"If we have tighter security, it means the terrorists have won."
Yeah, because the goal of the terrorists is to reduce the amount of privacy that Westerners enjoy.
It's like saying Bush II is responsible. All the planning for 9/11 began before 1/20/11. Sorry, that's the way it is. What's happened afterwards is largely taking available of opportunities and a continuation of the same.
On 1/20/09 Syria was largely under control. So was most of Iraq. And we had an agreement to pull all the troops out of Iraq. There was "ISIS" infrastructure, called something else, largely based in Sunni Salafist tribes that had been resistant to Shi'ite influence from Damascus. And the only way they'd have stayed quiescent is if the Sunni majority in Iraq continued to oppress the Shi'ite majority. Why? Because Hussein and Assad had a vested interest in security. They didn't like each other, but both knew where the instability lurked.
Of course, Assad managed to maintain stability for another 2 years before Bush II's foreign policy backed the protests happening across the Arab world. Bush II was in charge of US policy in January 2011, wasn't it? Oh?
So that means it wasn't Obama's policy. That means Obama and progressive Western leaders must have been in favor of putting down the student- and other-led protests in Damascus. Right? Oh.
In 2007 progressives treated Assad as a good guy. Nobody noticed his repression by religion and ethnicity, and pointing it out was not a popular thing. I know, I pointed them out and said supporting Assad was a Bad Thing. But so did Bush II. No, he had a good dictatorship, the schools functioned and the trains ran on time. That's the kind of dictator we can get behind, one with good schools where the trains run on time, I guess.
In 2010 progressives treated Assad as a bad guy. He was a dictator, so what if the trains ran on time. Why mention 2007? That's just shit stirring. Of course, some were resolutely pragmatic. "Look, he makes the trains run on time. He's a dictator, but look at the risks involved if he's overthrown." Not the popular view, even on DU. I know. I was against trying to overthrow him, and not because it would be more Western imperialism but because dictators (1) keep a lid on internecine hostilities and fighting and (2) seldom do anything to make the internal tensions go away, thereby (3) making their continued dictatorship the least bloody and most humane option.
Now we're back to trying to say Assad's a good guy. He isn't. Whatever domestic politics may be, what Assad was/was/is is the same all along. The Salafist "problem" in the east of Syria, like the Kurdish dissenting views, have been there straight along.
What has happened is that all the uneducated and powerless rural fellaheen are now educated urban fellaheen with more knowledge and greater sense of empowerment but unrevised cultural views. They believed in Islamic supremacy and such in 1860 when they had a nice anti-Xian pogrom in Aleppo, they believed in it in 1910, they believed in it in 1960, and they believed in it in 2010. What's changed? AKs instead of rocks, social media instead of letters, international banking routes instead of zakat carried by hand, open borders and easy transportation. Just as Xians read the NT and come away with quirky interpretations about Christ's return and go all a-Gog over Magog or pacifism or giving all your stuff to the poor, so Muslims read the Qur'aan and Hadith and come away with quirky interpretations about darul Islam and darul harb, the natural order of things, dhimmi, and the killing of Jews as a mitzvah (so to speak).
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