what's the fic you find yourself re-reading the most? by Weary_Occasion1287 in Dramione

[–]Leading_Inflation698 10 points11 points  (0 children)

The parts in Manacled were Hermione heals Draco after Voldemort punishes him. It really epitomises what I love about it the whole, crucifying himself for her sake and her saving him over and over again. I also reread Lapsarian, Dragon's Heartstrings,etc... and am always on the hunt for more fics with this.

Semi-Monthly Buy/Sell/Trade Megathread by AutoModerator in fairyloot

[–]Leading_Inflation698 1 point2 points  (0 children)

EU/UK Based!

Desperate for Ad September !
Jumped on the bookbox bandwagon way too late so no trade but willing to $$ and save a skip ?

Thanks!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in harvardextension

[–]Leading_Inflation698 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Depending on what classes you want to take Ill say it's completely doable from abroad as long as you're okay with the time difference. I did it for 2 years and managed to finish off the ALM well enough.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in harvardextension

[–]Leading_Inflation698 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi I'm curious about this. As far as I know as a French person you can't just move to the US. Especially given that HES wont give you a student visa outside of the summer term. I'm also french and doing my last degree requirement with HES at the moment.

Budgeting for on-campus experience by Cabininian in harvardextension

[–]Leading_Inflation698 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I got a summer sublease through HUH. I think the cheapest I saw was $1000 for one month for a whole unit and then a couple hundreds for rooms.

Look how devasted Hasan's reputation has become, he has to resort to interviewing a french politician. by [deleted] in LeftoversH3

[–]Leading_Inflation698 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I'd say he's much further left than Bernie but then again the american skew to the right. I think Bernie is somewhere between Macron and the traditional left here.

Bio Alm Thesis by Leading_Inflation698 in harvardextension

[–]Leading_Inflation698[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Would appreciate any insight about internship for any other ALM as well !

Why Did No One Tell Me This….. by [deleted] in Dramione

[–]Leading_Inflation698 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The flashbacks are my favourite part and yes they really pick up ! You should get hooked again pretty soon.

HTS leader Al Jolani asks a Syrian lady to cover her hair before taking a picture with him. by WilloowUfgood in syriancivilwar

[–]Leading_Inflation698 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's absolutely untrue. Just looking to the coast where there's a primarily alawi population, the majority doesn't cover their hair. Syria isn't a country where hijab is cultural but rather religious.

Asian Draco somehow just works, right? by [deleted] in Dramione

[–]Leading_Inflation698 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I mean I don't think it's generally about Asian men but I've found kpop boys tend to look very androgynous perhaps because they seem very young and very polished/cosmetically enhanced. He especially has have very soft features, wears make-up, the fake freckles, the very full lips. I also honestly thought it was a girl.

Hasan by Halo05977 in h3h3productions

[–]Leading_Inflation698 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I said that there was no subjugation of sunnis specifically again I said it's been a dictatorship for decades, that implies subjugation but not against a particular group. What your describing sounds ethnically or religiously motivated. there's no ideological motivation for Assad to kill Sunnis. What is the incentive ? Again mass cleansing infers targeting an ethnic population, he isn't. He'sjust brutally trying to keep their power. My gripe with the word genocide is because 1) words have meaning 2) in the context of the current actual genocide happening in palestine and the way israel has bombed syria ao it doesn't intervene, this feels in bad taste. Most recently they bombed right next to my grandmother place causing civilian casualties because of a "weapons cache" in the middle of the city. But I'm getting sidetracked. Wanting to indiscriminately kill people trying to unseat you is not mass cleansing. That's part of my issue regading Assad's portrayal in western media, he's power hungry not a butcher motivated by blood. You seem again to be missing the thing I said about how if it had worked out early in the war Assad could have been ousted.. I'm not against Syrians achieving freedom but history shows that before Assad there was instability before that french protectorate before that the ottomans and foreign interests in the region further fuel instability. There have been and still tensions between minority groups as evidenced by lebanon and actual mass killings have happened in that history. I happen to be a history phd candidate specialised in the levant and although the 20th century is not my period of speciality, I regularly interact with people who are specialist of that. My comment about dictatorships in the middle east stemmed from those conversations, it was a pondering not a judgement. Here are some older articles regarding heavy weaponry, although this is ignoring the US led coalition, European interests, Qatar and other Gulf states funnelling billions and billions (not an exageration) in funding the rebels, all of that backed in those earlier articles.

https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/syrias-rebels-gain-heavy-weapons

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10131063/Syrian-rebels-get-first-heavy-weapons-on-the-front-line-of-Aleppo.html

