The Wow I Can't Believe That News Story Thread

[Lisnaholic]

I fear that Syria is something of a lost cause and the Allied missile strike is a pretty empty gesture. No one has much of a firm policy and the USA doesn't even have a Sec of State or ambassadors in neighbouring Qatar, Jordan etc, so even if they had a policy, they have no one to explain it on the ground. What can they do? Announce it by tweets, or send the apparently mute and increasingly invisible Jared Kushner in to do his job and fix the Middle East?

Chemicals or no, the Assad family has always been brutal to Syrians. If you want some historical perspective, explore what the regime did to Hama, "the most beautiful city in Syria" in 1982 - a crack-down, or massacre, in which up 40,000 civilians were killed.
After the destruction of the city, an American journalist visited the site:-

Not far from the city center we came to a neighbourhood that had been plowed up and then flattened.
"Where are all the houses that once stood here?" I asked.
"You're driving on them," he said.
"But where are all the people who used to live here?"
"You're probably driving on some of them too."
I kicked the ground beneath my feet and uncovered a tennis shoe... '

[OccultHawk]

I fear that Syria is something of a lost cause and the Allied missile strike is a pretty empty gesture

You think? 500,000 dead. Millions displaced. And America’s president is Ronald McDonald’s retarded brother.

[Lisnaholic]

Yeah, some parts of the world are just hell holes, apparently without hope or remedy. The history of the Congo makes pretty dis-spiriting reading too; decades as the King of Belgium's personal slave colony, then things got really bad....

[OccultHawk]

This is a good read

[Lisnaholic]

That looks like an interesting book. Looks like a companion volume to this one, a personal story about the Hutu's genocide of the Tutsis:-



They made a decent film of it too.

[OccultHawk]

I read that one, too.

[Lisnaholic]

Yeah? Perhaps we share a liking for these real-life horror stories... living in relatively safe countries, it's difficult to imagine what life is like if suddenly your neighbours are coming at you with a machete.

[OccultHawk]

Originally Posted by Lisnaholic

Yeah? Perhaps we share a liking for these real-life horror stories... living in relatively safe countries, it's difficult to imagine what life is like if suddenly your neighbours are coming at you with a machete.

You know I live in Florida, right?

[Trollheart]

Originally Posted by Lisnaholic

Yeah? Perhaps we share a liking for these real-life horror stories... living in relatively safe countries, it's difficult to imagine what life is like if suddenly your neighbours are coming at you with a machete.

Originally Posted by OccultHawk

You know I live in Florida, right?

[Lisnaholic]

^ HaHa! But I think Trollheart's Dublin trumps Florida tbh. In Dublin even the mice form into gangs and are out to get you. As for me, I'm pretty lucky; I just have to dodge shoot-outs between rival drug cartels on my way to work - and some mornings there are no corpses at all !