What To Do About Syria

[Dino Velvet]

Yep that is the solution to the problem Breivik, take him out back and shoot him in the head. Problem solved muhahahaha........

I'd be OK with dealing out the same justice this character got in Russia. Give him his fair trial then let him never be heard from again.

Andrei Chikatilo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Dino Velvet]

http://news.yahoo.com/suicide-bomber...120556724.html

Suicide bombers strike Syrian capital, killing 55

By ALBERT AJI and BASSEM MROUE | Associated Press – 2 hrs 29 mins ago


DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Two suicide car bombs ripped through the Syrian capital Thursday, killing 55 people and tearing the facade off a military intelligence building in the deadliest explosions since the country's uprising began 14 months ago, the Interior Ministry said.
Residents told an Associated Press reporter that the blasts happened in quick succession during morning rush hour, with an initial small explosion followed by a larger bomb that appeared aimed at onlookers and rescue crews arriving at the scene. Paramedics wearing rubber gloves collected human remains from the pavement as heavily damaged cars and pickup trucks smoldered.
There was no claim of responsibility for Thursday's blasts. But an al-Qaida-inspired group has claimed responsibility for several past explosions, raising fears that terrorist groups are entering the fray and exploiting the chaos.
In addition to the 55 dead, the ministry also said there were 15 bags of human remains, meaning the death toll was likely to rise.
More than 370 people also were wounded in the attack, according to the ministry, which is in charge of the country's internal security. It said the explosives weighed more than 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds).
The U.S. condemned the attack, with State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland saying "any and all violence that results in the indiscriminate killing and injury of civilians is reprehensible and cannot be justified."
Central Damascus is under the tight control of forces loyal to President Bashar Assad but has been struck by several bomb attacks, often targeting security installations or convoys, since the revolt against him began in March 2011.
But the previous attacks happened on a weekend when many people stay home from work, making it less likely for civilians to be killed. Thursday's blast was similar to attacks waged by al-Qaida in Iraq, which would bolster past allegations by top U.S. intelligence officials that the terror network from the neighboring country was the likely culprit behind previous bombings in Syria. That raises the possibility that its fighters are infiltrating across the border to take advantage of the political turmoil.
A shadowy group called the Al-Nusra Front has claimed responsibility for some of the attacks in statements posted on militant websites. Little is known about the group, though Western intelligence officials say it could be a front for al-Qaida's Iraq branch.
Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri called for Assad's ouster in February.
"We strongly condemn the twin bomb attacks this morning in Damascus, which seem to have targeted the maximum amount of casualties and damage and which we see as an act of pure terrorism, from what we see initially," said Michael Mann, spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.
The Syrian government blames the bombings on the terrorists it says are behind the uprising, which has been the most potent challenge to the Assad family dynasty in Syria in four decades. But opposition leaders and activists routinely blame the regime for orchestrating the attacks, saying they help it demonize the opposition and maintain support among those who fear greater instability.
Syria's state-run news agency, SANA, posted gruesome pictures of the mangled, charred and bloody corpses and human remains — something that it has done after previous bombings, as well. The decision to show such graphic images could be seen as a tactic by the regime to shock Syrians into abandoning any support for the opposition, which it blames for the country's chaos.
Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, the Norwegian head of the U.N.'s cease-fire monitors in the country, toured the site Thursday and said the Syrian people do not deserve this "terrible violence."
"It is not going to solve any problems," he said, when asked what his message was to those who are carrying out such attacks. "It is only going to create more suffering for women and children."
The attack occurred a day after a roadside bomb hit a Syrian military truck shortly after Mood rode by in a convoy traveling to the southern city of Daraa, the birthplace of the uprising.
The relentless violence in the country has brought a cease-fire plan brokered by special envoy Kofi Annan to the brink of collapse. The U.N said weeks ago that more than 9,000 people had been killed. Hundreds more have died since as the conflict has become increasingly militarized, with protesters taking up arms or joining forces with army defectors to fight a brutal crackdown by regime forces.
On Thursday, Annan appealed for calm and an end to bloodshed.
"The Syrian people have already suffered too much," Annan said in a statement.
Thursday's explosions began about 7:50 a.m. as the area was crowded with people going to work or doing morning errands. Witnesses said the first explosion attracted curious passers-by, then seconds later, a far larger explosion went off, causing massive damage.
Syrian TV showed shaken young girls in tears who said they were in the nearby Qazaz First Elementary School when the blast occurred. An hour after the blast, the school's gates were closed and no one was inside.
The explosions left two craters at the gate of the military compound, one of them 3 meters (10 feet) deep and 6 meters (20 feet) wide. Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi posted a message on his Facebook page urging people to go to hospitals to donate blood.
"The house shook like it was an earthquake," housewife Maha Hijazi said as she stood outside her house across the street from the targeted compound, which is headquarters for a military intelligence department known as the Palestine Branch.
The latest major explosion in the capital occurred on April 27 when a suicide bomber detonated an explosives belt near members of the security forces, killing at least nine people and wounding 26.
The previous deadliest attack in Damascus occurred on Dec. 23, when two car bombers blew themselves up outside the heavily guarded compounds of Syria's intelligence agencies, killing at least 44 people.
On March, 17, two suicide car bombers struck in near-simultaneous attacks on heavily guarded intelligence and security buildings in Damascus, killing at least 27 people. On Jan. 6, an explosion at a Damascus intersection killed 26, including many policemen.
International diplomacy has failed to stop the bloodshed, and the U.N. has ruled out military intervention of the type that helped bring down Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, in part out of fear that it could exacerbate the violence.
Annan brokered a peace plan last month, but the initiative has been troubled from the start, with government troops shelling opposition areas and rebels attacking military convoys and checkpoints after the cease-fire was supposed to begin on April 12.
A team of 70 U.N. military observers now in Syria should grow to more than 100 in the coming days. A full team of 300 is expected by the end of the month to oversee a cease-fire intended to allow for talks on a political solution to the conflict.
___
Associated Press writer Ben Hubbard contributed to this report from Beirut.

