It's this guy's opinion. He's not Syrian. So....
Any enemy of the US's "must go", isn't that just what people say?
So anyone who is not Syrian should not have an opinion? Tell you what. Since obviously you are not Middle Eastern, how about you stop giving us your opinion on this forun. .
No, I didn't say that at all.
What I said was the guy isn't Syrian. Assad is in charge of (parts of) Syria and mostly countries like to choose their own leaders.
What would the US say to Syria saying it would prefer it if Robert Mugabe were in power in the US? You'd say, well, Assad isn't American so he doesn't get to decide.
He can have his opinion, fine, but deciding he shouldn't be able to do.
For one thing, we really don't know what goes on with regard to voting in the Middle East. Don't forget that Syria is mainly Sunni. Many of these people writing articles have studied these matters much more than you or I; and regardless of what you and others think about their opinions,l they have a right to express them without people going so ballistics about what was written.
You said in your OP that you wanted people to no go ballistic. I haven't gone ballistic. What I've said is that people can have opinions, however it doesn't, or shouldn't, matter.
What they write may be informative, it may present a picture, probably a picture from the US interests side of thing, which is important as a source, but at the same time you have to know what you're actually reading.
The question here is "Must Assad go?" Must in itself implies there really isn't any other choice. But for an American, there shouldn't be such language, as they shouldn't play a part in the choice in the first place.
It's clearly about US interests and NOT about Syrian interests.
Many of the people writing articles which appear on other sites have delved into the subject for long periods of time, and they come up with what in their opinion they think is right. I have no problem if someone from one country (let's say Russua( writes about another country such as Brazil and says a leader must go. I realize that this is their opinion, the same way I might not like an editorial in my local newspaper but realize it is someone's opinion.. As you can see, many here seem to have a problem with what is basically someone's opinion even though this is just a forum that is not going to light any fires in this world.
By the way, is anyone who is so opposed to this man's opinion going to comment on it in the "comment" section below the article. There are times when I have read an article there and made some comments so why aren't those whining about it here go to the site and give their point of view?
I also don't have a problem with anyone expressing their opinion.
However, again, you can express your opinion, but you can't put your toe in the pie.
Often the problem is when people are talking about regime change, is that they're essentially trying to tell the govt to intervene. For me opinion would be things like: this is what Assad has done in the past, this is why he's not a good leader. Talking about why Assad has to go, well, he doesn't have to go, he could stay until he dies when he's 100 years old, it may not be what I want or what others want, but I'm not from Syria. I don't have a say in the matter.
Who is Samuel Helfont? What are his reasons for posting something which is extremely provocative? He seems to have written a lot
Jewish Review of Books
Here in the Jewish Review, is he Jewish and wanting the US to literally wipe out all of Israel's enemies?
"
About the Author
Samuel Helfont is a doctoral student at Princeton University, and the author of Yusuf al-Qaradawi: Islam and Modernity
(Moshe Dayan Center)."
So he's a student, or was in 2011. With opinions that could perhaps be better expressed.
"About the author:
* Samuel Helfont is a Fox Fellow in FPRI’s Program on the Middle East, and holds a
post-doctoral lectureship in the University of Pennsylvania’s interdisciplinary International Relations Program. In May 2015, he completed a PhD in Princeton University’s Near Eastern Studies Department, where he wrote his dissertation on Saddam Hussein’s use of religion to entrench his authoritarian regime, based on captured Ba’th Party and Iraqi state records. Helfont is the author of
Yusuf Al-Qaradawi: Islam and Modernity (The Moshe Dayan Center/Tel Aviv University Press, 2009) and the FPRI monograph,
The Sunni Divide: Understanding Politics and Terrorism in the Arab Middle East. He has written widely in publications such as
The Middle East Journal,
Orbis,
The New Republic,
The American Interest, and
The Jewish Review of Book, among others and is proficient at various levels in Hebrew, Arabic, and Turkish."