I recently polled my people and this is what they wanted me to write about. Fortunately I can use declassified CIA documents for most of my research.

There were multiple huge crises in the Middle East in 1958 that seemed like they were going to lead the world into war. There was even a major deployment of US troops there. But you never hear about them. Why? Because there wasn't a war. I'm going to tell you some stories about what scared the heck out of everyone in the USA and the Middle East but they managed to get it under control. Think of it as the anti-Chernobyl.

Buddy Holly - Peggy Sue. Yeah, those were the days.

Syria

The first big crisis of the year, the one that got everything rolling, was Syria's admission to the United Arab Republic. Or to say it another way, Syria being annexed by Egypt. Every state in the region and the superpowers had been expecting something like this to happen eventually since World War II. Now it seemed that the balance of power had been overturned and all of the pent-up conflicts in the Middle East were about to blow up.

I'm guessing it wasn't really a 99.99% vote in favor of it because Nasser had grave misgivings about this and could barely be persuaded to.

Syria was the most failed "failed state" that you could imagine. It owes its existence to the French demand at the end of World War I that after all their sacrifices they deserved their own chunk of the Ottoman Empire. In 1946 it gained its independence but it didn't have much of a national identity other than being the land that France used to own. It was widely expected that it would soon be absorbed into a larger Arab state with Iraq and Jordan. But for extremely complicated reasons this didn't happen and little Syria survived.

Notice how everything he mentions being in "Syria" is in what we call "Lebanon" now.

Soon it wished it hadn't survived. After independence Syria had about one successful coup every two years and countless failed ones. By 1958 most of the factions had been purged from political life and it was Ba'athists who held a tenuous grip on power. They couldn't even trust their fellow Ba'athists, and worse, the Communists were becoming dangerously powerful. And nobody likes a commie. In order to make sure they didn't seize control, in January 1958 Syria's leaders came up with a creative strategy: Become part of Egypt.

One of the main factions that briefly held power there in the early 1950s was the batshit crazy SSNP. I heard the British were supporting them back then.

Egypt

This was pretty crazy but not as crazy as it sounds. There was a strong desire across the region to unite into one Arab nation. What is the heart of the Arab nation? Egypt. And its leader Nasser was the only one who could do this. Two years earlier in the Suez Crisis, Eisenhower ordered Britain and France back into their cucksheds and forbid them to invade other countries anymore. But Arabs saw this as a great victory where Nasser stood up to the colonial powers and defeated them, which at least had a kernel of truth to it. Many people across all the Arab world considered him to be their leader and were annoyed that their country hadn't joined him yet.

Some of the most extreme cope I've ever seen. British troops withdrawing in humiliation from Egypt under American orders, never to return.

The only problem is, how do you get Nasser onboard? He wants to to unify the Arabs, but he doesn't want to start out by being responsible for this basket case country that doesn't have its shit together. Eventually he agrees on a few conditions: The Syrian people have to vote for him. All political parties will be dissolved. The army will get out of politics.

The conservative monarchies are not about to take this lying down. The Saudis try to arrange a coup before unification can happen, but it is terribly inept. The King of Iraq, who kinda hoped he was gonna be the one to annex Syria and lead the Arab world, proposes merging with Jordan. It's another pro-British monarchy ruled by his brother so it makes sense in these dangerous times. The problem is, the Saudis are afraid of Nasser but they're also afraid of Iraq and Jordan getting too powerful, so they have trouble coordinating a response.

This is what the government of Iraq was like in the 1950s. I wonder what will happen to them...

The UAR

On February 22 Egypt and Syria join together as the United Arab Republic.

• The kings of Iraq and Jordan are worried that this will lead the many Nasserists among their own people to overthrow them.

• King of Saudi Arabia is too busy dealing with getting overthrown by his brother to do much.

• President Chamoun of Lebanon is extremely alarmed. The domestic situation is already really screwed up and the last thing he needs is Nasserists on 80% of the country's border.

• Israel doesn't really care since both Egypt and Syria are already hostile to them. Their only problem is if Iraq and Jordan merge because Iraq would be the senior partner and they are not fans of the whole Zionism thing.

• The British are desperate to keep alive the Arab monarchies they set up after WWI. Their whole imperial plan was to build these up and now they only have Iraq and Jordan left.

