My partner is Italian (like, has the passport and everything), but grew up in south central Connecticut, where everyone is either Irish or Italian (with a smattering of Polish... basically everyone's Catholic), and there's definitely an "ethnic white people" vibe about the place that differs from, say, here, or back where I'm from in Middle Tennessee. For one, the food is very different, but also just way more Catholic, culturally more than religiously.
Tangentially related: I have a theory that Italian food is better in places with smaller Italian-American populations, because Italian-Americans have been here for decades, or more than a century (my great grandparents all came to the U.S. in the late 1910s and early 1920s), and have developed their own cuisine(s), Italian-American food. It's good, but if you want food that looks like what you'll get in most of Italy today, you have to go where Italian Americans don't dominate the Italian food scene. Anyway, long story short, if you want good Italian food, not Italian-American food, don't go to south central Connecticut.
HTS was not an ISIS offshoot. The predecessor groups at times worked in a faction with ISIS, but before that had at times been in open, violent conflict with ISIL (as it was known at the time). They were aligned with al-Qaeda in Iraq (which was more of a franchise than an offshoot of the al-Qaeda we all think of, but still ideologically aligned), which was deeply critical of the formation and activities of ISIL from the start. But tye Al-Nusra Front-al Qaeda relationship was also a tense, and HTS was formed in large part because of a multi-group desire to be independent of al-Qaeda.
Anyway, yeah, Syria is complex, but the history of these groups is pretty well documented.
My partner is Italian (like, has the passport and everything), but grew up in south central Connecticut, where everyone is either Irish or Italian (with a smattering of Polish... basically everyone's Catholic), and there's definitely an "ethnic white people" vibe about the place that differs from, say, here, or back where I'm from in Middle Tennessee. For one, the food is very different, but also just way more Catholic, culturally more than religiously.
Tangentially related: I have a theory that Italian food is better in places with smaller Italian-American populations, because Italian-Americans have been here for decades, or more than a century (my great grandparents all came to the U.S. in the late 1910s and early 1920s), and have developed their own cuisine(s), Italian-American food. It's good, but if you want food that looks like what you'll get in most of Italy today, you have to go where Italian Americans don't dominate the Italian food scene. Anyway, long story short, if you want good Italian food, not Italian-American food, don't go to south central Connecticut.
No, but I gather it is in, like upstate New York, Binghamton, that sort of thing.
This is one of those "Y'all will argue about literally anything" moments.
HTS was not an ISIS offshoot. The predecessor groups at times worked in a faction with ISIS, but before that had at times been in open, violent conflict with ISIL (as it was known at the time). They were aligned with al-Qaeda in Iraq (which was more of a franchise than an offshoot of the al-Qaeda we all think of, but still ideologically aligned), which was deeply critical of the formation and activities of ISIL from the start. But tye Al-Nusra Front-al Qaeda relationship was also a tense, and HTS was formed in large part because of a multi-group desire to be independent of al-Qaeda.
Anyway, yeah, Syria is complex, but the history of these groups is pretty well documented.
This analysis might make sense if it wasn't the left that had been warning about these U.S.-backed Islamists in Syria for years.