes. Two weeks ago, they were guerillas waking out an existence on the perifere of their own country having comprehensively lost the war in 2019. A lost war they kept fighting. A war that had direct Russian military involvement that was decisive in turning the tide.

Russia is too busy in Ukraine to do the same again. When the rebels took Aleppo, there were no people in Syria prepared to fight and die for the Asad cause. His army gave up, he fled the country and the government collapsed. This doesn't happen to a popular regime. Like the US backed govt of Afghanistan. It lost to a military that had inferior numbers and technology and did so in weeks.

Your reading of the Ukraine situation is ridiculous and one-eyed. The Ukraine army is largely made up of volunteers, including Yuliana: who is/was a liberal. They have a far-right element who most Ukrainians see a 'bastards but our bastards.' Russia itself has plenty of far right elements, which is why it's ridiculous for any serious leftist to be uncritical of Putin.

A country of forty million people resists an invasion by a richer country four times it's size with a few far right thugs, pressganged soldiers and British intimidation? 😆 But Ukrainian people are not motivated to resist. It's just American money. Bollocks.

At least tens thousands of Ukrainians have died in this war and they keep fighting against the odds but they don't care about Ukrainian nationalism?

@Burnley123 His army didn't just give up. They were ordered repeatedly to stand down and abandon their posts. That suggests treason not a lack of will to fight.




What I said about Ukraine is simply factual. There are volunteers but they are not even remotely the majority. And you seem determined to gaslight about the far right in Ukraine.

The UK has neo nazis too but come talk to me when Combat 18 is running multiple battalions in the British Army.


I am sorry you swallow American propaganda whole on this issue. Boris Johnson threatening the Ukrainian government into fighting comes directly from the Ukrainian government. That is why the Istanbul memo was abandoned.


And it is American money that is propping up the country. That is just factual.


Again. Conscripts are not given a choice. Quit pretending they are all volunteers like the British Army.

You brought up a person from SW who volunteered. Well there is also someone here whose husband was basically kidnapped of the street and sent to the front and confirms that thousands of Ukrainian men are in hiding from press gangs.

This is not even disputed at this point.

@Burnley123 Carrying water for NATO is also not exactly a leftist position either.

@Burnley123 I will also point out the Russian position on Ukraine is not about Putin. This is the same position held by every side of Russian politics going back as far back as Gorbachev.

American foreign policy experts going back as far as 1997 were warning that this idiotic NATO expansion plan would lead to war.

This is not and never was about Putin. This has been about the American colonization of Eastern Europe.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow I don't support NATO and have said many times they have some serious blame attached when it comes to the war.

They didn't invade though and Russia is a regional imperialist?

How is Russia not an imperialist?

@Burnley123 Getitng into a fight doesn't make a country an empire.

That only holds up if you believe the cold war narrative that Russia randomly woke up one day and decided to try and conquer Europe and that all of this just came out of a vacuum.

And a show of force is not an invasion. There is a difference. It only became a real fight after Boris Johnson brow beat the Ukrainians into refusing negotiations or peace and to fight to the last Ukrainian.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow "Randomly woke up one day."

This is a disingenuous argument. I've literally said that NATO has some responsibility for the war.

America and Russia can both be empires. They a both are.

You massively overestimate Bojo's influence in Ukraine. To a point that is laughably complimentary to him. Yuli did once show me a picture of a statue that Ukrainians made if him though, which made me laugh. Nonetheless, they viewed him favourably!

You know a few facts but your analysis is crap. It's just a post tankie idea that only America has an empire. An enemies enemy is...

Even when it's a far-right leaning dictatorship and a gangster capitalist state. Pfff

@Burnley123 One country has 1000 military bases across the world and literally has global domination as official military policy. It is not Russia.


Bojo was just the messenger. He was speaking on behalf of the US and probably the EU in terms of the threat. And this comes from the Ukrainian government themselves. This is not speculation.

They were told to fight or the west would destroy their country economically. Fight and they would give them all the guns and free money they want.

Both of which go missing almost immediately too btw.

Getting the ruling class of one of the most corrupt countries on planet earth to sell out their own people is not exactly hard.





And the meaningless tankie insult comes out.


That is basically what Ukraine is now.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow Bojo speaking for the EU would be interesting given he's literally the prime minister who enacted Brexit. He also led the vote leave campaign in 2016! 😝

I mean, this is a minor detail for the debate it hand but it goes to show that you don't know what you are talking about!

I have literally said on this thread that I think America is an imperialist and NATO has blame attached for the war so I clearly don't need to be told that!

You don't have a leftist understanding of imperialism you just have a theory that America is alone in being imperialist. As a student if British history, I know this to be wrong!

Tankie isn't a meaningless insult. I do think you would have defended the soviet tanks going into Hungary and Czechoslovakia. It was against American imperialism, right?

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow Are you arguing with a different person?
I've said that America is imperialist.

What do you think of the USSR invasion of Czechoslovakia!

@Burnley123 You say that and then repeat the pro US/NATO propaganda about the conflict completely uncritically. I might as well be reading Radio Free Europe but even they admit some facts you don't accept.


And drag up totally irrelevant ancient history that has nothing to do with anything.

Trying to derail the conversation with historical nonsense involving two countries that no longer exist doesn't have any barring on anything.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow You are willfully misunderstanding my point.

You also didn't answer my question.

@LegendofPeza I find him really frustrating because I actually am an anti imperialist leftist and apply the same analysis to Russia as I do to America. Like, as if I need to be told that the US has a lot of military bases. 🤣

It's just America = always bad.: anyone else = always good.'

@Burnley123 you would understand that the vote wasn't really popular, and yet war Will be. Gahead, y'all in the West - show us our path to the future.

@Roundandroundwego You misunderstand my point, as usual.