Aleppo now freed from the rebels!

[Benton]

(12-13-2016, 09:51 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Wait, I thought ISIS was part of the terrorist rebellion group?

Oh man, it will take a while to explain it. A year or so ago I spent a few days with an old friend who works for Centcom and I still felt like I needed a flow chart to understand where all the pieces fit together.

The most concise I can probably make it is:

We went into Iraq looking for terrorists more than a decade ago. We were in the wrong place attacking the wrong people. We kicked out the ruling party, which spread into a number of terrorist organizations. In the following years, some of them made their way into Syria where they allied with rebels who were speaking out (mostly peacefully) against Assad's government. It wasn't just Syria, they made their way into other countries, too, but this is the one that we're talking about now. So, anyway, the Syrian rebels (who were rebelling against Assad, who elevated to gassing civilians) started to realize the new sympathizers (ISIS) weren't any better than the regime they were fighting against. So, they started fighting against ISIS. And the government. 

And then things went to **** for Syrian rebels.

Assad got help from ISIS in killing off civilians (unarmed "rebels" wanting representation in government). And he got help from Russia in fighting off the rebels (armed civilians wanting representation in government). The only one he didn't get help from? The US. We didn't help him, but... unlike Russia... we were fighting ISIS, his indirect allies who he's let have parts of the country, which hurt Assad's effort.

Assad isn't directly allied with ISIS, but it didn't matter. He was murdering civilians the same as them. The refugees are the people who got tired of trying to fight both their own government and the terrorist factions it used against them.

Think about it this way: If the state of Ohio tomorrow started mass murdering anyone who wasn't registered with a particular political party, would you fight it? If the answer is yes, would you keep fighting after having to combat those using ISIS's tactics (burning family members alive, beheading captured soldiers, etc)? Or would you do like the refugees are trying to do and start over with your family somewhere where the government in control isn't trying to kill you?

Unfortunately, misinformation was an incredible tool as painting Syrian rebels as ISIS terrorists. Or as some angry militant mob of Muslims moving through Europe. Some are, but, mostly, Syrian refugees got tired of fighting a well funded terrorist organization and a Russian-backed government intent on killing off political opponents.