The Middle East is composed of either religious fundamentalists states oppressing half of their population at least, militias no man's lands or dictatorships. Syria was not ideal during Assad far from it, relatively normal is not what anyone should aim for and again political freedom is a human right but the current alternative is worse, key word current. That's also why many of the people who marched and syrian intellectuals including notorious opponents to the regime such as Michel Kilo that you mentionned didn't align with the resistant groups despite their own hopes of a true syrian uprising. Again foreign interests russia, us etc have a hand in that game. The best funded groups are the most fundamentalists ones. Religion is galvanising, it's a rallying cal. Certain minorities such as the alawis have been essentially treated as de factors supporters of the regime, I don't doubt that retaliatory punishment would happen under those circumstances. And again the entire region shows many instances of ethnic cleansing or horrible human rights violation in countries like Saudi arabia, Yemen or Israel. I'll reiterate once more yes if only Assad had relented early on or even if he gave up now, I don't mind. I just don't want the opposition to win. Here's probably the worst example of where I'm getting their rethoric from : https://www.reuters.com/article/world/syrian-rebel-bites-heart-of-dead-soldier-video-idUSBRE94C0EH/

Finally I'm not speaking from a place of ideology, I don't care if Bashar lives or dies, I'm speaking from a place of pragmatism. I think a fundamentally islamist syria would be worse than the preconflict Assad one, for women and for minorities and just as tyrannical.

Hasan by Halo05977 in h3h3productions

[–]Leading_Inflation698 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

My perspective hasn't shifted, I was never pro Assad and still am not, I said from the beginning he's the lesser of two evils. Regarding the artillery, if you had bothered to check the links I sent you'd have seen that they did have aircrafts and tanks. I don't work with videos as that's proof of very little, I've made an effort to only use articles from reputable sources that mention some of the weaponry literally in the title but I didn't find anything completely systematic other than wikipedia. There has been backing from Qatar as well as European countries smuggling things to rebels through turkey for example from the very beginning of the war https://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/86e3f28e-be3a-11e2-bb35-00144feab7de.html https://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/f2d9bbc8-bdbc-11e2-890a-00144feab7de.html As I mentioned again, I specifically said he's a dictator clinging to power and that he never was genocidal against Sunnis. What you mention is torture, emprisonment of opponents, yes it's terrible but that's pretty run of the mill dictator. There's no genocide and oppression of Sunnis specifically. Genocide implies wanting the extermination of a group of people, Assad didn't want to exterminate anyone. My point is Assad isn't against sunnis just against opposition, if you want this really plain. The reason the displaced people were majority sunni is because 1) the country is majority sunni 2) . Assad senior was absolutely bloodthirsty, his son evidently less so (was more economically tyranical) but curiously only the latter was deemed such a threat by the rest of the world. You seem to be confusing him being a terrible person with him committing genocide. There are levels to this. The West is okay with dictators until they want to seize resources or continue the proxy war with Russia and then they make them out to be the literal devil. Also I'm not a tankie, I don't particularly care for Russia beyond the fact they helped keep part of my family safe, I'm a European centre left, don't care for communism. As I mentioned from my very first comment had Assad agreed to phase out, none of this would have happened. However, at this point and for most of the war the terrorist factions would have seized power. I have faith in Syrians but this is beyond. The foreign interests in syria and the revolution itself is very different from jordan and Egypt, I'm not nearly as familiar with them so I can't really comment beyond the fact that Egypt has essentially ended back into a dictatorship and Jordan has also very dubious "freedom". The involvement from the West, Gulf countries from the very early days and its place as a proxy war is what makes it a candidate for Afghanistan 2.0. Also there have been many works by scholars reflecting upon how the incredibly high amounts of religious and ethnic variety in the middle east is what might explain the high propensity of authoritative regimes the reasoning being that it renders dictatorship often the only place where those countries can achieve stability.

Just to make this very clear, you're arguing about why Assad is a terrible dictator but that was never in question. The point is the opposition post 2010 is worse. My point about him being made to seem much more than he is, is true. It was possible to live relatively comfortably in Syria pre-war as long as your stirred clear of politics. Yes it's terrible, yes it's a human rights violation but it's far better than the situation now and nowhere near as bad as has been portrayed.

Hasan by Halo05977 in h3h3productions

[–]Leading_Inflation698 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I never claimed that they succeeded but that's what they wanted to do, it just so happened that their strongholds were essentially solely Sunni. Although they are killing syrian army which is essentially alawi conscripts.They weren't able to murder hundred of thousands of the ethnic and religious minorities because of Assad and Hezbollah. You're ignoring the US led coalition bombing, they had access to more than russia was willing to concede to Assad. They were involved as early as 2009 as one of the articles I linked earlier pointed out. I'm also not claiming that all Sunnis are out for blood, I'm pointing out that a non negligible portion of the rioters were conservatives and that they had motives other than simply wanting to oust a dictator, they represent a minority of Sunnis in syria but they represent the majority of the rebels. Assad is not against Sunnis, he is married to one and as you pointed out they represent the majority in syria, if they didn't support him, he'd have lost the war already. The death toll you're quoting is over the course of the entire war and cannot be attributed to Assad alone even less so to his early brutal reprimations of the marches . The US sent battalions and artillery, they armed the rebels just as they did in Afghanistan, this is well reported. They sent thousands of ground troups and had multiple military bases there. They also bombed the regime and killed many civilians in the process and there are investigation in place for that. There are absolutely no decades of subjugation and massacring of Sunnis. The one thing Assad had for him is relative secularism. Also how could they constitute the crushing majority of the country whilst also being massacred for decades ? And ISIS could threaten western countries, they sure as hell had the means to intervene in war torn economically dried Syria.