• The USA is ambivalent. Nasser is hard to deal with, but at least he kept the commies out of the region.

• The Soviets are probably as mad as Boris Badenov when one of his plots fails.

Epilogue

Nasser soon sends Egyptians to take over key government positions away from Syria. The Ba'athists are understandably butthurt as they're the ones who invited the Egyptians to come and now they're getting pushed out of power and having their newspapers shut down. The Egyptians probably figure that if these people are so incapable of running their own lives that they ask us to take over their country, they can't be trusted in leadership roles. There's also less obvious divisions, like business people being butthurt about how the Egyptians don't understand that their economy is different. These tensions were already obviously before the year was out. In 1961, a coup topples the Egyptians. Like so many others who tried to control Syria in this era, they lasted about two years.

Damascus, 1950s. According to some redditor.

https://old.reddit.com/r/WorkersStrikeBack/comments/1iik2vu/i_just_saw_an_entire_family_taken_by_ice/mb7q1q7/?context=8

they are literally the beyond parody borders are immoral people who want to drive down their own wages "uniting" with 6 billion 3rd worlders

Previous post this is a follow-up to

https://rdrama.net/post/338283/man-gets-executed-for-flirting-with

Today had a bit of an interesting development.

Quick reminder for those who forgot because a flew a helicopter into your cerebral cortex

Hermitcraft, upon receiving the proof that Iskall dared to flirt with adult women in private, gave the man 90 mins to respond before axing him and scorching his career

Several Hermitcraft members have come out to post on Twitter, and Twitter in response to Iskall's video talking about his "cancellation"

All of these are vague and nebulous, but very obvious what they are referencing.

Welsknight Gaming

That didn't happen.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, that's not my fault.
And if it was, I didn't mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.

-Dayna Craig, "The Narcissist's Prayer"

— Welsknight Gaming (@WelsknightPlays) January 31, 2025

What an interesting thing to say...

He's essentially saying that Iskall deserves to have his income and reputation uprooted without even caring to hear what his side of the story.

Also interesting to note that Welsknight is barely even part of Hermitcraft as it is, his last upload being over 6 months ago. Only uploading dogshit 2012 lets plays nobody gives a shit about.

ZombieCleo

Never argue with someone who believes their own lies.

— ZombieCleo (@zombiecleo.bsky.social) 2025-01-30T19:15:40.548Z

>Replies disabled

I guess even blue sky wasn't safe enough.

Interesting that she calls him a liar, but I have no idea what he even arguably lied about in his video when he straight up confirms that he did flirt with women, and he just says it's my private life.

ImpulseSV

Great quote from a great movie:

“It's funny how all living organisms are alike...when the chips are down, when the pressure is on, every creature on the face of the Earth is interested in one thing and one thing only. it’s own survival.”

(In the voice of Skizz) Name it!

— impulseSV (@impulseSV) January 31, 2025

>Quote is from film "Liar Liar"

Once again calling him a liar, but not sure what the frick he lied about....

Also very interesting to pick a quote which frames you as the one trying to destroy the "organisms life". Thats a bad look sweaty

GoodTimesWithScar

Old movie posters hit hard. pic.twitter.com/qxoUDY3wpx

— GoodTimesWithScar (@GTWScar) January 31, 2025

Film poster of the film Gaslamp

Yeah that awful thing Iskall did by flirting with women.... He's gaslamping you into thinking it's normal....

Additional reply from GeminiTay to above tweet

hehe were so quirky!!! Lucky movie references cant be used in a deformation lawsuit against a public figure teehee

And as all these tweets came out at the same time, it's very obvious this is coordinated and not just me being a schizo

In fact people mention this in the comments to Scar's tweet as well.

... I thought scar already had a steel chair

All of this vague posting is like a Teenage girl posting "deep" lyrics on her Facebook after a break-up

Genuinely pathetic. I'd respect them a lot more if they just straight up tweeted "Iskall keep yourself safe"

But yes this continues to be crazy how big of a response and attempt to erase the mans reputation of seemingly nothing.

I kind of want to believe there's some truly horrid stuff we don't know about that is the cause behind this awful behavior.