[Stavros]

The massacre at Houla over last weekend has been seen by some people as an event that could break the impasse in Syria. I am not so sure.

At the moment the issues look like this:

1) Arming the rebels: the call to arm the rebels is made on the basis that the rebels cannot defend themselves against the heavy artillery of the Syrian armed forces, and that the SAF are taking the initiative in seeking out rebellious quarters with the intention of crushing them, just as Asad pere crushed the Muslim revolts in the 1970s and in the 1980s.

Arming the rebels would intensify the conflict militarily, it might make a military 'victory' by either side less likely, but it would be a green light to the SAF to broaden its operations to crush the rebels and thus be even more destructive than the conflict has been so far.

Those rebels backed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar may be aware of this and want it; this to me is a belief that some people have that they are in a 'life or death struggle' and that there are no other options.

2) De-militarising the conflict. This argument insists that there are other options, and that negotiations and diplomacy are essential. The weak element in this position is that the Asad regime is faced -it believes- with a fight for its survival, and thus sees negotiations as negotiations to end the rule of those who have done well out of the Asad regime. In this case, what are negotiations for?

3) Solutions. If there is to be a de-militarisation and real attempt to negotiate, the pressure must come from those on whom the Asad regime currently relies for support. To some extent the Iranians have a lot to lose, Syria is the conduit to Lebanon where it has invested more than it has in Syria where the regime is secular rather than Islamic evedn though the Alawite sect is Shi'a in origin. The Russians are not that bothered by internal disputes in Syria, whereas Syria is the last of its historic Arab friends and it has a naval base at Tartus it does not want to lose. If the Russians could receive a guarantee of access to the Mediterranean they would back anyone in Damascus. The Chinese have invested in Syria but I don't know that they see Syria is a reliable ally in the long term. The USA and Europe, in my opinion, are desperate to avoid a long-drawn out conflict, but are equally nervous about the fractious opposition in Syria where Islamic parties seem numerically likely to score well in democratic elections, but return Syria to the instability and factionalism that followed the end of French rule in the 1940s. The Salafi element in Syria is weak, but capable of spectacular bombings; but for Europeans the Christian minority has tended to rely on the Asad regime which has deliberately stoked sectarian tensions over the last 20 or so years to create loyalties the Christians in fact could do without, but the prospect of Christians being slaughtered in Syria where they have lived uninterrupted since the days of Jesus would not play well on TV.