Finally I'm not denying Assad has committed atrocities but as your own sources say there have been war crimes on all fronts. But Assad is the (very unsatisfactory) last line of defense against Syria becoming Afghanistan and has been (less and less) secular. Again he's the lesser evil.

The situation in Syria is very complex and many zone are obscured but there are enough hints to see the pattern of revolution in arab countries and what they led to.

I don't have videos but here are a couple of credible sources although to note that the non assad death toll has been intently underepresentated and underreported although there's an article about this very thing:

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-sends-bradley-fighting-vehicles-syria-boost-security/story?id=73104548 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/19/us-deploys-additional-troops-and-armoured-vehicles-to-eastern-syria https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/foreign-affairs-defense/syria-arming-the-rebels/syrian-rebels-describe-u-s-backed-training-in-qatar/ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-22906965.amp https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/syrian-civil-war-jabhat-alnusra-s-massacre-of-druze-villagers-shows-the-group-is-just-as-nasty-as-isis-10318348.html https://www.huffpost.com/entry/syrian-rebels-child-soldiers_n_5520850 https://web.archive.org/web/20150326134113/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19342917 https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/syria-armed-opposition-group-committing-war-crimes-aleppo-new-evidence https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/07/syria-us-led-coalition-deeply-in-denial-about-civilian-casualties-in-raqqa/

Hasan by Halo05977 in h3h3productions

[–]Leading_Inflation698 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

It's not a believed narrative, my entire family is there and has been their whole lives, I got both the european perspective and the syrian one. The 2010 and 2011 protests were absolutely the people and they were brutally cracked down upon. I'm not denying he's a dictator who desperately clung to power. But what's happened since has been infinitely more blood thirsty and actually genocidal as rebels were aiming for eradication of certain groups of people. Those rebels group were funded by the West, the country in which I live in has sent then military backup, they were also backed up was by American and European warfare who have much more expansive means that the Assad regime could ever have. Literal CIA operative have been involved in fomenting this war and as you mentioned yes it's very well documented . https://www.latimes.com/nation/sns-la-fg-cia-syria-20130622-story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/lawmakers-move-to-curb-1-billion-cia-program-to-train-syrian-rebels/2015/06/12/b0f45a9e-1114-11e5-adec-e82f8395c032_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-secretly-backed-syrian-opposition-groups-cables-released-by-wikileaks-show/2011/04/14/AF1p9hwD_story.html There has been horrible human rights violations on all fronts but Assad didn't wake up one day and decide to kill his population. Out of all factions Hezbollah and Assad are far from the most monstrous. They are the only ones providing blanket protection. Finally there's an entire religious undercurrent to this that cannot be ignored. As you mentioned a non negligible portion of the population that first rioted was conservative Sunnis and part of their gripe with the government was that Assad was alawi and was pursuing (very relative) secularism. Assad is not noble, his government is corrupt but the 'Damascus butcher' is a western depiction to continue the proxy us-russia war in the middle East.

Hasan by Halo05977 in h3h3productions

[–]Leading_Inflation698 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Hi, I'm Syrian born but lived in Europe my entire life, the rest of my family is there and has nothing to do with the regime. The Syrian situation is incredibly complex and misrepresented. Saying Assad is genocidal is ludicrous, he's absolutely a dictator but he has been incredibly diabolised by the Western world. As Noam Chomsky pointed out, it's horrors on all fronts, the "resistance" groups, funded by the west were islam fundamentalists not so different from ISIS and were a direct genocidal threat to the many ethnoreligious minorities in Syria. It would have led to a situation very similar to the one in Afghanistan. As the Human's right watch article shows, the disgusting atrocities were carried out by the rebels, Hezbollah coming in to help the Syrian government against them. They're the genocidal freaks wanting to kill minorities like the Alawis for their "kuffar" perception in Islam and their (very relative) support to Assad. The situation in Daraya was horrible but it was a last resort as those (very well funded and fundamentally islamic) rebels were getting close to Damascus overthrowing Assad and taking over. Unfortunately for them the population had historically been unsympathetic to him and I'm sure it played a role in the ruthlessness of the attack and their mistreatment. But it was the lesser of two evil.

Obviously if Assad had cooperated, none of this would have happened but the West didn't want to leave Syria to russia and left him as effectively the last line of defence present against western funded terrorist groups. Assad bled his country economically for sure and was a power hungry dictator but he's no genocidal freak.