What Happened to Syria?

Merry Christmas!

Sadly, the World Food Program has had their funding cut by 60 percent.

Also, we are currently listed among the Top Five Syria-related podcasts on Feedspot.com (https://podcasts.feedspot.com/syria_podcasts/). Check us out there and help us get up to the #1 spot. 

Sources / Quotes:

 

https://www.wfp.org/news/wfp-forced-scale-down-operations-syria-donors-gather-brussels-ahead-major-conference

 

https://www.wfp.org/new...

The Assad regime starts to crack under the pressure of increasingly large, passionate, cross-sectarian protests. Millions of people are taking to the streets and voicing dissent for the first time in their lives, putting the regime's legitimacy in doubt for the first time in decades. This prompts Bashar al-Assad to authorize a campaign of repression across Syria, among the earliest of his crimes against humanity.

Also, we are curre...

We're breaking up Episode 15 - Crimes Against Humanity (June 24 to July 31, 2011) into four smaller episodes before putting out the full thing.

The Assad regime starts to crack under the pressure of increasingly large, passionate, cross-sectarian protests. Millions of people are taking to the streets and voicing dissent for the first time in their lives, putting the regime's legitimacy in doubt for the first time in decades.

Also, ...

We're breaking up Episode 15 - Crimes Against Humanity (June 24 to July 31, 2011) into four smaller episodes before putting out the full thing.

The Assad regime starts to crack under the pressure of increasingly large, passionate, cross-sectarian protests. Millions of people are taking to the streets and voicing dissent for the first time in their lives, putting the regime's legitimacy in doubt for the first time in decades.

Source...

We're breaking up Episode 15 - Crimes Against Humanity (June 24 to July 31, 2011) into four smaller episodes before putting out the full thing.

 

The Assad regime starts to crack under the pressure of increasingly large, passionate, cross-sectarian protests. Millions of people are taking to the streets and voicing dissent for the first time in their lives, putting the regime's legitimacy in doubt for the first time in decades.

 

So...

We're breaking up Episode 15 - Crimes Against Humanity (June 24 to July 31, 2011) into four smaller episodes before putting out the full thing.

 

The Assad regime starts to crack under the pressure of increasingly large, passionate, cross-sectarian protests. Millions of people are taking to the streets and voicing dissent for the first time in their lives, putting the regime's legitimacy in doubt for the first time in decades.

 

So...

Explaining the absence and examining the Syrian refugee crisis, as well as the situation for refugees across the world in 2022.

Sources / Quotes:

“Boat carrying Syrian refugees lands in Southern Italy,” Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-crisis-italy-boat-idUSBRE8780L720120809 

 

“Syria Refugee Crisis Explained,” The UN Refugee Agency

https://www.unrefugees.org/news/syria-refugee-crisis-explained/#:~:text=More%20than%...

Bernd Debusmann was a young Reuters bureau chief when Lebanon imploded into civil war and anarchy in the 1970s, during which Syria and Hafez al-Assad became intimately involved the conflict.   This talented and daring journalist took to war-torn Beirut like a duck to water, risking his life to interview combatants on all sides and civilians caught in the cross-fire, eventually running afoul of the Assad regime for reporting on t...

We're starting a new holiday tradition, an episode focused on refugees and other humanitarian issues in Syria.

 

As early as 2011, tens of thousands of people were forced to flee the country. Today, more than six million displaced Syrians are demonized by hateful individuals and political movements all over the world.

 

Mesud (@MaybeMesud on Twitter) describes how he and his family were forced to leave Aleppo and the challenges the...

How do you organize a leaderless movement?   The Syrian Revolution was a decentralized movement of localized cells, but enterprising activists still managed to coordinate with each other and reach out to the outside world.   We examine how the Local Coordination Committees attempted to create a post-Assad government before speaking to a civil society activist who still resides in Syria. We also speak with Ahmad, an engineer an...

Supporters and opponents of the Assad regime are becoming irrevocably alienated from one another, sowing the seeds for a future war between Assad's Syria versus Free Syria.

 

Sources

A Woman in the Crossfire by Samar Yazbek

Assad or We Burn the Country by Sam Dagher

The Impossible Revolution by Yassin al-Haj Saleh

The Syrian Revolution by Dr. Yasser Munif

Civil War in Syria by Bakzo, et. al

The Home That Was Our Country by Alia Mal...

There are too many amazing heroes among the Syrians who protested in 2011 to fit into a single episode. This is our second attempt at an ongoing effort to commemorate the heroes of the Syrian Revolution.   Ghiath Matar, Fadwa Soleiman, Bassel Shehadeh, a certain iconic goalkeeper-turned-singer from Homs, and other incredible individuals make appearances in this tribute to people whose bravery and sacrifices deserve to be remem...

DISTURBING CONTENT WARNING   There is no turning back for Syria after this episode.   The Syrian Opposition is nearing its breaking point after months of being massacred, mass-arrested, and mass-tortured by the Assad regime.   But all hell breaks loose when the public discovers the torture and murder of 13-year-old Hamza Ali al-Khateeb, leading to the largest protests to take place thus far as well as the first confirmed BATTLE ...

Episode 11 - The Last Straw is taking longer than expected to edit. Here's an excerpt to tide everyone over until the full episode is done.

 

Sources Cited:

"We've Never Seen Such Horror" by Human Rights Watch

 

Music Licensing

Genocide by Silent Carrion

Creative Commons - attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international (cc by-nc-nd 4.0)

https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Silent_Carrion/Suprematism_EP_III_Sol/Silent_Carr...

This might be our most controversial episode, yet.   What is the relationship between the Assad regime and Syrian Kurds? How did Kurds react to the Syrian revolution? Why is it that a majority of Syrian Kurds came to prefer the YPG over the Free Syrian Army?   A lot of it has to do with societal attitudes that go back decades before the Syrian Revolution.   Peshmerge is a Syrian Kurd from Aleppo who participated in th...

Yusuf was born in Manbij and gave up his job in Latakia to organize protests during the Syrian Revolution.   The events of 2011 changed his life forever, resulting in the loss of his freedom (detained twice by the regime, plus once by ISIS) and eventually forcing him to leave Syria in 2015.   Music licensing Fire Away by Forget the Whale Creative Commons - Attribution-Non Comercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) h...

Twenty years ago, the world changed.

 

The Terror is a 12-episode miniseries about 9/11, what led up to it, and it's aftermath. It's the story about how the Cold War led to 9/11 and the War on Terror.

 

Aram Shabanian (@ShabanianAram on Twitter) has extensively researched the events of September 11, 2001 for two decades. He is currently a Non-State Actors Researcher at the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy.

 

Music credits

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