But the Minecraft space is filled with the worse people possible that it's entirely likely they are all just backstabbing snakes all the way through.

Babies are 6 MONTHS OLD TODAY! We are tired and proud!

!animalposters !cats

Like for real nafo presence died by a lot after USAID stoped Jfl

When you goon you're performing a political act and the way you coom says a lot about you, your values, and your place in a shared community. We need to take your views and considerations into account when designing a equitable future for our children. However, when it's time for COOM. There's no need for any of that. You don't even need clothes. Just bring your hands.

For centuries we've had debates on how to handle the powers of COOM. Some cultures let GOONERs run free, as you see with the Sentinelese. They live the perfect life for gooners. NAKED all day long. Boobas on display. No work, no insurance, no renewing medical aid schemes, no Alexander Forbes foundation, just coom. Other cultures have tried to hold back gooners, eventually these became traditions like marriage and with that, r*pe became illegal which changed the game for gooners forever. That began the evolutionary arms race between GOONERS and FEDS. And if that's not bad enough, you've got to worry about OPPs trying to take your GOONING customers from you bruh. You can't learn the coom hustle in school you've got to live this shit aint no textbooks on gooning like we goon in this b-word.

Nah but Imma keep it 100% wichu this site good ya'll lil bros doing ya'lls thang just don't get too big for your boots. And remember to pay respects to the fallen soldiers in prison, dead, we've lost a lot of good brothers to this goon shit for real. We need unity. Aight imma light this blunt and goon hard. Shit's good as frick yo. Can't stop gooning. How much do you goon?

Now lastly, you gotta remember we categorize our gooners as either: organized, disorganized and mixed. My organized gooners got COOM calenders and sheeit. they're all about that OPSEC because they're paranoid about the feds. Me? I'm a DISORGANIZED coomer. If I meet with the feds I'm gooning it out and until then, I'm gonna EJACULATE BLOOD WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT.

Stay cumming for real. And PIRATE your PORN DON'T PAY NOT ONE DIME SHARE THAT SHIT NEIGHBOR

Enter BetYou all think I'm crazy but mark my words - when Trump gets back in office he's gonna BLOW THE LID OFF this whole alien cover-up that's been going on since Roswell!! He already TRIED to do it before but the deep state blocked him, but this time he's coming back with a VENGEANCE and he's gonna release ALL THE FILES about the reverse-engineered alien tech they've been hiding at Area 51 and the secret treaties with the Greys and the underground bases in Dulce, New Mexico!! He's the only one with the guts to stand up to the military-industrial-extraterrestrial complex and their Illuminati puppet masters who've been keeping humanity in the dark about our true cosmic heritage and the REAL origin of human civilization!! Trump knows EVERYTHING about the ancient astronaut program and the hybrid breeding experiments and he's gonna expose it ALL!! The mainstream media won't be able to hide the TRUTH anymore when he wheels out the preserved alien bodies from Wright-Patterson AFB on live TV!!! - 45 bets

Enter Betno because ufos are sea peoples - 225 bets

!bets !project2025 !bharatiya !goomble

closed

This is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen pic.twitter.com/0wkJA1TLt0

— Lauren McKenzie (@TheMcKenziest) February 4, 2025

What a lovely night, tucked into bed with the boys and mister man

!animalposters !cats

I hate it I hate it I hate it. 90% of our student body relies on it to complete their work. There is near to no originality in their writing and work. We are nearing complete dependence on it from some students. AI checkers work sometimes but students just use AI then switch the words around to avoid this.

I know the upside that it has for us as a society, but we are losing creativity and gumption with every improvement. I hurt for them. I used to read beautiful student writing and didn't have to question if it was written by a program. Now I am forced into skepticism. How can we lose so much with advancement?