A transition to democracy seems to me to be the best option: given that the Egyptian elections have narrowed down to a Mubarak loyalist and a tame Muslim brother, the Asad regime might not imagine its doom is inevitable. But Asad the man must go, and in truth I think he would welcome it, I don't think he likes his job. So elections would then be between the Brotherhood and some secular figure.

None of these political changes would effect the quality of life unless there were also structural changes to the economy, where across the Middle EAst, crony capitalism rather than market forces are in control, and strangulating progress as much as the warriors are strangulating dissent and life itself. It is getting the military and complacent capitalists to share that will prove a bigger obstacle than giving up political power.

Its not an impossible scenario to deal with, but in my view a de-militarisation rather than an escalation is needed.

[Prospero]

I suspect that two factors will prevent the West moving on this in any military way.
1. US election politics - which will make it impossible for Obama to commit to NATO or US military intervention because of the impact this will have on his election campaign.
2. Russian refusal to shift in any significant way from its assertion yesterday that "both sides' are to blame for the most recent killings. It prompted a Russian vote in the UN - but beyond that is unlikely to produce on the ground impacts. Russia still wants a political solution and is likely to see that as leaving the Assad regime in place.

[Stavros]

I agree with you Prospero, that external intervetion is not on the cards. I wonder if the Russians would consider pressuring Asad to resign if that would make a difference-? It all depends on whether or not Russia is in fact the key power broker in this case, and whether or not the Syrians think they can simply do what the elder Asad did and fight their way through to a bitter end because they know they won't be invaded. Difficult to call.

[tiramisu]

I suggest sending an Elite Commandos to kill bachar al asad urgently and cleanly

[Prospero]

If that were the answer Tiramisu why didn't the US do that with Ayatollah Khomeini, Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, etc etc.....

[Stavros]

I suggest sending an Elite Commandos to kill bachar al asad urgently and cleanly

Syria has not been an autocratic dictatorship under Bashar al-Asad as it might have been under his father Hafiz, and it isn't even clear if he has any form of control over the armed forces or the Republican Guard who are led by his brother Maher. Under the Hafiz family rule, high ranking officers in the military have been able to acquire significant interests in the economy, as was been the case in Egypt over many years where the removal of Mubarak has not affected the military's involvement in the economy -indeed Ahmed Shafiq is a Mubarak-tainted candidate running on a law-and-order platform and could even win.

Crony capitalism in the Middle East means there are no free markets, contracts are awarded through the military or as favours by the ruling elite, who have deliberately favoured Christians in some areas, sunni Muslims in others, and so on, classic divide and rule.

The whole point of the Syrian enigma is that there is no credible opposition to the existing regime, but nor is it precislely sure who is in charge -throw in foreign fighters sponsored by Saudi Arabia, al-Qaeda style militants, and the recipe for a long-drawn out conflict not dissimilar to what happened in Lebanon in the 1970s is a possibility.

Mitt Romney's belief that the USA should be bold (bolder than Obama) and arm the rebels is either risible or an invitation to an intensification of violence- which rebels? The divided Muslim Brotherhood(s)? Even the Communist Party in Syria has been split into two factions since 1986, perhaps Mr Romney could be more explicit about who it is that he wants to arm -as if the USA's close ally Saudi Arabia wasn't doing it already, and Qatar, while Iran has now claimed it helped create the Shabiya militia that carried out the massacre in Houla over the weekend.

If Bashar al-Asad died of a heart attack in an hour's time, it would make no difference.

[Stavros]

For anyone who is interested this article offers a deeper insight into the internal dynamics of the current situation in Syria. The Shabiya (Shabiha is also known) [blamed for the Houla massacre] are alleged to be an Alawi militia:

http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/43464/1/Aft...28lsero%29.pdf

[Dino Velvet]

For anyone who is interested this article offers a deeper insight into the internal dynamics of the current situation in Syria. The Shabiya (Shabiha is also known) [blamed for the Houla massacre] are alleged to be an Alawi militia:

http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/43464/1/Aft...28lsero%29.pdf

Thanks for this. I have no idea how this thing stops.