Richard Hanania Profile picture
Sep 24, 2020 12 tweets 4 min read Read on X
I have a new paper in @SurvivalEditors on the US intervention in Syria, and why it made the human rights situation worse. This thread explains how American involvement exacerbated and prolonged human suffering. 1/n tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
There's a story interventionists tell. They say the US got involved in Iraq and Libya, and the situation turned out bad. But the US "did nothing" in Syria, therefore inaction can have costs too. 2/n Image
This is a rewriting of history to cover up a terrible record. The US sanctioned the Syrian regime, tried to destroy its economy, and put $1.5 billion into arming and training rebels. In no way is this "doing nothing," even if it's less than what regime change advocates wanted 3/n
The idea behind this was that Assad is a bad guy, and so anything that hurts Assad must be good for the Syrian people. In reality, research on mass killing indicates that countries engage in atrocities when they are desperate and feeling threatened. 4/n
Dictatorship is common, but mass killing is rare. What distinguishes the dictatorships that commit widescale atrocities from the majority that don't? The main factor is the degree of threat a state faces, which is why civil war is the greatest predictor of mass killing. 5/n Image
Moreover, sanctions make a country poorer, which means it has to rely on the most crude methods to put down threats to its power. Hillary had a theory that sanctions would eventually cripple the regime so much it would be unable to commit atrocities, but this is folly. 6/n ImageImage
Looking at the history of the Assad regime, and neighboring Iraq under Saddam, shows this to be the case. These governments have been most vicious when they have been most threatened. 7/n Image
In 2011, Obama declared "Assad must go," at a time when there were only about 2,000 deaths. Since then, more Syrians died in the years of the heaviest American involvement than during any other time. As Russia became more involved and the US role dwindled, deaths went down. 8/n Image
If your concern is human rights, the US should have done exactly the opposite of what it did. This means engaging in dialogue, avoiding sanctions, and communicating to the regime that it was not seeking a new govt. 9/n
Today, the pro-interventionist crowd is still seeking regime change. Their unwillingness to recognize they do not have the ability to impose new governments in places where a state already exists prolongs suffering. See my debate with Charles Lister the other day. 10/n Image
Their dreams of regime change are more absurd than they were in 2011. Now, the Assad regime has the military support of Iran and Russia, and is not nearly as threatened as it was in 2012 or 2013. It did not liquidate itself then, and it won't do so now. 11/n
This paper is important both for setting the record straight, and because Syria is used by interventionists such as Marco Rubio and Hillary Clinton as an example of what happens when the US doesn't become involved. They are wrong, and we should learn from their mistakes. 12/n

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More from @RichardHanania

Sep 26
How to explain Indian hate?

The truth is simpler than you think.

Many Americans dislike dark skin. But they make an exception if you're good at football, and Indians are bad at sports.

They'll make us a poorer country for that.

Yes, it's that stupid. richardhanania.com/p/indians-are-…
There's a human preference for light skin. It shows up almost everywhere and predates colonialism. Indians and blacks are the darkest groups Americans are exposed to or interact with in any significant degree. Image
But blacks, in addition to the historical guilt, have traits many Americans like. They're good at sports, good with women, and charming enough to be actors and entertainers. Image
Read 13 tweets
Aug 30
US-India relationship is being harmed because Pakistan is more willing to kiss up to Trump, and Modi has too much pride to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize when he didn’t do anything.

Modi is now going to meet Putin and Xi in China.

I can’t believe it’s this stupid. Image
Mr. Trump contends that he used trade as leverage to get the two sides to stop fighting. After these enticements and warnings, he said, “all of a sudden they said, ‘I think we will stop’” the fighting.

India denies that.Image
Read 5 tweets
Aug 22
Ghislaine Maxwell transcripts released! See here for thread on the most interesting parts. 1/n
Ghislaine is asked whether Epstein ever received money from any intelligence agency, including Mossad. She replies that not as far as she knows and she would be surprised if he did. Image
Epstein started taking testosterone in the late 1990s. But he was not on any other substances. Image
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Read 17 tweets
Jun 3
Man comes to the US from Lebanon. Starts out delivering pizzas, becomes a Nobel winning neuroscientist. Trump freezes his funding, he gets an email from China offering to move his lab “any city, any university I want" with guaranteed funding for 20 years.

What are we doing? Image
How to think about immigration. You should be paranoid about the possibility that the US rejects geniuses. One brilliant entrepreneur can or inventor can carry a lot of dead weight. Almost all immigration is good, but this would be true even if it wasn't. richardhanania.com/p/exchange-wit…Image
Read 4 tweets
May 8
Earlier I discussed Casey Means, Trump's nominee for Surgeon General, and her mystical and quack beliefs.

I've looked into her story about how she left her residency. It's very strange, and indicates that there's something that we don't yet know.
Means says she was in an otolaryngology residency and almost finished, but she instead decided to quit because her surgical residency didn't focus on nutrition enough. Isn't that something she would have known well before 4 years of residency, on top of medical school? Image
I think the real reason was she was unfit. Look at her cohort. The other two doctors went straight through their residency normally. Means, in contrast, had a one month gap between June-July 2018. I don't know what can explain this, but it indicates something abnormal happened. Image
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Read 5 tweets
May 8
Trump just nominated Casey Means for Surgeon General.

This is a lunatic who will do serious damage to public health. Thread here, which will only be able to scratch the surface. Image
She'll be the first occupant of the office to believe in using spiritual mediums, praying to ancestor shrines, doing full moon ceremonies to amplify her dreams, asking the trees in the forest to deliver her a hunky man, being a shroomhead, and praising indigenous wisdom. Image
She has no academic achievements to speak of. All she did was med school and she dropped out before completing her residency. This is weird, as anyone in medicine will tell you.
Read 16 tweets

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