/u/Academic_Let_1043

What are you actually losing? Oh no kids are cheating? Kids always cheated! This is the calculator argument all over again

Most Based Comments

Basedness: 🔥🔥🔥🔘🔘

I read through the article quickly. What has Elon Musk done about Reddit exactly? Sounds like he just said "This is insane". Maybe I missed something? (9318)

Nope just posted that too lol that is him taking aim at reddit (78)

Basedness: 🔥🔥🔘🔘🔘

of course not, this is TECHNOLOGY forum.technology is an interest of the educated.no magas to be seen. (48)

They find their way in. (35)

Basedness: 🔥🔘🔘🔘🔘

FU Elon and all of his Republican Nazis. The whole Republican party is full of nothing but traitors. Hopefully Democrats take back this country in four years. Then expose everyone of these traitors. (-26)

Angriest Comments

Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡

What values of liberals do you not like? Keep in mind I said values, not talking points. (2)

Basically everything they say, like, or do is the opposite of what I say, like, or do. It's impossible to speak to them because the moment there is any disagreement, they go batshit crazy on you for having your own opinion and calling you all the worst words you can think of. Here is the list of shit I hate about liberals: They like it when criminals enter the country illegally and go on crime sprees while receiving benefits which are paid by us tax payers, I don't like that. They like infringing on our first amendment right to say whatever the frick we want on the internet. I don't like that. They like it when mothers kill their babies because they opened their legs and aren't ready to raise a child. I despise that. Liberals love to assault, scream, and spit at you for wearing a red hat (again, infringing on 1st amendment right). Liberals love to protest about literally everything. All the power to them, but it's annoying as frick. Liberals vote blue no matter who, which is shameful.... (0)

Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡

Boycotts work. It's the only way to get the attention of shithead billionaires who think they own your minds and actions. Frick Musk, Frick Nazi's. He knows what he's doing and frick anyone who doesn't think he's a Nazi/Fascist and that his platform exists to promote those ideas going forward. Everyone will look back on these times at some point and realize more could have been done to shut down shithead billionaires and nazi's from doing harm to the country for their own enrichment, and I swear to frick if reddit tries to mass un-ban twitter by force it'll kill reddit -and- twitter at the same time. (8)

Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡

Tell Musk to take himself, his pro-Nazi white supremacist BS and all of the racist shit that he allows to run rampant all over X to go to the 10th level of Heck and complain all he wants THERE!🤮💩💩💩👺👹👹👹👿👿👿 (3)

Biggest Lolcow: /u/Defiant-Witness-8742

Score: 🐮🐮🔘🔘🔘

Number of comments: 5

Average angriness: 🔘🔘🔘🔘🔘

Maximum angriness: 😡😡🔘🔘🔘

Minimum angriness: 🔘🔘🔘🔘🔘

NEW: Subscribe to /h/miners to see untapped drama veins, ripe for mining!

autodrama: automating away the jobs of dramneurodivergents. Ping HeyMoon if there are any problems or you have a suggestion

Darklands Series

1 - Darklands LP Part I

2 - Darklands LP Part II: Charles Bronson Edition

3 - Darklands LP III: Nuns and Coins

4 - Darklands LP Ep IV: Introduction to Equipment & Combat

5 - Darklands LP Part V: We finally briefly go out into the dark lands

6 - Darklands LP VI: We actually start a quest!

7 - Darklands LP VII: We reach our destination

8 - Darklands LP VIII: Raubritter confrontation & learning how combat works

9 - Darklands LP IX: I'm not giving you my goddarn alchemical materials

10 - Darklands LP X: We actually do some alchemy!

11 - Darklands LP XI: The Main Plot

12 - Darklands LP XII: Halloween Edition

13 - Darklands LP XIII: Detour

Episode XIV

We're headed toward Denmark to attack the Fortress Monastery, but we're going to run into a few things along the way.

The Castle

I stop by a castle. Let's see what's going on here. (I love the artwork in this game so much it's unreal.)

Well I can't let this continue. I ain't Scheherazade but let's see if I can convince this wicked lord to change his evil ways.

These peepeeheads won't even let me in to confront him!

I guess we're gonna have to do this the hard way.

Note that there are other saints who can get you up there in different ways. Like levitation.

The castle guards like using their bows. Fine. I'll just shoot back. My guys need some practice.

Since we're in a fairly large castle, we go into non-combat mode until the next time one of them sees us. Time to search the place. These fights get kind of annoying because only one person can go through a doorway at a time. So you have to wait your first guy to get through before you send your second. But this will be of tactical importance in certain situations, like in the Fortress Monastery.

This is the main gate. If we had blasted our way through with a potion we would had have started out here. We could also retreat through it if we wanted to, but we're doing fine.

