UnNews:Your questions on Syria answered

This article is part of UnNews, your source for up-to-the-picosecond misinformation.

5 September 2013

President Bashar al-Assad, (left) who took over from his father, star of Taxi, Hafez al-Assad, (right).

You: What is Syria?

UnNews "Syria" is a phonetic rendering of how Kim Jong-un pronounces "sillier"; as in, "President Obama's foreign policy is getting syria and syria."

You: Really?

American intelligence has narrowed down the exact location of Syria to within the region demarcated by the red boundary.

UnNews No, you silly goose. It's a country.

You: Where is it?

UnNews I'll give you a 50-50. North Africa or West Asia.

You: Africa?

UnNews Nope, Asia.

You: Balls. Why are people in Syria killing each other?

UnNews You remember the Arab Spring? The government in Syria had a novel response to it. It was called Operation Smashy Smashy. Since then, civil war.

You: I find civil wars unsatisfyingly remote - too many weird names and tribal divisons. I am also, however, a white liberal. Is there anything I can feel guilty about?

UnNews Always! The borders in Syria were drawn up by Europeans, meaning that a range of diverse ethnic and religious groups were forced to live alongside one another. Stop me, baby, just stop me, stop me if you think that you've heard this one before.

You: That's from a Smiths' song isn't it?

UnNews Yes, it was kind of a reference to Teju Cole's spoof of this same Washington Post article.

You: So is it Sunny D's versus shi'ites again, *chuckle*?

UnNews Not exactly. The Sunnis are the ethnic majority, but the ruling group are actually the Alawawites. Which, as I see you like comparing ethnic groups to drinks, sounds a bit like R Whites Lemonade.

You: Hasn't the leader got a funny name too?

UnNews Yes, he is called Bashar al-Assad, which, with a bit of work, could sound like either ass-hat or aciiid.

You: Talking of acid, isn't "chemical weapons" this year's "weapons of mass destruction"?

UnNews Indeed. The basic issue is that Obama is upset that the Syrian government has attacked civilians with chemical weapons, instead of regular mortar and drone bombs, like a civilised country would.

You: So now what? We're going to invade? [Long reference to Vietnam and Iraq wars redacted]

The US.

UnNews No, no invasion is planned. Even helping the rebels, or trying to topple Assad, is not on the table. It's almost as if the US has gone off the idea of opening up power vacuums in the Middle East!

You: So what are these attacks everyone is going on about?

UnNews Oh, these would just be cruise missiles intended to do some damage, as a kind of punishment for using chemical weapons.

You: So the US is not really going to change anything, it's just going to blow some stuff up?

UnNews Yes, it's basically the equivalent of a big kid knocking two small kids' heads together and saying, "Hey, fight nice."

You: Huh.

UnNews Think of it like this: after the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US has had enough of being world's policeman. Now it sees itself more like the world's Danny Zuko.

Sources

• Leverage, "9 questions about Syria you were too embarrassed to ask" Washington Post, September 01, 2013