Frick this. I've searched almost every room and I can't find the castle lord. I'm getting bored. (This virtually never happens btw, this is just incredibly bad luck.) I'm out of here.

Back on the road. I run into another one of those corrupt Dominican friars peddling indulgences. Remember how last time I had St. Dominic himself set him straight? This time I'll use another saint, one who is against church corruption in general.

It's incredible how much content there is in this game. I'm still finding new stuff that I've never seen before.

A Mid-game Quest

Uh oh. WTF is going on here? Suddenly the normal travel music is replaced by something really ominous.

It's probably some MMO tard who likes flying around on dragons in Guild Wars 2 or whatever.

Goddammit this is gonna cost me so much.

old hags cackle as they stuff carrion into a filthy leather sack

That's just an ordinary thing you see every day in Portland.

Pagans. I hate these guys... er... girls.

Dammit! I'll definitely need to go replace my equipment after this.

This is what happens when you piss off /r/witches_vs_patriarchy.

Notice how many choices this game gives you when you run into a problem.

Finally we found him. I think we've got him now.

I try to reason with the dragon. I doubt this will work as dragons are satanic beings. But who knows? Maybe they just got a bad rap?

I knew it. Okay, we're dealing with a dragon here so when combat starts it's time for everyone to take a Flamewall potion for protection. Also Hardarmor and Strongedge to improve the weapons of Sasha and Nathan. (Since Yuna and I use impact weapons we would need Greatpower instead and somehow I neglected to make any of those.)

Just to make sure we're protected from flames I also implore St. Polycarp for some help. (He was burned at the stake for refusing to burn incense for the Roman Emperor.)

Or as we call him in Marseyese:

I have everyone take a missile shot and then just charge this bastard.

Redactor is getting the heck beaten out of him. Better take an Essence o' Grace potion just to be sure he isn't killed. And a New Wind to restore some endurance since he was about to fall. That 19 point hit must be Nathan using his alchemically enhanced halberd. Normally it's not great at penetration, but with Strongedge it is and it inflicts massive damage.

We cut through him pretty fast. I dunno if that's a bug or we're really that good. I guess I did do everything possible to prepare for fighting a dragon. St. Polycarp especially gives you a huge advantage. Just pretend that was a really epic fight.

Fame 216: Good reputation!

We're gonna have to stop singing this song now:

And we've got 100 florins now if we need to buy anything.

Meta

Next time I really will go to the Fortress Monastery. I just wanted you to see one of the more complex mid-game quests, but it was a bit disappointing. There's a lot more dragon-related encounters you can have while searching for it. We just happened to run into him early.

I had to go all the way from Bohemia to the outskirts of Koln to bring this quest to you. The things I do for you people.

@kaamrev

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1ih184w/comment/matgzke/?context=8

Pft heckin idiot

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1ih184w/comment/matfkge/?context=8

Our allies are fricking gone forever

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1ih184w/comment/mateyr6/?context=8

HEY WHO STOPPED THE FRICKING CIRCLE SPANK MUSIC??

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1ih184w/comment/matikfh/?context=8

"Yeah Canada bent the fricking knee, but not very far!"

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1ih184w/comment/mav1x86/?context=8

Canada fooled drumpfler, motherlover!

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1ih184w/comment/matklp7/?context=8

"He didn't have to threaten us!!!"

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1ih184w/comment/maufbe7/?context=8

Last but not least, lmao bongs

ITT hysteria over food shortages, mocking Americans wanting good wages and wanting the brown wage slaves back in the fields

Theres more in the thread

I'm not used to liberal spaces anymore its weird to see them all mocking Americans for wanting money, advocating for CA separating and valuing illegal immigrants so much.

Personally I only think there will be prices increases on specific crops for now, and if Trump doesn't pull back farmers will just purchase automated picking machines they only didn't before because mexicans were that cheap

finally we FatCHADS of the penile gender are getting some representation! !foidmoment

The @DOGE team discovered, among other things, that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups.

They literally never denied a payment in their entire career.

Not even once. https://t.co/kInoGWdw4C

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 1, 2025

!chuds

What do los angeles redditors think about californians leaving the US?

To be fair most of the comments are pointing out how r-slurred that would be